NBA Live 15 Dynasty Mode Wishlist

We're compiling the main Wishlist here:
viewtopic.php?f=131&t=94802

But as a Dynasty Mode enthusiast, I thought I'd compile some detailed feedback for the upcoming game. Feel free to add your own feedback and ideas!

• Simulated stats in NBA Live 14 are actually pretty good, the best they've been in a few NBA Live releases. A little more fine tuning would be good though, as assist numbers could stand to be a little higher, with players like Chris Paul averaging up around 10 assists per game. Scoring distribution is fairly realistic, though a couple of players (like LeBron James) could stand to score a little more. With the new rotation system, we should also see a few bench players putting up starter-like numbers off the bench, especially the league's top sixth men who play 30 or more minutes per game.
  
  
• Make sure that only qualified players show up in the League Leaders, ie. the ones that meet the statistical minimums. From memory, I think NBA Live 14 might already do this, but I thought I'd mention it just to be certain.
  
  
• Please keep the current rotation screen! It's exactly what we need; the ability to easily reorder the whole lineup, as well as assign playing time in number of minutes (rather than as a percentage of game time, as in the older games). It ain't broke, don't fix it!
  
  
• Please bring back the Edit Player menu, so that we can change player's positions, jersey numbers and accessories. Allowing the user to change the ratings within Dynasty Mode is obviously a cheat and something I'm not interested in doing myself, but perhaps that could be an option for people who really want it. At the very least though, we need to be able to change basics like jersey numbers; it's distracting when you're playing with the Bulls and trade for someone with #23!
  
  
• Add more stats and records screens. It'd be nice to be able to view and track advanced stats; PER, TS% and so on. Likewise, it'd be handy to be able to view career statistics, team and league records, and a history of everything that's happened during your Dynasty game; past award winners and champions, season and career highs, transaction listings and so on.
  
  
• It'd be cool to see All-Star voting reflected and tallied as the season leads up to the All-Star break. If the dunk contest and three point shootout make it back into the game, then their inclusion in Dynasty Mode (as in years past) is also a must!
  
  
• Expand the free agency process with 10 day contracts (after January 1st), contract extensions, Restricted/Unrestricted free agency, Bird Rights, etc.
  
  
• I don't mind the current staff management options, though I felt their implementation in NBA Live 06 PC/P2/Xbox was superior; rather than having to earn points to upgrade them, you had a budget and could hire staff of different levels of skill, depending on how you wanted to spend your staffing budget. However, something that needs to be added is the ability to hire and fire head coaches. With their different coaching profiles, it'll definitely make things more interesting and have an impact on a team's style of play and success.
  
  
• This one relies on in-game injuries making their return, but allow in-game injuries to put players out of action for multiple games when in Dynasty Mode. It's realistic, and certainly keeps things interesting and challenging.
  
  
• I'd like to see the return of the NBA Academy drills for developing players. At the very least, I'd like to be able to run five-on-five scrimmages with my team whenever I'd like, so that I can get used to my players...especially new ones that I've just traded for.
  
  
• The trade interface in NBA Live 14 is pretty good for the most part. I'm glad to see the indicator that shows whether or not the current proposal works under the cap was retained as it's very handy, and it was great to see some extra info added to that screen including contract length and player ages. Please keep all that stuff in there. However, when a proposal is sent to another team, I'd like to have the ability to Confirm or Cancel it (ie find out what they'll accept, and then either modify, complete, or back out of the deal). It would also be good to get some feedback from the CPU team when they reject a deal: "Not good enough value for us", "We feel we'd be too weak at small forward", "We want younger players"...that kind of thing. Finally...multi-team trades (at least three) would be most welcome.
  
  
• In terms of customising the experience, quite a lot of users are interested in the ability to play shorter seasons, eg 14 games (only teams in the same Conference), 29 games (all other teams once), 58 games (all other teams twice) or the full 82 games. It would also be handy to have the option to switch teams in between seasons if desired, as well as control multiple teams.
  
  
• While I was glad to see some rookie scouting facilities before the Draft in NBA Live 14, I'd like to see the return of scouting throughout the prior season, giving us more of an opportunity to scout out a variety of prospects and get a decent enough idea of what they might be like.
  
