This is the best season and it's not close (Long read)

[Stewie309]

Well we can go back and forth about this a lot and there are fair points on each side but one thing I will comment about is the auction house. Bots are annoying. There were really annoying last year and the tax was insane for a while. But... I absolutely hated the bs and rigging that was in the auction house in season 1. People would buy coins on all these bs sites and stack their teams and leagues. I saw the "gifting" as basically a shortcut to cheating. Where scrub players would be able to buy a sick card for nothing and have a chance to beat you just bc they had artificial AI and OVR when I am grinding my a$$ off in the auction house and grinding my a$$ off even more in the games. To be able to bypass that with some rigged auction was something I am happy was abolished.

The presents are my favorite part of the game. I hope they do that for Easter again bc that may have been my all time favorite promo across 3 seasons with the eggs and baskets. I think it is great that you can sell them again for winter that is huge.

In summary, the fact that voices are listening to us is what i think will eventually separate S3 from S1.

Well we're gonna have to agree to disagree because imho any season where EA sells coins, has an AH bot, and pack limits for packs that are always around can never touch season 1 even in its wildest dreams but the best period in the entire game for the most fun gameplay is in the soft launch from February of 2016 until July of 2016 when you could build a lineup however you wanted

But one thing we can all agree both are better then season 2 by a mile

 

[edlllpt]

Well we can go back and forth about this a lot and there are fair points on each side but one thing I will comment about is the auction house. Bots are annoying. There were really annoying last year and the tax was insane for a while. But... I absolutely hated the bs and rigging that was in the auction house in season 1. People would buy coins on all these bs sites and stack their teams and leagues. I saw the "gifting" as basically a shortcut to cheating. Where scrub players would be able to buy a sick card for nothing and have a chance to beat you just bc they had artificial AI and OVR when I am grinding my a$$ off in the auction house and grinding my a$$ off even more in the games. To be able to bypass that with some rigged auction was something I am happy was abolished.

+1

 

[JukeNukem1432]

This has been a very interesting discussion and im interested to know what would be your perfect season??? For me it would be a mix of season 1,2 and now with added features.
Aspects I would take from S1: the free AH (without coin sellers & bots though impossible), more sets and masters like LvsL masters, lineup masters, award winners, road to riches sets, and plenty of other sets and live events, unlimited live events not just first win events, better rewards (what is now coin collector went from a chance at 1mil, to 500k, to 100k), more coin packs, better structure to programs like legends, totw, more player abilities and boosts.
Aspects i would take from S2 & S3: the UI looks amazing and overall just more polished, game indicators, card art, campaigns, promo structures seem to have found a good balance between f2p and P2p, jerseys, courts, coaches, showdown structure.
Features i would add: New graphics engine, new dunks & layups, new dribbles, new shooting, passing & block animations. Overall a major update to gameplay.

 

[Stewie309]

This has been a very interesting discussion and im interested to know what would be your perfect season??? For me it would be a mix of season 1,2 and now with added features.
Aspects I would take from S1: the free AH (without coin sellers & bots though impossible), more sets and masters like LvsL masters, lineup masters, award winners, road to riches sets, and plenty of other sets and live events, unlimited live events not just first win events, better rewards (what is now coin collector went from a chance at 1mil, to 500k, to 100k), more coin packs, better structure to programs like legends, totw, more player abilities and boosts.
Aspects i would take from S2 & S3: the UI looks amazing and overall just more polished, game indicators, card art, campaigns, promo structures seem to have found a good balance between f2p and P2p, jerseys, courts, coaches, showdown structure.
Features i would add: New graphics engine, new dunks & layups, new dribbles, new shooting, passing & block animations. Overall a major update to gameplay.

