Some I agree with. Some I don't. Like the vote kick thing. The realistic purpose would be to kick out derankers but you just know that a group of assholes would kick a player who is trying but just sucks. You said you played enough to get your legend card, you have to have heard how pissy and snobby the herd gets when they perceive someone as being noobish or sucking. They nerfed speed and stick handling because it was ridiculously unrealistic. Hell even after the nerfing it still is, at least the stick handling. You can still just jack up the two or three attributes that determine puck handling and possession and just jerk the deke stick far right to far left over and over like an idiot and no one will be able to take it from you without a serious fight. Like it's glued to your stick. They did improve the speed and took out a decent number of glitch shots. I often hear people complain about whatever glitch shot there is now (and to their credit, there's not many seriously game killing ones) but no one ever is appreciative that they got rid of s*** they could've easily left in there Madden style. Like the curve shot-that was worse than anything out there now, ten times over. Or the fact that you could juice speed/accel and dominate with that alone. You'd have a whole team of Pavel Bures and Darren Helms skating around beating more skilled teams who weren't olympic speed skaters. I agree about the lobby, I hate the setup and if you really need a few rooms, make them a little more than 50. It always seems like there's an average of 60 people online and having 10 people in another room is stupid and pointless. Or just beef the servers and allow 200 per room. That should do it, I dunno if I've ever seen more than 200 in OTP lobbies at one time. But the skill factor is still there, it's just more team oriented now. No longer are you Wayne McPavel Howe just beasting an entire team on your own. You have to pass and play like a team and know how to use your skills. Loose puck dekes are stupid anyway. There should be an option to move while you deke, or an option to pick either one. I haven't seen anything to indicate to me that reflexes don't play a part anymore. This isn't like Madden adding useless semi-features to a POS just to get another bullet point on the back of the box. The skating even just 2 years ago was over the top terrible, just cartoony and now it feels pretty damn good. And the sliders are pretty impressive is set properly, but the option is there unlike a few other games where even the best sliders can't make the game fun.
I think for the derankers or douchers who like to be idiots there should be a few settings to keep it from being so easy. And idiots/teenagers usually don't like putting effort into their trolling, they like it nice and easy. If someone is idle for more than a minute, bye. Either kick him out or then give the group the option to do it. That would keep people from having their friends booted because sometimes the team is OK with it, like if they're all friends. Or if a player picks the goalie and runs out of the net, you're out. See ya. I'd even say boot them for half an hour or ban them but EA won't and I'd rather make them into players who will play rather than lose a potential opponent. The more players the better. So let them keep playing but make them play the next 1-3 games with a deranked player. 45 rated. Something like that. Or even just kicking them period would work for me. If someone wants to sit offside, have the game bring them onside against their will. If they keep it up, boot them. The difference between intentional offside and accidental is obvious enough for programmers to find a way to do this.
And get rid of that crap when a goalie takes a full second to try and throw both hands onto a loose puck and misses completely. But the best games overcome their flaws and this one does.
Yeah, there are a lot of snobs, I don't consider myself one of them. I don't ever give anyone crap for playing their position and sucking at it, but rather the idiots who pick D and always join the rush, or hover all over the ice as a forward. I don't know how many times I have yelled at centers for crowding my right wing and intercepting the D's pass to me at the blue line... then causing a log jam since me and the C are right next to each other. You have a point about EA nerfing the individual effort... but I disagree that there was a problem before with it. Even a few years ago when you could have Darren Helm speed (as you put it), good D could shut you down, and team effort still won the day. And let's be honest... in OTP, how many times can you rely on a solid team effort if you got randoms on your team? Sometimes, my own individual effort in the past gave my team a chance to win the game when the rest of my time mostly sucked.
About realism... sure it's more realistic now, but that is based on the premise that realism takes precedence over other factors. I had MUCH more fun when it was less realistic, and my friends did too. And I mean, it wasn't THAT un-realistic... your players just moved somewhat faster and had better agility than real life.
I didn't say that reflexes don't play a part... just a dramatically reduced part compered to a few years ago. I used to be able to dangle the crap out of people without loose puck dekes.... this is no longer possible. All the D has to do is spam the poke check while skating backwards to knock the puck loose (this involves very little reflexes). I contend the only way to effectively dangle is the loose puck deke, which I am just not a fan of. Was never my style. At any rate, whichever of our points are right or wrong... I simply do not have as much fun with the game as I used to thanks to the changes made... and have basically stopped playing.
Edit: I like some of your suggestions for dealing with griefers, and you may have a point about votekicking getting abused... unfortunately, there is currently NO solution at all... and I have about zero faith that EA will address the problem at all.
Edited by RedWingsDad, 25 January 2013 - 11:26 AM.
