NHL 21 Has Been Released - Share Your Impressions with the Community

[Rocketfballman]

Quote: Originally Posted by SocialAssassin

You can't, I tried. It is what it is until there's a roster patch.

And it looks like there is something wrong with the import of these players into franchise. I have tried loading a new franchise 3 times and Quinton Byfield has come in with Top 6 potential twice and Top 9 potential once. Lafreniere came in as high elite twice and top 6 once. So it is not importing their potentials correctly. And of course this is no way to change their potential once a franchise has started.

Looks like I will just do BAP until a roster is patched with the drafted players from this year.

[Therebelyell626]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rocketfballman

And it looks like there is something wrong with the import of these players into franchise. I have tried loading a new franchise 3 times and Quinton Byfield has come in with Top 6 potential twice and Top 9 potential once. Lafreniere came in as high elite twice and top 6 once. So it is not importing their potentials correctly. And of course this is no way to change their potential once a franchise has started. Looks like I will just do BAP until a roster is patched with the drafted players from this year.

This is happening with other players to. Not just the 2020 draft class. For some reason potentials are loading up funny

[sawicki]

Quote: Originally Posted by hyacinth1

FIFA 21 for me is a copy/paste of FIFA20. But I am not surprised. EA is concentrating their efforts on next gen. Same goes with NHL21 . All the EA 21 games are on ps4/xbox one are copy/paste.

Ea has been doing this with nhl since 2009, lol

[knich1]

Quote: Originally Posted by iaxy

I must say I am enjoying the game out of the box with no slider adjustments, except I reduce* Game Speed to 0.* As always I play on True Broadcast camera and even at speed at 0 - this is a tad too fast, but I can live with it. I can definitely see an improved positioning by skaters - on both offence and defence. It just feels and looks better, and more importantly, it leads to a more authentic and intuitive experience, with momentum now playing a more prominent role.* That said, it is very, very similar to 20 and frankly feeling quite stale.*The presentation looks exactly the same. I didn't really expect anything else for current gen, but it would have been nice to improve some animations. Which brings me to the "new" chip, bank, etc. Let's face it - this is just EA recycling the same animations, but giving them another name and putting them in a different context. They don't look particularly good and they don't really add up much to your arsenal.* My biggest grip remains the inability to pull back the True Broadcast camera angle. It has always been too zoomed in.* For arenas like Boston, it is OK as the view angle there is further out, but for other arenas like The United Centre i Chicago it is just too close to the ice making it impossible to see large portions of the ice.* I just don't understand why EA does not make the True Broadcast camera customizeable with a zoom option. You can clearly see from some cut scenes that they can pull back the zoom - but why not give us that same view for gameplay?

you can slow game down more if you reduce player acceleration and skating speed.

[knich1]

Quote: Originally Posted by giantsharks

My impressions. The Pros: T,he neutral zone play feels a lot better. More pressure from the defense, no skating back and forth by the CPU if they cant break in. The problem to me is they dont give you a lot of tools to break in the zone yourself and/or sustain zone pressure/forecheck. the Cons: I am not trying to be overly negative but this game is a mess IMO. It has been a mess this entire console generation and it's mind blowing how little it has improved. There are multiple things that make this game unplayable for me; Skating, passing, AI, and animations. The skating is just so slip slidy (I know thats weird way to say but thats what comes to mind). There is no such thing as momentum in this game, you are almost instantly at full speed when you skate from a full stop. WHen trying to establish play in the offensive zone or play defense, its just absolute chaos. Not the good chaos that is organized and beautiful like real hockey, the kind where its just guys constantly running into each other and even with sliders, its a mess. No type of systems or organizations even being attempted, i dont really know what to say other than it feels like a jumbled mess. Passing is and always have been insane. The passes the CPU makes in certain situations that is tape to tape (even with sliders) makes this one of the most frustrating aspects of the game. The amount of times i see a cpu player whip a pass with a wonky animation from the corner to a guy cutting down the middle is just so maddening. The passes are unrealistic and the animations for the passing looks so bad. AI I wont go to deep into because its just the same as always to me. The neutral zone feels better but there are so many other problems that I cant really enjoy the improved neutral zone. Presentation: Is the worst in any sports game. The amount of guys that look nothing like their counter part is astounding. The jerseys look terrible, the logos and numbers are elongated and look flat. The celebrations are clunky and odd and the crowd falls silent moments after a goal. Same celebrations as every year and really it doesnt feel any different to play as Sidney Crosby or Andrew Shaw. During the Stanley Cup celebration, the crowd is dead silent minus a few yells, How is this in the game? The presentation in this game is absolutely abysmal.

I had similar issues playing the game OOB. Have a look at post 108 and see if sliders help. I am having much more enjoyable and more of an NHL experience than with the default sliders and doing this with 15 min periods.

I went from no buy with default sliders to a buy.

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...post2050236057

[The EVHL]

I get a big "Madden" vibe from this game. What I mean is, it looks like they made the default game an even faster product to make it easier to pickup and play. Seems like a very arcade-driven direction on default sliders.

