Player Ability Bans - ECL '25 Season Discussion

[Kenu]

Really enjoying the constructive nature of the posts in recent days. Good conversations - keep it up!

21 hours ago, Jiihooo86 said:

You know what would be fun ? Arrange a poll before every season in every division to decide how to play the season. That way all the teams can vote what to ban in that division for the season. 

If neo division wants to play with nothing banned but lite wants trucu and tipper banned , it doesnt affect other ddivisions way to play 🤷

While I completely understand this suggestion and have thought about it myself, I do think it creates some issues where moving between divisions could be problematic for teams and players. Of course, moving up to a higher level might make you need to study your game and make changes, but if the rules of the games are too different, maybe your playing style from a lower division doesn't apply at all, because you lose or gain some aspects of the game that weren't there before your promotion. This especially applies to the promotion/relegation battle between Pro and Elite.

For this reason, it is much easier to apply the same principles as widely as possible between divisions. That being said, if this was an approach that a clear majority agrees to and wants, of course, it can be discussed. I just don't think it's the right approach for the above-mentioned reasons.

[Ubula]

Just Ban everything from every division simple 👍

[ryba_kit]

The most interesting option would be to allow the use of three abilities, but as a whole for the team. And then the team decides - either three players each ability, or one all three. This would be very similar to a "star" in the team. And another tactical question would appear that the team must solve.

[Ubula]

My opinion If want something new and different every player should be different build, not like now two Puck moving on D two snipers on sides. Would be interesting to see bit More different builds and would Make game Even little different.

[VanhaKorppu]

This was far the best decision since NHL game was invented.

[MorugaScorpion]

Ban all. You know it make sense. 😉

 

[l-Furyan-l]

Yeah, I have to say, after playing quite a few games completely without traits: damn, what an improvement in terms of gameplay!

No more unrealistic pokes, no more unrealistic hits... you actually have to make an effort to play proper defense now. Less relying on ability-driven RNG, more relying on proper body- and stick positioning. 

To me, the game feels a lot better now. Since teams can't line up on the blueline as effectively with the "five-man Stick 'Em-stack" now, the game has opened up as well. Tons of more penalties now as well due to errant pokes, leading to more powerplays and more goals.

My team is trying to combat the increase in penalties by adding a "PIM Tax", might be something others want to try as well? 😁

[Pekedipeks]

On 11.2.2025 at 14.00, tbnantti kirjoitti:

I am 100% in favor of leaving things as they are with only Big Tipper being banned. I fear an XF ban would move the meta back towards forcing, net scrambles and broken plays in front of the net, which is both boring to play and boring to watch. Even with sniper builds on wings.

After practicing few days without abilities, i feel like this is exactly what its doing. So much more boring gameplay imo.

On 11.2.2025 at 17.17, Saviinainen kirjoitti:

Totally agree, lets keep big tipper banned and others like allowed. Tipper is only factor what is really breaking gameplay. Last ECL was good and fun so there shouldn't be any need for changes

+1, For me last seasons ECL had maybe one of the most fun 6s meta ever. No need to change anything
 

[Sokkelo__]

44 minuuttia sitten, Pekedipeks kirjoitti:

After practicing few days without abilities, i feel like this is exactly what its doing. So much more boring gameplay imo.

+1, For me last seasons ECL had maybe one of the most fun 6s meta ever. No need to change anything
 

I agree with this, gameplay without abilities also seems to decrease overall tempo of the game since there is not as much threats😅 Also, one thing I want to mention that I have seen more passes and weak shots straight to logo go in in two days than the whole year combined, no one wants to see those🙄 Lets keep ECL like it was in this winter season when almost no one was complaining about garbage goals for the first time in many years🙏

[Jeerik17]

Without Xfactor abilites Fun 👍

 

[xSauron_96]

I'm going to give my opinion.

First of all, I don't think it will change the difference in skill levels between the players. The only thing it will change is that we won't have a magic Puck-check. Players blowing on us and we're going to lose the puck systematically.

But I've done some tests and I'm clearly going to give my opinion. It's crap. It's boring. So yes, those who don't touch a puck are happy, they take fewer one timers from the blue line. But despite that yesterday, that didn't stop the players I was with from scoring between 7-10 goals a game.

