* New * NHL21 EASHL Gameplay Changes/Updates

Its in the base stages, right now a twf comes off the bench, base build. I assume they eventually add or allow things like that down the road

 

I say this every year but 45 degree cuts need to come back and stride dekes need a overhaul. I hate when I accidentally stride deke and im stuck in this slow not very shifty or stridey deke. The reason L2 is abused is because they took away 45 degree cuts with the new skating engine.
Pokes are better but i wish they had more power. About 50% of the time the skater will kick it back to his skate or my stick just goes through and the puck somehow stays in the same spot and the skater puts his stick back on the puck. Like I dont care what your stick checking level is, if a stick hits a puck it will move a decent distance. I also wish they would not aim the stick for me, Just by angling myself I should be able to poke in the direction I want. So many times will I put myself facing the puck perpendicular to a guy and he will reach the opposite way to get some of them sweet feet.
As much as I like the dynamics of the play it is a little unrealistic. The meta is now to use small guys to keep up with the small forwards. I hate the grinder armies of games past but these are supposed to be nhl players. It is not that hard to transition from back skating to forward skating. Thankfully I like to play defense like Karlsson and not back skate anyway but it has been kind of annoying when I slightly hit L2 to angle my guy to intercept a pass in the neutral zone but my guy slows down way too much and the puck carrier can easily burn me. That just isn't realistic. There has to be a happy medium between what we had before and now. Also interceptions in general are just bad. Like many others have mentioned. Unlike others I offer a solution. We need a dedicated puck reception button. Just like in 2K we can actively intercept with our reaction time and not have to rely on the randomness of EA animations.
I like the explosive toe drags or whatever they are called. Also let me pass out of a bump. If you aren't going to take account for speed of players and idk inertia and physics in general. Let me just pass please. You can get caught in this stupid unrealistic chain animation that just is not a thing in real hockey. Other than that it was a good time.

 

I don't know if anyone else experienced this, but after my placement games on the beta launch my rank was permanently glitched. I was placed in gold 3 (around 21,493 RP I think), and after every game regardless of win or loss it would go up around 350 RP I think. Then next game it would reset back to 21,493 and go up ~350 again, game after game after game.

The people I was playing with were going up in rank no problem, but mine was just stuck in that endless loop.

 

First couple of days it worked fine for me but on the last day / day and a half it kept saying I lost points after a win but then would always go back to the same #.

 

I really enjoyed the beta, the speed is something I love about the game and really has been missing in NHL games for a long time, I hope they don't change much other than a few tweaks. Gap control matters so much more on defense which I love, in 20 when it comes to club I wouldn't even pay attention playing D most of the time cause you could just play so aggressive and recover easily and it would work even against really good players, this year I feel like I actually have to pay attention and focus on different things while defending the rush, I notice myself doing things like trying to pay attention to the opposing wingers' tendencies and such because the difference between getting beat and making a good defensive play and countering the other way comes down to split second decisions, which is how it SHOULD BE. Love the way pokes work as well, maybe a slight buff to sticklifts though. This is the first year in a long time where incidental contact and bumps aren't ridiculous, I think both are balanced and in a good place. Also love how skating (like being able to change directions and using your brain with the puck and using your space), right stick, quick passing, and actual hockey shots are more prominent things to focus on; LT/L2 is still usable and a skill that can be used to create space and opportunities but isn't like the main thing which I like. I personally never really use dekes but this is probably the first year since old gen or maybe nhl 16 where they actually work on the rush for people that are good at them, the new L1/LB + R2/RT move I think will open things up a lot once people figure out when/how to use it properly.

Fixes/things to possibly look at:

- the goalie animation intelligence (not sure if I used the right term) needs work I think, from all I've heard the movement when playing G is better, but as a skater I've seen some weird shots go in, I feel like sometimes the game doesn't really choose the right animations for shots. I wouldn't overhaul completely though cause I feel like a lot of it is just goalies being used to bad habits from the way its been in pretty much every NHL game, most goalies I've noticed play way deeper than they should and their angles on shots aren't quite right so it makes sense why so many are going in now, but there also definitely are a lot of situations where they get screwed by the animations so definitely something to tweak/look at (low shots especially)

- Interceptions are maybe something to look at but I'd tread lightly with overhauling or any fixes that do come. I feel like the way it is now is a lot better than 20 where people would intercept passes they weren't even trying to intercept, or picking up passes from behind. The way it is now is definitely better as the games flow better and you're more comfortable making quick passes, but I definitely have felt there's a lot of situations where I read a play and am standing still in the lane facing the pass and you still almost never pick the pass off which leads to more forces, you have to be right on the guy to pick off a pass, if you're standing still in the middle of the lane there's no chance at it I feel, so maybe a slight buff to that, but I wouldn't change it too much.

