By Sean Ramjagsingh, Producer
Rammer @NHL10 here to talk a little bit about fighting and how the feature became what it is today. First and foremost, let me say that we heard you loud and clear. Fighting in 09 was nowhere near good enough. It was basically a bad, one off mini-game that meant nothing to gameplay. (that’s enough about 09. I can’t even play it anymore after playing NHL10. It’s an interesting phenomenon that happens every year where you hit a point in development where you can’t go back to the last shipped version…I digress)
As we sat down to discuss the feature set for NHL10, fighting was at the top of the list. Initially, we weren’t 100% clear where we wanted to go with fighting but we did know a few things:
1. Fighting had to be overhauled.
2. We had to innovate.
3. We had to make fighting true to the sport.
We stayed in a brainstorming phase for a good couple of weeks. We had lots of great ideas and prototypes (some of which you’ll see in future versions of NHL so I won’t spill the beans right now) but our true turning point came just before Christmas when the Edmonton Oilers were coming to Vancouver to play against the Canucks. A few of the Oilers were interested in coming by our EA office to get a glimpse of where NHL is made. Fortunately for us, one of those players just happened to be Zack Stortini. Who better to talk fighting with than a real NHL tough guy.
We took the Oilers for a tour and showed them how we take motion capture data and put it into the game. After all that stuff, I had the chance to grab Zack and talk one on one about fighting. The first thing I asked is how much strategy is involved in a hockey fight. Within seconds, we had each other by the collar and he was shoving me around.
“If I fight a bigger guy, I do this…”
“If I fight a smaller guy, I do that…”
“If I fight a lefty, I dodge this way…’
“If I get a chance. I try to tug and get the guy off balance…”
“If the guy says something about my mom, then I go crazy on him…” (he didn’t actually say this one but we did have some great conversations about some of the ‘conversations’ that happen on the ice)
You get the picture…Zack basically rag dolled me as I took mental notes of how I could apply all of this knowledge to create a compelling gameplay mechanic for fighting.
When I boiled down all that I had learned, I came up with a two-tiered fighting mechanic. Layer one is dodging left and right with the Left Stick along with Right Stick punching. If your opponent dodged to his left (your right), you would have to move the RS to ~2 O’clock in order to hit his head and for dodges the other direction, you would punch towards 10 O’clock. If two guys wanted to stand in and go toe to toe, they could both push straight up on the RS and see who had the better aim.
The second tier of the fighting mechanic is a power punch vs tug and upper cut. Pulling back on the RS will put your player into a position to deliver a power punch that does much more damage than the regular straights. If you notice your opponent winding up for a power punch, you can tug him forward and get him out of that pose by pulling down on the Left Stick, then deliver an upper cut by pushing up on the Right Stick.
With a mechanic in hand, we had to figure out how to make this experience truly unique and give something that had never been seen in hockey game before. With the success of last year’s Be A Pro where our goal was to put you in the skates of a professional hockey player, we decided that the next logical step was for us to put you in the skates of fighter. With that, first person fighting was born.
With number 1 & 2 checked off the list, we were still left with the task of making fighting true to the sport. Again, Zack Stortini was a huge help in giving me a better understanding of why fights happen and when they occur. He also spoke to what a good fight was versus a bad fight and what kind of effect fighting had on his teammates. If we wanted capture the true essence of being a tough guy in the NHL, we had to incorporate these points into gameplay and have it make a difference. We needed to capture why having a good 3rd and 4th line is important in hockey and even more so, in the playoffs. There has never been a reason to play your 3rd or 4th line in our game but NHL10 is going to change that.
One re-occurring theme that our fight discussions kept coming back to was intimidation. Intimidation is a huge part of hockey and will definitely be part of NHL10. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about gimmicky meters or unauthentic HUD elements, I’m talking about authentic gameplay effects and behavior changes. Using your tough guys and grinders to finish your checks will start to wear down and intimidate the other team. The first, second or third big hit might not cause a turnover but eventually you will notice intimidated players rushing passes and D-men slapping the puck around the boards after dump ins instead of trying to pick up the puck and make a tape to tape pass. You’ll also see intimidated players bobble pass receptions if they’re about to be hit. When you notice that your players are being intimidated, that’s your cue to get a tough guy out on the ice and try to start a fight to stand up for your team and mitigate your team’s intimidation level.
Another good time to fight and try to spark your team is when your team is down by a goal or two. By the same token, if you’re up by a goal or two, you probably don’t want to take a fight and risk giving the other team a spark (although I think it’s pretty fun to beat someone on the scoreboard and in a fight).
The CPU will also have different fight styles so if you’re fighting a Tough Guy, they’re more likely to stand in and try to go toe to toe but if you’re fighting a player that is less likely to fight, you can expect them to dodge and avoid punches then try and pick their spots with quick counter punches. And….If you end up in a fight with player that you don’t want to risk injury to (yes, you can get injured from fighting this year), press the LT + RT to turtle.
About one month ago, Zack came back to our office and I showed him what became of our early conversations about fighting. He loved the authenticity of the fighting and that we were not only capturing the fight but also the reasons behind fighting, intimidation, and the notion of good and bad fights. I won’t go into too much detail as we captured some video of that day so you’ll be able to hear from Zack himself.
With that, I’m out. Make sure to follow us on Twitter @NHL10.