This might be the burning question I've been wanting answered for years! When player locked, you said both your team and the AI team are balanced. Does this mean if the sliders are all the same values for both AI and HUM, the game will be on even playing ground?
My hope, is that in future versions, the game will play according to the player ratings, not some sliders. IMO, sliders should affect things like clock or volume, not player ratings. If we have pass accuracy and shooting sliders, don't those water down the player ratings for passing and shooting? In other words, if I have a player with a shooting accuracy of 80, but I put the shooting accuracy slider to 30, isn't that going to take away from the player rating?
Thanks for taking the time to read these.
There are a lot of details we could get into around this but at a high level, the best way to look at it is that each mechanic in the game has multiple inputs into the outcome. The sliders give some insight into some of those variables. Player ratings get weighed into that formula as well.
The difference in the base mechanics from something more Arcade up to Full Simulation is really how forgiving the tuning is. As you make things more forgiving, you are raising the floor and leaving less room for ratings variation. As you make things less forgiving, which is more what it is like on Full Sim, there is a lot more room for error and thus player ratings will be seen as having a bigger impact.
In both cases, player ratings and the mechanics work the same, just the weighting on those variables change so a player with a 90 rating will always be better than one with 60 but your shot accuracy on Arcade settings across the board will be higher than what it is on Full Sim.
I appreciate your response. I guess I'm looking to have a game where it plays out according to the player ratings. I, and many others I've read on here, feel as though the game tries to balance things out by keeping it close, no matter what team you play. I rarely have a blow out game like we've been seeing in the NHL (7-2, 5-0, 6-1, etc). And the last minute goals are all too common in this game.
It's as though the game is trying to mimic real life hockey but only in a one game scenario (team is behind, but comes back to tie it or close to tying it in the 3rd.) I can't tell you the number of last minute goals I've seen scored in this game. The organic level that you're trying to achieve should be in every game and not limited to a particular scenario.
If I play a team who has poor goalie, I should have a higher chance of winning. Look at the Blackhawks this year...they have two bad goalies and teams are putting up a ton of goals against. Take the same Blackhawks team, play them, and you'll probably struggle if you're a "higher" end team. It seems as though if you have a 90+ team vs a 75+ team, the two teams play in the 80's range.
I've also seen games where a players speed rating plays no part in the game. I had guys with 75 speed catch up to players with 85+ speed. It happens quite often and one can claim "fatigue" as factor, but if this is in the first period, it's no excuse. Again, the player ratings aren't factoring in as much as they should.
I think frustration with the community sets in when as you say, there are a lot of details involved. I think if we had better explanations as to what settings affect what or how, it would alleviate some frustration. The explanations in game can be confusing. At work now, so I can't pinpoint them. Six months after release and the community is still trying to figure the sliders out.
Just my thoughts and again, thanks for taking time to respond to us! It's very much appreciated.
I appreciate your response. I guess I'm looking to have a game where it plays out according to the player ratings. I, and many others I've read on here, feel as though the game tries to balance things out by keeping it close, no matter what team you play. I rarely have a blow out game like we've been seeing in the NHL (7-2, 5-0, 6-1, etc). And the last minute goals are all too common in this game.
It's as though the game is trying to mimic real life hockey but only in a one game scenario (team is behind, but comes back to tie it or close to tying it in the 3rd.) I can't tell you the number of last minute goals I've seen scored in this game. The organic level that you're trying to achieve should be in every game and not limited to a particular scenario.
If I play a team who has poor goalie, I should have a higher chance of winning. Look at the Blackhawks this year...they have two bad goalies and teams are putting up a ton of goals against. Take the same Blackhawks team, play them, and you'll probably struggle if you're a "higher" end team. It seems as though if you have a 90+ team vs a 75+ team, the two teams play in the 80's range.
I've also seen games where a players speed rating plays no part in the game. I had guys with 75 speed catch up to players with 85+ speed. It happens quite often and one can claim "fatigue" as factor, but if this is in the first period, it's no excuse. Again, the player ratings aren't factoring in as much as they should.
I think frustration with the community sets in when as you say, there are a lot of details involved. I think if we had better explanations as to what settings affect what or how, it would alleviate some frustration. The explanations in game can be confusing. At work now, so I can't pinpoint them. Six months after release and the community is still trying to figure the sliders out.
Just my thoughts and again, thanks for taking time to respond to us! It's very much appreciated.
