Hov's Gameplay & Rating Idea

[hova-]

Okay, hi guys, after a lot of testin and tweaking I want to share some ideas about gameplay sliders, ratings and tendencies that make the game more enjoyable for me.

I want to say two things in before: (1) I am a die hard NBA fan and I watch a lot of games of many different teams. (2) Still - playing a video game will always be different and everybody has a different understanding of how the game should run - slower, faster, more fastbreaks, less threes. This is how I do like the game. Maybe for you these sliders and edits are trash.

The name of the sliders is "Hova Sliders". The in-game username is "I Hate Mondays" for PC if you want to download the sliders.

So let me start with the gameplay settings & sliders:

Settings:

Quarter length: 12 mins
Game Speed: 53
Shooting: Real Player %
Def. Assistance:: 0
Boxout Assistance: 0

Let me add a few comments here: the gameplay speed is broken; that means, the speed somehow changes during games, in the second half and sometimes even depending on the floor/stadium I am playing on (mb framerate issues, don't know). Why do I choose 53? Well, for me, in combination with the speed and quickness sliders, this is the perfect speed. It simulates quick first steps, and allows fast breaks without getting caught by the CPU. It also allows to use animations like step back etc. which are way too slow on other game speed settings (so slow, that you cannot pull them off effectively).
Why Real Player %? For me it does not make any sense to time a shot better with a player who usually is not know for hitting the shot and consequently overriding his limitation and hitting the shot. I just don't like it.

PART I - Sliders (User/CPU): (only both values if they differ - also emphasized in red)

Inside Shot Success: 25
Close Shot Success: 38
Mid-Range Success: 45
3Pt-Success: 44
Layup Success: 45
Dunk in Traffic Frequency: 65
Dunk in Traffic Success: 50
Pass Accuracy: 46
Off. Rebounds: 25
Def. Rebounds: 50
Alley-Oop Success: 60
Contact Shot Success: 15
Ball Security: 20
Body Up-Sensivity: 85

Driving Contact Shot Frequency: 100
Inside Contact Shot Frequency: 100
Layup Defense Strenght Takeoff: 57
Layup Defense Strenght Release: 50
Jump Shot Defense Strenght Gather: 53
Jump Shot Defense Strenght Release: 50
Help Defense Strenght: 95
Steal Success: 44

Acceleration: 35 / 30
Vertical: 47
Strenght: 20
Stamina: 50
Speed: 35 / 30
Durability: 50
Hustle: 50
Ball Handling: 52
Hands: 70
Dunking Ability: 40
On-Ball Defense: 50 / 45
Stealing: 46
Blocking: 35
Off Awareness: 50
Def Awareness: 70
Off Consistency: 50
Def. Consistency: 55
Fatigue Rate: 43
Lateral Quickness: 48 / 43

Take Inside Shots: 50 / 47
Take Close Shots: 50 / 43
Take Mid-Range Shots: 50 / 57
Take 3PT Shots: 50 / 47
Take Post Shots: 50 / 58
Attack the Basket: 50 / 55
Look For Post Players: 50 / 60
Throw Alley Oop: 50 / 100
Attempt Dunks: 50
Attempt Putbacks: 100
Play Passing Lanes: 100
Go for On-Ball Steals: 30
Contest Shots: 80
Backdoor Cuts: 0

Over the back Foul: 98
Charging Foul: 87
Blocking Foul: 97
Reaching Foul: 91
Shooting Foul: 83
Loose Ball Foul: 100


Okay let me comment on the sliders:

Scoring Inside: It's a very big problem! Very big. The CPU will play magical passes to their big man downlow who will go up for easy buckets, no matter who is standing around them. Way too many And1-Plays. That's why I changed the success sliders for Inside Scoring by a ton. Also "100" for Inside Contact Shot Frequency is a must in order to have a lot of collisions like in real life. Life in the paint ain't no picknick basket. Further I put Backdoor cuts at "0" since I think there are enough cuts that will catch your defending CPU colleagues off guard already. It's a thing of taste I guess. Scoring Inside will also become harder by setting Help Defense to "95". Rotations are way off in 2k17. That's a try to work against it. Furthermore Inside battles are way more realistic with the combination of Putback Attempts at "100" with low shot success. Big men will tip the ball a lot and sometimes there are even several offensive tips that don't find the bottom of the net. It's realistic. Try it!

