NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

[Therebelyell626]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

Offline penalties need some work. I just had a 4 game stretch where I only had ONE powerplay. The CPU seems to be to perfect with their poke and stick checking. Last year I was getting at least one power play a game. I’m not much of a slider guy, so I don’t have any idea how I can fix this without negatively impacting other parts of the game. I far I’m just not that high on 25 in general

[l8knight1]

Re: NHL 25 Impressions Thread

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6) Defensive AI is also slightly better, finding it harder to gain the zone and create offense in the offensive zone. But again, these ai improvements are not significant and the hockey IQ buzz is just that....buzz.


4) Goalies seem stiffer, they dont flail as much but overall more robotic. tough to gauge this using short periods and 2 goalies only. but something I will look for later.

5) The gameplay is fine as I enjoyed nhl 24 immensely, but the improvements overall are just marginal at best. It feels like a patch on top of nhl 24 to be honest. For me personally the jump from 23 to 24 was much bigger, especially the cpu dmen offensive ai improvements which is perfect in nhl 24. I will play more using different teams when this finishes downloading.

These for me so far.

[l8knight1]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

Gameplay much slower, this is bc default acceleration is set at 42 this year and speed is at 36. (I went back to NHL 24, default all star and just made the speed adjustments, feels just like 25 minus the new skating left trigger movements)

Noticed shot power much slower, again that's because since they slowed the game down they had to adjust this. Default shot power is set at 41. With that said Slap Shot Power went up and is at 53, which is why you see that marketed one timers going in a lot from the point.

Passing seems a bit less accurate, can't put my finger on it bc none of the sliders are different. Might just be bc movement is slower and I wasn't adjusted to the slower stick movement for my usual backhand and sauce passes. Probably user error here.

And these. What are your guys' settings on accel, speed, and shot power? I increased acc and speed significantly to match mine from 24 and prefer it way better than default. Notched my game speed to 5/6, I'm sure many won't agree. Haven't notched up shot power and intend to.

Passing is harder, guys are much less open in the crease on blind passes so you have to look, which I like. I haven't done a SB OTer yet, but I'm hoping the tight crease will make one timers more gratifying.

I'm seeing more seamless goal celebrations right after the shot rather than the zombie movement until cutaway kicks in.

[sjp99]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

@Fiddy Wondering if you could use your connection to pass on another issue that still exists from last year that devs may not be aware of.

The true broadcast legacy camera does not function for the home arenas of created teams or defunct alumni teams (North Stars, Whalers, Nords). Instead it reverts to the long distance true broadcast camera introduced in NHL 23 which replaced the standard before they brought it back with legacy cam.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BdX6-63xd66RxiVdRtQrkq5OMylIa6Bk/view?usp=sharing

Maybe this could be because the arenas of those teams don't actually exist and thus have no "true broadcast" view but this was never an issue in past releases of the game prior to when it was removed in 23. I played as created teams and said alumni teams for years with the original true broadcast cam with no problem, so I assume it should be possible for it to be addressed and that true broadcast legacy can be used for any team.

Appreciate any effort on your part if possible, I am an older longtime NHL player (since the 90s) and true broadcast (legacy) is the only camera I've ever used since its inception.

[SlyBelle]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

Offline penalties need some work. I just had a 4 game stretch where I only had ONE powerplay. The CPU seems to be to perfect with their poke and stick checking. Last year I was getting at least one power play a game. I’m not much of a slider guy, so I don’t have any idea how I can fix this without negatively impacting other parts of the game. I far I’m just not that high on 25 in general

I am seeing plenty, 3-6 per game but does require moving penalty sliders to 4. And increasing the other penalty sliders. One area of the game that I think is working good.

[Cycloniac]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I will post my sliders in a bit so you can have a look.

The strategy adjustments I mentioned are actual team specific strategies. I edited the flyers and used the penguins to play against them. I edit each line strategy ( some more dump heavy than others) and zero out forward shooting and max it to the left to favor cycling). Also change off strategy for each line (behind the net, crash net or overload)

I also max out each dmen line shooting tendency, so in general cpu dmen shoot more, while depending on individual dmen player ratings to dictate their shooting frequency. This slider just raises each dmen pairing baseline for shooting tendency.

