I'm seriously done with these **** that think they now the sport simply because they play a video game of the sport which doesn't even represent the sport accurately. The physics in this game are a joke (at best), rebounds that go in directions that make absolutely no sense scientifically are routinely the cause of bad goals, for the sake of appeasing these type of "hockey fans" that think games that end 1-0 or 2-1 are "boring".
In an NHL game, scoring per game on average should be around 2.00 to 3.00, not 4.00 to 5.00 like it is now. Scoring percentage should be around 10%, not 20% like it is now.
Ben said that the game settings are set so that a game in NHL 17 that has 15 shots fired in 4 minute periods is like having 30 shots fired on net in full 20 minute periods. That's fine.
But shouldn't the goals scored also follow this percentage? Why are we seeing 5-6 goals scored per game if the shots per game represented in the video game are halved? Shouldn't we be seeing 2-3 goals scored at most??
NHL 17 could use having 2 or 3 goals per game lower on average. It won't kill the game. On the contrary it'll make things more exciting.
There are a few things that come into play when tuning the game. We look at the real world of hockey, we listen to feedback from people playing the game and we learn from the recent and past history of hockey videogames. We take all of that into account when looking at authenticity, game balance, fun factor, etc.
When I say fun factor, we also consider both sides of the puck. People often say that we cater to players that want to score easily but we spend just as much time on offense and defense when looking at game balance -- updating and tuning mechanics to get the right balance. As you have said yourself, we have shown in our offline tuning that we are aware of the different levers needed to tune the current games mechanics to get more arcade or more full simulation experiences. However, as you mentioned, the time of the periods is a big factor in that as well.
Our aim for online games is to get over 40 combined shots in a game. Looking at the real world of hockey, we know that we could aim for 60 but then we probably wouldn't be able to have incidental contact on and/or defensive tools like the pokecheck as effective since a lot of the extra minutes in hockey are spent in the corners and battles for loose pucks in congested areas. Having those puck battles and loss of puck when you play good defense, keeps shot totals lower and thus the shot averages go down.
That said, we still aim for about 6-7 combined goals per game. Pass reception ability is a bit more forgiving than it should be and shot accuracy when fully in control is probably a bit higher as well (you can refer to our full sim settings for what we would do if the period times were double what they were for online defaults at the moment). Other sim communities have found good settings for longer periods as well.
So with that, we know our shooting percentages have to be 15+ percent.
Right now, our online averages are 5.96 combined goals per game, 39.71 shots per game and 15 percent shooting. So they are all on the bottom end of what we are aiming for, which we see as a good thing because we have made a choice to give people the tools to contain on defense.
That said, it all depends on how people play. There are people out there that shut teams out consistently and there are others giving up 7+ goals.
NHL 13 was the first game I was the gameplay producer for and we often had 1-0 games online. I am sure many of you remember that. I learned from feedback that this wasn't going to work overall. We also listened to the core EASHL community last year when players felt they were missing open nets too often and that bobbling pass receptions was really hurting the team game. As we improved defensive control in skating, pokechecking, improved incidental contact, low relative speed hitting, adding net battles and extended stick lifts, etc., it opened the door to tune some of the offensive pieces so that if you were open and have found space, you weren't as physically accountable for perfect facing for clean pass receptions and would have an easier time hitting open nets when shooting compared to games like NHL 13 and 16. With good defensive coverage though, you can shut teams down fairly well.
Yeah, I get that, Ben. But still 15% scoring on average is a little excessive especially considering the game just came out and the percentage will still go higher the more people get comfortable with the gameplay. Not saying the average should be 10% and lower, but striving to lower it by 2-3% shouldn't be that bad as it would probably translate to 1 or 2 goals less per game.
At least until some of the problems with the goalie mechanics can be ironed out (animations freezing and glitching). Same with some of the player animation problems, like the players freezing when attempting to chop a puck near the boards which can account for at least one goal per game in some cases.
I think the game would've benefited from having it be a little tougher to score and then you guys could've tuned it to be a bit easier, than making it easy from the get go. Right now I have to work hard to keep a 3.50 GAA, which I think I could've easily kept under 3.00 if I had better defense some nights (HAH!) and kept a handful of glitchy goals out of my net. Sorry... I just don't agree with those cross-grain, weak wristers from the point making the goalie spazz out and whiff a save.
Why can we go back to nhl 12 and games were 14-0 when it was a top team against a bad one. Now you could take those same 2 teams and the game will probably be 5 or 6 to 1 or 2. Why is it so much closer now?
Like I said earlier you can't base statistics from the real nhl to what eashl should resemble because the majority of the time in eashl teams skill levels are FAR different then what there would be with 2 nhl teams matching up in real life. If you have a team in eashl with 5+ years of chemistry against a team of average players that game should be a complete blowout and a lot of times the game feels like it's going everything in its power to keep the score as close as possible.
