High-Percentage Shots
Without getting bogged down in terminology, I think it would be worthwhile to have a discussion about the high-percentage shots in the game.
I'm starting with a couple of assumptions that I hope most everyone would agree with ( if I'm wrong, let me know ).
1. The type of shots that are high-percentage shots in EA NHL should more or less map to what are high-percentage shots in real hockey.
2. The actual success rate of shots in EA NHL is going to be higher than the actual IRL success rate, at least for online play. Shots in an online game tend to be lower and unless we want very low scoring games to be the norm the success rate needs to be higher than real hockey. The disparity between the success rates can be up to debate.
With those assumptions in place I think there are a few shots in the game that are far too successful, even allowing for "because video game".
I'll start with the most blatent one IMO. The "penalty shot goal" in NHL 21 EASHL against AI goalies. If you haven't seen it, you basically skate across the front of the net from your off-wing and shot against the grain when the goalie moves. I'm currently 40 for 45 on penalty shots and three of those misses are due to the "back screen" bug. So 40 of 42 when I can see what I'm doing on a shot that takes little to no skill. To me this is an exploit that should be addressed.
I'm starting with a couple of assumptions that I hope most everyone would agree with ( if I'm wrong, let me know ).
1. The type of shots that are high-percentage shots in EA NHL should more or less map to what are high-percentage shots in real hockey.
2. The actual success rate of shots in EA NHL is going to be higher than the actual IRL success rate, at least for online play. Shots in an online game tend to be lower and unless we want very low scoring games to be the norm the success rate needs to be higher than real hockey. The disparity between the success rates can be up to debate.
With those assumptions in place I think there are a few shots in the game that are far too successful, even allowing for "because video game".
I'll start with the most blatent one IMO. The "penalty shot goal" in NHL 21 EASHL against AI goalies. If you haven't seen it, you basically skate across the front of the net from your off-wing and shot against the grain when the goalie moves. I'm currently 40 for 45 on penalty shots and three of those misses are due to the "back screen" bug. So 40 of 42 when I can see what I'm doing on a shot that takes little to no skill. To me this is an exploit that should be addressed.
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Bottom line is, just shooting from inside the tops of the circle and inside the dots isn’t effective enough for people to do anything but curl back and try to look for the perfect 45 degree glide angle or force a cross crease. Same thing with scoring short side breakaway goals. The goalie ALWAYS pulls to the far side which is the exact opposite of what you’d teach/do IRL. Goalies in 2k8-10 didn’t fall for the same move every time, why is this game so static? Even when goals go in this game manages to make it look bad. Why does every snipe result in the goalie going into the windmill splits lol?
As for why the meta is the way it is? You'd have to get the developers to weigh in. I suspect some of it is over-tuning goalies to prevent the exploit goals from previous years. For example, the way the goalies play penalty shots in NHL 21 seems like an attempt to prevent the popular penalty shot goal from NHL 20 with the unfortunate side-effect of giving up an even easier goal.
I also suspect that no matter how the developers tune the goalies there will always be some ways to exploit them online. Some people see this and just throw their hands up. "There will always go-to goals so why complain?". In my view I don't think it's unreasonable to expect support and updates to fix blatantly unbalanced gameplay. The current "release and abandon" approach by EA is unacceptable IMO.
Edit: And just to be clear, I'm not blaming the developers for the lack of support. They're doing their jobs as best they can. I'm blaming the decision-makers who refuse to provide the resources necessary to support the currently released product.
But I think the speed might affect this static feeling we got.
You burn the gameplay out of options/angles - so in the end - it's often just 1-2 options left to do - short side or cross crease.
Another thing with this - you see sometimes D to D's in a furious pace - happen alot more in previous games, but still here - now and then.
The puck goes on jets - from LW to LD over to the RD for a 1timer the goalie won't even react on.
The speed is so high - you won't get the time you need to slow down and take more accurate shots from inside the tops of the circle and inside the dots.
Only thing left is 2-3 goals. My head spin round and round.... .
I just want to be able to manufacture a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 and actually capitalize on it the way a real hockey team would. I think goalies are way too good and limb reactions from inside the dots on good shooters, to a point where a drop-pass to the trailer on a 3-on-2 is hardly even a scoring chance where IRL that’s an A+ chance when you factor in the possibility of a return pass, the goalies had to change their angle/take depth, the shooter is usually in the mid-slot region. That area of the ice should see shooters literally blowing shots past goalies from time to time, it’s not an area of the ice where reactions can be so heavily relied on like we see in the game currently.
