27 Changes That Would Help Pro Am's Gameplay Resemble NBA Basketball

[jyoung]

Anyone who watched last weekend's Pro Am tournament likely noticed that the mode has a lot of adjustments to make before its gameplay begins to resemble the type of flowing, carefully orchestrated basketball that's being played in today's NBA.

Here are some major and minor steps that Visual Concepts' developers could take to bring the mode closer to reality, and further away from the lead pass forcing, posterizer dunking, ankle snapping, screen spamming, zig-zag dribbling, three-point chucking playstyles that dominate the upper divisions of 2K17's Pro Am leaderboards:

1) Instead of the standing shot rating and moving shot rating that players have in 2K17, I'd prefer to see a shoot after catch rating and a shoot after dribble rating in 2K18. The "after catch" rating should activate any time that you shoot after catching a pass, and it should deactivate as soon as you put the ball on the floor to dribble. At that point, the "after dribble" rating should activate, and it should remain active until the ball leaves your hands via a pass, shot, or turnover.

The Catch and Shoot badge could then be redesigned as a way of distinguishing players who have the ability to shoot after the catch while their body is still moving à la J.J. Redick and Kyle Korver. Players like Ryan Anderson and Kevin Love who mostly just shoot after the catch while spotting up or fading a few steps back after setting a ball screen should not have this new Catch and Shoot badge. It should basically be thought of as the "Reggie Miller badge."

The Difficult Shots badge can stay like it is in 2K17, providing an accuracy boost to players who take leaning/spinning/fading/stepback jump shots off the dribble.

2) Take away the artificial accuracy boost that's being awarded for shooting with the right joystick. It should just be a matter of preference whether someone wants to shoot with the face button or shoot with the joystick; there shouldn't be a statistical advantage in using one method over the other. For the people who do use the joystick, bank shots should only happen for shots that are taken from inside the three-point line.

3) Get rid of the "green release" shooting system that guarantees a made basket if your shot timing is perfect. The community proved this year that people are just too good at timing their release points, and if 2K continues rewarding players with an automatic make for having perfect timing, then we'll just have another year of insanely high shooting percentages in the 70s and 80s for sharpshooters, and 60s and 70s for all the other "non-shooting" classes.

To make Pro Am's shooting percentages more realistic, I believe perfect timing should only guarantee that you are shooting to the maximum potential of your player's assigned shot rating. And instead of showing a green/white/red color after a shot, the game should display the likelihood of your shot going in, in a percentage form, à la NBA Live 16.

Based on the current archetype system, here is how I would tune the three-point shooting percentages for perfect releases:

10%
Post Scorers (after dribble), Glass Cleaners (after dribble), Athletic Finishers (after dribble), Paint Protectors (after dribble)

15%
Post Scorers (after catch), Glass Cleaners (after catch), Athletic Finishers (after catch), Paint Protectors (after catch)

20%
Lockdown Defenders (after dribble)

25%
Lockdown Defenders (after catch), Slashers (after catch)

30%
Playmakers (after catch), Point Forwards (after catch), Slashers (after dribble), Stretch Big (after dribble)

35%
Playmakers (after dribble), Point Forwards (after dribble), Sharpshooters (after dribble), Shot Creators (after catch)

40%
Stretch Bigs (after catch)

45%
Sharpshooters (after catch), Shot Creators (after dribble)

4) Give floaters their own rating category and let MyPlayers equip floater animations independently from layup packages.

Also change the timing point on floaters and layups so that a perfect release occurs at the moment the ball leaves the shooter's hand, instead of how it's currently set to the moment the shooter's feet leave the floor.

5) Let MyPlayers equip individual dunk animations one by one instead of grouping multiple dunks into a single equippable package.

