THROWBACK 30 CLASSICS by Sellaz32 and SHH4UA
Gamertag: sellaz32
Platform: PS3, DLC required.
Acknowledgments
As any roster editor would tell you, there is no substitute for spending the hours upon hours testing and discovering the various nuances of this game for oneself. This roster is of our own creation through many hours of hard work and personal discovery. However, the OS community as been an invaluable resource for us through this project as we have taken what others have learned/shared and applied various theories and concepts to this roster. We would like to credit the following guys for either directly or indirectly contributing to this roster. THANK YOU, to:
Nogster for his Super League concept
youALREADYknow for his insightful perspective on game play edits
Slimm44 for some of the various scaling concepts in regard to editing ratings/tendencies.
Elknavo for insight shared regarding the Sim stats engine, especially the shot rating to field goal % link.
Vannwolfhawk for his work on playbooks. Playbook changes are critical.
Portlandblazer for his legend accessories thread
Gazmati for various CAP’s. His CAP work on PS3 is excellent
Ronyell and The Sim-World Roster Team for showing what was possible in terms of improving gameplay and inspiring us to shoot for the same standard using classic teams.
Background
Growing up, best friends (Sellaz32) and (SHH4UA) purchased the 1986 Computer game, NBA Basketball by Avalon Hill, for the Commodore 64. From that point forward, we have been hooked on the statistical, simulation based history of the NBA. However, until NBA 2K12 was released many of our memories of these classic teams & players were merely numbers on a 5.25 inch floppy “stat-disk.” It is because of this that we have set out to re-create these “memories” in live and living color using the NBA 2K12 PlayStation 3 Platform.
Our first release will have 30 Classic NBA & ABA teams, only 14 of which are from the original game. The other 16 teams were added by shedding our own blood, sweat, and tears (and DLC players). We have 13 NBA/ABA Championship teams as well as 4 others that made The Finals. We have 9 of the “NBA.com 10 Greatest Teams” as well as 37 of the “NBA.com Top 50 Players.” On these 30 individual teams you will find 16 individual MVP seasons as well as 4 Rookie of the Year campaigns. Every player on every team has been edited from top to bottom.
This roster was created in order to stretch the limits of the 2K Simulation engine and create the most realistic “SIM stats” possible using these historic teams. We found it very difficult and often times frustrating, however with a great deal of effort most every team does SIM extremely accurately. Yes, Chamberlain & Russell will average 22 or more rebounds per game. Oscar Robertson will average a triple-double on occasion (although in 1964 he was 7 total rebounds short). Magic Johnson will get 11-12 assists per game for the 1987 Lakers. There are a few limitations with this SIM engine as you will see. Mainly, Wilt Chamberlain can’t shoot 68.3% from the floor. Other challenges are for example, getting the 1994 Houston Rocket’s Matt Bullard to shoot 154 of his 226 total FG attempts from 3pt range. Our goal was to get the first 6-8 players on each team within +/- 2 points of their actual averages as well as .020 of their actual FG/FT/3pt percentages. In addition to engine limitations, we have found there is some deviation from season to season, but in most cases MOST players will be within these desired guidelines. The exceptions are players 7-10 that we simply didn’t have “enough statistics to go around” as far as the stat engine is concerned. The leading scoring team in the NBA last year was 107 ppg (104 this year) and almost all of these teams were 110 all the way up to 125 ppg, which this SIM engine simply wasn’t built for……
Although simulation was the number one goal, game play was a very close second in our order of importance. We have spent hundreds of hours perfecting game play features as well. Many of the dribble moves simply didn’t exist in the 60’s and 70’s therefore we took all of these things into account. Our goal for this roster is to provide a great SEASON SIMULATION experience where you can watch an extremely accurate CPU vs. CPU game at any point in the schedule. Then, you can watch a game and get virtually the same results.
