NHL 14 ... as if you even care!

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Scott_Arm

Legend
Details of NHL 14 are being announced on the 15th of April. Here's the first screenshot.

https://twitter.com/EASPORTSNHL/status/322757976286965760/photo/1

I've been hoping EA Sports would jump on the Frostbite train. No way to tell from a screenshot, but I hope that's the way things are going, though I doubt it. That hit looks a lot more realistic and legal than what we've seen. Elbow down and all.

It'll be interesting to see if it ends up being available on the next-gen platforms.
 
Ah, bless. I'm happy for you, anyway. ;) What's different with this one over the others? Does the franchise get gameplay updates, or is it mostly a bit a polish and roster updates?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Ah, bless. I'm happy for you, anyway. ;) What's different with this one over the others? Does the franchise get gameplay updates, or is it mostly a bit a polish and roster updates?
Click to expand...

Usually every 2 years you get more significant updates. The inbetween years tend to be more incremental.

NHL 11 introduced a new physics engine to replace the animation based player collisions of the previous years. There was also a new physics system for the puck. They also added the Ultimate Team mode, which is sort of collectible-card meta-game.

NHL 12 mostly incremental improvements

NHL 13 introduced a new skating engine which created far more realistic and lifelike movement of the players, new AI system, new GM-connected league mode and lots of improvements to the graphics engine



Details of NHL 14 will be released on the 15th. No hints so far. All we have is that screenshot. I'm guessing they're going to make some refinements to the physics of hitting, because NHL 13 seemed to have problems in that regard.


Otherwise I'm expecting this to be an incremental year, but I'm still secretly hoping for Frostbite so they'll be ready going forward to next-gen.
 
Scott_Arm said:
Usually every 2 years you get more significant updates. The inbetween years tend to be more incremental.
Click to expand...
So tick-tock like FIFA, I guess. That NHL13 vid looks pretty photorealistic. Considering the small team size versus other sports like football, the hardware can spend a lot more Plops (flops per pixel). I'd put this one down for close to photorealistic next-gen.

Still won't play it though. :p
 
Shifty Geezer said:
So tick-tock like FIFA, I guess. That NHL13 vid looks pretty photorealistic. Considering the small team size versus other sports like football, the hardware can spend a lot more Plops (flops per pixel). I'd put this one down for close to photorealistic next-gen.

Still won't play it though. :p
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This is the blog post from last year that went into more detail about graphical upgrades.

http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/article/presentation-overhaul-nhl-13

I'm still not sure why they chose to go their own path when Frostbite is now being pushed across more of EA's titles. Battlefield 3 made use of Madden's ANT animation system, which I think is used across all of the sports titles. Maybe there are just too many other tools they're using that have no equivalent in the Frostbite world.
 
Scott, I tried to pre-order but my local GameStop said they could not carry the game because of import tariffs from CAD and it is too costly to store the games below 32 degrees F as directed to prevent the ice from melting.

What a load of bull!
 
Barely any game footage in this one.


So here are the details so far:
http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/article/vision-of-hockey-nhl-14

Fight Night style fighting, with code borrowed from the Fight Night team. Much better than the first person fighting they have now. Physics engine brought over from FIFA for player-to-player contact. FIFA definitely has much more believable contact. The biggest feature, for me, is bringing over the team ranking system from FIFA for online play. Teams will get matched up against similar opponents much more often. Left-stick controlled hitting, sounds like you basically just steer into someone and it'll automatically be a hit. I kind of like that. The right stick hitting was a cool idea, but you're rarely skating one way and want to throw a hit in a totally different direction. In gameplay that never really happens. I'm curious to see how the left-stick quick dekes will work out. I'm assuming this complements or replaces the "loose puck dekes" that were performed with the left bumper and the right stick.
 
I'm a huge hockey fan (or sports fan in general) but I don't play many sports games oddly enough. The last hockey game I played was NHL 94, which many still argue is the best hockey game ever made. Man did I play that game a lot.
 
djskribbles said:
I'm a huge hockey fan (or sports fan in general) but I don't play many sports games oddly enough. The last hockey game I played was NHL 94, which many still argue is the best hockey game ever made. Man did I play that game a lot.
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They've gone the sim route more and more over the last five releases, which is not to everyone's liking.
 
I haven't tried an NHL game for like for ever, but if its anything like FIFA, it has just gotten to complicated with to many buttons and moves and what not for me.

I liked the NHL 3vs3 or what it was called, smaller more accessible game, I think I got most of the trophies on it even.
 
Thanks you Scott for the updates (as always and we DO care :) )...

But, I am mostly interested if they will be able to make the user interface even slower and less responsive than now, they are managing to make it slower every years, but with NHL 13 they reached a level which I forgot and it reminds me of my C 64 days (not the nice memories, mind you)...

I have played 25 seasons in be a GM and always loved being a farm team and developing prospects, for online play I am way to bad (cannot even beat the CPU on the highest difficulty).
 
I CARE!

Thanks for the updates, I lost my copy of '13 somewhere, so me and my Son have been playing '12 for the past few weeks, can't wait to get the new version though, my Habs are gonna get a nice little stats boost!!
 
Video on the newest iteration of the collision physics. Looks a lot better. It demonstrates the issues from last years games and highlights how this year is supposed to be better. Looks like you can hit goalies and hit players into the net.


Some more details in the dev diary
http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/article/nhl14-developer-diary-collision-physics

So, you can still direct hits with the right stick, but if you skate into someone full speed just by using the left stick, it's going to result in a big hit. Any time you skate into someone there will be incidental contact that can make you stumble, fall etc, like in FIFA 13. Penalties should be called more like the real sport, with boarding, charging and late hits called more realistically. They're finally counting weight and momentum in figuring out the impact of a collision (wtf ... they weren't doing this before?!). They've also fixed the hip check, which was totally broken before. You could throw it without moving and just sit and let people skate into you.
 
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