NHL 25 Discussion

[542365]

I only play EASHL, so this is just my opinion after 20 club games.

Better:
Menus(way faster)
Hitting(slightly more difficult to line up, but if you get a good hit on someone they’re out of the play for a bit like they should be)
Skating(slower straight line, faster side to side. They’re going to nerf the Mohawks at some point because you can really get wheeling with them)
One timers(I don’t think they’re OP. They’re a high quality chance like they’re supposed to be)
Scoreboard
Penalties in general(didn’t see a terrible boarding call or any elbowing)
Stick lift is way better. Can actually use it. Saw one penalty with it and the guy was in terrible position to use it.
Don’t get stuck on teammates/opponents. Didn’t think much of that addition when they announced it but it’s been really nice.
Dump ins from the neutral zone are perfect. They land in the corner and actually give you a chance to retrieve it. Dump outs from your own zone are better but not as good as they should be.
Poke check is in a good place. Still useful but not OP.
Endurance/fatigue actually matters a bit.
CPU pass speed. Not perfect, but better.
Can actually call for a cpu shot on PS5. That went away for a year for some unknown reason on ps5 only.
The same:

Pressure system. No reason for it to be in the game as it does practically nothing. Either make it do something or take it out.

CPU shot selection. Still bad

Goalies. Still too good on great chances and not nearly good enough on poor chances.

Pass block still mostly useless.

Hitting someone and the puck just perfectly travels to their next teammate even though it’s not the direction the puck was heading.

Worse:

Puck chop. Slower to activate and doesn’t provide the speed/power it used to.

Game matching. Hopefully it’s just an oversight but currently you can’t match room size, game location, or goalie. A lot of our time was spent backing out of lobbies because we’re at 125 ping or the other team backing out because they have a goalie and we don’t.

Deflections but I’m happy about this. They still go in but not the same frequency at all.

Overall this feels like a really good patch for 24. I found it stupid when people were saying 24 was just 23.5 or something because the two games were drastically different. This is actually 24.5. Lots of small, good tweaks. The game is better, but it’s not worth the upgrade from 24 if you only play casually IMO.

 

[Malkinstheman]

From what I'm seeing online, the changes to franchise are nice but overall the mode still sucks. Menu lag has apparently gotten even worse??

 

[nightonthesun]

From what I'm seeing online, the changes to franchise are nice but overall the mode still sucks. Menu lag has apparently gotten even worse??

Some nice little QOL tweaks but still the same aging and often-meaningless systems. The menus are a lot laggier. Its bad. Player info menus sometimes don’t work.

 

[Malkinstheman]

Some nice little QOL tweaks but still the same aging and often-meaningless systems. The menus are a lot laggier. Its bad. Player info menus sometimes don’t work.

Well that sucks, looking forward to the marginal change they make in 2027

 

[belair]

I only play EASHL, so this is just my opinion after 20 club games.

Better:
Menus(way faster)
Hitting(slightly more difficult to line up, but if you get a good hit on someone they’re out of the play for a bit like they should be)
Skating(slower straight line, faster side to side. They’re going to nerf the Mohawks at some point because you can really get wheeling with them)
One timers(I don’t think they’re OP. They’re a high quality chance like they’re supposed to be)
Scoreboard
Penalties in general(didn’t see a terrible boarding call or any elbowing)
Stick lift is way better. Can actually use it. Saw one penalty with it and the guy was in terrible position to use it.
Don’t get stuck on teammates/opponents. Didn’t think much of that addition when they announced it but it’s been really nice.
Dump ins from the neutral zone are perfect. They land in the corner and actually give you a chance to retrieve it. Dump outs from your own zone are better but not as good as they should be.
Poke check is in a good place. Still useful but not OP.
Endurance/fatigue actually matters a bit.
CPU pass speed. Not perfect, but better.
Can actually call for a cpu shot on PS5. That went away for a year for some unknown reason on ps5 only.
The same:

Pressure system. No reason for it to be in the game as it does practically nothing. Either make it do something or take it out.

CPU shot selection. Still bad

Goalies. Still too good on great chances and not nearly good enough on poor chances.

Pass block still mostly useless.

Hitting someone and the puck just perfectly travels to their next teammate even though it’s not the direction the puck was heading.

Worse:

Puck chop. Slower to activate and doesn’t provide the speed/power it used to.

Game matching. Hopefully it’s just an oversight but currently you can’t match room size, game location, or goalie. A lot of our time was spent backing out of lobbies because we’re at 125 ping or the other team backing out because they have a goalie and we don’t.

Deflections but I’m happy about this. They still go in but not the same frequency at all.

Overall this feels like a really good patch for 24. I found it stupid when people were saying 24 was just 23.5 or something because the two games were drastically different. This is actually 24.5. Lots of small, good tweaks. The game is better, but it’s not worth the upgrade from 24 if you only play casually IMO.

