Stuff

Just wonderin' if you know if EA will put in proper Tech fouls... as in Ron Artest chucks a sike or somethin... they could add a "flare" or "temper" rating for players and if they get pushed around too much they can swear at players,ref, crowd,etc.

Also I reackon they should add a Taunt button or trash talk button and say things to your team to sike them up or to your opponents to piss em' off.

I think they need more injuries in games during the season (flu) and hopefully if Dynasty mode is deep enough they could add trainings

I doubt they'll add the unsportsmanlike technical foul calls. It's not exactly a part of the game that should be celebrated...even if "it's in the game". I don't work for EA Sports, so anything I say is purely speculation. But I'd be surprised if they added those techs. Ditto the ability to taunt.

I'm hoping that one of the features of Dynasty Mode will be more in-game injuries, as long as they're not too frequent. I'd like to access a training mode in Dynasty as well, where you could practice with your team (as long as it's worthwhile practice - 5 on 5 pickup games where you choose each squad, free throw practice, etc).

I'd like to access a training mode in Dynasty as well, where you could practice with your team (as long as it's worthwhile practice - 5 on 5 pickup games where you choose each squad, free throw practice, etc).

I have seen people mentioning this "training mode" a bit ... but it just doesn't make sense to me?

Why would you want to have a mode where you just shoot free throws? You can do that in practise mode now if you want? But it gets boring after a while doesn't it? A 5 on 5 .. well just do and exibition game? You can play Bulls vs Bulls if you want and select the players.. a "training mode" is a waste of time IMO and I don't think we will see it in the game.. what value would it add?

Yeah, you could just play an exhibition with your team vs your team, but if you're in Franchise Mode, it requires some fiddling with the rosters. While it's not overly difficult, it would be more convenient if there was a means of picking players from your team to play 5 on 5 in some kind of expanded practice mode. At the very least, there could be some way of exporting the rosters from a saved Franchise so that they could be used elsewhere (I believe NBA Live 96 is the only game that allowed you to save rosters from within a season).

Training mode would basically be an expanded version of the current Practice Mode. All you can do in the Practice Mode is practice shooting and dribbling by yourself. Therefore, it's pretty easy to make shots. Practice Mode would have more value if you could practice 5 on 5, and practice using the T-Meter (since the speed seems to vary every year).

I have said with training in franchise/dynasty always the fact that you could effect the players stat increases with it. Not just see the guys on the court and test how they play there.

Allthough the fact to put guys from your team to play against each other in some sort of a practise game.

And Andrew said it best that it takes some doing to get a player from franchise into the practise mode.

There is a difference with Practise and Training...

I have said with training in franchise/dynasty always the fact that you could effect the players stat increases with it. Not just see the guys on the court and test how they play there.

I assume you are saying you want the training mode to increase the player ratings... how would this work? What would you have to shoot 200 3's in practise mode to increase the 3 pt rating? or shoot free throws for 5 mins to increase the FT rating? This sounds pretty silly to me.. I would get pretty board with having to do this to improve my players ratings.. and just cause a player practises something heaps doesn't mean that they will improve in it ... take shaq.. he practised FT more than anyone on his team and he still had a bad percentage.. it improved a bit but not as much as others on his team who practised less.. so it depends on the player.. I think the training/practise mode should just be left to improve your gaming skills and should not change ratings.. it would never work..

An option EA could consider are pre-season and season training schedules. So you could set players on certain types of training to help improve certain ratings.. this would also depend on the player and their development envelope on how "successful" the training was.. the pre-seson training would work for the ratings change in the off-season.. and the season traning would be for how the ratings develop over the season.. ofcourse if EA wanted to be really clever they could make overtraining a player cause injuries etc..

But to me this is all stuff that you find in sports management games.. like Championship manager etc.. maybe if EA release a basketball GM game then this would be good.. but NBA Live serires is NOT a sports management game.. it is a basketball game where you play the game.. not manage player development...

The training mode doesn't sound too bad IMO. If a player (the guy player the playstation) sucks at shooting free throws, this would be where he could work on them. shooting 10 free throws with each player would help his skills and he wont have to try and develop that in the nba finals for instance. I wouldn't use it, but i would rather see that in the game that a slam dunk mode for example.

An option EA could consider are pre-season and season training schedules. So you could set players on certain types of training to help improve certain ratings.. this would also depend on the player and their development envelope on how "successful" the training was.. the pre-seson training would work for the ratings change in the off-season..

NBA 2k3 has this feature, and you're right, its really good.

But to me this is all stuff that you find in sports management games.. like Championship manager etc.. maybe if EA release a basketball GM game then this would be good.. but NBA Live serires is NOT a sports management game.. it is a basketball game where you play the game.. not manage player development

That's true, but live does have a management mode.It would be a shame if each year live didn't add somthing fresh to franchise mode and have the same thing over and over again

I assume you are saying you want the training mode to increase the player ratings... how would this work?

first, i assume that they won't be any decent training mode in Live 2004. EA guys are far too lazy you all know it

and if ever there's one, it may be less stupid than forcing us shooting 200 3pt's. The training mode may be like Championship Manager for instance, you just have to tell a player he has to train with 3pt's and after a while he'll automatically improve his ratings. You would just have to play games, that's all

The training mode I'm referring to is for the benefit of the human player, not the players he's controlling (although that's an interesting concept as well). Just as some other genres of game have training levels/introductory stages of the game, perhaps Live could have a Training Mode where the human player can practice free throws, Freestyle moves, shooting, defending and the like without having to play exhibition games or endure losses early on in Franchise Mode.

