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[MizzouRah]

*Grain of salt impressions*

One game so far, Blues vs Coyotes - BEFORE I did the tuner update. After I played there was a tuner update I installed but this first game was without the new tuner.

Just took AS sim defaults, 10 min periods, didn't change anything. The thing I really took away from this first game is the new skating as well as the hitting finally feels like hockey is being played. Players really have weight and although a perfect timed hit can result in a nice crushing hit, most hits brush players off balance or slow them down and it really adds to the realism factor. I absolutely LOVE the skating engine, just the way they have to build up speed, the excellent animations as they transition into a back state or stop and start is really well done. This causes the game to resemble hockey much more than it ever has. You have to play it to really feel what it does to game play.

The new skating causes the game to flow much better, pucks are tipped/deflected/knocked away much more often and to me, the CPU AI plays much tighter and not once except for times on a PP did the CPU have that cycling back and forth with your teammates chasing the puck around. They positioned themselves better and covered the AI players much better. (again small sample but I like what I saw) The quicksand and goofy gliding is gone and you really feel much more in control of your players.

Presentation is the same, I do like the two man celly into a full 5 man celly. Commentators have a little bit more commentary. The big change here is skating and hitting/physics and it looks and feels great.

Goalies seem tighter and so far, no goals under the pads or cheap looking goals. My first goal was on the PP, Tarasenko got a pass right in front of the net, to the side and the goalie slid over and blocked what I thought would be an easy goal. I then tried to punch it in and the rebound came back out to Schenn who put it top shelf. Was a neat sequence of events.

Penalties on default were 13 total! This is with default slider at 3/4, lots of tripping of course, but I like that I have to learn when to poke as does the CPU as they took 7 out of the 13 penalties (2 were delay of game when I was on PP). Tripping finally looks realistic and not the guy flying in the air tripping over a stick.

Will play more tonight.. and I'm worried at what this new tuner does. I really hope they do NOT nerf the stick poking.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by lucrobitaille

Attachment 154812 Looks good :-)

2005 Brian Burke approves.


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[snc237]

After playing 3 games of hut. *The game is an improvement. *Skating feels good for the most part, I feel like your players don’t get tired enough though, you can easily not play your 4th line and almost ignore your 3rd. * I do fear though once players adapt to the game it’s going to be stupidly hard to stop them defensively as they will be able to dance around you, as you have to be set up in very good position to poke check (which I will state is a good thing apposed to the prior tyears of poke checking wiith no regard). Definitely a good year to pick up chel if you haven’t the last few year though!*

[bwiggy33]

First, I still cannot understand for the life of me why we cannot switch to the computer in BAGM to adjust their strategies and all of that. You can do it in FIFA so I just cannot understand why it's not possible in NHL. It would help solve AI strategy issues and I'll get into that in a moment. It's just so annoying how simple a thing it is but they don't want people to cheat or something. If someone wants to cheat in an offline mode, by all means allow them. It's not affecting anyone.

Second, I just played my first game. All Star on Full Sim. I started a random Devils BAGM to play the game because that's where the true gameplay comes out. I played the Oilers in the opener. I will not lie, I had a lot of fun. Yes, there are still some aggravating things but in general I think it plays as good a hockey game as we are going to get from EA at this point. For the first time in a long time it didn't feel like a ping pong match. I actually felt like I got pressured in the neutral zone or at least the offensive blue line so there weren't many times where I could skate one player in the zone and go in and shoot from the slot. That to me is a game changer.

For the strategies I mentioned above. It was really annoying because I am 100% confident the Oilers had their strategy slider for passing a tick or two higher then they should. The reason I know this is because they passed way too much. The zip line passing has always been there, but the Oilers were giving up 2 on 1's to pass back to a D man at the blue line. If I was able to adjust that pregame man oh man it would have been phenomenal. Sadly, it can't be done. There is just that breaking point with the strategy passing slider where a team passes too much and where they make great decisions to shoot or pass. The Oilers were just on that fine line.

I had 8 penalties myself in the first period because I was poke checking at stupid times. The Oilers had 2. It completely skewed the shots so those aren't even worth mentioning. I took a few penalties in the 2nd and none in the 3rd until the final minute of the game which bit me in the ***. Truthfully, there were too many penalties but I'll blame myself. It's a really good thing.

The Draisaitl-McDavid-Nugent-Hopkins PP unit was absurdly good. It felt like a bunch of talented guys dominating, which is exactly what it should be. This is by far the most fun I've had playing this game. I don't know what sliders need adjusting yet but I think when adjustments that need to be made are found, it could be a really good game. There's something about it that actually makes me want to keep playing and I haven't had that feeling since NHL 09 probably. Hopefully it stays that way. Obviously 1 game is not a good test because I could be rashly saying it's a good game. Sorry for the ramble but I just had to get a lot of thoughts out.

[MizzouRah]

2nd game - new tuner (7m periods)

Lost 3-1 to Vegas... it was a fantastic game though. The whole game was a battle, just back and forth. Player separation actually seems improved. I had more success dictating the game when my top defensive pairing was on the ice.

So far I'm really enjoying the game.

[bad_philanthropy]

From the streams I've seen it looks like the way sim stats are curved in Franchise is pretty off. While the top third or so of the players generate stats in a fairly realistic manner, the rest of the player stats are way too low. For instance, Karlsson will have a realistic season in terms of production in every sim, but someone like Chara will have 8 total points in 82 games. Too many players have way too low production in the sim engine.

[jaybird313]

Quote: Originally Posted by MizzouRah

2nd game - new tuner (7m periods) Lost 3-1 to Vegas... it was a fantastic game though. The whole game was a battle, just back and forth. Player separation actually seems improved. I had more success dictating the game when my top defensive pairing was on the ice. So far I'm really enjoying the game.

Thanks for the thoughts Mizzou, this is just the sort of feedback I was hoping to hear. Can’t wait to get this game, keep the info rolling!


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[bwiggy33]

Whelp, just used 4ish hours of my trial. I started a fantasy draft Canadiens franchise. I played the Leafs in game one and lost 4-1 but it was 2-1 Leafs until the last 2 minutes when my CPU players took two penalties. It was a really good game though. The penalties were much more realistic because I wasn't an idiot. The game was a bit more open then the first one I played. I had times where it turned into ping pong and I walked into the zone and had a wide open lane to shoot, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it used to be. I'm saying this again though, if we had the ability to change teams strategies before the start of games or before starting a franchise mode, we could make the CPU defensive and neutral zone pressure alive all the time. When teams have the non aggressive neutral and defensive zone tactics, that's when defensemen and forwards don't play aggressive on the puck carrier, thus leading to the easy slot chances.

It's aggravated me to no end that they implemented the strategies years ago, which actually work really well, but you can only edit them for the CPU in play now mode because you can switch to the opposing team. I know I keep repeating the same thing but if this was available we would have a great game for many different types of players.

I am also happy to say that in the two games the goalies have been solid despite EA's poor goalie patch system. They haven't allowed any bad glitchy goals which has been really nice. It's nice that they at least aren't costing games. It'd still be cool if they completely redid them one day though