Wayback Wednesday: The Folly of Separate Shoot Buttons

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the approach of having separate shoot buttons in NBA Live.

If you asked me which basketball video game has had perfect controls and gameplay mechanics, I’d have to say we’re yet to see it! Obviously perfection is an unrealistic goal in general, but even if we amend the definition to mean near-perfect and without any major criticisms, I don’t believe any title truly qualifies. Even the best basketball games that come extremely close in that regard have had at least one quirk with their controls and mechanics. It may not render them unplayable or unenjoyable, but there’s still something about the concept that’s flawed.

That’s basically how I feel about the separate shoot buttons in older NBA Live games. It initially worked and was a good solution as far as deepening shooting controls, but then was taken to the extreme in NBA Live 07, exposing its flaws. It’s an interesting situation though, especially when compared to similar attempts to expand the passing controls. Let’s take a look back…way back…

NBA Live 2004 was the first game in the series to feature separate shoot buttons. Whereas previous games picked the most contextually accurate shot attempt based on a player’s location on the floor when we pressed shoot, we now had a shoot and a dunk/layup button at our disposal. At the time, this was a welcome expansion to the shooting controls. It’s something that Direct Shoot had previously been intended to achieve, but it was easy to overlook it in the heat of gameplay. A single button press was much simpler. With separate shoot buttons, we could easily perform the type of shot we wanted on cue, without worrying about specific trigger and button combos.

There was even a failsafe if we pressed the dunk/layup button too far away from the hoop, as it would perform a one-handed floater/runner. It could be an effective shot in its own right, but was obviously a much lower percentage attempt the further out you were. The attract mode reel also showed an alternative use for this shot, as it could be used to set up a putback dunk. NBA Live 2005 and NBA Live 06 continued to use the separate shoot and dunk/layup buttons, and with the addition of Freestyle Air, we had a satisfying degree of control over the players. However, there was a drawback to this particular approach to increasing our level of control over the types of shot attempts.

While the method was straightforward, it was also easy to overlook the fact that there were separate shoot buttons. No control system is completely foolproof, and it’s easy enough to accidentally hit the wrong button; usually dunk/layup. To that point, if you give basketball gamers a dedicated dunk button, at least some of them will try to use it exclusively in the paint; even when pulling back and using the shoot button for a short jumper or half hook would be far more advisable and effective. With the way that the controls were laid out, it also felt far more natural to slide your thumb from pass to dunk/layup than it did to shoot. Additionally, dunks and layups were still contextual.

This led to the further expansion into three separate shoot buttons in NBA Live 07: shoot, dunk, and layup. Although it wasn’t the only issue with the game, it proved to be overkill, and still would’ve been even in a superior title. It was now even easier to overlook at least one of the shoot buttons, most likely the layup button. This led to an increase in rough collisions and therefore block and charging calls, as well as misses on ill-advised aggressive dunk attempts. Instead of a floater, if a player tried to dunk from too far out, they’d adjust into an awkward finger roll attempt. The pro-hop was now executed by holding layup or up on the right stick, which was somewhat clunky.

And so, NBA Live 08 did away with the separate shoot buttons. NBA Live 09 took it a step further by turning dunk/layup into a second regular shoot button if you were beyond the range of attempting a dunk, layup, or floater, and then NBA Live 10 went back to a single shoot button that utilised modifiers and stick movement for added control. What once seemed like a great innovation in shooting controls had quickly become outmoded, and no NBA Live or NBA 2K game has used separate shoot buttons since. Instead, we have the traditional shoot button, and deeper control has been achieved by combining advanced shots with dribbling moves on the right stick.

Not every control method that basketball games experiment with is meant to last, and many of them do become stepping stones to better solutions. What’s interesting about NBA Live experimenting with separate shoot buttons is that improvements were made by going back to an older method. Of course, other technological advancements help here. A single shoot button is more effective when contextual animations are smarter, and the modifiers are intuitive, such as holding down turbo/sprint, and/or pointing the left stick in a direction. Meanwhile, the flexibility of the right stick better facilitated manual control over shots, as well as branching out of dribbling moves.

