EASHL Patch/Suggestions To Improve Experience
October 31, 2020 9:50PM
edited November 2020
So far my club has been enjoying NHL 21 a lot more than previous years. It'll probably never be NHL 14 fun since HUT focus forces gameplay improvement to happen at a glacial pace compared to pushing packs but EASHL has been fun.
Below are some suggestions to help the (primarily EASHL) experience even more. They mainly come from the standpoint that this game seems to do everything possible to make doing anything or getting anywhere take as absolutely long as possible rather than streamlining everything. It's like EA thinks more menus and more unnecessary time spent clicking through menus to get somewhere is better. It's actually painful. See below:
- Going directly to Club from the games main menu should be an option. Shouldn't have to go "World of Chel" then again click through that mandatory (why?) Chel Callenges menu every single time.
- Eliminate the mandatory "Chel Challenges" pop up menu and put it somewhere else.
- "Open All bags now" option is a must. Shouldn't have to sit through each slow bag opening individually. Add a "Push A to Open All Bags" option and let's be done with it.
- "Equip New Reward Now" option is a must. When people unlock a new stick, skates, or emote after the tedious and time consuming opening of all bags and they want to equip something new they should be able to equip it with one-click from the bag using "Push A to Equip Now". Boom, my guy is now using his new stick or whatever. Instead, we have to open player customization and go through countless other menus just to equip anything. Again, streamline this stuff please.
- End game cutscenes in 3's Eliminator are not skippable. Make them skippable. We should not be forced to watch the same 3 goals on highlight over and over and over at the end of a 3's Elim game from now until next September. It takes longer to get through the end of a 3's Elim game and then start a new game than it does to actually play a 3's Elim game. That's pathetic. Fix this. Eliminate mandatory cutscenes.
- In 3's EASHL goalies are still forced to do those out of context save animations where they hold the puck for a week and don't play it because they're squeezing it to their chest from a harmless shot with no one within 10 feet of them. It slows the game down tremendously. ANYTIME a user player calls for a pass from their AI goalie or an AI teammate the pass NEEDS to be made. It doesn't matter if it's a dumb time to call for a pass or not. It's the user's experience. Let the user live with the consequences of making a dumb pass call if they make one. But the user should be in control, the AI should never decide for the user if they should pass or not when a user calls for the puck.
- Matchmaking needs help. A club that is 55-4-1 is in D1. And a club that is 55-40-1 can be D1 as well, yet they're nowhere on the same level. Matchmaking should be prioritized by win percentage, period. Our club often plays against superstars or duds, and very little in between. If we do get a balanced game we usually find it's a club with a similar win percentage regardless of division. If you win 70+% of your games those should be your opponents your matched up against as well. If you're a .500 team you should be playing in that similar 40-70 win% range trying to level up. The current Division format is flawed.
- It may be a glitch but no matter how many times we save "use best location" to "yes" for servers in our club menu it always defaults to "relaxed" when we enter the locker room. Every time.
- White as a primary color for home team jerseys needs to be blocked out. White trim/striping is fine but too many teams can't figure out the default dark home/white away concept.
- Fix the shot animation still happening WAY after a pass for a one-timer is redirected or missed. Too many times I see our team or the opponent skate into the corner to get the puck from an errant or deflected pass and they're still stuck in a shot animation way after the pass play ended.
Again, we're largely having fun playing the game so far. It just takes a lifetime between games with all the menus, bags, and cutscenes to actually play and it's all completely unnecessary. We jokingly refer to NHL as Menu Simulator 21 just like it was MS20, 19, 18, etc.
Sidenote: On ice, cross crease hasn't been an OP issue for us in EASHL because we defend it and pretty much play with all users on the ice. If you're playing HUT vs 1 person and there's 10 bots on the ice you're obviously going to have a broken and flawed experience. Buy more packs that should help
Personally I've also really enjoyed Be A Pro as well but if I had one comment it'd be that you could rename the mode Be A Board Pin. I'd say half the games I play are spent watching the AI board pin each other all over the ice because the AI D can't make a simple quick breakout pass. They turn around then get pinned. Rinse and repeat, all game long. I'm also a huge Franchise Mode guy but since this series is stuck somewhere around the 1863 Civil War era when it comes to utilizing roster share technology I'm waiting until some time into the new year to start one that remotely playable.