We hope you guys enjoy the result of our hard work and look for our second release in the near future with these 30 along with an additional 32 teams (more modern era teams) Without further delay, here are the 30 teams:
The Teams (Location on the roster in parenthesis)
More detailed description in googledocs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...LrdXlou-Q/edit
Eastern Conference Western Conference
Atlantic Division Southwest Division
1964 Cincinnati Royals (Created) 1961 St. Louis Hawks (Current)
1965 Boston Celtics* (Classic) 1965 Los Angeles Lakers** (Classic)
1967 Philadelphia 76ers*(76-77 Sixers) 1967 San Francisco Warriors** (Current)
1969 Baltimore Bullets (Current) 1970 Denver Rockets (ABA) (Created)
1971 Atlanta Hawks (Classis) 1971 Milwaukee Bucks* (Classic)
Central Division Northwest Division
1970 New York Knicks* (71-72 Knicks) 1972 Kentucky Colonels (ABA) (Created)
1972 Virginia Squires (ABA) (Created) 1973 Indiana Pacers (ABA)* (Current)
1973 Boston Celtics (Created) 1977 Portland Trailblazers* (Current)
1975 Buffalo Braves (Current Clippers) 1979 Seattle Supersonics* (Created)
1983 Philadelphia 76ers* (84-85 Sixers) 1985 Milwaukee Bucks (Classic)
Southeast Division Pacific Division
1986 Atlanta Hawks (Classic) 1987 Los Angeles Lakers* (Classic)
1986 Boston Celtics* (Classic) 1991 Golden State Warriors (Exported)
1989 Detroit Pistons* (Classic) 1991 Portland Trailblazers (Classic)
1995 Orlando Magic** (Classic) 1993 Phoenix Suns** (Created)
1996 Chicago Bulls* (Classic) 1994 Houston Rockets* (Classic)
* Denotes NBA or ABA Champion
** Conference Champion (Lost Finals)
In order to achieve accurate stats, you will need to input the rotation minutes yourself in season mode. Here is an easy guide for this task:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FZTFIQlE#gid=0
We only used 10 man rosters in order to allow more space in the future for more teams. Some of the more current teams will likely have 11-12 since they are already on the game.
Simulation stats vs. Gameplay
We have been able to achieve extremely high levels of statistical accuracy with this roster. For example, Wilt, Thurmond and Russell will get their 20+ rebounds in SIM’d games. Magic will get his 12+ assists. We realize that some may question this affect on game play. It has been our experience that SIM ratings and game play ratings are separate entities and the rebound rating (for example) ONLY AFFECTS SIM STATS. In order to get a guy with 20+ rebounds, you obviously have to adjust teammates accordingly. Doing so has not skewed in game rebounding one bit. In fact, we have seen guys with a 25 in rebounding out rebound a guy with 99. In game play, rebounding has very little to do with ratings, but has more to do with height, position, vertical, hustle, awareness, etc. So do not let the ratings scare you.
Another important point that we would like to make is that the major differences between the game today and the game say 20 years ago are represented in our roster. Many of these teams (actually ALL but 8) shot above 46% as a team, with many in the 49, 50, even 51%+ range. That is something that was very important in our game play experience. We wanted the historically high scoring teams to score a lot of points, great shooting teams to shoot great, and the defensive teams to have players that were good defenders. This is perhaps what makes us most proud of our roster. We have watched countless hours of film, but an example of this is in the film we have watched of the 1977 Portland Trailblazers and their disciplined, fast-paced, rim-attacking play style. I am very proud to say our 2K12 version plays almost exactly like the real thing. I challenge you to YouTube the 1977 Portland Trailblazers and see what a different game they played as compared to what we have in the NBA now. Another thing to keep in mind with this game play engine is, the current (as of March 7, 2012) NBA League average FG% this season is the WORST it has been since 1969, therefore growing up in the 1980’s & 90’s, this is a welcome change for us, representing the game we grew up loving.
While game play is the outward beauty of any roster, we feel that the SIM is the “what’s inside that counts.” We cannot tell you how many barriers or “common misconceptions” we have broken through in designing this roster. We have read and been told numerous times, “You can’t get a guy to average 16 rebounds a game” or “You can’t get a guy to average 12 assists” or “You can’t get a guy above 2.5 blocks” or “above 60% FG”, “52% 3pt %” (1996 Steve Kerr), etc. We are proud to say, “they” were wrong & IT IS ALL HERE!
