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."
I'm really excited for this improvement. This is the only thing that kept me playing the other game. As it got boring to me plating the CPU with the play calling system they have in 2k10.
I'm, really really glad the moved it to the Left bumper as well.
This sounds awesome. I've only recently starting messing around with playcalling in 2k10, and I really love the different dimension it adds to the game. Can't wait to see a system thats even better!!
But something I didn't hear about: what about DEFENSIVE PLAYS? I want more options than just man to man, 2-3, 3-2 and 1-3-1... How about a matchup zone or Box and 1, or the 2-1-2 zone that Turkey has been running in the FIBA tourney?? And it would be awesome if AI players actually played the zone while reacting to the players that they are defending. What I mean by that is that Durant should not be allowed to get as open as Thabo Sefalosha.
Also, since I'm talking about defense, can we get a way to get better control of the way our players respond to pick and rolls? For example, when the defending big man comes up to double Stephen Curry on a pick and roll, it makes sense because of the threat of a deep shot. But I don't want my defenders taking the same approach when Ramon Sessions starts a pick and roll. It would be great if we ould actually be able to have sliders or something that can be set for each opposing player that would dictate what kind of pressure to put on the ball handler and the screener, and whether or not to fight through zones.
This sounds awesome. I've only recently starting messing around with playcalling in 2k10, and I really love the different dimension it adds to the game. Can't wait to see a system thats even better!!
But something I didn't hear about: what about DEFENSIVE PLAYS? I want more options than just man to man, 2-3, 3-2 and 1-3-1... How about a matchup zone or Box and 1, or the 2-1-2 zone that Turkey has been running in the FIBA tourney?? And it would be awesome if AI players actually played the zone while reacting to the players that they are defending. What I mean by that is that Durant should not be allowed to get as open as Thabo Sefalosha.
Also, since I'm talking about defense, can we get a way to get better control of the way our players respond to pick and rolls? For example, when the defending big man comes up to double Stephen Curry on a pick and roll, it makes sense because of the threat of a deep shot. But I don't want my defenders taking the same approach when Ramon Sessions starts a pick and roll. It would be great if we ould actually be able to have sliders or something that can be set for each opposing player that would dictate what kind of pressure to put on the ball handler and the screener, and whether or not to fight through zones.
A agree, I'm hoping the defensive playbook did get some attention this year.
The extra plays is nice I guess, but 2 big things this article doesn't address:
1) Can I use any play for any team?
NBA 2K has always had this setup where each team could only use plays assigned to them by the developers. that's stupid. it sounds like this hasn't changed.
2) Will the AI adapt a different playbook when its roster/coach has changed?
The plays they give are nice for this year, but what about if I do a fantasy draft or it's 3 years later and kobe decides to leave and the best SG the lakers has is Shannon Brown? Oh well - he's either going to take 30 shots a game or the AI is going to play stupid where they keep passing him the ball and keeps acting like he doesn't want it. Jerry sloan decides to take a job coaching the Thunder, and for some reason never calls a pick & roll play ever again.
Adding new features is nice, but for those of us that plan on playing outside of the 2010-2011 rosters, you completely missed the mark. And it's not like it's that hard to implement.
Illosophy you are way off on your assumption that things are easy to add.
I thought so a well until sitting down with the devs. They plays were terrible and very limiting. They went from 80 plus to well over 1,000.
with a tight dev cycle you can't expect every single gripe we have thing to be done in one year. Many of the playbook improvements we have been asking for are in the game this year.
The play system touches a lot of areas in the game so chains to that system no matter how trivial they can appear to us is a risky and work intensive proposition.
From what I understand they added as much as they could and then worked on troubleshooting and tuning as opposed to adding to much and testing too little and thereby breaking the game.
Its a major feature that changes the way the game is played.
That said I was told you can assign any play to any team. From the in game screen I have changed plays but not in association.
Further they added logic to the code as I mentioned earlier to match up plays that are called to a players abilities. So if Shannon brown is not a post player as long as there are sufficient otter plays in the playbook for a shooting guard the CPU will select those.
Now I was obviously not able to play a 5 year association so I don't know how well it works or if it works at all.
But that is how the system was designed.
I think most would prefer to have the new abundance of plays and play system Improvements Rather than just being able to assign those bad plays to everyone.