Monday Tip-Off: Going Back to Manual Substitutions
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 reflections on going back to manual substitutions in basketball video games.
Since I first got hooked on the virtual hardwood, my basketball gaming habits and preferences have evolved over the years. A couple of obvious examples that I often refer to are falling into a rut where I was grinding to level up a new MyPLAYER every year, and then subsequently breaking that habit by eschewing the latest release for some old favourites and new retro kicks. Of course, when it comes to my habits and preferences and the way that they change, isn’t always necessarily that big and drastic. I’ve also changed my mind about certain gameplay options and settings.
Like most basketball gamers I’m sure, I have my preference when it comes to manual and automatic substitutions, though it’s a setting that I have changed my mind about. More to the point, I’ve changed my mind about it a couple of times, or at least become far more flexible about my preference. Much like my other evolving virtual hardwood habits, there are reasons why I’ve come to prefer manual or automatic substitutions at different times. Right now though, I find that I favour manual substitutions whenever I play a mode that provides that level of control. Not only has it been refreshing to make that change, but it’s reminded me why I always used to prefer calling the shots.
To that point, over many years of buying the latest NBA Live and/or NBA 2K game, one of the first settings that I’d change would be to disable automatic subs. If I forgot to do so and was confronted by an unwanted substitution, I’d immediately switch over to manual substitutions and bring players back in. It’s not that I didn’t see any value in the automatic substitutions setting. It’s a handy alternative, and it’s become far more effective thanks to improvements to rotation logic. This includes bringing players in at their secondary position, as well as moving players that are already in the lineup over to another spot to accommodate the substitution, rather than just taking them out.
With that being said, there are advantages to manual substitutions. Even if the rotation logic is sensible, there will be limitations. The CPU can’t know when you’d rather have a player play through foul trouble, or push through fatigue rather than sit and see the team lose all of its momentum. Obviously we can override automatic substitutions in many games, though quite often they’ll end up happening anyway, so you might as well choose to have manual control. I’ve always found lineup management to be a big part of the fun in sim titles, from tinkering with my starting five in franchise modes to making manual substitutions during the games. It’s definitely helped me to win, too.
In short, manual substitutions have historically been both strategically important and highly enjoyable when I’m playing sim games such as NBA Live and NBA 2K. Even when a game has had good rotation logic, it didn’t feel as satisfying to leave it up to the CPU. At some point, there was going to be a lineup change that I didn’t want to happen at that particular moment. Again, I saw the value in automatic substitutions. It’s helpful for newcomers to the genre, as well as anyone who’d prefer to just focus on playing to the best of their ability with whoever’s in the lineup. It was one of those options that I agreed absolutely needed to be in the games, but wasn’t likely to use.
Once again though, basketball gaming habits can change. Over the past decade or so, I have ceded control over substitutions to the CPU in a number of games. I’ve chosen to switch to manual substitutions or override the pending changes on occasions, but I’ve also played a ton of exhibition/Play Now games where I’ve let the AI handle my lineup. In hindsight, this has been a by-product of a much bigger change to my habits. Since NBA 2K13, I’ve gravitated towards career modes, rather than the franchise play that I’d previously favoured for so many years. As such, I’ve primarily been playing modes where I have no control over my team’s roster, or the rotation game-to-game.
This turned out to be habit-forming whenever I did go back to “traditional” gameplay where I’m not player-locked and have free rein over the lineup and other coaching decisions. After years of playing MyCAREER, I was quite comfortable with letting the CPU make substitutions and focusing on getting the job done with the players that were on the floor. That is the appeal of career mode play after all; not actually being in full control of the team, or in some cases, your own destiny as you enter the league. Since the only control you have from moment to moment is over your own avatar that you’re locked to, the focus is squarely on executing plays and putting up big numbers.
Of course, automatic substitutions allow “traditional” gameplay to function much the same way. You can go a whole game without pausing unless you need to take a break or want to fire up instant replay, and coaching and playcalling options are generally quickly available on-the-fly. Between setting the number of minutes for each player and solid substitution logic, you can usually trust modern games to make sure that your squad is staying fresh, and that your key players will be on the floor when you need them. Although there’s a strategic advantage to manual substitutions, there’s no noticeable disadvantage to auto subs. For me, they’d become familiar, and convenient.
