NHL 12 Tuner Update v1.02 Released, Details Included

[savoie2006]

Quote: Originally Posted by Money99

At the same time, NBA2k11 was one of the best selling basketball games of all time. It outsold every single game (sports, or non sports) in the month of March this year. This is 6-months AFTER release. The NBA2K series is hardcore. There's no other way to describe it. From presentation, to commentary to graphics, to depth to controls, it's incredibly deep and takes a lot of time to really learn and absorb it. I know nothing about basketball and I can't stop playing this game. Some won't believe this, but I loathed basketball a couple of years ago. I warmed to the sport (because of my kids activity) and now I own an NBA video game. Why? Because of how hardcore it is. This game is far from easy to play and yet it outsells the NHL by a country mile. Heck, it outsells MLB as well and has numbers comparable to Madden. That's not bad for a sport that's not nearly as popular as MLB or the NFL. What that tells me is that if you build a truly great representation of the sport, sports gamers will buy it. I know a lot of people who couldn't care less about soccer that bought Fifa. And if you recall, NHL2K outsold EA for many years on last-gen and their games featured a lot more sloppy play. The greatest gift, and curse, EA gave us was the skill stick. It's great fun, but the problem is everyone thinks they should be able to stickhandle up to their ability with the controls, and not the player they're controlling. So the minute Billy loses the puck when trying a behind-the back, triple-deke with Colton Orr he rages on EA's forums. And what does EA do? They tune the game and dumb it completely down. And EA knows they have to adhere to Billy because it's not adults like you or I that spend money on upgrades. It's a 12-year-old with unlimited access to Mommy's purse. And those kids are way more vocal than the hardcore or mature gamer.

I would say playing in NHL is considerably more difficult than playing Basketball. So if someone actually came close to replicating the sport in a video game, I think it would be much more frustrating for those trying deke after deke and losing the puck or trying to shoot and actually trying to puck protect and actually having the puck taken away.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by savoie2006

I would say playing in NHL is considerably more difficult than playing Basketball. So if someone actually came close to replicating the sport in a video game, I think it would be much more frustrating for those trying deke after deke and losing the puck or trying to shoot and actually trying to puck protect and actually having the puck taken away.

But they shouldn't be able to try those all the time.
In NBA2K12, once I learned a few sweet moves, I tried to breakdown defenses all the time. It didn't take long for me to figure out I couldn't do it all the time, and I'd actually lose the ball on quite a few occasions.
It forced me to learn how to 'play basketball'. I had to learn the game.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I truly believe if EA gave us the NHL equivalent you'd see a lot less griping about this game, and a lot more praise.

Besides, that's what sliders are for. But it stinks when most of the sliders have very little affect at all.
If I crank the player attributes slider to max, then the worst player in the game should feel like a Mite player, while a guy like Stamkos should feel like an 18-year-old playing amongst those mites. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

[Vikes1]

Quote: Originally Posted by Azamien

Even worse is when you hit the fight button after that happens and it ends up with the goalie fighting a position player (about a third of the time). I can think of one time that happened in reality, and no one jumped in only because the goalie was handling the fight decently.

Myself...I normally don't bother with the fighting very often. But yeah I agree, the goalies dropping the mitts with one of the skaters does look kinda dumb. So I just don't bother with it. Imo, overall...the fighting in NHL leaves quite a bit to be desired.

[Rogie Vachon]

Quote: Originally Posted by speels

Here's the problem with increasing the "sloppiness" of the NHL games. 90% of people would not enjoy it. This game is produced to make EA money, not to make people feel as if they can live out their lifelong dreams of playing in the NHL. A soppy game where I am chasing the puck around and can't do anything I want with it would appeal to maybe 10% of the gaming population. Everybody talks about how they want sports games to be "SIM", but yet they never complain, nor would it make business sense, that when I play Call of Duty, I have to get shot 5 times before I die. No, truth is, I get shot once, go to the hospital, get bandaged up, rehab, and then maybe get sent back into battle. How many shooter games would sell if that is how they were made. The double standard people have for sports video games astounds me. Sports games are designed to keep people interested for however long they choose to play. I am pretty sure that if the puck was bouncing all over the place people would get tired of not being able to do dekes like the pros do. And as for online getting all the attention, well yea, it makes more money than the freakin sales of the games. Name one major series that doesn't cater to online. Shooter game always add new quests or levels, because people pay for them. EA has one job and tht is to make money. I am pretty sure, although it's just my opinion, that the reason we have no EA developers left on this website is because they really got tired of listening to less than 1% of the people that buy their game complaining that they don't know hockey and hate fans of the game. Until people realize that they do things that the majority of fans want, then these types of threads are always going to happen. I enjoy the NHL series a lot and there are some things that tick me off, but I figure if I really wanted to live my life and make it to the NHL then I should have tried harder as a kid and not tried to live my life vicariously through a video game. Sorry for the rant, just having a bad day at work.

