Operation Sports Forums - NHL 16: Article Breakdown from EA GameChanger who PLAYED the Game

Hey everyone, so the official news has been released by EA Sports just now, the article can be viewed at : https://www.easports.com/nhl/features/nhl-16

Although most of you have already seen the leaked news on Reddit, the GameChangers were not allowed to comment on any of it until it was officially released by EA due to the NDA. It was funny, I believe I saw the information on Reddit before I got the article sent to me via Skype; power of the Internet huh.
I’ll jump straight into it, breaking down each thing for you guys and explaining any misconceptions. We were given the green light to talk about anything that was mentioned in the article, so I’ll do just that. Keep in mind I’m still under an NDA, so any specific questions I may still have to dodge. It is also still May, the game is very much a work in progress at this time and there is tons of time for EA Sports to perfect it.

1. “The New EASHL”
Key points in this description of the new EASHL are “Reimagined ... specialized player classes to deliver a balanced competitive experience ... player skill and ability to play as a team will now be the determining factor in who wins.”
So to confirm everyone’s questions, yes EASHL will be back in NHL 16 on next-gen. It is way different than anything EASHL has ever been in the past. Personally, I did not like it at first but after playing for a few hours and getting the hang of it, I can see it being a hit later on into the game. Specialized player classes mean that each player build (grinder, playmaker, sniper, etc.) has already been pre-built for you. No longer will you have an amateur 1 card working your way up to the legend 3. The grind for 350 games 200 wins is no longer going to be evident at the release of the game in September. EA Sports has designed the new EASHL so that new players that don’t pick up the gamemode at launch will be able to jump in and still be somewhat competitive. In the past, the “Christmas noobs” and guys that start the road to legend 3 late in the game would always get destroyed by other teams because they simply did not have the attributes to compete. The thing with the new EASHL is that if I pick sniper in September and master the build over 300 games, and I match up with a guy who is playing his first game in EASHL later on in April, statistically we will be matched if we have the same build. There was multiple testing and tweaking of the builds while we were there so that each build has its pros and cons. If you try to play 6v6 you will not find any success in running with three grinders like some have done in the past. The game has been made so that teamwork within your builds is crucial. You will need to have a sniper build if you want to get that wrist shot in the slot to go in 9/10 times, and you will need a playmaker to set that sniper up. Another important fact : each player build has the SAME speed, agility and acceleration so that speed is not a factor in who is the better player. Monthly playoffs are back in EASHL. It is still uncertain whether or not you will be able to choose your height/weight in EASHL. At the time when we played on April 30/ May 1, we were able to customize our height and weight but we were potentially looking at height and weight becoming a pre-set into the builds themselves.

2. “6 v. 6 Online Team Play”
This is something that was still in the works while we were there. I personally did not play this mode at all because of the fact that EASHL was there. A couple others tried to and if I’m correct they weren’t able to load into a game as of yet. I can’t tell you if it is the 6v6 OTP where let’s say if your team is Chicago you’re playing as Toews/Kane and going for linechanges, or if it’s OTP where you use your own build but play in Chicago jerseys with no linechanges. I would imagine by the wording of this section “real-world NHL rosters” it would be the Toews/Kane type deal.
One thing the GameChangers had directly influenced in the game were the “private OTP sessions”. For any of you guys that play in 6v6 leagues such as VHL or LG (leaguegaming.com) – you’re welcome.
I’ll be sure to get more information about this section when we go back to Vancouver to play the game again next.

3. Online Couch Co-op
This is pretty straight forward. Essentially you can hook up multiple controllers to one Xbox to play as a team in Online Versus with your friends or connect with one another to play in a drop-in EASHL game.

4. Be a GM: Player Morale
I think this is going to be one of the most read sections of my article, simply because many people play GM on OS. So, essentially GM mode has been revamped. If you remember back in my January post, I talked about how excited I was. Because we were only there for two days, it was hard to play GM and Be a Pro enough to get a sense of how well these features were. On paper, they were exciting. Each player has a different personality and will react differently to different types of GM interaction. When you trade for a new player, or trade away a keyguy, some guys on your roster may be upset if you are trading their friends away. Similarly, they can be exciting for newcomers to the team. Also, when new players arrive to your team, they will not gel completely at first and will have to gain chemistry with your other teammates. So acquisitions at the trade deadline when you’re making your push for the cup might not play as well as they normally do on their previous teams. Each player can notify the GM, and the GM can say different things to that player. Furthermore, the GM can host “team meetings” where he has different ways to interact with the team. To give an example, you can host a meeting and say something along the lines have “have fun out there” or you could say something different like “If you don’t win you’re all getting sent to the AHL.” Both of the things I just wrote were made-up by me. I do not remember exactly any of the options that were there, but I remember seeing different options. My point is that some guys will increase morale if you’re easy on them and say go have fun while some will decrease if you’re not hard on them. In contrast, some will gain morale and get pumped if the GM is hard on them while some will not be motivated. So that’s something to think about. One last thing about GM is that every player in the league has his own unique “best friend”. So for example, Daniel and Henrik Sedin. These players may not be on the same team to begin with. By trading for a player’s best friend, that player will show increased morale and will play better with his friend. However, say you’re the GM of Vancouver and you trade Daniel away from Henrik, Henrik will lose a lot of morale points and he’ll let you know about it. Another thing that effects morale is captaincy. So once you manage Toronto and strip Phaneuf of his captaincy (I know I will LOL), he’ll lose morale points and whoever you make the new captain will gain morale.

