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I love everything about this message - you basically cleared the table. I’ve bolded my favorites. Also, @FINSeRe is spot on. There have been many great posts overall - kudos to everyone. While I agree that the BT ban was probably the right call since it's such an automatic skill, I also think SG shouldn’t go any further and should let the situation settle. Banning X-Factors one by one isn’t the way to go. People will always start chasing the next "worst" ability, and it becomes an endless cycle. I repeat myself, but every trait has its own issues, so it doesn't make sense to remove some XFs while leaving others. We know some of them are more powerful than others, but in general, it's not fair in my opinion. Sopuli explained why quite well. It's easy to be hindsight-driven, but I think when the first-ever XF bans took place, it was a mistake. While it did make a somewhat shitty game a little more enjoyable, we should have just banned them all. So, I’m not criticizing the end result, just the approach. But as I said, it's easy to look back with hindsight, and I was also advocating for individual trait bans back in the day. This brings us to the point where I think BT is the only one that should be put in "jail" at the moment. The next step is either to ban them all or let the game run as EA intended, with XFs included - even though I don’t like the latter option. For me, the Sauna Cup was easily the best and most enjoyable gaming experience I’ve had since the X-Factors were introduced to the game. It just felt natural, in a good way. I'm sure many of you would have enjoyed it as well. I remember counting the GF and GA per game, which were almost identical to ECL. I know it was a different NHL game then, but when it comes to hockey, creativity never dies. There will always be different ways to generate scoring chances; you just need to adjust. If we ban all traits, the start could be frustrating because we have gotten used to building our style around those X-Factors. However, after some time, I believe most of us would come to love it. As for the goalies, they aren’t overpowered; they’re just broken. EA's game mechanics are so RNG overall that goalies will save empty nets and let in soft goals, regardless of whether there are XFs or not.

I had a chat with the gameplay producer at EA and they gave me the following facts about truculence tuning for NHL 25: Gold Truculence provides a 25% boost to stamina drain on a shoulder check hit (NHL 24 it was 30%) Silver Truculence provides a 0% boost. (NHL 24 it was 20%) Truculence also increases the power of a Shoulder Check, which would naturally drain a bit more stamina than a non-truculent Shoulder Check. The X-Factor should only trigger on Shoulder Checks (not push checks).

First of all, I think it's great that you - and by extension the gameplay producer in question - are able to supply us with this type of information. Even though one might argue they should've just released all of this information by themselves (like, years ago....), they haven't and probably never will. So, kudos to you for getting to a position where you can get a 1-on-1 with the gameplay producer on our behalf. Anyway, the traits I'd like to know about are not the obvious ones. The eye-test already tells me/us certain abilities work reasonably well. I'm probably in the minority, but I'd like to know more about the abilities that aren't as popular. Mostly to see if we've been overlooking them, for whatever reason. So, I'd like to know about: - Shutdown (does three things; accuracy for pokes against momentum or at speed in 1 on 1's, buffs shot blocking and buffs hitting strength in 1on1s' - but I'd like to know by how much?) - Quick Pick (what's the buff for interceptions and range of interceptions?) - No Contest (what's the buff for likelihood of winning puck battles?) - Unstoppable Force (what's the buff for strength with the puck and holding on to the puck when off balance?) - Thunder Clap (what's the buff for power and accuracy for point slap shots - does it include one-timers?) - ...and my personal favorite: Spin-O-Rama (what's the buff for speed and puck control in the spin, and whats the buff for shot and pass accuracy coming out of it, and for how long does that buff last?)

I would pay cold, hard cash (more than I'd admit) for a similar breakdown of all the traits and abilities currently in the game.

It would be nice to know how exactly the game determines a one on one situation where Shutdown is activated. It's never been clear to me. There are theories floating around, but they're all based on conjecture, such as what a one on one should mean or a perceived consistency in how the trait works.

Still looking for backup D and F.

If you had to prioritize, which ones would you want to know the most? (This is an open-ended question for anyone to weigh in on). I doubt I can get a full list in the short term.

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.

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Maybe it should be all or nothing? Would like to see games without ANY abilities. Maybe getting some sort of testing tournament without any abilities for every level? One of my teammate is thinking the same when we discussed about this. Would it be worth of trying? Who knows but it is something that could really think about imo. And maybe i make my self look like a fool but i don't care. This is just one idea among the others.

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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.

It will be banned. 👍

I don't play ECL, but have said this before. Only allow one player on each team to use a specific trait. That stops 5/5 truculence etc. and forces all players and teams to come up with strategies as to which style each player has. Then perhaps ban the most game-breaking ones, like truculence, big tipper etc.

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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

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

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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