AI are clueless!
March 12, 2019 5:13PM
edited March 2019
Why can’t EA dev crew get it right? Correct me if I’m wrong but 25 years in the making and you still can’t get it right? 25 different copies with different tuners/features? Yet they take out the good to implement garbage? Can’t you look at all your copies and figure out what’s good and what’s not? AI has been worse than ever. I remember playing nhl 2007 and it was better than what we have today. Sure the graphics weren’t as good. The animations/abilities were more basic and limited but at least it felt more like hockey.
Can you please tell me why the AI are so useless now? High overall or not they just don’t seem to understand what they’re doing and it’s even worse when down a few goals. They seem to be behind the play constantly. Moving wrong directions or standing still not creating passing lanes cutting to open ice. Clumping together at the worst of times. Constantly making bad plays. No puck tracking abilities. Can’t hold the blueline. When it’s onside they pull it offside. When it’s offside they try to hold it onside. They just seem backwards most of the time. Double checking on defence leaving another man wide open. No defencive rotations. Simply no logic in the programming at all. Constantly leaving guys undefended around the net. Clueless to rebounds or anticipating where the puck will go. Breaking out from behind their nets is atrocious. Constantly skating directly beside goalie/net when coming out from behind the net and about 90% of the time goalie takes the puck away and/or it slips in the net. Why don’t they have the ability to skate to open ice and make a good play? IE wheeling behind the net and making a good first pass. Why do passes lock on to players? Why can’t the AI corral pucks/passes that aren’t theirs when it’s basically right in their wheel house. It simply just hits them and bounces else where. They are a huge handicap because they just don’t have any conception or instincts. Never in the right areas to receive passes or supporting the puck carrier in a logical way. Yes I’m ranting but surely EA dev crews can fix these problems. All I ask for is more logical programming. Is it hard to give the AI some conception/hockey IQ? Possession is important yet they like to make dumb plays and give the puck away. For instances if you’re down 3-2 in the third and there is 50 seconds left why do they just throw the puck away dumping it in or making silly poor passes when clearly they’re defended. “ oh here’s a nice little softy pass for you” everything set to full attack just need 1 goal to tie and they are idiots, giving up possession. In 3s especially its a huge problem. Dump and chase should never happen in 3s yet the AI throw it in anyways. Simple hockey 101 conception they just don’t have and they should.
Maybe try programming some logic into the AI for 2020 instead of adding more silly apparel and goalie masks.
This game could be way better EA. Why isn’t it? Why is there entry props in CHEL yet no opening? So many “whys” EA 🤦🏻♂️
Please fix the game that thousands of people pay a large amount of money yearly for a new feature/roster update.
Pretty please?
[Socair - edited swear filter]
Can you please tell me why the AI are so useless now? High overall or not they just don’t seem to understand what they’re doing and it’s even worse when down a few goals. They seem to be behind the play constantly. Moving wrong directions or standing still not creating passing lanes cutting to open ice. Clumping together at the worst of times. Constantly making bad plays. No puck tracking abilities. Can’t hold the blueline. When it’s onside they pull it offside. When it’s offside they try to hold it onside. They just seem backwards most of the time. Double checking on defence leaving another man wide open. No defencive rotations. Simply no logic in the programming at all. Constantly leaving guys undefended around the net. Clueless to rebounds or anticipating where the puck will go. Breaking out from behind their nets is atrocious. Constantly skating directly beside goalie/net when coming out from behind the net and about 90% of the time goalie takes the puck away and/or it slips in the net. Why don’t they have the ability to skate to open ice and make a good play? IE wheeling behind the net and making a good first pass. Why do passes lock on to players? Why can’t the AI corral pucks/passes that aren’t theirs when it’s basically right in their wheel house. It simply just hits them and bounces else where. They are a huge handicap because they just don’t have any conception or instincts. Never in the right areas to receive passes or supporting the puck carrier in a logical way. Yes I’m ranting but surely EA dev crews can fix these problems. All I ask for is more logical programming. Is it hard to give the AI some conception/hockey IQ? Possession is important yet they like to make dumb plays and give the puck away. For instances if you’re down 3-2 in the third and there is 50 seconds left why do they just throw the puck away dumping it in or making silly poor passes when clearly they’re defended. “ oh here’s a nice little softy pass for you” everything set to full attack just need 1 goal to tie and they are idiots, giving up possession. In 3s especially its a huge problem. Dump and chase should never happen in 3s yet the AI throw it in anyways. Simple hockey 101 conception they just don’t have and they should.
Maybe try programming some logic into the AI for 2020 instead of adding more silly apparel and goalie masks.
This game could be way better EA. Why isn’t it? Why is there entry props in CHEL yet no opening? So many “whys” EA 🤦🏻♂️
Please fix the game that thousands of people pay a large amount of money yearly for a new feature/roster update.
Pretty please?
[Socair - edited swear filter]
Post edited by Dmac8888 on
1
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
AI logic at its finest 👍🏻😂
I’ve watched this clip over and over. No call for pass on either of the AIs poor plays
agreed.