What you have detailed is a very subjective view. I can comment on a couple of things and provide some possibilities for what you are seeing:
- There is certainly speculation that we are doing things to keep games close but that isn't the case. People say we do this against the AI and against other human opponents. I haven't played through a recent season but as a small personal sample size, my last 10 online VS games range from anything from 2-1 to 7-0. Due to the way the matchmaking works, I tend to have closer games as I get matched against similar skilled opponents but when I look at the CR (Competitive Rating) along with the charting of the scores, it seems to match quite well. The delta in the CR seems to correspond very close to the W/L ratio and score differential but there will always be individual games that aren't on the trend line.
- Last minute goals are talked about often but you have to remember that the last minute of the game is real time so if you are playing on shorter periods, your last minute can amount to a much bigger portion of the period relative to any other minute in the game. The last minute is easier to identify, but it would be the same as someone saying there are a lot of goals scored between the 11th and 16th minute of the period.
- There is no balancing being done between teams. You should have a higher chance of beating a lower rated goalie but there are obviously many other factors when it comes to scoring goals. On average though, assuming no other big bias, you would probably find you are scoring more against weaker goalies if you did a chart on it.
- A player with lower speed could catch a higher rated player due to fatigue as you say, but it could also be due to rate of acceleration and original reaction time. A player with the puck does have a penalty to his speed when stickhandling the puck and only negates it when he is in full hustle/pushing the puck ahead of himself. Just a few things to look for other than just comparing ratings and a gap that the player has when he first gets the puck.
When you speak to adding more detail into what impacts what, that is part of what I end up writing on this forum but most of the factors in the game outside the ratings are based around what we feel are real world factors and we try to model them in. If you have certain mechanics that you are curious about, I can try to add more detail.
@NHLDev would it be possible to look at defensive AI in EASHL? More specifically, when there is 1 human D and an AI D, for some reason, the AI D plays on his opposite wing all the time. I choose RD and sure enough, the AI LD is covering RD, and vice versa. I could be following the rush and be practically shadowing our RW, but sure enough, the AI LD literally races to cover my RD position. It isn't once in a while, it is literally every single game.
Thank-you.
This is the sort of thing that we would have our QA team narrow down repro cases for so that we can see why it is happening. Over the last couple of years, we have worked on weakside coverage and defensive analysis when it comes to helping a teammate or committing. At any given time an ai player can have multiple threats they are concerned about on top of their primary role/responsibility in a play. They shouldn't be running you out of your own position, especially if it makes your team more vulnerable rather than helping contain and get the puck back but there may be reasons why they think they need to be over there that works in some situations in the way they are 'thinking' but in the cases you are pointing out, not so much.
Do you have any clips so that we can understand where this is of the biggest issue for you? Is it in zone? on the rush? When the puck is in certain locations? When the puck is passed vs being carried?
All those things would help pinpoint repro cases.
When I ask this, it is more to diagnose what you are personally seeing? Usually people will say, 'Don't you play your own game?' and we do have things logged that we would like to improve with ai but I don't want to assume that what you are seeing and referring to is what we already have tracked, which is why a video will tell us with more certainty and ensures we aren't missing something.
On the 1st point it doesn't slow you down enough when spamming poke where a player that is constantly skating pulls away like they would in real life.
And I find that to be a flaw that you don't get penalties for the stick retracting. So many times in the NHL a reaching poke ends up in a players legs and of course they go down drawing that penalty. That should be something in the video game also. Pokechecks are about smartly timed defensive abilities.
You didn't really answer about the ability to blow by a defender the way MacKinnon and McDavid do when a defender fails an attempt at a poke and is left usually off balance and then gets walked with nothing left to do but watch. I feel this has to do with how slow you make the gameplay on purpose so mistakes can be corrected instead of punished. The game is about speed and it should be deadly effective, but in a video game it doesn't exist. Trap teams are what slow down these star players but once they get room they become even more effective. I feel this is something that should be brought to the game.
Also pretty please fix these stupid shots that happen in the game that result in unrealistic things. Yes I was a bit out of position but it's the show animation that is complete garbage. This stuff happens too much on the side of the net where it allows for scoring behind the goal line to happen a good of the time also. It shouldn't do this warping stuff.
Yes there is always tuning that can be done when looking at individual elements. I guess the high level is, that you feel that offense is under powered compared to defense. I am not sure others would agree with you.
Then it can be broken down by sub areas where some people say that Defense is overpowered in certain aspects of the game. I can see those points and have had discussions around them and have ideas on how to improve those elements but to do things properly we need to really break down what we are missing in the modeling of our mechanics since in tuning, you don't want to trade one thing for the other so you start with the problem but then consider it all when looking to improve.
I scored a goal tonight by poking tue puck right through the goalies pad. The puck was just sitting there. My stick went throught the pad and was then impalining the goalie through the gut. We've all seen the spam poking not slow the player down. That may be what it is supposed to do, but it isn't.
