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12-14-2008, 02:50 AM
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TOMBA IS ONLINE
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TOMBA 2K9 FINAL NOW LIVE ON 2KSHARE(360)
 2kshare file NOW available! TOMBA 2K9 FINAL ROSTER TOMBA 2K9 FINAL SLIDERS The wait is over.... And the work is finally done for everyone to enjoy most importantly. From the onset, I have tried to champion myself as someone who just wants a basketball game to flow right. Not by conventional statistics, but by having a good game engine in place that runs smooth, looks smooth and plays smooth. Speed will always be the most important aspect in any real-life interpretations of a sports video game. We tend to feel (the hardcore gamer in this regard) that adjusting sliders is merely enough to warrant these types of changes. When in honesty the slider sets can not change a game that much as they only give "boosts" to attributes already working off a certain logic. THAT logic being many things from the triggering of certain animations to the probability that a player might do something well or badly. Now looking at the attribute model you find that those two aspects can play a major part in getting the game engine to act/react better than it might at a default setting. However NOT by just getting the ratings of the attributes right to the statistics of a certain players skills in real life but by something entirely different. If you approach these types of games as a programmer you look for two things. Those things are: 1)The way the attribute value triggers an animation from happening or not happening and 2)The way the attribute then affects the other game play around it due to the changing of it. Right there you have two of the best explanations as to WHY 2k9 or any OTHER sports video game usually doesn't look good. Not that some developers have the ability to do this well from the beginning at default but it's rather about having a wrong understanding of what the programmers end up doing. I've had talks with industry people where the general consensus about this is that the final game AFTER it being programmed etc ends up in the hands of roster tech and they then go and just INPUT number values based off of real life percentages in the sport world. Problem with this being is that they usually have no knowledge of what the games engine is doing and are pretty much just doing a fantasy league type of rating. Which negates everything the programmer has done in regard to how the game handles attributes and skills. Going further. Animations (something 2k is vastly known for) are something that have to be triggered in order to happen. Whether it be by the controller input of by the automatic setting placed within a attribute value. Say for example running. In the case of 2k9. When you push sideways with the controller there are 3 different types of speeds in which you can go actually. If you just push very lightly the player tends to walk up the court, if you push slightly harder he goes into a slight jog and if you then again push a bit harder he then goes in a full on jog. ONCE the sprint button is introduced the player runs off of the last analog press sideways. Sounds simple right? Yeah, but it looks wrong thanks to the way attributes are set by number values.... "I am the Puppet Master!" OK, now that I've gotten to the crux of the matter. In my last write up I mentioned "speed" and the way a player moves on the court. If you remember I said that "In basketball there's usually two factors. One, the pace in which a game plays and two the way players move and dribble." This is undoubtedly the only thing that matters when you play the any sports video game. Why? Because it has a direct affect on how you perceive the game to be like to real life and in how well you can then play it. For example. You couldn't play NBA Jam 'realistically" because they only had about one or two speeds for players. Fast and super fast. Speed has the ability to make you believe that what you're seeing is in fact real. Here's another. Say a robot for example even. You know those new ones that some crazy euro engineers are doing that have those robots move completely life like on ice? Well... just imagine why they move like that so realistically? NOT because they use probabilites for the way a thing might react by adding more added bends etc, but by making sure that the machine moves well and fluidly. AHHH... See?...that's my point. The fluidity in a situation where there is no sliding, no skipping of animations etc. see where I'm getting at? I want this to be a a realization into the way I think about editing. The fact that as a programmer the programmer is doing the right things and the fact that it can get screwed up by the simplest mind.... Speed and Me Part. 3 In the last Speed and Me I wrote: "I usually see 3 areas to adjust. The speed in which a players accelerates,the speed in which a player dribbles and the way a player goes to the basket." I then went on to explain "The Look Of the Animation". What I found out after actually play testing and just general poking around was something entirely different and that is now something I call "The Triggering of Animations". "Tomba Animation Calling System" Can I trademark this? Well anyway... OK what this means is that essentially. This speed edit does not follow a conventional system. It's about triggering animations until they are smooth by setting certain numbers values to the