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

[CujoMatty]

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

The CPU feels a lot more dangerous on pro level which is nice. If I get too aggressive they make me pay. If I give up an odd man rush they score more times than not which I like. I've also noticed they will use skill moves more effectively this year. I've had the CPU do some dirty dangles on me for some nice highlight reel goals.

[mikey87]

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

Would someone be able to sim (cpu vs cpu) a game between an NHL team and a CHL team and post stats here? I would like to know if the player attributes make any difference in the game.

[MizzouRah]

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

Yesterday I exhausted my 10 hour trial and for the first time in a long long time I bought the game full price. I was incredibly happy when they announced they were fixing the neutral zone to actually make it exist. I was skeptical on whether it was just talk, but it absolutely did finally get the attention it needed 10+ years ago. It's baffling why it took this damn long but it finally happened.

When playing I noticed immediately that the CPU was more aggressive and didn't just let you enter the zone. It forced me to actually have to dump the puck in and think about how I wanted to attack. I have yet to be able to go into the zone and fire a shot from the slot. It's the first time I've ever had that feeling in any EA NHL game. It is so damn refreshing that it has absolutely changed the game for me. It did exactly what I was hoping it would.

On top of this the pressure the defense applies when you do enter the zone is another huge change. In the times I've been able to enter the zone with just my controlled player, the D has pressured me and not just sat back which allowed me to wait for my players to enter the zone. It is about damn time this was done and it's yet another thing that has completely changed the game for me.

As for the goalies, they are so much better than when I used to play this game. Are they still warping and looking unnatural at times, absolutely. However, it's nice that they finally deflect pucks out of play and to the corners as well as suck pucks in. There are so many less instances with pucks going off of them only to flutter in the air behind them and go in. They still need tons of work IMO, but they are at least better than before.

Are there still issues with the AI at times, absolutely. However, you have to have AI mistakes in order for goals to be scored. No doubt it sucks when something so stupid happens, but there's nothing I've seen where it happens all of the time where it's game breaking. Maybe that will change for me as I continue playing.

All I can say is that I'm just blown away by how much the changes to the neutral zone and offensive zone pressure have made. It's completely changed the game for me. Maybe my long layoff from the series has something to do with it and yes, this all could change as I keep playing the game, but right now I'm having a lot of fun.

Great post and I totally agree. It actually feels like hockey more than any other version of the series. When my D makes a mistake I know my 3rd liners are out there.

[capnlarge]

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

I've gotta say that despite numerous glitches in franchise, there are some real nice changes:

-The Trade Deadline is really slick. If I had to nitpick, it would be nice to be able to speed up the clock. TBH the GUI during the trade deadline is much slicker than the rest of the menus in franchise. Wouldn't mind having that ticker in all franchise menus.

-a small but great change, during real time sim, they added the team logo (or increased the contrast?) behind player portraits, so when two teams with similar colour schemes are playing (such as Red Wings vs Hurricanes) you can immediately identify what team scored.

-by locking editing player types, they have made the draft interview useful because you can 100% get the player types of 3 players every draft. My only tweak to this would be for 2-way forwards and defensemen to have some combination that can get a +5 chemistry boost

For example, Patrice Bergeron is the most decorated 2-way forward in the NHL and Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak is arguably the best line in the NHL

[bwiggy33]

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

Great post and I totally agree. It actually feels like hockey more than any other version of the series. When my D makes a mistake I know my 3rd liners are out there.

That's the other thing I meant to say. The player differentiation still needs work but for the first time I'm actually noticing a difference between skill and I think it's because of the neutral and D zone pressure the AI has. I just played against the Avs in the first game of my Wild GM mode and The MacKinnon line is deadly. They were buzzing. If I played my first line of Rossi centering Fiala and Kaprizov (created him) against them, I couldn't get anything going because the Mack line was so dominating. Therefore I actually had to try and line match. It's great seeing that. In previous games I could enter the zone so easily with my 3rd line and then just cycle the puck. It's pretty rare that a 3rd line cycles the puck on a line like Mack's. Right now if you play your 3rd line against a line like that, you are either playing in the neutral zone or hemmed in your own zone. I'm interested to see what happens when I play a team without a really good first line.

