Don't buy into this **** that it's your fault guys. Having a ping of 50ms or lower is considered good. Having anything near or under 10 is considered amazing. Yet people are getting delay with such a low ping? Absolute ****! I can go play any other game be it console or PC with my connection and feel 0 input lag. The NHL team needs to own up to this being a problem on their end. It's outrageous to say it's on the consumer when we're hitting 10ms and feeling delay. At such low numbers people should not be able to feel the delay.
Not once have I said it is anyone's fault. I said that it is up to you what ping feels good for you. It is interesting what Seth is saying, that 30 on peer to peer feel better than lower than that on server based gameplay. I have seen him and others say that before and I have mentioned it to the online team but there wasn't a reason yet as to why that could be.
Could you ask your online guys about this? Or get one of them to come on for a little bit?
The Network Performance monitor does a great job predicting how my connection will be for VS games. Usually it's low 30's, and its pretty good. Sometimes better, and the connection feels great.
In EASHL, my ping is usually 10 or 11 ms, no packet loss, and it's not wildly fluctuating either. It's a pretty stable 10-11 ms, but the game plays terribly. Why is that, and is there anything I can do to improve my experience if this is happening?
Also, we always match region, yet sometimes I get pings around 40 ms. That's the same ping I've had in the few instances I've played on East Coast servers, so I assume that's what is going on here. Why I'm I playing on east coast servers if I match my region to exact?
Yes, I will bring this up with them again. I am very curious about this especially with your comparison to versus being better with even a worse ping. I have speculated before asking how other players in the session having worse pings would impact you but it apparently should only effect those individuals. I will dig in again. Thanks for the info.
Right defenseman, who is tracking Ovi the entire way (until he gets dangled for trying to poke and get a break the other way) at the blue, slows down then does several crossovers to his left while keeping faced up and skating laterally the entire way.
If you can do that exact same lateral skating, while facing square up the entire ice, chest parallel to the blue line in NHL 17, I'll shut my mouth. Because you cannot do that in this game. You can slow down, while facing your opponent along the boards, but when you move left laterally, you're going to pivot and skate left. He's moving straight laterally while doing crossovers for half the rink. I know you can do it somewhat while skating backwards, but not perfectly lateral.
The only thing you can't do in the game currently that the defender does in that sequence is when he holds his stick out towards Ovechkin as he pivots to skate backwards when he moves laterally inside the blueline.
What he does with his skates is all possible in the game. The shallow angle changes as he tracks him up ice with the backwards strafing cross overs works and when he takes a sharper angle, he pivots to a backskate but as said above, he keeps his stick out more square. That is why I commented earlier that we would like to get to that so that it isn't only a timed pokecheck you have in that scenario.
The interesting thing in that clip is that he gets beat because he has to transition from backskating to forward to go for the pokecheck and he gets beat back the other way. If he could just strafe and have success at that speed, he wouldn't need to pivot and commit and would never have been beat on that play.
This has been a good discussion though because people like yourself are now talking more about a defensive stick and being able to keep your shoulders and stick more square which to me is different than skating/strafing laterally at high speeds that others talk about.
As for the pass reception in the video. That is an interesting example for 'clunkiness at slow speed'. He is doing a back accel pickup. These are meant to play if you are asking to backskate and pressing away at the same time the puck is coming to you. The most common use would be at the point or going D to D in your own zone so that your dman isn't caught flat footed and can give themselves a bit more space than they could before these were added. In the past, you had to receive the puck and then start skating.
Okay, this is really interesting -- and important. So here's the clip, just so people don't need to go upthread to see it:
So what you're saying is that because I was initially pressing up and to the left on the LS -- which was just me aiming the pass -- Seguin went into a back accel pickup, which meant he had to do that little shuffle backward before pivoting and heading up ice, as I then told him to do with the LS. So this was a case of user error.
I think there are 3 points to make about this:
1) This was a short, relatively hard pass. So I had very little time -- almost no time, in fact -- to move the LS away from top left (which is where it had to be for the pass to go where I wanted it to go) before Seguin caught it. For the game to take my initial pass-aim command to the LS as also a command to Seguin to skate backward after receiving the pass seems, frankly, too demanding. I mean, I have to hold the LS in position long enough to ensure that the pass goes where I want it to. But if I hold it there too long, then the command I think I'm making, which is just "pass it to Seguin," becomes an additional command telling Seguin to backskate. But how long is too long? 0.1 seconds? 0.2 seconds? I don't know. I have to guess.
2) I understand the desire to let us control the pass receiver before he receives the pass, so that we can get him out of trouble, or give him more space. But I think it was a design mistake to make the default option moving the receiver before he receives the pass, because that results in what we see in that clip -- the game creating a result that the user didn't intend.
The more logical way to deal with this, it seems to me, would be to design it so that if you want to control the receiver before he receives the pass, you have to return the LS to the center after you aim the pass and then make a new command. If you don't do that, then the pass receiver would just receive the pass while stationary, and then do whatever you tell him after that. (So in this clip, Seguin would have received the pass and then skated up ice, as I wanted him to do.) In other words, if the user wanted the receiver to move before receiving the pass, he would have to be active in entering a new command. The pass-aim command wouldn't automatically become a command for the receiver to move, which in effect is how it is now.
