And to hit on points like Seth's. If you have a poor connection and get latency in this game, it is going to be a problem. People that have better connections are going to find all the subtle behaviors much more on point than those with worse connections. I talk to our online team all the time making sure they understand the issues that the community is bringing up and trying to see if there is anything that can be done to improve the experience for even more players.
Please define 'poor connection', so we all know what you're talking about. HUT / VS / EASHL? What's the minimum to get decent gameplay? And why isn't this mentioned on the cover of the game/specs?
I am mostly talking in general. Any game with lag is going to be a worse experience. Hockey is a pretty tough combination. Others have mentioned Rocket League and/or FPS games. The difference is that in those games they don't have a small object travelling fast that you can also still see fully. I know if my ping in a peer to peer game is 15, it is a dream compared to playing at 80.
I can't talk to the technical details so don't quote me on this, it is more from an overall theory but if someone shoots you on their screen in an FPS, it updates to the server and you are shot. In our game, imagine if on one screen, someone scored and the other it got blocked but as long as the person that shot the puck had the puck go in, it counted as a goal.
I have also had moments in Rocket League where the ball and cars, as big as they are create a physics collision a good couple feet from each other.
I am not to say there aren't issues with our collisions at times but what one person sees on their screen is what is seen on every one. That difference allows for good one on one gameplay with a small puck but with lag can cause issues.
I know our online engineers could explain this much better but just to give a general idea. I don't think that we could use what FPS games use without massive discrepancies visually in the game.
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..
When you think about it, it is absolutely absurd that we have had to deal with this for 5 years.
A good example of what certain aspects of this skating engine feels like to play with and control would be; Go into GTA and pop your back 2 tires. Now try to drive around the city full speed and try to stay on the road and avoid hitting other cars. Can it be done? Sure. What does it FEEL like though? It FEELS like a chore. You are constantly readjusting your steering and really have to pay attention and fight with the controls to accomplish this task. That is a perfect analogy of what certain aspects of TPS make us do every single game we play. It's that constant tapping/readjusting that just gets tiring and disengages users and saps the fun out of playing the game.
No one is going to enjoy a game for long periods of time where they have to constantly tap/readjust/fight with their joystick to accomplish a task that should be easy and FEEL and control in a smooth manner.
I have no major issues with what you are describing. I guess I'm just not very picky. I really like this game. I'm sure your points are valid but I personally don't have any major gripes about the skating. I fear that EA will go back to the NHL 12 float fest. I'm a sim guy. I don't like the arcade style of game play.
If you are playing anything other than be a pro you won't really notice these things as much. On offense you are controlling the player with the puck the whole time, which feels and works great, other than the holding LB strafing should be a little faster and more responsive (this was a mechanic they added in 16 but absolutely nobody uses it because it is just inadequate).
Even on defense you are probably constantly switching players, so again you probly won't notice too many issues because of that. Try not switching players in your defensive zone that's when you will start seeing issues like the herky jerky AI in the OP and that's when you'll have to begin with the constant tapping/readjusting of your LS.
Yeah I see what you mean, you pretty much need seperate buttons for VC and back skate for it to be effective then it looks like, what if it were changed so that clicking R3 while holding in LT would toggle between backskate and VC? As far as I know R3 doesn't do anything without possession of the puck, I could be wrong though. And Ben, these forums are for civil discussions, no cursing please... lol jk
That is funny. The word it masked out was an-a-log (without the dashes obviously)
R3 without possession of the puck is hip check right now but yes there may be ways that the control could change. Lots of knock on issues when you start to do that though.
Hrmm, yeah I realise that now. Hip checks aren't effective enough to use anyway though, they're just as effective as a bad hit right now. You'd definitely need to shuffle around some controls, and I know that will lead to conflicts.
In the Lidstrom clip, it isn't old school VC at all in my opinion. When he fully turns, he is actually moving his skate blades to the way he is rotating/turning and comes to a stop as well, holding his ground to make the play which you can do with the current model. The one difference is that he does rotate his upper body form what his skates are doing to try and keep his shoulders and stick more square to the puck carrier and that is where we would want to go with a more advanced defensive stick. There have been discussions about that too. However, when you watch NHL players skating at speed, they need to rotate their hips and their skates need to be parallel with the direction they are travelling so they are always skating either forwards or backwards in most cases. The upper body rotation is a difference but again, its still a skating commitment and we tune our pokecheck accordingly, not hitting you as hard to your sides as we do the back to still give you a better 180 in front of you rather than an upper body that rotates and only great pokechecking out front where you are square which may be the more realistic way with all capabilities modelled. That is an example of what I mean about tuning the game within the current abilities.
But that "one difference" is the difference everyone is talking about. We want to be able to pivot our upper body to face the puck while moving, so that we have more control over the play. As it is, the best you can do -- or at least the best I can figure out how to do -- is to backskate while facing up ice, and just try to keep your body between the puck carrier and the net (or his passing target). And yes, you can pokecheck off to the side, but I rarely do it, because it looks ridiculous and until you mentioned it in this thread it would never have occurred to me that pokechecking to the side while facing up ice would be a good way to knock the puck away.
I understand that you're mostly concerned with how people's skate blades are moving, but I don't think most people who want VC back want it back so that they skate backwards at speed without having to commit one way or the other. They want it back so that when playing defense, they can simply face the puck in situations other than when they're stopped (which, frankly, you almost never are in 1v1 modes). That's what Lidstrom does in that clip, and what I never see people do in this game.
I'm also confused by the clunkiness of the skating at low speeds. I mean, is this really how NHL players skate when they receive the puck?
