Here’s an excerpt from the recent developer insight published over at the 2K Games community site. It’s talks about variations of gameplay in their upcoming NBA 2K11 title:

Default: Kind of a hyper-realism. Shooting %’s will be slightly higher than real life, there will be fewer fouls, slightly more dunks, more and 1’s, etc. “Let ‘em play hoops” so to speak.
Casual: This is the setting you want if you like up and down play with lots of dunks and highlight moments. There won’t be a whole lot of stoppages and you’ll see higher scoring across the board. Arcade-style play is probably the best way to describe it.
Simulation: Real life stats. This is my game style of choice. With 12-min. quarters, you will easily see NBA averages across your stat lines. Don’t expect anything easy in the paint, you’ll have to work a lot harder and execute good basketball strategy to be successful in Sim.
Custom: If you manually modify sliders and settings on your own, the game slider will automatically change to Custom.

Offense
Now let’s talk about AI. Authenticity and Signature Style have always been strong points of 2K basketball. For NBA 2K11, we really wanted to take that to new heights both on the player level, as well as the team level. When I came back to the team last year and saw how much work the guys had done with the player tendencies, in partnership with 82games, I was really impressed. The thing I was most impressed by is how well all of the new tendencies had been integrated into the code. You can really see how each player rating and tendency is translated into how a real basketball player “thinks” out there on the floor. When I first played NBA 2K10, the difference between the superstars and the not-so-superstars immediately came through. But as I took the game to the lab, and really dissected each player and team, it really gave me an appreciation for just how much work had been done in that regard. Kobe loved his dribble pull up, Melo attacked like Melo on the perimeter as well as in the post, and J.R. Smith launched any shot from anywhere and everywhere without hesitation.



Still, when we all got together to discuss upgrades for this year’s game, there were a lot of things that we wanted to see improve on the offensive end. Here are some of the new tendencies that we added for 2K11:

Tendency to use glass: Giving some love to Tim Duncan and Dwyane Wade.

Tendency to Give an Go: Before this was somewhat random, now guys will pass and cut realistically based on their real life tendencies.

Playmaker tendency: We really wanted to differentiate pass-first players from shoot-first players. Now guys like Steve Nash and Chris Paul will do a much better job creating offense for their teammates.

Touches tendency: This was a big one for me. We really wanted players who “dominate” the ball to feel like they controlled the ball on offense much more. Whereas before, the PG typically had the ball a majority of the time in the half-court… when things broke down you’d see the PG take over and shoot more often than we wanted. With the Touches tendency, we can ensure that the stars have the ball in their hands more, and as a result, take those tough shots to bail out their teams when plays break down. It also allowed us to re-work the way we initiate plays, which I’ll expand on shortly.

Tendency to attack strong: Some players like to bull their way through the defense when attacking the rim, while others shy away from the contact. That should now come through in NBA 2K11.

Tendency to use the new shots: I’ll be going into more detail later on what all these new shots are in a later Insight, but for now, just know that there’s plenty of cool new “stuff” you can do with the Shot Stick. Obviously, it’s important that our AI players not only use all the new shot types, but also in the correct situations. Our AI engineers spent a lot of time working on this logic and it really shows. One of the coolest things to see when you’re playing against the AI, is have them break you down with a nice dribble move, see a hole in your defense, and attack it properly with the right finish. It really goes a long way to making you feel like you’re playing another intelligent human opponent rather than a machine that just randomly pushes buttons.

Dribble Move Tendencies: These were in last year as well but with the addition of new moves, it gave us the chance to go in and improve AI ball handler drive behaviors and their use of Isomotion. Instead of just standing around waiting for plays to develop, the AI will now make good use of the improved size up dribble moves, protect the ball properly when pressured, and respond appropriately when given too much space or an open lane. These changes make our AI-controlled ball handlers look much more intelligent and really put you on your toes when you’re playing defense.

Tendency for putback dunks/layups: Before this was more or less random, now guys like Dwight will be a problem on the offensive glass.