MyNBA CPU AI cheese

[Graphik]

I'm back from the dead to rant on this game. I skipped last year's game for the first time in ages but decided to get back to some hoops after a brief hiatus. And...

Yo what is up with the CPU AI? This has got to be the most cheap and janky AI I've ever played against. I've went so far as to download some rosters and even used ATD scenario to start a season. While his roster fixed a ton of jank, I'm purely convinced that the AI just flat out cheats when it wants to. Despite whatever changes you make to sliders, coaching or matchups. Here's a nice list of my butthurt:

1. On Ball Defense - Seriously I can't play D to save my life. The CPU warps, slides or glitches past you and takes the mathematically perfect shot that is impossible to defend. Every possession is anxiety inducing because no matter how perfect you feel you're playing defense, the AI will always find a wide open man or create enough space for a open jumper. They get so aggressive driving that you can't bump them and they slide past for a easy layup. And to top it off, these events feel scripted as if you are out of control at mercy to the animations.

2. Rebounding - feels unnatural and scripted. The ball automatically goes to whoever the game deemed worthy of the rebound. There is no randomness, no battle for position or good angles you can take to get boards. The ball shoots off the rim perfectly into the hands of the player it's meant to. Even tips don't happen because of good position, the game just decides if there will be a tip and place you or the cpu in the position to get one.

3. Overall JANK - I drive to the rim, draw a double, see a wide open man at the 3 point line, pass him the ball...and this fool decides to jump into the 3 point line and his defender is right back on him. Open 3 gone.

I pass the ball around the perimeter, see a open man at the corner and when I pass him the ball get locked into a bogus passing animation that delays his pass by a second and give the defender time to get back on D.

I've timed a block perfectly only for the AI to stop mid gather, then go into another gather to layup so I can't contest the shot. And yes, they traveled too.

The artificial runs that the CPU goes on feels scripted. My defense suddenly stops defending, the AI cuts to the basket are unstoppable, they can suddenly hit contested 3s, I can't block layups cause my big men move as if stuck in the mud and on fast breaks my team likes to guard the paint leaving 3 point shooters wide open at the corners.

While on this run, Trae Young plays defense like Jrue Holiday. There help defense is on top of everything. They slip through every screen as if the screener was non-existent. To top it off, my passes never go where intended. Run a play and watch your man come off a screen, get wide open at the 3 point line and when you pass them the ball, they jump out towards the logo totally destroying the play.

Also you see your guy cut to the basket for an easy 2 and once you pass him the ball he just stops running and lets the CPU steal the ball.

I've seen balls clip through players, players clip through players, that invisible force field on the baseline and sideline work against you. Animations that'll suck you into people, animations that force you out of bounds, animations that'll have you fighting the sticks and just nasty jank that'll have you cussing at the TV. I don't feel rewarded on offense nor defense. I'm at the mercy of the script.

I wanted to like this game but I've uninstalled as of now. I couldn't take it no more. I clearly see that the devs have all but given up on us offline players. Between the complete brokenness of the MYNBA mode and the complete brokenness of the AI, I'm done. Sorry for the long rant but Ive spend the last few days looking for offline player rants and dont find many. The majority of people who buy this game do so for My career and I'm definitely in the minority in this fight.

[AceDawg5]

I agree with a lot of what ur saying about MyNBA. I have a theory if you wanna give it a shot.

I have noticed a distinct difference in gameplay between MyNBA and Play Now. Gameplay is SIGNIFICANTLY better in Play Now and I cannot understand it beyond them being coded differently.

Same 2 teams, rosters, sliders, and coaching settings and the CPU is night and day between the modes.

No suction defense, fast breaks, modern NBA basketball. The CPU even calls TOs regardless of score. They only call a timeout in MyNBA if you go on a run, even then I have plenty of 3rd quarters where they haven't called a single TO.

Switch to MyNBA and its like ur playing the 90s era no matter what era you choose. No amount of slider changes have fixed it for me and its been like that for years.

Just thankful I havent paid for 2k since 21. Ppl gift it to me lol.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[Graphik]

I play alot against my bro in play now and it's actually enjoyable playing against a live opponent on the couch. But playing the CPU feels terrible. Every team feels the exact same. Only difference is the superstars who do the scoring.

I could check out how playnow feels but it wouldn't make any sense at this point. I waited long enough to buy the game because it usually takes a while to get patched a bit but I'm convinced they abandoned us.

I've been playing 2K games forever since the first, hell since Ronnie left NBA Live in the 90s for that matter. Been mostly an offline guy. And this is by far the worst 2K AI I've ever seen. I wasn't even having fun.

[Graphik]

By the way downloading Celtics rosters fixes a ton of the animation issues by removing or downgrading alot of the badges and fixes player tendencies.

It felt like a godsend for a moment but then I noticed none of that mattered. The AI just chesses you. Everything I mentioned above will happen regardless of sliders or anything you throw at it.

Also, it barely makes any sense that you can try 4 completely different slider sets and the game still kinda plays the same. With the exception of extreme slider changes I barely notice a difference after a few games of testing.

