Wish you could block players/nations

MrSpireite

Always problems with Ice dancers and danglers from Finland.

No other nation i come up against of oponents that are so win at all costs who don't seem to actually want to play a game, just cheap wins.

Am I alone in this ?

rokaru8

Me too, it seems only fins are playing

2HxC4u

I wouldn't go and generalize an entire country, I come across players of that mindset from all over the place constantly, and in my experience its usually those with the QC or w/e involved in their GT, but then I've played others who have it and play great competitive hockey. Its the nature of online gaming, its always win at all costs.

I went from top 300 in 14/15 to barely playing 100 games in 16. I cant stand this mentality and I doubt it'll ever change. I'll probably play more this year...but my days of playing that hardcore are far behind me.

ESPOtheDON

2HxC4u wrote: »

I wouldn't go and generalize an entire country, I come across players of that mindset from all over the place constantly, and in my experience its usually those with the QC or w/e involved in their GT, but then I've played others who have it and play great competitive hockey. Its the nature of online gaming, its always win at all costs.

I went from top 300 in 14/15 to barely playing 100 games in 16. I cant stand this mentality and I doubt it'll ever change. I'll probably play more this year...but my days of playing that hardcore are far behind me.

Well said.

djevulsk

I agree, geo-blocking would be lovely.

I NEVER play against people from Finland if i cant help it... nothing against my fellow neighbors , but even tho connection says good and the network performance under settings in-game menu looks great, my team always feels sluggish and got sirap-movement when i play finnish people.

So... yes i would like to geo-block them, cause i wont play them anyways.

ESPOtheDON

agreed... I actually like the new feature showing the connection. I only play people with full bars... and it still will lag at times

eyebrowz84

I'm so glad it's not just me!

I got NHL 17 free of charge from EA after complaining that Finland is unplayable from the UK last year. Once I threatened litigation (after being refused a refund) they gave me a bunch of free stuff to quiet down. Anyway, I will bet ANY takers 1,000,000 coins that I can identify within 5 minutes whether they are from Finland or not. I may as well be playing an entirely different game - it is THAT unique of an experience. The main features of a game against a Finn are;

• Your stick is a 'ghost'. Much like the nerfed stick lift, pokechecks will pass through the player and puck as if you're a ghost.
• Turning is painfully slow, especially defending one on ones. Your skaters are a split second slower.
• The opponent has a super-poke, which they can use to strip you of the puck from 10 feet away. They're pretty particularly good at pokechecks from behind, which pass through your body.
• Faceoffs? Forget them. The annoying guide will tell me 'great timing' every time but if I win more than 20% of draws it's a miracle. Again, upon replay the stick passes straight through the opponents and the puck. Even if I try and spam the tie up, it won't work.
• Battles/incidental collisions will ALWAYS result in the opponent winning the puck. Like it's magnetised in their favour.
• The AI: They're lost. I mean so far out of position it's hilarious. Your D will both head behind the net to chase one guy on the PP, leaving it open for the inevitable one-time goal. The forwards make a point out of trying to skate the exact same lanes, leading to friendly collisions every other rush (on the rare occasion you get possession). Goaltenders may as well not bother with their positions.
• Figure skaters: POPULAR MISCONCEPTION. What you're experiencing is a combination of the above. Being slow, unable to jostle and taking 7 attempts to select the correct player means that they can skate around you with ease. I've been messaged numerous times by Finn's who think it's weirdly easy to skate by me and ask if I've got lag. My time on attack is usually around 3 mins to their 11.

The sad thing is, it's actually got worse. Exactly the same problems as last year but feel amplified. Last year I could kind of compensate with solid D, but this year I'm regularly getting done over 9-2 or similar, usually giving up 18 shots or so. EA know about this issue but are either not skilled enough or have no desire to fix it. Utterly, utterly pathetic. I shouldn't have to guess from the username if it's a Finn then try searching for a game over and over until I'm lucky enough to get a Czech or Dane for example. The game is great when it's smooth, but despite great network stats it's NEVER smooth against Finland.

Every single one of my friends in the UK reports the same issue. I challenge ANY representative from EA to try and justify producing the exact same fault as last year or tell me I'm wrong. Fix it or start refunding those who pump money into this game.

Sgt_Kelso

Wow, if that is true (and it sounds a little harsh and odd to be honest), I feel bad for you. I kinda know what you mean though, Finns can be annoying opponents. I should know since I am a Finn, and had to face them most of the time in NHL16 HUT. I haven't touched HUT online this year yet though, as I like to get a handle on the game first. I know full well what to expect. But I try to play 'real' hockey and, and I am no good with puck ragging anyways.

I guess playing NHL in the UK is not ideal, because they player base is nowhere near the size of FUT in FIFA? So the probability is you get set against foreign opponents a lot of times? And Finns have always been really fanatic about NHL... and there are loads of annoying pre-teen kids playing it. I don't really know how the EA European servers work (who knows?) or how the connections are routed to/from Finland, but net speed could be one issue. Maybe something to do with lag correction, at either end? HUT is pvp isn't it? What kinds of connections do you have?

And does the issue affect other modes than HUT? I would be willing to experiment in HUT or other modes, if you are on the PS4, to see if the issue affects all Finnish players or not?

MrSpireite

T0o_HxC_4u wrote: »

I wouldn't go and generalize an entire country, I come across players of that mindset from all over the place constantly, and in my experience its usually those with the QC or w/e involved in their GT, but then I've played others who have it and play great competitive hockey. Its the nature of online gaming, its always win at all costs.

I went from top 300 in 14/15 to barely playing 100 games in 16. I cant stand this mentality and I doubt it'll ever change. I'll probably play more this year...but my days of playing that hardcore are far behind me.

