NHL 23 Discussion

[ShootIt]

Finally found a happy medium on franchise sliders.
Still don't get Powerplays unless it's a blowout though.

 

[behemolari]

I wasn't expecting much based on people comments but HUT is surprisingly balanced, lots of good players are playing actually defense and positioning, fast passing and cycling. Not bad at all, much better than previous four or five years, seems I picked the wrong year to stay off.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

That and working pass cancellation into your game is huge. A lot of times you need to re-aim passes if you hold the button too early. Faking when you're about to release it also forces your opponent to commit defensively. When they do, you can change the angle by cancelling and find more open lanes.

I only play franchise mode and be a player. I used to play online back on PS3, but I refuse to pay to do that.

It’s just annoying having a 2 on 1 and self clearing in franchise mode . In be a pro, the pass actually works.

 

[belair]

I only play franchise mode and be a player. I used to play online back on PS3, but I refuse to pay to do that.

It’s just annoying having a 2 on 1 and self clearing in franchise mode . In be a pro, the pass actually works.

It works even better against the AI than it does against quality online players. The AI defense in this game is primitive and has also been admitted that they don't actually defend the homeplate area effectively. When you get close to an AI defender, it's rare you'll see them attempt a sticklift or pokecheck.

Ragging will win you games against the AI.

 

[UFO]

how do I block cross crease passes properly? Still haven't really figured that one out.. damn.

 

[FerrisRox]

how do I block cross crease passes properly? Still haven't really figured that one out.. damn.

In what mode?

If you're talking about CHEL the defensive awareness of your player has an enormous impact in your ability to intercept any passes at all. If you have low defensive awareness (cause you are playing a load out like that or you've additionally knocked down your defensive awareness to give points to another attribute) you will have a lot of difficulty breaking up passes at all and will have essentially no chance at all of picking off passes unless you are facing the passer and looking directly at them.

If you load into a CHEL game and the team you are facing has a couple of Sniper load outs, it's a safe bet you will be able to score your fair share of cross crease goals and your passing percentage will be much higher.

It seems NHL23 has definitely paid a lot more attention to how the load outs actually perform and the cheating you used to be able to do by stealing points from things like faceoff skill and defensive awareness is no longer a good idea at all.

Outside of CHEL, it's really important to have your defender facing the puck carrier. It's not enough to just be "in between" the carrier and the receiver, you need to be facing the puck carrier and I never really rely on simply intercepting the pass I just use the poke check to knock the pass away as it gets near me.

 

[belair]

In what mode?

If you're talking about CHEL the defensive awareness of your player has an enormous impact in your ability to intercept any passes at all. If you have low defensive awareness (cause you are playing a load out like that or you've additionally knocked down your defensive awareness to give points to another attribute) you will have a lot of difficulty breaking up passes at all and will have essentially no chance at all of picking off passes unless you are facing the passer and looking directly at them.

If you load into a CHEL game and the team you are facing has a couple of Sniper load outs, it's a safe bet you will be able to score your fair share of cross crease goals and your passing percentage will be much higher.

It seems NHL23 has definitely paid a lot more attention to how the load outs actually perform and the cheating you used to be able to do by stealing points from things like faceoff skill and defensive awareness is no longer a good idea at all.

Outside of CHEL, it's really important to have your defender facing the puck carrier. It's not enough to just be "in between" the carrier and the receiver, you need to be facing the puck carrier and I never really rely on simply intercepting the pass I just use the poke check to knock the pass away as it gets near me.

This applies to any skater attempting to block a passing lane in any area of the ice. If you aren't facing a puck carrier, you're likely getting passed through. Especially if that pass doesn't cross the plane of your stick.

The poke check is a little more high risk because pokechecks slow your skater in this game considerably. And a missed poke check leaves you out of position for a good two or three seconds. Though the well-timed ones do have their benefits.

Really good thread on this board with video examples on defending in Chel.

Tips for Defending in '23

Seems like many people have some gripes about defense - myself included. Over the last couple of weeks, I've refined and adjusted defensively, and I feel that I've gotten more comfortable in defending than I was at launch. Here are a few tips I'd like to pass along to the community. Some of...

answers.ea.com

 

[FerrisRox]

The poke check is a little more high risk because pokechecks slow your skater in this game considerably. And a missed poke check leaves you out of position for a good two or three seconds. Though the well-timed ones do have their benefits.

