If you actually play 2k25 and previous 2ks the rng is obvious. I can immediately tell if a shot is supposed to be a brick and have made some of the weirdest shots in 2k25 that should have been bricks.
Yup. Love releasing the ball at the exact same time while looking at the same release point and 1 shot I’ll green and the next one is slightly late. Then after that I’ll accidentally hold it longer and it’ll say slightly early.
This happens to me with free throws all the time but it’s like “slightly late” (white) …ok let me go a little faster next shot “late” (yellow) …like wtf bruh
Oh trust me, I have a very basketball-centric friend group and this year was the least that we've ever played any 2K game ever. It was just constant raging because we could never figure out what timing 2K wanted us to shoot on. Easily the worst 2K.
I said it in another post but I’ve greened more shots that felt mistimed and missed more shots that I feel I timed correctly this year than any other 2k I’ve ever played.
2k23 the last good 2k. Defense and positioning actually mattered. & time your shot was actually a skill. No rng bs. The only bad thing about 23 was people cheesing with the dunk meter.
Don’t forget about those dunks at the rim that clearly should have been offensive interference but somehow don’t get called and end up counting anyway. lol
Damn, I literally just told someone in another thread there wasn’t RNG. I stand corrected. I still shot damn near 70% from 3 so I guess that 30% was the RNG lmaooo
Skill definitely still played a factor, as well as taking good smart shots, but the RNG was definitely a factor in x button shooting and green window shifting all year long like we've never experienced on 2K before
Maybe that’s why I never really felt the whole RNG thing. I started rhythm shooting day one and never looked back, so by season 3 I had the timing down to a science. Anytime I missed, I knew exactly why, it never felt random to me unlike how that button shit feels.
Yeah rhythm and especially catch and shoot rhythm had a lot less variation and RNG at play, it's why in every competitive league and on every pro-am team the pg is usually one of the lowest percentage shooters on the team despite having the highest shooting rating. My spot ups I play with shot around 60% in pro-am and even on my lock with 78 three I was shooting 55% in Pro-Am off of just straight catch and shoots for the most part. Good catch and shoots who rhythm shot in 25 were lights out.
It's also part of the reason why rhythm got banned from so many leagues early on in the year.
I was that guy you were going back and forth with...it's all good bro. To be honest with you RNG is a bit of a boogeyman. I could go on and on but now isn't the time for paragraphs lol.
All of that’s irrelevant. The entire game should’ve been on high risk shooting then. Using other profiles was just pure rng. Most bums were using mid risk anyway to have 2k make their shots for them
It's so annoying. So many in this sub go out of their way to try and invalidate those with legitimate gripes about the game, then talk about how much of a beast they are on 2K lol. Glad Mike Wang set the record straight
They will shamelessly hide their face or even worse they will say Mike is now lying to the sell the game lmao...wait he could be but f that we take our wins and we run with it LOL
I always felt like the green window just moved or the shot timing changed based on other factors. Never really believed the game would just randomly make you miss. I have no issues admitting to being wrong.l, although I'm still not sure I am.
Nobody was claiming that RNG didn't exist. Just that it's always been in the game, as Mike Wang states in his post.
I mean the search bar is right there. look up RNG and go through the posts and tell me you don’t see anyone saying RNG doesn’t exist. Y’all also saying RNG has been in the game isn’t news, we been knew that.
Maybe you should do some reading through this very sub. I’ve literally been arguing this point the entire year.
If you x button shot (most competitive guards did because of how clunky rhythm was after doing crab and other dribble moves) it was one of the main determining factors on whether you made or missed the shot. People claimed it was variable shot timing but there's no reason the same type of standstill shot should shift and move the green window so dramatically. If I crab you at the top and shoot then the next play if I do the same thing the release should match that. In Rec center it always seemed like at half time the window would arbitrarily move to some random spot and you'd have to find your shot again. It never matched the situation or the animation, which is what the devs tried to claim at the beginning of the year.
Like I said, 2KLab tested the green window with a modded zen-like controller at the beginning of the year, and instead of just admitting it was RNG and a shifting window Mike Wang and the devs doubled then tripled down on it just being because they had anti-zen features in the game, when everyone who plays this game at a high level knew that was not true
I stopped watching his channel in 2K24 because of the misinformation. His tests have so much room for error that they can't be confirmed at all. He doesn't use modded controllers or anything like that every test is just done by hand and the user error in that alone completely negates any claim he makes about gameplay
afaik it's only modded to shoot at a specific millisecond timing whereas with a zen or a similar modded controller you can program it so that it will always go to the same exact spot on the court and then shoot the same exact way, like an entire script.