- This might just be me, but sometimes when I intercept a puck I've felt like I'm stuck for like a second or two and can't do anything. Not sure if this is something anyone else has had happen to them

- Noticed this more in Vs than EASHL, but sometimes when making a D to D pass the pickup is weird and your guy will pick it up out of the zone and go offside, this was also a thing in 20 but feel like its worse now

- Once again something to tread lightly with, while I love how you cant accelerate or turn on a dime when recovering on the rush, I feel like with the puck the turning also feels sort of sluggish when making a full turn to the left or right while breaking the puck out (not skating full speed like a winger). I know it's not necessarily completely realistic, but I do miss in 19 and 20 having the puck and being able to make a quick turn to the left or right with the puck, it just felt so smooth and precise. Once again I say tread lightly cause I'm not sure if a change to this would effect turning in all aspects and cause negative impacts in other areas (Like being able to easily recover off bad reads when defending like you could in past games). I should also mention I'm west so it might just be the 65 - 75 ms thats making it feel like that, in free skate the game feels so much smoother.

- For traits I feel like either add a 3rd or 4th set to each one so that theres more options to choose from since theres an equal gain/loss, or keep the same number of traits and just make it so that you gain +5 in the areas you gain, and only lose like -2 in the areas you lose. Or maybe just make the overalls on all builds 5 overall higher so its closer to Versus, that way when you lose say -4 to skating you'll noticeably be slower but it wont be a complete game breaking detriment. Obviously for future iterations of the game custom attributes or a skill tree like FIFA/what we already have in BAP is the way to go I think, but I know they can't add it at this point in 21


Anyway sorry if that was long but I wanted to give my full opinions on the game, hoping that it has some sort of impact. Tired of seeing good betas ruined on release or by an early patch 2 weeks after release.

TL;DR Overall my full take is that at its core this is by far to me the best NHL I've played on this gen, some tweaks of course and obvious bug fixes which others have mentioned. But this is the first game in a long time I feel that they've got the right balance between arcade and realism, as a game you feel like you're making decisions and plays that are actual hockey plays, and there are a lot of different core aspects in the game that will create a skill gap

 

long read but i agree with almost everything you said. Good post

 

I definitely agree with adding a 3rd or 4th slot/making the builds overall higher. I don't like playing with what feels like a 70 overall build when most other modes you are playing with 80+ players. Great writeup.

 

The game obviously was a technical test so I tried to keep my expectations as low as I can

1. I feel like the game was a little slow and felt the faster pace game feels like a lot more fun with fast pace dekes and passes with the game moving quick and up and down the ice.

2. the pass intercepting needs to be worked on a little more. I don’t mind the through pass play where the puck goes through if the guy is moving but I think the pass should be intercepted if the pass is on the ice and the defender is in the line of the passing and good position to intercept it.

3. The traits don’t seem realistic at all especially with upgrading a ton but also creating a huge negative impact on other attributes, don’t find that realistic... I would keep it minimal like nhl20 so it can actually be applied to the build.

This was only the technical test and a lot of the minor errors should be fixed into the real game. Hopefully they can make the necessary changes to satisfy the consumers needs.

 

Puck physics seem to be close to realistic. Love the new puck bouces, deflections, and how puck moves on ice. Makes the gameplay more fluid and unpredictable.

Stick to puck and stick on stick animations need to be adjusted / improved to be more realistic. Better animations and player movements as you see in today's modern day.

Goalie animations seem to be good based on what others have said with some adjustments needed. (I don't play goalie)

Please remove the user camera control during cut scenes. A lot of others complained how it makes their screens move all over the place. Yes it's quite annoying. We instead should have more instant replays and more in depth presentation.

Better intermission presentation. Instead of play of the period, add a highlight reel of the period showing more like you'd see in a real broadcast game.

Turn Action Tracker into a more presentable realistic highlight reel of each period and end of game.

Play as AI players while surving a 5 min fighting major same way as extra attacker.
Let's admit it, we all love fighting in hockey.

PLEASE eliminate the shot animation glitch. I noticed this was still happening in beta and there's no way to cancel a shot. If there's a way to hit L1 to stop it them problem solved but it was a constant problem in 20 and it apparently continued in beta.


