First, I'm going to cheat a little, and re-post the Dynasty section from my Wishlist:
- Bring back some basic functionality and features, such as the transactions listing, injury listing, end of season awards, and the ability to edit player jersey numbers, accessories, and positions.
- Rumours, player/team chemistry and satisfaction, and scouting during the season (not just leading up to the Draft) are some other features from past games that would be great to have back. In-depth scouting of upcoming rookies would be fantastic.
- Add the ability to practice with your team at any time, so that you can get a feel for your players, especially any new ones that you acquire during the course of a season. Also bring back player drills to train your team each week throughout the season. Scrimmages should be available at any time, but shouldn't affect player development (otherwise that's too much of a cheat).
- Add more statistics screens, including advanced metrics, to the season leaders menu. Ensure that all qualifying conditions are accounted for, eg. players who are 5/5 from the free throw line shouldn't be listed as the leader in free throw percentage sixty games into the season.
- Allow us to hire and fire head coaches. This is one is definitely overdue! If need be, have a pool of generic coaches (perhaps we could rename them?) that will also contain real coaches once they get fired. Basically, it shouldn't just be the assistants and other staff who get hired and fired.
- Add ten day contracts, and contract extensions.
- Add three-team trades. The way it worked in NBA Live 2001 was pretty effective, but ideally it should be possible to suggest movement between two CPU-controlled teams as well. Every team would still have to agree to the deal, of course.
- Add the ability to control more than one team, as well as offers (or simply the option) to switch teams between seasons.
- Add customisation/"sandbox" features, similar to MyLEAGUE in NBA 2K. This includes sliders that affect tendencies and frequencies, and the ability to control the league (ie make trades for CPU-controlled teams, undo trades, "commissioner options", and so on). There's a lot of stuff from MyLEAGUE that I'd like to see in Dynasty Mode, but some of it can wait. Those are some of the big ones though, and one step at a time.
- Add the ability to have teams agree to a trade in principle, which you can then confirm or back out of, similar to the option that was available in NBA Live 2000.
- Recognise retired numbers, and disallow active players from wearing them (unless overridden by the user).
- Add All-Star voting, according to the current backcourt/frontcourt format.
- Keep some of the really nice features the mode already has, such as simulation intervention, the rotation menu, free agency negotiations, the trade interface, trading of draft picks, and so on.
- Continue polishing the simulated stats and results, though these tend to be pretty good already, compared to the last few games leading up to NBA Live 10.
- Allow stats to be adjusted/normalised for shorter quarter lengths, so that the user can play shorter quarters, but still have stats that reflect a full length game.
- Bring back Dynasty cutscenes for award presentations, trades, the Draft, and so forth.
- Implement fatigue that carries over from game to game over the course of the season, hot and cold streaks, etc.
I think the biggest must-haves, the bare minimum additions and enhancements, would be...
- The basic functionality and information screens. Specifically, things like Edit Player (jersey numbers, accessories, primary/secondary position), Transaction and Injury listings, the Match-Up Review results screen, and team histories really need to be included.
- More statistics screens, especially advanced stats/analytics, situational stats, and so forth.
- Ability to control more than one team, and switch teams in between seasons (either through offers, or ideally manually switching).
- Ability to have teams agree to a trade in principle, which you can then confirm or back out of, similar to the option that was available in NBA Live 2000.
- A start on adding some of the customisation options of MyLEAGUE. It's a tall order for Dynasty to get as deep as MyLEAGUE within one year, but having some tendency/frequency and commissioner options would be a great first step.
- Expansion of roster management with ten day contracts, contract negotiations, etc.
- Some extra bells and whistles, such as NBA Live 2004's Dynasty Cutscenes, to spice up the presentation and immersion factor