NHL 2K10 Developer Insights: Gameplay Mechanics Part I & II

[We Want The Cup]

Check out the NHL 2K10 Developer Insights going over gameplay mechanics.

Part I

Quote:

"The first improvement in NHL 2K10 that I’ll talk about is a minor change that goes a long way. Passing will not require you to let go of the pass button anymore. The pass is triggered upon the press of the button now. This basically means you can pass loose pucks by holding down the pass button while skating to it, and you can keep it held to chain passes around the ice. Once the player receiving the pass gains control of the puck, he will immediately pass the puck if you have the pass button held down. This is something that really helps the cycle in the offensive zone a tremendous amount. That, combined with the AI awareness changes, make the game a huge improvement right off the bat. I’ll get to those AI changes in a future Insight. And don’t worry about people trying to exploit this. Your passes will be a bit less accurate when performed this way, and the speeds will drop if you aren’t passing at the proper angle. Also, like I mentioned before, the player does have to accept the pass before getting rid of it, so it won’t just shoot off his stick once it touches the puck."

Part II

Quote:

"First up, we have the new Stick Lift mechanics. One of the biggest issues that we had as a dev team was figuring out what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. We really didn’t want to go with the simple press of a button that plays a generic stick lift animation where the stick just rises above the player’s head. We wanted to really capture the hard physical aspect of the NHL. So we went into the lab and decided that we wanted our stick lifts to be a nice medium between a check and a stick tie up. Some of you out there that hit the ice know it’s not just about trying to whack the stick as much as it is about using your body to help get in between the opponent and the puck. Understanding what we wanted, we headed to the rink to capture 200+ variations of 2 person stick lifts. Players in the game will actually use both their bodies and sticks to attempt to take the puck away. It’s these two person animations that really separate us from the competition. Some of the variations that you can expect to see in the game are lifts where the players tie up, lifts where the puck carrier shields the puck or angles away from the defender, clean steals by the defender, lifts where the puck handler gets his stick knocked away but he kicks the puck back to himself, and lifts where the defender ties up the stick and kicks the puck away."

[CarryTheWeight]

WWTC! Welcome back!

The bit about passing is intriguing but will there be any way to control the direction of your cycles? I would think aiming the pass with the left stick would be the best way to accomplish this - sort of like the way a player passes in NBA Live 09. If the puck just went back and forth between random or out-of-position players on the ice, it wouldn't really be logical.

This "hold pass" technique may make odd-man rushes more satisfying, especially if you want to force the goaltender to overcommit and beat him with a last-second one-time pass on the rush.

[Money99]

Thanks WWTC!
Great blog!

And we get another blog entry tomorrow? Sweet!

[kerosene31]

Great info!

Quote:

Oh yes, almost forgot about sliders. First things first, our slider system is completely revamped this year. Many sliders are making a return, but they are tuned a bit differently than in the past. The biggest change is that the difficulty levels in the game are now simply slider presets. No more under-the-hood mystery changes when going from Pro to All-Star. No more CPU ratings boosts that you cannot see. What you see in the sliders is exactly what you will get.

This sounds really cool.

[Eddie1967]

Love it, more great info. Not a big slider fan but I plan on tweaking the games difficulty this year a bit.

[18 eighty 5]

Really liking the sound of all of this!!

[Avizzv92]

Very informative, waiting for part two tomorrow!

[RealmK]

Disliking everything to do with dekes, yet again needless button combos. Everything else sounded good though.