Defense is completely broken

[youALREADYknow]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Not to mention how the game still is unable to recognize the presence of more than 1 defender in the interior contest animations

Canned two-man contact animations killed defense in 2K. We shouldn’t have regressed from where the game was in 2K14 to this point. The early next gen videos look like we have the same canned contact animation engine again for the future.

[rjohns23]

Re: Defense is completely broken

2k will never tell us their secrets or game logic.

I belive that there are three engines/builds at play:

Hum vs hum
Hum vs CPU
Hum (player lock) vs CPU

Based on my games and settings and player ratings. Hum (player lock) vs CPU seems to play the best in regard to realistic defensive strategy.

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[jk31]

Re: Defense is completely broken

ACE is a mess, but there are ways to hack it into doing some things. Most importantly, turn ACE OFF for user controlled teams.

If you want your center to stay in the paint & provide help defense, then you have to set the entire team’s defensive settings in specific ways. The way help defense works in this game is based on 2K’s “one pass away” strong-side logic which can override the individual player’s off-ball setting. I’ve been able to get around this by making sure the rest of the team (PG/SG/SF/PF) are set to Tight Off-Ball while setting the Center to Gap or Leave Him. Any player set to Gap is a potential help defender.

The rest of the assignment logic has more to do with P&R and off-ball screen settings since most of 2K’s offense is ball screen related. The best way to keep big defenders in the paint is to set everyone’s P&R to Go Over, No Hedge, Stay Attached No, No Help vs Screens, and Go Under Off-Ball Screens. Then set the opposing big’s defensive settings to Go Under for everything.

The other contrarian thing I do is set Help Defense sliders way down to a range between 5-25. I don’t think many people understand what this slider does since 2K20/21 because it’s clearly different from the earlier games. It used to clearly mean help rotations from the paint, but now I’ve only seen it impact double teams and logic to help/trap on perimeter/drives. That’s usually going to result in your bigs (who are set to Gap or Leave as the primary help defender) rushing around the perimeter looking for ball handlers to help against. If you keep the Help Defense coaching slider low, but have your other P&R/Help defensive settings correct then you will see more NBA style help defense in the paint. The game’s defensive rotation logic seems to use those defensive settings over the help defense slider.

Having said all of that, some things are truly broken defensively and have been that way for years. Switching logic is broken as far as positioning is concerned which is why so many ball handlers get open looks in 2K against switches.
Go Over and Switch off-ball logic is broken when you see how defenders are willing to run away from their assignment towards the sidelines in transition or in the paint.
Gap on-ball still keeps the on-ball defender too close on the perimeter.
Catch Hedge positioning is too far on the perimeter when defending side/wing P&R which makes it almost useless at defending either the drive or roll.

i tested your recommendations and while i had the feel that were Was more "order" in General, i didnt like it that much. as soon as your opponent plays a Pick and roll including his Center, your paint is wide open as everyone else is in tight and the Center is stuck somewhere close to the 3pt line. and even with the settings There Were many many occasions where the Center is Not providing any paint presence. besides i just dont like setting everyone to tight....id rather choose a Few players i dare my opponent to shoot....

nonetheless, this might be the best Alternative for 2k21,as long as defensive logic is that broken... this or Either playing a 2-3 Zone which is kinda broken, too, but still better then Standard man to man coverage.

[youALREADYknow]

Re: Defense is completely broken

i tested your recommendations and while i had the feel that were Was more "order" in General, i didnt like it that much. as soon as your opponent plays a Pick and roll including his Center, your paint is wide open as everyone else is in tight and the Center is stuck somewhere close to the 3pt line. and even with the settings There Were many many occasions where the Center is Not providing any paint presence. besides i just dont like setting everyone to tight....id rather choose a Few players i dare my opponent to shoot....

nonetheless, this might be the best Alternative for 2k21,as long as defensive logic is that broken... this or Either playing a 2-3 Zone which is kinda broken, too, but still better then Standard man to man coverage.

That’s the trade-off with the Tight off-ball this year on the perimeter. You can get away with setting 1-2 players like your SF/PF to Moderate/Gap to get a couple of other bodies in the paint, but then you risk them deciding to just leave their man to help across the floor for no apparent reason. I seriously hate the logic for who decides to help in this game. There’s no true low man principle to protect the basket so you have to hack up a gameplan to tell the game who should help and hope they stay low. That’s why I recommend only setting bigs to Gap/Leave.

