NHL 12 News Post

Explaining NHL 12's Attribute System

11:03 AM - December 1, 2011 by RaychelSnr

Sports games, sadly, no longer come with instruction manuals. While ratings like "Slap Shot Power" need no written explanation, figuring out what attributes like "Aggressiveness" actually do on the ice can be confusing.

Buried deep within NHL 12's maze of menus, players can find detailed explanations for most of the game's attributes. Consider this ratings guide as part of the "written manual" that NHL 12 should have come with.

Read More - Explaining NHL 12's Attribute System

Game: NHL 12Reader Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 26 - View All

NHL 12 Videos

Member Comments

# 1 bubs3141 @ 12/01/11 12:07 PM

this was great. Now can someone do one for sliders just like this. Please

# 2 bigbob @ 12/01/11 02:27 PM

Great stuff Jayson Young. Definitely something that will answer a lot of questions a lot of people had.

# 3 wankman69 @ 12/01/11 05:06 PM

helpful post.

# 4 savoie2006 @ 12/01/11 06:28 PM

All these are in the game under the help menu and have been the last couple years FYI.

# 5 plaidchuck @ 12/02/11 09:43 AM

So this pretty much confirms what people have thought for a while about strength, balance and offensive awareness. The question is though, what wins out when you have someone with a 99 passing up against a Dman with 99 defensive awareness, pure 50% chance or what? And also is high aggression really worth it or is the intimidation effect trivial compared to points you could spend elsewhere?

# 6 AllJuicedUp @ 12/02/11 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by savoie2006


	All these are in the game under the help menu and have been the last couple years FYI.

lol yeah, this is literally word for word out of the in game help menu.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed this didn't go into more depth regarding what ratings, how they interact, and what else they appear to do outside of EA's few descriptions. Heck, if I could just take EA's little blurbs at face value, sliders would be a hell of a lot easier to adjust in all EA games than they currently are :P

# 7 speels @ 12/02/11 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllJuicedUp


	lol yeah, this is literally word for word out of the in game help menu. Personally, I'm a little disappointed this didn't go into more depth regarding what ratings, how they interact, and what else they appear to do outside of EA's few descriptions. Heck, if I could just take EA's little blurbs at face value, sliders would be a hell of a lot easier to adjust in all EA games than they currently are :P

I think the problem is that EA has not released that other information about how they interact and what else they appear to do. I think the OP was just putting this out there for people that don't read these things in the game.

Could you imagine how great it would be if we knew exactly how attributes interacted with eachother and what the exactly influenced. We could make a legit roster update, that we can't share over the PS3 of course, that would make this game even better.

# 8 AllJuicedUp @ 12/02/11 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plaidchuck


	So this pretty much confirms what people have thought for a while about strength, balance and offensive awareness. The question is though, what wins out when you have someone with a 99 passing up against a Dman with 99 defensive awareness, pure 50% chance or what? And also is high aggression really worth it or is the intimidation effect trivial compared to points you could spend elsewhere?

I'd say both questions depend on a number of other factors. 99 passing vs 99 D awareness, what is the positioning of the defender, how long did the passer hold down the passing button, where it the guy who's supposed to be receiving the pass, is the defender holding down vision control, etc. I think you're making it out to be too black and white.

Either way, does the exact percentage matter? Just know that turning up the d awareness will increase the chance of breaking up passes while high passing will decrease the chance of a pass being broken up.

As for intimidation and its worth, that is a very subjective question. I'd say the answer depends on your style of play, your player build, your teammates, etc. It's not really possible to answer that on a forum, I'd say just go out there and try it and see if you notice a difference.

To me, intimidation has the same type of effect as slight lag. It's not necessarily noticable, but sometimes if feels like you're fighting an uphill (or downhill) battle. Your pokes don't work, you loose the puck seemingly for no reason, players bounce off checks, you get beat picking up loose pucks all game even though you seemed to get their first, etc... its not as extreme an effect as it was in 11, but it still can have value when used in the right situations.

# 9 jyoung @ 12/03/11 01:54 PM

Funny thing is, if you go back and play the Genesis NHL games, guys like Mike Modano, Sergei Fedorov and Teemu Selanne were absolute beasts who could dominate a game.

The individual player ratings in the Genesis NHL games ranged for 40 overall to 99 overall.

Now there's basically nobody in these new NHL games rated under a 70 overall, and only a few players are in the low 90s.

The ratings have definitely become way too clumped together, and the result is all the players in the game play pretty much the same.

# 10 Fiddy @ 12/03/11 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealmK


	This here I agree with. The largest reason alot of players still feel the same even with their "adaptive AI traits system" Is ratings aren't spread out enough. I think a few of us have been hammering on about this for a while now.

yup, hammering about it for 4 years or so, and as usual they (ea) ignore it.

# 11 speels @ 12/03/11 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wEEman33


	Funny thing is, if you go back and play the Genesis NHL games, guys like Mike Modano, Sergei Fedorov and Teemu Selanne were absolute beasts who could dominate a game. The individual player ratings in the Genesis NHL games ranged for 40 overall to 99 overall. Now there's basically nobody in these new NHL games rated under a 70 overall, and only a few players are in the low 90s. The ratings have definitely become way too clumped together, and the result is all the players in the game play pretty much the same.

Okay. I agree, but let's say the lowest rated NHL player is rated 40, what about WHL player??? Or for that matter an AHL player that will never make the NHL. People forget that the ratings differentiation had to get smaller with the lower leagues added to the game. Not defending EA, but all sports games. Back in the Genesis days they could have a greater spread because they only worried about one league, the NHL, but now you have feeder leagues, other professional league, etc so that difference in the NHL had to drop to allow for those leagues to be added to the game.

# 12 Frost33 @ 12/06/11 10:50 AM

Wouldn't it be possible to make a sliding rating system depending on which league you play in? So say you're a 90 in the WHL, but that would only translate to a 75 in the NHL or something like that?

# 13 Frost33 @ 12/06/11 10:53 AM

I agree Rogie, where is the goalie love in that post? I can't find anywhere what stats will help the most for my goalie. Kinda frustrating, especially the athletic area.

# 14 Double-J @ 12/07/11 11:01 AM

Did we ever establish what 'poise' does as an attribute?

# 15 jyoung @ 12/07/11 05:07 PM

"Poise" is an interesting attribute.

Created Be a Pro players don't have the attribute. It's only given to default roster players.

I could't find any info on poise anywhere.

Maybe it's the NHL series' equivalent of "clutch," which activates in the 3rd period when the game is on the line??

# 16 AirForce117 @ 01/13/12 03:00 PM

How about EA lets all players (in club) receive a rating of 99? That way the playing field will be completely level, and the outcome of games will be solely based on the person(s) holding the controller.

More Links

Explaining NHL 12's Attribute System