by Andrew on Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:40 pm
Having played a few more games with the official update (Xbox 360), I have to admit I'm a little puzzled and disappointed. I'm not sure if it's simply a buggy DNA update because the Blazers/Rockets game I played after the patch was released was quite different, but both games I played this evening were riddled with a lot of issues that weren't present in the game as it was out of the box.
Out of the box, the CPU did a much better job running plays and setting up the offense with the occasional issue of a player stalling and overdribbling before putting up a bad shot. As advertised, the patch seems to have addressed this issue by allowing the CPU to better improvise. However, in the games I played this evening that meant the CPU barely ran plays, opting to put up shots after one pass and often taking very ill-advised shots: fadeaway threes from a couple of feet behind the three point line, shots that certain players would rarely take, etc. And disturbingly, some of those shots were dropping, at times more frequently than my layup attempts and wide open shots after passing out of the double team. Again, I'm not sure if it's just the latest DNA update but the CPU seems to be improvising a bit too much.
There seems to be more of an imbalance between the user and CPU as well, more like it was in 09 where the CPU casually tosses up difficult shots and makes them while I clang wide open jumpers and miss layups. The CPU is also getting to the hoop at an alarming rate and it seems impossible to stop them except for a stray block here or there. Compare with how the CPU plays at the other end, picking up block after block and altering shots without getting the foul call. There was some of that pre-patch and let's face it, the CPU has to have some way of keeping up with the creativity of human intelligence but it seems out of balance after the patch. The ball still gets stripped from the user a little too easily on drives while the CPU is able to slice into the lane much easier than before. Combine that with players who rarely dunk throwing down emphatic slams, and playing defense is nowhere near as fun or effective as it was pre-patch.
I should note that I was playing on All-Star before the patch came out and have kept it on All-Star difficulty post-patch as well. The games I played this evening were also Dynamic Season games, so as I said before I can't rule out the possibility that the latest DNA updates are a little messed up (for some reason, the Bulls/Celtics game DNA featured Luol Deng as the starting centre) and it could be confined to that mode, I'll need to give an exhibition game another shot. Still, something doesn't seem quite right because right now it's feeling like quite a different game, the good stuff that was apparent out of the box seems to be gone and that's disappointing. There also appears to be some issues with replays not working, which only occurred in my last two games. Weird.
I really hope a second patch comes out to address some of the issues that seem to be caused by the first patch. I suppose I can clear my cache and decline the update but then that rules out playing online, not to mention the hassle of having to download updates for all the other games again. Still, if the offline experience remains unsatisfactory and isn't patched further, it might be the only option.
In any case, I'll play some more games and see how things go. I'm hoping it is a DNA issue and the more I think about it the stronger that possibility seems, because my previous post-patch games didn't seem to have these issues. Whatever the cause, hopefully it's ironed out by a fixed DNA update or a second official update. On the bright side, the addition of the backdown button is most welcome and the end of game AI does seem a bit better as far as clock management is concerned.
UPDATE: Just saw mention of a second update on Marcus' Twitter, which is promising. Still interested to see if there's a buggy DNA update on top of that but a second fix wouldn't astray regardless.
