NHL 25 Patch 1.3.0 Adds PWHL and Plenty of Fixes - Patch Notes

[phillyfan23]

Quote: Originally Posted by gsize19

I am usually very critical of the NHL series (hence my footnote), and I think this may be their best game to date...

I agree, the ai on both sides had noticeable improvements from NHL 24. Many subtle gameplay changes that are rarely mentioned if at all this year.

Better cpu d ai defensive pressure when entering the zone ( 50 aggression is overboard, I use 10/100 and still very good and balanced).

Cpu ai forecheck pressure, and using the right dump ins. It's not solely the flip dump, but also the quick dump around the boards. The flip dump is also stronger.

cpu ai offense is very creative and unpredictable especially if you edit their cycle/shoot to lean all the way to cycle. You give an opening they will aggressively attack the net, you bear down defensively they cycle. Dmen shoot the puck and score, a big improvement made in NHL 24 and still consistent now.

The big issue is the goaltending and I've created a thread on that (cheap goals due to unnecessary goalie movement). If they fix goaltending, it's a very good hockey game. And clearly better than NHL 20,23 and 24 which were my favorites.

[blaziruku]

We will have to give it another 2-3 years to see how this team cooks, as since it's a yearly release and a small dev team, there's only so much they can do unfortunately. But at least, it seems miles better than the Rammer era already with several big changes in updates this year alone, and we will see how they continue to iterate.

My biggest hope is making goalies just... better. I would like a stamina slider for goalies exclusively, as I don't like them being tied to the skater one which would heavily improve how they act (since goalies having lower stamina just makes them fall down fast). Being able to se it would mean way less desperation modes and more consistent goaltending imo.

And make the AI better, maybe one more difficulty tier above superstar. I don't like the "ai difficulty" slider since all it does it ignore your slider settings and make the AI ovechkin in shooting, so that usually says 0-1, but I'd like if the AI actually use hustle, are smarter on the powerplay, and stop playing like it's 5v5 on the pk....

The AI should crunch you in the zone as they just let you easily skate up for some reason, which would add a lot of difficulty as you need to dump and chase, and they need to do better on breakaways whatnot. They often will let you skate by and refuse to hustle or stickcheck. They have also not used hip check once in my playtime either.

One minor annoyance in the difficulty I found though is when they do the actual stick check (not pokechecks etc), they are extremely cheap. Like straight up inhuman speed stickechecks at certain things (like the faceoff where you push a guy and your winger goes to grab), INSTANT stickcheck and you lose the puck, and sometimes the stickcheck animation isn't even playing, they are one handed they touch your stick and it's a stickcheck sound lose the puck. That's probably the cheapest feeling part imo.

But overall, the AI is WAY better so they can easily improve from here. I would like boardplay AI to be a bit better, especially for the players as when the ai does it to you... your teammates just **** around still which is frustrating.

That and please, a PC release would be heavenly. Just thinking how people mod FCs gameplay means there can be so much room to change the game, and WAY easier roster editing too.