EA_Blueberry: Added EASHL to post title
Below are some suggestions to help the (primarily EASHL) experience even more. They mainly come from the standpoint that this game seems to do everything possible to make doing anything or getting anywhere take as absolutely long as possible rather than streamlining everything. It's like EA thinks more menus and more unnecessary time spent clicking through menus to get somewhere is better. It's actually painful. See below:
- Going directly to Club from the games main menu should be an option. Shouldn't have to go "World of Chel" then again click through that mandatory (why?) Chel Callenges menu every single time.
- Eliminate the mandatory "Chel Challenges" pop up menu and put it somewhere else.
- "Open All bags now" option is a must. Shouldn't have to sit through each slow bag opening individually. Add a "Push A to Open All Bags" option and let's be done with it.
- "Equip New Reward Now" option is a must. When people unlock a new stick, skates, or emote after the tedious and time consuming opening of all bags and they want to equip something new they should be able to equip it with one-click from the bag using "Push A to Equip Now". Boom, my guy is now using his new stick or whatever. Instead, we have to open player customization and go through countless other menus just to equip anything. Again, streamline this stuff please.
- End game cutscenes in 3's Eliminator are not skippable. Make them skippable. We should not be forced to watch the same 3 goals on highlight over and over and over at the end of a 3's Elim game from now until next September. It takes longer to get through the end of a 3's Elim game and then start a new game than it does to actually play a 3's Elim game. That's pathetic. Fix this. Eliminate mandatory cutscenes.
- In 3's EASHL goalies are still forced to do those out of context save animations where they hold the puck for a week and don't play it because they're squeezing it to their chest from a harmless shot with no one within 10 feet of them. It slows the game down tremendously. ANYTIME a user player calls for a pass from their AI goalie or an AI teammate the pass NEEDS to be made. It doesn't matter if it's a dumb time to call for a pass or not. It's the user's experience. Let the user live with the consequences of making a dumb pass call if they make one. But the user should be in control, the AI should never decide for the user if they should pass or not when a user calls for the puck.
- Matchmaking needs help. A club that is 55-4-1 is in D1. And a club that is 55-40-1 can be D1 as well, yet they're nowhere on the same level. Matchmaking should be prioritized by win percentage, period. Our club often plays against superstars or duds, and very little in between. If we do get a balanced game we usually find it's a club with a similar win percentage regardless of division. If you win 70+% of your games those should be your opponents your matched up against as well. If you're a .500 team you should be playing in that similar 40-70 win% range trying to level up. The current Division format is flawed.
- It may be a glitch but no matter how many times we save "use best location" to "yes" for servers in our club menu it always defaults to "relaxed" when we enter the locker room. Every time.
- White as a primary color for home team jerseys needs to be blocked out. White trim/striping is fine but too many teams can't figure out the default dark home/white away concept.
- Fix the shot animation still happening WAY after a pass for a one-timer is redirected or missed. Too many times I see our team or the opponent skate into the corner to get the puck from an errant or deflected pass and they're still stuck in a shot animation way after the pass play ended.
Again, we're largely having fun playing the game so far. It just takes a lifetime between games with all the menus, bags, and cutscenes to actually play and it's all completely unnecessary. We jokingly refer to NHL as Menu Simulator 21 just like it was MS20, 19, 18, etc.
Sidenote: On ice, cross crease hasn't been an OP issue for us in EASHL because we defend it and pretty much play with all users on the ice. If you're playing HUT vs 1 person and there's 10 bots on the ice you're obviously going to have a broken and flawed experience. Buy more packs that should help
Personally I've also really enjoyed Be A Pro as well but if I had one comment it'd be that you could rename the mode Be A Board Pin. I'd say half the games I play are spent watching the AI board pin each other all over the ice because the AI D can't make a simple quick breakout pass. They turn around then get pinned. Rinse and repeat, all game long. I'm also a huge Franchise Mode guy but since this series is stuck somewhere around the 1863 Civil War era when it comes to utilizing roster share technology I'm waiting until some time into the new year to start one that remotely playable.EA_Blueberry: Added EASHL to post title
Visit my NHL/Bruins blog: BostonPucks.com
Post edited by EA_Blueberry on
5
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
I added EASHL to your post title and stickied this to the top of the EASHL board to gather a list of must haves from other players to make it a better experience. We'll make sure this thread gets in the hands of the EASHL team.
Can you please look at my post a about adding new logos and jerseys for customization.
Custom music can be brought back as well.
