NHL 14: Hockey Ultimate Team Features Revealed

[Steve_OS]

The folks over at EA Sports posted two new pieces of content about NHL 14's Ultimate Team Mode, one a list of features and one a guide to the mode.

NHL 14's Ultimate Team mode, Hockey Ultimate Team, your goal is to create your ideal hockey team from more than 4000 players from leagues around the world. The mode's mantra? One player can change everything.

New this year will be Online Seasons where players will compete in games in a series of leagues with a promotion and relegation system. Win a lot and be bumped up to tougher competition, win a little and find yourself relegated to a lower league.

Also new this year will be the new Auction Assistant which will help inform your decisions on players. Player Item Tiers are also debuting this year, where all players are separated into three tiers depending on their skill level.

There is a lot more on Hockey Ultimate Team on EA's site. Be sure to check it out and read about all the new details for yourself.

What do you think of the new Hockey Ultimate Team features this year?

[chrisphil1724]

I would have liked to see a form of the salary cap return but I could be in the minority. All the things they did add are minor but seasons is nice to see.

[RedVikings]

How will the auction assist affect making a profit and the economy?

[06woz]

Does contracts coming back mean we will see real training coming back.

[drewst18]

Contracts were never gone?

[Garism]

Good that they revamped the packs system with bronze, silver, and gold having specific players.

Auction assistant will be hard though for the economy game. Really hard to buy low sell high..

EDIT: Now this is what I like. Though it should be for Be A Pro too:

You can now earn EA Pucks for completing games in game modes besides Hockey Ultimate Team, like Play Now or Online Versus mode. Pucks are earned based on performance in each game. Pucks can then be redeemed for use in Hockey Ultimate Team.

[ericromain]

I really loved HUT in NHL 11. I played it so much and no other mode. I loved the challenge of managing the salary cap, and being forced to manage OHLers in my 3rd and 4th lines. NHL players in the card packs were rare and worth the excitement of saving up for the more premium packs. I eventually worked me way up to a solid 2.5 lines of NHL players though they were mostly 2nd and 3rd line NHL talent, but it was a challenge for me, and a very satisfying endeavor. Not only that, playing the euro players and CHL guys helped me become familiar with a lot of players i hadn't previously.

Then NHL 12 came out and i felt they completely dumbed down the game mode. Myself and everyone had a roster packed with NHL talent by the end of the first week. The challenge of the mode that kept me into felt like it was gone. I don't think i touched it in 13, maybe i'll try it again this year just to see what's going on.