If you want to score on the 3-on-2 in this game, you make the drop pass then do the patterned 45 degree cut and score. I’m not asking for the scoring chance to be nerfed, I’m asking why the cut is necessary? Just make goalies actually beatable on slot shots without a consistent RS/LS patterns. Making the cut necessary means a large portion of quality shots aren’t really quality in this game. They’re all routine saves that provide literally zero incentive to ever shoot them.
And as Mega said, speed is a huge factor as well. Game moves just way too quick. Everything feels rushed and not organic in the least. I always seem some really organic, dynamic goals and gameplay when I turn down acceleration and make the puck more loose. It feels so much more like hockey and it really isn't to a point of frustration either. That’s all I’d like to see out of the online game, tuning. I don’t need a revolutionary physics engine or frostbite, this game just needs tuning, or custom lobbies that let me play with other people disenchanted with the current air hockey we have.
The thing when we come on a breakaway and completely stop - almost turn back - to look for the 1timer - says it all, pretty good.
The most obvious being the unreasonably high % shots will be used by anyone who is trying to win.
But there are many other factors leading to overuse of the abuse shots.
Start with the fact that the dev team won't try to correct those shots until the following year (if even then). So now people have tons of time to see and learn these shots. People lose games to these shots enough times and now they feel they have to adopt the same strategy to keep up.
Next is the overly ineffective nature of what should be good shot selection. Shooting from what would be a great location in real life is rarely rewarded because you never reach the point where your shot is just plain fast enough to beat the goalies reaction time.
Next is areas that used to be successful being nerfed into the ground. Deflections are largely ineffective, screens are largely ineffective and slapshots from beyond the faceoff zones are largely ineffective. This has effectively eliminated half of the offensive zone as a threat.
Next is the game having too many different game modes that all use the same tuners. What works with Gretzky in hut won't work for Joe NHL in eashl, but who do they base the game on when trying to balance the scoring areas? How many other modes does that hurt?
You put all of that together and you get people forcing one timers or sticking to a couple wiggle goals not just because its overly effective, but because its the only thing that's effective.
Yes yes yes! So many good shots can’t beat the goalie’s reaction time! It makes literally everything outside of the wiggles and cross crease shots basically useless! This is what I was on about in another thread here, can’t remember which one, but the goalies just are way too all or nothing. You basically have to decide “I’m going to try my hardest to get a pad rebound here” when shooting online where rebounds and unclean saves should be much more organic, natural depending on the shooting attributes, location, speed, partial screens, etc.
And the frustrating part for me is, this game CAN do all of that. The goalies can be very dynamic and fun to watch with the right settings. I’m honestly amazed at some of the rebounds and scrambles I’ve generated with my offline sliders/global goalie attribute changes because it’s so completely different from online play. I get unclean glove saves, lots of rebounds off the high chest and shoulder area because the goalie was blocking, I get much less controlled pad and blocker saves from partial screens because again, the goalie didn’t have time to react. I can actually snipe goalies on quick shots with good shooters from the circles in without a wiggle or 45 degree cut too which makes shooting shots from good areas much more fun as they do have a shot of actually scoring, they have an even better shot at generating a rebound/scramble, and it makes the game just less predictable as a whole which is much needed.
Offline, this is the closest EA has gotten to 2k goalies (still a bit off) but it’s a real shame it can’t be experienced online. They’re basically completely perfect walls outside of the patented meta goals which is so lame.
So in order for goalies to stop some of these high % shots we would need goalies to actually have separate moving limbs that act on their own. I'm not sure why they haven't advanced goalie to these levels but I'd assume it has to do with weird animations on screen.
But the fix is easy and it's goalies having freely moving limbs to a degree.
So how would that work - in practically?
But yeah it is true - once you find the sweet spot, I guess 10 out of 10 will be a goal, no mather the circumstances.
I do wish that we not that far away from and intelligent AI - that's able to adapt and adjust to how repetitive patterns the opponent are using himself of.
So you had to change up the play and strategy if your being way too repetitive over and over again.
So that - no direct move or shot would be a guarantee.
Goes for both the goalies and the players.
You give each limb a range of motion to move about. So the arms would have a range that can move about in any natural way. So say they could tuck their arms in close to squeeze a puck against them. They could tuck in all the way full out reach. The arms would have a range so you wouldn't be seeing them reach where you should probably leg pad save it. Legs would also have more range allowing for broken butterfly saves in attempts where reach is needed instead of relying on that silly desperation save when there is better options. Goalies could also slightly lean left or right to help block shots.
The range changes when they go butterfly to leave a bit more of the net up top open but harder for a player up close to score them as a goalie could snag it out of the air before it fully elevates in some cases.
