2K17 Musings...

Needless to say i'm really enjoying my time with 2K17. For those who know me....2K Hunger Strikes are things of the past . First, let me start by giving a tremendous shout-out to the 2K Dev team. These guys year after year get us a great product and continue to improve it by leaps and bounds. They incorporate our feedback, desires, wants and needs in addition to dealing with the not-so-great stuff players inevitably find. I'm still in shock that the company that does animation better than any other in the genre (and took gameplay to the next level as a result) was brave enough to literally risk it all to be more responsive and create a true 1-to-1 dribbling system.

  
Gameplay this year is first-rate as usual, but its always the little things that 2K does that wow you. Last year I remarked that "In one of my first games a long rebound went out of bounds and when no player jumped over the front row into the stands after it? I was actually surprised." Well I guess someone was listening, because while players continue to slide into the stands and jump onto the scorer's table, the crows now reacts to bad passes into the stands. VERY COOL. Also, collisions causing players to lose their dribble is quite possibly my 2nd feature ever. Thankfully 2K16's most glaring issue (inbounds past half-court) has largely been dealt with. They also made great strides with toning down the Lead Pass and the infamous lack of foul calls. But not in a heavy-handed way that breaks the game....in a subtle, nuanced manner that just increases the varied outcomes in an organic way, but puts strategy and timing first.

2K17 is doing some great things with Online Play. The tiers are much better separated (except for Sacramento and OKC--more on that later) and now you can play exclusively against teams in the same tier as your own. Its well done, but we need more clarification on which queue does what, as there hasn't really been a real in-depth explanation yet.

1. Steal, Steals, Steals - I love the way we can poke the ball out now. Particularly with inbounds and guys abusing the pump-fake. Our defenders also play the passing lanes much better in 2K17. Here's the problem: Not enough fouls are being called and its allowing people to enjoy the reward of steals without the risk. This is delicate because of the history of steal spam in older versions of 2K. It seems even the Protect Ball Stance isn't immune from getting ripped and that simply can't happen. Let's see this tweaked a bit. Reward the players with high steal ratings/good timing and continue to allow steals, just balance it out with fouls so its a gift and a curse.

2. Blocking Fouls - My new favorite thing, hit the link and see one in action. I've been clamoring for these for years and thankfully they're finally in and I love it. HALLELUJAH. This is a mechanic that allows more fouls to be called but simultaneously displays the variety between teams. It also provides a way for players good at drawing fouls to do so. Lastly, it provides a better way to punish perimeter mismatches without having to make "bigs" fall down or guards too fast in comparison. I can't tell you how much this feature gives me life, now if I can just convince Beluba to give us a tad more loose ball fouls.............................

3. Pro Stick Defense - Yup, we need the right stick to be the Pro Stick equivalent on D. It has to be a more dynamic tool for defenders. Gameplay needs a sweet spot between high risk (blocks and steals) and low risk (drawing charges) it also needs a feature we can use anywhere on the court, and we already use the right stick to challenge jump-shots. Allow us to get in good position, point it at the offensive player and get a contest mechanic regardless if we're defending in transition or behind them. We need something a little less foul prone than trying to swat/strip everything. Here's an example.

4. Animations - No sports game nails the animation like NBA 2K and there are some wonderful ones in 2K17. From the great (and risky) work that was done to optimize dribbling to great lob, putback and contested rebound animations. While we love most of them, varied charge animations where guys are knocked down and more one-handed pass animations would increase the immersion (two-handed chest passes too--the death of standing-right-next-to-you-two-foot-overhead-pass-animations can't come fast enough) so would "fronting" animations when we select that as our post defense. Its in the game but doesn't seem to be working as intended. There are a few animations that sorely need more foul outcomes, like this one. Gameplay simply can't allow this much physicality from players trailing the ball handler without ever blowing a whistle.

5. VC Exploit - Apparently the cheese heads from Wisconsin are misbehaving. Since playing games online gets you VC they've taken to gaming the system by starting a game and quickly getting disqualified for intentional fouls to stack VC. Sadly, this dilutes the online experience for the rest of us even though we get an easy win. Hopefully its resolved quickly.

6. Passing - A great discussion on OS recently referenced the issue with random, slow "floaty" passes and how frustrating they are. An ideal mechanic might let us control the speed of passes similar to how Madden does. Then vertical passes (a natural counter to fronting, btw) are tapping the button, a normal press would be standard speed, while bullet passes would be the result of holding the button down. This kind of control could usher in a new era in 2K. Especially if #Simnation can convince the devs that we need more things like THIS and THAT. And we do, while long passes are deflected/intercepted at a much higher rate this year, people are still inbounding right to the half-court line and they should see a decent number of bad passes as a result.

Additions like pass speeds and "bad" passes add more subtle aspects to the game and better separate teams instead of simply giving the better squads more shot-makers. I love the mechanic that punishes jump passers and I hope gameplay takes it a step further. Better passers would obviously have less bad passes, but this would also reward players for having the ball in the right hands. It could also yield new ratings. Perhaps ones like Turnover to go along with the Awareness and Hands ratings already in the game.

 7. Online Tier System - First and foremost, it looks like someone switched the Kings and Thunder...let's get that handled :) Online is shaping up nicely, except for the part where no one said "Hey this is how this works." We love the fact that we can match up with teams in our tier if we choose, but we'd like the option to enter a queue where the other team can be from any tier. Sidenote: We love the uniform choices, but please remember the home team always wears their light colors. White-on-White games can be very confusing. Also, just not a big fan of the Mirror Matches where the same teams play each other. *shrug*

8. Double Team - I love the more responsive double team, but here again it has a bit of a checkered past in 2K. Let's make certain using it sees fouls as outcomes in some instances. A little higher fatigue drain wouldn't hurt either. Random: I've defended the post alot more recently with "hands up" and when the offensive player pump faked the guy I was controlling....jumped! Like, he fell for the pump fake independent of my control. CAN. NOT. HAPPEN. I need to know who to talk to about that....lol.

9. ACE & Substitutions - The word on "these internet streets" (wink) is that the ACE (formerly POE) adjustments aren't working as intended and that subs aren't registering like they should. I noticed while scrimmaging that some of the players I wanted to bring in sometimes subbed out randomly. Let's get this fixed, ACE is a great addition and subs are hoops bread and butter. Also, it'd be nice if our ACE choices were static until we changed them and the interface highlighted our last selections.

10. Timeouts - One thing still missing from the timeout menu is the option to call a play that will quickly be run after a timeout. Odd because this is one of the primary functions of timeouts and it would allow us great options and efficiency in end-of-game situations. 2K18 perhaps?

 11. Protect Ball - Great Feature, but you know what would make it even better? If Clicking L2 put us in a Protect Ball stance that was persistent the way the post button used to be, hitting it again would removes us from the stance. Freeing up our fingers to do things like call plays and survey the floor. Knowing the ball is safe while we take apart he defense is the gift that keeps on giving.

12. No Easy Baskets - ACE could certainly benefit from a few more options. "No Easy Baskets" is one I mentioned to Czar last year on the show. It could have our players foul guys like Dwight Howard and Deandre Jordan rather than allow them dunks/layups and could end up doing great things for strategy.


Well...that's all for now guys, i'll be back during the year with more 2K Musings on gameplay and the things that can improve it. I hope you're enjoying your 2K Holiday. Be Well.