Anyone else spend countless hours playing, but still lose alot?

[DJ]

Offline-only and I've played a lot of 2K12 and my winning percentage is below 50%. Sure, there's times where the CPU drives me insane but I've been quite happy with how the game has played the last 2 months with my slider tweaks, so the losses are easier to accept now.

[daveberg]

Offline is a dream compared to online.

When i'm playing season offline, I can rest easy knowing I won't be fighting against zone defense all game, with every player on my sqaud double teamed and THEN having a third man brought over to triple team me, to which I pass the ball to a wide open man, yet my opponents defensive recovery time is FASTER than the ball and my wide open man is now covered yet again by 3 defenders. Absolutely ridiculous.

Seriously, the only way forward online is to bring back lobbies so we can play like minded people. I want realism. Not NBA Jam.

[sreckless]

Quote: Originally Posted by daveberg

When i'm playing season offline, I can rest easy knowing I won't be fighting against zone defense all game, with every player on my sqaud double teamed and THEN having a third man brought over to triple team me, to which I pass the ball to a wide open man, yet my opponents defensive recovery time is FASTER than the ball and my wide open man is now covered yet again by 3 defenders. Absolutely ridiculous.

You have to learn to anticipate this move and pass or dribble out, and to keep the primary ball handler in the center of the floor so that when you do get trapped, you have more than one outlet. And this has to be automatic.

What used to get me into trouble sometimes as a "sim" player, is that I would play a reactionary game because I'm thinking too much about what I wanted to do next. The kids who play "video-game" style don't have this problem, they aren't thinking, they're just constantly moving and attacking.

It's challenging, but you can win with "sim ball" online if you learn to anticipate their tactics and be proactive with your counters. My advice: if you want to play a thinking man's game, then do it by thinking about how you're going to handle certain situations before they happen, instead of waiting until you're in the game.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by sreckless

You have to learn to anticipate this move and pass or dribble out, and to keep the primary ball handler in the center of the floor so that when you do get trapped, you have more than one outlet. And this has to be automatic. What used to get me into trouble sometimes as a "sim" player, is that I would play a reactionary game because I'm thinking too much about what I wanted to do next. The kids who play "video-game" style don't have this problem, they aren't thinking, they're just constantly moving and attacking.

I mostly agree with your points. Imo it is more difficult than it should be to beat people playing a mostly "sim" game, but it's far from impossible. I do think 2K DEFINITELY needs to tune the ease of on-ball steals; that's by far my biggest irritation playing online and the go-to move for most. But outside of that most things can be contained or countered. And most guys have one or two dependencies that once they're stopped they don't know how to adjust.

One big key imo is not getting frustrated yourself. I played a guy 28-2 last night who pulled out Golden State and was a wiz at using Steph Curry and who's secondary offense was predicated on spot up 3's with other players. Realized early he was mostly ignoring his center and power forward so capitalized on that. Defensively everything was predicated on some hybrid 3-2 zone, which where he manually controlled Curry in trying to get cheap steals on drives. Using Rondo I had Curry with 4 fouls shortly after the start of the 3rd quarter and he had nothing else. Played another guy 52-14 that used the Knicks but liked to pack his defense in the paint and try to get strips, so got my outside shot going to loosen him up then penetrated late. At the same time lost to a guy (13-16 I think) who used the Lakers that I KNEW I was better than that was totally dependent on Kobe. But I have trouble with anyone that uses the Lakers/Kobe in that way so I know it's something I just need to work on. Playing randoms can be really frustrating, but really rewarding at the same time. Really force you to think outside of the box.

To the thread, I do play a lot offline and lose a lot still. I do feel I'm much better at the game than I was even a few months ago, though. And I'm continuing to learn, which is scary given the game has so much content I haven't even touched on and the new game will be out in another 5months or so. I think one of 2K's biggest mistakes with this year's game is the way the difficulty scales across levels; it's not like it was perfect in previous years but the learning curve is bigger this year which I think has led to frustration for some refusing to accept that. Still, I think the game plays great and really only needs tweaks here or there

[sreckless]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

I mostly agree with your points. Imo it is more difficult than it should be to beat people playing a mostly "sim" game, but it's far from impossible. I do think 2K DEFINITELY needs to tune the ease of on-ball steals; that's by far my biggest irritation playing online and the go-to move for most. But outside of that most things can be contained or countered. And most guys have one or two dependencies that once they're stopped they don't know how to adjust.

I don't know, I go back and forth. I don't think they're that easy if you make ball security a priority.

Once ball security becomes second nature, then you can start taking advantage of the holes that open up in the defense when people steal spam. But a lot of casual players just don't have enough time put in to make those responses automatically.

Quote:

At the same time lost to a guy (13-16 I think) who used the Lakers that I KNEW I was better than that was totally dependent on Kobe.

Don't pay attention to those records -- those aren't the other player's online records. Those are his VIP profile records. The VIP keeps track of offline games, and online games only if you manually save.

Rule of thumb: If you see someone with a mediocre W-L record, like that 13-16, that might mean he's a decent player who plays on HoF and wins some, loses some. If you see someone who's 50-5, that's a kid who plays the computer on rookie/pro and shoots 50 times with his superstar.

But either of them might have anywhere from 2 to 200 online ranked games under his belt, you never know.

[spankdatazz22]

thx for the tips, appreciate it. So not sure how you make ball security a priority when you're in the middle of a layup animation and players strip you at that point. Or where people can be moderately successful stealing the ball with a defensive minded big man like Noah/Bulls. I think many people hack the way they do online because they're not going to get called for fouls as they would offline using the same strategy (guessing, if playing on Sim). And some of the steals that occur while the defender is trailing can be frustrating also. I don't think it's as out of control as some would say or needs to go to the extreme of yielding a foul call every time someone reaches, because I've gotten people into foul trouble many times and some to even foul out. But it's rare given how much people rely on the tactic, and I do think it needs to be tuned. If fouls were called more often it'd discourage that type of play