In order to receive this "winning" animation for the ball-handler, what should be the point differentials between ball-handling/off-hand dribble vs on-ball defense?

In the example in the video of the defense "win" with an offensive counter "win" were:

Jordan - Ball Handle=99

Scott - On Ball D=70

So at a 29 point spread you get both outcomes.

Here is another example. Same settings.

Jordan "wins" the first possessions, on the next possession(these were back to back). Jordan tries to "win" in the exact same way, but Scott cuts him off, and the Help D forces Mj do rethink driving and back out.

Another example, this time two Bigs.



Divac - Ball Handle=50

Edwards - On Ball D=50

Even spread, Vlade still wins on the counter. I believe quickness may factor into these outcomes.

Valde Quickness - 70

Edwards - 36

I like your consept...I was looking into this couple years back. They do make a difference. Keep messing with them so u can let us know more.

What were Scott's and MJ's quickness ratings?

I think the appropriate test is to figure out the range the "winning" animation happens for offense by testing on-ball defense. Keep lowering Scott's on-ball defense by 5 and have him go against MJ until the forcefield animation starts.

Quickness:
MJ=88
Scott=76

Hype, I don't believe that it can be narrowed down to a specific number. Since most of these winning situations exploit advantageous positions, I'm inclined to think that quickness plays a part in burning past your defender once contact is initiated. If a defender is "physically" in front of you, despite his rating he should win the bulk of the exchanges.

. . . When I played the game with quickness at 100, point guards ruled the open court. they dip a shoulder and effortlessly get past you despite your best efforts to get in front of them. Maybe in a more controlled half court setting quickness is the thing that is needed to "win" an exchange. The problem is quickness goes both ways.

I agree with bigtreydawg, I do not believe there is a Ball handling rating X + on ball defense rating Y = Win for Z.

I tested Mj vs. Scott:

Both Quickness=88 to negate MJ's advantage.

Test #1 Scott on ball defense=65(-5 from previous)

Jordan won the exchanges nearly everytime, no "force field"

Test #2 Scott OBD=25

Mj was won on nearly every drive, but drove less since the low rating had Scott playing 5-7 feet off him.

I think this is what may make it hard to beat players on bad teams with low defensive pressure coach sliders and low on ball defense ratings. They give the ball handler too much space for him to find an angle.

Test #3 Scott OBD=99

I saw some "force field" interaction, but Jordan still scored a lot, but hand to pull more often.

For On Ball Defense I would recommend setting no player higher than 85 and no lower than 40. That is the what I am going with for now. May raise the low end to 50. Bad defenders or mismatched bigs will still get beat off the dribble, due to either low OBD rating or poor quickness.

Combine that with 90+ball handling for all guards and 85+ for some small forwards, and you should start to see more desirable outcomes. No cap for this rating, feel to give that 99 away to elite players.(Side note: I have Off Hand Dribble scaled 10-15 points less than Ball Handle for the most part).

Scales may shift slightly due to era specific issues. I.E. may 90-91 roster is gonna have a lot more "stiffs"(Big white guys) than a 12-13 roster.

More on "Dribble Penetration" tendencies.

Best description I can give for these tendencies is "give them an inch and they'll take a mile."

Example, I gave Jordan the following 'Dribble Penetration" tendencies:

Crossover=50
Spin=5
Stepback=5
Half SPin=1
Double Cross=2
Behind back=5
Hes Cross=2
Inside out=5

Nothing out of the ordinary, until the shot clock ran down.

With these all set to zero, if the shot clock got down to 6 seconds, Mj may very well bust out a crossover spin combo, but if that best his defender he would either take it to the hole or pull up for the shot, based on the situation. Not the best result, but fairly predictable.

With "dribble penetration" at something other than zero and 6 seconds left on the shot clock..........

Welcome to Michael Jordan's Spin Cycle. On more than one occasion, Mj bust out back to back spin moves even after the first one had him with a clear path to the basket.

I am taking everything in "dribble penetration" back to zero(other than simple drive=100) until I get a better grasp of how and when each "move" is triggered(which may not be possible).

I am also thinking the higher ball handler ratings, unlocks more of the hard coded dribble moves for the A.I.

For example:

Valde Divac: Ball Handle-50, do really see him pull of anything other than a crossover, even late in shot clock.

Jordan: Ball Handle-99, capable of unleashing a dribble move poo-poo-platter if so inclined.