We've been sold a game with ability. Now, as soon as some of them can't win they call BAN thinking that tomorrow they'll be champions when that will never be the case. We just need to BAN the cheated abilities.

The advantage is that with the abilities, at least as soon as we saw the golden one timer we knew we had to defend 100 per cent for backdoor passes. that the players who use brutality in defence should rather play by giving the puck away quickly. Now we want to take everything away and go back to the way we played 10 years ago, it's stupid. I've spent €80 on a game where I'm not allowed to build the way I want to for my style of play... just because there are 10 guys doing nothing but crying.

and let's not forget that in every team there's a boosted player in every match. Yesterday I had an ability that allowed me to shoot very accurately and very powerfully when I was pushed at the moment of a shot. I scored 4 goals like that. So tell me what we're doing? We take the goals away from the guys?

 

I say we take away the next best thing:

Close quarters 

Truculence 

Unstoppable Force

Stick Em Up

Big tipper

[Saviinainen]

10 tuntia sitten, Pekedipeks kirjoitti:

After practicing few days without abilities, i feel like this is exactly what its doing. So much more boring gameplay imo.

+1, For me last seasons ECL had maybe one of the most fun 6s meta ever. No need to change anything
 

This new gameplay without abilities is so boring and it makes game so slow atm. Now nearly everyone is just shooting puck from blueline and make force passes like in older versions. Now when there is no fear about onetimers without traits, defending is mainly looking like this... 

[xSauron_96]

Il y a 1 heure, Saviinainen a dit :

Ce nouveau gameplay sans capacités est tellement ennuyeux et il rend le jeu si lent atm. Maintenant, presque tout le monde tire juste une rondelle à partir de la ligne bleue et fait des passes de force comme dans les anciennes versions. Maintenant, quand il n'y a pas de peur des onetimers sans traits, la défense ressemble principalement à ça...

After its beautiful defense 😂😂

[pappeen-]

The gamplay without traits is so nice! No gold truc for people who can't hit on a regular basis, less Ovechkins on the ice, and less bs close quarters goals, sist men inte minst, less golden stick em up bs aswell. You actually get rewarded for great defense now, haven't enjoyed 6s gameplay in a while, but this is so smooth and nice.

Huge W!

[iSvamp]

3 timmar sedan, Saviinainen säger:

This new gameplay without abilities is so boring and it makes game so slow atm. Now nearly everyone is just shooting puck from blueline and make force passes like in older versions. Now when there is no fear about onetimers without traits, defending is mainly looking like this... 

Sorry. But we just had fun. 

[pappeen-]

Just nu, iSvamp säger:

Sorry. But we just had fun. 

I mean, they had a rough time scoring even tho we didn’t line up infront of the net🤷‍♂️

[iSvamp]

3 minuter sedan, pappeen- säger:

I mean, they had a rough time scoring even tho we didn’t line up infront of the net🤷‍♂️

Fair enough

I have no Idea what happened in that boxplay tho. I took a 2min break and watched Illusion-Nightbot at Twitch. 

Edited Wednesday at 11:08 PM by iSvamp

[txmbo999]

9 tuntia sitten, pappeen- kirjoitti:

The gamplay without traits is so nice! No gold truc for people who can't hit on a regular basis, less Ovechkins on the ice, and less bs close quarters goals, sist men inte minst, less golden stick em up bs aswell. You actually get rewarded for great defense now, haven't enjoyed 6s gameplay in a while, but this is so smooth and nice.

Huge W!

Bad ragebait

[sopulii04]

Having played 10+ games of no abilities gameplay I think there's some upsides, but one major downside with the change. 

I think the gameplay itself is pretty good now, especially because of no golden stick em ups. But that said, I think the core gameplay was already very good, even with abilities.

For me the BIG issue now is the lack of one timer threats. I do see how gold one tee can be considered OP, but the fact that defensive teams had to always defend for it, opened up the offensive gameplay. This I think is a huge L for the gameplay in general, because it makes passing plays for one timers less rewarding while driving people to force plays to the net (which they were already doing even with those one tee options)

I personally now believe the best of both worlds would be achieved by banning only Gold x-factors. Silver abilities don't feel at all gamebreaking, and for example silver one tee would bring back that passing threat when currently it isn't really there... 

