Breaking Down "Control The Crease" - The Method To NHL 16's Goaltending Madness

[Weapon X]

As a guy who has not only played goalie in real life, but has been an EA NHL goalie since NHL 08 when Goalie Mode was introduced, and an EASHL goalie since NHL 13, I like a lot of people was very interested to see how the "Control The Crease" feature EA revealed a month or so after the main feature list would fare. I was especially intrigued by how they would play from the user side after the video of the new motion capture came out.

After a few days playing the EASHL Beta and loving Control The Crease, I swung by the forums to see the reactions and impressions. I noticed a trend in comments as far as goalies were concerned: complete bedlam. The responses that were all over the forum seemed very negative: “goalies suck now!”; “I can‘t control them!”; “goalie’s are completely broken!”. I started wondering if I was crazy, or maybe I just was looking at it from a different perspective.

Since the tuner came out the response seemed to curb a bit more towards the positive, but those initial comments had me a bit worried that things would get tuned away from the foundations of realism they set out for, simply because of the drastic learning curve that Control The Crease required.

I would like to try and address many of the points that stuck out in an effort to help people who may not understand the finer points of netminding understand what the Control The Crease system is asking of them. I would also like to attempt to analyze another side of what EA is actually trying to accomplish with the new goalie controls and systems, as I believe I may have stumbled upon a potential reasoning behind their choices -- a "method to the madness" if you will (if you are only interested in that theory, feel free to skip to the "In Closing aka TL;DR" section of this post.)

Core Movement
"There is nothing wrong with your controller of choice." Okay, so that's a terrible paraphrase of The Outer Limits opening, but it gets the point across. The control scheme, while vastly different, is fine. The biggest issue I'm noticing from others is the fact that now goalies must adhere to exactly what everyone was clamoring for. They are now weighted down by properties found in reality, and some players aren't very comfortable with that, and were using the controls in the incorrect ways. Here's the simplest way to break it down.

Goaltending 101 tells us this: you T-Push (left stick) to cover the pass; you shuffle (left trigger + left stick) to cover the puck carry.

Let me just say, the control scheme is exactly how it should be right now. It takes time to get used to it, but it works perfectly when your muscle memory catches on. T-pushing absolutely SHOULD be the default movement style. Shuffling should stay on the left trigger. Look at how a goaltender moves in reality. Watch how he attempts to cover the cycle. Take these great videos from YouTuber Sensfan0206 of two of my favorite goaltenders, Ray Emery and Sergei Bobrovsky:





Notice how both of them move around the crease, despite their obvious "style" differences. They t-push around to track the puck, making precise (left trigger) moves only to fine tune their positioning. If you swap those controls, you take out a very real usage of a t-push. You need to be able to fire off a t-push movement as a quick reaction because it also can work as one of the primary tools of a goalie's recovery (as these videos illustrate).

The best results I've obtained were when I was swapping from Precision to T-Pushes (with an occasional Butterfly Slide thrown in) when the situation called for it, just as it should be. The lone thing I've noticed is sometimes moving around the crease with just Left Stick can cause your goalie to not even look at the puck, but that is exactly what left trigger is for. It works not only as a precision movement modifier, but also as a "square body to puck" adjustment as well. This is how playing goal in EA NHL now grants success - by adhering to the philosophies these men are using in real NHL games. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not broken either.

Input Delay
This one is tricky. Lag is such a user specific experience. In 25 games in net during the Beta, I had only experienced input lag severe enough to hinder my play two or three times max (On the other side of the coin, I did have a few games as a skater where I was a good one or two seconds behind my inputs, and that was brutal). From my experience, the inputs aren't necessarily "lagged" in my opinion, they just aren't as super responsive as they used to be, because now the goalie has to actually dig in and make the strides, instead of being pulled around the ice like a rod hockey figurine. This isn't to say that there weren't hiccups in what I wanted to do and the animation firing off (I would say my input fired off the proper animation about 90% of the time), but it's extremely hard to say if that's a beta issue, or an issue deeply buried in the system at this time.

It's a bit funny when you think about it. Everyone wanted more realistic goalies, but it seems like a lot of user goalies didn't fully understand what would come along with that: goalies who aren't hair trigger responsive. They will have to push, and dig, and will slide out of position if you aren't careful with your control selection. Even if they sped up the response time, the goalie will still have to push to get over, and will still have to stop himself in the slide. These are the properties with which they have implemented, and will remain so even if your tendy can react on a hair-trigger again.

