The VC issue - perfectly put in words

[SirGaryColeman]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I'm not encouraging young people to buy VC, but my attitude is simply play the game to get what you need.
Now, the general vibe felt like people just want to be competitive immediately with little effort. However, they're expecting 2K Sports to help or bail them out, and that's probably where my old school mentality kicks in. Plus, I believe that you have to start from somewhere, which is why starting from the bottom never bothers me. Take the first Zelda. The fun was in the exploring and building your inventory to fight the final boss. Can imagine getting half that stuff right away to save you time? I just feel like it cheapens the overall gaming experience.

Zelda is a perfect example.

If Zelda were made this way... you'd have to kill 20,000 Skeletons to get the Master Sword (or pay $20 for it) or beat a Dungeon 1,000 times to get 5 hearts (or pay $10 for enough Rupees to buy it). That would be absolutely no fun!

Exploring was what made Zelda fun, not doing repetitive tasks to earn items (while the game tries to sell it to for you $20 to save you time).

I agree that games make it "too easy," but we disagree that adding a Grind (especially when you offer to remove the grind for $$) is a solution to that. They didn't make it this way to make the game more fun, they made it to make more money. I believe this ruins games.

[Rip4ever]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

You might have to go in depth with this suggestion. I know that I use PNO to build up my VC, because I play 3-7 games in a day. I think it's an advantage to share VC amounts among modes.

Yea, I don't spend VC in MyGM, I do however use VC from it in MyCareer. In fact I played a good dozens games of MyGM just so my start MyPlayer didn't suck quite so bad.

[raidertiger]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I wish NBA Live just updated their pro-am and park modes every year in a $10-$20 DLC without any NBA players. Try to capture 2ks market share which hopefully would mean the end of VC, or a damn good Pro-AM/Park experience with EA.

[raidertiger]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

To answer your question, that wouldn't be frustrating to me. Plus, who is the "everyone else"? In my mind, that's the starting point for my character, and I welcome the challenge of making my character better. I'm a gamer, and I play video games for the challenge and competition.

There are plenty of games where you start as an "under-developed character". That's not a new concept. For your small example, you just have to learn how to play within the restrictions of your character until you're able to unlock items to make them better.

I'm assuming you started playing around 2k13, because no one complained about being under-developed in 2k11 and 2k12 because you could have accessories for free and the upgrading wasn't a grind because you actually did drills for skill points and attribute points. Plus you could actually use your salary to buy skill points or go to legend camps for upgrades and other cool stuff.

Now compare that to the new 2k with everything being a function of VC instead of in game mechanics. If you haven't played a pre-VC 2k I can understand why this seems OK but we have moved backwards.

[Ivysaur]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

It seems silly to pay for accessories when real NBA players get them for free.

I do wish there was a more organic and natural way of developing your player instead of using virtual cash to purchase upgrade bundles.

[timothythefirst]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that you really can't enjoy certain modes without paying for VC.

Any of the myplayer online modes, you either need to spend an ungodly amount of time grinding through mycareer, or spend a lot of money to even be able to compete.

like if you want to hop on and play mypark the night the game came out, you either had to spend real money on vc to max your guy out, or just get demolished every game. and "get better" isn't really a real solution, there's people who are already really good who also spent the money to max their guy out. no matter how good you get you're not gonna compete against them with your 61 overall guy.

plus to be honest, I don't want to have to "grind" mycareer mode for months before i can even compete with other people online. that's not fun to me. I work full time and go to college, I have enough grinding to do in my real life. I want to be able to turn on 2k and enjoy it without dedicating several hours per week just to make my guy usable. and I shouldn't have to spend twice the cost of the standard game to do it. 2k is the only game where that's the case. if I want to hop online and play pretty much any other game for an hour after work one night, the only question is if I'm skilled enough to win, not if I've spent enough time/money.

I'm not saying I don't want to play the game and get my value out of it, but the idea that i either need to spend real money to compete or spend a bunch of time that i don't have playing a mode that quite frankly gets boring as hell after a while (offline mycareer) if I want to enjoy the other modes (mypark/proam) is ridiculous.

someone estimated a few pages back that if you bought no vc you'd have to play an hour a day for like a month and a half max out your player. I realize this is a sports gaming forum and a lot of people here probably do play games way more than an hour a day, but personally I have a lot of other real life stuff to do I just play 2k for fun when I occasionally get some free time. even on 2k16 i felt like i sunk a lot of time into my career and I never got my player higher than 91 overall.

[trandoanhung1991]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

Now see, I like grinding (probably cause I'm Asian), but I don't like mindless, context-less grinding.

