Future of EASHL

This is what you and the kiddos dont understand: this is not real life, this is a video game. Trying to be simulation and failing is what has lead to a nub friendly, boring, slow-paced game play.
I don't know if they specifically said game play isnt included in "eashl improvements", however; if the game play doesn't exponentially increase then eashl will fail unless their is a year end tourney.

 

I'm down with everything besides this legend3+ concept. Having caps on attributes is something I feel they got right.

Good work tony

 

act almighty in the forums? I never said anything negative, I simply tagged you because the incident happened the other night seeing you were apart of it.

 

I'm not going to look around for randoms to play 6s, that's lame. I like the comment though, was pretty cute.

 

- Multiple Dressing Rooms

- Ability to make OTP Leagues, much like GM Connected. Imagine LG Teams in a OTP League with rosters, in a game format like GM Connected, with managers of the team, players associated with the team, stat tracking, etc...

- As others have already made note, practice mode that works.

- Some type of logic for goalie quitting. Either if the occurrence happens within some time after a goal is scored or when the game starts as well, to allow the team with a full 6 to accept the win or at least allowed to back out without a loss/penalty.

- Someone already mentioned the different LD/RD, but maybe switch to a "Saved Builds" or "Saved Players" setup instead of the current LW-C-RW-D. Meaning I could create a player save named Forecheck with maybe a bigger player build for checking, etc..., while another saved player named playmaker with a different height/weight setup with different attributes. These could be selected at the club dressing room page or lineup screen before the game for each human player.

 

I like the idea that only 6 vs 6 games are ranked

to help newbie clubs getting players just put a scouting page with your GT position rating and stats that will stay there until you find a club or you get offline.

IDK about multiples DR I think we are passed that and stop referring to nhl 09 things evolved so should you yes it was a classic and ESHL was introduced but we are in 2015

Make EASHL interesting again is the main Goal and how you do that ? by asking the right people first step in the right direction EA .

Lets be honest if EASHL is in XBOX1 we are not having this discussion so I say lets jump on this opportunity and speak our mind.

 

Only center can change which faceoff i lose.

 

I think that NHL 16 EASHL should have a better representation of races with computers. I feel as if they just randomize whites, blacks, and asians, so computers have a 33.33% chance of being each of the previously listed races. Therefore, they should diminish the number of asians to almost none, have a few black computers, but mostly white ones.

 

The "thing" I was apart of that you tagged me in has a negative connotation to it. Sorry I can't decipher what you meant through a monitor, bro.

 

may have been mentioned already but lower the games played for legend 3. 350 takes me three months

 

EASHL Improvements


General Improvements
Matchmaking – For the love of god, please allow it to b like VS. At first search people in your division, after 30 seconds expand to 5 divisions and so forth. Like every top club my team has sat in the DR for a half hr at times trying to find games or we got on every night and play the same 10 teams bc we are in the top 10. It becomes extremely annoying.

Join A Club Game - Allow club members to either join a current club game going on through the locker room by selecting a position that is open and then syncing to the game or allow someone to reconnect through the locker room to a game if they lag out. G lagouts are brutal in EASHL and a ton of teams will quit or rag the puck if the G lags up, basically effecting Ws/Ls and altering the leaderboards, which no one really cares about bc this happens so often.

Multiple Locker Rooms – This is probably the number one thing that makes people not stay loyal to their club. People always want to play 6s and too many times you wont have guys on so you will pick up other buddies. They will come play you will play a few and then other guys will hop on and not be able to play. This causes them to leave the club and go play elsewhere. It is a never-ending cycle and one reason why the cool down period is so hated amongst NHL gamers. If you could make it so a club could run 1 or 2 lines at once it would be awesome. The only exploit of this would be people who run 2s and 3s would just double their game output, but again no one really respects the small game community, but it doesn’t mean we should ignore them I guess either.

6s Lobbys/Leaderboard – Make a separate locker room possibly for 6s. We know there are the other leader boards but they are really the main leader boards and that’s kind of weak.

