Just go into practice mode, leave the puck in the middle of a circle, and try to skate around the circle and face the puck. Can't do it. What that guy is showing us, essential skating techniques, are completely not in the game.
This very important deficiency in skating, along with the clunkiness and tiring FEELING in the controls, as demonstrated by the AI in this video, of having to constantly tap and readjust and tap and readjust are the 2 biggest issues in your game. Fix these issues that have plagued your game for 5 years now, and the fun factor/addictiveness/playability will instantly be back and pretty much all other issues will justy be minor annoyances.
Fix these issues that have plagued your game for 5 years now, and the fun factor/addictiveness/playability will instantly be back and pretty much all other issues will justy be minor annoyances.
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.
I don't think this would be needed when tracking backwards on defense. You guys added the crossovers/strafing to defense when skating backwards in 14 and that stuff works great.
Using this technique would be more when you are in the offensive or defensive zone, without the puck, and want to contain an opposing player or open yourself up to the play while moving.
What is physically possible on skates, like shown in that video, is completely missing from your game and has been for 5 years now since TPS.
Obviously I don't know the stats on sales numbers and player retention (core users who play basically every week all year long) since NHL 13, but I'm willing to believe that since TPS was introduced (which came along with these big issues of the absence of important skating techniques and clunky/tiring feeling controls) that player retention is noticeably down.
There are a lot of people that used to play this game all the time every year all year. The majority of those people still want to do this but the game just isn't as fun anymore. Solve these 2 issues and people will begin to come back to the game and stick around and play longer without a doubt.
@NHLDev
You can make the best NHL game ever but until the control and FEEL becomes good again the game won't reach it's potential.
People have been debating about glory days of NHL 12 vs what we have now. The game now is better than what it was back then, no doubt. I've said it before though, and I'll say it again, you can make the best game the world has ever seen but if controlling your player in the game doesn't FEEL smooth/good users will become disengaged rather quickly and it will never reach it's true potential.
Control and FEEL should be the #1 focus for every dev team of every game. People will enjoy a 'not as good' game that FEELS good to control more than they will enjoy a 'amazing game' that FEELS clunky.
Why was NHL 12 the last game of "the glory days"? It's simply because the control FELT good. Since then, since TPS was introduced, the control, and it's not everything there are some good aspects of TPS that do control and FEEL good, has FELT bad/clunky however you want to describe it.
Major aspects of TPS can't be looked at any other way other than they have been a complete failure. It's a joke they've been allowed to stay in this condition for so long.
Look here at "the glory days"
Look at all the players strafing/facing the puck. You could actually skate laterally in the glory days, just like you can in real life. It FELT good to control too.
Now look here at what we currently have and have had to suffer with for wayy to **** long.
Look at the RD on the red team. Look at him all hurky jerky in the slot. This is what we have delt with for g0d dam years now.. In the glory days that defensman, human or AI, would have been able to come to a controlled stop, face the puck the whole time, face the puck while moving laterally or strafing/t-pushing if they needed to and it all FELT g0d dam good to control.
Now, and since TPS, that player kind of herkily jerkily stops in the slot, never faces the puck properly, can't strafe or t-push. This type of movement is super important in your video game and it has either been a complete failure with TPS or hasn't even been built into the engine (facing/t-pushes/strafing). Situations like this arise constantly in the game, especially in modes where you are only controlling 1 player. Control in situations like this FEELS clunky, FEELS like a chore.
Fix this clunkiness, fix this issue of FEEL, make it smooth and FEEL good again and your game will begin to approach the awesomness of "the glory days". Until then, and it doesn't matter how much cool stuff you add, people will continue to become disengaged with the game very quickly.
Everything in that NHL 12 video you posted, you do exactly that in NHL 17. If you can't do that, that's user error. There was nothing special in that video that isn't in NHL 17. 12 is just missing the animations that 17 has now + the physics associated with it.
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.
OK, I was being slightly vague. What I mean is, yes, the game engine should do certain things for me such as strafing, pivoting, etc. BUT, it has to do so in a logical fashion while still being forced to commit at a certain point. What I mean is, I shouldn't be fighting the game engine just to face the puck. If I am standing perfectly still while holding down VC, then my player should be turning and following the puck even if the puck carrier skates past me.
