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Can someone give me at least one good reason why you still allow X-factors at this point, when you’ve already banned eleven (?) of them and restricted builds by position? These days I don’t really care what SG does, I just play, but I’m genuinely wondering. Back in the day, I voted to either ban all of them, ban none or ban only a couple of the most overpowered ones. But this current approach of banning around 75% of them and letting the rest stay just doesn’t make sense. Yes, some of them are more useful than others, but the main idea behind all of these traits is the same: they’re basically stupid superpowers breaking the game mechanics. If you ban traits like hit boost, better balance and ones that generate extra pressure from spamming shots, then why on earth do you allow auto-saucers, speed boosts on pass reception, 2x endurance and whatever else is left? Yes, you can probably answer that by saying the community hasn’t complained enough about those perks being overpowered, but now we’ve reached that point and this is exactly what we knew would happen once you started banning traits one by one. You’re basically leaving breadcrumbs on the table. No hate, it just feels like there’s no logic behind it anymore.

I heard somewhere that long posts are good regardless of the arguments, so I'm back. Also I'm unfortunately still a defender so don't try to think I'm a goal hungry forward. Sounds pretty fucking OP to me. Would even perfectly explain the ridiculousness of the saves goalies have been making in NHL 26. Right now there is a huge problem of goal scoring opportunities being really inconsistent or even consistent in being saved by goalies regardless how they're playing the situations. For example, you have a two on one attack, pass for a one timer in the slot, thats going in maybe 20% time even if the goalie is sucking his own thumb in the net. Personally I think that if there is plenty of open net it should be a goal almost every time. So even Finsere said it, increasing skill ceiling is what an aspiring competitive game should do. In regard of attributes, in HUT in a similar situation, you can green time that one timer with blue 1T trait with 90 shooting abilities and goalies without traits make that save more than they should. So it definitely is possible in CHEL if you actually make the save. Also personally I think if goalies are able to save everything if positioned well, thats game breaking. So you should be able to straight up challenge the goalie from a good scoring positions with pretty high percentages. Especially you should be able to score almost everytime when the goalie is out of position. Means that bad defending is punished more -> it is rewarding to try and build good chances. Right now it really isn't rewarding at all to make 5 instant passes leading to an open net chance just to be saved by a goalie looking at someone beautiful in the crowd. -> Just shoot or just force passes and let luck take the wheel bingbangboom 1-0 letsgo fun game. Also because Sere threw out some numbers without any thought, red sponge gives you +75% controlled save ability. And if three traits active at the same time you could get more than +50% reaction time, +25% save accuracy, +25% save ability. And these numbers are actually available now, not like his 50% reaction reduction which nobody uses because it still isn't in the game in CHEL. Everybody is now using 15% reduction. And he is using elite sponge instead of using elite post to post, what I guess he has by the level of his CHEL dude and his words in the other post. This one might the furthest reach I have seen in a while. So just because on average there are more goals per game -> there are less undeserved saves. I'm not saying you are wrong, I didnt play at the start of NHL 24 and was still trying to open up my monitor during spring 24. But this argument just makes no sense. For example, more goals could mean that defenses are playing worse -> more chances -> more undeserved saves. Or did you look at the shot totals, shooting percentages. From what I have been talking, 100% of people have agreed with me that in 26 there are more bullshit saves than in 25. Maybe its just me and lack #luck. I like these bans and like the fact that you are making decisions on your own without trying to please everyone. Personally I don't have anything against the demographic way on these but also think that's not going to lead to the best results. My only question is after all these bans, what is the reason to not ban everything. What do the remaining traits give that makes them good for the game. There aren't that many of them so we can go one by one. Second wind: wtf even is this, nobody has ever even entertained such an absurd idea. "So okay what if we make it that when you have no stamina you actually have stamina even full stamina"... I want what that guy is having. Is next a teleport for defenders so if a forward gets a breakaway you can teleport to save the situation. Warrior: Probably going to be on many builds. Makes you harder to hit in a game where it is really easy dodge hits and bumps already if you are playing with your thumbs and not your feet. You stand up after a hit really fast, dont lose any energy. Quick pick: Helps once in while if you are positioning yourself like a blind donkey, if you are actually playing where you should be, activates once every other night so just useless and really random. Stick em up: Everybody and their mothers are crying about pokes with or without it, usually because they are too good but now because they are too bad. My personal free advice to this is L2P. (just a joke, even if I'm the most arrogant guy around.) But seriously its the same as last year, it helps a bit but you can just play without it and you'll be completely fine. Born leader: … Just a cool idea but actually absolutely nothing in real competitive gameplay where there aren't shots and hits flying everywhere. Shooting traits: Personally I like these just keep these (but only golden, more belove), more ways to punish actual bad defending and not just score by throwing the puck on the net, towards the net, in front of the net, play some pinball, bingbongbang and LETSGO 1-0(just repeat the same joke until it's funny). I understand this is never going to happen because the level of defending in this scene already causes 10 goals a game but if you wanted a competitive game, this is the way. Maybe the level of defending would even go up cause mistakes would actually be punished. just trust me bro Ankle breaker: Touch right stick, defender maybe falls. I think this sounds good. Said nobody ever. Passing traits: There are so many automatic saucers that if you want to pass the puck, there's no way you are going to use these. Just adds randomness without any reasonable benefits. Goalie traits: Already went through this in the first paragraphs. So maybe it's time for #banthemall, I would say at least ban all elite(red) traits and maybe even the blue(all-star) ones. For example red beauty backhand gives you 100% power and accuracy which is just hilariously OP. For me just allowing golden shooting traits (or even blue ones)would lead to most competitive and rewarding game. You couldnt score any ridiculous goals with just them but if the defense is breaking you can actually punish it without goalie traits saving everything. You could say this is bullshit for goalies but it's even more bullshit for goalies to work your ass off to make great saves and keep up with the play and position well, just to see opponents goalie listening to payphone playing with a blindfold saving everything. As for gamer, I think you guys should try to be more active about messaging elite teams to try and test out different ways of doing things. Like this week #banthemall, next week just golden traits or without the red ones. So we would actually have some real info of how the game feels with different "settings". We could do it ourselves but I might not be the most liked guy around for good reasons so I just can't bother because I think elite teams are too lazy to test stuff out by themselves.

