Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

[Gagnon39]

Please take some time to look at the following and give me a little feed back on what you guys think. I'v been playing NHL 10 the past couple of days (got it one day early) and I'm really having a hard time getting a good feeling on what the speed sliders should be.

I want the game to play as realistically as possible. With that being said, I know many people on Operation Sports play with game speed set to 1 or even 0. I've always felt that at this speed the game is as unrealistic as it is with it set to 6. I think the key is in the acceleration attribute.

I figured the best way to test this would be to literally time skaters and compare them to their real-life counterparts. I looked up the NHL skills competition on youtube and the first skater that registered a time was the New Jersey Devils' Zach Parise. He finished his first round with a speed of 14.59 seconds. Not too shabby.

I went into practice mode to see if I could simulate the same results. Here is what I found...

*I used a 1-on-1 team practice and skated without the puck, just like in the NHL skills competition. I had my wife (this is when I know its going to far, ha), skate as the player with the puck so I could see where I was going. I eventually did some more of these using both controllers. Its really not that difficult to do since all you have to use it the analog sticks. Here are the times I got on the game.

Times

Real time in the 2009 Skills competition... 14.59

Zack Parise
Game Speed 1, acceleration 1.
1. 17.120
2. 17.382
3. 16.982
4. 17.152
5. 17.166

Game speed 6, acceleration 6.

1. 15.199
2. 15.189
3. 15.960
4. 14.962
5. 15.315

Game speed 2, acceleration 1.

1. 16.781
2. 16.836
3. 16.236
4. 16.619
5. 16.658

Game speed 6, acceleration 1.
1. 15.883
2. 15.782
3. 15.475
4. 15.546
5. 14.933

Clearly the most "realistic" times are the ones with everything maxed out. However, the game is completely unrealistic with these settings. However, I also feel that the game speed set at 1 is equally unrealistic as every player feels like they have lead in their boots.

Now, one other thing. I realize the game might not have Parise's speed exactly right. He is rated an 86 in the speed category. So with that being said, there is going to be some margin for error. But it should not be a 2-3 second margin of error.

In fact I would say that if I can get times within 1-1.5 seconds of the real life times, I think that would be pretty accurate. Simply because you have to navigate around the nets, which I can't remember if they are in the actual competition or not.

I'm going to do a second test with the fastest player on the game, Calgary's Jay Boumeister, who is rated a 95. I will post results in a bit.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Bouwmeister

Game speed 2, acceleration 1.

1. 15.579
2. 15.654
3. 15.376
4. 15.699
5. 15.652

[mkharsh33]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

interesting...and sounds like your wife is a keeper!

[davep]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

I like gamespeed on 0, but nice research anyway!

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Bowmeister...

Game speed 3, acceleration 0.

1. 15.385
2. 15.309
3. 15.197
4. 15.297
5. 15.456

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

interesting...and sounds like your wife is a keeper!

Ha. Yeah, she's alright sometimes. Although she hates my gaming habits.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

The more I mess with the speed sliders the more I think realistic speeds have to do with acceleration. If you have acceleration all the way at 0, your players very rarely have time to reach top speed, and therefore you don't see the game as being "too fast".

When acceleration is bumped up, everyone is at full speed after one or two strides, making everyone on the ice fly around. I'm really liking game speed at 3 and acceleration at 0 right now. I'm going to keep messing around with it.

Also, I'm wondering, if anyone knows for sure, does game speed change anything besides the speed of the skaters? It says on the description something about changing the speed of the game as well as the players. I wonder what this means because I don't notice any difference besides the speed of the skaters.

[imdahman]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

I'm curious if setting acceleration all the way down to 0 affects speedy players - ie, the reason those players have an edge is because they accelerate so fast and get to a top speed quicker. Does lower Acceleration take away that advantage and essentially put all skaters on an even playing field?

[bad_philanthropy]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

I have been researching this myself, though for me it's been more of a product of trying to get the cpu to be able to generate offense on SS. It actually seems that if the game speed is above 1, the cpu has trouble running movin the puck and generating offense, the pace of the game seems to move to fast for it.

With the game speed at 1 the cpu seems a lot more methodical and connect on more of their plays. They even play better at speed, like generating offense off the rush.

