NHL 15 News Post

NHL 15: Three Keys to Success

03:08 PM - March 5, 2014 by RaychelSnr

Presumably, EA has been quietly smithing away on the next version of the NHL series for at least the last year — and possibly longer if you count pre-production and other early research and development. The reality is that the company couldn't release a game for the next-generation console launches, as there just wasn't the install base to provide adequate return on investment. The NHL series, as I've noted before, has been on a very gentle slide in the last couple of years (even though the games have been consistently solid), and this extra year allows the smaller-than-average dev team to figure out what they really want to do with the next evolution in hockey video games.

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Game: NHL 15Reader Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4 / Xbox 360 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 16 - View All

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# 21 13whitebread @ 03/06/14 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by enice128


	"While player faces won't be equal to that EA Sports UFC"??? If NBA 2K, FIFA & MLB can do it then why can't this dev team??? Presentation is a MUST for the new consoles as well as the broadcast duo...it's sooooo stale already! Nobody calls a game as the Doc does.....Emerick that is!!!

New commentators no excuses this year. I have heard that it will be Doc Emerick with Eddie Olczyk doing the color. No word yet on Paul maquire.

# 22 Wiggy @ 03/07/14 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by enice128


	"While player faces won't be equal to that EA Sports UFC"??? If NBA 2K, FIFA & MLB can do it then why can't this dev team??? Presentation is a MUST for the new consoles as well as the broadcast duo...it's sooooo stale already! Nobody calls a game as the Doc does.....Emerick that is!!!

Because of the very fact that UFC is rendering two fighters, and NHL rendering 12 players... plus benches, refs, a massive crowd, etc. They can get detailed, but not as much as NBA or FIFA.

# 23 Garism @ 03/07/14 12:40 AM

One question, if they do include stick on stick collision, would they it only be an option for offline? As in HUT or OTP, it'll be off or on would you think?

For me..

1) Better AI. For a next gen, yes I do expect new presentations and what not. But if the AI is still crappy, then those new presentations doesn't really make the game any better.

2) Replays. God damn replays. I dont need to see a reply after every whistle. Put them all at the end of the period or at the end of the game.. especially online.

# 24 Gotmilkman24 @ 03/07/14 11:57 AM

1: Better Puck Physics - This will not only keep human goalies from raging due terrible bouncing pucks, but also help possibly with their save animation along with computers knowing exactly where the bouncing puck of hell is landing exactly. 2K had the puck physics years ago. EA should be able to figure it out.

2: Better goalie animations - We who all have played a goalie to legend 3 know the hug post key is sometimes deadly. So deadly if you let go of the post your goaltender will go flying cross crease without the click of a button. The sloppy fish flop desperation saves help and hurt, but look terrible. (There is a lot of stuff wrong with goaltenders that I will save you from reading what you already know.)

3: Custom controls - I dont know how many of you would love to have custom controls, but I for one would love to have custom controls. Wouldn't it be nice to have a hitting button that is only for hitting and a shooting button only for shooting? Same goes for goaltenders. You can swing your paddle down holding L2 + R2, but if you get to deep in the crease your goaltender does the post hump animation.

4: Fix the fighting - We all see some pretty clean hits that either get you a penalty or a good old fashion fight. "Why do I have to fight? That was a clean hit!"

5: Glitch Shot - It's been around for over 4 years now. If you play club without a human goaltender you may know what I'am talking about. The famous glitch shot that makes the goalie sit down in butterfly so you can top cheese the shot. That's not only frustrating but it could be game breaking. I played a game last night where our cpu had 4 saves.

6: You tell me?

# 25 Gotmilkman24 @ 03/07/14 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Majingir


	NHL 14 has done horrible in sales, so hopefully it is a wakeup call for EA to revamp the series. NHL14 has done the worst sales since NHL 07-09 days.

The sales will most likely big huge for them if they make the jump to the next gen consoles. I could only imagine that it will be huge. A lot of people are and have been waiting for 15. Lots of people didn't buy nhl 14 because they wanted to wait.

# 26 Wiggy @ 03/07/14 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonapaloma


	Thing is... often when they show player faces its only 1 or 2 on screen so its not so much to render really. Only thing I can imagine making it difficult is if they want to show the whole player bench. But its a lame excuse not to make realistic looking faces IMO.

Don't misunderstand: they'll be way better this year. The faces will, and should, be an improvement. I'm just saying that UFC is hanging its hat on how detailed its fighters look, whereas NHL just can't do that when it has a way more complicated simulation in a way bigger arena with a lot more people.

# 27 schlitz73 @ 03/07/14 04:06 PM

I've watched this series yo-yo up and down since the very first. There are so many game modes now that there should be something for everyone already. What we need is a game that can cater to all styles of players from the most casual to the dedicated sim-style players. I think many people don't think that's possible but I for one have seen it before.

While I haven't played 13 or 14 (I own 09 and 12), I've watched tons of videos and read lots of forums over the past years to see how many of the issues with past games are still present in NHL14. In my opinion, the areas that should get the most attention are AI and difficulty sliders.