Speed, Quickness and Acceleration: As I said before, the game speed in the settings as well as the (1) Acceleration (2) Speed (3) lateral quickness sliders really affect the whole speed of the game. My idea is to make the game quicker with the settings (53) so the ball moves quicker and animation trigger better. To really make a difference between slow players (bigs) and quick players (guards) I lowered the three named sliders to their thirthies and fourties. Going further down will cause all players to near equality in their values which makes no sense. Don't go lower than 30 here. For me it feels very good. You can run fastbreaks without getting caught, use step backs and other animation that tend to take too long when game speed is lower. I also like how the pick & roll is working quickly.



On Ball Defense, Ball Handling and first step speed: It's really a matter of taste and skill level, but it is proven that the CPU has a speed advantage if you have these settings equal for CPU and User. The CPU is mirroring your dribbling with it's on-ball defender and it is tough to blow by even with great dribblers. What I did is: lower CPU's (1) on-ball D (2) Acceleration (3) Speed and (4) lateral quickness by 5 compared to the user. As I said maybe a matter of skill level, but now I can beat the CPU off the dribble with slashers, whilst it's still hard to get by with slow players.

Defense Nr 1. - blocking, playing the lanes: as there are too many straight passes to the paint, I put the playing lanes sliders to "100". It works wonders and lazy passes are punished with turnovers. There are too many blocks in the game. Thus I lowered the slider to "35". Def. awareness and hands also help getting better defense.

Defense Nr 2. - dribbling turnovers: in my opinion you should not be allowed to dribble into a defender without getting the ball knocked lose. On the other hand, you should not lose it all the time as players know how to protect the ball when driving. I really tried a lot of stuff but the combination of a lower stealing slider, higher body sensivity and lower ball security worked wonders. You should play around with these sliders to your taste though since they are very simmish in my settings.

Defense Nr 3. - Jump Shooting and Lay-Ups: Okay, in my opinion a NBA player gets more affected by clever early defense then by late close outs. So if you contest the shot before the release you should be rewarded, whilst right with the release might just be too late. Thats why I upped the gather/ and take off sliders.

Other stuff: the CPU almost never throws alley-oops thats why I upped the slider. Still does not work a lot as the roster tendencies just suck in this regard. Pass accuracy should be lowered to get more punishment for passing out of a jump shot. Contest shot tendency should be upped to get more defense from the AI. The foul sliders are also a matter of taste but charging should never be more than blocking, unless you want a centre court charge festival.

PART II - Roster Tendency Issues:

Okay so here are a few things that came up to my mind while looking at the roster (2ks roster):

Play Types (Vitals): It is very important which type of plays a player has assigned. I did not experience enough pick & rolls although this is how the NBA works nowadays. It's the fundamental play everybody uses. The problem is: almost every big also has the play type "post up low". This is very bad as usually only stars with polished post game post up nowadays. So I removed all other plays except "Pick n roll
roll man" from big men scrubs. And well, now they are setting screens instead of going to the paint where they catch magical passes. Really makes the game better. Also have a look at several star players who don't have the right play types. Blake Griffin for example prefers the high post now as he has a mid range jumper. So that should be his play type before posting up low (and after p&r).

Ratings that need to be considered:

Shot IQ: this really seems to mean how a player is picking his spot. A high value is good for role players who rarely take shots they most likely won't hit. But for example for star players like Steph Curry, the IQ should not be too high. You want him to pull up for wild shots because he can make them. That's why I lower this for some stars who really love to take wild runners and threes etc.

Vertical: well, just for your information - some vertical rating by 2k are way off. 7 footers rarely should have more than 60 (some exceptions like DeAndre).

Strenght: same here. Strenght matters in the post and when dodging screens. Some smaller players have way more strenght in real life than some bigs. In 2k, bigs almost all the time have a lot of strenght.

Intangibles: I don't know what this rating means, but I came to the conclusion that it is only existing to adjust the overall rating of players. What do you think?

Tendencies that need to be considered:

Okay first of all, check some tendencies of star players. They are so wrong. James Harden step back tendency around 40? He lives from his step back!! Also almost no size up dribble tendency? Who of 2k watched the rockets. Demarcus Cousins only a lot of post-ups and no drive to the hole? This guy is facing up and driving like no big man before. But okay, let me just show you which tendencies are off often.

Outside Shots: One thing I found out that it is never good to have the 3pt tendency too high on stars who love to shoot threes and mid range jumper. Simply because the player will first pass the three point line and then the 3pt slider triggers, without giving a chance for a maybe better mid range shot. So really don't go too hard with the three slider on star players.


Inside Shots & Close Shots - Stepthrough shot: Does anybody know what the step through shot is? I did not. And thus put the tendency to "0". Nothing changed. I also put the Inside shot tendency to "0" for all small players and only to "5-10" for big man. This really helps getting rid of the silly paint passes and direct conversions without a chance to defend. When completely open, they will still go up for the shot, but when a defender is there, they will hesitate. For Close Shots: I checked a lot of shot charts and to be honest, only star players love close shots in the paint. They either post up or use runners. Thus, I put this to zero for all scrubs and it helps against the cheesy inside shooting by the CPU.