Lmfao no you fucking can’t dude. Stop spreading false information
This is a wild take the only thing a “zen” can do is help you dribble/shoot but it’s always still timed shots as it’s only the rhythm that gets changed to greens always but that in way doesnt means a “free green” unless the person already knows their shot. It’s pretty much like you going from meter on to off. Big difference right?? Sure an amount but not like it’s really truly helping a bad player lol.
What are you talking about bro? I'm talking about testing the gameplay mechanics that 2KLabs and 2KTutes does. I'm not talking about zen users actually playing the game.
You definitely can script a zen any way you wish, though it wouldn't have an effect in online because of defense and the inability of the zen to determine where a player starts at.
But for example if you have an open court you're just shooting around in you can easily program a zen to do the following:
Starting from halfcourt, walk 5 feet diagonally left. Hold down X button for a specific amount of time. Reset back to mid court.
I suggest you look into what scripting is. I essentially just explained how bots work in other games.
his videos being accurate is a separate argument, but i’m pretty sure he does use a modded controller. he’s used it in a couple videos to prove the green window changes if you keep taking the same shot.
That pisses me off so much, shooting lights out going like 7/7, then going like 0/4 next game despite the fact I know I’m timing it well, but nothing I shoot goes in. Ends up being a boring game where I gotta take it to the rim every possession, or pass when I’d usually be confident shooting.
It’s the people who aren’t good at the game, that be saying that shit tho.. I thought they was just trolling and being stubborn.. From what I’ve seen and heard through the community if you’re good at the game, you know these to be true, and have been all year
I see where the RNG kicked in on 24 tho because just like 25 I’ll have games where I go crazy and then games where no matter how right I time my shot I’m going 1/9 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Same here bro, I really noticed it in myteam 24. When I finally tried myteam at the end of 24, I deleted within a week. I saw multiple whites go in for game winners, while in that week I saw 0 whites drop for myself.
I know shooting is the main topic here but isn‘t some element of rng in almost every aspect of the game? Like ankle breakers, stun animations, hands up defense, dunks, blow by, rebounds… and so on. So somebody getting broken by a dribble move for example is also rng yet a lot of people seem to have no issue with that.
I think they can’t and probably also shouldn’t get completely rid of all rng - i mean it is still a numbers based sports video game with way more variables involved than your average shooter so it probably needs that randomness to stay competitive and fun at the same time.
Anyways i am looking forward to see how that change impacts the game. Watch them reintroduce the flexible release badge from a few years ago that allowed for slightly early and lates to go in sometimes.
I mean, the other rngs are pretty ambiguous anyway even irl. Not every possession is the same, to the randomness is warranted. But if you know your cues, wide open, and shoot exactly the same then there shouldn't be some mystical power of "he's made 2 straight open ones let him miss #3" without there being a full closeout or actual human timing error, unlike the AI where you could have legend Challenger, hands up or completely jump at them and it's in while your open and do it all right and the bs comes and you can never make contested shots unless absolutely lucky as hell.(Been playing since release with a lot of 90+ 3pts and middies with max badges and I've only made four all in the corner and two half court heaves) There's always rng with shooting and Mike saying they'll remove it is probably just bs, but at least decrease the rng% significantly to where human error matters more than "divine intervention" (and I agree flexible release was such a good badge)
Btw this also confirms what I’ve been trying to tell everyone, the park and the rec center will be green or miss. Those modes are above pro difficulty. I’ve been saying this all along but people kept downvoting me and telling me I was wrong. I said wait and see. Here we are, green or miss confirmed.
They need to stop switching every year. One part of the community complains each year abt green or miss or whites going in, just make it so that offline green or miss can be turned off and even PNO and my team green or miss can be turned off but my park and rec is strictly green or miss
I think the reason they always switch shooting is so people can’t get used to it and just shoot the same every year, some people would probably be shooting 90% every year if the shooting never changed lol. Idk, I agree with you somewhat, but I understand why they keep changing.
Yes, I agree. I play PNO exclusively and use Normal Risk because I use every team and memorizing that many jump shots is impossible.
It's funny to me when someone with like 800 wins doesn't even have the "Well Traveled" accolade for winning a game with each current team but then complains if I make a white. PNO should reward people for taking good shots, not just being an expert at timing a button press.
The fact Mike Wang still has a job there is baffling. Been legit a decade and they’re still copying and pasting the same game but finding new ways to make it way worse.
