NHL 22 Wishlist

[Troublesome 85]

Remember when EA used to release info on the new upcoming games in April...then it slowly went to late June...now we are in July and still nothing. Guess we can assume another pile of crap is on the menu.

dont fret they have a new gimmick to feed us i am sure!

arenas empty cuz of covid! Coaches with masks! Return of snoop dogg!

 

[Hockey Stick]

dont fret they have a new gimmick to feed us i am sure!

arenas empty cuz of covid! Coaches with masks! Return of snoop dogg!

Please no more Snoop Dogg

 

[Troublesome 85]

Please no more Snoop Dogg

Its Billie Eyelash and Justin Bieber this time

 

[Blitzkrug]

Make HUT more rewarding for one. Coming off play Diamond Dynasty in the MLB games for the first time and it's absurd how much the game actually rewards you for playing it. It just shits out a steady stream of good, usable cards with every content drop. To put it into perspective, three of the five best pitchers currently in the mode can only be acquired by actually playing the game and finishing various challenges (which are also super easy) and the other two can either be acquired by finishing at a high rank in their other modes or bought with in game currency so even then those can be earned with no money spent.


In comparison to HUT where they purposely deflate the overall of base cards so you're forced to spend money to get better cards which are then usually rendered obsolete within a couple weeks and the cycle continues.

That's the easy fix. The other thing I would want is that piece of trash engine they built the entirety of last gens games on to be thrown out and rebuilt. Have it more resemble NHL 09-14 where it definitely wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot more fun that the series is now. Fix the shitty goaltending and defensive AI as well.

I'm probably not going to bother with Chel this year. I haven't paid for one since 17 since I gameshare with a friend. Probably won't even play it since I absolutely hated 20 and 21.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

I want a good f***ing game

 

[MattMan]

There's a million things they could improve on, but I'm going to focus on one. All the players feel the same. I've started playing NBA 2k and the players all feel unique. EA needs to us the full range of attribute points. For example, Lillard is a 94 overall. But, his attributes that have to do with being around the rim and rebounding are in the 25-50 range. Connor McDavids lowest attribute is 84 in checking (outside of fighting skills and faceoffs). EA needs to find a way to have low attributes on a player without it making their overall bad. Another reason everyone feels the same is that 4th liners are like 78-80 overall. Make 4th liners 65-70 or something. This will also make adding rookies to the lineup more interesting.
Finally, the badges in 2K also make players feel super unique. Do something like that

 

[Troublesome 85]

There's a million things they could improve on, but I'm going to focus on one. All the players feel the same. I've started playing NBA 2k and the players all feel unique. EA needs to us the full range of attribute points. For example, Lillard is a 94 overall. But, his attributes that have to do with being around the rim and rebounding are in the 25-50 range. Connor McDavids lowest attribute is 84 in checking (outside of fighting skills and faceoffs). EA needs to find a way to have low attributes on a player without it making their overall bad. Another reason everyone feels the same is that 4th liners are like 78-80 overall. Make 4th liners 65-70 or something. This will also make adding rookies to the lineup more interesting.
Finally, the badges in 2K also make players feel super unique. Do something like that

Ur only saying a fraction of what I been saying for years.

if EA copied 15% of 2K franchise mode and gameplay this game would be 1000xs better

 

[Troublesome 85]

Again this game needs better AI. Tired of my team mates skating into me or in my way. Or them being in the wrong side in defense.

 

[B33R LEAGUE]

Bring back Big Buff as a Master Icon.

 

[NYR94]

Any idea when we'll get our first look at this? Also is it finally going to be on the Frostbite engine?

 

[Troublesome 85]

Here is what 2K looks like for those who dont know. Heres what drafting and the “social media” aspect of the game looks like. If EA did just some of this their franchise mode would be the best its been in years. Like when u draft someone u get analysis. Unlike in EA where u just draft and move along. Madden does the same. Makes for boring games.

2K also has its faults tho. Continually change how to shoot. Guys miss easy ass shots and teams go one runs where you will score 4 points and they will score like 15.

 

[Apex Predator]

We should hear something about NHL 22 by Thursday right?

 

[terranraida]

I would LOVE if every cross crease saucer pass didn't laser its way through time and space to perfectly end up on the shooters stick.

 

[Chalfdiggity3]

My friend and I play this game religously, even though i hate how they created the game. We continue to come up with ideas of how to make it more real. We wish we had the funding to create a game to compete with EA.

lets fix the celebrations after the cup win. Should be different every year, after the cup win, the next season should have banner raising and all that.
Celebrations after goals should be much better, more fan interactive, along with teammate celebrations.
players should be kicked out of the faceoff circle when they go to early
stop with the glitch goals and constant cross crease pass make the game more realistic.
Make the goalies alot better! no more holding a team to 6 shots and giving up a random bullshit goal. #canneverhaveagoodgoalie
Make fighting better in the game. first person fight sequences... actual group scrums after whistles.
When i go down to block a pass or shot, i should be able to block it more often and not have it be an automatic goal bc you try to block a pass.
Make the offseasons more interactive by making it more like nba2k
Should be able to negotiate with players in the offseason not just send 1 offer and done
better commentary, its really ass.
make passing more accurate, cant stand when i pass to an open guy and it gets passed to the guy behind him.
Make the AI actually smart. tired of my own players getting in my way.
Add more dekes
Add more strategies for your team
Stop with the unnecessary bullshit of drafting a player and not being able to bring him up from juniors to the ahl or nhl. I drafter a goalie who i signed right after and its been 2 years since i drafted him and i STILL havent been able to bring him up or even find him in the game except for trading.
Have real coaches in the game

Just to name a few. lol. I wish i could make a game, f***ing destroy EA

 

[LokiDog]

We should hear something about NHL 22 by Thursday right?

