Finally figured this game out!

[I Djm]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

I'm the one who said, "Why would they code this into the game?" Forgive me if something I have said bugs you. I have said this before and I will say it again. The game is tuned to All Star. If you change it to the higher difficulty levels, you we get unrealistic gameplay because those levels are designed to provide a challenge, not replicate realism.

but how can it be a challenge if the team doesn't react im talkin my player/cal here. the other modes yea u should be able to get stops since you control everyone

[Padgoi]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

I'm the one who said, "Why would they code this into the game?" Forgive me if something I have said bugs you. I have said this before and I will say it again. The game is tuned to All Star. If you change it to the higher difficulty levels, you we get unrealistic gameplay because those levels are designed to provide a challenge, not replicate realism.

Call me nuts, but I honestly thought all-star was a bit too easy. I felt like I was dumbing down my offense to fabricate competitive games. The shooting percentages seemed sky high on all-star (this is with slider adjustments tuned down) and it was just easier. Superstar was much more of a challenge, shooting percentages were more realistic, it was a better game, just too many possessions seemed scripted. Should the higher levels be tuned to provide an unrealistic challenge? This isn't Madden. Higher levels should be tuned for a crisper AI experience, not missing layups and such.

[Sovartus]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Call me nuts, but I honestly thought all-star was a bit too easy. I felt like I was dumbing down my offense to fabricate competitive games. The shooting percentages seemed sky high on all-star (this is with slider adjustments tuned down) and it was just easier. Superstar was much more of a challenge, shooting percentages were more realistic, it was a better game, just too many possessions seemed scripted. Should the higher levels be tuned to provide an unrealistic challenge? This isn't Madden. Higher levels should be tuned for a crisper AI experience, not missing layups and such.

I normally play default simulation sliders on All Star and have a great time. I could probably bump it up to Superstar but I would have to abuse the paint to win or get gray hairs stressing every possession. What do you mean "I felt like I was dumbing down my offense to fabricate competitive games"? I'm not clear as to what is causing this for you. Is it because you are really good at the game? Play it like a video game? change the sliders? What is it? I don't seem to have this, "All Star is so easy" experience.

[loadleft]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Sovartus, I believe you mentioned that the devs laughed when you mentioned the game is scripted, try replacing the word "scripted" w/"unrealistic" and see if you get the same laughter and the questions of why would we...

When I play and watch Darko Millicic (spelling?) run Mike Conley down on a one on nobody fast break, I don't think scripted, I think unrealistic. Unrealistic produces results that seem scripted. When the CPU clearly has received boost beyond the players ratings in things such as speed, awareness, defensive ability, shooting, etc. and then it "adjust" and applies itself in crunch time or just after the half, or whenever, it makes the user feel powerless. Especially when a users sees something in the the game that he knows there is no way in real life that it would/could happen, like Barea (spelling?) posting up Gay successfully, then he feels the game is scripted for the CPU to succeed in that situation/moment no matter the implausibility. String a couple of these unrealistic occurrences together, as the CPU often does in the 3rd quarter, and you have what seems like a comeback script in the 3rd quarter.

As far as momentum, in real life that is something that happens between your ears, there is no physical force called momentum that makes shots fall or not. In 2K there is! The users ability to respond to pressure is minimized and the intangible effect of a string of events (momentum) is maximized in this game, and it's done so to a fault.

All in all, like other users have said the game shouldn't create other worldly powers for the CPU just to produce a challenge it should just have an AI that uses basketball tools more intelligently, such as doubling hot shooters on higher levels but not so much on lower ones, boxing out on higher levels not so much on lower ones, and so on. In real life the difference between better players/teams (assuming they're on a level playing field) isn't usually one is so much faster, can jump higher, and stick to their man better than the other, it's usually ones knowledge and application of that knowledge. Sure there are instances where athleticism is the the separator, Miami, but that's the exception not the norm. Generally the better teams tend to be smarter, and therefore a stiffer challenge. I wish 2K applied that principle instead of it's current system of challenges.

I'm not trying to knock the game as-is, it's just that when they try to make the CPU more aggressive using there current way of creating challenges in the game, it makes the unrealistic stuff stand out and I think that's what a lot of people are responding to. Can you imagine what it would sound like if instead of someone complaining that 6'2" point guard ran into the paint and dream-shake'd his way through my bigs they said something like the CPU keeps sagging off Rondo and giving him the shot and I can't hit it w/him this is just so scripted or unrealistic? Most users would respond w/what do you expect?

[I Djm]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Sovartus, I believe you mentioned that the devs laughed when you mentioned the game is scripted, try replacing the word "scripted" w/"unrealistic" and see if you get the same laughter and the questions of why would we...

