No NBA Player or Roster Editing in NBA Live 16 Confirmed

[swac07]

Quote: Originally Posted by Playmakers

If it's that hard then how come they manually edit players doing the year? How would allowing us to edit our own rosters break their game.

Those are very legit questions Pm

[The 24th Letter]

I wouldn't mind dumping Synergy all together myself...I feel like it's yet to achieve what it was implemented for...

As good as these players look now, whats more important to me is that they play like themselves...and that's been a constant issue for this series...

23 and some other guys (sorry I cant remember their names right now) did an awesome job with Live 10 in this regard. I loved how you could do global edits..

[cthurt]

Didn't Live 10 have the synergy and edit roster feature??

[LionsFanNJ]

This news went to making live a no buy for me. Its the main thing i like in my sports games and this game does not have it. Same issue with thier football game as well. All the improvements look great, but if i can't tinker with things i don't want to play.

Such a disappointment man. To those that ARE buying the game enjoy it.

[RayRay34]

I know I'm only one person....there maybe more, but EA had a chance to take away one sale from a competitor and add another to theirs had this feature been implemented. Now I have to buy that other game as well as Live which means my money won't go toward Madden or Fifa this year. Disappointed, not even classic teams could save me from my disappointment now. A game mode I won't play and no roster control yet again....oh and I won't be spending any hard earned cash on LUT again either..

[noshun]

I called it... months ago. You guys really don't get it do you? I spoke about why too.

Said Synergy was a mask, months ago..

[rafaelpaolo84]

Wow. Unbelievable EA

Excuse me while I rant for a bit..

These are the reasons why roster and player editing are important for me:
(disclaimer 1: I'm an exclusively offline player)
(disclaimer 2: This is assuming player and roster editing are not in the game, and my thoughts are based on how things worked last year. There could be changes this year that we don't know about yet.)

1. Up-to-date rosters
Simple enough reason, right? We want to have rosters that reflect player movement - free agent signings, releases, trades, 10-day contracts, depth charts, etc. We also want rosters that are up-to-date in terms of the gear and accessories worn, from the top players to the bench warmers. It's all about authenticity, right? Because if it's in the game, then it's in the game.

EA says that they got this covered with their Live Updates, which consists of 2 things -

1) Synergy updates for updating roster/player movements and tendencies
2) Manual roster updates for updating player ratings and gear/accessories

Synergy is their "Made Fresh Daily" updates feature, updating player movements and tendencies soon after each game has been played. I won't go into tendencies and if it works or not, because getting players and teams to play like themselves irl involves other areas of the game like playbooks and team tactics. And besides, I wouldn't know what to do with tendencies if I were given access to edit them (I leave that up to the Playmakers and Tombas of the world).

But the "updating only after the team has played their game" can be problematic. If Melo was traded to the Lakers today (assuming the season has already started), and the Lakers' next game won't be until 2 days from now, I can't boot up Live and play as or against the Lakers expecting Melo to be there. I have to actually wait for 2 days, until after the game has been played, and only if Melo plays in the game, for it to update in Live.

Now on to the Manual roster updates. Ugh. At the time when I sold Live 15, EA was already doing a sort of regular "weekly" roster updates, which as mentioned, updates player ratings and gear/accessories. No complaint with the ratings, as a week seems like a good enough time frame for evaluating ratings progression/regression. But once a week to update the gear??? Not only did we have to wait a week, but even when the update came, players would still have incorrect gear, role players were not updated, etc.. so we'd give feedback, and would have to wait another week for the next one to drop. How long did we have to wait and keep following up for them to remove Chris Paul's undershirt at the start of last season? Or to change Kobe's shoes? Maybe it's unfair to expect the devs or whoever is in charge of these updates to monitor every player in the league and catch these changes; but it's the system that they set-up for themselves, and they made promises that we should hold them accountable for. At times last year it just felt like I was always waiting with this game.. waiting for updated rosters, waiting for correct gear.. waiting and waiting on EA, for me to play the game that I bought, to play the game that I own.

Well hey, it's 2016, maybe EA is better at these Live Updates? Maybe Synergy will work as advertised, maybe player movement will be updated daily? Hell maybe gear and accessories will be updated accurately and daily as well? Assuming they do achieve all these things, there is still one major issue - none of these will have an effect on Dynasty or Rising Star.

Sure, we can start a Dynasty with the most updated rosters and gear that EA has given us, but once we do we are stuck with those forever (well, however long you play your Dynasty). Player movement will still occur with user and cpu initiated trades and signings and such, but those who want to follow real life NBA in their Dynasty are out of luck. As for the gear and accessories, yep, stuck with those forever.

Technically, even without background in programming, I can imagine how difficult it would seem to implement Live Updates in our individual Dynasty saves. And logically, the reasoning is that once you start a Dynasty mode, you now exist in your own "NBA universe". Okay, sure. Well why then in my universe can I not move players as I please? Why then in my universe can I not change my players' gear, add/remove headbands, arm sleeves, knee pads, shoes to reflect those in real life???

Live Updates are for the benefit of online players mostly, who like to play head to head matches with updated rosters and gear. As for offline players, sure you can enjoy these updates with exhibition matches against the cpu, but the meat of the offline experience is Dynasty (or Rising Star). And Live Updates has nothing for us there once we enter it. The only solution would have been to give us the option to make these changes as we see fit, as it suits us, as we like. It is our game, after all, is it not? No, it's still EA's NBA universe.

2. Fictional Rosters
Everything I've talked about above refers to wanting an authentic NBA experience - authentic rosters, gear and accessories. Everything accurate, everything up-to-date. But sometimes also, we want to make our own storylines, right? How would the 2010 Lakers stack up against the current teams? If Melo returned to the Nuggets, with matching with old-school gear (headband only and mid-socks), what could he accomplish? These would never happen irl, but hey it's a video game, I could have some fun with this, right?? Nope. There are workarounds with moving around players (trade override), but again we're stuck with the gear. I tried this last year, traded Melo to the Nuggets, but no way to remove his arm and leg sleeves. What's worse, he was stuck with Knicks-colorway shoes.

These 2 things were what made Live, and playing basketball games, really fun for me. I could have an authentic NBA experience, but also play around with these wild scenarios as I wish. I could play for hours. I could play right up until the next game came out. Now, Live is a very limiting experience. EA has been focusing on moving forward with these "advanced" technologies - Live Updates - that they have neglected the very basic ideas. They are still stuck in the past. This was supposed to be the year when everything came together for them, to finally have a complete package that could stand on its own and compete head-to-head. If they could have included roster and player editing, then undoubtedly - especially with the new game modes just announced - yes. But as it stands, no, not yet.

Quote: Originally Posted by LeBron_On_Mars

Maybe it's time that we hear the long story. We've been asking for this for so long, and I don't think it's ever been addressed beyond words such as "not this year" or "maybe next year". When they designed Live 14, and the long-term plans for 15, 16, and beyond, where did roster and player editing fit in? Was it "not easy" to implement and therefore they decided early on to put it at the bottom of the priority list? Do they not care about this anymore? Or have they been working on it, knowing how important it is for us, but it is really taking them this long because it's not easy to implement?

Talk to us, EA. We might be mad, or disappointed, but we're always listening.

[zrohman]

I don't care about editing at all... It's nice to have for custom rosters for dynasty, but when rosters are kept fairly up to date it's no big deal to me.

Only reason why I'm concerned is the fact that everyone else is concerned.. Live has a chance to make a splash and win back users. As long as gameplay is balanced I'm all in for Live.. But I play online a lot, I want so many people playing live so I don't have to wait forever to find someone to play against. First blow against Live this year. Almost everything else was positive