Here's a list of things that need fixed.
1. Puck going throught the goalies pads. Don't say it's lag, becasue it happens offline too.
2. Puck pick ups. This should be common sense. Just go back to 17s coding.
3. How bout being able to change strategies between periods.
4. How about being able to switch your goalie. Thought that was one of the basics.
5. How bout a style of hockey that doesn't involve wiggling back and forth, and spinning around in the corners.
6. Goalies that can eventually recognize the backhand forehand.
7. Go back to a competative game style. No more of the boosting and dumbing down teams just to keep the score close.
8. How bout just getting rid of the push forward faceoff win. Every faceoff just turns into both guys trying to push forward.
9. Poke from behind., it's just dumb.
10. I don't play eshl, but sounds like everyone wants the old version back.
11. GM connected, never played it, but sounds like a lot of people want that back too.
12. I know every nhl game has had a sweet spot for scoring. Maybe come up with a way to move the sweet spot around so we could try different plays, instead of everyone going for the same shots all the time.
13. How bout a way to punish people for playing the skillless zone d. Thought online I was supposed to play against other people, not just the AI.
14. In HUT, how bout rewarding people who build a good team, instead of all the players just playing the same.
15. I think you just need to start from scratch on the ai. Just seems like they played smarter on nhl 94 than they do now.
16. When i first take control over a player, it usually feels like they are doing the opposite of what I want to do.
17. Maybe have someone monitor the leader boards every once in a while. Figure out how to get rid of the ip booters.
18. Been lots of bugs plaguing hut this year. If that is the main focus, you would think everything would work pretty seamlessly.
19. Board play. For the love of god, just get rid of it. I'm so sick of getting **** to the boards by a player that I have already gotten by.
I could keep listing more things, but I'm tired. Just longing for the old days when this game provided endless hours of fun, instead of constant frustration. Might just be time for you guys to just start from scratch.
Overall, you have good list here with legitimate issues and some of the suggestions for modes and/or features are shared by others in the community as well.
There are issues with mixing speculative thoughts and hyperbole in with legitimate items that hurt your case more than help it in some ways though so just keep it in mind in the future. Not that I can't differentiate between the two but I find it does change my mindset as I go through point by point.
@NHLDev would it be possible to look at defensive AI in EASHL? More specifically, when there is 1 human D and an AI D, for some reason, the AI D plays on his opposite wing all the time. I choose RD and sure enough, the AI LD is covering RD, and vice versa. I could be following the rush and be practically shadowing our RW, but sure enough, the AI LD literally races to cover my RD position. It isn't once in a while, it is literally every single game.
Thank-you.
This is the sort of thing that we would have our QA team narrow down repro cases for so that we can see why it is happening. Over the last couple of years, we have worked on weakside coverage and defensive analysis when it comes to helping a teammate or committing. At any given time an ai player can have multiple threats they are concerned about on top of their primary role/responsibility in a play. They shouldn't be running you out of your own position, especially if it makes your team more vulnerable rather than helping contain and get the puck back but there may be reasons why they think they need to be over there that works in some situations in the way they are 'thinking' but in the cases you are pointing out, not so much.
Do you have any clips so that we can understand where this is of the biggest issue for you? Is it in zone? on the rush? When the puck is in certain locations? When the puck is passed vs being carried?
All those things would help pinpoint repro cases.
When I ask this, it is more to diagnose what you are personally seeing? Usually people will say, 'Don't you play your own game?' and we do have things logged that we would like to improve with ai but I don't want to assume that what you are seeing and referring to is what we already have tracked, which is why a video will tell us with more certainty and ensures we aren't missing something.
It is when entering the offensive zone. I can literally enter the zone 2 seconds after the puck is carried in, regardless if it is on my side or the opposite side, and the opposite AI defender will literally come in and steal my space. Sometimes he will realize it and go back to his other side, sometimes he won't.
If I entered the offensive zone really late, I could probably understand if the AI behaved this way. But as I said, even when we barely enter the zone, and not really set up yet, he will invade my side and be a mere few feet away from me.
Sometimes I will choose RD when I want to play LD because the AI will steal my space, so in that instance I "plan" ahead and allow him to do it.
I will try to get a few video captions from different games to showcase it.
Thanks for responding and hopefully pass it along to the respective department.
It is when entering the offensive zone. I can literally enter the zone 2 seconds after the puck is carried in, regardless if it is on my side or the opposite side, and the opposite AI defender will literally come in and steal my space. Sometimes he will realize it and go back to his other side, sometimes he won't.
