Re: Now that Elite is delayed, what do you want fixed?
ok, let me first start out by saying that i really enjoyed the nba elite demo and am saddened that the game was delayed. i love the direction that this game is going in and i hope that you stick with this vision because i think once this basketball game is executed properly people are going to really appreciate the innovation that is present in this game. nothing is more satisfying than hitting a game winning buzzer beater and knowing that it was all you. i'm sure i would have enjoyed the game alot if it was released on Oct. 5.
now for some things that i think would improve the game.
1. Bring back the turbo button. I thought i would be ok without a turbo button but it was really unbearable when playing the demo. in basketball, change of speed is responsible for blowing by a defender way more times than fancy ankle breakers even though many amateur players don't realize it. watch a basketball game and you will see that this is true. by taking the turbo button out you are really eliminating a huge part of basketball and making it so I have to do an and1 move every time i want to get past a defender which is not only annoying but unrealistic. make sure that the turbo button is really explosive because without explosiveness you can't truly utilize change of speed. explosiveness could be a rating and a guy like dwayne wade should have a much higher explosiveness rating than a guy like sasha vujacic. the other game has a turbo button but there is no explosiveness which makes the turbo button really a run fast button which is pretty useless but still better than what we had in elite. i know you made right trigger pass because it would be hard to pass the ball while you are shooting but really, passing while in the air and in your shooting form should be hard!! rarely do players in the nba pass just before they are going to release the ball for a shot so it makes sense if the pass button is A because you don't want it to be easy to do that. plus, freestyle passing using the right stick makes it easy enough to pass while in the air. in the other game you can pass out of shooting at any time very easily and it makes it so that unrealistic ridiculous passes while shooting happen all the time.
3. Think of making a button for a normal pass and a button for a pass that leads the player you are passing to and makes the receiving player catch it in stride!!!! a lack of this button is a problem that has plagued basketball games forever. you can't properly start a fast break or even finish a fast break because pressing the pass button may lead the player, but when he catches the ball he slows down. this makes sense because you don't want your player to catch it in stride when there is a defender in front of him, but on a fast break you definitely wan't your player to catch it in stride. having one pass button for passing to a player and making him catch it normally (A button), and having one where he will catch it in stride (B button) will also give unprecedented control which would be amazing. in the other game you still can't run a fast break well because your player will never catch the ball in a full sprint. he will always slow down and this makes fast breaks broken. Being able to pass to a player and have that player catch it while in a full sprint will really make things much better.
4. Revamp ball and rim/net physics. with the nba elite control scheme, shooting has never been so rewarding. However, the way the ball bounces on the rim and interacts with the net makes the shooting less enjoyable because it just doesn't look and feel real. If you were able to make the ball interacting with the rim and net completely physics based that would be amazing. balls going in and out, or skinning the front of the rim and then going, or swishing as beautiful as in real life, plus being all physics based, would be unprecedented and make for an amazing looking game. shooting would also be more rewarding because you would just feel soooo good when you see that net splash just like in real life and know that it was all you. also, the unpredictability of what happens when the ball hits the rim in real life is a fun thing about basketball. the crowd in real life gasps when a ball hits the back of the rim, shoots straight up in the air and then goes in the basket. it's just a wonderful part of basketball that has not been done right in a basketball game yet.
5. Improve the real time physics. Real time physics worked very well when it was working properly. However sometimes it really just didn't work. I would be in great position on defense but the offensive player would still go right past me. When real time physics was working right it was great. please improve on the system.
6. Add speed and acceleration to the physics engine. I know that collisions are physics based, but how players got to those collisions definitely didn't take acceleration and speed into consideration. An example is the rocket dunks and even though this was being addressed i have a feeling that the fix is not making speed and acceleration govern how the players are getting into their dunk/layup/shooting animations but is simply taking away the rocket dunk animation. If Lebron James's max speed is 100 units/hour, if he is going to dunk from one step inside the free throw line he should have to be already going 100 units/hour. Plus, it should take him some time to go from 0 to 100. A person's acceleration rating should determine how fast they go from 0 to 60, 30 to 80, 0 to 100 etc. This will not only make the game look better but will make the gameplay better. To elaborate on the system, if lebron is going to dunk from 3 steps inside the free throw line he should have to be going 80 units/hour. if kobe is going to dunk from 3 steps inside the free throw line he should have to be running 100units/hour because he can't jump as high as lebron. of course a guy that can't jump high and can't run as fast as lebron should only be able to dunk from close to the basket even at his top speed which could be 60units/hour. Lastly, a quick player like barbosa should be able to go from 0 to 80 very quickly, but should max out at 80 whereas lebron will go from 0 to 80 slower but will be able to continue to a max speed of 100. ratings would be perfectly tied into this system. since this is not how the system works, it is making the real time physics engine look bad. even though the collisions are working pretty good, the lack of speed and acceleration governing which animations a player is able to go into is making the physics engine look worse than it is. If lebron is running at 80units/hour and jumps in the air for a dunk, all of a sudden you have a realistic speed, weight, and direction to plug into the physics collision engine. The physics engine will shine if you add in speed and acceleration during all aspects of the game. Tie this into an explosive turbo button and you have a system that takes into account explosiveness, acceleration, speed, and vertical jumping ability more than any other basketball game ever. slow guys will never catch lebron in the open court and that has happened in some of the videos we saw.
