I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

I definately think more control on what's happening on the court is the way to go. The user should be deciding most of what's happening and not some tendencies or the AI.

Yes, lets bring back the 1-3-1, box and 1, spin dunk, and that hesitation dribble from 2K9 as well. More control, more abuse.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Those cheese tactics aren't cheese because they're related to user input.

They're cheese tactics because they're broken mechanics.

As are plenty of cheese tactics that aren't control related (1-3-1, and off-ball only defense, because you're actually NOT controlling your player and letting them do what they "should" instead. But given that this is a video game that involves input, it's a high likelihood that some flaw would involve input in some way.

Blaming cheese tactics on the fact that they are control related in a video game is kind of like blaming bank robberies for involving money or plane crashes for involving height.

Any mechanic that requires a user to perfect the timing of can be cheesed to death. It's why we care about which teams have players with the easiest shot releases, highest steal and dunk ratings. Because we know how to abuse the game-play mechanics tied to user control. You can make it, we can break it. It's just how things are.

[Vni]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Yes, lets bring back the 1-3-1, box and 1, spin dunk, and that hesitation dribble from 2K9 as well. More control, more abuse.

It's your role to decide who you play against. Bad players and cheesers will find ways to abuse the game and make it look bad regardless of what kind of controls you give them.

It's the user's role to simulate the sport. Not the game. The game is there to give you the tools to achieve that.

No matter what they do the game will always be terrible against randoms on casual settings. It takes two players to have a sim game.

[Pokes404]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Anytime you stack commands on a button you introduce a delay beacuse the system has to wait until your done to see if you tapped or held the button.

Agreed. I don't think a power meter based passing system like FIFA's would work in a basketball game. It gives soccer a realistic feel as players have to time their steps in order to set themselves up to hit a pass. Thus, the various delays actually work to make things feel more realistic. In basketball, however, passing delays would feel unrealistic and could even be costly. The passing delays already present in the game are sometimes frustrating.

However, I would like the ability to be able to put a lot of zip on a pass when I need to. Really, I'd like one of the new L2+Face Button passes to be a "bullet pass." Maybe have it be L2+O and make flashy passes a ratings based occurrence. I actually enjoy being able to have control over when I throw flashy passes, but I know that I'd use a bullet chest pass a lot more often.

Also, it'd be cool if bullet passes had some risk to them throwing them with a lower rated passers, throwing to a guy with a lower "hands" rating, or when throwing the pass while off balance/out of control.

[Pared]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Yes, lets bring back the 1-3-1, box and 1, spin dunk, and that hesitation dribble from 2K9 as well. More control, more abuse.

While this thread should be absolutely destroyed (including the concept), I don't agree with you here.

You can have more control as long as you account for balance. Every move should have some sort of defensive counter.

This is one area where the post game has done well recently (not PERFECTLY, but well) but 2k's game has suffered in other areas.

If you think back a few years, defensive positioning was included but never fleshed out; Shading was there but you couldn't do anything with it. Have to have the same sort of depth on both sides of the ball.

[Sundown]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

I'd love for NBA 2K to actually be a simulation of professional basketball, not street-ball or how you play in real life. Most situations in the NBA are devoid of specific passes if they're not involving a star player, and it's generally on a highlight reel, and generally we're not seeing a high frequency of highlight reel passes in one game. This stuff should be regulated to the A.I., not the user. It would definitely minimize the cheese on the court.

I would as well. But there is more in common between street ball and professional basketball-- like basic passing skills, than there is in some "simulation" where you can unthinkingly push a button and expect the right thing to happen that you hadn't even read the situation for. A game that plays for you isn't a simulation of an activity at its highest level at all. Or not a very engaging one.

Seriously, you don't enjoy the manual bounce pass? You should try it. It feels closer to real basketball pro or otherwise than auto-pick-me-a-pass-I-don't-care-which.

The way to solve cheese isn't to take away control until there's no control or actual game left to cheese.

The way to solve cheese is to have sound mechanics based on realism and allow users to make mistakes and reap rewards.

Taking away control to minimize cheese is like amputating legs to eliminate foot odor.

[El_Poopador]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Yes, lets bring back the 1-3-1, box and 1, spin dunk, and that hesitation dribble from 2K9 as well. More control, more abuse.

1-3-1 isn't actually a user control thing, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. Would you like play-calling removed? Since the user calls plays, it must be cheese. Like Sundown said above, cheese is about broken mechanics, not user input. The spin dunk isn't cheese in itself, but the fact that it was an animation that could not be interrupted by defense.

