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NBA Live 2004 Wishlist

The NBA Live 2004 Wishlist was compiled using the suggestions of the NLSC Team and fans in the community via email and the NLSC Forum. It was submitted to the production team on April 15th, 2003.

General

  • Have injuries occur more frequently
  • Call more Flagrant Fouls, but do not have injuries rely on them.
  • Bring back the ability to save during a game
  • Add more statistics/a halftime report to be displayed at halftime.
  • Add real NBA-style boxscores to the post-game stats.
  • Ability to save replays.
  • Make it possible to have more than one cyberface for one player, so that he can have multiple hairstyles.

Video & Animations

  • Bring back Halftime Shows
  • Bring back the old Press Camera angle, that was present up until NBA Live 2002.
  • Show players on bench in warmups, injured players in street clothes
  • Show more player reactions outside cutscenes.
  • Show replays of great defensive players (blocked dunks, etc)
  • Bring back the option of 2D portraits for users with slower PCs
  • Less “Courtside Comedy” cutscenes (stealing ball from referee, coach getting mad at player signing autograph etc)
  • Show referees on the court during gameplay.
  • Have realistic stadiums (United Center, Madison Square Garden etc)
  • Differ presentation/atmosphere for Playoff/All-Star games.
  • Show players walking to the scorers table, ready to check in
  • Ability to disable cutscenes completely.
  • Add free throw rituals, such as Jason Kidd’s kiss.

Audio

  • Get rid of the arcade sound effects when you dunk or block a shot. When you watch an NBA game, there is no crashing/glass breaking sound when a player dunks, and no explosion noise when a shot is blocked.
  • Have the commentators better react to the gameplay
  • Record new commentary for Playoff/All-Star games – more lighthearted, acknowledge it’s not a normal game

Settings & Ratings

  • Add the ability to designate auto-subs.
  • Add the ability to save team strategies so that you do not have to adjust them every game
  • Allow the player to set team strategies before the game begins. Perhaps add it as an option on the same pre-game screen that allows you to adjust starting lineups, game settings, select jerseys etc.
  • Add a Layup rating. Players with lower ratings would not be able to perform double-clutch/switch hands/reverse layups.
  • Bring back the Clutch rating
  • Fix NBA Legends’ ratings so that they are more in tune with the rest of the players.

Player AI

  • Have more intentional fouls in the last minute. In NBA Live 2003, players will rarely foul to stop the clock, so you can just easily dribble out the clock.

Coaching AI

  • Make coaches have more of an impact on the game ie. teams with better coaches play better in difficult situations. Could also have an effect on simulated performance.

Realism

  • Slow down the gameplay. In NBA Live 2003, players move a little too quickly
  • Lower the field goal percentage. Players and teams hit too many shots.
  • Add sliders for more control over the realism
  • When the CPU is down, do not allow it to come back by simply shooting three pointers, which always go in.
  • Make Freestyle defence more effective. CPU players will still hit difficult shots when defended closely, at a high percentage.
  • Make blocks more realistic. Too many short players come up with blocks, and blocks should not always be batted out of bounds, back to the opposite baseline, etc.
  • Reduce the amount of steals, in partciular interceptions. Both the human user and CPU both come up with a lot of lucky steals this way.
  • Reduce the amount of power dunks. Add more soft dunks, similar to the ones in NBA Live 2001. Also make it more difficult for players to dunk/reduce the amount of dunks entirely. Definitely reduce the amount of windmills and other spectacular dunks, and make them more difficult for a player to pull off, especially in traffic.
  • Add Offensive Goaltending
  • Realistic scores playing 12 minute quarters
  • On harder difficulty, have the CPU win due to intelligent plays, not by cheating (unrealitic FG%, you suddenly cannot hit a shot, etc)

