Whats up people? I'm back with awesome brand new information about NBA LIVE 16 that will further you excitement and validate this years game as a game that can actually be enjoyed just as much as 2K. This information comes from an interview held by The Stream Team in which they interview Sean O'Brian and Erika Esola-Imburgio. We all know Sean is the lead producer for NBA LIVE 16  but, Erika has been in the shadows a bit. She is the actual guru on ratings and updates throughout the NBA season. In one of my earlier post, I told you guys not to worry too much about custom rosters because somebody has a job at EA that will do that for you. Well, Erika is the person and she seems to be seriously devoted to getting the job done for us this season and keeping live up to date. She did say that there will be weekly updates all the time but, if anything major happens it will be a daily thing. For example, all of a sudden James Harden decided he wants to cut off his beard. Being that this is a cosmetic change and needs work it will be part of a weekly update. On the other hand, lets say the Rockets trade James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for 8 future 1st round picks.(LOL) best believe the next day that change will be in effect. I don't see them allowing you to go the whole week with James Harden on another team. Keeping on topic, She also spilled the beans on other things involved with ratings.

Ratings

     

In LIVE 16 ratings play a much bigger role that last years game. Its no secret that LIVE 15 was horrible in reflecting how good or bad a player was. 2k does such an exceptional job of making you feel like your playing with a Superstar(Lebron) a star(John Wall) and good player(Nick Young) and all the way down to role players(Mario Chalmers). Well this year it seems like NBA LIVE 16 is going to that level to create the best possible immersion on the court. Players in LIVE will now act accordingly to who they are in the real world. Players with a high motor will dive for loose balls when they have to. In clutch moments in the 4th quarter, Lebron's ratings will calculate into how he plays and what shots he can makes or if he even can draw a foul or not. To dive further into ratings, I'm going to talk to you guys about special player in the league and also player reaction.

       In NBA LIVE 16 your not going to find a whole bunch of guys in the 90's rating plateau. This year they have done away with guys being similar. The best players in the league are the only ones in the 90's. To explain what that means is easy and hard the same time. let us take a look at it below

The top 10 players in the league right now(MY LIST!!) and what rating they have(official) and what I think as well(guess)

1. Lebron James Cle (97)    (official)
2. Kevin Durant OKC (95) (guess)
3. James Harden  Hou  (95) (guess)
4. Russel Westbrook OKC (95) (guess)
5. Anthony Davis NO (94) (guess)
6. Stephen Curry GS  (94) (official)
7. Demarcus Cousins Sac (92) (guess)
8. Blake Griffin LAC     (91) (guess)
9. Klay Thompson GS   (91) (official)
10. Chris Paul LAC        (90) (guess)

Everybody you see above should be in the 90's. EA would do any of the guys on this list a wrong if they are not. There are also some legend players in the game they talked about laying the foundation to something that I brought up before with Summer Circuit. It would be so damn cool if legendary players are part of the 5 games on each court. Imagine playing a game at Rucker park and your final game is against a starting 5 of Iverson and Kobe in the back court and Durant, Dr, Jay and Kareem in the front court? Holy shit that would amazing and scary at the same time. EA if you read this post, please something like this happen in Summer Circuit. I can imagine those guys ratings would be in the high 90's. Kobe is up there with around 97 or 98 in his prime Iverson around 95. Dr Jay around 94 or 95. Kareem in his prime just might be a 99. I'm just saying he was sick on the court.  These legends and how they are used is not official. I just wish this can happen.

