Ideas to Fix this Series
I want to put together a list of what I feel like EA needs to look at fixing. Some may disagree so I would love to hear any other thoughts as well.
I’ve been playing this game for about 10 years now at a high level (20:1 w/l ratio in vs/hut, as well as top 5 Eashl teams from nhl 12-16). Over the last few years I have not played much due to (IMO) this series taking a bad turn, but figured I’d give my reasoning why myself and my club don’t play as much anymore with hopes EA can turn it around with some consideration on this list.
I’ll break it down into categories starting with minor things and working up to More important things.
GAME MODES -
There are way too many game modes in this game. It’s a jack of all trades, master of none. Cut down to 5 of your most popular modes (EASHL, HUT, Franchise, Be a Pro, and Versus) and focus on improvements to those rather than adding new ones in.
You have so many modes and not one of them is even remotely close to being great.
MENUS -
The menus are atrocious. Feels like you need to go to so many filler screens just to get to what you’re actually trying to play. The lag and input delay in the menus, as well as the load times (even on ps5), is just ridiculous for 2021. Simplify your menus and with the reduced amount of game modes from my first point would help with navigating the menus quicker to what you’re actually trying to play.
COMPETITIVE GAMEPLAY -
Get rid of leaderboard rankings being based purely off the amount of wins a team or player has... seeing a .500 team towards the top of the leaderboards is an immediate sign this game is not competitive. A team that is 100-0-0 should not be ranked below a team that is 101-100-0.
Also, get rid of any ability to dodge players and choose who you play. You guys made improvements on being able to match make your region, club size, and goalie, as well as showing the games connection. There is no reason you should ever have to back out of a game before it starts. You guys have the idea right during the Eashl playoffs by not showing the opponent, that’s how it should be every game in every online mode.
CLUB RECRUITMENT -
How do you expect newer players, or just anyone looking for a club in general to play with the system you have. You guys have “Competitive Rating” tied to each player... why can’t you guys make a better system for a free agent to join a club by taking their CR and hit a “search for club” button where it searches for clubs at that CR level where the club creator/GM is online. Don’t even bother showing players clubs they can join if the GM from that club isn’t online to accept them or play anyways unless that person is specifically searching for a certain club.
This way free agents are given options of players at their level of skill, the club GM is online to accept them, and possibly play right away.
Using outside sources like reddit, forums, etc is not a way to introduce newer players to your game. Most new players probably don’t even know where to begin to join a club.
SERVERS -
Ever since the switch to ps4/one, your servers have been below average at best. You can’t have a game that requires split second decisions when you’re providing servers with bad latency. If you guys can’t fix your servers, at least compromise and make the ice size a bit bigger so there’s a bit more time and space for players to make a decision so this game can stop looking like bumper cars on ice in 6s, and actual nice passing plays and cycling can happen again like in NHLs glory days. You guys can blame the community all you want and say it’s our fault for the connection, but at the end of the day you guys can’t deny how many people have issues with only your game. Fix it, or adapt and make changes to the gameplay to counter the latency, stop sweeping it under the rug.
CUSTOMIZATION -
Why can’t clubs create their own logos, seeing the same generic logos on every team each year is getting old. You guys made it so clubs create their arenas... you have playoffs for Eashl... why do you guys not have playoff championship banners saved in your clubs arena. Would be so cool to play a team and see a bunch of championship banners in the rafters.
Bring back player attribute customization, your playerbase has been bugging for this to be back since you took it away, listen to your community. Which ties in with this next point...
PLAYERS QUITTING CONSTANTLY -
You guys made prestige rankings... tie custom player attributes to levelling... Every set amount of levels gets you a certain amount of attribute points to put in. But make it like how Overwatch is for example... if you quit out of games you get 50% reduced exp gained for a certain number of games which the penalty increases the more games you leave. This way there is punishment for quitters by slowing down their progress on gaining attribute points. Nothing is more frustrating than playing club or drop ins and scoring 1-2 goals and everyone leaves ending you back to the lobby searching forever for a new game, which again leads me to my next point
CLUB DIVISIONS -
In theory club divisions are a good idea, in practice they are not. You guys do not have the playerbase to provide a good matchmaking experience when you split Eashl into 10 different divisions. You’ve already diluted this game with far too many different modes splitting up the community that forcing clubs to spend more time searching for games rather than playing is a poor user experience. People should not have to delete and remake their club when getting to division 1 because you guys put in a system that makes finding a game there near impossible.
