Unless you’ve been under a rock or just don’t play NBA 2K16, you have probably heard about
patch 6 coming out last week. The patch updated several parts of gameplay such as the changes to deep 3-pointers success rate (meaning Steph Curry actually plays like Steph Curry now) and toned down the ability for big men with break starter to pass like Aaron Rodgers. The change to the 3-point penalty range is a big deal across all modes of NBA 2K.
The ability to take much better advantage of some of the more skilled shooters in the game will change the way defense is played by many. Now telling your back court to go under those screens can actually have some major consequences.
Before this patch, Steph Curry was considered by the majority to have a broken jumper and was almost impossible to consistently have a good game shooting from the 3-point line with. Now his value is going to skyrocket in MyTeam and the Warriors will be even more deadly in play now games. If you were thinking about getting rid of that Curry card you got in MyTeam, I suggest you hit freestyle and reconsider.
As mentioned above, the Break Starter Badge was also tuned to be less effective across all game modes. Anyone who has played 2K‘s ProAm mode enough is probably all too familiar with big men with the badge on gold snatching rebounds and literally throwing picture perfect dimes from paint to paint to a cherry picking teammate with 100% success rate for entire game.
Meanwhile, your pg wouldn’t be able to make a pass from the 3-point line to the paint without someone nearly falling in the crowd to catch it. It was a very unrealistic feature, especially when you consider big men’s playmaking can only really get up to about 80 and that’s if they decide to slack off on other skills such as defense, rebounding, or shooting.
This issue also was a problem in MyTeam, since you can give any big man the break starter badge and upgrade it to gold. This fix was needed long ago considering it has been a problem since the game came out. It may be long overdue, but it’s still greatly appreciated. Another strong step in adding realism to the game and putting more focus on actual basketball.
The patch also notably removed the #1 exploit being abused in online MyPark games. That
exploit was often referred to as “Speed Boosting” by many online. Now, if you aren’t aware, “Speed Boosting” gave players incredibly unnatural bursts of speed when they do certain animations in the game such as the Kobe Bryant escape size-up ISO motion.
This has caused many of the more hardcore MyPark players (usually well over 2,000 games played) to rage and threaten to stop playing the game in favor of going back to NBA 2K15 to get some of their crossover speed back. The main complaint from these hardcore players is that without the “Speed Boost”, the game feels far too slow-paced and a lot harder to score on ISO plays due to how strong the defense is this year.
On the other side of that argument, you have people like me who are extremely pleased with the removal of the speed boost to make the game more focused on basketball knowledge and less so on exploits. Now when you get in the park you see less hero ball and more teamwork and ball movement to get wins.
That’s the way it should have been to begin with, and I’m glad 2K seem to be shifting more towards actual basketball and less so towards “cheese” and exploits. If they plan to continue with that creative direction in NBA 2K17 is currently unknown but we are all hoping they don’t disappoint us yet again with day 1 game-breaking exploits that can be fully taken advantage of. I still have nightmares about that whole “demi-god” situation.
Be sure to let me know in the comments which side of the argument you’re on, and whether you want this game style to continue to go this route of realism in NBA 2K17, or you’re hoping the arcade like animations and gameplay make a strong return. Feel free to tweet me any opinions, and be sure to subscribe to get more real opinions on all things gaming.