To Dunk or not to Dunk...

 We've all played a game online and had a post guy get a good seal and make our minds up to flush it, right? So here's what happened the other day...that exact situation, I throw the pass, then turbo so Jahlil can mash on this guy and then this happens......

Here's the thing....I get the whole "No way! 2K is deciding what I do!" and "that's not user control!" argument...but after I thought about it. I was fine with it, here's why:

After 6 straight years of reducing dunks in gameplay, 2K17 is a virtual dunk-fest and it's hurting the game. The problem is layered: contact insta-dunks in the paint are the best shots because they have a short gather (they shouldn't) are rarely blocked and are too high percentage (yes even dunks in traffic--hell, especially those)

Part of me has always wondered if turbo shouldn't instead be a strong move to the basket and not a blanket "dunk attempt". Now sure, guys with higher dunk tendencies (Blake, Lavine, DeAndre) will go for the slam more often but I actually prefer the turbo=strong move thought process. Face it: Sometimes a dunk is a bad shot situationally...and shouldn't gameplay punish us if it is? The game is sorely lacking in offensive fouls, isn't the very definition of an offensive foul being over aggressive in the wrong situation? Shouldn't these be the very situations where we see organic charges some of the time? I say yes.

I tried to dunk this the other day too, look what happened:

Again, I have no problem with this....dunks in traffic (and as a whole) need to come way down, by contact animation, charge, or even strip if necessary.

Here's another:

It's great use of a contact animation to counter over-dunking. I'm all for less dunking "through" people and more missed dunks when defenders challenge, like so:

I think the devs making users doing "hands up"defense, Auto-Jump when someone pump-fakes (inevitably resulting in a dunk .2 secs later) was one of the worst design decisions i've seen in my 20+ years of gaming. It rewards the "dunk everything" mentality. Hopefully its fixed soon.

Consider the history of dunk attempts in 2K. They're historically too high percentage and generate fouls disproportionately. Better balance here makes 2K a vastly better experience--and i'm not sure about you guys, but that's all i've ever really wanted...

Until next time,

Kushmir