NBA 2K11 Developer Insights: Making a Smarter Game

Casual: This is the setting you want if you like up and down play with lots of dunks and highlight moments. There won’t be a whole lot of stoppages and you’ll see higher scoring across the board. Arcade-style play is probably the best way to describe it.

For every player on their respective team, I would like to see a player rating called "Offensive Go-To %"

This rating would give each individual on their team a % of offensive set players the coach will run.

For example, let's say 50% of the time, offensive plays will be called for Dwayne Wade, while the remaining 50% will be allocated to the rest of the 11 Heat players.

This way, the cpu will be forced to utilize their superstars the majority of the time.

Touches tendency: This was a big one for me. We really wanted players who “dominate” the ball to feel like they controlled the ball on offense much more. Whereas before, the PG typically had the ball a majority of the time in the half-court… when things broke down you’d see the PG take over and shoot more often than we wanted. With the Touches tendency, we can ensure that the stars have the ball in their hands more, and as a result, take those tough shots to bail out their teams when plays break down. It also allowed us to re-work the way we initiate plays, which I’ll expand on shortly.

Let’s start first and foremost with onball defense AI – preventing the ball handler from penetrating and getting to the hoop. When we first began development on NBA 2K11, revamping the defensive movement model was one of our top priorities - from both user-control and AI standpoint.