Any mechanic that requires a user to perfect the timing of can be cheesed to death. It's why we care about which teams have players with the easiest shot releases, highest steal and dunk ratings. Because we know how to abuse the game-play mechanics tied to user control. You can make it, we can break it. It's just how things are.

So we should remove shot timing altogether, remove dunking from the game, and also get rid of the steal button completely, since those ratings determine success. Maybe we should also get rid of the ability to control any players on the court, and make every game CPU vs CPU. That's pretty much what you're describing here.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

It's your role to decide who you play against. Bad players and cheesers will find ways to abuse the game and make it look bad regardless of what kind of controls you give them.

It's the user's role to simulate the sport. Not the game. The game is there to give you the tools to achieve that.

No matter what they do the game will always be terrible against randoms on casual settings. It takes two players to have a sim game.

I'm not complaining about the competition. I don't care what gameplay mechanic 2K throws in for cheesers to abuse. The best players will adapt regardless of where one's opinion lies on the 2K morality scale.

However, my beef is that the quality of play for most 2K players that I play against is poor. Why? Because they invest too much time into the game's mechanics and not successful basketball strategies. Adding more mechanics is just getting away from what's ultimately important.

[ImaFreeThinker]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Are you on XBO?...My SIM game won't disappoint you.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

1-3-1 isn't actually a user control thing, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. Would you like play-calling removed? Since the user calls plays, it must be cheese. Like Sundown said above, cheese is about broken mechanics, not user input. The spin dunk isn't cheese in itself, but the fact that it was an animation that could not be interrupted by defense.



So we should remove shot timing altogether, remove dunking from the game, and also get rid of the steal button completely, since those ratings determine success. Maybe we should also get rid of the ability to control any players on the court, and make every game CPU vs CPU. That's pretty much what you're describing here.

I'm suggesting that more freedom is generally a bad thing for players to have, and ran down a brief list of what we've had, and what we've abused. The more freedom 2K gives us, just makes the game much more difficult to maintain, and actually focus on basic gameplay features such a competent A.I. to play against.

[Vni]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

I'm not complaining about the competition. I don't care what gameplay mechanic 2K throws in for cheesers to abuse. The best players will adapt regardless of where one's opinion lies on the 2K morality scale.

However, my beef is that the quality of play for most 2K players that I play against is poor. Why? Because they invest too much time into the game's mechanics and not successful basketball strategies. Adding more mechanics is just getting away from what's ultimately important.

That's because you're playing the wrong people. 2K isn't responsible for the player's lack of basketball knowledge.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Are you on XBO?...My SIM game won't disappoint you.

No. And your game shouldn't have to be "Sim" or whatever else. There should be an underlying strategy that replicates the same logic real basketball teams use every game.

However, that's not the case with NBA 2K. We'll find ways to abuse the passing system, just like we've abused the shooting mechanics, and almost every addition before it.

[Sundown]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

Any mechanic that requires a user to perfect the timing of can be cheesed to death. It's why we care about which teams have players with the easiest shot releases, highest steal and dunk ratings. Because we know how to abuse the game-play mechanics tied to user control. You can make it, we can break it. It's just how things are.

You can always improve mechanics, and you can always limit the unrealistic advantages of timing. Checks and balances are the very nature of game design.

With your outlook, you might as well not play video games at all. Certainly not this one, which has certainly gotten better by the inclusion of things you're recommending to be taken out.

I love basketball. I love the pass. I love being engaged in the pass and all it's varieties and options even when I suck at it in real life. I know I don't want a game that completely "solves" the passing problem for me. Nor the shooting problem. Or the defensive problem. Or the ball handling problem. And I can't imagine how a game that abstracts the complexities into one button that you can casually hammer without thought would make a much better one than the one we have that increasingly mimics the real life activity it represents.

[ImaFreeThinker]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

"No. And your game shouldn't have to be "Sim" or whatever else. There should be an underlying strategy that replicates the same logic real basketball teams use every game."

I'm not following your logic here. SIM is a "replication" of "real basketball teams" playing "real" basketball.

[luda06]

Re: I think I would have preferred a pass meter over a shooting meter.

That's because you're playing the wrong people. 2K isn't responsible for the player's lack of basketball knowledge.

The wrong people? Call it whatever you like. The facts don't change. The abuse of most if not all of 2K's gameplay mechanics are staples in quick matches and online leagues. The game-play experience between online and offline modes are so vastly different from one another, and that should not be the case. Entire strategies are simply ineffective online and vice-versa. Most of it is in direct relation to user control.