Humor me for a second, OK? Imagine you're playing a simulation game of hoops in NBA 2K. You're controlling whoever your favorite team is and having a close game against a really good opponent (who's using the Spurs) It's a back and forth affair and as the fourth quarter comes to a close you're down one.
You run a down-screen for your best shooter who's being covered by Kawhi Leonard, it gives him a little separation and you take a step and set your feet. Your opponent scrambles to get Kawhi back into the play, he challenges the shot, you let it fly and then......................
OK STOP.
Ask yourself: Did either you or your opponent do anything to deserve an extra boost? Each of you is trying to be successful. Shouldn't success or failure now depend on choices like: which shooter you picked, how effective the challenge was, who's defending, how difficult the shot was and other factors? It's a valid question....right?
One of the things i've always liked about 2K was the math they decided to apply to our hoops experience. It was obvious the first time I played 2K11, The devs had made the decision to emulate real FG percentages. Being close to the basket and taking nothing but "good" shots was no longer going to give you a FG percentage in the 70s and 80s. If anything forcing shots and spamming the painted area was going to riddle you with contested shot animations that were super low percentage. No really, an uncontested 15 footer was a safer bet. Trust me on this, I found out the hard way.
The math that 2K applied to the game went further when I noticed some of the benefits that badges gave us. Skills like DIMER actually resulted in the guys you were passing to shooting a higher percentage. Deadeye meant a shooter hit a higher percentage of contested shots, It was really good stuff. Later on when people complained about shots going down at a rate that was too-high and I remember seeing devs mention how using right stick challenges would affect shots even more....
Fast forward to 2K16 where I saw exactly what they meant...and so did you. Now? Its rare that you see a shot go down that is user-contested while AI contests go down at a much higher rate. I can truthfully say that i'm downright shocked when I or my opponent gets a contested perimeter "make". Think about it: you contest shots because it virtually GUARANTEES a miss. Ask yourself: when your shooter gets closed out, how often does the shot go down? Its even to the point where the success rate of layups and interior shots is affected by contesting them. And blocks? Don't even get me started on blocks...their success rate (combined with the lack of foul calls) borders on the absurd. At that point I had to pose a question to myself: Are user bonuses necessary? And more pointedly: Are they counterproductive to the simulation experience? OS poster E The Rhymer chimed in that "If user input bonus is strong enough to supersede ratings and tendencies it is a bad thing." And you know what? I agree with him.
Ponder it for a second. I realize most sports gamers have a perspective that is poisoned by Electronic Arts and their hand-holding, God-awful participation trophy "reward the user for pressing buttons" we-want-everyone-to-have-fun foolishness. But *laughs hysterically* try to erase that crap from your mind for just a second. Should a player i'm controlling get a higher percentage for doing something because, well....I initiated it? It's a slippery slope, trust me. If so, why exactly do we rate players? Is it really necessary that we're going to reward users for...you know....playing? Do we really want a game where elite shooters miss shots and MJ can't finish because i'm good AND get user bonuses when controlling Kurt Rambis? Should a player have a higher rate of success because of me? I don't know.......there's really no right or wrong answer, but I'm of the opinion that user bonuses are unnecessary.
What prompted the question, was honestly Madden 16. The ability to "play the receiver" dramatically affected the game. Skilled (and unskilled actually) users could dislodge the ball at a very high rate from receivers that weren't considered elite. The Calvin Johnson's, Gronk's, Dez Bryant's and Fitzgerald's of the world weren't grossly affected, but most players were. I wondered if it was ok. Should I be able to have a bad corner over-perform just because i'm clicking on him and pressing X? When I saw how closing out affected shooters in 2K I was faced with the same question.
Isn't the real asset the fact that the player actions, gameplans and strategies are ones that WE DECIDE? That we ultimately have control over everything? That the players respond to OUR INPUT and OUR COMMANDS? Why would we need a user bonus? Shouldn't the success rate remain unchanged? I'd argue that the real benefit of a James Harden we control would be that you can decide to actually challenge a shot instead of doing him doing....you know...THIS and ummm...THAT.
User bonuses were a good idea in theory but failed the real-world test. They reward guys that sit in zones but then spam the block button to contest everything. The worst part? Zones mean they get great defense in the passing lanes in addition to the good perimeter D that contests give. The worst part? While real-world zones give up offensive rebounds, 2K zones still do not. We're conditioned to like sexy terms like 'user-control" and "rewards on-ball D" because they sound positively sim-tastic. In reality, all they do is end up hurting gameplay. Here's a clip of my opponent contesting late and how user-contests rewards guys with misses.
The REAL user bonus is the fact that WE decide if Westbrook dishes this off, throws the lob or goes straight at Dirk. Don't cheat the game or give anyone rewards they haven't earned by turning on auto-aim all of a sudden. (I dig FPS games, sue me) no one wants to see players perform actions outside their skillset just because we're at the controls. Give us the same result the player would see normally, because ultimately WE DECIDE if Steph Curry should take the charge, go for the strip, or the monster block when he sees Andrew Wiggins charging down the lane. And since we're big boys and girls--we can live with the results.
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