Rom

Has anyone come across some decent settings for 06 yet? Just got it today, I play on difficult setting but seems the AI is getting an awful lot of rebound goals, like 3 - 4 in the first period, which is about all I have played since its rather un-realistic. I dont see anything sliders for rebound fequency, or anything like that. Any help would be great Thanks.

Eugene Power

I'm working on finding good sliders but I won't have any great result for the first week, you'll have to wait a bit for people posting decent sliders.

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ppharoah

I have PC and Xbox versions and have not found any sliders? Where are you finding them?

Thanks for your help

Rom

Sliders are under the options, gameplay settings.

Eugene, not looking for anything great, just something that may lower the AI scoring. But thanks for the help.

Eugene Power

Try reducing shot accuracy and pass assist it will lower the goal per game for sure.

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ppharoah

for your help, I was on 5 minute periods and getting 25 goals a game, 13 for me and 12 for the AI, it was a totally unrealistic scoring fest! Thanks to you all, with the sliders and settings you reccomended I actually held the AI to one goal in 3 periods. Didn't take much movement at all in the sliders either, but it's so much more realistic.

ppharoah

to get the new NHL rules besides shootouts, to come into play in anything besides exhibition games? I found that on exhibition games you can choose custom or NHL rules...but theres no such option when you enter a franchise mode game.....

Don't know if you saw the setting for franchise mode called "Fire a player on missed goals" anyone figured out what that does, I have simmed some seaons and noone has been fired...

ackovic

I believe that is the "dynasty goals", just like in 2005-game where you could get fired for not having the no 1 draft pick after the season.

ppharoah

that has to be what it is, cuz I simmed thru a season and failed my goal, and then another and then another and I still had my job. So it must mean that you have the ability to fire players rather than lose your GM position.

Rom

I got shot acc at 0 and pass assist at 2, still doesnt lower the goals too much. But will keep messing with them til I find something.

ppharoah

bring that down too, with the settings you find and if that doesnt work try a lower difficulty level, works on my copy anyway.

Trepanier

I tried alot of things... and nothing is working, this game is just a scoring fest

I don't think the new rules will produce that much goals

ppharoah

when I put the settings down and run a demo game I am getting scores 4-2, 2-1, I don't know what is wrong with your copy If you put the right settings down it should play normally.

ppharoah

after posting my findings on the boards all over NHL 06 communities 9/10 people have NO problem once they find their settings!
My friend just called me and he played his first 2-1 game!!! So the settings are out there, you just got to find the ones that work for you.

Trepanier

I just played a 3-2 game... its not so bad I guess, maybe I can win next one

clicknext

I think it totally depends on your style of play. On difficult default sliders I've been having low scoring (less than 4 on each side) games all along, and I couldn't score a lot if I wanted to!

ppharoah

I just played a game for someone else hehe asked me to play, these are not my sliders, I am still playing around but they give you an idea.
It was a MEDIUM game LA versus Dallas IN Dallas, was a 4-0 shutout for LA.
Period scoring looked like this:

1st 2nd 3rd total
LA 2 0 2 4
Dal 0 0 0 0

All my goals came off one timer's and rebounds, I missed a lot the Dallas goalie made 34/38 saves. He didn't flop around or look out of place.
changed Sliders:
Game speed:0
Puck control:3
Speed burst:1
Fatgue rcvr:2
Plyr Acc:2
Agress:3
Poke eff:3
Pass assist:0
Pss Spd:1
Scr Ps Spd:1
Pass Int:1
AI Pass Frqcy:0
Goalie psng:0
Shot accy:0
Ai dump freq:0
Shot blck:2
Hook:2
Goalie cover puck frequency:0

I like a faster game so I am going to up a couple sliders at a time, but I am thrilled it's not a 25 goal game like I had on 5 min periods b4 where the AI scored every shift right after I did.

Tabou

i know like in the past some games have had mod adjustments...for baseball at least...does anyone make them for hockey?

ppharoah

expect to see stuff soon

tripsta

the "DIFFICULT" setting seemed to provide more realistic results. I found it quite hard to score. (on easy/medium i easily pot in a dozen goals). but like others have said already the cpu gets a lot of rebound/tap-in goals. one timers have to be near perfect to score.

skyce

Here's the settings I'm currently using:

Game speed:0
Puck control:0
Speed burst:3
Fatigue rcvr:2
Acceleration:4
Agression:7
Poke effec:7
Pass assist:0
Pass Spd:2
Saucer Spd:2
Pass Interc:7
AI Pass:5
Goalie psng:5
Shot accy:0
Ai dump freq:6
Shot blck:7
Hook effect:7
Goalie cover puck frequency:6

I get decent results now on 5min periods. I have penalties at 1 because it made it almost impossible to play a decent defense in front of my goalie without getting called EVERY time I hook or tie a guy up who is open. If you play exh games you can actually crank the goalie rating for your side to max and atleast stop some of the cheap goals the cpu scores but playing a season I haven't been able to locate these bars.

