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Janikka

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Posts posted by Janikka

  2. Free Agents EU - PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S

    in European Championship League - PS5 & Xbox Series X|S(6v6)

    Posted

    2 minuuttia sitten, Lamsa kirjoitti: 
    
why you didn't play and compete in Rusty Blades 🤔

    You're 6 games into the season already and I was looking at starting from scratch, as a backup against someone who secured the LD position while I was away from the regular games. Meanwhile, your RD spot is not up for grabs. But this is hardly the thread to debate the topic...

    • Like 6

  4. The Contact Question

    in NHL 25

    Posted

    I saw an NHL 19 video from gzell60 which demonstrated a hockey stick going through an opponent's leg during a poke check. Last night, as I was playing EASHL as goalie, I had a puck rammed through my stick and into the net. I reviewed the replay multiple times, and sure enough: the puck found its way through my stick, a supposedly solid object in the context of the video game.

    But what if we, the players, have it all wrong?

    A few years ago, EA hired a physicist to help out with their puck physics for NHL 15. A Google search revealed the man to be one Michele Petteni. I don't know about you guys, but he seems qualified enough to me. It's probably safe to assume he knew what he was doing. I found no evidence that he's still part of the NHL team, however. In fact, it seems as though NHL 15 was both his video game debut and swan song. Maybe he didn't find the work rewarding enough. Maybe he felt as cheated and disappointed as the rest of us did when we found out NHL 15 was to omit a lot of the goodies such as EASHL. I mean, who would want to do all those calculations for nothing but HUT and a drop-in mode tacked on as damage control? Whatever the case, I would assume his work, or at least some of it, from that time has carried all the way over to NHL 19.

    What prevents an object from passing through another? You'd have to be pretty dense not to know the answer to that one. Density is a measure of the mass of an object relative to its volume. So if an object is small but has high mass, said object is very dense. When two objects meet that are both adequately dense, they will be unable to pass through each other. The air that we breathe is pretty sparse. We are able to cut through it because our bodies are far denser than air. Air is still dense enough to offer us some resistance, of course, which is one of the things hindering our ability to move fast.

    In real hockey you won't see sticks going through legs, or pucks penetrating goalies' sticks. All of those objects are too dense for that to happen. But as we've seen, it's not impossible in NHL 19.

    What if it's all by design?

    There's been plenty of talk on EA's NHL forums about incidental contact. The developers have written that they've tested full-fledged incidental contact and it didn't work too well. It bogged the game down rather than helped it, and the game got less fun.

    Now, you would assume that to not apply to such instances as on gzell's video or in my EASHL game last night. But I have a theory. No, a hypothesis. EA may be ahead of the curve. Maybe they're not only thinking outside the box, but they've taken the box and they've thrown it away. Because when you watch that stick go through that leg, or that puck vanish into that stick only to come out from the other end, one thing feels certain: there truly is no box.

    Or maybe Michele Petteni, bless his heart, was informed his services would not be needed beyond NHL 15 and decided to do a number on our friends at EA as a glorious last stand in the world of video game development. All we know is this: when you launch NHL, you'd do well to leave your conceptions of reality at the door. Because when it comes to reality, EA has a brand of its own.

    • Like 2
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  7. Let's Be Parola

    in European Championship League - PS5 & Xbox Series X|S(6v6)

    Posted · Edited by Janikka

    "Play with your instinct," he would say.

    There I was, in a drop-in game as left winger. I'd like to think I scored some points, but I can't remember for sure. After the game, an invite popped up on my screen. It was for a party chat. It came from one of my random teammates. I joined and said hello. A brief moment of awkward silence was interrupted by a brisk cheery voice. The guy had seen EA advertise my stats during the game. He thought I had racked up an impressive point total.

    That was JParola, whose team I then joined. I ended up playing thousands of games by his side in a defensive partnership that would last years. In our first team together, Parola actually started out on offense. During one particular game he kind of flared about our defense. If memory serves, our RD at the time was on the puck. Instead of making the obvious pass that would have kept our offense going, he chose to shoot the puck and cause a turnover. Parola decided he had seen enough. He said he'd switch to defense for a game to show us how it's done. He thought he'd get right back to being a forward after that, but it was not meant to be. He was far too good down there.