I think the only adjustment I could see benefiting the user base as a whole would be to bring back the anticipation use for Left and Right RS moves only when the left trigger is held down. This would include auto desperation saves like before if the player is anticipating in the proper direction. I only offer this as a suggestion if they do not tune the Butterfly Slide (right stick left/right) to be more reactive from precision movement. Sometimes I simply don't feel it's intuitive or consistent enough to move over to try and cover a pass to a guy on the doorstep with left trigger held at the moment (attempting the Butterfly Slide while holding Left Trigger was where a lot of my input drops seemed to happen), and I think that if they don't end up tuning it so the Butterfly Slide can still be fired off quickly and consistently while Left Trigger is held down, bringing anticipation back might help alleviate the helpless "no man's land" effect that seems to stem from that situation.

Reaction Speed and In Closing (aka TL;DR)
Okay, so here's the real stuff. Yes, goalie's are definitely slower to get over on cross-crease passes. This is something the tuner didn't really seem to address, but I believe that is because this is a deliberate move on EA Canada's part. If what EA has preached from the beginning is that EASHL 2.0 is meant to be a full-team game, where the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, then that is a philosophy that isn't exclusive to offense. It means EVERY facet of a win has to be a full team effort, including defense. Don't want to get cross creased? With far more active sticks now, your defenseman should park their keister's on their proper sides of the goalposts, with your center covering the high slot. With sticks protecting the front of the net, 99% of the time the cross ice pass will get tipped or picked off, and the goalie won't have to lunge post-to-post. Your team has to help your goalies more now than ever before. They, like everyone else, cannot superstar their team to a victory. Everyone has to pick up everyone else. If the defense keeps the shooters out from dangerous areas, and clears out rebound chances so the goalie only had to make the initial save, I have seen first hand that good results can and will follow.

Now I'm not saying the goalies are perfect. There are a few angles that literally make the hug post spaz out to the point where it's actually a complete hindrance. Even post tuner, I got scored on from a goal where I was simply trying to go post-to-post from the VH, and as my goalie transitioned he -- for some unexplained reason -- turned his body as if it was trying to face the puck carrier behind the net as he moved to the other post. This hiccup was enough for the wraparound to score. From certain angles the post hug animation transition works exactly as intended. From others, it's a hassle and fight to get where you want, which is worse when you have a player threatening in your zone and the post hug is what will save a cheap no-angle goal. There are also a few times where it doesn't seem like the direction you push on LS triggers the T-push animation that should correspond to your input.

However, the majority of the comments I have seen are more fluxed by the drastic change, rather than looking at what EA is trying to do. They have made you think as a goalie would in real life. You have to have certain mental abilities to be a good goaltender now. You have to be able to read the play as it unfolds in front of you. You have to be able to analyze the scoring threats. You have to remain focused on the puck even when your teammates have it in your zone. You have to be able to anticipate without committing until the right time, because:

Being a good goalie in EA NHL now comes down to proper positioning, anticipating the plays that can unfold in front of you, and having your teammates support you, just as in reality.

EA has made these paramount with their goalie changes. If you aren't comfortable in net, that's okay, maybe goalie isn't for you. Just like in real life, it's not for everybody. You have to be a special kind of crazy to man the crease. The position is finally specialized in EA NHL. Joe Schmo really can't just pick up goalie because every other position is taken and expect to be a phenom. This is how it should be. It takes time, effort and dedication to get good at stopping the puck. Here at Operation Sports, we always clamor for more realism. With the goalies in NHL 16, we definitely got a step towards it, and now comes the time where we simply have to step up and embrace the realism we clamored for.

Author's Notes:
Would be great to hear thoughts on anything I discussed. I would also love to team up with the goalie guru's around here (betweenthepipes; jmoney2346) to create an "OS Ultimate Guide To NHL 16 Goaltending" when the game drops to help usher inexperienced or aspiring goalies into the new system. Can't wait for September 15th!

WX

[SterlingArcher13]

I couldn't agree more with what you said, the controls feel like they should now, maybe with a few tricky things, for example the hug post, I personally think they should bind L1/LB and R2/RB to left and right post hug respectively, that way we don't have to wonder if the goalie will stutter or if it will actually move to the post as intended. The over exaggerated slide of the T-push I found had me out of position if not used wisely, but from what I have read the update toned that down a bit, which I hope is better in the long run.

I am glad you pointed out that playing goalie this year will no longer be about being a superstar like a Carey Price who can many times single handedly steal a game for his team, I see EASHL goalies being more of a Corey Crawford, on his own not a superstar the likes of a Price or Rinne or Lundqvist even, but a solid goalie backed by a solid team, making you able to win games. Now I know there will be those aliens that will play like a superstar and will be that game changing goalie.

