The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

[Smirkin Dirk]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I don't even think Smirkin Dirk is trolling lol. I almost went off on him last night at 3AM, but we had a pretty level-headed exchange and the dude is clearly enjoying the game. I wish he would recognize some of the stuff we're saying, and perhaps post videos/evidence to back up what he's saying, but I don't think he's necessarily trolling...

Dude, I do. Im fully acknowledging the game has bugs. Just not to the lengths some of you are seeing it.

Like I said before, I posted a thread with video evidence showing how some of the physicality hurts running plays.

Here's a video I got the other day that shows off the physics engine. I was the Clippers. When I see it, I recognise I was very unlucky (and I lost by 2). Now some posters would see that as an example of the CPU screwing you, I see a physics based interaction that was a complete fluke. What do you think when you see this?

https://<iframe width="560" height="...reen></iframe>

[El_Poopador]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

Dude, I do. Im fully acknowledging the game has bugs. Just not to the lengths some of you are seeing it.

Like I said before, I posted a thread with video evidence showing how some of the physicality hurts running plays.

Here's a video I got the other day that shows off the physics engine. I was the Clippers. When I see it, I recognise I was very unlucky (and I lost by 2). Now some posters would see that as an example of the CPU screwing you, I see a physics based interaction that was a complete fluke. What do you think when you see this?

https://<iframe width="560" height="...reen></iframe>

That was beautiful. It just played out very well, even the bobble animation from Jordan.

Can you send me your sliders? I've seen you post a few videos now with what appears to be very organic animations and physics, and would love to have that same experience.

[TarHeelPhenom]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

Maybe. There's very little if any evidence of a pick being set but the movement is such an unrealistic jumble who can tell? The strong side wing man looks like he's trying to cut baseline for a dump off layup and the weak side corner shooter looks like he's trying to cut baseline to the strong side corner but gets bumped off course in traffic, and diverts to the key.

It's also true that some of the contact related sliders and tuners not even available to the user dictate how likely it is that a player will be pulled into some kind of suction/contact animation. Beluba manipulates them as part of his tuning. Plus, the game mechanics are that when the CPU performs an under the hood dice roll, it calls upon animations to represent that result in game. In 2K, animations are called upon by the game system to represent results already determined by under the hood calculations.

In my opinion, that's what happened here: the animation that popped up called for open space to shoot, and that's what then happened. The system could have, or should have, called up an animation that better represented a contested shot based on my defender's position, but it didn't. That's maybe just a bug, or it may be in part where an animation was forced into a situation where it should not have been because there are game balance factors loaded into the tuning of the game for CPU versus user. It could even be both things at once. Or it could be collision suction by the gravity of all those players playing bumper cars in the paint in the new collision system.

If this stuff only happened with screens you might be right, but we (not you, I know, but the rest of us) also srr it commonly in iso ball handler situations when the CPU has the ball. Defenders get magnet pushed to places where the controlling user has not put them.

From another perspective, I find it hard to argue, as you seem to be doing, that 2K doesn't tune and code the game with game balance in mind, especially when Beluba is in here every week getting feedback to help him keep the game balanced.

So a genuine question i have is this...how can this be programmed? Whats the best way to program a situatiin where a CPU offensive player is being guarder by a lesser USER defender attribute wise. With stick skills being the name of the game in this years game...if the USER has good stick skills then it would stand to reason that he should be able to shut the CPU offensive player down regardless of attribute right? But if that's the case then the USER will always beat the CPU. So, im asking how would they program it in a way where proper USER input is represented in on court action while also taking into consideration the attributes of the CPU controlled offensive player being better than the attributes of the USER controlled defensive player?

Im not a programmer so i cant honestly answer it. But we are talking about artificial intelligence programmed by numbers to react a certain way based on formulas. I dont know how you make that more "human" for lack of a better word?

[Comduklakis]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I can do an instant replay a MINIMUM 10 times a game (and probably more) where one of my defenders gets sucked into a crazy animation, hooked on a hip of a guy running somewhere and being dragged across the court, etc.