There's too many things out of a human Ds hands that are preventing goals from being scored when they get burned. Computer goalies or computer D men should not be the best player ok the ice for them preventing goals. Between missed nets, posts, computer D and goalies there is FAR too much once the human is beat preventing a goal from being scored. In nhl 12 you knew once that human d was beat you were more then likely scoring a goal.
To answer some of this specifically, when I say games online, I am not just talking about 6v6 EASHL or even just EASHL. I am talking about online games with 4 minute periods on Competitive Game Style and All Star Difficulty.
Our EASHL matchmaking tries to do a good job of getting even matches but if there is a big mismatch in teams, it is possible to get a ton of goals and give up none. I am not sure where your statistics are coming form but it is a rather large generalization.
Over the years, I have logged a lot of games within this series and am well aware of the mechanics and balance of each of the games. The 14-0 games in NHL 12 were often a winger flying up the wing, passing a hard pass over to a one timer, rinse and repeat. The reason you don't see that now is that for one, incidental contact is on now. A stick that went through a players stick legs in NHL 12 wouldn't knock the puck loose. That lowers overall puck control by quite a bit. Passing on your forehand vs backhand has a greater impact than it did in those years, defenders can deflect and intercept pucks with greater consistency and the incidental contact distrupts puck receptions and also impacts a shot if a defender is there to get their stick on your stick, even if they don't get the puck. In NHL 12, you could connect on a one timer and have full success even if you had to shoot through a defenders legs first.
As we improve those mechanics, overall goal scoring in situations like those will go down. However, it is equal to both sides.
So although people will complain that weak goals go in (it happens with so many unique models when we don't can sequences where a certain shot is always a save or always a goal and rely on puck physics, physical models and reaction time and let things occur), for a team to score 5 goals it is harder when things are balanced. So a 3 goal lead now may actually be harder to come back on than a 6 goal lead in the NHL 12 days.
Although, we can learn from those games, you can't really compare them 1:1 when many factors have changed.
A goalie robbing you on a one timer or hitting the post are purely in the models. If you don't sell that you are going to shoot (maybe you don't settle into a glide first, aren't on your forehand, don't have a great angle to the net, etc.) , the goalie may be more aware that a pass may come and may be more ready for it. When you are shooting, all of the factors for accuracy have to do with your players ratings and all the physical parts of the model (how settled/in control you are, angle to target, etc.) so the chance of hitting the post is based purely on the distribution of your shot error. If you have a ton of error, your chance of hitting the post may be less since there is a higher chance of missing the net completely or hitting the goalie in the chest. If you are trying to pick the corner, it will take some error to hit the post or cross bar but any error at all can lead to you missing by a few inches and hitting the iron. And if you have a wide open net, aim more to the middle of the net or shoot along the ice to remove the chance of missing even more.
Why can we go back to nhl 12 and games were 14-0 when it was a top team against a bad one. Now you could take those same 2 teams and the game will probably be 5 or 6 to 1 or 2. Why is it so much closer now?
Like I said earlier you can't base statistics from the real nhl to what eashl should resemble because the majority of the time in eashl teams skill levels are FAR different then what there would be with 2 nhl teams matching up in real life. If you have a team in eashl with 5+ years of chemistry against a team of average players that game should be a complete blowout and a lot of times the game feels like it's going everything in its power to keep the score as close as possible.
There's too many things out of a human Ds hands that are preventing goals from being scored when they get burned. Computer goalies or computer D men should not be the best player ok the ice for them preventing goals. Between missed nets, posts, computer D and goalies there is FAR too much once the human is beat preventing a goal from being scored. In nhl 12 you knew once that human d was beat you were more then likely scoring a goal.
To answer some of this specifically, when I say games online, I am not just talking about 6v6 EASHL or even just EASHL. I am talking about online games with 4 minute periods on Competitive Game Style and All Star Difficulty.
Our EASHL matchmaking tries to do a good job of getting even matches but if there is a big mismatch in teams, it is possible to get a ton of goals and give up none. I am not sure where your statistics are coming form but it is a rather large generalization.
Over the years, I have logged a lot of games within this series and am well aware of the mechanics and balance of each of the games. The 14-0 games in NHL 12 were often a winger flying up the wing, passing a hard pass over to a one timer, rinse and repeat. The reason you don't see that now is that for one, incidental contact is on now. A stick that went through a players stick legs in NHL 12 wouldn't knock the puck loose. That lowers overall puck control by quite a bit. Passing on your forehand vs backhand has a greater impact than it did in those years, defenders can deflect and intercept pucks with greater consistency and the incidental contact distrupts puck receptions and also impacts a shot if a defender is there to get their stick on your stick, even if they don't get the puck. In NHL 12, you could connect on a one timer and have full success even if you had to shoot through a defenders legs first.
