I was wondering if it is possible to assign players specific opposing players to defend, instead of just switching their position on my depth charts? For an example, if i have a guard that plays the 2 spot and is really good at defense, and the opposing team has a really good offensive threat playing the 1. Is there anyway that I can match my really good defender on him without changing him to the 1 spot on my depth chart? If not, is it possible to make a matchup option for gameplay strategy?

No, and I don't know why!  I would love for this to be put into the game.  But as of now, if the guy that you want your SG to guard is playing the 1, you have to move your SG to point.

Posted by gators74 on 2/24/2015 2:37:00 PM (view original):
I was wondering if it is possible to assign players specific opposing players to defend, instead of just switching their position on my depth charts? For an example, if i have a guard that plays the 2 spot and is really good at defense, and the opposing team has a really good offensive threat playing the 1. Is there anyway that I can match my really good defender on him without changing him to the 1 spot on my depth chart? If not, is it possible to make a matchup option for gameplay strategy?

This should be the priority when it comes to making in-game changes, and has been suggested for years, yet there has been no positive indication from the development team to date.

This would make man way too strong and open a can of worms.

Can I then choose to run plays to the weak side of a zone. Can I choose to run plays against that m2ms weakest defender.

Some coaches run the defensive switches very well and some are terrible at it. I like that it's part of the game

I want to run my zone team so my guard plays defense on the perimeter but plays the offensive side of the board like a power forward....

It sounds good but I I think it's an important wrinkle in the game. And, I'm open to all the people telling me I'm being stupid about this

It's one of those things that's an obvious build-in until you think about it a little bit.

1. It's super-complicated to actually do

Think about your controls for this.  My best defender is, say, Jumbo Jimbo.  I want him guarding Bingo Bango, who is your best scorer.  Who does Jimbo guard when he's in the game and Bango is out?  Well, your second best scorer is Abra Cadabra, so if Jimbo is in, Bango is out, and Cadabra is in, I'll have Bango on Cadabra.  But what if Bango and Cadabra are both out?  I guess Soup N'Salad is your next best scorer?  So if Jimbo is in, Bango is out, Cadabra is out, but N'Salad is in, Jumbo Jimbo guards Soup N'Salad!  Now, who do Chunk Blunkton and Mouseface Underblump, et al. cover when Jumbo Jimbo is in, when he's out, and with whatever 5 the other team has on the floor?

Imagine all the permutations, and how you would lay out your matchups using your 12 guys and theirs.  It's insane.


2. It's all to benefit one defensive set

Now you have given man to man coaches super-granular control of who's guarding whom... and done nothing comparable for the other defenses.

2a. milwood's point about other defenses then needing/deserving particular items changed as well.

Posted by llamanunts on 2/24/2015 4:29:00 PM (view original):
It's one of those things that's an obvious build-in until you think about it a little bit.

1. It's super-complicated to actually do

Think about your controls for this.  My best defender is, say, Jumbo Jimbo.  I want him guarding Bingo Bango, who is your best scorer.  Who does Jimbo guard when he's in the game and Bango is out?  Well, your second best scorer is Abra Cadabra, so if Jimbo is in, Bango is out, and Cadabra is in, I'll have Bango on Cadabra.  But what if Bango and Cadabra are both out?  I guess Soup N'Salad is your next best scorer?  So if Jimbo is in, Bango is out, Cadabra is out, but N'Salad is in, Jumbo Jimbo guards Soup N'Salad!  Now, who do Chunk Blunkton and Mouseface Underblump, et al. cover when Jumbo Jimbo is in, when he's out, and with whatever 5 the other team has on the floor?

Imagine all the permutations, and how you would lay out your matchups using your 12 guys and theirs.  It's insane.


2. It's all to benefit one defensive set

Now you have given man to man coaches super-granular control of who's guarding whom... and done nothing comparable for the other defenses.

I agree with what you said about 1, and am not underestimating how complicated it would be. With that being said, I would be a lot more okay with it if they openly said they were working on other in-game improvements instead, but in reality they are working on nothing game-related.