We can't control what our skates do so TPS has to do a better job of allowing us to stay square to a shooter. We shouldn't have to be constantly tapping LS just to do this.
OK, I was being slightly vague. What I mean is, yes, the game engine should do certain things for me such as strafing, pivoting, etc. BUT, it has to do so in a logical fashion while still being forced to commit at a certain point. What I mean is, I shouldn't be fighting the game engine just to face the puck. If I am standing perfectly still while holding down VC, then my player should be turning and following the puck even if the puck carrier skates past me.
We can't control what our skates do so TPS has to do a better job of allowing us to stay square to a shooter. We shouldn't have to be constantly tapping LS just to do this.
Yes, that is where VC gets a bit tricky. What you would want in zone in some cases is different than what you want on the rush and currently defensive VC is the same across the board.
The situation where you don't want to be forced to turn and follow the puck but still want to backskte is when you have a good gap and the offensive player is beating you wide with a pass option to the middle. If you don't think he has the speed/angle to beat you around the outside, you skate backwards, keeping your stick to the middle of the ice. You wouldn't want to be forced to pivot here to face the puck giving up a passing lane either behind you or on that commitment allowing the defender to cut back against your pivot to the middle of the ice. Instead, we want the player to be able to let go of VC only in situations where they do actually want to commit.
There are situations where you want your feet to face the puck and there are situations where you want to be a bit more parallel to the puck and facing your man who may be a pass option. All of these differences would mean either doing things contextually or giving more modifiers. Neither is ideal.
Giving unique control over your stick from your skates would be a good addition and getting a better blend into precision skating and how it works would also be something that would help a lot.
Video is always easier so this clip may show a bit what I was referring to. Any of the 2 on 1's will show it so its good to watch through and see what these guys can do but a good frame is at 4:24-4:25, to move at that sharp of an angle and to not catch an edge, he needs to turn to full backskating, technically facing away from the puck but t is still better than turning to forward skating with that puck position as he wants the puck in his front 180 degrees (the best he can do from a VC perspective at that speed and angle) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnkXNTdNxgQ
OK, I was being slightly vague. What I mean is, yes, the game engine should do certain things for me such as strafing, pivoting, etc. BUT, it has to do so in a logical fashion while still being forced to commit at a certain point. What I mean is, I shouldn't be fighting the game engine just to face the puck. If I am standing perfectly still while holding down VC, then my player should be turning and following the puck even if the puck carrier skates past me.
We can't control what our skates do so TPS has to do a better job of allowing us to stay square to a shooter. We shouldn't have to be constantly tapping LS just to do this.
Yes, that is where VC gets a bit tricky. What you would want in zone in some cases is different than what you want on the rush and currently defensive VC is the same across the board.
The situation where you don't want to be forced to turn and follow the puck but still want to backskte is when you have a good gap and the offensive player is beating you wide with a pass option to the middle. If you don't think he has the speed/angle to beat you around the outside, you skate backwards, keeping your stick to the middle of the ice. You wouldn't want to be forced to pivot here to face the puck giving up a passing lane either behind you or on that commitment allowing the defender to cut back against your pivot to the middle of the ice. Instead, we want the player to be able to let go of VC only in situations where they do actually want to commit.
There are situations where you want your feet to face the puck and there are situations where you want to be a bit more parallel to the puck and facing your man who may be a pass option. All of these differences would mean either doing things contextually or giving more modifiers. Neither is ideal.
Giving unique control over your stick from your skates would be a good addition and getting a better blend into precision skating and how it works would also be something that would help a lot.
Video is always easier so this clip may show a bit what I was referring to. Any of the 2 on 1's will show it so its good to watch through and see what these guys can do but a good frame is at 4:24-4:25, to move at that sharp of an angle and to not catch an edge, he needs to turn to full backskating, technically facing away from the puck but t is still better than turning to forward skating with that puck position as he wants the puck in his front 180 degrees (the best he can do from a VC perspective at that speed and angle) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnkXNTdNxgQ
Bolded part sounds promising, I agree here. Please work extra hard on this stuff for 18, it really should be #1 priority as far as gameplay is concerned.
