Things Have To Change!

[Metsis]

You're missing what I'm saying; there's a baseline level of athleticism in the NBA that the game should reflect without unduly pumping up a player's rating.

Of course a player's athleticism can elevate their game (no pun intended) but in the NBA, athleticism can be secondary to game skills. Like Dorell Wright is a phenomenal athlete in real life, but in the game he's slow as molasses and can't dribble.

The lower dribble ratings shouldn't slow down a player's dribbling, it should just make it easier to poke the ball away. I've always found that the ponderously slow guards were irritating as hell, the same deal with the dribbling.

EA needs to rework its rating system to more accurately reflect the nature of the game and the players therein.

The system is fine... Could use some fine tuning though... There should be some skills that are more reflected on the overall than others regarding player position. AND YOU NEED CERTAIN ATHLETICISM AND CERTAIN SKILLS TO GET TO NBA... If you didn't, I wouldn't mind playing a couple of games there and get me some serious dough in the process... There are literally thousands of college players in the states and young kids in the rest of the world who got some serious talent, but only about 80 of them enter the draft each year... If I had played college ball with even some success I would have put my name in the draft, if it was a crab shoot at who gets picked and when... These are young talented players that are in the draft. I love the game and would really like to play the game for a living. As a short Finnish guy that is not going to happen... You go on and on about the rookies... It's impossible to tell. Who knows what basis EA has for their rookies ratings and the Dorrell Wright is just the kind of crystal ball example I was talking about. If a guy dominates in college, doesn't always mean that he will be that dominant in the NBA...

I disagree, especially with bigs.

And even with guards. Especially in the modern era, lots of players are drafted for pure athleticism, only to be found clueless as to how to play a zone defense or unable to make a free throw, or unlearned in the way of the pick-and-roll, etc. Lots of players lack basic basketball skills. Only a very few players (mostly extraordinarily tall or possessed of some other noticeable skill, usually shooting) are what you'd call unathletic or uncoordinated.

The bigs need the skills too... They've got something the scouts like and I believe one of the most important skills that are not in the game regarding rookies is Motivation, Attitude and Ability to learn. There are tons of seven foot 19 year olds in europe and you don't see all of them in the draft... They usually just don't have the skill. And yanks can't shoot... You saw that in the last olympics or were you even watching. There are very few good shooting yanks in the game. There's one less again after Reggie retired, but there's always hope.

Yeah but they could stand to read a scouting report instead of pulling numbers out of their behinds, you know what I'm saying? Overall talent is a crap-shoot, to be sure, that's what patches and updates are for.

But if all you hear about a player before the draft is that he's an athletic monster, he should be one when you get the game, not one of the most unathletic players in the game because the rating system is shyte.

A scouting report could be as off on a guy as a lucky guess by EA... If you combine two variables that could be seriously off, well you have a factor that can be exponentially off and that could make for some really random numbers... And one guy says he's athletic as hell, and the other guy might say that he isn't all that special on those scouting reports... Which of them wins is a lucky guess. The reports aren't usually based on one mans opinions.

I agree with the second part, I DISAGREE with the first part.

I am routinely stopped by players with no chance of catching up to me in the real world because my player is suddenly moving as if underwater and their player is moving at the speed of lightning. If I poke the ball away from you and get a three-step headstart as an athletic player, you aren't going to catch me, especially if you go in any direction but straight. Curving takes time and the computer players do it all the time. The computer actually cheats to stop my fastbreak, no matter what speed setting I have the game on.

Curving my ass... It's just the way it is... I've seen some weird things on the basket ball court in my time and I've seen people catch up like they do in the game and even block shots from behind that really shouldn't be blocked... This all happens in real life, so quit whining about it... It doesn't happen all that often in the game if you just have the right guys for a fast break team... You need three good stealers, with good speeds and scoring ability to complete this... As in real life, a break almost always starts with a leading pass... No matter who you are when you are stealing the ball you aren't usually running towards the basket and it's more than likely that one of your mates is already rolling towards the other end, so step one, give up the ball and get yourself rolling. If you run to the other end, it's more than likely to come back to you.

I can't, actually. The passing I get but it's the players who come from behind, stick in front of me and then won't let me geta round them that are the problem; and these are players who didn't have a prayer of actually catching me.

For example, Shawn Bradley doesn't have a prayer of stopping an AI fastbreak, especially when Bradley's squatting on the baseline and AI just picked someone's pocket out by the 3pt line, but lo and behold he's magically got winged feet and catches me almost everytime. That's what Im' talking about.

Would you really like to score 50 with AI in every game from turnovers? Would that be realistic... It's a game and it has flaws as any computer game has... They have compensated maybe a bit too much, but nothing that couldn't be done in real life... I've seen it done. A center catching a guard on the break... For a game it's good enough... And when you see this happening, you gotta abort the break and do something else... Not all breaks end up with shots...