Smirking Dirk can have all the fun he want. More power to him. And if I hatd the game and thought it was worthless I wouldn't be playing it. But the fact is this is not people cherrypicking one video out of 10 games. This is something that occurs repeatedly in the same game.

[BegBy]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I can do an instant replay a MINIMUM 10 times a game (and probably more) where one of my defenders gets sucked into a crazy animation, hooked on a hip of a guy running somewhere and being dragged across the court, etc.

Smirking Dirk can have all the fun he want. More power to him. And if I hatd the game and thought it was worthless I wouldn't be playing it. But the fact is this is not people cherrypicking one video out of 10 games. This is something that occurs repeatedly in the same game.

This is my exact sentiment. Although my primary issue, and that's not to say I excuse some of the odd/suspect/wonky plays like in Dirk's crazy field goal vid, is the physics engine seems to lend itself to some of the cheese. As does the entire defensive philosophy of the 2K series.

I don't have to cherry pick. I see it a lot. Many times a game. Whether it be a goofy play, an odd movement on my end defensively, a really lucky stop where I just go sideways and lose my dribble, etc, it can at times seem suspicious. I think one way to clean it up, and to make the game a lot better overall, is really tighten up the physics.

I played a game last night as Atlanta vs Indy. I'm a huge Indy fan and it was sad to see that PG couldn't really go off because he's too slow and he moves awkwardly and also he is assigned certain dribbling animations that are less effective than others. Anyway, there was a play where he came off a screen (it looked awesome) and he got the ball, did a head fake and then no looked (not really flashy at all) bounce passed it to Teague about 8 feet away. It was so awesome. They scored and I was happy as could be. It looked awesome and it didn't feel cheap. There was no wonky animations on either side of the ball. It looked organic - like NBA basketball. I'd like that the majority of the time. Not rarely.

[Smirkin Dirk]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

That was beautiful. It just played out very well, even the bobble animation from Jordan.

Can you send me your sliders? I've seen you post a few videos now with what appears to be very organic animations and physics, and would love to have that same experience.

Im at work (Australian time) so I can't remember them off the top of my head.

But lowering the body up sensitivity to 0 and lowering the CPU on ball to about 15 opens it up a lot. Bump up the CPU rim defense (I think it's called layup defense) as a counter. Ive got hum and CPU off and def awareness at 65. When adjusting sliders, work back from HOF so you'll get full ACE. The com plays a lot smarter. Ive got the CPU shot contest t 85 and their attack basket tendency at 70.

Other than that, I pay attention to what defensive settings Im using and Ive fully edited my roster. It's been done in ML mode so I can't export it. I focused on reducing a lot of players pull up in transition tendencies, and reducing close shot tendencies, to avoid those ugly 7 foot jumpers.

[Comduklakis]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

Im at work (Australian time) so I can't remember them off the top of my head.

But lowering the body up sensitivity to 0 and lowering the CPU on ball to about 15 opens it up a lot. Bump up the CPU rim defense (I think it's called layup defense) as a counter. Ive got hum and CPU off and def awareness at 65. When adjusting sliders, work back from HOF so you'll get full ACE. The com plays a lot smarter. Ive got the CPU shot contest t 85 and their attack basket tendency at 70.

Other than that, I pay attention to what defensive settings Im using and Ive fully edited my roster. It's been done in ML mode so I can't export it. I focused on reducing a lot of players pull up in transition tendencies, and reducing close shot tendencies, to avoid those ugly 7 foot jumpers.

Sounds like some good ideas there. One of the issues I've had is ever since Bewardsroy left to work for 2k, the created rosters for ps4 have been slim pickings. I'm jealous of the number of talented roster editors for the Xbox side. I simply dont' have the time to go around editing a whole roster and sharing it but tendencies are generally the area that needs work. The attribute ratings I can deal with, but the tendencies in the 2k rosters need work and often that work involves balancing out tendencies with players on the same team. If you want a player to shoot more and be more involved, you not only need to up his shot tendencies and touches, but you need to lower that of his teammates.