3) Regardless of all this, it seems like a problem that I'm an experienced user, who's played way too mthe any games of both NHL 16 and 17 (the two games when this feature has been present, I think), and I still didn't realize that I had to return the LS to the center in order to keep Seguin from skating backward. I know, obviously, that holding the LS too long after aiming a pass will move the receiver in that direction (something I learned in NHL 16 by watching my defensemen skate out of the offensive zone again and again when receiving passes back to the point). But in this case, on such a short pass, it never occurred to me that my pass-aim command would translate into a backskate. Now, you can say that I wasn't thinking. But if I didn't realize it, there's no way the average user would know how to play that right. And that doesn't seem like a great thing from a gameplay point of view, since ideally the only things user-controlled players do on the ice are things that the users want them to do.
Finally, I'll just say that even if you end up not changing anything about the way pass receptions work, your posts in this thread are yet more evidence of why this game badly needs an official guide. There are just too many little things about the way the game works that are not obvious, and not easily decipherable just from playing games -- particularly in areas like skating and puck pickups (not to mention strategies). Having a guide, preferably a video one, that says, for instance, "If, when aiming a pass, you keep holding the LS, the pass receiver will move in the direction the LS is aiming before he receives the pass," it would go a long way toward keeping things clear for users. Although, as I say above, I think it makes much more sense to make the default option that the pass receiver just stands still and receives the pass before moving.
I agree, it would be great to have better tutorials and manuals for the game. We have done a better job onboarding players in the last few years but there is a lot more we can do for both new and advanced players to explain how everything works.
I just jumped into practice mode to test this all out again to make sure I wasn't speaking false. For that backward accel to play, as you are passing to a player, you need to be holding VC and pressing away as he goes into his pass reception for him to play that particular pickup. If at anytime, you let go of VC, he will transition and turn on the next available place to pivot based on his strides. So you can exit earlier or later depending on how long you request him to do the backwards accel pickup. He also shouldn't go into that reception if you aren't asking for VC/Backskate during the pickup. I tried it a bunch of times and without it I always got a pickup into a pivot to turn or a player turning before he got the puck if the pass was longer and I got control long enough before the pickup attempt started.
Looking at your input and how you roll a bit from 11 to 12, he actually does exit out earlier than it could possibly go for (not sure the speed you are playing that example back at so not sure exactly how many frame it took for him to transition). If you held that direction and VC longer, he can take at last another accelerating stride if it was a situation where you wanted to.
I also get that you are pressing that direction to pass but if you do want your next player to receive a puck standing still, you do need to let go of the left stick. Even without VC, he will turn and skate away as soon as control switches over if you don't.
This was all done to give more control to players, not less, but I do understand where you are running into issues with it since it is too quick for you to be controlling the next player in your case.
Could you ask your online guys about this? Or get one of them to come on for a little bit?
The Network Performance monitor does a great job predicting how my connection will be for VS games. Usually it's low 30's, and its pretty good. Sometimes better, and the connection feels great.
In EASHL, my ping is usually 10 or 11 ms, no packet loss, and it's not wildly fluctuating either. It's a pretty stable 10-11 ms, but the game plays terribly. Why is that, and is there anything I can do to improve my experience if this is happening?
Also, we always match region, yet sometimes I get pings around 40 ms. That's the same ping I've had in the few instances I've played on East Coast servers, so I assume that's what is going on here. Why I'm I playing on east coast servers if I match my region to exact?
Yes, I will bring this up with them again. I am very curious about this especially with your comparison to versus being better with even a worse ping. I have speculated before asking how other players in the session having worse pings would impact you but it apparently should only effect those individuals. I will dig in again. Thanks for the info.
Aren't you forgetting that in EASHL ping tells only YOUR connection quality to the server (presumably)? It says nothing about they other guys' net connections, which could be all over the place? Whereas VS is pvp, is there even EA server in the equation? Unless you mean OTP?
But hey fun fact, I played solo play HUT game today, and had to pause the game to sign a parcel, took me no longer than 5 mins, and when I got back to the game, it says 'connection lost to EA servers', and I get a 3-0 loss. Had to restart the game to get HUT working again...So who the heck knows what is going on with this ****.
Aren't you forgetting that in EASHL ping tells only YOUR connection quality to the server (presumably)? It says nothing about they other guys' net connections, which could be all over the place? Whereas VS is pvp, is there even EA server in the equation? Unless you mean OTP?
Ya, that is my point, I want to understand more how other peoples connections to the server can impact you. If he is feeling worse with a better ping, something is going on there and from what I was told before, other people would feel the delay if they had a worse connection to the server but they aren't supposed to impact you as their player would keep sending the same input that it was until it got a new one, meaning someone with a quick ping would still see the playe with a worse ping skating straight for 5 frames when they may have wanted to turn but they will only turn once their input gets there and the other player would then see that right away. Something like that anyways. Will see what else I can find out.
Right defenseman, who is tracking Ovi the entire way (until he gets dangled for trying to poke and get a break the other way) at the blue, slows down then does several crossovers to his left while keeping faced up and skating laterally the entire way.
If you can do that exact same lateral skating, while facing square up the entire ice, chest parallel to the blue line in NHL 17, I'll shut my mouth. Because you cannot do that in this game. You can slow down, while facing your opponent along the boards, but when you move left laterally, you're going to pivot and skate left. He's moving straight laterally while doing crossovers for half the rink. I know you can do it somewhat while skating backwards, but not perfectly lateral.
The only thing you can't do in the game currently that the defender does in that sequence is when he holds his stick out towards Ovechkin as he pivots to skate backwards when he moves laterally inside the blueline.
What he does with his skates is all possible in the game. The shallow angle changes as he tracks him up ice with the backwards strafing cross overs works and when he takes a sharper angle, he pivots to a backskate but as said above, he keeps his stick out more square. That is why I commented earlier that we would like to get to that so that it isn't only a timed pokecheck you have in that scenario.
