Re: The VC issue - perfectly put in words
I would like to contribute as well.
Spoiler
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:
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.
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:
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.
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