I am mostly talking in general. Any game with lag is going to be a worse experience. Hockey is a pretty tough combination. Others have mentioned Rocket League and/or FPS games. The difference is that in those games they don't have a small object travelling fast that you can also still see fully. I know if my ping in a peer to peer game is 15, it is a dream compared to playing at 80.
I can't talk to the technical details so don't quote me on this, it is more from an overall theory but if someone shoots you on their screen in an FPS, it updates to the server and you are shot. In our game, imagine if on one screen, someone scored and the other it got blocked but as long as the person that shot the puck had the puck go in, it counted as a goal.
I have also had moments in Rocket League where the ball and cars, as big as they are create a physics collision a good couple feet from each other.
I am not to say there aren't issues with our collisions at times but what one person sees on their screen is what is seen on every one. That difference allows for good one on one gameplay with a small puck but with lag can cause issues.
I know our online engineers could explain this much better but just to give a general idea. I don't think that we could use what FPS games use without massive discrepancies visually in the game.
No doubt it's difficult issue, and I kinda guessed you wouldn't give me straight answer. Are you then saying that ping is mostly useless in determining lag or connection quality, or that everyone with ping over 20 is doomed to laggy play, and you don't like to admit this, because it would upset most people?
What I cannot understand is that is why don't you provide us a tool which will tell exactly whether the game will be laggy or not? Is it because your net team is struggling to understand this themselves?
I am mostly talking in general. Any game with lag is going to be a worse experience. Hockey is a pretty tough combination. Others have mentioned Rocket League and/or FPS games. The difference is that in those games they don't have a small object travelling fast that you can also still see fully. I know if my ping in a peer to peer game is 15, it is a dream compared to playing at 80.
I can't talk to the technical details so don't quote me on this, it is more from an overall theory but if someone shoots you on their screen in an FPS, it updates to the server and you are shot. In our game, imagine if on one screen, someone scored and the other it got blocked but as long as the person that shot the puck had the puck go in, it counted as a goal.
I have also had moments in Rocket League where the ball and cars, as big as they are create a physics collision a good couple feet from each other.
I am not to say there aren't issues with our collisions at times but what one person sees on their screen is what is seen on every one. That difference allows for good one on one gameplay with a small puck but with lag can cause issues.
I know our online engineers could explain this much better but just to give a general idea. I don't think that we could use what FPS games use without massive discrepancies visually in the game.
No doubt it's difficult issue, and I kinda guessed you wouldn't give me straight answer. Are you then saying that ping is mostly useless in determining lag or connection quality, or that everyone with ping over 20 is doomed to laggy play, and you don't like to admit this, because it would upset most people?
What I cannot understand is that is why don't you provide us a tool which will tell exactly whether the game will be laggy or not? Is it because your net team is struggling to understand this themselves?
I play with 25-35 ping on average and it seems fine to me, I have 150 mb per second internet, so it's as low as it will ever get and it feels fine to me. As far as seeing if you are laggy or not, I usially check by hitting poke check, that is a goid way to check delay.
What he is saying is that this game is set up completely different than FPS and some other games too. Ever notice when you watch a kill cam in COD that some times it looks nothing like you remember it? Some times you get 3 or 4 shots off and then get killed, but when you watch the kill cam it doesn't show you shoot even one bullet before you get killed. That's because all players are not seeing the same thing.
Thats why run and gun is such an advantage in that game, if you are standing still, the game has you sitting there already, but if someone runs through the door you're watching, he's going to see you a split second before he even shows up on your screen.
The way hockey is, everyone sees the exact same thing at all times, thats why it isn't as smooth online as it is offline.
No doubt it's difficult issue, and I kinda guessed you wouldn't give me straight answer. Are you then saying that ping is mostly useless in determining lag or connection quality, or that everyone with ping over 20 is doomed to laggy play, and you don't like to admit this, because it would upset most people?
What I cannot understand is that is why don't you provide us a tool which will tell exactly whether the game will be laggy or not? Is it because your net team is struggling to understand this themselves?
It isn't avoiding giving a straight answer. The better your ping the better chance the experience will be better. Some people are more sensitive to lag than others. I am sure guys that used to play way back in the day on PC over earlier modem connections find any connection these days a dream to play on where others had anything that feels slower than what they get offline.
If you feel doomed at 20 ping and above, then you aren't going to have much success in online gaming. I range anywhere from 12-70 when playing 1v1 and it seems fine. When I connect to the West servers in EASHL, I get around 15-20 and it feels buttery smooth. Connecting the East servers, it is usually 40ish but that also doesn't really hinder my ability to play. All up to you though what you like.
The ping is supposed to be a tool that shows you the connection quality of the game. It samples often enough that when you check it, you can see what the average quality of your connection was and the graph gives you an idea if it was steady or fluctuating at times.
But that "one difference" is the difference everyone is talking about. We want to be able to pivot our upper body to face the puck while moving, so that we have more control over the play. As it is, the best you can do -- or at least the best I can figure out how to do -- is to backskate while facing up ice, and just try to keep your body between the puck carrier and the net (or his passing target). And yes, you can pokecheck off to the side, but I rarely do it, because it looks ridiculous and until you mentioned it in this thread it would never have occurred to me that pokechecking to the side while facing up ice would be a good way to knock the puck away.
I understand that you're mostly concerned with how people's skate blades are moving, but I don't think most people who want VC back want it back so that they skate backwards at speed without having to commit one way or the other. They want it back so that when playing defense, they can simply face the puck in situations other than when they're stopped (which, frankly, you almost never are in 1v1 modes). That's what Lidstrom does in that clip, and what I never see people do in this game.
I'm also confused by the clunkiness of the skating at low speeds. I mean, is this really how NHL players skate when they receive the puck?
