Monday Tip-Off: Press Steal to Foul is Lazy Design

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on how “press steal to foul” is a lazy approach to designing defensive mechanics in basketball video games.

There’s a clear interest in and emphasis on skill-based mechanics in NBA 2K these days. From sweats in the online scene sneering “get good” to developer blogs touting a focus on representing the “skill gap”, there’s a belief that NBA 2K’s gameplay must be a worthy test of one’s reflexes and abilities on the sticks. Accessibility? Realism? Fun? Go play a mobile puzzle game if that’s what you want, you filthy casual! That’s the attitude that NBA 2K has been increasingly catering to, and gameplay has taken a dip in quality because of it. At least one game developer saw that coming.

The irony of course is that thanks to canned and animation-heavy sequences, to say nothing of artificial boosts, imbalance, and paying to skip the grind, it’s laughable to suggest that NBA 2K is a pure test of stick skills! Moreover, when the mechanics are broken or poorly designed, it becomes a test of a gamer’s patience and willingness to compensate for a flawed system, rather than their ability to be strategic and skilful. Like a carpenter with a dull saw and a headless hammer, we’re impeded by the tools we have at our disposal. In short, we need a game’s mechanics to work and be useful in order to expertly employ them. To that end, “press steal to foul” is lazy design.

I’m sure that basically every basketball gamer knows exactly what I mean when I say “press steal to foul”. However, in case there’s any confusion, it specifically refers to the phenomenon of the steal button effectively being rendered useless because it will lead to a foul call on almost every attempt. It’s not a case of being overly aggressive and spamming the button, or poor timing in making a play on the ball. Pressing the steal button once in a scenario where a player might absolutely try to poke the ball loose instead triggers a canned sequence where the defender hacks their opponent, or even pushes or wraps them up for the infraction. It might as well be a foul button!

“Press steal to foul” has obviously been an issue that has affected a number of titles over the years, going back to the early days of the virtual hardwood. Whether the threshold for foul calls was far too low, steals weren’t programmed to be effective enough, or a combination of the two, there have been games that failed to reward savvy attempts to pick pockets or strip the ball on drives. Of course, many of the best basketball video games throughout the years have had excellent stealing mechanics. They’ve rewarded us for good timing while fairly punishing us for a reckless swipe or otherwise ill-advised attempt, either with a reach-in foul or by being left in the dust.

That’s how it should be. If you mindlessly mash the steal button, then it makes sense that it’ll lead to aggressive attempts that are likely to commit a foul. Indeed, that can also be an effective shortcut to commit an intentional foul in situations that call for it. Conversely, a single press of the steal button – or flick of the analog stick, depending on the game – should be a more controlled attempt on the ball. Sure, a foul may still occur depending on your timing and other factors, but a successful steal should be a possibility. Other possible outcomes that don’t involve a foul include being beaten on a reach, the ball handler recovering their dribble, or the attempt simply being eluded.

Once again, that’s how it’s worked in several games with great defensive mechanics. However, in recent NBA 2Ks – and the last couple of NBA Lives, for that matter – a single, seemingly sensible press of the steal button has been ridiculously risky. By design, the steal control is no longer a reliable and effective defensive tool. For all the talk of skill gaps and skill-based mechanics – what NBA 2K has been chasing with concepts such as shot aiming and Green-or-Miss – stealing has become an absurdly loaded dice roll. We can hardly demonstrate our proficiency at picking pockets when, irrespective of timing and a good opportunity, the odds mean it’s “press steal to foul”.

There is a reason for this approach, and it comes back to the competitive online scene. Gamers have discovered a number of exploits for stealing the ball, leading developers scrambling to balance those mechanics. The solution has generally been to nerf steals, while also increasing the likelihood of being whistled for a foul. Although this does make it more challenging to steal the ball than it perhaps should be, it has lowered the frequency of cheap thefts in head-to-head play. Considering how online gamers are prone to seeking out easily-repeated exploits – rather ironic considering their claims of superior stick skills – the approach is an understandable attempt to ensure fairness.