The real problem with the game, at its core, is that certain abilities are so rigged up for super-play that it makes it almost impossible to adjust the gameplay much.

I tried a test to see what would happen to the gameplay if I filled my roster up with players who's passing rating was below 70. The result? I was still connecting on low % percentage passes with guys who had no business making passes like that in real life. That leads me to believe that the abilities being edited aren't going to help this game - atleast with the passing so far. Speed is still the meat and potatoes to success while size and other aspects are still not as important as they should be like they are in a real NHL game.

I'm also finding the adjustments EA gives us in some ways seems like more a marketing gimmick to appease the needs of another market who likes a simulation style more whilst still hitting the arcade gamers (them being the primary one obviously. The adjustment sliders still have alot of limitations if one wants to change the game up to a level of their liking (for me anyways). Don't get me wrong - some sliders do make alot of difference but some of the core areas I wanted to address are really limited.

I'll continue to tweak where I can but I'm finding myself hitting some real barriers in the gameplay now which is too bad because I saw alot of potential this year.

ppharoah

but I got sliders different than you do just that irritating wraparound goal the AI keeps doing, which is a bug, and I hope the patch fixed it, it's not doing it anymore on exhibition games at least and the goalies seem to be stopping the long shots better too.

ppharoah

I think maybe the frame of the stats might help a bit. The series assumes that ALL players that put on a sweater are solid passers, and solid in all aspects of the league, thats why the stats start at 50. If you can't pass at a 50-70 rating you won't last long in the NHL and probably won't last long on your farm team either. Having a stat at 70 is not a bad thing, I got a 58 on my team. Is he a bad player? Not really he serves his purpose, when he tries to pass he gets intercepted more than the next guy, sure, and yeah he's a grinder, so his height and weight figure in nicely this year. When a 5'10 player tries to check his 6'5 frame they bounce off, when he checks a player smaller than him he usually drops em. But he does have the league average in passing and that's good enough, I just can't set up any passing plays with him. But that's not what he is for.
I am curious what barriers you are finding?
I just read a review by a guy who played hockey professionally for 20 years, and he complimented the sliders, when they are set right it's the most realistic hockey simulation on the market. He said the game was very nice this year, it's not perfect, but what is....but it's a big step in the right direction....
There's definitely a lot of potential still there for you to discover according to someone who would know.
The penalty resist stat seems to work nicely as far as sliders go, might want to check the guilty parties in your player editor and see who the problem guys are. I noticed that some of my stats were off 43 points on some players from nhl 2005! In one guy this was injury resist, he NEVER gets injured, yet he got injured , came back and got injured again!!!! So I went to the editor and found the problem, whoever did the stats had unknowingly not added anything to his injury resist yet he had a ton in 2005! Nice part is you can go into the editor and make the changes yourself. Considering the producer of the game said himself "the stats will be the same as NHL 2005 since the players didn't play last year" this was a HUGE oversight and I am glad I caught it time, he hasn't been injured since.
Maybe you could check the same thing with your penalties? I just played a full game and had no penalties at all called. The new rule changes are going to be VERY strict, there is not going to be any margin for error, so also keep that in mind when you are doing the thing you are used to doing in prior years. Having been a hockey fan for 30 years and seeing these rules in action in testing a lot of people will be surprised when they see how tight the calls are this year. This game, while not perfect reflects this, and I took a lot of penalties when I was not keeping in mind the new rule changes which EA has included. If you have not seen this video take a look:
http://www.nhl.com/news/2005/09/234088.html

it will show you how tight the penalties will be this year and I expect you are seeing some of this in NHL 2006. The stuff we used to be able to get away with is no longer possible. You used to see players jostling for position in front of the net, (as you said in your post about messing with guys in front of your net), thats not going to be tolerated this year, you do that you are off to rest for 2 mins. Defensemen cross-checking forwards who plant themselves in front of goalies will not be tolerated, you can no longer use a free arm or your stick as a defensive tactic. The AI is programmed for this, and many of the penalty complaints we are getting now are because people see the AI not getting penalties yet we are, it because the AI is programmed with this in mind and we are still learning what we can get away with, which isn't much. You can't start hooking and tying up guys any more unless they have the puck or are engaged in getting to the puck, if you are trying to hook and tie up guys in front of your net thats exactly correct and you would be called for that in the new NHL. If you touch a guy with your stick that is not incidental and he is not engaged in pursuit of the puck or carrying the puck, thats two mins.
Hopefully the new video will shed some light on the new rules, for me old habits are hard to break and I am constantly taking penalties I shouldnt be, but practice makes perfect and I was very happy to have a penalty free game. I would hate to be an NHL referee this year that's for sure.

