NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

[bwiggy33]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

You can use custom AI in Season Mode? What about Playoff Mode? Would you mind sending me a PM with the changes you made to the CPU teams?

Giving us the ability to carry these edits over into Be A GM would be huge.

Your point about gaining the offensive zone brings me back to what other people have mentioned: EA should really look at using something similar to 2K's gameplay settings where you have Arcade/Normal/Simulation options. Let the casual guys play on Arcade and Normal and the sim guys can use the Simulation option.

Ya you can do it in season. I personally haven't tried it because I don't play season. The reason you are able to though is because you can play for either side if you control all of the teams. With BeAGM you cannot move your controller to the other team. I'm not sure about playoff mode but I'm assuming you could use the settings. Just make sure you have every team user controlled and it should be good to go. Anyone who has done it please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll boot up the game later on and send you a PM of the settings I have.

[tfer717]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

The biggest problem with EA's NHL for as long as i can remember (and pretty much every ea game) is the skill separation of players. Every player in the game is capable of all the same animations and movements. I think until players are able to skate, shoot, and stick handle differently, we are gonna see alot of the same problems with team differentiation.

I said it in another thread.. but the game is just far too casual for sim hockey fans. It doesn't have the 'depth' that certain simulation gamers love. It isn't on par with the feel of mlb the show & nba 2k. Every time I play nhl I know what to expect. I never ever see anything thats a 'wow I've never seen that before'. And if it does happen, it is due to some odd glitch or animation screw up. The engine has gotten stale.. and i think it needs to evolve into something much more in depth. Casual gamers can learn to love a true simulation game.

I know im beating a dead horse.. and not that i was a big fan of nhl 2k past 2k8... but the lack of competition in hockey gaming is killing it. Every year EA hypes the most about cover votes and new pointless game modes and features. Little do they know that the most excited I got this year (other than the skating) was for their ATTEMPT at real-time presentation. I despised seeing the same cut scenes after the whistle for the last decade.

[Wiggy]

The biggest problem with EA's NHL for as long as i can remember (and pretty much every ea game) is the skill separation of players. Every player in the game is capable of all the same animations and movements. I think until players are able to skate, shoot, and stick handle differently, we are gonna see alot of the same problems with team differentiation.

I said it in another thread.. but the game is just far too casual for sim hockey fans. It doesn't have the 'depth' that certain simulation gamers love. It isn't on par with the feel of mlb the show & nba 2k. Every time I play nhl I know what to expect. I never ever see anything thats a 'wow I've never seen that before'. And if it does happen, it is due to some odd glitch or animation screw up. The engine has gotten stale.. and i think it needs to evolve into something much more in depth. Casual gamers can learn to love a true simulation game.

I know im beating a dead horse.. and not that i was a big fan of nhl 2k past 2k8... but the lack of competition in hockey gaming is killing it. Every year EA hypes the most about cover votes and new pointless game modes and features. Little do they know that the most excited I got this year (other than the skating) was for their ATTEMPT at real-time presentation. I despised seeing the same cut scenes after the whistle for the last decade.

Yeah, I hear you. The fact that players are able to do so many things hurts many sports games. I really feel this is a necessity for next-gen sports titles, especially with the added processor power for AI and the like. It would be great to see unique players truly feel special when they're on the ice, whether it's from their physical presence or superior puckhandling, etc.

[tfer717]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

I gotta say also... alot of the reviews i read for nhl 13 and other articles i read about nhl 14...etc. They comment on the current stickhandling. Saying that the engine is solid..blah blah.. I really disagree. I think the current stickhandling engine is unbelievably unrealistic and robotic. The canned loose puck dekes are terrible. Puck physics during them is atrocious.. half the time it's like a rubberband to the stick. And when you deke with the right stick the skaters feet don't move! I think this is a big part of the reason why the game looks unrealistic. Especially on breakaways when players use the robotic forehand backhand dekes that look terrible. The engine was promising when it was introduced in 07 and then expanded in 09.. but it seems virtually unchanged and stale!

[ozcore]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

EA just look at sony mlb the show series and then ull see what real is. for many years ive been asking to change ur roster system, make a roster vault like the show so peoples can upload them in the game. im sorry but i dont think u know what realism means. and same goes for me cause in the past i use to get nhl the day it came out. next version im not until i see improvements.

