Scripted momentum/equalizer cheese

[pcaravel]

Quote: Originally Posted by QNo

I think that these issues can be traced back mostly to the low difficulty setting and the badge system, which is not designed to work with stacked teams. FWIW, the badge system in general is one of my bigger MT gameplay concerns, the ability to badge everybody out and add badges to players leads to a number of problems, too.

Exactly that!

[QNo]

Quote: Originally Posted by ChiliPalmer

Says the guy who stated " I believe that the reason this is more extrem in MyTeam than in regular gameplay is that everybody has so many players with great (personality) badges that will stack and create this over the top momentum" Of course PC is a whole different experience, but believe and argue whatever you want bud, imma just ignore your logical masterstrokes from now on.

Why would PC be completely different? It's the exact same game. We get the exact same roster updates at the same time etc. Same patches, except for some PC specific hotfixes. There is no difference. Why would they recode a game for a much smaller community, but ship the same game on the two big systems?

Once again, you quote me trying to make a point but you're not making any point whatsoever. If you perceive tension between the two quotes, I don't see it and it's by no means obvious, so you should flesh it out. A book like this would do you a world of good.

[synistr]

Quote: Originally Posted by QNo

4th quarters do feel off sometimes, but I believe that this is that everybody has MyTeams with 4-5 alpha dogs, closers, fierce competitors and all the other personality badges that kick in in these situations. They're designed so that a guy like MJ can take over in the 4th, assisted by a Beta Dog like Pippen. But when the whole team has all of these badges things get out of hand. One dunk or steal can trigger a sequence of events that can lead to everybody on the team being hot and going on a run. By the way, I do agree with a lot of the gameplay concerns that are being raised in this thread. I just don't want to address them here since I don't feel that this thread is the place for it. Nothing in this thread has led me to believe that we should think that the devs are lying to us about there being a comeback code. I think that these issues can be traced back mostly to the low difficulty setting and the badge system, which is not designed to work with stacked teams. FWIW, the badge system in general is one of my bigger MT gameplay concerns, the ability to badge everybody out and add badges to players leads to a number of problems, too.

Here is my issue with the low difficulty settings argument....and I want someone to give me a clear and concise explanation because I do not understand.

We brought up Gauntlet. Then we said its not a valid argument because its on low difficulty. Gauntlet is on All Star, the qualifying seeds of RTTP are on All Star. right? are there two different types of All Star that I am unaware of? So a guy with low 3pt rating can go 3-6 in Gauntlet. Likewise in RTTP. I get it. Low Difficulty settings are root of bad gameplay and it causes things like this to happen. In an arcade mode such as Gauntlet...I cant complain about it, because again, low settings is what allow shots to go in at a higher percentage. Here is what I do complain about if you check my threads.....why then can you have that happen in several games and in the same games you have Steph or Kyrie go 3-15? Low Difficulty SHOULD mean basically a free-for-all NBA Jam style setting. When you have guys like Mullin that cant buy a 3 sometimes while some other guy who has a sub 70 rating goes 3-6 or you have a guy with a high 70 or low 80 rating go 5-5, then there is another factor involved BESIDES LOW DIFFICULTY SETTINGS. Low Difficulty should be a two-way street.

the same thing happens in low seeds in RTTP and Chillipalmer has concurred with this. he says it happens in every seed. the shot making is easily explained once again by the All Star setting, but that doesnt explain how players start losing the ball all of a sudden and missing every wide open shot. It seems like there are a lot of convenient excuses for this. If its in low seed its difficulty settings that are the culprit. If its on Superstar, then its either in our heads or its the badges. BTW, a lot of the points you make are excellent and certainly have validity....like the personality badges in the 4th quarter, definitely a good point but these type of out-of-hand runs happen when there is only 1 silver player on the roster and a team full of bronze cards.

Now, to close my point and "theory" as you say....

Whether its true or not...an equalizer would exist to keep the casual interested. We should be able to agree on that point. You said you dont think the devs would lie about this.....I dont know why they wouldnt. It behooves them to deny such a thing exists. We should be able to agree on that as well. It just wouldnt make sense for them to admit to this. I was playing a game this morning. Up by 15 at half, they made a lil run in the 3rd, which was expected, then it was back and forth. I was up by 20 at one point and they came back with maybe 6. In the 4th quarter they were only down by about 6 and I took over and won by 20. I could tell something distinctly about my opponent. He never lost his cool and he played smart the entire game. He may not have been quite as good as I was defensively and that was the difference.

I usually dont get this strong comeback vibe from players who are somewhat on my skill level that play smart. I get it from the ones who go into rage mode when they get down and they start jacking up contested shots, turboing around the court, and speeding towards the offensive player and jumping/reaching as a means of defense. Had the person today started to do this they couldve tied the game up and possibly won had I lost my cool but it felt like a normal NBA ebb and flow game.

