It's an absolutely huge frustrating pain in the ass to play against that strategy... but it's also part of the game. You can't reasonably be faulted for using it. It's up to EA to fix it. I'm surprised to hear he quit. Didn't seem like the type to throw a hissy fit over getting beaten... particularly by you; I think we're all pretty well on the same page that it'd be a surprise if you lost a 7 game series to anyone in this league so I'm not sure what exactly he was expecting. If he's not willing to play out the series at least, I think he should get the boot.
That's brutal that he quit. Basically, pokechecking is the only way to separate a player from the puck. It is pretty tought to line up a hit perfectly in this game. Every game mode I play online, pokechecking is the main strategy played by everyone. That is NHL13 for ya.
Slybomb I don't know if you've played Lox but he definitely takes it to another level. Basically he's just really good at it so you can't go anywhere remotely near any of his players or you won't have the puck anymore. There's nothing cheap or problematic about it I don't think, but it is super frustrating. It basically leads to me being annoyed with EA though, not Lox. I guess you could call it a bit of an exploit but that's a stretch, EA could easily have fixed the poke check and hasn't so clearly this is how they intended the game to play.
With that update they did a few weeks ago they said that they tuned it down a bit. They said that the players with high pokecheck attributes would still be good where others would not, but I did not notice any difference with it. I would think they will come out with another patch for that, considering you see people bitching about it everywhere. Has anyone even used the stick lift this season? That was most effective in the past and now it is useless compared to the poke check. Also, where you lay your stick flat on the ice to block a pass, I find in this season, it does not work at all. So...that leaves us with one option - pokecheck. yay!
I can definitely play without the poke check but that would mean that zone entry and passing would be very hard to stop...hitting is pretty difficult so the only other option would be to try and anticipate player movement and physically block shots/passes. Teams with the better players and especially goal scorers would win most of the time as they would be allowed a much easier access to prime shooting positions.
Next season, or if I have time to play on my own to figure it out, I will play without the poke check as much as possible and work on a way to play tight D...no more complaining if I find a way to do it!
With that update they did a few weeks ago they said that they tuned it down a bit. They said that the players with high pokecheck attributes would still be good where others would not, but I did not notice any difference with it. I would think they will come out with another patch for that, considering you see people bitching about it everywhere. Has anyone even used the stick lift this season? That was most effective in the past and now it is useless compared to the poke check. Also, where you lay your stick flat on the ice to block a pass, I find in this season, it does not work at all. So...that leaves us with one option - pokecheck. yay!
I completely agree with you and I made an epic long post on the EA forums complaining about it when the game came out:
Spoiler!
This has become a bit of a thing for me the last little while I've been playing.
Every year, including this one, the NHL iteration EA puts out has some issues. People grumble and raise legitimate gripes in relation to said issues. We all recognize that the game can't be perfect, and it isn't realistic to expect a hockey simulator. It's not even clear that a 100% faithful hockey simulator would be particularly fun to play. Se we just kind of put up with it and accept the game with its flaws, because it's still pretty fun, and it's still a hockey game.
This year is, by and large, similar. We get GM connected, and there are some lag issues in the menus. We still have HUT, but there are a bunch of bugs that arise, and some people gripe (rightly or wrongly) about the training and the lack of careers. EASHL has been changed, and some people are upset about how sluggish their guy starts out and how hard it is to advance. Others have general concerns, like the superhuman goalies stopping cross-creases everywhere. But these gripes are like the gripes every year. They're annoyances that bother people to varying degrees but can be dealt with.
Now, maybe my pet peeve with this year's incarnation is exactly like all of those above. Maybe this just bugs me more than everyone else. But for me, it’s on another level than previous nitpicks about the gameplay. In a nutshell, my problem is this, and I’ll put it in question form:
When was the last time you played a game online where someone’s defensive strategy didn’t consist almost entirely of poke-checking?
Defense is half the game. Or looking at it another way, it’s 100% of the game – either you’re playing defense, or you’re facing the opponent’s defense. And the way poke checking works in this year’s version of the game, it dominates the gameplay. When on the forecheck, the strategy is to try to poke-check the defenders before they can make an outlet pass, or poke-check in time to deflect that outlet pass. When in the neutral zone, you want to force a turnover using the poke-check. Defensively, stand up at the blue line and poke the puck away before they get into the zone. If they do manage to get possession in your end, you guessed it – poke it away and head back up ice.
I do this too. Everyone does. This is simply because the other defensive tools aren’t anywhere near as reliable. I can hit a guy, sure, but I might miss – hitting isn’t as forgiving as the poke-check, because the poke-check covers more ground and has a longer duration (I can still get the puck away on the backswing even if the initial poke misses).
