Let's Test NHL 16

[AdamJones113]

Takeaways from the stream:

1. Man, do goalies let in some horrid goals. I know it's tough to see the puck when there are a lot of bodies out front, but there's no reason to let in so many goals five-hole. If you can't see, you go butterfly. If you go butterfly, you close the 5-hole. Not sure why that isn't the case.

2. CPU has been dumping the puck! Yay!

3. Pivots are still very, very poor sometimes. It's not rare to see a player with the puck pivot in a foolish direction and get the puck stolen off him. Needs to be addressed.

4. actionhank made a good point in another thread. He said that goalies often overcommit, and he is absolutely right. Saw that way too often, and—even it led to an OT GWG for me, it's very bad goalie play.

[AdamJones113]

Quote: Originally Posted by AdamJones113

snip Man-to-man is another story. I'll make a chart of my defensive interactions (poke/stick lift/check) later today, snip That's why a defensive skill stick would be an incredible addition to the series.

Ok, going to get to this tonight. What I think I'll do is, I'll stream a game and save that to Twitch, then go back and analyze every defensive interaction with time stamps. I tried to do the chart of man-on-man interactions, but there are too many variables that make the graph too complicated and obtuse. So, expect a stream in a few hours. Will post here and in the NHL 16 Continues... thread.

[AdamJones113]

Sorry, had some tech issues but here's the first little bit of a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I'm the Leafs.

http://www.twitch.tv/adamjones113/v/30847241
(I'd advise having this in one tab and reading the analysis in a second)

Here are the human defensive interactions (will get to CPU later)

Twitch timestamp—CPU action—defensive result

1:15—Windmill deke—Cleared loose puck
Hedman (CPU) tried to cut to the middle with a windmill deke. I tired to step up to stop him (up on RS) but Reilly (Human) gained control of the deke in the middle of the deke. Having pressed up on RS, that became a shot, which was directed to the side of the boards.

2:04—Carry into zone—Poked away for a turnover
Johnson (CPU) attempts to carry into the zone after some horizontal NZ play by the Lightning. P.A. Parenteau (Human) cuts him off with a poke check (R1). Johnson loses control in a weird direction (but a viable one) and Polak (Human) gains control of the puck with a nice little puck corral animation.

2:21—Cross-ice pass in DZ—Poked away
The Lightning try to pass across the defensive zone with two Leafs forwards near the passing lane. The Lightning passer (Drouin I believe) had open space in front of him, but made the risky pass and wound up stalling the breakout. P.A. Parenteau makes another good play, reaching behind with his stick to foil the pass. His deflection is recovered by the Lightning.

2:27—Adjustment to the middle—Poked away for a turnover
Drouin again (I believe) makes a poor play. He tries to pivot so that he can get off a pass to the point man/a cutting forward, but Polak makes another good play and pokes it away, to be picked up by Kadri (Human).

2:35—Puck carry—Attempted stick lift by teammate CPU for penalty (hooking)
The Lightning (Johnson once again) are just trying to get the puck to the boards here when Parenteau makes a poor play: he attempts one sticklift, misses, and then attempts a second at a bad angle (at about [S10°W]), which triggers the infraction animation. 2 minutes for Parenteau.

2:38—Breakout pass—Missed breakup
I simply add this (a cross-ice breakout pass) because it's one of the ones where you think hey, should have intercepted that.

2:40—Carry into OZ—Missed hit, dislodged puck
I don't know what happened here, exactly. The Lightning forward tries to carry it into the zone, and the Leaf defenseman tries to intercept him at the blue line. The defenseman, going west>east, skates calmly through the stick of the north>south forward, bumping the forward slightly and dislodging the puck, but skates himself out of the play and the forward recovers the puck easily.

3:09—Attempted point wrist shot—Poke check, dislodged puck
Interesting situation here. JVR (Human) rushes to the point after the Lightning win the faceoff, and he makes a good play to poke the puck off the defenseman's stick before he can get the puck off (was in shooting animation). JVR has a bit of a hard time picking up the stationary puck (a bit odd that it was stationary, but whatever). When he finally gains control, he automatically tries to bring the puck to his forehand, but that means going through some legs. The puck goes through, but JVR's stick is stopped, so he loses the puck.