Currently you start your career by playing a few games here and there, and then arriving at the NBA. You've played like 5 games total for the story, and arrive at the NBA a complete scrub. Only then you grind your way up. Meanwhile everyone calls you the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you're struggling as a 55OVR who can't even move, shoot or defend properly. Trudge through 15-20 games of that and you're finally at the actual NBA role player level and can actually play. That is horrible grinding.

Now let's imagine a scenario where you starts at high school, complete a season or two there, then college for up to 4 seasons, and then NBA, gaining attribute points all the way. If you played like ****, you could be a 65-70OVR when entering the NBA aka the role player/scrub guy. If you played like a god and dominated through HS and college, you enter the league as a 80+ player, ready to dominate and be a franchise. Does that sound like fun? To me, hell yea! That's realistic and immersive! That's what, 3-6 seasons of "grinding" to even get to the NBA, but I'll enjoy every minute of it because I'll play against comparable opponents at every step of the way, and it's immersive and allows me to flesh out my player's background and backstory in my mind even more.

You can even change it so that in the NBA, you can't really gain permanent stats during the season, but only temporary buffs. Come the off season and again you can grind it out for better attributes for next season. And during the season you actually get salary/cash from your contract to customise your player. So you can sim through games with simulated stats to get money quickly, at the cost of not adding as much to your leverage come time to resign the contract.

How about you separate park/pro-am, and make a grind there? You gain attribute points as you play games in the park/pro-am, and can then spend them to improve attributes. But here's the kicker: you are grouped by OVR and can only be match-made to those close to you. For example, starting out you're gonna play only with people 55-65, and then once you got to 66 OVR, you play with people 66-75, etc... This ensures balance, and still allow people who don't have much time to play competitively.

Personally I would very much enjoy the "grinding" if it was made that way, instead of this mindless/context-less/jarring grinding that's present in the game now.

[jadert]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

Lmao the arguments in this thread....

Do you really believe 2k are struggling and that 240 million is only enough to scrape by and pay the light bills so they desperately need VC sales in order to thrive?

There's a couple of people in this thread that I'm sure are plants...

Absolutely not. I said what does $240 million mean without context? In business revenue means nothing without context. Anybody can shout big numbers

[da ThRONe]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

With all things there's a balance that needs to be reached. There's nothing "wrong" with 2K providing a service at a price to people who rather max themselves out automatically. However that doesn't seem to be the main issue here. The problem is that it seems 2K has purposefully designed it's game to encourage players to buy VC. That is where the issue is. If I can't play a game mode by itself and feel like I've been given enough to maximize my level of fun then somethings wrong. I think it's pretty obvious VC has already had a negative impact how 2K design it's games. The progression system now should be totally organic meaning whatever you work on the boost goes to that attributes directly. VC has 2K going or staying away from building the best simulation that's possible and for that reason alone I dislike VC. It's one of the reasons I haven't purchased 2K in years.

[dre2]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I think most ppl arguing about maxing players are missing the point as it's a vc online balance issue, if you and another person are of the exact same skill level and that person spends more money than you they will beat you online, plain and simple...some of you cats are really nice on the sticks and can kill dudes with a 61 overall but if the 2 players are EQUAL all things considered day 1 out the box the person who spent more will win because their player has better ratings. This isn't an esoteric opinion it's fact and THAT is my problem with vc, I don't think they need to get rid of it (they never will) but they need to balance THAT issuer because that is 'pay to win' and that's a bad look and makes all the Pro-Am crap unbalanced, unfair and kind of condescending to play clips of it all day/night on the 2K feed, (not to me I can afford VC man but to some little 13 year old kid somewhere in a basement getting worked by his rich school friends over not affording vc launch night...). As far as pre-order bonuses in other games, their is no COD or BF pre-order guns that shoot further or have steadier aim or give you double health, THAT would be akin to 2Ks pay to win based model in a game such as that and that is why I say it would cause a riot if any other game did this kind of thing regardless of how good a game 2K is (so gooood).

[Saxongirl]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I would like to contribute as well. I am on the side of the guys who argue against VC and call this sort of business model pay2win. Personally I think it's bad and it needs to be changed. There is no point rehashing all those fine opinions but just to make sure I don't come across as following blindly:

The grind is monotonous, extremely so. The story is suggesting you are a start prospect which to me is the first loud scream to "buy VC to git gud" because your player will be fairly rubbish no matter how good your stick skills come the NBA season, especially when even the second rounder Justice Young is a 69 coming into the league and your scrub is 56 and gets drafted in the lottery. The second loud and clear scream is Justice going up from tat 69 to an 89 in about 20 games. That isn't possible with VC you earn through playing. So again "Buy VC to be like Justice". The whole story screams to you that you need to step up your game, be the french fries, do it all, be the king, get that OJ flowing and squeeze it fresh... well... how are you going to get that OJ with a 56? Well buy VC obviously... you know... Juice your player up otherwise you will be ripped apart on Twitter and by your coaches and team mates for playing ****ty even though you play as well as one can play with 15 minutes per game and a 56 OVR. Also to actually enjoy MyCareer and be anywhere near the level that story is suggesting out of the box you NEED to be at least a 79 or 80... well how will you get there unless you pre-ordered the 100 Dollar Version and even that might not be enough. It costs around 150.000 VC to use all your starting upgrades and around 250.000 VC to max out your player without any animations, clothes or whatever.

