Franchise Mode Progress Reports Reversing Progress

[davehoehn970]

Product: NHL 21
Platform:Sony Playstation 4
How often does the bug occur? Occasionally (10% - 49%)
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play through at least into year 2 of a Franchise, check your Progress Reports.
What happens when the bug occurs? Some players show a complete reversal of progress from one year to the next.
What do you expect to see? Progress made and retained.
Was the issue in online or offline mode? Offline
Insert Game Mode or Feature here Franchise Mode
What time did you see the bug? (HH:MM AM/PM)
What is your time zone? EST (IET) - GMT - 5:30
What is your gamertag/PSN ID?
PS4 Crash Reporting: Please copy the text you put in the crash report here.
EASHL issues? Please insert your Club Region.
What is your game language? English

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This didn't happen to all players, only a few, but by the end of year one of my Franchise, many players had made progress, some even good progress (one from something like an 84 to a 91, if I recall).  As I started into year two, I noticed some (not all) ratings seemed way down (even though these players want contract money like they were rated what they were at the end of year one).  Checking into the progress reports, these few players have red numbers in the first column (statistical growth, I think?) exactly matching the green numbers in the second (natural, maybe?).  The players in question are still getting tons of ice time, and still at the relative top of my team's scoring leaders, or in the case of my goaltender, still the starter (who won the Vezina year one), and still shutting people down, so this regression makes zero sense.

[SkylerJames13]

@davehoehn970 Yup this is something that we’ve been trying to communicate to EA for at least two months. We’ve heard nothing back, and they haven’t even addressed any issues in FM for a solid near two months.

This patch they’re putting out doesn’t even touch on FM at all, so I think it’s safe to say we’re just being left to suffer with how the game mode is. I’d love to be proven wrong, by getting an update and fixes, but there is no more hope. EA, so far, seems to be giving up on FM. Definitely seems that way.

But yeah, there’s been a lot of people complaining about this problem. Squeaky wheel usually gets the grease.. but not if it’s an offline game mode

[davehoehn970]

Didn't check for previous reports, but thanks for letting me know this isn't new.  We probably have two things going against us:

• Offline play
• Next gen consoles

I would hope, anyway, that the programming would get tightened up for a new edition on the latest platforms, not that I'd be in line to get a PS5 just to play NHL (this isn't Sega and 94 anymore). Hockey has long been my favorite sport, but I think now I'm just old enough that I'm looking for the closest appoximation to reality that I can get, rather than when I took Sakic and Forsberg to a perfect 98-0 season, averaging 12 goals per game (exploiting any holes I could find along the way).

An offline play, let's face it... there's no money there, aside from the one-time purchase.  I don't like it, but I recognize we're always going to be last in line there. It's frustrating even playing offline HUT because every team has 12 legends and Vasilevsky in net, but moreso because you can't do anything about the overtuning of Allstar vs. Pro. I tried online for about a day... I'm too old for that sh*t :D

Anyway, my complaints today are just grounded in things that I know (I'm also an IT professional) are bad programming, and not directly a result of my declining twitch skills. This particular issue is nothing but numbers... not animations, not keypresses. This is very fixable and doesn't require a graphics programmer to tackle. Should be a layup.

Thanks.

[SkylerJames13]

@davehoehn970 You’re preaching to the choir, man. HUT and online have dominated the game, and rendered FM and BAP useless once they take our $80 and run with it. It’s literally like taking candy from a baby. We don’t know any better; we thought we were getting a new, innovative game. But it was just a worse nhl 20.

Even though it’s been posted before, I’m glad you posted it again. We’ve had a communication problem with EA (we’ve been mentioning problems and bugs, and they don’t do anything about them) so the more threads and posts, the better. Eventually they have to do something.. right? Probably not. But maybe.

[davehoehn970]

What other choice do we have? It's not like they're gonna hire us XD.

BTW, EA... 16 years in IT, programming skills in tons of languages, 8 years of project management... you know... just in case...

Saying nothing definitely won't change anything, even if this doesn't either. Just have to maybe find that special someone that'll make this their cause, but isn't in any danger of being let go if they're not working on something profitable.