NBA 2K15's Mike Wang Answers Your Questions (Interview)

[RaychelSnr]

NBA 2K15 Gameplay Director Mike Wang took to the Operation Sports forums this month to answer questions about this year's game.

Because that forum thread now contains hundreds of posts, I extracted the most interesting and important questions and answers for this piece.

I broke it down based on topics, including dribbling, player movement, game controls, and more.

Thanks to Mike for taking the time, jersez for starting the conversation, and all the Operation Sports Forums users who participated in the discussion.

Read More - NBA 2K15's Mike Wang Answers Your Questions (Interview)

[jersez]

Thanks for updating it, Thread got derailed pretty fast but good stuff, glad we could do the Q&A for three straight years.

[bxfinest15]

I guess that answers why the teammate AI is so dumb and get killed by the opposing AI every damn time... Damn shame. This is my last purchase of 2K, they've become so sloppy and non caring since getting rid of Live.

[Nathan_OS]

Re: NBA 2K15's Mike Wang Answers Your Questions (Interview)

Still really no answers on fouls. Welp.

[extremeskins04]

Yea but it's not just about the teammate AI trying to "cooperate" with you and give you assists or the AI not taking shots. It's more about the AI being absolutely terrible when they do take shots completely missing wide open looks when they have 80+ attribute in that particular type of shot.

This was a good read, but there is definitely something wrong with the teammate AI. Dwight Howard becomes completely stupid in MyPlayer but he's a baller in MyLeague. He can't make a rebound to save his life in MyPlayer.

[coached17]

Interesting stuff. I was able to learn a few things...and see that these guys take this seriously.

I still think there are some major issues...especially when it comes to player speed/turbo, zig-zagging, and PG control coming up the court and at the top of the key. It's hard to defend in the game, which is fine...but almost impossible to defend a PG as he brings the ball down the court. It's almost like they have some sort of boost.

The only thing I don't like is how he says you should just gap off on defense in order to not get beat. That sounds great...and I agree with it in theory. The problem is if you do that against human players you will just get 50 prefect release 3's drilled in your face because of the new shot meter.

So...if we want to actually be able to play defense on the ball in this game it means we're going to get 50 3's drilled in our face every game. Uh...you do see the problem here, right?

[burter]

The reason the AI acts dumb on defense is because the movement of your myplayer is unrealistic so your teammates have to cover your guy because of this. I hardly ever use turbo to begin with, especially on defense for all the 2k games I have played, yet this year it's like the turbo button is auto locked on. I never seen guys move soooo stupid playing D. And holding down the left trigger (xbox controller) makes it worse. From what I can tell just using the joy stick without any thing else pressed works best. Using anything else and your guy just slips and slides all over the court on defense(still does with just the joystick if you do not just tap the joystick, tap, tap, FREAKING TAP). It's a joke to me.

With Madden I'm upset but I understand they just never have done a good job so I never expect anything different, but with 2k bball I'm pi**ed out of my mind because it was close to perfect all these years, than they decided to do this crap. Not to mention I can't even use custom rosters in my offline career mode(unless I'm doing something wrong).

[coopsta007]

They need to patch the missing in-game stat menus ASAP.

[bxfinest15]

I just sent a Google Doc to Ronnie that he "says he's forwarding to the gameplay devs" who knows? but yeah he took the diplomatic and business route in answering these questions, it was nothing genuine. SMH I think it's time for some staff changes over at 2K because it's gotten progressively worse over the years which is much backwards. Teammates get killed on the boards every night despite maybe having a better rebounding team, the same shots the opposing team makes ours can't and we get no foul calls on blatant pushes in the back... They need specific AI sliders and teammate AI sliders or just get back to basics like before in previous games where stats were actually correct. Seems like ever since Sliders got integrated the games got tainted.

[bxfinest15]

Burter I noticed that too... Just playing D with no or little turbo and not hitting the lock on D button works best and that's stupid as **** but that's 2K for you.