Club Disband Win- If a team has a guy quit when losing and disbands the club while the game is going on in order to discredit your team with the win, please allow this to count.

Stat Leader boards – make a 6s stats leader board. All the top stat leader boards are 2s and 3s guy who play against each other and pull the Gs or just run 2s 1 skater and a G and average 5 points a game. It makes it not interesting for the core community who likes to play 4s-6s.


Monthly All-Stars – This was a pretty cool feature back a few years ago, however it needed modified slightly. The number of all stars chosen needs to go down. There should be 1 from each position in each division. There use to be about 100 from each position.


Incentives For Playoffs – Maybe a HUT Ultimate player pack bonus or something if you win. This could be effective on 2 formats. One it would encourage more people to play playoffs and 2 it would make more people interested in HUT, possibly having them spend more money on the game as a whole. If you could get your points system implemented which I kind of like but it needs tweaked a little, a bonus for this would be nice to help your players improve. Maybe team boosted skate or gloves


Choosing Positions – Allow us to choose our positions once teams are matched like in a lobby game. A ton of times we go to dick around and then get matched against a top team and either back out or wing it with our G on C wingers on D and guy with a rookie 1 card in net.


***Goalie Pull/Off Ice for Penalty – Allow the person playing Goalie to control the skater that would be sick to score with him, even if it is just with a 65 overall CPU guy. Also would be a cool achievement.


Shootout – This was taken out after the first month bc people were made they were not getting to shoot. We all love to play OT, but to add to the playoff atmosphere and simulation style hockey of regular season it would be cool to bring this back. If there was a way to make It 1 full 20minute (or 5 real minute) OT and then the shootout be all 5 players cycled through like in actual online shootout mode that would be sick. It would be cool if you could choose the order or something as well, if not just go FWDs then D.


Player Builds/Personalization
Player Builds – This is probably the biggest thing. There needs to be some distinction. Everyone rocks the same two builds in 6s two-ways and playmaker, in small games it is grinders. No one uses Power Forwards, Enforcers Snipers, Defensive Dmen bc they are too slow or lack big time in some attribute points bc of attribute Caps.


Attribute Points – Please give us a way or a new system to get new or more points. Its not fun seeing the top player builds are 82 or 83s on offense. Sure you can balance all of your stats and have your guy suck and get to like an 85 but why is a guy who played 1000 games only an 85 overall. It sucks there should be some way to make your guy better and break the 90s where Crosby and the top players are. The Fifa model for players gaining stats is pretty cool you could look into that.


Attribute Caps – these need to be turned off for player types. This way if someone wants a sniper who hits 90 just make that category cost a shit ton of XP for them. A lot of people that play C are limited to only using a 2 way bc it has 95 faceoffs and no other one does besides grinder but all of its good attributes are capped.


Broken Attributes – there are a ton of top players who exploit certain attributes not working to spread to other stats. Supposedly a ton of guys do not use offensive and defensive awareness yet they dominate scoring in EASHL and in the 6s community leagues. This is sort of a strategy though which I actually like bc it takes some skill/knowledge to test things out and fin the right build. I don’t want a game where everyone uses the same build and that is sort of what happens to an extent now, with a few people not using the awareness. In prior years it was people not using excel and then maxing out their speed endurance strength balance agility.


Useless Attributes – There are attributes no one uses at all. The discipline, shot blocking, durability, fighting. They are sort of a waste in club and no good player uses them.


Height Weight –This is something that is always debated about. 99% of the small players in real life can fly. This sometimes seems that way in the game which is fine bc they usually get buried; but why are the bigger players so slow and unatheltic, even when their athletic stats are the same or better. Chara for how big he is, is a pretty solid skate def not the best but he doesn’t get smoked every time on the ice.


Separate LD/RD Builds – Instead of having a guy have to go change his stick every time he’s playing with a guy that can only play one side on Defense. They have LW and RW builds why not LD and RD builds.


