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NHL 16 EASHL (PS4) | LIVE. CHEL. REPEAT.

BeeNee101

Neo Member
Hey new guy, thx for stopping by and sharing

Me and Stat played 4 games of EASHL last night and honestly I didnt notice a whole lot of difference in the gameplay other than:

-traffic in front of the goalie leads to more goals from point shots
-skating feels a little different, but not noticeably better
-passing seems a little more precise
-net battles work well, havent figured out how to do the stick tieup one yet though
-goalies are much more beatable especially in 1v1 situations and breakaways
-a.i. teammates defend better and take their time more before passing to human players
-most of the small problems from 16 are still happening

skating is weird - it's easier to pivot and stay square to the play without doing random spins, but when combined with the deking tools a forward has, the d-man is still at a disadvantage when it comes to quick changes in direction. EA really need to tweak the skating balance between with/without the puck.

stick tie-up is initiated by holding the sticklift button, so X/A on PS4/Xbone
 

Stat!

Member
skating is weird - it's easier to pivot and stay square to the play without doing random spins, but when combined with the deking tools a forward has, the d-man is still at a disadvantage when it comes to quick changes in direction. EA really need to tweak the skating balance between with/without the puck.

stick tie-up is initiated by holding the sticklift button, so X/A on PS4/Xbone

Its unfortunate but D has always been at a disadvantage.

Not sure how I feel yet. The game is super similar but not in a bad way. Skating seems a bit different. Puck seems a bit looser though I had a game where it felt that I couldn't retrieve the puck. Some nice little quality of life changes and customization is deep.

AI defensively seems better but they are still prone to some awful awful plays. Vis and I saw an AI pass it right into his own net last night. I had a goalie who batted a flying (but incredibly slowly) puck into his own net instead of simply catching it or letting it go over the net from behind the net.

It will get tough to tie people up. Seems that it needs a slightly better lock on but also, just remembering I can do this now.
 
I want to say I noticed anything different of significance but the team I played with mostly got our asses beat and I was just trying to help out the team chemistry. So, yeah, couldn't really gauge anything for real

But I did see that the offensive D-Man seems a LOT faster---he was a lot of fun to play with. I do like the small hints they throw at you here and there though. Thank you EA for telling me I had good timing on faceoffs that I lost, makes me feel much better!

It may have been mentioned but does club progress get saved? Because man those community rinks are .... something else

But one thing I did see in particular was the "net battle" we will see how effective those are both ways over time. I noticed that in some instances the goalie makes diving saves and recovers much better but there were some weak goals here and there.
 

Stat!

Member
I've had absolutely no luck initiating any form of tie up in front of net. In 8-9 games I've not been able to do it once.

Thats how I feel. Needs more of a lock on.

I like the skating, the game feels good overall. There should be some minor tweaks like tying up, point shots, AI.

I'm awful right now at passing. Felt too often that I wasn't in the right vicinity even of where I wanted my pass to go. AI still has plenty of issues moving the puck in their own end.
 
I've had absolutely no luck initiating any form of tie up in front of net. In 8-9 games I've not been able to do it once.

I can get them to work fine by holding down triangle. Theres not much suction (which is good) like there was last gen when this feature was last in the game.

Your success rate might also depend on class. Its pretty useless to post people up with weak classes like offensive d-man or playmaker.

I havent been able to get the sticklift net battle thing to work at all. I think its broken in the beta.

So eashl beta games anyone?

Ill be around tonight after 8:30pm est. send a request to our club if u wanna link up with us. Its me, stat, delryk and ph33nix so far. The club abbreviation is GAF
 

Delryk

Member
I can get them to work fine by holding down triangle. Theres not much suction (which is good) like there was last gen when this feature was last in the game.

Your success rate might also depend on class. Its pretty useless to post people up with weak classes like offensive d-man or playmaker.

I havent been able to get the sticklift net battle thing to work at all. I think its broken in the beta.



Ill be around tonight after 8:30pm est. send a request to our club if u wanna link up with us. Its me, stat, delryk and ph33nix so far. The club abbreviation is GAF

The grinder (of course) works wonderful for net presence.. i was able to get in there and win the net battles (from what the on ice trainer says) In the offensive zone you dont want to initiate it anyway.. with the grinder, and if you do it properly, you can push back the D.

Havent tried when playing D because my ISP sucks at cottage but i remember that id always spam the button on the 360 years ago to initiate battle though ot was stupid because u could initiate on a 2 on 1 to make sure the cross crease would be impossible.. im guessing this isnt possible..

