NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

[OrlandoTill]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Any tips for playing against teams with five pure sharps point through center or five guys with at least some variation of sharpshooter attached?

Have run into this a few times and it’s just extremely difficult when a team zig-zags up top around illegal screens and spreads the floor all game.

Just wondering if anyone has run into this very much and what has your team done to slow it down?


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Switch every screen

Put your best defender on anybody with Sharpshooting Slasher.

Put your best defender on the highest team scorer.

Do not leak out. Make everybody find a body when a shot goes up(especially if they get the rebound).

Attack them on offense. Set screens to get these sharps on your best scorers and kill them with your best plays(you will get a favorable animation even if they guess right a good amount of times).

Know who on your team is weak on defense. Put them on the sharps that get the least amount of looks.

[Rockie_Fresh88]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Any tips for playing against teams with five pure sharps point through center or five guys with at least some variation of sharpshooter attached?

Have run into this a few times and it’s just extremely difficult when a team zig-zags up top around illegal screens and spreads the floor all game.

Just wondering if anyone has run into this very much and what has your team done to slow it down?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pick dodger , Bruiser , defensive stopper . Game changers

[ph33]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Any tips for playing against teams with five pure sharps point through center or five guys with at least some variation of sharpshooter attached?

Have run into this a few times and it’s just extremely difficult when a team zig-zags up top around illegal screens and spreads the floor all game.

Just wondering if anyone has run into this very much and what has your team done to slow it down?

everything said above, and when switching, we'll say what part of the court we cover---for example if they have two screens and three guys running around the top, just say something like "I got left/top/right/corner" and stick with that. for me personally, sometimes "switch" can be confusing because there are multiple switches happening at once and on occasion you can wonder who to switch to. make sure your big men are also ready to step out---sometimes, where we would get got is forgetting that limitless range exists and that even if a shooter is 3-5 feet behind the line, you have to have someone ready to step out at if the guard gets magnet to a screen. and don't be afraid to have the big step out and let the small rotate inside---you'd be surprised how many big men suck and don't pass when they don't have a free path to the rim

just stick to the script though, sometimes things break down for whatever reason but your philosophy has to be to simply not even let them take a 3, and trust that your defense can rotate quickly enough to inside guys on way more plays than not. if you give up a 2, then whatever, you won't be perfect every possession. and of course the best defense is a great offense

We played a team that did nothing but that zig zag crap and we said, we're going to force them to drive and rely on 2s only while not turning it over. when you force a team out of their cheese flavored game plan they get frustrated and start doing dumb things. this team went 3/10 from three because we anticipated and smothered them on/off the ball with matchup zone

[Ray Vibes]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Does every team in Pro Am run the exact same offense? Is there really only one way to win?

[jyoung]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Does every team in Pro Am run the exact same offense? Is there really only one way to win?

The onus is on the developers to change the game's meta if they (or a significant portion of their users) don't like how matches are being played, because the community for any competitive multiplayer game is always going to gravitate towards the most effective and easiest to execute strategies.

90% of Pro Am teams run a 5-out offense with a speedboosting point guard spamming dribble moves at the top of the key simply because that is easiest strategy to consistently score with in this year's game.

There are a number of gameplay elements that 2K could tweak to prevent 5-out from being so effective in Pro Am:

1) Make the blowby animations much rarer and more dependent on height/weight/strength/bruiser badge instead of allowing 6'4" minimum weight playmakers/sharpshooters/shot creators to consistently blowby taller/heavier/stronger defenders.

2) Give the defender full control of his movement during the hip ride + snatchback combo move instead of forcing the defender into an unbreakable two-man canimation that automatically pushes him backward, regardless of controller input.

3) Increase the rarity of ankle breaker animations (especially during the snatchback and momentum crossover dribble moves), and when one does trigger, it should have a higher probability of being a stumble animation with a quick recovery time instead of those lengthy falldown animations where it looks like a courtside sniper pierced both of your defender's legs with 50 caliber rounds.

4) Stamina should drain faster and recover slower while performing right joystick dribble moves to encourage more teamwork and passing; the current system allows one person to dribble out the entire shot clock without any fear of stamina penalties.

5) Decrease the effectiveness of the tireless scorer badge, so that people have to be more considerate of shooting when they have no stamina left.

6) Every instance where a player takes his stamina meter all the way down to zero should permanently remove a small portion of his stamina bar for the remainder of the game.

7) The basketball needs to be more vulnerable to body/limb collisions and X button steal attempts during right joystick dribble moves. The excessive amount of ball clipping that is currently allowed just encourages bad dribbling habits and bails out reckless players by allowing them to warp through defenders without losing the ball.

8) Remove the pro 6 moving behind the back animation from the game, since its combination of forward acceleration, lateral movement, and ball protection make it an overpowered move.