This is my guess. If they're not using the expansion draft as the opportunity to reveal something, what's the plan? The entry draft? Otherwise it's going to be a kind of random reveal mid-summer and not linked to any event with publicity?

 

[ShadowDuck]

Cross play would be huge, especially for EASHL

 

[NZ Hockey]

Everyone has talked cross-crease problems to death but I think it's worth noting part of the reason WHY cross-crease is such a factor in this game.

And I'm not even talking about online games - I'm talking vs CPU. The CPU almost always attempts some form of East-West one-timer and takes virtually no other shot types (beside the coast-to-coast skate right through both defenders because we can't defend and deke the goalie out of his pads move).

It's because of the way this game "thinks" shot selection. The CPU always passes up the option to take medium or low quality scoring chances now. It used to be that the CPU would take a wrister from a moderate angle or wind up for a shot from the point and hope for a rebound.

In NHL19 I used to block point shots all the time from the CPU. But I noticed immediately while playing NHL21 that the CPU cycles to the point but almost never takes the shot - they look for a pass down low for a one timer. I hardly ever have to block a shot with my defenseman anymore. Well, when the pass isn't there, or it's intercepted, it results in NO shot being taken and the puck goes the other way.

THIS is why so many players complain that it's impossible to keep a goalie with good stats. Because the CPU only takes high quality shots - mostly one-timers down low. The CPU shot count is ridiculously low but their accuracy is crazy high.

Most games on All-Star v. CPU I wind up allowing 10-12 shots at most but give up 4 goals. And this is why. Shot selection. They only take shots that have an insanely high probability to succeeding because the CPU's shot selection algorithm figured out the same thing that online players did: that cross-crease one timers are unstoppable.

It's not hockey. I hope the devs for '22 figure this out and reprogram the shot selection/pathfinding in the AI so that the CPU takes more medium quality chances; more "throw the puck at the net through traffic" chances. More stoppable shots.

The other issue is that the slider for "cross crease reaction" just doesn't work. It used to. But in '22 I can crank it up to 100 and the goalies still don't react at all. Make a slider that works here and at least we could have corrected this problem ourselves.

 

[NZ Hockey]

As for my NHL22 wishlist - it's a long post but here goes. Bear in mind I'm an old school franchise-mode guy who has played since NHLPA'93. Not much of an onliner.

CREATE TEAM: So many cool things you could do here...

- Organ Music, Organ Music, ORGAN MUSIC: Seriously, it’s a part of vintage hockey experience. Not just goal/win songs but let me define a playlist of what plays in between whistles at my rink, too.

- Create AHL Affiliate: for use in GM Mode. No brainer. You already have the mechanism built.

- All NHL rinks should at least be options. You've already modelled them and paid for licensing, just let us choose them. AHL/Euro rinks should be available too.

- Fan Chant Options: the audio in this game is so dull. Let me choose a few options of pre-recorded chants that my fans will call out to create a more customizable experience. If I want a towelman to chant out the goal count when my team scores, let me choose this. It’s programmed in for the St. Louis Blues. It should be easy to add stuff like that as a menu option. I know you won’t give us “ref you suck” but how about a goalie chant or “we want the Cup!”… c’mon add some life to this arena experience. If my star player bolts in FA, the next time he comes to my rink in GM Mode I want the fans to heckle him each time he touches the puck!

- Fan Animations: Let me choose some options here. I want an octopus on the ice, baby. I want the details in this game to surprise me. “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,” or have you forgotten the crucial first part of that old slogan?!

- Logos and Mascots: all NHL alternate/historical logos, better custom logo options (c'mon these look like a third grader came up with half of them) and CHL/Euro options too - you paid for the licensing already. Use them. Same with mascot options.

- Custom Ribbon Text and Fan Sign Text. If you think gamers will abuse this, well, they already do that with team and player names, so what's the hold up?

- Jersey Templates: add more alt/winter classic templates. And more sock options please!

- Improve the Color Wheel: terrible interface. Also let me set predefined team colors and when I change them have the change flow through all the jersey/arena globally. It's a pain to have to change them all one at a time.

- Option to define the team strategies within Create Team Mode. So I don't have to change them in other modes.

- Better arena lighting and details: Ever notice that the NHL rinks you’ve created have way more “life” to them? Lighting is flatter in the Create Team version of a rink. Fans don’t carry the giant team flags. Pregame skates don’t have the premium arena lighting. Less detail around the arena. We should have more option to customize our rink then just three color zones on the walls.

CREATE PLAYER / PLAYER RATINGS:

- Create player behaviours that actually fit their playing style. There should be a clear discernible difference between how a PWF and a PLY behave on the ice.

- Poise doesn’t have a clearly defined impact on the game but there should be a leadership/character rating that has an impact (and not randomized when you start GM Mode). Leadership is a huge part of hockey, why leave it to randomization?

- What happened to the ability to customize the toe curve on a player’s stick? I liked giving my D-man a chance to blast a low slapper or have a stronger backhand with less curve.

- Need to have the option to edit the height/weight on non-created players. Sometimes these rookies come in as beanpoles and in reality most bulk up in their draft +1, +2 years.