I was talking about using the poke check in terms of defending the cross-crease pass, when your defensemen is positioned in between the passer and the receiver, using the poke check to knock the pass away, not trying to poke check it off the stick of the carrier or using it while skating (where yes, it does slow you considerably.)

 

[belair]

I was talking about using the poke check in terms of defending the cross-crease pass, when your defensemen is positioned in between the passer and the receiver, using the poke check to knock the pass away, not trying to poke check it off the stick of the carrier or using it while skating (where yes, it does slow you considerably.)

Yes, I understood. It's all about timing. There's still a chance your poke could miss, especially if you're facing a higher skilled player who can effectively fake and throw off that timing.

I personally use the hip check/pass block animation to cover those 2v1s a lot and try to close on the carrier as much as possible. Moving laterally is a big part of staying in the lane consistently and not giving them the option.

 

[blundluntman]

Almost nitpicky but I want the jersey tuck to go back to normal. This wedgie stuff is pretty silly

 

[IHaveNoCreativity]

I dropped in and it’s depressing how I used to play nhl religiously and now I don’t play at all, been the same game for 17 years now and same engine basically… 2024 is the 3rd year on frostbite right ? I miss 2k..

 

[Juniorhockeyguru]

I dropped in and it’s depressing how I used to play nhl religiously and now I don’t play at all, been the same game for 17 years now and same engine basically… 2024 is the 3rd year on frostbite right ? I miss 2k..

2k was awful. You're joking right?

 

[ZJuice]

I’m 500-600rating for online versus. I lose to the person higher rated (you don’t see their rating until the game is over) 10 out of 10 times. Until now..

Beat a 750 ranked guy that was trash talking like mad, 2 of his goals were cross crease (both through my LB block) and the 3rd the behind the net “glitch” goal. I shut his arse down after his third by being very aggressive with poke checks and covering the pass 100% of the time, trusting my goaltender (Campbell lol!), and if he looked like he was going to try that winding behind the net shit I would blow him up.

My aggressive poke checking led to 2 breakaways, both goals, one 2 on 1 RB pass goal, one mcdavid vs 5 goal while I did line changes, and one garbage poop goal by RB’ing into traffic and the bounce went into his net


I’m not a fan of CHEL. The 1s tournaments were great fun until people started playing enforcer. Never again. They should add a penalty zone where it just transports you there and you can’t move for 5 seconds, maybe I’ll play once they add that.

But the NHL 23 engine itself I think is it’s best yet. I’ve played almost 200 online versus games this year and after turning off pass assist the only thing I really complain about is myself. If I don’t pay attention, I get scored on. If my goalie lets in the first shot, switch him out and suddenly the back up is awesome..

The glitch goals are all stoppable, I finally turned down the online pass assist to 80 and I credit that for my first ever win against a better player (750 vs 550) because I would typically give up 2-3 goals a game because my pass went the opposite way of what I was trying to do.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Almost nitpicky but I want the jersey tuck to go back to normal. This wedgie stuff is pretty silly View attachment 692884

I agree. I hate the jersey tucks.

Honestly the player customization is a JOKE.

 

[denominator]

I managed to hold out for a looooong time waiting for 23 to come to Game Pass. My squad had to give up EASHL for ~7 months as it's a ghost town in 22 but at least I could still play Franchise and BAP there.

I am sorry for any of you that paid full money for a patch. Other games that I've played for a similar time period like Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite have experience bigger patches than this "new" game. That's all that 23 is. It's astonishing how everything is exactly the same. The menus, the look, the feel, that chick talking to me in WOC, hell EVEN THE ACHIEVEMENTS are exactly the same.

Sure, they've tuned the game a bit and it's better. Credit where credit is due, it's a good patch (except as others have noted the auto-penalty for stick lifts). Switching back and forth between 22 and 23 (more on that below), it's clear they've made gameplay improvements.