The interesting thing in that clip is that he gets beat because he has to transition from backskating to forward to go for the pokecheck and he gets beat back the other way. If he could just strafe and have success at that speed, he wouldn't need to pivot and commit and would never have been beat on that play.
This has been a good discussion though because people like yourself are now talking more about a defensive stick and being able to keep your shoulders and stick more square which to me is different than skating/strafing laterally at high speeds that others talk about.
I think that's what we all want. Is for the shoulders and stick to be able to face up ice or square to something other than where our bodies are facing. I know that every time I try this in game, I end up turning towards the side boards. I can start the animation, where he skates backwards and then does the strafe, but if I were to follow an attacker like Ovi in this sequence, I'd eventually be turned parallel to him and face the side wall.
If there is any other way for me to travel laterally (I'm aware down and lateral is possible, or diagonal for lack of a better reference is possible) and to keep squared upwards, I would love some type of video evidence or a tutorial of sorts. I can't square up the way I'd like in this game.
Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're saying?
Logically you'd had to adjust the gameplay according to the slowest connection speed, wouldn't you? So if there's one bad egg, it spoils the game for anyone, no matter how fast you connection is? But what with possible lag compensation and all funny things happen and the ones with fastest connection still have the most responsive, agile and quick players? That's my guess anyways...
Right defenseman, who is tracking Ovi the entire way (until he gets dangled for trying to poke and get a break the other way) at the blue, slows down then does several crossovers to his left while keeping faced up and skating laterally the entire way.
If you can do that exact same lateral skating, while facing square up the entire ice, chest parallel to the blue line in NHL 17, I'll shut my mouth. Because you cannot do that in this game. You can slow down, while facing your opponent along the boards, but when you move left laterally, you're going to pivot and skate left. He's moving straight laterally while doing crossovers for half the rink. I know you can do it somewhat while skating backwards, but not perfectly lateral.
The only thing you can't do in the game currently that the defender does in that sequence is when he holds his stick out towards Ovechkin as he pivots to skate backwards when he moves laterally inside the blueline.
What he does with his skates is all possible in the game. The shallow angle changes as he tracks him up ice with the backwards strafing cross overs works and when he takes a sharper angle, he pivots to a backskate but as said above, he keeps his stick out more square. That is why I commented earlier that we would like to get to that so that it isn't only a timed pokecheck you have in that scenario.
The interesting thing in that clip is that he gets beat because he has to transition from backskating to forward to go for the pokecheck and he gets beat back the other way. If he could just strafe and have success at that speed, he wouldn't need to pivot and commit and would never have been beat on that play.
This has been a good discussion though because people like yourself are now talking more about a defensive stick and being able to keep your shoulders and stick more square which to me is different than skating/strafing laterally at high speeds that others talk about.
I think that's what we all want. Is for the shoulders and stick to be able to face up ice or square to something other than where our bodies are facing. I know that every time I try this in game, I end up turning towards the side boards. I can start the animation, where he skates backwards and then does the strafe, but if I were to follow an attacker like Ovi in this sequence, I'd eventually be turned parallel to him and face the side wall.
If there is any other way for me to travel laterally (I'm aware down and lateral is possible, or diagonal for lack of a better reference is possible) and to keep squared upwards, I would love some type of video evidence or a tutorial of sorts. I can't square up the way I'd like in this game.
Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're saying?
Yup, all we want is to face the puck. The skating engine should be doing the necessary work to keep us squared to the shooter while holding down VC, whether that be strafing, side stepping or pivots. We are definitely not asking to be able to skate sideways at full speed.
We don't need a tutorial on how to properly use TPS, you are missing the point out of "defense" of your teams efforts.
Look, hats off to you and your teams efforts in terms of ground breaking stuff, TPS by definition sounds awesome!!! The point is it plays bad, very bad!!!
So don't take this personal, your team shouldn't take this personal. Instead, take a step back and accept reality and say "ok, we need to rethink this, people aren't liking it".
You kept mentioning "realism" to some degree. Offline modes are great for "reality", online modes ARE NOT!!!!
TPS is slow, clunky, wonky, uncontrollable many times per game. What we need to realize here is that this isn't real life, in real life we have first person perspective, head on a swivel, you can see what's coming and plan your moves ahead of time. In this game we are controlling 6" tall characters on a TV screen, there is no true special awareness thus this video game is all about last second "reactions" not planned moved. When you "react" in this game you jam your controller in a direction quickly but TPS won't react. You end up fighting it all game long, react but no control, react but no control. In a game where its always back and forth last second reactions you NEED CONTROL!!!
You said it yourself, you played back in "EASHL" glory days, that they were just that! The glory days, nobody can deny that, today's EASHL is a ghost town in comparison. I am no different that many others who complain about TPS on this issue, I used to run with 6's clubs every single night, 4 to 5 hours per night, dedicated. We only have a handful of people left that still play, we end up playing 2's for a game, out time on attack, out shoot, out hit, etc. and win nail biters or lose to people we shouldn't lose to in many cases and we just express our frustration verbally to one another and basically say, "eh, wanna play something else?, sure".
I understand HUT is alive, but you cannot deny EASHL is on life support. By all means, keep your money maker going on HUT, but for the life of me I cannot understand why EA is ok with letting EASHL die as a side effect? EASHL is a very popular game mode when done right.
You are not giving the hardcore fans any hope EA will improve the control and feel of TPS, instead you reinforce tutorials on how TPS is supposed to work and how the game is moving in the current direction, etc. Why not listen to us? We play the game!!!
You have to realize most of the people who like TPS and the game the way it is are mostly offline players who want sim. TPS in offline mode is much more controllable than online so to them they don't see what the big fuss is about. HUT and Vs. to a lesser degree has issues as its P2P and you are always switching players. However in EASHL/OTP you get the biggest effects because you are player locked and feel every turn, change in direction, movement all game long.