When I play and watch Darko Millicic (spelling?) run Mike Conley down on a one on nobody fast break, I don't think scripted, I think unrealistic. Unrealistic produces results that seem scripted. When the CPU clearly has received boost beyond the players ratings in things such as speed, awareness, defensive ability, shooting, etc. and then it "adjust" and applies itself in crunch time or just after the half, or whenever, it makes the user feel powerless. Especially when a users sees something in the the game that he knows there is no way in real life that it would/could happen, like Barea (spelling?) posting up Gay successfully, then he feels the game is scripted for the CPU to succeed in that situation/moment no matter the implausibility. String a couple of these unrealistic occurrences together, as the CPU often does in the 3rd quarter, and you have what seems like a comeback script in the 3rd quarter.

As far as momentum, in real life that is something that happens between your ears, there is no physical force called momentum that makes shots fall or not. In 2K there is! The users ability to respond to pressure is minimized and the intangible effect of a string of events (momentum) is maximized in this game, and it's done so to a fault.

All in all, like other users have said the game shouldn't create other worldly powers for the CPU just to produce a challenge it should just have an AI that uses basketball tools more intelligently, such as doubling hot shooters on higher levels but not so much on lower ones, boxing out on higher levels not so much on lower ones, and so on. In real life the difference between better players/teams (assuming they're on a level playing field) isn't usually one is so much faster, can jump higher, and stick to their man better than the other, it's usually ones knowledge and application of that knowledge. Sure there are instances where athleticism is the the separator, Miami, but that's the exception not the norm. Generally the better teams tend to be smarter, and therefore a stiffer challenge. I wish 2K applied that principle instead of it's current system of challenges.

I'm not trying to knock the game as-is, it's just that when they try to make the CPU more aggressive using there current way of creating challenges in the game, it makes the unrealistic stuff stand out and I think that's what a lot of people are responding to. Can you imagine what it would sound like if instead of someone complaining that 6'2" point guard ran into the paint and dream-shake'd his way through my bigs they said something like the CPU keeps sagging off Rondo and giving him the shot and I can't hit it w/him this is just so scripted or unrealistic? Most users would respond w/what do you expect?

rondo isn't really a jump shooter but in my player he is. he can knock down more jumpers than my guy with 90 midrange

[loadleft]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

rondo isn't really a jump shooter but in my player he is. he can knock down more jumpers than my guy with 90 midrange

Precisely my point!

[I Djm]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

on hall of fame

[Sovartus]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

I have said this before, and I'll say it again. The game is tuned to All Star if you want realism. If you are playing realistically, you will more than likely get a realistic game. Any setting above All Star is designed to give the user a challenge, not realism. If the game is tuned to play the most realistic on All Star, you have to figure that the cpu will have an unrealistic advantage to some degree on Superstar or Hall of Fame.

You know, I really want to say this before we go any further with this thread.......
In my experience, people say they want a realistic experience or simulation but don't want to be held accountable for creating that realism or simulation themselves. Here is what I mean..... I play with the Grizzlies. Rudy Gay shoots about 16 shots a game; 9 from inside 15 ft, 2-3 from behind the arc, and 4-5 from mid range. The most shot attempts Rudy had last year was 25 in an overtime game in which he played 52 minutes. If I were playing realistically with Rudy, he would never attempt more than 20-25 shots in any game. I would attack the basket, post, or drive 9-10 times a game with him average. I wouldn't shoot more than 2-3 three pointers with him a game on average. I wouldn't shoot more than 4-5 mid range shots a game on average. Why did I say all of that? Well, 4-5 mids a game despite that enormous red section on the left side of the court and his 77 mid rating. Only 2-3 three pointers despite the fact that he has an 86 three point rating and almost all of the three point sections are red hot spots for him. Would you do that? Probably not.

If the cpu defenders scouted your players and the AI planned to keep them away from hot spots all game, we would cry unrealistic. If we are playing someone online, will we play to the players' tendencies rather than their strengths? No. Some players have tendencies that don't agree with what works for them. 41% of Rudy's offense comes from Isolations (25%), Posting (10%), and cuts (5.5%). So that means, I would try to only shoot with Rudy 4 times a quarter. I would Isolate him once a quarter and have a pot luck with the rest of the 3 attempts. I would only shoot 1 or 2 threes a half and 2 or 3 mids a half but go to the goal 4 or 5 times a half. ....... wow... that's too much to think about, why can't we just play?