9) Make people lose their ability to dribble after performing one of the escape dribble moves (these are performed by holding turbo and flicking the right joystick in any cardinal direction), and treat these animations as gather moves that must be followed by a shot, a pass, or a forced jump stop animation if no shot or pass is made after the escape dribble.

10) Increase the difficulty of achieving a perfect "green" release so that 20- to 30-foot jump shots aren't as reliable as they are on the current shooting sliders. Good Pro Am teams will consistently make around 70% of their field goals, which is way too high for a game that claims to be a basketball simulation.

[Rockie_Fresh88]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Does every team in Pro Am run the exact same offense? Is there really only one way to win?

Bro I sware we are the same person . I just told my team this earlier . Sometimes I rather play walk on because in team it feels like I’m facing the exact same team every match . Made a D/3 SG to guard PGs and I must say pick dodger is nice this year.

[jyoung]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Screens just aren't very effective at getting people open this year now that the knockdown animations have been taken out of the game. So it's not necessarily that the pick dodger badge got stronger, but that screens in general have become much weaker. That said, I'm glad those silly fall over brick wall screen animations are gone, and I wish that 2K would apply a similar nerf to their ankle breaker animations (more stumbles, less fall downs).

1-on-1 iso ball is the most effective offensive strategy in 2K18 now that the dribbling, driving, and dunking animations have all been heavily tilted in the offense's favor. Plus the dual archetype system has allowed people to make MyPlayers who come equipped with more gold badges and higher offensive ratings in more offensive categories than 2K17 allowed.

I maintain my belief that 2K16, post-breakstarter patch, was the most balanced and enjoyable version of Pro Am to date.

It's going to take a couple of major gameplay balancing patches, and not just another long list of bug/glitch fixes like we've gotten so far, before 2K18 can come close to touching 2K16's fine balancing of fun and realism.

[ph33]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Have other people taken a REALLY long time to find opponents once you hit elite?

Up until this point me and my friends would take turn starting new teams from scratch because there'd be different people coming/going because I have a few different circles I play with, but recently we found a pretty steady group of 5 so we've just let the club stick. But once we hit elite...takes 5-10+ minutes to just get into a game sometimes?

[Ray Vibes]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Have other people taken a REALLY long time to find opponents once you hit elite?

Up until this point me and my friends would take turn starting new teams from scratch because there'd be different people coming/going because I have a few different circles I play with, but recently we found a pretty steady group of 5 so we've just let the club stick. But once we hit elite...takes 5-10+ minutes to just get into a game sometimes?

Few times my team just decided to back out of the arena and walk back in just because it took so long to find a match.

[Rockie_Fresh88]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

I wonder if pro am was better in 16 after the break starter nerf. Can’t remember but it seemed more fun and more defensive. It’s probably nostalgia.

[Ray Vibes]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

I'm with you there. I had fun playing pro am on 16 once teams weren't launching the ball down court every possession. Also back then you could miss green light shots so every game was not as much of a 3 point fest as it is now. Oh the memories lol.

[ph33]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

I personally feel the same, and I'm not sure why. I still run with most of the same folk, but I think limitless range and shooting/creating space being too easy has put a damper on fun. And this isn't coming from someone who gets beat by it all the time (Only some of the time!) but it gets irritating having to play defense a certain way. It's always a collective sigh and groan when we match up and you can tell the other team is just about to launch 30 footers behind endless screens and that you have to communicate who is switching where on literally every possession. It just gets old and tiring having to defend this nonsense game after game.

I've started messing around in PNO now because playing the CPU in MyCareer is spectacularly boring, and walk on games just end up being a bunch of AI that you're playing with/against.

Really though, I would seriously recommend PNO as a change of pace. You get reminded in this game that commentary exists and that there's arenas with actual atmosphere. Playing lots of MyCareer has made me much better, as having all kinds of players really forced me to learn every move in the book. I imagine there's lots of myCareer guys around here that have a similar experience.

[BaselineBakes]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

I wonder if pro am was better in 16 after the break starter nerf. Can’t remember but it seemed more fun and more defensive. It’s probably nostalgia.

Late 16 I had the most fun and I felt my squad was able to play defense, same squad I’m running with now and we won a fair share of games on defense alone.

This year it’s very inconsistent, defense feels helpless at times. We don’t have the best team but not the worst and sometimes this game is the most frustrating. If we run into the wrong set of archetypes it’s impossible.


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[BaselineBakes]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

Also - is there a badge that causes your guy to automatically be on fire with two minutes or so left in the game?

I’ve started noticing people just randomly getting hot towards the end of the 4th and two games in a row I actually looked for it and sure enough as soon as the clock hit 2:00, multiple people’s fire activated without even doing anything worthy of earning it.

I can’t remember how long it’s been doing this or what is causing it but I’ve been seeing it or just noticing it a lot in the last week.


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[loso_34]

Re: NBA 2k18 Pro-Am Discussion Thread

They adjust shooting again? I’m seeing bigs without shooting in their archetype hit 3s now