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After further deliberation and seeing the unanimous motion for the ban of the Big Tipper ability, the League Administration has decided to ban Big Tipper (both Gold and Silver) from the ECL ’25: Winter season. The change will take effect in the Warmup Season from Sunday, October 27th and will also apply to the ECL Qualifiers. It’s been great to see how the discussion around different abilities has really taken off. We’re getting a lot of different perspectives, many of them well-reasoned. We’ve also seen some interesting concepts for limiting how different builds and abilities can be used on a team basis, with the goal of changing the approach to classes and abilities, and potentially making broadcasts more engaging. I’d love to hear more thoughts on this idea and how people feel about it. My biggest concern is that, while many experienced players think it’s a brilliant concept, it might raise the barrier to entry for new teams and players who are already trying to grasp the rules and restrictions. And while one might suggest to only implement it at a higher level, this would probably create issues when teams move to a higher level and are not used to these restrictions. Let’s keep the conversation going!

As a player who has been there from the beginning, including consolehockey times, one thing I have learned is that you unfortunately can't rely on EA. For example, I remember being in those NHL yearly pre-release events decade ago when I played 1v1 seriously and developers were already back then talking about Spectator Mode and how has that panned out? Or GM Connected? List goes on. I have to give kudos to EA tho as the gameplay is much more fun in 25 overall even though I despice gimmicky grudge matches and other useless features as it's pandering to Fortnite-generation and going further away from true simulation which should always be the direction in a hockey game. Problem is as svetidaje stated, that EA can and will modify X-Factors during the season and we know how great that will go. I can't think any serious esport, where patch is introduced mid tournament. For example, League of Legends Worlds, which is currently ongoing, takes month and a half and obviously they will be using one and same patch that has been announced way before Worlds started. And yeah I know that NHL isn't "serious" esport compared to bigger ones but let's be honest here, we are paying to play this game and it's not cheap. The less we rely on EA on anything, the better we will be with the league imo. Banning Big Tipper is a good start, but the more I think about this the more I'm starting to think that we should bring old school hockey back, which would mean banning all X-Factors and we won't have any "balance issues" in the future and we get our pure skill hockey back.

Truculence energy drain is still the same as NHL23 & 24, thats the biggest issue with trucu, you bump player, really nothing happened and another player lose lot of energy. If/when all 10 on the ice use trucu the gameplay will be so bad

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Don't ban it. Its buffed anyways. Ofc meta straightline builds with 72kg 94 speed dont like getting ran over but hitting is a part of hockey. Talking about banning non skill based abilities. How is any perk like close quarters, one tee and so on skill based?

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Imo banning all traits makes the most sense for a serious league. Because as it has been now couple of years they "tweak" traits in big updates and it changes the gameplay alot. Which for me is a big vulnerability for the league, because what if you decide to not ban some traits now that become very OP mid season? Do you really want to change rules mid season? Ofc the gameplay can change a lot even without the traits but thats in the hands of EA. Looking at it from another angle might be how entertaining it is for viewers and getting new players to the scene. If u aim to get hardcore icehockey nerds to start playing this then you want the game to be as realistic as possible. But with ice hockey being a very small sport compared to the other big teamgames. Maybe you should aim to make it look as fun and exciting as possible for the general viewer and in that case ban no traits at all. For me it makes no sense to ban just one trait or a few. Because it might change anyway mid season and then when people see its possible to ban a trait we gonna need to have this discussion again.

Banning abilities = changing the gameplay = changing the meta Therefore I think banning Truculence, while keeping Stick em up would be quite a radical decision if you ask me. That would just benefit teams that hit less. I think banning all abilities would be the only consistent way to go about it. After all we're trying to figure out who's the best at *playing NHL 25* , not who's the best at *playing NHL 25 but no hitting, only stick checking* If we go the route of "banning abilities just to make gameplay nicer" I'm voting for banning everything except puck on a string, spin-o-rama and ankle breaker 👍 ^ Imo doing that has the same problem as only banning Truculence. Who gets to decide what gets banned and what doesn't? Who's "ideal gameplay" is the "correct" one? TLDR: banning only some abilities favors certain team - therefore banning them all is probably the most consistent way to go

Is loosing all your energy and lay down on the ice after every hit for some seconds a part of hockey?

ban truculence, it is as annoying/op and non skill based as big tipper ty

nah not dramatic at all, that´s how the gameplay will be played if all 10 skaters have trucu on

Yep, this is true. Luckily it seems EA will be fixing the issue with the forced Grudge Matches. I think it's a cool concept, but the way it works currently it hurts the balance of the game and has nothing to do with a true grudge match.

