So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

[Shady Mike]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Like I said a few pages back, I don't know how this effects people online because IMO that is a whole other videogame which I do not play, but for the people that play quick games and Myleague and Mygm and are looking for a true representation of SIM basketball you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not check out my slider set. The only reason I say this is because I do not see a lot of the issues I see people are dealing with and that is because I have adjusted the offensive consistency sliders to a point where I think the runs are organic, authentic, yet at the same time spontaneous...badges matter more, ratings matter more, and if your knowledge of basketball are going to be tested...check them out:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...r-sliders.html

[OkayC]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

I understand why 2k does this, but i hate to an extent that there is lack of trasnparency behind it. Ronnie2k and ld2k have told guys(as well as myself) multiple times that this stuff doesnt happen in game, and even went as far as mildly mocking of us who suggested it did happen. Even tho we all have experienced it in one scenario or another.

[Pokes404]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

I think this is on point. It's also true that, as a user player, you can minimize the run or throw gas on it.

When the user is ahead and the CPU is getting the rubber band boost, it is critical to:

1. Slow down the game, running plays or smart freelance offense for open looks.
2. Move the ball, or, if the physical defense is killing your passing lanes, post up or get to the paint with a ball pick and draw fouls. Inside shots mean fewer long rebounds, which cuts down on the CPU fast break game. Take it easy on the 3's and long jumpers.
3. Ball control! Avoid turnovers. Avoid fouls too, and if you have to, back off physical defense POE or you may hand the game away at the foul line. You can D up hard again when the momentum evens out a bit.
4. Ease up on fast breaks, even if you think you have it open: your layup may be nerfed and the fast pace will allow quick CPU's scores
5. Did I mention draw fouls? Make your foul shots
6. Adjust your defensive POE to combat what the CPU is doing. Make adjustments fast because while you had success three possessions ago contesting the perimeter the CPU has noticed and is killing you at the rim.
7. Keep CPU superstars from getting hot and taking over. Contest shots with on ball defense, and use occasional off ball defense to beat star players coming around screens.
8. And, yes, call time out. It's not the cure all the way some people say "call time out!", but it can slow momentum. Sometimes you may need to spend two time outs in short succession to halt wild momentum. But you have to do the rest of this list as well, or your time outs will be wasted.

This is a major one for me. I even see this happen sometimes in All Star Team Up games with friends. The other team starts making a comeback and I have to tell my teammates/friends to back down the pace. I don't care how open of a shot they may have, unless it's a breakaway dunk, DO NOT shoot the ball early in the clock. Slow the pace down, work the clock, and try to cool the other team off with a slow tempo.

If I was a coach, the opposing team was making a run, and my guys were starting to get "tight," I'd tell them the same thing. The last thing you want to do when your team isn't playing well is create more possessions during that stretch.

[LorenzoDC]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Great post Qno.

Lorenzo's post made me realize what 2K is trying to accomplish here.

They give the loosing team a 'limited' momentum run, I say limited because the length of the run is not constant, I think it gets affected by timeouts and the other team momentum plays. I believe this feature is always running in the background, since it's not only applied to the CPU, but multiplayer games are also affected by it.

What they are trying to do is to give anyone the ability to perform great runs and also become a victim of it.

I remember an NCAA game that featured home court advantage, that boosted the home team momentum after good plays, I believe this feature automatically executed in 2K15

I wanted to jump in again for the bolded part, because I have seen this in the beginning of the first quarter.

Against the CPU, if either the user or the CPU gets off to a fast start, building an 8+ point lead, the next few possessions will slow the momentum.

A bad user player may still get blown out of on the losing end here, but on the flip side, a good user player with a superior team and a quick 12-2 or 12-4 lead will suddenly get dead cold, miss open layups on the break, lose all the loose ball and rebounding dice rolls or put back layup dice rolls, and the game will close up. This is a guarantee.

It doesn't matter what shots you take or what adjustments you make. The game will tighten up.

