Schlagwort: nba 2k21

Welcome to MyTeam Season 5: Age of Heroes… Assemble your team of superstars from the Modern Age and Golden Age of the NBA in MyTeam, and unleash their powers. Available from today for NBA 2K21, Season 5 brings new players, challenges and rewards, plus all-new hero themed cards. Let’s take a closer first look at what’s in store. 

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Season 5’s Challenge Activities 

PS5 is the best place to play through all the content available in Season 5: Age of Heroes, and there is a lot of content. But let’s start with the exclusive PlayStation Challenge Activities in MyTeam, only available to PS5 users. 

These challenges are updated every Season and Season 5 is bringing an iconic one featuring legends like T-Mac and Vinsanity. Take on the 2000 Raptors with your MyTeam and throwdown at least 10 dunks to earn your spot on the PS5 leaderboard! But it doesn’t stop there… the more dunks you earn against the 2000 Raptors the higher up the leaderboard you go! Completing the challenge earns you a Slasher Reward Pack which contains a shoe and a badge to improve your lineup’s slashing abilities.

Hero-themed cards

Let’s take a closer look at Season 5: Age of Heroes – start by building your own hero LeBron James – redeem his Sapphire Evo card at the start of the Season, complete agendas and watch him evolve into a Diamond. MyTeam is adding brand-new hero-themed cards which you can unlock, collect and compete with! 

There are 15 players to collect from the Modern Age of the NBA including future superstars Luka Doncic and Mitchell Robinson and 15 legends to collect from the Golden Age of the NBA including the Big Fella Shaq and Manu Ginobili. Complete the sets for a super-special reward… 

Season 5’s Signature Challenge: Michael Jordan 

Every Legend deserves a Signature Challenge, this time it is none other than 6x time NBA Champion, his Airness; Michael Jordan. Play through one of Jordan’s most iconic moments; THE LAST SHOT. A game-winning shot that gave MJ 45 points and the Bulls a second 3-peat and their 6th NBA Championship in the 90s. Complete the challenge to earn a Diamond Jordan shoe and Hall of Fame badge! If you don’t own a Michael Jordan card, redeem this locker code for your free MJ MyTeam card: JORDAN-LAST-SHOT

Also this season… 

Complete Season Agendas and earn XP to progress through the Seasonal levels and unlock All-Star Dunk Champion Hamidou Diallo, 3PT king Joe Harris, 6x All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire and more. The Galaxy Opal Admiral – David Robinson awaits you as progress through MyTeam Season 5 to Level 40. There are also brand new players in the Exchange including Larry Legend and Khris Middleton, not to be missed for building your squad. And Triple Threat superstars rejoice, getting that 1000th win in Triple Threat Offline will earn you Galaxy Opal Peja Stojakovic.

MyTeam Tournament 

Have fun and earn big rewards every weekend in MyTeam Limited. With new lineup requirements each week, every card in your collection is important. Earn wins to pick up a Championship ring each week. Collect all 5 rings to earn the Season 5 Limited Grand Prize: Galaxy Opal Pau Gasol.

The $250K MyTeam Tournament culminates in Season 5 with 32 hopeful qualifiers from around the globe* competing on February 20 in a knockout Tournament hoping to make it to the Grand Finals on March 6 and take home the Grand Prize of $200K, with $50K for the runner-up! 

Not competing? Not a problem, take your skills to MyTeam Unlimited and climb up the ladder with your best lineup. Play your way through 9 Leagues to reach the top. In order to advance, you’ll need to win a certain number of games, with more and more wins required as you move up the league structure and earn rewards. Go 12-0 in Season 5’s Unlimited Opal League to earn Galaxy Opal Cedric Maxwell.