- Give us the option to import player pics to the game, or for the love of goodness work harder to add more of these in yourselves; especially after mid-season roster updates. Don’t add a high-profile prospect to the game with a blank pic!

- More Custom Goalie Masks, including masks with the custom team logos. And go back and add some of the great vintage masks (some awesome stuff from the 90’s like CuJo’s, Vernon’s, Brathwaite’s, VanBies’ers come to mind).

- Instead of giving us 300 heads to choose from just let us build a head with a creation engine. This used to be in the game (you’re going to hear that a lot in this post!)

GAME MENUS / INTERFACE

- Menu lag, menu lag, menu lag. Fix it.

- Change the “contract amount” field so we don’t have to spend twelve hours incrementally raising a contract by $5k at a time please.

- Graphic Design: NHL 21 has the worst, most distracting fonts and menu graphics of any NHL title yet. And when you score that “GOAL” text that flashes across the screen – wow! Looks like it was designed by a kindergartner. No, that’s offensive to kindergartners across the world.

- Give us a setting where we can choose to put the time clock in the upper corner. Many people like this better. Just make it a setting option.

- “Save Settings” doesn’t retain all your settings. Hasn’t for years. When I’m starting a GM Mode and I choose things like “Penalty Time Scaling” or “Autosave: OFF” or “Retired Jerseys: OFF” these changes won’t save along with the rest of my settings profile. I have to reset them each time.

- Free Cam in replay. I love hockey arenas, I want to have a free cam that isn’t locked on the ice surface so I can explore the rink in a replay mode.


IN-GAME ARENA EXPERIENCE
This is where you can REALLY step it up and make this game feel new, different and more engaging. The in-game presentation has been so “copy-paste” for a decade now that it really needs some enhancement.

- Dynamic Crowd Audio: The crowd audio feels so flat to me. Play a game of NHL21 and then go back and watch a real Game-7 with fans in the stands. Hear that difference? I want this crowd to ROAR and react and really get into the game. I want custom chants. I want unique crowd chants for each team. I want them to really get on the ref after a bad penalty or a disallowed goal. The sound palette in this game is so “canned” and predictable.

- I want anthem singers, darn it. Older versions of EA NHL had the anthems, where’d they go?

- I want Stanley Cup banners in GM Mode. Give us an animation for the banner raising at the first home game of the next season and then let the banner be displayed for the rest of GM Mode.

- New Cup Celebration animations please!

- Three Star Announcement: I liked in older games where the PA announcer would call out the stars of the game on the ice. If players don’t like it they can just exit the game and be on their way.

- Ability to hit players into the bench: Seriously, this USED to be in the game. Why did you remove it?

- Goalie collisions that knock off the helmet: Controversial, I know. Again, used to be in the game and you took it out. But just code it so it doesn’t happen so often. I love little surprises every so often as long as they don’t happen constantly. If you’re worried about frequency give us a slider. In fact ALWAYS give us sliders so we can fix this stuff when you overdo it.

- Same with glass breaking. Doesn’t happen often anymore but code the action so that it only RARELY happens that a hard check will knock the glass loose. These are the little unexpected things that make the game come alive.

- Jersey tie-downs come loose: if a player is ENF or Grinder make it so there’s a random chance of his jersey not being tied down for a fight. And add a penalty for it.

- Zambonis. Such an iconic piece of the game of hockey and they’re nowhere to be seen. Add an intermission transition where we actually see a Zamboni, really. I want this to feel more like I’m at a hockey rink.

- Ice Quality: I can’t FEEL the ice quality impacting the game. As the period progresses I want to feel like pucks bounce a little more and skating is a little more difficult. As I said before give us a slider so we can turn this effect down in case you guys over-implement it.

- Hat Tricks: Cmon, in the current animation you can barely see a hat on the ice at all. Step it up. I want to see hats rain down on the ice. I want to see bobbleheads being thrown out on bobblehead promotion night.

- MORE and BETTER unique animations: like with hat-tricks I want more. When a player scores a milestone I want a bigger celebration. Players should leave the bench to congratulate on things like a 500-goal or a 50-in-50. Again, make this game come alive.

- Jersey retirement ceremonies: Give me a GM Mode option to retire a jersey. Show me the ceremony in an animation and then I want to see that jersey hang in the rafters for the rest of my GM mode.

- Pre-Game Skate: I’d like the option to participate in a warm-up, get out there and fire a few shots on the net. Just give us an option to bypass it but it would be another way of making this feel like I’m at a real hockey game.

- Again, ORGAN MUSIC. It’s hockey tradition.

- Better crowd animations: Get these guys into the game; you’ve got such a sterile crowd. Ever been to an OT in the playoffs? The crowd stands through the whole thing. They’re into it. They pound on the glass. They jump out of their seats for a big goal! They get rowdy. They freak out during the “kiss cam”. They do the wave. They start stomping and respond to “make some noise” graphics on the scoreboard when the team is behind. Make it so. I want this game experience to have some energy.

- Cut-scenes from the concourse, dressing rooms. I want to see this arena come to life. I want to see statues of legends outside my rink as fans pour in through the turnstiles. Make this an experience, not just an arcade game.

- Improved replay angles. These are a bit better in NHL21 but they still need work. I want to see the cool play I just made, not the goalies rear end or the drunk guy in the last row of the upper deck.

GM MODE

- Dynamic training camps. You guys put effort into trade deadline and draft day “events” but have so far ignored creating a feature to make training camp, and camp battles/cuts, a thing. That’s one of the most exciting times in a hockey season.

