NHL 19 Patch Update 1.55, Tuner 1.04 Address Leaderboards, Backskating, & Other Issues
The EA development team dropped NHL 19 patch and tuner updates on Wednesday (Feb. 20) to help improve overall gameplay and stability. The latest updates addressed gameplay, bug fixes, and online play. In particular, there are now a few things gamers have been specifically asking for such as leaderboards and an adjustment for “overpowered” backskating in the game.
NHL 19 Patch 1.55
The new NHL 19 World of Chel component was well-received in reviews and continues to be a fun feature amongst gamers. A new patch 1.55 arrived as of 5 a.m. Eastern Time which addresses part of the game’s online play.
While it wasn’t necessarily a huge update, it gave many gamers something they’d been asking for. There will now be a Wins-Based Competitive Season/HUT Champions leaderboard. Gamers will be ranked by their wins total and their Rounds Points will serve as tiebreakers.
Another interesting development with that is that they have removed an opponent’s team name and information from the loading screen when heading into a matchup. The reason behind this is to prevent other gamers from backing out of matchups if they recognized an opponent’s name and didn’t want to play them. Don’t worry, that loading progress bar will still be visible.
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Gameplay changes in the NHL 19 patch 1.55 address wraparound goals, backskating with the puck, and “shovel shot”-style goals. Here’s what the patch notes indicate was changed:
- Improved how goalies track puck and player motion behind the net
- Adjusted how goalies react to wrap around attempts behind the net
- Improved blends from deking into quick shots to make the timing more realistic
- Adjusted motion into backhand toe drag in some contexts
Players skating backward with the puck will now properly accept the “with puck” penalties to speed, acceleration, and agility. In addition to resolving that issue, the dev team made tuning changes to reduce the impact of what those original values were supposed to be.
NHL 19 Tuner 1.04 Update Notes: Backskating adjusted, more
With the new tuner update, the developers adjusted three different areas. The first involved the backskating with the puck as mentioned up above in the patch notes. Their main goal was to address the community’s feedback saying back skating with the puck was “overpowered.” They’ve mentioned that changes were subtle but will “prevent the effectiveness of back skating with the puck.”
Tuning also works to adjust things back to a previous level if they find a tuner update was a bit too much. That appears to be the case as they say an issue popped up in turner 1.02 with “AI penalty frequency in offline modes.” It’s adjusted back to how it was for the frequency as of tuners 1.00 and 1.01 for the game. See the October game update here.
There were also reports of “face-off counters not working reliably” in the game in some instances. So this update tuned the faceoffs in order to address those rare instances in the game.
Gamers, have you noticed any improvements or flaws with the latest patch and tuner updates for the NHL 19 game?