New to MyTeam? Here’s what it’s all about

Let’s look behind the scenes at how players are selected for two of MyTeam’s most popular themes and packs…

In December, we debuted a never-before-seen set in MyTeam, Retro 2K. We have released two volumes of these collections; each with a unique combination of players inspired by cards from previous years of MyTeam. That’s right, we brought back some of the most influential player cards ever in MyTeam like Paul George’s NBA 2K15 Pink Diamond, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s epic 20th Anniversary card from NBA 2K19, and Michael Jordan’s Signature Limited Galaxy Opal (one of the rarest cards ever released in MyTeam).

We’ve also revisited many of our community’s favorite cards from over the years, including Lonzo Ball’s Pink Diamond from the NBA 2K18 Pink Diamond Tournament and Andrei Kirilenko’s lockdown Diamond from NBA 2K19. We even brought back great Ruby cards stretching from current players like Mo Bamba, Jonathan Isaac, and Thon Maker, to the great Kobe Bryant’s card from NBA 2K15. Stars, niche favorites, and everything in between. The first Retro 2K Volumes have had a little bit of everything, for everyone! 

In the cases of the giant Sim Bhullar from NBA 2K16, or Isaac Bonga’s then-rookie NBA 2K19 card, we did make the decision to upgrade some card’s abilities from an era-accurate Bronze to an NBA 2K21 Ruby. Another series of cards where we ‘glitch’ a card’s attribute ratings is our aptly named Glitched collection. Accompanying every Flash release in NBA 2K21’s MyTeam, these cards feature fantasy elements including big men like Rudy Gobert and Tim Duncan expanding their range, or Hall of Fame point guard John Stockton going ABOVE the rim for some spectacular highlights.

Unique to all Glitched cards is the ability to upgrade ALL badges on the card. Meaning you could theoretically upgrade your Glitched Diamond Zion Williamson to have all Hall of Fame badges, if you were able to earn them all! The Glitched collection really allows us to see “What If?” questions come to life in MyTeam.

If you played a prior NBA 2K’s MyTeam and want to see your favorite card make a return, tell us your wishlist! Tweet @NBA2K_MyTeam or hit up the Ask a Developer section in MyTeam’s Community Hub, we love to hear our community’s suggestions.

That’s all from us for now. Keep playing MyTeam on PS5 for tons of new content coming up in MyTeam Season 5!

*Entry to the MyTeam Tournament available to players from the following countries: Countries 50 United States & D.C. (excluding AZ, CT, MD, and ND), Canada (excluding Quebec), Australia, Chile, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Israel, Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey

Website: LINK

Hi again 2K fans! Welcome to my final Courtside Report. We’ve discussed a lot already from scoring to our revolutionary new movement and impact technology and the great enhancements they’ve brought to gameplay. But I know a lot of you are chomping at the bit to find out what’s new with your MyPLAYER, while others are curious how we’re pushing Simulation into the future. Well, this blog is for you! There’s going to be a lot of info to digest, so I’ll try to keep the points as concise as I can.

Player Builds, Badges, & Takeover

The next-gen MyPLAYER Builder is all about customization. We’ve taken in a lot of feedback from the community over the past few years as we’ve evolved the MyPLAYER building experience. One thing that we hear loud and clear from you is that you want more options. Here’s our response:

No More Pies: You no longer choose from preset skill breakdown pie charts for next-gen. Instead, we’ve given you control over setting each individual rating to the cap that you prefer. Obviously, there are restrictions based on your vitals and you can’t max out everything, but there’s much more control to make the exact type of player you want to be.

Badges

A lot of thought and re-design went into badges for next-gen. Many favorites return, but most have undergone some significant functionality changes. There are also some new ones, some revived ones, and some removed ones. The badge point system and equipping process is similar to what you’ve grown accustomed to: perform well in the various categories (Finishing, Shooting, Playmaking, Defense/Rebounding) in any mode to earn badge points, and then apply those points to whatever badges you want within those related categories. But my advice when you get next-gen is to experiment with different badges that you may have overlooked in the past because you might find some new favorites that compliment your playstyle in ways you may not expect. Here are some of the new/returning badges and what they do:

• Fearless Finisher – Boosts contact layups and decreases fatigue
• Heat Seeker – Boosts takeover progress on inside shots
• Highlight Film – Boosts teammate takeover progress on flashy dunks
• Hook Specialist – Boosts hook shot ability
• Revived Posterizer – Contact dunks!
• Rise Up – Boosts ability to do standing dunks in traffic
• Anti-Freeze – Harder to get cold and lose takeover meter progress
• Blinders – Less affected by peripheral defenders when shooting jumpers
• Circus Threes – Improved ability to hit pull-up and stepback 3’s
• Fade Ace – Boosts all post fadeaways
• Hot Shot – Increases takeover meter faster when knocking down jumpers
• Deep Threes – Dame and Curry range 3 balls
• Rhythm Shooter – Boosts shot %’s out of size-ups as well as 1-step pull-ups
• Set Shooter – Shooting ability gets better the longer you set and wait before pulling
• Sniper – Boosts the ability to hit shots when using Pro Stick aiming
• Stop & Pop Three – for the JJ Redicks who want to pull-up for threes in transition
• Bullet Passer – Gives you the ability to throw laser dots like LeBron
• Relay Passer – Boosts the shooter on pass to assist situations
• Special Delivery – Boosts takeover progress for the passer and receiver off a flashy pass assist
• Ankle Braces – Makes it tougher for ball handlers to break your ankles
• Clutch Defender – Boosts your defensive ratings in clutch moments
• Hot Stopper – Boosts takeover meter for good defensive plays like steals, blocks, and good contests

And here are the badges that we retired because they were either redundant, didn’t fit in the new design, or the community just didn’t like them: Consistent Finisher, Contact Finisher, Cross-Key Scorer, Fancy Footwork, Fastbreak Finisher, Deep Hooks, Pick & Roller, Relentless Finisher, Showtime, Deep Fades, Flexible Release, Hot Start, Pick & Popper, Pump Fake Maestro, Range Extender, Quick Draw, Steady Shooter, Pass Fake Maestro, Flashy Passer, Lob City Passer, Lightning Reflexes, Moving Truck.

Takeover

In case you’re new to 2K, Takeover is the ability to get hot and take over games. It’s been a popular feature for the past couple years and we wanted to take it to the next level for next-gen.

Instead of limiting players to eight general archetype-based takeovers, we’ve broken those eight into 24 more specific takeover abilities. In a way, you can think of them as unique badges that you can fire off when you get hot.

• Advanced Gathers – Unlocks more effective spin, euro, hop step, cradle gathers
• Finishing Moves – Able to absorb contact and finish at the rim
• Easy Blowbys – Enhances ability for slashers to beat defenders off the dribble
• Pull-Up Precision – Boosts well timed/aimed shots off the dribble
• Anklebreaking Shots – More anklebreakers off of spin and stepback jumpers
• Negative Impact – Reduces defensive impact against pull-ups and other skill shots
• Limitless Range – Extends your shooting range out to the logos
• Spot-Up Precision – Boosts well timed/aimed stationary jump shots
• Team Ratings Boost – Playmakers boost their teammates’ offensive ratings
• Team Takeover Boost – Boost your teammates’ takeover meter progress
• Team Badge Boost – Boosts your teammates’ badges up a tier
• Extreme Clamps – More stone wall and lost dribble body-up resolutions for locks
• Perimeter Badge Drop – Knocks shooting badges down a tier when you get close
• Enhanced Jump Shot Contests – Boosts your ability to contest jumpers
• Stuff Blocks – Unlocks more swat, backboard pins, and grab blocks
• Paint Intimidation – Boosts your ability to affect shots around the rim
• Interior Badge Drop – Drops opposition’s scoring badges down a tier in the paint
• Boxout Wall – Improves ability to seal off opponents for easy boards
• See the Future – Shows where missed shots are going to end up
• Glass Clearing Dimes – After rebounds, kick out passes boost your teammate’s shooting
• Power Backdowns – Easier to push defenders around when posting up
• Post Playmaking – Boost your teammates’ offensive abilities when passing out of post
• Advanced Post Moves – Easier to beat defenders with post moves
• Post Shot Daggers – Increased scoring ability with hooks, fades, shimmy shots, etc.

