If NHL18 is so bad...
Why are we not going back to PS3 and playing NHL14 or 15 or Legacy??? I want to buy Legacy,currently on 14 and I love it!.
Would there be an issue buying Legacy? there's a few left in town brand new.
Would there be an issue buying Legacy? there's a few left in town brand new.
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What's funny about this is I think part of the problem with NHL 15-18 is the gameplay is pretty similar. This was also true for NHL 10-Legacy. New platforms seem to present an opportunity for a completely new gameplay experience but that also likely necessitates the loss of a few features just in terms of time and resources to ensure everything that ends up in the game actually works. So it's sort of a fine line between delivering a "new" experience on a new platform while trying to also carry over legacy features and game modes fans have come to expect...
Xbox Live - The Snake Esq
They dedicated 2.5 years to next gen and it was stripped down, basically had all the issues of previous versions, looked the same basically. unfortunately for most part left the game more broken than ever. 3 years later probably introduced as many issues as they resolved.
All in all a massive disappoinment and it's insane to me how whomever is ultimately responsible kept their job.... And I don't say that lightly.
NHL legacy was the last time this game was good, unfortunately not many people hung on to old gen consoles.
Xbox Live - The Snake Esq
The need to put out a new game on a yearly cycle necessitates the loss of ALOT of features how many times over the years have we seen the game stripped of features just to see them reintroduced a few years later as Brand New features 2 or 3 years later in order to drive sales for the next year instead of leaving in features and using thetime and resouces to polish the game fix bugs make it a better experience for the customers\Fans because they know that if they put out a perfect game then sales would take a huge hit because who would buy NHL 19 if NHL 18 was a polished bug free entertaining feature loaded game i get it its a business but lately it just seem so blatantly obvious theyre just trying to stick it to us and take our money cause there are no other options for hockey fans ever since 2k gave up on NHL EA knows they got us by the balls and we can take what we get or have nothing at all
Sure, some of that may be true. It is a business as you said and EA certainly wants to sell as many copies as possible each year. I do not believe features are deliberately ripped out or removed in order to reintroduce them as "new" years later. For example, EASHL was not removed from NHL 15 in order to sell more copies of NHL 16. It did not make it into the game because the developers did not have the time and resources to carry it over from X360/PS3 to X1/PS4 such that the mode would actually work and be functional and worth playing in NHL 15. It was not even all that robust or fully featured in NHL 16 if I recall correctly. Also, I believe EA marketed it as "a returning mode with new features" rather than something never seen before in the franchise.
Other features just evolve and are replaced. First person fighting was introduced in NHL 10. I don't think anyone was really a huge fan, and it was out of the game by... NHL 14, maybe? It wasn't removed so they can bring back first person fighting in NHL 22, but because they replaced it with a better fighting engine.
My hope is that NHL 19 brings back GM Connected or online franchise of some kind. If and when that happens, I suspect it will be treated similar to EASHL, marketed as "returning mode, new features."
I agree it's annoying when features and modes we once had are no longer around, only to come back later, but I do not think it's done intentionally or with a nefarious purpose to deceive customers. NHL is not as popular as football or soccer, sells far, far fewer copies than Madden and FIFA, and has a smaller development team than both those games and certainly games like NBA 2K and The Show.
It's a shame, because I know we'd all kill for a hockey game that is as feature rich and well-supported as games like NBA 2K, The Show, or FIFA, but it is unlikely NHL will ever enjoy the same resources given the disparity in the popularity of the sports and sales of the games.
Ultimately, it is worth remembering that we are talking about a video game here, and there are real men and women working behind the scenes to deliver a fun and fulfilling virtual representation of our favorite sport every year. It is easy to get pissed at "EA" as a corporation and assume faceless executives do not care really how "good" the NHL games are, but having met the developers a few times, trust me when I say they want the game to be as good as possible, just like anyone who has pride in their work.
Xbox Live - The Snake Esq
doesn't matter how much they 'want it', this franchise has been a colossal failure since nhl 12/13. it has turned into a giant game of pinball / tabletop hockey / bowling pins. the direction of this game since then is laughable to be honest and it has nothing to do with the suits, it not selling or a small dev team. they are simply bad at their jobs.
they started working on next gen after nhl 13, we got an updated fighting engine in that time and they still couldn't deliver for nhl 15.
