My Player CPU Play Calling needs to be fixed !

[Celtic1]

I posted this in the 2K sports threads but since I actually see real members from 2K surfing this site I thought I'd post it here.

Anyone who plays my player mode or at the very least attempted to play must know about all the issues with this mode. I will not mention the beyond terrible team play on offense and defense but I like to highlight the 4 things the CPU does over and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. This is enough to drive any sane human being insane.

Here are the top 4 things which REALLY need to be toned down.

CPU Play Call #1. They will dribble with any PG straight to the paint, all your teammates leave their 1 on 1 coverage and chase him. PG dishes out to the 3 people always standing behind the 3 point line and swishhhh goes the basketball.

CPU Play Call #2. CPU holds ball for 20 seconds drive near the hoop and keeps pump faking until someone from your team bites on the fake and fouls them.

CPU Play Call #3. The famous hop step. No matter the player or skill level drive to the hoop hop step and followed by 4 pump fakes and its easy basket.

CPU Play Call #4. It don't matter if you have Howard on your team or Yao cpu shoots and they recover the offensive rebound. Every game you will have about 4-5 put backs at bare minimum. Again it don't matter who you have they are going to have all the offensive rebounds.

Now take those 4 moves add your dumb mentally handicap teammates and it's enough for your neighbors to call the cops because they think there is a brawl in your house.

We all love the NBA and we all love basketball but why only 4 moves? Perhaps they will take one or 2 jump shots and maybe have few isolation with dunks. But, seriously enough is enough?

At least make our team players have the same tendencies and it wouldn't be this bad. Why is it when we pass to our team players they take fade away 3 pointers and drive to the hoop with 3 people in the paint?

Please 2K do something about this. I am really getting tired of this and the more you play the more you see this pattern.

I'm curious what you guys think about this?

[jin192]

i have stopped playing my player because of this + the ridiculous trades..at least till its get fixed in someway

[Celtic1]

Quote: Originally Posted by jin192

i have stopped playing my player because of this + the ridiculous trades..at least till its get fixed in someway

The sad part is each year it gets worse and worse. When my player was introduced in 2010 we all noticed the bad team play but that year there was no bump animation and once you had your attributes raised there was no stopping you which in a way was kind of dull. Then came last year where they introduced the bump animation and with few patches got the game somewhat balanced. The game had everything from contact, bumps, to fair play. True the team play was still bad but we all learned and found ways to work with it. Now 2012 and WOW talk about one cheap shot after another. On top of all this developers at 2K said hey this is not enough lets add more unfair play. So the hyped up the super elastic band play. This is basically when you have a lead in the 4th qt it gets whiped to zero within minutes by the CPU. All of the sudden your shots are not going in, your missing layups, loosing the ball, and yet the cpu is jacking 3's like Reggie vs the Knicks.

So to sum it up out of the 3 years I been playing this mode this by far the most unbalanced and unrealistic my player mode yet. People use to complain about user exploiting the game and repeating same motions calling it cheese the past few years. Well now this year the CPU is cheesing on us like no tomorrow and no one is really happy about it.

[Hotobu]

Quote: Originally Posted by Celtic1

So to sum it up out of the 3 years I been playing this mode this by far the most unbalanced and unrealistic my player mode yet. People use to complain about user exploiting the game and repeating same motions calling it cheese the past few years. Well now this year the CPU is cheesing on us like no tomorrow and no one is really happy about it.

Yeah, um... no. This sounds like revisionist history to me. 2K12's my Player mode has some broken stuff, but it's still the best of the 3. At least the game tries to run different plays, 2K10? The other team had maybe 4 plays, and EVERY team in the league ran the same ones. It was either get 10-20 steals by picking off the pass by knowing exactly where it was going, or feign igorance and let the computer run those same plays. Sliders could be adjusted before going into the mode, but the difficulty was set to Pro (maybe All-Star, but I think it was pro) so it was mindlessly easy. The game was helpless to defend any dribble or post move, moderate sized centers could average 20 rebounds and 5 blocks per game (This is what I had with my Center 30 games into my career). It was also easy as hell to max out a character. I had my first guy completely maxed before scoring my 10,000th NBA point, and in my second season our team went 98-1.