My perfect season would look almost identical to yours but add in a freestyle lineup with no position requirements and all PvP modes being the same difficulty and time along with the ability to force close live events again

 

[picklegoat]

This has been a very interesting discussion and im interested to know what would be your perfect season??? For me it would be a mix of season 1,2 and now with added features.
Aspects I would take from S1: the free AH (without coin sellers & bots though impossible), more sets and masters like LvsL masters, lineup masters, award winners, road to riches sets, and plenty of other sets and live events, unlimited live events not just first win events, better rewards (what is now coin collector went from a chance at 1mil, to 500k, to 100k), more coin packs, better structure to programs like legends, totw, more player abilities and boosts.
Aspects i would take from S2 & S3: the UI looks amazing and overall just more polished, game indicators, card art, campaigns, promo structures seem to have found a good balance between f2p and P2p, jerseys, courts, coaches, showdown structure.
Features i would add: New graphics engine, new dunks & layups, new dribbles, new shooting, passing & block animations. Overall a major update to gameplay.

The discussion about the auction house above and some comments and +1s both ways shows people vary on the auction house and whether a free market lends to fairness or cheap cheating so leaving that aside, I agree and Stewie agree your ideas are on point. I completely forget about road to riches and when I have extra stamina like opn a day like today where IDC about making 84 sets of Klay, Giannis, Drummond, I would love to go, "I need coins, let me polay 10 R2R events."

This is why I think this season and going forward to S4 will continue to improve. As we make these thoughts clear to Brian and others at EA, we will get many of our wishes. More ad money for them on F2P and more people will spend money on promos if they can grind and only have to spend a few bucks here or there to get certain special players or features.

I feel like the perfect season would be awesome for F2P players. Bias, maybe. But I think if they design the promos and campaigns for the masses and just make packs that can take you to the next level if you spend NBA cash or $ that would be optimal. The more people who have a positive feeling for the game the better. This year I have gotten several league gifts bc someone spend real $. Last year I got ZERO! That is a sign of going in the right direction despite some campaign errors like Embiid and Harden.

I would enjoy some new features for abilities. A few I would think were different or cool would be:

"ankle breaker"- features similar to clutch but you hit a button in a certain spot and it does a combo of a crossover and pullup guaranteed jumper where the defender falls.
"adrenaline"- feature where for a limited amount of time says 20 seconds, your player just has max ability and is just faster, more accurate, able to make easy mode steals, blocks etc.

Stuff like that where it's different, easy to program and along with clutch and buzzer beater you have some new options.

I would like all play modes to revert to 2:00 and LvL back to 3 qtrs.

 

[Stewie309]

This has been a very interesting discussion and im interested to know what would be your perfect season??? For me it would be a mix of season 1,2 and now with added features.
Aspects I would take from S1: the free AH (without coin sellers & bots though impossible), more sets and masters like LvsL masters, lineup masters, award winners, road to riches sets, and plenty of other sets and live events, unlimited live events not just first win events, better rewards (what is now coin collector went from a chance at 1mil, to 500k, to 100k), more coin packs, better structure to programs like legends, totw, more player abilities and boosts.
Aspects i would take from S2 & S3: the UI looks amazing and overall just more polished, game indicators, card art, campaigns, promo structures seem to have found a good balance between f2p and P2p, jerseys, courts, coaches, showdown structure.
Features i would add: New graphics engine, new dunks & layups, new dribbles, new shooting, passing & block animations. Overall a major update to gameplay.

This year I have gotten several league gifts bc someone spend real $. Last year I got ZERO!

That's because last year it was broken for almost the entire season and they didn't care to fix it

 

[jack_george]

This has been a very interesting discussion and im interested to know what would be your perfect season??? For me it would be a mix of season 1,2 and now with added features.
Aspects I would take from S1: the free AH (without coin sellers & bots though impossible), more sets and masters like LvsL masters, lineup masters, award winners, road to riches sets, and plenty of other sets and live events, unlimited live events not just first win events, better rewards (what is now coin collector went from a chance at 1mil, to 500k, to 100k), more coin packs, better structure to programs like legends, totw, more player abilities and boosts.
Aspects i would take from S2 & S3: the UI looks amazing and overall just more polished, game indicators, card art, campaigns, promo structures seem to have found a good balance between f2p and P2p, jerseys, courts, coaches, showdown structure.
Features i would add: New graphics engine, new dunks & layups, new dribbles, new shooting, passing & block animations. Overall a major update to gameplay.

