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!
The gameplay changes significantly decreased my motivation to play NHL 25
Before this patch 1.2.0, the game felt so much better. You couldn't just clog up the middle of the ice or chase non-stop without any regard for defensive zone positioning. One-timers were such a great way to punish poor defensive zone play. It rewarded higher shot volume instead of the offensive zone ragging that's plagued the game for years. Since the patch, I'm still winning games, but my enjoyment level has plummeted which has resulted in me playing significantly less. Games that should be blowouts are coming down to a single goal. High level play has slowed to a crawl with endless puck ragging. I'm having way too many where I'm outshooting opponents 40-10, and it's still a close game on the scoreboard (Yes it happens sometimes irl. That doesn't mean it's okay to happen frequently in the videogame). 1Ts needed a nerf, but the way y'all nerfed it was not the way to go about it. The biggest issue was goalies sliding too far on D2D 1Ts. Every other 1T was in a good spot balance wise. The nerf y'all did ruined that. Now D2D 1Ts are in a good spot, but every other 1T is nearly pointless. Setting up a 1T on a 1-3-1 was the most realistic and satisfying things to do. Now they get saved almost every time. It's so bad.
Simple solution for levels of play
Instead of tweaking EVERY PLAYER ON THE ICE to create uneven matches at every position why not just make it so the AI controlled players have the same attributes whether a human is playing them or not and make the LEVELS based on reaction time and awareness? Then you wouldn't have to adjust all the players on the ice in order to make the game more difficult. i.e. .3 seconds for rookie. .25 seconds for pro, .2 seconds for all star and .15 for Superstar and make the AI controlled players respond with the same reaction speed as the setting .85% of listed awareness for rookie, .9 for pro, .95 for all-star, full awareness for superstar or something similar, Awareness would modify reaction speed for AI controlled players. Then you wouldn't have to make the human controlled teammates play like CHL rookies to make the game "harder." Yes it DOES make it harder, just like playing poker against someone who can stack a deck makes it harder. What a cheap way to do things. Frustrating and unnecessary as well.
Player Age Adjustments and Season Start Dates
I was speaking with Vasy, who creates amazing rosters that are shared in the NHL games. We agreed on 2 things that would greatly improve offline experiences. One is being able to edit a players age, so that after the draft we can place drafted players onto their proper teams, instead of getting the notification that the player is "too young to move". The second thing would be to be able to select a start date for your season. This would mean that if you are on NHL 25 and the draft has occurred you could select to start your season in 2026, or a date during that pre-season. Which in theory, should adjust the player ages to their proper age, allowing you to move them onto their proper teams. Both of these would help with the offline player accuracy and experience overall. On the player movement note it would be good to have the age limit restrictions on movement between teams removed. Its my game that I purchased, if I want to move a young player to a different team in offline mode, why should I not be able to? I realize that the chances that they have listened to these requests from previous years is pretty slim. I also realize that we likely won't hear about this until we start playing on Sept 27, however passing along this feedback would be greatly appreciated EA_Aljo Thanks
