NBA Live 15 Actual Gameplay

[JBulls]

It looks playable and that's all that matters to me. I'm not expecting anything more than what we've been getting the past 8 yrs. It'll just be another basketball game I play on the side when I get bored with 2k. Since EA brought back the ability for us to edit and do sliders, I'm sure someone will come along and fix a lot of the issues anyway. 14 didn't give us that option.

There's no sliders.

[Kevin]

It looks playable and that's all that matters to me. I'm not expecting anything more than what we've been getting the past 8 yrs. It'll just be another basketball game I play on the side when I get bored with 2k. Since EA brought back the ability for us to edit and do sliders, I'm sure someone will come along and fix a lot of the issues anyway. 14 didn't give us that option.

There's no sliders.

True. Sad, but true.

[atlwarrior]

It looks playable and that's all that matters to me. I'm not expecting anything more than what we've been getting the past 8 yrs. It'll just be another basketball game I play on the side when I get bored with 2k. Since EA brought back the ability for us to edit and do sliders, I'm sure someone will come along and fix a lot of the issues anyway. 14 didn't give us that option.

There's no sliders.

Damn

[TheOriginalCandyMan]

Looks like NBA Live 08 with updated graphics tbh

[ChrisCP3Paul]

yea it definitely looks all around like a last generation game that doesn't belong on PS4 and Xbone.... they got some good face scans though, I'll give them that...

This Live 10 shoot around was the most control I've ever felt in any NBA game PERIOD.... moving the players around and shooting layups and dunking, it was all tight responsive and it just felt right!

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[centrifugal]

What I don't like:

- Skin color... it has this strange ash-kind of looking EA color (FIFA player models have the same skin color).
- Ball movement... look at Lebron's shot, the way the ball bounces on the rim looks weird.
- 3 different gameplay videos, the same offensive play (3 players near the baseline, 1 guard at 45 degrees, one guard in the middle, receives the ball and drives... only one of them had a deviation when Lebron moved away from the baseline, received a pass and shot the ball).
- No defensive stance off ball... The defenders who don't guard the player who has the ball or the post, just stand there.
- ESPN scoreboard and EA sports logo take away too much of the visible area. I prefer subtle scoreboards and there's no reason for an EA logo during the whole game.
- No PC... yes this is not related to the videos, but as a PC-purist I'll make sure to mention that every time I can :p

What I like:

- Some nice faces
- Nice crowd and good court - not remarkable, but good nevertheless
- Some good textures here and there

[kingpnp]

..... Dwight's guarding the basket, so he decides to switch out on KLove as LeBron's heading to the basket? What??

...

let me address this point. I think i figured out why dwight did that. now let me say this first. that does happen in the nba. shoot it happened way to often when dwight was a laker. a lot of miscomunication on defense turned into horrible paint defense. and yes even dwight got caught going after guys that couldnt even shoot from distance but still following them to far from the hoop opening the paint up for a drive. but lets assume thats not what happened here.

What i believe EA has done with the AI defense is Whoever ELSE(help defender) thats closest to the ball. when a player is driving will HELP on the ball. the other guy will stay with his man (especially if his man can shoot (love)).

THats what happened here. now perhaps this shouldnt be the formula. perhaps the formula should be based on defensive awareness, tendencies/ position.

odds are in that scenario dwight would be the guy stepping up while the help defender would get dwights man or chase after love. your choice. the reality is. the rockets could get scored on in that scenario or foul someone regardless. because Love is open for the ljb kik out and so is the big man waiting for a dump off pass or what lbj did..he had a clear lane as well. even if dwight stayed, and the other guy guards the other big, Love is still wide open for an easy money jumper. but thats the chess match. you cant cover everything, you have to live with something. will it be a jumpers or layups?


Now if i was in charge of EA's defenisve AI. the logic would go like such:
85% of the time the big man will protect the paint. but this 85% of the time goes to the big man with the highest defensive awareness rating. everyone lower then him has less of percent. which means they are more and more likely to get caught following a cutter vs staying put to protect the paint.

