NHL REVAMPED- 2015

[puckhead73]

Hey everyone, Puck here.

WARNING MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT FOLLOWS

I have been a bit absent the last week or so, and I’m sure you all are looking forward to an update regarding what the official plan is for NHL Revamped this year. I have spent the last week thinking about the different ideas we have had throughout the past regarding different things we could potentially incorporate in our project moving forward.
There have been things left on the drawing board that any number of us on the team liked and wanted to incorporate that ultimately were either vetoed by the team majority, or never really considered as a whole, just never done because we didn’t have the time, or thought of it too late in the development of the project.

At this time I am a bit tempted to use this as a bit of an experimental year. Basically we do a base update of just the NHL/AHL. It wouldn’t be near as inclusive an update as last year’s release, which to be honest is in all reality what the release this year will be anyways seeing as only about a 4th of the team will actually be working on it .
But after that base update is done, this is where the fun starts (keep in mind I’m just rambling here)-

My thought is we release the base update and then do some experimenting on the different possibilities to employ when it comes to EA Attribute philosophy. For example, as you all know, our focus in Revamped has been to try and incorporate as realistic a skillset for each player as possible, and avoiding the required inflation of specific ratings to make that player fit the expected overall. To demonstrate what I am talking about, think Alexander Ovechkin. To put it bluntly, he is absolutely horrible at Defense. Like absurdly bad. So many controller disconnected jokes… But anyways, in all reality his Defensive attributes such as Defensive Awareness and Shot Blocking by all means deserve a rating in the low sixties. (I mean seriously, his defense is abysmal.) Now in the past there wasn’t really a way around inflating his defensive rating if we wanted him to have that 90+ overall that really shows how much of an offensive dynamo he has the potential to be. If I recall correctly he has hovered around an 70+ for his defensive awareness.

So here are some of the ideas I’m thinking we try and explore this year-

1.Less worry about the Overall ratings than in years past- So if Ovi ends up an 86 due to poor Defense then so be it.
2.We massively drop the average rating of passing to help incorporate a messier game. I’m thinking like an average drop of 20 per passing rating.
3.A drop on average of 10 on shot accuracy attributes. (My thought on this is that it could help make a messier game with more missed shots, potentially increasing play in the corners and behind the net. A side effect could potentially be a drop in the frequency of stupid glitch shots being so easily pulled off, as that top right inside corner might not be as easy to hit.)
4.An average drop of 15-20 in the puck control ratings. (Once again to encourage a sloppier game. Could make it easier to stop the utterly infuriating CPU wraparound glitch goal.)
5.An average drop of 10 on body checking/strength. (To try and reduce the massively overstated amount of “Big Hits”)
6.A potential increase in the average aggression rating of each player. (In my experience I feel this does to some degree influence how close a defending player plays a player with the puck. In all reality I have no evidence to back this up.)
7.Potential increase in Shot blocking ratings (Once again to help promote a sloppier game.)
8.A universal rating of Never for each player in regards to fighting frequency with the exception of the top 30 fighters over the last 2 seasons. (Hopefully to stop the stupid fights you get like Bouwmeester vs. Datsyuk.)
9.An average drop of 30 in discipline ratings. (To incorporate more penalties)

In all reality I know that these are a bit extreme, and while I feel I have always found a slider set that I found that worked for me personally, there were always still things that I felt needed sliders of their own to really make the game better. Things like shot blocking, more influential passing, shooting, and puck control sliders etc. My suggestion here is we bake these desired changes into the roster itself. Now a large chunk of these we have tested as a team in the past, and for any number of reasons either never found their way into the final release, or were not fully incorporated for other reasons. The reason I would like to run by you guys the possibility of revisiting these is that we as a team didn’t have a large amount of time alongside the large number of people needed to fully test things like this to fully determine what the real impact would be.

