NHL 15: EASHL Fail

The game I was most looking forward to this year was NHL 15 on Xbox One. The though of a better engine and crisper graphics combined with the ability to stream to Twitch or just grab highlights on the go seemed like the breath of fresh air the series needed. As it turns out this was not to be. EA decided to leave EASHL (and other modes) out of next gen in favor of overhauling the presentation, crowds, and arenas.

In my professional life I do custom application development. This decision from EA is like getting a complaint from a client that their application is running slowly and responding by prettying up the UI. If we did something like that we would be fired. It is difficult to fire EA because there are zero alternatives for NHL games. What I did though was I got EA Access refunded and am not buying NHL 15 on next gen. I would encourage you to do the same.

However, the story doesn't end there. EA happily informed us we could still play EASHL on last gen. Reluctantly, my teammates and I resolved ourselves to the disappointment and decided to suffer another year in the 360 ghetto to play the only must have feature of the NHL series. At this point I think things are about as bad as they are going to get.

I was wrong. As you can see by watching that video they have basically taken NHL 14 and changed the logo to NHL 15 and forced you to look a Bergeron all the time in the menus. I am grabbing the pre-release as I write this to confirm myself but at this point I am not inclined to keep my NHL 15 pre-order for 360. If the gameplay is still exactly the same as 14 then why play it or more importantly *pay* for it.

I will be commenting on Twitter as I try out 15 on the 360 this weekend. I may follow up a with a blog post but it is looking like this may be a lost year for the NHL series. I can see my team just staying with 14 and then maybe upgrading to next gen if they follow through with their promise of implementing OTP in a future patch. But I could just see waiting for NHL 16 as well.

NHL 13: Overall Player Grade Calculator

One of the most frustrating aspects of playing NHL 13 in drop in games or the EASHL is the grading system EA has implemented. To make matters worse EA started to average your grades across all three forward positions and defense. This means that you may have the grade you need at three of your four positions but those two sloppy games you played in OTP at center where you lost every faceoff are holding you back. To this end Phil Rindone has created a spreadsheet you can find here that has boxes for all of the positions and what level you have in each metric (positioning, team play, statistics). What this will do is let you plug in your levels for all of your positions and your games played at each and come up with your overall grade. Then what you can do is adjust the levels and games played to see how to get your grade where you want it to be.

NHL 13: Things to Fix for NHL 14

NHL 13 is definitely a better game when you always use human goalies. This has the drawback of needing at least four people to play (in my mind 2v2 with human goalies is pretty terrible). There are, however, a number of things the NHL team really needs to clean up in the next version. Some of these I have mentioned but I figured pulling them together in one post would be useful.

Here is my list in no particular order:

• AI Goalies -- They are just too good. They stop chances that should be nearly sure goals 90+% of the time which is highly unrealistic. It turns the game into a low skill throw the puck at the net and hope kind of game play. 
• AI hitting -- The AI is far too good at hitting and can knock you down at the drop of a hat even if you are 6'3" 225lbs with 85 balance and 13" skates. They shouldn't be pushovers but they shouldn't be able to hit like they do.
• AI passing -- The AI is terrible at passing when you call for it and can't complete a 5 or 10 foot pass at times. Pee wees can complete these passes. Much like they need to tone down the hitting they need to up the competency of short passing for the AI.
• AI decision making -- please stop the AI defense from walking right in front of the goal on defensive zone draws. This has been happening for years and no defender in any league does this.
• Hitting from behind while skating away from someone full speed -- this needs to go away, if I am skating full speed away from someone and they are slightly faster than me they should not be able to knock me down from behind. There is no physics model that supports that. Mind you this has happened to me playing grinder at 6'195lbs and 80 balance and 70 strength.
• Hitting in general -- hitting in general is way too effective and there are far too many teams that just run around like idiots and hit all game and never get penalized enough for it. And god forbid you give them the first goal the (non-existent according to EA) momentum plus intimidation means suddenly your team can't hit an empty net now. It needs to be toned down and more calls need to be made for illegal hits.
• Incidental contact -- With the new skating model people can skate right into opponents and stop their momentum with no call. While I don't think it should be called 100% of the time I do think interference needs to be called enough to dissuade people from doing this all the time. I don't mind some body contact while skating the same direction but when people meet from opposite directions I think there needs to be calls at least some of the time.
• Amount of low skill random goals -- even with human goalies the percentage of low skill pinball goals is way too high. I really think the game needs to reward skill more rather than rewarding slop like it does now. Over half the goals scored against us are just terrible low skill goals.
• Changing face off handedness right before puck drop -- This is a problem that has been around since the series started. How this hasn't been fixed by now I don't know. If you change your faceoff grip less than a second before the puck drops you should lose every time yet they reward cheating.
• Passing -- the passing in this version is really all over the place, it is muddy and imprecise even with high end passing. I preferred the cleaner passing of NHL 12.

