How I Would Revamp Goalies In EA NHL (Part 1: Off Ice—Styles)

[AdamJones113]

I thought about making a YouTube video for this rather than posting, but in the end (after many unsuccessful takes) I reverted back to my old method of proposing ideas. If it gets enough support I may do a video for it here.

Goalies in the EA NHL series need a major revamping, both on-ice and off-ice. One of the touted features for NHL 16 was indeed a revamping of goalies on-ice. EA has neither a stellar reputation nor a good base for goalies. That being said, here's how I would rework goalies—starting off the ice.

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Butterfly.jpg
Viktor Fasth and Roberto Luongo are the only two butterfly goalies

Let's start with styles. There are currently three goaltending styles in NHL 15: Hybrid, Butterfly, and Stand Up. Out of 68 goalies who started the game on an NHL roster, none are labeled as a Stand Up goalie, two (Viktor Fasth and Roberto Luongo) are labeled as Butterfly goalies, and the remaining 66 are labeled as Hybrid goalies.

QuickvLundqvist.jpg
Mover versus Reactor

That does not accurately differentiate between each goalie's respective style. When Henrik Lundqvist, who stands up more than any other goalie and is known for his deep (inside out) style, is grouped in the same category as Jonathan Quick, that immediately points to a problem in the generalized grouping. It's doubtful that we'll see personalized styles, as only Eddie Lack was brought in for Motion-Capturing—a safe choice, unexceptional.

We salute you too, Marty

The current styles make even less sense when one remembers that Stand Up has been obsolete for a while and its last remaining semi-practitioner in Martin Brodeur is retired. Butterfly is not necessarily even a style, more of a position and method; while a good case is made for it as a style, it's not the proper term and does not hold enough merit alone to save itself. As we mentioned with Lundqvist and Quick, Hybrid is much too general a term.

Yeyuh.jpg

With those points in mind, I would change the styles from the current three to:

• Reflex - goalies who make most of their saves based on reflexes; higher attributes in categories such as glove high and stick high, lower attributes in categories such as agility. An example would be Henrik Lundqvist.
• Athletic - goalies who are very mobile; higher attributes in categories such as agility and recover, lower attributes in categories such as five hole and durability. An example would be Jonathan Quick.
• Positional - goalies who rely on positioning and technique; higher attributes in qualities such as angles and rebound control, lower attributes such as agility and breakaway. An example would be Roberto Luongo (except in the SC Finals, but that's for another time).

The advantage of the new styles is that goalies are much better stylized. Rather than being termed generic "hybrids," goalies are stylized with a name that much more accurately reflects their real-life play style.

[actionhank]

Great points! Any type of difference in goalies would be huge. There's just nothing that lets you know who you're playing. And ratings seem to play a pretty small role in things too.

It would be great to not only have hot and cold goalies, but to have better representation of real goalies. Different goalies would lead to different strategies.

Going against a goalie that moves around a lot? You're going to want to keep passing the puck and try to get him to over-commit.
Playing against a goalie who plays deep in his net might lead you to want to try and set up quick one-timers to take advantage of the open corners, or try to rip one past on the rush before setting up.
Even just differences in how good goalies play with certain parts of their body would be huge. As would getting scouting reports. Going against a guy with a high percentage of goals on his glove hand side might lead you to target that corner with your best shooters. Guys who have been giving up lots of big rebounds in the season might lead you to take more shots at the pads and try to capitalize on rebounds.

All of these things would be nice, and assume that the gameplay itself gets some much needed work. But, those small additions could make Be A GM more exciting, and coaches worth something. Better powerplay coaches help your players get better on the powerplay, and similarly, better player scouts and goalie coaches could help improve your guys, and point out flaws in others.

[AdamJones113]

We left off yesterday with talking about three new styles: Reflex, Athletic, and Positional, rather than Hybrid, Butterfly, and Stand Up. We can't just stop there, of course: now it's time to talk about goalie attributes and their reallocation into new groups. (Discussions about the attributes will come in tomorrow's post.)

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The current set-up for goalies

Goalies are rated with 19 different attributes, divided into three groups: Reflexes, Athletic, and Puck Skills. Due to the fact that we've essentially taken two of those and made them styles, the groups themselves need a revamp before we can even start on attributes. To that end, I'm proposing three new titles: Pre-Shot, Shot, and Post-Shot.

NewGroups.jpg
An illustration of how the new groups would appear

They don't sound great, which is a problem. But I think that they accurately refer to the stages a goalie goes through in a game, whereas in the original grouping, Reflexes can be canceled out by Athleticism and vice versa—i.e. goalies with good athleticism in real life can compensate for having subpar reflexes. Here is how I would group the original 19 attributes into the new three groups:

Pre-Shot (7): Aggressiveness, Agility, Angles, Durability, Endurance, Speed, Vision—goalies use all of these up until the shot is taken, whether it be coming out to challenge the shooter (Aggressiveness) or tracking the puck before a shot (Vision).
Shot (7): Breakaway, Five-Hole, Glove (x2), Poke Check, Stick (x2)—most of the Reflexes category plus Poke Check, which makes more sense as a play on the shot to me.
Post-Shot (5): Passing, Poise, Puck Playing Frequency, Rebound Control, Recover—pretty self-explanatory except poise, which I reasoned as keeping poise after allowing a goal.