I'm sure the corporate heads don't care about this stuff so hopefully they give you enough time and resources to tackle these issues being raised in this thread. These things are imperative to the gameplay truly becoming fun again and having that lasting addictiveness to it that keeps more players coming back day after day, week after week, month after month all year long.
The situation where you don't want to be forced to turn and follow the puck but still want to backskte is when you have a good gap and the offensive player is beating you wide with a pass option to the middle. If you don't think he has the speed/angle to beat you around the outside, you skate backwards, keeping your stick to the middle of the ice. You wouldn't want to be forced to pivot here to face the puck giving up a passing lane either behind you or on that commitment allowing the defender to cut back against your pivot to the middle of the ice. Instead, we want the player to be able to let go of VC only in situations where they do actually want to commit.
There are situations where you want your feet to face the puck and there are situations where you want to be a bit more parallel to the puck and facing your man who may be a pass option. All of these differences would mean either doing things contextually or giving more modifiers. Neither is ideal.
Right, but eventually, as the offensive player runs out of room, you often do want to pivot to face the puck, because that makes it easier to block any pass, just as Lidstrom does in that clip I posted (or, for that matter, to contest a bad-angle shot). And I don't have any idea how to do that smoothly in the game while moving (accepting that pivoting is going to slow me down).
Right, but eventually, as the offensive player runs out of room, you often do want to pivot to face the puck, because that makes it easier to block any pass, just as Lidstrom does in that clip I posted (or, for that matter, to contest a bad-angle shot). And I don't have any idea how to do that smoothly in the game while moving (accepting that pivoting is going to slow me down).
Once Lidstrom had the angle, he started to turn and glide in a backskate laterally on the ice, facing the original puck carrier and the side boards. Right as he turns from backskating towards his own end boards to gliding backwards across the ice towards the front of the net, he goes down into a pass block at the same time.
In or game, you would be skating backwards towards your own net, and continue to keep VC held as you turned sharp towards the middle of the ice, let go of your left stick at that moment to glide, or tap the opposite way towards the near side boards to check speed/slow down and press pass block.
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.
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 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. 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.
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.
That's very weird. I wouldn't have thought I was holding LT, since it's not something I do on passes like that, but I guess it's possible. Also didn't realize that holding LT before receiver got the pass would send him into that backskate accel. I'll have to check this out in practice.
There's another issue here, though, which is that commands sometimes persist long after you've moved past them, which is another reason to design it so each movement of LS in a particular direction translates into one command and one command only. The quintessential case of this is shooting. If you take a shot with the RS and the puck comes loose, the next player on your team who reaches the puck will often shoot, simply because the game has taken your initial RS command as a command to shoot again. And this happens even when the RS is back to center.
I now make sure to move the RS back to center immediately after shooting, but it doesn"t seem to matter on plays where the initial shot is hard-hit -- in those cases, the next player on my team to reach the puck almost always swipes at it, trying to take a shot, rather than just picking it up. I'd say this happens, conservatively, 2 or 3 times a game, and it's deeply annoying.
Just to say it again: each movement of the LS or RS should translate into 1, and only 1, action by players. If you want to have a player do something that requires moving the LS/RS the same way twice in a row (so having the player skate top left after passing top left, or shooting after a previous shot), you should have to return the stick to center and make that movement again.
That's very weird. I wouldn't have thought I was holding LT, since it's not something I do on passes like that, but I guess it's possible. Also didn't realize that holding LT before receiver got the pass would send him into that backskate accel. I'll have to check this out in practice.
There's another issue here, though, which is that commands sometimes persist long after you've moved past them, which is another reason to design it so each movement of LS in a particular direction translates into one command and one command only. The quintessential case of this is shooting. If you take a shot with the RS and the puck comes loose, the next player on your team who reaches the puck will often shoot, simply because the game has taken your initial RS command as a command to shoot again. And this happens even when the RS is back to center.
I now make sure to move the RS back to center immediately after shooting, but it doesn"t seem to matter on plays where the initial shot is hard-hit -- in those cases, the next player on my team to reach the puck almost always swipes at it, trying to take a shot, rather than just picking it up. I'd say this happens, conservatively, 2 or 3 times a game, and it's deeply annoying.
Just to say it again: each movement of the LS or RS should translate into 1, and only 1, action by players. If you want to have a player do something that requires moving the LS/RS the same way twice in a row (so having the player skate top left after passing top left, or shooting after a previous shot), you should have to return the stick to center and make that movement again.
