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Originally Posted by Money99 |
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I agree, but aren't gameplay and AI attached at the hip?
If the AI is dumb, the gameplay suffers. Just like if the physics and mechanics are poor, but AI is awesome, again, the gameplay suffers.
In that regard, the gameplay needs a LOT of work.
I may also be in the minority (by a large margin I presume), but I've kind of cooled on the skillstick. I think it's taken away from the overall gameplay.
If someone is great with the stick, then everyone is a superstar on the ice.
But if you're bad with the controls, every player turns into a grunt.
I'm a terrible gamer. Because of this, when I play NHL14, I never feel like I'm awesome when controlling allstars. Datsyuk, Kane or Crosby always resemble a 4th liner when I'm controlling them.
Meanwhile, the CPU is doing outrageous things with scrubs.
In previous hockey titles, the attributes had more to do with how players felt and reacted.
So even poor gamers like me, could make Sakic play like Sakic. In fact, it helped exaggerate the difference in players even more.
That's why I kind of hope they tone down the skill stick for NHL15 and make attributes the primary catalyst in determining whether or not you'll thread a pass, score a goal, or deke the jockstrap off a dman.
I felt NHL2k2 and 2k3 did this very well.
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I totally agree with you. IMO the skill stick brings the realism of the game down quite a bit. Once the luster of the controls wore off, I started noticing how unrealistic it was. It's probably the most innovative controls we've ever seen in a sports franchise and made the game fun as all heck. Hell after EA introduced it in 07 it seemed like every game tried copying or coming up with their own sort of skill stick. However when you break it down the skill stick is pretty bad when you compare it to real stick handling or puck control. There's absolutely no question it can be made more realistic and they don't even having to change the control scheme. It's just tuning how far a guy can reach with the puck, the speed of back and forth stick handling, and switching up the moves.
The stick reach of the players is just way too far. You rarely ever see players stick handle with the puck way outside of their body like that. Most players keep the puck within themselves (so they can keep skating full stride) and make a move off of that. That's how you keep control. Next is the moves they have in the game. I think they need to switch them up. Players jumping over other players while keeping control of the puck happens very very rarely, but can be pulled off in the game often. The same goes for some of the other moves in the game. Anyway the main part is EA just needs to limit the stick handling reach of the players and also make a cutoff where Superstar players have the ability to pull off every move, where a guy like Kyle Clifford can only stick handle back and forth and the rest of the moves are disabled for him.
I think EA should really pay attention to game one last night. It had everything that needs to be replicated in the game. Example one, Doughty's move. That's a realistic move that NHL players pull off. The puck between the legs is rare that players pull it off, but it's a move that is very commonly used by the top players. Next is Clifford's goal. That's the definition of a grinder goal. Just crashing the net. EA has Pouliot and Hagelin type goals in the game already, but they need to differentiate that speed between players who can do it. In the game basically everyone can do it, but really it should be the guys with the best speed. We saw Hagelin all night blow past guys. He should be one of the few players in the game that can do that, but in the right situations. I'm not saying the devs don't watch the sport, but they can learn a lot by just sitting down and watching the game and seeing what things happen often and what things happen extremely rarely.
What I'm trying to say is look at the things EA has added the past few years. One year there were two goalie fights so EA says let's add that. Another year they add the jumping over bodies move because I think Stamkos or Datsyuk pulled it off once that year. There's probably two or three goalie fights a year and the jumping move has happened probably a handful of times in the history of the NHL. It's fine they add these things, but they need to do it after they add in the most commonly seen things.