There will never be the perfect game

[Leander]

A lot of you complain about the game. So do I but unfortunately, there will never be the perfect game. NBA Live Series is a commercial game. If EA released a perfect game there would be no need for another Live next year. Maybe the include bugs on purpose so that people have to buy next year's Live.

Ok, reaons why there won't be the perfect Live:

1. Live is a commercial game. (see above) AND: a game without bugs should be released. That would be possible if EA worked two years on a game and concentrated on "buglessness". But they concentrate on graphics and freestyle-stuff AND release the game every year so they do not have much time to check the game's bugs. The spend months on graphics and then forget the simple "close appication" X or something.

3. The perfect game depends on your own wishes and style. The perfect game has to be realistic. But realism depends on the way you play. Some people try to run plays and play realistically. Others like to run and gun and dunk and play like in the All-Star game. What should EA Sports do? If someone only goes for dunks and complains why FG% is too high that's ridiculous. If a game has 45% FG for dunks and layups it is impossible to score normal baskets like mid-range jumpers and so on.

So the sliders are good. You can use the settings that fit your style. But still not everything is possible.

4. Like every game Live depends on your skills that increase when you play. The game is either too difficult or too easy. Even if you play on superstar and have been playing the game for months you know how to defend, how to score. In the beginning, it is challenging but then you know all the little tricks. And after all it is a computer game. Every game has some tricks. The programmers cannot change this. There will always be some tricks how to fool your defenders, how to score easily and so on.

A game would be needed that adapts to your style. A game that "learns" and copies your style. But this is really difficult. It isn't sufficent that the CPU can select from a number of strategies and plays...it would need to learn and "think" on its own. But only expensive robots can do this. There is neither time nor money that EA Sports can implement this in EA Live.

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So my wishlist:

It is not possible to create the perfect game. But what could be done (but it won't be done as EA Sports want to sell copies each year):

1. sliders! Everything must be customizable.
2. no bugs! No shots through backbord, no graphical issues, no crashes, no mistakes concerning the rules (player is fouled during a shot but isn't given freethrows etc.)
3. option to select that CPU can take your free throws
4. You should be able to create jerseys, courts, shoes and so on by yourself with an in-game editor. You should be able to import graphics, JPEGS, GIFS and so on.
5. in dynasty and season mode: no same numbers on the team. If a player has # 30 and you get a player with 30 as well its number should change so that only one player has a number on the team. You can edit the numbers but only for your team, not for the CPU teams.
5. An included text-to-speech editor with the official voices of the commentators. If you create a player or rookies are generated you should be able to enter the name and because of the text-to-speech editor ALL players' names are pronounced in the game.
6. You should be able to save during a game.
7. Player intros!!! For each game!!! For away and home team. "at forward, 6' 9'', with number 40 (player's name)"...
8. I love the screens of Live 95 (cities). This should be included again. Then: hi-resolution menus. You should be able to save all stats. You should be able to view and sort all stats. All stats should be visible on the screen without scrolling.
9. Players' ratings have to be globally tweakable. And if you tweak them and play a dynasty the rookies should be generated following these tweaks.
10. You should be able to determine how many minutes your players are on the court with auto-subs. It shouldn't take only the players' overall ratings into consideration but you should be able to enter how many minutes the players should get. And who is substituted for whom.

[Heiks]

True. Good stuff, the most important.

I'd like to add to the last point:

Make the coaches make smarter subs.

Lets say you have a good SG (second pos SF), a SF (PF) and a PF on court, a sucky PF and a good/average SG on the bench. Now if the PF fouls out, he should be subbed by the SG and other positions should be changed in order to have the best possible lineup on court.

[Sonic98]

3. The perfect game depends on your own wishes and style. The perfect game has to be realistic. But realism depends on the way you play. Some people try to run plays and play realistically. Others like to run and gun and dunk and play like in the All-Star game. What should EA Sports do? If someone only goes for dunks and complains why FG% is too high that's ridiculous. If a game has 45% FG for dunks and layups it is impossible to score normal baskets like mid-range jumpers and so on.