5. Be a Pro: Shape Your Legacy
Be a pro / Live the life is also very different than it has been in previous years. Similar to FIFA, but not exactly the same. In FIFA you have the checklist of “Score 5 goals, finishing attribute increased by +1” etc. In NHL, as you snipe the goalie continuously, your player’s wrist shot power and accuracy will improve as you score. It is no longer gaining xp points and spending wherever you want to designate those points too. So if you do not pass the puck ever, you player’s passing rating will not increase and will show in his progression. For attributes that cannot really be seen as an increase in-game if you use it. (i.e. speed/accel can’t really be tracked in game, so you can’t really monitor the progression of how fast your player becomes) there is an off-ice weekly training session. Again, I did not play it extensively enough to tell you much about these training sessions. From my memory, there were different things to train which affected different attributes. You have x amount of practice hours available each week based on your game schedule, and you designate those x hours to specific areas of your game. I don’t think you actually went in and performed these drills, it was more of a simulation if I recall correctly. – Will also be playing more of this next time I’m there to get some more info. The rest of the description is self-explanatory, you can pick your CHL team just like before and also sim to next shift is there.

6. Hockey Ultimate Team: Single Player Seasons
Again, if you have played FIFA you know what this is about. The description makes it pretty straight forward. Play the AI in something other than just a single player game.

7. Visual On-Ice Training
If you’re reading this on May 19th, you’re probably a diehard gamer of the NHL franchise and this feature most likely will not be of interest to you. It’s more-so targeted to newcomers to the series that want to learn how the game works in my opinion. For some people, there may be one or two things you didn’t know. The visual aids are actually relevant and show people what to do in certain situations to be able to generate offense or stop the opposition on defense.

8. Precision Skating
New animations have been incorporated into NHL 16’s skating engine which allow for different ways to utilize precision skating. Instead of holding LT (Xbox) to activate vision control and get in the lane on defense to break up a cross crease, there are new controls which allow players to move differently in different areas of the ice for a more realistic approach to the game. For example, walking the blue line as a defenseman when you receive the puck at the point. Another example is that you now have some mobility when you’re in the state of pulling back your stick for the manual one-knee clapper. You can shift your legs to get open in a passing lane while you have your stick wound up and ready to rip. Again, it is still May and they have time to perfect these animations. At the time of playing, some were still a bit sketchy.

9. Seamless Puck Pickups
Again, new animations for picking the puck up. It is no longer that your stick is a magnet and will attract the puck as you come near. Depending on where the puck is when you’re picking it up, as well as your player’s position and speed will determine whether you take off and head down the ice or slow your team’s rush down because you have to turn back for the puck. Also still need to be perfected in the coming months leading up to the game. When we played, there some scenarios in which these “seamless” puck pickups activated when they should not have. We let EA know to fix that.

10. Distinct Team Arena Atmosphere
Pretty straight forward, every NHL team has their own distinct atmosphere. This includes mascots for almost all teams, signature props and different crowd chants. Perfect example for this is the San Jose Sharks. If you play as the home team with San Jose, you will see the Shark come down on the ice for the players to skate through out of the tunnel. Furthermore, when you’re on the powerplay as the Sharks, the fans all make the clamping movement with their hands while the Shark mascot goes wild in the stands. For New York Islander fans, the arena in Brooklyn is really well done. The areas of the rink in real life where there are no seats and the jumbotron being off-centered from above the middle of the ice is also there. Other things like the lights in Vancouver’s stantions, lightning tesla coils in Tampa Bay, fire in Calgary, cannons in Columbus, etc. were there so each team has their unique feel.

11. Story Driven Commentary
Basically just different lines for Doc and Eddie to say. We played with the TV’s muted and I don’t think the new audio was even in the game when we played anyways. From my understanding, if you’re playing GM and you go into a game in the middle of your season, they will make comments based on how your team has been performing.

12. Superstar Authenticity
All the superstars have been updated. Someone was already able to guess most of it in one of the forum posts I read yesterday. Essentially, you can have the yellow laces like Ovi, the candy-cane Phil Kessel stick-tap, the Brent Seabrook skate guards, etc. There were different types of tape to choose from as well as different options on the skates, socks and stick to customize. The tinted visors were also there. I thought it was pretty cool for creating your own character, especially in EASHL where you can no longer do a lot of customization due to the builds being pre-built for you.

13. Playoff Beards
Whether you’re in the monthly playoffs for the elite cup in EASHL or in a 7 game series in seasons/be a pro/ GM, your players beards will evolve as you advance further into the post season. If you’re like Brent Burns, you will see a full grizzly beard coming in. If you’re like Ryan Nugent Hopkins, you won’t see much at all.

So that wraps up everything that was talked about. Please post any questions you have and I’ll try to answer them. If frequent questions arise, I’ll make a FAQ section in this forum post. Please note that I am 17 and I have no journalism credentials and in no way do I think I’m a good writer. Take my vocabulary with a grain of salt, don’t quote me later on down the road and be like “But you said ____”. I stated what the article was talking about and my experiences with each thing in the article. Many people were asking questions about the AI. While we were there, probably 12 of the 15 hours we played was on EASHL 5v5/6v6. We did not play with much AI, therefore I’m not going to comment much about it because I simply don’t have anything to comment on. There are still things which EA has yet to release and I’m sure you’ll find out in the coming months. These were the big selling points and new features, however some smaller things might interest you as they are released later towards September.

Last thing; Edit Pro was NOT in the game when I played. You could not customize the attributes of specific players to make your custom GM modes. I’m not sure if this feature will be implemented in the coming months or not.

Thanks guys, hope this clears some things up for you about NHL 16. Don't shoot the messenger.
-Oohwayy