NBA 2K21 - Next Gen vs Current Gen Legends Face/Graphics Comparisons

[sticky-fingers]

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What a fucking disgrace for the legends of the (real) game... most of the faces are the same since.

But they will continue to grab money and sell virtual cards...

[Dee4Three]

They tilted the heads up to make the players appear different, and added some different lighting.

If you put the players heads in the same position as PS4, and get rid of the glossy lightling, it is an identical match. The faces are the same for about 99.9% of them (recycled), and the textures are the same as well.

Just incredibly underwhelming.... all of it.

[DrBurke]

I'm not sure what I expected but I don't see the jump from current-gen (pc) to next-gen. Something is missing.

[bongo88]

those are the same... very dissappointing

also, the video only showed some of the faces.... like, they didn't even show the 1998 jazz Jeff Hornacek... obviously they still havent changed hornacek... it a face from 2k13/2k12/2k11.... if i remember correctly.

oh well, I just gonna have to stop being lazy and give hornacek some 3d hair in 2k20

[sticky-fingers]

You're right Bongo, lot of faces come from "old old" gen, same for the arenas textures (banners for example).
Like Dee mentionned it, they change the tilt (and or the angle of the view), the lighting is better but poorly calibrated.
They just update a few CFs textures, but LOT are the same.
And they have no excuse, Covid didnt prevent art team to from working on those textures, especially as they sell cards for MyTeams...

[bongo88]

You're right Bongo, lot of faces come from "old old" gen, same for the arenas textures (banners for example).
Like Dee mentionned it, they change the tilt (and or the angle of the view), the lighting is better but poorly calibrated.
They just update a few CFs textures, but LOT are the same.
And they have no excuse, Covid didnt prevent art team to from working on those textures, especially as they sell cards for MyTeams...

haha, that true... but your post had me spend the 8 minutes to swap out hair from george mikan



might just send it to you to fiddle with it ... i'm horrid with hair stuffs

with FIFA, Madden, and nba2k online stuffs... i've realieze they've just weaponized games to tap into the gambling behaviors of the general public...

on a completely irrelevant tangent (haha) this just popped up in my news feed an hour ago.... welcome to the future: https://www.billboard.com/articles/busi ... certs-plan

[Andrew]

I expect there'll be some historical likeness updates as usual, but definitely some familiar faces (pun intended) at launch.

[RayRay_953]

So a few things I gathered from the comparisons:

- Some of Kobe's CF's were updated; they were bad before
- Many players recycled. Kind of expected this, but a lot of the CF's look terrible
- Horace Grant is no longer is the Magic goggles on the Bulls teams, but he didn't wear goggles until the 1990-91 season
- You mean to tell me that they couldn't just use Shaq's Halftime Report model already???

I like how they updated Bryant's CF models, but it's also incredibly disrespectful towards the other legends. But if it caters to the Playground community, we did our job! You want Shaq to look better? Well, why don't we give you a Shaq that can perform crossovers and shoot from half court in MyTEAM a few months from now? Lack of competition has thrown 2K off the deep end imo.

[Dee4Three]

I want you guys to look at this next gen gameplay footage (It goes all the way up to 4K)

Look at the contrast and brightness, it is blinding.... they CRANKED that up to give it a new look (Not necessarily about quality, just a NEW look). But look at the players bodies (They look the same as PS4), look at the player movement (Constant skating), and look at the animations (I didn't see ONE different layup, dunk, driving animation in the entire video).

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Here is NBA 2K21 on PS4 with no graphics mods (my video)

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NBA 2K17 PS4 Pro

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NBA 2K16 PS4

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Here is NBA 2K14 for Xbox one (my video)

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Can anybody else honestly tell me that you are feeling "next gen" about the PS5 and Series X versions? Not just graphically, but gameplay wise.

[TRIIIAD]

I want you guys to look at this next gen gameplay footage (It goes all the way up to 4K)

Look at the contrast and brightness, it is blinding.... they CRANKED that up to give it a new look (Not necessarily about quality, just a NEW look). But look at the players bodies (They look the same as PS4), look at the player movement (Constant skating), and look at the animations (I didn't see ONE different layup, dunk, driving animation in the entire video).

