NHL 17 Beta Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here!

[djhallberg38]

Quote: Originally Posted by Moose Factory

Already saw three huge deal breakers for me: 1. Can't adjust play time of offline HUT seasons, it's set to 5 minute periods. With delays, goals celebrations, replays, it's like 25 minutes all together. Who has that kind of time for one match? I'm married with kids. 2. Not many new face scans. How many years has Thomas Hertl been playing? Come on. Joel Ward? It's annoying to try to play a season with your favorite team when half of them have generic faces. How many more years before we can actually get a close to full league representation of these players? 3. No GameFace in create a pro, just 200+ generic faces that all look terrible. Come on! Even NBA Live had a face scan app! That worked! But HEY those mascots look great, and I'm glad we can change the color of the seat cushions in the stadiums, thanks... NO BUY this year : (

I am with you on the deal breakers. I will add a few of my own.

-Line celebrations: If I see any 2 player only post goal line celebrations, I am going to lose it. This is the most basic part of hockey. Player scores a goal and the whole line on the ice comes together to celebrate. How is it that the developer team was able to have this in NHL '11, but it has been absent since? What could possibly be more important to conveying realism or an immersive atmosphere, than including what actually occurs after every team scores a goal? I cannot believe how much this irritates me.

-In game season stats: Another annoyance that has been conveniently omitted in the Next Gen versions, has been the inclusion of showing how many goals, assists, etc. a player has after a goal has been scored. I hope this has been addressed. How can you not show this info? Madden shows it after every play!! All we need, is to show after a goal. EA stop wasting time on useless crap, like mascots, over the top individual celebrations,etc., and focus on creating a realistic NHL atmosphere that goes with your simulation style game play.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by djhallberg38

I am with you on the deal breakers. I will add a few of my own. -Line celebrations: If I see any 2 player only post goal line celebrations, I am going to lose it. This is the most basic part of hockey. Player scores a goal and the whole line on the ice comes together to celebrate. How is it that the developer team was able to have this in NHL '11, but it has been absent since? What could possibly be more important to conveying realism or an immersive atmosphere, than including what actually occurs after every team scores a goal? I cannot believe how much this irritates me. -In game season stats: Another annoyance that has been conveniently omitted in the Next Gen versions, has been the inclusion of showing how many goals, assists, etc. a player has after a goal has been scored. I hope this has been addressed. How can you not show this info? Madden shows it after every play!! All we need, is to show after a goal. EA stop wasting time on useless crap, like mascots, over the top individual celebrations,etc., and focus on creating a realistic NHL atmosphere that goes with your simulation style game play.

I thought I had read that this was fixed?
Might be wrong though.

Count me as someone who wants a 5-man hug too. It's time that was fixed.

Saying that, I'm still liking what I've been reading regarding the gameplay.
I'll reserve judgement when I hear more impressions of real NHL games vs the CPU, not just HUT.

[Madwolf]

I'm not sure how you can gripe about atmosphere and then complain about wasting time on mascots.

Honestly I think the environment was night and day better from 15 to 16.

[SocialAssassin]

Only played one period. Something about the skating just felt........clunky?

Beyond that, I do enjoy that players take passes in stride now and don't stop then accelerate again like they used to in old games. I still wish we could icon pass though. Why is this feature not in the game?

[Btk0817]

Hey guys! Hope everyone is having a goodtime playing. Was hoping someone has an extra NHL17 ps4 beta code? Would love to play this weekend! Thanks for your help. And my username on here is the same Username on PS4!

[Rhudey]

Quote: Originally Posted by Madwolf

I'm not sure how you can gripe about atmosphere and then complain about wasting time on mascots. Honestly I think the environment was night and day better from 15 to 16.

Maybe because mascots are the least important aspect of "atmosphere". How many NHL games have you watched and actually even noticed a mascot at the game? Crowd noise/reaction, stadium sounds, etc. create atmosphere, not mascots. Creating mascots was probably the biggest waste of time this franchise has ever seen.

[Moose Factory]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rhudey

Maybe because mascots are the least important aspect of "atmosphere". How many NHL games have you watched and actually even noticed a mascot at the game? Crowd noise/reaction, stadium sounds, etc. create atmosphere, not mascots. Creating mascots was probably the biggest waste of time this franchise has ever seen.

Actually I'd add that the NHL 94 anniversary mode in NHL 14 was the biggest waste of time this franchise has ever seen. Basically arcade settings with blue ice.

I think this dev team needs to take a long vacation and play nothing but MLB The Show and NBA2K franchises and take copious notes on how to handle a sports franchise.

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pappy Knuckles

I've only played online so far and I'm enjoying it. I'm not a fan of the sport, but I enjoyed 16. NHL 17 feels pretty good and I think I'm going to grab it at launch. Here's a goal I scored online earlier. I'm a pretty awful player, so this one felt good.

The AI in that video makes my heart hurt...really hope the defenders aren't that awful by release time.

Edit: I should clarify what's obnoxious about this. The 100% passive AI on defense still continues. You can see it best when Lehtera is guarding him as he's cutting across towards the front of the net...he just skates behind him trying to catch up for that cross check animation, instead of holding his stick out in front of him to angle the player away from the net, and force him to go behind it or risk getting the puck knocked off of his stick. Lehtera's actually in pretty good position.

On top of that, Shattenkirk running into Backes and knocking them both out of position to guard the shooter instead of covering the strong side of the net seems a bit goofy itself.

Sad to see it doesn't look like the AI spent too much time in class over the summer.

Double Edit: I threw together some images real quick. It's hard to tell who was playing which position, since they are on the PP, and it's hard to know who's supposed to be back on D, but judging by things, I'm guessing Backes might be the "defender" out there.

So here's where things get goofy first of all. Even ignoring that the player controlling Tarasenko takes him on a goofy route, there's a few ways the AI could have handled things a bit better.



When they're skating in, it's essentially a 5 on 2...there shouldn't be a scoring chance. The player skates in, and Shattenkirk is in perfect position, with Tarasenko trailing the shooter. The blue arrow from Shattenkirk shows where he could have gone to put pressure on the puck carrier, and follow him up the boards, with Lehtera covering the middle and the high boards to seal him off. Backes smartly skates straight to the weak side of the net, where he eventually engages the Sabres player that skates in to set up shop. I think the biggest mess up is that instead of Shattenkirk keeping pressure (once again, an AI player gets within stick distance, but just stands without actually trying to poke check). Still, it should be relatively easy to cover. Backes has the back door shooter covered, and there are still 3 guys near the puck carrier, with Tarasenko guarding the player near the blue line.

Then it moves to my next image.

Blue is the route the players should have taken to provide coverage, orange it the puck carrier's eventual path, and yellow is where Lehtera's player could have easily held his stick to apply coverage and likely force the player behind the net
Lehtera stops in the middle, which isn't bad, as he's covering the pass...but instead of trying to stay between the shooter and the slot, he stops, poke checks while standing, and then has to skate almost behind the puck carrier, instead of making a straight line back to the net to seal off the slot. Meanwhile, Shattenkirk has peeled off of pressuring the puck carrier, skated over and taken Backes and himself out of the play, as Backes is bumped off coverage, and Shattenkirk isn't facing the play, and has his stick completely tied up in an effort to shove the Sabres player.