Hockey bags needs a mass open button. I have 59 hockey bags to open that will take an hour to open them all. It's incredibly annoying so I don't open any..
Hockey bag rewards need to be for the mode and position you're playing. 99% of my games are EASHL games. I go unlock a bag and I get stuff for ones things I don't need or want. I play center all the time but unlock goalie gear. I've also unlocked Hut cards.
Eashl bags should be loaded with sticks skates gloves helmets and player animations that's all. There is no reason I should be opening hoodies or cargo pants in EASHl
Game play is decent ai poke check needs to be turned down and he also needs to hit instead of taking dumb tripping penalties all the time or skate to the blue line wait for opposing team to skate by and then turn and chase.
Ai is either the best or worst player on the ice.
I also agree with the hockey bag thoughts - please open them all up at once.
Finally, we are having way more games that "don't count". Last night 2 out of our 4 games did not count towards our record, including one game our opponent quit in the second period while we were way ahead. Why does this keep happening? It is so frustrating, especially when you work for a hard earned W.
Thanks for your attention to make the game even better.
Defensive Defenseman is the only reliable build at stopping passes.
I understand that it should be better at defending in general, but any other build seems to be letting easy passes right through. Perfect defensive positioning should mean 0% completed pass, regardless of the build.
Options such as:
-Setting a specified number of AI to go against
-Players in DR being able to choose which team side and position they want to be on (great for odd man rush drills or practicing pp / pk and lots more)
-Faceoff location setting
-Goalie toss out puck rather than resetting each time or allowing us to call for the puck at least
-A way to get another puck if a teammate goes idle and has the puck by accident
-A way for members to join a practice in progress
-Rewards for actually using practice mode. Maybe a team perk (randomised) for it's use depending on how many members use it and how often. Like a +1 to two random stats be it shooting, skating, hitting ,checking, etc. Lasts for a few days perhaps. Just an idea.
I'm sure there's more of course.
Right now as it stands I doubt practice mode is used very often if at all. Too many weaker teams basically have to get baptized by fire by the better ones with no recourse and rather than having a "we should try to get better" type attitude we have a "Everyone cheats! How is that possible to do??" or "Scrub hunter" types instead.
I dunno man. Maybe everyone is just expected to be good and know everything in EA's eyes.
All of this is great. I'd even add that both goalies should be live and multiple pucks should be on the ice. One end guys could work on one-t's or something. Other end guys could be working on faceoffs, passing, shooting on the other goalie.
Tired of being punished for going up a couple of goals only to have to hang on for dear life against computers for 20 minutes.
Almost all of my losses are to CPU.
In a time of no fans at hockey games it sure would be nice to play in an arena packed with cheering fans even if only in the gaming world.
Socair - don’t post in all caps. https://forums.ea.com/en/nhl/discussion/259274/ea-forums-guidelines-rules-updated-june-2020
Hello and welcome to the forums! It would be best to see video of the issues you're experiencing. You can capture them with the built in game DVR feature on your console. They can then be published and linked here.
As far as your connection issues go, I'd be happy to help troubleshoot that, but we should do that either in a different thread or through private messages so this one doesn't get off-topic. Thanks!
There isnt any "fixing" it until you guys admit that the problem is your servers and not the individuals internet (although ISP does matter). If you're from the west, the 3 eastern servers give you a higher ping this year than they did last year. And yes, its 3 eastern servers, because the "central" server you guys added is a bloody farce and is located in Ohio, pretty well a straight line below the northeast server in Montreal and actually even closer to the East server in Virginia. Give us a server in Minnesota and see how many eastern players you get in here crying about the servers...this is the exact pain us western 6s players have dealt with for years.
To all my fellow westerners...I've done everything in my power to try and make my connection to the servers better with pretty inconsistent results. To date, the biggest difference I've seen from anything ive done is upgrading to a series x. But even that the results are inconsistent and I still get games that suffer from delay, but maybe slightly less significant in a lot of cases.
As for why I originally came into this thread. Please, please, please, please, please get rid of that terrible blue ice on the outdoor rinks. This is a video game, we dont need 100% realism when it detracts from the actual enjoyment of playing the game. It's as if you guys spent the time and resources making this gimmick, and now need to come up with ways to force it down our throats. Every single time wed fire up a playoff game (20 or 30 days worth, yikes) the very first comment would be, "this blue ice is garbage"...I'm cool with playing on an outdoor rink, but at least give us the option of playing on a white ice surface. Thanks