Before I was only really seeing rebounds goals from the cpu, now I have the game speed at one and the acceleration at three I think, to bring the player speed back up (still not realistic rink lap times, but they feel agile and quick and cover the ice pretty quickly). Anyway, as I was saying, with these settings I'm getting a lot more goal variety from myself and the cpu. I actually scored a couple breakaway goals with these settings, and the cpu scored a couple of nice snipeish goals off the rush. Also helped me get the cpu scoring up, I had a 6-4 game and a 5-3 game but still getting a good variety of results (just completed a 2-0 shutout win).

I might still toy around with the acceleration slider. See how much I can push it to get realistic rink lap times before the cpu becomes overwhelmed by the speed of the action.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

I have been researching this myself, though for me it's been more of a product of trying to get the cpu to be able to generate offense on SS. It actually seems that if the game speed is above 1, the cpu has trouble running movin the puck and generating offense, the pace of the game seems to move to fast for it.

With the game speed at 1 the cpu seems a lot more methodical and connect on more of their plays. They even play better at speed, like generating offense off the rush.

Before I was only really seeing rebounds goals from the cpu, now I have the game speed at one and the acceleration at three I think, to bring the player speed back up (still not realistic rink lap times, but they feel agile and quick and cover the ice pretty quickly). Anyway, as I was saying, with these settings I'm getting a lot more goal variety from myself and the cpu. I actually scored a couple breakaway goals with these settings, and the cpu scored a couple of nice snipeish goals off the rush. Also helped me get the cpu scoring up, I had a 6-4 game and a 5-3 game but still getting a good variety of results (just completed a 2-0 shutout win).

I might still toy around with the acceleration slider. See how much I can push it to get realistic rink lap times before the cpu becomes overwhelmed by the speed of the action.

Just keep in mind when you do your lap times you need to skate it like they do in the skills challenge. Go around the faceoff dots.

[ROCStorm]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Ha. Yeah, she's alright sometimes. Although she hates my gaming habits.

Wait a second....what's a wife?

[cup4blues]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Skating a circle around the rink in practice mode and comparing it to the fastest skater competition at the all-star game is comparing apples to oranges. In real life those guys are going all out for 15 seconds, in the game the all out is standard during game skating speed which is not as fast as those guys skating at the all-star comps. The only way to accurately measure skating speed would be to time blue line to blue line in an actual game of a player on the rush, and do the same in game.

[onlybygrace]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Skating a circle around the rink in practice mode and comparing it to the fastest skater competition at the all-star game is comparing apples to oranges. In real life those guys are going all out for 15 seconds, in the game the all out is standard during game skating speed which is not as fast as those guys skating at the all-star comps. The only way to accurately measure skating speed would be to time blue line to blue line in an actual game of a player on the rush, and do the same in game.

What he said...

[Gagnon39]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Skating a circle around the rink in practice mode and comparing it to the fastest skater competition at the all-star game is comparing apples to oranges. In real life those guys are going all out for 15 seconds, in the game the all out is standard during game skating speed which is not as fast as those guys skating at the all-star comps. The only way to accurately measure skating speed would be to time blue line to blue line in an actual game of a player on the rush, and do the same in game.

I disagree. Players skate as fast as they can, whether it be in the skills competition or in an actual game in certain situations. A man caught deep behind the play will sometimes skate as fast as he can to try and catch up. Players do the same on breakaways, trying to catch a shooter before he can get a good shot off.

Now, are players skating full speed for over 10 seconds in any NHL game? No. Of course not. But that does not mean that they never, ever reach top speed. I've been to many games, watched many games on TV, as I'm sure most people on this forum have. I don't see how anyone could make the argument that game speed at 1 is anything close to being true to life.

As I said in my original post. I understand there is some margin for error. But when you have over 3 seconds difference, there's a bit of a problem.

I looked for a video on the internet that had NHL players timed doing suicides (goal line to blue line, back to goal line, to center line, back to goal line), but couldn't find anything. I think this would be the best way to gauge speed and acceleration. If anyone has anything like this I'd love to see it.

[jokah03]

Re: Game speed at 1 is too slow, I'll prove it.

Right now I'm going on Game Speed 1 and ACC maxed for both CPU/Hum. I'll continue to tinker but I like it thus far.