Hanek · @HanekGoat
7th Dec 2016 from TwitLonger
NHL 17
Okay, here are the issues I have that I can think of right now.
Game speed. It's too slow. I'm not asking for hyper speed like 09, that was probably a little too fast. But the game speed in 17 is too slow. It needs to be upped some more.
Agility/Turning. This is an absolute mess. The turning in 13 was horrible and ruined the game for a lot of people and 17 has the same feeling to it. The agility in 16 was much better than 17. Too many times someone can't move and get screwed over by their player being in some stupid and unnecessary animation.
The amount of animations. This one might be the biggest problem. Go back to a last gen game, NHL 14 or 15 on the 360. All you have to do is play one period and you'll notice how much more in control you were. Some of this ties in to the turning thing. Everything in this game is an auto animation, making you do something you didn't want to do. It feels like every time you pick up a puck you are getting an animation in which your player skates in a different direction than what you did on your controller. These need to go. This kills the competitiveness and is honestly completely unnecessary in any matter. I don't think casuals would even like them.
Puck pickups. This also ties in to the animations thing. The puck pickups when it comes to loose pucks are honestly a disaster. You either skate straight over the puck or you pick it up but get locked into an animation and end up turning it over because of it. The amount of times people will get the puck poked off of them and warp through the defender due to a puck pickup animation is just absurd. You should be able to pick up a puck without a ridiculous animation and be able to move in any direction you want.
Deflections. There is absolutely nothing competitive about a tip in/deflection goal. I can understand the randomness that can come in to play in any video game, and especially a hockey game. But this shit NEVER happened anywhere close to what happens now. If there's a bunch of guys in front of the net and the puck somehow bounces in off of someone's leg every once in a while, that's one thing. Shit happens. But the best play in this game by far is put someone in the slot and flick up from the blueline. Is that real hockey? Sure. But it removes any competitiveness there may have been from the game. That play takes no skill whatsoever. On last gen NHL, players ONLY turded if they were in trouble and about to turn it over. Teams never shot turds to win games. The skill gap is so minimal nowadays it's a complete joke.
Poke checking. It's way too random. There will be times as a defender when you have someone's stick right in front of you, you poke and get a tripping penalty. But other times you can poke through someone's legs and get the puck. There needs to be more consistency. Also, in general, poke checks need to be toned down a bit. They are too overpowered at the moment, which is decreasing the skill gap between the good and elite defensemen.
Goalies. Goalies are completely random and honestly needs a complete makeover. You can shoot the puck right into a goalie's chest and the puck will somehow end up behind them and the team gets an easy poke in goal. But other times, you make a cross ice pass and a goalie will make the greatest glove save of all time while sliding the opposite way. Goalies get rewarded too often for being out of position and screwed over too often for being in position. Obviously I understand it's never going to be perfect. But right now it's terrible. I don't remember goalie at all in games before 12 and I don't remember goalie that much before 13, but goalie in 14 was done pretty well. If you were in position, 9/10 times you made the save. If you were out of position you got scored on 8 or 9/10. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.
Endurance. This needs to be fixed ASAP. For this game to become more competitive endurance needs to be boosted significantly for the forwards. Any chance a forward gets after the first half of the period becomes irrelevant due to defensemen having virtually unlimited endurance and catching up to them on a breakaway or a 2 on 1, or whatever play it might be.
Hitting/Bumps. Here's another thing that is very random. Getting bumped from behind and losing the puck is something that should NEVER happen and it happens very often in this game. Another thing that decreases the skill gab between the top players. Obviously getting hit from the front and a good hit from the side should cause the player to lose control of the puck. But losing control of the puck because you were bumped in the back is just ridiculous.
Passing/Forcing/More on puck pickups. In general the passing is pretty good where it is right now. I feel like there's a lot of times the puck doesn't go where I'm aiming, so all that takes is some minor tweaking by them, but in the general regards to passing I like where it is at the moment. On to forcing a pass. It is almost impossible to make nice plays in this game due to how easy it is for players to intercept and tip away passes. Obviously we don't want pucks going right through a player in good position. But in this game, a player doesn't even have to be facing the play and they will intercept a pass or tip the puck and it completely ruins the play. In 14 forcing was slightly overpowered but it was better than how it is now. It's too hard to make nice offensive plays and too easy to play defense at the moment. If you're in position and facing the play, then yes, you should intercept the pass. But if you aren't facing the play that puck should find its way through. It feels like pucks are so easily blocked or deflected.
Final thoughts. At the moment, there's really nothing competitive about this game. It's not fun anymore going into a game and completely dominating a team just to have them skate down the ice, flick up from the blueline and have it go in off a deflection or our goalie doing some bullshit animation.
And obviously the servers need to be improved. They're terrible. It doesn't matter how good the game is, if the servers suck it's not going to be fun to play.
Another thing I just remembered with the passing. The one touches need to be improved. It's not an instant one touch like how it was in the old games, I'm talking back to NHL 12 and previous. The one touch passing has been bad for a long time.
Another thing I thought of that could help is the size of the players and the size of the rinks. The size of the players needs to be reduced or the size of the rink needs to be increased, or both. Preferably reducing the size of the players. Having more space would open the possibility for more plays and let the skill players have more room to make the plays.