This year I have gotten several league gifts bc someone spend real $. Last year I got ZERO!

That's because last year it was broken for almost the entire season and they didn't care to fix it

Apparently it's still broken to a degree, but you have to buy the cash from the "plus sign" at the very top of the screen, and not in the actual store for it to register and give a badge and disperse league gifts.

 

[Stewie309]

This year I have gotten several league gifts bc someone spend real $. Last year I got ZERO!

That's because last year it was broken for almost the entire season and they didn't care to fix it

Apparently it's still broken to a degree, but you have to buy the cash from the "plus sign" at the very top of the screen, and not in the actual store for it to register and give a badge and disperse league gifts.

Yeah they don't care to actually fix it because they don't care about leagues since it doesn't make them money and the league contribution rewards are horrible

 

[Altavilla]

I've been playing since 2nd half of S2.

At first S3 was very frustrating and I considered different entertainment options.
Most frustrating was the difficulty of some events (forcing me to quit any ambitious objectives) that made me regret any investment (time, real money and even stamina) I'd put in.

The Tip-off campaign was the first decent thing this season.
Halloween was another improvement (still not sure if giving everyone the Master was an accident or on purpose).
Harvest was yet another improvement. (Except for that effin Kezar event, and generally too difficult blitzes. I need to be able to play blitzes while sleepy :lol: )

I spent less than 20 euros until the start of Harvest and around 50 euros since. I'm actually ok with spending this amount of money in something that entertains me this many hours a day. Just as long as I'm actually getting entertained and not just frustrated.

The possibility of playing several Legends events with no stamina costs is a very welcome addition for when things become a bit boring and/or frustrating. Something along those lines with the Legacy lineups would be great (specially in the 1st month).

The way the AH is set up now seems like a good balance between letting players earn some coin and encouraging real money spending.
It is now possible to sell surplus elites and make a bit of coins in the AH. Not as much as mid last season, as expected, but also not the "dead market" from the beginning of S3.

This Waggoner dude, putting himself out there, opening lines of communication and acting on feedback, looks to me like he's doing a great job. (But no more kiss gifs pls... that gave me the creeps haha).
Btw, has anyone though about inviting him to this forum? (I'm not sure if that Discord thing is the best platform to discuss some subjects. Seems to confusing to me. But then again, I'm old :lol: )

 

[Stewie309]

Btw, has anyone though about inviting him to this forum? (I'm not sure if that Discord thing is the best platform to discuss some subjects. Seems to confusing to me. But then again, I'm old :lol: )

He was on this forum already he made an account on September 3rd then finally talked on September 5th and a member made a joke about him needing to pay money to make posts and he quit and blocked or muted the admins on social media after that he didn't tell anyone why until a couple weeks ago he mentioned that he doesn't go to certain places basically because it's not bubble wrapped for him I guess he got mad I didn't ban the guy for a harmless joke and instead of saying he had a problem with it he just left and never showed back up so Josh went and made a fluffy throne for him in his discord chat and banning anyone that has even the slightest shred of negativity towards EA he's a man in his 40s or something I didn't and still don't feel the need to walk around and shield a grown man twice my age with rose colored glasses

Sorry I didn't cater to his every need by telepathically knowing what he was thinking and how low his tolerance for harmless G rated jokes are everyone can blame that on me if they want but I just want everyone to know the story behind it

 

[Altavilla]

Btw, has anyone though about inviting him to this forum? (I'm not sure if that Discord thing is the best platform to discuss some subjects. Seems to confusing to me. But then again, I'm old :lol: )