I've even experimented with this on the reverse side. I've let myself get to a quick deficit and watched as the CPU got cold even though I was not playing good defense. Then I can chuck up a bad three with a guy whose 3 pt rating is 70 or lower. . . and make it!

You see this when the CPU is down. A terrible 35 rated three point shooter who you purposely leave open at the arc will make a 3, and the 8 point lead is down to 5.

So, this system works to keep games competitive throughout the game. It looks like a bigger deal in the third quarter, especially when the user is ahead, because the CPU determines that there's not much time left and therefore the most extreme under the hood adjustments to ratings and dice rolls take effect to make the game competitive again. Visually, what happens breaks all laws of sim, physics and player ratings.

It's not that the game result is scripted or predetermined, but for a time, the odds of various dice rolls on the court are seriously stacked, as are attribute boosts. You can play through it and win, if you're on a difficulty level appropriate to your skill and you don't play dumb.

A note about sliders: they help with this, but they don't eliminate the underlying game code dynamic. But using sliders that keep the game more competitive to your skill level soften those blowout score third quarters to keep a game within around 10 or less. When that's the case, the CPU doesn't get as "desperate" and do crazy stuff to promote game competitive balance, so it's just not as obvious.

I do think though the system may slightly favor the CPU if losing versus the user if the CPU is behind in the third quarter, and the home team in the 4th quarter, whoever that is. What I mean is, the CPU may get a bigger loser bonus in the third quarter than a loser user may get, but I could be wrong. It can be cool though to see a star CPU player take over the game late and there's nothing you can do, if what happens seems true to the actual player.

Disclaimer: I have no actual knowledge of the coding, but watching this through the years, this is what the system looks like to me. I think I'm basically right.

[jenesaispas]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Man i feel like everybody that says, "it happens in the NBA" doesn't understand nuance.


When it happens in the NBA, it's for a myriad of reasons. One broken play leads to a foul for 2 freethrows. A missed shot turns into a set play where they get a good look. Another missed shot turns into another great set play. A defensive stop gets you out on the break and running. It's a slow build up of a a series of things that contribute to the run, and then the momentum compounds on it. But more importantly, it can be for the team thats already winning.


When it happens in 2K it almost never feels natural whether its for or against me. It's almost always a series of fast breaks. It's almost always missed WIDE OPEN jumpers. If it's not wide open jumpers, then it's a missed dunk that somebody contested from under the rim. and it feels as though you cant do anything about it. no matter how many jordans, ervings, birds, durants, lebrons, etc. you have on your team. And it's almost always for a team to get back into the game. It's rarely a run, to give somebody winning, distance from their opponent. It's manufactured.

[jenesaispas]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Oh and least we not forget, missed freethrows. When you are trying to stop the run and do the smart basketball play and drive to the basket to get to the line, you can and definitely will miss BOTH freethrows with your best players. Some of these players have the closer badges which signify clutch....but 2K equalizer gives negative ****s about that.

[Beluba]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Some 2k staff have more or less acknowledged this issue, at least, indirectly.

It happens, and it happens in the way you describe, and there's a reason for it. Czar has spoken about it, even in the most recent sim hangout, as an issue of CPU AI.

Here's the situation: the CPU AI can't keep up with human "AI" of a well played 2k game for a whole game. So the game forces game balance by nerfing user players and success chances of user plays and shots, while giving boosts to CPU team dice rolls on all kinds of plays, from steals to drives to loose balls, etc.

That "rubber bands" the score of the game so the game stays competitive to the user. It just looks ugly along the way because the animations for how the CPU does what it does break sim, not from how NBA games play out in the scores, but from how it looks on the court. When little guards literally plow over big men for layups and then beat big men to rebounds, and balls morph through bodies for the CPU's alley oop over your defender, it breaks sim.

Look at Sam Pham's recent video about the number of CPU team passes per game and on ball screens. These numbers are all low. As a result, CU AI is generating fewer good looks on offense. So it ends up in an iso or post up that forces an unrealistic "successful" play with an unrealistic contested shot. That's an AI issue.

