NHL 16 News Post

NHL 16 Trial Available Now For EA Access Subscribers, Get 10 Hours of Gamplay

05:00 PM - September 9, 2015 by Steve_OS

The trial version of NHL 16 is available now (a day early) for EA Access subscribers. To start the download process, open up the EA Access hub, scroll over to NHL 16, click View in Store and download the trial.

For those of you that can download it, play a few games and let us know what you think!

REMINDER: You get 10 hours of gameplay, so make sure you exit out of the game if you are not playing. Don't pause and lose those precious minutes.

Game: NHL 16Reader Score: Vote Now
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# 221 Keirik @ 09/13/15 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cletus


	I guess by putting haters in quotation marks didn't get my point. The fact is since 15 has came out this board has gotten to be more of a warzone than I remember. I love that people are passionate about this series, hockey and video gaming. We need to keep that in line though. I haven't seen the "pro NHL 15 troll(s)" yet so maybe that's a sign. Personally, I'm through with EA and I'm sure most of the hardcore posters know how I feel about this series, but I always try to be more constructive than destructive. That was my point. We don't have a lot of moderating around here and I would like to keep it this way. It's nice to see people disagreeing intelligently and following the rules.

I understand what you are saying, just don't like seeing the word ***** being used, quotations or not since it starts off on the wrong foot. Personally, i think EA deserves every bit of venom they might get at this point. It's been years where the same problems when playing the CPU have popped up and ignored.

I think the community has had so much patience with this franchise. How is this the way they treat us? Just far too much wrong with playing the cpu to me.

# 222 Qb @ 09/13/15 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamJones113


	Is it just me or does the CPU back check suck in this game? An example being #42 David Backes, whose goal seems to be to meander to the net without much purpose. Equally bad is the Blues #15, who stands perfectly still, facing the puck... only metres from his man at the point. Boy, does he stand still. And then he starts moving, completely misses the puck carrier, and pivots poorly. Bad shift mate. Alex Pietrangelo (I believe, hard to make out the number) plays well, but forgets to cover the back post.

Whenever I read one of the many gripes about lack of NZ pressure or ease of gaining the zone, the lack of backchecking pressure or urgency is all I think of. It's not so much passive defensemen surrendering the zone, it's forwards not actively back checking that cause so many of us to not enjoy offline play. Rarely will a pro D-man step up on a forward coming at him with speed unimpeded, and this situation is all too common in this series when playing the cpu. Heck, it's even hard to do this as a user because of the lack of true directional player switching.

# 223 bad_philanthropy @ 09/13/15 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qb


	Whenever I read one of the many gripes about lack of NZ pressure or ease of gaining the zone, the lack of backchecking pressure or urgency is all I think of. It's not so much passive defensemen surrendering the zone, it's forwards not actively back checking that cause so many of us to not enjoy offline play. Rarely will a pro D-man step up on a forward coming at him with speed unimpeded, and this situation is all too common in this series when playing the cpu. Heck, it's even hard to do this as a user because of the lack of true directional player switching.

Great point. Hard stops and urgent backchecking are huge components of the NHL game and hockey generally. How often do you see the cpu hard stop and book it in the other direction to track down the play?

# 224 AdamJones113 @ 09/13/15 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qb


	Whenever I read one of the many gripes about lack of NZ pressure or ease of gaining the zone, the lack of backchecking pressure or urgency is all I think of. It's not so much passive defensemen surrendering the zone, it's forwards not actively back checking that cause so many of us to not enjoy offline play. Rarely will a pro D-man step up on a forward coming at him with speed unimpeded, and this situation is all too common in this series when playing the cpu. Heck, it's even hard to do this as a user because of the lack of true directional player switching.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy


	Great point. Hard stops and urgent backchecking are huge components of the NHL game and hockey generally. How often do you see the cpu hard stop and book it in the other direction to track down the play?

Absolutely agree on all points. The AI has no urgency and that's especially obvious on the back check. When the puck is turned over, it's the same program: stop, skate back unhurriedly, meander your way to your station on defense. I think part of the problem could be that the CPU expects you to do what they do on offense: set up in the NZ before dumping it in/skating in. If the human were to play like that, the slow back check wouldn't matter, as the back checkers would be back in position before the human entered the offensive zone.

# 225 mkharsh33 @ 09/13/15 05:01 PM

Is this a product of the skating engine still not functioning like it should?...

# 226 bad_philanthropy @ 09/13/15 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkharsh33


	Is this a product of the skating engine still not functioning like it should?...