When you combine the muddy passing, improved ability to knock down passes on defense (I like this), and the crazy AI goalies you end up with a lot of low skill luck goals. This is a general problem I have with game companies that do balance changes from year to year or even patch to patch. Every single one of them instead of just toning something down a little they go overboard and make whatever they were trying to fix totally useless. The one timer is a great example. Before it was probably 80% effective which was too high. What they should have done was get it to around 30% effectiveness like in real hockey. Instead they have made it less than 10% effective which renders it no better than any other shot (a lot of times worse) and not worth trying against the AI.

Anyway, I am sure a lot of you have other things you want fixed in the next version. Throw them in the comments so we can discuss them.

NHL 13: First Game Back

I realize this is a bit granular but I decided to hop in Online Team Play (OTP) just to see if anything had changed and honestly not a lot has. I know you are saying OTP is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and I agree but nothing happened that was an OTP specific problem. Players played their positions for the most part, played defense, tried to pass, etc. We did have multiple players quit after the first goal but everything can't be perfect. The main game was mostly five of us against two or three of them with CPU goalies.

So off the get go I am playing center and the opposing center is doing the hitching cheat faceoff that EA can't seem to fix (incredibly lazy this is still an issue). It took me a while to adjust but I managed to battle the guy to a draw on the faceoffs (I am normally like 65% in club, I blame rustiness and of course the other guy cheating). We outchanced the other team about 30 to 5 and I managed an assist (double rebound netmouth scramble so no skill involved) and a tip in goal (decent positioning but obviously a bit lucky). That was it for our scoring. I don't remember the other team's first goal but the 2nd was on a quick turnover in our zone that a CPU forward shot past our goalie from like the dot (no skill at all). The game went to three overtimes (because why wouldn't it?) and the game winning goal was a 5 hole goal off of a rebound from around the dot (no skill).

So just to summarize we outchanced the other team badly and lost in triple OT and 4 of the 5 goals in 5+ periods of hockey were not skill based. If it's in the game it's in the game.

I will try to play some with my club when I can get them back together but it is looking like play human goalies or just give up for this year because trying to score against the CPU is just laughably bad.

NHL 13: The Return of the Dead Puck Era

Note: I meant to publish this back in November but I have had to deal with some family issues so it never happened. I am putting it out now because I still think it is worthwhile.

-------------------------------------

Back in the early 1990s up until the 2004 lockout the NHL went through a period of decreased offensive output known as the dead puck era. This time was epitomized by the play of the New Jersey Devils trapping their way to three Stanley Cups. The Devils would choke teams into submission and win games 1-0 or 2-1. Not to take away anything from Devils fans but this was dull unwatchable hockey for everyone else.

This year EA has managed to bring back the slog of those years with NHL 13. I have given them time to make a patch and put in multiple tuner sets to adjust the goalies but this is clearly the game they want us to play. A game where in our October playoff run our last three games ended up 2-1 in 4 overtimes (OT), 1-0 (3OT), and 2-1 (2OT). We got the banner but honestly we were wrung out and it was absolutely zero fun. I would say nearly all of those goals scored in the last three games (by both teams) were cheap rebound goals off of weak wrist shots from bad angles. Real chances including cross creases, solo shots from inside the hash marks, and shots off of nice passing plays in general were shut down like pregame warm up shots.

