NHL 14 Official Trailer, Six New Features Announced

[kdorsey0718]

Honestly, I was fine with NHL 13. Loved the game, loved Tuner 1.04. No AI is going to be perfect and hardcore fans will always adjust the sliders. Once you do, the realistic gameplay comes out. The game is default to new players and making it a stiff experience.

My biggest issue is presentation. I wanna see an NBC overhaul. Gary Thorne here in Baltimore is one of the best baseball announcers around, but he hasn't called hockey in so long. Why is he still on the game? And unless you are a diehard Rangers fan, you won't know much about Bill Clemente. They're great at calling the plays but the humor is old. Can you imagine a game with Doc Emrick calling the action? Amazing! I don't even care who the color commentator would be. Hell, put Pierre down between the benches to offer insight between plays and in intermissions. Madden has CBS, NCAA has ESPN, Tiger Woods has CBS and the Golf Channel, even the old NCAA Basketball games had ESPN and CBS. Bring NBC to NHL 14!

One of my biggest peeves isn't the gameplay, the sticky passes, or anything like that. Mine is the puck. It's too stiff. When you watch a hockey game and Zdeno Chara winds up from the point and hits net, that puck bounces out back to the ice. It doesn't hit the net and slowly fall down. It's an odd pet peeve but when I slap a shot in or I hit the top of the net, I want it to bounce around.

[bwiggy33]

Quote: Originally Posted by kdorsey0718

No AI is going to be perfect and hardcore fans will always adjust the sliders. Once you do, the realistic gameplay comes out. The game is default to new players and making it a stiff experience.

True, no AI is going to be perfect. However, these sliders don't make the AI more realistic. The same exact AI problems occur no matter what sliders you adjust. The reason the sliders in this game do not affect the AI mind is because they are broad. Game speed, shot speed, Acceleration, pass accuracy, etc. Those don't change the way the AI thinks. Those change how the game plays for both the Human and CPU.

The sliders do not go into the mind of the CPU to actually change the way they think and play the game. There are only three sliders that change the AI mind. The first being AI Learning, the second being CPU Difficulty Adjustment, and the third being CPU Strategy Adjustment. Other than that all of the other sliders are based solely for how the game feels and plays. That is the major problem. As for the 3 sliders that do affect the AI mind, they pretty much turn the CPU into superhumans if you bump up those specific sliders, thus resulting in many odd things to occur. People will debate whether this is the case, but when my goalie lets in a soft shot on the ice from outside the blue line late in the 3rd period, I think there is something fishy going on. Then the game will proceed to score strange goals until it is tied up or they have the lead. This isn't a one time thing, this has happened many many times during last gen and this gen.

Now the one thing in this game that does affect the AI mind is the Build your AI feature. That is the first time in this gen that we have been able to actually alter the way the CPU plays the game, in a non superhuman way. The problem is, there just aren't enough sliders for that yet and they can't be used in BAGM. Hopefully they will be adding more options and sliders for the Build your AI feature in NHL 14. Now people may say that these AI mind sliders I talk about can't really be done. That is completely false. If you look at 2k's hockey game, they have loads of sliders that pretty much all affect how the CPU thinks. These include: CPU Pressure (critical slider), Shot frequency, poke check frequency, passing frequency, one timer frequency, hitting frequency, goalie sliders (actually altering how they decide to play the position), and I could go on and on. Way different than the broad sliders EA has.

If EA wants to make this game for everyone, they need to add more specific AI altering sliders. That's how you hit the sim, casual, and arcade population. If they can give us more sliders that actual alter the AI mind to make the CPU feel natural and dynamic, this game would be damn near perfect.

[canucksss]

Quote: Originally Posted by bwiggy33

If you look at 2k's hockey game, they have loads of sliders that pretty much all affect how the CPU thinks. These include: CPU Pressure (critical slider), Shot frequency, poke check frequency, passing frequency, one timer frequency, hitting frequency, goalie sliders (actually altering how they decide to play the position), and I could go on and on. Way different than the broad sliders EA has. If EA wants to make this game for everyone, they need to add more specific AI altering sliders. That's how you hit the sim, casual, and arcade population. If they can give us more sliders that actual alter the AI mind to make the CPU feel natural and dynamic, this game would be damn near perfect.

