I want to reach out to all of the goalies in this community to get their opinions for the upcoming game changer event. I want this to be fresh, rather than covering the same old stuff we’ve been saying for the last year. Disclaimer: just because these topics have been discussed, does not mean EA has any intention of putting this in the game. These are things that I’ve collected on my own and from the community. Here is the video version of this post if you are too lazy to read: Things that have already been covered in depth, beaten to death, and presented at the first meeting: Invisible wall around posts/net Post hugging mechanics/post hugging animations Coverups Goalie specific delay in animations/responsiveness of controls Reverse VH Backwards movement (I suggested the crouch stance and double c-cut as a solution) Decrease friction on desperation saves, so that the spread eagle makes you slide backwards towards the posts, etc. Butterfly sitters should be nerfed Plus many more minor concerns (rebounds, self screening on immersive cameras, etc. etc.) This is a video I threw together very quickly on the goalie glitches that are in the game right now: Stuck in middle of net while hugging the post Coming off the post the wrong direction while in VH and NOT in precision movement Goalie moving opposite direction of input (mostly rebounds) Spin/flail is the wrong way, often ends up getting knocked in your own net. Topics for discussion Anything you feel needs to be covered, would love to get a variety of opinions. Expectations vs Reality Example: You hug the post, skater goes short side. Puck finds a hole in your five hole and goes in. You made the correct inputs to make a save, should it still go in? In reality the puck will go in wherever there is space, but in a video game should it if we have most of the position covered? Personally I think it shouldn't result in a goal. In video games we expect our inputs to produce results if they are correct. “EA” goals are goals that go in that are out of our control and a results of something the game doing something to our goalie that we didn’t want to do. Interested to hear skaters opinions on this too. Post patch gameplay Have you noticed an improvement to goalie gameplay post patch? Connection improvement – have you noticed anything different while playing goalie? Control responsiveness etc. Are less passes really going in? Can you chain more saves together in a row? Anything else. Animation Cancellation How much control should we have over cancelling our animations, if any at all? Will full control be too unrealistc/unfair? Camera relative controls This has been discussed but I want to take it further. Goalie controls are camera relative no matter what angle is used. This mean if the puck comes out from the corner, and you hit left, your goalie will move to the top left corner of the crease (on immersive camera angles). requires you to hit DOWN + LEFT to move straight across the crease. Should this be changed? I’ve always thought it should be, especially now with the desperation saves and RS saves. If you go paddle down on the post with puck in the corner, you will shoot off the post when it comes out front without changing direction. Goalie Controls Change pass to R1/RB? Does anyone actually use the t-push? Are you happy with the current control schemes otherwise? Other If you are too deep in your net should your goalie catch it inside of the net for a goal? Finally, I am a part of a skype group chat for goalies. We've discussed ideas and shared our thoughts for a few months together. If you are interested in joining it, add me on skype: jonlol- Just shoot me a message and let me know you want to join it. I would love to bring the top goalies from PS4 and Xbox together and have a discussion.
If I make some sick moves past 5 people, and the goalie is giving me glove high, let me fucking go bar down and celly, instead of this straight into the glove garbage.
Decrease the distance to which a goalie can dive out at players, as well make desperation saves more realistic.
