NBA 2K11 Developer Insights: The Sticks

And for those of you worried about high volume scoring in the paint, let me put your mind to rest now. People continually forcing shots inside will pay the consequences this year. We’ve spent a lot of time balancing the inside/outside game and if you want to be successful in NBA 2K11, you’re going to need to distribute your shots evenly and work for high percentage looks.

And speaking of sig shots, certain players have multiple ones (like Paul Pierce’s set 3 for example)... so it really pays to spend some time in practice mode to get to know your personnel and master the shot arsenal and timing of each of your players’ shots.

Many people also complained about how fast jumpshots were last year and that it was difficult to get a “feel” for a guy’s shooting stroke. We re-worked our shot gather and shot release systems to improve on both counts. Now you’ll see much better footwork as well as an improved feeling of weight and gravity on all jumpshots. When releasing a shot, letting go of the Shot Stick will directly correspond to your player’s shot animation. So you can get those quick buzzer beaters off when you need to, or hang a little bit longer to get off a cleaner look when you’ve got better elevation than your defender.

We’ve completely gone away from the Lockdown Defense idea (aka. Auto-D) and returned the Left Trigger to a movement modifier to give you full control over your facing. In NBA 2K11, playing solid onball defense has returned to being a skill that rewards quick reflexes on the gamer’s part, rather than allowing people to sit back and let the AI do the work for them.

The second line of defense has been greatly enhanced as well. We’ve implemented a new midair collision system that allows for all kinds of body to body contact. If you meet a shooter in the air on his way for a layup or dunk, or if you slide underneath him to try and take a charge, you’ll see some beautiful collision animations result.

With the new midair branching system, we can keep the user-controlled defenders under the user’s control and still have a proper collision response when bodies bang. And for those of you worried about high volume scoring in the paint, let me put your mind to rest now. People continually forcing shots inside will pay the consequences this year. We’ve spent a lot of time balancing the inside/outside game and if you want to be successful in NBA 2K11, you’re going to need to distribute your shots evenly and work for high percentage looks.

And if all that fails, hold RT (R2 on PS3) and push the Right Analog toward the ball handler for a hard foul. That’s always fun.

And if you force passes into traffic or try to cherry pick, improved interception logic will almost always knock the ball down. If they don’t, expect to see the ball get fumbled (allowing the defense to recover) or a bobbled catch out of bounds. Goodbye, Lead Pass exploit!