EASHL 6s and 3s Poke Checks Poke checks are so weak they barley move the puck it's like some sick joke yet and the same time they are so easily spammable. There absolutely has to be a punishment for such braindead play yet there isn't any, It was only 2 years ago where that was the case with NHL 20 if you where bad at pokechecking you would be in the box for a good chunk of the game. It doesn't help that this shit has aimbot you can literally get away with pokechecking from behind 9 times out of 10 it's so stupid yet as I've said before there are many times where you poke somebody and they get the puck immediately back. Bumps There is no such thing as puck protection in NHL 22 unless you are using unstoppable then maybe 3 times out of 10 you may actually be able to keep the puck, and then someone puts on truculence and that 3 goes to a 0. Bumps being so strong encourages trapping and skillzoning which are both low skill and not good for a fast pace game like hockey. Passing NHL 21's passing was awful so EA decided to make it worse with a feature that no one asked for that makes puck pickups a nightmare, The Solution in 22 is being forced to use one of your X-Factor ability's on magnetic, Bravo EA what a fix. It doesn't help that when you have 2 guys near the same passing lane that it always goes to the further guy. If you are not convinced it's the passing and it's you who is just aiming it poorly play an old gen game, You will quickly realize that EA has dropped the ball on this big time Goalies Finding someone who actually wants to play goalie this year is almost impossible because they made them so bad, You could have perfect positioning and still be easily beat by a shot because it literally goes straight through you because you get a shit animation, If your in position you should make the save. X-factors make this even worse, Heatseeker and One T have caused many goalies to play forward or defense mostly unsuccessfully. Deking The Geniuses at EA decided that instead of having the deking stat effect how fast your dekes are to instead have it effect how often you fail the deke which has led to many never using any of the dekes in this game, It Doesn't help that certain dekes in certain positions just do not work (Through the Legs). You think they would have figured at the simple solution of making the deke stat effect how fast your dekes are but no they haven't. Drop ins Years ago talented players used to play drop ins but nobody good plays them unless it's to fuck around or to bring in a bunch of friends to just completely destroy the competition, No one wants to play because of the absolute morons you get matched with, A good chunk of these players are literally worse then the bots on Rookie it's really bad, The simple of fix of added skill based match making Would do wonders. Unskippable Celebrations Seriously why do we have to watch the players celebrate after they score a goal, This was skippable last year why is this a thing. It may not feel like this is a major thing but after a year of playing those 20 seconds of wasted time really does add up. Minor Stuff/Non EASHL stuff No Soundtrack Customizability Don't like certain song in NHL 22? well your tough shit either turn off the soundtrack or just deal with it. It's crazy that last gen (PS3) not only did you have the ability to turn off certain songs you didn't like but you also had the ability to add your own music to the game. Custom Goal songs, Intro songs, Goal songs for when a star scored it even worked online too. You think after 8 years EA would figure out how to add such a simple yet good feature to their games No Gm Connected Yes it was broken in NHL 14 but this is a feature people have been asking for since NHL 16 and they still haven't delivered Looks like EA doesn't really listen to their fans that don't open hut packs on the daily. The Commentary Sorry James Cybulski but your commentary is on par with me commentating an LG, That's not what you want from NHL Game, Please bring in someone who does this professionally, It's Crazy to think that NHL used to have Doc Emerick, Gary Throne, Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson. Laggy Menus If you played the PS4 Version on a PS4 you may have noticed that the menus are so laggy, This wasn't a problem if you where on the PS5 playing the PS4 version but still your game menus should be quick on all versions you release on all consoles they are available for AI Notoriously bad, VS mode and Hut are basically a game of who can babysit the AI better & who can cheese it better. The AI in this game never hits cuts and often doesn't move once you get into the zone, The AI will literally let you walk in on the Goalie if you O-Zone rag long enough, Doesn't help that in Singleplayer it cheats quite the bit with some of the most asininely awful goals against. Music The Soundtrack this year was better then last years but still miles behind all the soundtracks on oldgen, It seems like EA only wants to have songs from the current year which is stupid, NHL 11 had the Final Countdown which was awesome. Seriously EA give us some songs from the early 2000s/90s or the 80s that would be sick. The Soundtrack is still one that is turned of after about a month. No Authentic Goals Songs EA used to license the real Goal songs for some of the teams in the NHL like Boston's iconic zombie nation goal song. But I guess that minimizes profits because having real life goal songs doesn't increase hut pack buying. Be a pro Be a pro is so boring, The Coach calling you over every 5 seconds is fucking annoying and not a good feature. There is just nothing to do but play boring games against the CPU and slowly upgrade your guy. Feel free to add on to this list as I may have forgotten some things.
Anyone who’s played any amount of 2’s this year will know that the CPU winger is literally superhuman and the CPU dman might be the worst player of all time, for seemingly no reason at all
The stick collision physics are brutal as well. Getting your guys stick stuck in another player for a solid 10 seconds is super annoying.