But I will try a couple games where I edit just those you mentioned to test it out if I want to commit the time to a major roster edit.

[LorenzoDC]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

So a genuine question i have is this...how can this be programmed? Whats the best way to program a situatiin where a CPU offensive player is being guarder by a lesser USER defender attribute wise. With stick skills being the name of the game in this years game...if the USER has good stick skills then it would stand to reason that he should be able to shut the CPU offensive player down regardless of attribute right? But if that's the case then the USER will always beat the CPU. So, im asking how would they program it in a way where proper USER input is represented in on court action while also taking into consideration the attributes of the CPU controlled offensive player being better than the attributes of the USER controlled defensive player?

Im not a programmer so i cant honestly answer it. But we are talking about artificial intelligence programmed by numbers to react a certain way based on formulas. I dont know how you make that more "human" for lack of a better word?

I don't really understand your question, I'm sorry.

But I'm not saying the game programs specific plays like this to happen the way they do. I am saying the game is made of a series of interlocking systems, and those systems combine to produce a result in any given play on the court. And each of those systems is tuned to behave in a certain way, with the goal being to replicate realistic (mostly) basketball.

But let's imagine a few systems systems involved in that play: user defense controlling the defender, user teammate AI, CPU ball handler programming, CPU teammate AI, weighted probabilities for outcomes as tuned by the devs to try to replicate basketball type outcomes (example shooting percentages foul percentages, contact animation frequency, other stuff), and the new collision based animation system. I just rattled off 6 interlocking systems of programming sharing input in the outcome of that play. Oh, and player attributes/tendencies/badges. Make it 7.

Now imagine each system has some percentage of error and bugs inside it. And imagine what happens in the game when system A has a little buggy thing come up in a play, and System B also has a little buggy thing happening. Then as those two buggy things multiply together to influence the result the result is shaped further by the little things the devs do to tune the game in an effort to create balance.

They always have to do some things to try to balance user versus CPU because, on one hand, the user is likely to be smarter, but the user has to deal with input lag and the delay caused by the need for user teammates to interpret intelligently what the user is trying to do and make AI decisions based on that.

When you have all these systems working together to produce a result, when you have more than one not well calibrated or bugged system interacting with another poorly calibrated or bugged system for a given outcome, you see things happen on the court that are unlike anything the game developers intended. That's what happened in that video of mine.

So I don't think they programmed for that play to come out like that intentionally, but I do think that they have made tuning tweaks to game balance weighted probabilities, contact animation frequency, etc. to try to cover up for holes and problems that they know exist in defensive AI systems and maybe other places. And I think those tweaks they make have side effects that include total WTF moments when we look at how the game animates events.

[LorenzoDC]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

So a genuine question i have is this...how can this be programmed? Whats the best way to program a situatiin where a CPU offensive player is being guarder by a lesser USER defender attribute wise. With stick skills being the name of the game in this years game...if the USER has good stick skills then it would stand to reason that he should be able to shut the CPU offensive player down regardless of attribute right? But if that's the case then the USER will always beat the CPU. So, im asking how would they program it in a way where proper USER input is represented in on court action while also taking into consideration the attributes of the CPU controlled offensive player being better than the attributes of the USER controlled defensive player?

Im not a programmer so i cant honestly answer it. But we are talking about artificial intelligence programmed by numbers to react a certain way based on formulas. I dont know how you make that more "human" for lack of a better word?

Coming back to your question, user input should be limited by the player's rating/abilities being controlled. That's how it (in theory) works. So if I'm controlling Kyrie I can dribble penetrate better than I can if I'm controlling Sasha Vucevic.

