What is the biggest thing NBA Live 2005 needs to have on it?

[Riot]

whats the ally-oop button on Xbox?

[Metsis]

Oh yeah, EA should remove the lag after a rebound attempt. In 2004, it was frustrating to see my blocker unable to rebound because or block again because of the lag

The fact about blocking is that, if you go for the block, you pretty much play yourself out of the whole rebounding battle. Cause when you get to the ground after the block attempt you don't have time to move to get the rebound let alone fight for position over it. If you try to block you basically can't get the rebound unless it falls directly into your lap or into a open lane with you as the nearest player... And that's just a cold fact.

What you can do is this...

a. You can go up and contest the shot, and box out the shooter once the shot is off

b. Don't go up to contest the shot, but instead run to get the board and fight for position for it

This is the decision you always have to make when your guy takes a shot. With a good shooter it's always a tough call. You should go up to contest and hope that your team mates are awake under the hoop for the rebound. If you pick the b option, well your guy will have a relatively easy shot.

But enough about blocking... Alley-oops are very difficult to execute. Especially to a dunk, cause the timing has to be right on the money. It's good that they miss every once in a while, but in Live 04 they miss alot. Too much, cause those guys that are usually catching the ball have some serious lift and skill and experience in it. Backyard players like me and my mates aren't athletically as gifted know it's extremely hard for us. But if you have a guy with passing over 90 and an explosive dunker at the other end with a good lane to the hoop, you should be able to make it 60% of the time or even more. It's damn shame while fast breaking on one of my dynasties with LeBron and KMart and have LeBron passing and they can't connect even with the pass. That's just bad, and LeBron had 93 or something on the passing rating.

The second season stats really need to change... The whole simulation engine needs some rewamping as there are teams that has a starting lineup averaging 90 ppg and 40 rpg. If you put Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe and TMac on the same team and play, well no one will get the stats they usually get, but the original simulation model would have them all scoring 20+ points and tons of rebounds. And still the bench would get their share of the points etc. The new engine that kicks in during the second season hopefully takes some of that into the calculations. It was a good try, but the fact is that the scoring averages dropped way too much and it needs to improve. The first season stats are calculated by other means... More like what they do in the league, the rest of the seasons are based more on Ratings.

It is not always as simple as it would seem... And about the blocking thing. This get awfully boring, but no one, absolutely no one pulls up for a normal jumpshot when you have a guy on your face. How many normal jumpers has Kobe shot over Prince? Zero??? Pretty much, because he knows that he would get blocked. Same goes in the game. You should know that you get blocked when you shoot a normal jumper in a guys face. Maybe you can do it against a poor defender in school yard, but you wouldn't do it to just about everyone. Barry is still athletic... Past his prime in that, but he's still got hops. And when shooting a jumper the players don't get nearly as high as they get on a dunk or a layup and that's because you don't have the speed to do that. There are too many blocks on the perimeter though... They just should make that shot a little bit harder... You need to have a step on your guy to get a normal jumper off and then you don't succeed every time even with a little advantage.

I'm just saying is that all of these things shouldn't be implemented into the game. Just to keep it real. Live 2003 had the thing when jumping into a mans face didn't have any effect unless you blocked the shot and that just sucked. Now it makes it a bit harder and it's good... Make it a lot harder and take a couple of those blocks off and it would be just cool.

Rant stopping here...

[Andrew]

The first season stats are calculated by other means... More like what they do in the league, the rest of the seasons are based more on Ratings.

...which caused problems, same as the Dstats did. Primacy ratings were too low after the first year for many players, resulting in lower scoring (eg Kobe and T-Mac around 15 ppg). Even though the Dstats were too rigid and prevented simulated decline until a player was rated too low to start, the stats themselves were more accurate. Guys like Kobe, Pierce and T-Mac average about 9 rebounds per game in NBA Live 2004, while the assist numbers for guys like Jason Kidd, while being tops in the game, are lower than they should be.

Perhaps both methods need to be used. The Dstats provided a reasonable base, but there needs to be a reduction every year once the players start to decline. Perhaps lowered ratings will shave a point or two off the player's per game average as well as their other numbers.

And as others have mentioned before, the decline in ratings shouldn't affect the Awareness ratings and in most cases the field goal ratings should also remain about the same. Most players don't completely forget how to shoot, but they may not be quite as athletic and they won't attempt as many dunks. Some of the physical attribute ratings should definitely decline (Strength should remain about the same), but the skills should remain pretty much as they were when the player was in his prime.