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27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

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Old 02-11-2017, 08:09 AM   #9
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

Yea, pretty much all of this needs to happen to some degree, to make this whole thing next-level.

Good post.
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Old 02-11-2017, 10:27 AM   #10
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung

Anyone who watched last weekend's Pro Am tournament likely noticed that the mode has a lot of adjustments to make before its gameplay begins to resemble the type of flowing, carefully orchestrated basketball that's being played in today's NBA.

Here are some major and minor steps that Visual Concepts' developers could take to bring the mode closer to reality, and further away from the lead pass forcing, posterizer dunking, ankle snapping, screen spamming, zig-zag dribbling, three-point chucking playstyles that dominate the upper divisions of 2K17's Pro Am leaderboards:

1) Instead of the standing shot rating and moving shot rating that players have in 2K17, I'd prefer to see a shoot after catch rating and a shoot after dribble rating in 2K18. The "after catch" rating should activate any time that you shoot after catching a pass, and it should deactivate as soon as you put the ball on the floor to dribble. At that point, the "after dribble" rating should activate, and it should remain active until the ball leaves your hands via a pass, shot, or turnover.

The Catch and Shoot badge could then be redesigned as a way of distinguishing players who have the ability to shoot after the catch while their body is still moving à la J.J. Redick and Kyle Korver. Players like Ryan Anderson and Kevin Love who mostly just shoot after the catch while spotting up or fading a few steps back after setting a ball screen should not have this new Catch and Shoot badge. It should basically be thought of as the "Reggie Miller badge."

The Difficult Shots badge can stay like it is in 2K17, providing an accuracy boost to players who take leaning/spinning/fading/stepback jump shots off the dribble.

2) Take away the artificial accuracy boost that's being awarded for shooting with the right joystick. It should just be a matter of preference whether someone wants to shoot with the face button or shoot with the joystick; there shouldn't be a statistical advantage in using one method over the other. For the people who do use the joystick, bank shots should only happen for shots that are taken from inside the three-point line.

3) Get rid of the "green release" shooting system that guarantees a made basket if your shot timing is perfect. The community proved this year that people are just too good at timing their release points, and if 2K continues rewarding players with an automatic make for having perfect timing, then we'll just have another year of insanely high shooting percentages in the 70s and 80s for sharpshooters, and 60s and 70s for all the other "non-shooting" classes.

To make Pro Am's shooting percentages more realistic, I believe perfect timing should only guarantee that you are shooting to the maximum potential of your player's assigned shot rating. And instead of showing a green/white/red color after a shot, the game should display the likelihood of your shot going in, in a percentage form, à la NBA Live 16.


Based on the current archetype system, here is how I would tune the three-point shooting percentages for perfect releases:

10%
Post Scorers (after dribble), Glass Cleaners (after dribble), Athletic Finishers (after dribble), Paint Protectors (after dribble)

15%
Post Scorers (after catch), Glass Cleaners (after catch), Athletic Finishers (after catch), Paint Protectors (after catch)

20%
Lockdown Defenders (after dribble)

25%
Lockdown Defenders (after catch), Slashers (after catch)

30%
Playmakers (after catch), Point Forwards (after catch), Slashers (after dribble), Stretch Big (after dribble)

35%
Playmakers (after dribble), Point Forwards (after dribble), Sharpshooters (after dribble), Shot Creators (after catch)

40%
Stretch Bigs (after catch)

45%
Sharpshooters (after catch), Shot Creators (after dribble)

4) Give floaters their own rating category and let MyPlayers equip floater animations independently from layup packages.

Also change the timing point on floaters and layups so that a perfect release occurs at the moment the ball leaves the shooter's hand, instead of how it's currently set to the moment the shooter's feet leave the floor.

5) Let MyPlayers equip individual dunk animations one by one instead of grouping multiple dunks into a single equippable package.