 The Paint

      The next topic can(and will) break LIVE 16. I am not going to mince words when I say this game will die if the low post and animations around the basket are not up to par. Now we have not seen any true gameplay in the paint since E3. They said during that time that the post game and animations have not been added yet. That was back in June so they have had time to add stuff. With that being said, I can happily report that during the interview with Stream Team, the first question from the them was about the post game and the response from Sean was what we all wanted to hear. So far Sean O'Brian has been up front with everything. If there is something he hates about his own game he says it and if it is something that is great he says that too. He hasn't said anything that should make any of us feel like we can't trust what he says. When asked the question he said the post game has gone through the ringer as well. They are going with a ratings based system that will govern what you can do in there. Every player will react accordingly to what he should be doing. Erika goes on to say that rating points in the Foot Work and Box out ratings will determine how players rebound the ball. A guy like Tristan Thompson should have a very high foot work and Box out rating because of his uncanny ability to position himself for the offensive rebounds. He gets his body in the right place all the time. Not everybody can go in the paint and do what they want. Dribble ratings determine how your trip into paint is going to go for you. James Harden or Tony Parker in the paint is money. Joakim Noah(pictured above) has no business driving to the paint because he has a high chance to lose the ball, pick up his dribble and flat out put up a bad shot. Defensive guarding ability has improved to go along with the Live Motion engine. The physicality of the players in this years game allows you to play defense the true way by getting in front of the player you are guarding. Its not like LIVE 15 where players just ricochet of you like your some brick wall. There is ball denial and dunks can be blocked. They have added signature layups and dunks plus many animations have been re-done or added. A small detail that should not be forgotten in all this is foot planting. 2k has great foot planting which makes everything just animate and flow better. LIVE 16 is moving away from gliding and sliding. Foot planting is going make the paint play better just by being included in the game this year. We don't have exact comments on what kind of specific animations we will be seeing though. But Sean did say that next week there will be some new gameplay videos on social networks showcasing the gameplay before the September 15th launch of the demo. I also forgot to mention that Erika stated the release of screenshots soon showing player ratings. It will be a Top 5 kind of thing in each position in the game. Lets just hope that LIVE 16 in the paint is what it should be.


Passing

       Another part of live that isn't that bad but could be more authentic is the passing. People have asked that they add the ability to choose what kind pass you want to throw like a button for bounce pass and a button for direct passing. They didn't add separate passing but they did say that they are moving in the direction of contextual passing. If you don't know what that means let me explain it to you in detail and give you an example of how that should work in LIVE 16. Contextual passing is relative to what situation you are in. Things are done in context to what is happening. If the position of player 1 and player 2 is restricted the pass will be thrown and received in a certain way. Now, that is the explanation but, will the developers implement this the correct way? That remains to be seen. It seems like a difficult thing to do and to make look authentic. In the past basketball games have had hit or miss passing but people just overlook it. 2k15 doesn't have great passing at all. The ball goes through defenders heads. The pass trajectory is usually horrible. Live 15 was bad too. So there is going to be people who need to see this in action for us to believe in it. If it turns out to be a ground breaking system then it will be the best passing system in a basketball game ever made. So, lets look at some examples of how contextual passing could be incredible. We will use Chris Paul(in the pic above) for this one. Chris Paul comes down the court and calls a pick and roll with D. Jordan. He slips to paint with a full passing lane to receive the ball. The pass that Paul throws should be a quick pass hitting Jordan in stride. Now replay that again and this time when Jordan slips to the basket the defense helps to break up the passing lane so Chris Paul should then have to throw the pass to the back shoulder of Jordan so he bring it in. Rewind that again but this time the pick and roll has Chris himself getting doubled off the screen. In that situation Chris Paul has to throw a bounce pass to Jordan because throwing a straight forward pass is not possible with bodies in front of you. This is how it should work in the game if done right. They went back and revamped outlet passes to create fast breaks better and that plays right into LIVE 16 having a much faster pace to gameplay and transition which according to Sean O'Brian has been fixed to create much better offense. Things already announced include the touch passing mechanic where you tap the pass button twice to keep the ball moving and the dribble hand off. Defending the dribble hand off is totally dependent on how good of a defender you are. It is VERY possible to stop the dribble hand off by playing the gap instead of the player. Sean mentioned that body on body collisions can happen if you don't allow the player to get in position to receive the hand off.


Other Things of Interest

Cameras

To close out my post entry for today I'm going to talk about some other tidbits from the interview. Pictured above is what I believe is the new camera angle that I have heard people talking about. Sean described the new camera as a hybrid between Base Line and Broadcast that follows the action as it happens and turns to angle to what is going on. Sean didn't really answer the question about zooming in but I hope that is added. The game has 6 cameras in total which doesn't sound like a whole lot but if they are 6 solid cameras then I'm for it. I'm excited about the people from Madden coming over to help LIVE 16 have better cut scenes and capturing replays. This should help tremendously with immersion. If you have played Madden 16 then you know what I'm talking about.

