- 5 months ago
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GamingTranscript
00:00hey everyone today I'm joined by Tyson Swatsky and David Pritchett from the NHL gameplay team
00:11today we're going to cover some commonly asked questions regarding gameplay starting with a hot
00:16topic from NHL 25 the LT how has that changed in NHL 26 yeah for LT or vision control we didn't
00:24want this massive global change that impacted vision control across the board we really wanted
00:29to focus on the abuse cases that we saw so people using it on every zone entry things that we wanted
00:35to do to address that was for left trigger in general we have a speed cap on it and a speed
00:41penalty so that if you are choosing to use it north just up ice endlessly off the rush that it isn't as
00:47effective as just gating normally so that was one of the key pieces we wanted to address the other
00:52piece was using the pivot override mechanic so where you can use the right stick and pick which way you
00:59want to pivot people were spamming this down the ice and we wanted to add a consecutive penalty there
01:04so that if you do it once you're still rewarded for good timing but the more you use it the more you'll
01:09get more friction applied to you and slow down to address the hip checking feedback we really wanted
01:14to get rid of using it as a four checking tool that was the main factor so the main adjustment that
01:20we did was we're taking and factoring in the power and the outcome of the hit based off of how much the
01:27player needs to turn when you're using it on the four checks skating forward spinning 180 you'll get
01:32penalized power wise quite a bit that allows us to keep the power for situations where you're back
01:38skating and angling players off to deliver hip checks and keep that strong yeah i agree ty and i
01:43also think that the game looks a lot more like real hockey now it was being abused so often that the game
01:50just stopped kind of looking like real hockey so by toning these things down and making them less
01:54effective in certain situations the game now starts to feel a lot more like real hockey and of course
01:59look like real hockey too for addressing reverse hitting the main feedback was just the invulnerability
02:05and how easily you could skate through other players no matter the size difference so for reverse hitters
02:11this time around we'd be able to have players stumble who are doing the reverse hit and absorb some
02:16of the contact but not just cleanly skate through the player as easily as before similar factors
02:22determine like height and weight the relative speed of the players the ratings the timing
02:27it's just not going to be as easy to breeze through as previously the feedback that we got from the
02:32community i mean kind of boils down to there just being too many of them i think there was around 70
02:37x factors originally as a result what happened there is that they just kind of felt watered down it
02:42wasn't super clear what a given x factor did or whether it did anything at all and they certainly
02:46weren't all balanced like there were some that were clearly more impactful to our users like elite
02:52edges or wheels than others right so the first thing that we did was we kind of distilled this
02:57down to the 28 most important x factors that we felt would provide the most impact and we wanted to
03:04make sure that all 28 of these were viable none of them would kind of be left on the sidelines and i
03:08think we achieved that in addition to that you know the other point that i want to make here is
03:12we've definitely simplified kind of the activation scenarios in the game it's much more clear to the
03:17user through things like the ui that we use when an x factor is triggering so that you can learn how
03:23these things actually trigger in the game and how your opponent teams are equipped so that you can
03:28learn how to defend against them better it's going to be much more obvious when these x factors are
03:32triggering in the game and that's super important like we're using our indicators now to actually
03:37communicate what x factor is triggering versus kind of a generic icon but also we have animations
03:42that are very specific to a lot of these x factors as well which kind of just show you through the
03:48body language of the various players that oh you're doing something kind of unique and special here
03:52and this is super helpful not only to be able to see in the moment when a given x factor is triggering
03:57but also to be able to learn how your opponents are equipped and how they're utilizing these x factors
04:02so you can learn how to defend against them with the new x factors we also wanted to make sure that we
04:07still have a variety of x factors for different player types as well so power forwards get their
04:13abilities playmakers snipers defensive and offensive defensemen still have tools available to them and
04:21then goaltenders of course as well player separation was another big piece of feedback we were hearing
04:26from the community and one thing i want to touch on here is that we're using nhl edge data this year
04:32for the very first time and what the nhl edge data is is data that's collected from the players
04:37during every single nhl game using these infrared cameras and these trackers that they have on their
04:43jerseys and we now have access to that data we are able to look at pieces of data for every single
04:48player in the game like shot speed where they are on the ice and most importantly as kind of pertains
04:53to separation their acceleration and their skating speed as well so when you have a player like
04:59conor mcdavid he's now obviously different than a player like you know ryan reeves or somebody like
05:04that no shade intended ryan reeves has a different set of skills but you know where i'm coming from
05:08so nhl edge data is something that we're really excited about it kind of affects a huge part of
05:13the game but definitely it pertains especially to player separation to address the concerns around
05:18goalies getting stuck and locked into saves we allow goalies now to make saves out of saves and
05:24branching into more reactions out of those cases we added in a new reflex style save to help in tight
05:32shots that was one main problem with the goalie not being able to react to shots in tight so we are able
05:38to get out in front of the puck more preemptively in cases and really jam against the post with new jam
05:44saves as well addition to that we added a lot more in our 80 plus animations that we added this year for
05:50goalies more reactions and just more behaviors to pucks just on net or going in the net reactions to
05:57getting scored on that makes goalies much more aware of what's going on on the ice and makes it much
06:03more believable if i can just say uh i remember the moment when carson we were all kind of sitting
06:08around his desk and he had this kind of new tech to show off about the saves uh being made out of saves
06:13and there was a shot on net a slap shot from the point there was a high tip right in front of the net
06:17and the goaltender originally thought that he was going to have to make a glove save and the puck
06:22went low after the tip and he kind of kicked out his left leg to make the save and we all were just
06:27like okay this is a trailer moment this is this changes the game for us obviously one of the big
06:33pieces of feedback that we get from the community every single year is how do we make our game play
06:38more like the real thing how do we make the players on the ice feel more like their respective
06:43real world counterparts we've already talked about the edge data a little bit but do you want to
06:47talk about tie the attributes the tendencies yeah for tendencies we basically look at players
06:53archetype x factors and their attributes and weigh in tendencies and their player behaviors based off
07:00of those three things so you'll see players who are more physical lay the body more players who are
07:06more stick check oriented really look to deliver stick checks off the rush and kind of angle players out
07:13really trying to nail a lot of the player specific differentiation so you'll see there's like
07:19makar kind of take the puck to the middle off of face off with their elite edges looking for shots on net
07:25you'll see dry settle down low looking for the sharp angle shots ovechkin with one timer in their
07:31particular top circles area but really trying to deliver both authenticity and have the players
07:38utilize their skill sets and strengths thanks for that guys i'm excited to see how all these changes
07:43come to life in nhl 26 we're just a few days away any final thoughts before we wrap this thing up and
07:49i just want to say thank you to everybody that's been providing kind of the feedback we are absolutely
07:53listening and we know that there's still a lot that we weren't able to answer right yet but we are
07:58listening to everything so really appreciate all of the feedback keep the conversation going and we're
08:03going to see you september 5th
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