- Add the Winter Classic and Stadium Series please. What happened to the All-Star game? This used to be in. And I’d much rather have a Skills Competition.

- Add ability to replace an AHL affiliate team with a Custom Created Team.

- Fix coaching system; it’s badly broken. And let’s clarify how the system is intended to work? Why can I set the team’s strategies separately but my coach has their own preferences which apparently dictate line chemistry? These two systems seem to conflict. Good idea poorly implemented. Keep working.

- Add a prospect camp / prospect tourney (like Traverse City) that could have an impact on off-season rookie attribute progression. Something to liven up the off-season.

- Player trades impact team morale too strongly. In real life guys in the locker room understand this is a business. They don’t go crying in their protein shakes when you trade a 3rd line forward.

- Fix Player Attribute Progression. This is whacked. After a few seasons in GM Mode player attributes go wonky and unbalanced, especially rookies who are CHL 15-16 year olds. By the time they enter the draft some of them have 99-shot accuracy and skate like turtles.

- Trade counterproposals? This, also, used to be in the game.

- Expand the Record Book. Nice feature add. But there aren’t enough records listed here.

- Depth players get ticked about their ice time way too easily. If my player’s role is “Depth” he shouldn’t get disgruntled if he’s not in the lineup every night. Real NHL role players understand they have to be ready to go when the call comes. Turn down the sensitivity on this.

- Set practice schedules and practice types to have an impact on player training/attribute progression. Would be a cool feature to add (did this used to be in the game too? I feel like it seems familiar).

- Hall of Fame selections? Would be cool if my player retired during GM Mode and made the Hall. Again, add life to the game.

- Less randomization for winning/losing teams. Kind of invalidates the whole point of GM Mode if you’re team is statistically strong on paper but the CPU just randomly decides which teams will be successful arbitrarily.

- Show more individual player statistics in-game between whistles. This used to be in the game. I would see graphics that would say “Brett Hull is on a X goal scoring streak”. Again, get me more engaged in the “story” of what’s happening in my season.

GAMEPLAY / PLAYER CONTROLS:

- First off, SLIDERS: The gameplay is historically bad and I need more, and more effective sliders to fix your mistakes. The more power you put in our hands to control the gameplay the less whining we’ll have to do.

- CPU shot selection: This is HUGELY important. In NHL’21 the CPU seems to have been recoded to only take high-quality shots. They now pass up almost every shot from the point or hard-angle shot. The CPU only looks to drive the net and find an open man for a cross-crease one timer. When it works, they score. When it doesn’t they turn over the puck. As a result I usually wind up allowing only 10 shots a game on All-Star but I give up 3 or 4 goals. I want to see REAL hockey out there and that means a selection of shots from weak to strong, including slappers, pass of pads, straight on wristers, dirty goals at the net; everything. Why not giving me a slider for “CPU shot quality” or even frequency for different kinds of shot selections?

- CPU Zone Aggression: Instead of having one “aggression” slider make separate sliders for “CPU Offensive Aggression”, “CPU Neutral Zone Aggression” and “CPU Defensive Zone Aggression”. Because right now if I try to get the CPU to step up their play and get more pucks to the net, turning up “aggression” turns these guys into coked-up barbarians. They truck me every time I touch the puck. But it does help me get them to take more shots. It’s just that in the process I ruin the gameplay.

- Goalie Sliders: If I get the CPU to take more shots that doesn’t solve the issue that goalies are sieves. Always have been for decades. I want a goalie who can face 30-40 shots and stop around .920%. I need more and more effective sliders to fix this. Right now I’ve got cross-crease reaction at 100 and save reaction at 100. Maxed out. And still they move across crease like a deer in headlights. Newsflash EA: if I set a slider to 100 these guys should be moving like the Flash across that crease. They should be like Neo in the Matrix stopping pucks. Code the range for these sliders so that they actually work and then I can find the sweet spot myself. Then, give me sliders to control goalie attributes globally, like “Agility”, “Rebound Control”, “Breakaway”, “Angles” and “Recovery” so that way when you set all your goalies to be too week I don’t have to edit every single darned goalie in the game to give them an attribute bump.

- Fix the CPU’s amazing ability to recover from a hit (or, ehhem, give me a slider to fix this). CPU players have the uncanny ability to get drilled into the ice and pop right back up to strip the puck away from you. “Fall Recovery” needs help.

- Keep working on differentiating “Player Type” and “Attribute Quality” feel: Not every player should play like McDavid out there. RPM skating is a cool engine but now I can’t tell the difference between an Elite player and an AHL journeyman. They all skate like little McDavids and play like McDavids. Seriously Kyle Clifford just walked three of my guys at the blueline yesterday and scored on a Tkachuk-like deke. I used to be able to feel the lack of agility in my fourth liners.

- Why is there no “Shot Block Effectiveness” slider? This year pucks are going through me like crazy. This used to be a slider. Again, you took it away.

- CPU doesn’t Dump and Chase: they almost always try and skate the puck over the line. Fix it. And this issue leads to the phenomenon I like to call:

- The Neutral Zone Hot Potato: How many times will I watch CPU players skate the puck to my blueline, see no entry point, then turn around, double-back into their own zone and keep passing the puck around in figure-eights until they can finally find a zone entry? Instead of just doing what real hockey players do and DUMP THE PUCK IN!! Man, if my coach caught me dancing figure eights in the neutral zone and taking the puck back into my own end I’d be benched for life. Pucks need to go north!