    We always knew each other on the ice, but our approach was different. The more confident Parola trusted his instinct to guide his game. He knew he had a high sense for making the right moves. I tried to analyze every little thing I did and react accordingly.

    In hindsight, Parola's game philosophy makes more sense to me than ever. I have only recently begun to adopt it. There's no point trying to force order into something that's chaotic at its core. In any situation on the ice, you can never control for all the variables. Maybe that's possible in offline with bots but not in 6 vs. 6. That's why it makes sense to react to whatever happens, when it happens. And that's best done by instinct rather than conscious decision. That will always be quicker and more effective.

    I mean, as long as you're good. Like Parola.

    • Like 15
    • Love it! 6

  9. Concealed Diamonds: jyrkkis

    in European Championship League - PS5 & Xbox Series X|S(6v6)

    Posted

    I learned that this player is currently a free agent. My own team has enough defenders but maybe someone else's doesn't. Jyrkkis entered my awareness in 2010. He and his friend TehhAhola joined my EASHL club at the time. A lot of his traits that have carried over to this day were already evident. The 15-year-old kid was a relaxed, even docile person, which I thought a bit unusual for a guy his age. My conception of most teen boys was a petulant and disagreeable guy hopped up on Euroshopper energy drinks. If memory serves, it was only once that I ever really witnessed a truly testy jyrkkis. He'd been assigned the task of babysitting some relative, a little girl I think it was. You know how those really young kids can get, especially if you're just trying to chill with some EASHL, so it was understandable even if out of character for jyrkkis.

    Jyrkkis was always a very mentally predictable guy. He's not stupid, not in the least, but with him you always know what you're going to get. He's never petty and he steers clear of any drama. He has never let ego get in the way. He can be stern when needed, but never in a way that's offensive or annoying to others. All that makes him one of the best team players I've ever encountered.

    It's not just the persona, though, that inspired me to write this and try to convince some good team out there to give jyrkkis a try. He has developed into an excellent player. He's a small name in the community, but I truly believe he's an elite player who belongs in some of the toughest matchups in the ECL. I don't think he's the flashiest defender. That sounds like something you might say about someone who's actually not that good, but that's not the case here. Jyrkkis at his best, which is amazingly often, brings a similar predictability in his game that he does in his character. He's predictably solid. My latest season with him was with Gotham Knights. I'm known to make plenty of thoughtless decisions that cost a penalty or a goal against my team. Countless times jyrkkis was there to patch things up. Like a guardian angel he'd descend upon the play and stop our team from suffering the consequences of my actions. As a defensive partner, you always know what he's up to because he's right where you want him to be.

    While I've focused on defense, jyrkkis's offensive contribution deserves to be considered. "Optimal" is the first word that comes to mind. To be blunt, jyrkkis doesn't really come up with the sort of game changing moves you'll see from the very top-end defenders like vatalisti and such. But he has an excellent knack for getting his team across the offensive blue line and once there, his decisions on the puck are intelligent. I would have to say defense is the standout part of jyrkkis's game but you'll definitely appreciate his offense as well.

    So there you have it. That's jyrkkis, the guy and the player I've had the pleasure of knowing for all these years. Wherever he ends up, I hope to one day see all that ability translate into recognition in the community. Because to me, that's long overdue with this guy.

    • Like 19
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  11. Beta Impressions

    in NHL 25

    Posted · Edited by Janikka

    Let's talk about the NHL 19 beta, shall we?

    After a bit of adjusting I'm liking it. There are some apparent quirks here and there, like the frequent crashes or the far-too-generous three-minute timer of the match-up screen. I'll give EA the benefit of the doubt and pin all that on the fact that it's a beta, though. Some of the animations look a little weird to me, particularly in some of the transitions from one animation to the next. Anyone else notice this?

    Skating feels smoother than it's ever felt on the current gen. Passing feels more fluid than before, too. I like the loadout system, even if the menus are a little confusing at first. I like that defenders can now play with forward builds and vice versa, not being able to do so felt like an artificial restriction anyway. The loadout editor also seems like a good balance between fixed builds and customization.

    The revamped hitting is better and more consistent than before, I think. I like that you can't poke spam, though I'm not sure if the tripping calls aren't a bit too much. Sometimes it seems you do everything right with your poke check and still get called for tripping. That could just be the NHL 18 player in me talking, though. I can still use the poke check consistently without getting penalized if I only do it from the front side of my opponent and from an adequate distance. I wouldn't really mind if this were the case in the final product.