The game should also be much stricter in determining which dunks it allows certain archetypes to equip. To offset their tremendous speed with ball advantage, Playmakers should become a non-dunking class that relies on floaters and layups around the basket. All other classes that aren't Slashers or Athletic Finishers should no longer be allowed to equip anything beyond the basic one-hand and two-hand dunks. I'd still let the taller Point Forward builds do basic dunks, but I'd also lower their speed with ball compared to Playmakers to compensate for that added ability.

6) The ability to equip elite dribble animations should also be rarer than it is in 2K17. Only Playmakers, Point Forwards, and smaller Shot Creators should have access to elite dribble moves, since those are the archetypes that currently have Ankle Breaker as one of their five hall of fame badges.

7) On the subject of badges, 2K first needs to remove grand badges and hall of fame badges from Pro Am, since all they have done for 2K17's gameplay is encouraged cheesy tactics and produced cheesy animations.

Secondly, 2K needs to eliminate the tedious unlocking process that is currently required to get badges for your MyPlayer. Pro Am should switch to a loadout-based badge system, à la Call of Duty's perks, where people are forced to make tough choices about which badges they are equipping. MyPlayers should be allowed to select 1 gold badge, 2 silver badges, 3 bronze badges, and 1 personality badge. Users should have the freedom to experiment with many different heights, weights, wingspans, and badge combinations -- these selections should all be editable at any time, not something that becomes permanently locked in once you finish the initial setup for your MyPlayer. Detailed descriptions and exact percentage boosts for each badge need to be available for users to read in the game menus.

Here is how I would split up the badge selection process, based on their current strengths in 2K17:

Pick Three: Dimer, Pick & Roll Maestro, Posterizer, Limitless Range, Difficult Shots, Mid-Range Deadeye, Deep-Range Deadeye, Catch & Shoot, Corner Specialist, Defensive Stopper, Rim Protector, Pick Pocket, Hustle Rebounder, Bruiser

Pick Three: Flashy Passer, Lob City Passer, Lob City Finisher, Tear Dropper, Tireless Scorer, Relentless Finisher, Acrobat, One Man Fastbreak, Charge Card, Pick Dodger, Chasedown Artist, Post Spin Technician, Dreamlike Up & Under, Drop-Stepper, Pick & Roller, Pick & Popper, Putback King, Breakstarter

Pick One: Floor General (only available for Playmakers and Point Forwards), Defensive Anchor (only available for Paint Protectors and Lockdown Defenders), Clutch Performer, Spark Plug, Microwave, Hardened, Enforcer, Alpha Dog, Beta Dog

8) You might have noticed that Ankle Breaker and Brick Wall weren't present on my badge list, and that's because I believe 2K should take all of the Ankle Breaker stumble/fall down and Brick Wall stun/knockdown animations out of the game. These moments rarely happen in real NBA games, yet they happen multiple times on most possessions of Pro Am. The entire offensive meta game in 2K17 revolves around trapping defenders in these unbreakable animations until a shooter has enough space to get off a perfect "green" release. These animations severely punish the defense and require little skill for the offense to perform. Like the WWE had to do in the early 2000s, these animations need to get the F out.

9) To further curtail the rampant abuse of screens in 2K17, reduce the amount of stamina that Bruiser screens drain from defenders. A 50% stamina reduction should be the most that any single screen should setback a defender. Screens from characters who don't have the Bruiser badge shouldn't be very effective, and shouldn't drain more than 15% stamina.

2K also needs to motion capture better screen avoidance animations. The screen recovery animations in 2K17 are too slow and awkward, even for Lockdown Defenders who have the hall of fame Pick Dodger badge.

10) Increase the stamina cost for sprinting with turbo and using right joystick dribble moves. Offensive players can dribble out the entire 24 second clock right now without depleting their stamina bar. A positive side effect of this change is that it would also encourage more ball movement and team play.

11) Make the ball handler automatically pick up his dribble if he doesn't shoot after attempting a sideways hop step or a hesitation stepback animation. This should finally put a stop to the zig-zag dribble patterns that cheesers have been abusing this entire console generation, and should force people to use 2K's amazing arsenal of dribble moves in a way that more closely resembles real basketball.

