NHL 17 Beta: Online Versus and Gameplay Impressions

[RaychelSnr]

Like many of you, I've been delving extensively into the NHL 17 beta over the past couple days. Amidst the excitement of the brand-new EASHL customization features and Ultimate Team Synergy system, online versus has gone relatively untouched. Let's be honest: It didn't need a whole lot of work. Nevertheless, there's also plenty to talk about from an on-ice perspective, so let's pick out some highlights.

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[snc237]

Played a ton of ranked and was 10th in the world in ranked on Xbox in the beta. Stick dancing and such still works to a much lesser degree but still wish it was completely gone. A.I. Defensively is better but still lets people into the zone to easily. Getting good shots from the slot is very challenging as it's much easier to lose the puck. Goalies are much improved but still sometimes let very harmless shots in (hopefully still getting tuned). Short shore shots are much harder to score which is great. Plus one timers in the slot are only work if there is practically no defender around. Gameplay much improved in saying that, still a lot of room to grow.
Board play doesn't seem as suctionÿ (which I dislike. If a guys swerving around and gets near the board it was a good way to stop them)however I get a lot of holding calls cause my guy won't let go immediately after I let go of the Y button. Overall I wasn't to excited about this years game but after playing it, a lot of small things that bugged me have been at least toned down which makes the game in my eyes much better and enjoyable.

[Guapo516]

Quote: Originally Posted by snc237

Played a ton of ranked and was 10th in the world in ranked on Xbox in the beta. Stick dancing and such still works to a much lesser degree but still wish it was completely gone. A.I. Defensively is better but still lets people into the zone to easily. Getting good shots from the slot is very challenging as it's much easier to lose the puck. Goalies are much improved but still sometimes let very harmless shots in (hopefully still getting tuned). Short shore shots are much harder to score which is great. Plus one timers in the slot are only work if there is practically no defender around. Gameplay much improved in saying that, still a lot of room to grow. Board play doesn't seem as suctionÿ (which I dislike. If a guys swerving around and gets near the board it was a good way to stop them)however I get a lot of holding calls cause my guy won't let go immediately after I let go of the Y button. Overall I wasn't to excited about this years game but after playing it, a lot of small things that bugged me have been at least toned down which makes the game in my eyes much better and enjoyable.

I always want to buy nhl but with 2k madden taking up most my time it's always an after thought. I'm glad I read your impressions of the game it reads like the most fair assessment of an ea game by a game I've ever read. Usually people are going out of their way to either hype a game or bash the game just because it's ea and that's the thing to do. Thanks for the objectivity.

[bowld]

I have been enjoying it but 2 things that stand out to me (in a negative way)

1. Goal celebrations still look ridiculous and jerky. A guy will score and all of a sudden just shoot his arms up in the air in the most robotic looking animation. Needs to be worked on

2. The amount of times skaters will just do circles right around a loose puck drives me crazy. In real life if a loose puck was just sitting there a skater would reach with his stick to grab it. In this game the skated just does large circles around the puck until you get to just the right angle where he can grab it. This needs to be fixed immediately as it stands out in almost every game I have played

[shotclockcheese]

I don't know why no one mentioned his but, in EASHL playing as a goalie there are now over 40 unique goalie stances you can choose from. I choose the 5th goalie and I wanted to try it out, but after a game or two, I noticed that my goalie's stance does not look like the one I chose, instead it looks more like the default(NHL 16) goalie stance #1. I went to customize my player and it was in fact not the goalie stance I wanted, and I changed it back. During the next game, again I noticed that it was automatically changed back to the default stance.

So it seems like entering a game as a goalie will force you to use the default stance, no matter what stance you chose before. Hoped EA was going to fix this early on in the beta, guess not.

[oilersfan99]

There was a glitch in the beta that didn't allow the goalie stances to save but I read on the ea forums that the developers said that it will be find come release and it's a known problem in the beta

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[MichaelAngeloTMNT]

Quote: Originally Posted by bowld

I have been enjoying it but 2 things that stand out to me (in a negative way) 1. Goal celebrations still look ridiculous and jerky. A guy will score and all of a sudden just shoot his arms up in the air in the most robotic looking animation. Needs to be worked on 2. The amount of times skaters will just do circles right around a loose puck drives me crazy. In real life if a loose puck was just sitting there a skater would reach with his stick to grab it. In this game the skated just does large circles around the puck until you get to just the right angle where he can grab it. This needs to be fixed immediately as it stands out in almost every game I have played

Agree with number two. When I was playing an online game, both of us would circle around the puck numerous times and expect the player to grab control of the puck and we just kept circling.

[acles003]

Quote: Originally Posted by bowld

2. The amount of times skaters will just do circles right around a loose puck drives me crazy. In real life if a loose puck was just sitting there a skater would reach with his stick to grab it. In this game the skated just does large circles around the puck until you get to just the right angle where he can grab it. This needs to be fixed immediately as it stands out in almost every game I have played

^^ THIS!! Oh my God is it annoying.

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