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Over and Back calls are the bane of my existence in NBA 2K games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for completely abolishing the rule. It’s definitely there for a reason and sometimes it’s beneficial when you’re playing good defence. However, the annoyance comes on offence when you make that accidental pass into the backcourt.
It’s one thing to pass it to a player who is marginally behind the half-court line – I can accept that – but throwing a Hail Mary pass to a player who is almost under the opposition hoop is beyond infuriating. It’s a mistake I tend to make with great frequency and it all has to do with icon passing.
As anyone who plays NBA 2K games would know, each player on the court is assigned a button according to their position. To use the PS3 controller as an example, the point guard is assigned the X button, the small forward is the square button, and so on. After a while, it becomes second nature to associate certain players with certain buttons. But what happens when you play a different line up?
I generally play as the Denver Nuggets in NBA 2K15, which means I’m used to Kenneth Faried playing at the Power Forward position. However, when I’m playing with a smaller line up, he goes to the centre position, which means the button that’s assigned to him has changed. This creates all sorts of confusion on the fastbreak.
Because of his usual position, when I see Kenneth Faried cutting to the hoop, I press the triangle button out of instinct. When I realise that he’s assigned to the Centre position, and the Power Forward of this particular line up is still behind the half-court line, it’s usually too late. The point guard goes into his pass animation and I’m left swearing at my screen.
Some might argue that the onus should be on the user to know their line ups and react accordingly. While I believe there’s some truth to that, the bottom line is that long passes to the backcourt are not realistic – and isn’t a realistic basketball simulation something that 2K strives for?
Again, I’ll reiterate that I’m not for getting rid of the Over and Back rule altogether. Sim basketball games need every rule that is enforced in real NBA games. What I do suggest is a way to disable icon passing if the player is not over the half-court line – or at least within a certain distance of it.
It will also help create a kind of vision cone for whoever is taking the ball up the floor, since disabling the ability to pass it to a player in the backcourt will also imply that the ball handler can’t pass the ball to someone who isn’t in his peripheral vision.
I realise there are issues within NBA 2K that developers will prioritise over something that could be solved with user discretion – but I honestly think that an improvement in this area would benefit the overall experience.
I think icon passing should be available depending on the passer’s vision/offensive awareness rating, so centers with no court vision don’t wind up finding guys behind them or cross court simply because you can see them and tell the player to pass to that player. Players shouldn’t be able to pass to guys that they don’t know are actually there.
I always make the icon pass mistake when playing online, maybe it’s because I know the player I am playing against can be smarter than the cpu but I tend to rush the pass when I see a player like Melo who usually plays at sf but is in at pf so I make that pass at half court which ends up a back court. ..
I think for me it doesn’t help playing shorter quarters as I am always a 10-12 minute quarter guy and on 5 the subs are flying in more quickly so it’s easier to lose track of.