NHL 24 Patch 1.2.0 Available Today - Patch Notes

EA Sports has released NHL 24 patch 1.2.0 today addressing issues with the lacrosse shot, unintentional push check penalties, wrong shot animations and much more. The team also welcomed Boston Bruins legend Bobby Orr to the roster as a free playable character for all NHL 24 players who log in before January 2, 2024. 

As a Boston Bruin for 10 seasons, Bobby Orr helped lead the team to the playoffs eight consecutive years and to two Stanley Cups in 1970 and 1972, in which he famously scored the championship-winning goal in sudden death overtime (1970) and was also awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP both years. During his career, Orr received more than 16 major awards, and notably won the James Norris Trophy as most valuable defenseman from 1968 to 1975. Orr retired in 1978, having appeared in 631 games and recorded 264 goals, and was elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979. In NHL 24, Bobby Orr will be a part of the Boston Bruins Alumni Team and is tied with Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky as the highest-rated player in the game at 97 Overall.

NHL 24 players can play as the Hall of Famer in-game, claim Bruins uniforms in the store, as well as expect additional Orr-themed content updates in the HUT, HUT Moments, World of Chel, Play Now and Franchise modes. Here’s the list.

Ultimate Team 

• Base Bobby Orr Item in a complementary HUT Pack (Free playable character for all players. Pack is scheduled to become available at 5pm EST on November 9) 
• Bruins Centennial Uniforms 
• Bobby Orr Master Item (Available in Gallery of Greats HUT Event scheduled at 5pm EST on November 9) 
• x2 Orr themed HUT Moments 

World of Chel 

• Bruins Centennial Jersey

With all of that out of the way, here are the patch notes.

Gameplay

Community Feedback: Lacrosse Shot is too easy to perform with low dekeing rated players.

• Added a chance to bobble a Lacrosse attempt while performing the move using the Total Control skill move button. The lower the deke attribute rating on the skater, the higher the chance for a bobble.
• Increased the difficulty of performing a Lacrosse attempt via Skillstick to match NHL23. The right stick now requires a more consistent Rotation Speed or the skater will lose the puck.
• Skilled Up X-Factor improves the playback speed of the animation like before and keeps control of the puck similar to last patch

Community Feedback: Players are taking unintentional push check related penalties in the offensive zone when trying to one time or shoot a loose puck.

• Holding Vision Control, while in the offensive zone and opponent doesn’t possess the puck will now prioritize Shooting over Hitting when using the Right Stick.

Community Feedback: Players have found unintentional ways to shoot the puck while charging a Pass, resulting in ‘curve’ shots or unrealistic shot animations.

• Fixed the reported issues so players cannot trigger the wrong shot animations and gain an unfair advantage.

Community Feedback: Charging a Shoulder Check can cause your skater to gain a quick boost of speed as they align for a hit which allows them to catch up to players unintentionally.

• The maximum velocity a skater can reach while charging a hit has been capped.
• Removed the bonus Hit Assistance while using Truculence Zone Ability.

Community Feedback: Goalies are stuck in their poke check animation too long without being able to breakout into a save. This allows players to easily bait them into a poke and then score. Some poke check animations take too long for the goalie to extend and recover.

• After the apex of a Goalies poke check animation, they are now able to break out into a save animation.
• Extremely long poke check animations have been shortened to be more consistent with the rest of the poke check animations.

Community Feedback: Players have found a high percentage way to score, while shooting the puck while the goalie is transitioning off Hug Post in a specific pose.

• Slightly increased the distance a Goalie will stay hugging the post when a skater comes out of the corner, allowing them to make more controlled butterfly saves.

Community Feedback: Players have found a way to gain an unintentional boost of speed while saucer passing to themselves with certain skaters and from the backhand.

• The distance the puck travels at minimum power saucer pass is now based on player velocity, pushing the puck further from the player.

Community Feedback: Skaters unintentionally enter the Slap Shot windup animation after stopping Protect Puck while holding right stick in a downward angle.

• Users must release the right stick to the neutral position and push the stick down again to trigger a slapshot windup from protect puck. 

Other Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Vision Pass Icons remained visible after the end of a Period.
• Fixed an issue where NHL Skaters who lost their helmet would not skate directly to the bench.
• Fixed an issue when using Vision Pass to pass to an extra attacker could trigger a poke check animation.
• Fixed an issue where a team may accidentally get a too many men penalty in OT.
• Fixed an issue where an extra Goalie Indicator was visible in Ones.
• Fixed an issue where the faceoff location after a net is knocked off the moorings was incorrect.
• Fixed an issue where certain Shot Block animations were playing incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue where Goalies can get push checked through the net while in Hug Post.
• Fixed an issue where Nets were coming off the mooring too easily during gameplay.

Tournament

Champions Hockey League – Added new rules for the tournament.