Transition Pull Up: This slider is completely broken!! Even at 10 players will still pull up when open. But some scrub players even have 50!!! This is so bad. It leads to pull up fastbreak jumpers by Kris Humphries!! I lowered it to zero for anybody who is not know to be a pull up shooter (exception: Redick, Curry, Westbrook etc etc)

Stepback jumper: Stars love the stepback. But a tendency around "35" is just not enough to trigger it. We might up this to 70 or even more for realistic results.

Alley-Oop pass: why are there no Alleys?? Because 2k put the pass tendency to 0-15 for almost every guard!!! That is so silly. It should be around 50 for anybody since it really relies on having a dunker on the team more in real life. Almost everybody can throw a alley oop pass to DeAndre Jordan.

Floater: This is the bread and butter of so many stars. Guys like Gordon Hayward, Kevin Durant etc etc. But also a lot of unlikely players love the floater. Big man use it a lot nowadays. But for 2k it is often way off and below "40". That's bad.

Triple Threat and Size up: Really really hard to see the jab step and pump fake tendencies so low for a lot of star players when they are using it a lot in real life. I changes the game and how you can defend them. This should be higher than 70 for a lot of stars. Same for size up. Westbrook, Curry, Harden ... they size you up until you are blue in your face. Just not resembled very well by 2ks roster.

Drive: Same here. They driving slider has to be around 80 or more to really make a player driving. The attack strong slider also has to be around 80. A lot of role players love to attack but 2k does not give them the right tendencies.

SUMMARY

What changed for me? Well, the inside game is completely different. No more magical knife passes to an open big man that you cannot defend. More banging down low and on the offensive glas. A better mixture of driving and shooting. More mid range shots (it's not a dying art in real life. Only the post game really is). Better on ball defense mechanics. Way more animations than I have seen before. Star players are way tougher to guard since they do a little bit of everything and use their real life moves. No more silly pull ups in transition that you cannot defend. WAY MORE PICK & ROLL.

Just one thing to let you know: I dont plan to release a roster anytime soon. I don't have the time to edit all the teams. I just tried this with 5-10 teams with star players and it's way better.

Please comment or post questions whatsoever, so I feel like this 40 minutes writing had an impact on the community. Cheers

[I Hate Mondays]

Wow, I've read every single word of your post. The way you described every single area of the gameplay is very detailed and I trust you and your sliders even though I haven't tried them yet. I am so excited for sets of sliders dedicated to a sim experience without dropping the game speed. You actually increased it, that's amazing. If the FG percentages are not unhuman at the end of the game, I might've found myself a new favourite set of sliders.
I will set the sliders right now and give it a try, will come back with some feedback.

P.S. It would be nice if you could tell us on what platform you are playing the game. Eventually you could share your sliders to the 2K community so you can spare some people of manually setting the sliders.

Edit: Please suggest what values we should use for the Defensive and Boxout Assist Strength.

Edit 2: It seems the values for both the defensive and offensive rebounding are not mentioned in your first post. I would rather wait to get those two crucial values since I want to see those tip-in battles inside the paint you are getting. Waiting for an answer for both my edits

[Andrew]

Excellent research on the rosters. Appreciate you sharing the sliders as well!

[I Hate Mondays]

Oh, another thing. I've read somewhere about two months ago that the Intangibles rating is for the franchise mods of the game. It's about who gets on the "untouchable" list when it comes to trades. If you fired up a MyLeague at least once, you know what I'm talking about.

The Stepthrough shot is actually found in the game controls too. If you are in the post, you trigger a fake shot and then you shoot immediately afterwards with the right stick towards the basket, you do the up-and-under move. The stepthrough has the same mechanism, only that it triggers when you are not in the post, so no R2/RT pressed. Basically, the whole thing is a pump fake, followed by a layup towards the basket using one foot in front of the pivot foot.

[Andrew]

So whenever a drill in MyCAREER ends by awarding you +1 Intangibles, it's basically useless?

[I Hate Mondays]

So whenever a drill in MyCAREER ends by awarding you +1 Intangibles, it's basically useless?

Haven't really played mycareer yet. If you can get traded without you asking for it or being part of a storyline, I guess this rating is somehow useful. +1 sleeping better at night

[Andrew]

I don't believe you can be traded against your will. Surely, there's some in-game effect. Then again, you can also increase your Shot IQ rating (randomly) through drills, which would seem useless on the surface since that comes down to your decision making on the sticks.

