NHL 18 Beta - Discussion

[vSilenttio]

This topic will be NHLGamer's official feedback/discussion topic for the NHL 18 Beta. Share us your thoughts on the Beta here; what is good, what is bad, what is working and what is not. Is the defensive skill stick working and how about those new dekes? Then I'm hearing that the goaltending is different somehow - sure looks like faster/smoother, what do our goalies think? And then there's this thing called "L1"... How about the fact that we're going to play with the same engine for another year before the Frostbite arrives to NHL gaming? 

If you have videos or pics about some new, weird or cool stuff, please share them here as well! Every opinion and thought will be much appreciated.

Lets get the feedback rolling, peeps!

[chavelski]

I like it! Some sliders of course would need to be adjusted. The L1 right now is ridiculous. And hopefully those between the legs and one handed moves are not gonna be owerpower against the goalies.  And the amount of blue screens, jesus. 

The other thing that could be fixed is the stupid shadow on the jersey preview when starting up a game on EASHL. It just makes everything confusing.

[nylanderi]

Love this game so much, just couple minor things that have to be fixed

[MartindalexC]

The stickhandling makes me feel like I got a lobotomy over the summer.

[l-Furyan-l]

Needs moar L1 

[Supreex]

From a goalies viewpoint it's a disappointment. Goalie movement feels slower and clunkier, I'm having much more trouble making saves where i have to move from side to side quickly. More wonky save animations letting in stupid goals. Overall the goalie gameplay just feels kinda ''off'' compared to 17.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Supreex

[swagx88]

Goalie stuff doesnt change at all, but atleast we get off ridiculous chopping stuff : D way to go!

+ Goalie stickhandling is way more better than 17, Love the play with stick away from crease. <3

Edited July 27, 2017 by swagx88

[Totalii]

There should some way to counter L1 sauce passes. Before puck chopping was way to go, but now it doesnt work anymore. So only way to counter it is just to try stand in front of net and hope for the best.

[Haldeem]

Haven't played many games to make a big assessment, but some things that stood out for me as defender:

- Good improvement in the skating, feels smoother imo. I use the L2 button way to much, but the skater doesn't make those double, triple spinnings anymore.

-That L1 button (way to op, but so i have a chance to get the puck)

- Defensive skill stick looks cool, as you can cover a side in a 1vs2 or 1vs3, not sure if it actually works when the opponent tries to pass through your stick (didn't work yet).

- Was mentioned in another post, but the pokecheck works to good. You get every puck and the chance for a tripping is to low.

-The overall gamespeed is to slow, so is the deking (or am I just to slow in my head?).

-Puck chop is more "realistic", as you can't chop just every puck away that is somewhere on the ice.

[J-Foppa]

3 hours ago, Supreex said:

From a goalies viewpoint it's a disappointment. Goalie movement feels slower and clunkier, I'm having much more trouble making saves where i have to move from side to side quickly. More wonky save animations letting in stupid goals. Overall the goalie gameplay just feels kinda ''off'' compared to 17.

Understand yout point, but imo cross creases have been way too ineffective since NHL12. In 18 it's even more easy for Ds to stop passes, so I'm pretty happy that it actually pays to be able to create those scoring chances

 

[J-Foppa]

1 hour ago, Haldeem said:

Defensive skill stick looks cool, as you can cover a side in a 1vs2 or 1vs3, not sure if it actually works when the opponent tries to pass through your stick (didn't work yet).

