Two Potentially *huge* issues
I stumbled upon two bug problems today with 2K6:
1) There is a player matchup bug that has the center guarding the point guard (actually players guarding wrong men all over the place). What seems to trigger this is when you have players playing out of position due to sub use. I have auto subs on and the first player off the bench was my backup center. The AI kept my starting C on the floor though. That caused mass confusion as my center was now manning up the Rockets PG. Ugh. This went on for most of the game from then out which really sucked. Even going in and manually changing the matchups didn't seem to help.
Hoping to find some help I went over to OS to see if this was mentioned there and sure enough almost the entire bugs thread was dedicated to this. A VC rep even posted there, confirming the bug saying that they are "working on it." The rep also said that it would be fixed in time for the 360 version but made no promises on any kind of 'patch' for the current game. Great. A small workaround is to "not pause the game" which (for some reason) increases the chance of the bug popping up. So that means I can't check the stats or manually sub players w/o increasing the risk of this stupid ass bug showing up? $#@! that.
I haven't read any reviews of 2K6, but surely someone saw this, right? I've played about 6 full games now and it's pretty blatant.
2) Finally, the auto sub AI is Asstastic. I swear Visual Concepts, Kush, the lot of 'em -- they make these games which sit on the cusp of sheer brilliance but then never finish their games. This is basic shit, guys. If I am playing against the Rockets and Yao Ming gets 3 fouls in the 2nd quarter -- he SITS. Hell, after his 2nd foul he should sit unless he's needed. Well, in this game, Yao stayed in the game and picked up foul number 4 with 1:30 left in the half. Sometimes the AI pulls players correctly and other times it lets players play until they damn near foul out.
Even with my suto subs on I noticed weirdness. Paul Pierce sits the entire 2nd quarter? Why? This dude plays 40 mins per game unless he's in foul trouble. T-Mac is going OFF on me, lighting me up for 23 in the first half and my scorer is sitting on the bench, taking a 9 minute 2nd quarter breather?
Of course, I'd manually sub players myself but hey...can't pause the game now can we?
Truly amazing.
Contact Us
Riding the Pines Podcast
Search Amazon.com
What We’re Playing
Dan:
October 20th, 2005 - 13:39
Are they using EA’s game testing and bug fixing department?
October 20th, 2005 - 13:46
as for the c gaurding the pg, it happens more with the default roster in my experience. if you change one guy, save the roster file and load it, you will find that it does not happen as often. also, when the rare time it does happen, usually the next substitution or play stoppage takes care of it.
as for the substitution pattern, it sometimes has to do with the fatigue system. your players do not recover like regular video games, it is more like real life.
for instance, if you run them a lot they tire out. in real games, the coach will sub, for example, with 45 seconds left at end of quarters to give his players longer rest times. better clock management is needed. also, in franchise your players could start the game with less stamina if you practiced them hard. there seems to be an accumulation of loss of stamina over a season. which hopefully is true, because that is what happens in reality.
as for no auto-subbing subbing with three and four fouls, that happens in real life occasionally so why not a video game, also. in real life if it works it was a brilliant move, but in video games its bad AI in our eyes.
October 20th, 2005 - 14:29
You’re trying to tell me that when a team’s starting (insert position here) gets his third or FOURTH foul in the first half that he stays in the game? You are watching an NBA with which I am not familiar. SOP is 2 fouls in the first quarter = bench time. If he gets #3, he’s done until the 3rd. Is there a scenario out there that would keep a starter in the game, in the 2nd quarter, with 4 fouls? If there is, I’d like to hear it.
Sorry, that’s bad AI. That’s not a videogame quirk of realism,. That’s dumb as a stump.
As for the C/PG bug, I’m not quite following what you’re saying. I have a user-created center playing for Boston and it still happens and time outs and play stoppages didn’t help. VC says it’s a bug, so I think I’m going to have to live w/it or wait for the 360.
October 20th, 2005 - 15:57
God, it’s just par for the course with the whole 2k line with these crushing bugs. I can live with bad sub patterns. Annoying, but that’s just nothing new in basketball games.
But that positional bug you describe is horrible and for VC to come out and say, yeah we know about it, but that might just be the breaks is crap. (Although I’m sure that decision rests on management more than the guys who actually fix these things.)
Every damn game from them, every damn year. Franchise crashes, lockups, whacko GM AI; it just doesn’t end.
As for the foul thing, I have no doubt in the history of hoops there have been plenty of instances where coaches chose to leave a guy in the game in the first half with three fouls, that just doesn’t make it good game design. A guy gets three fouls before halftime he’s outta there.
Hell, that was my entire beef with Game 7 of the NBA Finals this year because the officials had three of the game’s top players (Billups, R. Wallace and Ginobili) on the bench with tick-tack fouls within six minutes.
The goal of this new fatigue system is fine (even good if it genuinely works), and I’ve only played two games so I can’t really comment too much on that, but the proof one way or the other is in the MPG stats. Bottom line: If perennial 40-minute guys are playing just 20-30 minutes then the sub patterns are not being instituted properly within the game’s AI.
(Hardly a shocking revelation and certainly I for one can live with that, but poor design is poor design whether it’s a gamekiller or not.)
October 20th, 2005 - 16:33
i actually reread both yours and my posts and i was more refering to foul trouble overall not necessarily the 2nd quarter like you were refering.
i was in between paperwork and didnt really catch all of what you said.
October 20th, 2005 - 17:02
It’s cool king. I admit I was shocked you thought I was being too picky about that.
October 20th, 2005 - 18:42
I want to genuinely thank you guys for such a diligent job of beta-testing my XBox360 version of this game.
Please keep sending your findings to 2k Sports.