Interesting. Are you tapping the RS up multiple times to get a one timer off? Is it possible it is queuing that second RS press after the shot is in motion/released? I know we have issues if you try for a one timer that the action stays queued even after the one timer misses and he will attempt a shot when the puck comes in range long after you would have decided to cancel but I haven't seen one press of the right stick carry over.
And yes, the way the seamless pickups work is that it takes User intention from the control and tries to give you a pickup that can allow you start the next action earlier/during the pickup. Definitely try them in practice.
Some things to try:
If you are standing still and holding VC, he will try to play a strafe or a pivoting pickup, whichever makes sense for his upcoming VC angle (i.e. facing for a shot on net in the offensive zone) and if you are pressing VC and asking to skate away, he will try and play a backwards accel to receive it into his backskate rather than waiting to receive it before starting to skate to get a better first step. If you roll through the puck, you will play a turning pickup, if you start to press the other way as you are approaching a puck, you will play stopping pickup so that you can get going quicker than if you were to pickup forwards and then stop and if the pass is coming towards you and you press towards the pass with hustle held, he will try and accelerate through the pickup rather than waiting to receive before skating.
K I think we finally have an understanding now. Yes, we want a realistic skating engine, but we need more control over our upper body and ability to square up and defend.
I think we are getting somewhere.
And I think what people mean by strafing, is just skating laterally while facing a set target (usually puck carrier, or for simplicity's sake, up ice). I don't think we mean anything more than that. Sometimes pedaling backwards in skating can still be strafing, but as long as the chest is square upwards that's strafing to us. Also lateral crossovers and the video where the skater was skating around the circle with his feet open wide (I don't know the technical term for it) is strafing I think to most of us.
Interesting. Are you tapping the RS up multiple times to get a one timer off? Is it possible it is queuing that second RS press after the shot is in motion/released? I know we have issues if you try for a one timer that the action stays queued even after the one timer misses and he will attempt a shot when the puck comes in range long after you would have decided to cancel but I haven't seen one press of the right stick carry over.
No, at least as far as I can tell I'm not tapping the RS multiple times. And when I watch replays of me hitting one-timers, the stick goes up. It doesn't go up, down, and then up again. I obviously deal with the situation where a shot attempt stays queued even after a pass gets deflected or whatever, but I can accept that, since there the player is just trying to carry out the 1 command I've given him (even if it would be nice if I could cancel it). But having a 2nd player get frozen into a shooting situation is much harder to deal with, particularly since it means my players rarely pick up rebounds (since they're usually swinging wildly at them).
If you look at the first clip, you can see that when the swing takes place, the RS is dead center. That seems weird, even if it's queued. But I may not understand how the queuing works.
K I think we finally have an understanding now. Yes, we want a realistic skating engine, but we need more control over our upper body and ability to square up and defend.
I think we are getting somewhere.
And I think what people mean by strafing, is just skating laterally while facing a set target (usually puck carrier, or for simplicity's sake, up ice). I don't think we mean anything more than that. Sometimes pedaling backwards in skating can still be strafing, but as long as the chest is square upwards that's strafing to us. Also lateral crossovers and the video where the skater was skating around the circle with his feet open wide (I don't know the technical term for it) is strafing I think to most of us.
Yep, understood. Different types of strafing have different limits on speed so we don't want to do anything contextually.
There is also moving laterally vs. actual strafing which to me is moving across your skate blades like we see in drills such as the iron cross (what we do with precision skating on defense) or when your front foot is open and your back foot is pushing (similar to what we do when you have your stick up in a manual one timer state) but in both cases your speed is limited so without unique input, we can't assume you want that (hence what we tried to do with precision skating). The video with his feet open is commonly called a Mohawk turn but you won't really see defenders doing that to defend a rush or position in front of the net. It is commonly used by highly skilled players like McDavid or Crosby when handling the puck because it is still a forward/turning move as opposed to something you would do lateral for longer distances and you can't do it to backwards angles.
Being able to move your upper body unique to your lower would help defend with the stick and give the option for your stick to be in passing lanes or contesting shots that are perpendicular to your movement angle. All things we consider for future designs.