I've blocked passes with DSS stick, but it only seem to work when the passing player is not too close but let's say in neutral zone, you can kind of stay in the middle and anticipate a pass from C to winger with the DSS

[Beniittto]

Stickhandling too slow, poke checking too op as you can spam it and not get a penalty, L1 is just ridiculous, intercepting passes and puck pickups are too random, i can stand holding L2 and still R2 passes go through my player and sometimes a player with his back to the puck can intercept a pass with his skate, and the new dekes almost never work, though i like that ea nerfed the puck chop

In general, this game needs a lot of work

Edited July 27, 2017 by Penatski

[vSilenttio]

What do you guys about this? For me it looks like clear save but for some reason, goalie (stand-up) does an weird animation for shot like that from that far away and oops, it's in the net. It's a good shot obviously but still, goals like these shouldn't be allowed if EA wants to take the NHL gaming as an whole to the next level. Obviously it's not the first goal like that where goalie is in there but the shot goes in anyways thanks to some weird animation or then the puck just hits the goalie (save) and after that, bounces in. I get these goals in real life hockey but in versus gaming - hell no. 

Opinions? Bad 'tending or thank you EA? 

nhl18beta_slapshotgoal.mp4

[Mikka]

1 hour ago, vSilenttio said:

What do you guys about this? For me it looks like clear save but for some reason, goalie (stand-up) does an weird animation for shot like that from that far away and oops, it's in the net. It's a good shot obviously but still, goals like these shouldn't be allowed if EA wants to take the NHL gaming as an whole to the next level. Obviously it's not the first goal like that where goalie is in there but the shot goes in anyways thanks to some weird animation or then the puck just hits the goalie (save) and after that, bounces in. I get these goals in real life hockey but in versus gaming - hell no. 

Opinions? Bad 'tending or thank you EA? 

nhl18beta_slapshotgoal.mp4

Some goalie animations just seem to bee straight from this video Even if you look at the stances there's many similar to what they teach here

Edited July 27, 2017 by Ebinmikka31

[l-Furyan-l]

Utter shit.

[iSvamp]

dman thoughts

+ the skating is smooth

+ the poke is retarded

+ I still have more goals then games, which is sad. 

+ better balance at the boards

+ the "L2-strides" is gone 

+ feels like a teamplay-based game

 

- the poke is retarded

- rightstick is slow

- the speed in eashl is way too low

- you still can't change the size of your player, which means that everyone Will play with pwf sooner or later. 

= better than 17, but still many things that needs to be fixed. 

 

 

[vSilenttio]

1 hour ago, iSvamp said:

Wise words of iSvamp 

(yes)

Damn - no need to write my own feedback message as you summed my thoughts up pretty well. Game speed in EASHL is good for me but I get the point there.

There's some fixing needed obviously but as an package I think they can't do better game with this engine. It's fine and all but there's way too many buts to call this (beta) good.

Me and the angry @The_Alpha_Furyan will talk about the Beta in the next episode of ECL Talk which will be out this Sunday.

[Peacerich_se]

Nobody has written anything about the new EASHL-mode "threes" yet so I figured I would give my thoughts about it.

I very much like the idea of it, casual and serious enough at the same time and a mode that I now realize that I´ve been missing.

The arcade mode with a smaller rink and so on I really like, I dont really think its suits EASHL so fair enough the EASHL part is played on a bigger ice but why the hell is it straight off just a copy of 6s, in my opinion this ruins quiet alot.

1. Make the games shorter, way f*cking shorter. 1x7 min or something would be good (and the game clock would be real seconds and not 00-20) If draw after that 00:00-07:00 period include a penalty shootout. The reason for this is that you know pretty much on the spot how long a game will be, nowdays its impossible to know, a game can take anywhere from 20 to like 45 min which imo is way too much. I´d like to see this for 6s as well, a real time game clock with real seconds so that a game is 3 x 5 instead of 3 x 20 with some superseconds and the penalties to be like 40 real seconds or whatever it might be but as it is now its definatly not 2 min :-P

2. Im not a fan of bots so get rid of the powerplay just like in the arcade mode, penalty = penalty shot. If that for some reason doesnt go well with the community make it possible to play 3 on 1 powerplays and if there are new penalties just add the time to the first penalty. Obviously penalties need to be shorter (like 25 sec or something) if the games are shorter but overall I think its better with penalty shots, easier for EA to fix as well.

