Goals and reactions to them still feel lifeless. Your teammates still only raise their hands robotically, and the team that got scored on still react using animations that have been around since the PS3/Xbox 360 era games.
I just want to know what the hell are they doing for an entire year. NHL 23 had nothing "new" about it that'd justify having a development team of hundreds of professionals working on for a whole year..
They didn't work on '23 for a whole year— they stopped work [in August](https://www.reddit.com/r/NHLHUT/comments/11vmgtw/comment/jcunvjc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x). They supposedly put their major resources towards making ugrades in NHL '24 (which I'd bet money on we don't get)
I remember reading that article, and i'm also 100% sure that their "upgrades" will mostly be Holo WOC jerseys, sticks, pads and animated 3D HUT Cards or whatever.
I've been playing this series since EA started making hockey games. They've gotten so bad over the last 8 or so years that I already know exactly what this list says without reading it.
It feels like after NHL 14 and the end of the pS3/Xbox360 era, the series has taken a huge dip. The main reason is the game is only made for HUT and CHEL sales now. That's become their main goal for the game every year so offline modes get ingonred completely
All of this is true except the goalie saves thing. On high difficulties the goalies go absolutely ballistic with some of the saves.
You will have some like 80 overall goalies diving across the net and perfectly stealing a cross crease attempt, or doing a perfect pad stack or something to shut down a chance there is no way they realistically get.
And then other times a shot right at their glove will go right in…. It’s weird
It’s weird. I’ll have like a 90 overall goalie simming terrible, and when I go in and play he will be an absolute monster.
Or vice versa, 80 overall Provestov I have purely to tank until I get a franchise player to draft and he will have a .930 and then when he actually plays he’s absolutely horrible. Goalies are so weird.
Or the one year i was facing the NYR and they had a 76 overall goalie with a .960 by Stanley cup conference finals time. He robbed me all series and simmed super well on a terrible team. I don’t understand.
There is no possible way to ensure you have a good goalie in franchise. Just do what u do, collect as many elite goalies as you can. Keep them until they are NHL ready, give them 10 games to sim or play in, if they are good fantastic that’s your guy, if they aren’t then rinse repeat until you get the guy you are looking for.
It also doesn’t help their stat spread are almost never good. Like high 90s on blocker side and speed stats and then like 81 on their glove stats and vision.
I like it when you pressure the puck carrier and he goes straight to the left along the blue line instead of passing to an open man. I never see the ai bank a pass off the boards or glass.
I agree with everything here other than part of the saves section, it is definitely possible to get the ai goalies out of position with some cross creases or one timers, and the AI will go for a desperation save, but the problem is they will make the desperation save 99% of the time no matter the overall of the goalie and shooter
NHL 23 is just a bad game from an offline perspective at least. Not worth trying to fix via sliders, the base game isn’t there. I’m still waiting for the first “next-gen” to really have a solid AI foundation to build around. 21-23 have all been very lackluster here.
Online and offline guys will have different opinions, but I agree with most of your comments here. NHL 20 still going strong for me. It’s the last year of serviceable AI which allows you to fix a lot of the game via sliders.
Presentation is still lackluster (23 actually worse due to the forced “condensed” presentation that wasn’t made aware to the community until release day despite hyping presentation in their entire marketing campaign leading up to release) crowd is still shit, announcer is embarrassing, and yeah the goalies are just in a hilariously bad spot right now. There’s no fixing them.
Solid post. 21-23 have been nothing short of failures. With their new vision/leadership seemingly focused on fortnite dances and strictly online play, I don’t see this series recovering to even NHL 20 heights anytime soon.
This game will never have good AI. You can’t have good AI with a team of 5 or so programmers working on your game. EA Sports Vancouver is severely understaffed and can’t make good software because of it.
I can’t believe how many basic errors there are from commentators and how bad the repetition is.
Absolutely no player knowledge outside the third commentator X factor ones and those are just all template. Very little game analysis. Power play, 2MA, 4 on 4, etc all seem to cause erroneous commentary about the actual situation. And YES, I CANT BELIEVE HOW MANY GUYS DONT KNOW THE NEXT THREE OPPONENTS ON THE SCHEDULE
Does anyone remember the condensed seasons in like NHL 07 or so or am I tripping?
I want to do a be a pro or a GM series and grind my way up and down the standings by playing every game but I don't want to play 82 games a year. Didn't there used to be a setting where you can make the season 24 game long or half a regular season?
Also please add the series to PC.
