by Dee4Three on Wed Sep 05, 2018 6:56 am
NBA LIVE 19 – Early Feedback, Suggestions, & Requests
Gameplay:
R Stick shooting/dribbling: This is in the post or on the perimeter, it not only needs to be more responsive, but it needs a "camera relative" option. A lot of people like to play on broadcast, and don't like "absolute" controls. Dribbling from the top part of the screen feels unnatural for those people. In the post, the R Stick should be more effective when making moves, the way the stick configuration is set up in the game, using the R stick to shoot is an exercise in frustration. We also should have the control to do a reverse layup when we want, which is another situation where the R stick shooting control would benefit if it worked properly. We should be allowed to push the right stick towards the baseline in order to execute a reverse layup.
Dribbles/First step lack explosion: Small dribbles are fine at times, but not all the time. We should be allowed to go wide on a crossover with a capable ball handler, and we should be able to explode off of a well executed crossover or dribble. If we catch it on the perimeter, we should be allowed to explode off the catch if we are using a quick player. Right now, the game lacks NBA authenticity when it comes to explosive moves. Russell Westbrook and John Wall both should be able to accelerate off of moves/off of first step. Neither can in this game. Even if you time your catch and go properly, not only will you not accelerate, but you will probably end up getting bumped by your defender and forced to pick up the ball.
Reverse Pivot: This is an eyesore, and looks like something left over from Live 18. Think Melo, going from post up/face up shouldn't look so robotic and unnatural.
Excessive Bumping/Being made to pick up the dribble: This is really frustrating, because not only do we lack explosion on the floor if we execute a decent move/first step, but we are constantly being bumped and made to pick up our dribble. This doesn't happen that often in real life, but constantly in NBA LIVE 19. The bumping could be tolerated at the level it currently is, if we weren’t made to pick up the ball as often.
Input lag: A slight delay occurs when we push a button, and it happens on screen. This is the same for X1 and PS4, and I don’t experience it on my other basketball games. Example: NBA Live 16 has no input lag for me, but Live 19 does. This was also confirmed by a few people on Twitter. It can sometimes hurt the feel of the game.
Slow Jumping: Not only does jumping not feel reactive, it’s slow. Players look like they are moving in slow motion on a lot of jumps, and this isn’t just on canned blocks, its jumping in general (Whether its attempting a block, jumping for a rebound, getting a block, etc). This hurts the feel of playing defense, as coming over from the weak side and executing a well timed jump is hard to do, as you are not sure how slow your player will jump or when (Because of the input lag). Because of this, rebounding is tough to time, and really isn’t a fun part of the game.
Rebounding: As stated above, the slow jumping/unpredictable jumping hurts the feel of getting boards, but more importantly is your players “Ball detection” skills. You will jump right near a ball, and your player just has to reach out and grab it… instead… he won’t move his hand(s) towards the ball, and it will just fall to the floor.
Passing: Floaty passes are an issue in this game, and they happen often. You will throw a pass towards your teammate who is maybe 12 feet away, and it’s a really soft pass that can easily be stolen (And it will in this game). This makes moving the ball frustrating at times, as turnovers happen that the user feels shouldn’t. Passing “over the top” into the post is also a problem, and it’s the opposite of the floaty pass problem. Your post player will have inside position (asking for the ball over the top), and you will pass it to him, the pass is always a “rocket” that will either be stolen, or somehow awkwardly get to him for an easy two. Passing overall needs to be looked at and tweaked. Slow catches is also a problem, as players catching animations are sometimes incredibly slow, which causes a delay when you try to pass after receiving the catch.
Jump Passing: Another set of animations that look like they come straight from Live 18. The animation for jump passes is very unnatural, and mimics the “Rocket dunk” issues we have had in the past. The animations for this action need to be smoother out, and possibly slowed down.
Post game: The post game in NBA Live 19 has moments of greatness, and moments of “What just happened?” or “What did I just do?” or “How did I do that”. Sometimes the post game feels completely random and out of control. Not only that, the animations are at times cringeworthy, as your player awkwardly makes moves that feel totally unnatural and robotic. We need more control in the post, and the post game itself needs to be smoothed out. Better R Stick control would benefit the post greatly.
