The miscellaneous "Hopes for Live 2004" thread

[crimson_stallion]

How about some alley-layups and tip-ins as opposed to just dunks? Guys who are good leapers or tall, but not all that flashy may at times just tip in an alley or catch it in the air and lay it in. Especially if there are defenders around.

I'd love a backboard-tap layup 2. Its present in live 2k3, but more pronounced. Maybe abit of a slap sound and a slight shake of the board.

Also, hows does ankle breakign sound? A player with a really great quickness and dribbling rating against a slower player with average defensive awareness could every now and then result in the defender fall over on very quick crossover moves. In oen way people will probably say this will just be an irritation having your player fall over in games, but it would increase realism in that the defensive team couldn't just match up a 6"10 forward that can jump (but has a quickness rating of 79) to face up against iverson on D, in hope of many a block. wouldnt be good if it was over done though. I don't think anyone would like to have defenders constantly falling over because the offensive player is 2 points better in quickness.

These criteria could make it work:

1) The player on offense should be 90+ in both quickness and dribbling

2) Defender should be at least 10 points below the offensive player for quickness

3) Defender must have defensive awareness below 75

If it was still too frequent, then a random factor could be added, such as if the above criteria are met, the dfender will fall over on 1 in 5 cases, etc.

Advantages:
1) Would allow to take advantage of mismatches in quickness as opposed to just height and weight, makign a team reluctant to match up an average big guy on a very quick guard. Wouldn't eliminate the big-guy on small-guy philosophy entirely, as a quick forward with good defensive awareness such as KG or K-mart would still keep with them. Don't think youd want to eliminate the method completely, beacuse these types of matchups do occur in relistic situations.

2) Would make the defensive awareness rating more useful and meaningful. Many of live's ratings these days don't seem to do a hell of alot.

While on the topic of mismatches:

1) Weight and body type should have more influence on posting up. Any guy with 20lbs over his opponent should send the defender back pretty easily.

2) Anyone with a height advantage of 3+ inches and with an inside scorign rating of 80+(including guards) should try to post up on their defender fairly frequently. If on offense without the ball, they should get in position in the post and make themselves availiable for the pass.

3) Any player with 20+lbs and 3+ inches over their defender, as well as 80+ inside scoring rating, should try to post up almost every time, and score almost at will unless double teamed. If this happens to the CPU, they should eventualy adapt to the situation and ither bring double teams, change mathups, or start a "hack-a-shaq" type gameplan.

Also, high inside scorign ratings may be able to control how many moves a player can perform inside. E.g. a player with an extemely high ratign may be able to pull off sky hooks, strong power moves, up and unders, big power dunks, etc and also be more likely to draw fouls.

[Swoosh]

nice ideas there crimson, i completely agree about the last part(anklebreaking dunno bout that though), but especially about changing the game plan should be an important part of cpu's ai, cuz it would add a lot to the realism, but on the other hand, its just a pc game and we cant expect too much, if they would already fix the speed and shooting percentage and free agent signings would b very good, maybe a nice idea for live 2005 .

[Andrew]

How about some alley-layups and tip-ins as opposed to just dunks? Guys who are good leapers or tall, but not all that flashy may at times just tip in an alley or catch it in the air and lay it in. Especially if there are defenders around.

Alley-oops layups, definitely. On the subject of tip-ins, I'd like some more one-handed tips and some different tipping animations, rather than the current one (catching the ball at the chest and putting it back up with two hands).

[Swoosh]

its so wonderful to dream aint it ? i just wish they would release some extra info as soon as possible!!!

[Andrew]

Hopefully we'll get some soon. As soon as I receive word of anything new, I'll be sure to post it on the NLSC.

[nmje2k1]

hey andrew didn`t you say something about an interview with tim?

[Icebane]

As for endurance, A person with no endurance's Fatique will lower as fast as a person with HIGH fatigue, but a person with Low fatigue will be Substituted earlier (With Auto Sub on)...

I also hate how you have to constantly put Autosubs and other details on or off:o

[Andrew]

hey andrew didn`t you say something about an interview with tim?

I have been considering it, although it's still a little early for it. A lot of people didn't seem to like the last one and found it uninformative, so I'm skeptical as to whether I should conduct another one. I'll keep everyone informed, but it's still too early - Tim probably wouldn't be able to deny or confirm a lot of things at this point, so an interview probably wouldn't be all that informative just yet.