K I think we finally have an understanding now. Yes, we want a realistic skating engine, but we need more control over our upper body and ability to square up and defend.
I think we are getting somewhere.
And I think what people mean by strafing, is just skating laterally while facing a set target (usually puck carrier, or for simplicity's sake, up ice). I don't think we mean anything more than that. Sometimes pedaling backwards in skating can still be strafing, but as long as the chest is square upwards that's strafing to us. Also lateral crossovers and the video where the skater was skating around the circle with his feet open wide (I don't know the technical term for it) is strafing I think to most of us.
Yep, understood. Different types of strafing have different limits on speed so we don't want to do anything contextually.
There is also moving laterally vs. actual strafing which to me is moving across your skate blades like we see in drills such as the iron cross (what we do with precision skating on defense) or when your front foot is open and your back foot is pushing (similar to what we do when you have your stick up in a manual one timer state) but in both cases your speed is limited so without unique input, we can't assume you want that (hence what we tried to do with precision skating). The video with his feet open is commonly called a Mohawk turn but you won't really see defenders doing that to defend a rush or position in front of the net. It is commonly used by highly skilled players like McDavid or Crosby when handling the puck because it is still a forward/turning move as opposed to something you would do lateral for longer distances and you can't do it to backwards angles.
Being able to move your upper body unique to your lower would help defend with the stick and give the option for your stick to be in passing lanes or contesting shots that are perpendicular to your movement angle. All things we consider for future designs.
Perfect. Then I think this thread is close to being settled. If you move in that direction, people will be happy. They like having the accountability (in which the game more than likely forces you to be accountable), but they want that skating tool to help angle forwards and force them into easy hits, pokechecks and it will help keep them in lanes to block shots.
It was a little too complicated (7 pages haha) but I think we are largely in agreement that if you head in that direction, it will fix the skating engine and give tools back to defenders (they will finally feel much closer to an even playing field) and even add for some more realistic looking offense and positional awareness that's necessary to advance the game.
Perfect. Then I think this thread is close to being settled. If you move in that direction, people will be happy. They like having the accountability (in which the game more than likely forces you to be accountable), but they want that skating tool to help angle forwards and force them into easy hits, pokechecks and it will help keep them in lanes to block shots.
It was a little too complicated (7 pages haha) but I think we are largely in agreement that if you head in that direction, it will fix the skating engine and give tools back to defenders (they will finally feel much closer to an even playing field) and even add for some more realistic looking offense and positional awareness that's necessary to advance the game.
Whew. Done.
No, not even close to being done. Fixing the way skating works is about more than letting us pivot our upper bodies to face the puck - though that would be a tremendous improvement. It's also essential to fix the clunky pivots and turns, and overdone weight shifts, that AI players in particular get stuck in, and essential to make sure that AI players don't keep ending up with their backs to their play (on offense and defense). They also need to make skating at low speeds -- on offense and defense -- smoother and less clunky. If I'm trying to skate right and then up ice, I shouldn't swing back to the left while I'm trying to do that. But that happens this year quite a bit. Skating just needs to feel more natural and less of a struggle. When that happens, then you can say "Done."
Perfect. Then I think this thread is close to being settled. If you move in that direction, people will be happy. They like having the accountability (in which the game more than likely forces you to be accountable), but they want that skating tool to help angle forwards and force them into easy hits, pokechecks and it will help keep them in lanes to block shots.
It was a little too complicated (7 pages haha) but I think we are largely in agreement that if you head in that direction, it will fix the skating engine and give tools back to defenders (they will finally feel much closer to an even playing field) and even add for some more realistic looking offense and positional awareness that's necessary to advance the game.
Whew. Done.
No, not even close to being done. Fixing the way skating works is about more than letting us pivot our upper bodies to face the puck - though that would be a tremendous improvement. It's also essential to fix the clunky pivots and turns, and overdone weight shifts, that AI players in particular get stuck in, and essential to make sure that AI players don't keep ending up with their backs to their play (on offense and defense). They also need to make skating at low speeds -- on offense and defense -- smoother and less clunky. If I'm trying to skate right and then up ice, I shouldn't swing back to the left while I'm trying to do that. But that happens this year quite a bit. Skating just needs to feel more natural and less of a struggle. When that happens, then you can say "Done."