Lol. "Dribble move poo poo platter" could be the funniest thing I've heard today. Yeah I don't think there is any way to stop the spin cycle. Big guys do it too, the ball is usually on the perimeter when the shot clock is low and you're in a neutral position.

Things that I've done to help ensure winning situations for the ballhandler.

I have raised use triple threat for non spot up shooting guards. Combining this with a high attack tendency helps them get that extra kick in the initiation of a drive. (Often times they beat their defender outright without the need for a crossover).

I have raised the dribble finish move HOP STEP into the 40 -60 area for most guards and forwards. (I don't know why people are against that finishing moves). This works a bunch for two reasons (the last reason may be speculation on my part)

1.) A hop step is a show of commitment that draws collapses the defense much more so than just driving, rightly so, when your driving you still have a bunch of options. But when you hop step your intentions are clearly to get to the rim. The defense knows this and fully commits to stopping the threat. This leads to more open baseline jumpers and (way) more blocked shots.

. . . Sorry for not telling you guys that earlier.

2.) the second more speculative reason is, I believe when the CPU is driving (just moving towards the basket) the CPU is still very much aware of the players tendency. I feel like the CPU would "win" a lot more of these physical situations if they just stuck with the direction they were going.

Rephrase:

When CPU Mike Miller is driving he knows he is not suppose to be. His tendency is to shoot a 3. But I think the hop step (all dribble finish moves) override that tendency, in the sense that where you would see a ball handler cross back over even though he could have beaten his man, now there is an prompt (a 40 to 60% sharp jab in butt) to do a hop step.

Do you understand my logic, it's kind of out there on that last theory but it works.

Hop Step theory seems solid to.

Are we assuming Spin Layup works the same way? They seem to spin enough for me as is but if it helps make the CPU attack more effective. (Side Note: I do not use eurostep for any 90's roster, really wasn't used much if at all).

I'll just stick to Hop Step for now.

I saw that you have been raising drive right for righties, is that making them commit more to a linear direction?

Bigtrey’s post about help D and Drive right inspired a late night test session. The results thus far are interesting to say the least. I have changed several opinions I held less than a day ago.

The lower Help D coach settings may be the biggest find yet.

I am trying and Isolate each Dribble Penetration tendency to see what causes those animations to trigger.

Clearly these moves are tied to Set Up Dribble so I decided to set Straight Dribble(which I believe has a canceling effect when set to 100, not total cancellation but I wanted to see the “move” as often as possible for testing purposes), and Size Up to zero. I then set Hesitation to 100.

I created a team and clones that player 12 times, then that team against itself CPUvCPU.

Test #1

Player: Isaiah Thomas

Coach Sliders(Remain unchanged throughout testing)

Def Pressure:50
Help D:30

Attack the Basket:1

Ratings:

Ball Handle=99
Off Hand=99

Ball Security=50

On Ball D=75

Speed=88
Quickness=89
Strength=28

Tendencies:
Everything at 0 except;
No Triple Threat=100

Hesitation=100

Drive Right=100

Crossover=100

Attack=100

Test #2

Ball Handle=99
Off Hand=25

Ball Security=50

On Ball D=75

Speed=88
Quickness=89
Strength=28

Tendencies:
Everything at 0 except;
No Triple Threat=100

Hesitation=100

Drive Right=100

Crossover=100

Attack=100

Test #3

Ball Handle=99
Off Hand=25

Ball Security=25

On Ball D=75

Speed=88
Quickness=89
Strength=28

Tendencies:
Everything at 0 except;
No Triple Threat=100

Hesitation=100

Drive Right=100

Crossover=100

Attack=100

Here are video examples of what each Test produced(with my thoughts as the test were unfolding)



Highlights Test #1 – Orange and Blue Jerseys

Thomas starts left, stepback crossover right to beat the D.