TPS sounds good, it looks good on paper, but for online play it plays bad, very bad!
The NHL game was already a small population, niche game. EA is making it even smaller as loyal fans are leaving in droves, of course some are replaced with another generation of gamers, but these gamers are HUT players and offline sim players, EASHL/OTP is dying.
SAVE it!! EA... Save it, save EASHL,OTP... Fix TPS.
You said it yourself, you played back in "EASHL" glory days, that they were just that! The glory days, nobody can deny that, today's EASHL is a ghost town in comparison. I am no different that many others who complain about TPS on this issue, I used to run with 6's clubs every single night, 4 to 5 hours per night, dedicated. We only have a handful of people left that still play, we end up playing 2's for a game, out time on attack, out shoot, out hit, etc. and win nail biters or lose to people we shouldn't lose to in many cases and we just express our frustration verbally to one another and basically say, "eh, wanna play something else?, sure".
This has been the exact experience of my friends and I. Used to all be obsessed with this game, at least 7 of us online at all times (so we'd have to have people sit out some games). We all bought EA Access to try the game out after buying NHL 16 and playing for a week. We played like the Friday night after the EA Access Early release. A couple hours in we were just like this game is just not fun. None of us bought it. Didn't even play the full 10 hours.
We are all real life hockey players, a couple at relatively high levels. I disagree with the fact that TPS makes the game more realistic. When playing hockey you don't have to think about pivoting properly and how to skate with an on-rushing forward, you just do it because skating is second nature to you. That is NOT the case in this game now. You are constantly trying to figure out how to skate. There shouldn't have to be button combos to skate properly. We want to play hockey, not a skating sim.
Maybe the sales figures for the game tell them that in general the population likes the game and we are only a vocal minority. If that is the case then I get it, why change? The game shouldn't be just what we want it to be (the people in this thread). But EADev if you guys are selling less copies and making less money I guarantee it is because this skating engine is making the game less fun.
While the skating physics are way more realistic I think the game is way less realistic from an overall hockey perspective. This is borne out in the fact that I actually have fun when playing real hockey and this game feels like a chore.
We don't need a tutorial on how to properly use TPS
Speak for yourself. As long as TPS is in the game, there absolutely needs to be a tutorial. I had no idea holding LT before a player received a pass would make him backskate once he received it. If I assumed it did anything, I assumed it just made him face the puck, the way it does for offensive players in the offensive zone. There are lots of little things like that about the way the game works that are unclear, and that a guide would help clear up.
I think that's what we all want. Is for the shoulders and stick to be able to face up ice or square to something other than where our bodies are facing. I know that every time I try this in game, I end up turning towards the side boards. I can start the animation, where he skates backwards and then does the strafe, but if I were to follow an attacker like Ovi in this sequence, I'd eventually be turned parallel to him and face the side wall.
If there is any other way for me to travel laterally (I'm aware down and lateral is possible, or diagonal for lack of a better reference is possible) and to keep squared upwards, I would love some type of video evidence or a tutorial of sorts. I can't square up the way I'd like in this game.
Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're saying?
Yup, all we want is to face the puck. The skating engine should be doing the necessary work to keep us squared to the shooter while holding down VC, whether that be strafing, side stepping or pivots. We are definitely not asking to be able to skate sideways at full speed.
Ok. This is where you both contradict each other. megadeth is saying he wants the game to go into strafes for him and Gandhi is saying that he just wants the upper body to turn.
In the real world clips we are looking at, the player isn't strafing when moving laterally, they are turning their hips and backskating. They then rotate their upper body and keep a stick in the lane. In our game right now, you can't do that but that is what I am saying would be the addition, not going back to a skating model where you can strafe at high speed.
You both agree that you don't want to strafe at high speed but if that is the case, there is nothing to tell the game when you want to strafe vs want to backskate, especially with only two inputs (stick and VC modifier). Right now, the game does the best job it can to keep you facing the angle to keep the puck in your front 180 degrees using the skating it has available and since you aren't rotating your upper body unique from your lower body, he is facing parallel to his skates until you pokecheck.
That is why I said that we would need to rotate the upper body to stay square to the puck but that it wouldn't be to go into strafes for you since you need full manual control over your speed in case you do want to skate with speed (in this case backskate) to track the puck carrier and keep a tighter gap, which means to move laterally on the ice at speed, you need to be forwards or backwards skating.
We also know that from slow speeds that playrs can strafe, that is where precision skating comes in and we have also said we need to do a better job blending this with core skating and make the controls more intuitive but that type of skating isn't used as often as people say compared to players having to pivot their hips, so that is why it is prioritized the way it is.
We don't need a tutorial on how to properly use TPS, you are missing the point out of "defense" of your teams efforts.
You are reading things out of context. The response on tutorials was to bmh in regards to input needed to infer how you want to pickup a puck (staying skating backwards or turning, receiving it as you look backwards, or receiving it and then turning). Tutorials isn't in place of making mechanics better. Regardless of the skating engine used, more tutorials would help show everything that is possible in game so that Players could take advantage, learn the subtle pieces of where they can have more control and eventually use them as second nature.
If I wasn't interested in making the skating better, I wouldn't be here. There are differences in talking theory about skating and breaking down real world clips, how we plan to replicate that in game and also how we plan to give as intuitive control as possible to control all those things.
Honeslty if we can just get the lag out of the game , thing would be a million times better .
When I have a smooth online experience it translates to better success in all areas and this game's shortcomings, doesnt actually seem all that bad . I'm sure that rings true for all of us .