[MizzouRah]

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

That's the other thing I meant to say. The player differentiation still needs work but for the first time I'm actually noticing a difference between skill and I think it's because of the neutral and D zone pressure the AI has. I just played against the Avs in the first game of my Wild GM mode and The MacKinnon line is deadly. They were buzzing. If I played my first line of Rossi centering Fiala and Kaprizov (created him) against them, I couldn't get anything going because the Mack line was so dominating. Therefore I actually had to try and line match. It's great seeing that. In previous games I could enter the zone so easily with my 3rd line and then just cycle the puck. It's pretty rare that a 3rd line cycles the puck on a line like Mack's. Right now if you play your 3rd line against a line like that, you are either playing in the neutral zone or hemmed in your own zone. I'm interested to see what happens when I play a team without a really good first line.

Exactly.. it's not perfect but much better. My Blues 4th line can hem the other team into their end as they tend to forecheck more than my top lines. My 3rd line D seems to get beat along the boards by speedy players but my top line with Parayko seems to be much better at stealing the puck and holding position much better.

[jake19ny]

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

I agree with a lot of the positive things people are saying, especially some long timers here, so I don’t feel the need to second any of it but I’m cautiously optimistic because we have all seen tuners and patches destroy what felt like a good game to us before. I pray the whiners, glitchers, and fanboys don’t kill the neutral zone play and somewhat improved CPU AI........that is all....

[franch1se]

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

I'm pretty confident I've already played more of 21 then I did all of 20.

[mikey87]

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

Ok, I bought an EA Play account for a month to test the game and I don't know... Yes, the gameplay itself is much more fluid and there is some boardplay elements and all, but I'm not convinced yet.

There is still a HUGE issue with the gameplay, and that is the player attributes and their effect on the gameplay itself. I watched a couple of cpu vs cpu games where WHL/OHL team played agains an NHL team and while you can see some differences in skating speed for example, these differences don't translate in the overall gameplay and results. I mean, Avalanche should beat the hell out of a Acadie-Brathurst, but yet the final scores were all like 3-1, 3-2 etc. I don't know what there would be to achieve if EA would implement roster sharing in the game, since we just can't make a difference in the game no matter how much we tweak the rosters. And if somebody is saying that it does make a difference, you are deceiving yourself.

[MDgolf]

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

How do you dump the puck in on PS4? Never had to do so before but the cpu now clogs the neutral zone..


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[CujoMatty]

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

How do you dump the puck in on PS4? Never had to do so before but the cpu now clogs the neutral zone..


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you can either do a wrist shot or slap shot outside the blue line and the game knows what you are doing so will shoot it along the boards(most of the time)

Or you can do a soft flip in by holding R1 and up on the right stick.

[tcnumba10]

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

Do new roster updates make players more distinctive? The way they skate, shoot etc?

[The EVHL]

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

Ok, I bought an EA Play account for a month to test the game and I don't know... Yes, the gameplay itself is much more fluid and there is some boardplay elements and all, but I'm not convinced yet.

There is still a HUGE issue with the gameplay, and that is the player attributes and their effect on the gameplay itself. I watched a couple of cpu vs cpu games where WHL/OHL team played agains an NHL team and while you can see some differences in skating speed for example, these differences don't translate in the overall gameplay and results. I mean, Avalanche should beat the hell out of a Acadie-Brathurst, but yet the final scores were all like 3-1, 3-2 etc. I don't know what there would be to achieve if EA would implement roster sharing in the game, since we just can't make a difference in the game no matter how much we tweak the rosters. And if somebody is saying that it does make a difference, you are deceiving yourself.

All of my slider sets use Attribute Effects 10/10. When you sim these games, are you doing that? I've never been one to watch a CPU v CPU game, but I do know that attribute effect sliders plays a huge role in player separation when actually playing the game, might help your sims out. Just a suggestion!

[mikey87]

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

Doesn't that attribute effect slider work like when set to 10, more of the attributes that are like 90 play like 99? So it doesn't really make the player attributes stand out more, but stack them more to min and max?

[mikey87]

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

Do new roster updates make players more distinctive? The way they skate, shoot etc?

Unfortunately no, they all play and move alike. You really can't tell if it is Milan Lucic or Connor McDavid with the puck.