Defense is completely broken

[VictorMG]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Okay, I'll do a breakdown here real quick because I do want to help out, and also I'm at work and bored as hell. I hope it's okay with the mods; my apologies if not.

Can someone break-down / explain the Half-Court trap defense?

A half-court trap is a hard double team of whoever on the other team crosses half-court (where the logo is) with the ball after a change of possession (defensive rebound or inbound pass after you make a shot).

By hard double team, this means that two players will aggressively swarm the player with the ball and try to force him to pass it.

It's risky because (if the ballhandler makes a clean pass) it creates a 4-on-3 situation where your team has only three defenders to guard four opposing players. The half-court trap is typically reserved for players who are completely destroying you and who you have no other defense against, or if you feel like you have no defense for him at all because his skillset is just too good.

What are the best Defensive settings used both for my team but also against individual players?

Do I want to smother on-ball and gap everything else?

It depends on your personnel and what they're good at. You'll probably want to use Tight or Smother on-ball for good shooters, and definitely for lethal marksmen like Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Duncan Robinson, etc.

Off-ball, it depends, because you have to find a balance of helping off of shooters (pretty much everyone in the NBA can hit an open three-pointer nowadays) to defend drives and not helping off shooters to keep the other team from making threes.

What kind of badges would run this defense best?

Lightning Reflexes (I'm on Xbox One, I know the badges are different for next-gen) is an important one. It makes players rotate defensively more quickly.

If you want to put everyone on Gap off-ball, you'd need players who are good at affecting shots on closeouts and not getting beaten off the dribble when they close out, so you'd want Intimidator, Clamps, maybe Tireless Defender... Defensive Leader is always good to have too.

Does anyone run this defense or a variation similar to it? I like trapping, forcing turnovers and scoring in transition. My rotations are decent

That sounds like you'd want a team of versatile, switchable defenders with maybe a single big man to protect the rim. So your PG, SG, SF, and PF should all be able to defend multiple positions and be fairly athletic (or at least have the ratings and the Lightning Reflexes badge) to make quick rotations when you trap.

I don't know if you're playing with the current NBA roster, but guys like Draymond Green, Jrue Holiday, Eric Bledsoe, Klay Thompson, Rudy Gobert, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, etc. Basically just look at the All-Defensive Teams the last 2 or 3 years, lol.

Let me know if there's anything else, and again to the mods, I apologize if this type of thing isn't allowed.

[Masai]

Re: Defense is completely broken

2k21 is literally like playing NBA Jams online minus the fireball. I swear the more selfish and dumb you play on offense with the right HOF badges the more the game rewards you for playing bad. It doesn't matter how good the defense is.

Offline the AI is dumb as a rock. 2k21 as a whole for both online and offline has been a horrible experience. I guess I expected a lot more going into next gen with what the developers were capable of doing. The gameplay as a whole has just become very stagnant to me the last 5 years or so. The gameplay in 2k was way more fun during the first half on last gen up until around 2k17 and before that going back on the 360/ps3.

Now it's seems like the target audience is people who don't have a clue about actual basketball. Instead they just want people to be able to perform highlight plays just about every time down the court.

I really wish the developers were forced to win games online and the conditions are you can’t spam turbo every possession but instead use playbooks and run sets to win… they’d quickly realize how terrible the game is.

[blk5tar5]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I really wish the developers were forced to win games online and the conditions are you can’t spam turbo every possession but instead use playbooks and run sets to win… they’d quickly realize how terrible the game is.

2K has the ability to do that! I just finish playing 2 games? First, game was a lost because the player quit. I just don't even know about this game anymore. 2nd game I won just by running plays and taking my time. But man the lag is so HORRIBLE! I made a thread long time ago stating 2K is using peer to peer and looks like they're still doing it. Or there using Amazon online servers which is just dumb.

For a 4 Billion dollar company I'm truly surprised that you don't focus on making your online service one of the best in the business. I play NHL and their servers is smooth no problem at all. Even the network performance shows I'm getting best performance between 10ms-30ms.

Lastly, why can't 2k provide some tactics information on the players you play against. Some of the information are so vague or untrue? Like for example user A like to play off-ball 10% of the time but when you play against him he plays off-ball 100% of the time.

[VictorMG]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I really wish the developers were forced to win games online and the conditions are you can’t spam turbo every possession but instead use playbooks and run sets to win… they’d quickly realize how terrible the game is.

I personally am of the opinion that there's absolutely no such thing as a sports game that won't have some sort of cheap exploits. It's just not possible. Hell, real life sports have exploits, so there's no way a sports video game can be exploit-free.