If I entered the offensive zone really late, I could probably understand if the AI behaved this way. But as I said, even when we barely enter the zone, and not really set up yet, he will invade my side and be a mere few feet away from me.
Sometimes I will choose RD when I want to play LD because the AI will steal my space, so in that instance I "plan" ahead and allow him to do it.
I will try to get a few video captions from different games to showcase it.
Thanks for responding and hopefully pass it along to the respective department.
Are you commonly on a specific strategy? And does it change for you at all if you change your strategies?
It is when entering the offensive zone. I can literally enter the zone 2 seconds after the puck is carried in, regardless if it is on my side or the opposite side, and the opposite AI defender will literally come in and steal my space. Sometimes he will realize it and go back to his other side, sometimes he won't.
If I entered the offensive zone really late, I could probably understand if the AI behaved this way. But as I said, even when we barely enter the zone, and not really set up yet, he will invade my side and be a mere few feet away from me.
Sometimes I will choose RD when I want to play LD because the AI will steal my space, so in that instance I "plan" ahead and allow him to do it.
I will try to get a few video captions from different games to showcase it.
Thanks for responding and hopefully pass it along to the respective department.
Are you commonly on a specific strategy? And does it change for you at all if you change your strategies?
Good question as I only play EASHL. Most times strategies are left as is in most 6vs6 games. However, some people spam every strategy and button after a goal, so it is hard to tell if it is strategy related or not.
If I had to say right now, I would say even on the default strats I see it happen. What comes to mind is it gives me the impression that the AI thinks I am not covering the space that I am actually in, but seems to ignore this when I cover his area. That's why I said sometimes I will choose a D position and play its opposite position. As if the code in the game tells the AI I am never guarding my selected position.
I will pay attention to settings and strats. Got me curious about it actually. I will also check if this happens after a human quits D, or if it also happens when we ready up with an AI D.
On the 1st point it doesn't slow you down enough when spamming poke where a player that is constantly skating pulls away like they would in real life.
And I find that to be a flaw that you don't get penalties for the stick retracting. So many times in the NHL a reaching poke ends up in a players legs and of course they go down drawing that penalty. That should be something in the video game also. Pokechecks are about smartly timed defensive abilities.
You didn't really answer about the ability to blow by a defender the way MacKinnon and McDavid do when a defender fails an attempt at a poke and is left usually off balance and then gets walked with nothing left to do but watch. I feel this has to do with how slow you make the gameplay on purpose so mistakes can be corrected instead of punished. The game is about speed and it should be deadly effective, but in a video game it doesn't exist. Trap teams are what slow down these star players but once they get room they become even more effective. I feel this is something that should be brought to the game.
Also pretty please fix these stupid shots that happen in the game that result in unrealistic things. Yes I was a bit out of position but it's the show animation that is complete garbage. This stuff happens too much on the side of the net where it allows for scoring behind the goal line to happen a good of the time also. It shouldn't do this warping stuff.
Yes there is always tuning that can be done when looking at individual elements. I guess the high level is, that you feel that offense is under powered compared to defense. I am not sure others would agree with you.
Then it can be broken down by sub areas where some people say that Defense is overpowered in certain aspects of the game. I can see those points and have had discussions around them and have ideas on how to improve those elements but to do things properly we need to really break down what we are missing in the modeling of our mechanics since in tuning, you don't want to trade one thing for the other so you start with the problem but then consider it all when looking to improve.
I agree there are many elements, but with poke check being so dominate it should mean that out of place defense should get burned and left in the dust a great deal of the time. We asked for a defensive skill stick to cut down on passes and play offenders to bad situations, but still a defender can make misses and recover with plenty of time. You are very smart when it comes to the game from everything you say on the forums, but come on when people asked for better defense they didn't ask for it become a poke check spam fest with little to no consequences. You can say spamming has consequences but it's not enough and even worse the pull back has no effect when it 100% should. Reaching across someones body for a pokecheck would more than likely result in a tripping on the way in or the way out in real life.
Even when a defender in the offensive zone get a poke on the blue line and should be off to the races your game allows for the flatfooted now defender to catch them 99% of the time. You can use the stamina excuse but it's not really valid in EASHL. When it can happen early in a period and we're all supposed to have about the same speed and such.
Also what do you think about deflections in NHL 18? Personally 17 was too good and now in 18 they are terrible.