player. I've found that ratings matter very much in this regard in making the game look smooth. Realistic values do not make this game anymore sim than a good triggering system. In short. Get the speed in which players move in general realistic you have a realistic game. Simple right? WRONG. Very hard and time consuming to figure out. I must have spent the last 3 weeks JUST getting the triggering values down. What are those values and what do they do and who is your daddy? Well I know the first two the last one you gotta know. So, let's try and make sense of this somehow. Let me impart all the wisdom and knowledge I have been able to garner from all of this so that everyone can benefit going forward editing games in general when it comes time to do YOUR rosters... The system broken down... The best way to explain the formula is by first just stating the fact that each position on the court has a certain setting. The reasoning behind this is simply one of size and player role and THEN the factor of how they move/dribble. Things is though how do you do it? Well you have to think outside of conventional uses of the games attributes. This way you are able to really eek out the best animations for those positions. And they are there, from one handed dribbles to great speed up dribbling. And they are there from great slow strides to full out runs at the basket. Problem is that they're lost. Virtually hidden away in a slew of bad and incorrect ratings that have been based off a NBA averaging system and NOT the more logical approach of a set value by a programmer. The Numbers and What They Mean For 2k9 (AND for almost ANY sports game out there) if you can find where the animation sits as a value in the attribute then you can then control the "calling " of a certain animation. Now from what I've been able to figure out. Each animation movement a player has is determined by what is set to them. Inside the attributes of a player you have KEY attributes that contain some of the most basic and principle factors of how the game looks. I'm not talking about player sig shots or iso moves, but rather the way a player's running animations and dribbling "ability" triggers based off of certain iso moves and the corresponding nature of the two when they collide.... Following this EXACT logic will make the players in NBA 2K9 react in ways more believable, more life like than anything you might have played before even in any other 2k basketball title. I firmly believe that going forward every editor NEEDS to incorporate THIS logic when first doing their edits as mere "statistical' attributes do piddly squat to making the game LOOK better as opposed to maybe say statically better percentage wise(that is NOT to say it can not be both. As I have been able to learn by just using very different logic to the team tendencies to achieve that). Let me first start by approaching the point guard. As a position on the court the point guards main purpose is to either control the tempo of the game,get the ball into a certain scorers hands OR dribble through and create chaos so that defenses break apart... That in mind. In 2k9 this is what I found works to make THAT a reality visually wise. Point Guard Settings (numbers with explanations) Depending on point guards there's already a set medium for all, but in order to tackle this type of animation discrepancy you have do the following. Set Speeds for points guards only to these... Speed 76,81,86,89,91,96 Nothing else... Not 74,75 Or 83,87 at all. The reason for this is because of what I earlier stated having an effect. The fact of the analog sticks ability to impart it's speed onto the player via a 3 way push... What this allows is for the 'running speed, the walk and jog speeds of the players to hit their animation of "stride" at a good time. So in a way these settings depending on how fast a point guards stride should be adjusts his level to a good triggering when you push the analog stick. This helps with the hesitation BUT needs to be coupled WITH: Quickness at 50 for EVERYONE. Quickness within the attribute realm is a non existant attribute and ONLY when you use it WITH the quickness slider do you see ANY importance to the players stride or pace so to say... So to recap. Point guards should have a set speed of either 76,81,86,89,91 or 96 along with their quickness set to 50. As you will notice both of these values will only go to 50 or 99 in general. Leading my case to be right about speed being handled by triggering the animation... Now that's all fine and good ,but sticking with the point guard as the starting point there are STILL things left to do to him. Ball handling should be set at 75 or 80 DEPENDING on the point guards overall speed that you choose out of the 76,81,86,91 values. That said, I would also take into account the style of the isomove with this. Picking a certain one might and might not work... Hustle should STILL be set to 76. This now works off the newer slider set which has the slider "hustle" now at 50. This along with it being 50 STOPS sliding or those weird fast animations after a ball goes through the hoop and a player quickly retrieves it to go inbound the ball back to possession. On The Ball Defense should be set at 90 for EVERY point guard as well. this along with the slider set of On the Ball defense being at 15 makes for an interesting guarding situation AGAINST another guard. As usually point guard guard other point guards etc... Going to the player tendency ratings you need to do the