NHL 16 News Post

How EA Can Bring Fans Back to NHL's Franchise Mode

04:22 PM - October 21, 2015 by RaychelSnr

Overhaul The AI

In a year where FIFA 16 and NBA 2K16 both made tremendous improvements to their on-field/on-court AI, it's sad to see NHL 16's CPU skaters still aimlessly wandering at times.

AI teams still struggle to gain possession inside the offensive zone, mostly due to poor decision making coming through the neutral zone. On many shifts, they will either hesitate and zig-zag around the red line before launching a futile dump attempt, or they'll skate the puck in a straight line down the side boards where you can easily crush their oncoming forward with a check.

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# 41 actionhank @ 10/28/15 01:43 PM

I hope that AI is going to be their next big thing. If AI gets to focus that the graphics and presentation just got, the game could really be great. Unfortunately, right now, it's years behind where it needs to be. The AI actually seems worse in some regards.

I scored 8 goals last night on Anaheim (realistically struggling in their season) and they left Anderson in the entire time. Granted, 8 goals in 2 periods isn't very common (still trying to get my sliders right...) the goalie should have been yanked way earlier. And it would be nice if they used the morale system in a way where in game play affected a player's morale and his attributes. From what I can see, that's not really the way it seems to work at present. Ice time seems to, but if a goalie gets lit up it should negatively affect their morale if they get left in (See Exhibit: Roy). Small behind the scenes things could make it a challenge to manage things. Maybe there's a random modifier that either gives a short term boost to your players as the goalie change snaps them 'awake' as coaches like to hope it does. Conversely, maybe there's a risk of a smaller attribute drop because the team might feel like they're not playing well. The chances and affects might depend on the player's poise rating. A team of veterans might not be as hard hit by the goalie change, but a younger team of rookies (someone like Edmonton) might be discouraged by it. They could even add a similar feature for timeouts. Give yourself the option of choosing something different to your players during the timeout, select a play, etc.
EA just needs to overhaul their AI so they can actually play hockey (I can't count the number of times in my 8 games season I've literally had a player bouncing through crowds of defenders, with no one on defense trying anything. Even when you just skate straight in, aside from the occasional body check, the defense is incredibly too passive. No sticks in lanes, they don't really poke check. You can skate straight at a defender, and until you get right on them where they're in bodycheck range, they pretty much just back up and watch you skate in. There's no backcheck pressure from the forwards, no defensive handoffs behind the net, and no one filling the slot when a defender leaves to chase a winger up to the blueline for some odd reason.

It gets to the point where you're forced to handicap your offensive playing to make up for the non-existent defense. I turn my shot accuracy down, and the power too. Then I have to neuter the passing. All to make up for the fact that the AI doesn't actively engage anyone, or setup any real sort of defensive plays.

Also, I had the weirdest bug last night, but in a good way. They were doing the usual "Leading scorer here tonight!" line about Tarasenko...but they accidentally showed his stats. Same for Elliott's stats (thought despite his 7-1 start they referenced him having ups and downs and not being reliable yet). I thought maybe I had downloaded a new tuner or something, but in the next game it was back to the goose eggs across the stat board.

# 42 Pythons80 @ 10/30/15 06:21 AM

That was a real scathing article, WELL DONE!!! EA has been putting very little effort into this series by the looks of it and this game/series deserves to be trashed.