There hasn't really been a comprehensive conversation around that where we've seen a strong consensus where the majority feels like banning truculence is the right call. At least to me it seems like there's people on both sides of the fence on that. I don't say that to mitigate anyone's opinion or to insinuate that you'd be wrong, but if you read the conversation in this thread, you can see that Big Tipper was clearly the one thing everyone seems to agree on. I know there have been unofficial votes organized where several abilities were bundled together, including big tipper, but while our goal is not to slowly ban everything one by one, it is important to discuss the problems we have with each ability on an individual basis in order to avoid the type of bias where you buy one ban and get two for free. I believe we ourselves did something of a bundle decision last season with stronger support for 2/3 of the banned abilities and were rightfully criticized at the time for jumping to conclusions on the 3rd one. TL;DR: Keep talking about truculence if you feel strongly about it, and explain what makes you dislike it (if you haven't already).

I agree with Finsere, Jiihooo86 and saaggssy. That old player attributes system was much better than this one which we have at the moment. Banning all xfactors would be really good decision. Some of these xfactors have a very random effect on the game and thats a really bad thing.

1000% agree with this

Yes, good point there Jani. All versions of Big Tipper.

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I agree, need to ban everything and see what kinda hockey it gonna be. Atleast it will not be gamble, you gonna save puck square to shooter, or close quarters gonna snipe you, or you gonna move to shot in time, or golden onetimer gonna freeze you or make your shot go with rocket speed.

Thats a bit dramatic mate. Running down the boards for 60min straight isnt also. The best Players can avoid getting hit most of the time anyways.

BAN TRUCULENCE Player get hitted twice in a short period of time is enough to either injure your player or take a very long time to get up from the ice. Power of the truculence is OP. Hits are often worth a penalty but of course this wonderful game does not recognize them as a penalty. This makes that situation unfair, unreal and also ruins the game. We have had matches where the opponent had almost 60 hits and they got only 1-2 penalties. Really realistic, isn't it? EA doesnt want to fix bugs or other unrealistic things in the game. If we have possibility to fix them by ban these abilities and make this game little bit better. Then we should do this immediately. One good option would be to ban all abilities and also make a rule that forward need to play with forward builds and defenders need to play with defender builds. After this there is no need for further discussion.

Did you forget truculence??!!

Just to be clear, I take it this means both the silver and gold versions? You didn't specify, which would refer to a comprehensive ban of the trait, but just making sure.

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haha oh my god. 😆 To choose to respond to an argument in the way you just did, is just a clear sign that you have just been run over in the argument and do not really know how to take it further. It is nothing to be ashamed of. We all know you are good, and have been good for years. However, this does not automatically mean that everything you think, write and believe is factual. Try to be less arrogant, so maybe even young players can look up to you as the person you are, and not just as a damn good player in a damn good team. I guess this is just like-fishing. 🙂 Which u most likely will get from the fanboys. Have fun, and good luck in ECL Winter!

This is why i have allways been fan of the old school hockey building system back in the days ( yes there were many faults in there too) , because it was so fun to adjust your points the way you wanted your player to be. After that changed to the later building system , everything has been just bold boring. SPECIALLY goalies dont get anything new year after year after year. When u have a change to build your build with points , it doesnt matter if your stand up butterfly or mixed one. Oh please @Kenu and whole sportsgamer , please try to pass on the message that maybe it would be better to add that old building mechanics to game

In my opinion all the abilities should be away from the game. Why ? Because i think the old ways were the best. U get like 150-200 points to play with in making your player build starting like from 50-60 ovr. If u want to be a goal scorer , then make shooter. If you want to be a solid hard hittef , then add your points to the hitting etc. Fast skater with playmaking skills , no problem do that. The whole special ability thing has been a problem for me from the time they came. My suggestion would be to not ban anything but the tipper , but only use the gold one in ECL games. Also maybe a limit that 2 abilities can be used as same in team. For example 2 trucus , 2 one timers 1 tape to tape. Please comment below this what you think about this solution - JiiHooo86

Really late hits with truculence without penalty are the issue, if u ask me. Because u can't really do anything.