When Thomas crosses over in the lane, I believe he could have “won” going back left. (This has me thinking that Drive at 100 kept him from going left and getting the “win”)

Thomas gets a clear path down the baseline for a right hand drive, he instead goes left, beats the D and scores(Ok, that’s a little weird but anything can happen once)

Thomas gets a step on his man going right, but a nearby defender causes a behind the back dribble putting the ball back in Thomas’ left hand. Even though a crossover back to his right hand for a right layup would be the preferred move here(he has crossover of 100 after all) Thomas keeps the ball in his left hand, still get the layup. (Again with the left, crap, something else must be at work here that over-rides his 100 Drive Right Tendency

Left Hand all the way to the rim(Time for some changes)

Highlights Test #2 – Red White and Blue

Late shot clock situation, no spin cycle. (Well that seems promising)

Looks like he could have “won” here going left, but doesn’t, help defender could have been a factor(Little better, little better)

Thomas was still “winning” going left too often for me, I just forgot to grab a video, so trust me on this one. Perhaps his 50 ball security is still giving him a lefty boost even with Off Hand @ 0

Highlights Test #3 – Black and Purple Jerseys

Another late shot clock with no spin cycle(Nice).

Thomas crossover to his left “wins” and scores with the left. (Seriously!!??)

Another lefty drive and score(UGH)

One final late shot with a noticeable absence of spin cycleage. (lets end on a high note).

Conclusions(that are far from Conclusive): There may be way to limit what moves the CPU ball handlers can do when the shot clock hits 6 seconds. Granted this was a small sample(about three 12 minute quarters) but I did not see one occurrence of the dreaded Spin Cycle.

As for the Dribble Penetration……..

Set-Up Tendencies seem to determine what type of sig animation is triggered how often, more testing is need as I believe some of the moves are only triggered by either Size-Up or Hesitation but not both.

The actual tendency sliders(i.e crossover) seem to influence the frequency of one move versus another. Simple Drive also has a mitigating effect similar to Straight Dribble but I do not know to what degree it deters the moves from triggering.

There were not any noticeable difference in Thomas’ behavior between the various ball handling and ball security settings. For everytime he drove right he drove left just as often(or nearly). With Ball security at 25 I did see a lot more nice steal aminations.

Speaking of animations I am seeing a ton that I had not see before. If only 2k knew what a beautiful game they had hidden underneath all that other junk.

Anyway…..

Could it be that the Ball Handling rating effects both hands just to different degrees and then the Off Hand rating acts like an added bonus?

I have also moved off my stance that the “KEY” is the differential between Ball handling and Off Ball D.(@Hyperballer – this pretty much negates the entire PM I sent you on this, sorry), which is likely why we could not determine a definitive spread.

My current theory is still based around “force fields” (and these may still exist to a lesser degree in relation to ball handling and on ball defense ratings) just of the “Help D” persuasion.

Bigtreydawg gets full credit for this but dropping the help D to the 30’s allows for On Ball ratings to be fully scaled back to 25-99(well maybe not 25). I have did a very small test with the 91 Blazers vs Bulls with Jordan and Pippen both set a 99 on ball d after having been at 85. Jerome Kersey and his 80 ball handling was able to beat Pippen off the dribble. Granted again, it was I only saw it once, but this was in the first 3 minutes of the game so……

If anything we have to consider a lower scale for ball handling (which I really don’t want to do) or return to a larger spread(Kersey should be closer to 70 for ball handling I think).

And all this came from trying to see what made players do a simple crossover.

Love the fact that your testing this way. In my mind cloning a whole team of players is the only way to go in terms of limiting extraneous variables. I did a significant amount of testing this way for 2k12 to try to get the teams to play more old school style with absence of dribble moves and it looks like they haven't changed much in terms of the dribbling dynamic. I know it's dangerous to take any of 2k's definitions as truth, but based off my testing the conclusions I came up with were that set up move tendencies are a different parameter than dribble penetration and drive. Meaning pump fake, size up and straight dribble are all PRE drive modifiers. The penetration moves are separate and also tied to simple drive. Give a guy 100 in straight dribble, 0 in size up and hes, and if the penetration moves are still high you will still see endless dribbling on the drive. Not to distract, but I found lowering all hes moves (hesitation pre drive and hes dribble moves cut down on guys coming off a pnr having an open drive to the basket and hesitating just enough to allow the defender to recover. (It REALLY helped our 86-87 roster and retro set) But that's another point.

This aspect of the game is very important in terms of gameplay. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a guy do a pointless spin move, or a behind the back into the defender. I guess one way to approach would be to see if we can recreate what we DON'T want (i.e spin cycle) with the hopes of figuring out how to get what what we do want. I wonder what would happen if you set simple drive to 0 and give all other penetration moves 0 except one and give that one a 100. How often would we see that particular move? A any rate, I am enjoying your testing and keep it up man! Loving this!