The game should also be much stricter in determining which dunks it allows certain archetypes to equip. To offset their tremendous speed with ball advantage, Playmakers should become a non-dunking class that relies on floaters and layups around the basket. All other classes that aren't Slashers or Athletic Finishers should no longer be allowed to equip anything beyond the basic one-hand and two-hand dunks. I'd still let the taller Point Forward builds do basic dunks, but I'd also lower their speed with ball compared to Playmakers to compensate for that added ability.

6) The ability to equip elite dribble animations should also be rarer than it is in 2K17. Only Playmakers, Point Forwards, and smaller Shot Creators should have access to elite dribble moves, since those are the archetypes that currently have Ankle Breaker as one of their five hall of fame badges.

7) On the subject of badges, 2K first needs to remove grand badges and hall of fame badges from Pro Am, since all they have done for 2K17's gameplay is encouraged cheesy tactics and produced cheesy animations.

Secondly, 2K needs to eliminate the tedious unlocking process that is currently required to get badges for your MyPlayer. Pro Am should switch to a loadout-based badge system, à la Call of Duty's perks, where people are forced to make tough choices about which badges they are equipping. MyPlayers should be allowed to select 1 gold badge, 2 silver badges, 3 bronze badges, and 1 personality badge. Users should have the freedom to experiment with many different heights, weights, wingspans, and badge combinations -- these selections should all be editable at any time, not something that becomes permanently locked in once you finish the initial setup for your MyPlayer. Detailed descriptions and exact percentage boosts for each badge need to be available for users to read in the game menus.


Here is how I would split up the badge selection process, based on their current strengths in 2K17:

Pick Three: Dimer, Pick & Roll Maestro, Posterizer, Limitless Range, Difficult Shots, Mid-Range Deadeye, Deep-Range Deadeye, Catch & Shoot, Corner Specialist, Defensive Stopper, Rim Protector, Pick Pocket, Hustle Rebounder, Bruiser

Pick Three: Flashy Passer, Lob City Passer, Lob City Finisher, Tear Dropper, Tireless Scorer, Relentless Finisher, Acrobat, One Man Fastbreak, Charge Card, Pick Dodger, Chasedown Artist, Post Spin Technician, Dreamlike Up & Under, Drop-Stepper, Pick & Roller, Pick & Popper, Putback King, Breakstarter

Pick One: Floor General (only available for Playmakers and Point Forwards), Defensive Anchor (only available for Paint Protectors and Lockdown Defenders), Clutch Performer, Spark Plug, Microwave, Hardened, Enforcer, Alpha Dog, Beta Dog

8) You might have noticed that Ankle Breaker and Brick Wall weren't present on my badge list, and that's because I believe 2K should take all of the Ankle Breaker stumble/fall down and Brick Wall stun/knockdown animations out of the game. These moments rarely happen in real NBA games, yet they happen multiple times on most possessions of Pro Am. The entire offensive meta game in 2K17 revolves around trapping defenders in these unbreakable animations until a shooter has enough space to get off a perfect "green" release. These animations severely punish the defense and require little skill for the offense to perform. Like the WWE had to do in the early 2000s, these animations need to get the F out.


9) To further curtail the rampant abuse of screens in 2K17, reduce the amount of stamina that Bruiser screens drain from defenders. A 50% stamina reduction should be the most that any single screen should setback a defender. Screens from characters who don't have the Bruiser badge shouldn't be very effective, and shouldn't drain more than 15% stamina.

2K also needs to motion capture better screen avoidance animations. The screen recovery animations in 2K17 are too slow and awkward, even for Lockdown Defenders who have the hall of fame Pick Dodger badge.

10) Increase the stamina cost for sprinting with turbo and using right joystick dribble moves. Offensive players can dribble out the entire 24 second clock right now without depleting their stamina bar. A positive side effect of this change is that it would also encourage more ball movement and team play.