If that is the case, it is far different than what I have seen a lot of people write. They are talking more about pure skating ability, not what the upper body can do unique to their skates. Referring back to the old games and old VC is a big disconnect as that isn't accountability in your skates but the ability to rotate your upper body. Instead it was the ability to move laterally at the same speeds as you could forward and backward without ever having to commit. In that case, you didn't have to rotate your upper body because it was always square since you could go sideways across your skates.
If we gave you the ability to rotate your upper body, it would help with manually defending passing lanes but the current capability to deflect passes within your radius, intercept pucks, poke pucks that are within your range, etc. give you the tools you need when skating at speed, it just doesn't visually look as square until we give more manual stick control. That is a separate topic though around a defensive skill stick.
Anyways, if that is the case, it is something we are definitely looking at to see if we can get the best of both worlds.
Yes, slow speed skating is different but I have addressed that as well. Would definitely like smoother blend between skating at speed with VC and precision skating/strafes. Its one of those things that is easier said than done obviously.
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.
But that "one difference" is the difference everyone is talking about. We want to be able to pivot our upper body to face the puck while moving, so that we have more control over the play. As it is, the best you can do -- or at least the best I can figure out how to do -- is to backskate while facing up ice, and just try to keep your body between the puck carrier and the net (or his passing target). And yes, you can pokecheck off to the side, but I rarely do it, because it looks ridiculous and until you mentioned it in this thread it would never have occurred to me that pokechecking to the side while facing up ice would be a good way to knock the puck away.
I understand that you're mostly concerned with how people's skate blades are moving, but I don't think most people who want VC back want it back so that they skate backwards at speed without having to commit one way or the other. They want it back so that when playing defense, they can simply face the puck in situations other than when they're stopped (which, frankly, you almost never are in 1v1 modes). That's what Lidstrom does in that clip, and what I never see people do in this game.
I'm also confused by the clunkiness of the skating at low speeds. I mean, is this really how NHL players skate when they receive the puck?
If that is the case, it is far different than what I have seen a lot of people write. They are talking more about pure skating ability, not what the upper body can do unique to their skates. Referring back to the old games and old VC is a big disconnect as that isn't accountability in your skates but the ability to rotate your upper body. Instead it was the ability to move laterally at the same speeds as you could forward and backward without ever having to commit. In that case, you didn't have to rotate your upper body because it was always square since you could go sideways across your skates.
If we gave you the ability to rotate your upper body, it would help with manually defending passing lanes but the current capability to deflect passes within your radius, intercept pucks, poke pucks that are within your range, etc. give you the tools you need when skating at speed, it just doesn't visually look as square until we give more manual stick control. That is a separate topic though around a defensive skill stick.
Anyways, if that is the case, it is something we are definitely looking at to see if we can get the best of both worlds.
Yes, slow speed skating is different but I have addressed that as well. Would definitely like smoother blend between skating at speed with VC and precision skating/strafes. Its one of those things that is easier said than done obviously.
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.
Maybe receiving the puck and then start skating is the better way to go. It may not 'look as pretty' but it is a much better feeling for the user.
This clip shows the game taking control away. While his player is doing that backskate reception he loses all control until the animation has ended, he can try to move his LS around but nothing will happen. This type of disconnect this animation illustrates is a terrible FEELING for users when playing the game and controlling their player. These types of animations take control away from the user too often in the new gen game.
This is another thing that is contributing to players becoming disengaged and not playing as much or as long as they used to in the past.
But that "one difference" is the difference everyone is talking about. We want to be able to pivot our upper body to face the puck while moving, so that we have more control over the play. As it is, the best you can do -- or at least the best I can figure out how to do -- is to backskate while facing up ice, and just try to keep your body between the puck carrier and the net (or his passing target). And yes, you can pokecheck off to the side, but I rarely do it, because it looks ridiculous and until you mentioned it in this thread it would never have occurred to me that pokechecking to the side while facing up ice would be a good way to knock the puck away.
I understand that you're mostly concerned with how people's skate blades are moving, but I don't think most people who want VC back want it back so that they skate backwards at speed without having to commit one way or the other. They want it back so that when playing defense, they can simply face the puck in situations other than when they're stopped (which, frankly, you almost never are in 1v1 modes). That's what Lidstrom does in that clip, and what I never see people do in this game.
I'm also confused by the clunkiness of the skating at low speeds. I mean, is this really how NHL players skate when they receive the puck?
If that is the case, it is far different than what I have seen a lot of people write. They are talking more about pure skating ability, not what the upper body can do unique to their skates. Referring back to the old games and old VC is a big disconnect as that isn't accountability in your skates but the ability to rotate your upper body. Instead it was the ability to move laterally at the same speeds as you could forward and backward without ever having to commit. In that case, you didn't have to rotate your upper body because it was always square since you could go sideways across your skates.
If we gave you the ability to rotate your upper body, it would help with manually defending passing lanes but the current capability to deflect passes within your radius, intercept pucks, poke pucks that are within your range, etc. give you the tools you need when skating at speed, it just doesn't visually look as square until we give more manual stick control. That is a separate topic though around a defensive skill stick.
Anyways, if that is the case, it is something we are definitely looking at to see if we can get the best of both worlds.
Yes, slow speed skating is different but I have addressed that as well. Would definitely like smoother blend between skating at speed with VC and precision skating/strafes. Its one of those things that is easier said than done obviously.
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.
Maybe receiving the puck and then start skating is the better way to go. It may not 'look as pretty' but it is a much better feeling for the user.
