NHL 13 News Post

NHL 13 Season Ticket Impressions

01:52 PM - September 7, 2012 by Qb

If you can't view the embedded video, click here.

EA SPORTS Season Ticket allows people to play Madden NFL, NHL®, FIFA Soccer®, Tiger Woods PGA Tour®, and NCAA Football® titles before launch.

The $24.99 or 2000 Microsoft® Points / 12 months* subscription includes, access to over $100 worth of PDLC, three day early access to all participating franchises, and 20% off additional PDLC in all participating franchises.

Please post your NHL 13 impressions here. NHL 13 Q&A is here.

Game: NHL 13Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 23 - View All

NHL 13 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 09:22 PM

It seems like on SS/Hardcore the cpu is a rendered a bit punchless on offense due to the more active sticks and enhanced effectiveness of the poke check. I might have to tune interceptions and poke check effectiveness down. I do see a lot of subtle little things that I like.

Also, can we not make videos in the early release? Or is this gone from the game completely?

# 42 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 09:41 PM

Just had a really good 4-3 (OT) loss to Pittsburgh as Philly. I was up 3-0 after the first, but at no time did I feel like they went into berserker mode. Just a couple of lucky bounces, and some missed opportunities by me. On the game winner Hartnell broke his stick on a rush and the turnover led to a nice goal going the other way. I think poke checking or puck control may need a slight tweak.

I will say, for those who play 20 minute periods, you should be able to find a pretty good slider set that yields realistic numbers just based on my observations of the game mechanics so far.

# 43 Gagnon39 @ 09/07/12 09:51 PM

Just played my first couple of games, both on Superstar.

I played the first game with default sliders and 14 minute periods. It didn't take me long to realize that I needed to make some adjustments.

If you want a hockey simulation out of NHL 13 the very first thing you need to adjust is the acceleration. I have it down two clicks (at 1) and I turned game speed down one click (at 2).

My next game was much better. And with acceleration and speed lowered you can still definitely get going crazy fast. I had two breakaways with Patrick Kane who was absolutely flying. I scored on one of them which was awesome.

I was leading the Coyotes 5-1 in the third period with under 10 minutes remaining and they quickly scored 3 goals on me. I'm by no means trying to start a "comeback AI" post/thread because I don't believe it exists, but a couple of the goals felt rather cheap. It was especially frustrating since I held them to 19 total shots and played great positional defense. The goals they scored were from bad angles and off of rebounds. There wasn't really any thing I could do.

I scored an empty-net goal and won the game 6-4.

So far my impressions of the game are very positive. I love the feel and look of the game and speedy players make a huge difference.

Unquestionably the most disappointing thing for me is that the pass accuracy and the pass reception sliders once again seems to have absolutely no bearing on the CPU. They still make a crazy amount of super-accurate passes. And I have yet to see (ever) on NHL 12, 11 or any game including 13 a puck simply bounce off of a CPU's stick. If EA implemented this correctly they would have as close to a sim as we've ever seen.

# 44 BenVenom @ 09/07/12 09:59 PM

My impressions so far, 3 games allstar/ hardcore, attribute slider to max, pass rec. ease on zero, pass acc on zero, puck control on zero. Much less tic tac passing then we saw in then demo, I would like less tape to tape passes but some hard passes r "bobbled" any many passes(including a.i.) are missed completely. Another positive is guys can just loose the puck making a deke or a turn, again I have control at zero. The biggest problem and this is huge is penalties or lack of them. 3 ten min period games and I have seen the CPU take 1 penalty and in another 1 of my a.i. Teammates took 1. This is not good and seems to b exactly like nhl12. This is with all penalty sliders maxed!

# 45 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 10:00 PM

For some reason we can't change a player's default jersey number in the edit player menu anymore. Kind of sucks, because in GM mode for cpu teams after guys get called back up for the regular season many default to the numbers in their player profiles. An example of this is last year Nathan Horton always defaulted to #16 after the pre-season.

# 46 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 10:08 PM

Found a pretty stupid error in the game. Not sure if it is like this in the default roster, but it seems that every CHL player with a Reebok helmet doesn't have a visor—which is dumb considering it's a requirement.

# 47 poster @ 09/07/12 10:09 PM

I am awful and do not know what I am doing, but I had 5 total penalties in one 20 minute period. 3 PP's for me, 2 for the CPU. I was on Pro/Hardcore, and I turned the penalty sliders up all the way.

