Will the EASHL be set to Hardcore?

[jyoung]

I haven't heard anything yet about what kind of game setting the EASHL will be using, but I really hope it is Hardcore and not Casual.

My guess is that they'll probably just set it somewhere in between, but has anything official been said yet?

[tgalv]

normal

[gator3guy]

I'd imagine passing on hardcore EASHL would be damn near impossible.

[Redshirt_EA]

Yes, it is pretty tough. You have much less time to move the puck and human players are also much less quick to react to an errant pass than a CPU teammate player is.

Basically we didn't find it to be any fun at all to play.

[adayinthelife]

I think it would be pretty neat to have the option. Maybe a setup similar to Call of Duty where players would have to choose to join a 'hardcore' game just so people that really don't want it don't get stuck playing it.

[jyoung]

Cool, well, just as long as it's not set to casual, that's the main thing.

I just like the added creativity that comes with being able to aim passes anywhere on the ice.

[canucksss]

if this will not be on eashl... at least put IT AS AN OPTION. specially for private leagues, HARDCORE so far is like SIM gameplay. or have sliders available to tweek some aspects in the Hardcore.

[AngryMikeGrrr]

AFAIK, there are going to be 2 leagues, the casual league and the pro league. From what I've read in the EA blogs, both leagues will have monthly tournaments with virtual trophies for the club. There's no differentiation between the two leagues. I believe that the Pro league should have hardcore mode and the casual league can have a more user likeable setting.

The fact is, you don't want everyone jumping on the pro league. Honestly, the majority of the people who buy the game probably shouldn't even bother with it. In 09, there were really only a handful of teams that were strong. IMO, you want the strong teams to be in the pro league and everyone else to be in the casual league.

To the avid gamer, "fun" isn't the word you're looking for. The word you want is "competitive". We want people to actually be good at the game and not just good at scoring cheesy goals on CPU defenders and goalie. From what I'm hearing, hardcore mode takes the simple things that we take for granted (i.e. passing) and makes it a skill. You don't see people playing Counterstrike tournaments with any sort of aiming assist. If I want to be the best in the world, why should I have a passing assist? Leave "fun" to the casual EASHL league.

Lastly, a whole big selling point of this year's game was the precision passing. If you hype it up so much and then not even use it for online play, it will be a huge disappointment. Honestly, do people play this game offline anymore?

For the record, I'm on the PS3 so I haven't had a shot at the demo yet. I may be wrong in some of my assumptions about hardcore mode so forgive me if I'm ignorant.