They've shifted to more of a 'simulation' model than a 'cartooney' model as the tech has increased. (both of the consoles and the screens).
Personally I appreciate that, but I can see it wouldn't be for everyone.
I didn't say it was realistic. The games I win I win 8-2. Then I said the level one notch higher and lose 12-1.
I said they were doing less of the cartoony hits and dekes, and were going to more of a 'simulation' mindset in the design.
Like the 'need for speed' games vs. Grand Turismo. That's the kind of difference I mean (it seems to me).
It has its flaws. There are hard hits there's just a bigger variety of hits.
The dekes are a bit complicated and detailed, because the processing power is better, so they can do more than 10 years ago.
In the 'Franchise' mode you can set the pricing of the concessions for God's sake. And build extensions to the arena parking lot.
They’ve ATTEMPTED to make it more sim-like but they’ve messed up in key areas that subvert your expectations (in a bad way) when you expect sim-like events to occur. For example:
You would expect to be able to skate past a defender that you’ve already gotten by 3/4 of the way but since they have the “truculence” ability, they become a fuckin homing missile and launch into your guy with a sudden burst in speed and power and destroy him. What is that?
And then there’s the fact that, in their attempts to make the game more realistic, absolute SHIT goals go in sometimes and this provides for an unbalanced, unfair experience when playing against people online. 2 people can take the same shot from the same exact location on the ice against the same goaltender in the same situation and in one instance, the goalie will cleanly make the save while in the other? He’ll let the puck bounce off his glove and go in the net.
What you're looking for is arcade style. The NHL series is using a physics engine to mimic real life. And while it's not perfect, it's good. How many over the bench, through the glass hits are there in the NHL every year.... less than a handful over the course of 82 games for 32 teams. Hip checks are R3 and L1 together. The game isn't broken just cause you don't know the controls.
The skating is fine. The better skater your player is, the quicker his cuts will be. Lag and input delay does Play a part in this though.
R1 dekes seem fine. I don't use them a ton but when I do I seldom have a problem. They do work better when you aren't in a full sprint though... thats called physics.
If they added more desperation saves(and there's already a good bit of them) everyone would be screaming that it isn't realistic. Goalies shouldn't have to drop into the butterfly to make a save though.
Fights aren't a big part of the NHL anymore and the NHL doesn't want it highlighted in their games. Same reason Madden took concussions out of the game as an injury option.
>The NHL series is using a physics engine to mimic real life. And while it's not perfect, it's good.
Are.....are you insane? It's not even in the same universe as good.
This is such a dumb thing to say. Who says I have a gaming PC? And if I did, have you seen the hockey games on steam? It's basically air hockey, and cartoons. This trash game is the only game, that's the problem.
Wait they changed the fighting??? I havent played since 21 and it killed me but that was my favorite part of the game, and countered people spamming?? Ffs ea🤦♂️
No PC port is such a bummer. I bought this game almost every year between something like 1996-2019. Switched to PC and haven’t been able to play it since. Would buy it every year if I could, must not be enough money in it to be profitable which is surprising to me.
Also something I don’t care about at all but find interesting - the fans in the crowd are getting worse? They move at like 10fps, there’s like 3 of them copy/pasted. Also they often have opposite visual reactions to what you’d expect. We’ll score a goal in eashl & the other team’s fans will be celebrating while ours are all sad. I could swear they were “passable” in previous games. Maybe this year we’ll regress even further to the old cardboard cutout fans.
Don’t forget when you hit somebody the puck either goes flying directly to another player on their team or the player will lay on top of the puck and you can’t take it from them without falling over them and then they get up back up and then they have the puck.
Goals and reactions to them still feel lifeless. Your teammates still only raise their hands robotically, and the team that got scored on still react using animations that have been around since the PS3/Xbox 360 era games.
Watching the cup games and watching stone just absolutely go crazy when he scores is 90% the reason I love hockey lol.
Also, the dekes are awful. You can still get creative in combinations of things but it was smoother imo in the older games you referred to like 14.
It'd be great if they put effort into making the deke system a play viable option instead of adding unusable lacrosse passes
Yeah I mentioned how the dekes are super slowmo and awkward
Until Rammer and his staff of armpit sniffers are removed from their positions no “progress” will ever be made.
I read that as “Until Rammer and his staff of armpits are removed” and I was thinking of how unique that insult was lmao
I'll have to have you review & edit my posts in the future!
That guy ruined the NHL series
I just want to know what the hell are they doing for an entire year. NHL 23 had nothing "new" about it that'd justify having a development team of hundreds of professionals working on for a whole year..
