Suggestion to Add a European Franchise Mode
Dear EA and NHL team As a passionate fan fan of hockey video games, Id like to suggest a feature that I believe would really enhance the gaming experience for a lot of gamers and definetly convince me and a lot of other players to buy your latest title(s): a European Franchise mode Hockey is rapidly growing in popularity in europe, arguably at a faster rate than in the U.S. Expanding the franchise mode to include European leagues, teams and tournaments would reflect this growth and attract good amount of people. This feature would provide player with the opputurnity to manage in top European leagues like SHL, Liiga, Extraliga, etc. I mean Id say that franchise mode carries offline contentalong Be A Pro (Which could really use an update) Thanks for your time. I believe this addition would really be a good way to showcase the the global expansion of the sport and would be great step forward for NHL series.
Matchmaking In WoC
There are a lot of unbalanced matchmaking going on this year and it’s really putting a damper on the game. I understand that the game will have a larger pool of players to match make with in the coming months but it’s currently wrecked. Very rarely will you be placed in a match with players that are near you in skill level. Meaning the discrepancy between your team and your opponents teams ranking points are MASSSIVE. This forces teammates to often quit the game because they can’t keep up with that play style. The largest gap I’ve seen so far was 13,000 RP. That’s totally unrealistic and unreasonable. I’ve never even had one game where everyone was within the same rank.
Goalies need a massive buff or abilities need a massive downgraded
I am so sick and tired of these goalies in this game man from online head 2 head, franchise, and most importantly world of chel. If you say this is the best of the best of hockey why are the goalies biting at the easiest deeks or overreaching for a savable goal or not even reacting. It makes me sick to my stomach when the pro AI get one shot one goal on Swayman a top 5 goalie in the NHL on my franchise as well. And every goal that happens no matter what is ability goals…. Close quarters, beauty backhand, one tee, make it snappy, thunderclap. Like no matter what the situation is it feels like if one of those abilities activate for someone it’s 95% chance it’s a goal. Fix your game EA my world of chel team was division one last year with Chel cups to back it up.
Missing Fantasy hockey packs, collectables refunded
Has anyone else had this issue during the fantasy event. Complete set with collectables, failed to retrieve data, closed out of Hut and pack wasn't there when restarting. Tried to do the set again and the collectables weren't there, the next day the event ends and the collectables were refunded into my inbox and didn't get the pack from the certain player . Now i have over 45+ useless collectablesSB and Moments bots harder than before
Hi, Is this by planned change that the bots became much harder than the patch? They block my every move, tackle every time I have the puck, their goalie can't score because he's also improved and the defenders block everything. They have also learned all the most effective ways to score goals, so they are practically impossible to beat on Superstar difficulty. I won at least 19 of my 20 superstar sb games before the patch, but now winning just one game behind very hard work and pain. I also asked other players about this and they also said that the bots seem significantly more difficult than before. Here's another proof of how aggressive the bots now: https://x.com/TLeisku/status/1854212149389763062?t=WBt5L0TJfuLFlZRpG5FwMQ&s=19 And sorry English not my first language, dont hate, if every word is not written completely correctly :DWill this franchise survive
Yes, but not for the right reason without going into specific details om why this game and previous years are not any better, from audio track resampled gameplay replays digitally enhanced to match new engine and consoles. Let's not mention the problems with AI goalies are unable to make a save, with most average player are shooting above 40% over 500 games. IF an NHL goalie let 4 goals in on every 10 shots they would never make it there. With more updates and bugfix then games that have 10 times the amount of details, not to mention that offline be a pro mode has no audio files for the players game interactions and basically we have a 2015 recycled game for the last 10 years and if you were a player in 2010 or prior you probably remember having games 6 on 6 everyone had mics and there was rarely a wait time to start a game. We had lobbies and people even formed their own leagues. Now at peak times we can wait between 4 to 8 minutes and any other times we might wait up to 10 or 15 minutes just to find enough players for a 6V6 game with most times only ending up having 2 or 3 human players on each teams with AI players to fill the open positions. So why is the franchise going to survive you might say, well the same reason that teams like the Canadiens or leafs and other teams from diehard cities in North America who never seem to want to spend money on expensive yet demanded players because owners would be wasting money on them when the arenas can fit more people they sale out whether they win or lose so why spend more if you only make the profits go down well the answer is because the players and fans of this game will keep on buying it even if the change the colors and pictures on the box and call it NHL 26.