  
• Make sure that there aren't too many blockbuster trades. Ideally, a slider or setting could be implemented that allows each user to control the frequency of trades, especially ones involving star players. Other options such as the ability to override the CPU or disable trades completely might also be useful to some gamers.
  
  
• From a presentation standpoint, Dynasty Cutscenes are something that I enjoyed and I know a lot of other Dynasty enthusiasts would be keen to see them come back:
  
  
  phpBB [video]
  
  
  Other cool presentation elements would include mock news articles (like the ones already in the game, definitely keep them!), magazine covers, and so forth.
  
  
• Bring back simulation intervention, so that we can jump into games to play out the final minutes of a simmed game that's close. The ability to simulate to the end of games would be handy as well.
  
  
• Add the D-League and allow players to be assigned to it for further development. Perhaps players from the game's Free Agent Pool could be used to round out the D-League rosters in Dynasty Mode, if necessary.
  
  
• Allow the creation of custom Draft Classes. If we can share them with other users, even better.
  
  
• Allow us to view boxscores from every game during the regular season and Playoffs. If we could somehow export/upload them, that'd be great for our Story threads section!
  
  
• Disallow retired numbers from being assigned in Dynasty Mode (so that the CPU teams don't allow it to happen), but perhaps leave an option in there for the user to override that feature if they really want. It would also be fun to be able to retire player jerseys, as in previous games.

That's about all I have at the moment. Aside from all that, please keep the current features and functionality of Dynasty Mode. As it is, it's pretty solid and a good foundation to build upon.

Nice post, Andrew. Dynasty is my favorite mode as well. While Live 08 was the last one I played at great length, a good Dynasty Mode would go a long way towards swaying me back to Live.

While NBA 2K's Association Mode has gotten a little stale, EA could take a lot of cues from it. Downloadable draft classes are a must, as are in-game injuries (from your post I gather Live 14 lacks those?), multi-team trades, player editing, etc. Cutscenes obviously aren't mandatory, but would be awesome - that Live 2004 video made me super nostalgic. All of that plus a simulation intervention (can't stress the importance of this enough) feature would make it by far the best franchise mode ever.

Here are some more obscure requests:

- D-League with real players - this might be a hassle, creating a bunch of players who will be rated in the 50's in 60's. However, it would be awesome if through the years you see the D-League gradually become populated with 2nd rounders and undrafted players from generated or downloaded draft classes, and picking up diamonds in the rough a la Troy Daniels. Handling players like PJ Hairston and Thanasis Antetokounmpo might be a tricky gray area, but just exclude them..

- Draft picks - It would be awesome if you could protect draft picks when trading them (top 10, top 20, etc.), and even more awesome if draft rights belonged to the correct teams (NY's pick -> Denver, NO's -> Philly, etc.), but I guess this doesn't have to be the #1 priority.

- Dynamic player development - 2K's association gets boring after a while because players' development destinies are pre-determined. It would be cool if players not only improved based on age and internal potential rating, but also based on playing time, health and how well they play. If you decide to make say, Austin Rivers a star and play him 40 minutes a game, his ratings would raise more than if you benched him like in real life.

I probably have more, but those are the first things that come to mind.

I'm all for that stuff.

Traditionally, player development in NBA Live has been handled by a hidden value (CAREERPKG and later DESTINY in the PC releases) that determined their potential. The better that rating, the more likely a player was to improve and end up being a star, with higher ratings also generally resulting in a bigger improvement year-to-year. While it still disregarded the player's performance in the user's hands - it didn't matter whether you averaged 14 or 40 points per game - there wasn't a cap on their potential rating and a certain element of chance was involved.

I imagine it would be difficult to properly implement dynamic player development as it would need to be balanced to account for the difficulty setting and whatnot, but that'd be very cool if it could be done. Even if there were just a few key factors involved in influencing player development - constant training with a good coach, consistent minutes, achieving certain milestones, all on top of a good potential rating - that would be a nice improvement.