[I Hate Mondays]

I don't believe you can be traded against your will. Surely, there's some in-game effect. Then again, you can also increase your Shot IQ rating (randomly) through drills, which would seem useless on the surface since that comes down to your decision making on the sticks.

The shot IQ could be relevant though, even for a created player. As far as I know you can at least play against your player in blacktop mode. But if you can't get traded against your will, the intangible rating growth is indeed useless.

Getting back to something hova mentioned in his first post, I've tried your sliders a little bit in scrimmage mode. I've used Viper's roster, as everyone agrees is the best roster on 2K share tendency-wise. The ratings are also very accurate and so are the playbooks (Pick and Roll as the primary playbook category for just the right players). Anyways, I do agree that players like Blake Griffin should gave the High Post as their primary playbook category so I've set this option for him(actually, this is the only playbook category I've left for this player, I have deleted the low post and the Pick n Roll man ones). I fired up a quick game against the Clippers using your sliders(still waiting for the rebound and assitive strength numbers) to use how the CPU would do the high post game with Griffin.
It seems that the high post game is broken in 2k. Whenever a play was called for Griffin, he would push his defender in the post, starting from the freethrow line towards the basket, but he would eventually give up on the play, chosing to pass the ball to someone else. Sometimes he would try to make a spin towards the basket, but that's like 1/10 times. And I wasn't even smothering him or anything, I was using casual Left Trigger Post defense.
Thinking that the problem could be generated by the custom slider/roster I was using, I've made the same experiment with the default 2K roster(with the changes to Griffin's playing style reapplied ofcourse) and the default Hall of Fame sliders...and won't you know it...I got the same result.
Basically, the CPU won't be doing any fadeaway/hook shots if he is in the high post (around the free throw line area). The only exception is when the shot clock is about to expire and the CPU takes one of those desperate shots with two seconds left on the clock. But that's no high post game, that's just some scripted last second tendency.
If anyone has the time to do the same experiment, I am eager to see if other people get the same results as me.

[Andrew]

Now that you mention it, the Orange Juice controls do allow you to switch to Justice Young, in which case the Shot IQ of your player would matter while it's being controlled by the AI. Good point.

[hova-]

Wow, I've read every single word of your post. The way you described every single area of the gameplay is very detailed and I trust you and your sliders even though I haven't tried them yet. I am so excited for sets of sliders dedicated to a sim experience without dropping the game speed. You actually increased it, that's amazing. If the FG percentages are not unhuman at the end of the game, I might've found myself a new favourite set of sliders.
I will set the sliders right now and give it a try, will come back with some feedback.

I really did not play a lot until the end of games so far. So the FG% could be too high at the end of games, but that's nothing you could not change via shooting sliders. The number of possessions is more crucial, and I think my sliders resemble the fast paced game for teams like the warriors as well as slow pace for teams like the Hornets. Very important for me is, that bad teams (Heat, Mavs with injuries, 76ers) are really way easier to beat whilst the Warriors are almost not defendable. I was getting smashed by bad teams before and it felt so bad.

P.S. It would be nice if you could tell us on what platform you are playing the game. Eventually you could share your sliders to the 2K community so you can spare some people of manually setting the sliders.

I am on PC and I have never ever played online. How do I share sliders?

Edit: Please suggest what values we should use for the Defensive and Boxout Assist Strength.

I have all assistances at "0" since I don't like the CPU to control my players somewhat. But that is why I gave myself some advantage via sliders.

Edit 2: It seems the values for both the defensive and offensive rebounding are not mentioned in your first post. I would rather wait to get those two crucial values since I want to see those tip-in battles inside the paint you are getting. Waiting for an answer for both my edits

I think I forgot them, yes. I usually have Def. Rebounds at 60 and off. rebounds at 55. My goals is to get some more rebounds by guards, thus it makes sense to increase the sliders by a tad. Also Off. Rebounding can be too good sometimes.

About Intangibles: It really makes sense what you said and that's how I thought it might work. By lowering intangibles and thus the overall rating, players aren't as valuable as others. The overall rating still plays a big role in 2k and it really makes sense to use it as a shopping value. Intangibles is a good way to change it without changing the true skill of a player on the court.

About Griffin: for me, the high post thing worked out well. Maybe because I really changed his complete tendencies. He is passing a lot from the high post, even alley oops to DeAndre. I really love how the Inside and close sliders to "0-10" affects the game in a way that is becomes more of an outside game. Also, the face up tendency should be increased for Griffin.

