NHL 15: The Legacy of the Failed to Launch Title

[snc237]

I like NHL 15 for what it is. In saying that I want so much more. Can't wait for eashl to come back however hopefully that mode has major attention to it cause if it's "this is year one of three approach to eashl" I'm going to be disappointed. It took them 5 years until eashl was really really solid on last gen and hopefully we don't have to wait that long again.

[milesizdead]

Worst NHL launch ever.
- Bad choices in "marketing" the game
- Missing game modes
- Arcade gameplay, everything is heavily assisted
- Lack of support through patches/roster updates etc
- Broken promises about transparency and forum activity from devs

[ericromain]

Shame on EA for not giving NHL the necessary head count to release a game in a year.
They stripped out a lot of game modes.
It drives me nuts that 1v1 online doesn't have user controlled goalie shootouts, and NHL14's awesome highlight system is gone, you can't give me a replay of every goal one year and take that away.

Still I am able to take NHL15 with a grain of salt. They clearly made the priority to maintain gameplay, and improve. I really enjoyed it.

I'm looking forward to NHL16, it'll mostly be reinstating the missing, but here's to hoping they're motivated and bring a lot of innovation and exciting fresh newness.

[AdamJones113]

Quote: Originally Posted by gjb09003

face scans....is it really that difficult?

Yes, yes it is actually. Takes around 18 developers, if I remember right, and the devs have more important things to focus on.

[Arrowhead21]

I'm willing to sacrifice aesthetic things such as face scans if it means I will get to play a game that actually feels like hockey. it would also be nice to have the Action Tracker back.

[Penaltybox4ever]

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrowhead21

I'm willing to sacrifice aesthetic things such as face scans if it means I will get to play a game that actually feels like hockey. it would also be nice to have the Action Tracker back.

Yeah, even if you dress up the pig its still a pig and NHL15 was a filthy pig...
No as you said put manpower on modes and gameplay.
I used to play previous games 3-4 days a week, now I do 1-2 games monthly, play now couch versus...
Well Im not falling for same pig, used to preorder NHL games but never more, not worth it to buy full price for a game I hardly play and selling it doesnt refund enough for the trouble.
I will read alot of comments and reviews before EA get any of my money...

[Cletus]

I'm hoping that NHL 16 gets docked points for being too hard. How nice would it be for some metacritic guy complain about having to dump the puck in because of neutral zone pressure?

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[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by AdamJones113

Yes, yes it is actually. Takes around 18 developers, if I remember right, and the devs have more important things to focus on.

My frustration with rosters and player models has always been that EA for whatever reason (Understaffed, too many other more important focuses, all valid reasons) has never been good at all. They miss handedness, player hair, size, skills, and player moves all of the time. They're also bound to the rules that they are handed by the NHL when they sign the contract as to when players can be added (Due to the NHLPA and having to play a certain number of minutes or games, if i remember right).

This could all be easily alleviated if they just added an in-depth roster editing and player creation system. Sure, it would take time, but considering how long they've been using the same system for current player creation (I believe the Player Editor in 14 was for all intents and purposes, the exact same as 09, maybe even earlier than that, with small things added. Even the face models were largely unchanged), EA could create a new system, find a way to either allow offline file sharing through rosters that could be shared, downloaded, and installed via flash drive (no need on their end to monitor a server, track uploads, and host files), or if they really wanted to go the extra mile they could add the online side of it, and host servers to share sliders, rosters, and created players.

The Show (yet again) is a great example. Guys have throwback teams, improved rosters, improved attributes (Something the Revamped team used to be able to do, but that was taken away for whatever reason). The Show allows near total customization, but more importantly, they made it easy to share those things with others, whereas EA seems to handcuff you.

I've gone on and on before about how awesome it would be if they allowed us to share/edit rosters, and give us a better create a player interface with more options, but they could even take advantage of the powers of the new system and find a way to give access to things like importing image files for things like jerseys and face scans. Guys have been doing it in NHL04 on the PC forever, and that game still gets played by people. Doing the same for NHL would mean people could create their own jerseys, better team customization with custom jerseys for that, and then better face scans without EA having to lift a finger past launch.

EA just needs to take the reigns off of the users, because OS alone has a talented user base that's more than capable and willing to do the leg work to improve visuals and rosters, not to mention tweak sliders and attributes to get a more perfect game.