Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

Is anyone else noticing it's back? It's been really bad for me lately. I can have a guy beat and no matter what the situation somehow either he or another defender will warp, go super fast and slide in front of me to contest. Rarely when I beat a guy and they don't get in front of me they somehow warp into me from behind and strip the ball as I attempt to shoot. It's with all types of rosters and sliders. It's as bad as 2K24 was and the game didn't ship like this.

It's not like it's occasional or even a fair amount of the time. It's pretty much every single possession.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

This is why I switched to all star

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

It's probably the ratings and badges. I haven't noticed any skating when players are just moving around, but when certain animations are triggered due to the game calculating ratings and defining an outcome, that's when the warping and skating happens. The guy stripping the ball probably has a very high steal rating. This will be more noticeable on higher difficulties, as Sirjam pointed out.

The tech just hasn't reached the level where we can eat our cake and have it too, that is, have perfect foot planting AND have the game respect ratings and make them matter.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

I wonder how much the Eras hand-checking rule plays into this. Always wondered what the tangible in-game effect of that rule was.

Especially since the original NBA 2K came out in 1999, just after the real NBA changed the rules to end it (and actually enforced it).

Lest we forget, some of the code in 2K25 dates all the way back to that original game.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

Aside from it being an eyesore and just plain unrealistic looking, it's also bad for the CPU most of the time because regardless of the players or situation it happens, and without any regard for context it pretty much puts their player in foul trouble.

I tried an experiment, as I am really frustrated with it, to see what ratings and/or tendencies affect it. I brought Jalen Brunson's defensive ratings and tendencies down to 25 (he's always sliding in front of me and defending everything like an animal) and from what I can tell there is definitely some fishy stuff going on. He's one of the biggest culprits and despite the changes he still did everything, but to a lesser degree. Not that much less, however. He's basically hard coded to be an absolute savage defensively. He hard fouls, he slides and warps and contests nearly everything. He does it against all stars and 12th men alike regardless of the situation.

Unfortunately the best solution I've found is to lower inside and driving contact to 0, but that's just an awful alternative. I really wish 2K would do a better job of this stuff. It looks terrible and feels worse knowing that the guy a step behind you is going to somehow get in front of you defying the laws of physics. And, at least in my opinion, it's way worse than it was upon release.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

I feel you bro. It's the last frontier for 2K to get proper foot planting right on defense. The 1st thing i do every year is lower On-Ball defense to 0. I also lower Body Up Sensitivity & Agility (used to be Lateral Quickness). Doing this doesn't eliminate sliding, but it definitely helps with the issues you mentioned.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

Yeah, I still don't understand their defensive philosophy of every defender being pretty much a robot. Seeing guys sprint down the court, no idea of what's going on 50 feet behind them, turn around and contort in a way that would splinter their legs, just to run 10x faster than anyone else on the court directly to where the pass is going to land was old 15 years ago. It's beyond terrible now, but the sliding and warping to contest is just plain ridiculous. I find it as bad as last year now and it wasn't like this upon release.

I'm going to try All Star I guess. I have turned off my last 12 or so games because I can't stand seeing the guy behind me somehow, magically, end up in front of me, defying physics.

Re: Defensive Suction, Sliding and Warping
 

It’s insane the way they program the a.I to have esp in the year 2024. It’s not old gen anymore