NHL 16 News Post

NHL 16 Trial Available Now For EA Access Subscribers, Get 10 Hours of Gamplay

05:00 PM - September 9, 2015 by Steve_OS

The trial version of NHL 16 is available now (a day early) for EA Access subscribers. To start the download process, open up the EA Access hub, scroll over to NHL 16, click View in Store and download the trial.

For those of you that can download it, play a few games and let us know what you think!

REMINDER: You get 10 hours of gameplay, so make sure you exit out of the game if you are not playing. Don't pause and lose those precious minutes.

Game: NHL 16Reader Score: Vote Now
Platform: PS4 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 0 - View All

NHL 16 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 DukesofHazzard @ 09/10/15 12:22 AM

I HATE Sony for not adding the EA Access

# 42 MaximumChaos84 @ 09/10/15 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DukesofHazzard


	I HATE Sony for not adding the EA Access

It's the best value in gaming...I have no idea why Sony would not pick it up.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 43 bad_philanthropy @ 09/10/15 01:09 AM

Any impressions of manual passing?

# 44 HenryClay1844 @ 09/10/15 01:10 AM

Are people enjoying this? What am I doing wrong? I have never seen a game with a bigger difference between Rooking and Pro. I simply cannot win a single faceoff in Pro like 0 for 24 in a game. I give up terrible goals and sliders seem to do nothing at all. I got so frustrated that I bumped it to Rookie, upped all the sliders and was up 7-0 before I shut if off. This is one of the worst gaming experience I've ever had.

# 45 jyoung @ 09/10/15 01:21 AM

Looks like Online Versus mode definitely has the new 3 vs. 3 OT rules applied:

If a penalty occurs during 3 vs. 3, the player count goes to 4 vs. 3 on the powerplay.

# 46 canucksss @ 09/10/15 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaLiveKing


	That's one part of the game that's annoying as hell. It's across the board in EA games though. They want you to do all the work while the CPU moves on a string!! I'm gonna put it on Super star and let you know

I cant wait for your observations, I play mainly BaGM. This comment of yours, its the same old issue. SMH

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaLiveKing


	Anyone notice that the CPU is WAY TOO Aggressive? They're not even playing hockey, they're just body checking, stealing the puck and shooting at the goalie. One game, superstar difficulty (8 min periods, I usually do 10) they had 47 shots on me. and dropped 7 goals on me to my 2. It's like they're not trying to play hockey, just NHL hits out there. I've tweaked some of the sliders and game play settings and it still doesn't matter. Tuning will fix it, but man it's annoying Edit: I forgot to mention that the User CPU teammates are still useless And the CPU found ways to get breakaways off face offs which in the NHL is next to impossible

As I expected. At higher rank, its not really playing GOOD DEFENSE its GOON Defense. I saw also about the lack of penalties......... so far, I am unmoved, unfortunately. Great for those playing EASHL, but poor AGAIN for those palying BaGM offline.

Thanks for posting!

# 47 philliesphan026 @ 09/10/15 02:40 AM

Warning, and apologies in advance, this is a long rant about Be a GM.

As a guy who mainly plays offline Franchise, I have to say one word sums up NHL 16's effort: Uninspired.

I skipped last year's after hearing about how gutted it was, but this year just seems lifeless. I don't know why EA tries to pigeonhole some kind of Morale system into every Franchise mode, because the one here and the one in Madden (Confidence/XP system in that one) seem to be more of a nuisance (or in Madden's case, game-breaking) than anything else. Which brings me to Player/Team Meetings. It's an intriguing idea and if you've played the Football Manager games on PC you'll be familiar with the concept... But to be frank, it's embarrassing at the way this was implemented in the game. Every few weeks, 2 or 3 random players on your team will request to speak with you. So you go to the Team Morale screen and talk to them. Now I'll admit that I've only gotten through about a year (simming all games), but it seems like it's the same few issues every time. "Praise me for my good performance," "The front office are idiots/doing a good job," "The locker room atmosphere sucks," "Give me playing time," "Pity me I've been playing poorly lately." I might have missed a few but you really won't be seeing more than that, except perhaps on rare occasions.

This wouldn't be too bad if it happened a few times a season. But it doesn't, it happens much more than that. I'd say at least 5 times a month... Which also wouldn't be that bad if it was an engaging experience. But it is not. It's basically a guessing game with no accountability. Some scrub wants playing time? Tell him you'll look into it, he'll either be happy or it will have no effect for some reason. He won't call you out later on a broken promise (at least my players didn't). With each scenario that I listed above, there's 4 response options you can choose, each one a sentence long. And every time you see a player complain about playing time, for example, you'll get the same exact 4 options. There's no variety there. If you guess right, the player's morale goes up. If you guess wrong, his morale will go down. Other times, nothing happens at all. The game doesn't tell you why his morale went up or went down or didn't change, but I guess that's not important, right?

