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control scheme wish list

Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:36 am

This is not something I expect to happen in '07 or really any time soon if at all. I just didn'tk now exactly what section it should go into so I figured this was as good a place as any.

I doubt many of you will agree with me on this. Hell with my rambling I don't really expect my writing to be very clear. Here's hoping that it's somewhat coherent.


I once wrote in a pervious wishlist post that my control scheme hopes would require 2000 words in thier own right.

Well... here they are.


First off a disclosure, some of these things may be in 2k7. As I've played it only a few times and no recent versions, they may have already been implemented. I know they have a shot stick, but I don't quitek now the details, only generalizations, but this may cross over into that.

For those that don't like reading long things, just press back on the browser now. You've been warned.

I'm assuming an 8 button (4 shoulder) 2 joystick gamepad when I right this.



General overview: I'd like to see basketball controls have almost a fighting game engine feel to them. Movements that can be linked, but only certain players can do it based on attributes..

This might need some new attributes which I'd love to see implemented for example:

Split ball control into two, one for left and right hand. This alone would add a great deal of depth to the game. Having trouble stopping Lamar Odom? Try to force him to his right hand.
Inside Scoring: This should also be have left hand right hand split.

Another thing would be to have scoring zones for players. 82games.com I believe has stats for how much a player scores from what areas of the court. If this could be implemented in the scoring sliders (zone 1 rating 85, zone 2: 35, etc.) it would really add to the depth of the game as well.

But this isn't an attribute discussion so moving on.




First off: Offense


(These are the way I would configure it, obviously others would have different comforts to adjust accordingly)

L2 Trigger: Pick up dribble/Left handed dunk/layup
R2 Trigger: Pick up dribble/Right handed dunk/layup
R1 Shoulder: Post up/stop post up button (no need to hold, just to press
L2 Shoulder: direct passing
Face button 1: pass
Face button 2: Rebound
Face button 3: shoot
Face button 4: Player Switch

Don't need turbo because that should really be attribute and momentum based, not button based, and there's no need for a crossover button as someone mentioned before as it would be handled by the C stick.

Motion analog stick: Movement of player.
Control analog stick: movement of ball with crossovers or if ball is picked up spins/pro hop etc)

D-pad: Press in any direction once for calling a play and a quick double tap for calling a type of screen/pick/cut (double screen on the baseline, for someone to set you one, for you to set one yourself and lastly to get someone to cut to the basket.

* Most things have movements with the left stick (from here on out called the movement stick or M stick) and handle with the right stick (control stick from here out or C stick) and I see no problems with that. The layups/dunk could be seperated by the bottom shoulder button/triggers (I'll call them R2-L2), as I believe was done before in a 2k game if not still done so, but instead of having it be for when they shoot the ball have it be for when they pick up their dribble. Holding it down picks up the dribble and letting it go causes the player to jump.

Why would I want this? Cause it takes away the need for superstar freestyle dunking. Want to soar with Vince Carter? Start your move at the three point line and take off (letting go of the trigger of whatever hand you want to try to dunk with while still pressing towards the basket on the movement stick) a step before the free throw line and watch him try to slam the ball down Zo's throat. When Lebron James starts his attack of the rim he doesn't start it from the moment he shoots, he starts it from the moment he commits to it. Let us have that control. Want to change it to a floater? Push back on the m stick instead of still holding it forward as you let go of the trigger. Pull up for a J? Simply press the shoot button (which would cause the player to shoot regardless of if the trigger is still held or not). Fadeaway? Push the shot button while holding back on the M stick (which would also work regardless of if trigger is still held or not).

Want to go in for a reverse layup? simply hold the button down of whatever arm your inside shoulder is part of till it's past the basket and release. If you are coming in from the baseline instead of the paint, just release it under the rim while still moving accross the baseline.

Want to change the hand your shooting with. If you have enough air and haven't let go of the ball yet, simply press the other trigger. If you haven't jumped yet, switching triggers would cause a shift in shot (but for the sake of not making things too difficult, pressing the second trigger would immediately start the shot instead of needing to let it go. The reason for this is it would be too time consuming to have to hold it and you've already stopped your dribble anyway. Resetting everything would make traveling violations difficult to avoid.

Note: Shooting button would work as it normally does. When you press it, he goes up.

Of course you could always still pass if you see Ben Wallace coming in from the weak side.

