2K Sports just posted another NBA 2K11 Developer Insight. This one talks about the expanded playcall system.
Quote:
"All Teams Are Not Created Equal - Each team has a base playbook of at least thirty plays that reflect their coach's philosophy and style of play. The marquis teams also have additional plays available to them that they can run for additional flavor. We created individual sets for teams as well. What this means is that even though two coaches may use a floppy set, their personnel and style may dictate that their floppy set starts differently than that of another team that runs a floppy. Now even if teams run plays that have the same end goal, the look you get from team to team will differ based on how they run it and who they run it with.
If you consider that we have well over 1000 plays across all the current and the old school NBA teams, you will see that, as a User, you have a plethora of options to vary your offense."
Now this is one of those things that I have to see to believe because the playcalling has been bad/unresponsive/broken in this series since its inception and it has become issue #1 for me over the years. I saw rays of light in some of the videos that have been posted of gameplay with the off-ball movement, but I have to see the actual playcalling working. A working playcalling system in of itself gives players more incentive to play a more realistic brand of basketball because it would no longer be viewed as a complete waste of time (literally, in past NBA 2K games), and people could actually get points by calling plays, which should ultimately lead to more varied shot selections from users. It 'sounds' like they've made major strides in this area, but I'm looking forward to this video more than any other vid that's showcasing this game.
I hear you Fam. I can't wait for you guys to get your hands on the game this year. There have been so many small improvements that all add up to a really enjoyable playing experience. Its hard to put it into words without over"hyp"ing the game. When all your really trying to do is bring light to the fact that something is actually working.
Not saying its the best implementation in the world but considering, as you said, It was literally BROKEN before. Its not just that new plays were added. The plays were designed to do something from what I can see. and that something is to apply pressure to the defense in areas that force them to do something.
Not that may not sound exciting. But when you combine that with the fact that the superspeed catchup's and close outs have been from what I can tell fixed. If the defense makes the wrong decision they can't magically make up for that mistake before you can punish them like last year.
What I saw was that regardless of difficulty level (up to allstar that is as high as i went) if you forced the defense to double you were able to create an open shot for a teammate.
Finally in a 2k game except for legitimate backdoor plays the cpu is scoring in front of you. Not cheesing you with backdoor plays just because it know its own offensive plays are useless
It sounds great. The playcalling needed an overhaul. You would be two feet away from the "circle" and the play wouldnt get started or would just end prematurely. Moving around players to specific areas was not that easy. It needs to be more free flowing.
As I said, it sounds great. But seeing it in action is where it'll come to light if they accomplished what they say.
I understand that this year the CPU-controlled team will call plays, change to different plays etc. etc.. Now, I rememeber seeing teams in real life setting plays, but sometimes those plays don't work for whatever reason - and so the team would give the ball to their star player, who would just improvise and try to create something out of nothing. My questions is, does it work like that in 2K11? I mean, I don't want the CPU to just run play after play without realizing that the shot clock is ticking and that it's time to improvise. I want the CPU to realize that the play didn't work and there's not much time, and to put the ball in the hands of the star player and let him work.
Expanded play calling sounds very interesting. The play calling of past wasn't the best and took too much time to develop while en-route to the start play marker on the floor often leading to abandoning the play all together before the shot clock expired.