Skip to 3:59, sorry

4:01—Attempted cross crease from point—Intercepted
Good interception here by JVR, fairly clean as it should be, since he was right in the passing lane.

4:17—Attempted carry in deep—Hit dislodges puck
The Lightning forward tries to carry the puck in deep, but Gardiner (Human) knocks him off the puck with a shoulder. Gardiner grabs the puck, but a moment of indecision (and a poor pivot—I wanted to go left, so the pivot tried to get me to face left, which led me into the hit) gets him up against the boards and he turns the puck over.

Stop at the next pause, hit a tech issue, so don't bother watching the pause screen for the remaining 10 minutes.

And that's where we end. Ran into some tech issues and couldn't finish 7 minutes of the first period, even. But, got this up. Feel free to take away whatever you want from these descriptions. What I took away: solid stuff. Obviously these interactions come out of how I play defense. I tried to minimize that variable in my descriptions, but it's still there.

My takeaways:
1. Pivots need more work. They are often wonky and arbitrary, and that's not a fun combo to have in a game.
2. CPU AI needs more awareness of where other players are on the ice. Be it defensive AI problems (we've all had those) or that cross-ice pass example above, a better CPU awareness would be seriously beneficial to the overall correctness of gameplay.
3. Stick lifts are effective when they should be effective, which is: rarely. The only times sticklifts work for me (as they should) are (usually up against the boards) are at a ~90° angle. They shouldn't work too often, and, as illustrated above, using them at a bad angle has more consequences than benefits.
4. Puck and stick physics still need some tuning. Can't say this enough. Sticks through boards, sticks or pucks going through what should be solid objects, going through each other—I love the liveliness of the puck, but puck/stick collision detection with inanimate and animate objects needs to be worked on—especially if we continue to be without the option of having the game have full stick/puck solidity, as the devs have indicated is possible.

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by AdamJones113

Takeaways from the stream: 1. Man, do goalies let in some horrid goals. I know it's tough to see the puck when there are a lot of bodies out front, but there's no reason to let in so many goals five-hole. If you can't see, you go butterfly. If you go butterfly, you close the 5-hole. Not sure why that isn't the case. 2. CPU has been dumping the puck! Yay! 3. Pivots are still very, very poor sometimes. It's not rare to see a player with the puck pivot in a foolish direction and get the puck stolen off him. Needs to be addressed. 4. actionhank made a good point in another thread. He said that goalies often overcommit, and he is absolutely right. Saw that way too often, and—even it led to an OT GWG for me, it's very bad goalie play.

I've noticed most of my frustration lately has been directed at the AI, and goalies.

The other night Elliott let in a puck that was literally sliding slowly on the ice (I hit the guy at the blue line, and he "passed" towards the net) when he went to make a "save" but did the animation where they slide to the post and start to move back, which leads to them lifting their leg. Just went right under. Hopefully things like that get addressed. I chalked it up as a "Goalies make mistakes in real life" and kept playing. Then, not 10 minutes later I got another goalie playing the puck being caught way outside of the crease, and not being able to slide back in time. It was a frustrating way to lose the game, since I'd fought back from a 2-0 deficit to tie it up, only to have that passed puck make it 3-2, and then that last goal 4-2, with only a minute left in the game. That just lead to the frustration with the AI where the forwards all bunch up in one place, no one gets open, and the defenders and forwards up high don't seem to understand how important it is to keep the puck in when you're playing 6 on 5 with your goalie pulled. AI will hopefully be their biggest focus.

I'm glad you mentioned the pivoting. Players transitioning is just awful sometimes. Far too often I feel like I'm fighting the player to get them going in the right direction, and other times I feel like my player is skating in mud when I hit them with a pass. Usually it's in the neutral zone. I think the biggest issue is that the AI seems to try within a certain distance of the puck instead of playing to the situation on the ice. A lot of the time when I get the puck from the other team behind the net, hitting my players with a pass usually results in a turnover because instead of skating and making a turn to get open, while still gaining speed to get through the neutral zone, the AI players on my team just start to skate straight at me, which means when I hit them with the pass they're A. Facing me, and B. Have to now stop and then pivot to head the right way. In the NHL you'll notice guys who are heading back towards the puck carrier to make sweeping crosses near the blue line so make themselves a better passing target, but to also gain the most important thing, which is speed into the zone. The AI in the NHL games is way too stop-and-start. The AI seems to need to be in a certain spot, and they don't often deviate from that spot. If you're heading up ice and see a 3 on 1 developing, it's often ruined when the AI just skates to where they should be (A LD skating in on the right side will often cross behind the puck carrier, but instead of skating down the slot, open for a pass, they will just stop at the point) and forwards will often curl off and head to a spot on the ice for no real reason. It makes good odd-man breaks nearly impossible, since you can't even accurately guess just where the player you're trying to pass to is actually going to stop.