I don't hear or see stick tapping.
that was READ and not KURTZ.
Kurtz don't play that mess.
Kurtz is the People's Champ and now his favorite color is blue
A very easy example is running the overload strategy whether it be 5v5 or on the Powerplay. The point of the overload is to create a 2-on-1 with sideboards guy and the down low guy. This play requires actual movement and a give-n-go to execute properly, so I’m confused as to why my sideboards AI is programmed to retreat back to the boards once I’ve started his momentum towards the net and have passed it to my “low” guy? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It completely defeats the purpose of the play!
When running an umbrella, your AI also never move despite having blatant open ice to exploit. Example, I start the play on the side boards (which hopefully starts off a faceoff win AND you experience the miracle where your AI strong-side winger doesn’t just start sprinting 30 feet towards the front of the net off the win) and I move the puck up to the top guy. I notice a forechecker pressuring my top guy so I skate backwards towards the weak side hoping to draw that defender which should open up a lot of space for my strong side winger to exploit. What does that winger do though? He stands there completely oblivious to the passing lane and open slot area where he could either have an open 1T or even enough time to catch and load up an accurate twister.
This game has a lot of pieces in place offline to produce believable hockey, but the complete lack of cycling logic and awareness by your AI really holds it back from reaching its full potential. I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again, if you’re not interested in developing AI that can actually read and react to blatantly obvious plays, can you at least give us the 1-3-1 and box+1 powerplays? These formations are a lot more static that the overload and umbrella so at least we can use them with some lethality despite having AI with the play recognition ability of a four year-old.
I’ve spent 10 minutes writing about two examples that have to do with “set play” offenses if you will, I haven’t even scratched the surface of dynamically forming plays, neutral zone positioning, Breakout positioning, and the dreadful AI teammate defensemen positioning on puck retrievals. Why your AI doesn’t know to go behind the net to support you baffles me to this day. That paired with your wings (yes both) not getting to a spot on the boards to help breakout against a heavy press makes me absolutely cringe as a hockey fanatic/coach.
There’s a ton of work needed to be done, I could probably write another 30 paragraphs outlining poor play and bad play recognition by the AI but I think I’ve made my case. The AI is the most egregious offender of ruining immersion now that skating doesn’t look like rod hockey and hitting isn’t broken for the first time since NHL 12.
Here are my thoughts (it may sound funny, again...).
That clip had a good example of AI inconsistency (or some short of unbalance, one team has better than the other, "Kurtz vs. Saros"
Right from the face off win, away team's AI decides to pass to human LW (no pass requested). Home team's AI reads it perfectly and intercepts the pass. Home team's AI beats away one 100-0.
What happens after that? Home team's AI enters to o-zone and keeps the puck there, passes to another AI that passes to human (I guess no pass requested?) who wrists the puck few feets pass the net. Puck is picked by away AI (RD), who (for some reason) tries a quirky backhand pass (to whom? again no pass requested) and puck hits the AI goalie (who seems to think the player holding the puck is trying to score?) and bounces to net.
So in this short clip, home team's AI makes 4 good decisions/plays:
- Intercepts the pass
- Enters the zone
- Passes to another AI
- Passes to human without request
While away team's AI makes 3 bad or at least questionable decisions/plays:- pass (unrequested) to covered human LW that is intercepted
- Tries a quirky backhand pass (unrequested) to very strange/dangerous direction
- AI goalie tries to make a (desperation?) save against team mates pass, puck bounces from him resulting a goal
What caused those things to happen? Human players decisions? Difference between connections? Strategies? I don't know, but something did.However, when things like that keeps happening during the game, it's easy to say that:
- AI (thus the game) is inconsistent (or unbalanced)
- AI (thus the game) can heavily affect who wins and who loses
- Sometimes AI indeed is clueless
Let's the discussion continue.No excuse for that
The interesting thing about this common occurrence, is that I’ve seen AI take HUGE shifts, like to the point where they can barely skate with my sliders so obviously there’s some sort of logic for them to stay out longer on a shift if the situation is right.
Why a 2-on-1 isn’t one of those situations baffles me, and it’s just one of the many things lacking when it comes to the AI in this game. I think the CPU AI plays a really good game of hockey (other than the offensive zone which feels robotic and scripted) so I wish they’d find a way to make the AI play better with a human.
https://streamable.com/4ein4
Behind the play, clumping in the middle. No rotation. No coverage. No puck tracking. Absolutely clueless.
What I saw:
Then he whiffed the puck and you were diving again with Coffey 20 feet away causing him to be way out of position when there was a rebound for an easy goal.
Anyway, that was not a good one to prove that "AI are clueless".
suggested fix:
sell all players for as much coin as possible and purchase the ultra rare PLATINUM PLUS edition Kurtz defensive card.
I see too many instances of people skating into the position where the AI is instead of passing.
too much "fighting" the AI instead of using it.
just my two cents.