An example of a complex move that could be done with this system:

Player on the left wing wants to cross to his right spin back towards the baseline and shoot a fadeaway:

Cross the ball into the left hand to set it up (C stick left). To make the move the M Stick towards the basket, crossover to the right with the C stick flick to the right, hold a trigger to pick up the ball, and flick the C stick to the left which would spin you back to the baseline, and shoot either a shoot a fadeaway by pressing back on the M stick and the shoot button.

It sounds complicated. Perhaps it is, I've tried the motions on a controller and it doesn't feel very difficult and seems like it would get intuitive with some practise, and it would allow us to control the players as basketball players instead of having set animations by simply pressing the C stick in any specific direction. If they want to give us free style control. I say let them give us actual free style control.

This isn't drastically different from what we already have, so moving on.

* Post up/stop post up button: Pressing it to turn your back to the basket makes posting up pretty easy, and to break out of it just press the same button again. I don't remember if this is how it is in Live at the moment or if you have to hold it down.

Why only to press to get into it and pressing to let go? So we can eliminate those awful situations where you try to cross accross the paint to the other side and end up triggering the post up animation.


while in this mode moving the M stick towards the paint will cause the player to try make his move into the paint. To spin back to the baseline all they'd have to do is move the C stick in the opposite direction. This would cause the player to plant his pivot foot which means any motion with the sticks would be for post pivoting and not movement.

Spin baseline then up and under step through: In post up mode, press towards the basket, hit the left with the C stick causing the player to spin, hit to the right with the M stick causing the step through, put up the shot. It could be a dunk, or it could be a hook (instead of holding back on the M stick and letting go of the layup button being a floater, in post mode it would be a hook shot), with either hand or a jump shot.

If it's possible to have very quick presses of the shoulder triggers to be fakes, you could even add a fake hook before the step through.


If there's any type of post move that couldn't be converted into this foundation, I can't think of it. With some creative work I'm sure you could even have a combination that would pull off Olajuwon's playoff move against David Robinson back in '95.


Pressing the post up button with a guard bringing up the ball or on the perimeter would cause him to keep his dribble away from his man. This is what points do when they get pressured as they as they try to cross thetimeline. It helps keep defenders at bay and makes it more difficult to steal the ball. Letting go of it would have the guy face up again.


* This system would allow players to control:

- Which hand they shoot with (already standard), and thier footwork beforehand. This is a huge part of baskteball that videogames simply ignore.
- When to commit to a move and when to actually take the shot.
- Alot more versatility in shot selection. Even though you commit to your move earlier, you have more time to adapt to the situation. You can commit then decide to shoot or kick out before you actually have to do either one.

If you're at the basket and don't need to wait to make a move simply press and let go of the button for a layup/dunk. For those that want to do a two handed dunk, maybe pressing both triggers at the same time would do the trick.


Defense:

M stick: Movement
C stick: left and right are steal attempts with said hand and up is to raise a hand up to distract the shot but not leave your feet, can't come up with anything for down.

L2/R2: block attempts right hand left hand. Feet leave the ground.
L1: Defensive stance/Box out (only need to press to get in and out of, not hold)
R1: Take charge
Face button 1: Rebound
Face button 2: Player Switch
Face button 3: Unkown
Face button 4: Unknown

The defensive stance would be key. and needs to be much improved. The entire attacking the basket and defense of it needs to be greatly improved. Lateral movement and offensive drives have to be differentiated a lot based on speed and ball control and quickness on offense and quickness and defensive awareness for defense.

One way this could be improved is having wingpsan as part of the player body types as well. This would help give Tayshaun Prince the advantages he has in real life. I'm sure teams document players wingspans, and this could be used to great effect in gameplay if the player models had it as well. It's somthing many would argue is more important than the actual height of a player. Right now defending players is too similar and attacking the basket is too dependant upon free style control (everything else becomes too... for the lack of a better term, sticky ). You don't need to throw three crossovers on someone to get past them. There isn't much one can do for the defensive aspects. But hoefully it can be more realistic. If there is a mismatch, it should be a mismatch.



Now not all players would be able to do every move. And some moves they may be able to do on one side of the court and not the other, depending on thier abilities with thier opposite hand. If something like this were implemented I'd love to see the ability to go to a player profile and be able to see what moves he's capable of pulling sort of how some fighting games have menus that show players special moves and how to do them. For Dynasty these things would become more or less based on the players development/regression. Try to do too much with Chris Mihm or Shaun Marion, and you might end up travelling.