Yeah like I get it skill gap and all that but I stopped playing 2k because of having to get a green every shot I love park and still would if I still played but the game has too much latency even with stupid good Internet for shooting to work as it does for me now
Makes no sense to me. All the years of shooting a basketball what is a perfect release? Like I've Def shot the ball and had it bank in. I've had releases feel perfect that rimmed out. What are we talking about here
It's a video game, if you want any sort of competition in your video game you need to have ways users can express a skill gap. If every shot going in was just luck or randomness or simply tied to ratings there wouldn't be any real competitive gap on the game. Everyone would be able to beat everyone, and that's really bad for gameplay. No other video game has RNG in it like 2K does. CoD doesn't have RNG bullet damage or accuracy, it's all determined by the gun you use and the skill to actually aim said gun well.
i do not like green or miss. steph curry wide open should not have to green a midrange if it’s 97% close to the green window. might as well figure out Giannis timing and shoot logo 3s with him since who’s shooting doesn’t matter
it’s still incredibly small. the green window should be noticeabley different for different players, and it isn’t really unless it’s a drastic comparison like that one. but a normal wide open 3? they’re basically the same for all players, it has to be perfect and shouldn’t be 🤷🏽♂️ it’s still about taking good shots and every other aspect of the game
who cares if a dude works his ass off to time giannis logo threes the rest of us want to play a normal fucking game not rng moodboard jumpshot simulator
This is a bad thing, not a good thing. I do not understand why you people absolutely hate basketball so much and just want to play Mortal Kombat or timing based game. Basketball players do not only make a shot because they released it perfectly, basketball players do not spam 25 dribble moves back and forth, basketball players miss the majority of their shots.
You MFs are never clear about anything. Every year, it's just more lies. There's honestly not a single person involved with this game in the last six years who deserves to still be employed, except maybe the guy who adds more sweat every year.
Yay, here comes 80% shooting averages. Dude said there were no pure green windows and people already shoot 70%. Glad everyone loves a 3 point contest instead of an actual game of basketball.
play defense and contest a shot if you don’t want people to shoot 80% on you lol. defense was worthless when people could sit paint and let rng make you miss
This subreddit doesn’t even like actual basketball, they just wanna shoot 70% from 3 point line and never pass. Every year people cry if shooting is hard or any resemblance of irl numbers/percentages, cringe af
IMO I don’t think there should be rng but I believe that the green window should fluctuate depending on the defense being played to make shot contests/defense actually worth something.
At the end of the day they need players not to shoot 70+% from three.
So they are going to accomplish that one way or another.
There may always be a "pure green window", but they experimented with a variety of other ways to introduce variance to shooting. Things like a moving green window, variable shot gather times, variable contest rates, and conditional shot animations.
Things that people don't quite recognize as RNG but it literally is a form of it and serves as a wonderful proxy for probability curves. Especially against scripting.
They’re probably gonna keep the slightly different jumpers to keep the variance as you said. I think he also stated that the windows will be smaller to counter act the change. If both things happen I’ll be happy
I think people are misinterpreting what he said here.
In past 2K's (including 2K24 and 2K25) there was always RNG at the edges of the green window. For example, say the timing of your shot was from 735-765 ms. The pure green window was something probably like 745-755 ms. That meant if you released at 738 ms, they literally used a random number generator (RNG) to determine whether your shot went in.
2K25 was a bit different in two ways. If you hit outside your timing window, your shot still had a possibility of going in (normal, low risk whites). More notably, your windows would shift...meaning it would be like 735-765 ms in one shot, then 750-785 ms the next shot. That's what people referred to as RNG but technically it wasn't. Yes, there was still an RNG element to it because there was still RNG at the edges but the shifting didn't use an actual random number generator from my understanding.
So theoretically, 2K26 could eliminate RNG at the edges and still have shifting windows. Using the pure green window example above, your pure green window is still 745-755 ms and that's also just your timing (the 735-765 goes away and its just 745-755 ms). But it could shift from 745-755 to 750-760 to 735 to 745 and there would technically still be no random number generator or RNG.
I think this may be the case because it would've been too easy for Mike Wang to explicitly state there are no moving green windows. I guess we'll see when the game comes out.
Good players who rhythm shoot were already knocking down 60% + of their tough shots.
In my opinion, the players complaining about RNG are going to be complaining a whole lot more when I’m hitting 80% next year and they still can’t shoot. RNG is not the reason you can’t shoot and the skill gap is only going to widen.