• Minor penalties are dealt the same as a major penalty: a team which caused a minor penalty will remain shorthanded even if the opposing team score a goal
• Serving delayed penalties: a minor penalty will be served even if a goal is scored while a delayed penalty is pending
• Shorthanded goal erases current minor penalty: if a shorthanded team score, the minor penalty against will end

Franchise

• Added Regulation Wins to Standings
• Added more chemistry links between X-Factors for abilities based in skating, shooting and puck skills
• Increased impact of total player worth when running Head Coach Preferred Lines for all Coaches
• Fixed an issue where CPU teams couldn’t sign 2-way contracts when up against the salary cap, this change helps teams sign more contracts
• Fixed an issue with CPU teams signing AHL potential players to entry level contracts in Free Agency and during the Re-Sign Phase, this change can prevent teams from signing more contracts and these changes end up canceling out, causing CPU teams to sign roughly the same number of players as before, however they will be signing players who have a better chance at developing
• Fixed issue with the stats shown on the Conn Smythe trophy overlay
• Fixed an issue where players without scouted X-Factors showed up in Player Search when filtering by players with X-Factors
• Improved rookie signing logic so CPU teams can hold off on signing lower overall prospects who have potential until they develop
• Improved CPU team logic so they sign low overall AHL potential players in free agency less frequently

Creation Zone

• Removed invalid UI popup when creating a large number of players and teams
• Added Chel branded NHL goalie equipment to offline creation zone
• Music now ducks when previewing player audio emotes in Creation Zone
• Various UI Fixes
• Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to bypass NHL23-level player, goalie and team creation limits. 

Players will now be able to create:

• 80 total teams
• 1750 total skaters
• 250 total goalies

Presentation

• Faceoff Hype Spotlights – Reduced brightness intensity. Animated logos no longer converge on ref’s puck-dropping hand.
• Goal Multiplier Banner now properly appears in broadcast flow in HUT Rush
• Fix for the score clock displaying remaining time incorrectly
• Improved authenticity of Detroit Red Wings goal horn
• Improved authenticity of Buffalo Sabres goal horn – three blasts

Commentary

• Fix for incorrect reference to overtime in shootout mode
• Fix for incorrect reference to “first goal” on goals scored in WoC drop-in
• Improvement to Shot Block commentary flow
• Fix for intro speech incorrectly referencing teams being from Western/Eastern conference teams

World of Chel

Matchmaking Update:

Community Feedback: When forming a Drop-in Team in WOC, users may have to wait the full matchmaking time looking for a User Goalie who may not be available.

Once a Drop-in Team has reached Max Skaters, the team will continue to search for a User Goalie for 5 seconds and then automatically begin searching for an opponent.

Club Info / Player Stats Drawer Update:

In preparation for EASHL Club Finals, we have restructured the way the Club Info / Player Stats Drawer appears in WOC modes. The info displayed will be relevant to the mode you are currently in, with the ability to toggle between Club Info and Skater/Goalie stats using the Right Stick.

Creation Zone Update in World of CHEL:

Community Feedback: The multiple presets within CZ is very confusing to users, many of which don’t even realize they have to customize Home and Away separately for Skater Casual and Pro as well as Goalie Causal and Pro

Consolidated the Home/Away/Alternate outfit Presets to a single button instead of a subscreen to make the switch between each simpler to understand. 

Edits from Character Appearance (inclusive of applying a special character), Details, Shot Style, and Skating Style will be copied between Home/Away/Alternate outfit presets, so the user doesn’t have to manually maintain these changes for consistency between them. We did leave everything else to be manually edited so a user could decide they may want a completely different clothing and equipment style between Home/Away for example.

