NHL 15 Hasn't Updated Its Player Ratings Since Launch

Feature Article

Submitted on: 11/21/2014 by Jayson Young

Now 19 games into his 2014-2015 season, the 22 points tallied by Nashville Predators rookie Filip Forsberg currently tie Steven Stamkos and Phil Kessel for the fourth-highest total in the National Hockey League. Forsberg's +20 on-ice rating leads the NHL, placing five pluses ahead of the second-place skater, Vladimir Tarasenko.

It's been 10 weeks since NHL 15 launched, yet in the game, Forsberg remains the worst player in the Predators' lineup, tied with fourth-line grinder, Taylor Beck, for a team-low 77 overall rating.

While Electronic Arts has been quick to tweet out and blog up new roster file releases, the developer's half-hearted adjustments are only addressing injuries, transactions, and line assignments; to date, they've completely ignored player ratings. As of this writing, not a single NHL player has received a change to his overall rating since NHL 15 shipped on September 9.

As a result, hockey fans must manage ridiculous lineup situations, like Forsberg starting on Nashville's first line while simultaneously sporting the lowest attributes on the team, or seeing last season's NCAA player of the year, Johnny Gaudreau (14 points in 20 games), being graded only two overall points above Calgary's chief face-puncher, Brian McGrattan (27 points in 316 games).

NHL 15's lack of ratings corrections isn't just affecting up-and-coming talent, but also, the game's numerous has-beens, many of whom are holding onto “legacy ratings” that they no longer deserve. For example, Forsberg's 35-year-old, third-line teammate, Olli Jokinen, still has the fourth-highest overall rating among Predators forwards (84 overall), despite posting zero points over the same 18-game stretch.

This is, sad to say, business as usual for Electronic Arts' NHL franchise, which has historically delivered some of the most poorly rated, slow-to-update rosters in sports gaming.

The big difference this year, is that PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners can no longer edit skaters' attributes to their liking, leaving early adopters of these new systems with no choice but to use EA's neglected, inaccurate ratings.

NHL 14 fans might also be wondering where last year's "dynamic roster updates" went. The much-hyped return of "hot" and "cold" player streaks was a frequently requested feature from the series' SEGA Genesis/Super Nintendo days. I guess, like most of the features from NHL 14, hot and cold streaks were simply cut from this year's game, without any formal announcement.

At a time when most other $60 sports titles are committed to updating their rosters on a weekly (and even daily) basis and allowing their users to share customized files, NHL 15's hands-off approach to roster editing embarrasses its developer and insults its declining playerbase.

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Member Comments

# 21 tabulaRasa @ 11/25/14 03:23 AM

Actually in NHL95 I think one player had 1 overall.

# 22 tabulaRasa @ 11/25/14 03:26 AM

Forsberg on Nashville was a high ranked draft prospect, was a star in the world juniors, has delievered in NHL but is still 79 overall. Stupid.
But then again Carl S�derberg in Boston is a 79 to I guess, and last year he was in the top of points per minutes played in NHL.
STUPID!

# 23 bibibanax @ 11/25/14 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabulaRasa


	Actually in NHL95 I think one player had 1 overall.

Shawn Chambers in NHL 93

# 24 actionhank @ 11/25/14 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabulaRasa


	Forsberg on Nashville was a high ranked draft prospect, was a star in the world juniors, has delievered in NHL but is still 79 overall. Stupid. But then again Carl S�derberg in Boston is a 79 to I guess, and last year he was in the top of points per minutes played in NHL. STUPID!

It's fair. He's not a superstar yet.
People look too deeply into the overall. The Revamped team looked it the right way. The overall has become stupidly overrated. What should be important is having ratings that accurately grow and shrink with experience and age, and more importantly, ratings in the right categories that actually reflect the real world abilities.
Dynamic ratings would be the best fit. Players could get hot and cold. If a guy is on a scoring streak he'll see a bump in his shooting and passing ratings. A guy who is dominating on defense might see a bump in his stick checking and defensive awareness. Same for goalies.
And when players are doing poorly they would have their stats reflect that.
Instead what we have now is players who are pretty much only judged by their overall. Everyone's worried about how highly rated Ovechkin is, but what's more important would be the small things. He's obviously a bigger hitter than someone like Datsyuk, but Datsyuk is the better than Ovechkin in terms of defensive skills. But, by overalls, they aren't that far apart, and in terms of scoring, they shouldn't be.

There's just so much that needs to be done. There should be a difference in between players with their ratings between the CHL, AHL, and NHL. Maybe something that adjusts everyone's ratings. So, players would have their accurate ratings, people like Ty Rattie would have great shooting, but get pushed around, kids like McDavid would be dominant, but then, when they get to the NHL, they will still have struggles.

EA has a lot to work on, and ratings is a big one.