11) Make the ball handler automatically pick up his dribble if he doesn't shoot after attempting a sideways hop step or a hesitation stepback animation. This should finally put a stop to the zig-zag dribble patterns that cheesers have been abusing this entire console generation, and should force people to use 2K's amazing arsenal of dribble moves in a way that more closely resembles real basketball.

12) Increase the global lateral quickness slider to the point that the defensive slide animations of a Lockdown Defender are able to keep pace with all of the Playmakers' and Point Forwards' dribble moves. In 2K17, a Lockdown Defender with 94 lateral quickness is still too slow to stay in front of characters who have an 86 or higher ball control rating and are able to speed boost out of any right joystick dribble animation.

13) Decrease the global acceleration and speed of all players while they are upright (i.e., not in a defensive stance) and are sprinting without the ball. 2K's unrealistically fast closeout speeds are one of the main reasons why most people play zone defenses online.

14) Increase pass velocities and speed up/clean up catch animations. Another reason why so many people play zone defense online is because defenders are able to move faster than the ball is able to travel across the court using 2K17's floaty, clunky, drawn-out passing animations.


15) Decrease the number of fouls that are called in situations when the defender just has his left trigger held down and is only trying to stay in front of his man.

Stop bailing out careless ballhandlers who dribble out of bounds with undeserved blocking fouls. The way the game is programmed right now, it's a blocking foul every time in Pro Am if the defender is making contact with the dribbler at the moment he steps out of bounds. Good offensive players know that and will abuse it to draw cheap fouls.

Also stop bailing out out-of-control ballhandlers who try to dribble right through well-positioned defenders with tons of automated shooting foul animations when the defender is just standing in place and holding his ground. These unavoidable shooting foul animations are especially common during baseline drives.

Flagrant fouls should only have a chance of occurring if the defender has contested a shot by pressing turbo and jump simultaneously. Conservative shot contest inputs using the left trigger or right joystick should never result in a flagrant foul.

16) Take all of the predetermined 2-man contact dunk animations out of the game and eliminate the instances where the game forces dunkers to miss open dunks just because a defender happens to be in the vicinity, even though the defender isn't actually making a good shot contest on the dunker. The success/failure of a dunk in traffic should only be determined by realtime collision physics between the dunker, the ball, the rim, and defenders' bodies/limbs.

17) Increase the ball security for big men in the second or two after after they've just come down with a rebound and in all situations where they are posting up on offense. Passes out of the post also need to be tuned so that they stop getting stripped so frequently during attempted pass out animations.


18) Decrease the ball security for perimeter players who are trying to dribble right through the body of a defender. 2K16 did a much better job than 2K17 does of punishing ballhandlers who try to bulldozer directly through defenders. Unfortunately, 2K17 decided to appease all the "bump steal" complainers instead of rewarding the people who stay in front of their man and play good positional defense.

19) Adjust the referees' pathing so that they run closer to the crowd and further away from the sideline to prevent refs from regularly bumping into players who are running along the sideline or spotting up in the corner.

20) Fix whatever issue is causing offensive players to have a faster reaction and better chance of picking up loose balls compared to defensive players, especially in situations where the offensive player who gets the ball back is the same player who got stripped or blocked to begin with.

21) Fix whatever issue is causing alley oop passes to fly straight up into the air and fall back to the floor instead of going into the hands of a nearby open teammate. The arcs of most alley oop passes (even the ones that are successfully completed) are also way too close to the ground and should be traveling much higher up in the air.

22) Fix whatever issue is causing dribblers to euro step and lose the ball out of bounds while trying to make an icon pass to a teammate who's not available to receive the pass.


23) It should be much tougher than it currently is to gain deep inside position in the paint. Offensive cutters with inferior strength ratings will frequently swim past well-positioned defenders, or simply push them backwards until the defender is stuck underneath the rim for an easy posterizer dunk.

There are already animations in the game to deal with this problem, they just don't trigger frequently enough. The defensive "push back" shove animation that stops a cutter in his tracks and knocks him backwards should be triggering consistently whenever the strength ratings are in the defense's favor and a defender is standing squarely between the cutter's path to the rim.