This clip shows the game taking control away. While his player is doing that backskate reception he loses all control until the animation has ended, he can try to move his LS around but nothing will happen. This type of disconnect this animation illustrates is a terrible FEELING for users when playing the game and controlling their player. These types of animations take control away from the user too often in the new gen game.
This is another thing that is contributing to players becoming disengaged and not playing as much or as long as they used to in the past.
Yup, pretty much this. The NHL team clearly doesn't get it.
As for the pass reception in the video. That is an interesting example for 'clunkiness at slow speed'. He is doing a back accel pickup. These are meant to play if you are asking to backskate and pressing away at the same time the puck is coming to you. The most common use would be at the point or going D to D in your own zone so that your dman isn't caught flat footed and can give themselves a bit more space than they could before these were added. In the past, you had to receive the puck and then start skating.
Okay, this is really interesting -- and important. So here's the clip, just so people don't need to go upthread to see it:
So what you're saying is that because I was initially pressing up and to the left on the LS -- which was just me aiming the pass -- Seguin went into a back accel pickup, which meant he had to do that little shuffle backward before pivoting and heading up ice, as I then told him to do with the LS. So this was a case of user error.
I think there are 3 points to make about this:
1) This was a short, relatively hard pass. So I had very little time -- almost no time, in fact -- to move the LS away from top left (which is where it had to be for the pass to go where I wanted it to go) before Seguin caught it. For the game to take my initial pass-aim command to the LS as also a command to Seguin to skate backward after receiving the pass seems, frankly, too demanding. I mean, I have to hold the LS in position long enough to ensure that the pass goes where I want it to. But if I hold it there too long, then the command I think I'm making, which is just "pass it to Seguin," becomes an additional command telling Seguin to backskate. But how long is too long? 0.1 seconds? 0.2 seconds? I don't know. I have to guess.
2) I understand the desire to let us control the pass receiver before he receives the pass, so that we can get him out of trouble, or give him more space. But I think it was a design mistake to make the default option moving the receiver before he receives the pass, because that results in what we see in that clip -- the game creating a result that the user didn't intend.
The more logical way to deal with this, it seems to me, would be to design it so that if you want to control the receiver before he receives the pass, you have to return the LS to the center after you aim the pass and then make a new command. If you don't do that, then the pass receiver would just receive the pass while stationary, and then do whatever you tell him after that. (So in this clip, Seguin would have received the pass and then skated up ice, as I wanted him to do.) In other words, if the user wanted the receiver to move before receiving the pass, he would have to be active in entering a new command. The pass-aim command wouldn't automatically become a command for the receiver to move, which in effect is how it is now.
3) Regardless of all this, it seems like a problem that I'm an experienced user, who's played way too mthe any games of both NHL 16 and 17 (the two games when this feature has been present, I think), and I still didn't realize that I had to return the LS to the center in order to keep Seguin from skating backward. I know, obviously, that holding the LS too long after aiming a pass will move the receiver in that direction (something I learned in NHL 16 by watching my defensemen skate out of the offensive zone again and again when receiving passes back to the point). But in this case, on such a short pass, it never occurred to me that my pass-aim command would translate into a backskate. Now, you can say that I wasn't thinking. But if I didn't realize it, there's no way the average user would know how to play that right. And that doesn't seem like a great thing from a gameplay point of view, since ideally the only things user-controlled players do on the ice are things that the users want them to do.
Finally, I'll just say that even if you end up not changing anything about the way pass receptions work, your posts in this thread are yet more evidence of why this game badly needs an official guide. There are just too many little things about the way the game works that are not obvious, and not easily decipherable just from playing games -- particularly in areas like skating and puck pickups (not to mention strategies). Having a guide, preferably a video one, that says, for instance, "If, when aiming a pass, you keep holding the LS, the pass receiver will move in the direction the LS is aiming before he receives the pass," it would go a long way toward keeping things clear for users. Although, as I say above, I think it makes much more sense to make the default option that the pass receiver just stands still and receives the pass before moving.
There are quite a wide range of suggestions and ideas within the thread and other threads that branch into this topic. Some just want the control back they had in past games by switching systems, others want more control within TPS, and there are a lot of ideas on how that can be achieved.
I understand all of the angles. I understand there are multiple factors that lead to different individuals fun factor within a game but the extreme comments don't necessarily make a better point.
When we put out the Beta this year, it was an opportunity for everyone to play the game. Nowhere in the Beta did it show signs that we were changing our core skating engine, so we haven't been trying to pull the wool over anyones eyes in this process.
In the old engine, there was never a sense of committing. That is a huge factor in hockey. Once you commit to a direction, you can't just turn back the other way without some form of recovery, pivot and transition. I played those games a ton too, in highly competitive EASHL games and gave up 0 shots on plenty of occasions because of the accountability being so low.
It became an arms race between offense and defense of who could be more powerful with all players able to do all the dekes, pass just as well, shoot just as well, etc..
The accountability is now higher. Within that accountability, we can certainly give more control though and that was what some of the changes this year were all about. We could certainly have a better transition into precision skating (but that doesn't mean that you would all of a sudden be able to go into a strafe or t-push from full speed either).
Those that find the new game fun to play on defense have learned the mechanics within the skating engine, look at their player from a physical perspective more than just a dot they are moving around on the screen and understand where they are committing to a pivot, etc.. They understand that they angle they are trying to take sideways, above or below that lateral line with vision control on is going to impact how their player needs to pivot and that it won't be possible at speed to keep your shoulders square to the puck at all times but that you can keep the puck in the front 180 degrees by skating either backwards or forwards as needed.