COMPUTER PLAYERS -
You guys need to stop treating this game like offline and online should have the same AI tendencies. Online AI should be completely passive, but positionally solid. If a player doesn’t want to swap to play D (like so many choose not to), they should be punished with the computer allowing you to walk in... but if they are solid positionally that allows the human to switch to control them and make a play. Humans should be the ones playing online, not the AI. Too many people choose to let the AI play D for them... that’s literally only playing half the game, yet it rewards them. If a human ever feels like an AI playing for them is the better option, the game is just simply tuned wrong. If I want to play against the AI, ill play offline... online should be human vs human with as little AI influence as possible.
VISION CONTROL -
You guys took something that worked amazing in the earlier years, and decided to take it away in place of offense being able to skate backwards... I don’t know about you guys but I don’t see NHL players gaining the zone skating in backwards all the time, get rid of it.... Holding L2 should make you face the puck, not just simply face North. It shouldn’t be this much of a battle to get your player to face the play, just because you guys think forwards skating backwards up the ice is more important.
CLUBS BEING REMADE TO PLAY NOOBS -
Again, get rid of club divisions, you don’t have the playerbase for it. Tie matchmaking to be purely off CR, why did you even add CR into the game if that wasn’t your objective. Then when little Timmy goes 12-0-0 and finally loses a game, disbanding the club and restarting does nothing considering they will just be matching up with players around their CR anyways, rather than division 10 new teams to beat up on. Also back to the player attribute customization, tie in some club milestones into some attribute points to encourage teams to stick together to reach Those milestones for extra attributes. Again, punishing the constant club remakes
CONSISTENCY -
Hockey is a game of bounces for sure don’t get me wrong, but in an online video game that has a potential for esports you need to get rid of the amount of RNG in the game. If a defender is in a passing lane, facing the puck it should be intercepted every time. Stop AI goalies from making insane desperation save animations in online modes... there’s a lack of human goalies as it is.. make AI goalies have more consistency in goals and stop making save of the year saves to determine online games, nothing worse than losing a game because of the only position on the ice not controller by a player. This will inevitably increase the amount of human goalies you will get playing. Nobody is going to play a position or take someone at that position when an AI can just do it better. As it is now a human goalie is usually always a disadvantage over a computer
FRANCHISE MODE -
This testing was done in NHL 20 but I’m sure it’s the same in 21. But I manually played 3 seasons of franchise mode with the goal of testing player growth. I took a 68 overall (Bottom 6 forward), who was 19 years old and played him on the first line. All 3 seasons I finished at 120+ points with him. He went from a 68 to a 74 after those 3 seasons.... like you’re telling me if a player came into the NHL with over 360 points in 3 seasons he would be ranked at a 74 overall? Stop limiting player growth based purely off what you determine the potential to be. On ice performance should trump the random generated potential a player has. Makes the mode feel too predictable when growth feels out of a players control. I’m not a big franchise mode player so that’s just a small gripe I have with it.
RE-ENTER A GAME IF DC’d
Again, Overwatch as a reference... if you DC you have a certain time limit to get back into the game before being penalized. If I DC from a club or drop in game, allow me to get back to the lobby and slot back into my position and load into the game. I wouldn’t think with it being 2021 it would be hard to program an AI skater to do a line change to get you back onto the ice after reconnecting to the game. This would solve the problem of taking a 50% exp reduction for quitters, if you actually legit just had a DC so you wouldn’t be punished.
Sorry for the long wall of text, these are just some ideas I have. I didn’t go into too much detail about gameplay itself since I feel like there’s too much to list. But I feel like some of these changes would definitely be a step in the right direction for the series. There’s so much potential that EA just wastes with poor time management and features nobody asked for. I mean look at the be a pro upgrade this year... if it wasn’t for the 300 other modes added over the last few years that’s time that could have been spent on getting those be a pro changes into the game years ago, along with having more time to refine their main modes that keep people coming back.
Let me know what you guys think on whether you agree with some of this or not, and I’m interested to hear any other ideas people may have
I’ve been playing this game for about 10 years now at a high level (20:1 w/l ratio in vs/hut, as well as top 5 Eashl teams from nhl 12-16). Over the last few years I have not played much due to (IMO) this series taking a bad turn, but figured I’d give my reasoning why myself and my club don’t play as much anymore with hopes EA can turn it around with some consideration on this list.
I’ll break it down into categories starting with minor things and working up to More important things.
GAME MODES -
There are way too many game modes in this game. It’s a jack of all trades, master of none. Cut down to 5 of your most popular modes (EASHL, HUT, Franchise, Be a Pro, and Versus) and focus on improvements to those rather than adding new ones in.
You have so many modes and not one of them is even remotely close to being great.