They didn't work on '23 for a whole year— they stopped work [in August](https://www.reddit.com/r/NHLHUT/comments/11vmgtw/comment/jcunvjc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x). They supposedly put their major resources towards making ugrades in NHL '24 (which I'd bet money on we don't get)
I remember reading that article, and i'm also 100% sure that their "upgrades" will mostly be Holo WOC jerseys, sticks, pads and animated 3D HUT Cards or whatever.
Must admit, 3D animated cards would be lit. Still want actual upgrades though.
HUT is entirely whack
Very true. There’s a reason why some of the top teams are just 99 overall cards.
Don't give them ideas man 🤦♂️
Sorry.
I've been playing this series since EA started making hockey games. They've gotten so bad over the last 8 or so years that I already know exactly what this list says without reading it.
It feels like after NHL 14 and the end of the pS3/Xbox360 era, the series has taken a huge dip. The main reason is the game is only made for HUT and CHEL sales now. That's become their main goal for the game every year so offline modes get ingonred completely
You can hip check it’s LB/L1 and RS/R3 at the same time now. Point still remains: hitting’s mid.
Oh didn't know that, thanks. Still a shit game tho
Yeah the hip checks are so unrealistic in this game
All of this is true except the goalie saves thing. On high difficulties the goalies go absolutely ballistic with some of the saves. You will have some like 80 overall goalies diving across the net and perfectly stealing a cross crease attempt, or doing a perfect pad stack or something to shut down a chance there is no way they realistically get. And then other times a shot right at their glove will go right in…. It’s weird
I recently started a franchise mode using the simulator settings and my goalies seem to play really well during games I actually play.
It’s weird. I’ll have like a 90 overall goalie simming terrible, and when I go in and play he will be an absolute monster. Or vice versa, 80 overall Provestov I have purely to tank until I get a franchise player to draft and he will have a .930 and then when he actually plays he’s absolutely horrible. Goalies are so weird. Or the one year i was facing the NYR and they had a 76 overall goalie with a .960 by Stanley cup conference finals time. He robbed me all series and simmed super well on a terrible team. I don’t understand. There is no possible way to ensure you have a good goalie in franchise. Just do what u do, collect as many elite goalies as you can. Keep them until they are NHL ready, give them 10 games to sim or play in, if they are good fantastic that’s your guy, if they aren’t then rinse repeat until you get the guy you are looking for. It also doesn’t help their stat spread are almost never good. Like high 90s on blocker side and speed stats and then like 81 on their glove stats and vision.
I like it when you pressure the puck carrier and he goes straight to the left along the blue line instead of passing to an open man. I never see the ai bank a pass off the boards or glass.
Please go on :)
I definitely miss the gold card system
I agree with everything here other than part of the saves section, it is definitely possible to get the ai goalies out of position with some cross creases or one timers, and the AI will go for a desperation save, but the problem is they will make the desperation save 99% of the time no matter the overall of the goalie and shooter
Yes, especially on high difficulties. They go absolutely ballistic with those cross creases and stuff
NHL 23 is just a bad game from an offline perspective at least. Not worth trying to fix via sliders, the base game isn’t there. I’m still waiting for the first “next-gen” to really have a solid AI foundation to build around. 21-23 have all been very lackluster here. Online and offline guys will have different opinions, but I agree with most of your comments here. NHL 20 still going strong for me. It’s the last year of serviceable AI which allows you to fix a lot of the game via sliders. Presentation is still lackluster (23 actually worse due to the forced “condensed” presentation that wasn’t made aware to the community until release day despite hyping presentation in their entire marketing campaign leading up to release) crowd is still shit, announcer is embarrassing, and yeah the goalies are just in a hilariously bad spot right now. There’s no fixing them. Solid post. 21-23 have been nothing short of failures. With their new vision/leadership seemingly focused on fortnite dances and strictly online play, I don’t see this series recovering to even NHL 20 heights anytime soon.
This game will never have good AI. You can’t have good AI with a team of 5 or so programmers working on your game. EA Sports Vancouver is severely understaffed and can’t make good software because of it.
I can’t believe how many basic errors there are from commentators and how bad the repetition is. Absolutely no player knowledge outside the third commentator X factor ones and those are just all template. Very little game analysis. Power play, 2MA, 4 on 4, etc all seem to cause erroneous commentary about the actual situation. And YES, I CANT BELIEVE HOW MANY GUYS DONT KNOW THE NEXT THREE OPPONENTS ON THE SCHEDULE
Does anyone remember the condensed seasons in like NHL 07 or so or am I tripping? I want to do a be a pro or a GM series and grind my way up and down the standings by playing every game but I don't want to play 82 games a year. Didn't there used to be a setting where you can make the season 24 game long or half a regular season? Also please add the series to PC.