As we improve those mechanics, overall goal scoring in situations like those will go down. However, it is equal to both sides.
So although people will complain that weak goals go in (it happens with so many unique models when we don't can sequences where a certain shot is always a save or always a goal and rely on puck physics, physical models and reaction time and let things occur), for a team to score 5 goals it is harder when things are balanced. So a 3 goal lead now may actually be harder to come back on than a 6 goal lead in the NHL 12 days.
Although, we can learn from those games, you can't really compare them 1:1 when many factors have changed.
A goalie robbing you on a one timer or hitting the post are purely in the models. If you don't sell that you are going to shoot (maybe you don't settle into a glide first, aren't on your forehand, don't have a great angle to the net, etc.) , the goalie may be more aware that a pass may come and may be more ready for it. When you are shooting, all of the factors for accuracy have to do with your players ratings and all the physical parts of the model (how settled/in control you are, angle to target, etc.) so the chance of hitting the post is based purely on the distribution of your shot error. If you have a ton of error, your chance of hitting the post may be less since there is a higher chance of missing the net completely or hitting the goalie in the chest. If you are trying to pick the corner, it will take some error to hit the post or cross bar but any error at all can lead to you missing by a few inches and hitting the iron. And if you have a wide open net, aim more to the middle of the net or shoot along the ice to remove the chance of missing even more.
I think Assisted's point is that the consistency from previous games is something that may have been more important than we once thought. In 09-12, if you played a game where you had 25 shots, and 10 minutes TOA compared to 10 shots and 3 minutes TOA, that score was generally 5-1 or perhaps even a bigger blowout. Since then, the scores have been getting more and more random though, to the point where you might even lose that game 10% of the time.
While the better team still generally wins, losing or even just barely winning a game where you dominate is by far the most frustrating thing in this game. I know that this happens in real life, but when a team objectively outplays the other in every facet of a video game, the score needs to reflect that. It feels like there is no way to win sometimes, and that's what makes me and my club play this game so infrequently these days.
I think Assisted's point is that the consistency from previous games is something that may have been more important than we once thought. In 09-12, if you played a game where you had 25 shots, and 10 minutes TOA compared to 10 shots and 3 minutes TOA, that score was generally 5-1 or perhaps even a bigger blowout. Since then, the scores have been getting more and more random though, to the point where you might even lose that game 10% of the time.
While the better team still generally wins, losing or even just barely winning a game where you dominate is by far the most frustrating thing in this game. I know that this happens in real life, but when a team objectively outplays the other in every facet of a video game, the score needs to reflect that. It feels like there is no way to win sometimes, and that's what makes me and my club play this game so infrequently these days.
It is a fair point, especially as it comes from your personal experience but the 'grass was always greener' in the NHL 09-12 days as well. We need to be careful not to consider more factors as 'random'. In NHL 12, you may have needed to do 1 or 2 things right to score with great success and in the more recent versions of the game you may need to do 3 or 4 things right to score. That is still balanced across both teams and it gives the defense more conditions to limit the offense as well. This may result in lower scoring games but that doesn't mean that it is 'random'. It is going to feel random if you only consider getting a one timer from the hashmarks as your condition. What if you were considering the originating pass being on the forehand or backhand or being 30mph instead of 50mph. What if the shooters angle was different by 15 degrees, he was fading away slightly rather than being planted, etc. etc.
Air hockey is simpler than real hockey in the amount of factors involved but neither are random. You can maximize your chances to score by knowing all the factors.
And from a personal side, along with the telemetry and what I hear from people online, I also have my own perspective on the game based on what I see play out. I know that when I play EASHL with my friends that I grew up with, we don't have near as much chemistry or skill as a team as I have had in the past playing with top players and therefore we have a lot less success. I actually have more success at times playing random drop ins, dropping back to defense.
However, my last 20 games in 1v1 online gameplay, I am 20-0 and in the last 10 games have outscored my opponents 48-5 with 6 shutouts. I haven't scored more than 7 goals in a game but I only gave up more than 1 goal in one game. I know you can play a puck control game and have a lot of success. I out time on attack my opponents close to 2:1 and find a lot of success when I do that vs trade chances back and forth. This isn't a claim to say I am good at the game, as the level of my opponents were varied in that time span. The point is that the scores don't need to be 14-0 for there to be a legit skill gap in a balanced game.
The reason you don't see that now is that for one, incidental contact is on now. A stick that went through a players stick legs in NHL 12 wouldn't knock the puck loose. That lowers overall puck control by quite a bit. Passing on your forehand vs backhand has a greater impact than it did in those years, defenders can deflect and intercept pucks with greater consistency and the incidental contact distrupts puck receptions and also impacts a shot if a defender is there to get their stick on your stick, even if they don't get the puck.
