BuzzerBeater Forums

How about removing the 3-2 zone?

I'd also suggest removing the basket from basketball and just have guys run around with a ball.

All jokes aside, I'd prefer the idea of having even more defensive options like in the real game (Triangle-and-2, Square or Diamond variants of Box-and-1, half court pressing or flashing etc). Nonetheless, with each tactic having glaring weaknesses (GL using Triangle and 2 vs a good outside scoring team, and baseline cuts and drives vs a 3-2, low post to high post cuts and wing/corner 3's threat vs a 2-3 zone...).

Like how in offense, Passing becomes an even more important skill for tactics like Princeton, the game engine needs some potential revamping concerning how defensive values or defensive tactics deal with Driving, Shooting, Passing (Positioning perhaps as well). Which would give an greater incentive to scout the performances of other peoples games. Should I use an appropriate defense vs a team that seems to drive well to the basket, but shoot poor wide-open outside shots? Should I abstain from going a 2-3 zone because their PF seems to be chucking 3's non stop?)

Obviously, difficult to implement a rather intuitive game through mathematical equations.

I think the BB developers might need to study whether the game engine is balanced in extreme situations, such as when a team is heavily focused on defense or offense.

This is especially true for zone defenses.
For example, when using two inside players who are specialized in defense, the actual defensive improvement (not just the rating) might be different depending on whether it's a 3-2, 1-3-1, a zone defense with ratings similar to man-to-man (if such exists), or a 2-3 zone.

I suggest starting by checking situations with low shot blocking.
See whether the offensive drop caused by inside defense specialization is about the same as the defensive gain it brings.
Otherwise, even after adjusting shot blocking, it might still be powerful to use a 3-2 zone with two defensive-specialist big men who have extremely high inside defense but low shot blocking—meaning the problem isn't really solved.

Funny to read our January discussions about wether 32 zone is meta or not

World Cup and BBB answered this season: everyone plays 32 zone now. This is META and this is becoming a big problem.

Changes are needed

Yes, and perhaps in a similar way that LI was the dominant offensive tactic for so long...

BB is probably still in the process of converting the code base to modernize it, so they probably can't make any changes to the salary system or game engine for now.

Otherwise, I was also thinking that
if the defensive gain caused by inside defense specialization with high SB in 3-2 and 1-3-1 zones is much greater than the offensive drop,
then SB could be gently adjusted depending on the type of zone defense — for example, slightly reducing the chance of a block when using a 3-2 or 1-3-1 zone.

I personally wouldn't like anything to be removed concerning tactics; I would just like to add to them if possible. And if a tactic seems overpowered just look at real life basketball nowadays, everybody is shooting 3 points, classic post-up centers have mostly died out. So yeah, outside tactics in BB being dominant reflects the real basketball pretty well.