Player Editing – A copy build feature, say press Y on your RW to copy your build for your LW.


The Menus – Please put EASHL right on the home page, its annoying when you back all the way out and have to go through 4 menus to get there plus the 2 menus in the actual EASHL section. Also can you make it so you can edit your pro on the main menu again, helps for when you need to edit your guy before going into a league lobby game and don’t have a lot of time.


Club Personalization
Logos – Please update the logos, there are a million things you can do to this and we’ve had the same number to choose from forever.


Arenas - The arena thing is a good idea although it is a little too much. It would be cool to have the option to choose from NHL ice vs Olympic Ice. Everything else is something EA would love to do (hence the stupid 9,000 different fan thing this yr) and we don’t want them wasting time on something so aesthetics compared to something that would actually improve the club experience and game play.


Controls


Right Stick (Leg Kick Button) – Please make an option to turn this off. No one really uses it and a ton of people accidentally click it in when dekeing or toe dragging and it messes everything up. I cant tell you how many times I have heard people say I didn’t mean to do that and they blow a breakaway or turn it over.


Skill Stick Xbox One – The new skill stick is kinda weak, have an option to use the old one sort of how you can use the classic controls or hybrid controls in NHL 15 on 360


Chop/SlapShot – When youre going into the corner to shot it and your guy does a slap shot instead or turns the complete opposite way to slap it


Slap Pass – This is not too effective and it needs to be used for long breakouts with the person aiming the aim stick down on the ice and to the position where the player is so it is a nice strong pass instead of having to wait to charge up a breakout pass.


Slap Pass for Auto-Deflection - it needs modified so the guy receiving the puck does not freeze up.


In Game Features
Free Skate - Instead of the 19:00 minute mark to test the connection and quit without it being a loss. Please give us a 1 minute free skate warm up on our side of the ice just like in the real NHL. I’m not sure if this is possible but it would be cool and fun to mess around before the game. I’m sure people would mess it up and go in each others zones and just hit each other which would actually be fun and give it that arcade style fun while leaving the actually game as still a simulation style. If that is a problem I’m sure there is a way to only show your side of the ice and your Goalie.

Player Indicators – The home team player colors are fine, but the away teams are awful they all look way too similar, they need to be changed, there are like 3 orange/yellows a green and pink.

Passing Indicators - Please make an option like in Madden and NBA where you can bring up an icon menu over your players by holding in a button on offense. Say holding in LT when u have the puck instead of the stupid back skate and noob auto spin people do with it have it bring up a control above each players name so you can pass to that guy. Example: LW=X , C = A , RW = B, LD= LB, RD=RB.

Fighting – Im not a big fan of fighting at all, it gets old its repetitive and it has no effect in club games or so it seems. Half the time the team who loses the fight ends up scoring lol. Somehow incorporate winning a fight or taking a fight at the wrong time into the fatigue or endurance and conditioning factors you are proposing. I think some of them are a little too extreme, considering most people hate playing hurt as it is let alone being slow and sucking.


Banner Ceremony – Only needs to happen after the first game you play after winning the playoffsnot every single time. Half the time in the old EASHL days when playoffs were once a month like they should be, teams would back out if you had an elite playoff banner going up at the beginning.

Blocks - Please change blocks to counting without having to actually hit LB. I swear even when I do hit LB the blocks do not count half the time. This would be a great stat for defenseman and would be a good one to have in LGHL if it were actually accurate bc it would help indicate a little more how good a guy was defensively at reading shots and things of that nature.

Takeaways - I feel like these are wrong half the time they only count if you check the guy and pick it up.


GamePlay
Puck Behind the Net – This feature I read was one that is going to be worked on but we have all seen it. Our guy and the other team player just repeated reaching for the puck but no one grabbing it. It is very frustrating they just keep doing a reach.


