EA devs, please focus on the user experience (constructive feedback)
March 5, 2018 3:37PM
edited March 2018
There are too many issues that suck the fun out of the game. They frustrate people and drive people away from the game. The following are critical issues that need to be fixed:
Lag & Matchmaking:
Lag completely changes and ruins the game. We should not be matched up on the wrong region server ever. Allow us to force the region so the matchmaking system does not fail us. Also, displaying the ping in the lobby would be nice so we know not to waste our time.
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Lobbies:
Too much time is wasted trying to get a game going. People constantly back out because they don't like what they see or the timer runs out. This is infuriating when you have been playing the lobby simulator for 15+ min and yet another lobby falls apart. Here are some possible things to help keep people from leaving and to get the match started faster...
- Auto kick people if they do not pick a position within 15 seconds. We don't need people holding up the lobby. Especially when they are blocking others from joining.
- Have a separate ready up confirmation. First you select your position and then you ready up to confirm you are fine with the current matchup and ready to play.
- Allow the lobby timer to reset. Games can only start if everybody has readied up or if the timer has been reset 3 times. After the third reset and the timer runs out, the lobby will go to the player type selection screen. You will have the option to leave or participate in the game.
- During each reset, pause the matchmaking for a short period and allow people to swap positions to free slots to better accommodate the needs of the lobby. (e.g., forwards can swap to D or G). The matchmaking will resume again once the swapping period has finished.
- Allow players to request a position from another user at any time. There can be a prompt that pops up for that user and they can accept/decline the swap. This would be useful as not everyone has mics.
- If a player is refusing to ready up and trolling the lobby, there should be a votekick.
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Trolling/Griefing:
There needs to be an aggressive auto kick feature for bad behaviour during the game. Trolls need to be punished and should not be able to ruin the game for 11 other players. Right now the good/legit players are being punished by having to put up with these rejects. This is wrong. Punish the bad and not the good.
- If you quit, you should not be allowed to play for a period of time. Maybe allow one freebie quit every 24 hours for when your club mates jump on and you back out. You should also be able to rejoin the game if you get dropped.
Please post any other concerns and suggestions. It would be nice to get some active participation from EA as well in this thread.
Lag & Matchmaking:
Lag completely changes and ruins the game. We should not be matched up on the wrong region server ever. Allow us to force the region so the matchmaking system does not fail us. Also, displaying the ping in the lobby would be nice so we know not to waste our time.
====
Lobbies:
Too much time is wasted trying to get a game going. People constantly back out because they don't like what they see or the timer runs out. This is infuriating when you have been playing the lobby simulator for 15+ min and yet another lobby falls apart. Here are some possible things to help keep people from leaving and to get the match started faster...
- Auto kick people if they do not pick a position within 15 seconds. We don't need people holding up the lobby. Especially when they are blocking others from joining.
- Have a separate ready up confirmation. First you select your position and then you ready up to confirm you are fine with the current matchup and ready to play.
- Allow the lobby timer to reset. Games can only start if everybody has readied up or if the timer has been reset 3 times. After the third reset and the timer runs out, the lobby will go to the player type selection screen. You will have the option to leave or participate in the game.
- During each reset, pause the matchmaking for a short period and allow people to swap positions to free slots to better accommodate the needs of the lobby. (e.g., forwards can swap to D or G). The matchmaking will resume again once the swapping period has finished.
- Allow players to request a position from another user at any time. There can be a prompt that pops up for that user and they can accept/decline the swap. This would be useful as not everyone has mics.
- If a player is refusing to ready up and trolling the lobby, there should be a votekick.
====
Trolling/Griefing:
There needs to be an aggressive auto kick feature for bad behaviour during the game. Trolls need to be punished and should not be able to ruin the game for 11 other players. Right now the good/legit players are being punished by having to put up with these rejects. This is wrong. Punish the bad and not the good.
- If you quit, you should not be allowed to play for a period of time. Maybe allow one freebie quit every 24 hours for when your club mates jump on and you back out. You should also be able to rejoin the game if you get dropped.
Please post any other concerns and suggestions. It would be nice to get some active participation from EA as well in this thread.
Post edited by BassMan_PC on
8
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
- Don't display the player level/badges until AFTER the game starts (if at all). People see low levels and quit out before the timer runs out because they don't want to have to deal with noobs that don't know how to play. Or adversly, new players get intimated by seeing one side full of prestige 2 and 3 players. Just have the players gamertags and connection quality on display in the lobby.
