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EASHL 3's - AI Dmen

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Can anyone please tell me how you get your AI D-man in EASHL 3's to play his position? All game long he's always pinching in, playing down low in the offensive zone, moving into the slot and stealing passes from my teammate, etc...

I've tried a bunch of different strategies, but I haven't found one yet that gets him to actually play D. The closest thing I can find to work is playing super aggressive offensively. We have to cherry pick, ignore defensive responsibilities and focus only on offense to get him to hang back (and even then he gets burned by a cherry picker on the other team often).

We just laugh now when we see him fly past us on the rush to chase down a puck we were going to get to first anyway. We don't mind rotating and cycling positions because we do it with human d-men all the time. And we aren't opposed to passing to the AI either, it's just he always wants to play where the other human should be.

I've even noticed that when we go 1 F and 1 D, the AI winger plays much more responsible defensively. We're about at the point where we will play with an AI winger, but treat him like a Dman.

So is there some strategy setting that makes our AI d-man not play like a typical drop in d-man?

Replies

  • TheMajjam
    794 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    Sometimes it feels like the AI settings are a suggestion and not a rule. The D pinching in 3's is terrible and costs goals. In 6s, my biggest gripe with AI positioning is when I'm the other D men on the rush, I want to pass up to my fowards, but the AI is usually always in the way to intercept those passes.
  • If there's a strategy that stops the AI D from crashing the offensive net constantly I haven't been able to figure it out.

    My club's solution to playing with an AI in 3s us to run a human center and D. One of us will need to play D anyway.
  • When I played 3s with an Ai I would always be the dman. I’d rather have the Ai be clueless on offense than be clueless on defense.
  • TTZ_Dipsy
    518 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    3's EASHL is stuck on the aggressive setting so your AI will freak out no matter what you do.

    Best thing you can do is have a human forward and defenseman and just let your computer take cross one-timers.
  • TTZ_Dipsy wrote: »
    3's EASHL is stuck on the aggressive setting so your AI will freak out no matter what you do.

    That's the problem, there's no way to change the 3-on-3 offensive strategy, it's stuck on aggressive.

    @NHLDev

    Any chance this will ever be fixed? It's been like that since release.
  • MikeyAU630 wrote: »
    TTZ_Dipsy wrote: »
    3's EASHL is stuck on the aggressive setting so your AI will freak out no matter what you do.

    That's the problem, there's no way to change the 3-on-3 offensive strategy, it's stuck on aggressive.

    @NHLDev

    Any chance this will ever be fixed? It's been like that since release.

    It's been like this since last year, the first year of 3's. It's really frustrating, and even more so when the AI winger plays better positionally for defense if you pinch at all with a human d-man.
  • NHLDev
    1680 posts EA NHL Developer
    edited December 2018
    It's been like this since last year, the first year of 3's. It's really frustrating, and even more so when the AI winger plays better positionally for defense if you pinch at all with a human d-man.
    I am not able to log into 3v3 right at this moment to double check this answer but I know due to the formations being different, we don't allow players to set the actual strategies from 5v5 in the same way but the Offensive Pressure Settings do control the 3v3 strategies when playing those modes from Passive to Standard to Aggressive, depending on where you set it.

    Are you able to change those?

    Passive is supposed to apply offensive strategies/movement where the defender is less likely, if at all, to pinch down and should mostly be moving along the blueline and staying closer to the strong side wall when the puck is down low, etc. Due to the nature of the mode though, the defense is more active overall otherwise you end up in a lot of scenarios where you don't have options.
  • NHLDev wrote: »
    It's been like this since last year, the first year of 3's. It's really frustrating, and even more so when the AI winger plays better positionally for defense if you pinch at all with a human d-man.
    I am not able to log into 3v3 right at this moment to double check this answer but I know due to the formations being different, we don't allow players to set the actual strategies from 5v5 in the same way but the Offensive Pressure Settings do control the 3v3 strategies when playing those modes from Passive to Standard to Aggressive, depending on where you set it.

