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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

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Like mentioned before, who gets to decide what gets banned and what doesn't? I vote for not banning the physicality from virtual hockey. Ban everything or just the tipper to make it fair. Banning the big tipper was a logical move, because the ability is game-breaking and that ability alone can decide many games in a way they probably shouldn’t be decided. That ability changed the way teams played so much that it altered the entire game. However, there’s a big difference between the big tipper and other abilities. For example, truculence is not game-breaking enough and will not alter the entire game. Skating full speed your head down with 72 kg player and getting hammered on high speed – yeah you might lose some stamina, but it’s not anything ridiculous or game-breaking like big tipper was. Truculence don’t seem as strong as it was in the previous versions and therefore shouldn’t be thrown in just because. Hits and bumps are harder to come by in this version compared to the previous ones regardless of the truculence. Like someone said, variety is the spice of life. I personally enjoy playing physical game-style with bigger builds. It makes the product much more enjoyable for me to watch and play and it seems I’m not alone on this one. Another thing to keep in mind, in reality I feel like these banning decisions also affect outside of competitive games.

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Great point! And this is very important. The viewing experience is a massive part of making this community grow as well, so making the games entertaining should be one of the priorities. In my previous message I didn't really consider this, so I somewhat changed my mind now. (Though the entertainment perspective still probably doesn't warrant banning truculence) I guess the decision should be made based on both a competitive AND an entertainment perspective. Obviously "what is entertaining" differs person to person so a perfect decision doesn't exist. I guess this is what this conversation is for. A lot of great ideas here already: banning everything, mandatory different builds inside teams etc. Hopefully some kind of consensus around the topic can be found. Personally I'm happy to play the game no matter what decisions are made 😁

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.

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.

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I don't agree fully with your post, but you argue your point well and I can definitely see the internal logic behind it, essentially: ban everything (or ban nothing) to make it fair. I do think if something quite radical like that, meaning "Ban all abilities" (or for that matter the "1 Player Type per Skater"-suggestion voiced earlier), were to be put in place, I would urge SportsGamer to lock in that decision WELL ahead of time - like say announcing now that this will be the prerequisites for the Spring ECL. Finally, I would like to add that I think you hit the bullseye with the segment I bolded in your post. It summed up this entire topic quite nicely, tbh.

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.

Its banned for all divisions including Neo.

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.

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

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?

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

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!

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My question is how and why has this even happened? I mean it's a BASIC feature of a functional videogame and has been in the game for years. Seriously, do they not test out the matchmaking in any way prior to launch? This is actually terrible. Same with versus. Yeah you find opponents instantly, but it is always NA. No exception. Baffles my mind.

100% agree. We were finding smaller teams and North American teams like 10x in a row last night. I have given EA this feedback as has many of the other Game Changers. That being said, the power is in the numbers, so if you agree with a feedback that has already been sent, feel free to like or post a comment to show your support to a certain opinion!