Da Czar, Voice of the SimNation has released his NBA 2k16 gameplay blog. Prior to Da Czar’s blog, Mike Wang and Scott O’Gallagher shared their thought’s. Now we get thoughts on the playbook enhancements of NBA 2k16 from Da Czar himself.
Playbooks
Traditionally, plays in video games are based on the previous season’s games. So for NBA 2K15 we scouted the 2013-2014 season and added those plays to the game.
The problem with this system is that teams and personnel change over the summer, and some coaches add slight to major adjustments to their play styles from one year to the next. This meant that no matter how in depth we scouted — and we have gone much further than any previous games have attempted — as soon as the season began our playbooks were out of date.
I began a push to upgrade our tech to allow new plays to be added during the season without the need for a patch. We experimented with it a bit last year, but the tech was not fully developed. I am elated to announce that this year our wizard engineers have made this a reality.
For the first time ever, we have the ability to add completely new plays to the game as the season goes on via a roster update. I know this is the home of the Sim basketball fanatics, so I want to make it clear we are not talking about nightly or weekly updates.
We will be tracking the major play trends across the season with our initial focus being on new coaches and new schemes. We will not be adding new freelance offenses. Although, similar to last year, we will add depth to those already included.
You can expect the first major play update about a month into the season as we evaluate what all the new coaches are running, and give them time to settle into their new assignments. Any major coaching or philosophical changes will also be adjusted once a trend has been established.
This is a major shift in the way we publish our play content and will easily give us the most accurate plays available for all current teams throughout the NBA season.
Historically Correct
NBA 2K16 allows you to traverse the history of the game with not only historic players, courts, and teams, but also the plays and spacing those teams used at the time.
You can go all the way back to the ’60s and find plays those teams actually ran taken from gameplay footage. You can see the origins of the Chin offense with the Celtics and Knicks, and you can run the same sets young Jordan did when he torched the league in ’86.
Practice Plays
Since our play additions will be fluid, it only made sense to bring back some of our #SimNation loyalists by bringing back their favorite mode. I am happy to announce practice plays have returned. We allow you to practice your plays 5 vs. 5 versus various defenses in the game.
Play Types
Play-Types are containers that allow us to assign many plays of a certain type to each player on a team. This year we expanded our play-types to further differentiate between the different types of players.
In 2K15 we had these available play-type containers that you could assign to a player:
- Pick & Roll Ball-Handler – Player with the ball during an on-ball screen
- Pick & Roll Screener – Screener who screens the on-ball defender
- Screen mid – Player who runs off of a screen for a mid-range shot
- Screen 3pt – Player who runs off a screen for a 3pt shot
- Cutter – Alley-Oop receiver, a player who runs off of screens headed towards the basket
- Low Post – Post plays on the low block for PFs and Centers
- High Post – High post, offscreen and Isolation plays for PFs and Centers around high post
- Guard Post – Post up plays for Guards and Small Forwards
- Isolation – Isolation plays for guards and forwards
In NBA 2K16 we added the following:
- Pick & Roll Point – This allows you to separate pick and roll plays for point guards or play initiators who normally start a play with the ball in their hands. In previous NBA 2K games, you needed to be a play initiator to run these types of plays.
- Pick & Roll Wing – This allows you to separate plays for wings who you don’t want running the same pick and roll plays as your play initiators.
- Pick and Roll Ball-Handler – If you have a player who you want to be assigned to both types of pick and roll plays, you can still just assign them the pick and roll ball-handler play-type, and they will have both pick & roll point and pick & roll wing plays assigned.
- Handoff – This allows you to assign plays where the ball-handler hands the ball off to a scorer as the final step in the play. Now you don’t have to assign Tony Allen the same mid-range plays you do for a mid-range off-screen shooter just because there are two handoff plays in that group that you want assigned to him.
Play-Calling
The plays have been moved back to LB/L1. 2K Smart Play was moved to the D-pad up button to make that possible.
Additionally, we have upgraded our lite play diagram to include a screen icon over the head of any player setting an on-ball screen so you can tell if he’s moving to a point on the court or if he’s just coming to set a ball screen.
You can read the rest of Czar’s blog on Operation Sports. NBA 2k16 is officially less than a month away from release, so make sure to pre-order your copy for all bonuses.