It wasn’t just habits formed from ceding control in MyCAREER, though. Issues with the manual substitutions setting in a couple of games encouraged me to leave auto subs on, in turn normalising that choice. There’s a bug in NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 (and likely the Xbox One version as well) wherein if you enable manual substitutions for MyGM and Play Now and forget to switch back to auto subs before loading into MyCAREER, the AI won’t make any changes for your team. This glitch cost me a season opener, as a very tired starting five played all 48 minutes and ran out of steam! Re-enabling auto subs puts everything right again, but it’s easier to just leave it on.
Unfortunately, there’s no such easy fix for the automatic substitution bug in NBA Live 15. I played quite a bit of NBA Live 15 when it was new, and generally enjoyed the improvements it made over NBA Live 14. However, I soon discovered that if you switch to manual substitutions for the user, the setting erroneously also applies to the CPU, resulting in it not making any subs unless a player fouls out. To that end, while using auto substitutions and overriding them as necessary wasn’t my ideal approach, it was clearly preferable to having the AI run its starting five into the ground, allowing me to beat up on a weary squad. Accepting that solution made auto subs a new habit.
And so, convenience, necessity, and force of habit have resulted in me sticking with automatic substitutions, despite traditionally preferring to have manual control over them. More recently though, I’ve felt a desire to go back to manual substitutions in games and modes where that setting is viable. Obviously that doesn’t include NBA Live 15, and I’ll need to be mindful of switching back to auto subs before continuing my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, but as I’ve renewed my interest in traditional season play and exhibition games, I want that control over my lineup again. I’ve made that switch in recent sessions, and while it may seem like a small change, it’s been a blast!
As you might expect, my sessions with Dee have also influenced me here. Whenever we play, we always use manual substitutions, and quickly disable them and fix our lineup if we neglect to check that setting; much as I’ve done in numerous games over the years. Granted, we do revisit some older classics that have more primitive rotation logic, so manual substitutions are necessary to shift players over to another position rather than the CPU simply replacing them in the lineup. Even in newer games that have much better substitution AI however, it’s still advantageous – not to mention unquestionably more fun in my view – to take charge of managing our team’s lineup.
After all, we can think outside the box in a way that the AI can’t. We can try out an unorthodox lineup, or choose to give a bench player with the hot hand more court time. This is how epic comebacks happen, and Virtual Hardwood Legends are made! While it usually makes sense to have realism and logic to your rotation and lineups, it can be really fun to try something that’s off-the-wall, not to mention rewarding if it’s a bold strategy that pans out in a game that was seemingly lost. Indeed, one could argue that real coaches do employ unorthodox lineups, thus they aren’t unrealistic! It’s hard to program that into the rotation logic, so we need to take matters into our own hands.
Even if we’re not doing anything crazy, there’s still joy in manually managing our lineups. I appreciate the convenience of automatic substitutions, and I’m able to play with that option if I need to avoid a bug, or if I simply feel like focusing on the on-court action. Much as I’ve been drawn back to old favourites and previous generations of games though, revisiting some classics where I absolutely preferred using manual substitutions to auto subs has given me a taste for it once more. It’s also encouraging me to get back into traditional season and franchise modes, where messing around with your lineup and actively coaching the team is undeniably a key part of the fun.
It’s important to follow your whims and desires when it comes to gaming, basketball or otherwise. That’s what makes games fun, which at the end of the day is what they should be. Sometimes that means following nostalgia, trying out something new, or otherwise changing your routine. Of course, sometimes it means going back to old habits and preferences. The bottom line is to have fun, and if your current approach isn’t bringing you enjoyment, it’s time for a change. It’s a simple concept and stating the obvious, but I speak from experience when I say how easy it is to get stuck in a rut. When that happens, the best substitution you can make may be an old approach.
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