It just blows my mind how my ping is usually on average of 12ms no packet loss and I can easily tell that those numbers are clearly misleading becuase I can feel the delay.
"more tutorials would help show everything that is possible in game so that Players could take advantage, learn the subtle pieces of where they can have more control and eventually use them as second nature."
That is where communication breaks down, its not lack of knowing how to use it for most, its the fact on a tv controlling 6" tall characters you don't have the luxury of true first person spacial awareness/timing. So in this game you are constantly reacting last second, the entire game is a series of reactions over and over again. In order to use TPS effectively you have to plan your moves ahead of time and always be a step ahead of opponent, but the nature of this game only allows a few moments like that in a typical game, the rest of the time is spend reacting last second.
It's this last second reacting that turns this game into "jam the controller here or there" but your skater doesn't do what you tell it, because of momentum, weight, TPS, etc.
Its a simple matter of the type of game this is doesn't comply well with TPS, its in direct conflict with the way the game is played. Its a read/react game, you must have instant control/feedback of your skater.
Another way to look at this, is if you are driving your car on a wet road and youre trying to beat that red light, you find out last second you won't make it and hit the breaks, you slide/drift, keep going and cannot stop. This is sim, this is real life, but this doesn't play well in a video game, you have to be able to stop to avoid, turn, react with responsiveness in a video game. for every one moment you plan your movements, under control, using TPS there are 9 others you are forced to jam the controller in a reaction.
This is the lack of control/feel we are talking about, the game has mind of its own, you play all game being that car on a wet road, out of control.
"more tutorials would help show everything that is possible in game so that Players could take advantage, learn the subtle pieces of where they can have more control and eventually use them as second nature."
That is where communication breaks down, its not lack of knowing how to use it for most, its the fact on a tv controlling 6" tall characters you don't have the luxury of true first person spacial awareness/timing.
So in this game you are constantly reacting last second, the entire game is a series of reactions over and over again. In order to use TPS effectively you have to plan your moves ahead of time and always be a step ahead of opponent, but the nature of this game only allows a few moments like that in a typical game, the rest of the time is spend reacting last second.
Not every comment I write in this thread is directed at you personally. Bmh is a guy that would want to know all the subtle pieces at his disposal. You may already know how to use the pieces but don't feel you have full control as you have said. Two different topics.
Another way to look at this, is if you are driving your car on a wet road and youre trying to beat that red light, you find out last second you won't make it and hit the breaks, you slide/drift, keep going and cannot stop. This is sim, this is real life, but this doesn't play well in a video game, you have to be able to stop to avoid, turn, react with responsiveness in a video game. for every one moment you plan your movements, under control, using TPS there are 9 others you are forced to jam the controller in a reaction.
This is the lack of control/feel we are talking about, the game has mind of its own, you play all game being that car on a wet road, out of control.
I have heard what you are saying and there are multiple roads there. You need to make less split second changes if we look more at offensive capabilities which has been brought up in this thread and you will have more control, the more we improve skating. Again, something I have said, I am in here to understand so that we can do that.
In our game, you have a player heading towards your net so everything is funneling it at some point, the dangerous red light is him taking a good shot all of a sudden from a prime location or making a move to beat you but like the position of the red light, you know where that is and you also know what commitments and where on the ice make you vulnerable, so you can either recognize the possible locations of lights in the rain, prepare for the amber light or you can go full speed and commit risking getting burned and sliding through the intersection. The better prepared player understanding the risk/reward and how to manage it will have the most success.
The first person perspective argument is also something that can go both ways. In our game, you shouldn't have to have to react as quick because you see everything from a top down view and can plan ahead/know your risks further ahead in a lot of cases.
At the end of the day though, we could go back and forth here. I get what you have issues with and we are still working on improving our hockey game. Not sure what more can be said until you get a game that you prefer more.
Look at this glorious video, it shows exactly what is missing from the game. That ability to, while in motion, open up. This desperately needs to be represented in the video game, it is a very important part of skating and playing hockey.
This technique and ability to open yourself up to the play, while moving, on both offense and defense is simply not built into TPS, that NEEDS to change.
Watch how he demonstrates the ability to turn the lead skate and hip and open up. You can do normal crossovers and then open up when you want or need to, then close off again and go back to crossovers, then open up again and so on.
Watch when he starts going all the way around the circle while open up and square to the middle. This ability to stay open and square can and would be used ALL THE TIME in both the offensive zone and defensive zone in the video game.
This video perfectly demonstrates what is missing from the game, the ability to open yourself up to the play while in motion. Whether you open up for a second or two and then close off again or whether you stay open and square for an extended period of time, these things aren't unrealistic and are essential skating techniques constantly used in hockey.
You always mention that you don't want to go back to NHL 12 where you could "skate across your blades". This video shows how you can open up while in motion, you aren't skating across your blades.
Please, it has been 5 years now that this essential part of hockey, the ability to open up to a target and stay square while moving has not existing in your game. This may seem minor to you and you may think that NHL players rarely do these things, but you are simply wrong. This stuff would be used constantly both on offense and defense in your game.
Much easier said than done, but give us this ability, make it control/transition/FEEL smooth and your game instantly becomes infinitely more fun for every single person who plays it.
Look at this glorious video, it shows exactly what is missing from the game. That ability to, while in motion, open up. This desperately needs to be represented in the video game, it is a very important part of skating and playing hockey.
This technique and ability to open yourself up to the play, while moving, on both offense and defense is simply not built into TPS, that NEEDS to change.
