NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

[nddurst]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/X2oc4sNHVgQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's similar quality footage from E3 2014. Looks very similar to NHL 14.

Any ideas when EA will give us a professional video? That's what I'm looking forward to.

You realize that is NHL 14, right?

[gabbers895]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

You realize that is NHL 14, right?

Damnit I fell for a trick

I feel like such an idiot....no wonder that looked so much worst than the first one...

*facepalm*

[Moose24x]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

It seems you guys are hitting the nail on the head in terms of gameplay.To me, the game still looks far too arcade-y and fast. Super unrealistic. But here are some thoughts I have about another part of the game.. that has been lacking for years and years.

first.. this has nothing to do with gameplay.. or online..etc. Please do not give the 'i rather them work on gameplay' stuff..

EA has long had issues with player equipment and its authenticity. There has been a bit of discussion about the gear brands saying what is allowed and not allowed in the game... but i sometimes have trouble believing it.. as NHL 2k had many different customization options that EA has NEVER had.

EA has major equipment issues... I know some things may be licensing issues but others are just plain old mistakes. Gear could really help player variety. How sick are you of seeing everyone look the same when skating? Or look the same when they shoot? In the first nhl 15 trailer.. Ovechkin looked nothing like himself (other than his face).. literally almost every single piece of gear on him was wrong. Where is this UNPRECEDENTED PLAYER LIKENESS?

I really wish EA would insert the customize glove color from create a team.. in to the edit player screen. They ALWAYS have glove issues with every team.

I would really like to see them set up customization the way 2k did with equipment. it was SO in depth.
you could choose how to tape your blade and butt end... how to tape your socks (including color of sock tape.. clear vs color)... also could individually choose color patterns for gloves and sticks.

that started in 2k8. 7 years ago that game was made.. and still has better customization options. (granted i never loved the gameplay but still. EA very much needs to up their game on player variety in terms of gear) '

Basically.. I think EA really needs to make a more customized approach to edit a player.. (which i hope expands in next gen anyway)..
Granted some of the equipment issues are due to the fact that EA scans RETAIL gear.. as opposed to PRO STOCK equipment that the players use. (if you are familiar with hockey gear.. the stuff players use quite often has a much different appearance and functionality than the gear you can buy in stores..)

give me some of your guys' opinions and what you think EA can do to help this..

I can't be the only person who is tired of seeing the wrong glove colors on players.. or the same taping style for EVERY stick in the game.. etc

This is definitely one of my biggest gripes, even though it's more aesthetic/presentation than gameplay. How much does it matter if the ice, arena, crowd and broadcast team look like real hockey if the players themselves all look like clones? For starters, we need to see different skating strides. There's the more hunched over skaters and the more upright skaters. There's guys who skate like silk and guys with choppy, inefficient strides. In the NBA game, if you try to ball handle or shoot from deep with a big man, it feels clunky and wrong immediately. Why can't we have guys in the NHL series who handle the puck like a grenade and have an awkward skating stride that feels less fluid? Ditto puck handling tendencies and shooting mechanics. Some guys stick handle with the puck in tight or their hands up high, close together. Other guys carry the puck way out in front. Not everyone can curl back and control the puck effortlessly like Patrick Kane. A guy like Brian Boyle should handle the puck like a rock. This would create player differentiation, not just from the aesthetic perspective of how everything looks, but also in how it feels to carry the puck with a smooth skating, silky handed Datsyuk versus a sluggish, poor puck handling Boyle.

Don't even get me started on the notion that guys who are notoriously vigorous fore checkers should hound you with pressure (like in NBA when the AI puts on the full court press) or that guys like Ovechkin should be exiting the zone, looking for the home run pass as soon as possession changes. Getting individual player tendencies is a pipe dream. We can't even get the vague differentiation of EA just having three unique skating strides with one assigned to each player. Individual behavior is for PS5 or PS6 it seems. Hell, how about simply having the ability to go into an all out sprint, continue skating WHILE also stick handling, or handle the puck with one hand while fighting off a check or skating through open ice? I guess this generation of console isn't powerful enough for any of that either.