Do we want the game to make us play realistically, or do we want to play realistically? I think we all know the game is designed to replicate the action as close as possible. Heck, the players even are programmed to behave exactly like their real life counter parts based on real NBA scouting data. On top of that, the developers have to make sure that this realism is translated to the gameplay system designed for you and I to experience as much control as we can over basketball processes. The CPU is also restricted to these processes, motion captured animations, and controller functions. When you add all of that together, you still must govern it all with dice rolls based on percentages of success created by calculations principled by real life data. Even something as simply as a speedy PG getting chased down by a slow lanky C and pinned to the backboard are governed by user controller inputs, player ratings, and mathematical calculations. What you are seeing on the screen is a visual representation of these calculations, inputs, and ratings.

I realize that your inputs are based on what you see on the screen but the calculations are still based on chance to create realism. Realism can be defined in 2K as the unpredictable outcome of any series of events. If everything happened just as we predicted, it would be much further from actual realism than the small percentage of events that defy our individual perceptions of realism. This comes back to the age old statement, "It's a video game, not real life." It is a simulation of the atmosphere, TV presentation, coaching chess match, team battles, and one on one wars of basketball and to this date, the best one there has EVER been. Be objective, if there is a 1% chance something can happen, out of 100 times, Conley will get hawked down by Darko and get his layup pinned to the backboard at least once. Sorry that you rolled that 1.

I haven't really looked at Rondo but I know from the past, he had a really high close rating. For 2K, Close is anything within a 15 ft. radius of the basket. What some may consider midrange is really close. Midrange shots are 16 to 23 ft. or from the foul line or baseline hash mark out to the 3pt line. I'm not saying that you don't know that but I'm just putting it out there.

I'm really interested to hear responses to this one.... LOL.... I hope I didn't offend anyone, I'm just trying to think and respond logically here....

[rockchisler]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

I can tell you that I have seen the coding and programming working in rare form and there was nothing "scripted" that I have seen in the six 6-10 hour days that I have spent playing the "yet to be released" versions of the game. I think a lot of people forget that this is a video game and expect the game to behave like what they see on television. Guys, that is never going to happen.

I believe that what you see in the speed bursts, and super sliding moments is the presentation trying to catch up with the inputs of the cpu and controller. If you issue a command (let's say engage the LT), and then you issue a second command immediately afterwards (let's say move the RS), the first command is cancelled and the second one is issued. We all said we didn't want to be stuck in little mini movies (waiting for animations to finish before we could control our player again) and this is what we have. This is probably why you are experiencing that slight delay when attempting to contest a shot. Remember, the development team tried to satisfy both parties this year by incorporating a way to have the auto contest work and still give people full manual control at the same time. It looks like this wasn't implemented as well as they anticipated.

As far as rebounding is concerned, I have noticed on the lower difficulties, the cpu doing a lot more for you. At least to me, on the higher difficulty settings, I am required to do much more manual rebounding. I have come to expect this and have adusted my game to include this skill set. I have began to see results from just simply boxing out instead of switching to my bigs to bring manual help defense. I have noticed that bring the manual help D puts my guys out of position to box out weak side guys and that seems to be where the cpu hurts me the most. Normally, I will switch to the best rebounder that is the farthest from the action. He is usually the "dummy" who lets someone swoop in and grab the board, tip in, or dunk. If you don't manually rebound with him or if you have him set to help in your defensive settings, he will more than likely always be out of position for the rebound. In my opinion, there is a major difference between the way my bigs rebound on Pro and not so much on All Star.

Passing has always been a problem on 2K in my experience. I don't think it is the conspiracy that everyone is claiming it to be though. You don't have control over the type of pass you need to throw in certain situations. The only game you could do this on was College Hoops 2K8 (I think). The AI makes dumb passes and they get picked off. There is also the issue of players running into crowed areas or simply out of position when you pass to them. Main reason I say that you can't blame "scripting" for the passing situation you have described is, you have to press the button to pass the ball. You completely control when a pass is made and to whom it is passed. We as users can make smarter, more conservative passes.

I, like you, was very frustrated when I first started playing 2K12 and saw my cpu teammates making bone headed decisions like they had absolutely NO court awareness or basketball IQ for that matter. Then I started adjusting the defensive settings and coaching sliders and found them to behave much more intelligent or at least behave the way that I expect them to in my system. Sometimes I believe it's more about our perception of how they "should" act more so than what is really going on.

Hope this helps....

I feel that most of the game is unscripted but do believe if you take a person who knows the ins and outs of real ball and uses the Pistons still will have a hard time winning against a person that pics Miami and runs around all game..

[Sovartus]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

I feel that most of the game is unscripted but do believe if you take a person who knows the ins and outs of real ball and uses the Pistons still will have a hard time winning against a person that pics Miami and runs around all game..

Agreed, it will always be hard for someone to beat a person that is abusing the higher percentages to gain an advantage.