I’m mostly playing my P&R vs C in No Hedge to give me some help and living with the results if they beat me off the corner in guard/guard P&R. My sliders probably have a little bit to do with the help arriving faster, but overall help rotations are just too slow on drives this year. I’ve seen defenders wait until layup/dunk gathers start to try to help (just like in that next gen trailer).

For your issue with P&R vs C.... Another trick that works sometimes is using Pre-Rotate to YES on certain players you know drive a lot, but I hate exposing my weakside defense like that. You can also set Screen Help to Help w/ No Rotation, but you have to be extra careful about which other players you set to Moderate/Gap or you could end up leaving shooters wide open in the corners all game long.

[jk31]

Re: Defense is completely broken

thanks for your Tips.

we really shouldnt have to be guessing what works and what doesnt. at least with knowledge if Real Basketball it should be self explanatory..... but Well i think this is the direction this game is going. more and more away from Basketball.

[NatisCole]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I have literally set entire teams to leave him, double team one or two players in the post, with the help defense slider to 85 and still will not get help at the rim in man to man.The only way to get reliable help at the rim is by running a zone, but it's prone to giving up 3's. Man to Man is almost unplayable against a cheeser in play now.

I remember setting my defense to trap Luka's pick and rolls and my center trapped one time. The rest of the time he just literally stood there watching Luka run off the screen. I've even got stuck in half court presses before, where I would switch out of the press, but my defenders would still continue to pick up at half-court.

[jclazaris84]

Re: Defense is completely broken

has scott og acknowledged or addressed any of these problems publicly?

[Real2KInsider]

Re: Defense is completely broken

has scott og acknowledged or addressed any of these problems publicly?

Scott no longer works for the company, he re-joined EA.

[Talentoso23]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Yes defense I think is it all time worst this year. Like really bad. No matter if I have a defensive build or not I still get 20-30 pts dropped on my head just from the AI driving to the paint alone. It’s sad. You can tell that from a gameplay perspective 2k to me feels mad arcade now, doesn’t feel anything like a true basketball sim anymore. Like foreal lol it literally feels like I’m playing a 5-5 nba jam these days bc all the AI does is spam contested 3s which they snipe even if they aren’t open and drive to the hoop easily getting the blow by animation every single time


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[NYJin2011tm]

Re: Defense is completely broken

If defensive players weren't so like stuck in mud flat footed D might not be so bad. Also CPU forces it's way into the paint too much even when it's not there.

Question about D sliders... As you lower D sliders for say human, why do jump shot and layup D sliders go down as you lower difficulty? Shouldn't they go up to make it easier for human/harder for cpu?

[Luke Skywalker]

Re: Defense is completely broken

This game is very offensive oriented. Defense doesn’t mean a damn thing. I feel like I’m playing the Globetrotters in the Rec. Dunks in traffic, 3-pointers are like layups.

2K20 was acceptable— why’d they go this route? Such a waste with the good graphics of PS5.

[ch46647]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Da Czar is now responsible for the defense so I would expect significant improvements starting next year.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: Defense is completely broken

IMO, defensive positioning has improved big time next gen. Help defense and rotation is still a big WIP but nowhere as hopeless as current gen felt.

but some of the design decisions undermine the improvements.

These "slithery finisher" type badges completely ignoring good defensive positioning.

The contact dunks/ long uninteruptuble dunk animations disregarding interior defense. Players have NO fear driving into crowds....

Hands up defense being nerfed heavily.

The charges are great but we still aren't punishing guys leaning on turbo enough. A heavy hip ride animation into a shot attempt should be low %. You shouldn't be able to 'slip' off of these hip rides so easily either.

Cause and effect. Teach players that this will result in a negative outcome, and playstyles will change.



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[jfsolo]

Re: Defense is completely broken

With sports games the huge profit they make is tied to easy offensive success for the User, especially online IMO. The question is can they bring back the ability to have a great defensive gameplay experience for offline since they have to work around the core design of the game being tailored to scoring very, very easily.

[taildog]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I’m less upset about how the defense reacts when everything is automatic than when I, as a user, use custom settings the system fails to respond completely. Still can’t ICE pick and rolls or Pre-rotate on superstar scorers.