Next is the more in depth equipment options you talked about. Sure, this is very minor compared to the myriad gameplay problems, but since it seems like the gameplay problems aren't being addressed anyways, you would figure that the next gen consoles at least have the power to bring player likeness to a new level by allowing things like Ovechkin to have the tongue of his skates flopped or the white tape over the toe of the blade. Maybe let him tuck his jersey into his elbow pads (even though the NHL outlawed that; they outlawed regular jersey tucks as well, but guaranteed EA will have players who don't even tuck their jersey wearing them tucked in the game). Like I said above, what does it matter if the Verizon Center looks 99% authentic, the crowd looks live and animated, the NBC broadcast team is green screened in and the NBC overlays make it look like a real broadcast but... Ovechkin looks just like Brouwer who looks just like Alzner who looks just like Fehr and Holtby plays exactly the same style as Jonathan Quick on the other end of the ice? They all tape their sticks and socks the same way, wear their jerseys the same way, skate the same way, handle the puck the same way, shoot the same way and despite a difference in ratings, all move at roughly the same speed and do everything pretty equally. With no player differentiation, both aesthetically and in terms of how it feels to handle Jason Chimera versus Nik Backstrom, all of the NBC overlays, Doc and Eddie green screen, arena detail and authentic audience is just fluff that's meant to detract from the fact that the on ice product is the same as it has been for years now.

The presentation overhaul should have began with the players and the way they move and handle the puck, and how their gear makes them look unique from one another, not with creating fans that wear face-paint, which shouldn't be there in the first place. When I watch hockey on TV, I can tell Kopitar from Brown from Gaborik, without looking at their numbers, because of how they wear their gear and have different skating strides. If you took the names/numbers off the jerseys in the NHL series I wouldn't have a clue who is who. They all do everything the same and look identical. So once more, I ask, what good is having authentic arenas and audiences - essentially the accessories for the main event, which is what's ON the ice - if the actual product on the ice doesn't look authentic at all? The audience and arenas will be welcome additions, but they should have been done AFTER the players were perfected. Instead, they're improving the bells and whistles while ignoring the core of the presentation, which is the players. We got jerseys that move when the players are standing still, as if there was a strong breeze blowing, and 9,000 unique fans, many of whom wear face paint (can't get over this, what possesses them to make 1/10 of the fans in every arena wear face paint? Hockey fans don't do that) when we should have gotten different skating strides and more aesthetic differentiation between players. I don't care how realistic the stage looks if the action on the stage looks like an arcade game. When Nash, Boyle, Hagelin and Kreider all look the same on the ice, it looks like an arcade game. The presentation is still terrible when the player are all clones of one another. All the other stuff is just window dressing around a main event that is lacking.

[yolo1212]

Alright its hard to critic this game based on this 2min (poor quality) clip however, there is one blatant thing i noticed that should be tweaked for the final build.

The "living crowd" looks robotic. They do not seem smarter than the nhl 14 crowd at all. its 2min into the second period and most of the crowd is standing flailing there arms in unison. "Living crowds" should be reactive to situations. When there is a minute left in the game and your down at home the crowd should stand. When there is a big hit or an injury the crowd closest to the hit/injury should stand and react. Goal...crowd should erupt. In between everything else the majority of the crowd should be seated chanting, booing, cheering or leaving there seats.

[Moose24x]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

My frustration with that was that it was something that wasn't there before. It got patched in, but never out. And there's no counter for it. I can get there 5 minutes before anyone else, but i can't grab the puck or try to get it. I have to hope when it lands, there's no AI around to snatch it up while i sit there with no defense against it.