# 43 jake19ny @ 10/30/15 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionhank


	I hope that AI is going to be their next big thing. If AI gets to focus that the graphics and presentation just got, the game could really be great. Unfortunately, right now, it's years behind where it needs to be. The AI actually seems worse in some regards. I scored 8 goals last night on Anaheim (realistically struggling in their season) and they left Anderson in the entire time. Granted, 8 goals in 2 periods isn't very common (still trying to get my sliders right...) the goalie should have been yanked way earlier. And it would be nice if they used the morale system in a way where in game play affected a player's morale and his attributes. From what I can see, that's not really the way it seems to work at present. Ice time seems to, but if a goalie gets lit up it should negatively affect their morale if they get left in (See Exhibit: Roy). Small behind the scenes things could make it a challenge to manage things. Maybe there's a random modifier that either gives a short term boost to your players as the goalie change snaps them 'awake' as coaches like to hope it does. Conversely, maybe there's a risk of a smaller attribute drop because the team might feel like they're not playing well. The chances and affects might depend on the player's poise rating. A team of veterans might not be as hard hit by the goalie change, but a younger team of rookies (someone like Edmonton) might be discouraged by it. They could even add a similar feature for timeouts. Give yourself the option of choosing something different to your players during the timeout, select a play, etc. EA just needs to overhaul their AI so they can actually play hockey (I can't count the number of times in my 8 games season I've literally had a player bouncing through crowds of defenders, with no one on defense trying anything. Even when you just skate straight in, aside from the occasional body check, the defense is incredibly too passive. No sticks in lanes, they don't really poke check. You can skate straight at a defender, and until you get right on them where they're in bodycheck range, they pretty much just back up and watch you skate in. There's no backcheck pressure from the forwards, no defensive handoffs behind the net, and no one filling the slot when a defender leaves to chase a winger up to the blueline for some odd reason. It gets to the point where you're forced to handicap your offensive playing to make up for the non-existent defense. I turn my shot accuracy down, and the power too. Then I have to neuter the passing. All to make up for the fact that the AI doesn't actively engage anyone, or setup any real sort of defensive plays. Also, I had the weirdest bug last night, but in a good way. They were doing the usual "Leading scorer here tonight!" line about Tarasenko...but they accidentally showed his stats. Same for Elliott's stats (thought despite his 7-1 start they referenced him having ups and downs and not being reliable yet). I thought maybe I had downloaded a new tuner or something, but in the next game it was back to the goose eggs across the stat board.

Funny you mentioned scoring 8 goals and they left the goalie in. I played a game yesterday and scored my 4th goal in a 4-0 game with only 44 seconds left in the game and they switched goalies. Everything in this game is just so random instead of logical. In addition to the obvious fixes this game needs it also needs attention to certain areas of the game that are logical and important.

Line matching by the CPU
Pulling the goalie at a reasonable time (not waiting until 20 seconds left)
Swapping goalies under proper circumstance
CPU take a timeout

I'm sure there are a lot more things if I spend more time thinking about it.

# 44 Tonic @ 10/30/15 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionhank


	I can't count the number of times in my 8 games season I've literally had a player bouncing through crowds of defenders, with no one on defense trying anything. Even when you just skate straight in, aside from the occasional body check, the defense is incredibly too passive. No sticks in lanes, they don't really poke check. You can skate straight at a defender, and until you get right on them where they're in bodycheck range, they pretty much just back up and watch you skate in. There's no backcheck pressure from the forwards, no defensive handoffs behind the net, and no one filling the slot when a defender leaves to chase a winger up to the blueline for some odd reason. It gets to the point where you're forced to handicap your offensive playing to make up for the non-existent defense. I turn my shot accuracy down, and the power too. Then I have to neuter the passing. All to make up for the fact that the AI doesn't actively engage anyone, or setup any real sort of defensive plays.

Thank you! I've been complaining about the lack of the CPU stick checking for YEARS. That's still the underlying problem with the penalties. High sticking, slashing, and tripping are the three most commonly called penalties in the NHL, and all three require the CPU to actually stick lift or poke check.

I'm really hoping the AI gets overhauled next year now that they have a great base to work with for graphics and presentation (the things that look pretty to the casual player).

# 45 canucksss @ 10/30/15 04:43 PM

For me its a simple answe: replace RAMJ and totally revamp their approach in this game. FOCUS on what is important in HOCKEY and not on the mascots and other much less important features.

# 46 schlitz73 @ 10/31/15 04:43 AM

It really shouldn't be that hard to get franchise mode up to snuff. IMO gameplay is already pretty decent and just needs a few tweaks, namely your AI defensemen playing keystone cops around your net and turning the puck over way too frequently.