- Have the home side captain pick whether he want DARK or LIGHT jerseys before they have to select teams. This will avoid having dumb-dumbs pick same color jerseys before the game starts. By default the Home side jerseys should be set to DARK. If he changes it to LIGHT before the timer runs down, then the away side is forced to pick DARK jerseys.
- If during a game, the human goalie or more than 2 human skaters leaves, then make the game NOT COUNT. No stats, no wins/losses. If that's not possible, then having a lobbies for casual (no stat tracking) or ranked matches would be great.
For Trolling/Griefing:
- There needs to be a system that tracks people who rage quit during games and punishes them for repeated offenses. Other online games have this where if you keep quitting or being disruptive, you get flagged and you either get a timeout from playing in another online match for a while (could range from a few hours, to a whole day depending on how often you do it). Either that or give people the ability to place disruptive players on a BLACK LIST. Eventually players who keep getting black listed by the community will end up only being able to play with other black listed players.
- The Coach Feedback system needs to be more severe on skaters who don't play their position. D-men that continuously play as forwards, forwards that slide into the goalie and knock him out of his net, goalies that skate out of their crease every stoppage of play looking for a fight... The game doesn't have to outright boot them from the match right off the bat, but if they reach a certain low grading, then bench them and let them watch for a few minutes while letting them know WHY they were benched and what they need to do to get their grade back up. If after they're put back on the ice they continue with their griefing, then they should be kicked.
- Why is it that I can't say "I have to take a p*ss" in the team chat with my club, but I can call my players obscene/racist names just fine? Why are we put on a leash in private, but when it comes down to public displays during the game, it's a free-for-all??
Progression/Rewards:
- Bring back some kind of progression/leveling up system for EASHL. If not for club, for drop-ins at the very least. It can't be the same broken system that was in place before. Either give everyone the same pool of experience points that they can assign to ANY attribute they want, with every attribute actually having an effect on your player build. Or give players the ability to apply set "boosts" after leveling up to certain parts of their player build like Speed, Agility, Stamina, Shot power, etc.
- Users can initially pick a base build or archetype for their player. Which archetype they pick will determine the cost to upgrade each attribute. For example, if I pick "Butterfly Blocking" for my Goalie Archetype, then any attribute that boost up my low saves like "low blocker, low pads, 5 hole, low glove" will cost less than attributes that are not innate to my build, like "high glove, high blocker and athleticism".
- Keep the cosmetic unlocks for Clubs, but allow team owners to either select to have their club be in the mainstream EASHL Clubs pool or Sim League Clubs (like LG). Sim League Clubs will only have access to stock CHL, AHL and NHL jerseys, arenas and goal horns, but players who are in a sim league club will be allowed to register with up to 3 different clubs (in any position he chooses), although he can only be active on 1 club at a time. Players cannot be both in a EASHL Club and Sim League Club with the same gamertag. If a player wants to leave a Sim League Club(s) to join a regular EASHL Club, he will lose all his progress, including all his created player builds and have to start from scratch. He will also not be able to rejoin a Sim League Club with that gamertag for a set period of time.
Make both "casual" and "competitive" drop in lobbies.
To qualify for the competitive one you would need a certain rating and be below, say 10%, on your DNF. I guess the playerbase is too small for any restrictions, but hey, this might help growing it back…
I will not suffer playing for a goalie that wanders out of his net for easy goals, the d man that thinks he's a winger, or teal that continually pushes yellow out of the way by guarding the wrong side, RW that is angry that he doesn't get the puck all game long so stays offside to pout, the Enforcer that thinks it's funny to get 8 interference penalties, etc...... These games are so quickly exited that it isn't even funny.
The day that trollers and dumb dumbs are treated as they should then fine, punishing quitters could be an option.
That's the idea. The trolls and griefers need to be dealt with. This game needs law and order. Until they address these issues, the community will continue to die and there is little chance for it to recover and grow. People are sick of it and associate the game with negative experiences. That is why they leave and have little motivation to come back. EA has to build the proper infrastructure for the community and maintain it.
If I understand you correctly you are saying that we can not start with punishing quitters, we need to start with the guys that make people quit, right?