Instead the NHL game has set motions instead of fluid motions that read a play based on their attributes.
/end rambling
Hope you understood
I think what you’re mentioning would be a pretty big technical undertaking, but obviously it’s something I’d love to eventually see. For now, I’d just like to see tuner sets used as a band-aid for this issue because with the sliders available, we can see shooting from good spots without an “exploit” move actually be effective and we can also see a huge reduction on the success rates of said shots.
So more options for goalies to choose from - in form of animations.
For example - one typical shot - like the short side snipe - could goalies use 1 or 2 or even 3 diffrent 'save animations' to get the puck... (?)
I think I get you - and I kinda like it... 😜😏
Yes they could even lean over on a short side without really have to use the limbs if in good position. Most of all with the change you would see a variety of goals going in instead of the usual looking ones.
Yup sounds really good.
Much more 'alive'.
You wonder why it's not already in the game - but shouldnt that be - beacuse it's difficult to program that type of stuff..?
I mean there's often 1 or 2 new goalie animations each year that gets added.
That often means that goalies dosent has to be so' aggressive/desperate' in some shots where they shouldnt have to react as 'big' as they do.
Some new once in 21 that I really like. Where goalies react pretty natural to how the puck is delivered.
Goalies have barely changed move wise over the years. They still let the same shots in. I'm very certain they could do my idea and should have been working on it for years. Goalies are just robotic instead of fluid.
Perhaps a good sign - should mean there's room for improvements - and if there will be, I think we could see alot more of what you talking about.
I’m curious how an “elite” player with the online tuners would adapt to your sliders. Would the wiggling and drift shots still work?
I used one of his setups and destroyed the CPU after a game of testing out how to abuse the AI. And the online community wouldn't enjoy the slow hockey.
Yeah im not going to answer for Bf1 buuut the difference between Bf1 and the online crowd is probebly that Bf1 just wanna create hockey - see how much hockey you can squeeze out of the game-engine.
So I do think that online community would find enough areas to exploit any sliders you could possible think of.
But as I see it - the more slow it goes - the harder it is to 'force through' the game-engine just by building speed.
And I cant for my life understand why anyone would think it's fun when the speed is so high so you miss the player you try to hit by 2-3 meters and stop when the board gets in their way..
Or when you switch players and think its your D your about to get but instead you get the forward and drive him the wrong direaction to the play.
It's something thats so out of control - with the current gameplay. That we don't get the time we need to be able to 'understand in which direaction the play is heading'.
As far as “exploit” shots, they would still (do, can confirm) work assuming you glide at the perfect angle and either had a good shooter or an average shooter who wasn’t terribly fatigued. The difference is, getting to that spot would be infinitely harder with the lower acceleration levels, increased incidental contact, nerfed puck control, and higher stumble threshold. Magically, defenders would actually have the tools to stop the “elite” twirling thy can be replicated by the average 8 year-old. Heck, if you play real hockey rather than being a masochist and looking for ways to hate the game, even the CPU does a semi-decent job at limiting shots from that area with the slider values I use. And, even if you do get “the shot” off, fatigue, and attribute effects at 10 doesn’t make hitting the net nearly automatic so “the shot” becomes a lot less of a “go to” move because it would be a hard shot to take in the first place and it wouldn’t have nearly the success rate. Imagine this + humans who could effectively use DSS, the game would have 10x the skill ceiling and depth on both sides of the puck than it currently does, that’s objectively true. There’s a reason I can not play this game online for 1.5 years and jump in the some old LG buddies and just fine. Game takes no skill online lol. It’s like falling off a bike you don’t want ride, you never lose it.
As far as how the comp scene would do, they’d laughably struggle and cry. The “elite” egos would be severely humbled, to a point where they’d cry for a change and quit because it’s too hard and actually requires skill, vision, and practice to be successful. I’d know, because I played in the “elite” circles of 6s hockey from 09-18 on Xbox before the community became egregiously toxic and the gameplay couldn’t offer enough to look past that. Everything they do is based on set plays and certain cuts in certain areas of the ice that they know are problem areas for defenders when it comes to picking off passes. The “creativity” is limited to LT spins and pivots now which is just yawn lol. So predictable yet hard to defend due to game mechanics alone. It’s terrible hockey.
They also have zero vision and know nothing about the sport. Their reads are limited to one look, they rely on constant RS wiggling to negate body contact which buys them time they shouldn’t have, and all of their passes are fully-loaded passes regardless of how far away their intended target it or what handedness their intended target is. My set is very unforgiving with pass speed and location, this would be a whole new world to a group of so-called “elite” gamers who have never once considered speed/aim while passing. Compare this to real professional gamers (RL, LoL, DOTA2, CS:GO) who have real skill and you won’t be able to watch a clip of “competitive” NHL without laughing again.