The State of EANHL
As a staple elite rank player in WOC for about 5 years now & a big user of the offline modes I have a good understanding of how genuinely bad this game is. Offline modes are shoved to the side so EA can prioritize HUT. All gaming companies focus on what makes them additional money, understood, but there are bugs in these offline modes that are game breaking. There’s a bug in BAP for the past 3 games now where the entire game freezes during a coach interaction. And that’s it. Your be a pro is officially ended. I discovered this bug in both NHL 23 and 24. Reported it to the EA forums with video evidence. The reply I received was “this will continue to happen and hopefully we can fix it next game but for now, make sure to avoid quick closing/resuming your game” and when I told them that simply wasn’t good enough for the price point & people agreed, the community managers locked the post to stop further dialogue between the players. EANHL absolutely loves to take features out of games then add it back a few years later. Not only does this distract from other issues that need to be talked about, they commonly promote these things as being new, which is false advertisement, as is the promotion of the conversation system in be a pro, as when it first came out they marketed it as creating a way more diverse experience. Instead, my coach is telling me to go out there and swing momentum. After the game is done and I’m walking down the tunnel… There has been a cosmetic bug in the game for 4 (maybe 5) years now, where in WOC dressing room you will have on the teams uniform that you just played or are about to play. This is not a big deal but also shows the genuine carelessness and “doesn’t matter, they’ll give us their money anyways” attitude that is very readable. Repeated face off bug in WOC has also been in the game for 4-5 years now, where the game starts, resets to the faceoff seconds later, and does that 5 times before ending the game. Similar to the cosmetic bug (but obviously worse as it affects the playing of the game directly) this shows how EANHL really does not care about the product they’re putting in the store. Name a sports game that wouldn’t have this bug removed by the next game update, or AT LEAST the next game. I’ll wait… The menu is OVERWHELMINGLY slow for a game released in 2024. The loading times have improved. But navigating the menu itself, ESPECIALLY in franchise mode I’ve noticed is VERY slow and buggy. I click on a player to see their stats and have to wait 5 seconds before I can even start to move to the stats tab. They only change the menu & general game layout every 3 years when they release annually. Don’t need to elaborate there. The gameplay itself is below average. And it’s very easy to tell why as someone that’s played at a high level for a very long time - this game is aiming to be casual friendly, which is a HORRIBLE direction for almost any game to take as the dedicated players are usually the really good players. This argument is easily supported by the release of total control, as it makes moves that are supposed to take SKILL and IQ to set up & execute & makes it easy and accessible for anyone to do, even if you just loaded up an EANHL game for the first time. You dumb down the ceiling for skill, which means you allow luck to play more of a factor in the game. I have read a study that hockey is indeed the luckiest sport, but how many times in real life do you see teams out shoot their opponents by 15-20 shots and spend the entire game in the offensive zone and still lose by 2-3 goals? There are simple things that can be implemented to stop major issues. Picking up pucks requires skill IRL, especially when contested. You don’t have some magnet in your blade. Yet, in EANHL it seems like one game you do and the next game you wouldn’t be able to pick up a soccer ball with your blade if you tried. A dead by daylight styled skill check to all players within reach of the puck would be an amazing add. It doesn’t take a genius to know that just putting your player in position and HOPING that the game gets the puck for you isn’t sustainable and simply isn’t good enough. Again, price point. Franchise mode power play roles are still bugged after multiple years NEW BUGS: Player can’t line change in BAP and just skates into the boards & is penalized for a poor line change. Shot clock commonly reads the incorrect shots in all modes. The game commonly fully crashes in BAP mid game after simming to your next shift. I will add more new bugs to this post in the comments as I discover them, that’s if community managers don’t lock my post to stop meaningful dialogue between the players who have been ripped off. I’m sure there are a lot more problems in HUT as well even though they prioritize it so heavily, but I refuse to play that mode as it only encourages the company to not care about the rest of the game WHILE promoting gambling to children in a very cruel way (having them buy packs in hopes of drawing idols). In conclusion, if you genuinely support EANHL and their products, you’re either a HUT main with not much experience in other modes, or a mid/below mid player that benefits from EA’s constant pursuit of a casual friendly game. Thanks for the read!
Editing Players Appearance/ Stats Within Rosters/Franchise mode
Can you finally edit players appearance/ stats? I've asked this every year, not one real answer why it's never been added. It's such a simple feature for sports games, I swear for franchise/ rosters we've never been able to simply edit a players hair, EVER. We've had - UI changes to franchise mode/ creation zone, roster sharing, new hair added, no new beards since playoff beards back in NHL 16, boring old standard goalie helmets that are even older, the ability to edit player stats removed. WHY DO ALL THIS AND NOT EVENTUALLY DECIDE "let's open up all those basic, unnecessarily greyed out options that all other sports games have (are there other sports games with EA NHLs lack of customization?) I do love what has been done to franchise mode this year, for full price tho? All of this is just waaay way to long overdue, who's ever heard of a hockey player growing their hair out? $90CAD or $50CAD on sale to either sim multiple seasons so I can get drafts of normal looking players/I just create tons of players again .For a franchise player like me, so far these are missing basic quality of life updates not a full price upgrade. Please prove me wrong EA.