And to respond to your second point/milwoods point, yes it does benefit one defense, but it is simply making up for a deficiency that previously existed in man-to-man. In other words, you can argue that all the other defenses have had (and currently have) a step up on man-to-man.

Imagine starting a game in real life, submitting a lineup or whatever, and then seeing that your opponent had a player at shooting guard, not point guard, and thus your point guard wouldn't be able to guard their shooting guard. It is so so so unrealistic, and while I understand that this game is inherently not going to be able to perfectly mirror real life, this would be so unthinkable in an actual game of basketball.



Having said all of this, don't paint me as one of those guys who just complains about HD and still plays it. I love this game, I think it's a pretty amazing product, and don't plan on leaving in the near future.

A while back when I put together the "User Polls" thread, I was privy to the specific votes of each user in each poll because I initiated them. I remember in the polls relating to the engine that seble's top two choices were changing the fastbreak & fullcourt press as full-time sets and addressing the issue of specific match-ups in man-to-man.

So, it's definitely something that is probably at the top of the list.

Well I like the idea. In zone you cover who is in your area. So there is no switching defenders to cover specific offensive guys. Same in fcp. So man is the only defense you can do this with. I would like more def. options like 1-3-1, box in one, half court trap, zone press, etc. Back to man it can be done relatively easy. As much as I HATE that other sim that is one thung they got right. You have a depth chart to say when so and so is in game this is who I want guarding who. Just my 2 cents.

I think it gives too much power to the defense. The offensive coach has no way to counter, unless there is also some ability to tweak district - Jones gets 20, unless he's guarded by Smith, in which case it should be 12. I have no interest in returning to the era of 46-38 HD games.

Just take a look at the GD game if you want to see what 14 drop down menu box pages looks like.....it's a pain in the ***....Defensive matchups are a great idea but I haven't seen a good way to implement it yet.

Posted by acn24 on 2/25/2015 5:17:00 PM (view original):
I think it gives too much power to the defense. The offensive coach has no way to counter, unless there is also some ability to tweak district - Jones gets 20, unless he's guarded by Smith, in which case it should be 12. I have no interest in returning to the era of 46-38 HD games.

In real life you have no way to counter either. If I put my best defender on your best scorer there is nothing the coach can do. You can't make the def guard somebody else. Whoever is guarding you is it, you have to deal with it.

Ummm, you can reconsider distribution during the game. Oh damn, James Harper is guarding George Kane. Time out! Okay guys Kane is not going to be getting the open looks we expected let's redistribute his 20% distro and give Starkey some more looks down low.

In real life you can also run more pick and rolls to get a more desirable matchup for a play

I think I see both sides... There should be a function to allow one or two of your best defenders to guard the other team's best players. But at the same time, the number of iterations involved would make this overly complicated if done to the full extent for defensive matchups and offensive counter-attacts. I think a compromise can be made if implemented with limited functionality. For example, something like this...

I want Player A to guard opposing team's Player X whenever they are BOTH in the game at the same time. This defensive option should be limited to one, two, or three players to limit the possibilities. And if my opponent chooses to put a specific defender on one of my offensive players (same as above), I should have the ability to have an alternate distribution for that player. This would be set before the game starts (i.e. normal distribution for Player B is 5 but if opposing team matches a specific defender against him, the alternate distribution is a 1-set this for all players before game). Considering most teams only have a few really good offensive players, I don't feel there is value in making a scenario for every possible matchup that might exist for purposes of this game.
 
My example above isn't perfect. There are a few other things to consider but I think as long as you limit the variables when implementing, you can still make this an aspect of the game.

Posted by milwood on 2/28/2015 5:42:00 PM (view original):
Ummm, you can reconsider distribution during the game. Oh damn, James Harper is guarding George Kane. Time out! Okay guys Kane is not going to be getting the open looks we expected let's redistribute his 20% distro and give Starkey some more looks down low.

In real life you can also run more pick and rolls to get a more desirable matchup for a play

+1. I'll give you that one.