EA's NHL Berzerk mode

[The EVHL]

Quote: Originally Posted by stooge 1010

What’s competitive mode? I know madden has sim and competitive mode. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

It's one of the preset "game styles" offered in the slider setting. I believe there's arcade, classic (not sure about the name of this one, but it's the 2nd most arcadey preset), competitive, and full-sim. So yes, it's just like what Madden has.

I've found that full-sim makes the game too random and slow for me to enjoy playing a video game. Arcade and classic make me want to vomit at how insanely fast they are and the NHL Hitz-like checking power every hit has. Also like I previously said, the AI is extremely dumb in this game, and they really need higher agility/acceleration to make up for their dumb plays. I find slow game speeds to be just way too easy when it comes to using area passes and bumper pass plays to get around the defense. I'd have to severely up the bouncing puck and puck speed reception impact levels to make it harder on me when I have that kind of time to diagnose a play, but at that point, that's not an enjoyable game experience for me as it's not the AI that's hard, it's the game limiting my natural skill for the sake of difficulty you know?

Competitive is pretty awful OOTB imo (this is the online default setting) but with some minor adjustments (AE to 10 and less fatigue recovery as examples, and this is definitely not the extent of my adjustments.) I find it's the perfect preset to find a great mix of attributes mattering, realistic plays needing to be made, and a good amount of responsiveness as I would expect in a video game. Again, I play my season mode as if it's a fictional "eSport" league so this is the combination I'm looking for.

I play Superstar with 6/6 difficulty adjustment btw, just as a reference for my experiences. Every difficulty level sees different things and experiences different results depending on the slider set used, so that's why I wanted to throw that out there. Between both teams, the CPU usually gets 1-2 and I score 1-5 a game, so I have a good variety of 2-8 combined goals in a game which is perfect for me.

[Steven547]

Quote: Originally Posted by Fiddy

For me its not a strat issue, the game goes nuts. Sliders mean nothing etc. I have no issues with dominating when it goes into berzerk mode, its just the game plays terrible.

This happened to me a few patches ago. Suddenly, PRO was the new All Star, All Star was the new Superstar....and Superstar played like PRO!

I played one game on PRO and the CPU came at me like they were an all star team. The would score 2-3 goals in the first period. This went on a few more games until a newer patch.

I'm about done with the game this year. It's not balanced and when you ask the devs over on the EA forums about what they think the balanced setting should be, it goes quiet.

Been a rough few months in video games for me with the WWE2k20 debacle and this game being unstable in game play.

[JayhawkerStL]

Quote: Originally Posted by kinsmen7

I kind of love when the CPU starts trying to turn up the pressure. They may be cruising around, but it's those times that they'll make a mistake and I'll get the chance to capitalize on an odd-man rush or breakaway.

I mean, that’s what it is. The COU is going aggressive, which means you have to adjust to take advantage.

[The EVHL]

Quote: Originally Posted by JayhawkerStL

I usually suggest that people just turn strategy adjustments for the CPU to zero, if the CPU turning up pressure bothers you. And if you force your fourth line out more, you won’t have you too lines playing so slow. Personally, I respond to their strategy adjustments with my own. If you don’t make adjustments, then set human strategy adjustments to a higher number, so your team responds to what your opponent is doing.

I think the few of us here who have put a lot of time and effort into the game to get the most out of what we want, can tell the difference between the CPU adjusting their strats and something under the hood effectively making our sliders useless.

When the game speed jumps up two notches, pass receptions become automatic, people start becoming more agile than ever before, and shot accuracy seems to be set at 100 for both sides, there's something happening beyond a strategy adjustment.

Any good slider maker knows to test a minimum of 5-10 games before making adjustments. How do games 1-4 feel good, then game feels like everyone is on speed when using the same set, with the same teams playing?

How does someone like me, someone who controls every team, sets every strategy, and makes sure strategy adjustments are on 0/6 for all my sets (as stated in literally the third post of this thread) experience this same issue if it's simply explained by strategy adjustment?