If you break that down to say 1.500 VC per game, which is fairly hard to get since you need to play on HoF, get an A+ and average nearly a double double, that would mean 100 games to actually grind yourself to an 80 or whatever the rating is when you just use the first set of upgrades and another 67 games for the rest. 167 games at roughly 10 minutes a quarter since you won't get the teamgrade or the necessary stats otherwise. If you say you average 30 minutes that means either 3.000 minutes which would be 50 hours (add the practice, the loading screens, the halftime show, the cutscenes and what not and you probably get closer to 80-90 hours) and possibly another 2.010 minutes or 33,5 hours (lets add 20 for loading times, cutscenes, practices and pregame shows etc.) and we are talking about roughly 140-150 hours of game time to get enough VC to level 1 character. One. Which excludes animations, clothes, tattoos or anything (personally I do not see why tattoos need to be bought... shouldn't those be part of the cosmetic setup of your player?). To put that into context. A playthrough of the Witcher 3, the biggest open world RPG of all time, so far, with all quests, all collectibles and doing everything comes to around 120 hours. That is the base game. Both DLC's add around 50-60 hours combined so that comes to 180 hours. NBA 2k17 expects you to basically play the Witcher 3... well the Grinder 3 to "git gud" by rewarding you with loading times that would be put to shame my TES Morrowind and cutscenes that can not be skipped and in game animations that can not be sped up either thereby nearly doubling your playing time making "farming" VC nearly impossible. Honestly I do think that is extremely excessive and basically screams "buy the 99 Euro pack and get 450.000 VC and never grind again!"

I would also like to ask one question that neither the pro's nor the contra's in this argument have really asked or adressed:

Fair and good that it's 2k's right to design their game in this way and maximize their profit. How do any of you explain why we can not use the VC we earned in previous games though? I mean it's not gone. Our accounts are still there and once we download the games again we will have the same VC count again. So why aren't we able to transfer it to a new game? Call it a loyalty bonus or simply a service. I can't recall the currency being called 2k15 VC and 2k16 VC. It was called VC wasn't it? So VC should be universal. Well I still have around 90.000 VC (add 35.000 for preordering) on my 2k16 account and around 200.000 on my 2k15 account. I would very much like to get those VC since I actually earned them through grinding.

That to me is the biggest argument against defending this business model and against people claiming others are lazy or cheap or simply do not want to work hard. Well I did work hard. I played 2k16 for 300 hours and 2k15 for 1.000 hours. I would like my reward for that please.

I read an interesting suggestion of how to remodel how you gain attributes on NLSC I'll quote that here if I may:

I totally agree. Personally I do not get why they have to bring VC into this. You have live training with several challenges. Midrange shooting, Dribbling, Vertical, Strength etc. Why not use that to collect training progress in specific areas, earn the same progress for in game action and then simply level up those stats? Why exactly is VC necessary in a 50 Bucks game? Why does your apparently highly touted player start out at a 55/56 lower worse than the worst free agent? Why not start out with a modest 68/69 like Justice, your partner once your turn pro? That is a decent starting point.

If you'd actually include a full college season with regular practice (which is twice a day) you'd end up with 30 games or so running from November until March and another possible 5 games or so running from March until April. If you include a couple of early season tournaments you might get up to 40 games before March Madness. Share that out over those 4 months and you get about 10 games per month or one game every 3 days. Have two team practices per day when you aren't playing and the possibility of an open gym or weight room like they do now. That's 120 days, if you have no practice on game it leaves you with around 80 days. That is a possible 240 practices. If you say you have to get gold 2 times, silver 4 times or bronze 6 times to get a +1 in any one category you could possibly grind yourself to death and get to be a 99 but more likely you would limit the practice each day with progressive fatigue and set the limit at say 5 exercises per training. That is a possible 1200 exercises. Even if you get gold in all exercises the maximum number of points you could gain is 600 and that is if you really grind it. There are a possible 47 categories in which to improve your player. Even if you start at a 70 on average, meaning in every single stat, you'd need 1.410 points to get 100 in all categories. That would mean more than 2.500 exercises all with gold. Even a dedicated player would need weeks to get there. But you would feel like a stud because no one could buy their way there and if the system is well setup nobody could cheat their way there either. Plus you would start at a decent rating, where you are actually able to do stuff on the court.

