NBA 2K11 Enhanced Control

"Many of you have been clamoring for foot-planting technology. What we realized was that we all wanted a feeling of being planted on the ground, especially when making changes of direction. The new dribbling animation system allows for that. From a control standpoint, we discussed sweeping changes to the dribbling mechanic, but in the end settled on two fundamental changes: immediate and accurate response to input as well as a command system that replicates the needed gestures to achieve a move, instead of randomly throwing sticks and/or mashing buttons. What that means is that holding multiple triggers to activate a special move is no longer necessary and that moves reflect the intention of the user. Mike Wang will go over these controls in more depth at a later stage. We wanted feathering controls, more control over when to protect the ball and when not to, and how to decide whether or not we wanted to stay faced up to the basket or not. All of these were achieved without sacrificing what you have come to expect from an NBA 2K game: Authenticity in AI and movement for every player in the league.

Our second area of concern was defensive movement, especially under user control. We had a new engineer take over the defense last year. He learned much from working within the existing system and at the end of the project, set out to write a more flexible movement system that would allow the AI to incorporate not only basic movement, but many of the nuances that make basketball players move the way they do. All of this translates in appropriate movement models like backpedals, less jittering when making small adjustments, shading appropriately when necessary, etc. 

Additionally, we wanted to accurately replicate the feeling of getting a good block in the game. Due to the fact that blocking shots has been made popular again with the great chase down blocks that we’ve seen from Lebron, Wade, Kobe and others.

Our AI, smart as it has been has been beefed up on both sides of the ball. We were able to spend good time adjusting transition and fast break behaviors, on both ends of the floor. We added smarter decision making from the AI ballhandlers, incorporating more attacking moves. 

We added over 1000 unique plays to have the most authentic playbooks that anyone has seen, while improving the AI’s ability to execute them.

All of this and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Our Shotstick now gives you accurate control over the exact types of animations you want from special layups to rim relative shot directions. We have a new in air collision system that automatically adjusts and reacts to every situation, providing the game with a different experience every time you pick it up. This system provides accurate physical resolutions to in- air contact, as well as air to ground (say for example in a Take Charge) situations.

Passing was another area in need of a major upgrade. We wanted to differentiate good passers from bad ones both from a User standpoint and from a ratings standpoint. You’ll see in videos the variety and the outcome of our work."