Skating works great offline. Most realistic/best it's ever been.
Except for the fact it is completely missing a very important mechanic of skating..
Go into practice mode and put the puck in the high slot. You should be able to skate around the entire perimeter of the zone while strafing/t-pushing and more or less facing the puck the whole time.
Can't do it. This important part of hockey is completely missing from the game and has been for 5 years now.. This can't be sugar coated anymore, it's a joke TPS has been allowed to remain in this state for soo long now.
Dev, you can say that nhl players don't do this stuff very often, but this is a video game it's not real life. Almost every single time the puck is being worked around in one of the teams zone the players without the puck would constantly be on and off of using strafes/t-pushes.
Go play be a pro In nhl 12 and pay attention to how often you are using VC. You constantly use it throughout the game. Also pay attention to how smooth and good it FEELS. No more constant tapping and repositioning of the joystick. No more clunkiness. It just works. And it FEELS good.
I don't for a second think this is an easy thing to fix/solve, it should be #1 priority though. This issue is easily one of the biggest contributors to your game not being as fun as it used to be. Just look at that AI player all herky jerky in the OP. Human players constantly fight with that crape too. We have to deal with that crape just so that you can turn around backwards and make a pass on your forehand? I'm sorry but proper facing/strafing/t-pushes at slower speeds are a 100% more important mechanic.
Go into a drop in game and pay attention to how many players use the current back skating mechanic to help them make plays and avoid the 'accountability' errors. Almost never see it. Then next game pay attention to how many players, both AI or human, clunkily spin in wrong directions, herkily jerkily stop and start and lose their check, constantly tapping and or fighting with their LS. You probly can't go more than 1 minute real time without multiple skaters displaying similar issues to the herky jerky AI in the OP video..
Perfect. Then I think this thread is close to being settled. If you move in that direction, people will be happy. They like having the accountability (in which the game more than likely forces you to be accountable), but they want that skating tool to help angle forwards and force them into easy hits, pokechecks and it will help keep them in lanes to block shots.
It was a little too complicated (7 pages haha) but I think we are largely in agreement that if you head in that direction, it will fix the skating engine and give tools back to defenders (they will finally feel much closer to an even playing field) and even add for some more realistic looking offense and positional awareness that's necessary to advance the game.
Whew. Done.
No, not even close to being done. Fixing the way skating works is about more than letting us pivot our upper bodies to face the puck - though that would be a tremendous improvement. It's also essential to fix the clunky pivots and turns, and overdone weight shifts, that AI players in particular get stuck in, and essential to make sure that AI players don't keep ending up with their backs to their play (on offense and defense). They also need to make skating at low speeds -- on offense and defense -- smoother and less clunky. If I'm trying to skate right and then up ice, I shouldn't swing back to the left while I'm trying to do that. But that happens this year quite a bit. Skating just needs to feel more natural and less of a struggle. When that happens, then you can say "Done."
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Fix these issues that have plagued your game for 5 years now, and the fun factor/addictiveness/playability will instantly be back and pretty much all other issues will justy be minor annoyances.
I don't think this would be needed when tracking backwards on defense. You guys added the crossovers/strafing to defense when skating backwards in 14 and that stuff works great.
Using this technique would be more when you are in the offensive or defensive zone, without the puck, and want to contain an opposing player or open yourself up to the play while moving.
What is physically possible on skates, like shown in that video, is completely missing from your game and has been for 5 years now since TPS.
Obviously I don't know the stats on sales numbers and player retention (core users who play basically every week all year long) since NHL 13, but I'm willing to believe that since TPS was introduced (which came along with these big issues of the absence of important skating techniques and clunky/tiring feeling controls) that player retention is noticeably down.
There are a lot of people that used to play this game all the time every year all year. The majority of those people still want to do this but the game just isn't as fun anymore. Solve these 2 issues and people will begin to come back to the game and stick around and play longer without a doubt.
Everything in that NHL 12 video you posted, you do exactly that in NHL 17. If you can't do that, that's user error. There was nothing special in that video that isn't in NHL 17. 12 is just missing the animations that 17 has now + the physics associated with it.