He was on this forum already he made an account on September 3rd then finally talked on September 5th and a member made a joke about him needing to pay money to make posts and he quit and blocked or muted the admins on social media after that he didn't tell anyone why until a couple weeks ago he mentioned that he doesn't go to certain places basically because it's not bubble wrapped for him I guess he got mad I didn't ban the guy for a harmless joke and instead of saying he had a problem with it he just left and never showed back up so Josh went and made a fluffy throne for him in his discord chat and banning anyone that has even the slightest shred of negativity towards EA he's a man in his 40s or something I didn't and still don't feel the need to walk around and shield a grown man twice my age with rose colored glasses

Sorry I didn't cater to his every need by telepathically knowing what he was thinking and how low his tolerance for harmless G rated jokes are everyone can blame that on me if they want but I just want everyone to know the story behind it

Thanks. That completely answers my question
I get your stand and agree with it.

I guess these people are just humans riddled with flaws like everyone else. And most humans tend to get a bit "star struck" with some attention. They shouldn't take criticism and specially jokes that seriously.
Maybe it's best for Waggoner (or some other EA staff) to keep monitoring this forum anonymously.

 

[betaman411]

I think they're monitoring it or there's enough members here that are active on Josh's Discord channel to suffice. I really don't care if he's here, Discord, reddit etc. The fact that we have someone engaging the community is a positive. It is rather comical though how monitored the "ASK EA" section is. Tons of deleted comments and you can tell Waggoner is easily frustrated when the same question gets asked over and over. Simple solution...ignore it. Instead, you have Josh and cronies swooping in to clean stuff up. And from what I've heard (since I never post and just peruse it on occasion), the amount of filtering going on in that channel is above and beyond ridiculous.

 

[Stewie309]

Btw, has anyone though about inviting him to this forum? (I'm not sure if that Discord thing is the best platform to discuss some subjects. Seems to confusing to me. But then again, I'm old :lol: )

He was on this forum already he made an account on September 3rd then finally talked on September 5th and a member made a joke about him needing to pay money to make posts and he quit and blocked or muted the admins on social media after that he didn't tell anyone why until a couple weeks ago he mentioned that he doesn't go to certain places basically because it's not bubble wrapped for him I guess he got mad I didn't ban the guy for a harmless joke and instead of saying he had a problem with it he just left and never showed back up so Josh went and made a fluffy throne for him in his discord chat and banning anyone that has even the slightest shred of negativity towards EA he's a man in his 40s or something I didn't and still don't feel the need to walk around and shield a grown man twice my age with rose colored glasses

Sorry I didn't cater to his every need by telepathically knowing what he was thinking and how low his tolerance for harmless G rated jokes are everyone can blame that on me if they want but I just want everyone to know the story behind it

Thanks. That completely answers my question
I get your stand and agree with it.

I guess these people are just humans riddled with flaws like everyone else. And most humans tend to get a bit "star struck" with some attention. They shouldn't take criticism and specially jokes that seriously.
Maybe it's best for Waggoner (or some other EA staff) to keep monitoring this forum anonymously.

Yeah I'm sure they monitor it in some way

 

[Stewie309]

I think they're monitoring it or there's enough members here that are active on Josh's Discord channel to suffice. I really don't care if he's here, Discord, reddit etc. The fact that we have someone engaging the community is a positive. It is rather comical though how monitored the "ASK EA" section is. Tons of deleted comments and you can tell Waggoner is easily frustrated when the same question gets asked over and over. Simple solution...ignore it. Instead, you have Josh and cronies swooping in to clean stuff up. And from what I've heard (since I never post and just peruse it on occasion), the amount of filtering going on in that channel is above and beyond ridiculous.

Yeah that just adds to it I know damn well I'm not doing that here because if it's within reason everyone here deserves to be heard frustration included as long as it's not personal or malicious because if you block out all criticism then how can you expect to improve yourself if you're given a false sense of reality

Oh you also get punished if you mention this site, torchbeak.com, or the names of the admins for this site I've had people come to me saying they were banned just fro simply mentioning those things

 

[picklegoat]

Well the discussion above is why this forum is the best option for open discussion. We just need to make sure our thoughts are heard and changes should be made to meet some of our needs as the season continues.