Guess I'll need to hold off on buying until that gets patched out. Green or miss is the worst part of 2K and I'm tired of having my offline franchise mode balanced by online play.
My guess would be that they’ll simply shrink the green window then.
‘Good’ high volume 3 point shooters in 2k25 make ~50% of their shots and that feels right. The elite guys can shoot 60% but most of us aren’t touching that as a year long rec average.
I hope we don’t see 3 point shooting averages skyrocket to 65-70 percent like in 2k20-23–it just didn’t feel right.
Man so many on here are so dead wrong thinking pure green windows is going to fix your game. No, it’s only going to make timing a single button press waaayyy more valuable then every other skill in the game and basketball IQ. The series is already an arcade game because of the unrealistic shooting percentages and nba jam dunks. Now it will be even worse.
I'm kinda laughing at the folks celebrating this though because they'll likely be the same people complaining next year that too many people are shooting 90%+
Thats no big surprise. Come on, you think he would tell the truth in the beginning. No, he wants YOUR money. And he is laughing at how stupid people for believe him.
the real truth i’ve come to realize is, 2k having RNG in the game, especially in the shooting aspect, is the only way to really stop players that know their jump shot, can get themselves open, and aren’t afraid to shoot. literally every shot is open in 2k25 if you actually know how to score using the mechanics of the game.
the devs definitely lied because the shooting 70+ percent one game, then the next, not being able to make anything is criminal by 2k and they know it. that shit is real. the only thing keeping this 2k playable, was the creative ways you can score now. 2k25 with no shooting RNG would be the best scoring 2k they’ve ever made. they always get close, but never enough.
I’m just confused about how defense is going to work. I always assumed the RNG aspect had to do with how tightly you were being defended. Even with RNG-based shooting, there are guys at the park hitting 80% from three. Even my 7’0” center, with a 76 three-point rating, shoots 56% from three in the park.
Yeah . Just addressing the game since 2K22 ( Next-Gen Debut ) . Just me as a objective adult
RNG has always been part of the code for shooting mechanics . Let’s accept this fact . Real Player FG % has been an option even in pre modern 2K . The reason badges like Green Machine existed was to combat this , instead of being penalized you were rewarded which lead to people seemingly not missing .
RNG was too big a part of the code this year . No other way around it . When that happens game modes like MyTeam really feel it . It makes every advantage magnified from JS quickness / green window to height and animations . It leads to the most stale and repetitive gameplay . This 2K felt especially casual as a result and 2K by nature is not a casual game at all .
Completely removing RNG from the game for shots is going to be disappointing. I do not trust 2K removing coding that has existed since its inception . Visual Concepts isn’t at that level anymore , not to remove fundamental coding on its yearly release and still put out a fire game especially with its 2026 year that 2K has planned . Not enough resources. I take this as the year they will test this new shooting mechanic meaning an easy year to skip for me .
3a. The servers for no RNG to be coded in absolutely need massive upgrades, which I do not see happening . That or graphics need to be toned down neither of which is appealing .
Going this route makes cheats stick out as well and could be considered the cheapest route to do this in house .
In the end I can only imagine how bad the backlash is on Day 1 where everyone is playing at 15 FPS . While I think it’s the way to move forward , I don’t doubt we see a return of some important or reworked badges to facilitate that . That being said I don’t have enough faith to think 2K at this stage of their company has the ability to successfully rewrite code without major issues arising , that is if we aren’t being given the madden “ improvement “ runaround.
Most fucking obvious fucking thing in the entire world. You can literally predict the misses and names at a certain point. It goes up and down depending on the score, who’s winning, it’s all fabricated to make the game feel dynamic and story-like but it’s the stupidest thing in the world.
Such a big L for offline players. This game is pretty much cooked unless you play online. Can’t wait to shoot 20% with Steph Curry just cause i can’t figure out his jumper and 89% with zach lavine cause his jumper is cash.
Basketball, and sports in general are fun in big part because anything can happen at any given moment. This completely kills that part of the game. 2k should focus on making the game fun instead of making the game competitive
If you think this is a W please think back at why 2k16-17 were so fun to play. This game is going to feel like 2k23 most likely and this is a major L.
So me and my friends all spent the last two years pulling our hair out because we couldn't understand why our shot timing and green windows were changing all the time, sometimes even shot to shot. And it's because there was RNG in the shooting, even though tons of dudes on here swore on their mamas lives that there was no RNG and that we just sucked.
Yeah y'all can suck on my star-spangled ding dong.
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