Recently, NBA 2K has quietly made changes to its game designed to appeal to the simulation...
Written By: Smirkin Dirk
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
Should I comment on this or not??? This is a loaded one...
I have a few different takes on this.
For those that know me I have done real teams playbooks for years. I have scouted teams and put in their real plays, actions, and would get players ball in spots they liked to operate from to mimic real life execution of X's & O's. I would test the plays 1st in CPU vs CPU to make sure they were not broken, had good spacing, and the CPU executed them well. If you are not familiar with what I do then you can see the blogs and thread below of details of my work...
Playbook Thread
https://forums.operationsports.com/f...-complete.html
Current Teams
https://forums.operationsports.com/v...ull-playbooks/
Classic Teams
https://forums.operationsports.com/v...eam-playbooks/
I have no idea if people realized this or not but playbooks out of the box have always been generic. 30 teams and 15 teams shared a playbook with another team. Nothing was real about the playbooks in the past. The plays were real just not individual teams playbooks.
When I first heard about this and saw czar's video on it, I got intrigued and had to take a peak. 1st thing that stood out was the low number of plays. I think the Rockets had 21, Lakers 28, and Spurs 31 out of a possible 50 total plays you can add per playbook.
I don't like that for a few reasons. I like the idea of real play styles obviously, but you can not do playbooks like this for guys who want to play in my league. What happens if you were the Rockets and drafted Hakeem Olajuwon in a fantasy draft? What if 10 years down the road in your my league if D'Antoni was fired and or your squad is completely different. Well with these playbooks you have 0 post plays, mid plays, high post plays, cutter, DHO's, etc. You can add 50 plays but through play types still get the CPU to only call the 21 you have in their playbook. So, for example Capella or all bigs would have Roll Man Play type and no Low post play type. Same result but for my league longevity if you got Hakeem you would have Low post plays to use at least. You need to account for moves down the road.
Secondly, NBA teams have monster playbooks. I have a few old NBA playbooks I had the opportunity to get my hands on in the past and they are 550 pages long! LOL! I heard people talk about the Bucks & their 5 out offense and it's all they are running. I had the chance to see them play the other day and watched the 1st half keeping track of every play they ran. Granted they ran 80% 5 out during the game but I still kept track and had 24 plays that they ran in 1 half of 1 game of basketball. They were all plays 2k had in either 18 or 19. Budenholzer still running alot of same stuff he ran in Atlanta too... What you see teams run in 1st 25 games, 2nd 25, and 3rd 25 games of the season are different. Then when the playoffs hit it becomes a half court game. You start to see all the plays in their playbook. My point is every team although to the naked eye and to most people think they are just running PNR all game and the same plays over and over are wrong. They might run PNR all game yes, but the pre action or where the PNR is happening & where each shooter is in a play is different. Every team easily should have 50 plays in it.
Thirdly as a user this is bad. If you had this playbook (Rockets) and are going head to head with someone and only had 2 3 point plays in your playbook how easy is that to defend. I get they get alot of their 3's from PNR and drive & kick but I also guarantee if I scouted them I'd see some more 3 point plays mostly in ATO, EOG, etc...
Another thing is we are 3 months from release of 2k. We are a month and a half into the NBA season. We have 3 teams playbooks done. No offense to anyone but all 30 should or could be done by now from thedata and game footage we already had. Will all 30 teams be done this year and by when? Or is this just a test? I am just curious? Reason I am curious is I know working on 2k20 has to be coming up shortly, no? Finishing this project for 19 would take away from that, no?
My last thing is the Rockets & Spurs have the same coaches and style. This could really have been inputted in the off season and small tweaks after the season started for new actions and plays. The Lakers are different as although their coach is the same due to the crazy off season they had and the new roster we had no clue how Luke was going to play this year. I completely get the new coaches with new teams needing time to scout though. But guys like Pop & D'Antoni could have had been done pre release.
My last concern is does this matter this year with CPU not calling or running any plays from within their playbook glitch and needing the workaround to have them run plays outside of Series & freelance? Is it worth doing more in 19 if this is not addressed?
I like the idea of where this could go though. I'm all for realism. It would save me time every year that's for sure! I think it can be tweaked and they for surely need to account for my league players and long term my leagues. Good stuff Dirk & glad they have you on board talking about Playbooks & Tendencies as OS articles! Man after my own heart! LOLBasketball Playbooks
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Do the creators of NBA 2K realize that much of the simulation crowd uses coach mode? First, they have it in, than we have to do a tiresome workaround, and next they take it out altogether. If NBA 2K was really interested in the simulation crowd, they would have left coach mode in, and not punish us because of the non simulation crowds misuse of this mode.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
That Bucks playbook update was fire! �� wow! Still need to attest for my league longevity but GREAT update for sim rosters and for the Bucks to play like they do! THe 5 out stuff is amazing! Much needed!