Playbooks
For classic teams already on the game, we simply added plays from vannwolfhawk’s work in order to give teams more variety. We can’t tell you how many players had a certain Play Type only to see the team have no corresponding plays to be run for that player. For most other teams, we created 3 standard playbooks, User 1, User 2, and Standard. These are large, multi-use playbooks designed for certain “type” teams. Standard is for more balanced teams, User 1 is for “single player” dominated teams (ex. 67 Warriors), and User 2 is for teams like the 73 Celtics with a “Big 3” so to speak. We are tossing around some ideas to incorporate more individualized playbooks for teams in our second release, if warranted.
Dribble/Speed/Freelance edits
We trimmed the fat off of animations by cutting the dribble edits significantly, increasing NO triple threat and cutting down on specialty shots. We also widened the scale for speed edits. Thanks to The Sim-World Roster guys and Slimm44 for opening our eyes to these ideas! It has made a huge difference for AI game flow. An original freelance editing system was also used to compliment individual player’s style and play types. For example, if a player was known primarily as a Mid Range shooter, his matching primary freelance tendency would be spot up.
Game Mode
The best way to use this roster (and the way we designed it) is through quick play and season mode. We did not worry about potential or contracts as association mode doesn’t make sense to us for this type of roster. We only use coach mode and watch CPU vs. CPU (All-Star Difficulty). We have been happy with the results in watching game play thus far, but we also know that the dynamics change when the human element is introduced. We believe that any issues that may occur in human controlled game play can be addressed through sliders. We will release our CPU vs. CPU Sliders (Peach Baskets II) in the sliders forum soon, but hopefully other human controlled slider sets will work for this roster. In other words, we have not tried it and aren’t sure how it would play. But, based on what we know and have read, you will probably need a different set of sliders if you want to play games using this roster.
On Era Differences
The preliminary SIM’d season results have been very, very good. 11 of the 16 playoff teams were Championship teams. However, there are some teams that are simply “better on paper” (i.e. 93 Suns, 95 Magic, & 73 Celtics) and to try to manipulate the standings would lessen the integrity of the roster. As a general rule, we used an “older team is less athletic, but smarter” mentality. SIM’d seasons have ended up with numerous teams competing for Championships however the Greatest Teams (86 Celtics, 70 Knicks, 71 Bucks, 87 Lakers, & 96 Bulls) normally prevail.
We hope you guys enjoy the result of our hard work and look for our second release in the near future with these 30 along with an additional 32 (more modern) teams!
Gamertag: sellaz32
Platform: PS3, DLC required.
Acknowledgments
As any roster editor would tell you, there is no substitute for spending the hours upon hours testing and discovering the various nuances of this game for oneself. This roster is of our own creation through many hours of hard work and personal discovery. However, the OS community as been an invaluable resource for us through this project as we have taken what others have learned/shared and applied various theories and concepts to this roster. We would like to credit the following guys for either directly or indirectly contributing to this roster. THANK YOU, to:
Nogster for his Super League concept
youALREADYknow for his insightful perspective on game play edits
Slimm44 for some of the various scaling concepts in regard to editing ratings/tendencies.
Elknavo for insight shared regarding the Sim stats engine, especially the shot rating to field goal % link.
Vannwolfhawk for his work on playbooks. Playbook changes are critical.
Portlandblazer for his legend accessories thread
Gazmati for various CAP’s. His CAP work on PS3 is excellent
Ronyell and The Sim-World Roster Team for showing what was possible in terms of improving gameplay and inspiring us to shoot for the same standard using classic teams.
Background
Growing up, best friends (Sellaz32) and (SHH4UA) purchased the 1986 Computer game, NBA Basketball by Avalon Hill, for the Commodore 64. From that point forward, we have been hooked on the statistical, simulation based history of the NBA. However, until NBA 2K12 was released many of our memories of these classic teams & players were merely numbers on a 5.25 inch floppy “stat-disk.” It is because of this that we have set out to re-create these “memories” in live and living color using the NBA 2K12 PlayStation 3 Platform.
Our first release will have 30 Classic NBA & ABA teams, only 14 of which are from the original game. The other 16 teams were added by shedding our own blood, sweat, and tears (and DLC players). We have 13 NBA/ABA Championship teams as well as 4 others that made The Finals. We have 9 of the “NBA.com 10 Greatest Teams” as well as 37 of the “NBA.com Top 50 Players.” On these 30 individual teams you will find 16 individual MVP seasons as well as 4 Rookie of the Year campaigns. Every player on every team has been edited from top to bottom.
