NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

[AIRJ23]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

Airing out my potential pessimistic takes:

- Lots of the AI sounds “new” which means it can be buggy and unrefined. Also very exposed to patching nerfs.

- Their focus on “more realistic defense” can either make defense smarter or it also kiiiinda reads as a “warning” that defense will be nerfed as some of the OP bandaids 2K22 had at least made scoring more challenging (like the blocks and glue on ball defense). Will layups be TOO easy to make now? Will superstars losing their defenders be 2K21 easy? They did “warn” that help defense won’t be there to start games and will be a gradual thing. With this smartening of AI it gives me slight PTSD of endless hours of tweaking 2K22 to keep up with their constant AI tweaks and patches (both behind the scenes and up front).

- Some of their wording and new features give me a hunch that superstars with the better sigs may become too OP. Meaning it might become easier to drop 70 with Jordan but harder to have a freak 31 point performance with a Keita Bates Diop (funny as it sounds, he did that on LeBron and the Lakers heads.. on 11/11 shooting.. but yeah.. it’s the Lakers..). I get this impression that superstars may become so overpowered that we’d have to really adjust sliders to make it harder for THEM, which would then make it impossible for “help” players to have highlight games.

We won’t know till months into the game dropping, honestly. I see a lot of new complicated systems that can be game changing great or go awry and be unstable. Also a lot of stuff that can piss off the online children and get patched.

My favorite part of 2K22 had been the recent few months honestly. Why? Because they stopped patching and adjusting everything. I finally am able to play the game with core setting works, and not have to recalibrate everything to keep up with whatever they’re doing under the hood due to the online community.

[kolanji]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

I’m just going off the “Flex on the Rim” section that says the dunk meter returns but only on certain double throw dunk inputs. This means you really can’t accidentally trigger these dunk attempts and the ability to do a number of standard (or “old style”) dunks is back in the game.

So only the Up-Down and Down-Down inputs trigger the dunk meter.

*Well I guess am playing on my series x and not my PC because of the Ai improvements, those move me the most*



other than that one small thing i would have preferred was if UP UP and DOWN DOWN were used for forced dunks as the inputs to make it easier to remember that double flicks in the same directions are always the forced metered dunks as opposed to UP UP being Flashy 2 hand dunk.....
but hey if that is my only concerned this time of year then 2k has got something really going on with this years IP

[loso_34]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

They have refused to address the lack of fast breaks and the speed rating being inconsequential.

[sooperb]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

😐 Not excited but I'm in for another year of Dribbles&Threes2K23.

Why is there always input latency offline? It makes online worse off. I would love for that to be fixed.

[VictorMG]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

They have refused to address the lack of fast breaks and the speed rating being inconsequential.

The fact that it wasn't mentioned here doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't addressed

[NINJAK2]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

I’m not as excited as most in here. I’m not falling for any hype this year. Lol To be honest that was my least favorite 2k blog I’ve read in years. I didn’t here any of my main concerns listed. Were modes not separated? Will daily updates still effect users sliders everyday? That in itself was exhausting as the game changed everyday. 1 day you get the game playing great from a slider perspective and the next everything is wacky. Shooting percentages constantly changing behind the scenes that effect your sliders even though you changed nothing. How can you enjoy the game where 1 day you have realistic shooting percentages in the 40’s and the next day your shooting 60% from 3.

I’m not a fan of anything controlled behind the scenes and by ACE only! Been there done that & it’s a mess. Ace has over ridden player tendencies and play calling for years. It’s ruined the game offline along with the daily gameplay updates & patches. Some might not notice it, some might not care, but it negatively effects teams from playing like themselves. We have to rely on 2k to adjust it behind the scenes. What made 2k great in years past was that they gave us options to edit everything to cater to the experience each user wanted. By not giving us that access to how the cpu calls plays, the cpu teams AI play styles, who the cpu calls plays for, player tendencies not being over ridden, and reliant on how the cpu adjusts defensively throughout a game realistically is still going to be an issue as long as we can’t fix or control it and it’s reliant on ACE & 2k to adjust it for us.

Also, no word on the scramble logic, closeouts, and rotation logic after the last 2 years is concerning to say the least. I saw a quick mention of cutter help. But is help going to still come from the wrong places? Are rotations not going to make sense? I’m a bit shocked all of this wasn’t discussed in great detail after the huge thread & debacle of 2k21 & 2k22 on help d logic and cutter help!

What about PNR defense? How is this fixed? How is the hedge defender fixed? Help rotation? Is it band aided again unrealistically? Were user coaching adjustments fixed? Do they work accordingly & as intended or are they still shut off for users?