OK, I was being slightly vague. What I mean is, yes, the game engine should do certain things for me such as strafing, pivoting, etc. BUT, it has to do so in a logical fashion while still being forced to commit at a certain point. What I mean is, I shouldn't be fighting the game engine just to face the puck. If I am standing perfectly still while holding down VC, then my player should be turning and following the puck even if the puck carrier skates past me.
We can't control what our skates do so TPS has to do a better job of allowing us to stay square to a shooter. We shouldn't have to be constantly tapping LS just to do this.
Yes, that is where VC gets a bit tricky. What you would want in zone in some cases is different than what you want on the rush and currently defensive VC is the same across the board.
The situation where you don't want to be forced to turn and follow the puck but still want to backskte is when you have a good gap and the offensive player is beating you wide with a pass option to the middle. If you don't think he has the speed/angle to beat you around the outside, you skate backwards, keeping your stick to the middle of the ice. You wouldn't want to be forced to pivot here to face the puck giving up a passing lane either behind you or on that commitment allowing the defender to cut back against your pivot to the middle of the ice. Instead, we want the player to be able to let go of VC only in situations where they do actually want to commit.
There are situations where you want your feet to face the puck and there are situations where you want to be a bit more parallel to the puck and facing your man who may be a pass option. All of these differences would mean either doing things contextually or giving more modifiers. Neither is ideal.
Giving unique control over your stick from your skates would be a good addition and getting a better blend into precision skating and how it works would also be something that would help a lot.
Video is always easier so this clip may show a bit what I was referring to. Any of the 2 on 1's will show it so its good to watch through and see what these guys can do but a good frame is at 4:24-4:25, to move at that sharp of an angle and to not catch an edge, he needs to turn to full backskating, technically facing away from the puck but t is still better than turning to forward skating with that puck position as he wants the puck in his front 180 degrees (the best he can do from a VC perspective at that speed and angle) :
Bolded part sounds promising, I agree here. Please work extra hard on this stuff for 18, it really should be #1 priority as far as gameplay is concerned.
I'm sure the corporate heads don't care about this stuff so hopefully they give you enough time and resources to tackle these issues being raised in this thread. These things are imperative to the gameplay truly becoming fun again and having that lasting addictiveness to it that keeps more players coming back day after day, week after week, month after month all year long.
Right, but eventually, as the offensive player runs out of room, you often do want to pivot to face the puck, because that makes it easier to block any pass, just as Lidstrom does in that clip I posted (or, for that matter, to contest a bad-angle shot). And I don't have any idea how to do that smoothly in the game while moving (accepting that pivoting is going to slow me down).
Once Lidstrom had the angle, he started to turn and glide in a backskate laterally on the ice, facing the original puck carrier and the side boards. Right as he turns from backskating towards his own end boards to gliding backwards across the ice towards the front of the net, he goes down into a pass block at the same time.
In or game, you would be skating backwards towards your own net, and continue to keep VC held as you turned sharp towards the middle of the ice, let go of your left stick at that moment to glide, or tap the opposite way towards the near side boards to check speed/slow down and press pass block.
That's very weird. I wouldn't have thought I was holding LT, since it's not something I do on passes like that, but I guess it's possible. Also didn't realize that holding LT before receiver got the pass would send him into that backskate accel. I'll have to check this out in practice.
There's another issue here, though, which is that commands sometimes persist long after you've moved past them, which is another reason to design it so each movement of LS in a particular direction translates into one command and one command only. The quintessential case of this is shooting. If you take a shot with the RS and the puck comes loose, the next player on your team who reaches the puck will often shoot, simply because the game has taken your initial RS command as a command to shoot again. And this happens even when the RS is back to center.
I now make sure to move the RS back to center immediately after shooting, but it doesn"t seem to matter on plays where the initial shot is hard-hit -- in those cases, the next player on my team to reach the puck almost always swipes at it, trying to take a shot, rather than just picking it up. I'd say this happens, conservatively, 2 or 3 times a game, and it's deeply annoying.
Just to say it again: each movement of the LS or RS should translate into 1, and only 1, action by players. If you want to have a player do something that requires moving the LS/RS the same way twice in a row (so having the player skate top left after passing top left, or shooting after a previous shot), you should have to return the stick to center and make that movement again.
