NHL 18 Gameplay Trailer: Creative Attack Dekes, Defensive Skill Stick, Creative AI

[Steve_OS]

EA Sports has just released their NHL 18 gameplay trailer, featuring creative attack dekes, defensive skill...

Written By: Steve Noah

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[actionhank]

The defensive skill stick and better AI passing looks nice.

My main worry so far is still that the AI defense is way too passive, and the goalies still stay too hunched over when playing and moving. It seems one of the bigger problems with goalies is that they do everything in their power to square up to the shooter, almost to a fault. If you watch them move in the video, they seem to come out of the net to the top of the paint, but then they seem to stay almost lined up in the same direction as the cross bar, and centered directly on the puck, even if the puck carrier is way to the side on a backhand. This ends up leading to them being out of position, and that coupled with their jittery sliding animations where they don't really dig in and push off, but shuffle, leads to them allowing a lot of easy goals that they would normally save.

The skill stick will be nice on defense, but it still looks like the AI is just still skating along next to players and facing away from the puck a lot. I'm really hoping that gets more love before release, as it's been one of the bigger issues in the game for me.

Sure, I can deke and dangle all over, but it's not fun when my AI defenders just skate backwards watching the puck carrier.

[tyler289]

As someone who actually really enjoyed NHL17 despite its flaws (I actually made it through 2 BeAGM seasons playing 80% of the games), I really like the new defensive skill stick and creative AI (though I am extremely skeptical as to how good the AI will be at this), but it seems like every single year a "feature" is "new dekes!" that I barely, if ever, use. I've resigned myself to the fact that this development team just doesn't want to focus on what we think the series needs.

The fact that 3-on-3 is a "big" "gameplay" feature is also incredibly disappointing and concerns me as to how the rest of the game is improved. I've also resigned myself to the fact that, under this development team, we'll probably never see full-line goal celebrations or anything like that. Praying I'm wrong because right now when you score a goal it's so unsatisfying most of the time. I get that they're catering to the EASHL and HUT crowds who just skip through it, but it still stinks.

All that said, I'm still looking forward to the game and think it will be a solid, small step forward.

[JayhawkerStL]

I couldn't be more excited about the 3 on 3 modes. I absolutely loved seeing 3 on 3 in OT, and thought it would be great for the ASG even before I saw that it was what they were doing.

There is a good chance the 3 on 3 may get 90% of my play time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[actionhank]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jay D

I couldn't be more excited about the 3 on 3 modes. I absolutely loved seeing 3 on 3 in OT, and thought it would be great for the ASG even before I saw that it was what they were doing. There is a good chance the 3 on 3 may get 90% of my play time. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm hoping the actual AI knows how to use their 3 on 3 now.

Before, it was 1 forward and 2 defenders, so this lead to stuff like Kyle Brodziak being sent out in OT with Gunnarsson and Bortuzzo, instead of a better line like Parayko and Stastny with Fabbri.

[asu666]

I am loving the new NHL series. It is very underrated gameplay wise and the little details continuously amaze me. Keep up the great work.

[ianlast]

Please scrap the animation you see at the 6-7 second mark from Tuukka. No modern goalie reacts like this to a shot, falling back on their ***, if anything they should be flopping forward. Ugly legacy animation that cropped up around NHL 13(?) and has been kept around for some reason.

I guess we'll have to wait for NHL 19 to get a goalie animation overhaul. The shooter-goalie battle is as integral to hockey as pitcher-batter in baseball, and it really detracts from realism when you see goalies moving in ways that you'd never see IRL.

[skrody]

every single goal top shelf.
which proves stats dont matter, players don't matter, nothing matters, except can you aim perfectly top shelf with whoeever to score.