12) Increase the global lateral quickness slider to the point that the defensive slide animations of a Lockdown Defender are able to keep pace with all of the Playmakers' and Point Forwards' dribble moves. In 2K17, a Lockdown Defender with 94 lateral quickness is still too slow to stay in front of characters who have an 86 or higher ball control rating and are able to speed boost out of any right joystick dribble animation.

13) Decrease the global acceleration and speed of all players while they are upright (i.e., not in a defensive stance) and are sprinting without the ball. 2K's unrealistically fast closeout speeds are one of the main reasons why most people play zone defenses online.

14) Increase pass velocities and speed up/clean up catch animations. Another reason why so many people play zone defense online is because defenders are able to move faster than the ball is able to travel across the court using 2K17's floaty, clunky, drawn-out passing animations.

15) Decrease the number of fouls that are called in situations when the defender just has his left trigger held down and is only trying to stay in front of his man.

Stop bailing out careless ballhandlers who dribble out of bounds with undeserved blocking fouls. The way the game is programmed right now, it's a blocking foul every time in Pro Am if the defender is making contact with the dribbler at the moment he steps out of bounds. Good offensive players know that and will abuse it to draw cheap fouls.

Also stop bailing out out-of-control ballhandlers who try to dribble right through well-positioned defenders with tons of automated shooting foul animations when the defender is just standing in place and holding his ground. These unavoidable shooting foul animations are especially common during baseline drives.

Flagrant fouls should only have a chance of occurring if the defender has contested a shot by pressing turbo and jump simultaneously. Conservative shot contest inputs using the left trigger or right joystick should never result in a flagrant foul.

16) Take all of the predetermined 2-man contact dunk animations out of the game and eliminate the instances where the game forces dunkers to miss open dunks just because a defender happens to be in the vicinity, even though the defender isn't actually making a good shot contest on the dunker. The success/failure of a dunk in traffic should only be determined by realtime collision physics between the dunker, the ball, the rim, and defenders' bodies/limbs.

17) Increase the ball security for big men in the second or two after after they've just come down with a rebound and in all situations where they are posting up on offense. Passes out of the post also need to be tuned so that they stop getting stripped so frequently during attempted pass out animations.

18) Decrease the ball security for perimeter players who are trying to dribble right through the body of a defender. 2K16 did a much better job than 2K17 does of punishing ballhandlers who try to bulldozer directly through defenders. Unfortunately, 2K17 decided to appease all the "bump steal" complainers instead of rewarding the people who stay in front of their man and play good positional defense.

19) Adjust the referees' pathing so that they run closer to the crowd and further away from the sideline to prevent refs from regularly bumping into players who are running along the sideline or spotting up in the corner.

20) Fix whatever issue is causing offensive players to have a faster reaction and better chance of picking up loose balls compared to defensive players, especially in situations where the offensive player who gets the ball back is the same player who got stripped or blocked to begin with.

21) Fix whatever issue is causing alley oop passes to fly straight up into the air and fall back to the floor instead of going into the hands of a nearby open teammate. The arcs of most alley oop passes (even the ones that are successfully completed) are also way too close to the ground and should be traveling much higher up in the air.

22) Fix whatever issue is causing dribblers to euro step and lose the ball out of bounds while trying to make an icon pass to a teammate who's not available to receive the pass.

23) It should be much tougher than it currently is to gain deep inside position in the paint. Offensive cutters with inferior strength ratings will frequently swim past well-positioned defenders, or simply push them backwards until the defender is stuck underneath the rim for an easy posterizer dunk.

There are already animations in the game to deal with this problem, they just don't trigger frequently enough. The defensive "push back" shove animation that stops a cutter in his tracks and knocks him backwards should be triggering consistently whenever the strength ratings are in the defense's favor and a defender is standing squarely between the cutter's path to the rim.