Imo there is no need to ban truculence. Like alex said its possible to counter it with reverse hits. So why people are not doing it? Is it just easier to cry when you are losing stamina? At the beginning of NHL25 when nearly no one was using trucu (because for some reason people were thinking that is going to be banned without testing it, even its whole new game than NHL24) there has already been those slow getting up animations in game. I mean if you had small amount of stamina left and you got hit, that took lot of time to get up, and that was even worse when pressure was activated. Game speed in overall has been much better than last years, its just not only that "straightline hana and force hockey" anymore. And trucu is not affecting that at all (making it slower like i gave example earlier about getting up animations etc) And what becomes trucu its nearly not doing anything when you do bumps, with silver at least, most of the time my player is still like slipped away from opponent when trying to bump and opponent just keeping skating with the puck (im using kinda little build atm so i dont know what would be situation if i would use like bigger build with trucu) Trucu has been truly nerfed compared to last year so please not ban it, even stick em up is much more OP than trucu. And yeah although im not playing in elite im still playing this game a lot and i personally know the best how i have felt about these things 😊

I get that. But you can counter it with Reverse Hits. Especially with bigger builds.

If you decide to restrict builds on a team basis, please don't test it mid-cycle of the competitive season. IMO would be test to try it in a summer league next year or early NHL26. Now it's too late. But as you said it's reeeeally hard to implement to the whole ECL structure.

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This might not be the place, but I'm already like five paragraphs into this so screw it. I'd like to delve deeper into the "each player type only used once per team" idea. Now, it might never get the traction it needs to actually become a rule, but I'd like to challenge teams and players to try it anyway. After thinking about it, I soon realized we actually run this exact setup on our team. We run a PMD-PLY-SNP, OFD-DFD lineup, meaning five different player types, and we've been doing something similar for the past two tournaments (SCL, ECL) we've participated in as well. And while I don't know if a setup like that will ever be viable at the Elite level (I hope to find out!), it is definitely viable as high up as the top tier of Pro - as evidenced by last season. It does require some extra effort in adapting your playstyle, both as a team and as individuals, but it can also yield some unexpectedly positive results. What I mean to say is that, the "Meta" doesn't have to be as all-encompassing as people make it out to be. Yes, for a team of five top-tier Elite players, maybe the 4 PMD's + 1 PLY is the absolute best setup possible to maximize their skill, but that doesn't have to hold true for everyone else. One does not have to copy everything from the top teams, even if I understand the psychology behind it (Hint: The top teams are top teams mainly because of their individual and team skill, not their player builds). In short, I'd like to encourage players and teams to try something different in order to see if it works for you. And if someone doesn't like your personal playstyle or the way your team plays...? Who gives a shit, haha. My frenemy Pardy has been ruining my life as a defender for going on ten years now, yet I wouldn't want to see anything other than a 173 cm, 72 kg "speedy boi" coming down my wing when I play TIKI Talk. Variety is the spice of life and I can't be the only one who still remembers players like Kriketski, Maise and Alex28 using strong, powerful builds at the Elite level. Krike with his 6000+ hits as a Grinder (I think?) during his time with JYP, Maise as the tall, lanky Grinder center you couldn't take the puck away from and Alex as the massive Powerforward using golden Truculence and hitting everything in sight on the forecheck. I, and I think many others in this community, still remember these players and their builds to this day for one simple reason: they dared to be the different. And they didn't just do it as a gimmick to be special and different, they did it in a way that made them incredibly effective for their teams - and forced other teams to adapt to their style. Hell, why NOT a PWF winger with Golden Unstoppable Force at the Elite level? I for one would love to see someone try it and force all the other teams to adapt to their unique playing style. Personally, that would be enough to get me to tune into a broadcast. People are arguing that certain traits would make the games unwatchable, and they might have a point with a few of them (mainly Tipper), whereas I'd argue that it has become so goddamn boring to see the exact same builds and traits being used by literally everyone.

