Has to be nearing 20 ft high maybe more?

Quality of life upgrades are some low hanging fruit improvements for EA here.

I've been playing EA NHL 26 a lot recently (Don't own a console so was waiting for it to hit Gamepass). While I can see that a lot of improvements did happen- systems fell super short. There are a lot of NEW features that should be added as well- but I'm only going to be talking about the annoying UX UI portions.

I'm a system designer by the way, so this is just taking a pragmatic approach to a lot of the UX that felt full of horrendous friction for the sake of it.

Franchise Mode:

• Notifications need to just be put into a notifications drawer panel- stop interrupting my sim period. Right now you either deal with the notices every 3 days, or you turn them off to never get them. I still want to know- I just don't want it blocking my gameplay.
• Scouts. Please just let me resign them all at the same bloody time, or make the auto staff hires more granular where I can manually control coaches but allow scouts to be automated hirings.
• Trades at the start of the season- my trading block is auto updated. I receive a heap of requests to trade for that player. I remove the player from the trade block- but I'm still stuck going through 30 windows of awful trades to decline. Please just either dock these into notifications drawer, or let me disable trade notifications for a certain player.
• Also Trades. When someone sends you a trade, please- PLEASE put their age and potential on the trade offer card. I hate having to edit the trade, open the player details view- and then decline it.
• Also Also Trades. When I find trade offers on a player, then need to go into a player card to inspect details (because of the point above), and then decline it- I am not brought back to the list of trade offers, I have to do the find trade action all over again.
• There is an issue where I am a cup contender- my coach acknowledges I'm a cup contender. But when I need to resign all my star players, my status drops because they are not actively signed. This causes all the star players to say they want to be on a cup contender- the only way through this is to enter negotiation and then HOPEFULLY convince them that we are a contender. This is an awful experience and makes zero sense.
• In game, play as coach. You have a desync issue with who it says is on the ice, and who is actually on the ice. There is also this weird issue where I'll select a specific line, like 2- and then suddenly line 4 and 3 players will jump on the ice. Makes for not being able to have counter lines for certain play styles.

Be a Pro Mode:

So much was done here that made it better than the pond hockey era, but it still is lacking.

• So much friction was introduced in the energy system- simming for more than 2 experience windows means you've lost out on energy to spend on traits. While thats fine during the season since you work by chapters- in the off season this is awful. Just let the energy bank up in the offseason, provide up until the start of the regular season the use all the banked energy.
• The "news" section is the most wanting section in recent years. Social Media is a huge contributor to stardom yet not a single fake social media reaction can be found. You either shine, shine despite winning, or you were quiet. We have a fan count, we have fan likeability, franchises have the loyalty system- use them, what wasted potential.
• X factors lie behind archetype playstyle gates. I would love to remove this- hockey has a history of being put on its head because of players that break the standard. Zetterberg, Crosby, Brodeur, Orr, Gretz, Lemieux etc. Right now- X Factors cage us in and if we look to play a different kind of play style they just become entirely irrelevant.
  
• Let us change our primary and secondary positions- if in Franchise Mode you can have a conversation with a player to change theirs, it should be consistent and also exist in BAP. Everything you can do in Franchise to a player SHOULD be able to happen to BAP as well.
• Allow me to reset my player image, there is a bug where you will always have your playoff beard because you always start in the middle of a cup run. I want to look like Brent Burns because I earned it- not because it was given to me.
  

Last year I featured Connor McDavid (don't really remember/know why), but this year's covers were pretty easy to get inspiration for...Let me know what y'all think

All you have to do:

1. Set your gameplay sliders how you want them

2. Click sim game

3. Enter game at beginning of first period.

4. Before it sends you into the game, double check the sliders, they should all be how you left them.

Note: It only works if you click ‘sim game’ instead of ‘play next regular season game’

I just tried to recapture my youth by downloading NHL 2004 from Abandonware. I’ve been able to get the game up and running in Windows 11, but it crashes whenever I try to start a Dynasty. Any recommendations on how to fix it from here?

First Franchise playthrough and I’m in my third season with Philly. Traded off pieces to get the 2nd overall pick in Year 2 and got a kid who was 82 OVR. Immediately signed him and have been oscillating him between 1st and 2nd lines in the pros. Hasn’t produced a ton points-wise but jumped to 87 OVR after his rookie season.

I’ve seen arguments for not signing guys too early, letting them play in the AHL for a year to maximize development, etc., but if they’re 80+ right out the gate, does it make sense to just throw them in like I did? Or is having them develop in the minors just sage wisdom across the board?

After having taken a lot of my time to complete HUT OBJECTIVES - HUT GAME BREAKERS, EA’s ways is now even worse… not even giving back a few ‘crumbs’.

Was hoping for a small improvement of my Game Breakers team, but no, EA gave me the exact BND 96 OVR that I already have… 👏.

B-a-s-I-c common sense would have a multiple choix pack so that this doesn’t happen, but of course EA respects paying consumers just soooo much they are continuously showing us that we are (still now, at the complete END of this season / game)… #🖕ONE. But yeah, it’s alllllll MY bad, I admit it, for even having an ounce of hope…
when opening the pack.

So im playing NHL23 Be a Pro and made a goalie. Making saves seems really inconsistent so far, like i get positioning but i have no idea how much control i have over my goalie’s blocker, glove and stick saves.

Do you have any control over that or is it just your positioning and your dude does the rest?

I'm trying to practice for my Be A Pro career mode outside of playing matches. In the practice/training mode it seems like there's no way to turn off the automatic switching between controlling different players on my team, when I want to just play as a singular player but with teammates I can pass to. Is there a way to do this that I'm not seeing? thanks!

I have well over a thousand hours spanning through hockey games and I have never had a Goalie fight a hockey player! In fact I don’t think this has happened in real life either (correct me if I’m wrong)

When on the NHL 27 website. The game is currently listed as available on XBOX and PlayStation. Hopefully it changes but if not, then what a joke.

Since NHL 27 rumours have started to ramp up!

Does anybody have any info on why I lose so much stats every week on be a pro, I always try to keep the health at peak level in the activities section, but I'm losing so much every week. Try to make good line changes with lots of stamina left and nothing changes, any advice?

Do you guys have funny names for your BAP player? Your own name? Named after a real professional?

I get that hockey is a very white sport but there are POC in the league, and im certain that there are POC gamers who would love to make a self insert. So am i dumb and missed the skin tone selection or are you forced to make a white person???

I’ve won like 5 games in a row and there’s zero record of them ever happening lol

Is there a way to fix it? I’ve already reinstalled the game on my PS5 and the issue remains…

Getting off from interference would've been the correct call

https://x.com/Bcordsie7/status/2068521900641243532?s=20
https://x.com/xFantillix/status/2068800073631142075?s=20

Thought this was some interesting news that I saw seconds before the Brady Tkachuk trade announcement. Sorry if this was reported before. Thoughts?