No Such Thing As " Fair Play"

[capitolrf]

I been playing 2K since the Dreamcast days. What I noticed in 2K through all these years is there is no such thing as “fair play”. Meaning every user who picks up the controller, are at a certain skill set whether it’s stick skill, basketball knowledge or knowing how to manipulate exploits in the game. The problem with 2K is, they have to make a choice on do you give the user complete control of his player (basically giving him the freedom to do whatever his mind creates i.e. the notorious “zig-zag move”) or do we install pre-determined animations that will combat unrealistic movement. Of course things like ball tangibility, physics etc.. will improve greatly as the series continue. But the biggest problem that trumps everything is how do you achieve “Fair Play” to accommodate the masses.

By adding these pre-determined animation it takes away the user freedom to control a situation. For ex. In order to stop “zig-zag” your man will get an auto-hesi animation to slow him down (not the defense slowing him down, but an animation). Which I guess is good to stop the back & forth movement of a zig-zag, but if you decide to run a P&R and switch direction you will get that same auto-hesi animation to slow you down. But why add the pre-determined animation in the first place, when does user skill come into play as a defender? So many people complained they couldn’t stop zig-zag cheese (even though there are vids to stop it, but can you as the user do it becomes the problem a la stick skills), in order to stop it, a universal animation was implemented to tone it down. But the game engine only recognizes the back & forth movement, not the context it is being used. So we all suffer.

They’re plenty of examples like this in the game from making your PG stutter step to slow him down from running in transition, to making a defender able to suck you into an animation to make you come to a complete stop (jumping for a pumpfake & your ball handler can’t even move past him till the animation plays out of him landing on you.). There’s no need to name them all or this will be a long post, but the point is that we will never have the game we want as “Sim Ballers”. Only way is to let freedom ring allowing you to break any animation & get rid of predetermined animation to stop exploits. But if that was to ever happen, what comes of it when it’s in the hands of an “exploiter” it will only lead to people saying “I can’t stop this, this is broke”. Most users just pick up & play, they’re not playing “sim ball”, so in 2K eyes the majority sees the game as being broke. But for us “sim ballers” using it the right way it can be a beautiful gaming experience.

Basketball is read & react, you will never know how a player will react to a situation spontaneously. I think the game is getting there, but the fact still remains. Do you give users full control & allow them to do anything they desire or do we add these stop gap animations so user control won’t seem overpowered.

What would you guys like to see?

Full Control – where anything is possible, but can be exploited in the wrong hands.
or
Stop Gaps – predetermined animations that will combat movement that seems exploitative.

I would like full control, cause I would rather have my players move they way i want them too even if it means playing against an opponent who can exploit it. When it's all said & done we all are not on the same skill level, so there is really no such thing as "Fair Play". I can live with that.

[TheDuggler]

We can have 1:1 control over our players online when 2K servers aren't total garbage. Animations make it so that playing with a .5 second delay isn't a death sentence and my players will automatically do what I am desperately trying to get them to do.

[cablexdeadpool]

The problem with Zig Zag cheese was the fact you could not move your players the way you want to.

Sure in the Park, you can guard zig zag cheese just by staying on one side of a player. The lag there isn't as bad as on Online Ranked matches.

In Online Ranked Matches, due to the lag, it was nearly impossible. So you just let the computer do the guarding cause the computer has no lag

When a user zig zags he is taking advantage of input lag. He isn't doing anything unique or special with the ball, the problem is a user on defense cannot move side to side that fast like a user on offense can.

I mean Zig Zag is just moving the stick back and forth, it takes no skill what so ever.

The reason 2k is animation heavy I think is due to laziness. They been needing to overhaul their system for a while now.

[BegBy]

Great thread! I'd prefer total control. I want NBA realism. I'm tired of these unrealistic animations. I'm tired of even acceptable animations being too exaggerated and long. The perimeter contact is quite literally laughable and that's only outdone by the cpu defensive reaction time and physics defying abilities.

I want what I watch when I watch an NBA game. At the risk of sounding selfish - I don't care how that affects online players. It's not because I don't care, necessarily, but it's that you can make every online player swear on their momma that they won't be the guy who exploits, but as soon as that game starts you better be ready to start attending funerals at an alarming rate. That's the truth. Period. People do what they need to in order to win. Especially if they are placed at a disadvantage by picking a certain team or that their opponent is exploiting.

This game needs a sim offline mode and another mode or set of modes to please everyone, but with drastically different gameplay. That's the kicker...different gameplay. Patching something to help out online guys will at times change the offline simulation experience and vice versa.

Aside from that they need to start fixing legacy issues and some stale gameplay. I mean, NBA bigs do not move like they do in game. I see 70 year old people navigate congested crowds better than how some of the players with anything less than 70 speed and acceleration move in this game. The 2kanimations are good when they're on point, but are about as bad imaginable when they're not.

Tighten up controls. Tune down the exaggerated everything. Give us control. Be NBA.

[Pokes404]

I'm not going to argue that the movement system is perfect, but I like it. Years ago, Madden used to have a great locomotion system. Players felt like they had some actual weight to them, and momentum played a factor into what you could do. Then the PS3/XB360 came around and they decided to "tighten" the controls to be more favorable for online play. The result was twichy, unnatural movements that made it look more like a bunch of hummingbirds zipping around out on the field instead of 200-300 pound human beings.

Remember the overpowered recovery speed by humans/CPU on defense a few years ago? Remember the psychic computers who would stop on a dime and steal what should have been an easy pass in transition? Those are staples of having a locomotion system that isn't punishing enough on weight/momentum. Players stop feeling like real people and start feeling more like video game characters.

Again, I'm not trying to say that what we have now is perfect, but I much prefer a game where the players have a sense of weight to them. Overly twitchy player movement was one of the biggest reasons I switched from Live to 2K years ago. I wouldn't mind 2K finding a way to make players feel a little more explosive (especially out of the triple threat), but I don't want to see 2K lose their emphasis on weight/physics/momentum. The biggest problem I had with 2K's movement was with the overly long animations that you couldn't break out of. Fortunately, they've shorten up, or taken out, a lot of these over the years.