From what I've experienced so far personally. Is that semi-pro is relatively easy and then you get into pro and it such crap. Both semi-pro and pro constant penalties on my team and not a single penalty for the opponent. Have had to learn how to play with three guys cause everyone else is in the box. The point is is the AI never messes up never gets penalties scores 90% of there goals and 99% of the time in yelling at the tv cause this is crap
From what I've experienced so far personally. Is that semi-pro is relatively easy and then you get into pro and it such crap. Both semi-pro and pro constant penalties on my team and not a single penalty for the opponent. Have had to learn how to play with three guys cause everyone else is in the box. The point is is the AI never messes up never gets penalties scores 90% of there goals and 99% of the time in yelling at the tv cause this is crap
I've given NHL 18 so many chances and I've been playing on all-star since it's release date. Tried pro but way too easy. I've restarted my season multiple times and I'm seeing a pattern. I would like to suggest someone take a very very close look at the sliders because I give up trying to adjust. They don't matter. When I am winning 4-1 in the third period and have only allowed 11 shots, the next 4 shots directed at my net should not go in because it's on freakin all star. I did my job, my boys played well defensively and I expect my 90 rated goalie to stop muffin shots and not blow the game. If this happened once in a blue moon that'd be kind of cool because it shows the unpredictability of the game. This happens over and over and over to the point where as a rational person of sound mind must conclude that this is a flaw in the game. I can't play it any differently, it doesn't matter. Sliders schmiders!!! They do not work. I've slide them (goalie AI) to the extremes and did not see a difference.
The difficulty on this game should be more reliant on putting the pressure on the player to create opportunities to react to the flow of the game. Creativity on plays and individual efforts should be what's encouraged. If you don't adapt then you pay!! Get complacent and it's in the back of your net! I've changed my strategies to adapt and I love that kind of stuff and I believe it does work. It's not flawless but it does. I will say that the gameplay is still top notch and I love the difficulty of the 1 on 1 battles. But heartbreaking goals on a consistent basis is not realistic or fun!!
What is happening here is my goalie has a sv% below .850 consistently. No matter what team I've chosen. I've traded draft pics, prospects and superstars for a top 5 goalie in the league only for his poor career to come to a crashing halt because his GM is holding the controller. I've done this multiple times and it's the same result. If this was an arcade game- fine I can see that but I'm trying to play an 82 game season simulation and trying to make the playoffs. That's a ton of hours.
I just played a game and was winning 4-1 in the third period. The ARIZONA COYOTES scored 4 unanswered goals. The shots? 24 for me 14 for them at the end of the game. This happens far too often. I've sent screen shots of the stats to my buddies on my friends list just to show them what a joke this is.
Please, for the love of my blood pressure, fix the AI in this game or fix the sliders. This is the first NHL game since 13 I have not won the stanley cup (boycotted 13 due to the lockout. I'm not trying to make a political statement I just don't want people to think I sucked at it)
And I'm not going to win it this year because I'm finished with this game.
bro you are correct. i play on superstar difficulty in season mode. i can score 15 plus goals a game in superstar and loose games. i am an elite defender in the eashl and have been for a few years. i still cannot stop the computer when they decide to dominate the puck and score. it is insane. my record is 9-4 right now in a full season in a 20 min period format against the computer. ive been averaging 15 goals a game
You guys are spinning your wheels. I play offline too. And this computer opponent AI has barely changed in 10 years. The biggest difference is that over the years, the game adds some extra dekes, and moves which weren't in old games.
This game has so much cheating AI on their end and gimped teammate AI on your end, it's their way of balancing out the game.
While the opposing AI will get that godly speed burst, lateral movement and permanent powerplay kind of mode once set up in your zone, your teammate AI gets none of that.
Where's my teammate AI that gets similar boosts to help me defend my zone? Where's my teammates with magnetic poke checks and stripping the puck off opposing players to give me a hand?
Over the past week, it's the first time I've posted on this board in years. I didn't know logging back in resets your post counter. I even got an email saying "Congrats, you got a first message badge! +2 pts!"
But I used to post on this forum years back. I remember having this same debate with probably NHL 12 with forum mods. Not developer mods, but gamer mods.
I forget who it was, but after we debated, he finally admitted they do this to the game "to make it challenging".
Here's an idea. How about making the AI play smarter, instead of giving boosts to movement and being able to snap laser shots from weird angles where the player isn't in position to rip a nice shot if it came from a human gamer. But cpu AI is some reason able to defy physics and controls gamers get limited to and can instead do whatever it wants.
It's amazing that anyone from the company/developer side can actually debate this like it's untrue. There have been times the cpu opponent has a guy skate at probably double the speed of my player to catch up to him. But it is impossible even controlling Ovechkin to match that speed. And where's my teammate AI who can do that super speed burst too to help catch opposing players? Never seen it.
I'm not asking for AI code to be re-written from scratch every year, but how can it be the AI plays so similar for a good 10 years?