I should be around tonight. :) on the lake right now fishing (well, lunch break) lol
 

Stat!

Member
The grinder (of course) works wonderful for net presence.. i was able to get in there and win the net battles (from what the on ice trainer says) In the offensive zone you dont want to initiate it anyway.. with the grinder, and if you do it properly, you can push back the D.

Havent tried when playing D because my ISP sucks at cottage but i remember that id always spam the button on the 360 years ago to initiate battle though ot was stupid because u could initiate on a 2 on 1 to make sure the cross crease would be impossible.. im guessing this isnt possible..

I should be around tonight. :) on the lake right now fishing (well, lunch break) lol

I think initiating and making the 2 on 1 impossible should be part of the game just like in real life. The problem is the goalies can't stop a 1 on 1 in this game.

Its cool that you were creating space and making room though. I really love how the classes allow you to do that.

I'll be around tonight as well. Am jelly knowing your lunch break.
 

Stat!

Member
So after last night, its safe to say, I can fully judge nhl 17.

Anyways, I think its better than 16 in a lot of ways. Some minor tuning (regarding deflections) here and it could be even better.

AI is still an issue in their own end but overall, the game feels better. I really enjoy levelling up and unlocking stuff both personally and on a club level.
 
After about 30 EASHL games my conclusion is that its a minor improvement over NHL16 (which i liked and played a lot of).

Skating is probably the thing most improved to me. It feels more responsive, im not fighting the controls to pivot now, and the "face the puck" button actually works most of the time. Hitting would be a distant second as the outcomes of collisions seem more predictable and the hitter usually has a better chance of retrieving the puck after a hit which was not the case in previous years.

The A.I. is much better despite their hijinks that lead to own goals from time to time. I like how they purposefully delay their passes on the breakout to allow you to call for it and not worry about queuing up a giveaway pass. A.I. defensemen are much improved especially against the rush where last year they would let puckcarriers skate right beside them and onto the goalie most of the time. A.I. defensemen no longer are beholden to the script of needing to skate the puck behind their own goalies before starting a breakout. It still bothers me that they turn back in the neutral zone if they cant walk the puck in without resistance rather than dumping it in and defensively they are unable to defend a cross crease pass to save their lives.

Sounds like a lot of improvements, but its levelled out by the drastic step back goalies have taken as shot stoppers. Positioning seems better but they just dont react quick enough in a lot of situations and are completely useless in 1v1 against the simplest of moves. There are already a half dozen exploit goals ive seen and probably many more i havent. If this isnt addressed its going to tarnish the EASHL gameplay experience like all of the games prior to NHL14.

The arena and uniform unlock stuff is a nice distraction that should add some variety to the teams you face, but its not enough of an incentive to keep me playing any longer than I did in NHL16. They did a great job fixing the dropin game matchmaking as well, its near perfect now. They need to keep evolving gameplay mechanics starting next year. The net battle feature is a good start and seems to be well thought out this time around, and they need more of these caliber of gameplay updates. Board play, faceoffs, and the dump/chip & chase all need to be overhauled.

Ill be picking it up at launch and am ready for another EASHL campaign with whoever will tolerate my presence this year.
 
I'm game too, and I agree wholeheartedly with all your sentiments but at the end of the day I probably have no idea what I'm truly talking about.

It's the sort of game where the annoying stuff that takes place from time to time but is ultimately stuff I can get over quickly, I like being on a team with yall and it's still so rewarding when we do successful team stuff.
 

Stat!

Member
Yeah, I think NHL 16 was solid as hell and NHL 17 seems better. I'll be in for another year of shenanigans.

Anyone up for afternoon games?
 
Just tried VS Mode and its pretty much unplayable. You cant switch players on defense at all, the button for that has some kind of timer cooldown on it I guess to open up the offense. Ill pray for any of you who buy the game to play VS or HUT...
 

Stat!

Member
sorry Stat i saw your invite but was in the middle of an intense dropin game.

Ill be online later after 9pm est if anyone is around

No worries. I Got off to grab some dinner anyways. I'll be on in a bit and for the rest of the night if anyone else is on. Are you playing now? Delryk?
 

Stat!

Member
My goalie stats are so good. 2 wins. 5 GAA. Let that be a lesson to all the shooters out there that no one gets 6 goals on me!
 

Stat!

Member
Vis, how do you plan drop-ins? Literally, watched my entire team not pass the puck (which led to numerous turnovers), not play defense, and kept running the goalie on the other team?

I let in 3 goals (my own team scored once on me). But hey, Im 3-0 as goalie since the other goalie is usually worse.
 
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