- Dump puck height: The CPU has an amazing ability to clear the puck out of their zone on a PK just by touching the puck for a millisecond. Also, I hate to keep bringing this up but “Dump Puck Height” used to be a slider on older games.

- Fix Defensive Control Effectiveness: This needs major help across the board. In NHL21 stick lifts are suddenly not very effective (worked fine in NHL19 if you set the slider up a bit). Board play is also suddenly very difficult to engage. Shot-blocks virtually never work. I am able to poke check conservatively if I set the trip/slash sliders correctly but this is still not set correctly out of the box. Basically, you’ve made it almost impossible to defend in this game. The only thing I can do is use positioning and body checks to play D. Dumb. Fix the D controls and let us actually play defence! Or, again, give us more slider options, and sliders that actually work, so we can fix this ourselves.

- When teams get set for a faceoff display the players on ice for the defence, not just the forward lines.

- Reverse hit ability: Give the puck-carrier the ability to throw an Oshie-style reverse hit.

- Please turn down the “demoralization” effect. Ever notice that if you put up 4-5 goals on a team they get a bit down on themselves and then suddenly the floodgates open and all your shots go in? The effect is too strong.

- Please also turn down the very fake “last minute goal” bias. I’m leading 3-2 and in the last minute of a game the CPU suddenly gains superman ability to get a weak trickling puck past my miraculously inept goalie. CPU cheating isn’t wanted here.

- Same thing on faceoffs: When I’ve got a 5-on-3 I suddenly notice that the CPU gets way better at taking draws. Dumb.

GENERAL

- Announcers who know how to pronounce people’s names correctly, especially European skaters. It’s a disgrace.

- Add the Sweden / Finland J20 teams. This would really help us draftniks who want to see draft eligible players in our game.

- Maybe consider changing you slogan to “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game; at least for a year or so until we take it back out of the game and then re-add it into the game years later as a new feature for which we charge you $120 NZD”. No kidding, I live in New Zealand and this game cost $120 NZD at launch.

Ok, phew. Give me even 1/5 of that list and I’d be a really happy gamer. Keep phoning it in with $120 roster updates and this will be the last time I buy. Since 1993.

 

[Canuck Luck]

ability to expand NHL with a premade team. Theres the whole expansion process, but no way to make a Kraken team with its actual roster and add them to the franchise mode with their real roster. In future years if theres another expansion draft it would be nice to be able to ad the real roster and team into the mode.

 

[Chalfdiggity3]

As for my NHL22 wishlist - it's a long post but here goes. Bear in mind I'm an old school franchise-mode guy who has played since NHLPA'93. Not much of an onliner.

CREATE TEAM: So many cool things you could do here...

- Organ Music, Organ Music, ORGAN MUSIC: Seriously, it’s a part of vintage hockey experience. Not just goal/win songs but let me define a playlist of what plays in between whistles at my rink, too.

- Create AHL Affiliate: for use in GM Mode. No brainer. You already have the mechanism built.

- All NHL rinks should at least be options. You've already modelled them and paid for licensing, just let us choose them. AHL/Euro rinks should be available too.

- Fan Chant Options: the audio in this game is so dull. Let me choose a few options of pre-recorded chants that my fans will call out to create a more customizable experience. If I want a towelman to chant out the goal count when my team scores, let me choose this. It’s programmed in for the St. Louis Blues. It should be easy to add stuff like that as a menu option. I know you won’t give us “ref you suck” but how about a goalie chant or “we want the Cup!”… c’mon add some life to this arena experience. If my star player bolts in FA, the next time he comes to my rink in GM Mode I want the fans to heckle him each time he touches the puck!

- Fan Animations: Let me choose some options here. I want an octopus on the ice, baby. I want the details in this game to surprise me. “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,” or have you forgotten the crucial first part of that old slogan?!

- Logos and Mascots: all NHL alternate/historical logos, better custom logo options (c'mon these look like a third grader came up with half of them) and CHL/Euro options too - you paid for the licensing already. Use them. Same with mascot options.

- Custom Ribbon Text and Fan Sign Text. If you think gamers will abuse this, well, they already do that with team and player names, so what's the hold up?

- Jersey Templates: add more alt/winter classic templates. And more sock options please!

- Improve the Color Wheel: terrible interface. Also let me set predefined team colors and when I change them have the change flow through all the jersey/arena globally. It's a pain to have to change them all one at a time.

- Option to define the team strategies within Create Team Mode. So I don't have to change them in other modes.

- Better arena lighting and details: Ever notice that the NHL rinks you’ve created have way more “life” to them? Lighting is flatter in the Create Team version of a rink. Fans don’t carry the giant team flags. Pregame skates don’t have the premium arena lighting. Less detail around the arena. We should have more option to customize our rink then just three color zones on the walls.

CREATE PLAYER / PLAYER RATINGS:

- Create player behaviours that actually fit their playing style. There should be a clear discernible difference between how a PWF and a PLY behave on the ice.

- Poise doesn’t have a clearly defined impact on the game but there should be a leadership/character rating that has an impact (and not randomized when you start GM Mode). Leadership is a huge part of hockey, why leave it to randomization?

- What happened to the ability to customize the toe curve on a player’s stick? I liked giving my D-man a chance to blast a low slapper or have a stronger backhand with less curve.

- Need to have the option to edit the height/weight on non-created players. Sometimes these rookies come in as beanpoles and in reality most bulk up in their draft +1, +2 years.