There also seems to be no rhyme or reason for some player meetings. Roberto Luongo is complaining that the locker room needs a shake-up... but why? Is it a certain player or players who are a bad influence? Is it because the team is losing? Who cares, just pick an answer and hope his morale goes up, it ultimately doesn't matter. I would complain about them wasting time on putting this into the game when other areas of Franchise need a lot more help, but it really doesn't seem like they spent much time on it at all.

Before I go into my next point, I have to say the menus actually look pretty nice. Takes a bit to get acclimated to but they are sleek and uncluttered. However, and I'm not sure if this is a problem due to it being the Access version, but the menus are very sluggish. This has been an issue for EA games for as long as I can remember. Want to go see the standings? Click the League Stats screen from the main hub. Wait a second for it to load. Once there, click the Team Stats/Standings screen. Wait a second for it to load. Oh it's on Atlantic Division by default, let me tab over to the Eastern Conference. Wait a second for it to load. Get the picture? It's not the end of the world but it gets old really quick.

Sim times are still on the slow side. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Scouting is yet another thing that follows the uninspired theme. I can't believe EA can't come up with a better system than what is in this game. First of all, there is basically no point in scouting outside of Canada, as that's where 80% of the prospects are (the other 20% split amongst the US and a half dozen European countries). All you can do is scout Forwards/Defensemen/Goalies (pick one group) from a region for a set amount of time (between one and six weeks). Rinse and repeat. This, to me, is the opposite of fun. It is busy work, much like the Player Meeting system.

Another huge issue is that the teams are way too closely rated. The worst team in the NHL is basically only 6 or so overall points worse than the best team. What's the point of a 0-100 scale if every team has a rating over 86 in Attacking/Defending/Goalkeeping? When the worst team is an 86 and the best team is a 93, where's the variance? It should go without saying that this lack of variance applies to the players as well. No wonder all the AI teams play the same and the superstars don't stand out. This invalidates a lot of what makes a franchise mode exciting.

Yes, a lot of this might be nit-picking, but when you break it down this mode is as bare-bones as it gets. Scouting and "Player Meetings" are a decent ("decent" in terms of quantity, certainly not quality) part of the package when you consider that...Ultimately, when you take a look at EA's track record with offline Franchise modes, you have to wonder if they even care at all. Considering that both Madden's, FIFA's, and NHL's current franchise modes are exponentially worse than the franchise modes found in games that were released over 10 years ago (Madden 05/NFL 2K5, and NHL 2K6, for three examples), I can't help but get frustrated... Then you take a look at something like the NBA 2K franchise, which innovates its franchise every year (horrid microtransactions/server issues aside), and it just makes me sad to see what EA has done to this game.

EA won't be getting my money for NHL 16. Not if they keep insulting Be a GM users like this. I haven't even gotten far enough to see if player contracts or Free Agency or the draft work as they should or have any bugs... Honestly, I simply lost interest before that.

# 48 snc237 @ 09/10/15 03:02 AM

After 2 ranked games
My take aways from the games are - still some hold over issues from last year. Some occasions your still invincible from hits (yet much improved from 15). There's still times where you can skate through everyone after winning face off at center ice and get a mini breakaway. The pass break ups are nice yet I still feel like some of the one timer goals could be better prevented but that's more so a goalie issue. The puck is Overall looser on the stick but poke check isn't as effective. Stick lift much more effective this year as you get rewarded more for being in right position. Too hard to score power play goals (that's a joke but I am 0-9 on the pp this far). Cpu poke checks a bit more but still not a real threat. Goalies let some questionable softies in the net. Goalies pretty darn good on breakaways as they react much better to what your doing. Goalies hug post really well. Cpu still lacking any good blue line defence. Manual passing is very nice.

# 49 AdamJones113 @ 09/10/15 07:18 AM

Phillies, that is disheartening to say the least.

(Assuming you played Live the Life in NHL 14) How much would you say that EA's Be A GM Morale system is derived from Live the Life's text-based system that affected four meters, which in turn affected ratings?

# 50 Splitter77 @ 09/10/15 08:49 AM

any pucks out of play?
any cpu offsides??
neutral zone pressure??

or can we still play 7 minutes without a whistle??

# 51 HypoLuxa13 @ 09/10/15 09:06 AM

Keep the impressions coming, XBox One friends! Us PS4 owners appreciate the time you are taking to report back here.

Sounds like from the initial dive in, some small improvements have been made to the AI, but still some of the same old issues remain...

Phillies - I'm not surprised to hear your findings regarding Be A GM and the morale system. Pretty much any game that has ever tried to implement something like this in their Franchise/GM modes has failed. If only there were a way to turn it off like NBA 2k allows you to do when yous start up a Franchise...