I also agree to have that, we need to look at the offensive capabilities within skating. We had a lot of work to do to work on the core mechanics of the game over the last few years and other than a few additions and fixing the attribute differentiation, we haven't done too much to deking and players movement with the puck. That is something we definitely want to look back at. In some cases there are abilities that a real world player has with the puck that aren't present and there are other abilities that are far more powerful in our game than they should be (i.e. the strides, lateral acceleration, etc.)
That said, when we tune the game, we do so with the current abilities and mechanics in mind and have tuned defensive mechanics so that if you play your angles and how you commit correctly, you can have a lot of success on defense. As we change/add abilities on defense or offense, the rest of the game will be tuned accordingly with the same goals of balance.
I understand fun factor but I don't believe the route there is back to the days of skating sideways across your skates at full speed without ever needing to pivot, but then allowing a player to skate through your stick/legs without any impact on the puck as a counter. That is an odd arms race of power that never looks at some of the main factors of accountability within hockey.
It is a bit misinterpreted what we can do within our tuning. The pivots are built into the core skating system. You won't be able to just feel like you did in NHL 12. We can tune how the control is read based on inputs and how those are interpreted into the system, we can also tune physical parameters and how attributes impact them such as agility with and without the puck, backwards vs forward skating, momentum impacts on turning radius at speed and how much speed is lost when turning, etc. You can also play with the skating on different game styles and play with some of the skating sliders we have available this year to see what impact some of the overall changes can make on how it feels but no matter what the core system was built with more physical reality in mind to capture one of the biggest differentiators in how things play out in the real world of hockey.
And I do see that as a battle against your opponent and not just the mechanics in the game. If your opponent just skates straight, then it is easy. If they change their pace/check their speed, cut over on you, accelerate, etc., you start to have to make a decision. Do you stay back and leave the slightly bigger gap because they are now wider and less of a threat? Do you cross over and try to keep a tight gap giving them a chance to cross over into the inside? Do you slow to a glide minimizing the gap and give them a chance to skate by with speed? When do you choose to pivot to forwards? If too early, they can cut back on you, if too late, they may beat you with speed around the outside. In a system where you can just stay square and not have to pivot or commit, a lot of that one on one battle is lost.
I agree, there needs to be accountability. But maybe add this animation back in the game. Because we can't do it right now.
I know you want us to pivot and then accelerate, but sometimes in hockey there's no need to pivot. Also, add us the ability to strafe somehow. I hate having to pivot at weird angles on defense just to angle them. I'd like to strafe and keep square to the offenseman's chest.
We just want to be that defender who can face up ice, while crossing over laterally. He's not moving "full speed", but at least he can track the puck carrier. We can't do this in our game. That's why we are asking for the old vision control back. That's a crucial skating engine that defensemen use all the time.
We just want to be that defender who can face up ice, while crossing over laterally. He's not moving "full speed", but at least he can track the puck carrier. We can't do this in our game. That's why we are asking for the old vision control back. That's a crucial skating engine that defensemen use all the time.
What defensemen are you referring too ? The left defensemen or the right ?, you say you want to able to do that in the game, what exactly ?
I see the right defensemen make a cross over to accelerate and then goes into backskate, which you can do in this game
And the left defensemen skating forward, pivoting into back skating which you can also do ?
Then ovey crosses the blue line and the right d-man goes for the hit after only making one cross over, which he misses, but you are able to do this in the game.
Can you please clarify what it is you mean because I have no idea ?
We just want to be that defender who can face up ice, while crossing over laterally. He's not moving "full speed", but at least he can track the puck carrier. We can't do this in our game. That's why we are asking for the old vision control back. That's a crucial skating engine that defensemen use all the time.
What defensemen are you referring too ? The left defensemen or the right ?, you say you want to able to do that in the game, what exactly ?
I see the right defensemen make a cross over to accelerate and then goes into backskate, which you can do in this game
And the left defensemen skating forward, pivoting into back skating which you can also do ?
Then ovey crosses the blue line and the right d-man goes for the hit after only making one cross over, which he misses, but you are able to do this in the game.
Can you please clarify what it is you mean because I have no idea ?
Right defenseman, who is tracking Ovi the entire way (until he gets dangled for trying to poke and get a break the other way) at the blue, slows down then does several crossovers to his left while keeping faced up and skating laterally the entire way.
If you can do that exact same lateral skating, while facing square up the entire ice, chest parallel to the blue line in NHL 17, I'll shut my mouth. Because you cannot do that in this game. You can slow down, while facing your opponent along the boards, but when you move left laterally, you're going to pivot and skate left. He's moving straight laterally while doing crossovers for half the rink. I know you can do it somewhat while skating backwards, but not perfectly lateral.
It isn't avoiding giving a straight answer. The better your ping the better chance the experience will be better. Some people are more sensitive to lag than others. I am sure guys that used to play way back in the day on PC over earlier modem connections find any connection these days a dream to play on where others had anything that feels slower than what they get offline.
If you feel doomed at 20 ping and above, then you aren't going to have much success in online gaming. I range anywhere from 12-70 when playing 1v1 and it seems fine. When I connect to the West servers in EASHL, I get around 15-20 and it feels buttery smooth. Connecting the East servers, it is usually 40ish but that also doesn't really hinder my ability to play. All up to you though what you like.
The ping is supposed to be a tool that shows you the connection quality of the game. It samples often enough that when you check it, you can see what the average quality of your connection was and the graph gives you an idea if it was steady or fluctuating at times.
I don't 'feel doomed' at 20 ping... because I don't have that good a ping. My ping is around 31 to 35 on a normal day (100/10 connection), and even then there's a huge difference in game quality between two games. The lag can be clearly noticeable even when ping is up by one or two 'points'. Ping 60... forget about playing (those are usually yellow bars anyways, so we don't play). Everything you do at that ping comes at great delay.
