A Serious Issue of Lack of Defenders and What EA can do to Help
January 12, 2017 8:50AM
edited January 2017
Defense is hard. It's an extremely tedious task to try and shutdown a good to elite forward in NHL 17. To do so requires extreme mastery and recognition on subtle tells and understanding of leverage as well as identifying the most dangerous positions on the ice.
The truth is its a lot easier and more rewarding playing as a forward. Most people just can't handle the frustration of playing D and that it takes 3 periods of dam near perfect decisions to do your job efficiently.
The 6s community understand that it takes a team effort on D, but let's be real-- most of the people playing D aren't playing with people who play team defense. No, most Dmen are stuck playing 1on1 with a forward and it's solely up to them on that 1 on 1 battle to win it. That's a lot of pressure. I think EA can do things to help out most people brave enough to pick D .
1. Tutorial and tips- pretty self explanatory. It's my personal opinion that a tutorial and tip video will go a long way for most people who pick D to understand that by just positioning themselves in the offensive zone , neutral ice and defensive zone will go a longggg way to minimizing themselves getting caught in disadvantageous positions .
2. Make the punishment less severe - I dont want to see some clown spam poke all day and think that that's good D , those guys should get walked BUT as of right now ....there's just way too many Dmen that I see have a very difficult time stripping the winger of the puck on a consistent basis. Maybe you guys can find a middle ground where we can keep the forward honest without completey selling out with a Sticklift, poke, or hit .
3. Offense is too easy- no matter what aspect you talk about with the offense, it's undeniably true that the learning curve to master effective offense is massively lower than it is to master Defense. Offense is VERY forgiving to the user. Even when they make a mistake or even when the Defense does everything right , a forward can still find success an inordinate amount of time.
These are 3 at the top of my head that I feel will go a long way to getting more people to pick the D position and most importantly, have fun with the D position. Right now, it's a VERY TEDIOUS process that most users are reluctant to go through.
Thanks
The truth is its a lot easier and more rewarding playing as a forward. Most people just can't handle the frustration of playing D and that it takes 3 periods of dam near perfect decisions to do your job efficiently.
The 6s community understand that it takes a team effort on D, but let's be real-- most of the people playing D aren't playing with people who play team defense. No, most Dmen are stuck playing 1on1 with a forward and it's solely up to them on that 1 on 1 battle to win it. That's a lot of pressure. I think EA can do things to help out most people brave enough to pick D .
1. Tutorial and tips- pretty self explanatory. It's my personal opinion that a tutorial and tip video will go a long way for most people who pick D to understand that by just positioning themselves in the offensive zone , neutral ice and defensive zone will go a longggg way to minimizing themselves getting caught in disadvantageous positions .
2. Make the punishment less severe - I dont want to see some clown spam poke all day and think that that's good D , those guys should get walked BUT as of right now ....there's just way too many Dmen that I see have a very difficult time stripping the winger of the puck on a consistent basis. Maybe you guys can find a middle ground where we can keep the forward honest without completey selling out with a Sticklift, poke, or hit .
3. Offense is too easy- no matter what aspect you talk about with the offense, it's undeniably true that the learning curve to master effective offense is massively lower than it is to master Defense. Offense is VERY forgiving to the user. Even when they make a mistake or even when the Defense does everything right , a forward can still find success an inordinate amount of time.
These are 3 at the top of my head that I feel will go a long way to getting more people to pick the D position and most importantly, have fun with the D position. Right now, it's a VERY TEDIOUS process that most users are reluctant to go through.
Thanks
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Part of the problem I feel, is offense thinking they're better than they are. One word, turnovers. If Tom Brady threw 15 interceptions a game, Patriots lose. Same in hockey, turnover after turnover from offense leaves defense to clean up your mess and when you turn it over 15- 20 times a game (unforced), they're bound to score, now all of a sudden defense sucks. I've played on a lot of good clubs over the years and this problem even plagues them and defense quits or finds another club, rinse and repeat.
Second, if offense played their position understanding right from left, you would have a lot more chances to make plays, but most of what I see they don't. I'm not talking dropin, this happens a lot in club, wingers just all over the place. The club I'm currently on, which is pretty good, stopped playing because lack of players that want to play defense or I'm stuck with someone who "has to play defense" because we need another dman and they all hate it.
- Bring back defensive stick sweeps
- Fix vision control
- Fix D-Man skating. Back-skating in particular still feels very clunky.
- Fix puck pickups - yes I am a defensive D but a freaking NHL player should be able to pick up a puck that's in his skates, or that he skates over top of... 3 times... even though its stationary...
- For the love of god allow D-men to make fine movements to cover a defender in front of the net or open lanes. Even if you give me a precision movement modifier button like you do for goalies. I am tired of trying to cover a guy and fighting with the thumbstick to move my guy around because the lightest movement sends him flying around. Its tedious as F.
Maybe the penalty for "bad line defense" could be lowered, with more importance placed on positioning. Or maybe they could add new bonuses for things like breaking up a two on one?