Possibly. Beyond backchecking you don't see a lot of good stops and changes of directions away from the puck where that is a fundamental property of the NHL game�where on the bigger European ice you can get away with more circling and drifting into soft spots of the ice. I want to see the AI sneak into open space on the ice, and I also want to see the AI notice a play developing, stop, and bust their *** on an efficient route into space.

Just never get the sense the AI has any recognition of what is developing on the ice.

# 227 canucksss @ 09/13/15 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fiddy


	I'll say this, you know me on here of being very critical of the series in general. They say one thing, yet do another, even ignore issues that have been in the series for far too long. But, this is the only game in town and i need an NHL fix. Great that EASHL is back because i missed playing this mode with 12 other buds of mine. I also need an offline fix. I just player lock on a different position every game in my GM mode. I even created myself that i use in the EASHL over the years with legend 3 attributes and boosts. Sit back and roll through games. Yes, not perfect, yes still annoying things, but the games play so much better than controlling everyone. Worth 60? Nope. If you can get it for 30 at some point hop on it.

Yea, I've known you since 2k's online competition back in Original Xbox (like more than 10 years!). Your opinion is one of the opinions I respect here at OS, even at times I dont agree with you. I know during this time of the year, i have a strong urge to play NHL video game. But I cannot justify anymore that I need to pay $60 for a product that has same glaring issues. I stopped playing NHL game after buying "12. I barely touched '13, I rented and was return in a matter of 1 week.

Do I miss playing NHL video game, of yea for sure, but there are other alternatives like EHM and the upcoming FHM. Or I just have to switch to another sport like NBA 2k which I am doing for the past 3 years now. I am not even a big fan of NBA.

# 228 Josam27o7 @ 09/13/15 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by canucksss


	Yea, I've known you since 2k's online competition back in Original Xbox (like more than 10 years!). Your opinion is one of the opinions I respect here at OS, even at times I dont agree with you. I know during this time of the year, i have a strong urge to play NHL video game. But I cannot justify anymore that I need to pay $60 for a product that has same glaring issues. I stopped playing NHL game after buying "12. I barely touched '13, I rented and was return in a matter of 1 week. Do I miss playing NHL video game, of yea for sure, but there are other alternatives like EHM and the upcoming FHM. Or I just have to switch to another sport like NBA 2k which I am doing for the past 3 years now. I am not even a big fan of NBA.

Good to see some of the old NHL community guys. Where did the other guys go? I guess they abandoned this place, like me, as the NHL series degraded. I was an active slider poster here from NHL 08-10 (when the series really had a nice upward trajectory -- partly stemming from the innovative and fun right-joystick total stick control replacing the face-buttons). The last NHL I bought was 12', too. I barely played 12', it was clear that the series was dying. I jumped ship to FIFA, NHL just couldn't compete with the yearly innovation FIFA was making in all areas. The small NHL dev team can't compete with the army of developers working for FIFA.

The funny thing is that between the two worst sports games (madden/NHL) NHL actually has a more fun feel to its gameplay. Madden gameplay just doesn't FEEL fun. But Madden is more respected b/c it's more realistic than NHL.

Oh, and the podcast on this site (press row podcast) is unbelievably amateur. Did you hear this Kat Baily talking about how NHL gameplay this year is amazing? LOL. Amateur.

# 229 bad_philanthropy @ 09/13/15 09:24 PM

Anyone still have access time played with the new tuner that supposedly increased penalties? If so, any impressions on how often penalties are occurring now?

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10356002.page

We have overwritten the default tuner with the latest so you won't see multiple versions at this point. These are the most recent changes:

- Reduce shot accuracy a bit on pro difficulty
- Increase AI reaction times and interception chances on rookie to make them a bit better
- Coaching feedback tuning to make it easier to clear some tasks that were too difficult before.
- Reduce the max speed that players can pickup shots/slap passes. This was feedback from the Beta that wasn't fully tuned before.
- Increase chance of AI penalties in Offline modes.
- Tuning around offside awareness for AI players
- Enable line change HUD in pregame situations (intro NIS and faceoff) so that you can change strategies before puck drop

# 230 CopeSnuff @ 09/13/15 09:39 PM

So I figured I would chime in how I feel about NHL 16

A little about me, I sim about 95% of my games, play maybe a game or two a year, maybe some in playoffs. I love to be a GM, resign guys, draft, trade, asset management etc etc

So with NHL 16 I was somewhat excited to hear about player moral and player meetings and team meetings and all that fun stuff. I was hoping it wouldn't be too much work.