And very odd things happen even with good (for me) ping, often times net battles and extented stick lifts won't work at all, nothing happens when you keep triangle or cross pressed. And poking is slightly but clearly delayed etc. So playing becomes really difficult, especially as d-man, as the opponents figure-skate around you.
Another thing I had yesterday, my d-man kept moving on its volition, I didn't do anything, not even touched the left pad, and the silly bugger kept making these lunges away from the front of the goal. And this isn't the first time it happens either.
Then I get these games where movement and reactions are butter-smooth, and playing feels great. But ping never gets better than 31 even then?
All this leads me to believe that ping doesn't really tell you everything about your connection by far, and to be sure in EASHL it only tells your connection speed, what it is for other players is anyone's guess, right? Why don't you show everyone's connection speed / ping in EASHL, so we might better judge what is going on? Or would that too be as vague as it is now?
If my connection speed is not sufficient for this game, then I'd like to know it, and not buy this game if that means I will get an inferior experience. In a competitive game like NHL, it's not fair to have to play at disadvantage. When I say I can play every other game out there without lag, you say 'aha but NHL is not like other games' because this and that. Ok, but there has to be an absolute minimum speed at which the game works as intended for everyone involved, and it would be great to see that before starting play?
No doubt it's difficult issue, and I kinda guessed you wouldn't give me straight answer. Are you then saying that ping is mostly useless in determining lag or connection quality, or that everyone with ping over 20 is doomed to laggy play, and you don't like to admit this, because it would upset most people?
What I cannot understand is that is why don't you provide us a tool which will tell exactly whether the game will be laggy or not? Is it because your net team is struggling to understand this themselves?
It isn't avoiding giving a straight answer. The better your ping the better chance the experience will be better. Some people are more sensitive to lag than others. I am sure guys that used to play way back in the day on PC over earlier modem connections find any connection these days a dream to play on where others had anything that feels slower than what they get offline.
If you feel doomed at 20 ping and above, then you aren't going to have much success in online gaming. I range anywhere from 12-70 when playing 1v1 and it seems fine. When I connect to the West servers in EASHL, I get around 15-20 and it feels buttery smooth. Connecting the East servers, it is usually 40ish but that also doesn't really hinder my ability to play. All up to you though what you like.
The ping is supposed to be a tool that shows you the connection quality of the game. It samples often enough that when you check it, you can see what the average quality of your connection was and the graph gives you an idea if it was steady or fluctuating at times.
Could you ask your online guys about this? Or get one of them to come on for a little bit?
The Network Performance monitor does a great job predicting how my connection will be for VS games. Usually it's low 30's, and its pretty good. Sometimes better, and the connection feels great.
In EASHL, my ping is usually 10 or 11 ms, no packet loss, and it's not wildly fluctuating either. It's a pretty stable 10-11 ms, but the game plays terribly. Why is that, and is there anything I can do to improve my experience if this is happening?
Also, we always match region, yet sometimes I get pings around 40 ms. That's the same ping I've had in the few instances I've played on East Coast servers, so I assume that's what is going on here. Why I'm I playing on east coast servers if I match my region to exact?
Don't buy into this **** that it's your fault guys. Having a ping of 50ms or lower is considered good. Having anything near or under 10 is considered amazing. Yet people are getting delay with such a low ping? Absolute ****! I can go play any other game be it console or PC with my connection and feel 0 input lag. The NHL team needs to own up to this being a problem on their end. It's outrageous to say it's on the consumer when we're hitting 10ms and feeling delay. At such low numbers people should not be able to feel the delay.
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I am mostly talking in general. Any game with lag is going to be a worse experience. Hockey is a pretty tough combination. Others have mentioned Rocket League and/or FPS games. The difference is that in those games they don't have a small object travelling fast that you can also still see fully. I know if my ping in a peer to peer game is 15, it is a dream compared to playing at 80.
I can't talk to the technical details so don't quote me on this, it is more from an overall theory but if someone shoots you on their screen in an FPS, it updates to the server and you are shot. In our game, imagine if on one screen, someone scored and the other it got blocked but as long as the person that shot the puck had the puck go in, it counted as a goal.
I have also had moments in Rocket League where the ball and cars, as big as they are create a physics collision a good couple feet from each other.
I am not to say there aren't issues with our collisions at times but what one person sees on their screen is what is seen on every one. That difference allows for good one on one gameplay with a small puck but with lag can cause issues.
I know our online engineers could explain this much better but just to give a general idea. I don't think that we could use what FPS games use without massive discrepancies visually in the game.
If you are playing anything other than be a pro you won't really notice these things as much. On offense you are controlling the player with the puck the whole time, which feels and works great, other than the holding LB strafing should be a little faster and more responsive (this was a mechanic they added in 16 but absolutely nobody uses it because it is just inadequate).
Even on defense you are probably constantly switching players, so again you probly won't notice too many issues because of that. Try not switching players in your defensive zone that's when you will start seeing issues like the herky jerky AI in the OP and that's when you'll have to begin with the constant tapping/readjusting of your LS.
Hrmm, yeah I realise that now. Hip checks aren't effective enough to use anyway though, they're just as effective as a bad hit right now. You'd definitely need to shuffle around some controls, and I know that will lead to conflicts.
But that "one difference" is the difference everyone is talking about. We want to be able to pivot our upper body to face the puck while moving, so that we have more control over the play. As it is, the best you can do -- or at least the best I can figure out how to do -- is to backskate while facing up ice, and just try to keep your body between the puck carrier and the net (or his passing target). And yes, you can pokecheck off to the side, but I rarely do it, because it looks ridiculous and until you mentioned it in this thread it would never have occurred to me that pokechecking to the side while facing up ice would be a good way to knock the puck away.