Agree with most of it, except the bold. Pass block is imperative if you want to effectively cover a lane. You generally don't even need to be facing the puck carrier either. It just needs to be timed appropriately.

One of my favorite things over the past few seasons is the implementation of the hip check animation and the ability to move your player laterally to change the angle you close on puck carriers. Combining it with an effective pass block makes you a significantly better defender. You can even time it properly to strip pucks by gaining inside body position.

Hip check and pass block is life.

 

[542365]

Agree with most of it, except the bold. Pass block is imperative if you want to effectively cover a lane. You generally don't even need to be facing the puck carrier either. It just needs to be timed appropriately.

One of my favorite things over the past few seasons is the implementation of the hip check animation and the ability to move your player laterally to change the angle you close on puck carriers. Combining it with an effective pass block makes you a significantly better defender. You can even time it properly to strip pucks by gaining inside body position.

Hip check and pass block is life.

Nah. Still goes through, around, or over the stick. You’re better off just standing in the lane. Even if it does hit the stick the other guy will just pick it up before you finish the animation.

 

[belair]

Nah. Still goes through, around, or over the stick. You’re better off just standing in the lane. Even if it does hit the stick the other guy will just pick it up before you finish the animation.

Well, it's either a ping or a skill issue then.

I've been pretty successful cutting off lanes the past few years, even against some of the better players in WoC. The hipcheck animation specifically tells the game you're anticipating puck pickups. Just standing there is one of the worse things you can do unless your D awareness and puck control stats are jacked.

I will agree that the puck does have a tendency to deflect to another stick though. This game, for whatever reason, hates pucks that bounce into a corner. It always has to be on a stick.

 

[Kupo]

Nah. Still goes through, around, or over the stick. You’re better off just standing in the lane. Even if it does hit the stick the other guy will just pick it up before you finish the animation.

It’s my go to move as a Dman in 3’s to block that back door play. Problem is it goes right past my goalie sometimes.

Played about 25 games so far. The game is pure ass imo. I didn’t think it was possible but EA has yet again managed to produce a shittier game. Again.

The game feels choppy. The hitting is off. You line someone up for a clean hit and I’m not quite sure what the hell happens during contact. The goalie are still dumb as rocks, making unnecessary heroic saves on routine shots, then getting caught out of position. The gameplay feels slower, which doesn’t really bother me too much but I’m not sure why they did that. The menu system is glitchy. My buddy customized his character but for some reason during the game it defaults him to #24 with the last name Jordan.

There are going to be 75 updates in the next few weeks so things will be tweaked. But, this is EA so I’m not expecting much.

 

[belair]

It’s my go to move as a Dman in 3’s to block that back door play. Problem is it goes right past my goalie sometimes.

Played about 25 games so far. The game is pure ass imo. I didn’t think it was possible but EA has yet again managed to produce a shittier game. Again.

The game feels choppy. The hitting is off. You line someone up for a clean hit and I’m not quite sure what the hell happens during contact. The goalie are still dumb as rocks, making unnecessary heroic saves on routine shots, then getting caught out of position. The gameplay feels slower, which doesn’t really bother me too much but I’m not sure why they did that. The menu system is glitchy. My buddy customized his character but for some reason during the game it defaults him to #24 with the last name Jordan.

There are going to be 75 updates in the next few weeks so things will be tweaked. But, this is EA so I’m not expecting much.

That's where I sit. The game in is current form is the beta test. Matchup system does not work.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I'm mainly a GM mode player. And I'm honestly really Liking the new NMC/NTC additions.

 

[Blitzkrug]

I actually don't hate the slower pace but i do hate how defense barely works.

It's been 10 years and we still somehow haven't figured out how to make poke checking work like it did in the 360/PS3 games where you can actually not have it land back on the other guy's stick. Hitting is ass. As kupo said there's way too many interactions where contact is just brushed off or you get some other weird/janky ass animation that makes no sense. the bump hit (up on the stick) or whatever you want to call it may as well not even be in the game with how useless it is currently.

Skill based one timers seem...not as bad as i thought? It does make point shots more dangerous which i'm a fan of since it might finally make the game more variable outside of the same shitty L2 cheese/glitch goal fest it's been for eons now. It's not an automatic goal since you need to actually get your guy open and not have it hit anything on the way through.

I liked a bit, also hated a bit. The inability to match my club size/goalie is a deal breaker for the guys i used to play with so more than likely i won't be picking it up, as even if the game was kinda trash i could at least justify playing with the boys to get my money out of it.