It's not radically different from what is currently there, and I'll admit it is more complex. Chances of this happening are obviously zero, and maybe for good reason. If Madden can give us the option to do hot routes and shift responsibilities in defensive coverages, I do't see why the basketball equivalent shouldn't give us the freedom to really understand what players can do what and where on the floor they'll be most successful. It doesn't have to keep the complexity for easier levels. Instead of Bowen perhaps being most comfortable in the baseline 3's for example he'd be comfortable anywhere from three, and players would have peraps equal dexterity with both hands. But if you realy want to differentiate superstars and regular players, don't give us superstar controls that we have to switch on and off on the to do universal things between all players, put the ability to do these things in our hands, and differentiate the players enough by giving enough ratings and attributes that the players have their distinctions without needing to fit into some type of class structure.


I would like to ultimately see the end of superstar classes like flyer/shotblocker whatever, and make it part of the core gameplay. With what's written above the high flyer, Power, inside scorer and outside scorer classes wouldn't be needed. Niether would the stopper classes on defense. All these would be built right into the foudnation and could be used based on user ability and player attributes.

The only class I can't account for is the play maker. I don't really know how it would be implmeneted, but to be honest it's one thing I would be willing to be without. For me I dont' really care if the pass goes behind the back or if the guy looks in a different direction. If that happens automatically based on the players positions on the floor and the passers awareness, (for instance nash just flipping the ball behind him as Marion cuts by instead of having to turn around and make the pass), I'd have no problem with it.


It will never happen, but I think it could work really well.


(stepping off the soap box)

YCS
Last edited by ycsj29801 on Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:12 am

I WANT THE POST UP BUTTON BACK!

Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:54 am

I think that the D-Pad should be changed up to changing your FSS abilities

to call plays you should tap the select button then the D-pad to choose your play

Mon Jul 10, 2006 12:01 pm

if you tap the select button...then you will call a timeout

Mon Jul 10, 2006 12:04 pm

sry for the double post, but the edit button wasnt workin for me.
i just wanted to say nice ideas..........but i doubt ea will use them.........because they will almost change up the whole controller......and that will be complicated for most gamers, who been playin live for years..to have a new controller setting

Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:13 pm

I think my idea was similar.

xbox 360 Freestyle shot control

Left analog-body control
Right analog-arm or ball control whatever sound the best
3 shoot buttons
x- layup
y-dunk
b- jumper
a- pass
left trigger-left hand
right trigger- right hand
Left bumper-left hand pass
right bumper-right hand pass

Layups

left analog /right analog

up-lean forward /up-reach out finger roll
down- lean back /down-regular finger roll
left- lean left /up down up- reverse
right- lean right /I need help on some more
full circle-360
half circle- 180

Dunks

Left analog / Right analog

up- lean forward /up-reach out
down-backwards /down-pull back
right-lean right / right-reach out right
left-lean left /left-reach out left
full circle- 360 /half circle- windmill
half circle-180 /up down up- pump
up left- side left /up right- slightly reach out right
up right-side right /up left- slightly pull back left
/down right- pull back wide right
/down left- pull back arm bent left

same goes for different hands

Examples
2 hand leaning windmill
Cross some one up and press x the dunk button and at the same time hold the left and right triggers plus your left analog to lean left and twirl your right analog in a half circle then release the triggers to finish.

Lebron dunk
Press x and at the same time hold the right trigger plus the left analog up left to come from the side then pull the right analog down right to pull his arm back then release the trigger to finish.

Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:41 pm

why would we need 3 shootin buttons????

Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:05 pm

Man... we need to send EA a petition on trying to bring the post up button pack... as hipn said...

hipn wrote:I WANT THE POST UP BUTTON BACK!

Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:40 pm

why would we need 3 shootin buttons????





It oculd be combined into one button. With layups and hooks in particular what hand you go up with makes a big difference between getting blocked or not. If someone gets by his man and sees a weak side defender coming in for the block, which hand would you want to put the ball up with? Most likely the opposite to the help defender so you can shield him with your body. Perhaps the computer on it's own would make the right decision, I'd rather have that choice in my own hands though.

In my post I wrote that along with this control scheme that other things would be combined with it and one of those things with splitting inside scoring between right hand and left hand. When you take this into account it's also something that you would have to consider. I wouldn't want the computer to automatically use a players left hand if the player has no left to speak of. I would try as much as possible to get shots off with the right.

Blcoks on the other hand probably wouldn't need two buttons. It would be overly complex. I guess it could just choose the hand that doesn't cross the body every time. Some decisions might be better kept by computer AI.

YCS
Last edited by ycsj29801 on Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:10 pm

Yea just combine them into one button tap for layup or hold or a dunk. I would rather have everything user controlled instead of everything animated.
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