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MVP
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Re: Your Thoughts on the EASHL Beta
Updated: After 2 full days with this beta. It is just not fun to play.
If you are going to run club this year you had better be playing with nearly all humans, because the AI in this game is atrocious, again.
Win the face-off back to the cpu dman in the defensive zone and they immediately run behind the net and then lose the puck on the net. Then they constantly turn it over. They make you call for the puck and then still turn it over. They even reverse and carry it backwards when the easiest play would be to make the quick pass up the boards, away from the defenders. But they would rather carry it backwards and then get turned around and lose the puck.
It was promised that by removing the "grind" that all teams would be even and hockey knowledge and skill would be the difference, but that is far from the case. Constantly dominating other clubs in shots, time on attack, hits, face-offs, PP's only to struggle to put up 2 goals in some games.
Meanwhile, looking at the leader boards, there are clubs that are already averaging 6.5 points per game and they are not playing 6-6 because it actually tells you if they are.
My club is 13-3-1. 2 of those loses occurred when multiple players on our team dropped/crashed to the main menus of Xbox One because of some apparent EA/MS drop issue. I average well over 3 points per game already and I am a 2 way defensive minded player. But we still struggle to knock pucks loose from a team of 2 enforcers and a grinder.
Passing in this game is just awful. There are no lanes. I mean, there are lanes, you can see them... but you cannot pass through them, no matter what build you pick. Work the puck up to the offensive zone and then at best you can pass around the perimeter a little, until you try and angle a pass and you fire it back into your own zone or just throw it to a ridiculous spot that you weren't even thinking about.
With the passing the way it currently is, the game really doesn't promote team play at all. It is more of a game of trying to do things one-on-one and then perhaps make that one pass at the last second in the zone.
I have yet to see a shot from the point beat a goalie in this beta.
And they didn't fix the being able to change lines or attack strategies so that you can poke check at the same time. All they did was remove the ability to change your defensive settings while playing the game. It is all greyed out until a stop in play. That is awful! What lazy programming. They constantly do that. Like when the loop was causing issues for nearly 3 years, they just removed the part of the menu that let you loop the game. They didn't fix the issue.
Every game you have to set up the strategies. Every game! And it takes roughly 5-8 game minutes to accomplish that because you can't do it from the pause menu, that would make too much sense. So, unless you like an ultra defensive strategy for your team, for the whole game, you have to clumsily cycle through the options to adjust your teams attack, breakout, and defensive strategies. It even starts you out running a 1-3-1. What team even does that in these days, especially from the onset of a game?
There is no way to tell how much time a club game has left, the score, anything. You sit in the locker room and do nothing but wait. At least give us so stats in the locker room.
What is the point of the report card? Every period I see the same dumb coaching advice. Stuff like "take snapshots". Dumb. You can't progress or regress, so what does it matter. Just show me the stats from the game and from the players in the intermission.
If you play with a CPU winger, good luck getting him to play his side. Good luck getting him to do anything productive at all.
The AI still receives the benefit of a speed cheat. It still turns in unrealistic ways when it has the puck and it is trying to shield a human attacker. At least this year it does cough the puck up a lot more from poke checks.
Seeing hardly any breakaways with CPU AI. Not sure if that is good or bad. The speed cheat comes into play here too, though. Nothing like getting caught from behind when you have a fast player build and the puck on what should be a clear-cut break.
Haven't seen a goalie interference called yet.
Why is there pauses? You can't do anything other than adjust cameras from the menus, so why do we need them in club? You want to adjust the camera do it in the settings during a stop in play or intermission, sorry.
Did I mention the passing is awful? It really bums me out that my favorite aspect of hockey is so nerfed and putrid because I miss making the pretty tic-tac-toe play.
Glad they redid the hitting. No more players all over the ice. Although now it is harder than ever to defend a puck carrier one-on-one. It is especially ridiculous for the AI. The AI defender will allow a puck carrier to skate with them stride for stride as they backpedal and never attempt a poke, lift, or nudge. As long as you skate to the perimeter you can take whatever ground you want.