After that, fix the clunky and spread out menus. This is a sports game, not a huge sprawling RPG. Simplify the menus please, we shouldn't have to scroll back and forth constantly to find what we need or to save a game.

UPgrade the celebrations. Everyone is clamoring for this because these are basically the same dull goal celebrations we've had for years. Get some crowd shots and 5 man celebrations in there to up the excitement.

Fix the stat tracking. When someone scores it should show their season goal total not game total. Add in more player focused overlays showing season or career info to up the presentation. ANd what happened to the goalie stats? Wins and losses are totally borked. This needs a patch ASAP.

Trade AI needs a major overhaul. This could be the toughest part but when i hear stories about Crosby and OVechkin being traded early in the first season of a franchise... that's just messed up.

Finally, I would really like to see more career focused highlights and a hall of fame. Give us special milestone replays when someone scores their 50th goal of the season, or their 100th career goal/point... and all multiples of 100. Player and team trophy cases to put these milestone game pucks and trophies in would also be cool.

It shouldn't take much to really up the atmosphere in franchise mode and coupled with a few gameplay adjustments it could be really great.

# 47 Taku @ 10/31/15 03:24 PM

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10374002.page

# 48 capnbuh @ 11/05/15 07:11 PM

Let's be honest, EA doesn't want people playing GM mode, unless they can come up with a way to work in microtransactions.

# 49 actionhank @ 11/05/15 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnbuh


	Let's be honest, EA doesn't want people playing GM mode, unless they can come up with a way to work in microtransactions.

Sadly, I think you're right. The focus on getting features right in the offline modes has been painfully absent.

I keep saying "Oh, maybe next year" but so far every year's just the same bit of surface work. NHL16 is way better than 15, don't get me wrong, but 15 was such a trainwreck that that wasn't hard to do. NHL16 literally seems like NHL14 on Next-Gen with better presentation (in some areas. The stat issue is unforgivable, and the fact that Doc and Edzo repeat so much of their dialogue gets old quick. If I hear "Being the top scorer means you'll get a lot of attention" once more, I might lose it).

NHL16 still plays the same to me. I don't see enough of a difference in NHL16 to differentiate it from NHL11-14. The players move pretty much the same, the skating is just as frustrating. I would even argue that when they made L2 the backskate, they made doing simple things more frustrating. Before, I could easily face the play on defense by holding L2, and my player would stay facing the puck. Now I'm stuck making tons of micro movements to get my guy accurately facing the right way, because half the time I have to start actually skating backwards to get him to face the play. Throw in the fact that I have no real control over my poke check, and the fine movements required for decent defense are all but impossible. Getting into the right position is tough, but even harder is doing anything once you're there.

# 50 CubFan23 @ 11/06/15 04:22 PM

I am an offline only player and this game is the shortest time I've ever owned a game. I just bought this a week or so ago and already traded it in. I think I am finally done with this series.

# 51 RBUDD88 @ 11/12/15 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jake19ny


	This article is spot on sadly my personal feeling is EA does not care about offline gamers nearly as much as online and HUT. The lingering offline issues, remaining bugs from last year in offline mode, lack of attention to detail in the offline modes, and the recent tuner debacle, all support my theory.

HUT is their main source of money from customers that is why so much goes into it

# 52 actionhank @ 11/12/15 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RBUDD88


	HUT is their main source of money from customers that is why so much goes into it

I think most everyone understands why HUT gets the attention it does in development, but even that doesn't excuse the years of issues that have remained unchanged. I think NHL 15 showed what poor offline gameplay gets you...record numbers of people simply not buying the game. I don't think I've ever seen as many frustrated people as I did when NHL 15 was released. I've purchased every year since NHL 07, despite saying for the past few years "This is the last time I buy this. They're just not improving".

EA has to realize that if they want to exclusively focus on one part of the game, they're going to lose people from the other. Offline gamers might not generate the constant purchases or ad revenue from online play, but at $60 a pop, it's still not a market EA can continue to ignore like they have.

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