I have not problem with that. What I have a problem with are these other system based influences on game event outcomes (as described in my post above) making any player - my controlled player, my CPU teammates or my CPU opponents - do things that are either physically impossible (like float backward without user input or even foot movement) or outside of what their ratings suggest they should be able to do. Guys with 35 3pt ratings getting wet from the arc. Guys who can't run beating everyone else on the break (and shooting 3 with their 35 3 pt ratings). And so on.

[beans2k]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

Physics bug. Ive been the beneficiary of them, but it's human nature to have the ones where we get screwed stick in our minds.

The CPU isn't deciding it has to score.

Shouldn't happen at all.

Don't recall Madden pulling defenders out of the way in the past 6 years...but if it's 2k...het that's just how it is.

Game us an absolute joke compared to other current sports games but...oooooooh they have 11 announcers...GAME OF THE YEARRR DEAL WITH IT AND BUY VC

[de_jesus]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I do not believe that there is "comeback AI" built into the game but the AI definitely gets advantages that the user doesn't get - recovery and transition speed being a HUGE advantage. I dropped Reggie Jackson with a step back jumper, and he managed to get up, close out, and CONTEST THE SHOT successfully.

I was shocked because if my player gets bumped he'll drop the ball and just forget he's playing basketball but this guy springs up like he was never on the ground.

I will say that sometimes I get really upset with how well the game adjusts to me. Was playing the Pistons last night in MyLeague and Drummond went 34/19 on 16/22 and I could NOT BELIEVE how easily he was getting the rim and just dominating through every bit of contact. I have Biyombo at the 5, and I just could not guard his fadeaway mid-range jumpers nor could I defend him just getting to the rim at will.

I had NO answer for Drummond.

[Simhead23]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I do not believe that there is "comeback AI" built into the game but the AI definitely gets advantages that the user doesn't get - recovery and transition speed being a HUGE advantage. I dropped Reggie Jackson with a step back jumper, and he managed to get up, close out, and CONTEST THE SHOT successfully.

I was shocked because if my player gets bumped he'll drop the ball and just forget he's playing basketball but this guy springs up like he was never on the ground.

I will say that sometimes I get really upset with how well the game adjusts to me. Was playing the Pistons last night in MyLeague and Drummond went 34/19 on 16/22 and I could NOT BELIEVE how easily he was getting the rim and just dominating through every bit of contact. I have Biyombo at the 5, and I just could not guard his fadeaway mid-range jumpers nor could I defend him just getting to the rim at will.

I had NO answer for Drummond.

Yeah, there is no comeback code, but your shooting percentages changes if you're leading or losing.
I been blown out and came back many times, and so has the cpu. But the thing is the cpu is cheese, period. Especially on hall of fame. That's why it seems like comeback cheese, becaue the way the game handicaps you the whole game, and the fact cpu start making a higher percentage of shots, it seems like it's destined for you not to win. It is, but on 16, the game you can actually play defense in, you can stop anyone because that game rewarded good defense.

[de_jesus]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I don't believe that is true.

[Sublime8992]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

More insane NBA 2K17 "defense"

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s4cPeY2dVlI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'll give someone $100 if they can explain and justify what is going on in this video. It looks like the out of bounds force field that ball handlers get needs to be applied to everyone if AI defenders are just gonna run to the basket support instead of parking under the basket to stop rim runs.

[de_jesus]

Re: The CPU is cheating to score on an absurd amount of possessions

I can explain but not justify.

It's your defensive settings.

If you have lets say "Moderate - Off-Ball" on a guy like Drummond that likes to or operates in the paint you get this.

For some reason, the game doesn't seem to have a way to adjust to the "Moderate" setting. So your player sees his defender and thinks, "I need to stay a moderate distance from this man". What it does is either sits your player out of bounds initially to maintain the "Moderate setting" or puts him somewhere else on the court to meet that defensive setting (sometimes in front or far out on the wing).

Then your player realizes his man in in the post and tries to adhere to your post settings [Behind, 3/4 Bottom, etc.] and attempts to reverse thrusters and get back into position to defend the post.