We’ve also changed Takeover to be a multi-tier system! Once you set up your ratings caps and vitals, you’ll be presented with a subset of the list above based on the type of build you made. Then you choose one ability for your primary and another for your secondary, or if you want, you can put the same ability in both slots if you want to “double up” on it. When you’re in-game, your takeover meter will fill up your primary takeover slot first. Once filled, you can choose to activate it right away or wait to try and fill up your secondary slot. You must be careful because you take the risk of losing all your progress if you turn the ball over or miss a bad shot. But if you can fill in your secondary slot, you can activate both the primary and secondary takeovers together and keep them active for a longer period of time. Finally, if you want to devastate your opponent even further, you can wait even longer and try to fill up the Team Takeover meter. If you can fill all three, activating will enable your entire teams’ takeovers and it’s pretty much over for the competition. And just like in current-gen, activating Team Takeover also allows you to have user-control over your teammates in MyCAREER games. We know our MyCAREER fans love that ability!

Last thing I wanted to mention about Takeover. We wanted to honor our late friend, Kobe Bryant, who we tragically lost way too early this year. When you’ve earned all your badge points, you will receive the Mamba Mentality badge which allows you to change your takeovers whenever you want. So just like Kobe, you can vary up how you choose to take over from one game to the next!

Next-Gen AI

Next-gen was an opportunity to reset on a lot of areas of gameplay. This was especially true when it came to artificial intelligence. Some of these items are immediately noticeable and some are more nuanced for the hardcore X’s and O’s hoop heads. But one thing’s for certain, NBA 2K21 continues to lead the way in accurately modeling its respective sport better than anyone else out there. That’s something we pride ourselves in and know that the true students of the game appreciate about the franchise.

Defense

• New switching logic update: Both on-ball and off-ball screen logic has been rewritten and the auto-switching logic was refined to reduce bad switching instances. So expect to see fewer cases of the AI calling for a switch without a screen and leaving a player open.
• Adaptive Coaching Engine (ACE) now has the ability to recognize and adapt to different types of off-ball actions including: Flare screens, Down screens, Back screens, and Handoffs.
• Improved logic for CPU defenders to get in position to take charges.
• Several improvements to transition defense.
• Overhauled the Hedge defensive system for better screen positioning and angle targeting.
• The player can now call for help defense by holding L1 instead of just calling for a double team. This is a great mechanic that you can use when guarding the ball; instead of hoping the AI selects the right time to send help, it’s now under your control with a simple press and hold of the button.
• Improved logic for defenders in avoiding each other when moving around obstacles. This works hand-in-hand with the off-ball movement changes I detailed in last week’s blog.