I understand that you're mostly concerned with how people's skate blades are moving, but I don't think most people who want VC back want it back so that they skate backwards at speed without having to commit one way or the other. They want it back so that when playing defense, they can simply face the puck in situations other than when they're stopped (which, frankly, you almost never are in 1v1 modes). That's what Lidstrom does in that clip, and what I never see people do in this game.
I'm also confused by the clunkiness of the skating at low speeds. I mean, is this really how NHL players skate when they receive the puck?
No doubt it's difficult issue, and I kinda guessed you wouldn't give me straight answer. Are you then saying that ping is mostly useless in determining lag or connection quality, or that everyone with ping over 20 is doomed to laggy play, and you don't like to admit this, because it would upset most people?
What I cannot understand is that is why don't you provide us a tool which will tell exactly whether the game will be laggy or not? Is it because your net team is struggling to understand this themselves?
I play with 25-35 ping on average and it seems fine to me, I have 150 mb per second internet, so it's as low as it will ever get and it feels fine to me. As far as seeing if you are laggy or not, I usially check by hitting poke check, that is a goid way to check delay.
What he is saying is that this game is set up completely different than FPS and some other games too. Ever notice when you watch a kill cam in COD that some times it looks nothing like you remember it? Some times you get 3 or 4 shots off and then get killed, but when you watch the kill cam it doesn't show you shoot even one bullet before you get killed. That's because all players are not seeing the same thing.
Thats why run and gun is such an advantage in that game, if you are standing still, the game has you sitting there already, but if someone runs through the door you're watching, he's going to see you a split second before he even shows up on your screen.
The way hockey is, everyone sees the exact same thing at all times, thats why it isn't as smooth online as it is offline.
It isn't avoiding giving a straight answer. The better your ping the better chance the experience will be better. Some people are more sensitive to lag than others. I am sure guys that used to play way back in the day on PC over earlier modem connections find any connection these days a dream to play on where others had anything that feels slower than what they get offline.
If you feel doomed at 20 ping and above, then you aren't going to have much success in online gaming. I range anywhere from 12-70 when playing 1v1 and it seems fine. When I connect to the West servers in EASHL, I get around 15-20 and it feels buttery smooth. Connecting the East servers, it is usually 40ish but that also doesn't really hinder my ability to play. All up to you though what you like.
The ping is supposed to be a tool that shows you the connection quality of the game. It samples often enough that when you check it, you can see what the average quality of your connection was and the graph gives you an idea if it was steady or fluctuating at times.
If that is the case, it is far different than what I have seen a lot of people write. They are talking more about pure skating ability, not what the upper body can do unique to their skates. Referring back to the old games and old VC is a big disconnect as that isn't accountability in your skates but the ability to rotate your upper body. Instead it was the ability to move laterally at the same speeds as you could forward and backward without ever having to commit. In that case, you didn't have to rotate your upper body because it was always square since you could go sideways across your skates.
If we gave you the ability to rotate your upper body, it would help with manually defending passing lanes but the current capability to deflect passes within your radius, intercept pucks, poke pucks that are within your range, etc. give you the tools you need when skating at speed, it just doesn't visually look as square until we give more manual stick control. That is a separate topic though around a defensive skill stick.
Anyways, if that is the case, it is something we are definitely looking at to see if we can get the best of both worlds.
Yes, slow speed skating is different but I have addressed that as well. Would definitely like smoother blend between skating at speed with VC and precision skating/strafes. Its one of those things that is easier said than done obviously.
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.
Maybe receiving the puck and then start skating is the better way to go. It may not 'look as pretty' but it is a much better feeling for the user.
This clip shows the game taking control away. While his player is doing that backskate reception he loses all control until the animation has ended, he can try to move his LS around but nothing will happen. This type of disconnect this animation illustrates is a terrible FEELING for users when playing the game and controlling their player. These types of animations take control away from the user too often in the new gen game.
This is another thing that is contributing to players becoming disengaged and not playing as much or as long as they used to in the past.
Yup, pretty much this. The NHL team clearly doesn't get it.
Okay, this is really interesting -- and important. So here's the clip, just so people don't need to go upthread to see it:
So what you're saying is that because I was initially pressing up and to the left on the LS -- which was just me aiming the pass -- Seguin went into a back accel pickup, which meant he had to do that little shuffle backward before pivoting and heading up ice, as I then told him to do with the LS. So this was a case of user error.
I think there are 3 points to make about this:
1) This was a short, relatively hard pass. So I had very little time -- almost no time, in fact -- to move the LS away from top left (which is where it had to be for the pass to go where I wanted it to go) before Seguin caught it. For the game to take my initial pass-aim command to the LS as also a command to Seguin to skate backward after receiving the pass seems, frankly, too demanding. I mean, I have to hold the LS in position long enough to ensure that the pass goes where I want it to. But if I hold it there too long, then the command I think I'm making, which is just "pass it to Seguin," becomes an additional command telling Seguin to backskate. But how long is too long? 0.1 seconds? 0.2 seconds? I don't know. I have to guess.
2) I understand the desire to let us control the pass receiver before he receives the pass, so that we can get him out of trouble, or give him more space. But I think it was a design mistake to make the default option moving the receiver before he receives the pass, because that results in what we see in that clip -- the game creating a result that the user didn't intend.