I have to disagree. No team in the NBA could get away with only trying to dunk. EA needs to look at their games, figure out why people are able to do unrealstic things, and find a way to limit. The majority of their focus should be on making the game play as much like the real NBA as possible with letting a few things slide to make the game better for casual gamers like setting you change subs during the free throw because its really not in the flow of the game to pause in mid-game to make subs before the next stoppage like in 2K. But can you just spin your way down the court all day in the NBA? Can you just run at full speed all day and never even get momentary burts of tiredness? DO they steal 8+ inbounds per game in the real NBA. Some stuff is just style of play, but a lot of stuff is just glitches and problems EA knows they can fix. People can try to dunk all day in the real NBA and their percentage is not going to be high. The Gameplay is just too fast and in some ways EA purposely lets the defense faulter.

[TheBatman]

And, they need to keep seling the game every year, so I bet they hold back every year on making the perfect game.

[dada]

Whats perfect in this world? I dont know of any such thing.




....just ignore me, I ramble on alot.

[Avrah3]

Whats perfect in this world? I dont know of any such thing.

I don't know of anything perfect ethier because there is nothing.

[[Q]]

what happened to 2??

and at least on PC, they do change numbers so only one player has a number on each team. I've gotten players confused because they changed the numbers on me.

[TheBatman]

Top 10 Perfect Games In My Opinion:

1. NBA Live 2005
2. NBA Street Vol 2
3. The Sims
4. Colony Wars
5. FIFA 06
6. SSX3
7. Def Jam Fight For New York
8. Tekken 3
9. Street Fighter Alpha 3
10.Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

[Sonic98]

Are you smoking crack? LOL.NBA Live 05 was so far from perfect it makes to sense. IT was too easy to turn the game into a run and shoot game. There was no limit on the use of turbbo and freestyle. Lets not forget about the excessive block and stealing problems. The default slider settings online totally sucked. You could easily cheese from the 3-point line online if you got a certain way to shooting down pat. Too easy to steal the inbound. How perfect is that?

Also Tekken 3 was not perfect. IT was pretty good. But it did still have a prob or two. Some characters were a little too stuff and too slow to recover and you have fake characters like Eddy.

I guess I can agree with rest.


The world won't end if they don't come out with a game every year. And they should haven't to not to though. You can't blame having to release a game every year when you have some problems have been around since NBA Showdown turned into NBA Live, especially when other games have already solved some of the problems. Maybe if they concentrated on major AI and gameplay flaws each year instead of a bunch of useless stuff.................

[Magic_]

Leander, nice wishes for live.
I just wanna add this:
1. Personal dunkpacks for nba stars. Every nba star (like KG, Shaq, Martin, Iverson .....) must have own pack with own moves. Iverson must have his own crossovers, Shaq must have his own dunks(with personal style). Ea Sports created freestyle. Shaq is a power and Kevin Garnett is a power too, but really they have different styles of dunks. Ea must reckon it.
2. New commentators. They always missed cool moments. I would like Ea make them more screamy, more crazy. They must scream when someone dunks or make nice shot or crossover.
3. Computer must discern, when its a big game or its not important game.
In playoffs they must be more careful with the ball. Players must afraid of game lose.

[Blitz2]

Leander, nice wishes for live.
I just wanna add this:
1. Personal dunkpacks for nba stars. Every nba star (like KG, Shaq, Martin, Iverson .....) must have own pack with own moves. Iverson must have his own crossovers, Shaq must have his own dunks(with personal style). Ea Sports created freestyle. Shaq is a power and Kevin Garnett is a power too, but really they have different styles of dunks. Ea must reckon it.
2. New commentators. They always missed cool moments. I would like Ea make them more screamy, more crazy. They must scream when someone dunks or make nice shot or crossover.
3. Computer must discern, when its a big game or its not important game.
In playoffs they must be more careful with the ball. Players must afraid of game lose.

i agree. specially bwt the dunkpack issue. i remember Zydrunas did a windmill wen i fought against cleveland. and they shud also WIDEN the variety of dunks so that people wudnt have to edit the AIACT file

[GH3TT0 CH1LD]

there will never be the perfect game because everyone has a different outlook on what the want in a game.

[Tuomas]

it's ridiculous that since the 3d introduction 9 years back there still isn't signature moves for a specific player.