While looking for a CD at home I found out a copy of Live 07 for PC. Long story short I decided to play a game or two and play Dynasty Mode, it's unbelievable how much better it is than what we have now on Live 14, one would feel that the one we have now was from 2006 and the other would be the evolution of it.
These are features that the mode had EIGHT years ago:

• Hire staff: assistant head coach, assistants, trainers, scouts; each with age, expected salary and years, specialty (which for example be leadership, development, league insider for assistant head coaches), ratings and teams interested. There’s a cap to hire them and could change based on how you did in the previous seasons.
• Training camp: focus on offense, defense and athletics.
• Players’ satisfaction being affected by market, roster stability, win percentage, playing time, team talent, bench order, team events and team chemistry.
• Team chemistry would be affected by those players’ satisfaction plus how well players’ got with each other and forming the starting lineups and different units that played well could depend on the synergy between the five players.
• Player fatigue through the season affected by minutes played, team events like practices, back to back games, road trips, age and games played.
• Rumors about signings, trades, releases, team chemistry, retirements which could be true or false; knowing these would be useful if you’re trying to sign a player or make a trade with someone who could be on the trade block.
• Player evolution through the year, they can slim down or gain weight affecting their athletics ratings and improve ratings via potential and playing time.
• Rookie scouting through the season with scouts and being able to play with or against them during the offseason to get a feel of them
• While drafting a player there are tabs indicating Team Weakness with players who could fill those needs and ESPN Comments on the players available that you’re going through, draft grades on the picks.
• Can separate free agents in all available, affordable, mid-level exception, minimum, waived, qualified veterans.
• Being able to trade during the off-season.
• Being able to be released by the team owner or being offered a position from another team.
• Assign playing time for each position and assign how often players start games.
• Being able to know before the off-season the projected draft class and if it’s strong, normal or weak.
• Train players on your team on offense, defense or athletics.

If somehow we get that mode like it was on Live 15 I'd be ecstatic but it's too late for it, I hope they improve the mode because as what it is now it's extremely barebones.

NBA Live 14's Dynasty Mode isn't all that barebones to be honest; there's actually some really good stuff in it, which I wrote about here:
http://www.nba-live.com/the-friday-five ... asty-mode/

I do agree that staff management needs to be deeper, more along the lines of what we saw in NBA Live 06-08 PC. The ability to hire and fire head coaches on top of that is also an overdue addition, dating back to those days.

Training camp in NBA Live 14 is pretty much the same as it was back then. It'd be nice to have the drills that we saw in NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10, though.

I agree that player satisfaction, player fatigue and chemistry are important factors, but if we're being completely honest, they weren't particularly well-implemented or effective in NBA Live 07. They were there in the game, but as far as their actual impact was concerned, they didn't enhance things as much as we would've liked. That said, I would like to see them back and utilised effectively.

We kind of get those news and rumours in NBA Live 14, but yeah, by all means bring them back. Association/MyGM in NBA 2K offers good examples of it done quite well.

Rookie scouting is a big one. It's nice that it's still there during the offseason, but the ability to scout players throughout the year would be much better. No argument there.

Players do develop in NBA Live 14. I can't recall whether or not they change bodytype though, but either way, that should be in there in the future, for sure.

I strongly disagree in regards to NBA Live 07's rotation menu. That was just plain awful, being clunky and extremely limiting in what you could do. The rotation menu in NBA Live 14, which is basically like the one in NBA 2K, is a thousand times better. The rotation menu in NBA Live 07 must never see the light of day again. There's a reason we came up with workarounds that let us use the regular reorder roster menu in its place.

I'm all for adding more functionality to the menu screens (though we did get some new stuff in NBA Live 14, which was most welcome), and expanded features like changing teams, controlling multiple teams, and whatnot.

NBA Live 14's Dynasty Mode isn't all that barebones to be honest; there's actually some really good stuff in it, which I wrote about here:
http://www.nba-live.com/the-friday-five ... asty-mode/

I do agree that staff management needs to be deeper, more along the lines of what we saw in NBA Live 06-08 PC. The ability to hire and fire head coaches on top of that is also an overdue addition, dating back to those days.

Training camp in NBA Live 14 is pretty much the same as it was back then. It'd be nice to have the drills that we saw in NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10, though.

I agree that player satisfaction, player fatigue and chemistry are important factors, but if we're being completely honest, they weren't particularly well-implemented or effective in NBA Live 07. They were there in the game, but as far as their actual impact was concerned, they didn't enhance things as much as we would've liked. That said, I would like to see them back and utilised effectively.