Edit- just tested Raptors and it’s bad. Bad spacing, broken plays, cpu doesn’t execute them well, etc. I’d keep maybe 10 of those plays tops for immersion reasons. The actions might be real but unfortunately the timing windows are not right which equals a lot of clutter unfortunately...Last edited by vannwolfhawk; 11-27-2018, 05:05 PM.Basketball Playbooks
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
robrien13;2049619009...Do the creators of NBA 2K realize that much of the simulation crowd uses coach mode? First, they have it in, than we have to do a tiresome workaround, and next they take it out altogether. If NBA 2K was really interested in the simulation crowd, they would have left coach mode in, and [b]not punish us because of the non simulation crowds misuse of this mode
You can still do coach mode you just can't watch the cpu vs cpu animations. If something big happens you can pause and instant replay, the game is still being "captured" as if you were in true coach mode. SimCast Live with audio on broadcast is what I use from time to time. I'm with you I wish they still had it in but yea easy on the font size.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
I didnt even realize 2k used the same playbook for all teams. Thats because 2k's AI is good at exploiting poor defense, mismatches, and going to the hot hand.
the downside for having team based playbooks is that casual users will have a harder time adapting defensive schemes.
having to devise a defensive scheme to stop a team is great for sim players and most likely not for casual or inexperienced 2k gamers
Im all for the implementation, because ift forces you to learn a teams schemes in order to runa fluid offense. and like you stated in the article, can go a log way in a legacy mode when signing free agents and drafting etc.
this will eventually will lead to alot of game improvements in gm/my league modes. the unique team playbooks will really open the strategy and innovation for the gm/legacy mode.
Ive already thought of ideas just by reading this article.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
What could work for people who play Myleague/MyGM is to have coaches with different playbooks for each system they know. Some are more post heavy, guard heavy and whatnot you get the point.
Inside the coach sliders there is a system adaptability slider that adjusts who the coach prefers to play based on system fit I believe. Well, if 2K can program another slider that could adjust the flexibility of the coach to change his system/playbook based on the types of players he has, that can help alter the play-styles of teams as the years go on. Great coaches would adjust easily, with knowledge of 2-3 systems with full playbooks and poor/underdeveloped coaches with 1 or 2 playbooks could find themselves fired dropping the moral and chemistry of the team.
Also, as a result of a system like this coaches would need badges and just like the mentor system an assistant coach playing with a certain coach system can/should evolve his awareness of that system and bolster his rating of that system.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
I just tested all the new playbooks done today. It’s the same thing as always where everything needs to be tested before implemented in game. There are some unbelievable real actions added for all teams! The bad part is a ton of plays can’t be used in every playbook because the cpu just doesn’t execute them well, they are broken, or just bad spacing like in years past. But the good news is there are so many great plays added scattered between all teams that you can get the action you want from somewhere! This is basketball porn! No way could I go back to 18 now.
Here is list of how many plays I’d keep or that you can keep per team after testing them all. All other plays is delete and replace so you don’t lose immersion in a game with bad execution.
Bucks - 20
Knicks - 15
Raptors - 9
Celtics - 10
Lakers - 16
Rockets - 14
Spurs - 27
I’ll list the plays to keep per team at some point. Just organizing as I go. Star rating them and organizing actions.
There is just some incredible plays added that the cpu uses fantastically (is that a word?) lol! When all put together watching the cpu play would be insane! Hopefully he finishes all 30 teams! I can’t wait to see the Jazz book! The Celtics and Raptors were very disappointing though! But the plays I am keeping for all teams are almost all 5 star in execution!
Keep in mind when I say this I am speaking of offline play playing vs the CPU as an opponent here...Last edited by vannwolfhawk; 11-27-2018, 10:37 PM.Basketball Playbooks
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
I've already tested the spurs and they are mostly on point, saw 1 repeated play and a few missing plays which I already feedback to czar through youtube. Shall I post in this thread for sharing purposes? No big deal bcos these plays can be added for myleague offline.
Great thread, nice write-up. Make this thread the official 2K19 playbook thread [emoji123]
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
Does anyone know if this affects current MyCareer saves or MyCareer generally? I play on the Rockets as a power forward and I’ve noticed that I’m being asked to set a lot of high screens similarly to how Harden and Paul play the pick game in real life, as well as a lot of slip screens for alley oop opportunities.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
A couple of things. Vannwolfhawk has forgotten more about the playbooks than I will ever know.
Secondly, let's get behind these changes. I haven't played around with this 2nd batch yet, but let Czar and Mike Wang know that this is the way to go. The point of what I wrote is that it would test how far sim concepts can be implemented. If this gets a really positive reaction, we may get other bones thrown our way.
And Im having a Bucks season soon, so this should be fantastic.Comment
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
Having real plays from their respective teams is in no doubt the way to go for realism. The playbooks need to be put together better to reflect all modes though. Lastly plays have to be tested before being put in some way or another. Other than that I love it!
I never thought we’d see some of the things that came out today in a video game any time soon. The dho’s and cutter plays are night and day from the last 5 years in that the cpu will hit that cutter pass and with the dho’s being better from a animation and user perspective it’s improved the depth for playbooks for the user and cpu controller teams. All steps in the right direction!Basketball Playbooks
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Re: NBA 2K19 Playbook Changes Are a Significant Test Case for Simulation Basketball
I think that manual DHOs still need an actual screen set, and the reciever needs more and quicker animations out of them.
Sometimes I will trigger an animation where the reciever forcefully uses the hand off 'screener' out of one.
It seems to trigger on bottom to top DHOs rather than wing to top ones.Comment
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