[AdamJones113]

Quote: Originally Posted by actionhank

I've noticed most of my frustration lately has been directed at the AI, and goalies. The other night Elliott let in a puck that was literally sliding slowly on the ice (I hit the guy at the blue line, and he "passed" towards the net) when he went to make a "save" but did the animation where they slide to the post and start to move back, which leads to them lifting their leg. Just went right under. Hopefully things like that get addressed. I chalked it up as a "Goalies make mistakes in real life" and kept playing. Then, not 10 minutes later I got another goalie playing the puck being caught way outside of the crease, and not being able to slide back in time. It was a frustrating way to lose the game, since I'd fought back from a 2-0 deficit to tie it up, only to have that passed puck make it 3-2, and then that last goal 4-2, with only a minute left in the game. That just lead to the frustration with the AI where the forwards all bunch up in one place, no one gets open, and the defenders and forwards up high don't seem to understand how important it is to keep the puck in when you're playing 6 on 5 with your goalie pulled. AI will hopefully be their biggest focus. I'm glad you mentioned the pivoting. Players transitioning is just awful sometimes. Far too often I feel like I'm fighting the player to get them going in the right direction, and other times I feel like my player is skating in mud when I hit them with a pass. Usually it's in the neutral zone. I think the biggest issue is that the AI seems to try within a certain distance of the puck instead of playing to the situation on the ice. A lot of the time when I get the puck from the other team behind the net, hitting my players with a pass usually results in a turnover because instead of skating and making a turn to get open, while still gaining speed to get through the neutral zone, the AI players on my team just start to skate straight at me, which means when I hit them with the pass they're A. Facing me, and B. Have to now stop and then pivot to head the right way. In the NHL you'll notice guys who are heading back towards the puck carrier to make sweeping crosses near the blue line so make themselves a better passing target, but to also gain the most important thing, which is speed into the zone. The AI in the NHL games is way too stop-and-start. The AI seems to need to be in a certain spot, and they don't often deviate from that spot. If you're heading up ice and see a 3 on 1 developing, it's often ruined when the AI just skates to where they should be (A LD skating in on the right side will often cross behind the puck carrier, but instead of skating down the slot, open for a pass, they will just stop at the point) and forwards will often curl off and head to a spot on the ice for no real reason. It makes good odd-man breaks nearly impossible, since you can't even accurately guess just where the player you're trying to pass to is actually going to stop.

Re: Empty-net AI
Needs a complete overhaul. I often allude to this, but in NHL 14 goalies were finally able to "read the siuation/score." This NEEDS to be implemented for all players, because it's more than frustrating to see your AI defensemen playing passively as the CPU forward bears down on the empty net.

Re: CPU off-puck movement
Yes, yes, yes! Been saying the bold for ages, relieving to see someone agree. With the puck held stationary behind the net, or moving East-West, CPU players usually just stand still when they should be moving:



As you say, this needs to change.

[actionhank]

Perfect video! How are you recording your videos? I always have things I want to show, but I'm not really sure how exactly to upload them. It doesn't seem as intuitive as it used to be.

[AdamJones113]

Quote: Originally Posted by actionhank

Perfect video! How are you recording your videos? I always have things I want to show, but I'm not really sure how exactly to upload them. It doesn't seem as intuitive as it used to be.

Not my vid actually, from a poster on the EAForums called Bmh245 (YT: NHL 15 BMH). What I do is click the Share button, upload clip to YT, etc. Though I don't do that often, mostly just Twitch stuff.

If I get back to making more gameplay corrections like I did last year, I will be uploading more stuff.

[AdamJones113]

Getting back to testing seriously. Had been going hard to finish my play-all in my Leafs GM mode, finished that with a successful playoff entrance, so I can take a break from that and get back to testing. If you have any suggestions/something you want tested, let me know.