The game is basically hard coded to give the user a challenge and it feels cheap and janky as hell. Even worse than Madden smdh

[Fake Empire]

Quote: Originally Posted by Graphik

I'm back from the dead to rant on this game. I skipped last year's game for the first time in ages but decided to get back to some hoops after a brief hiatus. And... Yo what is up with the CPU AI? This has got to be the most cheap and janky AI I've ever played against. I've went so far as to download some rosters and even used ATD scenario to start a season. While his roster fixed a ton of jank, I'm purely convinced that the AI just flat out cheats when it wants to. Despite whatever changes you make to sliders, coaching or matchups. Here's a nice list of my butthurt: 1. On Ball Defense - Seriously I can't play D to save my life. The CPU warps, slides or glitches past you and takes the mathematically perfect shot that is impossible to defend. Every possession is anxiety inducing because no matter how perfect you feel you're playing defense, the AI will always find a wide open man or create enough space for a open jumper. They get so aggressive driving that you can't bump them and they slide past for a easy layup. And to top it off, these events feel scripted as if you are out of control at mercy to the animations. 2. Rebounding - feels unnatural and scripted. The ball automatically goes to whoever the game deemed worthy of the rebound. There is no randomness, no battle for position or good angles you can take to get boards. The ball shoots off the rim perfectly into the hands of the player it's meant to. Even tips don't happen because of good position, the game just decides if there will be a tip and place you or the cpu in the position to get one. 3. Overall JANK - I drive to the rim, draw a double, see a wide open man at the 3 point line, pass him the ball...and this fool decides to jump into the 3 point line and his defender is right back on him. Open 3 gone. I pass the ball around the perimeter, see a open man at the corner and when I pass him the ball get locked into a bogus passing animation that delays his pass by a second and give the defender time to get back on D. I've timed a block perfectly only for the AI to stop mid gather, then go into another gather to layup so I can't contest the shot. And yes, they traveled too. The artificial runs that the CPU goes on feels scripted. My defense suddenly stops defending, the AI cuts to the basket are unstoppable, they can suddenly hit contested 3s, I can't block layups cause my big men move as if stuck in the mud and on fast breaks my team likes to guard the paint leaving 3 point shooters wide open at the corners. While on this run, Trae Young plays defense like Jrue Holiday. There help defense is on top of everything. They slip through every screen as if the screener was non-existent. To top it off, my passes never go where intended. Run a play and watch your man come off a screen, get wide open at the 3 point line and when you pass them the ball, they jump out towards the logo totally destroying the play. Also you see your guy cut to the basket for an easy 2 and once you pass him the ball he just stops running and lets the CPU steal the ball. I've seen balls clip through players, players clip through players, that invisible force field on the baseline and sideline work against you. Animations that'll suck you into people, animations that force you out of bounds, animations that'll have you fighting the sticks and just nasty jank that'll have you cussing at the TV. I don't feel rewarded on offense nor defense. I'm at the mercy of the script. I wanted to like this game but I've uninstalled as of now. I couldn't take it no more. I clearly see that the devs have all but given up on us offline players. Between the complete brokenness of the MYNBA mode and the complete brokenness of the AI, I'm done. Sorry for the long rant but Ive spend the last few days looking for offline player rants and dont find many. The majority of people who buy this game do so for My career and I'm definitely in the minority in this fight.

As an offline only user I'm a bit shocked you're having such an experience. I can understand your points regarding animations and how they dominate user input but we can't do anything about it. Fact is there's no way right now to have 1:1 animations tied to user input, we need to go back to NBA 2k11 and accept playing with less animations. The technology is not there and for sure it's not there with the current engine. I've learned to live with these canned/forced animations, you can finally adapt to them.
Defense: After the last patch foot planting is improved. You can shut down offense, you can have your player glued to your matchup. It was more challenging and loose during the launch of the game. I can understand your frustration but this game is fun and imo it's not a game you can easily uninstall.

[sirdez]

I mean it's an animation-based video game, a bit of cheese is par for the course. Agree some of it is annoying though but on the whole I think the good far outweighs the bad.

[MiracleMet718]

Quote: Originally Posted by Graphik

3. Overall JANK - I drive to the rim, draw a double, see a wide open man at the 3 point line, pass him the ball...and this fool decides to jump into the 3 point line and his defender is right back on him. Open 3 gone.

This is most likely because you are still holding the left stick towards the hoop when you make the pass. Whatever direction you are holding the left stick when passing is where you will lead the receiver of the pass. Used to happen to me all the time until I figured that out and now it never happens anymore unless I’m rushing.

[amioran]

These things are well known and sadly they are becoming worse and worse as time passes instead of becoming less pronounced. It seems like that the more the devs introduce new tech and the more they have to resort to have the AI work under a "brute force" behavior, unrestricted by the rules set by the context, instead of actually programming the AI to be able to use such a tech effectively (as the latter would require a lot of time and effort much better spent for other parts of the game that bring in more revenue; sadly this is the reality of 2K nowadays and I doubt things will change).

There's really nothing you can do about this because the scripted behavior and the AI working on a different set of rules than the player is bound to is not a bug but it's intentional. However if you lower both the offensive and defensive consistency sliders to 0 you can at least lower part of the "momentum" scripting that turns even role players suddenly into prime MJ.