 

[Dolemite]

The absolute worst thing about NHL 25 is that Johnny Gaudreau hasn’t been removed from the game.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

Honest question- has anyone ever 'figured out' scouting? My scouting staff has all A's in their respective regions, and areas of expertise but they still cannot fully uncover a player after scouting them two or three times with Potential and Comparison

I felt like it was so much easier in previous gens up until they changed it in NHL19.

It's easy for me in 20 and 22. I blanket scout individual players until January, then have a look, scout more discriminantly with guys who look like that have a good chance of having good potential, but still hitting a big swath. Then I scout individual players very selectively to reveal potential and skills on players I haven't uncovered that stuff with yet. I pretty much only do "potential and comparison" because skills and strengths/weaknesses often get uncovered in that process for me anyway.

 

[raymond23]

6s is so much better

The animation to move around players was an awesome add. You can actually dangle too. The fact they removed match room size is mind numbing

 

[Blitzkrug]

So for the HUT players, i would recommend waiting until friday so we can see what a non early access reward path looks like.

Spent most of the trial mucking around with HUT just to look at the changes and early returns do not look promising. XP path gives you nothing but base player packs with a power up icon at the end (admittedly not bad.) The wildcard path was a bit better since it gives you 2 80 overall cards, an x-factor at the end and then a bunch of junk in between (oh boy just what i needed, another 76 overall player)

If this is what it's going to look like for the full launch, F2P is essentially dead.

 

[TimeZone]

Played the trial for an hour....game is awful.

Be A Pro untouched again, it's gotten beyond pathetic.

 

[HabsCowboysOwn]

Still no controller vibration on Series X, anyone else?

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

Hold up, theres no match club size or goalie?

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

The absolute worst thing about NHL 25 is that Johnny Gaudreau hasn’t been removed from the game.

Update your roster

 

[itsjustsurvival]

Still no controller vibration on Series X, anyone else?

We noticed on PS5 that the vibration kinda came and went. We’d get it during the music before face off and sometimes during game play but not often.

 

[EdJovanovski]

How did they get Michkov in the game when he's never played a game in any league that's in the game?

 

[EdJovanovski]

Played nearly 10 hours (WOC, Franchise, Be a Pro, Online Versus)

I like the new skating with Mohawks & proper edgework. It's not overpowered at all like some people worried it would be, making it impossible to knock the puck off them or something.

Teammate AI when playing as NHL teams, seems to be improved. I'm noticing my teammates being more assertive and also breaking up the other teams passes.

The player models too skinny almost like they aren't wearing shoulder pads.

They got rid of the 30 second countdown during intermissions of WOC, why??

I like that one timers are less underpowered now, they are one of the highest danger shots in hockey. BUT they should tweak it to make them less powered when taking one from the blueline. I've noticed some really bad point shot one timers going in where Shesterkin sprawling to his chest with nobody screening him, on a shot from the blueline.

Overall I think gameplay has improved. My biggest gripes with the game aren't gameplay, it's the cosmetic things. Not sure if that's a popular opinion as I see most people complain mostly about gameplay and main don't care about graphics and aesthetics.

It's the same player customization engine from like 15 years ago WTF. Still selecting from pre-made faces rather than having sliders for each facial feature in 2024 on a ps5, is INSANE. This is by far my biggest gripe with the game.

The graphics are absolute GARBAGE compared to FC (FIFA). The gap between FC and NHL in graphics is literally bigger than the gap between NHL 24 & NHL 07. Utterly insane. Jerseys still look like paint rather than the texture of a jersey. It's a joke. World of Chel exact same cutscenes and same bullshit from a decade or whenever ago.

Since they finally made some changes to Franchise mode this year though, I'm expecting (maybe I'm too optimistic lol) that next year is Be a Pro that gets changed with overhauled customization, cut scenes, interviews, etc.

 

[Misery74]

Sorry all. Dinosaur chiming in. Hybrid controls? I know it took a while for NHL24.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Just as expected the game is horrendous. Only EA can release a game every year without making it better.

Some of the brain farts:
- Menus slow as f*** again. Even worse than last year.
- In game language is same as your console language. The Swedish translation has either been done by Google Translate or an actual human who has never seen a game of hockey. And you can’t change it.
- The player ratings (HUT) are ridiculous. There are players in SHL and Swiss league with higher rating than actual NHLers.
- Wildcard in HUT is a waste of time.
- 62 bronze player still beats a rested Makar, with 91 skating.
- X-Factor cards you get by completing the challenges can’t be upgraded.
- Retrying a challenge takes you all the way back to the controller select screen instead of just restarting the game.

I could go on but what’s the point. I’m the idiot for buying the game and expecting it to be good.

If you haven’t bought it already, give the money to charity, play on the lottery, go to the strip club or whatever. Just don’t buy it.

 

[Turin]

Have they improved the menu UI at all?

Can you stick check/play defense?