If that isn't hard enough for you you could easily keep the archetypes into place but allow for upgrades over your max. It would simply get harder. Say you have a maximum of 20 on your rebounding. To get to 40 you'd need 4 gold exercises. To get to 60 8 gold exercises per point and so on. You would be able to form a complete player but it would take hard work and dedication and immense grinding but you could rightly claim your player to be one of a kind because you yourself made him to your absolute liking and it would also accurately portrait how hard improvement in certain areas is for players who have to struggle against their natural limitations.

Where I would allow VC would be for MyPark. I think you should be able to earn it there, maybe even wager it there to by stuff that is strictly for MyPark or MyTeam. I would completely ban VC from MyGM and every other mode as well. Clothes and stuff for your MyCareer should be bought with ingame currency by which I mean what you earn through your contract. Want a flashy wardrobe? It'll cost you several thousand dollars. Want that fancy car for the cutscenes? Want that fancy flat? Want that fancy remodelling of your court? Want a personal trainer? Sure enough but you pay for it with your contract money or endorsement money. You can donate part of your wage for good causes, build basketball courts for kids or renovate schools etc.

That would be my idea of a good career mode. You earn your skills through practice, which will make you better at the game itself as well and you can buy what you want if you have the money for it but it might effect how fans view you if you piss away your money on clothes, cars and what not and don't give to charity or live paycheck to paycheck even as a millionaire.

That would be a system in which I wouldn't mind the grind in a way that trandoanhung1991 also mentioned. I also don't see why VC has to infect MyGM for example. Why is it needed on there? What is the point exactly?

I know my post is probably longer than it should be but I felt it necessary to elaborate a bit. I'm new here so I hope I will be forgiven.

[ILLSmak]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I think most ppl arguing about maxing players are missing the point as it's a vc online balance issue, if you and another person are of the exact same skill level and that person spends more money than you they will beat you online, plain and simple...some of you cats are really nice on the sticks and can kill dudes with a 61 overall but if the 2 players are EQUAL all things considered day 1 out the box the person who spent more will win because their player has better ratings. This isn't an esoteric opinion it's fact and THAT is my problem with vc, I don't think they need to get rid of it (they never will) but they need to balance THAT issuer because that is 'pay to win' and that's a bad look and makes all the Pro-Am crap unbalanced, unfair and kind of condescending to play clips of it all day/night on the 2K feed, (not to me I can afford VC man but to some little 13 year old kid somewhere in a basement getting worked by his rich school friends over not affording vc launch night...). As far as pre-order bonuses in other games, their is no COD or BF pre-order guns that shoot further or have steadier aim or give you double health, THAT would be akin to 2Ks pay to win based model in a game such as that and that is why I say it would cause a riot if any other game did this kind of thing regardless of how good a game 2K is (so gooood).

Yea... they have to be bad, really. haha. If you go in there w/ your day 1 guy. Even if you go in there with your 70. You can bang vs someone on a big man and probably play defense on them, but unless you are wide open, on the break, etc... your dude will just cough up the ball to them or miss the shot, get blocked, etc.

The gap is gigantic between 60 and 90. That's like the scrubbiest dude in the game vs a superstar, and it plays like that.

I can afford VC, too, but I'm not going to buy it. There could at least be a separate place for non-bought VC. If someone worked to get their 90 by playing 24/7 I'm cool with that. They deserve it.

It's fun to play vs high rated dudes on your low rated dude (I'm 75 now, jeaaarrr), but there are plenty of auto fails and auto successes that drive me wild.

Would be nice if a higher rated guy was capable of more things, and the low rated guy could still be able to do one thing decently. Like a high rated big man could drop step, back you in, turn both ways and shoot fade aways/hooks... but that's not what happens. What happens is you have a guy that is super touchy even with lay ups. I miss fast break dunks.

I mean, you'll get up to 90 if you play right. You can prolly still get an A+ every time, I usually do... but your record won't be great and it'll be frustrating when 2k decides you fail because of ratings, instead of letting you make a lay up or shoot a shot (dudes will just take the ball from you.)

-Smak

[335TDC]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I would like to contribute as well.

Drop the mic and walk off stage. One of the clearest explanations of what's wrong with the current VC model, and what's wrong with MyGM, that exists.

No ripping on 2k's business model, no hyperbole, just plain ole good analysis.

[Mweemwee]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

I would like to contribute as well.

Everything you just said it absolutely spot on.

It's a shame you can't sticky posts inside of a thread because your post is the best representation of our argument.

Bravo.

[Saxongirl]

Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words

Thank you all very much.