It is to the point where we crack jokes when we score a goal that looks like an actual hockey goal every two or three games. It it always something along the lines of, "Someone call EA they need to patch that out because it looks like hockey". I get that they don't want automatic goals but the percentages of high quality scoring chances that get stopped are not even close to realistic. The fantastic site behindthenet.ca had a really great post on NHL shooting percentages from particular zones on the ice. As you can see from the plot  shots from below the hashmarks range from 15-35% effective. I haven't run the numbers but I would venture a guess that shots from those areas in NHL 13 are roughly 10% or less effective outside of breakaways. I would happily take good shots from that close in going in at 15-35%. Even worse in NHL 13 it seems to be random what goes in. Last night we had two shots from outside the hashmarks at 45 degree angles go in opposite side. Given that the goalie regularly stuffs 2-1s with perfect passes I have to call those both weak goals. This leads to the impression that scoring and winning is random.

So can teams be good at this game? Sure better teams find a way to win and we have been ranked as high as in the top 100 at times but our method is by playing crazy suffocating defense, letting super goalie clean up most of our mistakes, throwing tons of shots on goal hoping for rebound goals, and springing people for breakaways. I have heard it said the word fun doesn't mean anything and it is lazy to use it. However, in this case, what EA has given us is not fun.

What does this mean for me? I think I am close to being done with NHL 13. I am not sure if I am going back to 12 or just playing other games but as of right now the game feels more like work than entertainment at this point. The joy of setting up beautiful passing plays to score goals just doesn't exist anymore. We don't pass on a two on none anymore because the higher percentage play is shooting it yourself. That, in a nutshell, is an all encompassing  indictment of how NHL 13 has failed us.

-------------------------------------

That was how I was feeling back in November. We are actually thinking about starting up again and our plan going forward is to never play with fewer than 4 players and always use a human goalie. That should fix most of the issues we have with the game.

NHL 13: Open Letter to EA

Dear EA,

I like a lot of what you have done with NHL 13. The new skating is great and small guys can't run over guys twice their size now so those are both good. Despite the fact I really enjoy the cross crease I like the fact you have made it not automatic like every version before. I like the new matchmaking system and the penalty for backing out. I like that playing defense is easier overall and not just because of the crazy goalies (more on that in a bit).

There are some problems though. While making the cross crease less effective is something to strive for making it less effective than a wrist shot from the top of the circles is not. There is almost zero reason to pass the puck to set a guy up for a one timer anymore. There are basically three semi-reliable ways to score against cpu goalies now. Rebounds, cannon toe drags, and breakaways. Not saying other methods don't work ever but honestly those are the high percentage options and what everyone goes to. Make the cross crease 50% effective not 10% (I would even take 30%). It is already far harder to get passes through in the first place with the active sticks (something else I like) so at least reward people who manage to do it.

Another problem is passing. The passing stat seems to do basically nothing this year from what I can tell. I can make the same passes and have my passes screw up the same way with 70 passing as my center running 95. The fact the passing is so wonky combined with the lack of one timers working results in many fewer passes. This is especially true in the offensive zone where you are mostly better off trying to score solo or generate a rebound rather than setup another one timer that either gets picked off or magic goalie stops.

Then there is the fact that cpu goalies and even human goalies tend to let in the worst possible shots despite being in position. You setup five beautiful three player passing plays that should leave the goalie scrambling for cover but he calmly knocks the chance away. Next time down the ice you throw a weak wrister from the goal line and it is in the net. I don't mind some variability in scoring but this amount is unreasonable.

The new pokecheck is amazing but seriously overpowered. It needs to be toned down just a bit. I appreciate it a lot playing defense but it is annoying when trying to score. It also leads to less setup in the offensive zone because most players are worried about losing the puck constantly.

I would harp on penalties here but it seems like the latest tuner has made the officials actually call interference and boarding more often. I do think the incidental contact needs to generate penalties though. A lot of people are abusing it.

I think all of these changes have made the game an overall less skill based game. And if not less skill based definitely less team based. It has turned into who can cheese the most wristers or rebounds rather than skillful passing and setting up chances. It rewards 1 on 1 play rather than teamwork. In general people dislike guys going one on one and dancing and trying the toe drag or deke all the time (you guys have even said you don't like this) but this year that is all that happens because passing is a terrible option most of the time.