Put it this way a guy like javelle mcgree, great shot blocker. but shaky awareness on defense. He would see love and follow love lets say 40% of the time. even though he's a known shot blocker. thats because of his lower Def. Awareness rating. Dwight would stay put more often then mcgee because he's rated hire on def. awareness.

now depending on the other defender's def awareness(the other big usually), and the teams strategy a combination of both. shoot they might need to add another rating for live 16.

def awareness, and sticking with the coaches schemes.

what that does is combine two things that we see in real life. you seen player's tendencies based on what they see on the court but also them trying to or not caring about what the coach wants them to do in those scenarios.

if Coach Thibs is your head coach, you already know his guys will stick to the program more often then say guys playing for minnesota.

this would add the chess game of some coaches are not as good at coaching up defense as others. so even if you have decent defenders. they wont be utilized properly.

[killercrossover47]

The jersey itself seem set to low settings, have you tried that when you lower your graphics it seems like that. But the cut scene are great, the foot movements are great compared to previous releases, no more feels like skating.

And one more thing the players stance is so much nba live you can't think its 2k. when you saw the video even without seeing the title you know its nba live lol.

[Maximus89]

Yikes. That looks bad. They need to scrap it all and start completely over instead of polishing a turd.

Why are the animations so bad compared to other EA Sports games? I just don't get it. 2K feels so smooth and realistic when the players move on the court. LIVE looks more like the same kid friendly arcade style game pretending to be a sim. The players are so small looking on court too. There's no presence to Dwight or LeBron relative to smaller players and the overall court. The ball always floats weird like it's being sucked into the rim.

Just reboot.

[Andrew]

Scrapping it completely and starting over from scratch is what set them back in the first place, so that's the last thing they should do. In the long run though, they do need to replace the old animation assets that they're using.

[Maximus89]

Scrapping it completely and starting over from scratch is what set them back in the first place, so that's the last thing they should do. In the long run though, they do need to replace the old animation assets that they're using.

I haven't kept up. You're saying this is the result of starting over from scratch? It looks and feels exactly like an NBA Live game. Why is that? Same team worked on the game instead of new hires?

[Patr1ck]

Scrapping it completely and starting over from scratch is what set them back in the first place, so that's the last thing they should do. In the long run though, they do need to replace the old animation assets that they're using.

I agree. Tossing in those old animations is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. If they have old animations that weren't used in retail releases, I wouldn't mind if they used those to save mocap money and time because we have never seen them.

I have a feeling they are on some kind of minimum budget until they start selling or rating higher.

[TBM]

Why are the animations so bad compared to other EA Sports games?

Most EA sports games have terrible animations. Madden and EA UFC's animations are awful. It's their whole mo-cap system that's bad or something.

[Andrew]

I haven't kept up. You're saying this is the result of starting over from scratch? It looks and feels exactly like an NBA Live game. Why is that? Same team worked on the game instead of new hires?

They tried to start over from scratch back with NBA Elite 11. Since then, there's been a lot of turnover and turmoil with the team since then. The thought last year was "Oh, they've had four years to work on the game," but in reality, that wasn't the case. Starting over and changing directions has set them back and cost them development time since the NBA Elite 11 debacle.

The main thing is they haven't been able to use the IGNITE engine to its full potential yet, because they've been using older assets. Last year they used some assets originally intended for NBA Live 13, which did some less than ideal stuff with locomotion, leading to awkward animations. It seems they've also dipped into their bank of animations this year, as some older ones have been put into the game (albeit a little more polished than they were on previous generations).

Sean O'Brien went into detail about a lot of that stuff in our chat with him:
http://www.nba-live.com/nlsc-podcast-ep ... interview/

I agree. Tossing in those old animations is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. If they have old animations that weren't used in retail releases, I wouldn't mind if they used those to save mocap money and time because we have never seen them.

I have a feeling they are on some kind of minimum budget until they start selling or rating higher.

It's a serviceable solution in the short term, to get some more animation variety in there and improve on last year, which from the Visuals Trailer and gameplay videos, I think they've done. New animations and phasing out all the old ones would be the long term goal, something I'm hoping they're working on behind the scenes.

[bigh0rt]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, as I only played it very briefly when it first came out, but this looks to be worlds of improvement over Live 14. I know there were patches, etc. for 14, so maybe the end result was closer to what this gameplay looks like. You also can't tell via video how clunky and non-responsive controls are, whcih was my major complaint with Live 14, along with the animations. The hesitation betweeh me pressing a button, and an animation being carried out. It never felt smooth or responsive. It was herky jerky. You can't really tell if that's been addressed until you get your hands on it. The videos seem to be smoother from animation to animation, so we'll see I guess.