Offense

• Next-Gen Game Planning: This is a great new feature that allows players and AI to have more specific game plans for their teams. In the past, you could choose to run pick & rolls with LeBron, but the new system allows the AI to target a team’s best players. So for the Lakers, not only will they run pick & rolls, but you can have them run exclusively with LeBron and Anthony Davis. There’s a new game plan option in the pause menu. Here, players can select between 8 pre-selected game plans that they can access in game through the On-The-Fly-Coaching panel (OTFC). Each game plan has default options already set up for them, so the player can pick a single option and have all the important details for that game plan ready to go. Here are two examples of game plans you can choose:
  • Play Through Star: This game plan will have ACE automatically select the best scorer on the team and only run scoring actions for them, both via plays and freelance actions. It also sets the tempo and rebounding choices automatically to accommodate your star’s playing style.
  • Pound the Ball Inside: ACE auto selects the best post scorer on the team and will exclusively run post scoring actions and plays for them.
• Double team counter intelligence: You’ll see the AI using less movement and create more spacing for shooters spotting up behind the three point line to punish excessive double teaming.
• End of game logic: Improved the AI’s ability to time plays with the shot clock for buzzer beater situations.
• Starters and Bench Favorite Plays: This year we expanded the favorite plays to allow players to set up one group of plays for their starting unit and another group of plays for the bench units.
• Moved player-specific plays and player-specific ball screens back to the L1 button. This was something many people were requesting so they could get quick access to icon pick control again. Favorite plays are now mapped to the DPAD.
• Play and freelance flow: As we have done every year, the play and freelance offensive flow has been greatly improved moving to next-gen. There are several actions that we just had a hard time getting to run smoothly in past 2K games, but thanks to the logic upgrades and vastly improved motion engine, everything flows extremely well in NBA 2K21 for next-gen.
• Fixed AI players accidentally positioning themselves out of bounds.
• New pick & roll spacing: New spacing code gives some of our pick & roll and isolation sets that extra adjustment on dribble penetration. It’s much more solid now but expect continued expansion on this module as the year goes along with our in-season play and AI updates.

PS5 MyTEAM Challenge Activities

Finally, we can’t end the Courtside Report without talking about one more exciting PS5 feature we’re creating new experiences for. Like how we took advantage of the DualSense and its Adaptive Triggers and Haptic Feedback features, we took a look at PS5’s Activities and asked ourselves, “How can we bring fresh and meaningful content to our MyTEAM gamers?” The answer was MyTEAM Challenge Activities.

Each new MyTEAM Season, through the Activities feature, will bring about a unique Challenge Activity that’s akin to our Moments and Spotlight Challenges: complete special objectives within set game scenarios and get rewards for hitting them. Each Season’s Challenge Activity will yield a different reward, and there will be a new Challenge Activity for every new MyTEAM Season up for NBA 2K21 for PS5. Best of all, all participants will be ranked amongst each other through the Activities leaderboard.

First up, starting with Season 3, will be the Challenge of scoring 72 points against the 1996 Chicago Bulls. As most NBA fans know, the Michael Jordan-led Bulls achieved an unthinkable regular season record of 72 wins and 10 losses – the best record in NBA history until the 2016 Golden State Warriors one-upped them with a 73-9 record. Build your own dream team, score the iconic number of points (or more), earn yourself a nice little reward, and get ranked based on the final number of points you’ve tallied up. See you on the leaderboard!

Closing Thoughts

As I stated previously in the NBA 2K21 current-gen blog, this has been a rollercoaster year for 2K. With the changes to our work from home culture in addition to having to roll out both current and next-gen versions of NBA 2K21, I’m amazed at the talent and grit that the entire Visual Concepts team has shown over this wild year. Again, a HUGE thanks to all the gameplay engineers and producers (as well as their families) for coming together to create, without question, the best basketball game ever to grace a console. I’ve been working and testing on this title non-stop everyday, and I still get excited to play every time I boot the game up. I hope these Courtside Reports give you a small glimpse of some of the awesome things the gameplay team has created for you and we look forward to hearing your feedback to help us continue to refine 2K basketball and take it to even greater heights as we move forward into this next generation. And if these gameplay blogs even have you a little excited about NBA 2K21 for next-gen… just wait. We have A LOT of jaw-dropping news coming soon about all the amazing stuff happening off the court that’s going to blow you away!

Website: LINK

Welcome to a special NBA 2K21 post on next-gen gameplay! We at Visual Concepts are hard at work in creating an unmatched next-gen game in NBA 2K21 on PS5 but also want to take an opportunity to talk about some of our gameplay enhancements in the weeks leading up our November launch. In this post, we’re going to dive into some of the tech that we were able to create to make NBA 2K21 on the PS5 truly feel like a next-generation experience.