So my question to you all is this- after we get an update out with the necessary transactions and basic rating adjustments built off of last year’s release, how many of you would be interested in working with me in testing some of these adjustments? Do you think that this is a bad idea? Do you have additional changes you would like to see made? Basically this year as the release isn’t going to be near as in depth as in years passed just due to the logistics of this year’s release, I want this to be a completely open forum/discussion thread where we all work together as a community to really figure out what we can do to truly improve the gameplay of the series.

Yes I understand that the next gen game will be different with different issues/needs, but I think we all can agree that EA isn’t going to suddenly turn around and completely change their whole underlying philosophy on hockey ratings and how they are utilized. And even if they do, the lessons I feel we could learn from playing with these ratings like this will allow us to tackle the next generation of hockey even more prepared to release the most accurate and true to life representation of video game hockey out there.

Anyway- I really am excited to hear all of your thoughts regarding the above outlined.

TLDR- I’m crazy, have crazy ideas, and want to include you all in my crazy schemes.

[Felixeur]

YES, I agree on all points, especially the shooting, passing, puck control, checking ideas. These will help massively for my 20 minute period sliders

BTW, nice joke (WARNING, BIG WALL OF TEXT!)

[Felixeur]

I am willing to test these attribute theorys

[Cletus]

I'd be completely fine with Ovie around an 85, but for those who want a super realistic Be A GM it might not work. The game is centered around overalls being the end all be all when it comes to transactions.

I'm not sure how much the defensive stats matter to forwards in regards to cpu play. Each of them play the same style as it is. Now if there was a way to make Ovie play high instead of always chase pucks in the corner in the defensive zone, you would be on to something.

Most of the attribute information has come from years of playing OTP, so it might not work the same (knowing EAC it does though). Aggression does help with looks pucks more than defensive "Aggressiveness" (which is opposite of the slider setting as I'm sure most know). In order for aggressiveness to be really noticeable there has to be a huge disparity. If you have a 95 aggressiveness guy going up against a 60, the 95 guy will win a puck battle if everything else is even. Thee 95 guy will even create a loose puck by skating by/into the lower aggressiveness player beccause of how momentum/intimidation works on last gen.

I've heard (haven't tried) that 36 d and o aware creates loose pucks because the game doesn't know where to send the puck to. Maybe someone could test that out, but make huge disparity in aggressiveness for guys that are good at picking up pucks in their d-zone.

Since I'm writing a story here, let me propose something else to y'all. In OTP/EASHL discipline only affects boarding/hitting from behind/interference penalties. Do you think lowering everyone's stick check ratings would create more penalties from slashing/hooking/tripping? Maybe put guys that are good defensively only at 70 or 75? Not sure if more issues with sticks going through everyone will appear.

Also the more I watch this game, the more I realize that neutral zone pressure is as much of a problem with the forwards being too high on the forecheck or not backchecking as much as it the d-men. I haven't found a way to keep them back on the forecheck for a true trap unless you turn the aggressiveness slider way down. It fixes it somewhat but breaks the defensive pressure.
TLR
More craziness

[tinpanalley]

If it's for the PS3, I'd love to help if you just explain what it is you need help with. I'd be all in favour of trying to give you guys a hand. Let me know.

[lhslancers]

Is this going to be for 15 or an updated roster for NHL 14?

[PensDynasty87]

I hope this is for 15 for Xbox 360/PS3. As far as other attribute edits u can incorperate. Go look at shogunharlems post on the main thread. He's used your revamped TDL rosters as a base and did a bunch of goalie and skater attribute edits and I honestly say it plays amazing. I've never seen a more real to life hockey game than I havd ever have on a video game. Goalies play so amazing n like real life, like positioning, moving post to post, and I've seen a lot of new animations I've never seen before. With the skater edits it made the play more loose, less big hits and puck physics are amazing and with the new puck physics on 15 it would only be better. I strongly encourage you to read his posts n strongly consider getting his permission to incorperate his edit into your revamped rosters this year. Just really hope it will be for 15 on last gen IMO

[Metsfan31]

Not to speak for Puck, but I believe this is for 14.