Commentary

Live 16 looks to also improve on the commentary this year. The question was asked about this and he gave an honest answer. He feels like they dropped the ball with LIVE 14 and 15. He said they have tons of audio from Mike Breem and Jeff Van Gundy but the team didn't know how to implement it the right way to fit into the gameplay. He claims that in LIVE 16 a strong effort has been made to include stories an banter in between plays and the one thing he said that made me happy was interrupting. 2k does this very well when something happens. Looks like Live will have more intelligent  commentary this year


HD Face Scanning

So they revealed that the face scan takes a total of 5 to 6 minutes to complete. The actual scan takes about 20 seconds and then it goes though the cloud system into you game from the cloud. From there you can edit it to your liking. A question was asked about beards and if that would be a problem. I have a beard so that is a great question. He basically said with the choice to add a beard to your guy anyway it is possible to just cover up the part of your chin that is scanned in with the many beard choices in the game. It has been tested at EA studios and it works well.





        Well folks that is it for this long and informative post. I have taken it upon  myself to deliver all news I find out about LIVE 16 so I can do my part to spread the word that LIVE is back this year to compete with the 2K. As always leave comments and start a convo with me about anything. I will do my best to respond to everybody. See you next time.

best regards
             

Pre order details for NBA LIVE 16 has surfaced.

Bonus for pre ordering the game on any console will get you 10 free Live Ultimate Team pro packs. Now these packs will not be a day one lump pick up. Each week you will get one pack delivered to you in which it is up to you to log into the game and receive it. It is possible for you to miss the pack if you do not log in each week. On the PS4 you will receive a free custom theme for your PS4. I don't see any downside to early pre order if you are one of those players that buy LIVE no matter what people think about it. If you are going to buy it regardless then go ahead and pre order and take advantage of the free packs.

Here is another graphics comparison between NBA LIVE 16 and NBA LIVE 15.

This year on the left and last year on the right. Note that the live 15 pic was the pre patch version of Derrick Rose but, I'm not going to let them off that easy. I'm going to show the first intended version because at one point they thought it was good.

Today I will be talking about Grpahics but, the full post will be later on today. For now here is a quick photo drop to show you the process from NBA Live 14 to 16. dramatic.....
NBA LIVE 14

NBA LIVE 15

NBA LIVE 16

  This pic of D Jordan in Live 16 is early build using Live 15 but you can see how far this stuff has come since 2013. The skin texture, the lighting and the Jersey fit have all be updated.

Here is an even greater example of  how far Live as come:

Here we have Lebron James who is most likely the number one priority for NBA 2k and Live when it comes to getting a face right because he is the face of the League. 

    LIVE 16       LIVE 15        LIVE 14   KING JAMES

                                    NUFF SAID

See you on my next post

best regards

        Back with another post about NBA Live 16 today and I'm going to talk about customization with you guys. This is the first time Live is allowing you to build an actual character who feels like an extension of you and who you are. When people hear the word customization the first thing that comes to mind is usually clothes and shoes. Lets be real it was only recently that you could put your face in a game so that isn't something that people are all the way used to yet(more on that later) so what your player wears is important. I don't have exact numbers or details on how much content is available with the character builder but I know from what I've seen so far you can do some crazy unique things. Lets get into it.

The Live Spot

        This is where you go to buy your clothes and shoes for your character. I'm sure the hair styles are also in the area of the UI

Animation packages

        In Pro-Am and you will have countless shoes and clothing to choose from but it doesn't stop there. Live is handling animation just like upgrades rather than cosmetic. NBA 2k has done this already but not the way Live 16 is doing it. Lets set up a situation to make this very clear to you guys.