2K11? The computer didn't need plays I'll never forget the game when Andrea Bargnani went 18-21 in a game on pretty much all post shots... I was on the Celtics... which means he was being guarded by Kevin Garnett. Getting lit up from 3 in this game sucks, but I'll take it over every player being a legend in the post like in 2K11, and you tried to double you were screwed there too. Also this was the game where anyone could average 10 rebounds per game. On offense the game called the same 4 or so lame *** plays (oh wait this was after they patched this in), and it was only luck of the draw whether or not those plays were even designed for you.

I wont argue that 2K12 has those issues you mentioned, but let's talk about them now, and some possible solutions.

Dumb CPU teammates (first of all do you have playcalling on? if not turn it on this will help). Well this is just par for the My Player course (and they aren't as dumb this year as in years past) . It needs to be fixed, but seeing as this issue has remained constant I can hardly hold it solely against 2K12.

What I've found is that there are two ways for you to play with your teammates. If you hit them when they are wiiiiide open they will take the shot more often than not. Drive and kick works just as well with your team as it does the computer. The second solution is to involve yourself in the play as little as possible especially if it isn't designed for you. It's kinda hard for me to do, but if you just stay on the weakside the computer can kinda figure itself out. Just try to stay at an angle where you can call for the pass if they're going to do something obviously dumb. Even then sometimes the game will surprise you. Often times the computer doing dumb stuff is because of it not knowing what to do with your presence. The less it has to think about you the better.

For the rest of the issues double team more often. You may say "hey, but I want a realistic experience I don't want to double all the time" yeah I agree, but you don't have a choice. In fact try this. Play 3 games where you do nothing but double team like an idiot (sounds weird right?). It wont work all the time and sometimes you'll get eaten alive, but trust me when I say you'll learn when the good times are to do so and when not to. You'll see that if you strategically double from time to time you can stagnate the computer's offense. It wont get good spacing and you'll stop getting shelled with corner 3s. The game will actually start shooting more mid range shots which seem to have a lower success rate than 3s especially when you learn your team's double team logic to leave their poor shooters open.

2K12 needs to be fixed but it's far from the worst of the 3.

[Ken North]

Quote: Originally Posted by Celtic1

I'm curious what you guys think about this?

I think by and large everything you said falls between the terms "exaggerated" and "plain wrong".

There's certainly issues with play calling, but nothing remotely near what you claim. And the My Player mode is lightyears ahead of what it was in 2K10.

[Celtic1]

Great advice but I sort of did try your recommendations. There is basically no defense me or anyone can play on the those plays other then us hoping they miss.

When PG CPU run chargse in paint I can't leave my assignment to go help double the open SG because he will kick it out to the SF that I was covering. No matter what someone will be open because they all collapse in the paint for help defense even though its 100% not necessary.

The pump fake cheat as I call it also has no resolutions. This against is done by the PGs or SGs of the opposing teams. You run to help then they will dish to your wide open player and it's bottom of the net. This is why again the only thing left to do is play man to man and hope no one goes for the fake which never happens.

The hop step forget about it everyone uses the hop step. This reminds me of online play in 2k11 where every payer would use this for a easy score. So I guess in 2k12 the cpu uses it on us.

Lastly the rebounds and put backs... Ya sorry again no luck here. When a no name player grabs rebounds and puts it back over and over you pretty much have to stand there and watch. Sure you can hit the glass but this always happens after you played great D on your player and they missed the shot. So again no time to play D and turn around and get the rebound too.

I agree with you as far as team mates they have always been dumb and really bad. But, honestly that is least of my worries if my team can actually play defense then I will make plays and find a way to score. I been playing this for a while so I'm not bad on offense. It's just defense there is zero help.

2k12 has all the gilts and glamor and a great game. Of course you can't relate this to 10 or 11 but the frustration level and the unbalanced cpu vs your team tendencies ruins it all. It's a book with an amazing cover and that's all. Perhaps as many stated maybe it's just about time for me to put this down too and wait for the patch. I just don't like giving up and I keep telling myself maybe it will get better. But, it's not and only getting worse. Now not only do I have to deal with all this but the horrific trades too season after season. How do you stop Melo and Dirk on the same team...? To sum it up none of them hardly miss.