The playcalling is interesting though on who is hot or not from game to game or calling plays that work more often. But how this is implemented and called is of concern. In past 2k’s the problem is teams don’t play like teams should. For example the bucks, clippers, suns, and lakers AI would run everything through superstars no matter what. Teams like the suns would run everything through Paul and never for Booker unless Paul came out. So how will this be different? Why do the player touches tendencies not work? We’re they fixed?

Lastly, what about game speed? Player speed differences? On fast breaks is the user going to get penalized and slow down to let the defense recover? Is Ja morant going to get stonewalled by Chet Holmgren? Is Chet gonna unrealistically slide around a PNR?

Idk, way too many questions for me to be fooled again. I will for sure need to see video of these things in action from trusted sources to even buy this year. I know people don’t want to hear this **** & take their enthusiasm away from the game but hey I’d love to hear more about each of these issues in detail & for 2k to prove me wrong & say they fixed all of this in 1 cycle! I was just hoping to hear more specifics in these areas & hopefully we do in the coming weeks in coming blogs.

I've been primarily playing on PC and one of your issues (Which I marked in bold) has been my biggest issue with the game. Fastbreaks have become a thing of the past. It seems like every FB opportunity gets neutered by forcing me into some exaggerated hesitation animation when I have an advantage which allows the D to catch up. The movement sliders appear to make zero difference in resolving this. Based on that write-up it also appears that most of the A.I. tweaks are exclusive to next-gen .

[EccentricMeat]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

I’m not as excited as most in here. I’m not falling for any hype this year. Lol To be honest that was my least favorite 2k blog I’ve read in years. I didn’t here any of my main concerns listed. Were modes not separated? Will daily updates still effect users sliders everyday? That in itself was exhausting as the game changed everyday. 1 day you get the game playing great from a slider perspective and the next everything is wacky. Shooting percentages constantly changing behind the scenes that effect your sliders even though you changed nothing. How can you enjoy the game where 1 day you have realistic shooting percentages in the 40’s and the next day your shooting 60% from 3.

I’m not a fan of anything controlled behind the scenes and by ACE only! Been there done that & it’s a mess. Ace has over ridden player tendencies and play calling for years. It’s ruined the game offline along with the daily gameplay updates & patches. Some might not notice it, some might not care, but it negatively effects teams from playing like themselves. We have to rely on 2k to adjust it behind the scenes. What made 2k great in years past was that they gave us options to edit everything to cater to the experience each user wanted. By not giving us that access to how the cpu calls plays, the cpu teams AI play styles, who the cpu calls plays for, player tendencies not being over ridden, and reliant on how the cpu adjusts defensively throughout a game realistically is still going to be an issue as long as we can’t fix or control it and it’s reliant on ACE & 2k to adjust it for us.

Also, no word on the scramble logic, closeouts, and rotation logic after the last 2 years is concerning to say the least. I saw a quick mention of cutter help. But is help going to still come from the wrong places? Are rotations not going to make sense? I’m a bit shocked all of this wasn’t discussed in great detail after the huge thread & debacle of 2k21 & 2k22 on help d logic and cutter help!

What about PNR defense? How is this fixed? How is the hedge defender fixed? Help rotation? Is it band aided again unrealistically? Were user coaching adjustments fixed? Do they work accordingly & as intended or are they still shut off for users?

The playcalling is interesting though on who is hot or not from game to game or calling plays that work more often. But how this is implemented and called is of concern. In past 2k’s the problem is teams don’t play like teams should. For example the bucks, clippers, suns, and lakers AI would run everything through superstars no matter what. Teams like the suns would run everything through Paul and never for Booker unless Paul came out. So how will this be different? Why do the player touches tendencies not work? We’re they fixed?

Lastly, what about game speed? Player speed differences? On fast breaks is the user going to get penalized and slow down to let the defense recover? Is Ja morant going to get stonewalled by Chet Holmgren? Is Chet gonna unrealistically slide around a PNR?

Idk, way too many questions for me to be fooled again. I will for sure need to see video of these things in action from trusted sources to even buy this year. I know people don’t want to hear this **** & take their enthusiasm away from the game but hey I’d love to hear more about each of these issues in detail & for 2k to prove me wrong & say they fixed all of this in 1 cycle! I was just hoping to hear more specifics in these areas & hopefully we do in the coming weeks in coming blogs.

Yea I’m not reading all that.
I’m happy for you though.
Or sorry that happened…

Nah I kid I kid [emoji23] all great points as usual, and there’s definitely a lot of new AI systems in place “behind the scenes” that have plenty of room to add new issues we’ve never dealt with before. And with ACE’s less than stellar history I can absolutely understand the lack of excitement over the news that it will be controlling even more of the fundamental aspects of offline gameplay.