As we improve those mechanics, overall goal scoring in situations like those will go down. However, it is equal to both sides.
I don't have any real problem with the balance between offense and defense this year per se. My GAA is around 2.4 this year, and more recently it's closer to 1.5 (this is in HUT). That's with a goalie save percentage of around 85%. That doesn't seen unreasonable.
Having said that, what I do have a problem with is the way the goals I do give up are generally scored. First, the defensive AI is abysmally bad -- worse than in any NHL game I've ever played. At this point, having played enough games, I can usually see what mistakes my AI players are going to make, and generally adjust to cover them. But it's still absurd that defensive AI mistakes are responsible for a third or more of the goals I give up. If I'm playing a normal tight-point strategy, for instance, my AI LW shouldn't skate over to attack the opponent's LD when I have him under control, leaving the RD open for a one-timer. Yet that happens all the time. Similarly, AI defensemen shouldn't skate blissfully up to their own blue line while the opposing puck carrier is charging through the neutral zone. Yet again, this happens all the time.
It's also not accurate to say that the incidental-contact mechanics are equal for both sides. Stick-on-stick, stick-on-puck, and puck-on-skate mechanics remain incredibly inconsistent, and they don't necessarily even out by the end of a game. Also, players that have no compunction about skating into traffic, even when it's an obviously stupid play, reap the benefits of the inconsistent mechanics far more than players that try to avoid traffic. Way too many good scoring chances are created when sticks go through legs or pucks stay magnetized to sticks despite hard contact.
That's one important reason this year's game is more frustrating, and feels more random, than, say, NHL 12. In NHL 12, the game's physics were universal and obvious: sticks went through legs and bodies and sticks. In NHL 17, sometimes stick-on-stick contact affects the puck. Other times it has no impact at all. Sometimes a poke check knocks the puck away. Other times, your poke just passes right through the puck. Sometimes pucks glance off skates. Other times, they pass magically through them. So you just have to hope this time the game's physics will be on your side.
Ben, I honestly think you guys need to look at adding in a real goalie fatigue system. The longer a team spends in that goalies zone or the more shots he faces the lower his endurance drops and the more likely he is to give up a goal. It's the only way to reward a team for outplaying another team. In real hockey you can't tell me that if a team had 4-5x the shots and ToA that the goalie they were shooting on wouldn't be completely exhausted.
I wouldn't be against this if it was done right. Making 2-3 tight saves while in position should result in a lower loss of stamina than a goalie that dives to make a save or uses desperation save attempts for example. This would force goalies to freeze the puck a lot more instead of passing it out, especially if the opposing team has been buzzing around him for a while.
The reason you don't see that now is that for one, incidental contact is on now. A stick that went through a players stick legs in NHL 12 wouldn't knock the puck loose. That lowers overall puck control by quite a bit. Passing on your forehand vs backhand has a greater impact than it did in those years, defenders can deflect and intercept pucks with greater consistency and the incidental contact distrupts puck receptions and also impacts a shot if a defender is there to get their stick on your stick, even if they don't get the puck.
As we improve those mechanics, overall goal scoring in situations like those will go down. However, it is equal to both sides.
I don't have any real problem with the balance between offense and defense this year per se. My GAA is around 2.4 this year, and more recently it's closer to 1.5 (this is in HUT). That's with a goalie save percentage of around 85%. That doesn't seen unreasonable.
Having said that, what I do have a problem with is the way the goals I do give up are generally scored. First, the defensive AI is abysmally bad -- worse than in any NHL game I've ever played. At this point, having played enough games, I can usually see what mistakes my AI players are going to make, and generally adjust to cover them. But it's still absurd that defensive AI mistakes are responsible for a third or more of the goals I give up. If I'm playing a normal tight-point strategy, for instance, my AI LW shouldn't skate over to attack the opponent's LD when I have him under control, leaving the RD open for a one-timer. Yet that happens all the time. Similarly, AI defensemen shouldn't skate blissfully up to their own blue line while the opposing puck carrier is charging through the neutral zone. Yet again, this happens all the time.
It's also not accurate to say that the incidental-contact mechanics are equal for both sides. Stick-on-stick, stick-on-puck, and puck-on-skate mechanics remain incredibly inconsistent, and they don't necessarily even out by the end of a game. Also, players that have no compunction about skating into traffic, even when it's an obviously stupid play, reap the benefits of the inconsistent mechanics far more than players that try to avoid traffic. Way too many good scoring chances are created when sticks go through legs or pucks stay magnetized to sticks despite hard contact.