1. Add Tie ups for Dmen in front of the net 2. Take out the auto poke 3. Make goalies be able to do a long stretch pass with R1 so instead of pushing up and missing your target you can saucer pass to the other blue line with your g to send a player on a breakaway 4. BRING BACK GM CONNECTED 5. Make goalies move faster in paddle down animation 6. Make the flying poke check where you do it but your legs kick back into a spread eagle just to make the animation look more realistic and helps goalies out 7. Custom Goalies Mask(Highly unlikely but maybe add the NHL goalies actual mask for each team) 8. In Be a Pro make it Live the Life where we can request trades and all that good stuff 9. Make the AI players smarter 10. On a 2 on 1 if the Dman wants to dive to take away the pass make him dive the right way where his body is lined up to block the pass 11. Give us player heads with sick ass flow coming out of their helmet when we play 12. Custom Jerseys in club 13. Captains and Assistant back in club 14. Make it where as a Bigger dman if you are going up vs a smaller playmaker in the the boards and in front of the net you should be able to bully them and knock them off that puck 15. Make the goalie punch animation knock a player over in front of the net but if they do it like more then once in one play they will get a penalty 16. Allow players to knock people over in front of the net to make it a pain in the ass to screen and play the front MAKE IT HAPPEN JON
The animations for coming off the post imo is too slow and needs a slight increase, sometimes it feels like my goalie is glued to the post. I feel that if i'm in the right position my goalie should make the save, if i'm staring down a shooter from the blue line and he shoots it and i'm positsioned correctly i should save it, not have the puck go five hole. The rebounds sometimes are hit and miss, sometimes my goalie gives up no rebounds other times the puck it's the glove and bounces 30 feet away. Something kinda goalie related, but i think tieups in front of the net by defenseman needs to come back instead of guys standing infront of me uncontested. For the most part i think cover ups are fine, but sometimes when the puck is underneath the goalie he wont cover it no matter how many times i'm pressing the cover button. Also if goalies were faster when leaving and coming back to the crease that could make a better difference is some situations.
Here's What I would like: Reverse VH needs improvements. 1) Be able to push post to post from the Reverse VH position I dont know why its not in the game already. This is tied in but remove the paddle down on one leg move and make it a paddle down full butterfly so it doesnt restrict movement. Especially coming off the post in Reverse VH. And since t pushes are impossible make skating more like 15 so its not hard to move. Example: You hug the post, skater goes short side. Puck finds a hole in your five hole and goes in. You made the correct inputs to make a save, should it still go in? In reality the puck will go in wherever there is space, but in a video game should it if we have most of the position covered? Yes, pucks should still go in as long as you save it %95 plus. It happens in real life when you do everything right and it just squeezes past you. I try not to go nuts in these things as the laundry list is much larger but these are the things id like to see.
Desperation saves need to be more realistic, and when making a save while in the middle of your crease your goalie should not fly sideways to give an open net
Removing the push from R3 would be great. nothing worse than trying to use the right analog to make a save and accidentally pushing in the r3. EA couldn't have picked a worse spot for that.
sometimes i see it, not as much as often but passes directly to us should never go in and should be covered right away, same thing as when that odd faceoff gets won directly to us. And middle butterfly sitters need harsher penalties, they are not playing goalie, they are pylons. I don't know why people play that way, how is sitting in butterfly all game any fun?
I think their should be scorestreaks. Like if you make 8 saves in a row your goalie triples in size or if you get make 2 desperation saves back to back your guy turns into a brick wall for half a period. Just to like reward good play you know?
this might just be me, but when im on the other side of the net and someone is about to shoot I want to see some kind of command to get a last ditch effort to kick my pad over to the other post to try and stop a low shot
Great work with all of that Jon. Those sound like the majority of problems that I've noticed with goalies. Since the patch happened, I've noticed some improvements but in some areas not so much. Like the slow response from goalie on low shots from the point that go straight under the pads is one example I find that shouldn't happen or the passes as well. Another thing is when the goalie lifts their leg automatically on a low shot that they would have stopped had they stayed regular butterfly.
From your video Issue #1 goals going in when making the correct play: A couple days ago I had a similar situation happen to me as to your example. I was hugging the post in VH with the shooter just below the faceoff dot, he shot short side high right where my glove was. As the puck came towards the net my goalie ducked out of the way as if the shot was going low and let it go in top shelf. Issue #2 post patch gameplay Playing goalie feels a lot less consistent now. Connection is better, yes, however my goalie seems to be letting in more garbage goals and not making saves that I would make pre-patch. Goalie seems to be reacting a lot slower to the puck. I've seen a couple instances where puck were passed on net that I stopped that I might not have pre-patch but forwards are still winning faceoffs through my five hole into the net and I will still give up pass goals. It also seems the number of false auto covers leading to five hole goals has increased. Issue #3 Yes we should be able to cancel animations. Issue #4 Camera relative controls I originally brought this issue up to you and am still completely against camera relative controls. Issue #5 Goalie controls I really don't have an issue with goalie controls, I have always held down butterfly when making the save and during cover up so I never find myself accidentally throwing it out. I think it's a habit I developed playing 2k when holding the cover button got a faster whistle so naturally I carried that over to EA. As far as T pushes I only use them to originally set up my angle when players are coming in on the rush through the neutral zone, or if my goalie gets knocked out of the net during a scramble. Issue #6 Deep in net Giving up a goal when playing too deep isn't a bad thing, the problem is when you're in proper position while the puck is around the half boards and the glove animation forces you to make the catch inside the net. Maybe some kind of post awareness code is needed to keep your goalie from making saves in the net but not hindering your ability to make the save.