Both the CPU teams and your own CPU teammates act downright ridiculous quite often, doing things and skating in ways that make me shake my head. AI has always been a sore spot with EAs games and while I admit it has improved, it still needs some tweaking. Fine tuning the passing wouldn't hurt either because that can be spotty at times as well.

But the main one is sliders. There just aren't enough of them and there seems to be an all or nothing effect with the ones that are present. It has been near impossible for me to find that happy medium between winning every game without trying hard and getting my teeth kicked in by a bunch of ridiculous goals going in from everywhere.

Anyone with a PS2 should check out NHL 2k4 or 2k5 to see what I mean. 2k4 is my favorite hockey game of all time and if it hadn't been for a bug that could corrupt your franchise data (mine died halfway though my season 2 playoff run), I would probably STILL be playing it. There were probably twice as many sliders as what EA has (at least in NHL12) and you could adjust them more precisely instead of just 5 or 6 levels. Heck, they even had multiple sliders to affect puck physics alone.

The amount of tweaking you could do was incredible and made it easy to get any variety of gameplay. You could have arcade style games with bodies flying all over and lots of goal scoring, or you could have realistic grind it out matches that required pin point passing and setting up plays in order to stand a chance. I ended up going 58-24 or something like that in my last season of 2k4 and I never felt cheated once. Can any of you say that about the last few titles from EA? HUT alone made me want to rip my hair out and I either seem to win 5-0 or lose 0-5... the CPU sometimes simply and obviously deciding beforehand that I am going to lose.

Not that I'm trying to bash on EA because their NHL series is honestly really good, but it just baffles me as to why they haven't bothered to implement the level of precision tuning that I saw 10 years ago in the 2k series. There is no real need to cater to one type of player when you can put it all in one box. Clean up the AI a bit so players behave realistically and more accurately and let us players fine tune the rest with more sliders.

# 28 CarryTheWeight @ 03/08/14 10:44 AM

This series just needs more polish in every sense of the word. More graphical flair, better presentation, better commentary and more diverse, "alive" environments. Next-gen is the perfect opportunity to do this. I'm not going to repeat what everyone else said, but this series has looked to go "real time" with presentation for a while. I assume something along the lines of what next-gen FIFA does is what we'll see for 15 on PS4/XB1.

Speaking of FIFA, Be A GM should look at what FIFA's career mode does and implement its "international" scale. I'm honestly annoyed by Be A GM Mode and how the AHL/NHL seasons happen in a bubble. Junior and International leagues are non-existent apart from filling the draft pool.

We should be able to track stats, scout and sign junior/international players ala Eastside Hockey Manager and Franchise Hockey Manager. I'm not asking for anything groundbreaking, but the fact junior/international leagues are unplayable and inactive just seems dated to me.

Not only that, but generated young players should come through that pipeline instead of randomly generating during the draft. This would make scouting much more important. Right now, it seems like a waste of time to play more than 10-15 seasons in Be A GM.

Text sims still continue to be the way to go if you want a living "franchise mode". I hope next gen NHL changes that.

# 29 schlitz73 @ 03/09/14 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CarryTheWeight


	This series just needs more polish in every sense of the word. More graphical flair, better presentation, better commentary and more diverse, "alive" environments. Next-gen is the perfect opportunity to do this. I'm not going to repeat what everyone else said, but this series has looked to go "real time" with presentation for a while. I assume something along the lines of what next-gen FIFA does is what we'll see for 15 on PS4/XB1. Speaking of FIFA, Be A GM should look at what FIFA's career mode does and implement its "international" scale. I'm honestly annoyed by Be A GM Mode and how the AHL/NHL seasons happen in a bubble. Junior and International leagues are non-existent apart from filling the draft pool. We should be able to track stats, scout and sign junior/international players ala Eastside Hockey Manager and Franchise Hockey Manager. I'm not asking for anything groundbreaking, but the fact junior/international leagues are unplayable and inactive just seems dated to me. Not only that, but generated young players should come through that pipeline instead of randomly generating during the draft. This would make scouting much more important. Right now, it seems like a waste of time to play more than 10-15 seasons in Be A GM. Text sims still continue to be the way to go if you want a living "franchise mode". I hope next gen NHL changes that.

I do agree with you to an extent. The more fleshed out the junior/int'l leagues get, the more interesting franchise/GM modes become. Next gen provides the storage capacity/room to let that happen I would think.

Right now though, the game has more modes than most people know what to do with. It's great that there is something for everyone whether it be online leagues, HUT, BaGM, or whatever... the selection is awesome. Some of those modes do need some tuning but the main focus should be on gameplay. Improve that and the game as a whole becomes better and that gives the devs room to then tinker with the individual modes. If they can improve AI, eliminate any super goalie type play or all skaters feeling the same, and allow a wider range of tuning with expanded sliders, the game will be a lot more fun no matter what mode you play.

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