The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Does Team Unity Break College Hoops?

That post title really is a question. It seems like everybody and their goat are just having a blast with the game with Unity turned on, but here's what I'm seeing. In about 15+ games played, almost every game I've played (spanning All American, All Conference and Starter) has followed the same patterns.

Basically, I could hardly win a game (I've won two). It's not the losing but all the losses are the same. Against an equal or inferior team I always end up trailing between 3-10 the entire game. As soon as I get a small lead or tie, the AI will nail a wide open three or get an inside layup with a foul for a three point play. Literally, almost every time (creating a turnover seems to be the only exception). If I'm playing a vastly superior team (like in the NCAA tourney), I immediately end up trailing by 10-20. If I close gap at all the AI goes 3-point play crazy until I'm back down again by 10-20.

Beyond the 3-point plays, I flat out could not stop turning over the ball when trying to pass or go into the paint. I try to make what I think is a safe pass and the guy will throw it off someone's back or make a bounce pass or throw the ball on a line when it ought to be an obvious lob pass. Whatever the case, the AI gets the ball and an easy fast break. I have the steals and steal succes sliders turned down to the 5 to 10 range and it didn't make a lick of difference.

Finally, every damn team just seems to play the same brand of ball. I end up using 3-2 zone defense almost exclusively so that I can guard the perimeter with a modicum of success. Yet still, when the score gets close, the AI somehow gets a wide open three point shot whenever it needs one and it *always* makes a wide open three. In one game I was so frustrated I started deliberately pulling my players off any perimeter player with the ball. Once open the AI always take the three (fine) and when open they always made it, something like seven straight threes in this case (not fine).

I'm not one to blame the game for my own shortcomings. And I really don't know if I'm just doing something horribly wrong with this, but it's what I'm seeing. I don't have a problem with getting beat. But when every single game plays along exactly the same patterns something's not right. (And it sure as hell isn't fun.) Plus, I didn't have this problem in previous versions.

Finally I made two changes that seem to have completely changed the game. First, I have always gone with the 2k or High cam views (basically a shot from around half court, straight up to the hoops). I finally switched to the default view (Iso?) and suddenly I could mount an offense again. The key being, I was able to more easily find open players for buckets and I didn't commit nearly as many turnovers. The better I played offensively, though, the better the AI seemed to do on their end of the floor, so the net gain for me was small.

Then I turned off team unity. (Not turn it down to zero, turn it completely off.) And between the Iso view and that it's like a whole new world (only two games played, though). At this point I had dropped down to Starter difficulty and not seen it make a lick of difference. Again, with Team Unity on, I would lose the exact same way regardless of the difficulty being Starter, All Conference or All American. I honestly could not see much gameplay difference between those levels (only one game played on All American, though).

So what happened in my next game, with unity off? I won by 40 (12 minute halves). From not being able to win at all to winning by 40. I'd say that was different. Suddenly it felt like what I did on the defensive end mattered. (I really don't feel like anything I did defensively with unity on made a lick of difference up to that point.)

Given the ease of the win, I turned the difficulty back up to All Conference. I then played another game last night (it was a tourney game against a vastly superior LSU team; I was Eastern Michigan). What a fun game that was. I lost, but I carried a small lead almost all of the first half. And it was see-saw in the second half until I missed a couple threes that LSU turned into a run on the other end. I ended up losing by six, but it was more fun than any game I've played all week. I'll probably stick with All Conference for a couple more games, against more equal competition. But I suspect I'll be going back up to All American now, which is the difficulty I've settled on in the past.

It's hard not to notice that as soon as I turned off team unity, the AI stopped making every open three point shot. In fact, my defensive players made it *much* harder to get the open three. The AI also stopped getting 3-point plays on nearly every bucket in the paint, and suddenly I don't turn the ball over nearly as much. (Although credit there may be to going back to the Iso cam, as opposed to the team unity feature being off.)

I understand what Team Unity, as a feature, is meant to do. I think it's a good idea. And while I can't speak for what others are seeing, my impression is that it completely unbalances the game. I can't say that it always does so in the AI's favor, since I've been using schools like Brown, North Texas and Eastern Michigan. Maybe if I were playing as Duke the game would be unbalanced in my favor. But regardless, I think it's a broken feature and I won't be using it going forward.

I've seen only a couple of posters (at OperationSports.com) write anything similar to my experience. Have any of you run into this issue with Team Unity or am I just going crazy?