Pace of play wise, I’m sure they probably wouldn’t love it at first, but if they’re smart enough (big IF based on my experience and their own comical suggestions at fixing their problems they have with the meta they helped build) they’d start realizing how much high acceleration levels clog the ice. The small builds would become more deadly, the big builds would become realistically better at using their body but sacrificing speed, and maybe they’d even learn to start using screens and quick shots/drop passes etc because those would actually be viable scoring chances now. Defenders would actually be punished for reckless step-ups, but pinching and body contact along the wall (and open ice) would be much more consistent and effective when done properly, especially because the puck carrier wouldn’t be able to RS away and negate all contact on a dime. DSS could be not only working feature in the game, but it could actually be an incredibly effective feature in the game if acceleration levels mimicked real life. But again this would be an actual skill gap rather than one people can claim exists to satisfy their ego, so we’ll never see anyone who claims to be good at this game advocating for real skill gaps.
Back to my sliders, I’ve never claimed my set to be the perfect solution for people wanting an online experience offline, because the AI is not able to do that lol. I do think the slider values can be a target to meet in the middle with however. You have to factor in that 1. I’m using house rules (ie. I’m NOT trying to exploit the AI, I’m trying to simulate a competitive 6v6 game so why would I ruin my own experience by doing something I know works every time because of the AI deficiencies? This isn’t some set that magically fixes the AI, it’s a set to prove how much real hockey can be played with the current game mechanics.) when it comes to making plays. Also, my fatigue setting is at 100/100 with fatigue recovery being at something really low to force myself to use 4 lines. The pace of my game really isn’t that much slower when lines are at full stamina like they often are in an EASHL environment. A lot of my values could be “toned down” when humans are involved as many of my radical values exist purposefully to make the game harder on myself because I like a challenge, something the competitive community does not.
What is “slower” because it’s not at air hockey levels but at real hockey levels, is the acceleration. Yeah, you actually would be required to keep a little bit of momentum on this set if you want to pull off an escape move, or make a radical cut to buy time and space (And to add to this, RS deking doesn’t result in puck loss on my set, so your RS and your Deke catalog is your “agility” as a puck carrier. Seems a bit ridiculous that the carrier gets incredible base agility + skill moves, no?) To be honest, I’d have acceleration higher than my current set if it was online, but the AI skaters get to break physics with every turn and pivot, and I needed the values to be lower to allow both teams to be able to sustain a forecheck.
What is easily noticeable when playing this set, is how incredibly quick the guys under 6 feet are. They accelerate like crazy and can really take over an entire play without using any cheese moves to manipulate the AI. I can only imagine the strategy that would go into picking a class/build that would happen when you see drastic strengths and weaknesses between classes/builds. You’d actually have teams that would have a certain strat/play style again imo. The 0-5 trap where your LD can cover the pass to the LW and easily cover the break-in puck carrier on the right boards is hilariously awful to watch.
There’s simply zero ways you can replicate what you watch happen in the NHL every night in this game online. It’s NHL Hitz level fast, with no accountability for one side of the puck, no screens, no creative passing, no vision, just wiggle wiggle wiggle, force one-timer. Or the full-ice slap pass off the boards which can’t be countered by the human goalie because they move like a turtle in molasses is another meta 6s play that’s just laughably stupid. No quick toe drags and a shot through a screen, no tic-tac-toe powerplays because that’s not a set play off of a faceoff with a forced pass due to failed game mechanics. There’s little creativity on the rush, on the breakout, in the NZ because the acceleration levels stifle creativity. They don’t allow for it. There’s zero thinking, zero vision, it’s everyone doing the same dang thing, playing the same dang way, and the outcome is decided by the execution of the same exact plays. That’s not hockey, that’s not even a fun video game, that’s just playing competitive Bob-It really.
Yep, exactly right mega. I play this game to play hockey, or something that semi-resembles it. It’s probably hard to hear if you take this game seriously that this game represents so little of the actual sport that a game which literally includes rocket-powered cars and a gigantic soccer ball has 100x the similarities and feel of hockey than a game literally labeled “NHL” does, but that’s the sad reality of this game at default values. I don’t take pride in destroying the AI, I have fun trying to setup realistic cycle plays, shooting through screens, attempting to run a real power play, and generating some dynamic saves and organic scrambles that you don’t see on default sliders. If I wanted to waste my time with something boring, I’d never have stopped playing “competitive” 6s lol.