Czar is basically saying that this cheesy comeback stuff should keep diminishing over time as the devs get better at coding real sim basketball behavior on the court. Making the CPU play smarter will reduce the need for those rubber band effect stat boosts that artificially make the game competitive against good players.

Oh, and one other thing. Czar and Scott O'Gallagher have basically said that HOF is cheese. It's loaded up with artificial stat boosts favoring the CPU as default. So if you're seeing this stuff while playing HOF, understand that cheese is the default on that level. I know guys like Sam Pham are good enough to beat HOF sim offline regularly, but not everyone plays at that level.

I think you're mis-interpreting what Czar said in the sim hangout. Yes, we tune the AI differently across the various difficulty levels... this is an obvious necessity to ensure that the AI is more of a challenge on the higher levels. This mainly comes in the form of attribute boosts, shot % boosts, and reaction times to certain events. However, these "boosts" if that's what you want to call them are set at the outset of the game... they don't dynamically rubber band up or down to artificially manufacture runs or to keep the game close.

The AI, however, DOES make adjustments constantly as the game goes on. So something that might be working for you in the 1st half, may not (and probably won't) give you the same success in the 2nd.

What Czar was referring to when he said that we'd be eliminating AI boosts as the AI gets smarter over time is that we'd no longer need to boost things like attributes and shot %'s to make the AI competitive. In fact, on All-Star and below, the AI actually has to be nerfed in comparison to the user to allow more people to keep up.

So I've said this just about every year since 2K11 and will continue to say it... there is absolutely ZERO rubber banding code in our game and there never will be. It would take a ton of extra effort to implement something like that and no one on the gameplay team would stand for it.

If you're seeing wild momentum swings and blown leads either offline or online, Czar gave the best advice at the start of this thread... you need to adjust your game.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

What Czar was referring to when he said that we'd be eliminating AI boosts as the AI gets smarter over time is that we'd no longer need to boost things like attributes and shot %'s to make the AI competitive.

Love hearing this....

[jenesaispas]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

I think you're mis-interpreting what Czar said in the sim hangout. Yes, we tune the AI differently across the various difficulty levels... this is an obvious necessity to ensure that the AI is more of a challenge on the higher levels. This mainly comes in the form of attribute boosts, shot % boosts, and reaction times to certain events. However, these "boosts" if that's what you want to call them are set at the outset of the game... they don't dynamically rubber band up or down to artificially manufacture runs or to keep the game close.

The AI, however, DOES make adjustments constantly as the game goes on. So something that might be working for you in the 1st half, may not (and probably won't) give you the same success in the 2nd.

What Czar was referring to when he said that we'd be eliminating AI boosts as the AI gets smarter over time is that we'd no longer need to boost things like attributes and shot %'s to make the AI competitive. In fact, on All-Star and below, the AI actually has to be nerfed in comparison to the user to allow more people to keep up.

So I've said this just about every year since 2K11 and will continue to say it... there is absolutely ZERO rubber banding code in our game and there never will be. It would take a ton of extra effort to implement something like that and no one on the gameplay team would stand for it.

If you're seeing wild momentum swings and blown leads either offline or online, Czar gave the best advice at the start of this thread... you need to adjust your game.

right. I can spam the same fist play and get 70 with goran dragic on hof difficulty against Jordan. The AI doesn't get smarter.


You, nor Czar, can explain why these runs are always to bring the game within a fighting chance of whoever is losing. Never pushes the game away. furthermore, there is always something equalized unless the game is a complete blowout. We will have shot the same amount of shots at the end of a game. If i've shot a higher percentage, my opponent will have made more 3s and FTs. If I have more offensive rebounds, I will also have too many turnovers or my opponent will 4x the amount of steals that I do and it evens out the possessions/chances or some variation. This is every game. Every game. unless there is a blowout which is obviously rare.

A lot of us run plays, take extra care of the ball, are patient in our sets and wait for great looks, etc. It's almost offensively dismissive to say "go work on your game." This is a sentiment echoed, largely, throughout the entire community from the highly valued youtubers(pfft) to the casual gamer. So much so that guys refuse to even play RTTP. IF the outcry is as much as it is, and for so long as it's been, then perhaps there is some fine tuning that must take place.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Yeah, what is that guy talking about? It's not like he's a developer or anything.