Ban all abilities 6s aint designed to be played with abilities, only hut is

Community vote would've been the best way to decide these right?

ban all 🫴

Ban them all, make a shitty game even a little bit better. - Variety on making builds (or at least they wont look the same as they have for the past 4 years). --> cant rock with 70ish wrist shot and quick release if you want to score - Eliminates some of the most ridiculous types of animations that help you retrieve the puck or get in a better position caused by traits, which cant be expected by the opposition --> game becomes less "rng" (more competitive), more realistic - there aint 6 superhumans running around the ice playing their own game --> team game, playing together matters, again more realistic For sure, this will result in a few "ea goals" as you have to find new ways to score instead of trusting the old traits which names have just been changed. Well they are bound to happen each year, as so many things before even getting to a scoring opportunity are caused by some random code (puck pickups, pass receptions...). One would most likely state that banning all traits will cause all teams to collapse in front of the net, well what changes? Teams are already doing that. As much of I hope ban them all which actually made those domestic leagues the most enjoyable part of the year, at least ban the warrior trait. Game loses all meaning when you hit skater having it, and they actually recover from the ground faster than you do from that animation -> breaks the game

I've definitely joined the ban them all camp recently. I don't think the abilities are well-designed or balanced at all. They are sort of tacked on top of the core mechanics, which they override and overpower a lot of the time, creating the sort of chaos and unpredictability that a competitive game should minimize. Look at games like Counter-Strike or Rocket League and how pure of a competitive experience they are. By introducing the abilities, the NHL series has moved further from that than ever. And in NHL 26, it's worse than it's ever been.

Also We have banned like 70% of skater abilites, still the goalie abilities are untouched Goalies are apparently more protected than the president of the united states i guess

If you are going to listen to the community feedback, then why not ban everything? Most people have said for a whole year that everything should be banned. And if you are not going all the way, why not remove Stick Em Up? Right now every Elite player is running Stick Em Up Elite. When there is no speed boost to get past defenders, and you face the poke aimbot on every player, the game is turning into trench warfare where everyone only plays defense and waves their stick. So why not go all the way and remove everything? Like someone wrote earlier in the thread. X Factors are simply boosts for star players in HUT. And now there is not much left to use at all, so why not just remove everything?