[Se7en>>Dimension]

- And i hope they fix the awards problem too.

Agreed. I remember I was playing franchise one time, some nobody got the Most Improved Award when he scored 3 points, got 2 rebounds and dished off 2 assists. I went just about crazy when he beat out my Gilbert Arenas.

[Metsis]

Yep, I agree about the rating issues there. About the pass control issue, I think that would'nt really make it bad, because it would give the player full control of the type of pass to make. In a real game you dont have a computercontrolling your mind to tell you "this is the right situation for a bounce pass" or "this is where you lob it", it's up to the ballhandler to decide this. In some situation there can be anumber of diffrent types of passes that may work, but give diffrent results.

But it would not be realistic that every player would make the same passes. As a player you usually seek out the most effective strategy with time and use it. And the everyone would be passing the same. Some control could be great, but not too much. Like maybe "pass" and "up" pressed would result in a high pass over the heads of people etc. But I still say that too much of a control is not a good thing. And think of your first game with total pass control, you make just dumb passes all game long and loose something like 140-20 just because it takes you to make a pass and how would the players pass rating figure into the mix if a player had total control.

For example, on the fast break players sometimes throw a full court lob, toss an alley if in decent range, throw the ball off the board, intentionally miss, etc. There is no particular set type of pass for each situation. Also, the way the comp controlled passing would probably have to go would be for the computer to judge based on the situation which pass is the perfect one. This is all cool, but in reality players don't always make the right pass for the right moment. This is why id like to see the complete player control of passes. Perhaps the realism slider could allow the feature to be disabled for those who dont want to use it? soem type of a cpu control slider. when high the cpu does everything, when low player has full control of passing, dribbling, shooting etc. Even better, have all 3 seperately? Non-enthusiats probably would'nt appreciate a full player control system, so i guess that is a valid point. Slider control i think would solve both problems.

Again too fine tuned... And too complex... And too turnover prone. Players usually make a rather conservative passes while on the run so to not waste an attack. So if you don't get that quick hoop, you'd still have time to work out your half court game.

Your idea about the CPU controlling the passes could work well with the passing ratings, as it could result in higher rated players throwing the right type of pass in 9 situations out of 10. The negative would be that then average rated players or 60ish rated players will probably always throw stupid passes in wrong situations (knowing what EA generally does with AI) and this woud be overkill because no passer in the NBA is THAT bad. Could work thought if they made sure even the lowest rated players threw decent passes.

Yeah, EA has a tendency that the random factors aren't really that random and that would piss a lot of people off. But the good passing model is out there. EA just has to find it.

And yes it is true that most good passers throw accurate passes where they should go, as opposed to just more fancy passes, but the latter is also generally associated with good passers. You don't often see michael olowakandi try a behind the back pass or a no looker. On the other hand of you watch J-kidd it's hell sometiems get off a no look pass and get an assist that you normally wouldn't get from a normal pass (e.g. driving into traffic, drawing a double team, and then dishing off a no looker to an open player, when you couldnt get the same result from jus ta normal pass).

If you had total control, you could see Olowokandi doing a behind the back pass in each and every posession. How realistic is that??? Great passing plays are maybe the next prettiest thing in basket ball after those wild dunks.

EA have spoken on imporoved post play, hopefully this has been adressed. There are alot of great idea's on these forums and i think EA should get some of their "creative idea" people to check out this site from time to time. It only takes me 10 minutes to read the latest posts in this thread in particular, and out of those 10 minutes i often see many bright ideas. I think EA have to think of 10 minutes per day ( or even eery 2 ro 3 days) can create huge potential for profits. Some of these idea if implemented could sway almost all bball fans to the live series, and even some non-bball fans towards the series.

Yes they should check out some of the more official boards... The thing is that the game is already way too long in production to add anything new and devastating into the game. And they did accept a wishlist from Andrew a couple months back, but wishlist for Live 2005 should be started pretty much the day Live 2004 comes out so we'll be able to go over things better before Andrew sending the list.

Looks like they have some good ideas into live 2k4 though, and lets all hope it isn't jsut promotional hype like 80% of EA claims have been in the past. How many times have we hear "revolutionary post play" "improved defense engine" "amazingly enhanced graphics" only to find they are all the same as ever (and to remember they were also on teh box the year before).

