NHL 13 Season Ticket Impressions

[bad_philanthropy]

I feel like picking up loose pucks could be tighter. I don't mean when the puck is rolling and my guy is being pressured. I mean when the puck is just sitting there and nobody is around me. I won't even be skating hard and my player just seems to ignore it at times. If you aren't going to give me control of my stick to corral loose pucks, then have the AI do it for me when it makes sense. It would be nice if the player could kick the puck to his stick in the proper context as well.

[ChubbyBanana]

So I decided best way to see how my play was improving or not improving was to start a "playoff mode" and play a series.

This last game each team had a power play. Its like Penalties want to be there, but something in the code is preventing them, IMO.

[duffman]

Couple more points from my second game:

-There is finally a 4vs4 set of lines, thank God! As long as this carries over into OT this will fix the random selection of which forwards get to play during OT. This has been bugging me for a while now

-Still no postgame three stars, minor but it just helps in overall presentation since its a tradition in hockey

-Gary and Bill are fine, but they need either a) new lines or b) someone needs to go clean up the old lines. I really shouldn't be hearing about how the Rangers are having trouble finding their way to a winning season anymore after last year, i think i'd rather just have some dead air instead of hearing outdated lines if thats the only option.

-Seeing some awesome, awesome puck deflections and goalie reactions. Plays where the goalie is going one way and makes that little adjustment to make the save off a skate or stick just like in real life. Some of these are just plain beautiful to watch.

-I'm able to score this year off of clean wristers, on superstar hardcore settings without having to alter shot power, goalie reaction or any of that which is great.

So far the game is what i expected, it's the newer, more enhanced version of the NHL series i've been playing for years. Not that its a bad thing, i was on the fence about buying before season ticket but now i'm leaning towards picking it up later this week barring any ridiculous franchise problems that may surface.

[bukktown]

I'm an online 1v1 player and I've played 15 games so far. I've always been a good player who wins about 75% of the games. But this year against good opponents I have been completely dominated.

I have a lot to learn. It's mostly getting the hang of skating but also what's a good strategy to score.

I have learned that on a 2-0 breakaway you will not score with a cross crease pass and one timer because the lateral movement of the goalie is insane in this situation. If you pass it back to the original puck carrier the goal will be wide open but it is hard for me to do that right now. I often get stuck flat footed which is killing me right now on both offense and defense.

The poke check is real OP and I turn the pick over all of the time in both zones. The only place I play well is the neutral zone which isn't helping me very much right now!

Overall, I'm just frustrated and playing terrible.

[Majingir]

Just a coincidence probably, but just had a real good game. 2 penalties per team(and 1 fight I FORCED to happen lol), and at the end when I won...the custom home win music played!

I doubt that anything special happened to trigger it, it was probably just a rare occurrence since it never usually works. Though I did notice that the music played but there was no horn that went off at the end of the game, so maybe the goal horn interferes with the home win music?

[bwiggy33]

Well I'm having a little bit more fun with the game now. The issues I've stated are still bothering me but maybe just maybe EA will fix it. It sounds like they are going to try and attempt to fix the penalty problem. Overall though I'm definitely enjoying it more. It still feels like NHL 12 with improved skating (which I'm liking a lot more). At times it's like your player is in quick sand but that's due to fatigue I'm pretty sure.

I hate to bring this topic up again but it truly is indescribable how terrible the goalies are in this game. I'm using Savoie's sliders with reaction on 2 and screen effect on 5. Let me tell you the sliders are in no way the issue. It is the fact that EA just has terrible goalies. Their new reading the play before it happens has completely taken out the ability to even score on a back door pass or one timer. Every time it gets stopped. Sure you can shoot shortside but what fun is doing that everytime. I've actually found you can score on that fairly regularly. Also the goalies are making saves look like gamebreaking saves every time. They flail their glove and end up on their *** after almost every shot. It's just really irritating and so over done. I'm really getting sick of hearing Thorne screaming "Oh what a save" every time because the animation the goalie does triggers the commentary. Overall I honestly can't say one good thing about the goalies at all. By far the weakest area of this series.

As I said earlier I am really really impressed with the puck physics. For people playing on any size but Authentic I really want to tell you to switch. You don't realize how good the puck bounces and physics are until you switch to Authentic with shadow off. I saw a puck today roll on its side all the way down the ice. Really awesome to see. It also looks great when it comes off the glass. This area of the game EA did a phenomenal job. The puck is hard to see at times but it's definitely worth it.

Also a tip for anyone like me who was not seeing teammates go and forecheck after dumping the puck in. You have to set your forecheck to whichever one you want but then you have to crank up the NZ/FC slider to all the way on the Forecheck side. If you don't you dump the puck in and find that all of your teammates go straight to the neutral zone coverage and wait for the opposing team to break out of their zone with ease. So basically you are just handing the puck to the opposing team. How EA has this flaw in the game is beyond me. Your AI teammates should always go in on the forecheck but the slider should more determine how hard you forecheck while inside the zone. I mean seriously what team in the NHL dumps the puck in and doesn't send any forecheckers or their D men in the zone unless it's to switch lines? Nobody. That completely defeats the purpose of dumping the puck in. I still can't believe how EA missed this problem. At least it's fixable with changing the slider to forecheck instead of nz. I highly suggest you just leave the slider permanently cranked to forecheck every single game.

As I think of it right now I think one thing to make this game better with getting a full on CPU forecheck is by going into create your AI and cranking up the forecheck slider for every single team. Reason I say this is because when the CPU dumps the puck in their guys are also setting up in the NZ at times which means an extremely easy breakout for me and 0 pressure from the CPU.

Overall though I am having a much better time with the game since I dived into it yesterday. I'm not sure if it's the fact I have to accept the game for what it is, or I'm just desperate to play an NHL game, but overall it's playing better. Hopefully it will continue to be this way and I really hope EA fixes some of the AI and gameplay problems. If they can this game could be really really good.

[jyoung]

The problem is that goalies didn't get the new skating physics this year like normal skaters. Goalies are still teleporting at warp speed across the crease without any sense of weight or momentum working against them. They can literally just teleport in any direction at any time.

That is why you still see so many ridiculous side-to-side saves.

[bwiggy33]

Quote: Originally Posted by jyoung

The problem is that goalies didn't get the new skating physics this year like normal skaters. Goalies are still teleporting at warp speed across the crease without any sense of weight or momentum working against them. They can literally just teleport in any direction at any time. That is why you still see so many ridiculous side-to-side saves.

100%. I have brought this topic up about a thousand times on this forum and that is why some people probably hate me . It seems most of the people playing this game don't see it (which is beyond me) but it's the number one reason why the goalies are so bad.