# 25 Moose24x @ 11/25/14 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionhank


	It's fair. He's not a superstar yet. People look too deeply into the overall. The Revamped team looked it the right way. The overall has become stupidly overrated. What should be important is having ratings that accurately grow and shrink with experience and age, and more importantly, ratings in the right categories that actually reflect the real world abilities. Dynamic ratings would be the best fit. Players could get hot and cold. If a guy is on a scoring streak he'll see a bump in his shooting and passing ratings. A guy who is dominating on defense might see a bump in his stick checking and defensive awareness. Same for goalies. And when players are doing poorly they would have their stats reflect that. Instead what we have now is players who are pretty much only judged by their overall. Everyone's worried about how highly rated Ovechkin is, but what's more important would be the small things. He's obviously a bigger hitter than someone like Datsyuk, but Datsyuk is the better than Ovechkin in terms of defensive skills. But, by overalls, they aren't that far apart, and in terms of scoring, they shouldn't be. There's just so much that needs to be done. There should be a difference in between players with their ratings between the CHL, AHL, and NHL. Maybe something that adjusts everyone's ratings. So, players would have their accurate ratings, people like Ty Rattie would have great shooting, but get pushed around, kids like McDavid would be dominant, but then, when they get to the NHL, they will still have struggles. EA has a lot to work on, and ratings is a big one.

People would worry about overall less if EA implemented it correctly. If they're going to have overall calculated the way that it is, the game needs to rate players for their type and role. Basically, if someone like Brian Boyle is going to be an 84 in this game (which I believe he is) he needs to be rated as an 84 BOTTOM SIX player and PK specialist. Then the game will only dress him (talking about the CPUS controlled teams in GM/BAP mode) in a bottom six role and on the PK (assuming they don't have four more highly rated players who also possess the "penalty killer" attribute). People's obsession with overall comes from the fact that as things currently stand, after you begin a GM and the CPU controlled Preds encounter one injury or shuffle their lines, Forsberg becomes a fourth liner with poor line mates and little ice time which in turn makes his stats poor and stunts his growth. If the game only drew from top six types to populate the top six, middle six or "tweener" types for the 2nd and 3rd line and bottom six/energy/grinder types to populate the bottom six than the ratings system would work better and people wouldn't care so much about overall. Right now if Tampa has an injury to a top six player, Brian Boyle could end up on the 1st or 2nd line when the appropriate thing to do would be to call up Drouin or Connolly to fill an injury in the top six and keep Boyle in his checking role despite his 84 rating.

# 26 actionhank @ 11/26/14 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moose24x


	People would worry about overall less if EA implemented it correctly. If they're going to have overall calculated the way that it is, the game needs to rate players for their type and role. Basically, if someone like Brian Boyle is going to be an 84 in this game (which I believe he is) he needs to be rated as an 84 BOTTOM SIX player and PK specialist. Then the game will only dress him (talking about the CPUS controlled teams in GM/BAP mode) in a bottom six role and on the PK (assuming they don't have four more highly rated players who also possess the "penalty killer" attribute). People's obsession with overall comes from the fact that as things currently stand, after you begin a GM and the CPU controlled Preds encounter one injury or shuffle their lines, Forsberg becomes a fourth liner with poor line mates and little ice time which in turn makes his stats poor and stunts his growth. If the game only drew from top six types to populate the top six, middle six or "tweener" types for the 2nd and 3rd line and bottom six/energy/grinder types to populate the bottom six than the ratings system would work better and people wouldn't care so much about overall. Right now if Tampa has an injury to a top six player, Brian Boyle could end up on the 1st or 2nd line when the appropriate thing to do would be to call up Drouin or Connolly to fill an injury in the top six and keep Boyle in his checking role despite his 84 rating.

Definitely agree. It's crazy how they setup things in the game. It's also still annoying that centers don't automatically take faceoffs in odd-man situations or 4 on 4. I just wnat EA to pull a miracle with NHL16 and make it great.

# 27 betweenthepipes @ 11/26/14 10:34 PM

They need to stop focusing on the accessory crap. Presentation, graphics, etc. mean nothing without good gameplay.

They've been lazy from 12-15.

# 28 Cletus @ 11/27/14 11:46 AM

If they updated rosters how will the one guy who does the updates keep pumping out specialty HUT cards? You guys at OS complain too much about what makes this game great. Dangle, Snipe, Celly.

It wouldn't surprise me if 2 guys worked on updates (outside of gameplay fixes which might add another guy). They did hire a real hockey scout so rosters are accurate. I think he scouted under Milbury with the Islanders because Martin Hanzal has an 86 shot accuracy but shoots about 7% in real life.

# 29 FBeaule04 @ 11/30/14 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cletus


	If they updated rosters how will the one guy who does the updates keep pumping out specialty HUT cards? You guys at OS complain too much about what makes this game great. Dangle, Snipe, Celly. It wouldn't surprise me if 2 guys worked on updates (outside of gameplay fixes which might add another guy). They did hire a real hockey scout so rosters are accurate. I think he scouted under Milbury with the Islanders because Martin Hanzal has an 86 shot accuracy but shoots about 7% in real life.

That one just made me go to the ground in tears laughing!

Needless to say that trade logic is based upon Rejean Houle, Mike Milbury and Mel Brigdman experience!

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