        I have created a player his name is : Boogie Watson(lol) and Boogie is a 6'4 Shooting guard weighing 203 lbs. Now if you know basketball then you can pretty much figure a player at this size can do a lot on the basketball court. He can be a ball handler at the 1 and 2 as well as a good slashing or shooting 2. His height at 6'4 is a bit too short to cover the 3 and his weight might be too light to cover other 2's. This can mean he might be a bad defender just because of his size so what I would do is I would make sure I work on his speed and quickness to level him out to at least stay in front of his man on D.  That is just on defense. On offense I'm going to breed Boogie as a big time scorer. I would make sure to focus his skill set on being able to shoot from the outside and scoring in the paint whit contact. I love Jamal Crawford's dribbling style but I don't like his shot style. Live gives you the ability to pick Jamal Crawford's dribbles ONLY if you can. Have you won enough games to increase your rating? Do you have enough SP points to make the purchase? Your answer could be no to both of those which means you have to WORK to get to that level. Your going to have to use generic or another players dribbles until your skill level reaches a certain point. Now I don't know what Crawford's buy number will be but I'll just say that its pretty sick and effective so I will say a ball handling rating of 92 will give the option to buy Jamal Crawford's dribble animations. At the same time maybe you like a generic shot style that you buy for half the cost but it fits your style then you buy it and you grow with it. You don't have to buy Lebron's shooting style(which I will probably say is around 85 rating)So I think you guys get my point and what I'm trying to say. This game is like an RPG or Destiny for that matter. Gerald Greens Dunk animations is like the Gjallahorn in Destiny. Once you get it you will be able to dunk on fools all night...well that is if you didn't create a rebounding power forward when you started cause you won't ever see that high of a dunk rating I'm sure.

Tattoos

Randy Harris, an accomplished tattoo artist in the NBA community is putting exclusive tats in the game for you to earn just like everything else as well.It is broken down into neck, left arm, right arm, left leg and right leg. On the actual UI screen you go into the section called "Tattoo Shop" in there you are met with a room where your character is standing and you choose from a whole bunch of different tattoos. There are about 90 tattoos or arms and 47 for legs and you can see from the screen shot that there are 17 neck tattoos to choose from.
check out Randy's Twitter page  @TattoosByRandy

Scan features

        The next topic is a huge deal for everybody. In case you don't know by now on September 8th which is three weeks before the games release and a week before the demo release, EA will give IOS and Android users the chance to download the EA scan app which you can use to scan a life like resemblance of what you look like in real life. The scan will go into the NBA Live 16 and from that point you will be able to add hair and facial hair to that scan. The whole process is seamless and down right scary accurate. It has also been confirmed that you can scan your own damn shoes into the game. Yes people, you can scan in your own shoes...that is crazy. As a matter of fact that sound so crazy that I won't believe it until I'm actually able to scan my classic DJ 14 Jordans into Live.

No Player and Roster edits but we got sliders!!

       On another topic, you won't be able edit players and rosters this year in Live. To be honest, I look at this from two angles. The first angle is from my personal angle. I don't really care much for that because LIVE 16 will be updated on a daily basis as things change in the real league. They have people who's job is to update live until Live 17 comes out. So that kinda softens the blow a little. On the other hand this is a feature that should never be missing from a sports game. I don't really know why the folks at EA just cant set things up so you have a couple sets of save files. Give the player the choice to use the official downloaded file for the game or use their own custom roster and player file. I don't know why that is so hard but maybe if enough people complain it will be a patch after the game drops. We do have sliders this year and I am super excited about the possible tweaking that we can do.

Other Things in the future

        I really hope to update this blog with more info soon about what exactly is available like how many different shoes there are or clothes and what animation packages you can buy and at  what level. More info on what else you can scan other than your face and shoes would be great. It seems like this years Live is filled with so much intrigue because we all want this game to come back and be relevant and fun to play. Sure, we all love and play 2k now but most of us grew up on Live and deep down inside wish it was still the best basketball game to play. Maybe the time is coming and the rigth steps are being taken by EA. That is all I have for this entry and be sure to follow my blog for new stuff about NBA Live 16. Until my next post...

best regards.

Just a quick post for you until later. I got confirmation that this years NBA Live will have better camera angles and Zoom is part of that. So you will be able to get into the action way better  than Live 15 which had very bad camera angles. Thats all for now. I will posting a new entry about Live 16 a little later covering customization.

best regards

         Today I will go in depth about Live Pro-Am mode and what I think about it. For starters, Pro-Am means Professional-Amateur. There are a lot of people that don't know that so let me let you guys know the base of what it is. Ok, so lets get right into it