What has changed? A lot of things have changed. For example, there are tools today that reduce the skill gap in the game. Like Big Tipper. What else has changed? 5, 7, 10 and 15 years ago, when you only had “builds”, the top teams outscored the lower teams by 15-20-25 goals. Then someone decided to release a game for €100, created on crack. Today you can see games where a much inferior team scores 7 goals in 4 shots, and the game is ruined even before it has started. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I see this every day when I watch matches or play myself with various teams. It's a bit like playing CS with aimbot - good for the stats, but no fun for anyone. There is a reason why in other games where similar abundance of accessories and weapons are available, like COD, in competition they chose to ban 90% of the weapons and accessories available in normal multiplayer. Precisely because these accessories and weapons early in the start of a match can control the outcome and the result without skill or cooperation in the team affecting the direction the match should go towards. I can think of an argument for a division that competes for money, that that division should be a division where the competition is decided on the combination of pure skill and a developed and good team play. To see an Elite match decided because someone gets 3 early lucky bounces with big-tipper is just humorous. It is downright 💩 to have such conditions in a league where you first have to be ruined to even participate, and once you have emptied the month's savings on this, you then have to compete for the money in a product when the game on a good night can do half the job for you. You asked what had changed. This is what has changed since I started competing myself 15 years ago. Did these discussions exist then? No, of course not. Back then, the discussions were about how to actually defeat your opponent who was better in terms of skill and teamplay.

Its banned for all divisions including Neo.

Penalties in overall in this game are pretty messed up. There is really much situations where players are able to hook opponent and there is not coming penalty or then you are getting penalty about thing you didnt even do. And yeah i know this is games (EA's) fault, not any trait or x-factor but that was just example. Like i earlier wrote when we were talking about tipper etc there is always things which can be compared to each other and people can argue with those about goalie, defender and forward point of view. Best option imo is that like ban everything or ban nothing because everything has some kind of broken mechanics. But now when sportsgamer decided to ban tipper, i am really fine with that, because it caused to break gameplay

This is the opposite. 94speed 170cm 72kg builds can easily run over 185cm 88kg player with truculence. They dont like it. I agree that hitting is a part of hockey but when there is 50 hits in a game and 0 penalties, then there is some kind of problem in the game and if we can, then we need do something to this problem. EDIT: of course after the ban there will be hits in the game too but they will not be as effective and therefore will not affect the game in the same way like now.

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Our decision to place Oljefondet in a higher division in the warmup tournament than 'they want to play in' is due to us wanting to preserve and uphold the competitive integrity of the ECL. Oljefondet finished first in their ECL Neo group last season, progressing all the way to the semi finals, before losing to the eventual champion of ECL Neo (ECL Neo during this season had 50+ teams). Since then, Oljefondet has at the very least carried forward a roster of equal skill level to their previous season, and so we do not feel that ECL Neo would be an appropriate place for them to play, especially as ECL Neo is meant to be a place where players and teams wholly new to the game can play without matching up against opponents who are in a completely different skill bracket. This has been outlined in the past whenever the issue of competitive integrity regarding ECL Neo has come up and we have remained consistent when applying said principle. Furthermore, we would like to remind teams that ultimately playing in SportsGamer hosted tournaments is a privilege, not a right. Nobody has the right to play in ECL Neo just because they want to if they would then upset the skill balance within the division. Similarly, on the opposite end of the spectrum, no one has the right to play in ECL Elite just because they are nominally good but haven't earned the chance to play in the division. Therefore, while we appreciate that it is annoying to potentially get 'pushed' into a situation that isn't comfortable, please understand that we are doing this (and again, we have done so in the past with other teams who we deemed to not be an appropriate fit for ECL Neo) to promote competitiveness and push players, and teams, to be the very best that they can be - nothing more, nothing less. Finally, to close this post off, we would like to pay particular attention to a couple of Oljefondet's claims. One, the claim that this decision was last minute and 'not okay'. The decision meant that they were placed into a different division in the free-to-play warmup tournament, which is one month away from the start of the upcoming ECL. As such, while we appreciate the frustration from the decision coming so close to the start of the warmup tournament and will look to make more of an effort at being more proactive at releasing important information sooner in future. We also feel it's a good moment for a bit of perspective as ultimately the warmup tournament is an elective competition that no team is forced to sign up for, carries no sign-up fee, and is meant to be something for teams to use first and foremost as practice against similarly ranked opponents. Two, the claim that this move was motivated by money (license fees). While there is no denying finances and keeping SportsGamer going is important, as without some money being injected into the operations we wouldn’t be able to provide the level of tournament quality that we currently offer, the decision to move Oljefondet up a division was 100% based on maintaining competitive integrity. We have asked teams to move / change divisions in the past and a non-insignificant amount of them have been asked to drop down a division (and therefore pay a lower amount to SportsGamer), as such we feel that this argument put forth by Oljefondet is not a fair conclusion to arrive to. - LA

