Gameplay Developer Blog (OS)

Gameplay developer blog by Mike Wang over at Operation Sports: http://www.operationsports.com/features ... mike-wang/

Definitely worth a read.

Again, I highly recommend reading the entire blog, but for anyone who wants a quick summary...

• The motion system has been revamped for better and more fluid player movement. Players no longer get stuck in animations.
• Players also have much more awareness of their position on the floor, and the action that’s taking place. Mike puts it simply: they’re playing basketball.
• Game rhythm, badges, and logic have all been enhanced and re-worked in NBA 2K16, for a more dynamic experience that the user (and CPU) will need to adjust to.
• Physics have been improved, from player collisions to the ball bouncing off the rim, and even net movements. Foot planting was also re-written from the ground up.
• The post game has been rebuilt. Users now enter the post up stance with L2/LT, a change that has been made for quicker access, and hundreds of new animations have been added.
• There are three passing buttons in NBA 2K16: A/Circle for best pass, B/Circle for a bounce pass (tap), flashy pass (double tap), or dribble hand-off (hold), and Y/Triangle for lob/overheard passes (tap), alley-oops (double tap), and lead passes (hold, then release as your teammate cuts to the basket).
• More responsive movement on defense.
• Lots of new animations have been added across the board, including pick-and-roll situations, new jumpshot types, and support for signature size-ups in four directions. Around 9000-10,000 animations have been added in NBA 2K16.
• Pump fake is back, a new Dynamic Defense Assist feature has been added, and the user has more control over blocking shots and boxing out on rebounds.
• 2K cam now offers both a swivel and immediate cut option.

Some of the changes I can live with. Not sure about the passing buttons, though.

I'm guessing most people are going to stick with the best pass (ie the traditional pass button, letting the game decide based on context), double tapping Y/Triangle for an alley-oop, and holding B/Circle for a hand-off. The different functions are intuitive enough, but it still feels a bit like overkill; I can't help thinking a modifier and one pass button, two at most, would suffice.

I'm guessing most people are going to stick with the best pass (ie the traditional pass button, letting the game decide based on context), double tapping Y/Triangle for an alley-oop, and holding B/Circle for a hand-off. The different functions are intuitive enough, but it still feels a bit like overkill; I can't help thinking a modifier and one pass button, two at most, would suffice.

This summarizes how I felt almost exactly. I thought the passing controls this year were perfectly fine, no idea why they felt a revamp was needed. It seems like passing controls have been completely redone every year for a little while now.

23 Days prior to release... Let's see how it plays out in game first.

There are players year after year clamoring for extra control over their players. 2K is trying to answer that call, but still offering those who are fine with the status quo the option to not go all in.

I am fine with that.

You can't please everyone, but 2k is doing what they can.

In theory, the different pass options sound ideal, but we'll have to see it in action. I do like the idea of a lead pass, as EA has done this in FIFA for years. I'm surprised it's taken this long to make it into an NBA game.

23 Days prior to release... Let's see how it plays out in game first.

There are players year after year clamoring for extra control over their players. 2K is trying to answer that call, but still offering those who are fine with the status quo the option to not go all in.

I am fine with that.

You can't please everyone, but 2k is doing what they can.

Extra control certainly isn't a bad thing, but you can still implement it in a way that's overly complicated, or cumbersome, or whatever. I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'll try it for myself before I pass any final judgement, but my initial impressions is that it leans towards overkill. Hopefully, it does work out for the best.

It's not like if you don't like the controls you won't be able to use 2K15 controls. I'm sure you will be able to.

Quite possibly, though the alternative control scheme in previous games has sometimes been a bit buggy, not allowing you to throw alley-oops and the like. Again, I'm not declaring it to be terrible, it's just my initial thought is that three buttons is at least one too many when a modifier could've had the same effect. It may well prove to be better; we'll soon find out.

They released gameplay eight days before release for NBA 2K15. So maybe some in-game gameplay 21st September?

I trust 2K too much by now to second guess any major implementation they commit to won't work. I think if the 3 pass button wasnt going to work out decently, mike wang said in the blog, he had been playing it to death and testing it. im more inclined to believe if it didnt work well, mike would have scrapped it by now, or at least i hope so. im cautiously confident it would all work out just fine

They released gameplay eight days before release for NBA 2K15. So maybe some in-game gameplay 21st September?

maybe september 17th or so cause most people getting the game the 25th so yeah

I trust 2K too much by now to second guess any major implementation they commit to won't work. I think if the 3 pass button wasnt going to work out decently, mike wang said in the blog, he had been playing it to death and testing it. im more inclined to believe if it didnt work well, mike would have scrapped it by now, or at least i hope so. im cautiously confident it would all work out just fine

Not necessarily; he and the team could really like it, but that doesn't always mean the userbase will, that an outside perspective won't discover legitimate issues with it.

I don't think there'll be any problem using the passing controls themselves to make all those passes. I think the real issue will be in wanting to do something else - like perform a pro-hop - and wishing it were assigned to a face button, but it can't be because three of them are taken up by passing controls.

Lets just think about what these buttons did last year. Circle was Pick control. Triangle was Post-up (That now is the L2, that was used as a Pass modifier, so it's simply a swap). Don't have any idea how Pick control will work, maybe the same way we called for Iso or Post ups. I think the main thing is, It's not that the 3 passing buttons make things worse than last year, but it made things difficult to improve from last year, where we didn't have any reliable way to do a Eurostep outside of doing diagonal directions with the Right stick (Most of the times, it results in a floater)

Agreed. Passing should be fine, it's the other controls, and what might have been.