Elbowing penalties since last update!
Since the last patch the amount of penalties I get for elbowing are ridiculous on Be A Pro.Pretty much every big hit is elbowing now! Watching the replays virtually none of the hits are actually elbowing.
In real life elbowing is hardly ever called anymore!
In real life elbowing is hardly ever called anymore!
0
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
Nothing in the last patch or tuner would impact elbowing penalties.
Elbowing penalties are triggered off of a hit that would otherwise be a charge and modulated based on your players discipline rating to get variance in penalties that align with the individual player. It will trigger an elbowing animation in those cases. We changed it to a modifier on a charging call so that it was in the Users control to receive one or not rather than modulating any hit based on your discipline like it was in the past.
Also, playing BAP offline, if you prefer different settings, you can adjust each of the penalty sliders individually. Do you use custom sliders/settings currently? I did hear some Users report that to be sure they weren't getting any changes in their sliders that they recreated their custom presets after the tuner to be sure. We haven't confirmed any issues there but could also be something to try.
Do you truly realize how annoying and frustrating it is to get called for these "roll of the dice" type penalties all the time when you are trying to have a SKILL-BASED game against an online opponent?? Cross-checking is another one. Now I know these are legit penalties in a real game, but in this video game there is ZERO ability to be able to control your elbows or your stick (in a cross-checking situation) through controller input, and I think that is where the common frustration lies.
As long as I'm at it, another animal that is annoying is your AI taking penalties all the time in some games. Once again it's not fair to have to be on the PK half the game because of this "rolling of the dice." Granted it doesn't happen all the time, but there have been games where my team has tallied 5-10 penalties (many 5-on-3) by the end of the 1st period that were MOSTLY a result of AI and/or Elbow/CC penalties.
I could see where this gives a feel of realism in offline modes (Be A Pro, GM/Dynasty types, etc..) but for online competitive modes should we not have more actions be a DIRECT result of the players rather than the dice?
Not sure if you read what I wrote but that is the feedback we took and that is why we made elbowing just a factor off of charging which is something a User does have control over. It used to be just a factor on every hit based on the player's discipline rating but now it only factors in when the hit was already going to be a charging call.
Cross checking is meant to be off in EASHL but I believe it is still on in modes where you can control your lineups since there are pros and cons to strong players that may also have low discipline. I do get the point there and there have been discussions about it. If it is on in EASHL then it would happen more for the Enforcer than it would for other players with higher discipline. Definitely something we can look back at again.
For ai penalties, I definitely see that side of it. We have talked about unique logic in online VS modes for ai defense compared to what we have offline based on some things we have heard from the community but in the end, we weren't able to do that. As of now, since people want to encourage human players to play defense, the ai sometimes taking penalties when they play against the puck carrier seemed like something that was actually encouraging humans to play more manual defense so we didn't add extra code around it for this year. In HUT and Online VS, I personally average around 2 PIMs a game and see that some players in the top 100 average less than 2 minutes per game. In my games, I know that is rarely the ai taking those penalties, although it does sometimes happen. It will continue to be a discussion for sure when we talk about competitive balance -- I do definitely understand where you are coming from as we have had the discussions and it is what lead to changing how elbowing is calculated but we haven't made any other changes yet.
Tripping is a joke in this game too.Been called for tripping when my stick never touches the skates of the opponent.
Passes are going to the wrong people a lot. Players are having trouble getting possession of a loose puck. Opponents are able to strip someone from behind way easier now.
Please jump on some 1v1 play if you get a chance, Ben. I know I'm that guy that always thinks the game is changing after an update. But...it's felt terrible for what feels like a week now.
I was enjoying the game (or trying to) for a while...now it feels terrible, I'm honestly about to just be done with it if this continues to play this way.
Unless I'm doing something wrong in the strategies? I don't know, lol.
Ben literally just said that's the case.
What's with you people? You don't get the answer you want and you just cry about it.
Nope it's just EA's god awful programming
He is wrong ... I posted a video of a random cross checking, by MOV Bergeron at 92 rating , no charging no nothing, just a random cross check, it's the same with elbowing ...