Interesting. Are you tapping the RS up multiple times to get a one timer off? Is it possible it is queuing that second RS press after the shot is in motion/released? I know we have issues if you try for a one timer that the action stays queued even after the one timer misses and he will attempt a shot when the puck comes in range long after you would have decided to cancel but I haven't seen one press of the right stick carry over.
And yes, the way the seamless pickups work is that it takes User intention from the control and tries to give you a pickup that can allow you start the next action earlier/during the pickup. Definitely try them in practice.
Some things to try:
If you are standing still and holding VC, he will try to play a strafe or a pivoting pickup, whichever makes sense for his upcoming VC angle (i.e. facing for a shot on net in the offensive zone) and if you are pressing VC and asking to skate away, he will try and play a backwards accel to receive it into his backskate rather than waiting to receive it before starting to skate to get a better first step. If you roll through the puck, you will play a turning pickup, if you start to press the other way as you are approaching a puck, you will play stopping pickup so that you can get going quicker than if you were to pickup forwards and then stop and if the pass is coming towards you and you press towards the pass with hustle held, he will try and accelerate through the pickup rather than waiting to receive before skating.
I think we are getting somewhere.
And I think what people mean by strafing, is just skating laterally while facing a set target (usually puck carrier, or for simplicity's sake, up ice). I don't think we mean anything more than that. Sometimes pedaling backwards in skating can still be strafing, but as long as the chest is square upwards that's strafing to us. Also lateral crossovers and the video where the skater was skating around the circle with his feet open wide (I don't know the technical term for it) is strafing I think to most of us.
No, at least as far as I can tell I'm not tapping the RS multiple times. And when I watch replays of me hitting one-timers, the stick goes up. It doesn't go up, down, and then up again. I obviously deal with the situation where a shot attempt stays queued even after a pass gets deflected or whatever, but I can accept that, since there the player is just trying to carry out the 1 command I've given him (even if it would be nice if I could cancel it). But having a 2nd player get frozen into a shooting situation is much harder to deal with, particularly since it means my players rarely pick up rebounds (since they're usually swinging wildly at them).
If you look at the first clip, you can see that when the swing takes place, the RS is dead center. That seems weird, even if it's queued. But I may not understand how the queuing works.
Yep, understood. Different types of strafing have different limits on speed so we don't want to do anything contextually.
There is also moving laterally vs. actual strafing which to me is moving across your skate blades like we see in drills such as the iron cross (what we do with precision skating on defense) or when your front foot is open and your back foot is pushing (similar to what we do when you have your stick up in a manual one timer state) but in both cases your speed is limited so without unique input, we can't assume you want that (hence what we tried to do with precision skating). The video with his feet open is commonly called a Mohawk turn but you won't really see defenders doing that to defend a rush or position in front of the net. It is commonly used by highly skilled players like McDavid or Crosby when handling the puck because it is still a forward/turning move as opposed to something you would do lateral for longer distances and you can't do it to backwards angles.
Being able to move your upper body unique to your lower would help defend with the stick and give the option for your stick to be in passing lanes or contesting shots that are perpendicular to your movement angle. All things we consider for future designs.
Perfect. Then I think this thread is close to being settled. If you move in that direction, people will be happy. They like having the accountability (in which the game more than likely forces you to be accountable), but they want that skating tool to help angle forwards and force them into easy hits, pokechecks and it will help keep them in lanes to block shots.
It was a little too complicated (7 pages haha) but I think we are largely in agreement that if you head in that direction, it will fix the skating engine and give tools back to defenders (they will finally feel much closer to an even playing field) and even add for some more realistic looking offense and positional awareness that's necessary to advance the game.
Whew. Done.
No, not even close to being done. Fixing the way skating works is about more than letting us pivot our upper bodies to face the puck - though that would be a tremendous improvement. It's also essential to fix the clunky pivots and turns, and overdone weight shifts, that AI players in particular get stuck in, and essential to make sure that AI players don't keep ending up with their backs to their play (on offense and defense). They also need to make skating at low speeds -- on offense and defense -- smoother and less clunky. If I'm trying to skate right and then up ice, I shouldn't swing back to the left while I'm trying to do that. But that happens this year quite a bit. Skating just needs to feel more natural and less of a struggle. When that happens, then you can say "Done."
+1
Totes agree.
Totes