24) Add a controller option that will make your character go for an automated pass interception animation if his body is facing an incoming pass and he has his left trigger held down. This could work just like the "intense defense" automated shot contest option that's already in the game. The success rate of these auto interception animations should be dependent on the defender's hands, reaction, and steal ratings.

25) To avoid uniform clashes, force Pro Am teams to wear white as their primary home jersey color and prevent teams from making white their primary away jersey color.

To eliminate trolling and visual eyesores, all courts should have wood-colored floors, with lines that cannot also be wood-colored. White shouldn't be a color option for the circle above the paint, to prevent people from trolling free throw shooters who have the white shot meter turned on.

26) Improve the matchmaking to where a team of 5 human players will never get matched up with anything less than another team of 5 human players. Teams with 3 or 4 human players should get matched up with each other, not with teams that have a full lineup of 5 human players.

27) Let us zoom out the 2K Camera so that we can see the entire half court regardless of where the ball is at. The weak side of the floor and the top of the key frequently get cut off the screen when you're set up in the half court and are using the 2K Camera, which is the most popular viewpoint in the game.

[jfsolo]

Phenomenal list. It should be applied to all game modes.

[Breakstarter]

Not for nothing, alot of your points come off as someone who is salty over playing against elite players and them taking advantage of their playstyles. You want to neuter/nerf half of what made 2k17 good. Here i thought you were gonna mention the servers or matchmaking issues. You bring up badges, and their overall effectiveness...how about giving myplayers MORE Options instead of making them Stricter. You Gotta lot of Trump in your vision for how you the rest of us should be playing 2k. The elite players will always find a way to make the best of certain archetypes no matter which year the game comes out.
remove ankle breakers? Remove Brick Wall animations? increase stamina cost?
bruh...i support your thread because its towards fixing pro am, but nerfing and getting rid of the things we actually do like doesnt make sense. Your other points are valid though...i read them thoroughly and you might not agree but we as myplayers need MORE OPTIONS not less and stricter. This is supposed to be fun, not strict.

[Inzombniac]

Quote: Originally Posted by Breakstarter

Not for nothing, alot of your points come off as someone who is salty over playing against elite players and them taking advantage of their playstyles. You want to neuter/nerf half of what made 2k17 good. Here i thought you were gonna mention the servers or matchmaking issues. You bring up badges, and their overall effectiveness...how about giving myplayers MORE Options instead of making them Stricter. You Gotta lot of Trump in your vision for how you the rest of us should be playing 2k. The elite players will always find a way to make the best of certain archetypes no matter which year the game comes out. remove ankle breakers? Remove Brick Wall animations? increase stamina cost? bruh...i support your thread because its towards fixing pro am, but nerfing and getting rid of the things we actually do like doesnt make sense. Your other points are valid though...i read them thoroughly and you might not agree but we as myplayers need MORE OPTIONS not less and stricter. This is supposed to be fun, not strict.

I get where you're coming from in a way but it isn't just about elite players. It's about the fun you're talking about and I do agree some of that should be kept. I get what where's coming from too even though I don't quite agree with the ankle breaker animations being taken out (I do think they should happen less though, cause HOF ankle breaker can be OP). I mean, the way it's set up, not elite teams but cheesy teams period run three screen plays almost every time down to take advantage of screens and you end up locked in animations to where you can't defend/recover. There's no real fun in facing that over and over again every play of the game because that's all they know or the same with stretch bigs who are hitting half court threes if you leave them even an inch of space or they get a stepback (yes, a stepback into a half court 3). These same people will from side to side hoping for a second to pop a three because your stamina won't allow you to keep up with them and somehow despite them running like this like you are, they can still hit their shots. It's an unfair balance and it stinks when you're against that even if you can overcome it with the right play. Will your change the player that way? They'll always find something but look at the positive leaps made with some of the cheese moves being dealt with, players have to stop using them and the game flows better rather than everyone doing the same move, 2K just have to figure out how to implement the ideas on paper to working within the right gameplay environment that it doesn't become overpowered but still enough that if you do it right (keyword) instead of spamming it, you get rewarded.