REALLY IMPORTANT: in my opinion, if you really want a player to play like his real life counterpart, you have to overexaggerate his go-to tendencies. If you want Blake to Face-up, put it at 80 or 90 and put some other things he really rarely does (he rarely fades away in the post, rather takes stepbacks) to "0-10".
If tendencies are all around 20-50 (like in 2ks rosters) it's a gamble which one will trigger. That's what I experienced.

[I Hate Mondays]

I undersand it when you said you are not planing on releasing a roster anytime soon. If you have to do this for every single player, it is a hero's work. I will stick to testing your sliders with Viper's roster. Again, you should try his roster. It's very good. If you don't know how to download a roster from 2k share, I can tell you.

If you want to upload a slider set to 2k: While you are in the slider screen with YOUR changes made, in the left down corner there is a suggestion for which button to press to save the sliders (for me it's X since I use a xbox controller). When you hit that, there will be another menu showing up. You have to chose "Save and Share" or something like that. Then you are prompted to give your sliders a name, you hit next and that's pretty much it. You have to tell us the name of the sliders you were using and your in-game username so we can easily find your shared stuff.

[Uncle Drew]

Good stuff.... Just was wondering if during your research, did you find a solution for defending shooters behind picks? It seems you can never get to them, and they seeemingly always make the shot behind a screen. Irks me to no end.

[Uncle Drew]

Tried your sliders and they are very good. No more cherry-picking backdoor cuts, before the defense gets set. The flow seems much better, and you incorporated more un-forced turnovers. Fouls seem higher, but nothing that can't be adjusted. For a first effort, you did a great job. Will continue to get adjusted to them.

[I Hate Mondays]

So I finally finished 3 games with your sliders so I could see all the little details. The games were on 12 minutes quarters. I decided to use the default 2K roster since most of the people use it. The results were beautiful even though I haven't used a custom roster.
For everyone who is wondering if these sliders are worth it, just go for it. The sliders are amazing IMO, a guy who is a sim freak. There are many little things you will notice while using them. I would have to write down something that caught my eye every two possesions.

For the skeptical people, I will try to do a summary of the most important stuff I've noticed using these sliders. Both the good and the bad. Hova, it would be nice if you could read this until the end. Sorry if my english goes ugly at some point, it's pretty late here and I am losing my focus when writing a ton.

I've used the sliders for 3 different kinds of matchups but it crossed my mind to do some print screens of the boxscores only during the last game. That should do it though
-Warriors(me) vs. 76ers(CPU). Easy game for me, won 123-98. I started doing a little bit of a show when I was leading by 36 points at the end of the 3rd quarter, that's why the leading gap shrinked. Teoretically speaking, this result is exactly what you'd expect from this kind of a matchup. (I'm saying teoretically because any losing-record team steps ups their game against the Warriors if you watch real NBA, but motivation and guts are not a feature of NBA 2K series yet lol).
-Second game: Nets(me) vs Cavaliers(CPU). I lost 115-101. Garbage time was a factor here, the gap was even bigger. Couldn't stand a chance against Lebron going to the rim and kyrie shooting jumpers like crazy.
-Last game: So if the first two times I used teams that were nowhere close to eachother to test blowout games in the roles of both the predator and the victim, I have decided to try two teams which are ranked almost the same in 2k. Looking at today's games in NBA Today, I've noticed the perfect matchup. The Timberwolves(Me) which are not playing as expected under coach Tom Thibs, ranked 28th in the league by 2k, against a Clippers team decimated by injuries, no Griffin no Paul (the rosters were updated thanks God, just in time for testing), ranked just one position higher at 27th. The game was beautiful, close. I was lead by 3 points with 12 seconds on the clock. After two Austin Rivers missed FTs, I had the chance to tie the game, but I blew the shot with Zach Lavine who wasn't having the best game from deep (1-10). For this game, I have managed to do some print screens:






Here are some quick things I've noticed about these sliders.

-The game is accesible to less skilled players. For anyone who tried Shady's roster, he stated that his stuff is for the people wanting a real challenge, so even if you were controlling the Warriors/Cavs, 12-60 teams were real hard to beat; if you won though, the scoring difference wasn't usually bigger than 5.
With these sliders, the Nets will play like the Nets do. Nothing out of the ordinary. It is easier to defeat a bad team with a top team, it is challenging to keep up with a better team when you are noticeable less talented.

-The game speed really gave me a different experience, even though I've increased it from 50 to your suggested value of 53, the game feels more real. No more slo-mo moves, stepbacks and so on. This is both good for Human vs. Human games, as well as Human vs. CPU because the rythm is better.