I fired up a franchise with the Canucks and was excited to see preseason was back in! Awesome! I love seeing how my young guys do and perform. I sim on All-star - Simulation (I play around with the player fatigue so I feel all 4 lines are used throughout sim games)

So I got through preseason, put up who I felt should be on the trade block, and noticed moral going down with players when I put them on the block, nice added touch. So soon enough we begin 1-5-2 and I get some flashes on my screen that some players wanted to meet with me. I did just that (I must say the menu system works really well this year, not as slow and treacherous as last years, which I dreaded.) So yeah players were saying oh we are off to a bad start and questioning the front office, you get 4 answers to choose from and it differs from player to player how you answer, it can add to their moral or make them lose moral, or not effect them at all. That was a nice added touch I felt. Soon enough it was about midseason and some teams wanted Ryan Miller and I traded him away, and sure as soup I got flashes on my screen, "Dan Hamhuis has lost moral because you traded Ryan Miller away" I felt that was a nice added touch. Soon enough was the trade deadline, and this is so far my only gripe with NHL 16, I liked the old phone system. It gave you that sense of urgency and if you got rejected in a trade you lost that phone, I miss that. This is you just sim up to and past it. Boring. But then came the end of the season, we finished in the bottom 5 of the league. I must add you get many player meetings throughout the year, you can ignore them if you want. I feel its a nice touch and something more for me to do while I Be a GM. Breaks up the whole JUST SIM! approach. The draft is much like last year, which is completely awesome. Very well done there. We won the lottery and I took some D-man Chychron or something like that. Now was the time to resign players. I though lets see how this goes. Offered some contracts then simmed a day. So as usual the players come back with answers on your offers, and much to my surprise, a player rejected my offer and said "I don't think this team is winning anytime soon." That is AWESOME! So I promptly went back into contracts and cut him loose! Pretty awesome, I tried to sign some free agents as well and the same thing happened, so they recognize when you're trying to rebuild, which is pretty awesome.

Sorry for the great wall of text so far..

So year 2 hit and September came around and I see my rookies are progressing nicely, Virtanen was low 80's so that was nice. Throughout the second season I noticed my rookies gained overall points as they got more ice team. Virtanen started around 82 and ended up at the end of the year @ 86ish. Chychron started around 80 and at the end of the year he was an 87. Love the new progression system.

So when I do play a game, I play on Pro. I feel with NHL 15 when I played all-star or higher I wanted to break things. You could feel when the CPU was going to score, their goalie was God when he needed to be. They constantly cheated all the time. I hated it. So I play on Pro with a bunch of slider changes. Gameplay well I have played around 10 games. I feel a lot of the new improvements. When you have the cpu in their end you can feel momentum shift, they turn it over, make bad passes and you can keep the pressure on. It feels GREAT. But it can also happen to you. It does not always end in a goal, but maybe a goalie freeze or puck out of play after a save. Overall I dig the new features and added touches. I feel more immersion then ever, you can see the mascots ( I play on Dynamic High) I thought it would be cheesy but it actually helps bring me into that arena. I love what they have done with arena details. Playing at the United Center and scoring on the hawks, the faceoff after the crowd will scream LETS GO HAWKS! It creates such a fun atmosphere. I Agree with a lot of the penalty complaints. I usually get 1 PP a game. A nice added touch is the slider to make 4 on 4 play last a full 2 minutes.

so basically I love this years NHL game, I feel with some tweaks and adjustments which EA should make it will be a fun game.

TL;DR

Positives:
-Player Moral system is awesome
-Players reject contracts if they are in Win Now mode and you are not.
-Player progression system is awesome

Cons:
-more penalties
-$80 for a game!

So yeah those are my feelings right now. Sucks its going to cost me $80 CAD this year (which is complete bullcrap but I will save that for another day)

# 231 Gbpackerowner @ 09/13/15 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoung


	The lack of stick physics isn't a bug, it's just a design decision. EA's designers have mentioned several times that they've tried turning on stick physics in their own internal tests, but none of their testers found it to be any fun.

Well how about they give us the ability to turn on the stick physics? I'm not interested in whether or not their testers thought it was "fun" I just want it to be realistic. I'll decide what's fun. Obviously the testers are not into providing a realistic offline hockey experience. And they are in Canada? Eh!

# 232 gopher_guy @ 09/13/15 10:39 PM

Well, I didn't get NHL 15, so I am going to get 16. Just can't go two years without a hockey game.

What are penalties like? Does the CPU actually take penalties? I seem to remember from 13 and 14 that the CPU didn't provide many opportunities to go on the PP.