That's one important reason this year's game is more frustrating, and feels more random, than, say, NHL 12. In NHL 12, the game's physics were universal and obvious: sticks went through legs and bodies and sticks. In NHL 17, sometimes stick-on-stick contact affects the puck. Other times it has no impact at all. Sometimes a poke check knocks the puck away. Other times, your poke just passes right through the puck. Sometimes pucks glance off skates. Other times, they pass magically through them. So you just have to hope this time the game's physics will be on your side.
This. Lots of this. Most of the goals I(or my team) give up on a nightly basis are just people skating into piles of bodies and someone getting a shot off that goes in. I could put together a lengthy highlight reel from the last week or two alone of just nonsense goal after nonsense goal. As BMH said, all that incidental contact is wildly inconsistent from game to game, as is almost everything about this game.
I think Assisted's point is that the consistency from previous games is something that may have been more important than we once thought. In 09-12, if you played a game where you had 25 shots, and 10 minutes TOA compared to 10 shots and 3 minutes TOA, that score was generally 5-1 or perhaps even a bigger blowout. Since then, the scores have been getting more and more random though, to the point where you might even lose that game 10% of the time.
While the better team still generally wins, losing or even just barely winning a game where you dominate is by far the most frustrating thing in this game. I know that this happens in real life, but when a team objectively outplays the other in every facet of a video game, the score needs to reflect that. It feels like there is no way to win sometimes, and that's what makes me and my club play this game so infrequently these days.
It is a fair point, especially as it comes from your personal experience but the 'grass was always greener' in the NHL 09-12 days as well. We need to be careful not to consider more factors as 'random'. In NHL 12, you may have needed to do 1 or 2 things right to score with great success and in the more recent versions of the game you may need to do 3 or 4 things right to score. That is still balanced across both teams and it gives the defense more conditions to limit the offense as well. This may result in lower scoring games but that doesn't mean that it is 'random'. It is going to feel random if you only consider getting a one timer from the hashmarks as your condition. What if you were considering the originating pass being on the forehand or backhand or being 30mph instead of 50mph. What if the shooters angle was different by 15 degrees, he was fading away slightly rather than being planted, etc. etc.
Air hockey is simpler than real hockey in the amount of factors involved but neither are random. You can maximize your chances to score by knowing all the factors.
And from a personal side, along with the telemetry and what I hear from people online, I also have my own perspective on the game based on what I see play out. I know that when I play EASHL with my friends that I grew up with, we don't have near as much chemistry or skill as a team as I have had in the past playing with top players and therefore we have a lot less success. I actually have more success at times playing random drop ins, dropping back to defense.
However, my last 20 games in 1v1 online gameplay, I am 20-0 and in the last 10 games have outscored my opponents 48-5 with 6 shutouts. I haven't scored more than 7 goals in a game but I only gave up more than 1 goal in one game. I know you can play a puck control game and have a lot of success. I out time on attack my opponents close to 2:1 and find a lot of success when I do that vs trade chances back and forth. This isn't a claim to say I am good at the game, as the level of my opponents were varied in that time span. The point is that the scores don't need to be 14-0 for there to be a legit skill gap in a balanced game.
I understand where you are coming from Ben, and can appreciate why you see things the way you do. However, when I consider the bolded part, I simply do not understand what you mean.
When most poke checks have weird puck reactions that defy physics coupled with the fact forwards way more often than not, just simply reach back and just pick up the puck while maintaining momentum. Or how a puck carrier gets laid out, yet he will get back up and leave with the puck while the player throwing the check just stands there while seeming like he is stunned. Forwards spamming puck protect while hugging the boards grants huge immunity bonuses to checks.
Also taking into account how many times a puck is finally dislodged from an attacker only to see it deflect to one of his teammates. Goalies constantly kicking out huge rebounds to the slot from weak un-screened wristers.
Sorry, but all I see is a game that is HUGELY biased to forwards and is plagued with alot of inconsistency. D men clearly do not have the skating skills to keep up with danglers and the controls are very clunky compared to forwards. By simply pressing 2 buttons a forward gets a cute little animation that easily breaks him away from a defender while the defender has absolutely no tools to force a forward into certain situations. D men can simply back up like a glorified cone and hope the forward makes a mistake to capitalize on it.
Simply put, playing D is boring and nothing more than a simple nuisance to forwards.
Playing goalie is extremely frustrating, and quite frankly, simply not fun anymore. In fact, it has gotten to the point where playing around with equipment and customizing a goalie is loads more fun than actually playing it on the ice.
It is a fair point, especially as it comes from your personal experience but the 'grass was always greener' in the NHL 09-12 days as well. We need to be careful not to consider more factors as 'random'. In NHL 12, you may have needed to do 1 or 2 things right to score with great success and in the more recent versions of the game you may need to do 3 or 4 things right to score. That is still balanced across both teams and it gives the defense more conditions to limit the offense as well.