Can anybody else honestly tell me that you are feeling "next gen" about the PS5 and Series X versions? Not just graphically, but gameplay wise.

I just got it on the PS5 so I can shed some light on a few of the things you mentioned. First, I should say that I did not play 2K21 on PC so I can only compare next-gen to 2K20. Regarding the lighting, I was also concerned about that watching all the gameplay videos but I guess it must be due to HDR on specific TVs or something, because the colors in my game look normal. A couple of the courts (e.g. Lakers) look a bit off but overall it doesn't look anywhere nearly as saturated and pastel-like as some of the videos out there. Also this is subjective, but I feel like the new court lighting on the wood is insanely nice looking. It makes the graphics as a whole feel wayyy nicer. But to be fair, NBA Live had that same lighting capability on current gen...

Regarding the gameplay itself, they definitely did not "build it from the ground up" as they claim. However, there are several noticeable improvements. For example, there is definitely something new with the player body collision physics. It almost reminds me of Madden or something, in that sometimes players' limbs get caught on other bodies in unnatural ragdoll-esque ways, but it makes body-ups seem much more realistic overall. I think they also tried to reduce sliding with this system. While obviously they failed to do so, there are weird moments where a player's foot seemingly gets caught on the ground and starts to shake or tremble a bit when dragging. On current gen in these instances the player would just slide. It's hard to explain but it's evident in some of the gameplay videos out there. This new system definitely needs a lot of fine tuning though.

Besides the physics, the gameplay as a whole seems noticeably more fluid. In particular, dribbling, pull-ups, and step-backs all flow much better and do not feel as artificial and abrupt as they did before. However, I think this is mostly due to some of the things they changed with animations. Instead of having dozens of pull-up and step-back animations to choose from in the editor, they just have a handful now (i.e. one "Normal", one "Athletic", and a few mo-capped). It seems like they just hard-coded these few animations into the game for improved smoothness but at the cost of losing customization. So while pull-ups and stepbacks feel better than they ever have IMO, every other player basically has the same exact animations.

I will say from the first few days of playing it is overall the most enjoyable 2K gameplay-wise since 2K16 for me. Ultimately though, this game feels like what 2K21 on current-gen should've been. Obviously the loading times and 4K 60fps would not have been possible on XB1 or PS4, but I feel like all of the other improvements could have been added. It's definitely not the same jump as 2K14 on next-gen was.

[Andrew]

Thanks for the insights! Good to hear that there's been some improvement that can be felt, if not always seen when watching others play.

What about long-standing legacy issues such as psychic/body steals, and CPU teammates being lazy on rotations and defense in general? Would you say there's been much improvement in that regard?

[cavs4872]

Idk where to post this so I'll just come here... I'm quite impressed the '07-'08 Rockets have a complete roster now... Rafer Alston is here.

I thought they confirmed they were bringing a Kobe/Gasol Lakers team... false memory?

[Infamouz]

This is the correct Lakers (Staples Center) lighting and atmosphere.

phpBB [video]

Compared to this next gen is wayyyy off

phpBB [video]

how i wish live has 2K animations. Live graphics and presentation is always better than 2K. I've been 2k fan boy since PS2 but this next gen is really disappointing the lighting, color and atmosphere is wayyyyy off than the real Staples Center.

[sticky-fingers]

Thanx TRIIIAD for your detailed post about gameplay

cavs4872, i guess they were looking for Bynum for this team : https://fadeawayworld.net/2020/08/31/ro ... rew-bynum/

[Andrew]

II thought they confirmed they were bringing a Kobe/Gasol Lakers team... false memory?

They didn't confirm they'd be adding one, but Ronnie 2K said they wanted to.

[cavs4872]

It's kind of total failure that they don't do easy teams like that; they could totally do one without Bynum. Give me a Dwight Howard Magic and Joe Johnson Hawks as well.

[Andrew]

Considering they've done the 2000 Blazers and 2004 Pistons despite not having Sheed in the game, it's not like there isn't a precedent, either.