How are my players getting faster and more accurate at shooting when the game goes into this ridiculous state if this is simply explained by strategy adjustments?

I've been playing exclusively offline for all of 19 and 20, and also for a large portion of 18 after I had shoulder surgery, so I'd like to think I have an extremely good grasp on what sliders to adjust, how the CPU plays, when they make their adjustments, and what I like to see out of gameplay, yet I still run into this issue from time-to-time, and again, all of NHL 20 (and 19) I have used 0/6 for strategy adjustments.

Fiddy has been making sliders for this game since last-gen, and you don't think knows that the CPU adjusts their strategies lol? You think he's mistaking an aggressive CPU strat for a ridiculously fast, super-arcadey experience that randomly plagues this game from time-to-time lol?

I'm sorry, but we don't have a big thread with a long discussion that includes three slider-set makers all experiencing the same thing over something that can simply be explained by the CPU switching strats...

[Steven547]

Quote: Originally Posted by JayhawkerStL

I mean, that’s what it is. The COU is going aggressive, which means you have to adjust to take advantage.

And I think this is where people are going to agree and also disagree. Yes, the CPU will get more aggressive, but as others mentioned, there is a difference between being aggressive and just plain perfect passing and speed.

I don't want to bring up the whole "ice tilt" thing, but what I will say is this from my experience: I own Madden 20 and have seen FIFA 20. Both of those games have options to "even" the game out between teams. Madden has an option that says to raise the lower rated teams ratings to match the higher team rating to have an even game.

Those are 2 of EA's big sellers. If that "even playing" field option is in 2 out of 3 games, I believe the chances it's in the NHL series is very high. I wouldn't be surprised, and will honestly laugh, if we see that option in the NHL series next version. Then, EA can say it never was in it which now covers their tracks. Why do I bring that up?

Simple. I recently played a few games after a long break from this game. One big thing I noticed was if you were a "higher" rated team and played a lower rated team, the lower rated team was extremely aggressive, played like an all star team, and passed like Gretzky. I can't remember who but the team I played against had a 75 rated goalie. Now, it's not low, but it's still low enough that a team like Pittsburgh should score. But they couldn't even hit the side of the net up close. He was making save after save. The other team? No issues scoring on my 85 goalie and passing was unreal. And berserk passing? It sure was there. For having a slider with max pass speed of 65 they seemed to pass at 75+.

Play two even teams....game was fairly even, but still some advantage to the CPU.

Play as a lower rated team vs a higher and I bet you'll do pretty good. I have almost won more games than playing against lower teams. It feels as though the game evens the ratings out during the game, just like the option in Madden 20 and FIFA 20 does.

[Fiddy]

It’s not a competitive or full sim thing. It don’t matter! After so many games it seems it happens, sliders mean nothing and players on both teams full speed hyper mode. Playing on game speed 0 or 1 and then BOOM, it’s like all of a sudden game speed 6. Can’t change it etc unless you shut down and reset.

Also the difference between competitive and full sim is just a hand full of sliders, nothing major.

[The EVHL]

Quote: Originally Posted by Fiddy

It’s not a competitive or full sim thing. It don’t matter! After so many games it seems it happens, sliders mean nothing and players on both teams full speed hyper mode. Playing on game speed 0 or 1 and then BOOM, it’s like all of a sudden game speed 6. Can’t change it etc unless you shut down and reset. Also the difference between competitive and full sim is just a hand full of sliders, nothing major.

The developers have no answers for things like this, that's the worst part. FIFA suffers from this as well when playing Pro Clubs. There has to be something under the hood that's causing this. Potentially legacy code that they don't know about? Can't fix? Who knows, but all I know is it's annoying having to hard restart my xbox whenever it happens!

[PernellKarl076]

Been a looooong time that it didn't go in Berzerk/Red Bull/God mode for me.... Keeping my fingers crossed, lol !