Diamondillium
DO YOU WANT ANTS!?
Made a list somewhere in this thread way long ago, but I feel like going again.
A good majority of these are things that will never happen, but would be just awesome to have. A few of them are things that could very well happen when they make the jump to next-gen, whether that is this year or next.
Graphics:
Goalie Models - They look flat out awkward. Their hips are too wide, even when factoring in the size of equipment. Compare pictures of in-game goalies to real goalies and real goalies actually maintain a shape that looks somewhat human. This may just be an illusion of the terrible jersey qualities on goalies though
Goalie Pads - This one baffles me, usually in video games everything looks shinier than it does in real life. Goalie pads in NHL 13 have 0 shiny level, where in real life they're actually quite shiny. This sounds like an odd thing to care about, but as someone who plays lots of goalie mode, this really bugs me. Also there is sometimes some awkwardness when making a portion white still having a pixellated black outline and such.
Jerseys - When there is any level of folding or bending in the jerseys, the lowness of the quality is incredibly noticable. Hugely noticable on goalies, even when they're just standing straight the jersey looks really morphed and awkward.
Presentation:
Sponsor - Seriously, if they could get like TSN or NBC to get their brand in this game, the feel would be sooooooooooooooo much better. Seeing "EA SPORTS" plastered on EVERY SINGLE SCREEN really breaks any level of immersion you could have.
Announcers - Yeah, don't even need to explain
Twitter - If they could follow Madden on this route and implement Twitter updates and such, that would be amazing.
Crowds - So many things wrong here, and so much potential. First problem is crowds don't get updated year to year, so Oilers for example is still like 90% 2007 jerseys, where in real life almost everyone has the new jerseys. Audio needs an upgrade, and dynamic capacity would be amazing (will cover later).
GM Mode:
Player Progression - This is my biggest gripe with NHL 13. They claimed to have upgraded it greatly, but it just got worse. In each draft there needs to be 1 or 2 people NHL ready off the bat. Players need to reach their max potential much earlier. In NHL games, peak ages are like 27-30. In real NHL, peak ages are like 23-25. They don't regress nearly fast enough either. In NHL 13, regression basically doesn't even exist, and players who are above 80 overall stay pretty much the exact same overall until they retire. Players should see very very mild dropoffs in their late 20s, and serious regression in early/late 30s, perhaps a hidden longevity stat to allow for a few people such as Selanne and Lidstrom.
Trades - Still needs fixing
Waviers - Still needs fixing
Dynamic Ratings - Fifa knows what's up here. If a player is cold, his overall goes down by a few points. If a player is hot, his overall goes up. This makes mid-season line changes actually mean something. In-game would be cool too, as the guy above mentioned about goalies.
Line Editing - The way it is now is just awkward. You should be able to set prebuilt setups and save them, and whenever people return from injuries, instead of going and manually fixing it, you could just revert to prebuilt setup.
Franchise Mode:
Making this it's own section just because there is so much potential with this. It could be part of GM mode or it's own mode really.
Relocation: In the off-season, you should have the option to relocate teams. If I recall correctly, madden manages this.
Finances - There are now rich teams and poor teams, just like real NHL. Teams such as Pheonix will have to make ticket prices really cheap to fill up, whereas Toronto can charge essentially whatever they want.
Market Strength - This one probably wouldn't work, but give ratings for "Market Size", "Hockey Interest" and "Fan Loyalty" for different markets. Perhaps the option to Create a market when creating or relocating teams too. Team performance over a long period of time also would affect "Hockey Interest" while over very very long periods of time the other 2 could change small amounts naturally
Dynamic Attendance - Mentioned before, this would fit perfectly with this mode. A team doing bad in a very strong market would have very little changes in attendance, such as Toronto, but if a team struggles in a weaker market their attendance throughout the season would go down dramatically. If they wanted to go incredibly in-depth they could even factor in the away team fans, but that would be unnecessary.
Non-NHL Frachises - If they went through all the effort with this mode, might as well go through a bit more and add in the option to do franchises in Euro leagues. This would actually take an extreme amount of work though now that I think about it, but would still be cool.
Customization:
Goalie Masks - A paint tool would be just amazing. Lots of games have a paint tool of some sort, so one for masks would be amazing, especially if you could upload designs to some sort of online community.
Goalie Pad Sizes - Skaters are able to change skate lengths and stick orientations that have an effect on their stats, why not goalie pads. Goalies who opt for smaller pads are faster and more agile, where as goalies who opt for bigger pads have more blocking size but are smaller.
Create a Team - Needs a complete overhaul. Give more jersey designs, perhaps a clone of each NHL team's jersey type with color changable. New logos needed, names that match the logo (2 ninja logos, no "Ninjas" team name), sooo many other things. They also need to overhaul the created team arena, create-an-arena would be soooo cool. If they don't even overhaul it, at least change it so EA SPORTS isn't plastered every 5 inches. Can't be too hard to throw the team logo in there.
Gameplay:
Puck Naturalness - NHL players don't have magnets on their sticks that attract pucks, make that more natural and have players fumbling with the puck more. Would give a much more realistic feel.
Goalie - The anticipation in NHL 13 was a step in the right direction, and it's a fun mode to play, but a lot of it is still incredibly clunky. Fix the post hugging and the way they are when they play out of their net for one, and the mode will feel so much better already.
Online:
Not even gonna start here, too many problems to get into.
