Random Observation…

[BleacherCreature]

Why do my players suddenly become directionally challenged once I’m on the penalty kill? I can shoot the puck down the ice at even strength all game long for icing after icing after icing. But the minute I’m trying to kill a penalty that same play all my players want to do is fire the puck into the boards to the side. Not even the worst hockey player in the world would think that’s a good penalty killing play. And more times than not it will lead to a power play goal against. Frustrating to say the least.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dowie]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleacherCreature

Why do my players suddenly become directionally challenged once I’m on the penalty kill? I can shoot the puck down the ice at even strength all game long for icing after icing after icing. But the minute I’m trying to kill a penalty that same play all my players want to do is fire the puck into the boards to the side. Not even the worst hockey player in the world would think that’s a good penalty killing play. And more times than not it will lead to a power play goal against. Frustrating to say the least. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

AI controlled players for MY team aren't exactly great in the O-Zone either.
Rarely line up in slot for 1-timer, can't keep up with me when I skate into the zone, and don't crash net/screen goalie enough either.

Strategy edits don't help either.

Dowie

[tinpanalley]

If you start looking too carefully in NHL at what AI players do and even what you're able to do controlling them you'll quickly start to see the problem with the game and why many of us don't play it as much as we used to play older versions or how much we've gone back to play older games. But we tend to focus on the player we're controlling and that player does (mostly) what we tell it to do so we don't notice this. And the better you get at the game it's not because the game becomes more realistic, but rather that YOU get better at mastering the mechanics to get the results you want. But if you watch with your sliders a game of CPIU vs CPU you'll quickly see how bad players are at doing what any human beng would do in the same situations.
Things get worse when you grab a controller because the AI is only set up to respond in certain ways to the action around them and the randomness you introduce into that algorithm can massively upset the flow that is programmed into the game. I have a friend that is an game artist/developer for a smallish studio in the UK, he doesn't play sports games at all but he told me once when I asked him why a certain game wasn't very good mechanically, that "you have to remember, these aren't a bunch of individual players interacting with each other. These are all the same tiny computer program, designed with the same logic and AI but programmed to have varying degrees of percentage of success performing specific tasks -- passing, shooting, skating, etc -- so they don't know each other are there, they only are programmed to react a certain way if certain things happen near them." So, that one player or another doesn't set up properly in a penalty kill or forecheeck properly is because all these things are very complicated to do.
AI is NOT something we all gush over lovingly anymore in sports games. Because for the most part in all sports games, it's flawed. Massively. In every sport. Notice how much ten to fifteen years ago the most touted feature of a new game was the intelligent response, using fancy bull---t branding like intelli-pass, 360-awareness, or isomotion, to sell some new AI thing that had been developed. But they were actually effective things that had been developed. Well they didn't want to admit it, but all sports games pretty much realised there was nothing else they could add or develop about 10 years ago. Hence why most sports games' best all around version was about ten years ago or longer. Never happens anymore, all they sell is the online features, the card and coin collecting, and the ability to see sideburns swaying in the breeze.
Long story short, there is a LOT wrong with the games so they've leaned towards fun and engaging rather than realistic. And if that "fun" is fun to you then you like it. If not, like for me and a few others, we go to another imperfect but at least more true to life representation of the game which is usually a game that is 10 or more years old when the devs were at least trying to make the game feel like real sports not make the game programmed to entice more card and coin collecting online.

[jkra0512]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleacherCreature

Why do my players suddenly become directionally challenged once I’m on the penalty kill? I can shoot the puck down the ice at even strength all game long for icing after icing after icing. But the minute I’m trying to kill a penalty that same play all my players want to do is fire the puck into the boards to the side. Not even the worst hockey player in the world would think that’s a good penalty killing play. And more times than not it will lead to a power play goal against. Frustrating to say the least. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I feel like it's supposed to help with generating offense for the CPU's AI. I played a few games last night and see the same exact thing you're seeing, my teammates are skating around like their eyes are closed and when they get the puck the just fire it in any direction.



Two things I absolutely can't stand is when you're on the PK it seems like you lose many more of the 50/50 pucks, and the CPU AI gives you zero time to react when you get a challenged puck...each of them have super-powered reaction time. No one can convince me that EA doesn't makes your AI teammates artificially dumb to keep power play % within an acceptable threshold. I say that because sometimes my AI teammates are unstoppable on the PP, but at a far less clip than I see with the CPU AI.

[mercalnd]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleacherCreature

Why do my players suddenly become directionally challenged once I’m on the penalty kill? I can shoot the puck down the ice at even strength all game long for icing after icing after icing. But the minute I’m trying to kill a penalty that same play all my players want to do is fire the puck into the boards to the side. Not even the worst hockey player in the world would think that’s a good penalty killing play. And more times than not it will lead to a power play goal against. Frustrating to say the least.

It can be annoying. That being said, your best bet to clear the zone on the pk is to lob the puck down the ice rather than shooting it. It's more effective and kills more time as the puck takes longer to get down there and you don't risk it coming back after wrapping around the boards.

Another thing I'll do is a soft pass to no one along the boards if I have a clear lane down the ice.

[Wbcfan]

The gameplay has been trash since 2015. Copy and paste eveyr year.