Everything I have previously said about the Xfactors in EASHL still stand: they don’t work as intended in EASHL. They were added to the game to differentiate superstar players in other game modes. Having them in competitive 6v6 makes absolutely zero sense.

where is goalie ability bans? 🤔

Wait if all these are banned, how aren't second wind and ankle breaker? 🤔 They seem pretty broken to me, not even saying they're too good but they lead to very inconsistent situations...

Now 5 days and gaming nights later when ability bans were published, i truly agree like Warrior ability needs to be banned. Its so unrealistic like you are not able to make normal hard hits most of the time. Atm your player is mainly slipping away from opponent when you are trying to hit because of Warrior avoiding hit stat. That was good ability when truculence was allowed but now when trucu is banned there is need to ban Warrior too because it breaks "normal" hitting mechanics in game. Is there coming some kind of vote or decision from your side about this @SportsGamer? Many people are thinking same way here about Warrior.

Moderator note: The below has been translated with ChatGPT to make it available to more readers. You can find the original text in Finnish in the Spoiler section below. It’s too complicated to explain properly in English, so I’ll just explain it in Finnish terms. But here’s how I’ve understood goalie perks, and what’s been tested in the “Between the Pipes” server (the world’s largest goalie server with about 2,250 members): there are 3 out of 5 perks that activate on every save — Sponge, Dialed In, and Recharge. Since only one perk can visually appear on the screen at a time, what you see is the goalie’s highest currently active perk. In practice, that’s usually either the red Sponge or Dialed In, since most goalies have one of those unlocked. If a goalie has both active, Sponge has priority to be displayed on screen, but Dialed In also activates in the background. The same goes for blue and gold goalie perks — they activate in the background even if they don’t show on screen, especially Recharge. Because there are so few red perks available for goalies, practically every goalie uses either red Dialed In or Sponge. But that’s just because there aren’t many options — not because those perks are necessarily overpowered. Most players haven’t grinded the season pass far enough to unlock red Post to Post, which is considered meta in North America and gives a significant boost to lateral saves. So even though those perks activate on every save, it doesn’t mean the save happened because of that perk. When Sponge activates, it just indicates that the save was a “controlled” one — meaning the goalie covered the puck quickly or handled the rebound well. When Dialed In activates, it simply means the game has temporarily boosted the goalie’s save ability by 6%. The same logic applies to skaters: even if you score with a wrist shot and Quick Release activates, that doesn’t mean the perk caused the goal — it just means it triggered. You could shoot into an empty net and Quick Release would still activate, but the goal obviously wasn’t because of it. In other words, banning Sponge alone wouldn’t eliminate those “undeserved” saves — it would just lead to more of EA’s nonsense goals. Sponge isn’t even close to the best goalie perk in HUT, in my opinion. The current Sponge is the same as in NHL 24 and 25, just slightly stronger. And as I calculated earlier, NHL 26 is nothing compared to NHL 24, where goalies were making completely undeserved saves left and right — which is clearly reflected in the goals-per-game average. Even though there were fewer of those undeserved saves in NHL 25, they still happened all the time, and it’s never been about perks — it’s the game engine. If there really were a magic fix for it, believe me, I’d be all in. But I think people will be disappointed if they expect that banning red Sponge will suddenly stop those undeserved saves.

Can u @Brainrovsky @saaggssy send some clips when ur playing next time about those bs goals with quick release? Havent seen those happen in my games and nobody else dont see quick release an issue.