[Hotobu]

A few tips. You can leave your assignment on the perimeter depending on the angle you're at and the awareness of the passer. If you sense the computer is going to drive (and depending on the spacing of the play) you can also choose to send someone else on the double and then be ready to run to their man. If you send someone who's man wont have someone to pass to you can stop the play. This can be someone from the perimeter, or even a big in the high post.

Re: pump faking in the lane. Assume they'll give two then shoot. We both play SF, so I know exactly what you're experiencing. It's very tempting to go for the hero block, but when you think about the amount of times it's worked vs the amount you've been faked you just have to train yourself to never go for the first fake. This is tough because trying to play like this is like trying to deprogram two years of habits. In 2K11, 10, and hell association mode before that the computer always started its move at the same time. What you'll want to do now is never go for the first one. In fact the best case scenario if you've got help close is to run to them, and quickly call for the double. If it comes in time you don't have to worry about anything. If not just wait for the third move (which almost always is slow will be done off of their non pivot foot)

Rebounding. -box out Again this is also takes deprogramming. In years past you could wait for the ball to bounce, jump and let your vertical and rebound do the work for you. It isn't that easy now. The best way to rebound is to find someone to box out and hope the computer grabs the board. Even if it's not your assignment just body up someone and give your big men one less person to worry about. This works extra well if throughout the course of the game you've been trying to leak out on rebounds. Your matchup will eventually start to anticipate your leak out, and run the other way. Now you can run in, put a body on a big man, and don't have to worry about Rudy Gay teabagging you in the back of the neck with a superman putback.

edit (More stuff): ... yeah I think I've finally figured this mode out, and to think most of this stuff came completely by accident.

I think the first rule for playing 2K12 My Player mode is to completely erase all the years of bad basketball that 2K has programmed into us. The more stuff I find that works (some of it is admittedly videogamish) the more I say to myself... wait... that's actually what they do in actual basketball.

Tip 1: Double teaming CPU response logic - I'm serious when I say that you need to double like a mad man for a few games to see how the game responds. I've noticed more and more that the computer has trouble seeing passes into the middle of the paint. This is almost a blind spot for them. You can send your center to help at 15 feet and they wont hit the man they were guarding. This works even better when the Center has to run past the PF to get to the man at 15 feet. You can also think of doubling as calling for help. If you're on an island with your man and you think he's about to get by you just call for a double. You're not actually looking to double him, but this is the poor man's way of yelling for help.

Tip 2: Get the ball out of the PG's hands. - If this means sending the double, or sagging way off of your man to make him pass then do so. If you stop and think about how many times the computer ****s you over it's because the PG is making the offense go. Think about what happens when you're on offense, and you call for the ball or don't run the play right. What happens? The play breaks down. Use that.

Tip 3: Trust your teammates on offense - ... I know I know they do stupid ****. Trust me I know, but the less I involve myself in the offense the better they do. If the play call is a nice play for you to score then take it, but if it's a play that forces you to iso try not doing so unless your team needs a score. Hell this last game I actually stood out of bounds for a couple of possessions, and my team did pretty well.

Tip 4: Use the computer against itself - Your teammates are capable of hitting the same crazy 3s on the computer that they hit on you. If you've got a good 3pt shooter try giving them the ball with 7 seconds or less on the clock near the 3 pt line.

Tip 5: Push the ball up court a lot. If the defense isn't set call for the ball from the PG after it's inbounded, trigger that running animation and push the ball up court. This will cause some mis matches from time to time and you may get lucky and end up with one of your bigs on a guard.

[mongo13clikke]

What I hate most right now in my player about teamplays is that its nearly IMPOSSIBLE to set a screen anywhere near or in the zone because your defender wont let you do it. So any play that requires you to do so is almost guaranteed to brick because the cpu does nothing else than waiting for you to set it. I dont know how many offenses failed because of that.

[RoseTinted]

Sorry for a slight tangent for this related MyPlayer playcalling tangent.

Does the CPU, regardless of the Coach "Calls Plays" slider, incorrectly call Plays 100% of the time if you have Auto Playcalling on, like it does in 2K11?