What’s also interesting is that having three separate pass buttons – which NBA 2K has to this day, and NBA Live also adopted before its most recent hiatus – has worked so much better than experimenting with three shoot buttons. I remember feeling sceptical when the expanded passing controls were announced for NBA 2K, because the idea had ultimately proven to be a bust for shooting in NBA Live 07. My concerns were soon allayed however, and like right stick dribbling, three pass buttons is an idea that continues to work. So, why does having three shoot buttons feel like overkill, while having three separate pass buttons feels natural, and indeed a necessary approach?

I’d suggest that in large part, it’s because we very rarely hit the wrong pass button. This is purely anecdotal, and I’d love to see the telemetry on it, but my guess is that most of us primarily use a mixture of the regular pass button and icon passing. When we want to make a bounce pass or throw an alley-oop, it’s a conscious decision, and we slide our thumb over in anticipation. To put it another way, those extra buttons are there for when we need them. Furthermore, lobs and flashy passes require a double tap, so we’re less likely to perform them accidentally. Selecting a bounce pass when it isn’t necessary is also a less costly mistake than attempting a dunk from too far out.

And of course, the regular pass button combined with the direction of the left stick is (generally) sufficient to make quick, accurate passes. The same principle applies to shooting, which is why the single button plus modifiers approach works much better than separate buttons. It’s easier to make snap decisions and immediately begin a shot attempt via the shoot button or the Pro Stick, rather than sliding your thumb between different buttons for jumpshots, layups, and dunks. With improvements to contextual moves, you can also place greater trust in the shoot button, just as you can the regular pass button. You can keep it simple, while also mastering advanced moves as needed.

With that being said, I’ll defend the initial adoption of separate shoot buttons. Much like Freestyle Superstars, it was a viable method of expanding shooting controls, and it worked at the time; at least until NBA Live 07 tried splitting it even further. It was a step towards the deeper controls and mechanics that we needed, and that’s ultimately what’s important. Even though the design and implementation had to change, it was the right idea to give us more control over performing jumpshots and other stationary shots, driving moves like dunks and layups, and different shots in the post and under the rim. By NBA Live 2004, old school shooting controls were no longer sufficient.

It’s the same reason that dribbling was overhauled a year earlier, with the adoption of Freestyle Control. The previous method of utilising buttons to crossover, spin, and stutter step was effective, but the moves weren’t always precise. It also took up three buttons that could be used for other functions. Placing dribbling on the right stick freed up those buttons accordingly, and provided us with the ability to make the moves we wanted with precise, consistent inputs. I can still enjoy those old games that predate Freestyle Control, as well as titles that use separate shoot buttons such as NBA Live 2004 through 06, but it’s not my preferred approach to those mechanics.

Ultimately, it wasn’t a suitable long-term solution as basketball games continued to evolve. As much as I dislike unnecessary change, and new controls simply for the sake of it, it’s always worth evaluating the current approach, and how it could possibly be improved upon. And yes, that includes deciding if a certain idea is panning out, if a new direction is necessary, or if returning to the previous approach – perhaps with a few changes – would be preferable. It’s the unenviable challenge of developing games like NBA Live and NBA 2K. They need to try new things and give them a chance, but a major overhaul to the controls may be a mistake. NBA Elite 11 comes to mind here!

To that point, the implementation of three separate shoot buttons in NBA Live 07 stands as one of my go-to examples of how new is not always better. It also ably demonstrates that mastery of controls doesn’t mean they’re good, or an improvement on what we had before. I can make use of the three shoot buttons in NBA Live 07 just fine, but I also recognise them as an idea that didn’t pan out, and identify the reasons why. Indeed, it’s why I always push back on claims that people who criticise controls and gameplay mechanics just need to “get good”. When you know your basketball game history, you can recall many concepts that had good intentions, but poor results.

In the best case scenario, ideas such as separate shoot buttons will be intermediate steps towards concepts that will stick. Again, the underlying idea that the shooting controls needed to become deeper was correct, as evident by the depth that we’ve enjoyed in subsequent games. With that in mind, describing the use of separate shoot buttons as a “folly” may be too harsh. It achieved its purpose, and didn’t detract from some outstanding games in the NBA Live series. At the same time, it didn’t take too long for the drawbacks to present themselves, and NBA Live 07’s three buttons were undoubtedly overkill. The initial concept had merit, until a better solution came along.

The post Wayback Wednesday: The Folly of Separate Shoot Buttons appeared first on NLSC.