It may be ironic that this is coming from Electronic Arts, which was at the epicenter of the loot crate outrage a year ago. Progression choices in NBA Live 19’s ‘The One’ focus on just a few areas, with the rest coming automatically as the player progresses. It’s doing the opposite of instant gratification, actually. It’s not preying on instant gratification by offering a credit card shortcut. The exchange the game proposes is still fair: Play this game to get what you want. Other cosmetics are walled behind an advancement in “Hype,” which is a second type of XP, before they can be bought with in-game currency. As it is, players only start Court Battles with one or two rule sets available to them (though they can play against anyone else’s rules). These rules are the special parameters a player sets, such as dunks counting five points, when other users come to their virtual court to beat their team and take over their gym. (This can be a pain in the ass when all you’re trying to do is match kneepads or ankle braces.) This isn’t limited to just cosmetics there’s a feature many would expect to be fully unlocked at the outset, but it isn’t - and those are the rule variations for Court Battles. NBA Live 19’s customization store may not be perfectly accommodating, in that users can go there and find whatever they want, when they want it. ![]() And for layups, for example, there are 14 different animations one may equip. Equipping signature moves in NBA 2K19’s M圜areer requires an overall rating of 75 (again, incentivizing an $18 shellout for 75,000 in Virtual Currency) and then another VC expenditure to get the move. At 77 on dribbling unlocks Kevin Durant’s dribble moves. Want the Nike Kobe IX EM? Get a 77 in your dunk. Shot and dunk animations and specialty shoes are likewise awarded on a schedule, and are themed to the style of play the user has chosen. In NBA Live 19, you only get Kevin Durant’s dribble moves one way: get a 77 in dribbling for your created player. Those values increase automatically with each level up. There’s no dithering over whether to improve broader characteristics like strength, speed or vertical leap, much less spending virtual cash to do so. Players receive Skill Points when they level up, and these may be applied to one of three attributes (more are unlocked later). The rest of their progression is strictly linear. Players choose a broad archetype (guard, wing, or big), then a style of play in that category, and then a special characteristic applicable to that. NBA Live 19 has a much more streamlined approach in reply. A $100 special edition also comes with a wad of VC, further driving the incentive to pay out and bypass torturous grinding in the early NBA career. VC is freely awarded through play, but players start off so underpowered (60 rating overall) that they feel forced to shell out real money to level up to barely competitive attributes or get wiped out in the game’s robust online multiplayer games. In M圜areer, users must spend Virtual Currency for practically every improvement or customization for their player. NBA Live 19 saves EA’s troubled series with a fantastic playground Last year nearly pushed them to the breaking point, with meager VC payouts and ridiculous prices on haircut customizations that left many choosing between playing with a skilled player or one that looked like everyone else’s. ![]() Despite being a vastly deeper, more polished and better pro basketball franchise than NBA Live, NBA 2K’s ubiquitous “Virtual Currency,” and M圜areer mode’s player progression’s utter dependence on it, is widely resented even by longtime fans. This is a notable contrast given that NBA 2K19 has also just launched, bringing with it a career mode that is as relentless as ever in selling a catalog of microtransaction-available content. With microtransactions out of the picture, I can see that the game’s makers are trying to incentivize play, at least, and aren’t making an extra buck off my customization desires. ![]() It might be frustrating to have met the requirement to get the thing I want and walk away with something else, but it’s a mild disappointment. ![]() That’s because there are no real-money microtransactions whatsoever in its centerpiece mode. Ordinarily, this would be where someone ruefully mentions that this item otherwise randomly unlocked can be bought directly for real money. Yet so far when I’ve gone to the in-game store, she’s come out with shirts for last-place Indiana and Las Vegas instead. There’s a Washington Mystics t-shirt I’ve been eyeballing for my original player’s road outfit in NBA Live 19’s “The One” career mode.
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