That goalie abilities have not been banned is absolutely ridiculous, but i guess thats what happens when goalies cry about how unfair life is every game, even tho they experience biggest handicap out there.. It is easy to point out everytime a close quarter or one tee glitches through the goalie, but no one bats an eye when a goalie is completely on the other side of the net but still saves the puck, we mark it down as "wow great save" i think that is ridiculous. I played without abilities last year for like a month against other teams without it and goalscoring went up, cause bad goalies got punished And dont come at me with this bs "close quarters goes through the goalie" "and you cant claim that those saves are because of abilities" Nah i cant but you cant prove to me that the shot wasnt just a lucky bounce and was impossible to go in without close quarters cause you dont have a time machine to go back in time take of the ability and shoot in that exact same spot with exact same timing. Goalies have biggest handicap in this game and get treated like spoiled kids Would be happy to discuss this topic with adults and not crybaby goalies trying to be funny or are just pissed off Come with valid points and we can discuss

Agree, after these bans which are totally fine to me, bigger builds are maybe going to be new meta because of higher speed and balance + power so why there needs to be perk which help avoiding bigger "normal" hits. And if the meaning after these bans was make people to use different style of builds, now its going to be like everyone is using elite warrior. That should be banned including gold, blue and elite versions.

Ban @saaggssy because no-one doesn't want to hear her crying year by year.

So basically you're waffling about goalkeepers not having superhuman reaction times or am I off the mark here?

Honestly, the more I’ve played the game, the more I’m leaning toward “ban them all.” For skaters and goalies.

Everything is going to get banned before the season this is just teasing. EA didn't really do great job with the game if everything is this unbalanced you say. There's literally like maybe 4 solid perks left so people are going to run pretty much the same build now.

Thats the nice idea but unfortunately we have seen it like that doesnt work. So many under level teams has used wrong password. There should be some kind of report system like teams are able to report teams and their players who are using wrong password, first they will get warning from that and if that happens again then whole team and players would be banned for next Sportsgamer tournament

I guess this is more of a bug fix than a nerf, the ability still gives a considerable stamina boost (even if it is only a one time thing now) I think it can be directly compared to wheels tbh - when it activates, you get a boost in stamina which equals a boost in speed in practice. It's also a very odd game mechanic, where you're incentivised to actually use all your energy when you're already low on energy? So to gain energy you can just use more energy lol. It's just not realistic in the slightest. (And ankle breaker imo is just stupid, because it makes defenders fall over for no reason)

Ban them all. The most competetive and fun way to play the game.

Yeah you can say what you want but give us video clips where is bs goals because of quick release. What i have seen there hasnt been any problems with quick release when talking high level goalies. But many unrealistic and crazy saves because of goalie abilities (wide open net and still save because of ability)

I think maybe we ban everything else besides Enforcer builds and then we play like real men

Warrior has been added to the list of banned abilities. Read more here:

+1

Agree 100%. Playing defence is already unrealistically hard as it is. Banning the only hitting ability and NOT banning the ability that makes hits ineffective, makes zero sense. The balance of the game is already tilted 90/10 towards forwards.

Red Sponge is op. It sucks shots in open net situtations on the glove. Bad positioning makes you save open goals. Being bad should not be rewarded.

In ECL Elite Winter '24 there was average 5,11 goals per game. In ECL Elite Spring '24 this average was 4,78 goals per game. In ECL Elite Winter '25 there was average 5,78 goals per game. In ECL Elite Spring '25 this average was 5,53 goals per game. In Krike Cup (on-going) there are 9 Elite teams who have scored average 6,25 goals per game in a pretty serious 1 350 € buy-in tournament. So goal scoring is actually going up every version and players even have new X-Factor "Quick Release" that reduces goalies reactions by maximum of 50 %.

Great ability bans!

It's the most easy way to have a fair, equal and objective competition, for players and goalies

Koitappa wäänäne päästä kentälle välillä

It’s completely optional to play. If you don’t like the abilities, nobody is forcing you to play))) Every year the same people whine about the same things… maybe it’s time to quit if your feelings get hurt because abilities are op🤷‍♂️

Guys, hate to say it but you’re wasting your time. There’s no way they’re banning anything this close to the start of the season. Go touch some grass or something else before the ECL starts.

Sorry to say, but in this video goalie have positioned wrong. There's nothing about "superpower abilities".

