by che on Sat Nov 30, 2019 3:24 am
Great mod! I'm still playing it on the regular.
custom rosters
I love playing with the best teams in history against the other best teams in history...
I made some modifications to the Elite Roster for myself. Mostly editing Touch Tendency for everone, so the "stars" get more plays called for them and the role players fewer.
I also looked through players' Play Types and adjusted them according to what the team actually ran most of the time. Steph Curry now has P&R Handler at the bottom of the list after the movement oriented ones (3pt/Mid/Cut) because the Warriors ran him off the ball more than just letting him create off the dribble. Or Lebron was often used as the P&R screener in Miami & Cleveland. The Lakers often ran P&R with Fisher handling and Kobe screening, for example in the 2010 finals vs the Celtics. Nash & Amare often received the ball on the move for he D'Antoni Suns, instead of just P&R-ing everytime in the half-court. Stuff like that.
I view Play Types & Touches as "how does the team create an opportunity" rather than "who is shooting which kinda shot". JR Smith, Love & Frye got a lot of threes because their defenders had to help on Lebron's drives, not because they came off pin-down screens all the time like Allen/Miller/Korver (maybe JR did a bit...) and I like my game to work the same way.
As an example, 4 teams I know decently well:
The 07 Suns ran:
- high or side P&R with Nash & Amare most of the time
- P&R Nash & Marion
- Pick&Pop Nash & Thomas
- Diaw post-up High/Low
- Barbosa Iso or P&R
- Amare off screens for mid-range J or catch-and-drive
- Bell off screens for mid J (often 1st play of the game)
- Amare post up (face up and drive or overpower at the rim)
- rarely Marion Iso or post-up
08 Celtics:
- Pick&Pop with Rondo/Pierce & Garnett
- Allen off screens for 3
- Garnett Low Post
- various stuff for Pierce: Iso, P&R, high post
- House off screens for 3
11 Mavs:
- Dirk high post
- Pick&Pop with Terry/Barea & Dirk
- Dirk off screens for mid-range J or cut to basket
- P&R with guard & Chandler/Marion
- Marion post up
15 Warriors:
- Curry/Klay off screens for 3
- P&R Curry & Dray
- Pick&Pop with Speights
- Livingston Iso or high post (resulting in mid range J over defender)
- maybe sometimes Barnes Iso, Clark off screens or Barbosa P&R
I try to get them to run that stuff and not anything else. I want teams to play to their strengths. I don't want Kidd to run P&Rs on the 11 Mavs or Love to post up much for the 17 Cavs.
I also tinkered with positions & OVR ratings a bit to force the cpu into "real" rotations whenever possible (in season mode), like '17 Cavs always playing 4- or 5-out etc.
I edited the spot-up tendencies to make sure that shooting bigs will spot up beyond the arc and space the floor (wasn't done for all stretch 4s/5s before). Dirk will still get the ball in the mid-range or high post if he has a play called for him (which will be often...).
Some changes to attributes were also done, mostly defensive stuff like Curry/Westbrook/Harden/Amare & others being nerfed defensively. It's all my personal opinion but the whole thing was for myself and I tried not to do it too often.
Then the controversial stuff. Because the game is hardcoded to 2013 rules, the older teams (60s/70s) can't really play like theyy did back then, so I gave renowned shooters like West/McGlocklin/Lucas/Brown etc. 3-point range in terms of attributes, shooting tendency and spot-up tendency. I wanted those teams to be competitive. Most changes have been made to teams from 1995+ as I simply know more about them.
So in sum, changes were made to:
- touch tendency
- play types
- spot-up tendency
- 3pt tendency
- position/ovr
- DefAw/DEF & some OffAw/PostOff/PostD/Speed/Quick/Str
- some player heights
I also took the AllTime80sroster as a base and made a "fantasy draft" roster, so one can draft lineups like Nash/Klay/Eddie Jones/Draymond/Garnett or Magic/Christie/Iguodala/Bird/Gobert and play against similar lineups. I made all the same changes to players as in the Elite Roster, so old players are dangerous from three, shooting bigs stretch the floor, creators get plays called for them and iso-loving ball hogs don't get the ball as often if they only create for themselves (Gervin/Melo/King/Moses etc.). Role players don't ever get plays called for them basically.
Those two rosters are always work in progress but if Sko & Slimm don't mind I'd be happy to share them.