When you poke a puck consistently it seems to go against physics and find a guy, generally the other team ...
Players have to stop these crazy catches so defense can dump properly
Board play is atrocious.
Tie ups are super iffy, the game doesn't seem to know you are hitting left and holding Y then your guy skates around like a lost puppy trying to find some random guy to tie up ...
Being able to reach a stick through a defender that has you tied up so you can tip a puck in has to stop ...
Puck pick ups have to be improved finally, especially near the boards ... Played a game where my d man missed the puck off the face off 12/17 times , that's unacceptable, ridiculous ...
Random penalties have to go, get a good clean hit and it's called elbowing , ya ok ...
Coaching tips and ratings are silly as mentioned ... If you cover for a dman as a forward and they score you lose points for not being at your point, lol ya ok there dummy you praise me for one thing then trash on me for another , are you dumb oh yes you are , you are programmed by ea... That d man you covered for should take twice the negative .Same with if you get in crap for a 2 on 1 goal, umm ya ok my fault my other dman ain't playing his man , or someone made a bad give away that led to the breakaway ... But that's too much logic for ea and they should worry about gameplay not the coach criticizing silly things.
To me the worst part of defense is game mechanics and automation... Poor skating ... Poor puck pick ups. Can't say how many times my guy as a dfd or TWD has reached out for a puck and failed to pick it up, meanwhile I'm trying to turn around or back skate , but the game animations stop me to reach out for a puck my player cannot pick up , then it's a breakaway or an odd man rush due to poor game mechanics ... Or you go for a stick lift , yet your guy again reaches out and misses a puck , why does the game override my controls , that's poor game mechanics set up by poor devs .
This game needs to be as manual as possible so skill matters. There is less luck factors. And players are more accountable for their actions...
Or how's about how many times has your d man auto put the puck in your net ? Or the goalie ? Again devs don't care about adding awareness or they simply don't know how... This is a bad dev team , and gameplay over the last two years has been getting worse , thank Ben Ross you goof.
Also @zingaa1 , lol forwards can do a lot to help out . Mainly, not turn the puck over
Honestly though, One thing I learned over the years, Especially when against top Forwards, slow your role. I used to think "I'm a D-man, gotta get the puck now, must strip this player right now, need to steal the puck immediately and get it up ice" but TBH Defending in 6s isn't always like that. Good forwards will win out 4 out of 5 times by either their skill or the puck possession god that is the grinder build. Sometimes you need to back off and think "I'm just here to defend, not attack" and I focus on cutting off their angles, make them slow down and dangle, slow down their progress down the ice. What will happen when you do this is you will not lose position on them at all, and a proper backchecking forward will come in and either
A) Destroy him or B ) Strip him.
Sometimes you just gotta slow the other guy down and that's more than enough.
Forwards have more speed and control the D men. They have priority when it comes to picking up a lose puck. They can even shoot through limbs and goalies to get that goal. Any decent forward can completely mock defensemen. To add insult to injury, most forwards will never backcheck and then proceed to scream that D and goalies suck.
Basically every drop in game is the same. Both D men are completely open and the slot is completely clogged? Well then, let's just try to force that pass in the slot; repeatedly. Add to that the clunkiness of paying D, the completely inconsistent collision detection and the downright offensive boost players get as forwards, then don't look any further. It is plainly obvious why hardly anyone wants to play D anymore.
The game is nothing more than 3 offensive players, 2 useless D and a broken G position. Can't wait for 18 and 19 to drop.....
Don't forget the inept AI...
Yeah for dropin when you're playing with random players who care nothing about you or the team. Dropin has always been a nightmare. It's always been the joke mode, the screw around mode, thats just the nature of how its put together. But EASHL isn't like that because everyone is on the same page and wants to work together. And if they aren't, then you have a team issue.
Of course I will agree with you for dropins. However, it still does not negate the fact that decent forwards can screw D men all day long. Hold out the stick to negate checks or attract tripping calls. Hold stick out passed the boards (as it was in 16, btw). Or just a simple deke and have the game actually pull you automatically away from a d man. Please, don't insult me by trying to downplay this fact. And regardless which mode you play, G is still broken....
So again, it is nothing more than 3 forwards, 2 pylons and a broken G.
Thats when the broken vision control and inconsistent pass interceptions kill playing any type of shut down defense.
I wouldn't call them pylons, although I'd say 9/10 people don't play D correctly. G is indeed broken though.
I will own my own screwups but I hate getting penalized for the screwups of others. Examples:
- Forward skates all around the offensive zone with the puck instead of passing it, turns it over just inside the blue line. I get odd man rush
- D partner not playing their position properly, I hustle back on a breakaway and no one else does: Odd Man Rush
- Getting a coverage negative when the dude who scored was on the other D-mans side
Also, there are broken things. I have gotten an odd man "rush" when there was no rush.
I am sure there are other things.
I'd be happy to own my mistakes, but I think they need to eliminate the bugs in the feedback.