    1vs1vs1 is a pretty fun distraction. So far so good, as long as the retail game is more polished as one would expect.

    • Like 13
    • Love it! 1

  12. Free Agents EU - PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S

    in European Championship League - PS5 & Xbox Series X|S(6v6)

    Posted · Edited by Janikka
    Clarification

    5 tuntia sitten, Juizki kirjoitti:

    Now with the Summer Cup being finished on my part, I should be around quite a lot for potential try-outs.

    I'm a goalie looking for an elite club (or high contender in pro) + a team for eSM as well. Willing to play as a starter, a backup or share games about 50-50 with another goalie (with the better one playing the potential playoff games). Been around for quite a while now, and I've had a privilege to be part of great teams such as Finnish Roosters, Checkmate, Northern Ascendancy and Evolution. I can speak fluent Finnish and English. Will most likely be very active on NHL 19!

    My biggest motivator to play this game series? Winning! Obviously ;)

     

    You can contact me on NHLGamer or on PSN (PSN ID: Juizki).

     

    4 tuntia sitten, TackleControl kirjoitti:

    Free F/D for ECL (elite/pro), can play both handedness. Contact me ps 4 (TackleControl) or here.

    These two are brothers (same mother and father).

    • Like 3

  16. Player Scouting with Janikka

    in European Championship League - PS5 & Xbox Series X|S(6v6)

    Posted

    The idea is to view two consecutive ECL games at a time focusing on a single player and post my analysis on that player’s performance. The current rule of mandatory streaming and saving the streams (in Elite, anyway) is very convenient for this.

    There are countless variables affecting a player’s performance. For example, a player could be having an off night for whatever reason. My tiny sample size means I cannot accurately judge a player’s long-term performance. So while I try to be quite honest in these posts, my opinions are not intended to reflect any final conclusions made of any player. Also, I don’t claim to be an authority on player performance as this is obviously all based on subjective interpretation.

    Expect my first scouting report sometime after tomorrow as ECL officially resumes after the all-star week.

    • Like 21

  19. The Untold Story of a General Manager Trying to Make It Part 2

    in NHL 25

    Posted

    4 hours ago, pnordetun said:

    I only played you guys once, your good. But that possesion play with defenders in own zone is borderline disrespectful i.m.o. making it a "fittspel" for everyone else. and thats in eashl, i can only imagine how your game will look in ecl :)

    Keep it ip guys. 

    Love / daigle 

    #winningisntallitsjustagame/fittspeluknow

    Do you even gamesman80? Chavelski's group play fast coast-to-coast hockey (Havaiji-kiekko) compared to the man with the most patience for puck possession and delayed breakouts (viivelähdöt).

    • Like 8
    • Thanks 1

  20. NHL 18 settings changing on their own

    in NHL 25

    Posted

    I have my pass assistance and auto back skate settings sometimes automatically change to 70-something and off, respectively. I'm sure a lot of you have encountered this same issue. Does anyone know why this happens and how to counter it? It gets kind of annoying when you don't always remember to make sure the settings are right before you go play, and then you're perplexed for a while as you're missing your passes and your L2 doesn't behave as you expect until you realize the settings must have changed on their own again.

    Maybe this has something to do with playing the game on more than one account? I've made a poll to see if this theory holds up!

    • Like 1

  24. Distinct player builds: do we really need them?

    in NHL 25

    Posted

    Just now, Lauri said:

    Could have like it was before without the grind and preset builds have a set value which you add some amount of points for those skills that suit you best. 

    I've actually toyed with this idea in my mind before. While the grind had some appeal to many casual players, I would imagine that it was a necessary chore to most players participating in competitive leagues such as the EHL. On the other hand, I feel like EA didn't fully succeed in making the attribute customization actually matter. I mean, we all ended up maximizing and minimizing pretty much the same attributes based on what was more useful in 6 on 6.

  25. Distinct player builds: do we really need them?

    in NHL 25

    Posted

    This is related to the other player builds thread that I resurrected, but I chose to start a new thread because this isn't really about which player build to pick. Be warned that this is a long post with some conflicting ideas and a stream of consciousness. I tried to formulate it somewhat logically but it may get confusing or contradictory. I was thinking further about how we yearn for more variation in builds actually used by players.