And what is probably the worst part: The game is just kind of dull and boring already. After not even 20 games, I feel that I have seen everything that can and will happen. And it feels and looks just like every other EASHL. The menus are still clunky and ugly. The options are hard to find, so joining a club or looking up stats is tedious. And knowing that you will never progress or have anything to look forward to is just dull to me. My club is already in the top 150 overall and it is like "so what?" Like, what do we do now? I just can't see this holding people's attentions for an entire year because the foundation is tired for this game mode.
And now all that has changed is that they handcuffed what really made the game unique, finding special player builds and using them as a team to compliment strengths as you progress up the ladder with your created player. Now it is like you have to pick one aspect of a player and try to do that and only that. So if you hit, you can't score. If you can pass, you can't hit. If you are good in front, you have to be slow. Where is the originality? And the result is just who can find the glitch spots the best, because that is all anyone is trying right now to score. And by the looks of the records and stats, people are finding those tired glitch spots with ease.
I looked at the goalie stats, hardly anyone is playing goalie in EASHL for Xbox One in the beta. The leader in games played had 6 games played as of 4:30am EST. It quickly dropped off from there. Because there were not even 15 players listed with goalie stats yet.
I don't know. Watching the developers play yesterday should have probably been more of an indicator than what I took it to be originally. They really don't understand the nuances of the game or how it is played. This game is programmed to be exactly the opposite of what this mode is attempting to be. Watching all of those guys that work on this product chase after the puck like golden retrievers chase tennis balls in the back yard is exactly how this game is set up to play. Because it certainly doesn't reward true positioning, heads-up passing, or create a battle for space. Instead it is a button mashing, deke fest, where everyone just skates the perimeter of the ice until they force a one-timer pass across the goal crease, or try to stop and pull up above the circles and carry it into the slot for a cheese goal top shelf, bar down, bs, legacy goal that has been in the game for 8 iterations now.
There is little reward for working yourselves into a 3 on 1. Because passing in this game is the worst option. You are better off just trying to skate straight up the ice on every transition and going right at the net than you are cycling in the corner, working it back to the point, or chipping a nice little saucer into open space for your player to run down on the fly.
The game isn't all bad, but it sure isn't good. And what is really a shame is that the stuff that isn't good is the same stuff that hasn't been good for 5-6 years now. And there is really no hope or end in sight. All we were told from the people that spent time with this game is how great it is and how different it will seem. I see hardly any of that.
I don't see anyone using the strafe function in a realistic manner. I don't see the AI keeping the point or playing the angles correctly on defense. I don't have an option to square up or face the damn puck even. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is trying to park yourself in front of that net properly. When in real life I can stand on my skates in any direction I please with the utmost of ease. The problem in real life is that there is a 6'5" 240lb guy leaning on me or pushing me out of the way of his goalie. In this game, you just park yourself next to the guy and hope for the best.
I don't know where EA wants our feedback, but this is essentially what I found by playing this game already. And from watching others play it. It really resembles nothing of the actual sport of hockey. It really wasn't that fun to play with my buddies again after 2 years of next gen gaming without Club hockey. And I am saying this as someone that was on a team that simply dominated just about all of our opponents. The rare pretty plays we did make never resulted in anything positive. Or we would dominate on a 5 minute power play but not be able to set up that pretty pass and finish. But then just walk in and wrist one and watch their cpu d punch it in his own net. That doesn't make anyone happy on either team. That just makes you feel like you aren't even playing the game, but rather just watching.
How many times have you asked out loud "how does that guy still have it?" Because there is no collision detection between bodies and sticks the puck can just be carried forward in slow motion, all while you are watching your player just get skated through and then the AI get carried through.
After 2 full days I still have seen a human or CPU player score from the point on a CPU goalie.
I really can't get over how dumb it is that you cannot change strategies while playing for defense. The window to change from the conservative formations and the protect net is so small that is asinine.
Player builds are just a mess. For example; You can't pivot with a sniper, it is all straight line skating and then it takes forever to start and stop. How do you make a build of a player that can't skate realistically? That is the basics of hockey. Come down with the d skating on your back and try and make a move and just carry it into the goalie because it is impossible to change directions or shift your weight/pivot your hips. Unreal.
