I’ve been
playing the NBA Live 18 demo for almost a week now, so I figured now is the
perfect time to give some feedback. The game is a little less than a month away
and EA definitely has some things to fix. I’ve made videos, I’ve tweeted to the
devs numerous times, now it’s time to get more detailed. Once the game
officially comes out we will touch on EVERY MODE, so stay tuned.
The key
issues I’ve seen thus far #1 and probably the most annoying is the bounce back
meter online. I noticed at times the bounce back was PRETTY BAD, and other
times it wasn’t as bad. The first day of shooting was great not much of an
issue, but over the next couple days, especially when I started to play with
friends we all experienced the bounce back or the “LAG METER” as we all tend
to call it. This is something that definitely needs to be fixed before launch, along with lag and server issue in general.
I also experienced too much traction at times when shooting in single player. There
were times when I was mashing down on my square button just to get a full
release, still getting greens, but a traction issue nonetheless. I tried to use the analog stick, it felt a little better, more greens, but I still felt a bit of a drag. There are times when a shot feels smoother for example a green release then the next possession you will feel that drag on a regular release, leading sometimes to a early or late release. Also, when you use the analog stick you get A LOT more shooting animations, which is pretty cool at times, but unnecessary at other times. Overall I'm more of a button shooter at the end of the day so having more of a pressure sensitive shooting experience is ideal.
EA should definitely think about making shooting a little more pressure sensitive. That would also
possibly help with the bounce back issues. I personally think the NBA Live mobile
shot meter with the green in the middle would be a much better fit for NBA LIVE
18. I mean, the shooting in NBA Live mobile is not the greatest at all ( I miss
so many greens) but it does feel much smoother.
OP screens, wow, the
first game I played on the demo I was dropped TWICE by cpu screens. And this is
not just a cpu issue, I’ve also been able to drop cpu as well as other players. I can see this being a HUGE issue and too cheesy online against other players. Hopefully this is fixed before the game comes out.
Excessive cpu pass steals, at
times it literally feels like you can NOT pass in NBA LIVE 18, not even to a player right next
to you. CPU excessive pass deflections mostly happen on the harder difficulties. I did see a few on the easier difficulties, but online has to be the worst.
There was one game where we had at least 8 turnovers on some pretty easy passes,
hopefully they scale cpu steals back a bit. And since we're already on the topic of passing, I definitely saw some issues there. Now I'm not sure if it has to do with our low ratings or what, but I saw some easy passes that were just going all over the place, out of bounds etc. And no, I'm not talking about full court passes, those actually surprisingly were getting to their man. I'm talking about close passes right to the paint not even 10 feet away getting flung out of bounds or just bouncing anywhere besides in the vicinity of your teammate, that definitely needs to be fixed.
Excessive CPU alley oop and putback
animations, this happened more times than I can count online. The cpu would
throw a crazy pass and the ball would hang in the air for a second and we’re
all like WHAT THE, then another cpu would go flying through the air to catch
it, crazy. This happens with the putbacks as well, cpu usually comes out of nowhere slamming
it down. It looks great, but gets annoying when it keeps happening over and
over and you can’t really stop it. And to add insult to injury EA hits you with a NEGATIVE grade for that. Speaking of the teammate grade, I have a bit of
beef with the grading system, and this is coming from a person that gets 100 almost every game.
There are just WAY TOO MANY negatives. There are times
when defense auto switches so frequently that you end up getting a negative for a player you're not even officially guarding. Negative for missing a wide
open shot because of the lag shot meter, negative for your man scoring on the
inside, even at times when you’re playing good defense. Negative for your man
shooting “open” even at times when you’re standing right there. There are just
too many negatives and not enough positive things. For example there were times
when I forced a turnover via some sort of push animation ( not actually trying to steal the ball) and did not get anything for that. Now getting a good
grade is not impossible at all, but the negatives definitely outweigh the positives.