I personally love the new controls and it feels like how playing goalie should be even from my limited time strapping on the pads for real, I still know the fundamentals of the craft.

I am just glad to see that EA listened to the fans and implemented this new system, naturally it has its flaws and I am sure they can fine tune it, hopefully before launch(though time has most likely run out) and no doubt with the first patch or two that I am certain they are feverishly working on to get out ASAP. They know they have to win back a lot of fans after 15 so I know they will do what it takes to make this year the best version of hockey they can.

Again, loved what you wrote, and it is great to see someone that knows a thing or two about the topic and not just complaining about how they think it should be, because they are not able to master it within a week of a beta no less lol

[jmoney2436]

Quick message before I have to go to bed and wake up for work....and then work.....and then work Fun day.

The foundation is there for goalies. Just as EA said, we have all the tools to make every save possible. We have the ability to take small shuffles when needed and the ability to fly across the crease.

It's tough to give a full analysis of the controls with the input delay. It might have varied for each person, but for me it was BAAAADDDD.

This probably contributed to my ability to have consistent movements in the crease. Long story short, the 4 things that need tuning IMO are:

- Input delay (we need to guess at times, ex. breakaway, instead of reading the skater since it'll be too late by then).

- Consistent Movements (the previous probably playing a factor)

- Bad 'Turns' when using T-Push Movement (facing the wrong direction)

- Fluid Post Play

This has the potential to be one of the best EASHL games for goalies and I can see a lot of low scoring games when people get used to the controls, especially with the defenses ability to stop crosses.

P.S. Thanks for the goalie 'guru' shoutout. I'd be glad to contribute what I can. It makes the fact that I get almost no views outside of new video release dates worth it.

[betweenthepipes]

Nice post man. You've covered a lot of points that I think are true, but mainly I agree with the fact that people are over reacting about goalie sucking. They made a great step forward with goalies and giving them realistic animations. People don't like change, but they're going to have to get used to it this year because goalie will not play the same as previous years.

I made the switch to a more realistic playstyle after the first couple of days and found way more success. I'd T-push off of a pass and use precision movement to track the puck as that worked the best for me as well. I also played my angles more aggressively as if I challenged the shooter, they would make a pass and the open man had a seemingly wide open net that I could either dive or RS slide to cover.

However, the input delay (I feel like mine was worse than most peoples), killed me more times than not.I regularly had to readjust my positioning to correct for the delay. If the input lag isn't fixed we'll all eventually get used to how the goalie moves, but it's not going to give us the ability to react on time to plays. The reason goalies usually end up playing so far back in their crease is because the game doesn't allow us to use the pure reactions we need to play further out.

You're right when you say you need to anticipate plays, but the fact of the matter is that you're required to cheat or guess with the timing of your movement. On a 2 on 1 or 2 on 0 I have to make an educated guess of when the puck carrier is going to pass. If he holds the puck and forces me to stand still in case he shoots, I won't be able to even start an animation if he passes it. It happened to me a couple of times where I should at least make a save attempt but it never even registered. Obviously if a guy has that much time it's a defensive error, but it would be nice to make it look like I made an effort.

Quote:

Just like in real life, it's not for everybody. You have to be a special kind of crazy to man the crease. The position is finally specialized in EA NHL. Joe Schmo really can't just pick up goalie because every other position is taken and expect to be a phenom. This is how it should be. It takes time, effort and dedication to get good at stopping the puck. Here at Operation Sports, we always clamor for more realism. With the goalies in NHL 16, we definitely got a step towards it, and now comes the time where we simply have to step up and embrace the realism we clamored for.

This is my favourite part of what you said. This is exactly how it should be and exactly what we wanted to get away from. No one should be able to pick up the controller and be even close to as good as someone who's been playing for a while. On the other hand, someone who's played goalie in real life should be able to pick up the controller and be better than other newer players. I think we're headed that way.

Things I think need to be addressed:

1. Obviously input lag.
2. Post hugging - i'd like to see us be able to plant both heels on the post like in the two videos you posted.
3. Precision movement - I couldn't quite control these movements as much as I wanted to. Sometimes I'd go way to far and other times I wouldn't move at all. Once again probably has to do with input lag.

I'll be curious to see how goalie plays in offline mode. My guy says it will be pretty close to realistic without all of the crappy delay we get online.

I'm flattered you think I'm a goalie guru and I would definitely be down to work on something with you.