[loadleft]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Sovartus, glad you responded and no offense taken. First to be clear, what I mean by realism is not the same thing as tendencies which in my dictionary is what you're referring to. Second, if something like Conley getting ran down happened once out of 100 or even 30 out of 100 I wouldn't bring it up. Third I am playing on All-Star no slider adjustments.

Now, what I refer to as realism is solely based on the players represented abilities not their tendencies. For example I would have no problem if Shaq shot 10 three pointers per game as long as he missed 99.9% of them (that's assuming he really lacks the ability to shoot 3's which based on his career I'd think is a safe bet). I don't feel the need to pigeon hole the game into forcing tendencies because I believe that for the most part, what the user does on D, should determine the shots the CPU takes. In other words: in most cases the CPU should take what the defense gives it. What I believe steps into unrealistic play is to have the AI controlled player perform beyond his abilities, whether that's speed, awareness, shooting ability, or anything else. For instance to see someone who clearly is slower keeping up with someone faster, stride for stride down the court, just turns me off. When I see something like that my question becomes: video game or real world, what mistake on my part makes a person run faster than they're capable of running? I hope that clarifies what I mean when I say unrealistic.

To further elaborate, regardless of what a player can or can't do in real life the truth is ratings are king so let me refer to them. If I look up Conley and he has a speed rating of 91 and Milicic has one of 36, I know that with that much separation, not even the slow down because of dribbling accounts for him to keep up w/Conley. I feel the "it's video games" excuse is a tired and unacceptable one in this instance. I can accept it you prefer the challenge of having the CPU boosted, but I find it a bit insulting when I'm fed a line that things in the game are happening because of a mathematical calculation since I know better. There is no math that makes 36 greater than or equal to 91. There are plenty of areas that the CPU gets a boost on All-star just for the sake of creating a challenge such as shooting, awareness, lack of momentum (the motion kind) on AI players, and for me it just makes the game stand up and say I am a video game, LOL! That severely limits the immersion factor for me. If it's not clear yet, I'd prefer the AI challenge being from the better use of tools that exist in the real world, IF the game is to be considered sim based. On the other hand if it's not sim based then that's another subject.

My personal opinion is that the engines behind these games are a bit outdated and the devs are struggling to make all they want out of what they have to work with. If I indeed am correct on this I'd prefer they stop adding and focus on fixing what is there until they can develop a new and more capable engine.

[stillfeelme]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

loadleft ^^

I feel exactly the same way I want the CPU to obey the same rules that apply to me on all-star. To see the CPU receive these speed boosts when beat or see a center any center catch D. Rose from behind to not only catch him but create contact to me screams artifical difficulty, unrealism programmed to happen. There are clear ratings boosts if there were an option to turn it all off vs. the CPU then I would be happy.

[loadleft]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

if there were an option to turn it all off vs. the CPU then I would be happy.

me too!!!

[Sovartus]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Not trying to be funny... lol (yes, I am.. )

Mike Conley measured his 3/4 court sprint at 3.09 seconds....

Darko measured his at 3.36 seconds.....


Add a few years to Darko and it still doesn't make that much of a difference... Darko could hawk a relaxed or tired Conley down and wipe his shot attempt off of the backboard at least a few times out of 100.

I would also ask a couple of questions...

How much turbo meter did Conley have?
Where was his fatigue?
Was it in an association and how was his progressive fatigue?

Don't answer that.... LOL it was a good response though right?

A 36 speed hawking down a 91 speed sounds ridiculous depending on what the scale is.

[loadleft]

Re: Finally figured this game out!

Not trying to be funny... lol (yes, I am.. )

Mike Conley measured his 3/4 court sprint at 3.09 seconds....

Darko measured his at 3.36 seconds.....


Add a few years to Darko and it still doesn't make that much of a difference... Darko could hawk a relaxed or tired Conley down and wipe his shot attempt off of the backboard at least a few times out of 100.

I would also ask a couple of questions...

How much turbo meter did Conley have?
Where was his fatigue?
Was it in an association and how was his progressive fatigue?

Don't answer that.... LOL it was a good response though right?

A 36 speed hawking down a 91 speed sounds ridiculous depending on what the scale is.

I won't answer since you said not to, but I will say this happens the majority of the time. The user has to have a pretty significant head start to not get ran down regardless of the players' speed.

Still I like this game a lot! There are a lot of positives which, make it impossible for me to give up on the game like I sometimes think I should. I'm not sure the positives outweigh the negatives but it's close enough to keep me coming back I guess. I hope future iterations head away from the cheap AI tricks and go toward actual artificial intelligence.

Also glad to see you're a good sport and not some diehard 2K defensive lineman!