following as well... Triple Threat should be set to either 70 OR 75. I have found that this controls the type of dribbling the cpu does on the user as well as determining how the point guard sets up based off the teams tendency to do so...it's a good average that picks up well off of the team tendency coach profiles... Shooting Guard Settings Speed set to 76,81,86,89,91 Quickness again set to 50 Ball Handling set to 75 or 80 yet again Hustle set to 76 again Triple threat set to 70 or 75 Now here is where the two differ in aspect to defense. Because we are more inclined to have the point guard guard the point I felt that shooting guards would guard everything else happening coming in. To reflect this I have now left their on the ball defense alone and opted to make their: Defensive Awareness set 90 as it covers a much broader base and allows for passes to be picked off by shooting guards... Small Forwards Speed set to 66,71,76,81,86, Quickness again set to 50 Ball Handling set to 60, 70, 75 Hustle set to 76 Because of the fact that the small forward is the middle position in the line up and the most practical of players I feel that the other attributes do not need to be worried about...so settings them up to just these 4 attribute values is perfectly fine... Power Forwards Speed set to 56,61 66,71,76 Quickness again set to 50 Ball Handling set to 50 or 60 Reason being the fact that power forwards in general do not tend to dribble THAT much and rarely get to do crossovers etc. Hustle set to 76 again The way I handled the power forwards defense skills in this is interesting because i always found that if a center (more below on this) or power forward was involved in the defense they had a BAD tendency to slide into their defenses. Thus: Defensive Awareness for Power forwards should be set to 50 BECAUSE of the animation of sliding being now taken out by setting the value to this Centers Speed set to 51,56, 61 Quickness again set to 50 Ball Handling set to 50 Hustle set to 76 again Defensive Awareness set to 50 Sliders and Cherries Part. 5 Here are the slider settings with explanations. *Default explanation: When you see the slider left at default that means the player individual ratings are determining the results in these areas. Game Play Settings Difficulty: Pro Quarter Length: 8 Fatigue: On Injuries: On Clutch Factor: Off Real Player FT%: On Game Speed: 37 (reason for this is the ball speed. This helps the look of rocket passes across court etc) Free Throw Difficulty 50 NBA Rules / Fouls Charging Foul - 65 Blocking Foul - 50 Reaching Foul - 40 Shooting Foul - 50 Loose Ball Foul - 60 USER / CPU OFFENSE Close Shot Success 50 / 30 Mid Range Success 50 / 60 3pt Success 50 / 45 Layup Success 50 / 36 Dunk Success 45 / 45 Dunks in Traffic 60 / 60 Screen Success 70 / 70 DEFENSE Steal Success 50 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Help Defense Strength – 100 / 50 (this gets the players to guard the incoming player to the basket) ATTRIBUTES Stealing – 50 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Blocking – 70 / 50 Ball Handling – 50 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Dunking Ability – 55 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Off. Awareness – 50 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Def. Awareness – 0 / 0 Off. Rebounding – 50 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Def. Rebounding – 90 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Clutch – 0 / 0 (If left with clutch off this does not come into play. If playing WITH clutch On it effects it accordingly to this adjustment) Speed – 47 / 47(works in tandem with the speed edit for individual players) Strength – 100 / 0 (helps with warping and collision detections) Stamina – 50 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Durability – 50 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Vertical – 75 / 75 (In game this looks better than lazy feet never lifting off the ground. guys in the NBA got hops and when running etc you try and get as high as you can. DOES not effect short players into dunking) Quickness – 0 / 0 (works in tandem with the speed edit for individual players) Hustle – 50 / 50 (works in tandem with the speed edit for individual players) Hands – 40 / 40(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) On-Ball Defense – 15 / 15 Injury Severity – 50 / 50(Default and relies more on individual ratings now) TENDENCIES Take Close Shots – 50 / 0 Take Mid-Range Shots – 50 / 100 Take 3pt Shots – 50 / 40 Attack the Basket – 60 / 20 (Had to mention these 4 settings as a grouping of their own. I can not begin to tell what I feel is happening with the games shot attempts at default 50 settings. For whatever reason on Pro, the default numbers of these 4 attributes do not work right with the exception of the 3 pt slider. What I've tried doing here is creating an ACTUAL default that the computer uses to utilizes your teams' coaching style tendencies. So... 0 for the "Take Close Shots" slider actually plays out as if it's 50 and in the middle. 