This was the last minute of a tied game, of course I wasn't allowed to change players to get into Bergeron . So the AI took the hit, a well lined up hit, in fact the puck carrier skates into him .What should have been a bad play by this player is rewarded by bad game mechanics, yet again, something this game does way too often ... Doesn't even appear to make contact with the stick shoulder to shoulder hit ...
Yes, we saw when you posted that video before. That video doesn't contradict anything that I said though.
I said that elbowing was a factor on charging now because we are listening to what people are saying about skill based gameplay and having User choice play in.
For cross checks, we tried to tune them out of EASHL to see how that impacted things (again trying to listen to the skill based argument, even though it may make sense that an Enforcer has greater pros and cons when it comes to hitting than another player style) and left them in for modes where you control your whole lineup.
I explained that we do understand how that is a fine line for people when it comes to 'skill based gameplay' but it plays into the pros and cons of hitting with players that are strong but possibly have low discipline. The way the factor works, a player like Bergeron isn't setup to never cross check but the chance is extremely low compared to a player that has low discipline. We can certainly tune them out of VS/HUT as well and not have discipline play a role in how you build your lineup at all or tune it so that players above a certain threshold won't take that penalty but we don't like hard cutoff lines so that is why a guy like Bergeron still has a 'chance'. In the end, it is really no different than any attribute we use to shape a character and their discipline is part of that character. When a player has a less accurate shot or can't hit as hard, that isn't just the skill on the sticks that is minimizing that success, it is also the attributes and how sports simulations have always done things.
I do know there are camps, especially a bunch of people in EASHL that just want all builds to be the same so that it is only your skill on the sticks that makes the difference but your ability to know how to best utilize the players in your lineup is also arguably a skill in itself.
You have gone back and forth multiple times on how the game feels. I don't doubt that you are feeling these changes in the game -- confirmation bias is very a live and real -- however, the tuner didn't impact any of the things you have called out.
I have played a lot of Online VS, HUT and EASHL/Drop In since the updates to get my own personal take on what I have seen others write on the boards and can confirm that nothing has changed.
I did have a game in Online VS where I really out-chanced the other team and won 7-0. I could see for sure in that game how that User could have called out pokechecking being too powerful or that their goalie couldn't stop anything but the next game, I met my match and lost 2-1 in Shootout. The game felt the same both games, yet the matchup of the two Users led to drastically different results.
Yea man, I don't know, it definitely has felt different. Games feel way more messy. Maybe just now I'm noticing stuff but I'm seeing stuff everywhere that don't look right, lol.
Next time you get a chance to play 1v1, if you can please take a look at the AI tendencies on offense especially. When you need them to go to a spot for a pass sometimes they either turn their back completely or disregard positioning altogether and skate off into some random spot.
A chance, meaning random chance ? ... A player like Bergeron is not known for penalties like this, he gets more penalties than my Brad Marchand who gets the same ice time , maybe more he is on my 2nd line defense and gets next to no penalties at 78 discipline I believe... Again I believe it's a random penalty with no logic, which is the point
Come on, man. These things are huge problems with the game, but they've been problems literally all year long. They're no worse since the update.
I get the need to "punish" users for building lineups that feature low-discipline players by having those players commit more penalties. But I really think you should get rid of the cross-checking penalties, because they're almost always called on perfectly good hits where the defender does nothing obviously wrong, but the game makes him deliver the hit with his stick. There are already quite a few disincentives to check in this game, since hits still sometimes bounce off players, and players are still able to get up and recover the puck after being knocked to the ice (tuning changes notwithstanding). Using an RNG to turn otherwise good hits into penalties only adds to that.
No, it isn't a random chance. For cross checking, the logic is a chance based off their discipline attribute on each push check they do. You would have to take note of all the push checks that Marchand is doing relative to other players. You also can't just look at the penalties these players are taking, for these penalties, you would just have to see how many charging situations turn into elbows and how many push checks turn into cross checks.
This isn't something I invented. It is how it has always been done in videogames. It is something that I understand what people are asking for and we have had discussions around it. There are definitely different sides to the argument.
In the end, the same backhand deke may go wide when shot with a 4th line Grinder but may go top shelf with Bergeron. This is very similar just with more black and white outcomes than distribution in shot accuracy.