That would be a vote kick system, wouldn't it? If you can find a way that lets a noob or a goalie who gets no help from his team survive that, while we get rid of all those funny jokers out there, that would be perfect. I don't think that's possible. I am quite confident that if EA introduces a vote kick system, it would kill most of our goalies from the get-go.
I do like that "black book" idea though, if enough people report you, you're not qualified for the competitive play.
Maybe it shouldn't be called casual and competitive....? What about "starters pond" and "pro" ?
To many negative things...offsides...own goal scores...penalties....you stay on the starters pond.
If a grade system impacted you ability to progress your player, even better in my opinion.
Get rid of this ridiculous class situation that makes nearly every forward useless defensively.
And #1 suggestion of all, for the love of baby Jesus, eliminate puck pick up animations and forced movements, remove forced rotation with pick ups, put controls back in the users hands and stop catering to new users who are clearly not coming to the nhl series. At the very least create a setting to minimize animations for those who want control and do not need assistance.
More or less, yes.
I mean, what makes people quit the most? Trolls is high up on the list, but let's be honest here. Alot of people quit because of some or a few garbage players on their team. The game just isn't really all that fun anymore, or at least, not nearly as fun as it was years ago. So factor that in with a loss too and it just makes it all that more salty.
Dropins are meant to just jump in and play, so you have to expect the worst and hope for the best when jumping in with 11 strangers. Alot of people seem to forget this when readying up for a game.
If you want to play with like-minded people, then club is the best solution for you. EA needs to add multiple dressing rooms for clubs. HUT and VS seem to be doing very well on their own so I don't see the need to waste time promoting those modes. EASHL should be the focus and adding tons of customizations for players, clubs and arenas. Give players more options within club play and it would seem logical it will grow. There ins't really a sense of community within this game. Only hardcore fans and LG are keeping this series afloat.
Of course, all of this means nothing if gameplay continues to be clunky and if TPS isn't cleaned up, pronto.
Most games are full of hoop sucking forwards and the defense is stuck with 5 forecheckers to get through or pass around, a few turnovers will earn a vote kick for the Dman.
That system will get abused hardcore and it'll never work.
Agreed 100 %.
again - I think they should implement a grade system that boots you from games and also have a cool down timer for quitters.... one freebie quit and 15 min cool down for subsequent quits in a given time-frame.
If a grade system impacted you ability to progress your player, even better in my opinion.
Right now they have a competitive rating, cool.
But what they should have is like what Gran Turismo does, have a sportsmanship rating...in that game for competitive lobbies if you wanna be a troll and crash into people you get points taken off your sportsmanship rating and then you’re stuck in say “E Rating” with the rest of the people that wanna play like that. If you wanna get out of there then you have to play correctly...it should be the same thing here...if you don’t wanna play your position correctly and you wanna troll then your sportsmanship rating gets effected and you get dropped to worse level matchmaking until you wanna learn to play right.
I can tell you this...
in 2k basketball - get a shot blocked, 2 turnovers, take a bad shot and not playing your position will get you a D- / F within minutes and you get kicked. no points / coins and your player gets no experience.
It wouldn't get too much abuse from people banning noob goalies or d-men. I mean, if there's someone that spent his time blacklisting people because they allowed a soft goal or made a simple mistake, then they'd end up hurting themselves in the end.
Also, Drop-ins should not have stats or CR. A drop-in should be a place where you can just play a game with others quickly. If your club is too busy and not around. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose. That way people won't get salty and stay longer.
For a rating/grading system to work, first EA would have to revamp/improve/fix their coach feedback system to not be borked as it is right now... If the coach has to tell the Goalie that he has to do something during a powerplay if he wants to be on the ice... There's a problem with your coach feedback/grading system.
Black list isn't a bad idea, but imo the best system is a report system. Trolls should be reported. Get 3 or 4 reports from people complaining against the same player, ban him 24 hours. Should even say "Due to disruptive behavior your account has been banned for 24 hours" Repeat offenders can escalate to 48 hours, 5 days, 7 days, etc. When people know they have eyes on them, they don't act the same way. Besides, a troll should and normally would, get about 5 complaints within minutes.
There should be a report function in the menus, and directly in the game. Seriously, enough is enough. Almost every online game has a report function. Get with the times....
As for coach feedback, couldn't agree more. Decided to play goalie the other night, managed a 13 save shutout in dropins. Yup, coach gave me crap about being more productive on the power play....