[BezO]

Re: NBA 2K15's Mike Wang Answers Your Questions (Interview)

I missed asking MW directly, but maybe someone else can help.

I've always had trouble exploding out of dribble moves. I saw MW's answer to exploding out of size up dribbles, and sweet, it works great.

Problem is I often want to explode out of a simple crossover, between the legs or in & out dribble. Still can't putll it off.

My question is, is it not possible to explode out of these basic dribble moves or am I not timing it correctly? If it's a timing thing, I'd appreciate the help on the appropriate timing.

[badmrfrosty7]

Good info and good to know they're working on what they can in the upcoming patch. These attentions to detail get me excited about future iterations (the body contact, to shot release mechanics for instance).

Couple of takeaways though:

--- On My Career AI - A: The biggest difference between your AI teammates and your AI opponents is there are certain bonuses and influences in place to make your teammates "cooperate" with you, and in the case of MyCareer, involve you more than they normally might another AI teammate of the same caliber. This is done in an attempt to make playing MyCareer more interesting for the average user. So AI teammates might shoot shots they'd normally pass up because you're telling them to shoot or because they're trying to help you get assists.


I think this is the reason I eventually can't stand MyCareer. My player becomes a star (even though I'm rated in the low 70s) because the team already revolves around my player essentially from the start. I wish they'd give you the option at least to have default AI versus MyCareer-focused AI because the experience could be potentially more interesting for players that want to feel like part of an NBA team and not strictly a superstar. But I should also probably give up on this ever being a sim mode.


---- Q: Can you explain shot fatigue? When does it kick in?
A: There are two types of shot fatigue, jump shot and collision. The jump shot fatigue looks at the player's real life FGA stat and as soon as the player has exceeded the avg. number of FGAs, the %'s start to drop. The penalties can be pretty severe if you go way over the player's real life stats so be careful. Collision fatigue is a cumulative fatigue that drains with each successive collision in the paint (both body ups and contact shots.) The contact shot %'s drop a little bit each time there's a collision and it adds up over the course of the game.


We definitely saw an example of shot/contact fatigue irl for Russell Westbrook last night. Hit everything and looked unstoppable for the first 2-1/2 to 3 quarters, but with the combination of playing that relentlessly, getting little rest (due to a thin bench), playing stellar defense against Lillard, and getting little offensive help (someone else who can create their own shot), all of the same spectacular pull-ups and contact lay-ins weren't falling anymore down the stretch.

The biggest thing to adding it to the game though is I think it has to have some sort of indicator, just like fatigue. Otherwise, there might as well not be a fatigue meter either and play it close to real life in that respect also by gauging who the player is (age, condition), their minutes, etc.

Overall I like the idea of shot fatigue. Playing 12 minute quarters, I like the idea of having to mix up my play-calling and riding various hot hands when possible while managing rotations, so that I don't have players tired or cold down the stretch. It's very realistic in that sense. However the game should guide users to such strategies because it could go a long way to both educating gamers on sports strategy, as well as really sell the depth and realism to 2k's gameplay.

[bxfinest15]

BezO there's still too many animations tied with dribbling to me so it's hard to do some of those things. I think certain departments from 2K and Live should come together because they both have areas in which one outshines the other

[badmrfrosty7]

Still really no answers on fouls. Welp.

Does this not answer that or are there other foul concerns? I'd assume this would mean foul calls will be closer to normal whenever the big patch hits.

Q: Will something be done to 2K15 to improve contact recognition on gameplay animations? We all know the current issue with the low amount of foul calls during gameplay.

A: I'm working on this right now for the next patch. For now, crank your shooting foul sliders to the max.

[bxfinest15]

Exactly... Too much work put into storylines and not enough into gameplay... I mean storylines is cool but perfect the gameplay first and it's sad to see that these NBA don't have much input into the gameplay being that they're the ones that actually know the game in and out and how things flow and another thing is in what game unless it's a blow out which doesn't come much often do you see a team shooting 60 plus % from the floor and like 50% on threes for a game? This should be something that should never be an issue even just looking and basing it off average stats.