Advertising adds all those wondrous little words in there, but EA is quite true to their word. Like "improved defense engine" for example is usually different from the year before if not a totally revolutionary, but it's been re-worked. They have to try to lure in new into the game every year and that's why box always reads "more high flying and powerful dunks" etc. that sort of crap that really doesn't appeal to us oldtimers (i mean Live players). And that's just a fact...

[Andrew]

but wishlist for Live 2005 should be started pretty much the day Live 2004 comes out so we'll be able to go over things better before Andrew sending the list.

That was definitely an error in my judgment. We'll have to start compiling the Wishlist much earlier with Live 2005 - not too early, but definitely earlier than the 2004 Wishlist.

[Swoosh]

Metsis i cant say anything but: great post man , i agree with you that too much control about passes will become in the end way too complicated, though a lil'change cant hurt but it cant be overdone

[crimson_stallion]

Metsis i cant say anything but: great post man , i agree with you that too much control about passes will become in the end way too complicated, though a lil'change cant hurt but it cant be overdone

This is why i suggested a slider to allow users to decide how much control they want

I remember NBA inside drive on PC (the old one). It had prtty basic graphics and the like, but the gameplay in terms of realism was outstanding. The whole passing thing was pretty much on the money as well. Anyone played it? If you had a player in the post are and passed the playe rwoudl throw an overhead lop and the post player would jump to catch it. If there was a bigger defenderinthe way hed get it. In close range passes with defenders around, players would bounce pass. Normally they would perform normal. I think there was the odd fancy pass, and any mid air passes (i.e. goto shoot but decide to pass while in air) would result in a turnover at least 50% of the time. The animations, graphics and general polish was a bit low though.

Gameplay was the game was outstanding and increadibly realistic. It was also quite challenging, and on higher difficulty levels you would find it quitea challenge to beat the bottom team with the top one. When you cranked up diffictulty, it woudl improve the inteligence of the other team rather then just makgin your shots harder (although that happened as well) and the freethrow meter was one of the best ive every seen. hard to describe it, but it was very realistic.

At times however, I did dump it and play live instead because soemtiems i wasnt in the mood fora hardcore simulation, and wanted abit more fun. I have to say however, several occasions in that game i found myself in the last minutes of a game witha 2 or 3 point game the tension was increadible, like he real thing. Comp would foul you (as in rela life) so if yo uwere ahead youd try to get the bal in the hnads ofa godo foul shooter to bring the ball up, but bad ballhandlers would get stripped easily so ud have to choose wisely. Post play was very realistic, shaq would almost alway score onyou inside if you take him 1on1. YOu would always get it to the best shooter/clutch guy on your team for the last shot. The realism was pretty increadible. It had its flaws, but If live could become anything like that in any of those areas, itd be an amazing game.

The gameplay/physics of inside drive, with the glamour and polish of live, and added freestyle control, would be as close as you could get to the perfect bball game.

I havent played the new microsoft NBA games (inside drive 2002/2003) however. I was turned off by the lack of features (create a player, etc) and the average graphics (by X-box standards). Anyone know if its as realistic as teh original?

Anyways if they get system liek teh, the CPU controlled passes would work greeat, but if they continue with typical live A.I. / physics lameness, they user control might be a interesting alternative. Adjustability woudl be vital though.

[Icebane]

NBA Inside Drive was Great for realism is all aspects except scoring... Stealing was hard to DO but not have it done (Comes down to shitty passes again)... But lacking Character Creation was a great big loss for that game...

Plus it thinks Shawn Kemp can dunk like he used to!!!

[Metsis]

But still I say that too much control takes away from the gaming experience. The players see what they see and think what they think. If you take away their passing and take it under your control, well the players will seem even more generic. You cannot determine what a player sees from a camera angle so how could you ever determine which exact pass to use. It is just too damn hard.

But a simple control would be useful like "lobbing the ball over defenders", "directly passing the ball" and "bounce passing the ball" and if it's a good passer, well it would make a good pass and maybe do something fancy with it. Or do a totally different pass altogether if he's got no way of making that pass in his opinion.

And I don't think this can be realistically put behind a slider...

[Icebane]

Its not so much controlling the passes but smart passes... If I person is posted up BEHIND the defender, then you are not going to try pass through the defender are you, you're gonna throw over the top.