# 48 Keirik @ 09/07/12 10:11 PM

It could just be me i guess but it sure feels to me that the cpu on allstar and above have a serious boost advantage. They just seem first to every puck, first to react, rebounds find them first, pinball here and there right to them every time...

It's very frustrating

# 49 fmedges @ 09/07/12 10:13 PM

The line change menu beeping at me all the time is so annoying. I was hoping this would be fixed from NHL 12. I guess it wasn't.

# 50 chris33cc @ 09/07/12 10:17 PM

Let me preface this with saying that I hardly play NHL online, or against the computer. I usually play only against my roommate and a few friends, but we probably logged close to a thousand games of NHL 12 in. That being said, I can easily see doubling that amount of games with NHL 13. My impressions:
-I'm loving the fact that the wall passes are working well so far.
-I love the passing. I feel much more in control of where and how hard they are going.
-Winter Classic looks beautiful.
-I did get in a couple games with the cpu and I'm certainly impressed with their tactics. Once they had a breakaway, they would utilize some dekes and a fake shot to pull my goalie out.

Here are the stats for the game I think played the best so far (I was the Wild):

Sep 7, 2012	1	2	3	SO	F
NYI ()	0	1	0	0	1
MIN ()	1	0	0	1	2

Three Stars

Team Stats Comparison
	NYI	MIN
Shots on Goal	19	20
Hits	14	12
Faceoffs Won-Lost	13	11
Penalty Minutes	0	6
Power Plays Converted	1	0
Power Play Opportunities	3	0
Time on Attack	6:04	6:31

Scoring Summary

All in all, I think this is a very promising start to one of my favorite sports franchises. I may even have to cut into my Madden time to try out the Be A GM mode...

# 51 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 10:31 PM

Tiny detail I like. You don't have to have a team captain at all anymore. You can have three assistants instead. Good small addition.

# 52 mike24forever @ 09/07/12 10:32 PM

For people that were worried about pucks sticking to players sticks...I have had puck bounce over my stick when pushing the play up ice, on break always (especially if I try to make to many moves) and in my second game that went to a shout out, pucks hooped over both my players and CPU players sticks.

Passing: All-Star, Hardcore with Passing Assist at 1 and human passing at 3, I ended up with 48% passing.

The puck is alive in this game. I have it authentic size and authentic shadow. I've seen bouncing pucks, pucks rolling on end and fluttering pucks.

Just a few impressions.

Oh yeah, I have the player attribute slider maxed, CPU difficulty at 3 and CPU strategy adjust maxed.

# 53 bad_philanthropy @ 09/07/12 10:44 PM

Not going to give comprehensive stats, but sim stats look pretty solid in BaGM.

# 54 AC @ 09/07/12 11:00 PM

For anyone that's simmed GM, do good players reach FA? Very rarely would guys like Getzlaf, if ever, reach FA.

# 55 Money99 @ 09/07/12 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panicshade


	Man am I terrible...lol I am playing on Pro with normal sliders and it's just like the demo for me... It seems like the only person who tries to ever go after the puck on my team is me as the others just let whoever has it skate around all they want. They can just breathe on whoever has the puck for me and it's an automatic turnover yet I can probably hit them with the zamboni and they keep it about 90% of the time. Also I hardly have 1 second to breathe since it seems like the CPU always has the most extreme forecheck on at all times. And I am convinced the goalie for the other side is an android sent from the future to stop all my shots...and find John Connor I know most of this is just simple frustration with trying to learn a new series and can be somewhat adjusted with the sliders but sheesh....agitating

It's not you. This is how the series has been for several years now.
Your CPU teammates are incredibly passive. The only way to make it slightly better in previous versions was to change your defensive strategy to 'high pressure'. They'll be a bit more aggressive on the point-men, but really, it's not nearly effective.
What also stinks is that, like Gagnon39 stated, the CPU is perfection. They never miss a pass, deal with bouncing pucks, and they have a 6th sense as to where the rebound, or deflected pass/shot is going to go.
I've seen games in NHL09-12 where you try to pass up ice, it hits a stick and deflects right to a player who jumped into a hole like he had precognition of where it was going to end up.

Based on yours and Gagnon39's initial impressions, I know I shouldn't buy NHL13.
The negatives you mentioned have been in the game for a long, long time and I simply can't deal with them anymore.
I have no interest in paying $70 for a game that will only frustrate me and have me selling the game after 4 weeks or less (NHL12 lasted 4 days in my house).