HOWEVER, I interpreted a lot of these new ACE features (namely the defense adjusting based off how you attack and score, as well as the offense reacting to how you defend) as more of 2K finally fixing ACE and making it the system is was meant to be. Instead of having to spend months tweaking sliders to try and get the AI to play somewhat realistically on offense and defense, these new AI additions should handle that for us and our slider tweaking will be more about fine-tuning the AI instead of overhauling it entirely.

That’s just my hope, though. And I guess I’m in an optimistic mood today because usually I’m more aligned with your thoughts here and assume the worst from 2K. I’ll just save my disappointment for when we get to actually see some USER vs CPU gameplay in the wild. Here’s hoping they actually pulled it off [emoji1305]

[El_Tercero]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

Does anyone know if the new 3 tiered badge removes the Bronze, Silver, Gold and HOF badge levels?


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

Yea I’m not reading all that.
I’m happy for you though.
Or sorry that happened…

Nah I kid I kid [emoji23] all great points as usual, and there’s definitely a lot of new AI systems in place “behind the scenes” that have plenty of room to add new issues we’ve never dealt with before. And with ACE’s less than stellar history I can absolutely understand the lack of excitement over the news that it will be controlling even more of the fundamental aspects of offline gameplay.

HOWEVER, I interpreted a lot of these new ACE features (namely the defense adjusting based off how you attack and score, as well as the offense reacting to how you defend) as more of 2K finally fixing ACE and making it the system is was meant to be. Instead of having to spend months tweaking sliders to try and get the AI to play somewhat realistically on offense and defense, these new AI additions should handle that for us and our slider tweaking will be more about fine-tuning the AI instead of overhauling it entirely.

That’s just my hope, though. And I guess I’m in an optimistic mood today because usually I’m more aligned with your thoughts here and assume the worst from 2K. I’ll just save my disappointment for when we get to actually see some USER vs CPU gameplay in the wild. Here’s hoping they actually pulled it off [emoji1305]

Lol! I know I know I tend to go on and on but at the same time there is so much left unaddressed so it just ended up long winded but all things that imo need to be touched on at the very least.

To be honest in years past I’ve defended 2k and liked the direction that they were going. Ever since 18 though ACE has had a negative effect for offline gamers as far as realism goes & I can’t really defend their direction like I once could.

To your point though & my concern with the optimism & I know you can feel me here with all the testing that you do to movement sliders. We all know how 2k handles their on ball defense. Besides 2k18 it has always been unrealistic as far as bumping ball handlers with no freedom of movement. The 1st thing I do is fix all that through sliders to create hip rides & realistic on ball off d movement & freedom of movement like irl. The problem though is when we do that is the fundamental help d, rotations, scramble logic behind it realistic & able to handle it? That’s where 2k in the past 4 years has band aid fixed the defense to hide the real core issues behind it. So, I know how they tend to fix things and hide flaws. So I am not very optimistic for that reason alone. I know everyone always loves the defense out of the box and it’s tough but it’s not realistic. Hasn’t been for years.

Anyways, A quick example is with the ACE defense for players having the ability to now adjust & read how we are playing. Ok cool that sounds good to me. But does that mean they start to anticipate to cut us off and create a bump animation and then stop us in our tracks like years past? But what if we eliminate that because we want true to life freedom of movement? Will that still carry the same intended results? I’m gonna venture to say no. So, it’s either play the game the way they made it and intended it to be played or nothing at all. But how they typically handle this I can’t play the game like that as it’s not realistic or fun.

I just would have rather heard them talk about rotations, closeouts, & scramble situations which is where all the core issues have been for years. I’d have loved to hear them talk about help not coming from the strong corners. How they fixed it & why it was happening, etc. in years past we only saw ACE adjust after a timeout. Can it now adjust on the fly? Or can I run the same thing 5x in a row and hit wide open shot after wide open shot until the cpu calls a timeout and switches their ACE to counter us. Then they take away shooters and then we drive to hoop for no help layups now until the next timeout? Is ACE dynamic and makes changes possession to possession & on the fly? I truly hope your right though and they spent this cycle fixing ACE so teams can scheme and play like themselves on both sides of the ball!

I just bring all this up because it’s been 4 years of the same thing.

[nuttyrich]

What stands out to me the most is they said on 2k22 they mainly focused on defense, yet they couldn't even get the pick and roll correct, something basic as pick and roll.

Overall I think graphics-wise; we are we're going to be the most they could do is make it more realistic, authentic gameplay unless robotic.