# 233 MizzouRah @ 09/13/15 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy


	Anyone still have access time played with the new tuner that supposedly increased penalties? If so, any impressions on how often penalties are occurring now? http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10356002.page We have overwritten the default tuner with the latest so you won't see multiple versions at this point. These are the most recent changes: - Reduce shot accuracy a bit on pro difficulty - Increase AI reaction times and interception chances on rookie to make them a bit better - Coaching feedback tuning to make it easier to clear some tasks that were too difficult before. - Reduce the max speed that players can pickup shots/slap passes. This was feedback from the Beta that wasn't fully tuned before. - Increase chance of AI penalties in Offline modes. - Tuning around offside awareness for AI players - Enable line change HUD in pregame situations (intro NIS and faceoff) so that you can change strategies before puck drop

Played two games.. total of 2 penalties in each game.

# 234 acelang123 @ 09/13/15 11:53 PM

Heres some basic facts on where this franchise stands

The Dev team believes the gameplay experience is "good". They think they have improved commentary. They think they have added value by including more algorithms for things like emotion, performance, etc.

When NHL 07 was released for PS3, it was graphically better but the gameplay lacked. When NHL 08 released, it was a slightly improved version with gameplay issues. When NHL 09 released, there was a significant difference in gameplay and the feature set was improving. NHL 10 was the NEXUS of the franchise. Why? Great Gameplay, Great Feature Set, OK online play, Custom Sounds, and Improved Graphics. It was 4 years in the making. NHL 11 thru 14 were slight improvements year to year, which was fine, but it was time for a new generation of hockey.

One would have expected that the greatness of NHL 10 for PS3, which will live in hockey gaming lore with NHL 94 for SNES, NHL 00 for PS1, and NHL 06 for PS2, would have carried over into NHL 15 for PS4....but a wise gamer must realize, that history proves that the best iterations of the games (within console generations) come in year 4.

So NHL 18 is the future. NHL 16 and 17 will lack for what we expect, but it is NHL 18 that we can hope and pray will be as great as those previous 4th installments.

# 235 BL8001 @ 09/14/15 12:27 AM

Oh dear...

2 game test, so it's still early but...

I start the game as the team I do not want to be. Play 1 period. Switch sides to the team I want to be and all my cpu controlled players play smarter.

The first time I tested it I said no way, no way at all...

Second game where it worked again...

Edit: it is actually a 2 game and one period test. It started when I was home as the flyers vs the bruins, I went up 1-0 on a real nice goal, then I herded cats on D for the rest of period 1 and 2, giving up 4 straight goals. So 3rd period I thought hmm what happens If I switch teams? Well, I didn't have to herd cats using the Bruins because my D held shape and didnt skate away from threats (that is my biggest gripe with this game, your cpu controlled defenders will constantly wander away from threatening situations).
After being somewhat surprised I tested it two more times, experiencing the improved D and player behavior.

I guess in some way you are tricking the cpu into not handicapping you doing this.

# 236 Therion7 @ 09/14/15 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy


	Anyone still have access time played with the new tuner that supposedly increased penalties? If so, any impressions on how often penalties are occurring now? http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10356002.page We have overwritten the default tuner with the latest so you won't see multiple versions at this point. These are the most recent changes: - - Increase chance of AI penalties in Offline modes.

Was bracing myself for this issue to not be resolved but even the wording of that update from the devs is somewhat infuriating. There really should be no "chance" of AI penalties in a game. If the main Penalty slider's at zero, there's none. If the slider's at max... it's a goonfest! It needs to work like it used to - an actual controllable element of the game.

The game I was at last night was purely decided on PPs. 5 on 5, the teams were evenly matched. It's such a big thing for the NHL series to get consistently wrong.

Braehead Clan	3 / 9	8 min / 4 inf	3 G + 6 A = 9 Pts
Edinburgh Capitals	0 / 3	40 min / 12 inf	0 G + 0 A = 0 Pts

# 237 Money99 @ 09/14/15 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BL8001


	Oh dear... 2 game test, so it's still early but... I start the game as the team I do not want to be. Play 1 period. Switch sides to the team I want to be and all my cpu controlled players play smarter. The first time I tested it I said no way, no way at all... Second game where it worked again... Edit: it is actually a 2 game and one period test. It started when I was home as the flyers vs the bruins, I went up 1-0 on a real nice goal, then I herded cats on D for the rest of period 1 and 2, giving up 4 straight goals. So 3rd period I thought hmm what happens If I switch teams? Well, I didn't have to herd cats using the Bruins because my D held shape and didnt skate away from threats (that is my biggest gripe with this game, your cpu controlled defenders will constantly wander away from threatening situations). After being somewhat surprised I tested it two more times, experiencing the improved D and player behavior. I guess in some way you are tricking the cpu into not handicapping you doing this.