Could have probably doubled the length of this, but I got lazy.
A good majority of these are things that will never happen, but would be just awesome to have. A few of them are things that could very well happen when they make the jump to next-gen, whether that is this year or next.
Graphics:
Goalie Models - They look flat out awkward. Their hips are too wide, even when factoring in the size of equipment. Compare pictures of in-game goalies to real goalies and real goalies actually maintain a shape that looks somewhat human. This may just be an illusion of the terrible jersey qualities on goalies though
Goalie Pads - This one baffles me, usually in video games everything looks shinier than it does in real life. Goalie pads in NHL 13 have 0 shiny level, where in real life they're actually quite shiny. This sounds like an odd thing to care about, but as someone who plays lots of goalie mode, this really bugs me. Also there is sometimes some awkwardness when making a portion white still having a pixellated black outline and such.
Jerseys - When there is any level of folding or bending in the jerseys, the lowness of the quality is incredibly noticable. Hugely noticable on goalies, even when they're just standing straight the jersey looks really morphed and awkward.
Presentation:
Sponsor - Seriously, if they could get like TSN or NBC to get their brand in this game, the feel would be sooooooooooooooo much better. Seeing "EA SPORTS" plastered on EVERY SINGLE SCREEN really breaks any level of immersion you could have.
Announcers - Yeah, don't even need to explain
Twitter - If they could follow Madden on this route and implement Twitter updates and such, that would be amazing.
Crowds - So many things wrong here, and so much potential. First problem is crowds don't get updated year to year, so Oilers for example is still like 90% 2007 jerseys, where in real life almost everyone has the new jerseys. Audio needs an upgrade, and dynamic capacity would be amazing (will cover later).
GM Mode:
Player Progression - This is my biggest gripe with NHL 13. They claimed to have upgraded it greatly, but it just got worse. In each draft there needs to be 1 or 2 people NHL ready off the bat. Players need to reach their max potential much earlier. In NHL games, peak ages are like 27-30. In real NHL, peak ages are like 23-25. They don't regress nearly fast enough either. In NHL 13, regression basically doesn't even exist, and players who are above 80 overall stay pretty much the exact same overall until they retire. Players should see very very mild dropoffs in their late 20s, and serious regression in early/late 30s, perhaps a hidden longevity stat to allow for a few people such as Selanne and Lidstrom.
Trades - Still needs fixing
Waviers - Still needs fixing
Dynamic Ratings - Fifa knows what's up here. If a player is cold, his overall goes down by a few points. If a player is hot, his overall goes up. This makes mid-season line changes actually mean something. In-game would be cool too, as the guy above mentioned about goalies.
Line Editing - The way it is now is just awkward. You should be able to set prebuilt setups and save them, and whenever people return from injuries, instead of going and manually fixing it, you could just revert to prebuilt setup.
Franchise Mode:
Making this it's own section just because there is so much potential with this. It could be part of GM mode or it's own mode really.
Relocation: In the off-season, you should have the option to relocate teams. If I recall correctly, madden manages this.
Finances - There are now rich teams and poor teams, just like real NHL. Teams such as Pheonix will have to make ticket prices really cheap to fill up, whereas Toronto can charge essentially whatever they want.
Market Strength - This one probably wouldn't work, but give ratings for "Market Size", "Hockey Interest" and "Fan Loyalty" for different markets. Perhaps the option to Create a market when creating or relocating teams too. Team performance over a long period of time also would affect "Hockey Interest" while over very very long periods of time the other 2 could change small amounts naturally
Dynamic Attendance - Mentioned before, this would fit perfectly with this mode. A team doing bad in a very strong market would have very little changes in attendance, such as Toronto, but if a team struggles in a weaker market their attendance throughout the season would go down dramatically. If they wanted to go incredibly in-depth they could even factor in the away team fans, but that would be unnecessary.
Non-NHL Frachises - If they went through all the effort with this mode, might as well go through a bit more and add in the option to do franchises in Euro leagues. This would actually take an extreme amount of work though now that I think about it, but would still be cool.
Customization:
Goalie Masks - A paint tool would be just amazing. Lots of games have a paint tool of some sort, so one for masks would be amazing, especially if you could upload designs to some sort of online community.
Goalie Pad Sizes - Skaters are able to change skate lengths and stick orientations that have an effect on their stats, why not goalie pads. Goalies who opt for smaller pads are faster and more agile, where as goalies who opt for bigger pads have more blocking size but are smaller.
Create a Team - Needs a complete overhaul. Give more jersey designs, perhaps a clone of each NHL team's jersey type with color changable. New logos needed, names that match the logo (2 ninja logos, no "Ninjas" team name), sooo many other things. They also need to overhaul the created team arena, create-an-arena would be soooo cool. If they don't even overhaul it, at least change it so EA SPORTS isn't plastered every 5 inches. Can't be too hard to throw the team logo in there.
Gameplay:
Puck Naturalness - NHL players don't have magnets on their sticks that attract pucks, make that more natural and have players fumbling with the puck more. Would give a much more realistic feel.
Goalie - The anticipation in NHL 13 was a step in the right direction, and it's a fun mode to play, but a lot of it is still incredibly clunky. Fix the post hugging and the way they are when they play out of their net for one, and the mode will feel so much better already.
Online:
Not even gonna start here, too many problems to get into.
Could have probably doubled the length of this, but I got lazy.