[Storm12]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

All the issues here and defenseman need to be fixed, I don't want to just cruise through the neutral zone at all... In actual hockey the defenders will attack while skating backwards with a poke check. In the game they do nothing till you get to the middle, which I don't like. And fix the breakouts... The center and wingers do not always need to be perfectly positioned in there respective spots to have a proper breakout, breakouts are messed up because of everything having to be "perfect". Fix that too.

[thedudedominick]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

I enjoy NHL 13 and have found a decent set of sliders that give me variety in my gameplay and allow superstars to feel like superstars. I have to worry when guys like Crosby step onto the ice against me and make sure I have my best defenders on the ice against them.

Of course the AI needs a ton of improvement in the game to make it more resemble real hockey. Unfortunately the SIM crowd is a vast minority with sports gaming. We do need different slider sets for each group though. Ship the game with an Arcade, Normal, and Sim slider sets along with each difficulty. The SIM needs to play a much sloppier, but smarter game.

As far as online play goes, the EASHL needs some tuning. Roll with the idea of Sim/Normal/Arcade for divisions. Let each team pick which one they want to be in. If a team wants to skate around checking, cherry picking, and playing high scoring games pick arcade. If you want a game that resembles actual hockey with proper penalty calls then pick sim.

This brings me to the thing that drives me the most crazy about the online play in the NHL series. The developers have said they don't tune up the penalties because they want the game to be fun and don't want people to spend all game in the penalty box. How about if you don't want to be in the penalty box don't charge, board, interfere, or anything else that is just ignored by the refs online and offline. I can't tell you how many times one of my defensemen has gone behind our own net to get a pick, get's boarded blatantly by some 6'5 idiot playing as a grinder, no penalty gets called, the guy gets the puck skates out in front for an easy 2 on 1 goal.

[Storm12]

For some reason a grinder can have 92 speed if you used boost... So most people cheat and use the grinder build . EASHL does need to be fixed though, they need a thing for your player to play a game in the position you want rather than having to wait and fight for one. Make it so the player can choose what game they want to play at their position, how many people are in game (6v6 etc)... And such. The online would be much better.

[Gotmilkman24]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

I'm not sure if its been said yet, but there are little things that bug me about NHL 13. I hate seeing the computer skate into the wall and jab the stick and puck through the wall. It isnt realistic, and then when they skate into/away from npcs. I want to see more realistic skating, more puck passing in the o zone, and one big thing for me.. is sound. I know we can add our own sound files which is great... but I want to see EA add every teams PK, BIP, PP, and so on. It would feel so much more realistic if I was lets say a Canuck (ew) playing the blackhawks and they scored 7 or 8 times on me and all I would hear is chelsea dagger. Lol.. or the jaws theme for the sharks. I mean, little things like that would make 14 much better.
Maybe add the fans into effect to. SJ Sharks when they're on the PP their fans will make the shark/jaws effect with their hands. (Yeah.. im a sharks fan) I'm not sure about the other teams.. I forget which team it is that has squids thrown onto their rink but that would be more effects added into the game that would add to realism.
ONE LAST THING and I don't know if its just me or my settings. I play goalie on Bapro, I never see my team or the opposing team fighting, idk if fighting is just CPU Vs User or if it can be CPU VS CPU.. Id love to sit back and see my guys go at it.. Or even all out brawl with teams going at it. I want to see a scoring system for teams who have rivals. Blackhawk and Canucks for example do not like each other.. Sharks and Canucks hate each other. Things like that should add into effect for fighting.. checking.. and so on.

[bwiggy33]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

I want to see more realistic skating, more puck passing in the o zone, and one big thing for me.. is sound. I know we can add our own sound files which is great... but I want to see EA add every teams PK, BIP, PP, and so on. It would feel so much more realistic if I was lets say a Canuck (ew) playing the blackhawks and they scored 7 or 8 times on me and all I would hear is chelsea dagger. Lol.. or the jaws theme for the sharks. I mean, little things like that would make 14 much better.
Maybe add the fans into effect to. SJ Sharks when they're on the PP their fans will make the shark/jaws effect with their hands. (Yeah.. im a sharks fan) I'm not sure about the other teams.. I forget which team it is that has squids thrown onto their rink but that would be more effects added into the game that would add to realism.