Watch how he demonstrates the ability to turn the lead skate and hip and open up. You can do normal crossovers and then open up when you want or need to, then close off again and go back to crossovers, then open up again and so on.
Watch when he starts going all the way around the circle while open up and square to the middle. This ability to stay open and square can and would be used ALL THE TIME in both the offensive zone and defensive zone in the video game.
This video perfectly demonstrates what is missing from the game, the ability to open yourself up to the play while in motion. Whether you open up for a second or two and then close off again or whether you stay open and square for an extended period of time, these things aren't unrealistic and are essential skating techniques constantly used in hockey.
You always mention that you don't want to go back to NHL 12 where you could "skate across your blades". This video shows how you can open up while in motion, you aren't skating across your blades.
Please, it has been 5 years now that this essential part of hockey, the ability to open up to a target and stay square while moving has not existing in your game. This may seem minor to you and you may think that NHL players rarely do these things, but you are simply wrong. This stuff would be used constantly both on offense and defense in your game.
Much easier said than done, but give us this ability, make it control/transition/FEEL smooth and your game instantly becomes infinitely more fun for every single person who plays it.
Yep, I get it. We are working on more control.
And I get that players can do mohawks and keep their forward facing without a full pivot commitment when making forward arcing motion. This won't help you when tracking laterally or backwards slightly on defense though. you would need to able to turn your front ankle beyond 90 degrees to the outside.
Better comparisons for defensive players have been strafes when talking about lower speeds and/or the ability to rotate your upper body unique from your lower body when talking about high speeds.
Either way, it isn't about skating tutorial videos, we get what people are after, we know what is physically possible on skates, we know that we need to keep the controls intuitive, feedback has been taken and we are onward from there.
Replies
Not once have I said it is anyone's fault. I said that it is up to you what ping feels good for you. It is interesting what Seth is saying, that 30 on peer to peer feel better than lower than that on server based gameplay. I have seen him and others say that before and I have mentioned it to the online team but there wasn't a reason yet as to why that could be.
Yes, I will bring this up with them again. I am very curious about this especially with your comparison to versus being better with even a worse ping. I have speculated before asking how other players in the session having worse pings would impact you but it apparently should only effect those individuals. I will dig in again. Thanks for the info.
The only thing you can't do in the game currently that the defender does in that sequence is when he holds his stick out towards Ovechkin as he pivots to skate backwards when he moves laterally inside the blueline.
What he does with his skates is all possible in the game. The shallow angle changes as he tracks him up ice with the backwards strafing cross overs works and when he takes a sharper angle, he pivots to a backskate but as said above, he keeps his stick out more square. That is why I commented earlier that we would like to get to that so that it isn't only a timed pokecheck you have in that scenario.
The interesting thing in that clip is that he gets beat because he has to transition from backskating to forward to go for the pokecheck and he gets beat back the other way. If he could just strafe and have success at that speed, he wouldn't need to pivot and commit and would never have been beat on that play.
This has been a good discussion though because people like yourself are now talking more about a defensive stick and being able to keep your shoulders and stick more square which to me is different than skating/strafing laterally at high speeds that others talk about.
I agree, it would be great to have better tutorials and manuals for the game. We have done a better job onboarding players in the last few years but there is a lot more we can do for both new and advanced players to explain how everything works.
I just jumped into practice mode to test this all out again to make sure I wasn't speaking false. For that backward accel to play, as you are passing to a player, you need to be holding VC and pressing away as he goes into his pass reception for him to play that particular pickup. If at anytime, you let go of VC, he will transition and turn on the next available place to pivot based on his strides. So you can exit earlier or later depending on how long you request him to do the backwards accel pickup. He also shouldn't go into that reception if you aren't asking for VC/Backskate during the pickup. I tried it a bunch of times and without it I always got a pickup into a pivot to turn or a player turning before he got the puck if the pass was longer and I got control long enough before the pickup attempt started.
Looking at your input and how you roll a bit from 11 to 12, he actually does exit out earlier than it could possibly go for (not sure the speed you are playing that example back at so not sure exactly how many frame it took for him to transition). If you held that direction and VC longer, he can take at last another accelerating stride if it was a situation where you wanted to.
I also get that you are pressing that direction to pass but if you do want your next player to receive a puck standing still, you do need to let go of the left stick. Even without VC, he will turn and skate away as soon as control switches over if you don't.
This was all done to give more control to players, not less, but I do understand where you are running into issues with it since it is too quick for you to be controlling the next player in your case.
Aren't you forgetting that in EASHL ping tells only YOUR connection quality to the server (presumably)? It says nothing about they other guys' net connections, which could be all over the place? Whereas VS is pvp, is there even EA server in the equation? Unless you mean OTP?
But hey fun fact, I played solo play HUT game today, and had to pause the game to sign a parcel, took me no longer than 5 mins, and when I got back to the game, it says 'connection lost to EA servers', and I get a 3-0 loss. Had to restart the game to get HUT working again...So who the heck knows what is going on with this ****.
Ya, that is my point, I want to understand more how other peoples connections to the server can impact you. If he is feeling worse with a better ping, something is going on there and from what I was told before, other people would feel the delay if they had a worse connection to the server but they aren't supposed to impact you as their player would keep sending the same input that it was until it got a new one, meaning someone with a quick ping would still see the playe with a worse ping skating straight for 5 frames when they may have wanted to turn but they will only turn once their input gets there and the other player would then see that right away. Something like that anyways. Will see what else I can find out.
I think that's what we all want. Is for the shoulders and stick to be able to face up ice or square to something other than where our bodies are facing. I know that every time I try this in game, I end up turning towards the side boards. I can start the animation, where he skates backwards and then does the strafe, but if I were to follow an attacker like Ovi in this sequence, I'd eventually be turned parallel to him and face the side wall.