24) Add a controller option that will make your character go for an automated pass interception animation if his body is facing an incoming pass and he has his left trigger held down. This could work just like the "intense defense" automated shot contest option that's already in the game. The success rate of these auto interception animations should be dependent on the defender's hands, reaction, and steal ratings.

25) To avoid uniform clashes, force Pro Am teams to wear white as their primary home jersey color and prevent teams from making white their primary away jersey color.

To eliminate trolling and visual eyesores, all courts should have wood-colored floors, with lines that cannot also be wood-colored. White shouldn't be a color option for the circle above the paint, to prevent people from trolling free throw shooters who have the white shot meter turned on.

26) Improve the matchmaking to where a team of 5 human players will never get matched up with anything less than another team of 5 human players. Teams with 3 or 4 human players should get matched up with each other, not with teams that have a full lineup of 5 human players.

27) Let us zoom out the 2K Camera so that we can see the entire half court regardless of where the ball is at. The weak side of the floor and the top of the key frequently get cut off the screen when you're set up in the half court and are using the 2K Camera, which is the most popular viewpoint in the game.
I absolutely love this list man. Im such a fan of the pick (n) idea similar to COD
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Old 02-12-2017, 08:49 AM   #11
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

They should print this post and pin it at dev's office entrance.

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Old 02-13-2017, 10:12 AM   #12
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

I honestly loved the way Live 16 did the shooting meter with the %.

You can really get a feel for where your hot spots are more organically, during the game.

And the vertical meter leading right up to the shot release is so much better than 2k's system. I hope they borrow it for 2k18.
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Old 02-13-2017, 11:11 AM   #13
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

I agree with a lot. A lot I couldn't care less about.
So I've quoted the stuff I completely disagree with.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung
1) Instead of the standing shot rating and moving shot rating that players have in 2K17, I'd prefer to see a shoot after catch rating and a shoot after dribble rating in 2K18. The "after catch" rating should activate any time that you shoot after catching a pass, and it should deactivate as soon as you put the ball on the floor to dribble. At that point, the "after dribble" rating should activate, and it should remain active until the ball leaves your hands via a pass, shot, or turnover.
lol.... standing shot/moving shot & after catch/after dribble is the exact same thing. You have described exactly how it already works, but want it worded differently. :/
Like changing the 'speed' attribute to 'maximum velocity'..... pointless.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung
5) Let MyPlayers equip individual dunk animations one by one instead of grouping multiple dunks into a single equippable package.

The game should also be much stricter in determining which dunks it allows certain archetypes to equip. To offset their tremendous speed with ball advantage, Playmakers should become a non-dunking class that relies on floaters and layups around the basket. All other classes that aren't Slashers or Athletic Finishers should no longer be allowed to equip anything beyond the basic one-hand and two-hand dunks. I'd still let the taller Point Forward builds do basic dunks, but I'd also lower their speed with ball compared to Playmakers to compensate for that added ability.
No way, ridiculous. So a 6'7" playmaking PG or point forward SF wouldn't be able to dunk?

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung
7) On the subject of badges, 2K first needs to remove grand badges and hall of fame badges from Pro Am, since all they have done for 2K17's gameplay is encouraged cheesy tactics and produced cheesy animations.