Checking:
Second, what the heck did they do to the hitting? While it looks great and smooth when it works, the consistency is extremely lacking even with sliders in my experience so far (about 6 hours of messing with sliders and playing in play now). I just feel like I'm seeing a ton of hits, especially along the boards, where hits are either not registering or they're so tiny that they do absolutely nothing.

They need to allow for checks along the wall to literally stop an attacker still. You see it all the time in the NHL where someone checks a carrier into the boards (and not a huge hit I should add) and pretty much pins him there, forcing the carrier out of the play and ensure that the carrier has to retreat to escape the contact. That's a perfectly executed body check and there are so many times in this game where that should be the result, but something with the physics breaks/gets confused and the carrier ends up just skating though the checkers and the boards.

Isn't that why the new slip deke was made? I figured that would actually force a skill gap but it looks like literally skating forward will also allow you to avoid checks at times due to a inconsistent physics engine.

Sliders:
For my slider-making friends out there, looks like the sliders are still broken too. Games just play fundamentally different without touching a slider which has been an issue for years.

Skating:
The pivots on-puck seem worse than 20 as far as going in the direction you wish to go. I notice it the most when passing across the blueline and am attempting to open up with the receiver to take a shot on net. It's not terrible, but it seems slightly worse than 20.

The AI simply can't transition to keep up with wingers hustling on the outside. Major slider adjustments were made to the "back skating" slider to avoid constant defensive breakdowns on literally nothing.

The agility and acceleration are at simply ridiculous levels OOTB. It's comical and very familiar to Madden's speed which you unfortunately can't change so plus to NHL there.

Offensive AI:
The neutral zone is better. Pretty impressed with how noticeably better it is. I played 20 immediately after playing 21 for a few hours and it's a night and day difference. Props to Ben and his team there.

In-zone AI play is still atrocious. The overload results in your players NOT wanting to drive the net in any capacity. I mean, usually there is a "slot player, but he's more of a screen/tip guy with his positioning which makes him not a great threat for a pass off the side boards. The guy on the side boards, even if you start moving him to the net followed by passing it low, (you know, how an Overload works) will immediately stop and retreat back to the boards effectively killing any offensive progress. Also, love watching the eventual side boards guy literally skate backwards into the boards rather than keep his attacking position in the middle/slightly-off middle slot when I'm retrieving the puck in the corner. This way, he can intercept the pass that I want to reach my defenseman and also be in a position to do absolutely nothing even if he doesn't intercept the pass! Been like this for 7-8 years, so not surprising.

Behind the net allows for a good cycle game, but makes passing to the defensemen useless as neither play in-front will actually move to a screening/tip position so the offense is very one-dimensional. Also, their default shooting position is usually covered and they refuse to get lower/higher to force defensive decisions when you do have the puck established behind the net, so again, very one-dimensional.

Crash the net seems to really make the rush play fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually provide any tips or screens as players "crowd" the net but make sure to "crowd" it about 3-5 feet off-center which never takes away the vision of the goalie and with the way shooting is in this game, isn't really in a good position for a tip either. They are constantly in a tieup battle off to the side which is somewhat comical to see but also disheartening as this has been the same for 4+ years now.

Can we either ditch these strategies in-favor of a more customizable set of "custom tactics" like FIFA, or can we simply add some fundamental hockey knowledge to the AI who are 100% static and can't recognize an offensive opportunity to save their lives? is it that hard to shift your "behind the net" positioning to a tip position when the puck rotates high? Is it too hard to program your overload side boards guy to continue driving the net after passing? Is it too hard to program your crash the net forwards to attempt to disengage a tieup and fight to screen the goalie? Bonus: is it too much to ask that attacking forward drive the net with their chest facing the net rather than their butt lol? I mean, come on....7-10 years straight of watching that...

I'll add more alter I'm sure, but those are some more early impressions.

[giantsharks]

Quote: Originally Posted by knich1

I had similar issues playing the game OOB. Have a look at post 108 and see if sliders help. I am having much more enjoyable and more of an NHL experience than with the default sliders and doing this with 15 min periods. I went from no buy with default sliders to a buy. https://forums.operationsports.com/f...post2050236057

i appreciate the tip and I have tried those sliders before my original post. I have tried multiple sliders and I still stand by what I said. You are right, it is much more playable with those sliders but for me its still a mess. Thank you for the suggestion and to each their own.

[onlybygrace]

Played a couple games.

There are some improvements. You can definitely slow the game down easily by reducing gamespeed, player acceleration, and skating speed. You can make the game play like they're skating in molasses if you’d like.

Aside from the couple of noticeable AI improvements, its just boring to play at this point.

Playing one game is freaking exhausting by comparison to playing PGA 2k21 where I can play for hours on end.

I really miss loving NHL games and wonder if the day will ever come where the game is enough to elicit the same emotions or immersion it offered in the past.

I spent some time watching people play their BAP on YouTube and I must say that its a pretty impressive upgrade. Really impressive honestly.

Also...it sucks that we have to wait so long to get updated rosters based on the fact that we have no clue about the details of next season.

Ugh...