There will never be any game that has realistic songs. It will only happen if they want to shell out a lot of money (which I don't think they will). They would have to acquire every single songs rights. That's a crap ton of songs and a crap ton of money. I wish they would, but it won't ever happen, especially in a low budget game like NHL. That's why they gave us custom sounds, which you already know.

Now with the little things, just like you I'd love to see some team specific things. As a Sharks fan myself I think it'd be awesome to see the PP jaws. It's probably one of the cheesiest team specific things in the NHL, but none the less cool. If we could get any team specific things that'd make this game a lot more fresh from an off-ice perspective. There's still so much they need to fix on-ice that if they put this in, it wouldn't make me buy the game, when normally something like this would.

[onac22]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

Keys to best last year.

#1 Better environment. Change the Fans, Music, Chants, Play-by-play, Cut scenes. ( to include: goal celebrations, fighting, board play, loose puck battles) Last but not least change your work ethic. EA has a lazy greedy work ethic.

#2 Just because you release the game you are not done working. Do not release half finished rosters, then post underneath if you want to add yourself edit or create players. This is unprofessional and lazy. Same applys to the music. Do it yourself is not professional it is lazy. Let's say Rammer walks in a MCdonalds one day and instead of making a burger they say "do it yourself, we'll let you use the grill some buns hamburger and ketchup" how happy would Rammer be? Oh but I forgot to mention no fire(roster editor)to begin with. If someone takes it upon themselves to add then good but that is their own decision.

3#Updates such as tuners and such should be fun to do not a pain to have to listen to everyone whine. You are improving the product. So in other words. We can't keep every whiner happy is not an excuse. You can take a survey then fix the most dominant complaints.

4# Quit blaming everything but yourselves. This year the LGBT community caused us to hate EA. You are just stupid if you really think this is why the gaming community thinks you suck, and that shows why you are out of touch with the world.

If you made it through cheers just had to shout for a bit.

[onac22]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

For an actual response to the question. I would really like to have the ability to change the colors of my uniforms ala Madden. It would be fun and new to be able to individually change Helmet, glove, jersey, trunks, and sock colors individually.

[gamerk2]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

All the issues here and defenseman need to be fixed, I don't want to just cruise through the neutral zone at all... In actual hockey the defenders will attack while skating backwards with a poke check.

Yeah, this year, they let you basically reach the slot before they try and stop you. Way too passive.

Another problem that could be related to the above problem, is the lack of real seperation of player skills....Im not just talking about distinctions between good and bad players, Im talking more about all the subtle attributes that make up a player's unique profile and play style. In the real NHL, you can instanly see all the nuances of each player's skill sets if you watch them. The NHL 2k series did a wonderful job of creating all these subtle player ratings and attributes and I think the EA series has to do a better job of creating seperation in these subtle player traits on the ice to create a much more dynamic experience

Agreed. I think part of the problem is how the stats work: So many states inter-relate, that you end up with a lot of guys with basically 75-80's across the board. Nevermind the AI isn't smart enough to properly use players based on their abilities.

[gamerk2]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

The biggest problem with EA's NHL for as long as i can remember (and pretty much every ea game) is the skill separation of players. Every player in the game is capable of all the same animations and movements. I think until players are able to skate, shoot, and stick handle differently, we are gonna see alot of the same problems with team differentiation.

I'm going to say this again: APF 2k8 had the right idea. Make the majority of players generic, then highlight what exceptional players do better then league average. Take that system and expand it, allowing positive and negative attributes. Most players can be described simply by saying what they do better and worse then your generic NHL player.

This system easily highlights players that stand out (Wins faceoffs, lacks balance, exceptional turning, etc), and is really easy to code for (always a plus for the developers). Makes more sense then the somewhat aged 0-100 ratings system.

[RLaguna]

Re: NHL 14: Keys to Best Last Year's Effort

give us the ability to play CPU Games on the schedule if we want to like every other sports game!...Such a simple request. I like playing random games from time to time around the schedule in my Franchise mode.



At least give us the option to turn ON or OFF this feature in the GM Settings Screen. like NCAA and MLB The SHOW

PLAY or SIM CPU games