I agree! I played nhl 14, dynasty mode for 4 seasons, then went to be a pro, played 4 more seasons, all on supertstar. IDK how many games i played. I play every game of the seasons too I don't simulate. I even turned the goalies response time up to make it a lil tougher to score goals. Won the cup pretty much every year. jumped to nhl 18, pretty much the same exact controls, maybe I'm a lil rusty lol but the superstar mode is like playin an ultimate team of 99 every time, it's insane. The computer just keeps the puck, tough to steal it, they steal it from you very easily, and they have no problem scoring. I'll try a few more times and then I'll make another post, but they def changed it to where superstar mode is like god mode now lol
Honestly the two most frustrating parts of the programming of the AI is the tiny bump hits from behind that break the puck loose, the inability to switch to the right defender which the AI has no problem adjusting for...... How is it competitive when I have to cycle through 3 dudes to get to the closest guy when I see the pass coming?
Honestly the two most frustrating parts of the programming of the AI is the tiny bump hits from behind that break the puck loose, the inability to switch to the right defender which the AI has no problem adjusting for...... How is it competitive when I have to cycle through 3 dudes to get to the closest guy when I see the pass coming?
I hear you there. Losing the pucks from little hits and the difficulty with switching to the player you want. I honestly cannot understand how this was messed up since the older games didn't have these issues.
I actually just started playing this game again after months of not wanting to look at it due to the bad AI. I started "Be a Pro" and that is where I definitely see the teammate poor AI. Several times I pass to my CPU teammate in front of me and what does he do? Skates off in the opposite direction. The puck was literally right by his feet and he skates the other way. Also, they have their stick on the ice as if they are waiting for you to pass, then it's like, "HA...jokes on you!"
I'm also experiencing more of that invisible shield. I'll skate toward my net to block a shot, and my player suddenly veers off on a curve away from the play. It feels as though he ran into a curved wall.
I also agree with the corner shots on All Star. Seems to be 80% accurate for the CPU. This game had potential. I'm not sure how these blatant AI issues ever made it through QA. Each year we are told the AI has been tweaked to be better...but in what way? We see the same issues year after year. Teammates skating away from the puck when on defense or offense is a blatant AI issue.
It's sad we have to accept the game for what it is and try to enjoy it. We shouldn't have to do that. Not in the year 2018 and when the same issues keep occurring each version of the game. The quality of a game will make the company money. I feel EA has the opposite view...make money, then worry about the quality later. But by then, a new version is out...rinse and repeat.
I was playing a game while waiting for it to install and it was on full sim and the AI and I scored 12 goals before the 3rd period, is there a way to tone down the setting so I won’t score as much goals if so how?
Replies
I appreciate your response. I guess I'm looking to have a game where it plays out according to the player ratings. I, and many others I've read on here, feel as though the game tries to balance things out by keeping it close, no matter what team you play. I rarely have a blow out game like we've been seeing in the NHL (7-2, 5-0, 6-1, etc). And the last minute goals are all too common in this game.
It's as though the game is trying to mimic real life hockey but only in a one game scenario (team is behind, but comes back to tie it or close to tying it in the 3rd.) I can't tell you the number of last minute goals I've seen scored in this game. The organic level that you're trying to achieve should be in every game and not limited to a particular scenario.
If I play a team who has poor goalie, I should have a higher chance of winning. Look at the Blackhawks this year...they have two bad goalies and teams are putting up a ton of goals against. Take the same Blackhawks team, play them, and you'll probably struggle if you're a "higher" end team. It seems as though if you have a 90+ team vs a 75+ team, the two teams play in the 80's range.
I've also seen games where a players speed rating plays no part in the game. I had guys with 75 speed catch up to players with 85+ speed. It happens quite often and one can claim "fatigue" as factor, but if this is in the first period, it's no excuse. Again, the player ratings aren't factoring in as much as they should.
I think frustration with the community sets in when as you say, there are a lot of details involved. I think if we had better explanations as to what settings affect what or how, it would alleviate some frustration. The explanations in game can be confusing. At work now, so I can't pinpoint them. Six months after release and the community is still trying to figure the sliders out.
Just my thoughts and again, thanks for taking time to respond to us! It's very much appreciated.
What you have detailed is a very subjective view. I can comment on a couple of things and provide some possibilities for what you are seeing:
- There is certainly speculation that we are doing things to keep games close but that isn't the case. People say we do this against the AI and against other human opponents. I haven't played through a recent season but as a small personal sample size, my last 10 online VS games range from anything from 2-1 to 7-0. Due to the way the matchmaking works, I tend to have closer games as I get matched against similar skilled opponents but when I look at the CR (Competitive Rating) along with the charting of the scores, it seems to match quite well. The delta in the CR seems to correspond very close to the W/L ratio and score differential but there will always be individual games that aren't on the trend line.
