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Hi there NHLGamers, The release of EA Sports NHL 19 is nigh and us gamers are slowly returning from the wild outside and sunny beaches towards the familiar comfort of our gaming stations and consoles. Today we're bringing you some news about the new title, this time in the form of some reworks and additions for the Hockey Ultimate Team mode. In NHL 18, one of the major problems with HUT was the quick inflation of the market caused by a few various factors. Most notably, the lower overalls and bigger gap between low and high rated players went out the door very fast as a wide variety of special player items were released early on. The fact that the market was flooded early on also diminished the incentive for several players to chase higher rated players, as similar items were so easily available. Another problem encountered in HUT games were gamers position-locking themselves, the mere possibility of doing so received heavy criticism as it steps back on the competitiveness and overall fairness of the game. It also defeats the purpose of PvP-play. EA announced that they are going to try their best to address these problems in the new release, which is only 16 days away (13 for early release). This leads us into discussing some of the changes made from previous years iteration. Changes to NHL 19 HUT Rebalancing the economy is going to be one of the main priorities in making HUT fun for the gamers. The development team has a few answers for achieving a better market balance and avoiding the inflation we saw in NHL 18. First off, overalls have been lowered even more than last year. In NHL 19 HUT base item overalls will range from 55-85 at launch, with a few exceptions being Alumni and Legend items. The lower overalls will allow for more stat growth to happen throughout the year. Secondly, the player item class/rarity division has been revamped. In NHL 18 the class/rarity ranging from bronze to gold directly reflected the league the player played in. All CHL players were bronze items, all NHL players were gold items. This didn't allow for effective leveraging of the entire player catalogue. In NHL 19 we will see a change, where the item class/rarity reflects the overall of the player in question, not the league the player plays in. Here is how the class/rarity system works in NHL 19: 50-55 OVR Bronze Common 56-61 OVR Bronze Rare 62-67 OVR Silver Common 68-73 OVR Silver Rare 74-79 OVR Gold Common 80+ OVR Gold Rare A new class/rarity division will allow for a more effective way of sorting players and it will also make higher rated players harder to obtain, regardless of the league they play in. In addition to these two courses of action, the weekly live items are being changed. As the release frequency during NHL 18 was very high with four live items being released each week. NHL 19 will not feature Flashback player weekly items anymore, making for less new player items hitting the market. Trade-in sets have been renewed a bit too in order to make unwanted and lower rarity cards more valuable to the gamer. At launch, NHL 19 will feature six different player trade-in sets: 5 Bronze Common Players -> 1 Bronze Rare Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Bronze Rare Players -> 1 Silver Common Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Silver Common Players -> 1 Silver Rare Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Silver Rare Players -> 1 Gold Common Player (6 hour cool down) 5 Gold Common Players -> 1 Untradeable Gold Rare Player (8 hour cool down) Gold Rare Re-Roll (2 Gold Rare Players -> 1 Untradeable Gold Rare Player) (8 hour cool down) NHL 19 will also feature a trade-in set, which will allow trading five gold rare players for a gold rare collectible. This trade-in set will have a 24 hour cooldown. Other than having less player items flooding the market, NHL 19 will have position lock from HUT removed. New additions to NHL 19 HUT Well, right off the bat one of the new additions will be the much advertised 200+ alumni and legend items available for HUT gamers. According to EA, the legends and alumni will range all the way from all-time greats to local legends and fan favourites. 30 alumni player items will be available all year from the HUT store, and the rest will be released in weekly waves, with availability being time limited. Gamers will have four main ways of obtaining legend player items. 32 legends will be available in sets at launch. Some will be released as monthly collectibles available for gamers who have completed daily objectives, which is another new addition we will discuss in a bit. Seven legend items can be obtained by completing various in-game milestone tasks, such as scoring goals, completing sets or taking shots on goal. On top of these three ways, there will be legend packs in the HUT store. Legend packs will be available for a limited time and contain a guaranteed legend item from a pre-selected pool. Objectives are a new addition that might resemble daily challenges for all our Fortnite players out there. EA promises to introduce various types of objectives in NHL 19, as there will be daily tasks, but also progression objectives and special event objectives in HUT. Objectives reward the gamer with HUT items of various types. Milestones aren't a new term, but they will be introduced in a whole new way in NHL 19. They are long-term goals with impressive rewards as you go about your progression in HUT. Some milestones could be goals scored, challenge stars earned or objectives completed. Milestones will have higher rewards than objectives. Loan Players might be familiar to FIFA gamers, who have played a bit of FUT (FIFA Ultimate Team). This addition brings you the opportunity to try out star players in your line-up for a limited time before heading to the auction house to spend your hard-earned coins. Loan items can be earned in many ways, such as through completing objectives or surpassing milestones to name a few. So there you have it, it seems like a bunch of needed changes have been done to HUT for NHL 19. Is it a hit or a miss - what do you think? Let us know in the comments! Source: https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2018/hut-deep-dive