Next-gen movement

There’s nothing more exciting for a developer than the arrival of new consoles. Every new generation gives us the opportunity to step back and reimagine how we can push the sports gaming genre forward. If I had to pick one aspect of gameplay that’s probably benefited the most from the jump to next-gen, the answer would probably have to be on-court locomotion. Movement is the foundation for a solid basketball game. When that foundation isn’t solid, a lot of aspects of the game fall apart. We put a lot of resources toward improving locomotion with and without the ball, and I’m excited how far it’s come to kick off year one of the next generation of 2K hoops.      

Dribble movement

The dribbler was rebuilt from the ground up for next-gen and the difference is night and day. We retained the concept of signature dribble styles that we introduced a couple years ago, but  otherwise, everything was scrapped and re-architected bringing a completely different feel with the ball in your hands for next-gen. Additionally, protect and post movement saw massive upgrades. The aspect of dribble movement that excites me the most is the predictability and consistency of it. It’s much easier to go exactly where you want on the floor, and in the manner that you’d expect to get there. No unwanted turns or having your player face the wrong way. No bursting up to speed or failed cuts. It just works. And because it’s built using the same engine as the Pro Stick dribble move system, movement and moves work cohesively together. Player speeds are more accurate to real life and the sense of weight feels more lifelike. It’s a complete package and I don’t think I can overstate how much it’s elevated my enjoyment of playing the game.

Defense and Off-Ball

All non-dribbling movement from on-ball defense, to off-ball offense and defense is run by our motion engine which is in its third year of development. The motion team has been working tirelessly to bring a next-gen feel to moving without the ball, and it both looks and feels fantastic. Here are some of the upgrades that stand out:

• Unique contextual motion assets for various basketball situations (Transition Stops, Leak Out, Guard Break, Anchor, Space Perimeter) bring an awareness to the look of the players on the floor and give them more life.
• Improved pathing, cuts, and stops make defenders feel more grounded and fix a lot of the sliding from the previous generation.
• Overall improvement to motion stability and response. In other words, we smoothed out the twitchiness and players can more accurately follow exactly what you’re doing on the sticks.
• Updated player-size detection logic and greater emphasis on player differentiation. Bigs move like bigs, and guards move like guards. This includes a lot of new animation content to support signature motion styles.
• Left stick taps allow you to play quick steps which are really helpful when you need to make subtle adjustments to your defensive position.

Foot Planting

Sliding in basketball is no good. But it’s something we’ve had to live with in the past because of limitations in technology. I’m happy to say that 2K21 next gen takes a huge leap in that department. Our engineers re-wrote our foot planting tech from scratch and it led to one of the most striking visual improvements when you put current gen side-by-side with next gen. Players can now take procedural steps instead of sliding their feet when they need to make micro-adjustments. I love seeing proper footwork as players are making hard cuts, accelerating, stopping… even just standing and making subtle movements in place. It just brings 2K hoops one more step (see what I did there?) closer to real life.

Body Ups

That’s our internal name for all of the interactions between the ball handler and defender. It’s always a tricky balance trying to accurately model the cat & mouse game between the offense and the defense. Our goal with body ups was to highlight the improvements that we were able to make to both dribbling and defensive movement. To that end, it meant less canned interactions and doing a better job of respecting user control. I think 2K21 strikes a great balance between rewarding taking proper driving angles and respecting contact. Attempting to drive head first directly into a defender will stop them in their tracks, lead to charges, or force pickups. When ball handlers get to the hip of the defender but the defender matches well, it will lead to more realistic rides that neither player will feel stuck in. And on the other extreme, slow footed (or slow to react) defenders will be punished with blow by’s and if they try to force the contact too late, might get hit with a blocking foul. Strong ball handlers can also hard stop out of a ride and crab defenders more effectively so it’s not always about speed when trying to probe into the paint. The logic for the types of resolutions that play out is much more robust and takes into account every little detail you can think of. The end result is a better 1-on-1 game that more accurately mirrors the real NBA.