[jenesaispas]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Yeah, what is that guy talking about? It's not like he's a developer or anything.

Developers told us that badges were fixed when they werent. Developers told us that tendencies didnt matter in My Team...but made major adjustments to them anyway. developers said charge cheese was fixed when it wasnt. they said zig zagging was fixed when it wasnt. excuse me if i dont take what someone at 2K says to be scripture.

[RodionMaZ]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

...
The AI, however, DOES make adjustments constantly as the game goes on. So something that might be working for you in the 1st half, may not (and probably won't) give you the same success in the 2nd.
...
If you're seeing wild momentum swings and blown leads either offline or online, Czar gave the best advice at the start of this thread... you need to adjust your game.

I don't buy it. I don't understand how comes that AI adjusts his game and suddenly MY players start to miss wide open shots and layups. And lose boxout battles. Dammit! Give ME the power to adjust rebound battles for my players. Why aren't we allowed to do such adjustments? I'd love to set "win next ten boxouts, please" instead of "crash defensive glass".

[Shady Mike]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

Developers told us that badges were fixed when they werent. Developers told us that tendencies didnt matter in My Team...but made major adjustments to them anyway. developers said charge cheese was fixed when it wasnt. they said zig zagging was fixed when it wasnt. excuse me if i dont take what someone at 2K says to be scripture.

Read the end of the post again lol.

I think you're mis-interpreting what Czar said in the sim hangout. Yes, we tune the AI differently across the various difficulty levels... this is an obvious necessity to ensure that the AI is more of a challenge on the higher levels. This mainly comes in the form of attribute boosts, shot % boosts, and reaction times to certain events. However, these "boosts" if that's what you want to call them are set at the outset of the game... they don't dynamically rubber band up or down to artificially manufacture runs or to keep the game close.

The AI, however, DOES make adjustments constantly as the game goes on. So something that might be working for you in the 1st half, may not (and probably won't) give you the same success in the 2nd.

What Czar was referring to when he said that we'd be eliminating AI boosts as the AI gets smarter over time is that we'd no longer need to boost things like attributes and shot %'s to make the AI competitive. In fact, on All-Star and below, the AI actually has to be nerfed in comparison to the user to allow more people to keep up.

So I've said this just about every year since 2K11 and will continue to say it... there is absolutely ZERO rubber banding code in our game and there never will be. It would take a ton of extra effort to implement something like that and no one on the gameplay team would stand for it.

If you're seeing wild momentum swings and blown leads either offline or online, Czar gave the best advice at the start of this thread...you need to adjust your game.

/Thread /GG /StepYourGameUp /TakeCare

[Taer]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

I think you're mis-interpreting what Czar said in the sim hangout. Yes, we tune the AI differently across the various difficulty levels... this is an obvious necessity to ensure that the AI is more of a challenge on the higher levels. This mainly comes in the form of attribute boosts, shot % boosts, and reaction times to certain events. However, these "boosts" if that's what you want to call them are set at the outset of the game... they don't dynamically rubber band up or down to artificially manufacture runs or to keep the game close. ...

If you're seeing wild momentum swings and blown leads either offline or online, Czar gave the best advice at the start of this thread... you need to adjust your game.

Thank you for commenting on this. I took away from what was said, basically what you summarized. What the other poster stated made me doubt what I interpreted. Your post reinforced my interpretation as being correct. So, again thank you.

I reiterate what I stated a couple of pages ago - the ai adjustments follow a certain logic that if you work on it, you can adjust to its adjustments and continue your dominance.

I've gone 8-2 since I had my break-through, so it is possible for every poster here to get better at reading the ai's logic in adjusting.

[RodionMaZ]

Re: So how long will 2K continue to deny 3rd quarter momentum shifts?

I've gone 8-2 since I had my break-through, so it is possible for every poster here to get better at reading the ai's logic in adjusting.

Accepting this is like agreeing to play video-game and not basketball.