Thanks for reading and hope you take some of this into account when planning future tuners and patches.

Sincerely,

Xaroc

NHL 13: Attribute Maximums

As I mentioned in my first impressions there are caps on certain attributes for different player types. EA was kind enough to list them here. I reformatted them into something readable and put them up here for your enjoyment.

A couple of quick thoughts on this:

• Effectively the max on any attribute is 95 (no one will bother with using +1 boosts since it is counter productive).
• For center if you want the highest faceoffs you have to run Two Way Forward or Grinder. Playmaker comes in 3 points behind and I think the rest you can just throw out the window as far as center is concerned.
• Fastest skater looks to be the Grinder on offense and Offensive and Two Way Defender are tied on the backend.
• Max agility is effectively 90 and shared by a few builds. It looks like EA wants you to feel those turns in NHL 13.
• This isn't about the chart per se just an observation but it looks like in general shot power is a lot more important this year than last. I didn't start beating the cpu goalies much at all until I got my shot power up to 84 and higher. I am generally matching power and accuracy this year but I could see going higher power and lower accuracy as well.

NHL 13: First Impressions

This is going to be a pretty quick hit but I just want to go over my first impressions of the game after around 40 games played.

Things I like:

• The new skating engine -- feels good and makes you think about momentum by balancing speed versus turning ability.
• Puck chop -- gives you a quick way to move the puck when someone is bearing down on you during a loose puck pickup.
• Poke check -- easy to take the puck away
• Easier to block passes and shots -- easy to take away passing lanes and stop shots

Things I don't like:

• Extremely hard to score -- this is the hardest it has ever been to score in an NHL game to start and there are multiple reasons
• The goalie are all like Johnathan Quick on crack -- they let in basically nothing aside from rebound put backs.
• The easy of blocking shots and passes -- almost impossible to setup any kind of one timer and even then the goalie gets there 95% of the time.
• Lack of penalties being called -- lots of away from the play interference not being called (this is not in front of the net) and you can board people from behind as much as you want and might get a two minute penalty every once in a long while. I have yet to see a 5 minute major be handed out. I suspect they took it out.
• They put the ability to dive into the goalie and knock the puck loose BACK in -- I am not sure how this happens but they somehow managed to put cheesy behavior back into the game that they had removed last year.
• Might as well take the A button off of your controller on defense -- stick lift is pointless now other than for getting penalties, of course the poke checking being godly makes up for this and more.

Other notes:

• They have added hard caps on attributes per skater type -- for example the max you can get in Discipline on a sniper is 80
• Costs for attributes has changed radically from last year -- poke check jumps up to costing over 100 experience per point for a sniper very quickly

I think as everyone gets more cards and boosts scoring will becomes easier but at this point it is like pulling teeth. I have heard that EA is basically taking the approach that they will make the goalies like gods to start and they tune them back to reality. There was a new tuner set last night and I managed to beat a goalie with a regular shot from the slot so there is hope. Overall it is a pretty solid effort and I am hoping it gets tuned to be better with time.

EA Sports Season Ticket the case for it

I have seen a lot of people talking about how EA Sports Season Ticket doesn't really give you any value for your money. If you just wanted to play Madden 12 early I would say sure $25 is pretty steep for four extra days of Madden. However, if you play in the EA Sports Hockey league the pass was worth it in spades. In the four days of prerelease here is what I did:

• Played 57 games online --  This got my player to Veteran level. I am not sure how to quantify this monetarily but I have always complained about not having games right before weekends and this made the weekend great. 
• Unlocked $40 worth of slots/boosts for my player -- during the prerelease you couldn't purchase DLC at all so I managed to unlock quite a bit. I figure I still need to buy maybe 10 more boosts/slots but even those I get for 20% off.

Other benefits I noticed for retail are if you are into the Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) mode you get an extra 20 slots for player cards (80 vs. 60) and an extra card pack per month until February (worth $1 each). Plus you get 20% off any DLC you buy in that mode as well.

One other hidden value from the Season Ticket was making my decision to not purchase Madden 12 pretty easy. That saved me $60 right there.

So let's throw some math together on all of this.