Seasoned Live players could probably pick up the game without ever having to use this mode, but it would be a nice way to brush up your skills, and adjust to free throw shooting (I've noticed that each Live seems to have a different speed for its difficulty levels, for example).

Being able to access the Training facility in Dynasty Mode would basically just be a quick way of practicing free throws with that rookie you drafted in the third year of the Dynasty game.

http://www.easports.com/games/nbalive2004/home.jsp

official E3 LIVE 2004 site up

with 5 players against cones so i could practice running plays.

It's very diffcult for me to use plays only according to the animations in the strategy screen.

That is a very good point Toaster.. that would be valuable "training" I agree that it is hard to follow the plays on the strategy screen. If EA are going to introduce a training mode it should definately allow for walkthrough of plays. So you could select a play and then the practise mode takes you though that play showing when to pass the ball and who to pass it to.. that whay you could actually practise plays and then use them in the game more effectivly.. great idea Toaster..

Agreed.

Okay boys... Training I mean that you should be able to set some training parameters for your people that would effect the annual stat increases.

Like maybe "Work on shooting", "Physical training", "Athletisicm", "Defense", "Passing game", "Team game" etc.

You could maybe do this at the start of the off-season. To whom you have signed to a contract. And the out of contracts would train according to a "working ethic" stat... Working ethic would also show how beneficial the training would be.

This would enable you to make your team play more like you'd like... These training operations would all have their strengths and weaknesses. I mean that they would help increase some stats and decrease some stats. You should be able to set it to none, so that the player would increase/decrease as he was meant to.

Not increasing stats in practise mode... That would be just stupid and dumb.

Ofcourse there is use for a practise mode in dynasty... You could try out your rookies, and how they play... But in order to do this properly, well you should be able to make them play mini games one on one, or 3 on 3, or 5 on 5... That would really help out on seeing how good they are.

This is what I was meaning with the training and practising things... I left it quite open in my first post... Sorry for the misunderstandings...

And about technical fouls... Andrew said it best again... EA took a long time before putting fights into their hockey games. But I don't think that this is as bad as it is hockey. If you've ever played basket ball, well you know that things happen that you do disagree with a ref. And you should have button to express that disagreement... These could sometimes result in a technical, but sometimes a better call the next time a similar situation came up. Of course if you keep on hassling the ref, well he's gonna turn on you and slap you with tons of technicals... I suggested this in the wishlist forums and I still think it would be a good addition to the game... Maybe for Live 2005.

training sounds liike a good idea,
i'm not sure if u guys mentioned it.
but it would be good to use before a season starts,
ie. lets say you draft a player, u use the mode to try him out, and see if he would suit the team, then perhaps some kind of time limit of which you decide to sign him or release him from training camp

the IGN hands on said alternate modes are implemted like that of madden

Training should be in the game along with a sim type of practice.
The sim type practice would be tell your player what to practice to improve ratings, like strength quickness, shooting.......

Now the actual practice should be used to walk thru plays, the regular practice (i.e. dribble, shoot), freethrows, and 1 on 1 3 on 3 and 5 on5,
For example one on one you can ork your post moves with your big man, guard play etc

In addition, it could be used to test players on days off when you sign players to 10 day contracts. Rather than the schedule going from game to game, you should have the option to practice or not on non game days.

You should also be able to bring in players in the draft with a scouting report. Like that you can read a scouting report and test him. You should be able to bring in players depending on where you are in the draft, like that if you have the 25th pick, the projected # 1 player would decline to workout with you. This way you can practice late first rounders and second rounders, while you search for a steal like gilbert arenas) likewise if you have a top five pick you can bring in the projected top 10 and their should be some busts.

Train would be best fit for this.

ya i like those ideas i hope they put practice modes and training modes into live2004 its always that the "little things count" with the best video games

Yeah, this could be cool! I'd like to see a training mode (and maybe with the teams' fitting practice-jerseys )!

Weight Lifting! Think about it. Push-ups, crunches, etc. That would be a thumbs up way to train!

Now there's an interesting idea, weight lifting. Occasionally, generated rookies may be "not strong enough to play in the NBA" or "need to bulk up". Being able to accomplish this by, say, instructing your player to undertake a regime of lifting weights would actually provide a means of overcoming this weakness.

Depending on the player's CAREERPKG (which could perhaps also represent his dedication), he would get results if he dedicates himself to the necessary lifting. In contrast, he might choose not to dedicate himself to this training, and fail to add muscle.

As I was saying that with training you could designate an area of focus for personal training. Be it "shooting", "athletisism", "game eye", "defense", "bulk up" etc. etc. This would allow a player to try to create a team that more represents your type of play. This would be added to the natural development of a player from the careerpkg and it's effect could be determined by a hidden stat aka "determination" maybe...

And you should be able to change the default settings for strategy etc. from the dynasty interface. I really hate putting the auto sub thing on at the start of every game in Live 2003.

Practise mode even with a single player in dynasty would be nice... You could actually see if a rookie was good or not.

These are things I'd like to see in the game... I am still hopeful, though I doubt that the "training" bit won't be in Live 2004.