As long as they're catering to the online crowd, I understand that's where the money's at, but the games play completely different offline and online.

I'm still playing 2k22 second year into my career. Now into the playoffs again, probably will win the title and wait for 2k23. I'm buying it no matter what, at least for this year.

I have owned it since it came out on the Dreamcast, so I'll give it a chance this year to improve; even if they try hard and fail a little bit, I'll be happy with that.

They can get feedback and do some patches and make it a bit better, but right now, the game is going to pretty much feel like 2K 22 unless you do a complete overhaul like 2K14.

There's going to be a time where they need to do a complete overhaul not just upgrade the shot authenticity and better player models and lightning.

Need a complete new engine it's why Madden has been stinking up the joint since it went to the 360 they were still using PS2 where I feel Madden 08 was one of the best and just didn't build the New Foundation for next gen.

2K is coming in across that line very soon where basically new plateau and it's going to seem robotic you need very fluid animations that make the game feel real and authentic.

Anyways sorry for the ramble but I'm sure all of you guys are with me you're buying this also.

I went for the 99.99 package.

I already have access to NBA league pass for free, but I could see the people buying it for $149 that is a great deal if you love NBA like most do!

Let's hope for an amazing game guys enjoy!

[simbayless]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

The fact that it wasn't mentioned here doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't addressed

Maybe thats why they took out the Downhill Badge 📛

[EccentricMeat]

NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

Lol! I know I know I tend to go on and on but at the same time there is so much left unaddressed so it just ended up long winded but all things that imo need to be touched on at the very least.

To be honest in years past I’ve defended 2k and liked the direction that they were going. Ever since 18 though ACE has had a negative effect for offline gamers as far as realism goes & I can’t really defend their direction like I once could.

To your point though & my concern with the optimism & I know you can feel me here with all the testing that you do to movement sliders. We all know how 2k handles their on ball defense. Besides 2k18 it has always been unrealistic as far as bumping ball handlers with no freedom of movement. The 1st thing I do is fix all that through sliders to create hip rides & realistic on ball off d movement & freedom of movement like irl. The problem though is when we do that is the fundamental help d, rotations, scramble logic behind it realistic & able to handle it? That’s where 2k in the past 4 years has band aid fixed the defense to hide the real core issues behind it. So, I know how they tend to fix things and hide flaws. So I am not very optimistic for that reason alone. I know everyone always loves the defense out of the box and it’s tough but it’s not realistic. Hasn’t been for years.

Anyways, A quick example is with the ACE defense for players having the ability to now adjust & read how we are playing. Ok cool that sounds good to me. But does that mean they start to anticipate to cut us off and create a bump animation and then stop us in our tracks like years past? But what if we eliminate that because we want true to life freedom of movement? Will that still carry the same intended results? I’m gonna venture to say no. So, it’s either play the game the way they made it and intended it to be played or nothing at all. But how they typically handle this I can’t play the game like that as it’s not realistic or fun.

I just would have rather heard them talk about rotations, closeouts, & scramble situations which is where all the core issues have been for years. I’d have loved to hear them talk about help not coming from the strong corners. How they fixed it & why it was happening, etc. in years past we only saw ACE adjust after a timeout. Can it now adjust on the fly? Or can I run the same thing 5x in a row and hit wide open shot after wide open shot until the cpu calls a timeout and switches their ACE to counter us. Then they take away shooters and then we drive to hoop for no help layups now until the next timeout? Is ACE dynamic and makes changes possession to possession & on the fly? I truly hope your right though and they spent this cycle fixing ACE so teams can scheme and play like themselves on both sides of the ball!

I just bring all this up because it’s been 4 years of the same thing.

You’re 100% right and that really is the question leading up to release. How dynamic is ACE, how smart and realistic is the default defense as far as help and rotations, and how well is the “new” (lol) on-ball defensive shading system implemented into the AI decision making and collision systems.

If I read the blog correctly, it seemed like they focused on removing the brick wall interactions when attacking the basket EXCEPT FOR when the defender is shaded to the side being attacked. I believe this is exactly how the old on-ball shading worked, where a brick wall animation only triggered when attacking into the shade direction, but hip rides would trigger in all other scenarios.

If that is the case, I can absolutely live with it and actually enjoy brick walls as they’re playing out for an actual reason instead of just by default. And hopefully only the elite defenders can regularly shade and cut you off, with the average and below defenders getting lucky once in a while but being much easier to read. I would imagine this is tied in to the on-ball defense attribute and slider, but how will the Body-Up Sensitivity slider factor in?