I can stick lift, sure, but my penalty risk is higher, and I really have to be in the right position and at the right angle to do a stick lift. Even if I do it right, the opponent will often – most of the time? – get the puck right back. And most importantly, any situation where a stick lift will work, a poke-check will work at least as effectively.
I can pin a guy to the boards, but then he needs to be near the boards – it’s not even an option most of the time. When it is, I have to guess which way he’s skating correctly. Sometimes the pin works, sometimes it doesn’t. When all the stars align and the pin works, he still has control – he can kick the puck to a teammate. If I poke-check him, he doesn’t have any control over where the puck goes.
I can drop down and try to block the pass – but this only works if he either tries to pass, or tries to stickhandle over my stick. Otherwise – and usually “otherwise” happens, if you’re playing someone with the least bit of wherewithal – going down in the pass block turns you into a pylon, easily skated around. This tool is only useful on an odd-man rush to hopefully force the puck carrier to take the shot, and hope the goalie stops it.
So that about sums it up. Poke check it is. But no worries, right? Poke check works really really well. You don’t have to be that great at it, just have to get your stick in the near vicinity at more or less the appropriate time. The thing is, since it’s the only game in town, people ARE getting good at it. Very good. And when you’re very good at something that’s very effective even at the worst of times, you can pretty much foil the vast majority of offensive strategies without much trouble.
At this point, offense becomes a matter of relative effectiveness. There are a couple of ways of scoring that work better against the poke-check master that everyone’s become than other ways of scoring. Since the poke check is so effective that those other ways are borderline useless, we’ll just have to use the couple of relatively efficient ones. And now, every offensive foray looks largely the same.
Your offense may not work most of the time, but that’s fine – you’ll get the puck back because you’re good at poke-checking too, and you pretty much know what the other guy is going to do. There aren’t that many things he reasonably CAN do in this environment. So the question is, who’s going to mess up and miss that poke-check? Which AI goalie is going to kick out the wrong rebound? Who’s going to get that weird goal that just managed to trickle past the AI keeper for the other team?
It was you? Congratulations! You won a game of NHL 13. Wasn’t that fulfilling and rewarding for you?
The point here should be obvious. Games look more or less the same each time. They’re a contest of whose poke-checking skills are the most advanced. That is not, for me, a whole lot of fun. I could definitely see the issue with 12 and its figure skating deke machines who couldn’t be knocked off the puck for love or money, but at least there was variety. You could play the game that way, but you didn’t have to in order to win.
As long as the mechanics effectively force players to use poke check as their primary defensive tool (an understatement – for a lot of players it’s their ONLY defensive tool), this game is going to get old very quickly. Maybe we’ll still play it, because we’ll all figure, “hey, it’s a hockey game”. But it doesn’t look much like hockey to me right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lox888
I can definitely play without the poke check but that would mean that zone entry and passing would be very hard to stop...hitting is pretty difficult so the only other option would be to try and anticipate player movement and physically block shots/passes.
Yes, very true - I just think they need to balance these things to make the block pass / shot thing more useful, same withs stick lift. Right now if you play without poke check you're deliberately handicapping yourself, so why would you bother? Especially if you're good enough at it that you don't take many penalties. Penalties are supposed to be the main deterrent to using it a lot, but PP's aren't the end of the world anyway even if you take a couple tripping minors and it's not like you don't end up getting called for boarding when you hit or high sticking when you stick lift too.
Quote:
Next season, or if I have time to play on my own to figure it out, I will play without the poke check as much as possible and work on a way to play tight D...no more complaining if I find a way to do it!
I don't think anyone's complaining (besides Gary apparently), you're just doing what the game allows you to do. But I do think what you're talking about is the ideal, because if you change it up the other guy doesn't know whether to play keep-away to avoid the poke check (which makes him an easy target for a hit) or try to skate around you / dodge the hit, which makes it pretty easy to knock the puck away with a poke. But the poke is so overpowered that you're probably still better off just using that 80% of the time or more.
I unfortunately had the pleasure of playing Buffalo 4 times in the season. by the fourth game I started to figure out how to use the players body to defend the poke check because he has little to no hitting on his team (just how his team is built). But that being said you slow down so much in puck protect that it is hard to actually get around him so I still lost every game. There has to be a way around it though...
Buffalo vs Toronto series was attempted but Toronto quit the game and messaged me that I could have the series...
Quick recap Game 1:
Buffalo up 1-0 after 1st period. Buf goes up 2-0 in the 2nd and Toronto texts "Do you ever get tired of just mashing poke check all game?"
I reply that it's not random mashing but positional strategy.
Game resumes and Buf goes up 3-0. Tor takes the puck, shoots it over the glass and quits suddenly.
I receive a text from him:
"Enjoy. You can have the series."
I ask why the quit and receive a response of:
"Can be playing more enjoyable games or leagues where I don't need to mash one button."