(Don't mind the attributes or the poor quality)
NOldPage.jpg
How the newly-structured page would look

[AdamJones113]

Video version:

[Oohwayy]

Just reading through this now. It's an interesting take on changing up goalies. I agree that the "shot, pre-shot, post-shot" category names would be lackluster. Have you thought of any other names in the time it's been since posting this?

Also, while looking at the descriptions of your three new builds; they all seem very different from one another (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). While it makes sense realistically to not have butterfly/hybrid/standup anymore, many people in EASHL / Be a Pro opt for the hybrid to have a "mix of both" type of build. What build of your three would you say is your "mix of both" of the other two builds (if it exists)?

Another thing. You've mentioned specific real life examples for your new goalie types. If EA were to follow through with this and used athletic, reflex, and positional; do you think there is enough diversity in the goaltenders of the NHL to have a somewhat-close to equal amount of athletic goalies compared to reflex / positional? Or would we see something similar to the 66 of 68 hybrid goalies you referenced?

Lastly, how high of a priority do you think this is? Is it a make-or-break for consumers to purchase the game if goalie-types are not changed, even though the goaltender's gameplay on the ice has changed?

Just throwing ideas out there. Good article!

[AdamJones113]

Quote: Originally Posted by Oohwayy

Just reading through this now. It's an interesting take on changing up goalies. I agree that the "shot, pre-shot, post-shot" category names would be lackluster. Have you thought of any other names in the time it's been since posting this? Also, while looking at the descriptions of your three new builds; they all seem very different from one another (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). While it makes sense realistically to not have butterfly/hybrid/standup anymore, many people in EASHL / Be a Pro opt for the hybrid to have a "mix of both" type of build. What build of your three would you say is your "mix of both" of the other two builds (if it exists)? Another thing. You've mentioned specific real life examples for your new goalie types. If EA were to follow through with this and used athletic, reflex, and positional; do you think there is enough diversity in the goaltenders of the NHL to have a somewhat-close to equal amount of athletic goalies compared to reflex / positional? Or would we see something similar to the 66 of 68 hybrid goalies you referenced? Lastly, how high of a priority do you think this is? Is it a make-or-break for consumers to purchase the game if goalie-types are not changed, even though the goaltender's gameplay on the ice has changed? Just throwing ideas out there. Good article!

Thanks for the reply! In order of bolds:

1. I look at goalies and ask myself "what jumps out to me?" So let's start by replacing "Pre-Shot" with "Movement." Moving on, I ask myself "What are those attributes?" and the answer I come up with, replacing "Shot," is "Save(s) [or Core Saves]." Finally, I go to the last category and I come up with "Puck Skill(s)." (Actually I come up with Misc. but lol)

2. Yes, in some way actually, I do. I think that that build would be positional. While it's neither spectacular in Reflex or Athletic, you could still have a good mix of both while remaining positionally strong. Also, it's important to note that the current system prompts a widespread use of Hybrid goalies because those are the safest in terms of base attributes.

3. I do think so. I think there is differentiation among the top goalies and the worse goalies style-wise. I would be happy to compile a list of goalies on NHL rosters showing their new style.

4. I don't think it's a very high priority—unless it's made to be. This is marketable to both the offline community ("We've made goalies more accurate!") and the online community ("More authentic ways to play as an EASHL goalie!"), and, since everyone likes goalie improvements, EA could make this appear as a priority via marketing. I also don't think (don't know) that this re-organizing would be hard, programming wise.
Also, about "how the goalies on-ice have changed." Let us decide that. If all goalies got the same 50 new animations and all goalies got the same new Eddie Lack stance (we know the latter is true), then have goalies really been separated?

[AdamJones113]

Updating this with new info based on recent news:

Petr Mrazek is categorized as a Stand-Up goalie (EASHL player classes has his picture under Stand-Up goalies). I would argue that a much better description of his play style is athletic, a la Quick and Halak. The fact that EA is putting an athletic goalie (who, lest it go unnoticed, goes butterfly a fair bit) at Stand-Up reeks of a need for a new system.

EDIT: nddurst made a good point to me. He said that it's possible that they just used the stance, and that Mrazek is not actually listed as a Stand Up goalie. If true, that means they have no Stand Up goalies to use, meaning that the system needs a change.

[TheDominator273]

I like the idea of changing how goalies are labeled, but this also needs to be coupled with tendencies to make them play true to life. Doesn't matter how you rate Quick or classify him, if he doesn't drop low and take away the bottom of the net its no more accurate than it currently is.