I'm still going to rent because I'm a hockey nut, but seeing some of the vids, and playing the demo myself, I still see the CPU make ridiculous, blind, backhand, 3-line passes that go tape-to-tape. And from 5th or 6th dmen no less.
That's EA's way of compensating for poor AI and to present an artificial challenge.

# 56 Rules @ 09/07/12 11:12 PM

Just played a full game on All Star using hardcore settings and penalties maxed out. Played very aggressive and NOT ONE SINGLE PENALTY was called.

Hope that is not a problem. I will play a few more tomorrow but that was my biggest complaint last year was the lack of penalties being called.

# 57 goblades26 @ 09/07/12 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy


	For some reason we can't change a player's default jersey number in the edit player menu anymore. Kind of sucks, because in GM mode for cpu teams after guys get called back up for the regular season many default to the numbers in their player profiles. An example of this is last year Nathan Horton always defaulted to #16 after the pre-season.

Does this mean we cannot edit height, weight, cap hit and most importantly waiver status? (They have waivers wrong every year... 2 way does not make you ineligible, and I get the eligible players fixed every year)

# 58 Gagnon39 @ 09/07/12 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keirik


	It could just be me i guess but it sure feels to me that the cpu on allstar and above have a serious boost advantage. They just seem first to every puck, first to react, rebounds find them first, pinball here and there right to them every time... It's very frustrating

Man, I have to completely disagree with you on that. Make sure you're "hustling" to the puck. With Patrick Kane I hardly ever get beat to a loose puck. He's crazy fast. You've got to play good positionally. I've yet to play on anything but Superstar and I've only lost one game.

# 59 Broncos86 @ 09/07/12 11:29 PM

I've discovered that board play matters more behind the net. As a defender, you need to pin the forwards or else you will get burned.

# 60 Kamasutra @ 09/07/12 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broncos86


	I've discovered that board play matters more behind the net. As a defender, you need to pin the forwards or else you will get burned.

I play almost exclusively as a defender online and I agree, you need to mark your man and poke check the heck out of the puck, now more than ever. Pretty good all in all.

@money99 for my part I don't play offline, but always online, so I don't really care about how the default ai plays since I prefer to face human controlled players.

Likes:

- The weightedness of the players: you feel that constantly and momentum plays a key role this year. You feel much heavier and that translates into everything from player movement & skating to puck handling to passing. Everything has more weight thus enhances the realism. Seems to me the early release has that fine-tuned and a bit more pronounced than the demo

- Larger rink?: To me immediately apparent coming from NHL12, the size of the rink is superb. There's soooo much space to skate into and frees up the play. It makes it a big more difficult for a defenseman to cover all that ground but it's great for the offense. By contrast, if I go back to playing nhl12, the rink feels tiny and constricted.

-Graphics: To me a big improvement, crisp, sharper player models and the added animations are superb. Much better in-game transitions and for once I don't mind watching the cutscenes. NHL12's anim/presentation looks cartoonish by comparison.

- The pace of the game: slower, better. Whereas before you can rush up and down the ice in a matter of a couple seconds, now in an online game it takes a bit more skill and patient buildup to do so. There's plenty of mid-ice battles for the puck and you have to work your way back to the offensive zone. Big improvement and closer a good dose of realism.

- Menus: sharper, better layout, and fluid transitions. The layout of the menus has slightly changed but for the better.

Dislikes so far:

- The lobby (waiting for a game to start) now has a 3 minute waiting time instead of the usual 1m30. (minor dislike)

- The fatigue factor is exagerated and needs to be toned down. By the middle of the 1st period players were struggling to get up and down the ice, by the 3rd period, every single player was on life support. Of course ppl need to adjust to the new skating system and stop abusing the boost, but even with that in mind, the rate at which fatigue accrues is simply overdone.

- Lighting/shadows: not a big fan of the lighting but I'm getting used to it. In the end this will probably be a much better fit than NHL12's extra bright lighting and colors and overdone reflections. Seems things have been toned-down but that's not a terrible thing.

Overall: Big difference from the demo obviously since I couldn't play online, I wasn't at all convinced by the demo and left lukwarm by the experience.
But the 6v6 online games have completely changed my outlook and I'm now eager for the next game and the next... just like I was in nhl12.

As for the servers, no complaints here. As good as they were in nhl12, no freeze no lag (so far).

« Previous 1 234 5 6 7 8 9…13 14 Next »

More Links

NHL 13 Season Ticket Impressions