I understand where you are coming from Ben, and can appreciate why you see things the way you do. However, when I consider the bolded part, I simply do not understand what you mean.
What I mean by that is that a defender can understand the different physical conditions and take those into account when defending. They don't need to commit as much when the offensive player isn't as big of a threat to score and can use factors such as incidental contact to their advantage. In the past, players could use a spin around slapshot and have just as much accuracy so there wasn't as much advantage getting them to angle such that their backhand was to the net -- that sort of thing.
Ben, I honestly think you guys need to look at adding in a real goalie fatigue system. The longer a team spends in that goalies zone or the more shots he faces the lower his endurance drops and the more likely he is to give up a goal. It's the only way to reward a team for outplaying another team. In real hockey you can't tell me that if a team had 4-5x the shots and ToA that the goalie they were shooting on wouldn't be completely exhausted.
I wouldn't be against this if it was done right. Making 2-3 tight saves while in position should result in a lower loss of stamina than a goalie that dives to make a save or uses desperation save attempts for example. This would force goalies to freeze the puck a lot more instead of passing it out, especially if the opposing team has been buzzing around him for a while.
Yes, we have considered a model very similar and have designs for it. Not sure if it will ever make it into the game but from a high level it is a good idea.
Love the conversation about NHL 12 for example, here is many old schooler complaint. NHL 09, 10, 11, and 12 the EASHL community and leagues were off the charts. It was never more fun to play this game back then. There was something so right with how the game played, it was just flat out fun to play!!! Since NHL 13 and the implementation of TPS (the birth of sim), ever since year by year the EASHL community has suffered greatly as fewer players from previous years came back, year by year they gave up on the game as EASHL just isn't as fun as it used to be. My question is you have to realize this, yes? That EASHL has lost it's flair/fun? The days of Kontenders, white knights, fearless, composure, ninth wonder, cross crease cheese, unbreakable cycle, reservoir dogs, and countless other top clubs and all their members played religiously day in day out all year round until the next years game came out, then repeat another year. Something happened at NHL 13, the game became less fun, (more real) but less fun.
What is EA's stance on bringing this fun back to EASHL??? Please don't tell me its gone forever and you aren't bringing it back, it was a noble attempt to redirect the game to a sim, but you lost the fun factor. I understand there are people who like the game as is, but I can tell you as someone who's played the 09/10,11,12 year games and kept playing 13,14,15,16,17 and I'm not telling you something you don' t already know, this game does not have the fan following it once had, not even close, it was a cult, addicted NHL EASHL players 4 to 6 hours a day/night, every day. This is not the case anymore, doesn't EA want that fan dedication back?
Please explain in terms of fun factor from old school to new school, thanks..
Replies
Yeah, I get that, Ben. But still 15% scoring on average is a little excessive especially considering the game just came out and the percentage will still go higher the more people get comfortable with the gameplay. Not saying the average should be 10% and lower, but striving to lower it by 2-3% shouldn't be that bad as it would probably translate to 1 or 2 goals less per game.
At least until some of the problems with the goalie mechanics can be ironed out (animations freezing and glitching). Same with some of the player animation problems, like the players freezing when attempting to chop a puck near the boards which can account for at least one goal per game in some cases.
I think the game would've benefited from having it be a little tougher to score and then you guys could've tuned it to be a bit easier, than making it easy from the get go. Right now I have to work hard to keep a 3.50 GAA, which I think I could've easily kept under 3.00 if I had better defense some nights (HAH!) and kept a handful of glitchy goals out of my net. Sorry... I just don't agree with those cross-grain, weak wristers from the point making the goalie spazz out and whiff a save.
To answer some of this specifically, when I say games online, I am not just talking about 6v6 EASHL or even just EASHL. I am talking about online games with 4 minute periods on Competitive Game Style and All Star Difficulty.
Our EASHL matchmaking tries to do a good job of getting even matches but if there is a big mismatch in teams, it is possible to get a ton of goals and give up none. I am not sure where your statistics are coming form but it is a rather large generalization.
Over the years, I have logged a lot of games within this series and am well aware of the mechanics and balance of each of the games. The 14-0 games in NHL 12 were often a winger flying up the wing, passing a hard pass over to a one timer, rinse and repeat. The reason you don't see that now is that for one, incidental contact is on now. A stick that went through a players stick legs in NHL 12 wouldn't knock the puck loose. That lowers overall puck control by quite a bit. Passing on your forehand vs backhand has a greater impact than it did in those years, defenders can deflect and intercept pucks with greater consistency and the incidental contact distrupts puck receptions and also impacts a shot if a defender is there to get their stick on your stick, even if they don't get the puck. In NHL 12, you could connect on a one timer and have full success even if you had to shoot through a defenders legs first.