For starters, they should try to understand what makes HOCKEY, y'know... Hockey. The foundations of the game have to be solid, and sadly they're not. They haven't been for a very long time now. At the core, the skating engine, although refined over the years, is still dealing with the same basic skating mechanics the series started with way back on the Sega Genesis in 1991. Players spinning on an axis isn't how real skating works. Maybe it works for Figure Skating. But in hockey, it just looks silly and it's frustrating.
Another aspect that the EA dev team can't seem to grasp is how to make competent AI teammates. Maybe it's not so crucial for 6v6 games (unless one of your human teammates gets is replaced by an AI), but in any 1v1 game mode, the AI has to be able to at least know its position. I don't want the AI to do everything for me, but for the love of god at least be IN position so that if I need to switch to you, I won't be out in the pastures having to run back while the AI left a huge gap in my defense. And while we're talking about "switching".... HOoooooo Boy! Is it ever bad this year. I think that's the #1 reason players rely on "skill zoning": because if you try to keep up with an opponent that likes to cycle the puck well, eventually the game will switch you to a player that's completely out of position and he'll capitalize on it. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with people capitalizing on mistakes, but at least let ME make my own mistakes, not the AI.
The last aspect I think has people disenchanted with this franchise is that there's very little immersion. Sure, the graphics look decent (for a hockey game), but everything else is just... by the numbers. The presentation is bland. The crowd noises are subdued. There's missing TONS and TONS of little animations for the skaters and the goalies (why do we STILL not have cross-cut skating while making a turn???).
All in all, this series has been in need of an overhaul for a long time now. A good opportunity presented itself when the switch to Next-Gen happened, but EA failed to capitalize fully on it by NOT making sure the core aspects of an NHL game were solidly in place. Had the foundations of the game been solid when NHL 15 hit the Xbox One and PS4, things would be different now.
Instead people are getting nearly the same issues for FOUR years running now. You can't fault people for being annoyed that every release, we keep finding the same bugs, same exploits and same "sillyness" we're used to seeing.
It's not the devs that need to change. It's how they VIEW the sport and VIEW this game that has to.
So.. the issue is the devs or it isn't? Make up your mind.
How can you blame the game on the 'view' of a developer and not include the developer in the finger pointing? The developer controls the view, therefore you require the developer to change.
The people don't necessarily have to change but their perspective does. The only person who might have to change is the project lead to possibly get the other staff into a different mindset and perspective on what to do with this series.
Because it's not about pointing the finger, it's about finding solutions. In this case the solution is to simply try something else, to have a different perspective. I certainly never said anything about the fault being the devs.
That's something that would be obvious to even a 10 year old...
ummmm
How can you attack someone's viewpoint of something and then, in the next breath, say you're not blaming the ones with that viewpoint?
And what's with the cheeky '10 year old' comment? Get a grip pal, your self righteous attitude might play well with the teeny boppers around here, but to people who've got some brains in their head, you consistently come off as a pretentious know-it-all.
be the smarter person and take the higher road, leaving you to your devices before a mod has to close what was (up until you showed up) a good discussion.
He means that you don't physically replace the devs, but rather, change the point of view and/or direction and have those same devs work on it.
I agree with that.
Sadly, most "fixes" are not properly implemented, or take it from one extreme to another. Or even worse, something doesn't work? Let's simply remove it! Case in point, replace goalie for a 6th skater, anti trolling measures, etc..
How about creating player classes only to end up tuning them so that they all can snipe? And while we are on the topic, IMO, player classes would have had a perfect spot in HUT. This would allow for player differentiation. But no, bring it to EASHL to abandon it before its third year.
Time is invested in things that end up being removed, or taking years to fix. A change is in order (not a direct attack on devs btw) and sadly I don't see why EA would be in a rush to change anything. People still buy the game, HUT still sells cards.
This is just speculation since I obviously didn't make the game, but the 2 biggest issues seem to be both the direction in the game (literally any other direction would be an improvement at this point), and the fact that the developers are working with arguably the worst game engine ever created in the Ignite engine. There is a reason the other games using this engine have switched off, it made for some really horrible playing games. While i'm not sure if Frostbite is necessarily the way to go, it would be hard to see it not be an improvement in some way.
Because then they wouldnt make near as much money from sales theyd have to add $80+ in dlc and content the next year to make up the loss in sales would you pay $4.99 For a roster update $2.99 for new celebrations $19.99 for a BAP update Ect.._ these arent things most people would agree to (Even tho thats basically what you pay for by buying NHL19) and the shareholders wouldnt accept the loss in a years sales to facilitate a 2 or more yearly development cycle