Totally agree with this! There has been many that kind of situations where goalie has been positioned bad and there is like half open net and still goalie is able to save those shots when sponge or some other ability activate. Most of those shots should be goals so i think there is need to re-think banning some goalie abilities too

You are deflecting again. It is not me who does not understand. We literally had over 100 messages from the community showing they want it like it was in FCL and SCL last year. That is not my personal opinion, that is the majority speaking. If you refuse to understand that, then that is your weakness ------- (your picture) Point by point: Close Quarters goals do not “just happen anyway”. CQ modifies release priority and aim assist inside close radius. Without CQ many of these shots do not trigger the high speed priority release animation. Frame comparison testing shows completely different outcome from the same shot simply because CQ unlocks a different animation branch. “One timers are easy to defend if you play actively” is also incorrect. Certain one timer styles combined with traits bypass normal defensive stick collision validation inside ICE Q. This is the exact reason Golden One Tee was banned in multiple competitive formats. It is not just about positioning. It is animation override. “Goalies make weird saves anyway so traits do not matter” is wrong. Traits modify which animation state the goalie gets access to. Animation state is outcome determinism in NHL. Without that trait the goalie is not given the same animation choices. That is not subjective. “Auto poke is broken no matter what” is only partially true. Auto poke is only unbalanced because certain traits buff recovery acceleration and turn sync after poke. Base poke without those trait modifiers is significantly more fair. Removing trait buff gives real risk reward again. “Truculence simply makes physical play more viable” is incorrect. Truculence automates force and knockdown threshold. You do not need correct angle timing or weight advantage because the trait applies force anyway. This removes skill expression. “Counter attacks score anyway” ignores the problem. Abilities artificially push low probability chances into mid or high probability outcomes by triggering faster and higher priority animation states. That does not strengthen structured defense. It increases chaos.

Can someone tell what skaters abilties are overpower and breaking game? Imo biggest issue is goalies abilities but im not goalie and dont know exactly what abilities are making goalies make unreal saves every game multiple times. I think everyone who played last year FCL and other tournaments without abilites realize how bad the gameplay was. Ofc game and abilities are different from last years but it would be same bs if all abilities would be banned. Like I said last year its impossible to find perfect solution for this topic but I feel banning some most op goalies abilities would be best for competitive game.

Now when I have also used "warrior" like many others it seems quite powerful. Like many says, maybe best and fairest way is to ban everything (also for goalies), but please make decision soon so there is time to practise with no x-factors at all. But if you dont ban shooting x-factors so then you cant ban goalie x-factors.

The reason why Lite-Neo teams search with ECLPro is simply because the public matchmaking is so bad you have to dodge non-competitive & bot-filled teams multiple times. That’s on EA, don’t blame the teams for just trying to find a damn game. I represent these teams and I have never found an opponent with ECLLite. How about one password for all competitive practice games, the team who dodges waits a bit before searching again to avoid re-matching. This way we could a) increase matchmaking pool, b) filter the matchmaking to competitive human-filled teams only, and lastly c) teams can dodge if they don’t want to play. Current system is never going to work without mods and who has time for that?

Just want to highlight that I ran @FINSeRe's post through AI to give it an English translation. A great post about the goalie perks and how the perks might be given false credit for saves. Check it out if you previously skipped it due to the language barrier.

How do you fight against a red Warrior on defense? 😆 This is the attacker meta, red abilities should all be banned, many can unlock Quick Release/Second wind/1T, before the season..

"Ban them all" isn't very constructive in my opinion. It can be your genuine opinion, but we would love to hear the thoughts behind it. The plan is not to ban them all, so it would be more helpful to discuss which X-Factors drive you mad and why.

Ban them all

3x pfw meta coming🐐

Voi jehna, fiilis ku Saukkone uus ECL tulee piru jäykkä

I wouldn't mind having atleast actual ECL teams instead of 6 drunk russian guys with 500ms ping

As my colleague wrote above. This is not HUT where it works completely differently and it has a logic like that. Here everyone has the opportunity to play for themselves, their own thoughts, their own fingers, their own decisions in situations. Team game. If you want advantages, you have to play other games. "Advantages" have nothing to look for in CHEL and a lot of people prefer the game without them because they want to play hockey. And with Advantages, it's definitely not hockey