As we improve those mechanics, overall goal scoring in situations like those will go down. However, it is equal to both sides.
So although people will complain that weak goals go in (it happens with so many unique models when we don't can sequences where a certain shot is always a save or always a goal and rely on puck physics, physical models and reaction time and let things occur), for a team to score 5 goals it is harder when things are balanced. So a 3 goal lead now may actually be harder to come back on than a 6 goal lead in the NHL 12 days.
Although, we can learn from those games, you can't really compare them 1:1 when many factors have changed.
A goalie robbing you on a one timer or hitting the post are purely in the models. If you don't sell that you are going to shoot (maybe you don't settle into a glide first, aren't on your forehand, don't have a great angle to the net, etc.) , the goalie may be more aware that a pass may come and may be more ready for it. When you are shooting, all of the factors for accuracy have to do with your players ratings and all the physical parts of the model (how settled/in control you are, angle to target, etc.) so the chance of hitting the post is based purely on the distribution of your shot error. If you have a ton of error, your chance of hitting the post may be less since there is a higher chance of missing the net completely or hitting the goalie in the chest. If you are trying to pick the corner, it will take some error to hit the post or cross bar but any error at all can lead to you missing by a few inches and hitting the iron. And if you have a wide open net, aim more to the middle of the net or shoot along the ice to remove the chance of missing even more.
I think Assisted's point is that the consistency from previous games is something that may have been more important than we once thought. In 09-12, if you played a game where you had 25 shots, and 10 minutes TOA compared to 10 shots and 3 minutes TOA, that score was generally 5-1 or perhaps even a bigger blowout. Since then, the scores have been getting more and more random though, to the point where you might even lose that game 10% of the time.
While the better team still generally wins, losing or even just barely winning a game where you dominate is by far the most frustrating thing in this game. I know that this happens in real life, but when a team objectively outplays the other in every facet of a video game, the score needs to reflect that. It feels like there is no way to win sometimes, and that's what makes me and my club play this game so infrequently these days.
It is a fair point, especially as it comes from your personal experience but the 'grass was always greener' in the NHL 09-12 days as well. We need to be careful not to consider more factors as 'random'. In NHL 12, you may have needed to do 1 or 2 things right to score with great success and in the more recent versions of the game you may need to do 3 or 4 things right to score. That is still balanced across both teams and it gives the defense more conditions to limit the offense as well. This may result in lower scoring games but that doesn't mean that it is 'random'. It is going to feel random if you only consider getting a one timer from the hashmarks as your condition. What if you were considering the originating pass being on the forehand or backhand or being 30mph instead of 50mph. What if the shooters angle was different by 15 degrees, he was fading away slightly rather than being planted, etc. etc.
Air hockey is simpler than real hockey in the amount of factors involved but neither are random. You can maximize your chances to score by knowing all the factors.
And from a personal side, along with the telemetry and what I hear from people online, I also have my own perspective on the game based on what I see play out. I know that when I play EASHL with my friends that I grew up with, we don't have near as much chemistry or skill as a team as I have had in the past playing with top players and therefore we have a lot less success. I actually have more success at times playing random drop ins, dropping back to defense.
However, my last 20 games in 1v1 online gameplay, I am 20-0 and in the last 10 games have outscored my opponents 48-5 with 6 shutouts. I haven't scored more than 7 goals in a game but I only gave up more than 1 goal in one game. I know you can play a puck control game and have a lot of success. I out time on attack my opponents close to 2:1 and find a lot of success when I do that vs trade chances back and forth. This isn't a claim to say I am good at the game, as the level of my opponents were varied in that time span. The point is that the scores don't need to be 14-0 for there to be a legit skill gap in a balanced game.
I don't have any real problem with the balance between offense and defense this year per se. My GAA is around 2.4 this year, and more recently it's closer to 1.5 (this is in HUT). That's with a goalie save percentage of around 85%. That doesn't seen unreasonable.
Having said that, what I do have a problem with is the way the goals I do give up are generally scored. First, the defensive AI is abysmally bad -- worse than in any NHL game I've ever played. At this point, having played enough games, I can usually see what mistakes my AI players are going to make, and generally adjust to cover them. But it's still absurd that defensive AI mistakes are responsible for a third or more of the goals I give up. If I'm playing a normal tight-point strategy, for instance, my AI LW shouldn't skate over to attack the opponent's LD when I have him under control, leaving the RD open for a one-timer. Yet that happens all the time. Similarly, AI defensemen shouldn't skate blissfully up to their own blue line while the opposing puck carrier is charging through the neutral zone. Yet again, this happens all the time.
