EA Sports has released the third post-launch patch for NHL 17 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The patch, which comes in at just a bit over 300MB in size, tweaks quite a bit in terms of gameplay and presentation.
Some of the larger changes include tweaks to players’ hand-eye coordination in EASHL, lowered shooting skills for a few classes in EASHL, and a general decrease in the effective of goalie screens across the board, among other changes.
Presentation wise, a number of new jerseys were added as well as updates to the arenas of the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins.
Full details for the latest update can be found below.
HOCKEY ULTIMATE TEAM
Hockey Ultimate Team™ – Competitive Seasons
Competitive Seasons is a new game mode which allows players to compete in a “monthly” season format to earn in-game rewards. Each monthly season consists of rounds. Complete three games to earn round points which determine your ranking on the Round Leaderboards. At the end of each round, you will earn a reward as well as Season Points that count towards your season total. Finish as high as you can in each round to accumulate as many season points as possible to earn a larger reward at the end of the season.
*NOTE: Rounds and Season durations are subject to change.
GAMEPLAY (Tuner 1.02)
ALL MODES
Player Updates
- Tuned down puck carrier’s reaction speed to reacquire a puck after losing it.
- User Goalie Updates:
- Increased ability to make saves in tight to their body and decreased ability when reaching to reward better puck tracking and cutting off angles.
- Increased ability to make saves on cross grain shots by tuning movement so goalies will stay square even if the user is requesting to move away from the shot direction.
- Increase save success on blocking saves.
- Decreased the impact goalie movement to help promote puck tracking so that good angles and positioning mean the most for a goalie’s ability to make a save.
- Decreased screen effect slightly.
- Increased goalie speed for post-to-post movement.
- Increased AI goalie’s awareness for a possible shot off a faceoff.
- Increased ability to react after a save to increase their chance of getting back in position and making rebound saves.
- Rolled back change from previous patch for the goalie occasionally getting stuck in butterfly as it was causing a worse knock on issue.
EASHL MODE ONLY
EASHL Player Class Updates
Goalies
- Increased all goalie classes height to 6’2”.
- Increased speed and agility of all goalies and added variance with Standup being the highest and Butterfly being the lowest.
- Increased Hybrid goalie’s recover rating so that he is now faster recovering than the Butterfly goalie.
- Increased rebound control of all classes. Standup goalie’s will still have the lowest rating while Butterfly goalies will have the highest.
- Increased poke check ability for all classes. Hybrid has the best poke check rating of the three classes and Butterfly has the lowest.
- Hybrid goalie now has the best stick side and paddle down rating of the three classes.
- Increased vision for all classes. Butterfly is still the lowest and Standup is still the highest.
- Increased 5-hole rating for both the Hybrid and Butterfly classes to separate them from the Standup goalie.
- Increased rebound control for the AI goalie class.
Players
- Lowered hand-eye ratings for all classes and rebalanced the category to see more realistic deflections and bat-ins across the different player classes.
- Lowered shooting attributes of Grinder, Power Forward and Enforcer Forward.
- Lowered passing attribute for the Grinder.
- Increased balance of the Two Way Forward and Hitting Sniper class.
- Increased the ability for defensive builds to intercept passes but still kept the same variance in abilities relative to each of the classes.
- Increased the minimum rating a player needs to get a saucer lift on a regular pass. Now Playmaker, Jumbo Playmaker and Puck Moving D will be the only players with the advantage.
- Raised discipline of the Two Way Dangler.
- Tuned down puck carrier’s reaction speed to reacquire a puck after losing it.
PRESENTATION
The following uniforms have been added:
- Added Toronto Maple Leafs Centennial Uniform.
- Added Detroit Red Wings Centennial Uniform.
- Added Chicago Blackhawks Winter Classic Uniform.
- Added St. Louis Blues Winter Classic Uniform.
- Added Philadelphia Flyers Stadium Series Uniform.
- Added Pittsburgh Penguins Stadium Series Uniform.
- Added Frolunda Indians Home and Away Uniforms.
- Added Linkoping HC Home and Away Uniforms.
- Added Baie-Comeau Drakkar 3rd Uniforms.
The following arenas have been updated:
- Pittsburgh Penguins Arena now named PPG Paints Arena.
- The following items have been updated:
- Fixed CCM Extreme Flex Pro 3 Blocker.
- Fixed Regina Pats Medallion to correct logo.
- Fixed Buffalo Key Bank Arena scoreboard signage.
- Fixed camera clipping issue in Semi-Pro arena in EASHL.
EASHL
- Region and Skill-Based Matchmaking restrictions were removed from Private PIN Group Matchmaking.
- Anti-griefing logic was removed from Private PIN Group Matchmaking.
FRANCHISE
- Fixed an issue where player fighting bias was being set to 0 when the league year changed from year 1 to 2.
BE A PRO
- Fixed an issue where player fighting bias was being set to 0 when the league year changed from year 1 to 2.