Lots of dropping to the dashboard. Wonder if that is just a beta issue. Nothing like having a game drop your whole team to the dashboard with 3 minutes left in the game when you are blowing out your opponent. My club is now 17-4-1 and 3 of those are a result of drops or crashes to the dashboard. There have been a handful of other crashes that didn't result in a win for us, or a loss for anyone.
And I see the CPU is tuned to help the lower ranked team in the matchup. You can't possibly tell me that is not. Has been like this for years. You get 3 or 4 guys playing against you that are completely clueless. I mean they don't even know what offside is, they are trying to fight every 2 seconds, they are taking slap shots from their own zone, flipping pucks into the stands. They don't even want to be in the game. Yet the CPU takes over for them and covers their d-men that are constantly out of position. Then it scorers their goals for them. All while your CPU players do absolutely nothing to help your team. In fact, they purposefully turn it over for no reason and disobey your orders to pass it to you with a clear 5ft lane, or they insist on shooting into traffic off of a face-off that is won back to them. Then it gets blocked and goes the other way for a cpu breakaway goal because both of your cpu defenders are caught doing nothing at the far blue line. This has been in the game for years!
THE PASSING. Just face palm.
It is only outdone by the inability to make your player face the puck or open up for any type of puck reception in front of the net. The simplest nuance that was added some time ago (face puck by hitting L2) has been removed and is apparently never coming back. The result is just ugly.
You still can't bang in rebounds because of the invisible forcefield surrounding goalies in the crease. It is pokefest 2015 down there, still. Any loose puck all you see is people jamming on the pickle stabbing animation in the hopes to poke a puck into the net. Not realistic at all.
And how many times per game do I still need to see the frantic goalie animation where he looks behind himself with his legs closed as he kneels on the ice?
The goalie passing is way too overpowered. Looks like he is sweeping a sledgehammer's head up the ice when he comes out of the net to pass to a teammate. And it is harder than I can pass a puck with a playmaker when I take the time charge the thing up the whole way.
And apparently, as long the other team just continually runs into me with their large player class they can bump me all over the ice when I don't have the puck, but as long as they don't hit that right stick and make it a "check" it is not interference. Awesome.
Oh, and here is one of my longtime favorites! Have a guy put the controller down while you are in the middle of a game. The puck will still gravitate towards him and then it becomes impossible to dislodge from his stick's blade, even though he is not even playing the freakin game! One game tonight I saw a guy's player, that hadn't been controlled in about 4 real time minutes, jump up and keep a slap shot clearing attempt in the offensive zone from the clearing team on the PK. Then I watched as 3 of my human teammates, and 2 of his, all swarmed over to him and attempted to hit him and poke or lift his stick. He finally bobbled the puck for a moment... only to instantly regain control of it again. We all sat there for about 12 seconds trying to get the puck off of him. Finally it squirted right to the next guy on his team. Fun.
There is still no situational awareness by the AI. And no comprehension of the clock. You have to adjust strategies on the fly for different situations or they will just do whatever they are originally programmed to. It is not easy to adjust strategies on the fly in this game.
And what is with the god forsaken cpu dman pinning themselves on their own boards behind the net?! This is like the 5th year in a row with this bs. In what world would anyone ever willingly trap themselves in a way that they couldn't move the puck effectively in their own zone?
How are these things not brought up in game changers meetings and adjusted at some point? 5 years it has been for most of this stuff now! And if it is brought up, what happens?
And personally, I hate watching the game from the penalty box. Give us the option to watch it overhead or from a regular camera. If I'm not playing with a first person camera then I shouldn't be subjected to a different camera when not on the ice.
Oh, and the camera settings don't save. The icons are hideously large and distracting. And the default camera angle is awful for when you are the highest forward on the breakout, or coming back into the d zone, and the puck goes behind your own goal line. You can't see anything that is important. Why wouldn't they just make it tilt further so you can see the puck?
Maybe I will end up with this game because it is "hockey" and I can finally be in a game with my friends again online, but I really can't justify spending any more than $30 on it again.
Last edited by bigwill33; 08-01-2015 at 04:31 AM.
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07-31-2015, 10:06 PM
