NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

[jeebs9]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

How do you feel about modern day defensive schemes in the NBA making post isolation become almost obsolete? Lol
Too much zone + swarming switching for it these days

I loved 2k16 post game. I always give HUGE props to my opponents for learning more then the stupid spin move (that everyone did).

https://youtu.be/TjJHXFdgWNY?t=13m59s

[eko718]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

Thank you for all the details Mike. I like others here like to play a more sim brand of basketball and given the new mechanics have some concern about becoming so efficient with the shot stick, that I might overperform with certain players/teams. Is there a slider available to us that could adjust the boost that we receive from using the shot stick?

[LorenzoDC]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

We account for dead zone and filter out false inputs. So like you're saying, there's a min. threshold you have to deflect the stick before we count it as valid. And I believe we read the left stick at the moment the pass command comes through.

If you're getting a guy in the complete opposite direction you deflected the stick. Chances are the desired receiver was an invalid target (maybe standing out of bounds or in some locked state) or the left stick input was late. Pass targeting is complex though... could just be a bug.

Thanks for that explanation.

What may be happening is I'm trying to hit such a narrow window of a cut to the basket by a roll man or or wing shooter off a down screen that I'm hitting the pass button so close to when my thumb hits that the system is reading directional data based on thumb impact and not based on where my thumb direction ends up. Just a possibility.

[Bornindamecca]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

2K vets should probably at least start on All-Star or Superstar.

Hall of Fame this year, by Da Czar's request, is actually tuned almost identically to Superstar but ACE is cranked up on both the offensive and defensive AI side so that's where the increased challenge comes from.

#Simnation

Here's my beef with HoF in the past: it encourages a form of play that is against most of the design of the game and a basketball sim overall. With dishonest ratings nerfs/boosts and unreliable AI teammates, exploits and hero ball become the tools to overcome the "extra challenge" of HoF.

I know boosting AI difficulty is way harder than boosting AI stats when it comes to providing maximum challenge, but pride makes hardcore players want to play on the hardest level. If that hardest level is cheesy, that's going to affect the community.

[Beluba]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

Mike can you explain the shot creator a little more? What do you mean by deciding how multiple releases are blended? Thanks

It's confusing I know.

2 years ago, you picked a release and base and we blended those two animations to create a frankenstein jump shot.

Last year, you could only pick a single motion captured animation.

With the shot creator, you can pick two releases and set how much we blend toward one or the other. So for example...

this would be a perfect tween between 2 guys:
Kobe release = 50%
Steph release = 50%

this would mostly look like Kobe, but some of Steph's motion would be there:
Kobe = 80%
Steph = 20%

Then you pick a base (how the player jumps)

So essentially, you're frankenstein-ing 3 animations together. It's pretty cool tech. but basically, just play around with it until you get the jumper to look the way you want in the previewer. Then play around with it in practice mode to see if it feels right to you.

And you should note, the Shot Creator isn't instantly available in MyCAREER. It comes as a reward in the mode.

[trekfan]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

Basically, I tasked the team with moving as much of our tunables to our slider system as possible because we now have the ability to tweak our default slider set post-ship with a roster update. This is especially helpful if we want to have offline be different than online (we can tweak Park differently from ProAM or Play Now Online, etc.)

So for example...

We used to have these shot tables that gave the human or CPU shot % boosts or penalties that the end user couldn't access. Those were merged into the Close/Med/3PT sliders.

There were tunables for thresholds for the allowable distances/angles we triggered 2P body ups. Those became a new Body Up Sensitivity slider.

Live ball was something that we could only tweak through patches last year. This year, there's a Ball Security slider. The higher it is, the less "live" the ball will be to incidental collisions. But if that slider is really low, you'll see the ball colliding more when it glances off of body parts.

I made the "ooooooooooo" sound, followed by a potentially manic chuckle at the bold. Really looking forward to testing that out -- finding my personal sweet spot for the live ball last year was a bit frustrating, but having the ability to dictate it through that slider is going to be big for me.

Much thanks for the answer.

[NINJAK2]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

My favorite nuggets of info from that great read:

And one word of advice about the new body ups, don’t try barreling toward the basket in a straight line through the defense. It’s almost guaranteed to be a charge, lost ball, or picked up dribble. You have to take proper driving angles when going 1-on-1 in NBA 2K17.
Last note on physicality, we decided to re-design our fatigue and injury models to better replicate the rigors of playing in the NBA. This year, we’ve added a new short-term fatigue system that represents being winded when doing things that require a lot of physical exertion. Both the short term and long term fatigue levels are represented in the meter on the top side of the player indicator. A number of events will cause the meter to “jump” down or drain more quickly, such as: blocks, taking heavy contact, sprinting, dunking, etc. When your energy bottoms out, your long term fatigue starts to drain at a higher rate, you take a significant hit to several attributes and you lose the ability to sprint at full speed. Long term fatigue also works as a ceiling for short term fatigue, so the lower your long term fatigue level is, the less short term fatigue you have to work with. Additionally, the likelihood of injury increases if you consistently wear your player down so it’s important this year to pace yourself and not overwork your guys.

• Choose from seven specific playing styles: Slasher (all positions), Shot Creator (PG/SG/SF), Sharpshooter (all positions), Playmaker (PG/SG/SF), Lockdown Defender (all positions), Glass Cleaner (SF/PF/C), Post Scorer (SF/PF/C)
• Each archetype has its own unique badges (including an exclusive Hall of Fame badge), skill sets and specializations.
• The goal behind the new archetypes was to force gamers to make a choice when creating their characters. We’re really trying to individualize players in our online modes so not everyone ends up being the same 2 or 3 types of guys. So a lot of effort went into balancing and tuning all of the various archetype/position/height/weight/wingspan combinations (not an easy task). At the end of the day, though, we feel like each of the archetypes (and the multitude of iterations you can dream up) make for very compelling gameplay experiences, with totally different pros and cons, and each can add a unique value to the makeup of a team.