Better player scrums and referee pile ups would be a nice addition to post whistle animations. Turn it up a notch!

Overall game actually feels good.

 

Best beta ever , realistic and how u want a game keep it how it is

 

Game feels different from 20 on how you play defence definitely got harder which is for the better other then the fact I felt certain times the forces were brutal. Only other complaint is traits...

I don’t understand why they make you worse in a certain area. I understand the answer to this game balance but, I don’t feel that is needed. If you want to have a bit harder shot then that’s what you should get not becoming slower because you can shoot the puck. Also how does boosting one skating attribute change another when it is the same category on a player

 

I'm super late to the post and will admit having only played about 10-15 games in the beta.

But... my primary concerns are: overall "heavy" feel of the player responsiveness (i.e. what feels like strong input delay), and what felt like were constant incidental bump animations between players away from the puck.

As someone who primarily plays D, I'll also agree the D's ability to pivot when defending 1-on-1 is absurdly slow. And, no, I am very cognizant of my gaps and am not a D man to often be caught flat-footed in past versions of the game; when I am back-skating at full-speed as a 5'-10" PMD, and begin to pivot on a sub-5'-9" FWD when they are still over a full stick length away and still get burned, something is wrong with the skating mechanics. This effectively means D men will be forced to very slowly enter the NZ after completing a stretch pass, for fear of a turnover off-screen and getting caught heading the wrong direction with a 90+ accelerating + 86+ speeding FWD coming back at them. They will also be forced to essentially be skating with their backs to the FWD on the FWD transition for fear of getting turnstiled.

I'm all for the slowing down of the arcade-style hockey we've all grown used to with this game, but this feels like an over-correction to compensate for nerfing of LT so FWDs could break the trap. IMO, and maybe this isn't the post for this, the fix should have been more lost pucks when LTing in quick succession, and, yes, a slight nerf to pivoting for D men so as to improve dump and chasing. The bigger reason why the game will always struggle with realistic physics/gameplay is because so much of hockey is positional play that too few of the game's casual players care to improve at; hence, EA is forced to cater the physics/gameplay to the wider, less "positionally sound" players to keep the user base healthy.

 

My two cents on where devs are going with these dekeing issues. I keep saying this after new stuff is implemented but if I gotta keep saying it i will.

Random chance is not good in my competitive setting.

I will never, ever, EVER use something that has a <70 chance to fail in any game I care about winning. NHL needs to get the hell off this road of chance of "x" happening. There is no serious competitive game that does this. The new Michigan deke is completely pointless to ever attempt in its current form. This studio needs to take notes from FIFA and how they use skill moves. There should be thresholds for skill moves, not higher chance because of attributes. Why you'd ever waste dev time on implementing something based on random chance that isnt a fucking lootbox.

Also this may be anecdotal, but I've heard people say that devs said they made it rare to make it feel special and not only is that insulting to your fans, but why the hell would you put something in a game people wont use. Sorry EA, im not gonna lay down in bed at night dreaming about that time I shit on some little kid on hut with my 99ovr mcdavid with the michigan deke.

Side note goalie feels sick now that you can actually slide across fast to get the rebound instead of just laying down and dying.

 

I love the new eachl practice mode but I wish we could be playing different scenarios like 2 v 1 or pk practice, stuff like that. Right now its only everyone against the goalie.

 

Absolutely no complaints about defense. Hit the nail on the head as far as my play style goes.

 

It was way too easy to recover on D in past games, so it really wasn't difficult to keep your gaps if you're half decent, so many times you can get beat a bit to the inside but you could turn and accelerate so easy that you could just reach and poke the puck. The way it was before made it necessary to have tools like L2 for zone entries. The way it is in beta is the way to go imo

 

Great job @SweetLou9208 and ouch i guess i was playing on fair since 2016 being west vs east people as i get 65 and up for LG and club in general with good internet thanks for the info...

1.) Ping is now listed different on the match screen
Good = 0-60
Fair = 61-120
Poor = 121+

 

would like to see goalies laying down purposely and tripping the other teams players being called as penalties..would also really like the negatives from using traits removed as well..

 

Beta was great. Change the incidental I mentioned to you @SweetLou9208 and its even better.

 

I couldn't agree more. Also the RS down needs to be removed. I got a brand new controller because I thought it was my right stick that was broken with me sliding left or right but it seems to take even a slight hair off and it'll put you in that bad animation.