    Are you able to change those?

    Passive is supposed to apply offensive strategies/movement where the defender is less likely, if at all, to pinch down and should mostly be moving along the blueline and staying closer to the strong side wall when the puck is down low, etc. Due to the nature of the mode though, the defense is more active overall otherwise you end up in a lot of scenarios where you don't have options.

    @sethamphetamines is right. We've never been able to change the Offensive Pressure setting in EASHL 3s. It's stuck on Agressive which basically forces a human to play D anyway because the AI defenseman will crash the net constantly.

    The other settings can be changed though.
  • Love this thread. This has been bugging me since the release. He won't play the point! Please fix! Thanks.
  • NHLDev
    1680 posts EA NHL Developer
    NHLDev wrote: »
    It's been like this since last year, the first year of 3's. It's really frustrating, and even more so when the AI winger plays better positionally for defense if you pinch at all with a human d-man.
    I am not able to log into 3v3 right at this moment to double check this answer but I know due to the formations being different, we don't allow players to set the actual strategies from 5v5 in the same way but the Offensive Pressure Settings do control the 3v3 strategies when playing those modes from Passive to Standard to Aggressive, depending on where you set it.

    Are you able to change those?

    Passive is supposed to apply offensive strategies/movement where the defender is less likely, if at all, to pinch down and should mostly be moving along the blueline and staying closer to the strong side wall when the puck is down low, etc. Due to the nature of the mode though, the defense is more active overall otherwise you end up in a lot of scenarios where you don't have options.

    @sethamphetamines is right. We've never been able to change the Offensive Pressure setting in EASHL 3s. It's stuck on Agressive which basically forces a human to play D anyway because the AI defenseman will crash the net constantly.

    The other settings can be changed though.

    Ok thanks. We are looking into it. At one point during development this was working as intended if it isn't now as we do have unique strategies for different levels of aggression that a lot of tuning and work went into. I will have our team check it out to understand what is happening there.

    Personally when I have played 3v3 post ship, it has been with all human players or when we have only had 2, it is has been more casual and just for fun so I haven't run into it myself. Appreciate everyone bringing it up.
  • NHLDev
    1680 posts EA NHL Developer
    We have reproduced what you have mentioned on your side by pulling up the line strategies which are set to Aggressive. I would expect to be able to change those but I believe it may not have an effect in 3 on 3 and the mapping for 3 on 3 strategies is what you are able to change on the Dpad using up and down to cycle through your Offensive Pressure settings from Defend Lead to Full Attack.

    It is another issue if that is intuitive or not as I would still like to sort out what is going on but I am curious if you see different results doing that and I will continue to look into it as well.

    Thanks.
  • Changing the strategy settings we can change has absolutely no effect on the AI's behaviour in the offensive zone.

    The AI will go deep into the zone constantly even if both human player's are already deep.

    In fact, an AI winger will be more defensably responsible by staying high in the offensive zone than an AI defenseman.
  • NHLDev
    1680 posts EA NHL Developer
    Changing the strategy settings we can change has absolutely no effect on the AI's behaviour in the offensive zone.

    The AI will go deep into the zone constantly even if both human player's are already deep.

    In fact, an AI winger will be more defensably responsible by staying high in the offensive zone than an AI defenseman.

    Interesting. I was just playing a 3 on 3 Drop In with a random forward teammate and noticed the AI D going in if they were one of the first two players up the ice on the rush as they jump in and take on any offensive role as part of the 3 on 3 cycling. However, if the forwards were there first, we had him staying back at the point. He was also the first to rush back to defensive responsibility when the puck was loose. We turned those settings down as well to see how conservative they may play though.

    I definitely saw them jump in the rush and arguably if you have it turned down, they should probably pass at more of those chances just so players have more control over how they want them to play.

    We will continue to take a look and see where we can improve it. Either way, I would like to clean up the strategies so it isn't confusing but will have to work with our modes team on that side.

