The Dismantling of the Sabers
William Abner
I just played a handful of games Anaheim and Buffalo. I took Anaheim
and the CPU had Buffalo on All Star.
I figured this would be another good test of two teams with very
different styles.
I destroyed the Sabers in 4 straight. The reason? SPEED.
Anaheim can FLY and the Sabers--can't. I was a tad bit worried after
playing the Panthers/Kings series that a really fast team would have
an unfair advantage because the defensive positioning isn't too hot.
Florida and LA are pretty evenly matched speed wise, these two teams
are not. BUT..Buffalo is a few points higher rating wise that Anaheim.
They hold a huge advanteg in Checking and Goal Keeping and General
Defense. It was hard to notice any of that, though.
Teemu and Kayria were too much for the Sabers. Usually games would end
with me getting about 40-50 shots and Buffalo would tally about 20-25.
Every game. Having a lot of team speed is never a bad thing, but the
Sabers shouldn't get manhandled like that. And I never felt any of the
urgency I felt in the Panthers/Kings series.
Another thing I noticed, if you lower the player boosts for both teams
all the way to the left (leaving no player boost) the games were even
more of a mismatch. The reason? If you click each team's player boost,
say, three times from the left, in reality the CPU team has a slight
boost edge. You can view this once in the game by selecting a
particular team's options then team options. The player boost for
Buffalo was a wee bit higher than Anaheim when the boost was active.
Really weird. I'll experiment a bit more with that later today.
Gizzo and Brett--have you played with Anaheim yet? How did these guys
ever lose a game last year? ;)
--
William Abner
wab...@cdmag.com
Associate Editor
Computer Games Magazine
www.cdmag.com
Brett Todd
kidding? ;-)
That's disappointing to hear, particularly since I felt that speed had been
negated a bit this year by the developers making it easier for such quick
players to lose the puck. When playing with the initial quick-skating Leafs,
I found that a lot of this speed advantage was taken away because even the
slightest bump seemed to knock most players off the puck. Even a big guy
like Sundin had trouble. But I'm not surprised that speed is still a pretty
major issue in the game, overall. And in the game's defense, it would be
tough to argue that Anaheim should be a pushover. I mean, the team pretty
much does nothing in the real world but put people to sleep, but on paper --
great goaltending, two elite forwards, and a fairly semi sort of half-decent
supporting cast -- this is a really good club.
By the way, the first thing I did with the gold is turn up Fatigue at least
one setting if not two to make sure that players tire faster. On the
default, you can get away with playing two lines for entire 10-minute period
games. I would think that this would make a difference for some of the
game's speed demons, as they'll wear out pretty fast in the later stages of
each period and each game. That means that team depth becomes more
important, and that would be the downfall of one-line teams like the Ducks.
Theoretically. I'll check this out, Bill.
Brett
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c7b2d6...@news.fnsi.net...
Gizzo
waterbugs. They were tough to keep up to but the fatigue bar is good, like
Brett said. I have it up a notch and it tires both teams faster. I have the
shot accuracy 2 from the left and the game speed down a notch from default.
My last few games in my season have been excellent. Good competition, a good
flow to the game and no floater goals.
One thing about the Bruins ... John Grahame (the back up stopper) is rated
84 and Dafoe is 78. Hmmmmm. I like Grahame alot and he'll be good but not
rated over Dafoe ... just yet.
I found that you really have to take advantage of the momentum meter when
it's in your favor and play solid "D" when it's in the other teams' favor.
Gizzo
www.sportplanet.com
Brett Todd <bt...@recorder.ca> wrote in message
news:JaPx5.83864$UO.2...@news22.bellglobal.com...
William Abner
wrote:
>Play a game with the enemy of all things Original Six? The Ducks? You
>kidding? ;-)
>
>That's disappointing to hear, particularly since I felt that speed had been
>negated a bit this year by the developers making it easier for such quick
>players to lose the puck. When playing with the initial quick-skating Leafs,
>I found that a lot of this speed advantage was taken away because even the
>slightest bump seemed to knock most players off the puck. Even a big guy
>like Sundin had trouble. But I'm not surprised that speed is still a pretty
>major issue in the game, overall. And in the game's defense, it would be
>tough to argue that Anaheim should be a pushover. I mean, the team pretty
>much does nothing in the real world but put people to sleep, but on paper --
>great goaltending, two elite forwards, and a fairly semi sort of half-decent
>supporting cast -- this is a really good club.