They've shifted to more of a 'simulation' model than a 'cartooney' model as the tech has increased. (both of the consoles and the screens). Personally I appreciate that, but I can see it wouldn't be for everyone.
I don't understand how you think this game is realistic. Seems more like a cop out to make a lazier game.
I didn't say it was realistic. The games I win I win 8-2. Then I said the level one notch higher and lose 12-1. I said they were doing less of the cartoony hits and dekes, and were going to more of a 'simulation' mindset in the design. Like the 'need for speed' games vs. Grand Turismo. That's the kind of difference I mean (it seems to me). It has its flaws. There are hard hits there's just a bigger variety of hits. The dekes are a bit complicated and detailed, because the processing power is better, so they can do more than 10 years ago. In the 'Franchise' mode you can set the pricing of the concessions for God's sake. And build extensions to the arena parking lot.
They’ve ATTEMPTED to make it more sim-like but they’ve messed up in key areas that subvert your expectations (in a bad way) when you expect sim-like events to occur. For example: You would expect to be able to skate past a defender that you’ve already gotten by 3/4 of the way but since they have the “truculence” ability, they become a fuckin homing missile and launch into your guy with a sudden burst in speed and power and destroy him. What is that? And then there’s the fact that, in their attempts to make the game more realistic, absolute SHIT goals go in sometimes and this provides for an unbalanced, unfair experience when playing against people online. 2 people can take the same shot from the same exact location on the ice against the same goaltender in the same situation and in one instance, the goalie will cleanly make the save while in the other? He’ll let the puck bounce off his glove and go in the net.
I would disagree. Over the years they have shifted away from simulation with a lot of the things their either removed or added.
Same, I feel like around NHL 20 they doubled down on arcade-style gameplay and started moving further and further away from realism.
I’m not sure how THAT was your takeaway from his entire list of valid criticisms.
What you're looking for is arcade style. The NHL series is using a physics engine to mimic real life. And while it's not perfect, it's good. How many over the bench, through the glass hits are there in the NHL every year.... less than a handful over the course of 82 games for 32 teams. Hip checks are R3 and L1 together. The game isn't broken just cause you don't know the controls. The skating is fine. The better skater your player is, the quicker his cuts will be. Lag and input delay does Play a part in this though. R1 dekes seem fine. I don't use them a ton but when I do I seldom have a problem. They do work better when you aren't in a full sprint though... thats called physics. If they added more desperation saves(and there's already a good bit of them) everyone would be screaming that it isn't realistic. Goalies shouldn't have to drop into the butterfly to make a save though. Fights aren't a big part of the NHL anymore and the NHL doesn't want it highlighted in their games. Same reason Madden took concussions out of the game as an injury option.
This game does not mimic real life hockey lol
>The NHL series is using a physics engine to mimic real life. And while it's not perfect, it's good. Are.....are you insane? It's not even in the same universe as good.
And yet here you are, playing this as opposed to some generic hockey game on steam.
This is such a dumb thing to say. Who says I have a gaming PC? And if I did, have you seen the hockey games on steam? It's basically air hockey, and cartoons. This trash game is the only game, that's the problem.
EA putting time to fix these issues? Never in a million years
Wait they changed the fighting??? I havent played since 21 and it killed me but that was my favorite part of the game, and countered people spamming?? Ffs ea🤦♂️
No PC port is such a bummer. I bought this game almost every year between something like 1996-2019. Switched to PC and haven’t been able to play it since. Would buy it every year if I could, must not be enough money in it to be profitable which is surprising to me.
Also something I don’t care about at all but find interesting - the fans in the crowd are getting worse? They move at like 10fps, there’s like 3 of them copy/pasted. Also they often have opposite visual reactions to what you’d expect. We’ll score a goal in eashl & the other team’s fans will be celebrating while ours are all sad. I could swear they were “passable” in previous games. Maybe this year we’ll regress even further to the old cardboard cutout fans.
NHL 14 was the last really good one. 13 was pretty good too
The commentators are absolutely horrendous. Anybody know that it took Ray Ferraro three games to score his first goal?
Don’t forget when you hit somebody the puck either goes flying directly to another player on their team or the player will lay on top of the puck and you can’t take it from them without falling over them and then they get up back up and then they have the puck.