[TRIIIAD]

Thanks for the insights! Good to hear that there's been some improvement that can be felt, if not always seen when watching others play.

What about long-standing legacy issues such as psychic/body steals, and CPU teammates being lazy on rotations and defense in general? Would you say there's been much improvement in that regard?

Unfortunately, it honestly doesn't seem like they made any real changes to the CPU AI. Still situations when the CPU runs out of bounds with the ball for no reason. When you get double teamed on offense, your teammates still stand idly in their programmed spots instead of trying to get open. Same thing on defense with inexplicable rotations. They did add a "call for help defense" button this year though, but I haven't fully figured out how it works since it just seems to call for a double team half the time. The body steals also do feel a bit minimized but there's still instances where I get sucked into an animation and lose the ball after colliding with someone. There's also WAY more charges getting called this year, to the point where it almost feels like the CPU is flopping. So you still sometimes end up turning the ball over after a collision even if it's not a body steal lol.

For the most part though this game is just the same exact engine as on current-gen but with new physics and a new animations system. As a result, a lot of the legacy issues are still present, even if they have been minimized. At this point it truly would take the game to be built from the ground up to fix everything, since it seems like the engine itself is flawed. With that being said, I also feel like this game has a lot more potential to be improved with slider adjustments than previous years. It will be interesting to see how the body physics are affected through the sliders, for example. Also, most gameplay mechanics feel the best they ever have on this engine (at least since 2K16), like dribbling, shooting, and rebounding. Besides the legacy issues, most of the other annoyance I've noticed can probably be fixed through sliders (e.g. too many charges, too many contact dunks, etc).

[Andrew]

That's unfortunate to hear, though not unsurprising. Many of those issues have survived through a few engines after all, so it seems like it's part of the blueprint rather than the specific technology. Nice to hear that some of the issues have been curbed slightly and there's a good feel at least.

Any obvious ball-warping on rebounds?

[dante24]

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What a fucking disgrace for the legends of the (real) game... most of the faces are the same since.

But they will continue to grab money and sell virtual cards...

I know they've improved some gameplay elements mainly foot planting which was has been dead with no plausible excuse for time.

But those cyberfaces damn. I don't think i can switch to ps5 and go back to not being able to mod out these basic issues.

Thanks for sharing people

[sticky-fingers]

you're welcome

Another comparison :

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[DEIBYS2KMOD]

For me the new generation seems simply an update in lighting, and improvements in some textures, I always said the difference is in the lighting and texture, the game is basically the same in almost all aspects. And another thing really for my taste the lighting is terrible, I think they could do something much better, the games are not about being graphically identical to reality, simply the lighting could be better. nba 2k14 its lighting was not a replica of reality, but it was a lighting full of life, that's why we liked the graphic jump so much because the game looked really full of life very colorful with a volumetric lighting that to the eyes, it was a visual delight.

a question if anyone knows, what graphics engine are using for the new generation because I have not seen any information on this.

[DEIBYS2KMOD]

you're welcome

Another comparison :

phpBB [video]

I go back and repeat in the photo of the shoes and ball, do you notice any change and texture? I just see change in lighting or am I wrong?

[sticky-fingers]

except some few new faces, you're right the models and the textures are the same.

lighting is different (thanx to HDR) but it saturates the colors. I mean, with lighting mods and reshade/postfx, the overall result isnt better than current gen on PC.

[Dee4Three]

I just want to point out once again...

What they have done on next gen for NBA 2K21 COULD have been done on current gen, even the lighting. Look at games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, etc... the texures/lighting, etc.

And look at a game like 2K17 even. A global mod, higher quality court (Thanks Sticky), and this game is ridiculous graphically appealing from the gameplay view.





From what I have seen, NBA 2K21 is super underwhelming from a graphical standpoint, and gameplay looks so similar.

People in the impressions section of OS are being ridiculous. They were praising THESE TWO SCREENS from next gen saying that CAPS look better.





They don't look better at all.... those are the exact same textures/body types/CAP options, etc.

Getting really sick of the BS, honestly.