NHL 13 Season Ticket Impressions

[bad_philanthropy]

Tiny detail I like. You don't have to have a team captain at all anymore. You can have three assistants instead. Good small addition.

[mike24forever]

For people that were worried about pucks sticking to players sticks...I have had puck bounce over my stick when pushing the play up ice, on break always (especially if I try to make to many moves) and in my second game that went to a shout out, pucks hooped over both my players and CPU players sticks.

Passing: All-Star, Hardcore with Passing Assist at 1 and human passing at 3, I ended up with 48% passing.

The puck is alive in this game. I have it authentic size and authentic shadow. I've seen bouncing pucks, pucks rolling on end and fluttering pucks.

Just a few impressions.

Oh yeah, I have the player attribute slider maxed, CPU difficulty at 3 and CPU strategy adjust maxed.

[bad_philanthropy]

Not going to give comprehensive stats, but sim stats look pretty solid in BaGM.

[AC]

For anyone that's simmed GM, do good players reach FA? Very rarely would guys like Getzlaf, if ever, reach FA.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by Panicshade

Man am I terrible...lol I am playing on Pro with normal sliders and it's just like the demo for me... It seems like the only person who tries to ever go after the puck on my team is me as the others just let whoever has it skate around all they want. They can just breathe on whoever has the puck for me and it's an automatic turnover yet I can probably hit them with the zamboni and they keep it about 90% of the time. Also I hardly have 1 second to breathe since it seems like the CPU always has the most extreme forecheck on at all times. And I am convinced the goalie for the other side is an android sent from the future to stop all my shots...and find John Connor I know most of this is just simple frustration with trying to learn a new series and can be somewhat adjusted with the sliders but sheesh....agitating

It's not you. This is how the series has been for several years now.
Your CPU teammates are incredibly passive. The only way to make it slightly better in previous versions was to change your defensive strategy to 'high pressure'. They'll be a bit more aggressive on the point-men, but really, it's not nearly effective.
What also stinks is that, like Gagnon39 stated, the CPU is perfection. They never miss a pass, deal with bouncing pucks, and they have a 6th sense as to where the rebound, or deflected pass/shot is going to go.
I've seen games in NHL09-12 where you try to pass up ice, it hits a stick and deflects right to a player who jumped into a hole like he had precognition of where it was going to end up.

Based on yours and Gagnon39's initial impressions, I know I shouldn't buy NHL13.
The negatives you mentioned have been in the game for a long, long time and I simply can't deal with them anymore.
I have no interest in paying $70 for a game that will only frustrate me and have me selling the game after 4 weeks or less (NHL12 lasted 4 days in my house).

I'm still going to rent because I'm a hockey nut, but seeing some of the vids, and playing the demo myself, I still see the CPU make ridiculous, blind, backhand, 3-line passes that go tape-to-tape. And from 5th or 6th dmen no less.
That's EA's way of compensating for poor AI and to present an artificial challenge.

[Rules]

Just played a full game on All Star using hardcore settings and penalties maxed out. Played very aggressive and NOT ONE SINGLE PENALTY was called.

Hope that is not a problem. I will play a few more tomorrow but that was my biggest complaint last year was the lack of penalties being called.

[goblades26]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

For some reason we can't change a player's default jersey number in the edit player menu anymore. Kind of sucks, because in GM mode for cpu teams after guys get called back up for the regular season many default to the numbers in their player profiles. An example of this is last year Nathan Horton always defaulted to #16 after the pre-season.

Does this mean we cannot edit height, weight, cap hit and most importantly waiver status? (They have waivers wrong every year... 2 way does not make you ineligible, and I get the eligible players fixed every year)

[Gagnon39]

Quote: Originally Posted by Keirik

It could just be me i guess but it sure feels to me that the cpu on allstar and above have a serious boost advantage. They just seem first to every puck, first to react, rebounds find them first, pinball here and there right to them every time... It's very frustrating

Man, I have to completely disagree with you on that. Make sure you're "hustling" to the puck. With Patrick Kane I hardly ever get beat to a loose puck. He's crazy fast. You've got to play good positionally. I've yet to play on anything but Superstar and I've only lost one game.