- Give us the option to import player pics to the game, or for the love of goodness work harder to add more of these in yourselves; especially after mid-season roster updates. Don’t add a high-profile prospect to the game with a blank pic!

- More Custom Goalie Masks, including masks with the custom team logos. And go back and add some of the great vintage masks (some awesome stuff from the 90’s like CuJo’s, Vernon’s, Brathwaite’s, VanBies’ers come to mind).

- Instead of giving us 300 heads to choose from just let us build a head with a creation engine. This used to be in the game (you’re going to hear that a lot in this post!)

GAME MENUS / INTERFACE

- Menu lag, menu lag, menu lag. Fix it.

- Change the “contract amount” field so we don’t have to spend twelve hours incrementally raising a contract by $5k at a time please.

- Graphic Design: NHL 21 has the worst, most distracting fonts and menu graphics of any NHL title yet. And when you score that “GOAL” text that flashes across the screen – wow! Looks like it was designed by a kindergartner. No, that’s offensive to kindergartners across the world.

- Give us a setting where we can choose to put the time clock in the upper corner. Many people like this better. Just make it a setting option.

- “Save Settings” doesn’t retain all your settings. Hasn’t for years. When I’m starting a GM Mode and I choose things like “Penalty Time Scaling” or “Autosave: OFF” or “Retired Jerseys: OFF” these changes won’t save along with the rest of my settings profile. I have to reset them each time.

- Free Cam in replay. I love hockey arenas, I want to have a free cam that isn’t locked on the ice surface so I can explore the rink in a replay mode.


IN-GAME ARENA EXPERIENCE
This is where you can REALLY step it up and make this game feel new, different and more engaging. The in-game presentation has been so “copy-paste” for a decade now that it really needs some enhancement.

- Dynamic Crowd Audio: The crowd audio feels so flat to me. Play a game of NHL21 and then go back and watch a real Game-7 with fans in the stands. Hear that difference? I want this crowd to ROAR and react and really get into the game. I want custom chants. I want unique crowd chants for each team. I want them to really get on the ref after a bad penalty or a disallowed goal. The sound palette in this game is so “canned” and predictable.

- I want anthem singers, darn it. Older versions of EA NHL had the anthems, where’d they go?

- I want Stanley Cup banners in GM Mode. Give us an animation for the banner raising at the first home game of the next season and then let the banner be displayed for the rest of GM Mode.

- New Cup Celebration animations please!

- Three Star Announcement: I liked in older games where the PA announcer would call out the stars of the game on the ice. If players don’t like it they can just exit the game and be on their way.

- Ability to hit players into the bench: Seriously, this USED to be in the game. Why did you remove it?

- Goalie collisions that knock off the helmet: Controversial, I know. Again, used to be in the game and you took it out. But just code it so it doesn’t happen so often. I love little surprises every so often as long as they don’t happen constantly. If you’re worried about frequency give us a slider. In fact ALWAYS give us sliders so we can fix this stuff when you overdo it.

- Same with glass breaking. Doesn’t happen often anymore but code the action so that it only RARELY happens that a hard check will knock the glass loose. These are the little unexpected things that make the game come alive.

- Jersey tie-downs come loose: if a player is ENF or Grinder make it so there’s a random chance of his jersey not being tied down for a fight. And add a penalty for it.

- Zambonis. Such an iconic piece of the game of hockey and they’re nowhere to be seen. Add an intermission transition where we actually see a Zamboni, really. I want this to feel more like I’m at a hockey rink.

- Ice Quality: I can’t FEEL the ice quality impacting the game. As the period progresses I want to feel like pucks bounce a little more and skating is a little more difficult. As I said before give us a slider so we can turn this effect down in case you guys over-implement it.

- Hat Tricks: Cmon, in the current animation you can barely see a hat on the ice at all. Step it up. I want to see hats rain down on the ice. I want to see bobbleheads being thrown out on bobblehead promotion night.

- MORE and BETTER unique animations: like with hat-tricks I want more. When a player scores a milestone I want a bigger celebration. Players should leave the bench to congratulate on things like a 500-goal or a 50-in-50. Again, make this game come alive.

- Jersey retirement ceremonies: Give me a GM Mode option to retire a jersey. Show me the ceremony in an animation and then I want to see that jersey hang in the rafters for the rest of my GM mode.

- Pre-Game Skate: I’d like the option to participate in a warm-up, get out there and fire a few shots on the net. Just give us an option to bypass it but it would be another way of making this feel like I’m at a real hockey game.

- Again, ORGAN MUSIC. It’s hockey tradition.

- Better crowd animations: Get these guys into the game; you’ve got such a sterile crowd. Ever been to an OT in the playoffs? The crowd stands through the whole thing. They’re into it. They pound on the glass. They jump out of their seats for a big goal! They get rowdy. They freak out during the “kiss cam”. They do the wave. They start stomping and respond to “make some noise” graphics on the scoreboard when the team is behind. Make it so. I want this game experience to have some energy.

- Cut-scenes from the concourse, dressing rooms. I want to see this arena come to life. I want to see statues of legends outside my rink as fans pour in through the turnstiles. Make this an experience, not just an arcade game.

- Improved replay angles. These are a bit better in NHL21 but they still need work. I want to see the cool play I just made, not the goalies rear end or the drunk guy in the last row of the upper deck.

GM MODE

- Dynamic training camps. You guys put effort into trade deadline and draft day “events” but have so far ignored creating a feature to make training camp, and camp battles/cuts, a thing. That’s one of the most exciting times in a hockey season.

