When the AI is constantly skating into each other and getting stuck or when it skates into you on defense
When the AI has the reaction time of a life long pot head and takes 2 seconds to understand that a turnover happened
When the AI doesn’t understand changing assingments and does dumb stuff because of it like d man not joining an odd man rush or a winger refusing to cover the slot when the d man is out of position
When the AI forces a line change on the last minute to get the 4th line in because the 1st is a bit gassed
When the AI takes forever to find open ice so you just have to spin around waiting for the AI to get into position
Etc etc
The AI is easily the single most frustrating thing about the game. It limits creativity on offense and encourages passive gameplay on defense
Body contact through hitting, nudging, certain stick lift and tie ups, goalie rebounds and certain puck physics are all in a pretty good state when it comes to what is good about this game. There is still room for improvement but I think those are the things EA is doing best at.
Now for gripes.
First I’d like to agree with many people about the A.I being broken. There I said it. I don’t think the A.I. Is bad but it is broken through inconsistencies. For example, the puck has very very little inconsistencies in the way it works ( in ‘20 ). Ofcourse, the puck may be easier to code but they have gone through years where the puck was just flat out tennis ball like. Another example is how the a.i determines when not to try or when to try a little or a lot in certain gameplay situations ( pp, pk, turnover, etc.. ). *I’ll get to turnovers later*
The A.I makes poor pinch decisions every game almost every shift. I don’t understand why this happens, I’m not sure if it has been talked about by EA.. but I feel we need an explanation.
Now for the turnover A.I decision making. What constitutes a turnover in this game? Is it an interception? A dump in, a bad pass? What I’m getting to is that when body, puck, and stick physics take play a lot of small errors occur. The A.I is then determining what inputs and game situations have just happened and it executes. I’m honestly giving up on explaining the rest of this for your time.
Last but not least is the absolute horrible cut scenes, the way the refs skate, the body collisions in cut scenes, goal celebrations, lack of user control, no be a ref mode, be a coach mode, poor be a pro mode, online player builds, racism.
Oh and offsides, goal line interactions, shooting on goal in the offensive zone.
I feel a lot of this games physics problems come from the opposing teams goal line. Picks get stuck on that line a lot, players get stuck on it, it’s easy to run into the goalie,
And MOST IMPORTANTLY THE GOAL LINES ARE THE MAIN REASON THAT LT IS BROKEN
The near total lack of effort by EA to make adjustments to improve any of the various areas of gameplay that we can all easily point to in threads like this one.
The near total lack of effort by EA to make adjustments to improve any of the various areas of gameplay that we can all easily point to in threads like this one.
Why would they? They already have your money. See it's like this. Every year it's the same thing. There are some things that are better and some things that are worse. The things that are worse were fine in years past but are worse now because of "reasons". The things that are better were fine a few years ago. It's all cyclical. They need to have reasons so people can have hope for the next year that "this is the year they finally get their stuff together". But no, it will be the same thing over and over again.
Then there are things that no matter what they will never fix because it fits into their corporate mantra to make things frustrating enough for poor saps to spend hard earned money on packs so they can have a chance at a better team.
Yeah, my main gripe is how EA defend the game like they actually think the current direction is good. They've lost control over this joke of a game severel years ago and they don't even see it.
Absolutely worst gameplay wise for offline (online is not even playable if you are a hockey fan) :
Horrible programmed A.I that doesn't know what hockey is and is easy manipulated and cheats via enhanced dice rolling
The AI for sure. Hold his game back so incredibly much offline and online. We’ve had many eras of NHL: the “floating/golden years” the “rod hockey/straight-line slam and jam TPS-era” and the “skill gap-less, spinning top era of 19-20“ but one thing has always remained consistent, and that’s the AI’s inability to do anything remotely useful on your team, and the CPU AI constantly breaking the physics engine, cutting animations short, scoring very “precise” rebound goals, and downright cheating by lifting sticks without touching the stick. All of these issues have been experienced in every era, and hopefully someday I’ll be able to call an era the “AI finally competent and fair” era.
Replies
When the AI is constantly skating into each other and getting stuck or when it skates into you on defense
When the AI has the reaction time of a life long pot head and takes 2 seconds to understand that a turnover happened
When the AI doesn’t understand changing assingments and does dumb stuff because of it like d man not joining an odd man rush or a winger refusing to cover the slot when the d man is out of position
When the AI forces a line change on the last minute to get the 4th line in because the 1st is a bit gassed
When the AI takes forever to find open ice so you just have to spin around waiting for the AI to get into position
Etc etc
The AI is easily the single most frustrating thing about the game. It limits creativity on offense and encourages passive gameplay on defense
Now for gripes.
First I’d like to agree with many people about the A.I being broken. There I said it. I don’t think the A.I. Is bad but it is broken through inconsistencies. For example, the puck has very very little inconsistencies in the way it works ( in ‘20 ). Ofcourse, the puck may be easier to code but they have gone through years where the puck was just flat out tennis ball like. Another example is how the a.i determines when not to try or when to try a little or a lot in certain gameplay situations ( pp, pk, turnover, etc.. ). *I’ll get to turnovers later*
The A.I makes poor pinch decisions every game almost every shift. I don’t understand why this happens, I’m not sure if it has been talked about by EA.. but I feel we need an explanation.
Now for the turnover A.I decision making.
What constitutes a turnover in this game? Is it an interception? A dump in, a bad pass? What I’m getting to is that when body, puck, and stick physics take play a lot of small errors occur. The A.I is then determining what inputs and game situations have just happened and it executes. I’m honestly giving up on explaining the rest of this for your time.
Last but not least is the absolute horrible cut scenes, the way the refs skate, the body collisions in cut scenes, goal celebrations, lack of user control, no be a ref mode, be a coach mode, poor be a pro mode, online player builds, racism.
K bye my fingers hurt typing on this phone haha
I feel a lot of this games physics problems come from the opposing teams goal line. Picks get stuck on that line a lot, players get stuck on it, it’s easy to run into the goalie,
And MOST IMPORTANTLY THE GOAL LINES ARE THE MAIN REASON THAT LT IS BROKEN
And skaters that move too fast
Why would they? They already have your money. See it's like this. Every year it's the same thing. There are some things that are better and some things that are worse. The things that are worse were fine in years past but are worse now because of "reasons". The things that are better were fine a few years ago. It's all cyclical. They need to have reasons so people can have hope for the next year that "this is the year they finally get their stuff together". But no, it will be the same thing over and over again.
Then there are things that no matter what they will never fix because it fits into their corporate mantra to make things frustrating enough for poor saps to spend hard earned money on packs so they can have a chance at a better team.
Absolutely worst gameplay wise for offline (online is not even playable if you are a hockey fan) :
Horrible programmed A.I that doesn't know what hockey is and is easy manipulated and cheats via enhanced dice rolling