This is fine in its current state and doesn't need to be addressed, holes need to be there or players will complain about invisible walls in goalies blocking the puck. They also have animations that would further support this save, such as putting your paddle down with the current control configuration it's not wise to do so. In relation to EA goals, what you described is not an EA goal, getting sniped while in position is not an EA goal, it's just a good shot, it has it's place in this game and with shooter accuracy so low, I find it acceptable. EA goals are when your goalie jumps out of the way or no reason, or the puck takes an unrealistic chain of carom's to the net ultimately putting the puck in the net with no input you can think of being able to stop it. These are small glitches in coding that far surpass the goaltending coding and in general needs tweaking from EA on their base code of physics. I have noticed an improvement in the goaltender movement from post to post, in general everything else is the same Control responsiveness is no more responsive than it was before, sometimes even less so. Often you find yourself having to input the same command twice to get a result I.E. Moving to the left or right Less passes are going in, but now the goaltender reacts to any puck that is near the net, often resulting in a save animation that pulls you out of position for the subsequent play resulting in a goal. I preferred the passes going in, over the current state I have not noticed any improvement in "chaining" saves together One improvement I would love to see is the removal of "blind goaltending," (Your goaltender facing one direction while the shot comes from another) even when not in position to make a save or getting beat by a pass, never is a goaltender going to be looking the opposite direction of the puck attempting to make a save. It's one thing to get beat and not react, it's another to attempt to make a glove save when the shot is coming from a quick pass to the stick side of the net, because your goaltender is still facing the passer and the computer is registering the shot location on the glove side of the net. Cancelling animations should be similar to "Seamless puck pickup" if a shot does not reach the goaltender and the puck is subsequently moved in a different direction it should abort the animation and process a new one for the new direction of the shot, or cancel all together if the shot is not on net. Naturally this would take a few iterations of testing to perfect but would be ideal over the current meta of being stuck in a save animation and watching the pass go to the other side of the net. Camera relative controls needs to be an option, just like shooting with camera relative or always up is. Right now it is nearly unserviceable moving from post to post resulting in most goaltenders abandoning post hugs all together because it is too risky. Or it can be removed all together and be switched to always up, as you are by virtue of camera location always facing outward. Most competent goaltenders play the game watching the puck assuming their goaltender is moving in the direction they tell him to inside the crease without looking at their goalie. With Camera relative controls, that learning curve to adjust your stick movement to match the camera angle is the huge determination between a decent goalie and a horrible one. This is an unnecessary learning curve as it has proved challenging enough to make saves when for the most part all you have to do is be in position, with the correction selection of standing or on your knees. Goalie controls overall were decent in recent years up until this one, with the unreliability of non precision movement, they need to remove it from the game all together and always have precision on or a hybrid of the two where your movement is based on your joystick travel, and your goalie never turns its side to the puck when its in the zone. The alternative controls currently were the previous years default controls, and they were ideal. The only major control that needs tweaking is paddle down. Currently when you put your paddle down if you don't hit directly down (Camera relative) on the joystick you will find your goaltender doing a desperate sliding save typically away from the puck, if you're lucky toward it. In it's current state any goaltender who chooses to use paddle down in any situation is not making a wise decision. I am only recently finding out that people still use Skype, I thought that died off nearly 7 years ago. I'll have to recover my account one of these days, but it is like everything else dityboycom
I can't add much to this as you guys have all done a great job of addressing the issues we all deal with. The only one that really bothers me is my goalie seemingly losing the puck when he is in butterfly and the puck is loose in between/ in front of his pads. Having this happen and then every player on the opposition flies in and has a poke at you dislodging the puck and into the net.
They recently put out patch notes saying they fixed players poking the puck through goaltender pads, but I haven't seen this improvement in gameplay.