Or, no calls on those plays when the defender goes straight up and the game should be programmed to realize that it's much harder to block a jumpshot on the perimeter than a layup. We seem to agree here, though. The game calls dumb fouls a lot but then, so do real refs.

That is so true... We've got this one guy on our team (in real life) that is really good at swiping the ball from behind, but the refs usually call him for it. It's bad, but I've tried to tell him not to go for it as he usually get called for the foul, even though the move is clean. I've got one defensive move too that I usually get called for the first time I try it in a game, it's a clean move but looks bad...

If my player has a 99 3pt rating and I'm shooting 27%, something's wrong.

This is exactly what I was talking about... I can go 10% from the line with a guy that has 80 rating for threes, and 45% for a guy that has 65 as his three point rating... They have different releases and the other suits me better... This is all about release...

I plain disagree here.

And no, it's not lame, really. He's the best player on my team and he's ponderously slow outside, he's a pure catch-and-shoot player who gets abused on defense. I ran him through one short season as an experiment.

If the guy is slow, he'll probably put up lots of contested shots, so that lowers the percentage too even though the game does not count blocked shots as shot attempts...

Just quit whining already... The game is good. It could be better, but it's good. Play starter difficulty level and score 300 points per game if you are so worried about all these things...

[.PixL]

i don't know if it's been mentioned already because i skipped all the paragraphs of writing on the previous page, but i would really like it if the new live can improve on how players play defense on the cpu. it seems to me that it is all based on like whether or not the cpu makes the shot. even with 3 guys contesting the jumper from 20 feet somehow the shot still falls. i don't like how the defense is played right now because for me i like playing d, and trying to limit the other team under 80 points, but for the most part shots fall when they shouldn't and vice versa. it bugs me to get my face in the shooter and the shot still falling. the game doesn't reward you for defense at all and limiting teams to a certain score, hopefully EA can implement a better system on the defensive end in the new live

[Matt]

^^^yeah i agree, i hate those pre determined shots

[tsherkin]

The system is fine... Could use some fine tuning though... There should be some skills that are more reflected on the overall than others regarding player position. AND YOU NEED CERTAIN ATHLETICISM AND CERTAIN SKILLS TO GET TO NBA... If you didn't, I wouldn't mind playing a couple of games there and get me some serious dough in the process... There are literally thousands of college players in the states and young kids in the rest of the world who got some serious talent, but only about 80 of them enter the draft each year...

This is my point; there is a certain minimum skill level and level of athleticism in the NBA that EA Sports' system does not reflect.

...EA has for their rookies ratings and the Dorrell Wright is just the kind of crystal ball example I was talking about. If a guy dominates in college, doesn't always mean that he will be that dominant in the NBA...

Wrong; they've got pre-draft reports, they've got the eye-witness accounts from people who've seen them play... in essence, they've got enough to at least make good decisions on a player's atheticism. That doesn't change from HS and college to the NBA, that stays the same. Dorell Wright was clearly an incredible athlete before the draft but EA dropped the ball on that one, big time. And their idea of a dribble rating is retarded; there is no player in the league as godawful as the way they make some of these guys appear with their low ratings. You don't slow down like that when you dribble, you're just easier to pick and if you try something fancy, it won't work as often as it does with the better players. They make the controls too stiff.

But back to the rookies; there are certain things about a player you know before they hit the league, like their physical attributes. Getting things like that even CLOSE to correct would be nice, and that entails redesigning the rating system so that a player isn't so highly regarded despite the fact that they've got decent athleticism.

The bigs need the skills too... They've got something the scouts like and I believe one of the most important skills that are not in the game regarding rookies is Motivation, Attitude and Ability to learn. There are tons of seven foot 19 year olds in europe and you don't see all of them in the draft... They usually just don't have the skill. And yanks can't shoot... You saw that in the last olympics or were you even watching. There are very few good shooting yanks in the game. There's one less again after Reggie retired, but there's always hope.

Actually, I wouldn't mind ratings like that, that would be great. And no, you're wrong. It's not "Yanks can't shoot;" it's "The selection committee was preoccupied with putting stars on the team and when that failed because they rejected them, they didn't choose the right players."

Americans are obviously overly preoccupied with dunking and such and not concerned enough with basic fundamentals like they should be but to say "Yanks can't shoot" is to ignore those in the league who are American and CAN shoot.

A scouting report could be as off on a guy as a lucky guess by EA... If you combine two variables that could be seriously off, well you have a factor that can be exponentially off and that could make for some really random numbers... And one guy says he's athletic as hell, and the other guy might say that he isn't all that special on those scouting reports... Which of them wins is a lucky guess. The reports aren't usually based on one mans opinions.

If you've got a scouting report in one hand, an eyewitness account or two from people who've seen games, you can get at least a BASIC idea of what kind of physical skills a player has. EA dropped the ball HARDCORE with that and they do it every year with their rookie ratings.