- Last minute goals are talked about often but you have to remember that the last minute of the game is real time so if you are playing on shorter periods, your last minute can amount to a much bigger portion of the period relative to any other minute in the game. The last minute is easier to identify, but it would be the same as someone saying there are a lot of goals scored between the 11th and 16th minute of the period.
- There is no balancing being done between teams. You should have a higher chance of beating a lower rated goalie but there are obviously many other factors when it comes to scoring goals. On average though, assuming no other big bias, you would probably find you are scoring more against weaker goalies if you did a chart on it.
- A player with lower speed could catch a higher rated player due to fatigue as you say, but it could also be due to rate of acceleration and original reaction time. A player with the puck does have a penalty to his speed when stickhandling the puck and only negates it when he is in full hustle/pushing the puck ahead of himself. Just a few things to look for other than just comparing ratings and a gap that the player has when he first gets the puck.
When you speak to adding more detail into what impacts what, that is part of what I end up writing on this forum but most of the factors in the game outside the ratings are based around what we feel are real world factors and we try to model them in. If you have certain mechanics that you are curious about, I can try to add more detail.
This is the sort of thing that we would have our QA team narrow down repro cases for so that we can see why it is happening. Over the last couple of years, we have worked on weakside coverage and defensive analysis when it comes to helping a teammate or committing. At any given time an ai player can have multiple threats they are concerned about on top of their primary role/responsibility in a play. They shouldn't be running you out of your own position, especially if it makes your team more vulnerable rather than helping contain and get the puck back but there may be reasons why they think they need to be over there that works in some situations in the way they are 'thinking' but in the cases you are pointing out, not so much.
Do you have any clips so that we can understand where this is of the biggest issue for you? Is it in zone? on the rush? When the puck is in certain locations? When the puck is passed vs being carried?
All those things would help pinpoint repro cases.
When I ask this, it is more to diagnose what you are personally seeing? Usually people will say, 'Don't you play your own game?' and we do have things logged that we would like to improve with ai but I don't want to assume that what you are seeing and referring to is what we already have tracked, which is why a video will tell us with more certainty and ensures we aren't missing something.
Yes there is always tuning that can be done when looking at individual elements. I guess the high level is, that you feel that offense is under powered compared to defense. I am not sure others would agree with you.
Then it can be broken down by sub areas where some people say that Defense is overpowered in certain aspects of the game. I can see those points and have had discussions around them and have ideas on how to improve those elements but to do things properly we need to really break down what we are missing in the modeling of our mechanics since in tuning, you don't want to trade one thing for the other so you start with the problem but then consider it all when looking to improve.
Overall, you have good list here with legitimate issues and some of the suggestions for modes and/or features are shared by others in the community as well.
There are issues with mixing speculative thoughts and hyperbole in with legitimate items that hurt your case more than help it in some ways though so just keep it in mind in the future. Not that I can't differentiate between the two but I find it does change my mindset as I go through point by point.
It is when entering the offensive zone. I can literally enter the zone 2 seconds after the puck is carried in, regardless if it is on my side or the opposite side, and the opposite AI defender will literally come in and steal my space. Sometimes he will realize it and go back to his other side, sometimes he won't.
If I entered the offensive zone really late, I could probably understand if the AI behaved this way. But as I said, even when we barely enter the zone, and not really set up yet, he will invade my side and be a mere few feet away from me.
Sometimes I will choose RD when I want to play LD because the AI will steal my space, so in that instance I "plan" ahead and allow him to do it.
I will try to get a few video captions from different games to showcase it.
Thanks for responding and hopefully pass it along to the respective department.
Are you commonly on a specific strategy? And does it change for you at all if you change your strategies?
Good question as I only play EASHL. Most times strategies are left as is in most 6vs6 games. However, some people spam every strategy and button after a goal, so it is hard to tell if it is strategy related or not.
If I had to say right now, I would say even on the default strats I see it happen. What comes to mind is it gives me the impression that the AI thinks I am not covering the space that I am actually in, but seems to ignore this when I cover his area. That's why I said sometimes I will choose a D position and play its opposite position. As if the code in the game tells the AI I am never guarding my selected position.
I will pay attention to settings and strats. Got me curious about it actually. I will also check if this happens after a human quits D, or if it also happens when we ready up with an AI D.
Thank you.