Hmmm, that's very strange. Were the scores similar every time you made the switch? Were you always losing at that point?

The defensive acumen of your CPU teammates has always been pathetic and I believe the AI is purposely programmed that way.
BAP was the mode that really shone a light on this. I wondered why every time I controlled the puck I�d get mugged and harassed, but when passing off to a teammate, they could skate unmolested into the slot and get off great scoring chances.
Just like when I�m in my defensive zone, I notice that my teammates won�t as much as cough on the man they�re covering.

I noticed the exact same things when I�d play with position lock. When I had the puck, the CPU went at me like I took their mother out for a nice seafood dinner and never called her again.
But, when one of my CPU controlled teammates had the puck, the defenders basically let them do whatever they wanted.

The only conclusion I came to was that this was programmed into the game purposely to make the offline CPU more competitive.
Imagine if your teammates attacked the CPU as much as they did the user? Its scoring chances would plummet.
The same thing would happen if the CPU was beholden to the same physics engine the user is. And now consider taking away boosts from the CPU and you basically don�t have an offline experience.
The AI is so poor, that there�s no way on earth the CPU would be able to generate any offense, or defense, without cheats and boosts.

Considering how small the team is, and the directive of the suits to focus mainly on offline, I�m not sure this will ever be addressed.

I know I�ve stated this several times in the past, but NHL07 wasn�t this way. There were distinctive player types and you noticed the varying skills from player to player.
Not only that, but this auto perfect pass, one-timer we see now (from both sides) didn�t exist either.
If the pass was off, the receiver didn�t get off a perfect, pin-point one-timer. An animation kicked in where the receiver had to make an extra effort to coral the puck, then move it to a favourable position in order to get a decent shot off.
Usually, it resulted in a weak back-hand or missed the net entirely.
This forced the user (AND CPU) to make sure a good playmaker had the puck so that a one-timer pass was more likely to be completed.
And as you moved up in difficulty, the CPU got smarter and didn�t receive boosts.
I distinctly remember Littman and Richards boasting about this time and time again. And it worked.

But then it all disappeared in NHL08. And I remember the producers saying they had to remove code because they had already ran out of room/resources with the 360/PS3 after adding new modes and features.
And that�s why they gave the CPU boosts in order to make it more competitive.

It�s a shame really. I think the team in charge for NHL07 had things going in a great direction, but obviously interference came from above and that�s when decisions were made to focus on micro-transaction modes and online.

I hate bashing on the game. Some really enjoy it and I�m genuinely happy for those people. Have at her and don�t let negative nelly�s like me ruin the experience.
I think I just need a break from the series. I�m probably going to get an alternate sports game this year to cleanse the pallet and come back for NHL17.

# 238 Splitter77 @ 09/14/15 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gbpackerowner


	Well how about they give us the ability to turn on the stick physics? I'm not interested in whether or not their testers thought it was "fun" I just want it to be realistic. I'll decide what's fun. Obviously the testers are not into providing a realistic offline hockey experience. And they are in Canada? Eh!

im gonna take a guess and say they never even tested stick physics at all.
I don't believe it for a second.

# 239 bad_philanthropy @ 09/14/15 08:57 AM

Didn't I read somewhere they said they added a stick contact slider for 16?

# 240 BL8001 @ 09/14/15 08:58 AM

Money99, yes, each time I changed I was down a goal or 2.

One strange change, going back to when the nhl access started, my first handful of games the cpu always scored in the first minute, then the game was balanced a little until I scored then it would go back to robo cpu with braindead teammates for me. I was familiar with this pattern from previous NHL games.

Sat and Sun the cpu did not come out super aggressive and most games I played I scored first(I don't think this was a by product of me getting better). Then the "spirit" of the game would kick in and I would go down a few goals.

The thing that is most puzzling about playing offline is how little they do to even disguise what is happening. When you attack the cpu they all glom in front of the net, when the cpu attacks you your players extend towards the boards for no apparent reason leaving acres of space in the slot.

It feels like reverse magnetism, I switch to pull a player back into the slot to protect then switch to another guy who drifted towards the boards, then back to the other guy who starts drifting away the other direction then switch back, its exhausting. It's like the slot is a hill and they keep sliding down the sides of it.

It is so in your face, the contrasting differences, you go up the ice you see one thing, you come down the ice, another.

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