 

So in short, 1x5,6,7min games, penalties=penalty shot and if draw a 3 vs 3 shootout. 

 

 

[PSchibra]

too many buttons changed up imo + no practice/free skate mode. there isn't a good way to perfect the new dekes and get used to the feel of the controls.

[vSilenttio]

More and more bluescreens (game crashing). Was it EA's official announcement when they said something about game crashing that it's not their fault. Still, somehow - NHL is the only game that keeps crashing for me at least.

[FlyerKungen]

6v6 reflections...

Speed of game and speed of right stick, they are both too slow atm. Poke is too good, you can spam it too much without getting a penalty. Icing calls are kinda broken too, 20% of them fucks up. L1 tho, gimme a break EA, I love it how ridiculous it is.  I miss my spam chop, but for competitive gaming it's better it's gone.

Tbh, I like this Beta. Teamplay owns bigger role now and theres nothing wrong with that, I love passing. But still, I want more weapons for 1v1 situations. Theres lots of great "Skill Hockey" players who have seen so much effort to learn secrets of skill stick. They deserve faster game and faster right stick. I'm not asking to bring back skill stick from NHL 17, I think it's maybe too good. But something little bit faster and better instead of this Beta skill stick. With guys with a wadamoves, we get the individual skillcap higher. That current Beta skill stick just drops it.

With those "little" fixes, NHL 18 can be great teamplay weighted game, without taking a pure skill away from most talented forwards...

[Juizki]

From goalie's perspective: I was really hoping (like I've done for years now) that EA would take this game in the direction where goalies get rewarded really well for being in position (and maybe even knowing when to go into butterfly and when to standup),but in meantime goalies would get punished unforgivenly for being out of position. Instead, we see goalies making huge saves while being out of position, maybe even on the wrong side of the net. In addition, goalies who are squared off to the shooter and actually take away the shot angles are getting beat by snipes, deflections, sloppy ass shots and all that great stuff.

I think it's just those few things EA should do and it'd change the goalies' game dramatically and we could see real difference on the skill level of the goalies. Instead of having goalies that are bad and who are good, we could actually classify goalies horrible, bad, decent, good, incredible.

But as of right now, it's really hard to standout as a goalie in this game and have some recognition unless you play for a top notch team. Plus the goalies' game book is still the same: find that one thing that works and abuse it. Whether it is about sitting in a butterly 24/7 or standing up the whole game, for the past 3-5 NHL games it's been all about finding that one stupid trick to be a top level goalie instead of actually learning how to use your goalie's skill set. And yes goalies do have a skill set, it might be quite limited but it really exists, it's just not needed in the game as it's either about standup only or butterfly only.

[tbnantti]

I've only played the game for three days, EASHL mainly, but I do like the changes they have made. It feels like the "bubble" is gone when you're stickhandling. Last year, if you got behind the defender with the puck, there was no way he could come back from it as you could just protect the puck away from him at a slower speed than the defender was going.

 

The stickhandling is a lot slower, and could maybe be a bit faster, but I don't think it's that bad of a thing if it stays this way. Way less one-man show puck protection non-sense to find an open passing lane. 

Practice mode will definitely come in handy once the full game comes out to memorize the new dekes. 

The way the game plays currently promotes a teamplay oriented approach to the game, especially with the chop being nerfed. You can actually use saucer passes more, especially in the neutral zone, which is good and allows for a more creative approach.

L1 is ridiculous and something has to be done to remedy that. I wonder if it's used by the NA teams, or if it's a EU thing.

Edited July 31, 2017 by tbnantti

[PleeMaker]

38 minutes ago, tbnantti said:

 

L1 is ridiculous and something has to be done to remedy that. I wonder if it's used by the NA teams, or if it's a EU thing.

It is only EU thing

Edited July 31, 2017 by plee999

[Pelle3000]

5 hours ago, plee999 said:

It is only EU thing

Its a soumi thing, like every other glitch since the dawn of time