Exactly. And if they weren't going to fix the bouncing, an easy solution is just having your dman who gets their first immediate glove it down and play it, like ANY player who is NHL caliber (or AHL/CHL/NCAA/etc.) would do. But instead you just wait, helpless.

[canucksss]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

That said, there's still time. But, it's a daunting task. People want AI that plays hockey. Personally, i got bored with NHL14 because entering the zone was stupidly easy. I dumped the puck just to do it. Not because i had to. The attacking AI was more of the same. Skate down the wings, get smashed into the boards, stand still, start back skating when i get next to them, repeat. Same for AI players on the rush who would just stop skating at the blue line or the circles instead of crashing the net on a 3-on-1. EA has a lot to prove with 15. They've got the hardware to make amazing AI. They haven't had anywhere close to this level of memory to allocate to the computer running plays, noticing open ice, or creating breakouts. Hopefully they do something with it.
I can get past players that look goofy to me, i can deal with another year of a pretty stale Be A GM experience, but i can't take another year of brain-dead AI who just skate from one place to another, or stand still or run into each other in the zone because there's nothing else they know to do.

:edit:

Also, sliders that really work would be a huge change. If they gave us more slider control, and it made a noticeable difference, that would alleviate a ton of problems.
EA would be better off if they had more creation/sharing. Rosters, slider settings, created players. If we had a vault type system similar to what the show has, people could easily download released roster improvements, players, teams, and sliders, freeing up EA's time to address gameplay issues a slider fix won't deal with.

I totally AGREE with one exception...your statement regarding BaGM....if one of the goals is to be in good relationship with other GM's by trading players 5 years from current year....that is BS adn should not be in the game.

Would really like to see a much improved BaGM....EA neglected the offline gamers for so long!

[bad_philanthropy]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

I like the visual upgrades—although the kerning on the numbers is horrible and needs fixing.

I saw some nice things with the puck.

The gameplay is hard to judge, as this is probably on rookie with all the arcade settings on. Nothing really wows me about the video, but I can't wait to give it a try in September and see how the series is shaping up going forward.

[The Amaizen Blue]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

If only we could get the guys from MLB The Show to make an NHL game...

That series has nailed gameplay AND graphics.

[bwiggy33]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

I totally AGREE with one exception...your statement regarding BaGM....if one of the goals is to be in good relationship with other GM's by trading players 5 years from current year....that is BS adn should not be in the game.

Would really like to see a much improved BaGM....EA neglected the offline gamers for so long!

I think what he's saying though is he'd much rather take improved AI and have one more year of the same Be A GM and what not. I don't think the EA team can handle improving both things in one year. I'm in the same exact boat as him. Yes Be A GM needs a massive overhaul but honestly I have not had true fun with this game for two years, so as long as all those issues he stated are corrected or at least better than years past it will help make up for the lack of Be A GM. Hell I hardly remember what Be A GM is like because with NHL 12 and 13 I stopped playing after three weeks.

In my situation I would be completely satisfied if I could just play this game again and feel like I'm being challenged. I shouldn't have to create house rules just to play the game (dumping the puck in on purpose, not shooting off the rush every time, not flinging the puck to the far blue line as a breakout, etc). I've been at that point the past few years. That throws fun right out of the window and completely ruins the experience. I still haven't figured out how people can actually have fun by forcing themselves to do things to make up for the inadequate AI, especially because some of these mentioned areas have been the exact same since 07. Some of these issues are just so easy to see and it's almost like EA just doesn't want to fix them because it will turn people away. That's why I just don't get why they can't put in more sliders or make the CPU neutral zone more aggressive on higher difficulties. It honestly makes 0 sense to me.

[SpectralThundr]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

Can you honestly blame people for being a bit pessimistic? The AI will definitely play a big part in making or breaking this game for a lot of people, but it's still a bit of a let down to see something that looks like it's playing like a well polished NHL14 instead of a truly next-gen game.
I went into this video hoping to be proven wrong on the things i had thought might happen, but so far my expectations weren't far off. The skating and AI look largely unchanged. The goalies still look like they play the same nonsense game they did before. Is it fair to judge it based off of this tiny clip? Not entirely, but you do take something away from that. If you watched this video on low-res you would be hard-pressed to tell it apart from NHL14 by just watching the way the players move.