This roster was created in order to stretch the limits of the 2K Simulation engine and create the most realistic “SIM stats” possible using these historic teams. We found it very difficult and often times frustrating, however with a great deal of effort most every team does SIM extremely accurately. Yes, Chamberlain & Russell will average 22 or more rebounds per game. Oscar Robertson will average a triple-double on occasion (although in 1964 he was 7 total rebounds short). Magic Johnson will get 11-12 assists per game for the 1987 Lakers. There are a few limitations with this SIM engine as you will see. Mainly, Wilt Chamberlain can’t shoot 68.3% from the floor. Other challenges are for example, getting the 1994 Houston Rocket’s Matt Bullard to shoot 154 of his 226 total FG attempts from 3pt range. Our goal was to get the first 6-8 players on each team within +/- 2 points of their actual averages as well as .020 of their actual FG/FT/3pt percentages. In addition to engine limitations, we have found there is some deviation from season to season, but in most cases MOST players will be within these desired guidelines. The exceptions are players 7-10 that we simply didn’t have “enough statistics to go around” as far as the stat engine is concerned. The leading scoring team in the NBA last year was 107 ppg (104 this year) and almost all of these teams were 110 all the way up to 125 ppg, which this SIM engine simply wasn’t built for……
Although simulation was the number one goal, game play was a very close second in our order of importance. We have spent hundreds of hours perfecting game play features as well. Many of the dribble moves simply didn’t exist in the 60’s and 70’s therefore we took all of these things into account. Our goal for this roster is to provide a great SEASON SIMULATION experience where you can watch an extremely accurate CPU vs. CPU game at any point in the schedule. Then, you can watch a game and get virtually the same results.
We hope you guys enjoy the result of our hard work and look for our second release in the near future with these 30 along with an additional 32 teams (more modern era teams) Without further delay, here are the 30 teams:
The Teams (Location on the roster in parenthesis)
More detailed description in googledocs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...LrdXlou-Q/edit
Eastern Conference Western Conference
Atlantic Division Southwest Division
1964 Cincinnati Royals (Created) 1961 St. Louis Hawks (Current)
1965 Boston Celtics* (Classic) 1965 Los Angeles Lakers** (Classic)
1967 Philadelphia 76ers*(76-77 Sixers) 1967 San Francisco Warriors** (Current)
1969 Baltimore Bullets (Current) 1970 Denver Rockets (ABA) (Created)
1971 Atlanta Hawks (Classis) 1971 Milwaukee Bucks* (Classic)
Central Division Northwest Division
1970 New York Knicks* (71-72 Knicks) 1972 Kentucky Colonels (ABA) (Created)
1972 Virginia Squires (ABA) (Created) 1973 Indiana Pacers (ABA)* (Current)
1973 Boston Celtics (Created) 1977 Portland Trailblazers* (Current)
1975 Buffalo Braves (Current Clippers) 1979 Seattle Supersonics* (Created)
1983 Philadelphia 76ers* (84-85 Sixers) 1985 Milwaukee Bucks (Classic)
Southeast Division Pacific Division
1986 Atlanta Hawks (Classic) 1987 Los Angeles Lakers* (Classic)
1986 Boston Celtics* (Classic) 1991 Golden State Warriors (Exported)
1989 Detroit Pistons* (Classic) 1991 Portland Trailblazers (Classic)
1995 Orlando Magic** (Classic) 1993 Phoenix Suns** (Created)
1996 Chicago Bulls* (Classic) 1994 Houston Rockets* (Classic)
* Denotes NBA or ABA Champion
** Conference Champion (Lost Finals)
In order to achieve accurate stats, you will need to input the rotation minutes yourself in season mode. Here is an easy guide for this task:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FZTFIQlE#gid=0
We only used 10 man rosters in order to allow more space in the future for more teams. Some of the more current teams will likely have 11-12 since they are already on the game.
Simulation stats vs. Gameplay
We have been able to achieve extremely high levels of statistical accuracy with this roster. For example, Wilt, Thurmond and Russell will get their 20+ rebounds in SIM’d games. Magic will get his 12+ assists. We realize that some may question this affect on game play. It has been our experience that SIM ratings and game play ratings are separate entities and the rebound rating (for example) ONLY AFFECTS SIM STATS. In order to get a guy with 20+ rebounds, you obviously have to adjust teammates accordingly. Doing so has not skewed in game rebounding one bit. In fact, we have seen guys with a 25 in rebounding out rebound a guy with 99. In game play, rebounding has very little to do with ratings, but has more to do with height, position, vertical, hustle, awareness, etc. So do not let the ratings scare you.
