Why the Court Feels Too Small in the 2k Series

[Bornindamecca]

In his recent feedback for 2k18, Dman mentioned that the court feels too small. In recent years, the devs have assured us that the court is to scale.

They're both right.

If you take a picture from multiple camera angles and make the measurements, getting rid of all visual illusions(remember, wide angle lenses make NBA photos often unreliable), you might find that the court to player ratio in NBA 2k is visually very close to scale. The problem is, you can't SEE the entire 2k model. We all know that there is an invisible collision area around the player and the ball. So while they LOOK a certain size, they are in fact bigger than they appear. Imagine if in real life, all of the players were in clear fat suits. This is what 2k actually is simulating.

One of the key differences is that in real life, the trunk of your body is your main collision area. The extremities are quite thin and small by comparison, taking up very little space without the addition of skill to add accuracy to the placement of your arms and hands. In 2k and virtually every other sports game, there is no way to really simulate this accuracy yet. The devs have to generalize and approximate the effect of arms and hands. Sports games aren't yet precise enough to say "you were off by a pixel, your feet were in the right place, but you were 1 frame off when you pressed steal."

That would be way too punishing, especially once you add in stuff like lag/latency.

The other major problem is movement. Not only do the players have these larger collision areas for you to have to avoid, but you have many less steps to use to navigate these areas. The most obvious example is trying to take a shot at a specific spot on the court, be it the elbow, the 3pt line or anywhere else. The locomotion just doesn't allow for steps small enough for a high level of precision.

This not only makes the court feel smaller, it ACTUALLY MAKES the court smaller. So instead of getting every millimeter out of the 94 feet to use, you only get six inches to a foot at a time.

So now in addition to the fat suits, put giant shoes on your 2k models. Even though you can't see this, this is what you're actually playing with.

Here's the issue: While I see some possible solutions, I don't think there's a true fix at this point in our current technology. If you go too far in the other direction, defense would be absolutely impossible. Out of everything, giving us more precise steps in the locomotion engine would help, but I'm pretty sure that this is a really tough balance to strike with the tech we have right now.

It's not that other games don't have this problem, it's that most games don't have the speed and balance of contact/no-contact that basketball demands in such a tight space with such mobile characters. It's a unique combination of obstacles.

This isn't to excuse or defend 2k or back up or go against Dman, but rather to hopefully add some complexity to the knee jerk reaction of "make the courts bigger, 2k!!!"

--Books

[VAWereWolf65]

Totally agree with this, but if you've ever played 2v2 or 1v1v1 in MyPark, those courts definitely need to be made bigger.

I'll have a player spam X until they get me to do that animation where you pick up the ball and stumble backwards, and since there's very little room behind the three point line I step out of bounds and get a turnover

Or, I'll get pushed but since they don't have blocking or charging fouls called in mypark, my player will just fly out of bounds because he got stuck in an animation which should've been a blocking foul on the defender, but it doesn't get called

[Shiu]

Great information. Collisions are hard to get right while maintaining good animations, especially if you also have to deal with latency.
With that said, I'm certain collisions could be improved in the game, but it's not trivial by any means.

I work with software for game animation and have spent a great deal of hours pulling my hair out trying to solve similar issues.

[23]

If this issue is close to being solved one day because I look for the movement to be changed at some point one day, maybe not today but it NEEDS TO BE, watch and see how much more crispy running offenses will be and how the spacing really opens up.

It hit me the other night playing 2k17 and it's something Da_Czar has been saying for awhile now. When it hits you, it's like a ton of bricks.

Great Great post!

[bateman11]

Excellent way of breaking this issue down, Born. This is spot on.


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[The 24th Letter]

Great post.

I just dont know how this can ever be remedied without feeling restricted on the user side. I'll leave that up to the guys thay are paid to do it, lol

I remember Live '09 tried to maximize spacing by slowing down your close out speed...almost like an animation that took over...looked great but didnt feel great.

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[strawberryshortcake]

Quote: Originally Posted by The 24th Letter

Great post. I just dont know how this can ever be remedied without feeling restricted on the user side. I'll leave that up to the guys thay are paid to do it, lol I remember Live '09 tried to maximize spacing by slowing down your close out speed...almost like an animation that took over...looked great but didnt feel great. Sent from my SM-G955U using Operation Sports mobile app

Blue part. 2k actually has this "slow down" / "delayed" close out animation as well, which I'm not a big fan of. You see the open shooter, and you push the stick to close out to contest jump shots, but there's a small delay. Go into replay mode and you'll see how the close out player slows down for a brief second sort of like there's an invisible wall or you're running in quicksand. Wish 2k would remove this gameplay component.

[23]

Slow down is not what hes talking about though.

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