-$25 for the Season Ticket

+$10 for getting to play NHL early (this is pretty conservative for me)

+$40 in boosts unlocked

+$4 for savings on boosts

+$60 for not buying Madden 12

+$6 for free card packs in HUT (probably wouldn't have bought them but hey)

----------

$95

That is a ton of value. Even if you throw out the Madden decision and HUT packs you are still looking at a net benefit of $29.

Update: Found out the free HUT card packs are roughly equivalent to the $1 12 card packs.

The Fall of NHL2k

I missed this last week but it culminates a complete reversal of fortune for a company that at one point had the best hockey game around. For me around the time NHL 2003 and it's slapstick commentary and loose arcadey controls arrived is when the balance of power tipped. I was disappointed in EA, they seemed to be mailing it in, there were few new features and the gameplay was slipping badly. It was hockey in name only.

EA had no competition until this upstart company 2k released several competitive sports titles for the Dreamcast including a couple of iterations of their hockey game NHL 2k and NHL 2k2. I had not played either extensively but both got pretty good word of mouth. NHL 2k3 came out in fall of 2002 and looking for a change I picked it up for my Xbox. It was a revelation. It looked and played like real hockey. It wasn't perfect but it was far better than NHL 2003. Defensemen would cover the points so you could drop it back to them on the power play. The controls were tight and the speed of the game was right on. I was sold. 2k had by far the better game and I was not looking back.

For the next three years 2k innovated adding great new features like lift passes, online co-op, and online leagues with web based stats tracking. The basic gameplay was tweaked and refined while EA seemed stuck in the mud. 2k5 was one of the best hockey games ever made and sold for a bargain basement price of $20. 2k6 slightly tweaked the formula but was good as well. 2k was on top and it seemed they could do no wrong.

Meanwhile EA was losing market share in a big way. I don't know the exact numbers but it was bad enough that when the Xbox 360 came out EA did not put NHL 06 on it. They took a year off to regroup and revamp the franchise.

In the fall of 2006 2k released NHL2k7. It was a prettier version of 2k6 and an all all around solid hockey game but really not much different than 2k5. Was 2k getting complacent? EA apparently thought so and answered with the Skill Stick in NHL 07. The Skill Stick was a new way of controlling your hockey player. The left stick moved the player and the right stick controlled the stick. It was revolutionary and dynamic and most importantly intuitive. As it turns out NHL 07 was a middling game but with an incredible mechanic that made it fun to play. As the season wore on I found myself drawn to NHL 07 over 2k7.

In 2007 both teams readied their yearly releases and rumors were that 2k had put in their own skill stick like controls. But when the demos hit 2ks skill stick system was cumbersome and unintuitive while NHLs had been even more refined. Also, the overall gameplay, graphics, and animations for NHL 08 were much improved making it the clear winner. At the point it was released I called NHL 08 the best hockey game I had ever played.

2k was in pretty bad shape heading into 2008 they were clearly chasing EA again and there were no rumors of any killer features for their new version. Meanwhile EA was poised to go for the jugular. 2k9 may have been a decent game I am not sure anyone knows because for NHL 09 EA launched the EA Sports Hockey League (EASHL). This allowed you to create your own player, form your own teams, and play against other teams of human players in up to 6 vs. 6 play. This was the dagger in 2k's chest. EA had managed to take the best hockey game of all time and take it to an entirely new level. In one year.

In 2009 EA released NHL 10 and added a bunch of microtransactional bullshit to the game but improved gameplay again. Meanwhile 2k with NHL 2k10 did nothing to counter the EASHL, signed Alex Ovechkin to be the cover star, and were the only company to release a game for the Wii. It was clearly not enough as next year they will just release a Wii version of the game and skip the 360 and PS3.

Is this the end for the NHL 2k series? I would like to think no. They are certainly at rock bottom. Being relegated to the the Wii is like being kicked to the kiddie table at Thanksgiving. Despite this I believe there are opportunities in the online hockey league space. EA certainly garnered some ill will from adding almost mandatory microtransactions to NHL 10. Players mostly put up with it because the game is good but if there were an alternative without microtransactions I am sure a lot of players would at least take a look. I for one am hoping 2k is revamping much like EA did for NHL 07 and that NHL 2k12 is something special.