[Colin]

A lot of pass control would be just complicated and pointless. The onyl pass related control I want is to tap down on the freestyle for bounce pass, and up for lobs. I don't want to use the same pad/analog as I do for movement as i use the movement to point where I want to pass, and that feature could be screwed up.

[Andrew]

Its not so much controlling the passes but smart passes... If I person is posted up BEHIND the defender, then you are not going to try pass through the defender are you, you're gonna throw over the top.

I agree. Complete control over passes might be a little gratuitous, but we should be able to have a little more control over lob passes ie. have simple over the top passes as well as alley-oops. The ability to force a bounce pass would probably come in handy too.

[Icebane]

I guess some control over passes would be good for analog users, Hopefully a key could be included for keyboard.
2003 annoys me, cause passing into the post ins't good. You either have it picked off, or have to alley oop in, in which case Yao Ming doesn't get too many of...

[Andrew]

The problem with the alley-oop button in Live 2003 in my experience is that in the event an alley-oop isn't possible, the ball will be passed to the player closest to the basket - which often means a turnover. It should be more like Live 2002 - if the alley-oop isn't possible, hitting the button shouldn't do anything. Or, if the situation allows it, an over the top pass could be made.

[crimson_stallion]

But still I say that too much control takes away from the gaming experience. The players see what they see and think what they think. If you take away their passing and take it under your control, well the players will seem even more generic. You cannot determine what a player sees from a camera angle so how could you ever determine which exact pass to use. It is just too damn hard.

But a simple control would be useful like "lobbing the ball over defenders", "directly passing the ball" and "bounce passing the ball" and if it's a good passer, well it would make a good pass and maybe do something fancy with it. Or do a totally different pass altogether if he's got no way of making that pass in his opinion.

And I don't think this can be realistically put behind a slider...

If realism of the game can be put in a slidere (i.e. dunks go crazy, balls get swatted into the rafters, fast movement), which is said to be in next live already ( i think) then i cant see why a user control slider wouldnt be realistic. Could be as simple as 5 settings (full control,shooting and dribbling control, shooting and passing control, passing and dribbline control, complete cpu control). I intended this as an idea for live 2k5/2k6 (i.e. far distant games) as opposed to 2k4.

Secondly, the examples i used were just suggestions. I didnt mean all of these should be put in, just seeing how others responded to th eidea, and that was a system i thoguth may work for it.

"But a simple control would be useful like "lobbing the ball over defenders", "directly passing the ball" and "bounce passing the ball""
This i think is quite similar to some of my suggestions to begin with.

I don't mind CPU control over passes at all, as long as EA make the AI control realistic and decent. In the past they have had trouble with this so i dont see it changing any time soon. This is why i was bringing up controllable passes so that at least there isn't a complete disaster.

Also, when i recommended the idea, it was recommended as an alternative. i.e. a particular button would activate the 'user passing' whem depressed (or thata seperate stick be used). This way, when not holding/pressing that button or using that stick, the CPU would still have pass control .

I agree that possbly too much control cold be overkill, and may get frustrating, but I think SOMETHING has to be done at the very least.

Previously you said it would make it very hard for newbies to learn the system. Didn't freestyle have this same argument against it, yet was quite successful?

I know the idea isnt perfect (none are) but fact is that unless EA make some (BIG) improvements in their passing system (cos its prety damn shocking) some form of user pass control might be essential.

Lets hope they can get microsofts style gameplay in a live envoronment

The problem with the alley-oop button in Live 2003 in my experience is that in the event an alley-oop isn't possible, the ball will be passed to the player closest to the basket - which often means a turnover. It should be more like Live 2002 - if the alley-oop isn't possible, hitting the button shouldn't do anything. Or, if the situation allows it, an over the top pass could be made.

Agreed. In fact maybe turning the alley oop key to a lob key would be nice One of the only things i like about the NBA live pass system is teh 'direct pass' system. I use it constantly (mainly because you can never trust the CPU to pass tothe right person).

[Colin]

I never used direct pass, when I started playing live it seemed too confusing (don't go all "How's it confusing " on me, I was 9 or 10 years old) so I just pointed where I want to pass with the D-pad. And I'm used to it now so I haven't stopped.