Another issue is playing grading. It is absolutely terrible to say the least. 13 save shutout and I got a C+ overall.... Make 10 saves in 1st period, then watch your grade go down if you only get 1 or 2 shots in the next period. My should my grade go down because the other team can't get a shot off? Why does my grade go down if nothing happens in a few minutes? Horrible.
I don't care if I get a 4 save shutout, or stop 35 of 36 shots, I should get an A+ as I more than did my job.
Having a black list puts the onus on the user to manually dismiss disruptive players. If you want to ban everyone that annoys you, whether that's because they are really trolling you or because you think that goalie is "bad", that's up to you. But if you just black list everyone willy-nilly, then you'll be hurting yourself in the end. For someone that uses it accordingly however, it would mean you'd end up with a better online experience over time as you'd never find yourself having to deal with these disruptive players. You'll never be put into a lobby where they already are. The idea of a black list is not to BAN disruptive players, but to have your profile avoid being put into the same game with them.
I am fully aware.
How can you blacklist a player and go play dropins? There are potentially 11 other players involved. If 1 user is on your blacklist, but not on the 10 others player's blacklist, you think the game won't allow him to connect to your dropin session?
Or worse, what if everyone has an average of 15 blacklisted players and they decide to dropin? That mean that 15x11 players can't join that session? If everyone's blacklist affects other players you will play alone before long.
There has to be a report system and EA has to step up and make it functional and quick. There are so many other games that if you decide to be a dbag, you will get kicked/banned in a matter of a few short minutes. I couldn't care less how much it costs, or the resources it takes. Not my issue or concern, but it is my concern when EA doesn't take issue with grievers and people bent on ruining other people's play time. You add an online function, then it is your responsibility to take care of that environment.
Simple. You start your search for a game in drop-ins. You pick 6v6, 3v3 or both. You pick your position and away you go!
The game searches for an available session. Finds one. Then checks for the player list against your black list. If someone from your black list is in there, it skips it and keeps looking for another session. It does that until it finds one that doesn't have someone from your black list. At worst you'll add a bit more time to your searches, but the trade off is that you'll end up in games where people you don't want to play with are absent.
Again, the more you put people in your black list, the more you're hurting YOURSELF as well, so you just have to make sure that those you put in there deserve to be. Also, as a way to make sure trolls can't just drop into a game that has people who black listed them is to have them automatically flagged as soon as 10 people (or more) black list him. That way he will be blocked from joining a session where at least one person has him black listed.
You don't get it, and haven't thought it out properly.
You ban 1 person. Fine, no match ups. Boom. Problem solved, right? No. Not even close.
Game finds a banned player on your list, skips it. You have say 10 black listed players. Ok, game skips them all. But every other active player also has black listed players. So he skips them all, so on and so forth.
Just on the PS4 alone, there are more or less 18k players on a given night. They each blacklist 10 players. Math tells me 180 000 people are blacklisted. How many games you think you will find within a week? You will probably end up with some friends who can't play with other friends as one of em is bound to be on someone's blacklist at one point or another.
So the game keeps searching until it finds no one on your black list, but the game does the same for the other 11 players looking for a session.
Your solution is very horrible and ill-thought out. It would be perfect for vs or HUT however.
But in a my real world scenario, you're only black listing players that are REALLY disruptive. How many do you meet each night, realistically... One? Maybe two? Furthermore, you're assuming everyone would black list a different person each time. Again, in that case, the pool of players you'd be "allowed" to play with would shrink pretty quick. However, you seem to not realize that, more often than not, the community would simply black list the same players as you would. In that case, in your scenario, your 18K players, would have banned the same 10 players all around. Let's say that overall, 90% of the players put on a black list by the community are the same. That leaves 1 out of 10 players that are different from everyone else.
So at worst, you're talking about 1.8K players out of a total 18K that are affected. Hardly a number that would impact your ability to find an available lobby with players you WANT to play with.
But you're right in that it is a flawed solution, and you can't really trust everyone to be smart about how to use this black list. So let's further develop it and say that when you black list someone, you can place them into three categories of SEVERITY; 1 Star (Mild), 2 Star (Moderate) and 3 Star (Severe). 1 Star players would be filtered only if they are on the same team you'd be. 2 Star players would have the search actively avoid them, unless the search has gone over a time or search limit. 3 Star players would be always avoided.
Would that be a better solution?