4. Add a gather animation to the blocking animation. I know that you took away a gather animation from the blocking animation so people can get blocks but good perimeter defense isn't about getting blocks. it's about contesting every jump shot to make it harder for a person to make the shot. Up on the right stick should be a strong contest, and Y should be go for a block. With this system however, you need to make shot contests have a very big effect on the sweet spot of the shot. if contesting a shot has a very big effect on the shooting success it won't matter that you aren't blocking the shot because you will be decreasing the opponent's shooting success greatly. I can tell contesting doesn't have too much of an effect because so many times the cpu will catch and shoot the ball right while i am in their grill and it's nothing but net. The only times a person is really blocked on a jump shot is when the defender is much taller than them. If contesting makes the defender track the ball a bit, tall players like pau gasol will block short players like chris paul without jumping and this happens in real life. If you watch a basketball game with a good defensive big man like tim duncan, you will see that he blocks little guys in the paint without even jumping, or jumping like 2 inches. having ball tracking during contests will allow this. Leaving your feet for a block is a huge risk even in the paint which is why smart guys like tim duncan and gasol get their blocks without leaving their feet much, and if you leave your feet for a block on a jump shot it is simply bad defense and you should be punished. adding a gather animation will also do this. In addition having a player go through a gather animation before they jump will make the game look better.
5. Add a rating for pull up jumpers. I think i read somewhere that there is no rating for this and this is a very important rating to have. Right now pull up jumpers are king. get by a defender and pull up for the mid range jumper with ANY player and you have a high percentage shot. One of the many reasons a player like Lamar Odom gets so many charges is because he simply has a horrible pull up jumper. He knows it and everybody else knows it. So if he gets past a perimeter defender all you have to do is defend the key because if he does a pull up jumper it is pretty much an automatic miss. Only players like kobe bryant should be able to pull off pull up jumpers with a high percentage but even kobe's pull up jumper seemed over powered in the demo. Also catch and shoot rating, left handed layup rating, floater rating would all be good idea. These may already be in but i just wanted to make sure because it is hard to tell.
6. Improve the post game. If a defender is pushing me away from the basket with all of his might i should be able to spin on him with ease. If i spin right exactly when a defender pushes me i should be able to pull off a successful spin move easy (depending on my post spin rating of course. bynum should have a very low spin rating. the better the post spin rating the more explosive the spin should be and therefore the bigger the timing window on a successful spin should be). If however i try and spin while the defender is standing his ground that shouldn't work. Also, if i am stronger than the defender and he is simply holding his ground and not pushing me out i should be able to back him in closer to the basket. Add an option to pull the chair on defense or take a charge so that simply trying to push the defender all the way into the pain won't work. In real life if you just try and push the defender in non stop any smart defender will pull the chair or take a charge. Once again, if you press take charge exactly when an offensive player tries to push toward the basket it should be a successful taken charge. That's why nobody just tries and barge straight into the defender when posting up. This is all going to add to the chess match that is the post game, and make the post game skill based which it definitely isn't right now (besides success of the shot going in that is). Right now it is basically a dice roll for success of post moves in both games and that makes the post game rather boring. Also, on defense give me an option to shade the defender to the right, to the left, or play straight behind him. In basketball shading your defender certain directions in the post is important and also adds to the chess match that is the post game.
7. Give us an option to get into a defensive stance. Many times during the demo i wanted my guy to jog normally in order to get to an open player but my player would go into a defensive stance and wouldn't move fast enough so the player i should have already gotten to now has an open shot. If you give us the ability to get into a defensive stance, all of a sudden we can get into a defensive stance, jog, and sprint on defense (if you also add a turbo button). this is great control and is necessary, because sometimes on defense you wan't to make fine adjustments (defensive stance) and sometimes you want to run to close out on your man (moving the left stick without pressing defensive stance). no basketball game has done this well.