-Hova this is a important category you should read, Stamina/Durabilty (I don't know what category affects how fast a player gets tired) is a big factor. I've been using Shady's sliders for a while and I've experienced a maximum of two players getting tired in the last 2 minutes of the game, once every 5-6 games. These sliders are not as forgiving. Even though I usually play a beautiful combination of "fast-paced game" with "walk-up the ball and set a play situations", I got a little carried away with Wolves' speed in comparison to the older Clippers. By the time I realised what it happens, the Gatorade icon showed up for all of my 5 starters by the end of the 3rd quarter. They were tired as hell. I blamed myself for these, but I've noticed the Stamina problem is a little bit harsh for the CPU too. In the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, all 10 players on the floor had the Getorade icon as they were exhausted. And exhaustion is a big factor in 2K, players started to miss more and more shots by the end of the game. I will say it again in the closing sentences, but this category could use some improvement.

-Size matters. It's the first time I've seen this in a game, but on a fast break Wiggins stole the ball and even though he didn't have a clear path and DeAndre Jordan was back, defending the basket, Wiggins blew by him and made an easy layup. FINALLY, THE SPEED ON FAST BREAKS IS NOTICEABLE. Also, because of the short roster the Clippers have now and Wolves' strange desire to play Bjelica, Dieng and Cole Aldrich at the same time, Bjelica and Crawford moved to the small forward postion. The matchup was pretty strange, Crawford isn't the strongest type of player to be a SF, Bjelica is not agile enough to play this postion. Normally, in real life the matchups would be switched or somebody would be subbed out to prevent this kind of a showdown, but since 2K is a video game after all and I am using automatic rotations, both players stayed on the floor. What I've seen was realistic as hell though.With Bjelica, I used his size to score easy low post hooks over Crawford. At some point Crawford grew tired of me scoring like this and gave me a flagrant foul, and-one shot. On the other end though, even though I find myself to be a good defender in 2K (since again I am used to Shady's sliders lol), I got torched by Crawford ISO plays. I just couldn't stop his crossovers. He would get to the basket in a sec.

-Tip in battles are happening exactly as Hova described them in the first post. There was a sequence where Jordan attempted 3 lay-up putbacks over Cole Adrich, one after the other, only to finally dunk it through on the fourth try. Again, exactly what you'd expect from a Jordan vs Aldrich matchup.

-The made/missed shots ratio is realistic depending on the situation, just like in real life. Ofcourse, Klay Thompson would score a wide open 3PT shot 9 out of 10 times. But there were also situations when Kevin Love missed a wide open shot from the FT line, and I mean wide open, even though he was in catch n shoot motion. I even witnessed a missed layup by TJ McConnel, even though he wasn't contested. Talking about contested shots, those are not impossible with these sliders. I've seen a lot of contested shots going in. What I am trying to say is, this category of the gameplay feels real. Lucky circus shots are made and unlucky practice looks are missed, just like in real life.

-As you've seen from my print screens, the stats are realistic. The scores are acceptable, realistic FG% and points scored at the end of the game (no 140-140 games with these sliders). I love the miscellaneous stats, both teams have exactly how many steals, blocks, rebounds they should. No more 25 blocks games.(Yup, it happened to me using the default Hall of Fame sliders, using the Utah Jazz and that monster called Rudy Gobert).
Also, the player roles are exactly as you'd expect them to be. KAT having KAT stats, JJ Redick stepping up his game for an injured Clippers team (and that was the CPU), DeAndre Having 19 Rebounds with guys like Griffin and Paul missing(even though Paul is a Guard, he still gets rebounds). LaVine on the other hand had one of those bad nights. I was surprised to see him finishing with 0 rebounds for a pretty athletic SG, but I don't think the fault is on the sliders here.

-CPU is smart when defending passing lanes. When you run a play for a catch and shoot kind of guy, they'd ocasionally wait to steal the ball from a guy comming off a screen. They tank the passing lanes very very well.

-The Alley Opps are realistic as hell. I've seen too many situations in 2K where a guy catches an alley opp pass, only to miss the layup/dunk even though he was wide open. This stuff happens in real life, but that's like 1 out of 10 times. The alley opp should be happening once the guys is in the air with the ball and his path is clear. The only impediment for an alley opp should be whether the ball gets to the guy you want or the defender steals the ball in the process/you throw a bad, out of bounds pass. Once the ball gets to your guy though, that should do it, the basket should be made. That's exactly what I've seen with these sliders. Alley Opp plays are broken when the defender steals my bad pass, or when my ball gets nowhere near my man. In the case where my guy puts his hands on the ball though, the alley opp shot is made most of the times, around 90% of the situations.