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I think that in your replies you should start by stopping answering assertions that no one has made in the thing you are replying to. A bit on the same theme as your answer to Hampus above. What you refer to as “Meta” is not really a meta linked to the definition, but it is an attribute that you want in the game style you play. In this case you are insinuating that it is the attribute “speed”. A “meta” in a game is a weakness in the game being played, which people exploit. What you describe as “meta” here is more of a play style than a weakness. I think we need to keep the concepts separate here. You want to be able to skate fast, in straight lines, which is what the Elite teams started doing in NHL 24, and every offense ended with a force into the slot. Previous top teams in previous games, such as Havu and Fila when they were at their peak, they played on puck possession, movement and passing, the passing game set the pace of the game, and no other team in their heyday could keep up with that pace. The point was, and now I'm going to be overly clear so you don't have to respond to claims that are not claimed, THAT style of play can be achieved without having to be 185cm tall, and 72.5kg heavy build. And this was what I insinuated was damn nice that no top team ever tried to make work. Because it would have been hell for the opposing teams to face in for example NHL 25 where the mobility of the game is still pretty good regardless of the size of the build, and the speed without Elite-edges is not as dominant as it was in for example NHL 24. I'm not trolling. I'm responding.

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I just dont get why do we have to go through this conversation again, atleast 80% elite players want to play without truculence, tipper, uf. Ppl are actually paying money to play in this league so why dont you listen the majority? Just because LA have decided so? Jesus just make a poll and just making it easier for you choices to be like "BAN EVERYTHING" "BAN TRUCULENCE, TIPPER, UF" and "DONT BAN ANYHTING" for elite 😪

You tried to ban nothing - people went nuts. You tried to ban a few - people went nuts. You haven't tried to ban everything - try it, people might go nuts. There was a sauna-cup a while back where everything except elite edges was banned. No idea about the feedback but some of the players who participated in that tournament have suggested it so I can only assume it wasn't that bad. My opinion: Ban everything or nothing. If i had the power to decide, i would go with ban everything just to try it out.

Absolutely agree on this one. I think if certain abilities need to be banned it is Big Tipper. Truculence does not seem to be as strong as in the previous games. Can't say too much about Unstoppable Force, also because of the "Meta Builds" which rarely include that ability. Also want to bring one more idea to the table which has been stated several times by a few players during the last couple of years: That each Playertype can only be used once per team. That would also bring some kind of variety to the Gameplay experience.

Why don't we just ban all the abilities and x-factors? In my opinion those have always been a bit unrealistic and "fantasy" type of things, one-tee is like everyone can shoot one-timers like Ovechkin (with better aim) and so on, it's a bit too much in my opinion. When these x-factors came to chel some years ago, my instant reaction back then was like why, why EA brings some fantasy traits for players, we don't need these kind of things. Without abilities and x-factors, there would be more options on how to put skill points on builds and because of that there might (yeah, just might) actually be more personalized builds, weight etc would matter more. Like it was back in the days. But like some others have said here, ban all or ban nothing, I would go with that if I had to choose. Yes, gold big tipper is waay too overpowered, but so is gold one-tee. In my opinion silver truculence is not too op, it has been nerfed for 2 years in a row and as I have been playing with and without it now in NHL 25, it just doesn’t give anything too op. Bumps don’t work with or without it (sometimes yes but not constantly) and as the hitting is harder in this game, only when you can make a big hit (which is not that easy imo) with trucu then the opponent loses more energy and takes some time to get up. But skating full speed your head down with 72 kg player and getting hammered on high speed might sometimes do that, no? But I can live without trucu, no worries. So after all, my opinion is that let’s ban all x-factors and abilities and play with skill points only, or at least try how that would work out. Playing without abilities would make this game “most realistic” as there would not be any fantasy skills etc and it would be fair for everyone. Let’s not just pick some abilities away and make this a floorball simulator, because this is hockey right? More than happy to hear your feelings and opinions on this one, let’s discuss about this. Toxic messages are taking all this to a wrong direction, for everyone. Thanks and sorry!

I feel like lot of people especially in the lower divisions in this community doesn't want or dare to share their opinion because they feel it doesn't matter because I quote "they aren't the best players in the game". Just look at the toxic response what happened here after the announcement. And well ban all or nothing it doesn't really matter to me. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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