Hope this helps, it's a cool video and it shows why the skill and speed players are so happy with the new rules.

Update-Just had a second penalty free game keeping that video in mind, and not doing things that are automatic calls this year! Yay there's a light at the end of the tunnel for me...Incidentally the NHL website which has that video used the NHL 06 from EA to demonstrate the new NHL rules before they got the live video.

The other thing is, if you find you are getting called to much and the video teaches you nothing new, you can fight fire with fire. Set your practices to penalty kill, and get a couple good penalty killers, and put em on your lines.
I used to take so many penalties in 94-2005 series that I just turned the penalty kill into a weapon, I get the puck when on the PK and I keep it, I work on passing, and play keep away from the other players, clear the zone immediately if it comes near my end, and my penalty killers deserve most of the credit. I always have Kris Draper of Detroit and John Madden of New Jersey on my team and they center my PK #1 and #2 lines. They are two of the foremost penalty killers in the NHL and with the elimination of the red line this year they are going to be hard to stop when they get the puck in flight.
I score more PK goals than my opponent has PP goals. For example, I just played a game for Canook with his Oilers team, and on the penalty kill I scored twice, and the computer had no goals on his power plays.
In Eastern Martial Arts we learn to take our greatest weakness and make it our greatest strength, and I kinda applied that to hockey, I took my penalty kill, which was my biggest weakness, and turned it into a strength. getting two or more great penalty killers helped me a long way into doing that as well.
Hope this helps make your games more fun.....

ppharoah

by people playing with sliders, thanks to Mikeone5 for the tips!

First - sliders. Shot power and accuracy down at least 2, a few guys are able to shoot over 100mph in real life, but that's skating into a still puck and blasting away.. In a real game 80-90mph is an incredibly hard shot, so that brings the shot power to sim levels.


Puck control down too, that way only the superstars can pull off the fancy stickwork.


Hitting power up, difficulty down, poke check and holding efficiency almost full. Game speed down to 1 or 2 from the left.

Goalie cover puck frequency down so the goalie doesn't jump on every puck.


Game play wise, stay tight with the D, don't try to force big hits, I turned up the hitting power because I'm mosting bumping in the corners, not speed bursting across the ice into a guy.


Use the pass block (L1+square) It works great and cuts down on the cpu one-timers. Also use the shot block. It's easy to block 5-10 shots a game if you're not too aggressive.

ppharoah

I just had a 3-1 game with these slider settings, feel free to adjust them to suit your taste.

0 = All the way left 7 = all the way right.


DIFFICULT
GS: 1
PC: 1
FD: Whatever
FE: 5
IJ: 3


Under Skating:


SB: 2
FR: 1
PA: 3


Under Checking:


HP: 7
HD: 0
AG: 7
PE: 3


Under Passing:


PA: 0
PS: 1
SS: 2
PI: 3
PF: 2
GP: 1


Under Shooting:


SA: 0
SP: 0
DS: 3
DH: 3
SD: 2
SH: 3
DF: 3


Under Defense:


SB: 3
HE: 3
PS: 1
GCP: 0 (Very important to be set to zero)

Rom

Well Pharo, those seem to be the best settings yet. I play on difficult, 10 min periods. final score 5-1 flames over Vancouver( Im the flames). Shots were 36Van-40Cal. much better shot totals than what I have seen. and only 2 penelties, 1 for each team.

Anyways, good work Pharo, you found the perfect settings for me at this point.

ppharoah

glad they worked for you they seem to be the best ones working for me so far.

Ado

One question :

I just played a game against the Canadians on difficult, 10 min periods, and I noticed they didn't attempt more than 7 passes throughout the entire game?

Anyone else seen that with AI pass freq on zero?

Eugene Power

We base ourself on what to judge the settings, we didn't have hockey for 1 year and the next hockey will be very different from what we are used to. I'll wait for the first week to see what changes will be remarkable and give a better game.

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ppharoah

that's too low, so I set it to 2 and it works good now.