MENUS -
The menus are atrocious. Feels like you need to go to so many filler screens just to get to what you’re actually trying to play. The lag and input delay in the menus, as well as the load times (even on ps5), is just ridiculous for 2021. Simplify your menus and with the reduced amount of game modes from my first point would help with navigating the menus quicker to what you’re actually trying to play.
COMPETITIVE GAMEPLAY -
Get rid of leaderboard rankings being based purely off the amount of wins a team or player has... seeing a .500 team towards the top of the leaderboards is an immediate sign this game is not competitive. A team that is 100-0-0 should not be ranked below a team that is 101-100-0.
Also, get rid of any ability to dodge players and choose who you play. You guys made improvements on being able to match make your region, club size, and goalie, as well as showing the games connection. There is no reason you should ever have to back out of a game before it starts. You guys have the idea right during the Eashl playoffs by not showing the opponent, that’s how it should be every game in every online mode.
CLUB RECRUITMENT -
How do you expect newer players, or just anyone looking for a club in general to play with the system you have. You guys have “Competitive Rating” tied to each player... why can’t you guys make a better system for a free agent to join a club by taking their CR and hit a “search for club” button where it searches for clubs at that CR level where the club creator/GM is online. Don’t even bother showing players clubs they can join if the GM from that club isn’t online to accept them or play anyways unless that person is specifically searching for a certain club.
This way free agents are given options of players at their level of skill, the club GM is online to accept them, and possibly play right away.
Using outside sources like reddit, forums, etc is not a way to introduce newer players to your game. Most new players probably don’t even know where to begin to join a club.
SERVERS -
Ever since the switch to ps4/one, your servers have been below average at best. You can’t have a game that requires split second decisions when you’re providing servers with bad latency. If you guys can’t fix your servers, at least compromise and make the ice size a bit bigger so there’s a bit more time and space for players to make a decision so this game can stop looking like bumper cars on ice in 6s, and actual nice passing plays and cycling can happen again like in NHLs glory days. You guys can blame the community all you want and say it’s our fault for the connection, but at the end of the day you guys can’t deny how many people have issues with only your game. Fix it, or adapt and make changes to the gameplay to counter the latency, stop sweeping it under the rug.
CUSTOMIZATION -
Why can’t clubs create their own logos, seeing the same generic logos on every team each year is getting old. You guys made it so clubs create their arenas... you have playoffs for Eashl... why do you guys not have playoff championship banners saved in your clubs arena. Would be so cool to play a team and see a bunch of championship banners in the rafters.
Bring back player attribute customization, your playerbase has been bugging for this to be back since you took it away, listen to your community. Which ties in with this next point...
PLAYERS QUITTING CONSTANTLY -
You guys made prestige rankings... tie custom player attributes to levelling... Every set amount of levels gets you a certain amount of attribute points to put in. But make it like how Overwatch is for example... if you quit out of games you get 50% reduced exp gained for a certain number of games which the penalty increases the more games you leave. This way there is punishment for quitters by slowing down their progress on gaining attribute points. Nothing is more frustrating than playing club or drop ins and scoring 1-2 goals and everyone leaves ending you back to the lobby searching forever for a new game, which again leads me to my next point
CLUB DIVISIONS -
In theory club divisions are a good idea, in practice they are not. You guys do not have the playerbase to provide a good matchmaking experience when you split Eashl into 10 different divisions. You’ve already diluted this game with far too many different modes splitting up the community that forcing clubs to spend more time searching for games rather than playing is a poor user experience. People should not have to delete and remake their club when getting to division 1 because you guys put in a system that makes finding a game there near impossible.
COMPUTER PLAYERS -
You guys need to stop treating this game like offline and online should have the same AI tendencies. Online AI should be completely passive, but positionally solid. If a player doesn’t want to swap to play D (like so many choose not to), they should be punished with the computer allowing you to walk in... but if they are solid positionally that allows the human to switch to control them and make a play. Humans should be the ones playing online, not the AI. Too many people choose to let the AI play D for them... that’s literally only playing half the game, yet it rewards them. If a human ever feels like an AI playing for them is the better option, the game is just simply tuned wrong. If I want to play against the AI, ill play offline... online should be human vs human with as little AI influence as possible.
VISION CONTROL -
You guys took something that worked amazing in the earlier years, and decided to take it away in place of offense being able to skate backwards... I don’t know about you guys but I don’t see NHL players gaining the zone skating in backwards all the time, get rid of it.... Holding L2 should make you face the puck, not just simply face North. It shouldn’t be this much of a battle to get your player to face the play, just because you guys think forwards skating backwards up the ice is more important.
