NHL 13 Wishlist

[Redstar5]

Customisation! The ability to create and share teams, players, strategies, even competition structure: number of games, number of teams, combination of NHL, AHL, player created whatever. etc would answer so many of the requests listed here.

For example, Pro Evolution Soccer doesn't have FIFA's licenses and yet it doesn't matter because the PES community create option files that allow accurate players and teams to be added. With a PES style editor, KHL, Olympic or any other league currently not licensed could be created and shared.

[actionhank]

I would like them to add some sort of face customization, so we don't have to use the same 10 models with maybe 2 actual skin tones that look right on them.
Also, i want them to get rid of that damn animation where your stupid goalie dives 5 feet out of the net try and cover the puck but misses it 80% of the time, and gets a puck put in the net...

[xayoz306]

For 13, I would love to see some of the following incorporated:

1. Presentation
I don't know if the deal they have with ESPN for other games would impact it, but either get the crew from NBC, or CBC. Get the licensing for the graphics, crawls, and bugs. As well, add in a few more of the intros. It may be they only had time to get those 2 in. Who knows. But the addition of more would be great.

2. Legends
I don't mind having the legends feature, especially in the milestone tracker for my BAP. But, for a defenseman like myself, you really need to get number 4 included in the list. Bobby Orr was the best offensive defenseman in league history, nay, hockey history.

3. Be A GM
Be A GM has come a long way in the past few years. Even the small thing of adding RFA's is leaps and bounds. But a little more depth would be nice. A few years ago, you even had to worry about scheduling practise, which could have a fatigue effect for the next game. Or, it would have a skill boost. Bring that back. I want to be able to send the guys out at 9am for a bag skate if they have a poor showing.

4. TeamBuilder
This is something that a lot of people are looking for. Create A Team is already in, but to move it to TeamBuilder does two things. The coding on disc for create a team is reduced to the coding to grab the team info from the server. This makes room for anything from adding that extra line for AI defensemen to cover the laggard cherry picking on your blue line, to the aforementioned practice scheduling. It also makes some much needed changes to a feature that is getting extremely stale.

5. Advertising
Some people may be a little ticked with the blatant advertising in the game (Be A Pro, brought to you by Verizon Wireless), but I don't mind it. It does reduce the expenses for the company when developing the game. But maybe look at getting some Canadian companies that are large advertisers with the 7 teams north of the border (RONA, Bell Mobility, Rogers, Tim Hortons). Adds a little bit of realism.

6. Penalties/Suspensions
The changes to the rules (41 and 48) should be accurately reflected in the game. Check from behind, nine times out of ten will be called as 5 and a game, with supplementary discipline. If you want to get the suspension lengths right, place a phone call to Brendan Shanahan, and have him suggest something for the game. (1st violation of 41, 3 games, 2nd, 6, 3rd, 10). Just need to make sure that the penalties aren't called too often.

7. Fighting Engine
I know that the fighting engine, and the fact you are only able to have 1 fight at a time, is under the direction of the NHL. I know that for one year of the game, the NHL mandated that there could be no more than 5 fights in a game, so that is understandable. But for scrums after the whistle, if a fight breaks out IRL, there is usually 5 each for fighting, plus 1 or 2 other players will get a minor. Maybe even have the referee hand out dimes for players who keep mucking up after a whistle (I had a ref do that to me in real life once. Scrums after every other whistle in the first period. He yelled at us that next scrum, he would tap someone random on the shoulder, they would get a 10, or a 2. Didn't believe him, until I got 2 for unsportsmanlike, and next whistle, our captain got 10). Back to the point, make the after whistle a little more realistic, and revamp the fighting engine. If you want to include goalies on the scrapping, then they can get a game, and include the 2 for crossing center ice. Small tweaks, that's all.



That's about all that I can think of. This year's game has been pretty bang on.

[JaFFiTh]

I don't know if this is the place to post this but yeah, I've noticed ever since the new fighting engine was created.. no matter what we input for the player, they fight, even when it's supposed to be never on their fighting selection in the Edit Player screen, yet they still fight. Tomas Kaberle probably fought more than rest of my team last year In fact it seems like I fight with players who doesn't even fight IRL more than the actual enforcers. Kills the realism. If they are able to patch it for this year's game.. that'd be awesome!

[Simple Mathematics]

I posted this on the forums before, but I think it also belongs here:

Some ideas that could improve Be a GM:

1. PLEASE give us the option of full control over all 30 teams. That way, if some of the following problems are not fixed, we can at least fix them ourselves! The other 29 teams should still run by themselves, this would just give us the ability to edit all of the teams' lines, stop unrealistic trades from occuring, adjust player attributes mid-franchise, and sign free agents to different teams that should not sit in free agency for an entire year.