Its geared towards casuals. When they start turbo-charging towards you and reaching/bumping, you somehow start losing the ball. When they start taking 30' fallaways they start going in. They start getting a host of And-1s out of the blue. Rubberbanding is not what I have an issue with. Low Difficulty settings is another issue on its own. My issue is I feel there is an invisible hand in play that go along with the other things mentioned. That invisible hand rewards players for dumb, illogical, and unrealistic play if the cpu senses there is a clear divide in the skill level of the two participants.

[ChiliPalmer]

Quote: Originally Posted by QNo

Why would PC be completely different? It's the exact same game. We get the exact same roster updates at the same time etc. Same patches, except for some PC specific hotfixes. There is no difference. Why would they recode a game for a much smaller community, but ship the same game on the two big systems? Once again, you quote me trying to make a point but you're not making any point whatsoever. If you perceive tension between the two quotes, I don't see it and it's by no means obvious, so you should flesh it out. A book like this would do you a world of good.

wow, now im impressed, you can link a book from amazon.
and you think now everyone refers it to you. and that title sound really complicated, you really read that many letters? You probably right, now that i know you've read this book (^) i believe in your theories too.

I can link a book for you to start with too http://www.amazon.com/Many-Adventure...=operasport-20

You ask the wrong questions and that is why you a little away from a logical track. No1 has any proof for any of our theories. But i dont wanna sound "excessively nitpicky" like you stated in the other thread when you discovered you are wrong.

EDT: regarding your well thought out badges theory: There are all star teams and classic teams in PNO and any other mode so you are drawing your logical conclusions from a wrong standpoint. But glad you had that book. Im sure Ernst Tugendhat would be proud of you. Or slap you with "the adventures of Winnie the Pooh".

[synistr]

Quote: Originally Posted by QNo

I think that these issues can be traced back mostly to the low difficulty setting and the badge system, which is not designed to work with stacked teams. FWIW, the badge system in general is one of my bigger MT gameplay concerns, the ability to badge everybody out and add badges to players leads to a number of problems, too.

Really? I am not being sarcastic, but I would be interested in hearing your breakdown on this in a separate thread. I am definitely a proponent of badges, but would love to hear about the cons and alternative system that would enhance gameplay. (no badges perhaps?)

[ChiliPalmer]

Quote: Originally Posted by synistr

Really? I am not being sarcastic, but I would be interested in hearing your breakdown on this in a separate thread. I am definitely a proponent of badges, but would love to hear about the cons and alternative system that would enhance gameplay. (no badges perhaps?)

If you take away badges, bread&butter snipes for a lot of kids will be gone. They will ****storm 2k lol. Also, i like the badge system which might already be established as well. Gives you something to do in this boring mode. Idt it has anything to do with momentum swings, nor standard badges neither personality badges. You can play with All Star teams in any other head to head mode or teamup where you have all these badges as well.

[QNo]

synistr, thanks for being so reasonable and thoughtful, this way we can have an actual debate that might lead somewhere. I'm very much open to changing my mind about this, I just haven't seen any evidence or even good reason to assume that there is a comeback engine. I haven't played much Gauntlet since I can't stand the mode, so I'm afraid that I can't speak much to it. The one point that is relevant is that there are indeed different levels of All-Star difficulty, 3 to be exact: All-Star Casual, All-Star Default, and All-Star Simulation. You can go to practice mode/freestyle and shoot with these settings, you'll notice that it's easiest to make shots on Casual, then Default, then Simulation. All of the MyCareer badge grinders play most of their games on Rookie/Casual, for example.

I've seen your posts about their being a switch in Gauntlet if the lineups are too different. It could be that they give you different sliders if your OVRs are too different, or something like that. I believed that to be the case in RTTP for a while last year, too. But when I realised that 5th seed was set to Pro/Default and the 2/1 seed to SS/Default, I figured that playing 2 difficulty settings apart would be enough to account for that BS. There are ways to test this on PC, namely with the CheatEngine. But I've never used that. Maybe I'll make a throwaway 2k account if I'm bored someday and play around with this stuff.

RTTP is set to Default, not Simulation. So Superstar in RTTP isn't the same difficulty setting as Superstar in PNO, which I believe exacerbates some of the issues we're having. All decent online leagues use HoF/Sim as their setting for a reason, and have done so for years. So there's a kind of progression to the different online modes: Gauntlet is All-Star/Casual, RTTP ranges from Pro/Default to Superstar/Default, PNO is SS/Sim, online leagues are usually set to HoF/Sim.

As to the keeping the casual interested argument: I can sort of see this, and not see it in a different manner. If this was indeed present in MT but not in PNO, the argument could be that 2k wants the bad players to be helped in the pay to win modes. But then again, why isn't this a complain in the Park/Pro-Am community? Isn't that the most popular mode and the one that attracts the biggest fanbase? They're trying to make 2k an esport now, where such a mechanic obviously doesn't have any place. FWIW, Park and Pro-AM are also on different difficulty settings, with Pro-AM being on HoF. So 2k is consistent insofar as they set those modes that are more casual on lower difficulty settings.