If there is any other way for me to travel laterally (I'm aware down and lateral is possible, or diagonal for lack of a better reference is possible) and to keep squared upwards, I would love some type of video evidence or a tutorial of sorts. I can't square up the way I'd like in this game.
Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're saying?
Yup, all we want is to face the puck. The skating engine should be doing the necessary work to keep us squared to the shooter while holding down VC, whether that be strafing, side stepping or pivots. We are definitely not asking to be able to skate sideways at full speed.
Come on man!
We don't need a tutorial on how to properly use TPS, you are missing the point out of "defense" of your teams efforts.
Look, hats off to you and your teams efforts in terms of ground breaking stuff, TPS by definition sounds awesome!!! The point is it plays bad, very bad!!!
So don't take this personal, your team shouldn't take this personal. Instead, take a step back and accept reality and say "ok, we need to rethink this, people aren't liking it".
You kept mentioning "realism" to some degree. Offline modes are great for "reality", online modes ARE NOT!!!!
TPS is slow, clunky, wonky, uncontrollable many times per game. What we need to realize here is that this isn't real life, in real life we have first person perspective, head on a swivel, you can see what's coming and plan your moves ahead of time. In this game we are controlling 6" tall characters on a TV screen, there is no true special awareness thus this video game is all about last second "reactions" not planned moved. When you "react" in this game you jam your controller in a direction quickly but TPS won't react. You end up fighting it all game long, react but no control, react but no control. In a game where its always back and forth last second reactions you NEED CONTROL!!!
You said it yourself, you played back in "EASHL" glory days, that they were just that! The glory days, nobody can deny that, today's EASHL is a ghost town in comparison. I am no different that many others who complain about TPS on this issue, I used to run with 6's clubs every single night, 4 to 5 hours per night, dedicated. We only have a handful of people left that still play, we end up playing 2's for a game, out time on attack, out shoot, out hit, etc. and win nail biters or lose to people we shouldn't lose to in many cases and we just express our frustration verbally to one another and basically say, "eh, wanna play something else?, sure".
I understand HUT is alive, but you cannot deny EASHL is on life support. By all means, keep your money maker going on HUT, but for the life of me I cannot understand why EA is ok with letting EASHL die as a side effect? EASHL is a very popular game mode when done right.
You are not giving the hardcore fans any hope EA will improve the control and feel of TPS, instead you reinforce tutorials on how TPS is supposed to work and how the game is moving in the current direction, etc. Why not listen to us? We play the game!!!
You have to realize most of the people who like TPS and the game the way it is are mostly offline players who want sim. TPS in offline mode is much more controllable than online so to them they don't see what the big fuss is about. HUT and Vs. to a lesser degree has issues as its P2P and you are always switching players. However in EASHL/OTP you get the biggest effects because you are player locked and feel every turn, change in direction, movement all game long.
TPS sounds good, it looks good on paper, but for online play it plays bad, very bad!
The NHL game was already a small population, niche game. EA is making it even smaller as loyal fans are leaving in droves, of course some are replaced with another generation of gamers, but these gamers are HUT players and offline sim players, EASHL/OTP is dying.
SAVE it!! EA... Save it, save EASHL,OTP... Fix TPS.
This has been the exact experience of my friends and I. Used to all be obsessed with this game, at least 7 of us online at all times (so we'd have to have people sit out some games). We all bought EA Access to try the game out after buying NHL 16 and playing for a week. We played like the Friday night after the EA Access Early release. A couple hours in we were just like this game is just not fun. None of us bought it. Didn't even play the full 10 hours.
We are all real life hockey players, a couple at relatively high levels. I disagree with the fact that TPS makes the game more realistic. When playing hockey you don't have to think about pivoting properly and how to skate with an on-rushing forward, you just do it because skating is second nature to you. That is NOT the case in this game now. You are constantly trying to figure out how to skate. There shouldn't have to be button combos to skate properly. We want to play hockey, not a skating sim.
Maybe the sales figures for the game tell them that in general the population likes the game and we are only a vocal minority. If that is the case then I get it, why change? The game shouldn't be just what we want it to be (the people in this thread). But EADev if you guys are selling less copies and making less money I guarantee it is because this skating engine is making the game less fun.
While the skating physics are way more realistic I think the game is way less realistic from an overall hockey perspective. This is borne out in the fact that I actually have fun when playing real hockey and this game feels like a chore.
Speak for yourself. As long as TPS is in the game, there absolutely needs to be a tutorial. I had no idea holding LT before a player received a pass would make him backskate once he received it. If I assumed it did anything, I assumed it just made him face the puck, the way it does for offensive players in the offensive zone. There are lots of little things like that about the way the game works that are unclear, and that a guide would help clear up.
Ok. This is where you both contradict each other. megadeth is saying he wants the game to go into strafes for him and Gandhi is saying that he just wants the upper body to turn.
In the real world clips we are looking at, the player isn't strafing when moving laterally, they are turning their hips and backskating. They then rotate their upper body and keep a stick in the lane. In our game right now, you can't do that but that is what I am saying would be the addition, not going back to a skating model where you can strafe at high speed.
You both agree that you don't want to strafe at high speed but if that is the case, there is nothing to tell the game when you want to strafe vs want to backskate, especially with only two inputs (stick and VC modifier). Right now, the game does the best job it can to keep you facing the angle to keep the puck in your front 180 degrees using the skating it has available and since you aren't rotating your upper body unique from your lower body, he is facing parallel to his skates until you pokecheck.