Hova, if you read everything and got this this part, I really like your stuff. These sliders are currently what I will be using from now on. The potential is big and I believe you should keep updating the set to get to the best experience in your oppinion, I like the way you see the game. But again, some updates would be wonderful, especially if the game gets patched and some mechanics are changed again.(they changed the probabillity of a 3PT shot going in like 2 times already in 2k17).
The fact that you haven't really played a game 'till the end is explanatory for the fact that the players get tired too fast. If you have the time, you should play some full games and mess with the stamina/durabilty/whatever affects the juice a player has left.
Another thing I've noticed, sometimes I could dribble 3 guys and get to the paint; I was contested and body collision happened, but those plays ended up in scored baskets. That didn't make the game easier, as I was trailing anyways but as a result, I could get my score closer to the leading team's score, when I shouldn't have been allowed to do it. You could furthermore tweak the way the CPU defends the paint. That way, teams will secure their leading margin. I am not implying you should make the CPU build a fortress around the basket, but you could tweak this feature just a little bit to make it slightly difficult to get to the paint. Just a touch.

Waiting for your response bro. If anyone read this, I hope it helped you

[TGsoGood]

Very interesting thread

[hova-]

Tried your sliders and they are very good. No more cherry-picking backdoor cuts, before the defense gets set. The flow seems much better, and you incorporated more un-forced turnovers. Fouls seem higher, but nothing that can't be adjusted. For a first effort, you did a great job. Will continue to get adjusted to them.

Cheers, that's what I wanted to achieve. You know, sometimes I change the sliders because I am in the mood for less turnovers, sometimes I switch them back. It's always a dynamic thing. I don't think there is the perfect slider set at all.

Good stuff.... Just was wondering if during your research, did you find a solution for defending shooters behind picks? It seems you can never get to them, and they seeemingly always make the shot behind a screen. Irks me to no end.

definitely strenght plays a big roles in screen setting. By lowering it, your guys should be able to dodge screens or fight over them more effectively. Still, the off ball screen plays are something that has to be considered (just like in RL) before playing guys like Redick etc. If you switch to their defender early enough, you can catch up with them manually. That's how you defend those guys who are coming of screens in real life, too.

-The game is accesible to less skilled players. For anyone who tried Shady's roster, he stated that his stuff is for the people wanting a real challenge, so even if you were controlling the Warriors/Cavs, 12-60 teams were real hard to beat; if you won though, the scoring difference wasn't usually bigger than 5.
With these sliders, the Nets will play like the Nets do. Nothing out of the ordinary. It is easier to defeat a bad team with a top team, it is challenging to keep up with a better team when you are noticeable less talented.

First of all cheers glad you like the sliders. I think if you want to play the game really in a sim way, the CPU has to be weaker than it is with other slider sets. I want to run a lot of plays (I play with the Mavs a lot) and on normal settings I just did not get rewarded for running post up and Isos for Barnes, as the game speed limits the effectiveness. Also I want to defend the players like they need to be defended IRL. That's why I think the roster adjusments are also a must. Especially the tougher driving and ball handling is a thing a lot of 2k players do not like. But in the NBA, people who are not starts will get stripped all the time going to the basket. Same for big men who try to go up in traffic. They get fouled or stripped, rarely do scrub big man get off a shot under the basket against 2 defenders. I think that is resembled well.

-Hova this is a important category you should read, Stamina/Durabilty (I don't know what category affects how fast a player gets tired) is a big factor. I've been using Shady's sliders for a while and I've experienced a maximum of two players getting tired in the last 2 minutes of the game, once every 5-6 games. These sliders are not as forgiving. Even though I usually play a beautiful combination of "fast-paced game" with "walk-up the ball and set a play situations", I got a little carried away with Wolves' speed in comparison to the older Clippers. By the time I realised what it happens, the Gatorade icon showed up for all of my 5 starters by the end of the 3rd quarter. They were tired as hell. I blamed myself for these, but I've noticed the Stamina problem is a little bit harsh for the CPU too. In the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, all 10 players on the floor had the Getorade icon as they were exhausted. And exhaustion is a big factor in 2K, players started to miss more and more shots by the end of the game. I will say it again in the closing sentences, but this category could use some improvement.

I think the fatigue rate is too high then. Maybe "60" is the wrong number and you should put it to 54 maximum. Maybe I had a typo. I will look that up. The fatigue rate determines how fasten players get fatigued as far as I know. You have to lower it. Thanks for pointing that out. //Edit: definitely a typo. I have fatigue at 50.

