Five Do's and Don'ts of NBA Live 10's Gameplay - ehh's Blog

ehh's Blog

Five Do's and Don'ts of NBA Live 10's Gameplay

Posted on October 12, 2009 at 06:09 PM.

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After spending six days with the game and getting more comfortable with the gameplay here's some of what I've really noticed.

Five Don'ts...

1. Attempt a lay up or dunk every time you get past your initial defender on the perimeter. Just like IRL, if you shake your first defender (head fake, dribble drive, whatever) it is not a license to go barreling into the paint and attempt to posterize whatever poor CPU souls happen to be in there. Pay attention to the help defense and pay attention to the paint. The majority of the time you get past your defender you're either going to be pulling up for a J or passing the ball after the defense starts it's rotation. If you think you're going to iso or pick and roll with Kobe every time down the court and get 30 PIP with him every game then you are in for a rude awakening. So be ready to pass the ball or pull up for short/mid-range jumpers, besides they're some of the best looking animations in L10 so you get to see them more!

2. Go right back up with every offensive rebound you get. One of the biggest gripes I noticed on OS with '10 during release week was the insane amount of blocks in the paint. I noticed it as well but I also looked at how I was playing and what I was trying to do instead of just blaming EA. Similar to #1 on this list, every time you get an offensive rebound don't go right back up thinking you'll successfully dunk home two more points. If you grab an offensive board in traffic, even if it's with Duh-wight or Shaq, and try to go back up it will be rejected a decent amount of time. Pull the ball out, reset and go through another quality possession if you don't have an obviously easy putback.

3. Think the same offensive/defensive strategy is going to work the entire game. In Live '10 you are going to have to get used to adjusting. Every game, on the fly, both ends of the court. If you think you can drive to the hoop on 75% of your possessions you're going to struggle because the CPU will adjust and collapse the hell outta their defense to force you to start taking jumpers. If you think you can take 40 shots with LeBron you're going to see the CPU start doubling LeBron - but in an intelligent way. Not blindly doubling him on every touch so someone else has a wide open shot every time. I primarily use the Knicks so naturally I jack up a lot of three-pointers every game. There are stretches in many games where I fall in love with the three and ignore D-Lee. The CPU adjusts to this and start to lock me up on the perimeter until I finally notice that Lee is in prime position to do some serious damage to the CPU. Being well-rounded and changing things is your best bet in Live '10.

4. Abuse the turbo/speed burst button. Especially when using the R-stick for dribbling moves. With studs like CP3 you can simply flick the stick to the left or right (without holding turbo) and burn your guy. If you're constantly holding down turbo and going crazy with the R-stick you will see a lot of turnovers and not many space-creating moves from your ball handler. The only time I have been using turbo is on a fastbreak or if want to attempt a dunk. My rule of thumb for the most part is that if you're not in the open floor you shouldn't be using turbo.

5. Always be in a rush. This sort of ties in with #4. Be patient, let plays develop, share the ball. The R-stick and size up moves are cool and it's a lot of fun to use the super stars but don't forget to play to your team's strengths. I've noticed that almost every time the CPU goes on a run against me it's because I stop calling plays and start playing rushed, 1-on-1 basketball on the offensive end of the court. Then frustration ensues, followed by a big CPU run and ultimately a timeout from me.

Remember to always read the defense and don't go into a possession with a pre-determined goal such as "I'm definitely shooting a three with Kobe this time" or "I'm definitely going to the rim with D-Wade, regardless." That's going to get you a lot of frustration (and alot of those contact animations) and very few points. The worst I've noticed so far is if the CPU gets a few buckets in a row and the "it's time to get to the rim no matter what" thought creeps into the user's head.

Five Do's...

1. Pay close attention to the match ups on the floor. Live does this better than any basketball game to date, thanks largely to the locomotion/momentum. Look at who the opposition matches up with your team and exploit any mismatches. You can abuse every bad defender (looking at you, Peja Stoikovich) and your elite players will have their way with average defenders as well. Bad defenders will make average players look like superstars.

2. Call plays (or a pick and roll) on a majority of your possessions. Ah yes, the playbooks. For a basketball fanatic they are one of the big bonuses of NBA Live this year. They're also integral to the gameplay and success of your team. Don't just run up and down the court freestyling, isoing and acting like you've got five JR Smith's on your team. Call plays, run them and you will see a lot of pretty things - one of course being a lot of buckets for your team. Pick-n-rolls should be called quite a bit as well, especially late in the shot clock and after broken plays. And of course, do plenty of #3...

3. Utilize the off-ball control. For those not familiar, press L2 to bring up the passing icons, press the icon of the guy you want to control and release L2 while still holding the player's icon. This feature is a thing of beauty and something I use more and more. Hell I've even been using it in the transition game the last few times I've played Live. Use it to get open, for dribble hand-offs and cuts to the hoop. Hell, use it just to create a better passing angle to cut down on your turnovers. One play that works well is getting your PG the ball at the top of the key, calling an isolation for the PG and controlling your wing or SG in the corners and coming up toward the wing and doing a basket or backdoor cut. If you have a slower defender you can get some easy buckets this way.

4. Get the ball inside. There's no denying that the post game is not one of Live's strengths especially in comparison to the brilliant perimeter game. While this is unfortunate for our gaming enjoyment it does not mean our in-game strategy should suffer. Avoid becoming jumper-happy blackholes who ignore your bigs. Even if you don't have a Tim Duncan on your roster the inside-out game is very well done in Live. Get the ball into the post and use off-ball control for some basket cuts as well.

5. Reset and pull the ball out. This goes for offensive rebounds (see above), dribble drives, post touches and even the transition game. Although IRL guys like LeBron and Kobe will always attempt a lay up when in a one-on-one transition situation they are not always an automatic in Live '10. You will see some ugly contact animations if you're euro/pro/etc hop isn't executed correctly. Pull the ball out if nothing is there, don't force things. Some times in the half court set you'll have to pull a Steve Nash and dribble right through the lane or under the hoop without attempting a shot or passing the ball. That's fine, if you see a two-time NBA MVP doing it IRL it's okay for you to do it in a video game.

Hope everyone is enjoying Live '10, the game still has a lot of room for improvement but it's a very good and very enjoyable game.

Comments

# 1 gotmeamodel @ Oct 12

Great Blog....I will be buying both games soon...but this is priceless.

# 2 The Radness @ Oct 12

Love it....

# 3 greenegt @ Oct 15

Great tips, man. These will help my game out a lot.

# 4 econoodle @ Oct 21

well now, some of these, helped immensely. Especially the one about going right back up for the big time bucket.

# 5 DJ @ Oct 22

Good blog. After a few days of playing straight-up UNLV 1990-era hoops, I settled down and began to embrace the half-court game and I've been winning a lot more than before using a lot of the tips you mention.

I'm hoping NCAA 10's gameplay is similar to Live's.

# 6 Chairman7w @ Oct 27

Great stuff here ehh, well written!

# 7 inkpimp007 @ Nov 11

EXCELLENT post. I'm struggling to win in Live 10 but all of this just reminds me to slow down and really think about the game. I'm struggling to stop the scoring runs but I did notice a glimmer of hope once I started running more plays especially during these situations. I'm starting to re fall in love with this game.