NHL 21: Launch Gameplay Update

Hey NHLGamers, 

NHL 21 is finally upon us, albeit with the caveat that you'll need an EA Play subscription*, but nevertheless, it is here and so let's get straight down to business looking at what has changed!

As you may remember EA was rather tight-lipped about gameplay details regarding NHL 21 from the technical test a while back and asked for people to submit their opinions of the game in order to gain an understanding of what needed to be changed or tweaked. Well, they have seemingly read through a lot of responses and one of the bigger change-logs seen for a while in the NHL series.

Below you will find a general rundown of the 'main' changes (subjective of course) impacting 6v6. After that, the full change-log will be presented. Enjoy.
 

Firstly, it appears that goalies are the ones to receive the most changes which is probably to be expected, thanks to goalies facing one of the biggest overhauls for NHL 21. In this, we see that animation tweaks and fixes make up the lion's share of entries, with there even being new save animations included. 

Outside of goalie changes however there are not that many 'major' changes, instead most entries look to make small-scale tweaks to existing systems. For instance, EA has apparently stopped players randomly launching the puck after picking it up and attempting a pass or shot, indeed the collision system as a whole will supposedly have fewer "phantom" collisions. 

*In order to attain an EA Play subscription, you will need to install the "EA Play Hub" app through the PSN store, from there NHL 21 should be visible as the banner screen. Once you've have clicked on "view game" for NHL 21, you should be prompted to download it assuming you already have a subscription, or asked to subscribe. EA Play is a monthly renewing subscription and as such, if you do not plan on making use of it beyond playing NHL 21, then please remember to cancel this subscription. In addition to the early access, EA Play will also grant you an automatically applied discount of 10% on any preorder of an EA game in the PSN store. 

Quote

 

EA SPORTS NHL Players,

When we invited you to participate in a Closed Technical Test for NHL 21, it was to hear directly from players about the things that they would like to see updated, optimized and tweaked around gameplay. We’ve listened to your feedback and have made improvements from the Technical Test to key areas of gameplay. Please continue to share your feedback with us as we head into launch!

- The EA SPORTS NHL Team

 

General

• Penalty shot logic improvements
• Tuned human controlled offensive zone dump ins to keep the puck in more consistently
• Decreased difficulty of Lacrosse move in all offline modes.  (This tuning lives under tuner 1.01. Players that want to use the unchanged online tuner in offline modes can still roll back and select tuner 1.00)

 

Physics

• Fixed various cases where hugs and pairups were not exiting properly
• Stick height tuning for various player heights for the lacrosse move
• Lacrosse move tuning for small rink variants
• Fixed a few phantom collision cases
• Fixed cases where physics was interrupting faceoffs from actually being won back to their teammates
• Tuned puck velocity after incidental puck on blade collision to help prevent pucks being launched down the ice at unrealistic speeds
• Fixed an issue that caused one-timer shots to be affected by stick on leg contact prior to the shot animation starting

 

Goalies

• Additional save animations for set, butterfly and spread V
• Animation improvements to the old school stand up goalie stances
• Various upper body puck tracking improvements
• Improvements to spread V locomotion and save selection
• Improved responsiveness to attempt new covers when a puck is deflected or has already hit the goalie
• Various other user goalie cover improvements
• Improved AI goalie behavior to fake and lacrosse dekes
• Various user goalie right stick responsiveness and consistency improvements
• Fixed a case where goalies would get stuck in a sweep animation when hit by another player
• AI goalie tuning around 5 hole shots
• Improved AI goalie ability on long unscreened shots that were scoring too often
• Fixed cases where goalies were unable to abort out of long covers if the puck gets deflected or picked up leaving them vulnerable
• Improvements to AI post play behavior to defend against wraparounds
• AI goalie pokecheck tuning
• Goalie poke check tracking improvements
• AI goalie improvements on wraparounds
• Fixed a case where the user goalie could get stuck not taking a new right stick direction if they were shuffling in set
• Various goalie blending improvements from in and out of Spread V
• Controlled save tuning on reaching shots

 

Skating

• Various stick blending improvements when transitioning between skating styles
• Various offplay skating improvements
• Fixed cases where players were pivoting the wrong direction while coming out of a pickup
• Fixed some situations where auto back skate doesn't trigger early enough

 

Shooting

• Fixed a case where one-timers would aim at the ice if a pickup was requested at the same time as a shot
• Fixed a case where spin shots were playing in unintended situations
• Fixed cases where the puck would frequently collide with the players skate while performing a between the legs one-timers
• Improved cases where one-timers were not triggering when intended 
• Various shot release point fixes

 

Pickups

• Various pickup animation improvements
• Various pickup improvements for picking up pucks around the crease, goalie and goal line
  • Logic on the offensive side is intended to prevent pickups that pull the puck back from the goal line when a tap in is all that is wanted
  • Logic on the defensive side is to help the defensive player pick up pucks on/around the goal line to avoid weak own goals
• Reduced the distance for successful skate pickups around the net to reduce kicked in goals offensively and defensively
• Fixed cases when picking up pucks while backskating would sometimes pivot players unintentionally
• Various glove pickup fixes
• Fixed some pickup animations where taller players would unintentionally miss the puck
• Improved bat-down collisions that were missing pucks that should have been knocked down
• Fixed an issue where players could solve pickups while in shot block
• Fixed various cases where pickups would fail when the stick goes through a teammate player
• Fixed an issue where stick on stick collisions during skate pick ups would cause the pickup to fail

 

Passing

• Animation improvements when passing out of a backhand toe drag
• Fixed some cases where passes out of boardplay were not respecting the requested direction
• Pass lead and location tuning

 

Stick Checking

• Fixed a case where players were getting unintended trips while blending out of a poke check or DSS
• Fixed a case where stick on stick collisions were not forcing the puck carrier to drop the puck
• Fixed some cases where players were getting tripped unintentionally from the front
• Various poke check accuracy improvements
• Fixed an issue where players were able to be tripped at the very first frame of the poke check

 

AI

• Improved teammate support when in boardplay
• Fixed cases in  3 on 3 breakouts and rush plays where the defender was too aggressive on more conservative strategies (Standard and Passive)
• Improved cases where strong side wingers during breakouts either left too early or did not support the puck carrier
• Improvements to AI defenders that were getting stuck in gap control for too long
• Improved various cases where AI defenders were getting caught flat footed on the rush
• Various additional rush defense AI and gap control improvements
• Improved F1 logic where they would overcommit to the weak side in the 1-2-2 neutral zone strategies
• Fixed some cases where AI puck carriers would back track with the puck into their own zone
• Fixed some cases where players stopping near the blueline were getting pushed offside by AI players
• Improvements to AI dump retrieval logic
• Improved some cases where weak side defenders would abandon positioning goal side to pressure the puck carrier
• Fixed a case to the 1-3-1 where the AI would break down when the offense transitioned from one side of the ice to the other
• AI tuning in setup and powerplay to be more aggressive at getting the puck to the net
• Tuning for AI pass lane and pass attempt logic
• Tuning for AI shot lane and shot attempt logic

 

Source: EA

 

What does everyone think about these changes? Are there any changes you think that have run under the radar? Let us know below!