[markalla2]

First of all, we need more than a couple of days to draw any conclusions whether the xf ban was good or not. We need a whole tournament of actual competitive gameplay which we're gonna get plenty of in the regional leagues 👏

First impressions though:

-XF abilities clearly didn't boost the player stats only, they opened multiple animations & auto-rewarding nonsense. Meaning not only more accurate shots or faster pokes, but also accurate shots from weird-ass positions and R1-tap pokes towards your blind spots just like that

-The gameplay feels more consistent. Less rng and unrealistic plays (like the shot animations) - just like we anticipated months ago. Whether it's actually a positive or negative thing, we'll see.

-Goalies still float

-Shots in tight don't go in nearly as often if the goalie is well positioned

Personally I'm excited how the regional leagues will turn out. I'm also impressed how @Kenu & the folks made a bold move by banning 'em all. That's what the majority of the community wanted to test. Let's see where things will go from here

[meiha]

My thoughts after the GCL Regular Season.

The way teams play has not changed much, at least not yet. Fast players are still the key factor. Maybe nothing will change that meta ever.

What has changed for me is the feeling of what happens in the game. Events feels to have more natural and skill based reason for why it happens. It can be a mistake or a good play that leads to a goal or something else on the ice. Of course, these things have always been there, but with X-Factor abilities, it often felt like something happened because of that special ability.

There were many different types of goals in these games, both earned and lucky. One-timer is still an effective way to score. Those are just a bit more rare than with x-factors, in a good way.

Overall, the game feels much more natural in a positive way.

[Kenu]

21 hours ago, xSauron_96 said:

and let's not forget that in every team there's a boosted player in every match. Yesterday I had an ability that allowed me to shoot very accurately and very powerfully when I was pushed at the moment of a shot. I scored 4 goals like that. So tell me what we're doing? We take the goals away from the guys?

Thanks for the feedback!

I believe the Grudge Match can now actually be disabled in Private Games, so that shouldn't be an issue anymore.

[Kenu]

It's truly interesting to see how the experiences are very different across the board so far. 

I don't personally feel strongly either way, aside from being heavily disappointed by @Meazza1704 stopping a couple of empty netters I thought I was getting when playing without X-Factors in the GCL. 🤣

With the ECL and its qualifiers coming up very soon (ECL regular-season start of April, Qualifiers a couple of weeks before - more details to be released very soon), we will have to make a decision on this matter within a couple of weeks. If people want to or don't want to ban them all - please write your thoughts in this thread. The more constructive and well-reasoned you write, the easier it is to discuss. Would love for those who are playing in the FCL, GCL, SCL, and WECL (or outside of these National leagues) to give this "ban them all" approach a real chance for the next few days and make your conclusions based on experience from playing for a few days and see how it feels.

Based on the recent messages it appears people seem to be pretty split on banning everything and banning just one or two things. I think it's a good idea to discuss what a happy medium could be that the majority would be happy with - or is there such a compromise available?

[Jnmxxx]

6 minuuttia sitten, Kenu kirjoitti:

It's truly interesting to see how the experiences are very different across the board so far. 

I don't personally feel strongly either way, aside from being heavily disappointed by @Meazza1704 stopping a couple of empty netters I thought I was getting when playing without X-Factors in the GCL. 🤣

With the ECL and its qualifiers coming up very soon (ECL regular-season start of April, Qualifiers a couple of weeks before - more details to be released very soon), we will have to make a decision on this matter within a couple of weeks. If people want to or don't want to ban them all - please write your thoughts in this thread. The more constructive and well-reasoned you write, the easier it is to discuss. Would love for those who are playing in the FCL, GCL, SCL, and WECL (or outside of these National leagues) to give this "ban them all" approach a real chance for the next few days and make your conclusions based on experience from playing for a few days and see how it feels.

Based on the recent messages it appears people seem to be pretty split on banning everything and banning just one or two things. I think it's a good idea to discuss what a happy medium could be that the majority would be happy with - or is there such a compromise available?

Is it totally out of question that different divisions have different rules on the subject?

It seems like majority of ELITE and PRO players are against the bans while lower divisions seem to prefer the bans more.

[Pensasmies]

Why change something that works? Like honestly all of this hassle is so useless, the gameplay is fine as is and banning all perks is the worst option.