We kind of get those news and rumours in NBA Live 14, but yeah, by all means bring them back. Association/MyGM in NBA 2K offers good examples of it done quite well.

Rookie scouting is a big one. It's nice that it's still there during the offseason, but the ability to scout players throughout the year would be much better. No argument there.

Players do develop in NBA Live 14. I can't recall whether or not they change bodytype though, but either way, that should be in there in the future, for sure.

I strongly disagree in regards to NBA Live 07's rotation menu. That was just plain awful, being clunky and extremely limiting in what you could do. The rotation menu in NBA Live 14, which is basically like the one in NBA 2K, is a thousand times better. The rotation menu in NBA Live 07 must never see the light of day again. There's a reason we came up with workarounds that let us use the regular reorder roster menu in its place.

I'm all for adding more functionality to the menu screens (though we did get some new stuff in NBA Live 14, which was most welcome), and expanded features like changing teams, controlling multiple teams, and whatnot.

Maybe barebones wasn't the correct term I wanted to use, simple would fit better.
I've already read your article and watched videos on Youtube about the mode but I still feel there needs an almost overhaul, still find some redeemable things.
I know some of the stuff I mentioned are in some sort into the game (rumors, development, scouting) but they're oversimplified and lack any type of depth which previous games or 2K have.

I agree about player satisfaction, player fatigue and chemistry not being well implemented but the concepts were interesting and should've been improved instead of being scrapped.
I do disagree with the rotation menu, I find it useful for players who play in several positions. If it were up to me I'd have Live 14 rotation menu and Live 07 option to divide players' playing time in their different positions, I think the combination of both would be ideal.

I'm guessing that some of those things were scrapped because they weren't working properly, and needed be re-done. With all the turmoil and turnover with the development team in recent years - NBA Live 14 wasn't four years in the making, and was obviously trying to do a lot of things in a lot of different areas - certain features no doubt fell by the wayside.

Of course, those things need to make their way back into the game, starting with NBA Live 15. No argument there.

Nothing from NBA Live 07's rotation menu needs to be salvaged. The rotation menu in NBA Live 14 - which again, is basically identical to what it's in NBA 2K - does the job so much better. With secondary positions and the ability to assign an exact amount of minutes in the rotation, that basically takes care of things, without the clunkiness of the NBA Live 07 menu.

So maybe they removed them because they weren't working well but they haven't added much in return. If you're only talking about Dynasty Mode which are those "lots of things" and where are them? Please don't tell me adding a Rotation menu because it can't been to difficult to implement in all these years. I know Live 14 didn't take four years but there was development for Elite 11 and Live 13 and we don't see much change from before, even Elite was going to have need features in their single player mode and it's nowhere to be found in Live 14.

Actually having a rotation menu doesn't simply take care of things, it's so simple and doesn't take many things into account like fatigue, game situation or players' stamina ratings.
I'd believe that having a lineups menu where you create different lineups for certain situations and distributing when those lineups would be used could be a more deep option. Having a second unit lineup after the starting five begins to getting tired, a closing lineup for close games, a blowout one for when the opponents are winning by more than 15 points with three minutes remaining, as examples. Those would be like the specific lineups the game has but putting them restrictions or situations to trigger them.

Plus, Live only have secondary positions but doesn't have any indication about how often players play on those positions something somewhat Live 07 had, not having that exact menu but having the option to indicate how often the players' play in certain positions could be useful.

Sure, you could make the current rotations menu deeper. However, I don't think the approach they used from NBA Live 07-10 is the way to go in that regard.

As far as my "lots of things" comment is concerned, I wasn't referring only to Dynasty Mode. Like I said, a lot of things in a lot of different areas. In trying to get a game out after the turmoil, turnover, and false starts, some things had to fall by the wayside. If it wasn't working properly, it was taken out. If it wasn't a top priority in getting a working game out there, then it was something for future iterations. If they were able to do it in NBA Live 14 without too much trouble or taking time away from a more crucial aspect of the game, chances are it made the cut. Create-a-Player is another good example here (and something I want to see return, too).