Another thing I've noticed, sometimes I could dribble 3 guys and get to the paint; I was contested and body collision happened, but those plays ended up in scored baskets. That didn't make the game easier, as I was trailing anyways but as a result, I could get my score closer to the leading team's score, when I shouldn't have been allowed to do it. You could furthermore tweak the way the CPU defends the paint. That way, teams will secure their leading margin. I am not implying you should make the CPU build a fortress around the basket, but you could tweak this feature just a little bit to make it slightly difficult to get to the paint. Just a touch.

It definitely depends on the player you use, but you could easily up the on-ball D for the CPU up to 48-50 which makes it harder to get around defenders penetrating.

LaVine on the other hand had one of those bad nights. I was surprised to see him finishing with 0 rebounds for a pretty athletic SG, but I don't think the fault is on the sliders here.

Looking at your screenshots it seems that big men still have to many rebounds, this means maybe the rebounding sliders have to be reworked and increased by a lot (up to 75 maybe) to bring all players (bigs and guards) closer together and have guards rebound better. Lavine is a pretty bad rebounder though in real life (2.9 for his career). But seeing two guys with 18+ boards and Speights also with 13 is not so good. Maybe we need to up the sliders.

Thanks for the heads up guys.

[I Hate Mondays]

Omg, first of all, look at the Wolves-Clippers score from yesterday. It's the other way around, but that was some voo-doo stuff going on.

Second of all, could you please try to share the sliders to 2k to avoid any more typos at least for the PC players? I wrote down how you do that a couple of posts above.

Finally, can't wait for you to update this with whatever you think it is an improvement. Really looking forward to

Edit: I went ahead and posted the sliders to 2K share myself with hova's approval. The name of the sliders is " Hova Sliders". My in-game username is "I Hate Mondays". Look it up, people paying on PC

[hova-]

Omg, first of all, look at the Wolves-Clippers score from yesterday. It's the other way around, but that was some voo-doo stuff going on.

Second of all, could you please try to share the sliders to 2k to avoid any more typos at least for the PC players? I wrote down how you do that a couple of posts above.

Finally, can't wait for you to update this with whatever you think it is an improvement. Really looking forward to

Edit: I went ahead and posted the sliders to 2K share myself with hova's approval. The name of the sliders is " Hova Sliders". My in-game username is "I Hate Mondays". Look it up, people paying on PC

Cheers for sharing. I will have a look at improvements considering the on ball defense and rebounding for guards.

[Uncle Drew]

So should the fatigue rate be lower than 50 ? I experienced players getting tired early as well..

[hova-]

So should the fatigue rate be lower than 50 ? I experienced players getting tired early as well..

50 should be normal. I don't see how any other sliders affect the stamina at all. You can lower it if you want, it's really a matter of taste. In real life, players get pauses, but that is also because coaches want to change strategy etc. not only because players are fatigued. Many players could very well play over 35 minutes per game I think. A problem of 2k is, that you don't know how exactly the performance suffers when players are very exhausted. I'd appreciate if they were working more with +/- attribute points for their badges, fatigue etc.

[Uncle Drew]

So 50 is normal for user and CPU ?

[I Hate Mondays]

So 50 is normal for user and CPU ?

50 is default, yes

[Uncle Drew]

Also noticed shooting is much harder. ( especially for me ) Shots that players generally make don't fall as before. Shooting % is way down for user and cpu. Hopefully a tweak can improve it.

[I Hate Mondays]

Also noticed shooting is much harder. ( especially for me ) Shots that players generally make don't fall as before. Shooting % is way down for user and cpu. Hopefully a tweak can improve it.

Do you find the new FG percentages unrealistic or something like that?
After playing with shady's sliders for so long, it is true that the percentages went down, especially for the 3PT shots, but I still make contested shots from time to time. I make more than 75% of the wide open shots though. I get anywhere between 40% and 50% FG at the end of the game and IMHO this is pretty realistic for a NBA game.
Did you have worse than 40% for you or the CPU?

[hova-]

I did not experience too low FG%. It's just that you have to play more to the strength of your players.

People do forget that most players in the NBA are nowhere as good as certain stars when it comes to scoring.

The league average FG% are:

Restricted Area: 60.6%
Paint: 41.3%
Mid-Range: 39.9%
Three: 35.1%

As you see, right at the rim you should not hit every shot but rather 6 out of 10. That means you will miss 4 shots. With my sliders you will most likely miss them with defensive pressure on you.
The paint area and mid-range is really tough. Only 4 out of 10 shots! That's just how it is. Many players don't have the mid-range or runner in the lane as a weapon in their arsenal.

Three point shooting imho really depends on the shots you take. If you take open shots with good shooters, you will hit more than 35% in 2k. But most of the time shots are off the dribble etc. But I rarely shoot less than 30% from down town.