THIS!!!!! You hit the great point. Now, do you really need a BIG BUDGET and many programmers do this? Because if the answer is NO, then why EA cannot implement it?

I WILL VOTE FOR YOU FOR THE NEXT PROJECT DIRECTOR OF EA NHL franchise!!!

[drog1602]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gotmilkman24

All I want to throw in is that this looks good. Not great, but I'm sure there is more to come. However, some of you guys should stop complaining.. I mean go ahead if you want EA to have less devs for this game.. but this game needs as much support as it can get being that its on a low budget. I do know though that this little trailer release.. isnt everything they have. I'am excited for the new BaPro mode.

Lol, are we supporting a charity now? EA makes money hand over fist, if they really cared about their customers and products, then they would put the money towards this game.

As a customer, i don't want to hear how the dev team is so small, or they don't have the same budget as FIFA. That is not my concern.

We deserve better than what we have been given in the last four years. I am not about to start feeling sorry for EA and just hand over money. They need to earn it, or lower the price to reflect the "low budget" game.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by drog1602

Lol, are we supporting a charity now? EA makes money hand over fist, if they really cared about their customers and products, then they would put the money towards this game. As a customer, i don't want to hear how the dev team is so small, or they don't have the same budget as FIFA. That is not my concern. We deserve better than what we have been given in the last four years. I am not about to start feeling sorry for EA and just hand over money. They need to earn it, or lower the price to reflect the "low budget" game.

Great points.
And there are several examples of 'small' development teams that have created awesome games.
Look at NHL2K3. I have a hard time believing that their team was larger, and had more resources, than what EA Canada gives the NHL14 team.

And let's face facts; It wasn't until the 2K brand started kicking EA's butt that they finally put in a real effort to make a good hockey game.

[MizzouBravesFan]

I haven't played an NHL game in a few years so I'm willing to come into this year with an open mind...gonna pick this up because I want to get back into hockey gaming.

Looks like it was a smart move on my part, won't come into this with any preconceived notions or expectations.

[bwiggy33]

Quote: Originally Posted by MizzouBravesFan

I haven't played an NHL game in a few years so I'm willing to come into this year with an open mind...gonna pick this up because I want to get back into hockey gaming. Looks like it was a smart move on my part, won't come into this with any preconceived notions or expectations.

Coming into this game now is a good move. For people like myself who have played this game year after year, we can pick out the same exact flaws this game has had since 07. My advice to you is to try to avoid reading posts on here (some from me), just so it doesn't ruin your enjoyment. If it doesn't than that's terrific.

The one reason I don't like expressing the issues with this game on here is because I hate ruining games for people who enjoy it. Each one of us spends $35-$60 on the video game, and deserves to enjoy it. Sadly, I don't find much enjoyment and coming on here to express my concerns helps with that. That's what this website is for. It is also here in hopes that maybe an EA NHL Dev may look on here and realize that people are looking for a more sim experience. I do hope you enjoy NHL 14. It was easily my favorite sports series from 07-09, until I got a PS3 for The Show. I played NHL 07-09 from one release date until the next release date.

[MizzouBravesFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by bwiggy33

Coming into this game now is a good move. For people like myself who have played this game year after year, we can pick out the same exact flaws this game has had since 07. My advice to you is to try to avoid reading posts on here (some from me), just so it doesn't ruin your enjoyment. If it doesn't than that's terrific. The one reason I don't like expressing the issues with this game on here is because I hate ruining games for people who enjoy it. Each one of us spends $35-$60 on the video game, and deserves to enjoy it. Sadly, I don't find much enjoyment and coming on here to express my concerns helps with that. That's what this website is for. It is also here in hopes that maybe an EA NHL Dev may look on here and realize that people are looking for a more sim experience. I do hope you enjoy NHL 14. It was easily my favorite sports series from 07-09, until I got a PS3 for The Show. I played NHL 07-09 from one release date until the next release date.

Thanks for the kind words and you're right, the insanity about these games is just overwhelming TBH...its exactly why I keep my presence in the NCAA and Madden forums to a minimal.

It doesn't bother me to read people's concerns or criticisms or thoughts on a game, in fact if done right and not overly nutty it actually helps, but too many people take it wayyyyy overboard.

I'm sure I'll enjoy NHL 14...hell I'm pretty good at finding what's good in games and what I enjoy as opposed to the opposite.