CLUBS BEING REMADE TO PLAY NOOBS -
Again, get rid of club divisions, you don’t have the playerbase for it. Tie matchmaking to be purely off CR, why did you even add CR into the game if that wasn’t your objective. Then when little Timmy goes 12-0-0 and finally loses a game, disbanding the club and restarting does nothing considering they will just be matching up with players around their CR anyways, rather than division 10 new teams to beat up on. Also back to the player attribute customization, tie in some club milestones into some attribute points to encourage teams to stick together to reach Those milestones for extra attributes. Again, punishing the constant club remakes
CONSISTENCY -
Hockey is a game of bounces for sure don’t get me wrong, but in an online video game that has a potential for esports you need to get rid of the amount of RNG in the game. If a defender is in a passing lane, facing the puck it should be intercepted every time. Stop AI goalies from making insane desperation save animations in online modes... there’s a lack of human goalies as it is.. make AI goalies have more consistency in goals and stop making save of the year saves to determine online games, nothing worse than losing a game because of the only position on the ice not controller by a player. This will inevitably increase the amount of human goalies you will get playing. Nobody is going to play a position or take someone at that position when an AI can just do it better. As it is now a human goalie is usually always a disadvantage over a computer
FRANCHISE MODE -
This testing was done in NHL 20 but I’m sure it’s the same in 21. But I manually played 3 seasons of franchise mode with the goal of testing player growth. I took a 68 overall (Bottom 6 forward), who was 19 years old and played him on the first line. All 3 seasons I finished at 120+ points with him. He went from a 68 to a 74 after those 3 seasons.... like you’re telling me if a player came into the NHL with over 360 points in 3 seasons he would be ranked at a 74 overall? Stop limiting player growth based purely off what you determine the potential to be. On ice performance should trump the random generated potential a player has. Makes the mode feel too predictable when growth feels out of a players control. I’m not a big franchise mode player so that’s just a small gripe I have with it.
RE-ENTER A GAME IF DC’d
Again, Overwatch as a reference... if you DC you have a certain time limit to get back into the game before being penalized. If I DC from a club or drop in game, allow me to get back to the lobby and slot back into my position and load into the game. I wouldn’t think with it being 2021 it would be hard to program an AI skater to do a line change to get you back onto the ice after reconnecting to the game. This would solve the problem of taking a 50% exp reduction for quitters, if you actually legit just had a DC so you wouldn’t be punished.
Sorry for the long wall of text, these are just some ideas I have. I didn’t go into too much detail about gameplay itself since I feel like there’s too much to list. But I feel like some of these changes would definitely be a step in the right direction for the series. There’s so much potential that EA just wastes with poor time management and features nobody asked for. I mean look at the be a pro upgrade this year... if it wasn’t for the 300 other modes added over the last few years that’s time that could have been spent on getting those be a pro changes into the game years ago, along with having more time to refine their main modes that keep people coming back.
Let me know what you guys think on whether you agree with some of this or not, and I’m interested to hear any other ideas people may have
3
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Replies
I like alot of it.
Just such thing as the servers/respons of the players. That thing can be the difference between a person who lovin it or hating it.
If I could choose between alot of gameplay additions or just a flawless online experience for all of us, I would take the last part.
Well, what comes to offline modes there's huge amount of things needs to be fixed and make more realistic. On be a pro this player growth working much better and it should be more like that on Franchise also.
You tested this player growth on purpose with medium difficult level and more arcade sliders? Your player shouldn't suppose to do this much points with player which has that low rating.
But yeah, player growth is way too slow on Franchise mode indeed.
Ya the testing I did was on all star difficulty, but it wasn’t simming, it was manually playing the games. I knew simming them wouldn’t get the player enough points at that overall to see if he could grow quickly.
I just think it’s dumb that EA sets a players potential, and no matter what happens on the ice in that players career it doesn’t matter cause of that predefined potential rating. It helps a bit I’m sure, but if you have a player having 3 seasons of 120 points in a row, I’m sure that player would deserve to be considered a star in the league
Of course this would require a lot more work and also probably have to factor line chemistry for it to be successful.
I definitely agree with the point you are making though and performance of the player should matter a lot more.
Funny isnt it? That around all the time the hut,fut,mut type modes came along, the overall quality of the games started to drop while eas yearly profit on said game soars. Its almost like all they care about is HUT.
Super Mega Baseball should win that award easily. That’s a quality product. 2k at least gives us a ton of customization to make their stale product not as stale. EA is just awful. These games shouldn’t even leave QA.