The FUNDAMENTAL issue with 2k17's AI Defense

[Bornindamecca]

Quote: Originally Posted by 33JAF

Great post. There are a lot of bad things going on with the AI. I think the biggest problem is that 2k has too much going on under the hood. They have been overambitious adding things to the game while also taking shortcuts and neglecting legacy issues. It's missing key basketball fundamentals. I would love for them to spend one cycle just fixing and tuning, rather than adding and expanding, but it would never go over well because people would complain about how not enough has changed. Those on top at 2k would never allow for it either. I am really hoping that the post release support is big this year. This is the first time I am actually regretting buying the game. As a strictly offline vs CPU guy, I just can't play it in it's current state. Here are some highlights and brief comments from a game I just watched, CPU vs CPU. I do this every year when I get the game to see how the AI is. It is a game within a game for me to edit and tune sliders to max out the CPUs potential. I saw a couple of odd things and decided to start recording them, and after the game was over I ended up with 7 minutes worth of short clips of the AI just being plain awful. Trust me, I am not one of those guys who gets his kicks from hating on 2k. I have always loved this game, but I am losing my faith. Just check this out. CPUvCPU on superstar default. This is all from the same game. Please forgive my terrible editing skills.

This video is just excellent. I couldn't applaud it more.

Quote: Originally Posted by WTF

If you figure it out, let me know. I had ZBO catch up to Wiggins last night after I had a good 3 steps on him. Another separate drive, Wiggins cleanly beat his guy on a behind the back, and as I went up for the dunk, Marc Gasol comes over at warp speed from the top of the key, to foul me in a tie up type of animation. It was ridiculous.

I played the Knicks in MyCareer yesterday and Porzingis beat everyone down court in such comical fashion I spent the next 3-5 minutes replaying it. The AI seems to completely ignore the acceleration stat on D, especially on fast breaks or rebounds.

[Taer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bornindamecca

either in a patch or next year we need the devs to focus on great defenses being better at help, switching, rotation and giving up the lower percentage option. Less on unrealistic collisions and speed boosts.

I'm late to the thread but this is something I've been ranting to myself for years on.

The last two years have been a change in defensive play - but I fel it has been a transition from animations being chained together to give the illusion of defense to the dominance of the defensive collision -reaction to the collision

Its related to the steals - in an attempt to prevent button spamming we have evolved from being caught in animations to determine steal success into now an era of collision-based reaction to determine success. Its a band-aid approach that should be completely rebuilt.

Edit: One of the most effective ways of running a 2k17 defense is to act as a sheep dog on bigs during the transition. If you are smart enough you can collide with both bigs and sometimes one of the perimeter players just enough to confuse the ai

Speaking of which the ai (un)intentionally uses this strategy during your transitions - if you get stuck behind a big "transitioning" it is almost worth just turning around and staying where you are at instead of "fighting back".

[Dione2014]

2K first needs to clean up the help d and switches before they can rely on help and fighting around picks the way teams do in the NBA. Guys get completely lost out there on the court. They especially get lost after screens. They just completely lose track of their man after getting around a screen. This kind of stuff just shouldn't be happening. I have a ton of these clips saved up for proof.

The a.i just isn't smart enough to be able to handle dribble penetration like guys do in the NBA, and a patch isn't going to fix this. There's just too many moving parts that go into replicating that kind of awareness of NBA team defense vs what they can do with the a.i. Also too many long drawn out animations holding guys down for to long in one position (forced 3 in the key calls). Most times i drive past a guy the opposing teams big is caught in a 2 man animation with my big giving him no chance to rotate over. Resulting in a lot of clean layups off of drives.

With all of this said i still love the game. I just think this is where the series needs to revamp the way defense is played. Nobody likes unrealistically sticky defense. I've been playing ball for more that 18 years. In the most non bragging way i could possibly tell you. there was never a time I felt like i couldn't drive past a defender whenever i wanted. That's because all it takes is having a step on a guy and you've beat them. This is far from the case in 2K because like you said, it's a band aid to cover of the poor rotations and help D.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fnJXemPP2c



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhVGWc6SZhc

[WTF]

That Westbrook clueless defense happens WAY too often. The DRose is just sad, lol.

[strawberryshortcake]

Haven't read through this entire thread but has any of the developers addressed the defensive side of things (either in this thread or another) and the quirks where players are out of position? Is this done intentionally? Even though I am enjoying the game, players being frequently out of position does make me wonder what's going on programming the defensive artificial intelligence.

[ch46647]

This thread is depressing to me. I was very excited for 2K17 and when I firsf started playing I thought the gameplay had finally taken the leap it needed. Unfortunately, these under the hood issues are rearing there head more and more.

These videos essentially tell me their defensive AI is way behind, and we're going to have another year of artificiial boosts from the CPU defenders.

[Bornindamecca]

[PhantomLord]

Quote: Originally Posted by 33JAF

Great post. There are a lot of bad things going on with the AI. I think the biggest problem is that 2k has too much going on under the hood. They have been overambitious adding things to the game while also taking shortcuts and neglecting legacy issues. It's missing key basketball fundamentals. I would love for them to spend one cycle just fixing and tuning, rather than adding and expanding, but it would never go over well because people would complain about how not enough has changed. Those on top at 2k would never allow for it either. I am really hoping that the post release support is big this year. This is the first time I am actually regretting buying the game. As a strictly offline vs CPU guy, I just can't play it in it's current state. Here are some highlights and brief comments from a game I just watched, CPU vs CPU. I do this every year when I get the game to see how the AI is. It is a game within a game for me to edit and tune sliders to max out the CPUs potential. I saw a couple of odd things and decided to start recording them, and after the game was over I ended up with 7 minutes worth of short clips of the AI just being plain awful. Trust me, I am not one of those guys who gets his kicks from hating on 2k. I have always loved this game, but I am losing my faith. Just check this out. CPUvCPU on superstar default. This is all from the same game. Please forgive my terrible editing skills.

THANK YOU. This video is the perfect example of basically everything wrong with this game. The devs need to see it. I want to love this game... it does so much so well. But defense is 100% broken and I cannot play the game like this.

I honestly don't understand the strong review scores. Are that many people ignorant about the actual game of basketball? The defensive AI is laugbaby broken. The game cannot be an 8 or 9 out of 10 in this state. It just can't. I wish I could enjoy it like many seem to be... but when 30% of plays every gam feel completely unfair and uncontrollable because of awful programming, I can't. Hopefully they make some fixes.... but I fear there is too much wrong here for patches to address.