[Metsis]

I am very well aware that this is a discussion for the future and will definitely not be in Live 2004. The same as my talks about refs and complaining to them.

Direct Pass is a very good system and it guarantees that you pass the ball to a certain individual.

About Sliders... Usually sliders control the frequency of an incident and speed of certain things if NHL sliders are any sort of comparison. User control slider wouldn't be that useful. What if you wanted to turn like shooting on and passing off and you didn't have that kind of a setting in the slider... There are lots of things that come into mind. But the sliders were an incredible bonus in NHL series and hopefully will do the same for Live. The only problem is with playing online with one settings that may vary from your own quite a bit.

Don't know about the freestyle systems hardness to handle. Really haven't had a chance to try it out. I ain't never going to buy a pad to play Live games. So it wasn't hard to master at all. I'm sure it is a very good system, but the programmers should make it so that it would work well with the keyboard too and not just with consoles and pads and this goes for the user interface too.

[Andrew]

Just thought of something else: Simulating CPU Games

One of the differences in Franchise Mode in Live 2000/2001 and Live 2002/2003 was simulation of CPU teams' games. In the early years of Franchise Mode, the game would not simulate the games in between two games in your schedule until you chose to advance to your next game. Conversely, in Live 2002/2003 the game would automatically sim the other games before your next matchup. Additionally, if you are not scheduled as the first game of a new season, the CPU will automatically simulate to your game.

Obviously this gives the CPU teams an advantage when signing free agents who went unsigned during the offseason on opening night. It also means opening night trades may involve a player who has already played a game, meaning there'll be a few players who play more than 82 games (or 28 or 56 as the case may be). While this is not unheard of (I think the record is 85 games played held by James Donaldson), it doesn't happen all that often.

I think it would be cool if games weren't automatically simulated whenever the game goes back to the main season screen (ie when a new season begins or a game has finished). That way, you could make trades on days when you don't have a game scheduled (handy around the trade deadline), only advancing the CPU simulation when you're ready.

I'm probably the only person actually even thinking of such a trivial and seemingly useless detail, but this is the Miscellaneous wishes thread.

[Metsis]

No Andrew you aren't alone on this one either... I hate the fact that it just simulates to your next game. You should be able to take it a day at a time.

Trading deadline would be so much easier to grasp... The thing of it is that when you simulate a lot of games, well you really should do all the trading at the start of the season. And it just sucks that there are no chemistry modifiers in a team and I'm not sure does a "Jason Kidd"-kind of a player effect the stats for the rest of the team (cause he makes the teams a lot better) and that the fact that the scores are calculated with some straight mathematical formula. You could really turn your team around by trading the bad seed away or vice versa. And when you get point guard like Kidd, well everyone should play better due to the almost 10 assists per game that he brings. (By the way... What happened to Andre Miller's 11.1 apg during 2001-2002 season?) And teams do go on streaks and sometimes beat better teams.

One thing I hate too... I'm playing season and I have a center that dunks through everyone and everything and just totally dominates the paint. He's like Shaq the early years, only better. I have played some games from the start of the season and he's averaging like 38 points, but if I simulate the rest of the season you can't tell that he had such a good start even with 28 games per season. He's still going to end up with 11 ppg and rpg as the normal centers do. And that just sucks... And the fact that the real stats aren't carried over to the next season infuriates me too, but you see some simulated stats saved there.

Let me say it again to point out that there is no effect with my games... Many of you might think that the good start fades into the mass, but the fact is that he ends up with "almost" the same stats if I play the start or don't. There might be some +-.5 difference in the scores.

I just hate the fact that EA has a set style for players and resolves the stats accordingly. Now this is a thing that could be used to bring out the rookies more. Say Amare starts on the bench with a normal bech pf settings. 7 ppg, 5 rpg etc. as averages and then when he gets the starting role, his status would be changed to an all-star with basic scoring at 15 per game and 8 rebounds. I have actually toyed with this kind of a model for a while now and I think it could work. Like you take playing style of a position and make a default set of scores for that and then modify the scores according to the players own stats. Like T-Mac with his superior offense would get to that 30+ game almost against anyone, but sometimes he would score only 20+ points and sometimes 40+, but I have to figure out the math to do that on a more consistent basis. Cause I don't want to see T-Mac scoring 10 points just because he's going against a superior defender.

Sorry for the long and digressing post...