Franchise/Season Mode

  • Allow importing of college players for the offseason draft.
  • Add career stats, including career totals showing the teams player has played for, career highs, etc.
  • Have injuries occur more frequently
  • Improve the simulation engine so that bench players play realistic minutes and average realistic numbers.
  • Bring back Player/Rookie of the Week/Month awards in NBA News. Show other stats in NBA news such as winning/losing streaks.
  • Give second round draft picks a chance at being good players, and have more steals in the draft. Guys like Nick Van Exel and Cedric Ceballos were/are both good players who were selected in the second round.
  • Add the ability to trade for draft picks.
  • Make free agency less random, eg. have team’s success/player’s role/playing time play more of a part in his decision to re-sign.
  • Allow players to entertain offers, meaning that if a player refuses to sign, he might change his mind.
  • Make contract size independant from contract length.
  • When a highly rated player leaves his team for free agency and no other teams can offer him a large salary, have him re-sign with his current team.
  • Have rookies develop in weight (or even height if they are drafted out of high school). It would be extremely cool to draft a 6’9″ 205 pound high school kid and have him be 6’10” 215 the next year.
  • Ability to select the length of a Franchise up to 25 years, or play an unlimited amount of years.
  • Ability to un-retire players within the first year of their retirement. Might be a way to correct an early/unexpected retirement, having the option to coax a player into playing one more year.
  • Better jersey number assignment after drafting a player or making a transaction. Maybe a dialog box that allows you to specify new numbers, or have the CPU assign one. Prevent duplicate numbers from occuring on CPU teams.
  • Bring back the multi-team trade option. However, you should be able to specify players going from CPU teams to CPU teams – each team would have to agree to the trade of course.
  • Bring back the Cancel/Confirm Trade dialog box. It allows the user to see if a trade would be accepted, so they can make a few trade scenarios before eventually deciding to complete a trade.
  • Similarly, bring back the “(Team) feels this would make them too weak at (position)” dialog box. This allowed you to alter the deal so that the CPU would be more willing to accept the deal. Much better than simply “(Team) is not interested in your offer”. Though CPU teams shouldn’t always be interested in offers.
  • Add a Trading Block feature, so both user controlled and CPU teams could shop players/designate players who are available.
  • Make teams “aware” of a player’s value. Make it more difficult to acquire superstar players/key players.
  • Add an injury bar that determines whether a player can play or not. The bar would decrease as the result of minor and major injuries, as well as a lot of minutes played.
  • Abililty to hire/fire coaches
  • Add the ability to sign free agents more than once in the offseason. The Trade Players, Re-Sign Free Agents and Sign Free Agents should remain available until you start the next season.
  • Add a Hall of Fame and NBA records

Roster Management

  • Allow more editing of player accessories. You should be able to give any player (created or pre-existing) any accessory from shoes to headbands.
  • Bring back the Custom Team feature, with the following changes:
    • Ability to designate custom team as a regular NBA team, All-Star team, or special team. Special team would basically be the old format of custom teams, while the other classifications speak for themselves. Of course, since it’s a created team, it would be deleted when the rosters are reset, no matter what the classification.
    • Ability to specify uniforms worn – custom made ones (selecting colours, etc), individual NBA team jerseys (so you could create All-Star/All-Rookie/All-Sophomore teams), or perhaps some generic ones.
    • More generic custom team art. Simple “NBA” logos, a basketball going through a hoop, etc. Do not make the team logo automatically show up on the jerseys. This way, you could make a custom East All-Stars team from the 80s that would use the East All-Stars logo, but would have a red or white jersey with the 80s style NBA All-Star logo on it. Basically, just a little more customisation.
  • Allow trading for an empty roster slot
  • Bring back the old “Restore Rosters” feature, where all transactions and created players are wiped. Make it possible to reload the default rosters.
  • Ability to edit the default All-Star teams (which would save patchmakers a lot of work ;). Also have the ability to “Select New All-Stars” when playing an exhibition game with the All-Star teams. These changes, unlike editing the default teams, would only be temporary.
  • Bring back the ability to disable automatic roster re-ordering.
  • Find some way to make it possible to implement changes from a roster update into a season that’s already started (hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask 😉
  • A better generated schedule when selecting more or less than 29 teams in Season/Franchise mode. Have the option of selecting an 82 game season no matter how many teams, as this would be useful for old season roster patches. Also, allow saving of custom season formats, which could be distributed with old season roster patches.
  • Allow the editing of a player’s contract length and size in the Edit Player screen.
  • Make weight independent of body type
  • Allow editing/create-a-coach.

Miscellaneous

  • Add a better practice mode, eg. ability to practice free throws, 5 on 5 pickup games, etc.
  • Add more Legends to the Legends Pool and Decade All-Star Teams.
  • Allow players to choose whether a player’s first or last name goes on his jersey. This way Yao Ming could be listed properly and still have “Yao” on his jersey.
  • Add Dunk Contest, Three Point Shootout, and Rookie/Sophomore Game
  • Retain ability to choose jerseys, but automatically designate alternate jerseys on Sunday games.