Unfortunately, it’s a solution that has had a negative impact on gameplay against the CPU; which, despite what you may have heard from online elitists, is an acceptable way to play basketball video games! While it is possible to tune the game differently for online and offline play, they obviously share underlying gameplay mechanics. As such, the difficulty in stealing the ball, or even just trying to make a play on it without committing a foul, has carried over from the online arena to the user vs. CPU modes. Considering that the AI already has an advantage in reaction speed and the ability to manipulate outcomes to remain competitive, “press steal to foul” upsets the balance.

In fact, I’d go so far as to describe “press steal to foul” as lazy design, because it’s an extreme solution to a problem with gameplay balance. Too many steals? Just make the steal button largely useless! Look, I’m not suggesting that coding and game design is a simple process, especially when it comes to capturing the idiosyncrasies of a sport like basketball. However, games such as NBA 2K17 have featured absolutely superb stealing mechanics that were well-balanced. You weren’t going to get a steal every time – which you obviously shouldn’t – but in the event that you didn’t, there were more ways to fail than a canned foul sequence triggered by a press of the steal button.

If “lazy” is too harsh of a word – and admittedly I don’t like to use it, because gamers will throw it around way too readily when criticising developers – then let’s say that it’s antithetical to the supposed focus on skill gaps and skill-based mechanics. After all, correct timing and a good read of the situation don’t seem to factor into success and failure, because pressing the steal button isn’t leading to a genuine attempt on the ball. Whether it’s an unfair dice roll or the window for a successful steal attempt is far too small, a basic defensive play and staple control isn’t nearly as viable as it should be. There’s no way to be skilful when the mechanics are rigged so heavily against us.

It’s also myopic, focusing on the competitive scene at the expense of the offline sim experience. The quality of online play should absolutely be a priority of course, given its popularity and the goal of providing fun and balanced gameplay in every mode. To that point though, offline play suffers because tuning and design that optimises user vs. user matchups is frequently unsuitable when we’re facing AI opponents. The final tweak to shooting and shot contest mechanics in NBA Live 19 is a great example of this. It didn’t feel as harsh in the online arena where human error and reaction times will lead to an ample amount of open shots, but it gave the CPU an unfair advantage.

So it goes with “press steal to foul”, which incidentally could also be a problem in NBA Live 19; a title that likewise focused on expanding and optimising its online modes to the detriment of offline simulation gameplay. Because it isn’t fun or fair if online gamers can effortlessly strip the ball from each other, a staple defensive control has become practically pointless to use against the CPU in recent NBA 2Ks. Again, there should definitely be a risk/reward factor to stealing that includes the possibility of committing a foul, especially on overly-aggressive or careless attempts. I’m not suggesting that steals should be easy to the point of being unrealistically frequent!

However, the solution isn’t to thwart steal attempts by triggering a canned foul on a single button press while in a good defensive position. Call it lazy, call it myopic, the bottom line is that you may as well not even offer a steal control if it’s mostly going to result in a player hacking, pushing, and grabbing their man instead of actually making a play on the ball. It’s frustrating because we know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Early basketball games understandably had primitive physics and collision logic, but by the seventh and eighth console generations, we began to see some excellent steal mechanics and loose ball scenarios. “Press steal to foul” has squandered that progress.

I’ll admit that I don’t have a more elaborate suggestion than “go back to NBA 2K17’s steal mechanics”. Even without a deep knowledge of coding and video game design, I realise that such a suggestion is far easier said than done from a technical standpoint. However, its approach was effective and balanced without forcing a scripted foul with almost every press of the steal button. That’s how it should be: a viable way to swipe the ball mid-dribble or out of an opponent’s hands, while not always being successful. There should always be the risk of a foul on aggressive and poorly-timed attempts, but the steal button shouldn’t be likely to commit a foul every time that you press it.

I understand the desire to avoid cheap steals and other exploits in competitive play, but rendering a core control useless is not the answer. Not only is it vital that it works properly offline, but it’s important for online play as well. If the goal is to give gamers full control and implement skill-based mechanics, then that must apply to defense too. Promises to reward skilfulness ring hollow when steal attempts feel so predetermined and pointless. It’s all well and good to implement shot aiming, Green-or-Miss, and alley-oop meters, but as long as NBA 2K’s defensive mechanics are plagued by “press steal to foul”, lazy design holds us back from skilful play at both ends of the floor.

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