- Add the Winter Classic and Stadium Series please. What happened to the All-Star game? This used to be in. And I’d much rather have a Skills Competition.

- Add ability to replace an AHL affiliate team with a Custom Created Team.

- Fix coaching system; it’s badly broken. And let’s clarify how the system is intended to work? Why can I set the team’s strategies separately but my coach has their own preferences which apparently dictate line chemistry? These two systems seem to conflict. Good idea poorly implemented. Keep working.

- Add a prospect camp / prospect tourney (like Traverse City) that could have an impact on off-season rookie attribute progression. Something to liven up the off-season.

- Player trades impact team morale too strongly. In real life guys in the locker room understand this is a business. They don’t go crying in their protein shakes when you trade a 3rd line forward.

- Fix Player Attribute Progression. This is whacked. After a few seasons in GM Mode player attributes go wonky and unbalanced, especially rookies who are CHL 15-16 year olds. By the time they enter the draft some of them have 99-shot accuracy and skate like turtles.

- Trade counterproposals? This, also, used to be in the game.

- Expand the Record Book. Nice feature add. But there aren’t enough records listed here.

- Depth players get ticked about their ice time way too easily. If my player’s role is “Depth” he shouldn’t get disgruntled if he’s not in the lineup every night. Real NHL role players understand they have to be ready to go when the call comes. Turn down the sensitivity on this.

- Set practice schedules and practice types to have an impact on player training/attribute progression. Would be a cool feature to add (did this used to be in the game too? I feel like it seems familiar).

- Hall of Fame selections? Would be cool if my player retired during GM Mode and made the Hall. Again, add life to the game.

- Less randomization for winning/losing teams. Kind of invalidates the whole point of GM Mode if you’re team is statistically strong on paper but the CPU just randomly decides which teams will be successful arbitrarily.

- Show more individual player statistics in-game between whistles. This used to be in the game. I would see graphics that would say “Brett Hull is on a X goal scoring streak”. Again, get me more engaged in the “story” of what’s happening in my season.

GAMEPLAY / PLAYER CONTROLS:

- First off, SLIDERS: The gameplay is historically bad and I need more, and more effective sliders to fix your mistakes. The more power you put in our hands to control the gameplay the less whining we’ll have to do.

- CPU shot selection: This is HUGELY important. In NHL’21 the CPU seems to have been recoded to only take high-quality shots. They now pass up almost every shot from the point or hard-angle shot. The CPU only looks to drive the net and find an open man for a cross-crease one timer. When it works, they score. When it doesn’t they turn over the puck. As a result I usually wind up allowing only 10 shots a game on All-Star but I give up 3 or 4 goals. I want to see REAL hockey out there and that means a selection of shots from weak to strong, including slappers, pass of pads, straight on wristers, dirty goals at the net; everything. Why not giving me a slider for “CPU shot quality” or even frequency for different kinds of shot selections?

- CPU Zone Aggression: Instead of having one “aggression” slider make separate sliders for “CPU Offensive Aggression”, “CPU Neutral Zone Aggression” and “CPU Defensive Zone Aggression”. Because right now if I try to get the CPU to step up their play and get more pucks to the net, turning up “aggression” turns these guys into coked-up barbarians. They truck me every time I touch the puck. But it does help me get them to take more shots. It’s just that in the process I ruin the gameplay.

- Goalie Sliders: If I get the CPU to take more shots that doesn’t solve the issue that goalies are sieves. Always have been for decades. I want a goalie who can face 30-40 shots and stop around .920%. I need more and more effective sliders to fix this. Right now I’ve got cross-crease reaction at 100 and save reaction at 100. Maxed out. And still they move across crease like a deer in headlights. Newsflash EA: if I set a slider to 100 these guys should be moving like the Flash across that crease. They should be like Neo in the Matrix stopping pucks. Code the range for these sliders so that they actually work and then I can find the sweet spot myself. Then, give me sliders to control goalie attributes globally, like “Agility”, “Rebound Control”, “Breakaway”, “Angles” and “Recovery” so that way when you set all your goalies to be too week I don’t have to edit every single darned goalie in the game to give them an attribute bump.

- Fix the CPU’s amazing ability to recover from a hit (or, ehhem, give me a slider to fix this). CPU players have the uncanny ability to get drilled into the ice and pop right back up to strip the puck away from you. “Fall Recovery” needs help.

- Keep working on differentiating “Player Type” and “Attribute Quality” feel: Not every player should play like McDavid out there. RPM skating is a cool engine but now I can’t tell the difference between an Elite player and an AHL journeyman. They all skate like little McDavids and play like McDavids. Seriously Kyle Clifford just walked three of my guys at the blueline yesterday and scored on a Tkachuk-like deke. I used to be able to feel the lack of agility in my fourth liners.

- Why is there no “Shot Block Effectiveness” slider? This year pucks are going through me like crazy. This used to be a slider. Again, you took it away.

- CPU doesn’t Dump and Chase: they almost always try and skate the puck over the line. Fix it. And this issue leads to the phenomenon I like to call:

- The Neutral Zone Hot Potato: How many times will I watch CPU players skate the puck to my blueline, see no entry point, then turn around, double-back into their own zone and keep passing the puck around in figure-eights until they can finally find a zone entry? Instead of just doing what real hockey players do and DUMP THE PUCK IN!! Man, if my coach caught me dancing figure eights in the neutral zone and taking the puck back into my own end I’d be benched for life. Pucks need to go north!