2. Create a larger gap in attributes and overalls between superstars, 1st liners, 2nd liners, 3rd liners, 4th liners, AHL players, CHL players, etc. This would help the superstars and good players stand out more. Players are given attributes on a scale of 1-99, but right now it seems like they are on a scale of 50-99. In my opinion, I think superstars' overalls should be in the 90's, 1st liners 83+, 2nd liners 79-83, 3rd liners 75-79, 4th liners in the 70-75, AHL players who are borderline NHL players 65-70, and AHL players 55-65.

3. Make player progression slower. Right now, young players progress too fast and end up becoming great players before the age of 25.

4. Make old players have larger decreases in ratings. Right now, too many old players are remaining great players. There are only a rare few that are Lidstroms.

5. Make the occurence of players developing into good players/superstars more rare. Right now, after a few years into Be a GM, there seems to be a big clutter of players ranked in the mid 80's or higher.

6. Don't let players get "stuck" in free agency who should not be there. Right now, there are still players who are ranked in the mid to low 80's who do not get signed in free agency. I think this has something to do with too many players being ranked too high. If ideas 2-5 are addressed, I think it would help solve this issue.

7. Make the CPU teams play their best players. Right now, CPU teams will play players who are rated lower than some of their scratched players. In some cases, these better players may also get sent down to the AHL. For example, a player ranked 82 overall might be in the AHL while that same team is starting a 74 overall player at the same position.

8. Smarter trade logic. Some unrealistic trades still exist.

9. Real life budgets. (Thanks to bwiggy33) Right now, any team can spend up to the cap limit. This is unrealistic because teams like the New York Islanders, the Phoenix Coyotes, the Colorado Avalanche, and others simply are not given this kind of budget to work with. This could be implemented in Be a GM. In NHL 13, teams should earn bigger or smaller budgets based on their performance. They could tie this in with the owner's goals given to you in the beginning of the season. If you achieve the goal, you get a slightly bigger budget. If you fail to reach the goal, you receive a smaller budget.

[Money99]

1. Make agility mean something. Playing as Crosby last night, I would turn, juke and weave to shake defenders. Later on, I did the same with Michalek and the two felt the exact same.
The 'waterbug' type players need to have much quicker turns and cuts. They should feel a lot lighter compared to regular skaters.
2. Add backwards skating speed attribute. All players are the same speed when moving backwards.
3. Deke speed. Again, good handlers should deke considerbly faster than bad ones.
4. Skating while deking. Right now, the minute you start deking, you stop skating. That's great if you're Hall Gill. But if you're Ovechkin or St.Louis, you shouldn't stop pumping your legs.
Watch either of those players live and you'll see they can skate just as fast with the puck as without. Even while deking back and forth.

All of the above will only help differentiate players even greater.

I'm enjoying NHL12, but I feel the above really needs to be implemented to make it even better.

As far as off-ice, BAP, BeGM and presentation all need to be pumped up 10-fold.
No more excuses EA.

[Vikes1]

Goalie fatigue and injuries in BEAGM. The lack of these two things imo, really hurts the realism in GM mode. To me...goalies will never really be "live", until these to things are added.

I've always missed the magazine cover things in Madden from years ago. It was a great way to keep you in touch with the rest of the league. Vs feeling like your playing your franchise in a vacuum. I'd love to have a team/league page added for '13'. To highlight happenings with your team, and around the NHL.

[derektown]

I am happy with NHL 12 game play perfect: No but better each year to say the least. With that said the presentation needs 100% overhaul from the graphics to the commentators. I have purchased this game for many years now so I am at the point that this is a deal breaker with me if this area is not addressed this next installment I will make the switch to the 2k series basketball not hockey but the game is electric with the presentation please EA sports don't just mail it in this next year you see all the blogs give us what we want whether it is the CBC crews or the NBC crews heck put Don Cherry in their I don't care it was a good run with Gary and Bill but it is time for a change. I'm out

[Raddus]

1. Need to let Be A Pro stats/career carry over to new versions of the game. One year is not enough time to finish a career. It'd be great if when NHL 13 comes out and I'm 2-4 seasons into my BAP, I could import my guy and his career into NHL 13 and continue.

2. 2+ Player BAP and Be A GM. My brother and I even as adults get together a lot to play this, and we've been pining for multiplayer offline modes.

3. Make EASHL Club play more in depth. Let us level up our AI players. At least a little bit. Maybe even let us manage the team fully. Sign AI players and such. Scout, trade, etc.

[gopher_guy]

I wish there was a better way to view all of the players in my organization. I see kids in my organization playing in junior leagues like the OHL. I wish I could view their stats and follow their progress like I can with my AHL team.

It would be cool to be able to "check in" on all my prospects and see how they are progressing, and what kind of numbers they are putting up in their respective leagues.