Oh, the Ducks shouldn't be a pushover, especially for Buffalo. They
are very close (ratings wise). It's just the ease at which I won that
was surprising. Buffalo has major trouble mounting an offense of any
kind against Anaheim. As for losing the puck, The Ducks have it glued
to their sticks unless they get checked really hard. I'll lose the
puck on a deke every so often but for the most part they rarely lose
the ouck due to a slight bump.
>By the way, the first thing I did with the gold is turn up Fatigue at least
>one setting if not two to make sure that players tire faster. On the
>default, you can get away with playing two lines for entire 10-minute period
>games. I would think that this would make a difference for some of the
>game's speed demons, as they'll wear out pretty fast in the later stages of
>each period and each game. That means that team depth becomes more
>important, and that would be the downfall of one-line teams like the Ducks.
>Theoretically. I'll check this out, Bill.
Gizzo suggested this, too. I just forgot about trying that. Sounds
like a good idea, I'll give it a whirl. Line 1 gets a lot of ice time
come to think of it..I see Kayria damn near every other shift. That
may help a lot.
Sepen
Hopefully the fatigue slider is the ticket?
Sam
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c7c344...@news.fnsi.net...
William Abner
wrote:
>Oh no...I am a Sabres fan..and have always played as them in every series.
>Hopefully the fatigue slider is the ticket?
>
>Sam
Ugh. First off sorry for the misspelling. I blame a lack of sleep. <g>
I think it is, Sam. I played another Ducks/Sabres game with the
fatigue raised one and it was indeed a better game; I'm also raising
penalties a bit. 3-2 Ducks. But it was a much better game. I noticed
that a lot of good players are on the 4th line and/or scratched. That
changed things a bit, too. :)
Cory Muzyka
That might be a good way to check if they're getting too much ice-time or
not, and if the fatigue slider needs further adjustment.
William Abner <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c7df32...@news.fnsi.net...
William Abner
wrote:
>Bill - how many minutes per game are Kariya and Selanne getting on the ice?
>That might be a good way to check if they're getting too much ice-time or
>not, and if the fatigue slider needs further adjustment.
With fatigue bootsed 1, they get about 22-25 mins.
Bill Harris
As a public service <g>, it would be highly appreciated if you "masters of
the gold master" would put together your combined recommended slider
changes. It sounds like you've saved us all about a month of experimenting
with the damn things. On another note, your reviews have actually made me
highly look forward to an EA game. That's a scary thought...
thanks,
b
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c804b6...@news.fnsi.net...
William Abner
<billh...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>Bill, Brett, and Gizzo,
>As a public service <g>, it would be highly appreciated if you "masters of
>the gold master" would put together your combined recommended slider
>changes. It sounds like you've saved us all about a month of experimenting
>with the damn things. On another note, your reviews have actually made me
>highly look forward to an EA game. That's a scary thought...
>thanks,
>b
OH, you say that NOW...lol
I'm waiting for that first email that says, "You're an EA shill! This
game sucks!" Actually I've already gotten a few of those from people
that have "somehow" played the demo. ;)
Anyway I solved the Buffalo problem. Just finished playing a game
(Mary hates it when I have a new toy..<g>) Buffalo @ Anaheim (I think
I have played these two teams more than LA/Fla!). Anyway it went into
OT and I won 4-3. I had a whopping 29 shots and Buffalo had 27. Was a
very, very good game all around. Obviously I can get off more shots if
I want but I'm trying to shoot when I think I can score and not just
fire it off the moment that I can.
Penalty mins look perfect (15 for Buff, 11 for Ana)
I scored on 2 powerplays. Woo.
Buffalo's PP sucks. Never a real threat.
Peca gets about 25 mins on the ice. No one gets 30. And a lot of guys
were doing that until I raised fatigue. That has really helped.
The defensive AI still needs help in some regards but it's a lot more
aggressive on the boards this year, it's a bit (actually quite a bit)
tougher to go end to end.
The sliders I am using for the games with these two teams are:
Gameplay Speed: Unchanged
Player boost 5 from left
Speed Burst lowered by 2 (% and length)
Penalties raised by two (more than halfway across the bar)
Fatigue up 1
Shot Accuracy 2 from left
Pass Acc off
Pass Int. up 2
Pass speed down 1
Aggressiveness up 2
Hit power unchanged (I think..I'll have to check)
Also, I'm ONLY using the big hit button with guys that are labeled Big
Hitters (A hammer appears under thwir name). Everyone else I just try
a regular bodycheck. Selanne isn't trying to take a guy's head off. ;)
Now, this is different than the sliders I used for the Kings/Panthers
series. This game is a lot faster (but not too fast IMO) and the CPU
seems to play a lot better. With the old slider set Buffalo had NO
chance to beat Anaheim. A few player boost bumps really woke them up.