That may well be all and good for online play.

There`s no excuse for not giving us the adjustability that we had with NHL11 for offline play.

[Vikes1]

Quote: Originally Posted by Money99

But they shouldn't be able to try those all the time. In NBA2K12, once I learned a few sweet moves, I tried to breakdown defenses all the time. It didn't take long for me to figure out I couldn't do it all the time, and I'd actually lose the ball on quite a few occasions. It forced me to learn how to 'play basketball'. I had to learn the game. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I truly believe if EA gave us the NHL equivalent you'd see a lot less griping about this game, and a lot more praise. Besides, that's what sliders are for. But it stinks when most of the sliders have very little affect at all. If I crank the player attributes slider to max, then the worst player in the game should feel like a Mite player, while a guy like Stamkos should feel like an 18-year-old playing amongst those mites. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Great post, Money.

While I do pretty much understand both sides of things, "Timmy twelve year old."/"Hardcore guy"....I just wish both parties could be better satisfied. And like you Money, I like to think truly effective settings/sliders, could go a long way to getting there.

It'd be great [and realistic] if with say the puck control slider at zero...if I tried to ballerina around with a player who had no business doing so...I'd lose control of the puck nearly every time. Just as one example.

I'm really enjoying this years game. And for me, it's dang close to right where I want it gameplay wise, with a pretty heavy dose of slider work. But man...if only the sliders were more effective, we could maybe all get what we're looking for.

I do like to think EAC is at least trying to make a NHL game for most everyone to enjoy. But of course I'd always like to see more.

[mkharsh33]

there is a solution to this:

EA creates a definitive "HARDCORE" style of play... Yes, that means they need to put some time and effort into creating this, but they are going to lose a fan base (myself included) if they don't make it play like hockey should be played. NBA 2K11 (and into 2K12 - but I don't own 2K12 because I LOVE 2K11) captured this. If you're not a hardcore basketball fan (and maybe not understand like you do hockey) you won't understand what 2K did to nail this high-simulation like effort with their game. The game is created to play hardcore out of the box - slider tweaks can be made for little kids who love NBA Jam and arcade games, but that's NOT 2K's intent with this game.

EA doesn't get this, and I'm about done with this title. The gameplay is too coast-to-coast and just doesn't do it for me...

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by mkharsh33

there is a solution to this: EA creates a definitive "HARDCORE" style of play... Yes, that means they need to put some time and effort into creating this, but they are going to lose a fan base (myself included) if they don't make it play like hockey should be played. NBA 2K11 (and into 2K12 - but I don't own 2K12 because I LOVE 2K11) captured this. If you're not a hardcore basketball fan (and maybe not understand like you do hockey) you won't understand what 2K did to nail this high-simulation like effort with their game. The game is created to play hardcore out of the box - slider tweaks can be made for little kids who love NBA Jam and arcade games, but that's NOT 2K's intent with this game. EA doesn't get this, and I'm about done with this title. The gameplay is too coast-to-coast and just doesn't do it for me...

Not that I disagree MK but you play on pro. Of course it's going to be far more coast to coast. On SS there's alot more neutral zone pressure and forechecking pressure in general. Is it anywhere near realistic? No it's still too easy to gain the zone but I don't feel the game is a constant end to end rush this year on higher diff levels.

[Azamien]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vikes1

Myself...I normally don't bother with the fighting very often. But yeah I agree, the goalies dropping the mitts with one of the skaters does look kinda dumb. So I just don't bother with it. Imo, overall...the fighting in NHL leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Yup, I stopped hitting the fight button on goalie-involved scrums. Now I just stop touching the controller and hope that the shoddy AI leads to me getting a cheap powerplay out of it.