Also team strategy I edit, flyers are a stretch transition team with Tortorella, so the strategies reflect this ( leave early), you can really get more in depth with PP/PK and forecheck/trap strategies.

It this game passes the bill, I will release a roster including each team strategies in the NHL.

Do strategies stick this year? Like if you edit outside of franchise mode, do they remain edited once you start? Haven't been able to check this yet.

[Therebelyell626]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I am seeing plenty, 3-6 per game but does require moving penalty sliders to 4. And increasing the other penalty sliders. One area of the game that I think is working good.

When you say moving penalty sliders to 4, what do you mean? I am only seeing values of 0 to 100

[bcruise]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

When you say moving penalty sliders to 4, what do you mean? I am only seeing values of 0 to 100

I think Slybelle means the setting on the Rules page. There's like 3 layers of penalty sliders in this game - the one on Rules, the CPU and CPU Teammate ones in the Penalties section of the gameplay sliders, and the individual penalty settings for Human and CPU right below those. YMMV on how well all of those work.

[toodles2you90]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

How do PPs set up this year? Is it a chaotic mess like before or can you actually set up and run a normal looking PP?

[Therebelyell626]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

How do PPs set up this year? Is it a chaotic mess like before or can you actually set up and run a normal looking PP?

Still pretty chaotic. Like years past, the CPU is way too aggressive on the penalty Kill. You are probably going to score more PP goals on the rush then you will set up in the offensive zone just like last year. All EA needs to do is watch one game off hockey to see that short handed goals aren’t that common. Teams on the penalty kill aren’t really trying to aggressively score. They are on the defensive

[Therebelyell626]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I think Slybelle means the setting on the Rules page. There's like 3 layers of penalty sliders in this game - the one on Rules, the CPU and CPU Teammate ones in the Penalties section of the gameplay sliders, and the individual penalty settings for Human and CPU right below those. YMMV on how well all of those work.

Okay got you. Out of curiosity do these penalties work in conjunction with each other, or are they working against each other? For instance say I set penalties to 4 like he suggested, then set CPU penalties to 50. Is there any negative draw backs to changing both, or is it more of a one of the other type of thing?

[SlyBelle]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I set both, increase to 4 in rules and then I max out the cpu and cpu teammates sliders. I might scale back the cpu one a bit as have at times seen too many penalties but will play more before doing that.

[Fiddy]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I know we all have our taste in "feel" for this game etc. But personally I find it wild people think that the game out of the box is still fast?

They dropped from 50/50 acc/speed to 42/36, just by that alone slows the game down tremendously. Going from game speed 4 to 3 would be about all I would do with possibly bumping up the speed to match the acceleration.

[Cycloniac]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

Do strategies stick this year? Like if you edit outside of franchise mode, do they remain edited once you start? Haven't been able to check this yet.

To follow up on this, I checked and no, any strategy changes you make outside of franchise don't stick when you start the mode.

I'm also still seeing PP strategy changed from 1-3-1 to umbrella when you start franchise.

[The EVHL]

Re: NHL 25 Early Access and EA Play Trial Available Today - Share Your Impressions

I know we all have our taste in "feel" for this game etc. But personally I find it wild people think that the game out of the box is still fast?

They dropped from 50/50 acc/speed to 42/36, just by that alone slows the game down tremendously. Going from game speed 4 to 3 would be about all I would do with possibly bumping up the speed to match the acceleration.

Feels incredibly fast to me. It’s mainly because the animations still feel like they have no weight to them. The skating is just straight up floating around, the shooting is weightless, passing weightless, goalies are robotic as ever despite the insane shooting speeds and weightless releases that would blow past a prime Carey Price with ease.

Robotic, stiff, clunky, lifeless, fast. Idk, just not buying it. I have my sliders at 0 for all skating options and I still find the game weightless compared to my custom 20 build. I know OOTB can’t match my edits in 20, but the base feel of potential is not even close to there for me.

Goalies and game/animation speeds are once again just a non-starter for me. Can’t imitate real hockey if you can’t score organic 1st shot goals.