Before my wife manually shuts down my PC for the night I want to tell
everyone that I saw a very unique goal in the OT game. Never saw this
before in an NHL game. Cullen was at the point on a PP and fired a
shot that deflected off of Hasek's pad and flipped into the net. It
was damn cool. Hasek even dove backwards to try to catch the puck to
no avail. Anyone see that last year?
Brett Todd
then glance behind them, though. Don't remember that from past years.
Brett
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
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hido
rockZ!
highdorulez!
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c8142d...@news.fnsi.net...
Jonathan Diehl
down some and we'll have 2 EA Sports games to nit-pick.
"hido" <hi...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:8q9g7q$8fl$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
John Rodriguez
Bill,
here's my question to you and it's completely theoritical. Okay you've been
playing the game and you seemed to "tuned" it to a more realistic game. Not
a all out sim but closer. The only factor to that is that's its your idea of
hockey which in all fairness will be different from another guys who plays.
But my point is why does EA seem to be so off with their sliders. I am
seeing alot of this with the sliders in most of the EA games. Instead of a
game being statistically neutral and the user changing the game to
accomadate his play. They are usually off a bit and the user changing them.
I know they are trying to make that game fun for the majority but they are
blatently off.
I just wanted to see what your opinion was.
--
John Rodriguez
Wewp! Sports
http://www.wewp.com/sports/
Bill Harris
does it take (real-time) to play a game?
thanks,
b
"William Abner" <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
news:39c8142d...@news.fnsi.net...
William Abner
Are you asking why most of the games play a bit weird when everything
is set to the default slide bar positions? If that's the question I
think it has to do with EA'a target audience and the lack of a true
(or even good) physics model. Most games that come out of EA are
geared towards ease of play. And as a result the stuff we see on the
field (court, pitch, whatever) doesn't resemble the real thing all
that much. I'm of the opinion that NBA Live, FIFA, NHL, and Madden all
need brand new engines starting next year. NHL 2001, IMO, gets as much
out of that engine as one can expect. Madden 2001 is the most obvious
example--if EVER there was a game that needed a brand new motor it's
Madden PC. If EA would incporate physics based engines in its games I
think it would help. I have no idea what the outcome of a pass play in
Madden is based upon, but it's nothing Newtonian that's for damn sure.
The reason why we have to tweak the sliders as much as we do is due to
our desire (well, my desire at least) to make the game engine play
differently than it was built and designed. We're faking it, in a
sense. But the illusion can succeed (NHL 2001) or not (Madden 2001).
The sliders in NHL, for example, can force the game to behave a bit
more realistically but they can't change the fact that if we play on
20 min periods that each team will shoot roughly 80-90 SOG a game.
William Abner
<billh...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>Thanks, Bill, all written down and stored on clay tablets <bg>. How long
>does it take (real-time) to play a game?
>thanks,
>b
10 min periods about 30-35 mins.
Cory Muzyka
* Cory Muzyka
* Vancouver, BC, Canada
William Abner <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
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Tron
runs the clock faster.
--
Tron
--
"It's nice to be liked, but it's better by far to get paid" - Liz Phair
"Cory Muzyka" <jun...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:8qgo8f$57u$1...@news.vancouver.zadall.com...
> You play 10 minute periods right? That's 22-25 minutes out of 30?
>
> * Cory Muzyka
> * Vancouver, BC, Canada
> William Abner <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
> news:39c804b6...@news.fnsi.net...
Cory Muzyka
you play only 30... doh. That's pretty good, any more than 25 though and
it's too much ice time.
* Cory Muzyka
* Vancouver, BC, Canada
Cory Muzyka <jun...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:8qgo8f$57u$1...@news.vancouver.zadall.com...
> You play 10 minute periods right? That's 22-25 minutes out of 30?
>
> * Cory Muzyka
> * Vancouver, BC, Canada
> William Abner <wab...@cdmag.com> wrote in message
> news:39c804b6...@news.fnsi.net...
Jerry R
Jonathan Diehl wrote:
>
> At least when NHL comes out, maybe the NFL2k1 vs Madden garbage will die
> down some and we'll have 2 EA Sports games to nit-pick.
Nope, it's gonna continue, EAButtboy.