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    Friday, June 11, 2021

    Home Unlabelled EA Sports NHL This game is broken. Success, failure, stupidity. @easports, hire me, I have nearly 20 years of testing this series and have seen everything.

    EA Sports NHL This game is broken. Success, failure, stupidity. @easports, hire me, I have nearly 20 years of testing this series and have seen everything.

    June 11, 2021

    EA Sports NHL This game is broken. Success, failure, stupidity. @easports, hire me, I have nearly 20 years of testing this series and have seen everything.

    This game is broken. Success, failure, stupidity. @easports, hire me, I have nearly 20 years of testing this series and have seen everything.

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 07:14 PM PDT

    Steal?

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 08:34 AM PDT

    When the mascot comes up clutch!

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 05:43 PM PDT

    Drop-Ins and How to Fix It

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 11:59 AM PDT

    EASHL can be really fun and is definitely the best way to enjoy playing actual hockey in the game. However, the more casual game-mode of Drop-ins is nothing but an exercise in frustration with glimpses of fun. While it's easy to just say Drop-Ins suck (and most do), I feel that most miss the main reason as to why it does. Most complain about the cheese, trolling, cross-creases, bad AI, quitting, etc. And while those are all certainly issues, they are not the main reason and simply exacerbated by the true culprit; endless waiting.

    I'm not a game designer but I have noticed that many games nowadays have a design philosophy of keeping your attention engaged at all times and have something to do however miniscule. EA NHL takes the exact opposite approach and wants the player to be stimulated as little as possible. The game design seems to be centered upon waiting.

    We all know about the terrible load times the game has so I won't go into much depth but I will touch upon the terrible design of the menus which only exacerbate the problem. After slogging through the menus and selecting your position (God forbid you accidentally click the wrong position and have to load back in), you are met with your character simply standing in an endless void. You can't control them or move them around, you can't change your uni, you can't do much of anything besides sit and stare and the countdown timer. You simply wait for the lobby to fill up while some really cool guy rips a bong unnecessarily loud into his mic like the really cool guy his is.

    When you do finally get into the game excited to have a full 6x6, the game is seemingly obsessed with stopping play and fading to black. Any chance the game has, it will stop the play, show a replay, and fade to black to the next faceoff. Goalie covers the puck, offsides, puck out of bounds, icing, goal, etc. you are forced to sit through a 5 - 10 second pause in the action. That really adds up.

    That is all somewhat bearable but the real perpetrators are the pauses, fights, intermissions, and penalties. I don't know anyone who likes fights and all they do is literally waste time. It's not fun for anyone and the main troll tactic I see used. Penalties, while certainly needed, DO NOT need to be shown a replay of and have two cutscenes for. Intermissions are a fine little break but have the worst interface imaginable. Why can you not see your stats easily and why, if you click resume, you are locked out of all stats and replays and forced to look at a black screen with your teammates profiles? Who in their right minds thought that was a good idea? Furthermore, the terrible highlights that will play if everyone doesn't skip and for some reason don't count towards the 30 second break.

    In a vacuum and by themselves, these seem like ridiculous complaints. Like really? You can't stand being forced to watch the ref call a tripping penalty? And you'd be right. By themselves, it's really miniscule but all together it's simply terribly frustrating and only compounds the anxiety that comes from the gameplay mechanics themselves. Stress and anxiety are known to make wait times feel even longer and I'm of the opinion that they are the main reasons for people dropping out of games.

    No one wants to see replays of the other team scoring or their team cellying, no one wants to be left to ruminate over their dumbass teammate skating offsides, no one wants the goalie who covers the puck every time. People just want to play hockey, they don't need the presentation of a "realistic" hockey game. Every time the game pauses, shows replays, cuts to the ref, etc. it allows the already frustrated player to ruminate in their frustration and directly leads to people dropping out.

    So how does EA fix it? Quite simply just strip away everything that takes up unnecessary time. Anytime the game fades to black to reset to a faceoff, get rid of it. Have it so the players all automatically skate back to the appropriate faceoff dot in one shot (similar to throw-ins in FIFA). Hell, even if it takes a similar amount of time, the psychological impact of keeping a continuous feeling of action is massive to the player's enjoyment.

    Trip someone? Get sent to the box right away with the reasoning and player name given and get set to drop the puck. I repeat, NO ONE cares to see xxxbluntboi69 trip a guy for the 5th time. It will simply be the final straw for a player to quit out of the game. If a goalie covers the puck, instead of making him feel like an asshole for wasting everyone's time, simply have the ref skate over, grab the puck, and everyone reset to the faceoff dot. Again, the importance of visual continuity cannot be overstated.

    Sorry for the absolute wall of text but the main point being, Drop-Ins is meant to be casual. A representation of pond hockey, so please for the love of God, EA, try to trim the fat and make it an actual casual game of fast-paced (meaning, as short of stoppages in play as possible) pond-hockey. Right now, it's no different than BAP which is simply an exercise in frustration.

    submitted by /u/RandomBrownsFan
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    Master List for players chemistry

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 09:24 PM PDT

    Is there a way to figure out a players Scheme before you trade for them, besides the scouting which says "forward line 1, all power play lines", because that has been wrong for a majority of the time. Just was curious if there happened to be a master list for existing players scheme tendencies. Makes trading so much more annoying when you get the trade and they don't work one bit

    submitted by /u/SnazzyCazzy1
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    why does the name have a different name

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 09:11 PM PDT

    Biggest flaw

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 09:26 AM PDT

    This year finally seems like an upgrade over the previous year which isnt always the case, I'll admit that.

    Here's my problem, they keep upgrading the meta of scoring off the rush or transition, it really is better this year on an odd man.

    EA fails at depth when offenses actually set up. But IRL half of hockey is now about battling for positioning in small areas (down in the corners/in front of the net). This is why it's so hard for dmen to get involved in the offense zone in 6v6 drop in. It's better in club sure but even the guys who don't have 5'7" dudes and are making builds that at best they're just hoping their puck control will win the dice roll when they get poked or their teammates will get open quick enough to not get pushed off the puck.

    There literally is no non random aspects to battling for positioning in tight quarters so you cant add what I at least think would be awesome meta like pushing off a defender at exactly the right moment to one time a pass to you or getting your hands free to tip a shot coming from your dman.

    I just want more a more realistic game. Adding this would make it possible to do a much better job of representing why players like Ryan Reaves is effective on a forecheck or why Thomas Holmstrom was an effective player even though he could barely skate.

    submitted by /u/AmericaRunzOnDuncan
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    The Weekend League Ranking EASHL

    Posted: 11 Jun 2021 10:14 AM PDT

    Is there any ranking behind the matchmaking of the weekend league in EASHL? My team sits around 20-21k and we constantly get matched with teams who are 26k+ and get slaughtered. It also counts against our record? I'm just wondering if there's a reason we aren't matched with players around our skill level.

    submitted by /u/Uncle_Cindy
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