Player traction and auto animations. Feeling like you have no control over your player is a huge issue. There were times that I felt my player being pulled and dragged to a place I was not trying to go, this happens on and off ball.This is definitely something that needs to be addressed. We need to be able to have complete control over our player and move around the court freely and much smoother. Now I pride myself on good defense, I get many blocks and steals on my own just paying attention to the floor. But I noticed there were times when I didn't jump to deflect a pass and my guy just did it on his own before I could even react. This mostly happened in the paint. No, no NO, EA people MUST learn to play defense on their own. With auto defense or auto ANYTHING, that just leads to lessening the skill gap. I for one definitely don't want other players deflecting my passes without even trying, please fix that!
Now lets move on to some of the good
I have no idea how many man hours I’ve put
into the NBA Live demo. I’ve played Play Now mode more times than I can count on both hands, and I’ve made
uh, about FIVE players, spending extensive time with each. I do have to say the
wing scorer is my favorite, 6’7 is a beast, with the 7’1 post anchor trailing
not too far behind.
The graphics in NBA Live 18 were the first thing that popped out at me, I mean, it’s not like NBA Live
graphics were terrible in the past, not at all, but you definitely can see an
improvement.
The dribbling is another thing that caught my eye pretty early on.
I noticed MANY of the moves felt more fluid, but I also noticed some of the
controls had been changed. The behind the back and spin move were two of my
favorite moves to use in NBA Live 16, as well as the Euro step. I quickly found
out that I could no longer use those controls I remember from Live 16, a bit of
an adjustment, but not too bad. I definitely admit, I miss the Live 16 spin move and behind the
back controls, it felt a lot better to chain those two moves, but dribbling in NBA Live 18 overall has improved tremendously. I for one enjoy it and can't wait to turn fatigue off in career and spam until I get tired, or the clock the runs out LOL (I'm not kidding).
Now are the moves effective?
I did find at
times, many times, it was still challenging to get pass defenders even with
great combos. This is something that was an issue in NBA Live 16, there were times when you would mix
and match a good combo and find that the cpu defender was still there and
not at all effected by your handles. In NBA Live 18 at times you can get past the cpu without
issue, also difficulty plays a factor. However, I did notice even on the easier
difficulties I found that the cpu was still sticking to me, grabbing and
pushing me back as I tried to blow pass them. You can definitely feel the
contact in the game, the traction is pretty heavy. The extra contact is good
and bad in my personal opinion. I can
see EA’s attention to detail trying to give you that push and pull of a real
life intense game, but at the same time it can be a bit overbearing. But boy when you do blow pass the defender, it's exciting and explosive, maybe not as fast as other games, but when you beat your man, you really beat your man!
Dribbling is much more effective with PVP (person vs person). As I said in a previous
video on my youtube channel (subscribe if you’re new). If you’re a better ball
handler you’re going to get pass your defender, and if the defender is better at
defending at times you’re not always going to beat your man. I can definitely
see a bit of a skill gap happening, which is good for any game. When it comes to dribbling and defense, I do have to
say I hope that they scale back cpu defense, just a little, as I said the
push and pull is a bit overbearing, but overall I like the feel of this new intensity.
That same defensive intensity can be found in PVP situations. One game I was playing live run with randoms and I saw some pretty intense match ups. However, I do have to say some players were almost getting mauled if you will, when it came to steals. I literally saw a guy on my team that had back to turnovers from two players smothering him and spamming the steal button. I'm not sure if his controller had died or what, but the guy wasn't moving at all. The steal animations are pretty crazy overall as well as cpu double teaming. Once again the push and pull and intensity can definitely be seen and felt throughout NBA Live 18. Scale back the steals a bit and it makes for some good competition and challenging gameplay.
Overall EA has made many improvements to their game and with some key fixes the gameplay will feel a lot more solid. I feel like NBA Live 18 has huge potential, and as a long time fan I'm excited to see their comeback. I will be reviewing the full game so stay tuned, and don't forget to pre-order NBA Live 18 for 33% off.