All that being said, if one is trying to say this isn't a step in the right direction, they're just trying to garner attention, or spew nonsense, etc. It's an improvement, at first glance.

[Andrew]

It got a bit better with the patches, but because of what they were doing with locomotion, the stiffness couldn't truly be addressed. That's supposed to be better this year, so the game will apparently feel a lot better, even if it could still look a lot better.

[Nick]

I would really love NBA Live to be good, because it was the first basketball game i ever loved. But after watching that gameplay my expectations are really low. It looks similar to old NBA Lives, which didn't appeal to a "realism nut" like me. The animations are clunky and cartoony. The ball handling looks jolty when the animation transitions between different movements. The passing looks a bit weird and "digital" (i.e. not smooth or real looking). The perspective of how the players move in contrast to the court doesn't seem convincingly realistic.

Maybe i'm being nitpicky or overly harsh, but when 2k is the comparison it's hard not to expect greatness in 2014. With 2k sometimes it looks and feels like an actual game. NBA Live just can't seem to get that "suspension of disbelief" right. It looks like a video game.

That said, the lighting and textures look really nice. And it looks better than previous years. And i'll definitely give it a chance. I mean it could be really fun to play, who knows.

[ThaLiveKing]

Most people are worried how the animations look rather than how it plays out, in terms of responsiveness. I'd rather have the responsiveness. Fifa 15 animations are stiff, just like other EA Sports titles, but the controls make up for everything. This is probably what they're aiming for in Live. I honestly don't see the problem with it. That's why both basketball games, in my opinion are necessay

[Andrew]

I agree. I can tolerate animations that look a little awkward if the feel and responsiveness of the game is to my satisfaction. Ideally, the animations need to continue to improve moving forward, but if they can make some improvements in that regard while getting the locomotion and responsiveness of the controls down pat, then the game is in good shape moving forward.

The balance between animations and responsiveness is something that both games have struggled with. 2K has had great animations, but some of the recent games have felt a bit clunky at times; while the animations are great, the responsiveness hasn't always been. NBA 2K14 on PS4/X1 did a great job with that balance for the most part; it feels great and looks amazing. Conversely, NBA Live 14 had issues with both the look and the feel of the game, so as much as I have had fun with it, it was harder to overlook one or the other.

[JBulls]

There are individual animations that do not animate like a real human. When you say you prefer responsiveness you actually mean you're okay with the transitional animations looking quirky. For example dunks, passes, shots, etc are individual animations and some of them just look awkward and strange when they definitely shouldn't. When you try to branch out of these animations is where it's understandable that it might look quirky.

[Andrew]

I was talking about animations in general, not just transitional animations (although they're all important and I do want to see improvement all around). Like I said, I can personally overlook issues with animations, and for that matter the body models and textures - though those are looking greatly improved in NBA Live 15 - as long as the rest of the experience makes up with it. That is to say, controls that don't feel stiff or unresponsive, not to mention AI that is solid, realism in the form of plays being run, players playing and producing like their real life counterparts, and so on.

I'm not saying the animations we've seen are ideal, or that there isn't room for improvement, or that I don't want to see them get better. But if there's more fluidity on the sticks and I'm liking other parts of the game, aesthetic oddities are something that I can overlook, at least in the short term. If the game feels better to play than NBA Live 14, and shows some improvement over last year's animations as well, then that's a game that I figure I'll be able to enjoy, and can reasonably considered progress. Once again though, there'll still be a lot more progress to be made in the years that follow.

[[Q]]

I don't need the prettiest animations as long as it lets me do what I want when I want to. I remember in 2k7 there was a layup animation that took you from the top of the key to the rim. You were locked into the animation and couldn't do anything. I don't care how pretty the animation is I don't want to get locked into it

I admit at times in the Live 14 demo while trying the signature dribbles, I felt like I was doing a bit of stick waggling and didn't have much control since I moved the sticks before the ball got to my player's hand

[bigh0rt]

So I watched the videos again, and noticed that, in the brief looks, there appears to be a lot less of the 'skating' that has plagued NBA games forever. It's far from perfect, but it really looks much better. If the controls are responsive, I could see this being a fun game. I'll just reiterate, though, that if it were available for PC, I would definitely purchase it, whereas it is highly unlikely that I will buy it for PS4.

[justinpot]

the way their movement looks reminds me of old nba2k games from the ps2 like nba2k8,idk about the ball physics though seems to just "float"

[TBM]

How was this not posted yet:

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