# 52 philliesphan026 @ 09/10/15 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamJones113


	Phillies, that is disheartening to say the least. (Assuming you played Live the Life in NHL 14) How much would you say that EA's Be A GM Morale system is derived from Live the Life's text-based system that affected four meters, which in turn affected ratings?

I never played Live the Life but I know what you are talking about. It's kind of like that but worse. For example, you'll be on the schedule screen and the game will say some players want to talk. So you go to the morale screen where you can talk to players and Roberto Luongo is angry at the front office for some unknown reason. So you'll get a dialog box that says something along the lines of "I know I'm not in the front office but I don't know if you guys know what you're doing up there". And you'll be given four options to choose from, with the answers being things like:

-You're just a player so I suggest you keep your focus on playing
-You're right, I don't know what they are doing sometimes either
-I'm sure whatever they do is in the best interests of the team
-It might not make much sense now but they have a vision in mind for the future

Those aren't the exact answers but you get the gist of it. But Luongo might say it one week, and then Ekblad might say it a few weeks later... And it will be the exact same comment with the same exact 4 responses you can give. Once you choose an answer, you will see a little pop up that says "Luongo's morale has (increased/decreased/not changed) due to player meeting," depending on the outcome.

# 53 Tonic @ 09/10/15 09:26 AM

I played one game last night on AS/Hardcore with some slider tweaks. I ended up winning 4-1 but it was a lot of fun. Sliders need some tweaking for sure but that can be done later.

I simmed through an entire season (with Detroit) to see how the morale system was. I kept high team chemistry the entire season (72%+) ended up going 51-22-9, which I could see happening with a completely healthy Datsyuk (who played all 82 games and was 4th in league scoring). Remember, having higher team chemistry means better results when simming games (which I don't completely agree with, but whatever).

I had meetings with a player or two every week or so which I really didn't mind. Players have different personalities so being tough on one player might cause their morale to go down and vice-versa. I really like how you can see exactly how morale is effecting the player. However, I had two players become disengaged/disgruntled because of lack of ice time. One was Kindl, who is younger so I can get that, but one is veteran Drew Miller. I need to do more testing but I really hope that whoever is scratched won't ALWAYS complain. If that's the case, maybe they'll have to be worked into the bottom lines every once in awhle.

I'm incredibly happy super-sim is back so I can make it though a whole season without feeling like I have no control over simming games. Career stats are also tracked again which is nice.

However, I'm still seeing an issue with teams being salary-cap compliant. I moved a few scratched players from Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay so all the teams would be under the cap. However, when I start a new Be a GM, it still asks if I want to keep salary cap on as all teams are NOT cap compliant. I went to the contracts screen and NO teams have contracts that are artificially inflated or deflated (this is how EA deals with teams not being cap compliant). Has anyone else observed this or have any ideas on how to fix it?

# 54 jake19ny @ 09/10/15 09:37 AM

The fact that nobody is seeing penalties called is just really pissing me off. Its been a problem for 4 years now and we have been very vocal about it. EA has made tuners and patches over the years but none addressing this issue. EA has done a better job listening this year and better do something about this. Special teams are a major part of an NHL game and the NHL gaming experience and to ignore it this long is inexcusable. I am starting to think its something they cant get right because it would mess up the online experience which is their main focus. there is probably no separate AI build for offline and online gaming and to increase offline penalties would cause way to many online penalties. Its kind of the same reason I think they don't have better player separation or team separation (Like someone mentioned earlier)....They want everyone online to be able to compete with each other with every line on every team so offline we get 4th liners that play like 1st liners. If there is no player separation and penalties are not fixed this game is going to be very hard to play offline this year again......

# 55 Gerg04 @ 09/10/15 09:43 AM

Played the opening game TB vs Chi. All-star, Hardcore, all visual aids off. Small indicator size, small puck size, small shadow (authentic is just too small). Dropped the game -speed down a couple notches.

I never really play against the cpu, but I actually enjoyed this. It was a battle and I had to work for everything. Won 2-1 on a penalty shot in OT, talk about a thriller.

Passes are not automatic. Especially if you're skating left from center towards the boards with a right handed player and try to make a long breakout pass to the right all the way across the rink, it's just not accurate at all.

Players don't automatically receive every pass like magnets now and the breakups are really nice.

Deflections are well done and the puck is way more loose which I love.

Then I played 2 games of versus. Went into OT on the first and it was great to see 3v3 and penalties being correctly 4v3.

My gripe about online, and I'm 99% an online vs/EASHL player (legit btw, no cheese, I play as real hockey as I can) is that it's just too fast. The game and skating is so much better slowed down which you can't do online.

Don't get me wrong, the physics and skating and puck are really well done. It's just the overall speed of the game is too quick. That and for whatever reason the cpu is dumbed down in vs, which does change the dynamic.