I've been begging for more physicality(especially advocating for more forced dribble pickups) and a more diverse fatigue system and I'm really happy about this. I also was in favor of specific play styles in mycareer/mypark. There was so much great info in that blog I will make this the day officially the day for 2k16's trade in..lol


Mike--Did you happen to add the ability to clear out after rebounds like we could back in the old days of 2k?

[ruLEX$$]

Awesome read... Mike Wang you are greatly appreciated

[Beluba]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

A concern of mine: When the game has been out for a few months, and people have gotten a chance to master the shot stick, will Sharpshooters turn the competitive scene into Patch-4 2K15? Considering only Lockdown Defenders can get gold LD badges, I hope this doesn't turn into a problem.

This is really the main thing I'm going to be monitoring post release. Out of the box, I can confidently say it'll be nowhere near Patch 4 2K15, but there's a chance I will have to tweak the system a bit to accommodate for some of the guys who do nothing but play 2K 10 hours a day.

[Finepanther]

Are there any sliders in MyCareer by chance???

[ataman5]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

I don't like answering this question because our userbase has grown and is so diverse. Some people will find they can get realistic stats and game outcomes on Pro, some Superstar, etc.

Rookie is definitely designed for kids or people brand new to the series.

I would say, generally speaking, Pro is easier than it was last year.

2K vets should probably at least start on All-Star or Superstar.

Hall of Fame this year, by Da Czar's request, is actually tuned almost identically to Superstar but ACE is cranked up on both the offensive and defensive AI side so that's where the increased challenge comes from.

Wooow new years presents arrived early!

[ksuttonjr76]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

It might be too late for this question (wasn't in a previous wishlist), because I feel like I'm a dying breed when it comes to icon passing.

Were there any changes, by coincidence, made to icon passing to give us more control of the passes? When I use icon passing, I felt that contextual pass wasn't consistent enough for selecting the correct pass. Also, I felt the AI, whether it was offline or in PNO, was "reading" my button presses which lead to some unbelievable turnovers or interceptions when moments before it looked like a clean pass.

[stillfeelme]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

Mike,


Layup controls

• Are strong totally in your control for example you can do a strong left hand layup and right by pressing up and to the right or left?
• Evasive layups are Left and Right on the Pro stick

[Beluba]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

Thank you for all the details Mike. I like others here like to play a more sim brand of basketball and given the new mechanics have some concern about becoming so efficient with the shot stick, that I might overperform with certain players/teams. Is there a slider available to us that could adjust the boost that we receive from using the shot stick?

There's no explicit slider for the Aim boost specifically. That's a good idea though. I'll put that on the list for 2K18, along with a shot timing impact slider in place of Real FG%.

For now, your best bet would be to just decrease the main shooting sliders to compensate for being too good on the sticks and overperforming with the wrong guys.

[Beluba]

Re: NBA 2K17 Gameplay Blog with Gameplay Director, Mike Wang

My favorite nuggets of info from that great read:

And one word of advice about the new body ups, don’t try barreling toward the basket in a straight line through the defense. It’s almost guaranteed to be a charge, lost ball, or picked up dribble. You have to take proper driving angles when going 1-on-1 in NBA 2K17.
Last note on physicality, we decided to re-design our fatigue and injury models to better replicate the rigors of playing in the NBA. This year, we’ve added a new short-term fatigue system that represents being winded when doing things that require a lot of physical exertion. Both the short term and long term fatigue levels are represented in the meter on the top side of the player indicator. A number of events will cause the meter to “jump” down or drain more quickly, such as: blocks, taking heavy contact, sprinting, dunking, etc. When your energy bottoms out, your long term fatigue starts to drain at a higher rate, you take a significant hit to several attributes and you lose the ability to sprint at full speed. Long term fatigue also works as a ceiling for short term fatigue, so the lower your long term fatigue level is, the less short term fatigue you have to work with. Additionally, the likelihood of injury increases if you consistently wear your player down so it’s important this year to pace yourself and not overwork your guys.

• Choose from seven specific playing styles: Slasher (all positions), Shot Creator (PG/SG/SF), Sharpshooter (all positions), Playmaker (PG/SG/SF), Lockdown Defender (all positions), Glass Cleaner (SF/PF/C), Post Scorer (SF/PF/C)
• Each archetype has its own unique badges (including an exclusive Hall of Fame badge), skill sets and specializations.
• The goal behind the new archetypes was to force gamers to make a choice when creating their characters. We’re really trying to individualize players in our online modes so not everyone ends up being the same 2 or 3 types of guys. So a lot of effort went into balancing and tuning all of the various archetype/position/height/weight/wingspan combinations (not an easy task). At the end of the day, though, we feel like each of the archetypes (and the multitude of iterations you can dream up) make for very compelling gameplay experiences, with totally different pros and cons, and each can add a unique value to the makeup of a team.

I've been begging for more physicality(especially advocating for more forced dribble pickups) and a more diverse fatigue system and I'm really happy about this. I also was in favor of specific play styles in mycareer/mypark. There was so much great info in that blog I will make this the day officially the day for 2k16's trade in..lol


Mike--Did you happen to add the ability to clear out after rebounds like we could back in the old days of 2k?

We didn't add an elbow swing clearout a la NBA Jam that you control. There are a lot of sharp elbows baked into the new rebound animations though. Also, bigs will chin the ball instead of go into a low triple threat stance after rebounds.