    Player builds come with preset attributes these days. It used to be you'd build your own player, deciding what you needed and didn't need so much. People found what worked best, and we ended up mostly playing with very similar builds. It wasn't so different from now in that regard. The most notable differences came from selecting player size and customizing the skates and sticks. The two-way forward was once the go-to player type as you could maximize the attributes that were the most useful for EASHL. They had an attribute for fighting, for instance. There was really no reason to trade points from anything useful for that. On the other hand, certain attributes that sounded useful didn't seem to have much of an impact on the ice. Beyond the actual customization, there was the grind of acquiring more attribute points to spend, all the way into "Legend 3" where you had the highest amount available.

    I don't miss the customization, and I don't miss the grind. Some feel the former provided more variation in team compositions and the latter a rewarding sense of purpose. From my perspective, the builds used were often hardly distinguishable and the grind was a pointless necessity.

    So preset builds were a great move in my mind. They didn't quite turn out the way I expected, though. EA had the publicly stated idea that these different builds would translate into varying roles on the ice better than the old customization. You know, just like in real hockey where each player is employed in a certain way. Think a line with the classic grinder-playmaker-sniper composition, or an enforcer whose job it is to protect the more skilled players from scary actions like dirty hits or a punch in the face. Real hockey goons are nearly extinct now, but you get the idea. Even before preset builds they tried to direct people into role play with features such as "intimidation" where a player on the receiving end of several crushing hits would get scared of his own shadow and have his attributes nerfed.

    It was a beautiful vision. However, to me it's unnecessary. I like to see variation in roles, sure. But are different builds even required for that? I think not. I think the better route to such variation is a natural one. Consider Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. There's a game I've played a lot to minimal success. In competitive CS, everyone is equal as far as their in-game character yet organized teams have very distinct roles out there. You have the sniper, the entry fragger, the creeper, etc. Granted, some of the variation comes from buying different gear.

    I would contend that we already have this sort of thing in EASHL and especially the ECL. It's just typically not as organized as with professional teams in certain other games. Even if everyone picks the power forward because it's perhaps the strongest build overall, the player roles will not be identical. I'm not just talking positions here, though that's certainly an aspect that emphasizes the varying roles between players. Centers will naturally gravitate toward their idea of what a real hockey center does, and the same applies to all the other positions.

    Beyond that, though, think of the team you currently play for. On the surface we see six players adhering loosely to roles dictated by their chosen positions. Examining their play closer, though, more details in distinct player roles emerge. It's typical to have a go-to player for a specific action. If you need to carry the puck through the opponent's defensive trap and into the offensive zone, a team may have a specialist for that. No words or even conscious agreement is required here. You'll just have one or two guys doing that specific thing far more than anyone else on your team. In the long run, it becomes part of that player's role on the ice game in and game out. Or, just to draw an example off the top of my head, NOS has one defender who's rather fond of dumping the puck in. The team accepts this as part of that player's role on the ice. We aren't getting through the trap right now, but I'm glad we have our designated carrying-the-puck-into-the-zone guy, or our designated dump-in guy, or what have you. Another obvious example would be defensive pairings where one is the more offensive defender and the other stays further back to compensate. That's one of those things where we instinctively emulate real hockey, of course.

    I picked CS:GO as a parallel earlier. It was a convenient choice for me to make my point. What about a game like Dota, though? Could you imagine that with identical builds? And unlike CS, many multiplayer FPS games are designed around varying character abilities. R6: Siege and Overwatch, for example. I can see that a very convincing argument could be made for different player builds in EA Sports NHL.

    And it doesn't need to be an either or, between distinct builds or naturally formed roles. Why not have builds emphasize the differences between players and their roles that already exist? The way to achieve this seems obvious: balance the preset builds better. Have the sacrifices for getting specific strengths truly matter. Make the trade-offs count so that you really need to rely on others to compensate for the innate shortcomings of your build.

    I mean, if that's truly what we want. One might also want to have the absolute best players not be limited by their builds in any way so they can stand out above the rest and do all the things they're good at to the best of their ability, not just the things where their build allows them to excel. But then again, you could argue that clearly specialized builds may actually highlight the skill between players better compared to a more uniform template. Carving out a niche for oneself and truly excelling at it would become a more viable way to the top as those niches would be in high demand from teams looking to fulfill specific needs.

     
    • Like 4
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