And I’m not sure how they’ll implement this for the user. Maybe when using a bad defender and shading correctly, a good dribbler can still get around you or at least not get forced into a brick wall? I would hope you can’t just turn any random player into prime Kawhi with this system.

[Baebae32]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

Blog sounds great as it always does on paper. Will say that it sounds like keeping the old gen version as close as possible with next gen is holding back progress in some areas unfortunately. And will also say:


Passing needs to be overhauled or defensive mechanics will be forever fighting an uphill battle.

2ks passing in its current state is the equivalent of letting a madden QB run 30 yards behind the line of scrimmage and throw a rocket to the opposite sideline even with a defender hanging off of you. That ball would never physically get there in real life and wouldnt have to rely on if there was a defender in the vicinity of the receiver with the potential to intercept it to determine the success of the pass.

On ball pressure (hip riding animation) and angle of passes needs to be accounted for. Passing in its current state severely limits the effectivesness of any potential help defense because there is no such thing as taking a pass away when you help. Its just banking on the offensive player to lack the IQ to recognize where the help defender came from (which is a tall task due to video games being playing in a God camera view)

Since green releases and the unrealistic shooting %s are foundational to 2k online play maybe addressing passing can give the defense a boost in implementing effective team defense strategies

Interested in any thought you guys may have on this seemingly unexplored frontier

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

You’re 100% right and that really is the question leading up to release. How dynamic is ACE, how smart and realistic is the default defense as far as help and rotations, and how well is the “new” (lol) on-ball defensive shading system implemented into the AI decision making and collision systems.

If I read the blog correctly, it seemed like they focused on removing the brick wall interactions when attacking the basket EXCEPT FOR when the defender is shaded to the side being attacked. I believe this is exactly how the old on-ball shading worked, where a brick wall animation only triggered when attacking into the shade direction, but hip rides would trigger in all other scenarios.

If that is the case, I can absolutely live with it and actually enjoy brick walls as they’re playing out for an actual reason instead of just by default. And hopefully only the elite defenders can regularly shade and cut you off, with the average and below defenders getting lucky once in a while but being much easier to read. I would imagine this is tied in to the on-ball defense attribute and slider, but how will the Body-Up Sensitivity slider factor in?

And I’m not sure how they’ll implement this for the user. Maybe when using a bad defender and shading correctly, a good dribbler can still get around you or at least not get forced into a brick wall? I would hope you can’t just turn any random player into prime Kawhi with this system.

Agree & good points. It’s why I just need to see it all in action this year 1st. Hopefully they release some user Vs cpu gameplay this year. Iirc last year we didn’t get any videos pre release did we?

The body up sensitivity will be what I want to see. I hope your right on the brick walls and I can also live with that as it does happen if the defender plays you right. I’m not saying never just not always & with average or below average defenders. I know I was in the minority but I loved the hip rides in 18 and I always try and replicate where it was then 1st thing. Shoot, I’d love to see hip rides on the hedge defender on PNR’s which would solve a lot of pnr problems in itself by slowing up the ball handler as it’s intended to do. Speaking of I would love to see and hear if they fixed & got proper drop coverage in the game this year as well?

Again, I’m not trying to be Debbie downer here, it’s just my reactions to a less than stellar courtside report/blog that left alot to be desired as far as unanswered questions that I think most of the sim community want answers too who play offline especially after the last 2 years of no fixes and crickets post release.

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: NBA 2K23 Gameplay Details and Improvements Revealed

On ball pressure (hip riding animation) and angle of passes needs to be accounted for. Passing in its current state severely limits the effectivesness of any potential help defense because there is no such thing as taking a pass away when you help. Its just banking on the offensive player to lack the IQ to recognize where the help defender came from (which is a tall task due to video games being playing in a God camera view)

Interested in any thought you guys may have on this seemingly unexplored frontier

You bring up an interesting point that I’d never really thought about as far as 2k passing goes. Obviously the GOD mode and icon passing make it even harder, but I can get behind this as far as the cross court passes going in the opposite direction to the weak-side corner on a drive because I saw help should not be a bullet if I’m throwing that pass from the key. Now, if I waited to throw a baseline drift skip pass ala Steve Nash that was also dependent on the angle that I’m moving in then it could also factor in to the speed it gets there. Maybe the same if passing out of a hip ride maybe making the pass slower. I think your comparison to madden in this respect as far as Robo quarterback throws on a laser across body and field is very similar and great comparison how it kills realism. This in itself would help rotations and scrambling from over help defense. I think maybe with the shot contest system in place you could piggyback and use same type of system to implement for passing as well as for contested or not? Interesting thought…