2k18 Physicality; please change direction

[Smirkin Dirk]

It was rough this year. But you can definitely see how it will greatly improve the game once it is refined. You can see it in some rebound battles, in how you could bump a cutter off his route, in how you could feel like a handsy defender.

But then it took you 20 seconds to run a floppy and got all annoyed. But long term, this will be great.

[Crunky]

I wonder should the bumping animations be sped up would that alleviate some of the issues gamers have with it maybe the bumping animations are prolonged adding to gamers frustration. If it were more instant and you could quickly regain control of your offensive player I don't think this would be a issue.

[NoLeafClover]

While I appreciate how much of a long term process implementing something as big as this is into the game, I can't help but laugh as how it was promoted as one of the main selling points when if anything it hindered what would otherwise be smooth gameplay.

"CAN'T FIGHT THE FRICTION!" trailer, remember?

Heh.

Shame because it hinders so many of the awesome offensive plays that have been put in.

Sent from my HTC_0PJA10 using Operation Sports mobile app

[The 24th Letter]

It just isnt as easy as saying 'make things physics based' man

In fact we have a real, live (pun intended) example of it being attempted and those of us who have played have seen that its not that easy....though there is potential..

As frustrating as being sucked into animations may be, you'd be surprised at how equally frustrating it is to see a complete absence of blending taking place. Basketball has so many moving parts, its tough...

I still think 2K14 LG had the best blend of physics/animation, all the transitions were smooth....we got that after a bit of a rough patch in 2K12/13....Im hoping 2K18 is similar in that its the year it all comes together..

[ssimpsons3]

Quote: Originally Posted by The 24th Letter

It just isnt as easy as saying 'make things physics based' man In fact we have a real, live (pun intended) example of it being attempted and those of us who have played have seen that its not that easy....though there is potential.. As frustrating as being sucked into animations may be, you'd be surprised at how equally frustrating it is to see a complete absence of blending taking place. Basketball has so many moving parts, its tough... I still think 2K14 LG had the best blend of physics/animation, all the transitions were smooth....we got that after a bit of a rough patch in 2K12/13....Im hoping 2K18 is similar in that its the year it all comes together..

I agree completely about 2k14 LG being perfect blend.

[FixEverything2k]

The point was more physics should be used in the process. Right now animations are triggering based off of what seems like nothing. Thats why I asked why Nash could Push Shaq in the same way Shaq could push nash. Strength and weight should be a major and not a minor factor in determining which animations trigger. This would lead to better overall blending. I don't remember Nash pushing Shaq like this in 2k14.

[Yesh2kdone]

Quote: Originally Posted by Da_Czar

In terms of videos games, context and scope are always important to any discussion. In game development iteration is a key component of making a great feature. A ruff definition is this... "•repetition of a mathematical or computational procedure applied to the result of a previous application, typically as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to the solution of a problem." When you introduce a new feature one thing fans of a series may not understand is all the work it takes to create that feature out of thin air. The thing itself has to be constructed. Not only what you want to do, but the means to accomplish it also has to be created if this is a new system or a system rewrite. This is one of the reasons why users feel like new features usually aren't dope until year 2. It is like launching a rocket from earth into space, you need a tremendous amount of energy to get that thing off the ground. In any game with a yearly development cycle this means the majority of your initial work is on the designing and building of the tools and not so much making the tool do exactly what you vision for that feature is. Why because you only have 6-8 months and there is an entire game to make. If you take my freelance offense's as an example. This year is the first year you guys are seeing the original vision of what I had. Every other implementation up to this point was just a piece of the overall puzzle. Now finally all the tech I need is in and I can focus now on the actual implementation and "Basketball" aspects of that feature. So when I say that the work put into the off-ball system will pay dividends I functions represents NBA Basketball. I mean that now the groundwork is laid to allow us to show you the full vision as we move forward with the game. The hardest part is done but it took all year to get to where you currently see it. Not ideal right ? We know but it was a necessary step to get to where we want to be. With a year development cycle there is no place to hide and this is why other teams announce 3 year plans because a full vision is not possible without iteration. So you announce a 3 year plan so users will understand that the feature as it stands is not what it will be when it is complete. The first way a feature appears is rarely the entire vision but the part of the vision that fits within the current development cycle. All of this is much harder to do than I originally imagined when I was just a poster here. If it was as simple as writing a function called "remove legacy issues" Believe me we would have done it by now. I have worked in many industries and nothing has proven as difficult to me as making a yearly released video game. The expectations are high, the hours are long, the gratitude is short lived, trolling is abundant and everyone in the world believes they can do a much better job than you can without any experience. But I love the challenge and we are up for the task. I hope I was able to clarify my statement.

Thanks for the reply czar, really appreciate it.

I am completely aware of the fact you guys have to build and set up these new additions from scratch, however, the game handles the previously implemented contacts/collisions really badly, as we see repeatedly in the examples I gave in my original post.

If you guys persist down this road then I fear we'll be talking of being pushed around the court all game in 2k21 as another legacy issue, but you guys obviously know more about where the game is heading than I do so we all have to have faith.