Well put it like this, the problem is with 90% of Finns and the problem is negligeable with any other nation from the UK.

No problem with Swedes, Danes, Germans, Czechs, Russians, French etc etc.

You might get the odd one but when you don't play Finns you actually get a decent game 90% of the time.

I am leaning towards an in game issue due to Finland having the best internet speeds in Europe if not the world.

MrSpireite

eyebrowz84 wrote: »

I'm so glad it's not just me!

I got NHL 17 free of charge from EA after complaining that Finland is unplayable from the UK last year. Once I threatened litigation (after being refused a refund) they gave me a bunch of free stuff to quiet down. Anyway, I will bet ANY takers 1,000,000 coins that I can identify within 5 minutes whether they are from Finland or not. I may as well be playing an entirely different game - it is THAT unique of an experience. The main features of a game against a Finn are;

• Your stick is a 'ghost'. Much like the nerfed stick lift, pokechecks will pass through the player and puck as if you're a ghost.
• Turning is painfully slow, especially defending one on ones. Your skaters are a split second slower.
• The opponent has a super-poke, which they can use to strip you of the puck from 10 feet away. They're pretty particularly good at pokechecks from behind, which pass through your body.
• Faceoffs? Forget them. The annoying guide will tell me 'great timing' every time but if I win more than 20% of draws it's a miracle. Again, upon replay the stick passes straight through the opponents and the puck. Even if I try and spam the tie up, it won't work.
• Battles/incidental collisions will ALWAYS result in the opponent winning the puck. Like it's magnetised in their favour.
• The AI: They're lost. I mean so far out of position it's hilarious. Your D will both head behind the net to chase one guy on the PP, leaving it open for the inevitable one-time goal. The forwards make a point out of trying to skate the exact same lanes, leading to friendly collisions every other rush (on the rare occasion you get possession). Goaltenders may as well not bother with their positions.
• Figure skaters: POPULAR MISCONCEPTION. What you're experiencing is a combination of the above. Being slow, unable to jostle and taking 7 attempts to select the correct player means that they can skate around you with ease. I've been messaged numerous times by Finn's who think it's weirdly easy to skate by me and ask if I've got lag. My time on attack is usually around 3 mins to their 11.

The sad thing is, it's actually got worse. Exactly the same problems as last year but feel amplified. Last year I could kind of compensate with solid D, but this year I'm regularly getting done over 9-2 or similar, usually giving up 18 shots or so. EA know about this issue but are either not skilled enough or have no desire to fix it. Utterly, utterly pathetic. I shouldn't have to guess from the username if it's a Finn then try searching for a game over and over until I'm lucky enough to get a Czech or Dane for example. The game is great when it's smooth, but despite great network stats it's NEVER smooth against Finland.

Every single one of my friends in the UK reports the same issue. I challenge ANY representative from EA to try and justify producing the exact same fault as last year or tell me I'm wrong. Fix it or start refunding those who pump money into this game.

You know that is actually spot on.

It's a shame that the Can/Ams can't see it.

If they did then all hell would break loose

h8ttrick

Well I did play fins last year in NHL legacy and I'm an American. Can't say I experienced the same issues you did. I felt like the finns play a very good game seeing as though the way they play hockey in Finland isn't a dangle fest. I felt people played Finnish hockey when I played them online. Where as I would play like an American and basically try to play like it's Madden.

HEP2214

I get crazy lag delay from paying Montreal. Always back out vs them when I can tell with jerseys, logos, name.

eyebrowz84

Don't get me wrong, it's nothing to do with their playing style. You can read a guys style pretty quickly and learn to shut him down. Sometimes I'll come up against someone who just plays really well and beats me - it happens. Message them 'good game' and move on, maybe learn something from them.

The frustrating part is when your players 'aren't there'. It feels like the game just hasn't synchronised properly and as a result your players are ghosts. It sounds crazy, but the best way to describe it is by playing a team of men against a team of holograms. I can play ten year olds with zero skill who take 6 shots on goal all game and they'll still beat me. The only effective defence is to collapse and block as many shots as possible with your D, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to pull your players out of position.

My speed isn't the best (newly built house over here that can't get fibre installed until January when the council take ownership of the roads) but I still pull around 13 down, 1.7 up and in-game 30-35ms ping using an ethernet cable rather than wifi. EA tech support have checked the speeds, performed various tests their end, changed my IP around and tell me it's more than adequate for smooth gamplay

I've never had an issue with any games other than the EA NHL series. FIFA (naturally as it's the biggest game in the UK) doesn't have the problem. I believe firmly it's to do with some kind of compensatory mechanism in the game that balances the speeds out. I'm not a technical guy and can only go off my gut, but whatever it is, it's guaranteed to exist against Finland only. Even the laggy games against Russia (nice geographical pairing there EA!!!) are less painful than against a Finn. It's embarrassingly poor.

eyebrowz84

MrSpireite wrote: »

You know that is actually spot on.

It's a shame that the Can/Ams can't see it.

If they did then all hell would break loose

Yeah. There's some pretty experienced guys over there who would flag this up quickly given the volume of people who play it enough to feel the major issue when they play. I think EA get away with it here because there's so few dedicated players. The impression I get is that the company don't really give a damn and will ignore it because, compared to FIFA, we represent like 0.001% of their user base.

I'd love them to actually send a Dev over to experience the issue first hand. I feel like they can hide from it over there - they'd only need a couple of games to realise just how crippling it is to HUT users here and might then do something to rectify it.

MrSpireite

Yes, I believe it is a hidden problem with FinNish internet speeds as they are the best in the world. Like you say, it's not gameplay, it's going through a game, winning a couple of faceoffs to their 30 and that's just not normal.