What do you want from ACE in 2K18?

[Impetuous65]

1. ACE Def. Schemes need an in depth tutorial just like Madden or you are just blowing in the wind, without the knowledge to participate intelligently in the scheme.

2. Defensive Icons similar to the offensive play art Lite Icons, this will help you know what to do in the scheme. The player you control has an Icon over its head.

3. ACE "on the fly" menu system needs to work and they should not include it in the game if it doesn't work.

4. I don't want them to add any more schemes to the game until they can explain the ones they already have in the game. Sometimes "LESS is MORE".

5. Def. ACE Assign Plays. They need to find a way to include in the Team profile what type of Defense this team plays versus a certain player type, so you can select the personnel and defensive scheme you want to play and you can practice that scheme so you get familiar with its ins and outs.

[Smirkin Dirk]

I agree. ACE needs to be more transparent, both as a teaching tool and an advertising feature.

There is a heap going on under the hood. I have to go into instant replay a lot to notice things. Im sure there is a heap I miss. I'd love to see blogs, more video tutes and it to be featured in the game's promo stuff. It's what sets 2K apart from other sports games.

Below is a really brief example. Watch the way CPU Houston defends the same play in consecutive possessions. They hedge on Paul both times; 1st play Beverly rotates off Redick and I find JJ with the skip pass. Next time, it's Ariza dropping off Mbah a Moute. That's pretty damn good; seeing this stuff is a sim heads dream.

[tcnumba10]

I agree that CPU teammates should always be aware of where the ball is and should have their back facing the ball handler ever. Bigs should always be around the paint protecting the basket to prevent those cheesy bullet passes that ends up as a basket/foul for the opposing CPU team.

Also the opposing CPU team offense should be programmed so that they don't perform those half-court passes into the paint for an easy score or those bullet passes which results in a high Points in the Paint for them.

[clinthc0003]

Experimentation
One simple thing I would like to see is for us to have the full package of ACE in the Scrimmage mode. One of my biggest pet peeves earlier this year was we had nowhere to really experiment with the system without dealing with the CPU calling timeouts, fouls getting called, shot clock, etc. This particularly hurt our knowledge of the defensive system early on in the game cycle (as can be seen from the early posts in the Defensive Wiki and Youtube tutorials).

What I mean by this is I want the full package that we have available in-game including all of the Coach Gameplan options (Defensive Settings, Matchups, etc.), all of the ACE defensive packages that are accessible (Shrink the Floor, Switch Everything, Junk etc.), and anything that is only available in the Timeout menu that we don't have access to elsewhere.

I know the automatic portion of ACE still works in this mode since you still see the CPU start doubling and adjusting when you spend a little bit of time in the mode.

It's a complex system and we need a playground to experiment with it... especially if we have to rely on the rare streams from DaCzar and ScottOG to learn anything about it again next year.

Transparency
Another thing is that I would love to be able to play the game with ACE on automatic and still know what is going on. Replace the useless "fake coach" we get in timeouts with a menu that tells us what the coach wants us to do on P&R coverage, pressure, etc. I feel like we can get this with the offensive side of the ball, but once again the defense is really lacking here.

Rotations
One other thing that I think could fall into this category is the substitution rotations that the CPU uses. We know that an easy to use system is in place since we all have access to it in MyLeague. Included with the Playbook and Freelance updates we get throughout the year, I would like to see 2K scout the rotations/lineups that teams are actually using in the NBA and implement them in the game. When I play against the CPU, I want to see the same lineups I see on TV every night. Furthermore, this could prevent us from having to manage our team's substitutions throughout the game to get realistic results.

[Smirkin Dirk]

Quote: Originally Posted by clinthc0003

Experimentation One simple thing I would like to see is for us to have the full package of ACE in the Scrimmage mode. One of my biggest pet peeves earlier this year was we had nowhere to really experiment with the system without dealing with the CPU calling timeouts, fouls getting called, shot clock, etc. This particularly hurt our knowledge of the defensive system early on in the game cycle (as can be seen from the early posts in the Defensive Wiki and Youtube tutorials).

Yep I love this one. If they won't go the route of full tutorials allowing use use of all the settings in scrimmage/practise plays would make it easier to figure out.

[Smirkin Dirk]

After watching Harrison Barnes come around a double screen along the baseline for an iso for the 1,000,000th time this year, I was wondering if giving us the option of designating 5 plays in each teams playbook to be favourites would help bring out team tendencies even more?

And CPU teams can run these plays more than others.

[jk31]

I'd love to be able to enable/disable ACE for offense and defense separately. I like what ACE brings to the table on offense, but on defense, I rather set up the defensive adjustments myself than relying on the AI to do it for me.

[infemous]

Really nice post and I think a lot of these are very do-able and I hope are already being worked on!

Regarding the line ups, I think they could save so much time if you could just set 5 line ups and you can rotate them in and out at Time Outs. They would be numbered, or you could name them. I've seen something similar when selecting Line Ups in play now online, but its only for the beginning of the game.

So you can set your starters:
PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Porter
PF - Morris
C - Gortat

Bench:
PG - Burke
SG - Satoransky
SF - Oubre Jr.
PF - Smith
C - Mahimi

Spread:
PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Oubre Jr.
PF - Porter
C - Smith

etc. etc.

I would still maintain the option to utilise advanced rotations, but I find that having to manually go through the whole rotation before every game incredibly boring and time consuming.

We could then let ACE decide which lineup is most suitable in game based off of minute allocations, match ups, hot and cold-ness and fatigue - or, conversely, select it ourselves.

Additionally, I would like Ace or the AI, when Late Game Fouling is set to ON, to be able to stop fouling when down by 8 with 3 seconds to go, or at least let the auto late game fouling easy to toggle on and off in the time out menu. Its annoying doing and going against it when playing online, and pausing the game frequently is bad etiquette IMO.