Not to the same extent as you guys, but the game is a labour of love for us too, so all we want to see is the game get better and this year has been disappointing, especially held up against what we were promised pre-release. I know 2k would never want you to go with this because of sales, but if we'd been told of the flaws in this years game, rather than have them promoted as great new features, then that would have perhaps made people less critical and more willing to provide helpful feedback.

Your post threw up a couple of glaring questions that I'd like to ask; which I'm not sure you'll be able to answer, so I'll understand if that's the case.

1) What version of the game do you anticipate having these collisions where you'd like them to be?

2) Obviously the game you're developing is continuously ahead of where we as users are, so have you got these things working behind the scenes yet?

Once again, thank you for the original reply; it hasn't alleviated any of my fears that these collisions will be working well in the future because of past evidence, but I always appreciate the fact you guys take time to respond to the community, and I look forward to quoting this thread in the future and apologising for being completely wrong.

[BegBy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Da_Czar

In terms of videos games, context and scope are always important to any discussion. In game development iteration is a key component of making a great feature. A ruff definition is this... "•repetition of a mathematical or computational procedure applied to the result of a previous application, typically as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to the solution of a problem." When you introduce a new feature one thing fans of a series may not understand is all the work it takes to create that feature out of thin air. The thing itself has to be constructed. Not only what you want to do, but the means to accomplish it also has to be created if this is a new system or a system rewrite. This is one of the reasons why users feel like new features usually aren't dope until year 2. It is like launching a rocket from earth into space, you need a tremendous amount of energy to get that thing off the ground. In any game with a yearly development cycle this means the majority of your initial work is on the designing and building of the tools and not so much making the tool do exactly what you vision for that feature is. Why because you only have 6-8 months and there is an entire game to make. If you take my freelance offense's as an example. This year is the first year you guys are seeing the original vision of what I had. Every other implementation up to this point was just a piece of the overall puzzle. Now finally all the tech I need is in and I can focus now on the actual implementation and "Basketball" aspects of that feature. So when I say that the work put into the off-ball system will pay dividends I functions represents NBA Basketball. I mean that now the groundwork is laid to allow us to show you the full vision as we move forward with the game. The hardest part is done but it took all year to get to where you currently see it. Not ideal right ? We know but it was a necessary step to get to where we want to be. With a year development cycle there is no place to hide and this is why other teams announce 3 year plans because a full vision is not possible without iteration. So you announce a 3 year plan so users will understand that the feature as it stands is not what it will be when it is complete. The first way a feature appears is rarely the entire vision but the part of the vision that fits within the current development cycle. All of this is much harder to do than I originally imagined when I was just a poster here. If it was as simple as writing a function called "remove legacy issues" Believe me we would have done it by now. I have worked in many industries and nothing has proven as difficult to me as making a yearly released video game. The expectations are high, the hours are long, the gratitude is short lived, trolling is abundant and everyone in the world believes they can do a much better job than you can without any experience. But I love the challenge and we are up for the task. I hope I was able to clarify my statement.

That's a lot of words to basically say that you're throwing stuff at the wall in hopes that something sticks. As harsh as that sounds, I just really have no use for stepping around issues. I also don't really believe it.

Quite simply, the physics are bad and you say you guys aren't able to fix it. I think you can, but won't because that would expose other issues like how horrible the actual defense is and you aren't ready to deal with that now. I firmly believe you guys could fix it but focus efforts on other things. If you couldn't fix it, a lot of those guys wouldn't have jobs.

I'm not saying that programming and game development is the easiest job in the world, but I really don't buy into the opinion that you seem to share that it's like parting the seas. It's not rocket science, and even if it were that just means there would be less of you doing it until the pay scale went up. It's being done each and every day by thousands of dev teams. Some with a lot less resources than 2K.

Pumping resources into things you feel is going to make you more money is a choice, and it will do exactly that. Until it doesn't. This year was insulting from top to bottom, save the shoes. There are a lot of guys like me who will not buy next year's title until they see or hear for themselves some legacy issues are fixed, and things like the gross overly physical play is removed. If they aren't - you'll lose more next year.

Long posts like yours filled with nearly nothing will give some people hope and make them feel good because they like you as a person (as do I) but I just can't see any value at all in anything you said and based on the thousands of posts I have read this year, I'm not alone. I may be one of the only people to say it, however.

I think you're a cool cat, Czar and I don't doubt for a second your love for this game and basketball. To my mind you're just towing the company line right now though, and it might be genuine because it's (game development) new to you, so I respect that. However, we're in the era of 'You guys buy it and we'll fix it later' of video games. It's safe to say gamers hate it. We may respect the intent of the development teams, but it sucks to be let down by their favorite titles or unmet expectations for new titles. It's an era that will end sooner rather than later because there are so many unhappy gamers just waiting to give their money to someone else, and we're starting to see more someone else's. Sports titles may be the toughest genre to find that someone else, but they'll come eventually.

I appreciate your efforts, sir. Hopefully everything you dream to accomplish with this title comes to fruition, but in a more timely manner because WWE NBA 2K is not a good basketball game.