NHL 18 Beta Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here!

[Josam27o7]

Quote: Originally Posted by actionhank

I'm 100% truthful, but, I guess that's you opinion. I'm not talking about the player controlled team, I'm talking about the team he's playing against in the video. The AI controlled defenders simply skate backwards from the blue line in, applying no pressure. Accuse me of misrepresenting the product all you want, but I'm more than happy to get gifs that illustrate my points...

In regards to the CPU defenders skating backwards at the blueline, what do you expect on lower difficulties???

In the beta one of the best improvement goes exactly against what you said. In the beta your defenders would step up and play physical after an attacker skated at them crossing the blueline. It happened a lot and I was pleasantly surprised each time.

[jake19ny]

Quote: Originally Posted by Josam27o7

In regards to the CPU defenders skating backwards at the blueline, what do you expect on lower difficulties??? In the beta one of the best improvement goes exactly against what you said. In the beta your defenders would step up and play physical after an attacker skated at them crossing the blueline. It happened a lot and I was pleasantly surprised each time.

Well clearly we're seeing different things and at the end of the day we will never know without getting our hands on 5 on 5 offline mode with slider adjustments. Your optimistic and that's cool but many of us are not. I think we're not going to see much difference from 17. EA has abandoned trying to capture real Hockey and decided to put all their eggs in cash cow HUT and arcadey 3 on 3. That's why our lone sim hockey rep at the game changer event bailed out on them. It is what it is and instead of getting a great game I'm left with making the best of what I get because I love the sport so much. Lol....maybe that should be the EA slogan for true sim Hockey guys...."EA sports....try to make the best of it"...

[Prez]

Has anyone noticed anything new in the arenas? Any new angles they film from in the opening scenes?

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by Josam27o7

In regards to the CPU defenders skating backwards at the blueline, what do you expect on lower difficulties??? In the beta one of the best improvement goes exactly against what you said. In the beta your defenders would step up and play physical after an attacker skated at them crossing the blueline. It happened a lot and I was pleasantly surprised each time.

I think my issue is that I've never seen a difference at any difficulty level. I'll reserve final judgment for the released product, but so far in the years since NHL07 when I started following the series, what you saw in the videos leading up to the release month has been almost exactly what you get in the final product.

Last year I saw videos of the same lackluster defense where AI defenders backed in without any stick work. The backcheckers had the same issue. It seemed in the game that the AI only really saw physically checking players as a means to separate players from the puck. You could see the AI almost waiting for the puck carrier to enter an invisible bubble, at which point they would then try to physically check the puck carrier, despite having been in stick check distance for a little bit. This lead to the AI doing what they still appear to do which is slowly back in at a predetermined distance, before reaching the crease where they switch to "defense" mode and then try to make contact with the puck carrier as soon as they enter the bubble.

You don't see that in real life. Guys are keeping a gap with the puck carrier, while others close off passing lanes and keep their own gap on any other potential forwards. Similarly, the backcheckers are coming in and applying pressure from behind the play, instead of trying to come in and physically check the player, they're using their sticks before they get within arm's reach to force the puck carrier to move the puck away from their stick, and to also force the puck carrier towards the boards.

You simply don't see any of the above executed by the AI in the game. They don't cover open forwards, they don't use their sticks when they are in range, and they don't try to keep the puck carrier to the outside. They back in to the point that the forward with the puck can simply curl into the high slot and shoot on a now screened goalie, because both defenders have backed up and stopped in the lane, but also put about 10 feet between themselves and the puck carrier leaving an uncontested shot.

Like I said. I know this isn't a final product, but in the past, what's been in the video months before launch has been in the final product. That and the lack of real information on the Franchise mode have me pretty underwhelmed at the idea of NHL18 coming out. EA has two separate pages for Multiplayer and Thee on Three hockey. They have an section dedicated to the Expansion Draft and even a portion of the page dedicated to the all new "Create a Mascot" mode, for the crowd that was just dying to see more mascots in the game. But there's no page for the franchise mode.