The devs don't comment on a lot of things about gameplay mechanics, they generally keep this stuff to themselves. So why would they come out and lie about this particular issue rather than just saying nothing? I'm not saying that I trust them 100%, but I don't really have a reason not to believe them on this one.

[QNo]

Quote: Originally Posted by synistr

Really? I am not being sarcastic, but I would be interested in hearing your breakdown on this in a separate thread. I am definitely a proponent of badges, but would love to hear about the cons and alternative system that would enhance gameplay. (no badges perhaps?)

I like the idea of badges, but there are a number of problems with its implementation. To start with, some badges like the Crasher ones or Eraser don't seem to serve a point. We already have rebounding and Block ratings, so why do we need additional badges?

Other badges such as Killer Crossover make more sense, as it's a much more specific skill and two players with high ball control may be differently adept at using a Crossover. The same with personality badges, Dirk shouldn't be the same player in the clutch as he is during the rest of the game, hence the Closer badge.

More generally, there are a lot of badges in this game, which by itself makes itself prone to balancing issues, as a lot of badges tie in with a lot of ratings and even other badges. Then, all badges can have 3 different levels, which further complicates these things.

You sometimes hear PNO guys complain that teams like Cleveland or the Warriors can always come back against good teams. This might in part be explained by someone like LeBron having all these badges. Here's a list of LeBron's relevant (not all) personality badges and their descriptions:


Alpha Dog
Steps his game up when his teammates are performing poorly.

Road Dog
Elevates his play when playing in road games.

Prime Time
Elevates his play in games of great significance.

Closer
Steps his game up in the 4th quarter and overtime when the game is close

Fierce Competition
Elevates his game when being outplayed or instigated.

Swagger
Gets himself going by making big plays.

Mentor
Gets younger players focused in on the game when they commit mistakes.

Heart and Soul
Rallies team when things are getting out of hand. Helps team stay focused.

Floor General
An offensive leader who can make his team better on offense by being on the court.

Defensive Anchor
Defensive leader who can make his teammates better defensively.

Hardened
A tough player that will play through fatigue and inury without experiencing a sever drop in skill.

Some of these only apply to him, but a lot of them apply to the rest of his team, too. Imagine the Cavs are down 8 early in the 4th in New York. His Floor General, Defensive Anchor, and Road Dog have been active all game, giving everybody on his team a boost. Since his team is down and people are missing shots, Alpha Dog, Mentor, Heart and Soul get activated, too. Melo has been outscoring him, so Fierce Competitor gets activated. Since we're approaching Crunch Time, Closer gets activated (I believe it's the last 4 minutes).

So at this point, LeBron has boosted himself with 4 badges, Road Dog, Alpha Dog, Fierce Competitor, and Closer. He has also boosted his teammates with 4 badges, Floor General, Defensive Anchor, Mentor, Heart and Soul. Now, down 8 with 4 minutes to go, LeBron gets a steal that leads to a fastbreak dunk. This activates the Swagger badge, which not only gets himself going and gives himself a red ring, but boosts the 8 personality badges we've already listed, thus boosting himself and his teammates even further. So suddenly everybody on that team plays a lot better because of all these badges kicking in. And these are only the badges of one player.

When it comes to MyTeam, the problem in the higher seeds is that everybody has 4-5 awesome players with awesome (personality) badges on the floor. We have seen how badges can give the Cavs a big boost, now imagine the same thing, except with the 4 other players also having great badges.

If the badge system is balanced for PNO, it is easy to see how having 5 LeBron type players on the floor can create a hot mess. There is reason to believe that the badge system is already unbalanced in PNO, especially since a lot of lesser teams and players don't get the kind of attention and thus badges from 2k as the big teams. But it is clearly very unbalanced in MyTeam.

On top of this, there are more MyTeam specific problems with badges. In PNO badges can't be upgraded or added, which creates more diversification. Every good MyTeam squad will have most gold badges on most of their players, which can make them significantly more effective than their PNO-counterparts. And you can add badges (and shoes) to address your players' weaknesses, too.

Brick Wall is one of the better badges in the game, it makes sense to give it to all of your bigs and most of your perimeter players. Dimer is especially overpowered. But most of all, Perimeter Lockdown Defender is completely OP. It counters over a dozen offensive badges and attributes each and really allows you to turn a poor defender into a decent or even good defender. Every single perimeter player on your squad should have this, bar none. Eraser is almost as good on perimeter players, too, as it lowers the frequency with which people driving to the rim make their shots.

So, really, the current badge system allows you to mask your guys biggest weaknesses and ensures that you've got no terrible defenders on your squad. There's no reason to play a 3 and D guy who's a good defender and ok shooter over one who's an ok defender and good shooter, since adding gold PLD will mostly negate this difference in defensive ability. It also is much cheaper than adding a bunch of shooting badges and there's the issue of empty slots being limited, too.