• Fixed a crash that would occur when a user navigates to the customization screen from recent items after opening the World of Chel Starter bag
• Fixed an issue where Player names are displayed as “EA PLAYER” throughout Leaderboards
• Fixed an issue where the Ones/Threes Eliminator leaderboards were not displaying the rankings
• Fixed an issue where push checks were leading to a lot of penalties around the net
• Fixed an issue where rarely a goalie could get push checks through the net while in a standing hug post
• Fixed an issue where the player avatar isn’t loading correct in the World of Chel Main Hub, or in Gameplay
• Fixed an issue where the stats drawer was missing the player level and gamerpic
• Fixed an issue where the glass would never break in the Carter Lake arena
• Fixed an issue where the player banner backgrounds are squished during the starter bag open animation
• Fixed an issue where the character and scene darken for a moment before loading into free skate
• Fixed an issue where the score clock has the EASHL logo overlapping the team’s name in EASHL
• Fixed an issue where special character would appear in the presets after editing multiple presets
• Fixed an issue where the special characters do not reflect the current selected home or away presets
• Fixed an issue where having a facemask equipped before equipping a special character will result in their mouths being closed
• Fixed an issue where special characters would cause minor rendering issues on the ice
• Fixed an issue where alternate Pro presets couldn’t select a special character
• Fixed an issue where if you had a special character equipped on loadout slot 11 and reboot the game it would then show loadout slot 11 as locked
• Fixed an issue where World of Chel store displays countdown timers as expired when quick resuming
• Fixed an issue where non-actionable buttons were present when selecting certain items in the World of Chel store
• Fixed an issue where the Home/Away options would stay on screen when purchasing a banner
• Fixed an issue where the soundtrack was still playing when emotes were being previewed
• Fixed an issue there equipping the Chel helmets would cause customizable helmets to read as non-editable
• Fixed an issue where new branded gear is not sorted alphabetically in the customize tab
• Fixed an issue where rarities are not present on default unlocks in the World of Chel creation zone
• Fixed an issue where the helmet cage color wasn’t locked/disabled if the user’s helmet did not support a cage
• Fixed an issue where changing Club Identity or Captaincy sometimes caused crashes for club members
• Fixed an issue where the user was unable to navigate to the club alternate jerseys in the post matchup dressing room
• Fixed an issue where the user would crash when inviting another user to the club when the club was just created
• Fixed an issue where a user was not presented with an error message when sending club invites to a user who has blocked communication set to on
• Fixed an issue where the EASHL stats drawer was not tracking 3v3 and 6v6 stats separately
• Fixed an issue where the condensed info drawer doesn’t show up in the EASHL 3v3/6v6 dressing room
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to search solo in quickplay 3v3 as a club
• Fixed an issue where Away and Alternate fonts for club jerseys had extra color zones with no functionality
• Fixed an issue where the user was able to open the select mode option overtop of match strategies in the clubs dressing room
• Fixed an issue where Club Finals Drawer was appearing outside of the club finals dressing room if the if the user leaves their club while in a dressing room and creates another club
• Fixed an issue where the club UI overlaps when user is in gameplay
• Fixed an issue where the club finals champion message had text that was cut off on the screen
• Fixed an issue where the correct club jersey was not being displayed in the dressing room
• Fixed an issue where crowds are not wearing the home club colors
• Fixed an issue where selecting the logo tile in stock branding took the user to a blank screen
• Fixed an issue where the user was removed from the dressing room after a game if they selected the Battlepass unlocked items pop up
• Fixed an issue where the XP token appeared squished if the user opened Battle Hub Rewards while on the Battlepass Tab
• Fixed an issue where users would receive a debug text message when trying to use a Battlepass token after they had completed the current Battlepass
• Fixed an issue where the locked icon appears in the wrong place for Battlepass items the user has not unlocked yet
• Fixed an issue where the pause text was missing when a global xp token is active
• Fixed an issue where the user would get softlocked in-between the state screen of Battlepass when timer hits zero
• Fixed an issue where the premium Battlepass reward tiles were showing the incorrect color in the Tiers unlocked screen after returning to the World of Chel
• Fixed an issue where the pre-order Battlepass XP multiplier tokens would temporarily disappear after completing the Battlepass
• Fixed an issue where the scrollbar issue in the Battlepass tier rewards
• Removed text that incorrectly showed a chapter completion reward in Pro-Am
• Fixed an issue where the locked icon only showed in from of the Player XP reward and not the Battlepass XP reward for Pro-Am games
• Fixed an issue where the Pro-Am reward icons were inconsistent sizes
• Fixed an issue where reporting a user through EA Layer would cause an error saying, “content could not be reported.”
• Fixed an audio issue that would say it was a user’s first goal with this team in every drop-in game
• Fixed an issue where the VOIP status icons were missing in the VOIP overlay during gameplay for World of Chel and Online Versus games
• Fixed an issue where the VOIP icon triggers when a user is not talking instead of when they are talking
• Fixed a text issue where the goalie save % was 3 decimal points
• Fixed various missing assets & text in World of Chel
• Fixed multiple debug text, wrong text, and wrong color text issues

Hockey Ultimate Team

• Removed fighting from HUT Moments
• Fixed issue in HUT Moments where coins earned would not be granted until backing out to HUT Main Menu.
• Fixed issue in HUT Rush where pack was not displaying correctly.
• Fixed issue in Trade Pile screen where backing out from Compare Price took you to the wrong screen.
• Fixed issue where some Jersey images were not displayed at the correct proportions on items.
• Fixed issue with ability to edit extra attackers and shootout lineup.
• Various UI fixes.

Uniforms

The following uniforms have been added or updated in NHL 24

NHL

• Calgary Flames – Away and Heritage Classic
• Carolina Hurricanes – Home, Away and Third
• Edmonton Oilers – Heritage Classic
• Florida Panthers – Home
• Los Angeles Kings – Home
• Nashville Predators – Home and Away
• Ottawa Senators – Home
• Pittsburgh Penguins – Away
• Toronto Maple Leafs – Home, Away and Third

AHL

• Bakersfield Condors – Third

ECHL

• Adirondack Thunder – Home and Away
• Allen Americans – Home and Away
• Florida Everblades – Home and Away
• Greenville Swamp Rabbits – Home and Away
• Idaho Steelheads – Home and Away
• Kalamazoo Wings – Home and Away
• Norfolk Admirals – Home and Away
• Rapid City Rush – Home and Away
• Worcester Railers – Home and Away
• Canadian Hockey League
• Brandon Wheat Kings – Third
• Lethbridge Hurricanes – Third

Liiga

• Lahden Pelicans – Home and Away
• Tappara Tampere – Home and Away

SHL

• Frolunda HC – Home and Away
• Linkoping HC – Home and Away
• Modo Hockey – Home and Away
• Rogle BK – Home and Away
• Skelleftea AIK – Home and Away