    Thanks again for the feedback.
  • Socair
    2815 posts Game Changer
    It’s the O/B command to adjust the 3s strategy that’s stuck on aggressive...not the d pad strats.
  • NHLDev
    1680 posts EA NHL Developer
    edited December 2018
    Socair wrote: »
    It’s the O/B command to adjust the 3s strategy that’s stuck on aggressive...not the d pad strats.

    Yep, exactly. We are trying to confirm if that one makes a difference in 3v3 due to 3v3 strategies mostly being tied to offensive pressure.

    I think the biggest thing for people is the ai feeling they can take any role on the rush and thus setup that way in zone as well until there is a switch according to where they currently are which makes them aggressive in nature even if the strategies do differ in relation to how the ai will behave when they take the role of the player near the blueline.
  • NHLDev wrote: »
    Socair wrote: »
    It’s the O/B command to adjust the 3s strategy that’s stuck on aggressive...not the d pad strats.

    Yep, exactly. We are trying to confirm if that one makes a difference in 3v3 due to 3v3 strategies mostly being tied to offensive pressure.

    I think the biggest thing for people is the ai feeling they can take any role on the rush and thus setup that way in zone as well until there is a switch according to where they currently are which makes them aggressive in nature even if the strategies do differ in relation to how the ai will behave when they take the role of the player near the blueline.

    I know another poster said it was like this last year, but I was able to change it last year (on XB1). The AI D-man played much more resonably on Normal than on Aggressive (Passive seemed too passive IMHO). In both club and drop-in, if we had an AI D-man I'd always set it to Normal immediately at the start of the game, and only put it back on Aggressive if we were down late in the game. This year, it's just stuck on Aggressive, pressing 'B' doesn't change it.
  • NHLDev wrote: »
    Socair wrote: »
    It’s the O/B command to adjust the 3s strategy that’s stuck on aggressive...not the d pad strats.

    Yep, exactly. We are trying to confirm if that one makes a difference in 3v3 due to 3v3 strategies mostly being tied to offensive pressure.

    I think the biggest thing for people is the ai feeling they can take any role on the rush and thus setup that way in zone as well until there is a switch according to where they currently are which makes them aggressive in nature even if the strategies do differ in relation to how the ai will behave when they take the role of the player near the blueline.

    I know you have your hands full prepping for the tuner rollback, and that no changes are likely to be made until after you're ready to make more changes after feedback from the beta tuners, but just wondering if you ever found out if changing that strategy from aggressive fixes the issue. It's just absolute torture right now.
  • Z0mbieBabyJesus
    1539 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    NHLDev wrote: »
    Socair wrote: »
    It’s the O/B command to adjust the 3s strategy that’s stuck on aggressive...not the d pad strats.

    Yep, exactly. We are trying to confirm if that one makes a difference in 3v3 due to 3v3 strategies mostly being tied to offensive pressure.

    I think the biggest thing for people is the ai feeling they can take any role on the rush and thus setup that way in zone as well until there is a switch according to where they currently are which makes them aggressive in nature even if the strategies do differ in relation to how the ai will behave when they take the role of the player near the blueline.

    I know you have your hands full prepping for the tuner rollback, and that no changes are likely to be made until after you're ready to make more changes after feedback from the beta tuners, but just wondering if you ever found out if changing that strategy from aggressive fixes the issue. It's just absolute torture right now.

    Also bad, is the ai routinely passes the puck up the boards, usually nowhere near either of the other 2 humans. Human player at the middle and the right? Ai will pass left up the boards. Feels like they're passing to invisible players or they think it's 6's when there would probably be someone at that side to pass to.

    Not as bad as the issue this thread pertains to, but I'm sure everyone experiences it.

    Usually when the ai gets the puck behind the net.
  • Please don't tell me it actually took this long for you to realize this was an issue? I mean.. just, wow lol
  • Is there any chance of this issue being fixed before NHL20 comes out?

    Any chance of this issue being fixed for NHL20?
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