I really just think there needs to be a medium and I think we can all agree that they need to take a bunch of animations as it is out of the game and make a more fluid experience. Keep some of the fun factor in there but also make it so real ballers prevail in the end which elite players will do. Watching some of the teams in the tournament, they don't really do any of that cheesy stuff (of the games I've seen, I haven't seen TOO many of them but enough). They make smart passes and play smart basketball for the most part while using their archetypes, that's what should be encouraged.


Edit: I'll throw in something else I think should be on the list. If you're trying to defend the inbound, someone on offense can come over and set a screen so you get sucked into an animation for a screen and can't defend it. Things like that need to be looked at, I've never seen that in an NBA game and it would be dumb to do because it wouldn't work but in 2K, you get sucked in. It's not as bad as the charge cheese in the paint (which while realistic, people spam a lot too but that's preventable) but think if it's the last possession of the game. You could have gotten a steal and changed the entire outcome of the game but if you're forced in an animation there, you end up being unable to try.

[NoLeafClover]

Quote: Originally Posted by Breakstarter

Not for nothing, alot of your points come off as someone who is salty over playing against elite players and them taking advantage of their playstyles. You want to neuter/nerf half of what made 2k17 good. Here i thought you were gonna mention the servers or matchmaking issues. You bring up badges, and their overall effectiveness...how about giving myplayers MORE Options instead of making them Stricter. You Gotta lot of Trump in your vision for how you the rest of us should be playing 2k. The elite players will always find a way to make the best of certain archetypes no matter which year the game comes out. remove ankle breakers? Remove Brick Wall animations? increase stamina cost? bruh...i support your thread because its towards fixing pro am, but nerfing and getting rid of the things we actually do like doesnt make sense. Your other points are valid though...i read them thoroughly and you might not agree but we as myplayers need MORE OPTIONS not less and stricter. This is supposed to be fun, not strict.

Hop step spamming zigzagger detected.

Awesome list jyoung.

[ILLSmak]

Quote: Originally Posted by Breakstarter

Not for nothing, alot of your points come off as someone who is salty over playing against elite players and them taking advantage of their playstyles. You want to neuter/nerf half of what made 2k17 good. Here i thought you were gonna mention the servers or matchmaking issues. You bring up badges, and their overall effectiveness...how about giving myplayers MORE Options instead of making them Stricter. You Gotta lot of Trump in your vision for how you the rest of us should be playing 2k. The elite players will always find a way to make the best of certain archetypes no matter which year the game comes out. remove ankle breakers? Remove Brick Wall animations? increase stamina cost? bruh...i support your thread because its towards fixing pro am, but nerfing and getting rid of the things we actually do like doesnt make sense. Your other points are valid though...i read them thoroughly and you might not agree but we as myplayers need MORE OPTIONS not less and stricter. This is supposed to be fun, not strict.

The issue is non elite players do the same things just badly. It's actually more limiting with op mechanics because everyone plays the same. Big men are def too weak with the ball, including while going up.

Good list, I still think rebounding and shot blocking needs to be made less arcade, too.

The game is supposed to be fun... but simulation. Most things are minor annoyances but it really shows when you watch ppl play and it's not you doing it. You realize it's the same strategy for most ppl, which is more constricting.

-Smak

[2_headedmonster]

11) Make the ball handler automatically pick up his dribble if he doesn't shoot after attempting a sideways hop step or a hesitation stepback animation. This should finally put a stop to the zig-zag dribble patterns that cheesers have been abusing this entire console generation, and should force people to use 2K's amazing arsenal of dribble moves in a way that more closely resembles real basketball.

For the love of God, please dont. We finally have something close to a shot-fake hesitation and you want to get rid of it. Otherwise you have a pretty good list.

[TheDuggler]

Perfect list.

2K should take in at least some of this advice.