Another important point that we would like to make is that the major differences between the game today and the game say 20 years ago are represented in our roster. Many of these teams (actually ALL but 8) shot above 46% as a team, with many in the 49, 50, even 51%+ range. That is something that was very important in our game play experience. We wanted the historically high scoring teams to score a lot of points, great shooting teams to shoot great, and the defensive teams to have players that were good defenders. This is perhaps what makes us most proud of our roster. We have watched countless hours of film, but an example of this is in the film we have watched of the 1977 Portland Trailblazers and their disciplined, fast-paced, rim-attacking play style. I am very proud to say our 2K12 version plays almost exactly like the real thing. I challenge you to YouTube the 1977 Portland Trailblazers and see what a different game they played as compared to what we have in the NBA now. Another thing to keep in mind with this game play engine is, the current (as of March 7, 2012) NBA League average FG% this season is the WORST it has been since 1969, therefore growing up in the 1980’s & 90’s, this is a welcome change for us, representing the game we grew up loving.
While game play is the outward beauty of any roster, we feel that the SIM is the “what’s inside that counts.” We cannot tell you how many barriers or “common misconceptions” we have broken through in designing this roster. We have read and been told numerous times, “You can’t get a guy to average 16 rebounds a game” or “You can’t get a guy to average 12 assists” or “You can’t get a guy above 2.5 blocks” or “above 60% FG”, “52% 3pt %” (1996 Steve Kerr), etc. We are proud to say, “they” were wrong & IT IS ALL HERE!
Playbooks
For classic teams already on the game, we simply added plays from vannwolfhawk’s work in order to give teams more variety. We can’t tell you how many players had a certain Play Type only to see the team have no corresponding plays to be run for that player. For most other teams, we created 3 standard playbooks, User 1, User 2, and Standard. These are large, multi-use playbooks designed for certain “type” teams. Standard is for more balanced teams, User 1 is for “single player” dominated teams (ex. 67 Warriors), and User 2 is for teams like the 73 Celtics with a “Big 3” so to speak. We are tossing around some ideas to incorporate more individualized playbooks for teams in our second release, if warranted.
Dribble/Speed/Freelance edits
We trimmed the fat off of animations by cutting the dribble edits significantly, increasing NO triple threat and cutting down on specialty shots. We also widened the scale for speed edits. Thanks to The Sim-World Roster guys and Slimm44 for opening our eyes to these ideas! It has made a huge difference for AI game flow. An original freelance editing system was also used to compliment individual player’s style and play types. For example, if a player was known primarily as a Mid Range shooter, his matching primary freelance tendency would be spot up.
Game Mode
The best way to use this roster (and the way we designed it) is through quick play and season mode. We did not worry about potential or contracts as association mode doesn’t make sense to us for this type of roster. We only use coach mode and watch CPU vs. CPU (All-Star Difficulty). We have been happy with the results in watching game play thus far, but we also know that the dynamics change when the human element is introduced. We believe that any issues that may occur in human controlled game play can be addressed through sliders. We will release our CPU vs. CPU Sliders (Peach Baskets II) in the sliders forum soon, but hopefully other human controlled slider sets will work for this roster. In other words, we have not tried it and aren’t sure how it would play. But, based on what we know and have read, you will probably need a different set of sliders if you want to play games using this roster.
On Era Differences
The preliminary SIM’d season results have been very, very good. 11 of the 16 playoff teams were Championship teams. However, there are some teams that are simply “better on paper” (i.e. 93 Suns, 95 Magic, & 73 Celtics) and to try to manipulate the standings would lessen the integrity of the roster. As a general rule, we used an “older team is less athletic, but smarter” mentality. SIM’d seasons have ended up with numerous teams competing for Championships however the Greatest Teams (86 Celtics, 70 Knicks, 71 Bucks, 87 Lakers, & 96 Bulls) normally prevail.
We hope you guys enjoy the result of our hard work and look for our second release in the near future with these 30 along with an additional 32 (more modern) teams!
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