I reply that it's stupid to quit because of that...it's an actual strategy I play that makes the poke check effective, not just random constant button mashing. If it was that easy everybody could be doing and winning with it.
No more communication between us.
I have informed Tag of the situation and he wanted me to post on here to see other people's thoughts on this.
I found it unbelievable that he gave up the series after just one game based on his frustrations with my D. Seriously though, I realize the poke check is very effective in the game, but its not random button pushing and actually requires discipline and skill to use properly. I have lost my share of games too and have beaten guys who use it online so I know it can be overcome. Not like I was using some glitch shot from nhl12 where I lit him up for 5 unstoppable goals or anything.
In any case, that's the scoop on the series so far...no response from Gary yet to Tag if he's sticking around or quitting all together.
thats frustrating.... i lost to him in game 7 and am kicking myself for not being around still. To have someone who is still around not want to play it...
__________________ OFFICIAL CP REALTOR & PROPERTY MANAGER
Travis Munroe | Century 21 Elevate | 403.971.4300
Gm 1 - Tor 2 @ Buf 3 OT
Gm 2 - Tor 3 @ Buf 5
Gm 3 - Buf 5 @ Tor 3
Gm 4 - Buf 2 @ Tor 3 OT
Gm 5 - Tor 1 @ Buf 3
Was leading every game by a couple goals before Giroux and company made Fleury look like an ECHL rookie to pull Toronto (CPU) even or within one.
Fleury, who maintained a 0.925 save percentage throughout the regular season ends this round at a sparkling 0.889%...hopefully he pulls it together for the next matchup or Buffalo may be in trouble.
No he didn't play or even respond to Tag or myself so I played the CPU...was much harder than I expected lol.
In the other series I was surprised to see that Philly took out Tampa in 6 games. Philly is a new member of the league so haven't played him before but he must have some skills to have beaten a very good player in Tampa's GM.
Philly is a good positional player with good poke checking, pretty similar to Buffalo. He scored 4 or 5 goals on flips from the blue line, unscreened. Miller let me down pretty bad in the series actually and Rinne was very good. It was a tight series but goaltending was a big decision maker in this one unfortunately. I don't think it will be too much trouble for Buffalo though unless the long dumps keep going in for him because there is really no way to defend when 20 ft shots are beating your goalie almost once a game haha.
Round 2 Update: Blues vs. Oilers
-----------------------------------
Game 3: The series shifts to Edmonton tied 1-1. In the first, the Blues take a bad tripping call and a shot from the point deflects to Steven Stamkos in the slot who fires a wrist shot into the top corner that Thomas doesn't even have time to move on. In the second, the Blues even it up - Tyler Kennedy wins the draw back to Henrik Tallinder who fires a shot on net, and Kennedy tucks in the rebound. The Oil go back on top by one after Tallinder pokes the puck away from Taylor Hall and it slides past Thomas into the Blues net. In the third, Luca Sbisa, under pressure from Ovechkin, drops the puck back into his own end, where Marion Hossa picks it up and tucks it five hole on price to tie the game at two. In overtime, the Blues manage a series of one-timer chances in the slot but are unable to beat Price on any of them. Finally, Hossa gets a rebound with a wide open 6x4... only to see Price dive across the net to stop the unstoppable shot. The play goes down the other end, and the Oilers score to win the game on a weak tip in shot that Thomas said after the game he wished he could have back.
(Editor's note: almost threw my controller at the TV. No way Hossa misses that. Then it goes down to my end, my d-man bounces off his guy and the next half-assed wrist shot gets tipped in. The AI took the game away and gave it to Tagg3r. But that goes both ways some times.)
Game 4: The Blues need a win to avoid going back to St. Louis down two games and facing elimination. Early in the first, Spezza steals the puck and goes 5 hole on price for the 1-0 lead. The Oilers would get a full 2 minutes of 5 on 3 shortly thereafter, but were unable to capitalize after some good penalty killing, largely by Tyler Kennedy. Minutes later, Hossa takes the puck from the corner and weaves his way around 3 Oilers before cutting back and stuffing it shot short side for the 2 zip lead. In the second, Tyler Kennedy and Matt Stajan widen the gap to 4-0. Marc Staal would later add to the score and the rout was on. The final score was 6-0, Thomas making up for his gaffe in game 3 in overtime by posting his second shutout of the series, which is now tied at 2 games apiece.
(Editor's note: see, it DOES go both ways. The game decided that I got whatever I wanted in this one, I couldn't lose. The Staal goal was a backhander from the corner into Price's feet that bounced off him and in, that should tell you what it was like.)
As an added thought, the catch-up logic in this game is just brutal. I expect this one will probably go to 7 games because it gives one player about a 60-40 advantage in manufactured puck luck to make sure the series goes longer, even if it's just making one of the goalies have a terrible game for no apparent reason.