100 for the "Take Mid-Range shots' is acting as if it's a proper 50 and the "attack the basket" slider being at 20 allows for a medium between those 50 plus jumps for both the "take close/m,id shots. This now works in tandem with the shooting successes and puts the focus more on player ratings) This has been tested thoroughly on PRO and should give you great averages in attempts but more so make teams PLAY as their coaching tenancies say they do. Truly a good fix. Now I continue... Finish Strong Inside – 100 / 100 (this might be high,but I feel that the NBA is very much a muscling game. Kinda like a pick up game for money. this works in conjunction withe the strength/put-back/attack-the-basket and individual dunk/layup ratings) Look For Post Players – 70 / 70 (just determines the fact that the CPU and the off the ball user players will get into position for set plays) Use Triple Threat – 50 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Use Fade aways – 50 / 45 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Use Hook shots – 50 / 50 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Attempt put backs – 75 / 75 (This works for more urgency around the basket by offense) Throw Flashy Passes – 45 / 45 (The player attributes have been ALL fixed so that it ONLY happens for those player adept at passing. Based off of DC's flashy passing ratings) Commit Fouls – 40 / 40 (Default and relies more on individual ratings now) Play Passing Lanes – 70 / 25 (For the CPU set at 25 it helps with the back door cuts and robot attention to your passing. for the user it makes their awareness of passes become better) Go for On-Ball Steals – 60 / 60 (The user has not enough results at default) Contest Shots – 100 / 100 (helps with post up and thru the lane attempts) Use Size up Moves – 50 / 100 (This slider causes all the off the play dribbling that players with high dribbling stats can do to happen more. The user can pull them off with ease,but because of PRO difficulty the CPU doesn't do this as much. this raised to the maximum of 100 does the trick and looks good with players like Chris Paul etc) Coaching ProStyles Very briefly, I have been able to capture what makes every team play like themselves now more efficiently then anything I've done or used before. Every team has been thoroughly tested to make sure they play as they are coached... Below is a rundown of the teams. Again it should be mentioned that these coaching profiles ONLY work with the Tomba roster and slider sets... (From top to bottom) 76ers 45,55,55,65,55,55,35,30,75,55,25 Blazers 35,65,50,45,65,75,50,20,85,75,15 Bobcats 35,45,45,55,45,65,50,35,75,65,25 Bucks 45,30,30,60,30,60,50,30,80,65,20 Bulls 45,45,45,60,45,65,50,30,80,65,20 CAVS 35,60,50,60,60,75,35,25,85,75,15 Celtics 40,50,50,55,50,70,25,30,80,70,20 Clippers 45,65,50,50,65,70,35,30,80,70,20 Grizzlies 40,35,35,60,35,60,50,25,80,60,20 Hawks 45,45,45,55,45,75,35,20,90,75,10 Heat 40,55,50,60,55,75,35,25,85,75,15 Hornets 35,40,40,55,40,75,50,25,85,75,15 Jazz 40,40,40,60,40,60,50,30,75,60,25 Kings 45,35,35,55,35,70,50,30,80,70,20 Knicks 50,15,15,55,15,85,35,30,80,90,20 Lakers 45,60,50,55,60,70,35,30,75,70,25 Magic 45,70,50,65,70,80,50,30,80,80,20 MAVS 45,45,45,60,45,70,25,25,85,70,15 Nets 40,40,40,65,40,75,35,25,80,75,20 Nuggets 45,65,50,70,65,70,25,30,75,70,25 Pacers 50,50,50,55,50,70,35,30,80,70,20 Pistons 40,50,50,55,50,65,25,25,80,65,20 Raptors 35,60,50,60,60,70,35,20,90,70,10 Rockets 30,35,35,50,35,50,25,35,75,50,25 Spurs 30,40,40,55,40,25,25,25,90,75,10 Suns 40,50,50,65,50,70,25,25,80,70,20 Thunder 45,40,40,55,40,50,50,30,75,50,25 T'Wolves 40,40,40,55,40,60,50,35,75,60,25 Warriors 55,65,50,70,65,70,50,30,80,70,20 Wizards 40,40,40,65,40,70,35,30,80,70,20 Shooting ratings and shooting tendencies based on individual players stats have also been redone to more reflect their real life counterparts. Obviously what I had done previously was based off of Nogsters fine work, so PS3 users wanting to use these edits can as well. However I can not say enough how much 360 users will benefit from this edit. I have been able to go through most if not all players and change their attributes where needed as well... ADDITIONAL MANUAL SETTINGS TV Style cameras Broadcast Height 4 Zoom 1 Nosebleeds Height 1 Zoom 1 Sound Settings Commentary 90 PA Volume 85 Sound Effects Volume 40 Crowd Volume 95 Player Chatter volume 65 Summary There's no real way to really end what I've done other than to say this will be it... I am stepping down from the slider and roster game so that others can take over and use what I've gained as knowledge so that they can now make rosters in this sort of way as it is truly the ONLY WAY to start making games playable for us die-hards. The mentality has to be passed on and it is my hope through my years at work at it that had me reiterating constantly the importance of speed edits finally sinks in. This was NEVER a gimmic or a trick, just what I felt, experimented with and have come to terms with as being true. Sports games have to "look right" and it is through this obsession of speed that I have been able to make these games playable for many of you. I've gotten great responses and feedback from the community and I hope this can continue by having the logic I set forth about speed and the triggering of animations be used for years to come... It is with great admiration of all fellow roster makers past present and future that I pass this on... TOMBA
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Brand New Tomba Slider sets ready for Next Gen Versions of NBA,Madden and Fifa Stay Tuned... Last edited by Tomba; 10-06-2016 at 12:38 PM. |
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12-14-2008, 05:17 AM
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#6 |
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An Old Trafford
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Re: TOMBA 2K9 FINAL
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