Submitted on: 03/23/2015 by
Jayson Young
NBA 2K15's fourth patch isn't available yet on Xbox One, but PlayStation 4 and PC owners have now had a week and a half to experience its effects.
Developer Visual Concepts hasn't published an official change log (and doesn't plan to, until Xbox One users receive the update), but Gameplay Director Mike Wang has already confirmed a few changes to NBA 2K15's shooting system on the Operation Sports forums:
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Originally Posted by Mike Wang
To give some insight on the actual tuning that I made, here's essentially what happened:
I tuned the baseline [shooting] values that are shared by both human and CPU-controlled players. The shot heuristics are pretty complex at a basic level. Pre-patch, the numbers looked something like this for a decent shooter at mid-range: Wide open = 45% Fully Contested = 35% Heavily Contested = 10% That's why many people complained that "being open" didn't really matter much, and they were right. Post-patch, that same shooter is now: Wide open = 60% Fully Contested = 20% Heavily Contested = 10% So over the course of the game, assuming both teams shoot an even spread of open and contested jumpers, you should've seen zero change to your end-of-game shot percentages when comparing pre- and post-patch. But if you trend hard one way or the other (all your shots are open or all your shots are contested), you would've seen a very noticeable change. If both teams play solid defense, I can believe that a player might go 80% from the field from time to time, but it definitely shouldn't be the norm. Also, in case you're wondering, I didn't touch three-point percentages at all, only layup, close and mid-range values. |
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Originally Posted by Mike Wang
I also fixed the "glitched" shots being unable to get perfect release, so that will factor in as well.
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While both of these changes are welcome, finally being able to achieve a perfect "green" release with every shooting form in the game has caused field goal percentages to skyrocket, post-patch. The reason is that green release shots go in roughly 99% of the time in NBA 2K15, regardless of what difficulty the game is set to, or how poor the shooter's attributes are. In the estimated 200 to 300 games I've completed since October, twice is the amount of times I've seen one of my players miss a green release shot.
Both occasions occurred in MyTeam's Domination mode. The first was a wide-open corner three from "Sapphire" DeMar DeRozan (84 standing three-point rating). The other was a lightly contested post-up fadeaway from just outside the paint with Tyler Zeller (68 post fade rating).
Those are the only misses, out of the hundreds of green releases I've had this year. Many of the successful shots even managed to come from athletes whose shooting attributes are in the 70s and 60s. Rajon Rondo's free-throw rating, for instance, is a 63 in MyTeam, but I've had games on the hardest difficulty setting (Hall of Fame) where I was able to hit 10 of 10 from the line with Rondo, just because his shooting form is so easy to time.
The near-perfect success rate of green shots, unfortunately, cannot be changed by lowering shooting sliders. It's just something that's hard-coded into the game, and needs to be seriously reconsidered for NBA 2K16.
I've always preferred a shooting system that favors attribute ratings over release timing. And if I play NBA 2K15 offline, I can still have that experience by enabling "ratings only" shooting. But online, only one option exists: "timing-based" shooting. So if I want to play any mode in NBA 2K15 besides MyGM, MyLeague, or MyCareer, all I can do is cringe while average -- or even subpar -- shooters consistently drain buckets that extend well beyond their natural abilities, because a user has mastered the timing of players' shooting animations.
NBA 2K16 needs to move to a system where user timing has a much more subtle impact on shot success, so that a defensive, pass-first point guard like Rajon Rondo can't hit every single attempt he puts up. Instead of what's in-place now, I'd propose a system where:
- Perfect release = The player's normal assigned shot rating.
- Slightly early/Slightly late release = Three points deducted from the player's shooting attribute.
- Late/Early release = Nine points deducted from the player's shooting attribute.
I'm not sure what the ideal deduction values would be, but that's definitely something Visual Concepts could certainly tweak to perfection, with a little testing.
What do you think of the shooting changes in NBA 2K15?
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