Defense (Overall): This could benefit from a camera relative option with the R Stick, but it also could benefit from the “jump” fixes that I mentioned above. Overall I like the defense in the game, but fixing the slow/non-reactive jumping would go a long way in improving the overall feel of playing defense. Also, being forced to foul so often while going for a steal can be frustrating, because we can time it appropriately, and not be that close to the ball handler, and we are forced into a fouling animation.
Transition defense: It has some great moments, but sometimes the CPU controlled players won’t react to the player coming down the court, and you can just run by them. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does, it’s a head scratcher.
Pick N Roll defense: Sometimes I get stuffed at the rim when I make the pass, which is awesome. However, on the lower difficulty levels (All-Star and below), it can be a little to easy to execute. It’s not unstoppable, but you can go to it more than you should be able to.
Step backs: With momentum moving forward, a quick step back to shoot should be tied in with the shoot button (Like it was in NBA Live 16). As in, we should be able to explode one way, and tap the shoot button (With the joystick pointed in the direction we want to step back) in order to execute a step back into a shot.
Free throws: In my opinion, the system that is currently in place just doesn't work. Not only do all the free throw animations mostly look the same (for all players), but the robotic nature of them is a major eyesore, and even when you release it correctly it still looks terrible. They should make it all one motion, and allow us to push the button and release it at the release point. They need to add more unique free throw animations as well.
Graphics:
Lighting: As shown in side by side screenshots, the lighting in the arena’s (Basically all of them) is very far off from real life. In Live 19, the arenas are darker than they should be, and so are a lot of the floor. It gives the game a dull appearance at times, and it doesn’t resemble with the arena/court look like on tv or in person in the least. This causes a strange conflict between exciting crowd noise/atmosphere, and the blah lighting. The floors are often gorgeous, with nice reflections, but the colors on a lot of them are just off.
Body types: It seems this is a trend in the basketball gaming industry, where players are getting further and further away from looking like athletes. The players in Live 19 hardly have any muscle, and the textures themselves are soft and look washed out. It also looks like the game may only have 2 or 3 body types, which makes players like Draymond Green and Demarcus Cousins have a similar or same body as Trevor Ariza or Jayson Tatum. The players should have more muscle, as these are some of the best athletes in the world, and the textures need to not be so washed out.
Depth:
NBA content: Now that the gameplay has a solid base, more focus should be placed on the NBA aspects of “NBA” Live. You can focus on the younger demographic, while also tackling the consumers who want a deeper NBA experience/or both. By not adding to the NBA content, you are limiting yourself to mostly one age bracket, as opposed to appealing to young adults/older. From everything I have seen, consumers are not clamoring for me street content, or anything over the top depth wise with franchise mode/LUT/legends etc, we are just asking for the basics that should be including in a title in 2018.
Franchise Mode: This mode needs attention, and it could benefit from:
- Multi-Team control
- Edit Roster
- In game injuries
These are the items that I see are most requested, this would put NBA Live on the right track in regards to giving us a more complete experience. We are not asking for insane depth at this point (Court creation, logos, jersey creations, etc). We just want a functional franchise experience. Multi-team use was in NBA Live back in 2004, why 15 years later do we not have that option?
Classic players: Another item removed from Live over the years. Again, why did you have all-decade teams in Live 2003 but now we cant have them in 2018? If it’s licensing, maybe if you put more emphasis on the NBA side of things, you could win some of those licenses back. If not all-decade teams, why not a legends pool that allows us to put classic players on NBA teams? If you believe this will hurt LUT participation, I don’t think that will be the case. Again, this isn’t a case of us asking for over the top features, we are just asking for the basics that should be included in the game (That was in the game 15 years ago).
WNBA Franchise mode: I've actually seen this requested quite a bit, and I might even entertain starting a WNBA franchise if it was in the game.
Editing animations: The game has the bones for this feature, as you can select different animations for created players. We should be allowed to edit the shooting animations/dribbling animations/dunk packages for NBA players. For example, Jayson Tatum's shot is way off in Live 19, I'd like to be able to edit his base and release. Certain shots in the game are spot on, like Horford, Brook Lopez, Westbrook, Paul George, etc. For the ones that are not, we should be able to edit them.
Last edited by
Dee4Three on Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:25 am, edited 4 times in total.