Once again i think you guys did a great job on nba elite and i can't wait to get my hands on the full game. I think I have some very good suggestions and I hope you take them into consideration.
thank you
ok, let me first start out by saying that i really enjoyed the nba elite demo and am saddened that the game was delayed. i love the direction that this game is going in and i hope that you stick with this vision because i think once this basketball game is executed properly people are going to really appreciate the innovation that is present in this game. nothing is more satisfying than hitting a game winning buzzer beater and knowing that it was all you. i'm sure i would have enjoyed the game alot if it was released on Oct. 5.
now for some things that i think would improve the game.
1. Bring back the turbo button. I thought i would be ok without a turbo button but it was really unbearable when playing the demo. in basketball, change of speed is responsible for blowing by a defender way more times than fancy ankle breakers even though many amateur players don't realize it. watch a basketball game and you will see that this is true. by taking the turbo button out you are really eliminating a huge part of basketball and making it so I have to do an and1 move every time i want to get past a defender which is not only annoying but unrealistic. make sure that the turbo button is really explosive because without explosiveness you can't truly utilize change of speed. explosiveness could be a rating and a guy like dwayne wade should have a much higher explosiveness rating than a guy like sasha vujacic. the other game has a turbo button but there is no explosiveness which makes the turbo button really a run fast button which is pretty useless but still better than what we had in elite. i know you made right trigger pass because it would be hard to pass the ball while you are shooting but really, passing while in the air and in your shooting form should be hard!! rarely do players in the nba pass just before they are going to release the ball for a shot so it makes sense if the pass button is A because you don't want it to be easy to do that. plus, freestyle passing using the right stick makes it easy enough to pass while in the air. in the other game you can pass out of shooting at any time very easily and it makes it so that unrealistic ridiculous passes while shooting happen all the time.
3. Think of making a button for a normal pass and a button for a pass that leads the player you are passing to and makes the receiving player catch it in stride!!!! a lack of this button is a problem that has plagued basketball games forever. you can't properly start a fast break or even finish a fast break because pressing the pass button may lead the player, but when he catches the ball he slows down. this makes sense because you don't want your player to catch it in stride when there is a defender in front of him, but on a fast break you definitely wan't your player to catch it in stride. having one pass button for passing to a player and making him catch it normally (A button), and having one where he will catch it in stride (B button) will also give unprecedented control which would be amazing. in the other game you still can't run a fast break well because your player will never catch the ball in a full sprint. he will always slow down and this makes fast breaks broken. Being able to pass to a player and have that player catch it while in a full sprint will really make things much better.
4. Revamp ball and rim/net physics. with the nba elite control scheme, shooting has never been so rewarding. However, the way the ball bounces on the rim and interacts with the net makes the shooting less enjoyable because it just doesn't look and feel real. If you were able to make the ball interacting with the rim and net completely physics based that would be amazing. balls going in and out, or skinning the front of the rim and then going, or swishing as beautiful as in real life, plus being all physics based, would be unprecedented and make for an amazing looking game. shooting would also be more rewarding because you would just feel soooo good when you see that net splash just like in real life and know that it was all you. also, the unpredictability of what happens when the ball hits the rim in real life is a fun thing about basketball. the crowd in real life gasps when a ball hits the back of the rim, shoots straight up in the air and then goes in the basket. it's just a wonderful part of basketball that has not been done right in a basketball game yet.
5. Improve the real time physics. Real time physics worked very well when it was working properly. However sometimes it really just didn't work. I would be in great position on defense but the offensive player would still go right past me. When real time physics was working right it was great. please improve on the system.
6. Add speed and acceleration to the physics engine. I know that collisions are physics based, but how players got to those collisions definitely didn't take acceleration and speed into consideration. An example is the rocket dunks and even though this was being addressed i have a feeling that the fix is not making speed and acceleration govern how the players are getting into their dunk/layup/shooting animations but is simply taking away the rocket dunk animation. If Lebron James's max speed is 100 units/hour, if he is going to dunk from one step inside the free throw line he should have to be already going 100 units/hour. Plus, it should take him some time to go from 0 to 100. A person's acceleration rating should determine how fast they go from 0 to 60, 30 to 80, 0 to 100 etc. This will not only make the game look better but will make the gameplay better. To elaborate on the system, if lebron is going to dunk from 3 steps inside the free throw line he should have to be going 80 units/hour. if kobe is going to dunk from 3 steps inside the free throw line he should have to be running 100units/hour because he can't jump as high as lebron. of course a guy that can't jump high and can't run as fast as lebron should only be able to dunk from close to the basket even at his top speed which could be 60units/hour. Lastly, a quick player like barbosa should be able to go from 0 to 80 very quickly, but should max out at 80 whereas lebron will go from 0 to 80 slower but will be able to continue to a max speed of 100. ratings would be perfectly tied into this system. since this is not how the system works, it is making the real time physics engine look bad. even though the collisions are working pretty good, the lack of speed and acceleration governing which animations a player is able to go into is making the physics engine look worse than it is. If lebron is running at 80units/hour and jumps in the air for a dunk, all of a sudden you have a realistic speed, weight, and direction to plug into the physics collision engine. The physics engine will shine if you add in speed and acceleration during all aspects of the game. Tie this into an explosive turbo button and you have a system that takes into account explosiveness, acceleration, speed, and vertical jumping ability more than any other basketball game ever. slow guys will never catch lebron in the open court and that has happened in some of the videos we saw.