Off-Ball Contact

Just like with body ups, we wanted to translate those same principles off-ball. The motion team completely re-worked the off-ball contact system, which now features everything from “let throughs” (incidental contact) to hard collisions. There’s a great freedom of movement when you’re working away from the ball but also realistic contact when it’s called for, all with no snatching or sliding. My favorite aspect of these collisions can be seen in the new screen interactions. Gone are the “vacuum screens” that have plagued basketball games in the past where defenders would get pulled into a screen collision and run in a direction they weren’t asking for. You can reject screens appropriately, go over or under as you’d expect, and “die” on a screen if you have a weak defender trying to barrel through a big. It all looks great, but more importantly, feels great for both the offense and defense to get the outcomes that make sense in such an important aspect of team basketball.

Impact Engine

One of the biggest challenges we face when balancing offense and defense is contact in the paint. As you can tell, with next-gen we really stressed the importance of respecting user control and not warping defenders into place for the sake of game balance. But it’s vital to be able to have reliable contact, especially for protecting the basket, in order to prevent bloated points in the paint. For NBA 2K21 next-gen, we developed a new in-air contact shot system that we internally call the Impact Engine. The goal was to completely remove the snatching that we’d been using in past games and resolve collisions on the fly as players hit each other in mid-air. The Impact Engine gives us the flexibility to do just that. By creating reliable contact when players are in flight, we no longer have to take control of defenders while they’re on the ground and pull them into place just to force certain outcomes. This will be most noticeable for paint defenders as they’ll have the freedom to maneuver their players into position and make a play on the ball themselves rather than the game dictating what happens based on whatever animations happen to trigger. To further aid paint defense, the logic that goes into block targeting was improved and we’re using IK more heavily now to get the hand to track the ball (as well as to minimize clipping.) One of the main beneficiaries of the new engine is that we now have contact alley-oop and putback dunk-ons for the first time in 2K, which look sick and feel rewarding when you can pull them off!

On-ground contact also saw major upgrades, specifically with charge and block fouls. Beating the shooter to the spot and getting set will yield a lot more successful charge calls on the offense while being late will give you more blocking fouls. We’ve also added “crash” layups for the situations where the shooter barrels into the defense but a charge or block aren’t warranted. These animations will help convey to the player that they’re forcing the issue and hopefully teach them to respect paint defenders next time they go inside. If you can’t get around the defense, sometimes it’s better to shoot a floater or pull-up jumper.

PS5 Trigger effect

Something that always excites us as developers is the introduction of new hardware features that come along with new consoles. When we first heard about the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback, we immediately began brainstorming ways to use them to enhance the gameplay experience. As soon as we got our hands on the dev kits, our lead engineer experimented with several different prototypes to figure out what made the most sense for a basketball game.

For the adaptive triggers, we opted to use them to convey energy/fatigue. As you move around the court, you’ll feel more and more resistance on the Sprint trigger as your player’s energy drains. We also use adaptive resistance in the post game. Strong post players will feel very little resistance on L2 when backing down weaker opponents, but you’ll have to use more force to pull L2 when it’s the other way around. It’s very interesting to play with and helps immerse you into the experience of actually being on the basketball court!

As for haptic feedback, we used it to accentuate our various collision systems. Boxouts, body-up rides, off-ball collisions/deny/rides… basically any situation where players make significant contact will vibrate the controller at various intensities depending on the strength of the players involved and the severity of the impact. It’s so dope to feel the difference in your hands between a grazing bump and hard hit. It’s also a great reinforcement tool to understand when you’re making players work too hard on the court, which could hit their energy/stamina levels and potentially cause wear-and-tear on their bodies with our in-depth injury system.

There’s so much more that happened on the engineering front to raise the bar in building NBA 2K21’s next-gen tech, but these are just the main ones I wanted to bring to your attention for today. New technology is always exciting and I love seeing how advancements in the hardware lead to advancements in the software, which then birth new gameplay features and push the genre forward. Make sure to check out next week’s gameplay Courtside Report as I reveal details about player builds, badges, takeover, and improvements to AI!

Website: LINK