- Dump puck height: The CPU has an amazing ability to clear the puck out of their zone on a PK just by touching the puck for a millisecond. Also, I hate to keep bringing this up but “Dump Puck Height” used to be a slider on older games.

- Fix Defensive Control Effectiveness: This needs major help across the board. In NHL21 stick lifts are suddenly not very effective (worked fine in NHL19 if you set the slider up a bit). Board play is also suddenly very difficult to engage. Shot-blocks virtually never work. I am able to poke check conservatively if I set the trip/slash sliders correctly but this is still not set correctly out of the box. Basically, you’ve made it almost impossible to defend in this game. The only thing I can do is use positioning and body checks to play D. Dumb. Fix the D controls and let us actually play defence! Or, again, give us more slider options, and sliders that actually work, so we can fix this ourselves.

- When teams get set for a faceoff display the players on ice for the defence, not just the forward lines.

- Reverse hit ability: Give the puck-carrier the ability to throw an Oshie-style reverse hit.

- Please turn down the “demoralization” effect. Ever notice that if you put up 4-5 goals on a team they get a bit down on themselves and then suddenly the floodgates open and all your shots go in? The effect is too strong.

- Please also turn down the very fake “last minute goal” bias. I’m leading 3-2 and in the last minute of a game the CPU suddenly gains superman ability to get a weak trickling puck past my miraculously inept goalie. CPU cheating isn’t wanted here.

- Same thing on faceoffs: When I’ve got a 5-on-3 I suddenly notice that the CPU gets way better at taking draws. Dumb.

GENERAL

- Announcers who know how to pronounce people’s names correctly, especially European skaters. It’s a disgrace.

- Add the Sweden / Finland J20 teams. This would really help us draftniks who want to see draft eligible players in our game.

- Maybe consider changing you slogan to “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game; at least for a year or so until we take it back out of the game and then re-add it into the game years later as a new feature for which we charge you $120 NZD”. No kidding, I live in New Zealand and this game cost $120 NZD at launch.

Ok, phew. Give me even 1/5 of that list and I’d be a really happy gamer. Keep phoning it in with $120 roster updates and this will be the last time I buy. Since 1993.

WOW that took me a bit to read but i agree wholeheartedly with everything you mentioned. I wish i had the money to create my own NHL series because I would absolutely bring you in to help make this game the way real hockey is played and add in everything you mentioned for the franchise mode since its all i play. I dont understand how EA has no competition bc if we the fans put our money together and created our own game, it would be amazing

 

[CasusBelli]

Everyone has talked cross-crease problems to death but I think it's worth noting part of the reason WHY cross-crease is such a factor in this game.

And I'm not even talking about online games - I'm talking vs CPU. The CPU almost always attempts some form of East-West one-timer and takes virtually no other shot types (beside the coast-to-coast skate right through both defenders because we can't defend and deke the goalie out of his pads move).

It's because of the way this game "thinks" shot selection. The CPU always passes up the option to take medium or low quality scoring chances now. It used to be that the CPU would take a wrister from a moderate angle or wind up for a shot from the point and hope for a rebound.

In NHL19 I used to block point shots all the time from the CPU. But I noticed immediately while playing NHL21 that the CPU cycles to the point but almost never takes the shot - they look for a pass down low for a one timer. I hardly ever have to block a shot with my defenseman anymore. Well, when the pass isn't there, or it's intercepted, it results in NO shot being taken and the puck goes the other way.

THIS is why so many players complain that it's impossible to keep a goalie with good stats. Because the CPU only takes high quality shots - mostly one-timers down low. The CPU shot count is ridiculously low but their accuracy is crazy high.

Most games on All-Star v. CPU I wind up allowing 10-12 shots at most but give up 4 goals. And this is why. Shot selection. They only take shots that have an insanely high probability to succeeding because the CPU's shot selection algorithm figured out the same thing that online players did: that cross-crease one timers are unstoppable.

It's not hockey. I hope the devs for '22 figure this out and reprogram the shot selection/pathfinding in the AI so that the CPU takes more medium quality chances; more "throw the puck at the net through traffic" chances. More stoppable shots.

The other issue is that the slider for "cross crease reaction" just doesn't work. It used to. But in '22 I can crank it up to 100 and the goalies still don't react at all. Make a slider that works here and at least we could have corrected this problem ourselves.

In BAP, on All-Star and with pass assist reduced to 20 and goalie (on both teams) reflexes and lateral movements dialed up to 95 with screen persistence reduced to 50, I finished the season with 90 points as a rookie (26-64). While still prolific, it was a substantial improvement over the 342-298 rookie season I had on Pro with the default settings.

 

[Troublesome 85]

This happen to anyone else. My defenseman will get the puck, a forward will break out but instead of passing to the player breaking out ur dumbass guy passes it backwards? This has happened alot to me

They also need to fix like the buttons or something because I just skipped a few of their pages and simmed one of my games by accident

 

[Puckstop40]

Do we have any sort of news for NHL 22?

 

[Apex Predator]

Do we have any sort of news for NHL 22?

nope and I was surprised not to hear anything by now. I don’t know if we should take that as bad that we haven’t heard anything yet.

 

[stcatcs12]

I think the fact that we haven’t heard a peep about this yet speaks volumes to the confidence EA has in their product, Madden and FIFA have both been talked about extensively and we haven’t seen so much as a single screen shot. I remember when 15 debuted on the ps4 and Xbox one we got those screenshots of the updated arenas in May.