4. Add a gather animation to the blocking animation. I know that you took away a gather animation from the blocking animation so people can get blocks but good perimeter defense isn't about getting blocks. it's about contesting every jump shot to make it harder for a person to make the shot. Up on the right stick should be a strong contest, and Y should be go for a block. With this system however, you need to make shot contests have a very big effect on the sweet spot of the shot. if contesting a shot has a very big effect on the shooting success it won't matter that you aren't blocking the shot because you will be decreasing the opponent's shooting success greatly. I can tell contesting doesn't have too much of an effect because so many times the cpu will catch and shoot the ball right while i am in their grill and it's nothing but net. The only times a person is really blocked on a jump shot is when the defender is much taller than them. If contesting makes the defender track the ball a bit, tall players like pau gasol will block short players like chris paul without jumping and this happens in real life. If you watch a basketball game with a good defensive big man like tim duncan, you will see that he blocks little guys in the paint without even jumping, or jumping like 2 inches. having ball tracking during contests will allow this. Leaving your feet for a block is a huge risk even in the paint which is why smart guys like tim duncan and gasol get their blocks without leaving their feet much, and if you leave your feet for a block on a jump shot it is simply bad defense and you should be punished. adding a gather animation will also do this. In addition having a player go through a gather animation before they jump will make the game look better.
5. Add a rating for pull up jumpers. I think i read somewhere that there is no rating for this and this is a very important rating to have. Right now pull up jumpers are king. get by a defender and pull up for the mid range jumper with ANY player and you have a high percentage shot. One of the many reasons a player like Lamar Odom gets so many charges is because he simply has a horrible pull up jumper. He knows it and everybody else knows it. So if he gets past a perimeter defender all you have to do is defend the key because if he does a pull up jumper it is pretty much an automatic miss. Only players like kobe bryant should be able to pull off pull up jumpers with a high percentage but even kobe's pull up jumper seemed over powered in the demo. Also catch and shoot rating, left handed layup rating, floater rating would all be good idea. These may already be in but i just wanted to make sure because it is hard to tell.
6. Improve the post game. If a defender is pushing me away from the basket with all of his might i should be able to spin on him with ease. If i spin right exactly when a defender pushes me i should be able to pull off a successful spin move easy (depending on my post spin rating of course. bynum should have a very low spin rating. the better the post spin rating the more explosive the spin should be and therefore the bigger the timing window on a successful spin should be). If however i try and spin while the defender is standing his ground that shouldn't work. Also, if i am stronger than the defender and he is simply holding his ground and not pushing me out i should be able to back him in closer to the basket. Add an option to pull the chair on defense or take a charge so that simply trying to push the defender all the way into the pain won't work. In real life if you just try and push the defender in non stop any smart defender will pull the chair or take a charge. Once again, if you press take charge exactly when an offensive player tries to push toward the basket it should be a successful taken charge. That's why nobody just tries and barge straight into the defender when posting up. This is all going to add to the chess match that is the post game, and make the post game skill based which it definitely isn't right now (besides success of the shot going in that is). Right now it is basically a dice roll for success of post moves in both games and that makes the post game rather boring. Also, on defense give me an option to shade the defender to the right, to the left, or play straight behind him. In basketball shading your defender certain directions in the post is important and also adds to the chess match that is the post game.
7. Give us an option to get into a defensive stance. Many times during the demo i wanted my guy to jog normally in order to get to an open player but my player would go into a defensive stance and wouldn't move fast enough so the player i should have already gotten to now has an open shot. If you give us the ability to get into a defensive stance, all of a sudden we can get into a defensive stance, jog, and sprint on defense (if you also add a turbo button). this is great control and is necessary, because sometimes on defense you wan't to make fine adjustments (defensive stance) and sometimes you want to run to close out on your man (moving the left stick without pressing defensive stance). no basketball game has done this well.
Once again i think you guys did a great job on nba elite and i can't wait to get my hands on the full game. I think I have some very good suggestions and I hope you take them into consideration.
thank you
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