Next-generation coaching for NBA 2K14 and beyond - SteveM's Blog

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Next-generation coaching for NBA 2K14 and beyond Stuck

Posted on April 15, 2013 at 10:12 AM.

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I watch a lot of NBA games, and one thing I hear all the time from people who don't is that it's only the last five minutes that matter, so why bother to watch the whole game? What they're neglecting is that the first 43 minutes are what makes the last five possible, what shapes and sets up how those final five are going to go down, and I don't just mean by making the game close.

Once you become familiar with different teams' strengths and personnel, once you know something about substitution patterns and playbooks, you begin to realize what a chess match the first three and a half quarters are between the opposing coaches. Going small or big can be something you try to force on the other coach, or something you do in reaction to what the other coach does. Trying to establish your post game early can open up outside shots, although the inverse can also be true; getting your shooters going early can give your big men more space to work.

As it is, NBA 2K13 provides you some tools to do this yourself. You can choose different points of emphasis via Coach Settings and Profiles. And if you're successful, you will see the AI adapt to your game: most obviously, a player who gets hot will start getting doubled out on the perimeter.

But there's more to coaching than just trying to deny what's working for the other guy. Given what teams know about the value of different shots, there are many coaches who will more or less give teams midrange shots because those kind of shots are not very good at distorting a team's defense. The Minnesota Timberwolves this season are a good example of how a team can't survive on midrange shots alone. When they've had Nikola Pekovic available and pounding inside, they've shot better from the arc and often won. When they've had to rely on midrange jumpers from Greg Stiemsma and Dante Cunningham, they've struggled. In postgame press conferences, head coach Rick Adelman has stressed again and again how they need to get the defense moving side to side in order to break it down, which is exactly the kind of thing you can do with a post threat and good outside shooting.

But on the defensive AI side in NBA 2K13, the reactions are entirely too predicated on stopping individual threats, rather than assessing what a team wants to stop and what it can afford to give away. A more nuanced, thoughtful approach to AI coaching on defense would help make the first three and a half quarters of games more fun.

This kind of coaching AI improvement would be even more important for the opposing team's offense. Rarely do you see opposing teams establish an offense and then take advantage of your reaction to it. Teams have a set of plays they run that are generally well-suited to their personnel (which, incidentally, can be a problem if you play fantasy draft associations), but you almost never see AI opponents pull off a game-long balance of move and countermove to exploit the way you're playing them.

I'll be honest: I don't even know if that level of call and response is even possible with the current generation of console. And I know the subtlety and nuance of AI will always take a backseat to the glitz and polish of better and more realistic graphics. But if this kind of push-pull coaching strategy is possible, it could also help with the different levels of difficulty in the game, which right now seem to rely more on how much the computer cheats rather than actually playing better. At lower difficulty levels, the CPU coaching could be less astute�if you adjust to their strategy, they won't adjust to yours. But at higher levels, your adjustments could be met with further adjustments and so on. That kind of AI could go a long ways towards keeping the next generation of NBA 2K games compelling even after you've mastered the skillsets of individual players.

Comments

# 1 Kentucky_Wildcat23 @ Apr 15

I agree that the first 3 quarters are what shapes the end of the game. As a future basketball coach I use this game as a way to learn how to adjust my teams play and to be prepared when coaching my actual teams.

I played a guy in an online association yesterday and we had a chess match going with the changing of defenses from man, to zone, to full court, and back to zone. All while adjusting our offenses. Had we not made those changes in the first 3 quarters the last 5 minutes may not have made the game as exciting.

I hope that the AI gets better on D so that I have these types of experiences in my own personal associations.

# 2 ggsimmonds @ Apr 15

This is not exactly on topic for this blog, but it does involve coaches and it is a issue for me -- the generated coaches in association mode need to be reworked. Too many straight A coaches.

As for the blog, AI at that level has been a dream of mine for years. Hopefully next gen can deliver it, but I am skeptical.