Curving my ass... It's just the way it is... I've seen some weird things on the basket ball court in my time and I've seen people catch up like they do in the game and even block shots from behind that really shouldn't be blocked... This all happens in real life, so quit whining about it...

This argument is because you don't get what I'm saying because I'm not explaining it right. I'm not whining, there are clear physical impossibilites involved in this game on occasion and it refuses to let me fastbreak properly. The spacing in the game is still poor and the computer players all still catch up too quickly (given the positions the players were in, relative athleticism levels, etc). I'm not whining, this is a problem I've had that's serious.

It doesn't happen all that often in the game if you just have the right guys for a fast break team... You need three good stealers, with good speeds and scoring ability to complete this... As in real life, a break almost always starts with a leading pass... No matter who you are when you are stealing the ball you aren't usually running towards the basket and it's more than likely that one of your mates is already rolling towards the other end, so step one, give up the ball and get yourself rolling. If you run to the other end, it's more than likely to come back to you.

Oh I understand the game isn't going to be fastbreak after fastbreak, I'm just saying there are lots of times when I SHOULD have a fastbreak and the game isn't letting me in some fashion that is not right. When Shawn Bradley's on the baseline and AI gets a steal, Bradley doesn't have a shot in Hell of catching up to AI when he's in the open court and blocking his shot but that's happened to me twice in the last few games (once with Bradley, once with Yao Ming).

Would you really like to score 50 with AI in every game from turnovers?

God no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the game should realistically reflect fastbreaks.

Would that be realistic... It's a game and it has flaws as any computer game has... They have compensated maybe a bit too much, but nothing that couldn't be done in real life... I've seen it done. A center catching a guard on the break... For a game it's good enough... And when you see this happening, you gotta abort the break and do something else... Not all breaks end up with shots...

I know, I understand but it's too much, just like the ridiculous shot-blocking. Shot-blocking is one of the biggest flaws in this game. Even with sliders on 0, I get almost every mid-ranged shot blocked and even many of my 3s, which is just patently ridiculous.

This is exactly what I was talking about... I can go 10% from the line with a guy that has 80 rating for threes, and 45% for a guy that has 65 as his three point rating... They have different releases and the other suits me better... This is all about release...

For the record, I tried it with CPU and with Player control and found that this improved some with the CPU control.

If the guy is slow, he'll probably put up lots of contested shots, so that lowers the percentage too even though the game does not count blocked shots as shot attempts...

I ended up figuring this out, it's a combination of different things.

Just quit whining already... The game is good. It could be better, but it's good. Play starter difficulty level and score 300 points per game if you are so worried about all these things...

I'm not whining and it's kind of insulting that you say that. I ahve some legitimate problems with the game that I think need to be addressed and that's what this particular section of the board is for.

[tsherkin]

HEre are some other things I'd like to see:

I'd like to see the pick-and-roll play improved. I said it before but I'd very much like to choose the side on which the screen is set (maybe through a variation of the off-ball control?) because too often the screen is set directly into another player and the play is useless. Obviously, this isn't as bad when you screen-and-roll on the wing but still, it'd be nice.

I'd like there to be the Reggie/Rip play available in the playbook, where the player comes off two or three screens and curls for a 15-footer or a 3. And I'd like the screens to work, so that the player can actually get free. If you rub your defender off 3 picks, you WILL be open.

I'd like the computer to set screens for the other computer players. Theoretically, Live 05 is supposed to have that but I don't see it. Live 05 promised a lot of things it didn't deliver, so I wasn't really surprised. It's still a decent game and IMO better than any of the others out there but it's got big flaws still. But yeah, I'd like the computer to set screens for players and get them open on the wings and on the baseline, even at the top fo the foul line.

I'd VERY much like the promised opening of the mid-range shot. It's definitely better in 05 than it used to be but since the shot-blocking is so godawful and ridiculous, 60+% of my shots from mid-range get blocked, which is not realistic. And that's on blocks set to 0, so I mean what the Hell?

I want my foul button back, even if they make me get called for it most of the time (as it should be). I was VERY angry when they took that away. I hate baving to run the Intentional Foul play because it takes for-God-damned-ever. And sometimes I don't wanna give up a layup.

I'd like the old crossovers back, or at least better crossovers. Even at high dribble ratings, the moves are all too slow and unwieldly, ultimately useless to the attempt to get by the defender.

I'd like better post controls. This first objection is probably me but they made it a real pain in the arse to spin in the post. I always end up getting called for a charge because I do a jump stop. The Dream Shake move is a little harder to do than it used to be, for no good reason and I'd like some more options down low.

I think another thing that would be nice is to make the game more spacious. The court feels too small. I think maybe that's part of the problem with the fast breaks a little, the court doesn't feel as if it has the same dimensions as an NBA court like maybe the scale is off.

I definitely think the forcefields need to be either removed or totally revamped. There are too many times when my players do retarded things. Like when I go for a shot block and the blocker fades away instead of going straight up. That's really annoying.