THE MODES

Summer Circuit is a mode where you use your created player online against CPU controlled teams with varying difficulties. The great thing about this mode is, there can be a mix of real people who are playing with you. For example, I can play with 3 of my friends online with the other two spots being filled by CPU controlled players. The 5 of you go up against the CPU in seven different venues.
- Rucker Park in Harlem, New York
- Terminal 23 in Downtown New York
- Hoop Dome in North York, Ontario
- Brooklyn Park in Brooklyn, New York
- Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington
- Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco, California
- Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California

The way things work is every venue has 5 teams that are based from that region. Like your first game at Brooklyn park will be against a pretty strong ass team: Kemba Walker, Taj Gibson, Lance Stephenson, Branden Knight(he is from Florida) and John Wall(he is from North Carolina). As you can see I'm sure it would be tough to fill out 5 games with all New York players so they had to throw in a couple guys. Example of your second game at Brooklyn Park could be: dudes not even in the NBA as they have stated that created players will fill out some games. Game three might have Jokim Noah at Center with a bunch of Amateur guys. all the way up to your final game with Carmelo Anthony, Andre Drummond,..etc. The levels are set from normal all the way to hard. Within these games you have individual accolades that you can try to obtain such as a certain number of assists or three pointers made. This same style works for all the venues. I'm not sure if these games will have legendary players such as Jason Kidd on one of the Kezar teams or Gary Payton maybe. Or a game in Toronto yields the MVP level Steve Nash in your final game at Hood Dome. Until they actually announce this it is a mystery.

        In Live Run things get a little more heated as this mode is strictly 5 on 5 with all players being controlled by humans. You can go in with 5 of your friends and play 5 friends or you can go in by yourself and join up with randoms or other groups and play a team of randoms as well. The great thing about this mode is matchmaking is in. There will be no standing around waiting for a game. You get matched up with people on your level and you play games to 21 points (Summer Circuit is also 21 points by the way) shots counting as 2's and 3's.

        Within these two modes, there is a lot going on too. Your created player levels up in both modes as one player. Your not going to have two versions of one player for two modes. If you are rated an 82 you will be an 82 in both modes. As your skills increase you become a better player in your chosen player style.(I will be covering customization in my next blog post tomorrow) You gain RP and SP. RP is reward points which you can use to increase your skills that pertain to your player style you chose. SP is style points which you can use to buy clothing to make your avatar unique. Speaking of player styles, a good example is if you want to be a point guard, you can choose to be a Shooting,passing or Driving PG. You can't be all three but, don't let that bother you because your main choice will level up faster to make you a better team mate but it doesn't mean those other stats are not able to be improved. They will also go up but at a slower rate. I can't confirm the other positions but you can expect something like Defensive Center, Shooting Small Forward or Stretch power forward. Don't expect to be able to shoot and dribble like NBA guys off top. Things like Lebron James' dunks or Stephen Curry's shot style will not be available until you reach a certain rating level. Like from what I've heard you have to be at least a 95 rated three point shooter to even be able to buy that shot package. So if you choose to be a power forward you will NEVER be able to shoot like Steph Curry because of the soft cap on that rating for big men. If you plan out your player and you want to be able to do crossovers like Jame Harden then it would be a good idea to start your character with a style that resembles James Harden like Scoring Shooting Guard(I'm guessing)


        Now to what I think about the mode personally. This is great for Live because of the RPG aspects of the mode.Its not about just paying your way to what you want and having a 7 '2 280 lbs Shooting guard shooting threes like Kyle Korver. Everything is a choice and every choice has a consequence in terms of what your future holds. I am so excited about the team aspect of the gameplay that EA is trying to convey. It will be hard to win games if your Center is trying to bring the ball up or your small forward keeps thinking that he is the best passer on the court. Its like a battle in a game where your playing with others to beat a boss. You have certain weapons and armor that can do damage to the boss that the other guy can't so they expect you to do what you do so the win can be obtained. Same goes for everybody. If your playing with somebody and they are a speedy Point guard with passing skills you should always give them the ball to bring up the court and make sure you maneuver your player to the spot on the court where you can play your best. Matchmaking along with games going to 21 means you get to jump in and out of games fast with no problems. Plus EA has always had great servers that are reliable so I expect this stuff to work really well.


        Well, that pretty much covers the basics of the mode. Im sure there is more that they are going to announce and when they do, I will bring it to you. Thanks for reading and make sure to subscribe to my blog to keep up with the news.