Secondly, 2K needs to eliminate the tedious unlocking process that is currently required to get badges for your MyPlayer. Pro Am should switch to a loadout-based badge system, à la Call of Duty's perks, where people are forced to make tough choices about which badges they are equipping. MyPlayers should be allowed to select 1 gold badge, 2 silver badges, 3 bronze badges, and 1 personality badge. Users should have the freedom to experiment with many different heights, weights, wingspans, and badge combinations -- these selections should all be editable at any time, not something that becomes permanently locked in once you finish the initial setup for your MyPlayer. Detailed descriptions and exact percentage boosts for each badge need to be available for users to read in the game menus.
Again, no way..... people changing heights, weight & wingspan between games? maybe the badge thing, but not height etc.
IMO badges should be classed by what difficulty you got them in. The badges people get in rookie shouldn't be as good as badges earned in HOF. 2K should encourage people to play properly on a hard level rather playing like a moron on rookie.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung
11) Make the ball handler automatically pick up his dribble if he doesn't shoot after attempting a sideways hop step or a hesitation stepback animation. This should finally put a stop to the zig-zag dribble patterns that cheesers have been abusing this entire console generation, and should force people to use 2K's amazing arsenal of dribble moves in a way that more closely resembles real basketball.
Game breaker.... you can't just force pick up animations because some people dribble too much and abuse certain moves. Would kill the game completely. Make the shot % go down after a dribble fest but you can't just force pick up animations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jyoung
24) Add a controller option that will make your character go for an automated pass interception animation if his body is facing an incoming pass and he has his left trigger held down. This could work just like the "intense defense" automated shot contest option that's already in the game. The success rate of these auto interception animations should be dependent on the defender's hands, reaction, and steal ratings.
HELL NO!
This is exactly the crap that makes pro-am a nightmare..... the ai players intercepting anything that comes near them. Everyone on defense holds L2.... offense won't be able to pass anywhere. It's just a fix for people who can't play D or are too lazy to play D. Should get rid of the auto block thing too, encourages lazy players..... just hold L2 for good D. Absolutely not!
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Old 02-13-2017, 11:16 AM   #14
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

Quote:
Originally Posted by goldwatch
animations need to be seriously restricted to playstyles and positions. playmakers and sharpshooters shouldn't have access to dunks that slashers and athletic finishers have. there's 0 reason a sharpshooter should be able to equip 360s/cradle dunks/windmills/tomahawks etc. 5'10" playmakers shouldn't have the option to be dunking like westbrook and doing standing dunks in the paint. nate robinson

jumpshots need to be locked too. dudes are out here making stretch bigs and equipping guard jumpers with ridiculous lift and putting the speed as high as it goes. so you have a 7 footers with a hairpin trigger and a jumper that can't even be contested. majority of bigs who shoot are set shooters. bigs should only be able to pick jumpers out of a bigman pool

the archetype idea was good but was poorly executed
I dunno about this. I find the archetypes way too limiting as it is.

Its boring playing as anything but a playmaker unfortunately. Had a 95 Sharpshooter and the one dimensionality of their game is insufferable.

I think it'd be better if we could edit and upgrade individual attributes within an archetype framework, to create more diverse builds and play types.

The fact you can't be a 3 and D, or playmaking 4, or just an all round offensive threat (while being a master at none) is really boring, in all game modes of a MyPlayer.
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Old 02-13-2017, 11:38 AM   #15
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

Quote:
Originally Posted by goldwatch
animations need to be seriously restricted to playstyles and positions. playmakers and sharpshooters shouldn't have access to dunks that slashers and athletic finishers have. there's 0 reason a sharpshooter should be able to equip 360s/cradle dunks/windmills/tomahawks etc. 5'10" playmakers shouldn't have the option to be dunking like westbrook and doing standing dunks in the paint. nate robinson

jumpshots need to be locked too. dudes are out here making stretch bigs and equipping guard jumpers with ridiculous lift and putting the speed as high as it goes. so you have a 7 footers with a hairpin trigger and a jumper that can't even be contested. majority of bigs who shoot are set shooters. bigs should only be able to pick jumpers out of a bigman pool

the archetype idea was good but was poorly executed
Terrence Ross, Iman Shumpert, Zach Lavine, JR Smith?
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Old 02-13-2017, 01:35 PM   #16
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Re: 27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

Despite all the hate from cheesers and those that abuse the current flaws, I agree with 25 out of 27 suggestions.

Too bad 2k will focus on how to get more people to buy Vc instead of their pathetic servers and mediocre gameplay.
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