I'm especially pissed at two things. The first is that we somehow lack the ability to port our EASHL club into 23. All our unlocks? Gone. Our jersey design and logo and arena? Gone. Our player builds? Gone. As a fan of hockey, and generally a fan of EA NHL, it's tough to swallow putting hundreds of hours of playtime into a mode that fully resets annually. It's also brutal coming in as a "new" player in 23 and having shitty loadouts going up against anyone that's unlocked everything over the past few months. The second is resetting my BAP again and again. I'm so tired of playing my junior/Memorial Cup/Top Prospects Game, preseason, and maybe 1-2 regular seasons before "retiring" at 21 and restarting in the new game. If they had simply patched 22 with the new features and tuning of 23 both of these issues would be resolved. Instead I am forced to play both titles (for EASHL and BAP) or restart my BAP for the nth time.

I've been saying it for years, EA needs to ditch the bullshit of annual releases already, especially in the Game Pass/Playstation Plus era. Give me one hub game to download with ALL the sports games and then charge me $10/month or $30/sport or whatever makes the math work and then continually improve the hub. Then I might be tempted to play FIFA more, or Madden, or whatever other sports EA is running. Then maybe my non-hockey oriented friends might drop in to a handful of NHL games but trying to convince them to go through all those menus on a stale game with so much effort just to play is a non-starter.

I guess the future for me is sticking with NHL22 for my offline modes and playing NHLXX for EASHL when it's on Game Pass.

 

[MiddleEarth]

So if I only play BAP is this worth buying? I haven't turned on my PS5 since I bought it SMH

 

[Rodgerwilco]

So if I only play BAP is this worth buying? I haven't turned on my PS5 since I bought it SMH

Probably better off picking up an older version of the game, to be honest lol.

 

[denominator]

Probably better off picking up an older version of the game, to be honest lol.

This is the way. If you were a fan of it in the older versions (19 is my favourite one) stick with one of those. They've really pushed the narrative side and storylines and challenges in recent years and while it's fun every once in a while for your coach to call on you to change the game, it gets really frustrating when he wants you to shift the momentum or shut them down every third period.

 

[Bgav]

So if I only play BAP is this worth buying? I haven't turned on my PS5 since I bought it SMH

not at all lol

 

[MarkusKetterer]

This is the way. If you were a fan of it in the older versions (19 is my favourite one) stick with one of those. They've really pushed the narrative side and storylines and challenges in recent years and while it's fun every once in a while for your coach to call on you to change the game, it gets really frustrating when he wants you to shift the momentum or shut them down every third period.

My favourite was when my coach asked me to shut their PP down, and I either had to promise I could do that or I could score a shorthanded goal.

I failed, because I was the reason they were going on the PP. Because of that stupid “lay on the ice and it’s tripping” penalty.

 

[Petey O]

So if I only play BAP is this worth buying? I haven't turned on my PS5 since I bought it SMH

Unless you're doing EASHL with your friends or you're really into HUT, you will grow bored of this game in about a week or so; and that may be giving the game too much credit.

I hadn't bought an NHL game since NHL 09 and NHL 09 is unironically a better game.

 

[FerrisRox]

Probably better off picking up an older version of the game, to be honest lol.

The game is $40. In what way would it be better to buy an older version of the game?

That's terrible advice.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

The game is $40. In what way would it be better to buy an older version of the game?

That's terrible advice.

If someone is only interested in playing offline modes, I don't think it's worth spending money on, even at a 'discounted' $40 to be honest. The only reason I have it is because I have an online club of consistent players that all upgraded at the same time.

Be a Pro mode has been made less enjoyable and much more cumbersome in recent games.

 

[FerrisRox]

If someone is only interested in playing offline modes, I don't think it's worth spending money on, even at a 'discounted' $40 to be honest. The only reason I have it is because I have an online club of consistent players that all upgraded at the same time.

Be a Pro mode has been made less enjoyable and much more cumbersome in recent games.

The game engine is definitely better, so even if you're playing offline only, I'd rather play the best version of offline.

For $40, how much more is he gonna pay then it would cost for a used game, maybe $15 more? I'd just get the newer game.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

The game engine is definitely better, so even if you're playing offline only, I'd rather play the best version of offline.

For $40, how much more is he gonna pay then it would cost for a used game, maybe $15 more? I'd just get the newer game.

Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

Seriously though. You can get NHL 21 for like $5