That said, there's still time. But, it's a daunting task. People want AI that plays hockey. Personally, i got bored with NHL14 because entering the zone was stupidly easy. I dumped the puck just to do it. Not because i had to. The attacking AI was more of the same. Skate down the wings, get smashed into the boards, stand still, start back skating when i get next to them, repeat. Same for AI players on the rush who would just stop skating at the blue line or the circles instead of crashing the net on a 3-on-1. EA has a lot to prove with 15. They've got the hardware to make amazing AI. They haven't had anywhere close to this level of memory to allocate to the computer running plays, noticing open ice, or creating breakouts. Hopefully they do something with it.
I can get past players that look goofy to me, i can deal with another year of a pretty stale Be A GM experience, but i can't take another year of brain-dead AI who just skate from one place to another, or stand still or run into each other in the zone because there's nothing else they know to do.

I'm still waiting for an actual EA provided video showing the game itself off, instead of 2 guys who are god-awful at hockey playing it, but that doesn't mean i'm not a bit letdown with what i saw beyond their control in this.

:edit:

Also, sliders that really work would be a huge change. If they gave us more slider control, and it made a noticeable difference, that would alleviate a ton of problems.
EA would be better off if they had more creation/sharing. Rosters, slider settings, created players. If we had a vault type system similar to what the show has, people could easily download released roster improvements, players, teams, and sliders, freeing up EA's time to address gameplay issues a slider fix won't deal with.

Now that we know the game's difficulty @E3 is locked at Pro and simulation on likely default sliders all of this is moot. Wait til the demo and people can hopefully adjust things before passing a final judgement.

[@legendm0de]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

no bueno looks like i'll still have to be tinkering the hell out of this game still. I can bring the new gen qualities out from what they have here presumably but they still allow to much BC into this game.

I can't stand directional passing either, how can you claim real puck physics when passes are made tape to tape at 20 degree angles just by tapping R2 or whatever pass button is. The puck should be free and loose to control like in real life, and easing the level should not make this change. Thats like if rookie level of Madden allowed any QB to throw darts 70 yards down the field every time. Easing the level should effect the creativity, intelligence and skill level of CPU AI but now make the puck move this unrealistic. In fact the skill level doesn't even exactly have anything to do with this type of pass accuracy, that's a slider setting that has to be minimized.

Still much more remains to be seen\

And those refs look god awful, I would stay away from this version if they are going to look like that in the final build.

[buddaking]

look like a cartoon game with ps2 graphics. EA sports need to stop making sport game.

[Shaffer26]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

I honestly went from buying this game to probably renting since I watched this video. I haven't played an NHL game in a little over a year and besides the graphics and presentation package, it looks the same as NHL 13 to me.

[AdamJones113]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/X2oc4sNHVgQ" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

Here's similar quality footage from E3 2014. Looks very similar to NHL 14.

Any ideas when EA will give us a professional video? That's what I'm looking forward to.

That looked even worst than the other one. You cant really make out the nice graphics in this one and without them it does seem a lot like 14...

luckily this is just an alpha version. The release is always much different I find.

You realize that is NHL 14, right?

Damnit I fell for a trick

I feel like such an idiot....no wonder that looked so much worst than the first one...

*facepalm*

Ok, that is supposed to be saying NHL 14. It is, I wanted to provide a similar-quality video to gauge how much NHL changes from E3 to release. Stupid typo, my bad.

[jayenomics]

Re: NHL 15: First Gameplay Video Emerges

If only we could get the guys from MLB The Show to make an NHL game...

That series has nailed gameplay AND graphics.

Except for the fact their online play is absolutely atrocious.