I agree there are many elements, but with poke check being so dominate it should mean that out of place defense should get burned and left in the dust a great deal of the time. We asked for a defensive skill stick to cut down on passes and play offenders to bad situations, but still a defender can make misses and recover with plenty of time. You are very smart when it comes to the game from everything you say on the forums, but come on when people asked for better defense they didn't ask for it become a poke check spam fest with little to no consequences. You can say spamming has consequences but it's not enough and even worse the pull back has no effect when it 100% should. Reaching across someones body for a pokecheck would more than likely result in a tripping on the way in or the way out in real life.
Even when a defender in the offensive zone get a poke on the blue line and should be off to the races your game allows for the flatfooted now defender to catch them 99% of the time. You can use the stamina excuse but it's not really valid in EASHL. When it can happen early in a period and we're all supposed to have about the same speed and such.
Also what do you think about deflections in NHL 18? Personally 17 was too good and now in 18 they are terrible.
[Profanity removed by @EA_Roger ]
The difficulty on this game should be more reliant on putting the pressure on the player to create opportunities to react to the flow of the game. Creativity on plays and individual efforts should be what's encouraged. If you don't adapt then you pay!! Get complacent and it's in the back of your net! I've changed my strategies to adapt and I love that kind of stuff and I believe it does work. It's not flawless but it does. I will say that the gameplay is still top notch and I love the difficulty of the 1 on 1 battles. But heartbreaking goals on a consistent basis is not realistic or fun!!
What is happening here is my goalie has a sv% below .850 consistently. No matter what team I've chosen. I've traded draft pics, prospects and superstars for a top 5 goalie in the league only for his poor career to come to a crashing halt because his GM is holding the controller. I've done this multiple times and it's the same result. If this was an arcade game- fine I can see that but I'm trying to play an 82 game season simulation and trying to make the playoffs. That's a ton of hours.
I just played a game and was winning 4-1 in the third period. The ARIZONA COYOTES scored 4 unanswered goals. The shots? 24 for me 14 for them at the end of the game. This happens far too often. I've sent screen shots of the stats to my buddies on my friends list just to show them what a joke this is.
Please, for the love of my blood pressure, fix the AI in this game or fix the sliders. This is the first NHL game since 13 I have not won the stanley cup (boycotted 13 due to the lockout. I'm not trying to make a political statement I just don't want people to think I sucked at it)
And I'm not going to win it this year because I'm finished with this game.
This game has so much cheating AI on their end and gimped teammate AI on your end, it's their way of balancing out the game.
While the opposing AI will get that godly speed burst, lateral movement and permanent powerplay kind of mode once set up in your zone, your teammate AI gets none of that.
Where's my teammate AI that gets similar boosts to help me defend my zone? Where's my teammates with magnetic poke checks and stripping the puck off opposing players to give me a hand?
Over the past week, it's the first time I've posted on this board in years. I didn't know logging back in resets your post counter. I even got an email saying "Congrats, you got a first message badge! +2 pts!"
But I used to post on this forum years back. I remember having this same debate with probably NHL 12 with forum mods. Not developer mods, but gamer mods.
I forget who it was, but after we debated, he finally admitted they do this to the game "to make it challenging".
Here's an idea. How about making the AI play smarter, instead of giving boosts to movement and being able to snap laser shots from weird angles where the player isn't in position to rip a nice shot if it came from a human gamer. But cpu AI is some reason able to defy physics and controls gamers get limited to and can instead do whatever it wants.
It's amazing that anyone from the company/developer side can actually debate this like it's untrue. There have been times the cpu opponent has a guy skate at probably double the speed of my player to catch up to him. But it is impossible even controlling Ovechkin to match that speed. And where's my teammate AI who can do that super speed burst too to help catch opposing players? Never seen it.
I'm not asking for AI code to be re-written from scratch every year, but how can it be the AI plays so similar for a good 10 years?
I hear you there. Losing the pucks from little hits and the difficulty with switching to the player you want. I honestly cannot understand how this was messed up since the older games didn't have these issues.
I'm also experiencing more of that invisible shield. I'll skate toward my net to block a shot, and my player suddenly veers off on a curve away from the play. It feels as though he ran into a curved wall.
I also agree with the corner shots on All Star. Seems to be 80% accurate for the CPU. This game had potential. I'm not sure how these blatant AI issues ever made it through QA. Each year we are told the AI has been tweaked to be better...but in what way? We see the same issues year after year. Teammates skating away from the puck when on defense or offense is a blatant AI issue.
It's sad we have to accept the game for what it is and try to enjoy it. We shouldn't have to do that. Not in the year 2018 and when the same issues keep occurring each version of the game. The quality of a game will make the company money. I feel EA has the opposite view...make money, then worry about the quality later. But by then, a new version is out...rinse and repeat.