NHL 16: Official Gameplay Balance Video, Trailer and Blog

[jake19ny]

Not much you can take from the short gameplay and no knowledge of what the settings were but three things I saw that bothered me. 1) Human controlled player easily skates from his blue line into Offensive zone with CPU defender harassing him but he maintains total control of puck. 2) Still magnetic passing stick to stick even with a defender in good position on top of player the puck sticks to his blade upon reception. 3) human defender skates backwards playing the CPU offensive player entering the zone and his CPU defensive partner collapses to his side to take the puck carrier with him instead of playing the man breaking in without the puck. This one was a huge issue last year because it usually ended up with an uncovered man in front of your net. Hopefully slider tweaking will help but overall I'm not expecting much gameplay improvements

[Don Jon]

Quote: Originally Posted by jake19ny

Not much you can take from the short gameplay and no knowledge of what the settings were but three things I saw that bothered me. 1) Human controlled player easily skates from his blue line into Offensive zone with CPU defender harassing him but he maintains total control of puck. 2) Still magnetic passing stick to stick even with a defender in good position on top of player the puck sticks to his blade upon reception. 3) human defender skates backwards playing the CPU offensive player entering the zone and his CPU defensive partner collapses to his side to take the puck carrier with him instead of playing the man breaking in without the puck. This one was a huge issue last year because it usually ended up with an uncovered man in front of your net. Hopefully slider tweaking will help but overall I'm not expecting much gameplay improvements

settings were listed on ea:

Camera: Dynamic Medium
Difficulty: All-Star
Game Style: Hardcore

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by Don Jon

settings were listed on ea: Camera: Dynamic Medium Difficulty: All-Star Game Style: Hardcore

Oof, that was All-Star, and Hardcore? The puck still seems glues to the guy as he skates through two defenders. And I see that awful "Barely checked, but completely lost the puck and got shoved out of the play" animation is still there sometimes when you get cross checked. Their big hits are looking good, but the minor contact is still looking to be a headache.

That said, the new strafing looks really good, and the passing will hopefully work as well as shown. I was hoping to see some solid examples of the one-touch passing being used.

I'll say this. The gameplay didn't look that different, but if the strafing helps as much as I think it can with player control (god help me if I ever see another no-reason 360 at the Blue line, taking the puck across and killing my powerplay...) then it could be a definite step in the right direction for control.

Still worried about the defenders being more eye-candy than anything else, when taking on opponents, and not intercepting passes.

[AdamJones113]

Here are things I noticed (and are mentioned in the video, which you should watch ):



Shawn Horcoff is out there as the clock winds down for the Ducks, rather than Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler, etc. Example of bad late-game coaching AI.

As shogun said, goalies end up on their butts. A lot.

Not much NZ pressure to speak of.

I wish they had shown CPU-CPU gameplay, highlighting upgrades to them, rather than having humans (who know the game and controls and strategies) control everything.


On the whole though, this looked pretty solid.

[csamuelsvt]

Really liked the new skating...and some of the subtle things they discussed...

But as others said, dont like the goalie animations that are still in there from previous games...don't know how much longer we can keep saying "they haven't put in the new save animations in yet." Also, the game does look extremely similar which is why I think they had to highlight what exactly is different..

And the commentary, yikess.....thought they worked on it this year? Was in the final minute and Doc once again acting like he doesn't want to be there. Just zero emotion/excitement...pretty disappointed in that.

The first video was much better than the second one.

[snc237]

Wow that gameplay was slow

[canucksss]

Quote: Originally Posted by Don Jon

settings were listed on ea: Camera: Dynamic Medium Difficulty: All-Star Game Style: Hardcore

Thanks!

Quote: Originally Posted by jake19ny

Not much you can take from the short gameplay and no knowledge of what the settings were but three things I saw that bothered me. 1) Human controlled player easily skates from his blue line into Offensive zone with CPU defender harassing him but he maintains total control of puck. 2) Still magnetic passing stick to stick even with a defender in good position on top of player the puck sticks to his blade upon reception. 3) human defender skates backwards playing the CPU offensive player entering the zone and his CPU defensive partner collapses to his side to take the puck carrier with him instead of playing the man breaking in without the puck. This one was a huge issue last year because it usually ended up with an uncovered man in front of your net. Hopefully slider tweaking will help but overall I'm not expecting much gameplay improvements

1) BIG LET DOWN FOR ME - for so long the lack of NZ pressure is present in EA's NHL. IS it really difficult to have this? C'mon, its the new generation of game system is in its' (almost) 2nd year!.

3) Hopefully!

Quote: Originally Posted by actionhank

Still worried about the defenders being more eye-candy than anything else, when taking on opponents, and not intercepting passes.

I hope that this could be improved in their slider (if the slider is working).


Thanks for posting this....still I am in the "no buy" mode....hopefully there's more to come.

[bigwill33]

Tough to tell much from a :56 clip.

Liked that players weren't all over the ice.

+ Sticks in lanes to break up passes

+Speed of the game seemed toned down (the first videos last year showed the same thing, the final online product did not match this, however)

Disliked the carrying the puck through traffic and how easily it seemed to occur.

-No real reason to dump the puck, again.

-Goalie makes a desperation save while facing a short side shot. Bishop is tall, he would likely kneel down on that shot and try to make his chest big. Perhaps getting his shoulder on it, rather than trying to glove that.

-Human throws a blind pass through the neutral zone and it goes through the defender and is received by the offensive player as he goes on his way with ease.

-Neither team gains the zone and attempts to set anything up. It looks like both the CPU and Human objective is once again to skate down the boards into the zone and look for the cross crease or an in front opportunity. Small sample size, but the CPU pressure was kind of mindless in that it really didn't wait for the rest of the team to get into the zone or try and work anything.

-This game is really missing a chip puck off the boards feature. Everything is just skated in or around. Then make one pass and attempt a shot. That isn't real hockey. Real hockey uses angles and boards and body/stick positioning to make opportunities or defend them.

I liked the strafing, but I really fear that it will be abused online. I really hope that it is easy to skate with someone that is strafing and that you can dislodge the puck they are holding in front of them.


It is also tough to gauge how online will be from this, because 75% of people online spam the one-touch deke buttons. I need to see how dumb my CPU players will be in EASHL. How cheesy the goals will be, again. How ineffective defense is against the puck shield, deke spammers, and cheese shot artists. I have to see this game played the way I play it, against humans and cpu players and with other humans and cpu players, in a mode that you are unable to change sliders or settings. And it is kind of a slap in our faces to show us :56 of footage, after touting that gameplay footage would be coming.