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    NBA 2K NBA 2K21 - Next-Gen Gameplay Courtside Report #2 (Dev Blog)

    October 19, 2020

    NBA 2K NBA 2K21 - Next-Gen Gameplay Courtside Report #2 (Dev Blog)

    NBA 2K21 - Next-Gen Gameplay Courtside Report #2 (Dev Blog)

    Posted: 14 Oct 2020 06:59 AM PDT

    NBA 2K21 - Next-Gen Gameplay Courtside Report #2 (Dev Blog)

    NBA 2K21 Next Gen Gameplay Courtside Report #2 - Movement & Contact

    BANNER

    Welcome back to part two of our three-part Courtside Report series on next-gen gameplay! Last week I talked about some of the great additions you can expect to try out with the shooting, dribbling, and passing when you get the game in your hands this November. Today, we're going to dive into some of the tech that we were able to create to make NBA 2K21 on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S 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 realistic. It's a complete package and I don't think I can overstate how much it's elevated my enjoyment of playing the game.

    WATCH VIDEO: Defense Off-Ball

    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 improvement 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.

    WATCH VIDEO: Foot Planting

    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 the next-gen version of NBA 2K21 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 compare next-gen to previous generations. 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.

    WATCH VIDEO: Body Ups

    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 the next-gen version of NBA 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.

    WATCH VIDEO: Off-Ball Contact

    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

    WATCH VIDEO: Contact in Paint

    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 stress 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 and next-gen console power 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!

    WATCH VIDEO: Contact in Air

    WATCH VIDEO: Take Charge

    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 PlayStation 5'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!

    WATCH VIDEO: Haptic Feedback

    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 final gameplay Courtside Report as I reveal details about player builds, badges, takeover, and improvements to AI!

    · Mike Wang u/Beluba (NBA 2K Gameplay Director)

    submitted by /u/yyy2k
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    Played with a random that didn’t play well but I’m trying to help get rid of some toxicity in 2k so I’m tryin to do my part (3 pictures)

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 08:02 PM PDT

    [2k18] The greatest rivalry i've been a part of. 6 Finals between them, 3x rings for Brony, 2x for Zaire, 3 MVPs for Bronny, 1 for Zaire, Bronny, the Greatest Raptor of all Time.

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 05:21 AM PDT

    Was gonna buy 2k21 but decided just to play 20 and hit elite 2 instead

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 06:52 PM PDT

    So i made a song about sellouts on nba 2k21 and this is how it turned out! ����

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 12:30 PM PDT

    Am I the only one who plays My League?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 12:48 PM PDT

    I love seeing all the posts about the other game modes, but I don't do the online stuff. I'm too lazy to spend the time to get good at it.

    I'd like to see some more effort put in to free agency and such, like, I can make X player win a chip and an MVP, but I can't get them to resign in a small market.

    Or be able to try to get other guys with an increased role in FA......am I just an old guy yelling at clouds?

    submitted by /u/OkieSnuffBox
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    Yea this happened

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:59 AM PDT

    Didn't know 2k added Blake Griffin's signature off arm push off dunk

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 07:01 PM PDT

    They do pass, when there is 1.7 seconds left on the shot clock

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:45 AM PDT

    What does that mean? Each team won’t entertain offers from me, how to fix this?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 08:54 PM PDT

    Decided to be a brown shirt for Halloween. Any trick or treater that gets the reference earns themselves an extra piece of candy lmao

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 11:18 PM PDT

    People still play 2k20??

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 02:06 PM PDT

    I just got 2k20 are people still playin??

    submitted by /u/paulster11
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    Hmmm interesting

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:48 PM PDT

    2k16 servers comeback?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 07:05 PM PDT

    Is there a way I could make my own server for people to play 2k16 on? I miss the game a lot and I would be willing to put in the work if this is possible. Thanks

    submitted by /u/zingis75
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    I can’t shoot even if I have good stats

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 07:09 PM PDT

    I have a playmaking shot with 91 three pointer and 20 shooting badges but.... I can't make threes for my life I tried different jumpers but no matter what can't hit one three any tips before I kms? (I have 100+ point games every game in my career but when it comes to park I brick so much I go for layups all game)

    submitted by /u/skkrrtz
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    Tried my best to will my random team to victory. Playing solo was rough in Basketball Godz.

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:17 PM PDT

    So why does 2k add a new mechanic and then completely ruin it?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:16 PM PDT

    I use to be good with the aiming stick I'd even use it with no meter and still not miss but now I cannot hit shit I turn the meter back on and get it lined up perfectly and it still says slightly right.

    So I'm guessing the way to go square? Like every other year?

    submitted by /u/Loslocos37
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    Direct Deposit?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 07:38 PM PDT

    Why i gotta keep going to VC Sports Management to pick up a check? He's had YEARS and still hasn't setup direct deposit yet? WTF.

    submitted by /u/BigMattock
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    I did not add this dude to my draft class

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:18 PM PDT

    Rasheed Wallace REC build. This has been a fun one

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:39 AM PDT

    Wilt Chamberlain's Career Stats

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:48 PM PDT

    Okay guys, so for the last several 2ks I've noticed this "problem." If you go to the career 40 and 50 point games tab in the records screen, it has Wilt's career games ridiculously low. It's been like this for at least the past 5 2k's, I was wondering if anyone knew why it's like this?

    submitted by /u/JoustMcGee
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    NBA 2K21 inserts unskippable ads into pre-game loading screens

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 02:31 AM PDT

    “Buy 2K” they said with tm8s that don’t pass yeah, might be my last 2K

    Posted: 19 Oct 2020 03:05 AM PDT

    What would you like to see in the next-gen myplayer builder?

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 12:54 PM PDT

    The dev blog for the myplayer builder is coming out this week. Before that, I wanna know what people would want it to be like. Should pies be fully customizable? Should they go back to the 2 archetype system from a few years ago? Should it be less restrictive so that your myplayers can do more than 2 things well? Or would making it less restrictive hurt the balance of builds.

    submitted by /u/TheGmaster23
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    2k21<2k20 and it ain’t even close..

    Posted: 18 Oct 2020 08:41 PM PDT
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