Hopefully this is the year I can get into Be A GM and actually enjoy playing the cpu. In the past its always been win by a lot or lose by a lot, never an in-between.

Time will tell. But in my 1st three games I really enjoyed playing and the game felt fresh and way more "alive" over 15'.

# 56 jyoung @ 09/10/15 10:14 AM

So the Blackhawks' actual organist has a small sound clip in the game now that plays alongside a "Let's go Hawks!" chant.

You can hear it at 1:23 of this video:

It's a nice touch, but this clip barely plays much at all during games (mostly just on center ice faceoffs). The organ and crowd should be much more active throughout the game.

Has anyone heard real chants and organ music for any other teams besides Chicago? I'll have to try out a few more arenas today.

# 57 speedtrucker @ 09/10/15 10:20 AM

has anyone been able to start the download through the Smartglass or xbox.com?

Smartglass does not give me the option to download, just says "play on Xbox" and then attempts to find my XB1, which won't happen since I'm at work.

Xbox.com keeps erroring when trying to start the download.

# 58 HypoLuxa13 @ 09/10/15 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gerg04


	Hopefully this is the year I can get into Be A GM and actually enjoy playing the cpu. In the past its always been win by a lot or lose by a lot, never an in-between. Time will tell. But in my 1st three games I really enjoyed playing and the game felt fresh and way more "alive" over 15'.

I picked up NHL 15 late in the season at a steep discount, and I DID find some pretty good offline/single player game play after drastically adjusting sliders and settings. I know exactly what you mean by the win by/lose by a lot at the default difficulty and slider settings. I spent a good 20 games or so working on the sliders until I was getting more realistic feeling hockey, and more realistic shot and goal numbers.

There was still some frustrating things regarding AI and such, but it was much more enjoyable after working on the sliders for a while.

# 59 brandon27 @ 09/10/15 11:08 AM

I got a game in this morning, me as the Wings, playing host to Toronto. I easily picked up the win in this one.

Saw again, just some general gameplay improvements that have me saying yeah, I'll pick this up still. It's a big enough improvement over NHL15.

There's still plenty of issues I have though that may make me change my mind as I play through the trial.

In this Det/Tor game, I dump it into their zone, Phaneuf gains control of the puck, and I press him into the boards in the corner to the right of the net. A second player of mine comes to help, and the puck all of the sudden is kicked backwards out of the pile by Phaneuf to a teammate who is between the blue line, and the face off circle on the LEFT side of the ice. and It's a rocket too. That's completely ridiculous to me that stuff like that happens in this game still.

One of their goals, again, deep in my zone, the rocket passing begins, they're guys are flying, mine are standing still as they burry a one timer with a wide open man out front. The same garbage goals I've seen from the CPU over the years where you just feel cheated.

There's still far too many times for my liking where I feel like the CPU players have no effects of speed, acceleration, physics, they just have total speed and total control at all times. Now, I love the way my controlled players skate. It feels good. It feels natural. However, the weight, and momentum that I feel as the player, and I see my guys skating with, seems like it's completely missing at times with the CPU Players.

I've only played 2.5 games now, but those two issues have always been big issues for me, and it seems they are still present.

Finally saw the CPU get a penalty. Hooking. I hand the slider cranked up to full as well for CPU penalties. That's the first I've seen in limited action.

I've still got 8.5 hours or so left on my trial, so lots of hockey still to be played over the weekend.

At times, I'm in love with the game and it feels great, looks great etc. etc. Then there's the boneheaded things that happen that just don't feel or look right and I'm left wondering if I should still pick this up or not.

# 60 jaiman @ 09/10/15 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoung


	So the Blackhawks' actual organist has a small sound clip in the game now that plays alongside a "Let's go Hawks!" chant. You can hear it at 1:23 of this video: It's a nice touch, but this clip barely plays much at all during games (mostly just on center ice faceoffs). The organ and crowd should be much more active throughout the game. Has anyone heard real chants and organ music for any other teams besides Chicago? I'll have to try out a few more arenas today.

Cool! Saw some nice gameplay in there too. The CPU and your teammates did some nice things. I saw some cases of neutral zone pressure. A dump in that took a weird redirect off a stanchion. Your first goal was nice too. A good drive to the net by your CPU teammate.

A few things I hate to see:

- Why do sticks and parts of players still disappear into the boards? I thought for sure this was going to be fixed.

- The jerseys still flow way too much into the 'wind'. And they seem to be very flat. The crest, numbers, and nameplates look like stickers. Did look like a cheap jersey that I would buy for my men's league team. Everything else looks so good, which makes the jerseys stick out that much more.

« Previous 1 234 5 6 7 8 9…13 14 Next »

More Links

NHL 16 Trial Available Now For EA Access Subscribers, Get 10 Hours of Gamplay