The FUNDAMENTAL issue with 2k17's AI Defense

[Bornindamecca]

Disclaimer: I have not had any trouble scoring against the AI. This is a discussion about how the defense thinks, not how difficult it is.

Gonna keep this short and simple. So much of the power went into stopping one-on-one penetration and passing into the middle, but the AI is pretty oblivious to switching situations and helping situations. I like the extra contact when it plays out well, though a lot of the recovery and warping just doesn't look good or realistic. But why is this happening? It's happening to stop people from spamming dribble moves and getting into the paint.

What happens if you can get past your defender either one on one or via the pick and roll? You score. One pass. MAYBE two passes. But that's now how good NBA defenses work. Great recovery is about great rotation, not the ability to stay in front of highly skilled, highly athletic ball handlers. If you could just stick a guy in front of Dame or Harden, defensive coaches would have a pretty easy job.

The defenses are supposed to plan for the breakdown, help, recover and when all else fails and you have to bend, give up third or fourth option the offense has. It all starts with dedicating more resources to strong areas of the court, not great on ball D, and certainly not seeing your big man defending a skilled perimeter player and thinking "it's okay, he's got that."

Great on ball D is a rarity and buffing the AI on ball recovery for the league makes it less special when we face Kawhi or Tony Allen.

They either send help or pack the paint, depending on the personnel and situation. I love the focus on punishing lazy interior pass attempts(though I hate the beach ball pass, fix that FIRST), but either in a patch or next year we need the devs to focus on great defenses being better at help, switching, rotation and giving up the lower percentage option. Less on unrealistic collisions and speed boosts.

Disclaimer II: I know how to break down the AI one-on-one. Change speeds, use your combos, don't user Turbo unless the combo requires it or you have a clear lane. It's not that hard. The thing is, the current system doesn't respect athleticism enough. The AI relies on cheats in several situations. I've watched the replays in slow motion and I can see exactly where and how the cheats are happening. This is a band aid covering up a lack of switching, help and rotation logic.

[The 24th Letter]

Great stuff as always Born...

[jfsolo]

I was afraid of this. It would seem that they weren't able to solve these defensive A.I. problems that plagued the game last year. This is an essential part of how NBA defense is played.

When I was watching the Sam Pham dribble video, I kept noticing how anemic the help D was on most of those possessions, but I didn't want to hijack that thread, by bringing it up. Harden was allowed to iso, over and over again, with very few adjustments by the CPU defense on HOF.

[Americas Team]

The cpu recovery speed is too fast once they get beat and or the ball handlers are too slow with the ball, I did some replays, they are not warping back in front of the ball handler they just take a good angle with a speed boost to get back in front of the ball handler. I think either the ball handler needs more speed, or the ability to body off the defender from behind, or slow down the defender's recovery speed.

[bamalam]

"...we need the devs to focus on great defenses being better at help, switching, rotation and giving up the lower percentage option. Less on unrealistic collisions and speed boosts."

agreed-

[DonWuan]

Its simple. Cpu defense sticks like glue. Recovery and speed boost is just crazy. I thought for a second 50/50 balls were back. I was wrong, ball snaps to cpu hands.

Your cpu teammates are on rookie, and will consistently be bounced around like a rag doll. They will get stuck behind other players for no reason. They dont contest/or correctly play passing lane. Automatic foul if anything is caught under the rim no matter pg-C.

They have no issue leaving Curry open/ or guy under rim.

[BegBy]

My issue with this year, as always, is on ball defense and the physicality. This year it just seems a lot more pronounced.

The body checking and stumbling animations I see at least 20 times a game have got to be toned down. You don't see that type of play barely that often in a month of NBA games, but I'll see it in one full game of 2K.

One on one defense is not what NBA defense is about and making defenders lightning fast and nearly psychic is just a really ugly way of implementing defense in this game.

I've said for years, and I'll say it again - the 2K series needs to take it's finished product and dial back everything by a significant margin. We don't need iso moves that take up the entire key. Getting by your guy could and should be as simple as having a shoulder in front of your guy. You don't need to get 8 feet of separation to be able to work. It makes the court seem smaller because the animations literally take up too much real estate.

Here's to hoping that better defensive rotations can be patched in. Here's to also hoping that one on one situations receive dramatic improvement. Speed boosts, inhuman recovery times, slow played out animations for the ball handler, etc will stop scoring (to some extent) but it certainly does not make for an immersive simulation sports game.

[JKSportsGamer1984]

Great thread! I hope the 2K devs see this. This is something I complained about at nauseum last year. While I don't think it is a bad as 2K16, the problem is still there. I appreciate the amount of sliders 2K gives us to try & mask some of these issues, but like the OP said it's only a bandaid. That said, I'm really enjoying the game with my slider set but hopefully 2K can address some of these issues in a patch. One of my main issues is players still get that stuck in mud feel when trying to blow by a defender after beating him off the dribble. 2K needs to work on making animations independent of each other. Also the defensive AI definitely needs improvement. Defenders are helping at the wrong times leaving deadly shooters wide open way too often.