Any hints for all-star difficulty?

[cmlax011]

After blowing teams out by 30 on pro I've started the trek of playing on all-star. Problem is the cpu seems to treat my forwards like school-children. David Lee has the ball in the post, he scores. He posts up at midrange, fadeaway scores EVERYTIME. Ben Gordon drives to the basket and puts up a ridiculous lay up, it goes in. You try to play defense and the refs call fouls.

On offense if I try to drive with any player it will get blocked or just rattle out. Ray Allen wide open from the arc, he misses, and the Stuckey runs down and chucks one with Rondo glued to him, nothing but net.

/endrant

I try to run plays but they usually break down somewhere or the shooter misses/gets blocked. Any tips or sliders to help me out here or should I just learn2play/hit moar notes?

[willIam9387]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

After blowing teams out by 30 on pro I've started the trek of playing on all-star. Problem is the cpu seems to treat my forwards like school-children. David Lee has the ball in the post, he scores. He posts up at midrange, fadeaway scores EVERYTIME. Ben Gordon drives to the basket and puts up a ridiculous lay up, it goes in. You try to play defense and the refs call fouls.

On offense if I try to drive with any player it will get blocked or just rattle out. Ray Allen wide open from the arc, he misses, and the Stuckey runs down and chucks one with Rondo glued to him, nothing but net.

/endrant

I try to run plays but they usually break down somewhere or the shooter misses/gets blocked. Any tips or sliders to help me out here or should I just learn2play/hit moar notes?

I was struggling with all-star as of a couple days ago. I would play pro and blow out the computer no matter if it was the raptors or the spurs by at least twenty, but when I switched to all-star I was struggling to beat teams like the raptors with the hornets and was absolutely getting crushed by teams like the spurs and lakers. To say the least I was frustrated because I was experiencing exactly what you were, Ben Wallace on the pistons seemed like Moses Malone, Ben Gordon was like Michael Jordan, and on offense I couldn't seem to hit anything.

Lol I put down the controller and basically came up with a gameplan because I was focused on winning on all-star consistently without sliders and I definitely wasn't going back to pro. So what i did was put on emphasis on not turning the ball over on All-star and focusing on getting open shots and sticking them. So I became familiar with everyone of my players shots who was going to shoot from a considerable distance, no use learning DJ Mbenga's shot, but I got Paul's, West's, etc shots all down. Then I stuck to calling plays that favored my stars, Pick and rolls with West and Paul, getting west touches in the post. Once that got going, Belinelli, Thornton, and my shooters were able to get some room to drain wide open threes off of ball reversals. Also I'm not afraid to pull up with Paul from mid-range, I have his shot down, so I crossover to a pull-up is normally money.

But you can't win without defense, so what I did was basically center my attention on every team's star player or players. I played the heat in my first couple games after my new mindset and was down 27-8 at one point in the first quarter, didn't quit. In the second quarter while the stars Wade and Lebron were out, I cut the lead to eight. Then in the third I cut the lead down to 2 to go into the fourth. We were tied at the end of the game, and I blew it in overtime because Wade and Lebron were just too much. But what I did was lock onto Lebron and Wade and force other players to do damage. It's easier said than done, but it is feasible just takes concentration and a good defensive gameplan. In my last game I beat the mavericks by forcing players other than Dirk to beat me and it worked. Dirk was great from the field basically hit every shot in David West's face, but he got limited touches so he was basically neutralized.

Those are my broad tips! Hopefully you don't give up because that heat game was one of the best basketball video game experiences I've ever had, in the fourth and overtime every possession felt like the game hinged on it.

[greenegt]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

^^^

Thanks for those tips. I recently moved up to All-star, as well. One of the things that is killing me is the CPU full-court passes. Are there any coaching settings I can use to make my players get back faster on defense?

[ffpp]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

^^^

Thanks for those tips. I recently moved up to All-star, as well. One of the things that is killing me is the CPU full-court passes. Are there any coaching settings I can use to make my players get back faster on defense?

Lower the rebound setting in the coaching settings, this is responsible for offensive rebounds. If it is set low your perimeter players won't stick around to see if you can rebound the ball after a missed shot but rather start to run back earlier.

[willIam9387]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

^^^

Thanks for those tips. I recently moved up to All-star, as well. One of the things that is killing me is the CPU full-court passes. Are there any coaching settings I can use to make my players get back faster on defense?

You could lower the crash board setting under coach settings, that might help, but ultimately it's on you to consistently focus on getting back and guarding the break. I was letting up like five fast breaks a quarter, but now I'm down to one to two a game by just taking open looks and not wild contested shots, and not turning the ball over. Basically you want to play on All-star at your pace, whatever that is. For me, it's half court, pick and roll/pop game, finding thornton off a screen, Paul on isolation, etc. Every now and then I get a turnover and am able to push the ball for a quick score or I'm able to find Belinelli or thornton open for quick three off a kind of delayed break. The key to limiting the computer's fast breaks opportunities is to play within in your comfort zone and take smart shots.

[ffpp]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

Also, if you have a player who is fast enough to theoretically defend the fast break, try to not use plays too often which draw said player into the paint. So he only has to sprint back from the 3pt line.
But this idea came only just to my mind, I've never used it.

[gamemaster-2005]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

man I hate playing on all star CPU blocks everything every time I drive CPU blocks shot. I can't seem to find a pair of good sliders for all star.

[cmlax011]

Re: Any hints for all-star difficulty?

Thanks for the tips, and don't get me wrong I love the close games you can get playing on anything past pro. I just wish that the cpu wouldn't press the bs button so much to stay close. I just played a game in my Denver association(which is very fun now that they don't have Melo), where my player played perfect defense and got called with a shooting foul without touching the shooter, I just sat there, looked at the replay and had to say lolwut?