Rebounds - I think this feature is the worst in the game. It is so hard to pick up the puck around the net; I think bc there is sort of a bubble around the G so people don’t always run into him. It is tough to pick up the puck and even tougher to do anything with it. Other times you crash the net hitting up and either hit the G or wiff and get stuck in the shot animation. Other times you pick it up skate away and your guy is still shooting and you cant cancel it.


Breakaways - The ability to catch people on breakaways bc you have been skating back longer. I think this has to do with the accel feature not working too well. You guys id a great job eliminating the check from behind on breakaways but people still seem to get caught way too much.

Blue Line Straddle - I have heard this from a ton of Dman and even when I mess around and play D every once in awhile it drives me crazy. Its almost impossible to keep pucks in the zone and when you do make a play to keep it in your player usually gets caught flat footed and in some weird animation where the pass doesnt come off and your only option is to shoot it to keep it in.

Collision Engine – I liked the idea but this is way too intense on the xbox one and I think this is why there was no OTP or EASHL. Even on xbox 360 you are constantly running into your own teammates it is awful. Especially when going behind the net bc it the game it is so tight you can barely fit 2 people behind there. In real life I believe they added some more space back there.


Saucer Pass in Offensive Zone – for some reason this is awful in the offensive zone on the rush and is very in accurate and often leads to players running into the G.


Animations – A lot of these need tweaked or just straight up taken out and more of a free flowing physics engine.


Other Aspects of the Game
FREE FOR ALL – bring it back it was such a fun mode, maybe even make it with your online guys in club. Where you can all just drop in like practice have the G play and the puck drop from the sky and everyone against each other with the game keeping score for each player. Make it a 5 minute times game or first to 10 wins. This game was a blast to play offline back in NHL 05 I believe. It is also an awesome drinking game to play.

 

Dangler Build plz

 

Allow position changes mid-game. If a G lags out or rage, someone can take his place.

 

Make your guy drag his goddamn foot when crossing the blue line so you can actually hit the line with speed and not go offside every rush.

 

Game improvement: Idk if this has been said at all, but I just want some kind of animation for blue line puck control. As a defensemen it's too damn annoying to try to skate at or around the blue line with your skater being a fukn idiot and taking the puck over the line when all you wanted to do was keep the fukn thing on side. That's my biggest gripe. I don't care if it's an automatic animation or if you're by the line if you press the a button your skater does any kind of move to keep it on. Also would love to see your skater skate behind blue line but keep the puck on with either auto animation or pressing the a button.

 

[MENTION=6345]MattTheCoolCat[/MENTION]

 

Am I the only one who hates the star rating system implementation idea? That sounds dreadful, let the players who spend the time tweaking and refining their builds be rewarded with superior builds that are number based, not star based. (I want to remain remotely relevant plz) If you're gonna keep the statcaps, make more build choices (Dangler plz), or remove the caps and make things ungodly expensive to use past a certain point, so not everyone abuses 99 speed. Also, for fuck's sake, someone tell EA that ALL TYPES OF PLAYERS CAN WIN FACEOFFS. FUCK OFF WITH FORCING ME TO USE A TWF. Actual gear boosts sound great, though. Equipment does things, you earn them by buying with NHL coins or playing games, like CoDAW's system. But making a progression system like FIFA in NHL just makes more builds the same, no more or less diversity than this year's game. Something to play for sounds elite as well, and end year tournaments are meh, we'd need more of a community to start with, and idk how much a free copy of the game after 12 month of playing will entice people, but who knows. I think the best way to get teh community back is to make a complete, and WORKING PROPERLY game with SUPPORT from EA that entails more than them just pumping out HUT packs and new HUT cards.

 

Here are some issues/improvements I think nobody has brought up, but could be coded into the game fairly easily.

1. Make players have the ability to reconnect to a club game if they get disconnected. I honestly can't believe this feature hasn't been added long ago, almost every other game out there has this ability, and I would think the 2 pauses should give a player enough time to reconnect to the EA servers and get back into the game so that in a tight competitive game that disconnect wouldn't be a huge factor in the outcome of the game.

