A low-end acceleration modifier has been added, giving players a sharper acceleration burst from 0–10 KPH before returning to the game's flat acceleration speeds beyond that point. The hope is to encourage players to make stops and starts without fear of not being able to return to top speed.

The video below is an example of the type of goals we want to induce. Enabling players to stop and start quickly helps to dampen the oppressive impact of puck on player body collisions.

The game locked stick speed at an extremely low value, skill-capping players with strong hand-eye coordination. We've doubled this limit allowing for quicker stickhandling motions, harder shots, and more accurate in-air deflections on the puck.

In vanilla puck, the default max puck speed cap is set to 30 (~116 KPH in-game) allowing the puck to accelerate quickly to that limit then suddenly halt at top-speed -- creating an unpredictable and inconsistent shooting experience. Oftentimes the puck would move slower than your stick was capable, creating a tumbling-like flutter shot.

To address this, we've implemented a soft cap for puck speed at 30 and hard cap at 150. This allows the puck to temporarily exceed that threshold, but face exponential drag for every tick it spends beyond the limit. When shooting, the effect is that it allows you to follow through with your stick fully before the puck begins to face significant drag in-flight. This change should make shooting the puck feel less like a floaty piece of foam and truly allow players to put their whole wrist into shots and get rewarded for it.

This change will affect zone-to-zone passes and dump-outs, but it won't have any bearing on simple stickhandling motions or short passes. Anything that fails to exceed the max puck speed will not be affected by this change, so you won't have to relearn or adjust to new puck speed mechanics whatsoever.

KPL sticks are also firmer (50% increase), providing less flex when receiving hard passes or attempting to tip the puck.

Player initial turn speed is identical to the vanilla+ changes introduced to the PHL, but we've increased the max amount of angular turn velocity that can be built up. This allows for an overall smaller turn radius.

Max Turnspeed Limit = how much turn speed you can build up to (1.5 -> 1.9)

We've also cut out a lot of the latency that was baked into the base game on left and right turning. A/D inputs were deliberately delayed by a modifier known as TurnBrake. By cranking up the turn brake, it allows players to stop current left or right momentum quicker and make sharper turns. We thought this would have a desirable impact on turning and result in tighter direction changes, which it did. But it also had a strong impact on the feel of stickhandling. For those of you that counterstrafe with the puck and turn into it to support it via A/D inputs, this change should feel outstanding to you. This variable being low is why sometimes you would hit the puck and make no dent in its momentum, as you still had lingering left or right sway which snuffed out the expected firmness of your touch. Overall -- the game feels more predictable when the puck is on your stick as a result of this change.

TurnBrakeAccelerationBase = how fast you stop turning when pressing opposite input A/D (5.8 -> 9)

TurnDrag = the background resistance applied the whole time, smoothing out turns (3 -> 4)

We’ve weaponized the slide ability by boosting player rotational speed (7.5%) when pressing ctrl, allowing for quicker transitions or spin'o'ramas. We've also nerfed the amount of speed loss that players experience while sliding (63%), enabling skaters to keep their momentum when changing direction or opening up. Ctrl should feel slightly quicker and less sticky or punishing to speed when it is pressed.

SlideTurnMultiplier = 2.0 -> 2.15

SlideDrag = 0.2 -> 0.075

We've reduced the collision force of the boards by 50%. Players can still push themselves off the boards or use it to turn, but they cannot use it to accelerate past other opponents playing the game normally or launch themselves into a hit.

Board bouncing had a spot in this game's meta as a crutch against the game's naturally low turning ability and difficulty to accelerate from 0 KPH. By naturally buffing for these two things in the tuner, board bouncing can now become obsolete.

We've increased the stick on puck accuracy with a solver iteration value change of 6 -> 18. Does this do anything? I'm not sure. But it doesn't affect performance as far as we can tell.

We've removed the bottom part of the hitbox on player bodies. Players will now need to use their stick if they want to block those plays along the ice. This change also eliminates frustrating self-collisions on drop passes and pucks in your feet.

The buff to ctrl-spinning will help to balance this removal -- making it possible for defenders to spin in time to deny passes that might've previously been unhittable in their feet (and only stoppable via the groin).

We have completely removed stick to stick collision from the game to create a more skill-focused experience. While a perfectly timed stick lift felt great, it came with significant drawbacks. Players became unable to practice skill expression due to the constant barrage of stick checks from behind and random stick deletions.

While this may be a frustrating resolution for some, the purpose of this tuner is to to put the emphasis back on puck control and high-skill plays. We want to give players the freedom to showcase their talent without unintended disruptions.

For now, we have shelved the smaller puck. Although many players are still in favor of it, we want to isolate feedback for the recently introduced shooting / turning changes.