The more logical way to deal with this, it seems to me, would be to design it so that if you want to control the receiver before he receives the pass, you have to return the LS to the center after you aim the pass and then make a new command. If you don't do that, then the pass receiver would just receive the pass while stationary, and then do whatever you tell him after that. (So in this clip, Seguin would have received the pass and then skated up ice, as I wanted him to do.) In other words, if the user wanted the receiver to move before receiving the pass, he would have to be active in entering a new command. The pass-aim command wouldn't automatically become a command for the receiver to move, which in effect is how it is now.
3) Regardless of all this, it seems like a problem that I'm an experienced user, who's played way too mthe any games of both NHL 16 and 17 (the two games when this feature has been present, I think), and I still didn't realize that I had to return the LS to the center in order to keep Seguin from skating backward. I know, obviously, that holding the LS too long after aiming a pass will move the receiver in that direction (something I learned in NHL 16 by watching my defensemen skate out of the offensive zone again and again when receiving passes back to the point). But in this case, on such a short pass, it never occurred to me that my pass-aim command would translate into a backskate. Now, you can say that I wasn't thinking. But if I didn't realize it, there's no way the average user would know how to play that right. And that doesn't seem like a great thing from a gameplay point of view, since ideally the only things user-controlled players do on the ice are things that the users want them to do.
Finally, I'll just say that even if you end up not changing anything about the way pass receptions work, your posts in this thread are yet more evidence of why this game badly needs an official guide. There are just too many little things about the way the game works that are not obvious, and not easily decipherable just from playing games -- particularly in areas like skating and puck pickups (not to mention strategies). Having a guide, preferably a video one, that says, for instance, "If, when aiming a pass, you keep holding the LS, the pass receiver will move in the direction the LS is aiming before he receives the pass," it would go a long way toward keeping things clear for users. Although, as I say above, I think it makes much more sense to make the default option that the pass receiver just stands still and receives the pass before moving.
I agree, there needs to be accountability. But maybe add this animation back in the game. Because we can't do it right now.
[yt]
I know you want us to pivot and then accelerate, but sometimes in hockey there's no need to pivot. Also, add us the ability to strafe somehow. I hate having to pivot at weird angles on defense just to angle them. I'd like to strafe and keep square to the offenseman's chest.
[yt]
We just want to be that defender who can face up ice, while crossing over laterally. He's not moving "full speed", but at least he can track the puck carrier. We can't do this in our game. That's why we are asking for the old vision control back. That's a crucial skating engine that defensemen use all the time.
What defensemen are you referring too ? The left defensemen or the right ?, you say you want to able to do that in the game, what exactly ?
I see the right defensemen make a cross over to accelerate and then goes into backskate, which you can do in this game
And the left defensemen skating forward, pivoting into back skating which you can also do ?
Then ovey crosses the blue line and the right d-man goes for the hit after only making one cross over, which he misses, but you are able to do this in the game.
Can you please clarify what it is you mean because I have no idea ?
Right defenseman, who is tracking Ovi the entire way (until he gets dangled for trying to poke and get a break the other way) at the blue, slows down then does several crossovers to his left while keeping faced up and skating laterally the entire way.
If you can do that exact same lateral skating, while facing square up the entire ice, chest parallel to the blue line in NHL 17, I'll shut my mouth. Because you cannot do that in this game. You can slow down, while facing your opponent along the boards, but when you move left laterally, you're going to pivot and skate left. He's moving straight laterally while doing crossovers for half the rink. I know you can do it somewhat while skating backwards, but not perfectly lateral.
I don't 'feel doomed' at 20 ping... because I don't have that good a ping. My ping is around 31 to 35 on a normal day (100/10 connection), and even then there's a huge difference in game quality between two games. The lag can be clearly noticeable even when ping is up by one or two 'points'. Ping 60... forget about playing (those are usually yellow bars anyways, so we don't play). Everything you do at that ping comes at great delay.
And very odd things happen even with good (for me) ping, often times net battles and extented stick lifts won't work at all, nothing happens when you keep triangle or cross pressed. And poking is slightly but clearly delayed etc. So playing becomes really difficult, especially as d-man, as the opponents figure-skate around you.
Another thing I had yesterday, my d-man kept moving on its volition, I didn't do anything, not even touched the left pad, and the silly bugger kept making these lunges away from the front of the goal. And this isn't the first time it happens either.
Then I get these games where movement and reactions are butter-smooth, and playing feels great. But ping never gets better than 31 even then?
All this leads me to believe that ping doesn't really tell you everything about your connection by far, and to be sure in EASHL it only tells your connection speed, what it is for other players is anyone's guess, right? Why don't you show everyone's connection speed / ping in EASHL, so we might better judge what is going on? Or would that too be as vague as it is now?
If my connection speed is not sufficient for this game, then I'd like to know it, and not buy this game if that means I will get an inferior experience. In a competitive game like NHL, it's not fair to have to play at disadvantage. When I say I can play every other game out there without lag, you say 'aha but NHL is not like other games' because this and that. Ok, but there has to be an absolute minimum speed at which the game works as intended for everyone involved, and it would be great to see that before starting play?
Could you ask your online guys about this? Or get one of them to come on for a little bit?
The Network Performance monitor does a great job predicting how my connection will be for VS games. Usually it's low 30's, and its pretty good. Sometimes better, and the connection feels great.
In EASHL, my ping is usually 10 or 11 ms, no packet loss, and it's not wildly fluctuating either. It's a pretty stable 10-11 ms, but the game plays terribly. Why is that, and is there anything I can do to improve my experience if this is happening?
Also, we always match region, yet sometimes I get pings around 40 ms. That's the same ping I've had in the few instances I've played on East Coast servers, so I assume that's what is going on here. Why I'm I playing on east coast servers if I match my region to exact?