[AIRJ23]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Question for next gen:

If I want the best AI pressure on my player, what’s the best settings to put on him? For example I’ll go into the defensive settings of the other team since the AI is too dumb to adapt and I’ll go to “Give it up” (double team). And I’ll even make more adjustments to the give it up setting. It automatically puts on ball defense on “smother” and I manually switch off ball defense to “prevent from getting ball.” I also put a double team on the post.

With MJ I’m STILL able to obliterate defenses with all the defensive sliders turned to 100 and lowering the on ball speed sliders, but it’s at least somewhat more realistic.

[jk31]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I personally am of the opinion that there's absolutely no such thing as a sports game that won't have some sort of cheap exploits. It's just not possible. Hell, real life sports have exploits, so there's no way a sports video game can be exploit-free.

But thats the point: As long as these exploits are the same as in real life, then it is realistic and I am okay with it.

[VictorMG]

Re: Defense is completely broken

But thats the point: As long as these exploits are the same as in real life, then it is realistic and I am okay with it.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. But I think that video games are even more prone to exploits than real-life sports. It's not possible to create a sports-game engine that is exploit-free.

[JJ1111]

Re: Defense is completely broken

But thats the point: As long as these exploits are the same as in real life, then it is realistic and I am okay with it.

I mean what are exploits in real life basketball? Maybe Steph Curry shooting from half court, maybe Vince Carter jumping clear over a 7 footer in the Olympics, maybe Manute Bol being 7'7. i.e. things that aren't 'normal NBA basketball' things. Difference is in NBA 2K, exploits become the norm, like the Curry slide for example. I probably see that move 50 times a day if I play a few games. No one's asking for a perfect game, just a game where the company gives a crap about realism.

[mb625]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I agree that defense was poor in 21, but strongly disagree with the idea that shot aiming is too "arcade." Imo, it's a better replication of the actual focuses of an NBA shooter (the good ol BEEF method we were all taught in middle school) than shot timing ever was.

[VictorMG]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I mean what are exploits in real life basketball? Maybe Steph Curry shooting from half court, maybe Vince Carter jumping clear over a 7 footer in the Olympics, maybe Manute Bol being 7'7. i.e. things that aren't 'normal NBA basketball' things. Difference is in NBA 2K, exploits become the norm, like the Curry slide for example. I probably see that move 50 times a day if I play a few games. No one's asking for a perfect game, just a game where the company gives a crap about realism.

Whenever the NBA has to change a rule because players were having too much success, think of that as an exploit. The rip-through move to draw fouls, flopping, intentional fouls in certain situations, etc.

I'm not talking about skills that players earned by being really good, because if it was an exploit, then everyone would try to do it.

[jk31]

Re: Defense is completely broken

I agree that defense was poor in 21, but strongly disagree with the idea that shot aiming is too "arcade." Imo, it's a better replication of the actual focuses of an NBA shooter (the good ol BEEF method we were all taught in middle school) than shot timing ever was.

But why do we have to "master" this technique if we already have player ratings, badges and what else to determine how good someone is shooting from a certain spot?

[mb625]

Re: Defense is completely broken

But why do we have to "master" this technique if we already have player ratings, badges and what else to determine how good someone is shooting from a certain spot?

Why did we have to "master" shot timing? If the community wants a "skill gap," this one is far preferable from a sim basketball perspective over and against timing. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but we're not going to get away from having to get some sort of technique down, so we may as well make it a more life-like one.

[ksuttonjr76]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Why did we have to "master" shot timing? If the community wants a "skill gap," this one is far preferable from a sim basketball perspective over and against timing. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but we're not going to get away from having to get some sort of technique down, so we may as well make it a more life-like one.

Before green releases, we mastered shot timing to give us the best probability of hitting the shot. After introducing green releases, mastering shot aiming meant guaranteed makes. NBA 2K decided to make it "harder" to get green releases instead of just reconfiguring shot percentages, hence they introduced shot aiming. However, green releases is still a guaranteed make even with shot aiming. How hard is it really to use the easiest shooting form to get green releases? Back in the day, you could have used the easiest form in the game, but it didn't mean that you could hit every shot under the sun with it.

Shot aiming alienated the group that relied mostly on creating good shot opportunities. Let's keep it 100%. The group with the mindset of "create the best shot available" is probably 2K's oldest crowd. We grew up with that concept, and that's all we know. I don't have the reflexes anymore to even use or adapt to shot aiming, but 2K made it relatively "harder" for me to score with the "normal" means.

Even in games that rely on fast twitch reflexes, I can still compete, because I can be "smart" about my in-game tactics. With NBA 2K, it feels like the dumber you are about good basketball spacing and shot creation, the more successful you are.

[Guard-ian]

Re: Defense is completely broken

Good timing/aiming should be a boost at most, never a guarantee....

[Eman5805]

Re: Defense is completely broken

The fact that green is a guaranteed make is why when your stats are low it’s almost impossible to hit green in MyCareer without those perks.