That is why I said that we would need to rotate the upper body to stay square to the puck but that it wouldn't be to go into strafes for you since you need full manual control over your speed in case you do want to skate with speed (in this case backskate) to track the puck carrier and keep a tighter gap, which means to move laterally on the ice at speed, you need to be forwards or backwards skating.
We also know that from slow speeds that playrs can strafe, that is where precision skating comes in and we have also said we need to do a better job blending this with core skating and make the controls more intuitive but that type of skating isn't used as often as people say compared to players having to pivot their hips, so that is why it is prioritized the way it is.
You are reading things out of context. The response on tutorials was to bmh in regards to input needed to infer how you want to pickup a puck (staying skating backwards or turning, receiving it as you look backwards, or receiving it and then turning). Tutorials isn't in place of making mechanics better. Regardless of the skating engine used, more tutorials would help show everything that is possible in game so that Players could take advantage, learn the subtle pieces of where they can have more control and eventually use them as second nature.
If I wasn't interested in making the skating better, I wouldn't be here. There are differences in talking theory about skating and breaking down real world clips, how we plan to replicate that in game and also how we plan to give as intuitive control as possible to control all those things.
When I have a smooth online experience it translates to better success in all areas and this game's shortcomings, doesnt actually seem all that bad . I'm sure that rings true for all of us .
It just blows my mind how my ping is usually on average of 12ms no packet loss and I can easily tell that those numbers are clearly misleading becuase I can feel the delay.
That is where communication breaks down, its not lack of knowing how to use it for most, its the fact on a tv controlling 6" tall characters you don't have the luxury of true first person spacial awareness/timing. So in this game you are constantly reacting last second, the entire game is a series of reactions over and over again. In order to use TPS effectively you have to plan your moves ahead of time and always be a step ahead of opponent, but the nature of this game only allows a few moments like that in a typical game, the rest of the time is spend reacting last second.
It's this last second reacting that turns this game into "jam the controller here or there" but your skater doesn't do what you tell it, because of momentum, weight, TPS, etc.
Its a simple matter of the type of game this is doesn't comply well with TPS, its in direct conflict with the way the game is played. Its a read/react game, you must have instant control/feedback of your skater.
Another way to look at this, is if you are driving your car on a wet road and youre trying to beat that red light, you find out last second you won't make it and hit the breaks, you slide/drift, keep going and cannot stop. This is sim, this is real life, but this doesn't play well in a video game, you have to be able to stop to avoid, turn, react with responsiveness in a video game. for every one moment you plan your movements, under control, using TPS there are 9 others you are forced to jam the controller in a reaction.
This is the lack of control/feel we are talking about, the game has mind of its own, you play all game being that car on a wet road, out of control.
I have heard what you are saying and there are multiple roads there. You need to make less split second changes if we look more at offensive capabilities which has been brought up in this thread and you will have more control, the more we improve skating. Again, something I have said, I am in here to understand so that we can do that.
In our game, you have a player heading towards your net so everything is funneling it at some point, the dangerous red light is him taking a good shot all of a sudden from a prime location or making a move to beat you but like the position of the red light, you know where that is and you also know what commitments and where on the ice make you vulnerable, so you can either recognize the possible locations of lights in the rain, prepare for the amber light or you can go full speed and commit risking getting burned and sliding through the intersection. The better prepared player understanding the risk/reward and how to manage it will have the most success.
The first person perspective argument is also something that can go both ways. In our game, you shouldn't have to have to react as quick because you see everything from a top down view and can plan ahead/know your risks further ahead in a lot of cases.
At the end of the day though, we could go back and forth here. I get what you have issues with and we are still working on improving our hockey game. Not sure what more can be said until you get a game that you prefer more.
Look at this glorious video, it shows exactly what is missing from the game. That ability to, while in motion, open up. This desperately needs to be represented in the video game, it is a very important part of skating and playing hockey.
This technique and ability to open yourself up to the play, while moving, on both offense and defense is simply not built into TPS, that NEEDS to change.
Watch how he demonstrates the ability to turn the lead skate and hip and open up. You can do normal crossovers and then open up when you want or need to, then close off again and go back to crossovers, then open up again and so on.
Watch when he starts going all the way around the circle while open up and square to the middle. This ability to stay open and square can and would be used ALL THE TIME in both the offensive zone and defensive zone in the video game.
This video perfectly demonstrates what is missing from the game, the ability to open yourself up to the play while in motion. Whether you open up for a second or two and then close off again or whether you stay open and square for an extended period of time, these things aren't unrealistic and are essential skating techniques constantly used in hockey.
You always mention that you don't want to go back to NHL 12 where you could "skate across your blades". This video shows how you can open up while in motion, you aren't skating across your blades.
Please, it has been 5 years now that this essential part of hockey, the ability to open up to a target and stay square while moving has not existing in your game. This may seem minor to you and you may think that NHL players rarely do these things, but you are simply wrong. This stuff would be used constantly both on offense and defense in your game.
Much easier said than done, but give us this ability, make it control/transition/FEEL smooth and your game instantly becomes infinitely more fun for every single person who plays it.
Yep, I get it. We are working on more control.
And I get that players can do mohawks and keep their forward facing without a full pivot commitment when making forward arcing motion. This won't help you when tracking laterally or backwards slightly on defense though. you would need to able to turn your front ankle beyond 90 degrees to the outside.
Better comparisons for defensive players have been strafes when talking about lower speeds and/or the ability to rotate your upper body unique from your lower body when talking about high speeds.
Either way, it isn't about skating tutorial videos, we get what people are after, we know what is physically possible on skates, we know that we need to keep the controls intuitive, feedback has been taken and we are onward from there.