I'm fine accepting that EA has to focus on where the money is, and in this day and age, that's DLC and/or online play. They're focusing on online play, and that's fine. But I'm done pretending that maybe this is the year where the offline crowd gets the real changes we've been harping on about for years. I can be proven wrong, but unfortunately, EA's done a great job of proving me right.

[oilersfan99]

This may be a miss to most people but what do you think you would have if the d played perfectly? You would have 75% of the players offline that cannot score due to not knowing how to set up, move the puck and create space so that you can pass. Sales would drop and the game would get even worse. I want a game that is a challenge which is why I don't play offline anymore at all and even though people's sliders do help in making the game more challenging, for me anyways the sliders change from game to game and will not save properly but that is for another thread.

They have to come up with a balance that allows all the players to not only compete but to have fun with the game which is probably why they are going to a more arcade style game play. I would love to work for goals and feel rewarded but it'll never be like that, at least not with ea.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

[jake19ny]

Quote: Originally Posted by oilersfan99

This may be a miss to most people but what do you think you would have if the d played perfectly? You would have 75% of the players offline that cannot score due to not knowing how to set up, move the puck and create space so that you can pass. Sales would drop and the game would get even worse. I want a game that is a challenge which is why I don't play offline anymore at all and even though people's sliders do help in making the game more challenging, for me anyways the sliders change from game to game and will not save properly but that is for another thread. They have to come up with a balance that allows all the players to not only compete but to have fun with the game which is probably why they are going to a more arcade style game play. I would love to work for goals and feel rewarded but it'll never be like that, at least not with ea. Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

I disagree with this because that's what difficulty levels are for Rookie should be for those who don't know how to setup. There are 4 difficulty levels in addition to set sliders for arcade/sim/hardcore sim. In addition to a large variety of sliders. When you play on a higher level on hardcore sim it should be tough. MLB the Show has always nailed that...you can go out and slug the ball around and strike out 20 batters on rookie or play a legit realistic game on higher difficulty levels.

On a side note Rammer, in my opinion, took a shot at us hardcore sim guys in this months issue of Game Inforner while discussing all the new dekes. "A lot of stuff we're seeing on a nightly basis, (in the real NHL) if we would have tried to put that stuff in our game 2-3 years ago our core fans would have said 'this is so arcadey' now we're seeing this stuff every single night".......hey Rammer you know what else we see every single night? Boardplay....5 man celebrations....defenders who know where they are supposed to be.....UGH. How about putting that in the game.

[MizzouRah]

I preordered tonight... as much as I want to "wait and see" hockey is just a part of me and something I cannot get by with via text sim like I can with baseball and football (although I think I'll pickup Madden this year).

Sliders have made the game manageable in the past, even with things that frustrate me.

I really hope Rammer and team improved the AI for us solo/sim/franchise players.

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by oilersfan99

This may be a miss to most people but what do you think you would have if the d played perfectly? You would have 75% of the players offline that cannot score due to not knowing how to set up, move the puck and create space so that you can pass. Sales would drop and the game would get even worse. I want a game that is a challenge which is why I don't play offline anymore at all and even though people's sliders do help in making the game more challenging, for me anyways the sliders change from game to game and will not save properly but that is for another thread. They have to come up with a balance that allows all the players to not only compete but to have fun with the game which is probably why they are going to a more arcade style game play. I would love to work for goals and feel rewarded but it'll never be like that, at least not with ea. Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

I think having basic AI with functioning sliders would be the real compromise. With The Show I can fine tune the difficulty so that really good pitchers challenge me, or I can tune it back to where every game is a home run fest.

I don't want to alienate anyone from the game, but my argument is, and has been, that EA's making the entire game cater towards online play and casual hockey alienates the people who don't want that type of game, which would be fine if the tuners had any real affect on the way the AI players handled themselves.

I don't think there has to be an "either or". It's just that EA's sliders can't make the AI do what it isn't capable of. I've been frustrated with the game because even playing basic good defense means you can end up losing. That's frustrating, even for new players. But at the same time, I don't think goal scoring would be "harder" with better AI and goalies. It would just be different. Instead of guys having to rely on 10 silly dekes before sliding the puck around a goalie that's diving all over, a simple pass to another player and a good shot could score a goal.