NHL 14: Taking a Look at the Goalie Improvements - Wiggy's Blog

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NHL 14: Taking a Look at the Goalie Improvements Stuck

Posted on July 9, 2013 at 04:14 AM.

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EA has released another trailer for NHL 14, and this video covers one of the lingering areas that has bothered players for the last couple of years: the goalies. My time with the game at E3 gave me a good indication that the goalies were going to animate, move and behave a lot differently, but this trailer seems to emphasize these changes with some concrete examples. As with all of these types of sizzle reels, it will need to be tested out, especially with full online team play, but the changes seem promising.

The first thing addressed in the trailer is that goalies will now react to the game situation and handedness of the shooter. The example used is of Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown moving in on Jonathan Quick (in a practice scrimmage, obviously), and Quick is beaten on a one-timer when Kopitar is threatening the shot on the forehand. Conversely, he is able to fly over and make the save when Kopitar is holding the puck on the backhand, as the likelihood of him shooting from that position is low. When the pass is made, Quick is cheating over, and he easily stones Brown.

While this change does seem fairly binary, it's nice to see that the shooting situation will at least be taken into account. It's been frustrating in NHL 13 to have human players team up on the shoddy goalie AI and force him into overcommiting on a pass from the wing to the goalie's short side. This change is demonstrated even more with the next example in the trailer, where Drew Doughty eliminates Brown as a passing option, and Kopitar is forced to shoot. Quick realizes that Brown has been shut down, and he focuses all of his effort on stopping Kopitar, which is a great change.

Conversely, an example is shown where Doughty aggressively plays the shooter, but in doing so, Kopitar is able to make the pass over to Brown, who fires it home. Quick does get over, but he isn't able to quite stop the puck in time. I think these are the really difficult situations to balance, as some of these sorts of quick passes in traffic should result in a goal, but the goalie should also be able to stop some of them, especially when he sees the defender transitioning to attack the shooter. It's a tough balance, to be sure, but it's good to see EA thinking about the various situations where goalies have seemed either too powerful or too foolish.

In general, the philosophy of the trailer seems to be that if you can get the goalie moving laterally, his "targeting" of the puck is weakened. The trailer demonstrates this by showing some deep one-timer chances that are able to get past the short side or high above the stick. Honestly, these types of one-timers already go in this year, but if there is some variance based on what the goalie sees and how he reacts, then these situations will be more realistic.

This concept is further fleshed out with goalie screens, which now appear to happen off passes as well as shots. A play is shown where a blueliner uses a two-man screen to feed a puck to the short side of the crease, where the puck is roofed. Quick is able to slide over and lift his arm, but the puck flies over his shoulder. These misdirection plays certainly look great, but I just hope the defensive coverage is good enough to compensate for some of this, as EASHL games can get frustrating when two players find obscure passing lanes to make the goalie jump out of position.

The final pitch of the trailer is that goalies are still capable of making highlight reel saves, but they can be beaten if you make the perfect setup. I think a lot of players this year were rightfully disappointed when their well-constructed plays weren't being rewarded, especially with cross creases and certain screens. If this is addressed in a reasonable way, resulting in a few more goals, I think users will be happy.

Final Thoughts

All of these changes seem pretty good on their face, but since I was able to get some hands-on with the game, I can vouch for several of these changes. Particularly, the goalies definitely steer more pucks to the corner now, and they're much better at finding pucks through traffic, especially since there are many more deflection opportunities. Also, goalies were susceptible to some one-timers, which is nice.

I think it's impossible for the devs to plug every hole on the good ship goalie, but if they remove some of the "faking," where goalies get over too easily, and reign in some of the overcommiting, most users will likely respond favorably. Let's hope these changes stand up to proper testing, including all difficulty levels and online modes.

Comments

# 1 DjRaY @ Jul 9

The way goalies work in NHL 13 is great. Goalies are very consistent as to what kind of shot can go in while still providing opportunities for them to make a big play. The only problem is that most of these consistent goals are from low percentage shots.

What makes me excited about NHL 14 is that (hopefully) the high percentage shots are going to have to rely on actual real life high percentage shots. The consistency will probably be the same, but the logic the goalies appear to have will make the game more forgiving when I get scored on.

All I hope for NHL 14 is that I can stop blaming the goalie and start blaming Wiggy. :P

# 2 Wiggy @ Jul 9

Wait a minute... I know you =)

I blame you, sir!

# 3 13whitebread @ Jul 9

I watch a video where Brodeuer was playing some guy on a stage and I was really disappointed to hear Gary Thorne doing the play by play. I know the excuse will be wait to next gen but I just wish there was a guarantee coming that this would be the last year with them. Very stagnet for me on having them going again but hoping some presentation is being changed I remain hopefully. I want them to succeed but I am very dissappointed with the NHL series and thier lack of progress in audio commentary song selections and presentation I am just not sure if thier is enough here for me to give it another go. But next gen I guess is where they will have to make a great leap for me to bite. I love hockey but I want and need more. I need to be immersed into the game mostly because I play almost exculisvily offline. Of course all that is said is IMPO.