2. I think the strategy and the teamwork of club would be dramatically increased if EA implemented a system where rather than setting up just 1 player with your attribute points, you set up 4 from 1 giant pool of attributes. Then you could choose as a club whether you want to build a team like Pittsburgh who has 2 incredible lines and 2 lines of plug ins just killing time while the first 2 lines rest or Boston who has 4 lines that can all contribute that they roll over all game long and wear the opponent down. You would also have to coordinate your line changes, and poor teams would be penalized for poor line changes with breakaways against. Icings would be much more detrimental, and home ice advantage would actually mean something. You could even get to know your opponents and plan out line matchups based on what the opponent was sending out. The possibilities of this system are limitless, and it shouldn't be that hard to introduce, because it's really no different than having a player lock position in a versus game. He plays his position on all 4 lines and just rolls with the team. The only difference would be that all 5 skaters would be doing it simultaneously. Good team management would be just another way elite teams could separate themselves from the pack.

3. Letting goalies control extra attackers was already mentioned, but I wanna bring that up again, because I think that's a massively important idea. Some teams don't even want the goalie to come out for an extra attacker cuz the computer is so stupid he just gets in the way. Getting that extra human skater out there really makes the extra attacker a dangerous situation.

4. Didn't hear this mentioned, forced fighting. It's fine for OTP, but some people take club very seriously, and have zero interest in fighting. Being forced into something they didn't wanna do AND having to sit out the next 5 minutes of the game to boot is annoying as hell. You shouldn't be forced to sit out that much of the hockey game unless you put your team on the penalty kill.

5. It'd be nice if your club stats on a specific club were saved on your profile, so that if you leave the club and come back your stats aren't reset to zero. I know I played for the same club many different times over the course of the season, and it'd be nice to accumulate career stats with the club over the season rather than resetting them every time I left.

6. I think a lot of people would like the option of having a hardcore league and a casual league. Anyone could create a team in either league, but the rules would be more sim in the hardcore league would be where you played to get into the monthly tournament, while the casual league would be just for fun, so if an elite team wanted to mess around one night, they could switch over to the casual league and do whatever they wanted without having to worry about hurting their club standings.

7. Allow conversation with the opposing team during intermissions. You could make this an option you have to turn off/on for people who don't wanna hear trolling and such, but it would add an element of fun for people during the intermissions and a way to get pumped up for the next period.

8. How about a general pass direction indicator for club? It's really frustrating when I aim a pass for the RW, then surprise to me I pass it to the RD instead, so it goes right onto the opposing forward's stick and they're off on an odd man rush. The puck doesn't have to go exactly where I aimed it. There could be a shot dispersion based on how high my passing rating is, but it'd be nice to know when I pass the puck, it's actually going in the direction I want it to, and I don't have to anticipate the possibility of involuntarily doing something absolutely horrific. The indicator doesn't have to be disruptive to vision or gameplay, and obviously your teammates wouldn't be able to see it, just a faint blue line showing the general direction you're currently aiming your pass that shows up as soon as you start charging it.

 

Could be awful, it still gives you the freedom to do builds your own way. It was merely a suggestion on how to make it feel new and fresh. It also was to coincide with an equipment collection system, however the equipment system could still be used with the current way EASHL is set up.

I definitely agree that face offs need to be the same for ANY player type, not capped out differently for other types.

The equipment system may not be the right choice but it was a suggestion to bring in a way for us to bring in incentives in the game. A reason to finish a game and not a quit, a reason/way to make leveling up your character fun and fresh, and with super rare gear that can be given away to winners of ranked 6's tournaments. It allows players to be recognized for winning these tournaments. The gear may need to not effect stats in a big way as suggested, but I do agree with what Nuge wants and that is to decrease the attribute gap between a rookie and a legend as we try and bring back the competitive side of the game.

There is lots to talk about and I am loving everything everyone is posting here!