It's also not accurate to say that the incidental-contact mechanics are equal for both sides. Stick-on-stick, stick-on-puck, and puck-on-skate mechanics remain incredibly inconsistent, and they don't necessarily even out by the end of a game. Also, players that have no compunction about skating into traffic, even when it's an obviously stupid play, reap the benefits of the inconsistent mechanics far more than players that try to avoid traffic. Way too many good scoring chances are created when sticks go through legs or pucks stay magnetized to sticks despite hard contact.
That's one important reason this year's game is more frustrating, and feels more random, than, say, NHL 12. In NHL 12, the game's physics were universal and obvious: sticks went through legs and bodies and sticks. In NHL 17, sometimes stick-on-stick contact affects the puck. Other times it has no impact at all. Sometimes a poke check knocks the puck away. Other times, your poke just passes right through the puck. Sometimes pucks glance off skates. Other times, they pass magically through them. So you just have to hope this time the game's physics will be on your side.
I wouldn't be against this if it was done right. Making 2-3 tight saves while in position should result in a lower loss of stamina than a goalie that dives to make a save or uses desperation save attempts for example. This would force goalies to freeze the puck a lot more instead of passing it out, especially if the opposing team has been buzzing around him for a while.
This. Lots of this. Most of the goals I(or my team) give up on a nightly basis are just people skating into piles of bodies and someone getting a shot off that goes in. I could put together a lengthy highlight reel from the last week or two alone of just nonsense goal after nonsense goal. As BMH said, all that incidental contact is wildly inconsistent from game to game, as is almost everything about this game.
I understand where you are coming from Ben, and can appreciate why you see things the way you do. However, when I consider the bolded part, I simply do not understand what you mean.
When most poke checks have weird puck reactions that defy physics coupled with the fact forwards way more often than not, just simply reach back and just pick up the puck while maintaining momentum. Or how a puck carrier gets laid out, yet he will get back up and leave with the puck while the player throwing the check just stands there while seeming like he is stunned. Forwards spamming puck protect while hugging the boards grants huge immunity bonuses to checks.
Also taking into account how many times a puck is finally dislodged from an attacker only to see it deflect to one of his teammates. Goalies constantly kicking out huge rebounds to the slot from weak un-screened wristers.
Sorry, but all I see is a game that is HUGELY biased to forwards and is plagued with alot of inconsistency. D men clearly do not have the skating skills to keep up with danglers and the controls are very clunky compared to forwards. By simply pressing 2 buttons a forward gets a cute little animation that easily breaks him away from a defender while the defender has absolutely no tools to force a forward into certain situations. D men can simply back up like a glorified cone and hope the forward makes a mistake to capitalize on it.
Simply put, playing D is boring and nothing more than a simple nuisance to forwards.
Playing goalie is extremely frustrating, and quite frankly, simply not fun anymore. In fact, it has gotten to the point where playing around with equipment and customizing a goalie is loads more fun than actually playing it on the ice.
What I mean by that is that a defender can understand the different physical conditions and take those into account when defending. They don't need to commit as much when the offensive player isn't as big of a threat to score and can use factors such as incidental contact to their advantage. In the past, players could use a spin around slapshot and have just as much accuracy so there wasn't as much advantage getting them to angle such that their backhand was to the net -- that sort of thing.
Yes, we have considered a model very similar and have designs for it. Not sure if it will ever make it into the game but from a high level it is a good idea.
Love the conversation about NHL 12 for example, here is many old schooler complaint. NHL 09, 10, 11, and 12 the EASHL community and leagues were off the charts. It was never more fun to play this game back then. There was something so right with how the game played, it was just flat out fun to play!!! Since NHL 13 and the implementation of TPS (the birth of sim), ever since year by year the EASHL community has suffered greatly as fewer players from previous years came back, year by year they gave up on the game as EASHL just isn't as fun as it used to be. My question is you have to realize this, yes? That EASHL has lost it's flair/fun? The days of Kontenders, white knights, fearless, composure, ninth wonder, cross crease cheese, unbreakable cycle, reservoir dogs, and countless other top clubs and all their members played religiously day in day out all year round until the next years game came out, then repeat another year. Something happened at NHL 13, the game became less fun, (more real) but less fun.
What is EA's stance on bringing this fun back to EASHL??? Please don't tell me its gone forever and you aren't bringing it back, it was a noble attempt to redirect the game to a sim, but you lost the fun factor. I understand there are people who like the game as is, but I can tell you as someone who's played the 09/10,11,12 year games and kept playing 13,14,15,16,17 and I'm not telling you something you don' t already know, this game does not have the fan following it once had, not even close, it was a cult, addicted NHL EASHL players 4 to 6 hours a day/night, every day. This is not the case anymore, doesn't EA want that fan dedication back?
Please explain in terms of fun factor from old school to new school, thanks..