Re: Official NBA 2k18 MyLeague/MyGm Thread
I plan on controlling all 30 teams (letting AI handle rotations and stuff, but I'll be doing the drafting, free agency, trading, and staff management for all 30 while controlling all aspects of my Bucks), so some of the issues (ex: it being way too easy to sign free agents) won't really impact me much.
However, I simmed a bunch of seasons to check out some of the issues and some of the things I noticed:
1. My lord Lonzo turns into a basketball god in this game. He pretty much won MVP every season after his first 2 years, averaging roughly 22/15 per game and the Lakers basically turned into the Steve Nash Suns, except they were actually winning titles. My 2nd season had Lakers vs. 76ers in the Finals.
2. Seems like a lot of people are reporting that Durant leaves the Warriors after the first season and that's the same experience I've had. In my two MyLeagues, Durant signed with the Pacers in one (and the Pacers were the 2nd worst team in the NBA) and the Nets in the other. Again, this doesn't really impact me since I'll be controlling free agency, but still.
3. Seems like a **** ton of 1 and 2 year contracts for role player types.
4. Obviously we already know this by now, but the draft and stash issue did arise for me.
5. Also had the draft classes that had 85-90 overall rookies at the top.
6. Seems like the draft and stash guys are perhaps a bit OP by the time they come over. More on that below.
7. AI teams actually ended up with some busts. More on that below.
8. The Most Improved Award is broken. Every year, the top 5 candidates are guys who have seen very little or zero improvement at all. For example, you'll see a guy win it after improving his averages from 15/6 to 15.2/6.2, and this is the case every season.
The draft classes are of most importance to me since I can control the free agency kinda stuff myself, so looking at that more:
A lot of draft classes appear to have 1 player around a 90 overall, and then roughly 1 80-82 overall guy and a bunch of 70s after that. Obviously a 90 overall is a bit excessive for a rookie, but on the flipside, in my limited experience, they at least don't develop very much. For example, the Kings drafted a guy that was a 91 overall. 4 years later, he was a 93 overall. Obviously he's still a stud, but point being, it doesn't appear that these Superman-esq prospects are turning the NBA into a league full of GOATs. The guys in the upper 70s/lower 80s seem to develop much better. I saw some guys that started in that range developing to the 87-89 range within 4 years.
Also, an easy workaround if you don't want to deal with a rookie being that high for this is to just hit "Create/Edit Draft Class", see if the draft class has realistic looking overalls, and if it does, save that draft class. If it has a 90+ overall guy and you don't want it, back out and then select "Create/Edit Draft Class" again, and rinse and repeat until you find one with realistic looking overalls. For my 2nd test league, I did that and then I'd select the "Create Storylines" thing so that the overalls might be slightly tweaked from what I had seen so that it would still be a surprise for me.
Also, for the first time that I can really remember, the AI controlled teams actually ended up with some busts. For example, I saw a couple teams end up with guys in the 60s despite having a top 5 pick while much higher rated players were available later.
Regarding the draft-and-stash bug, it appears that it occurs only when the prospect's European contract is set to expire, so for example, if you select a guy that will be stashed for 3 years, his duplicate won't show up until 3 years in. No matter how many draft classes you generate via the "Create/Edit Draft Class" option, those stash glitch guys will still be there. However, it's pretty easy to identify who these players are by scrolling through the prospect list. I'm not in front of my PS4 right now, but it looks like their contract status is listed as "Eurostash N/A" or something like that instead of it saying "Eurostash 2 years" like the regular draft-and-stash guys. So it would be relatively easy to scroll through the draft and just edit those glitch guys and turn them into different prospects. Obviously I would hope that 2K will fix this, but editing 1-5 prospects in each draft class isn't all that bad.
While we're on the topic of draft-and-stash guys, it seems that they develop at a much faster rate than regular prospects. For example, a rookie in the NBA might see their ratings increase by like 1-3 points per year in their developmental years. I drafted a guy that was stashed in Europe for 2 years before coming over. I love that these players show up on your roster so that you can see how they're developing even while overseas. As a result, I learned that the 66 overall PG that I had selected had developed from a 66 to a 75 in one season. By the time he came over from Europe, he had blossomed into an 80 overall. 14 points in 2 seasons is way above any of the American prospects that I've come across and this kind of development was pretty consistent with all the draft-and-stash guys that I picked (probably 3 or 4 of them in total).
All in all, I've been relatively happy with the auto-generated draft classes. This is the first time in the past 7ish years that I might actually consider using a generated draft class. Prospects look far more realistic than years past and there seems to be a decent variety of prospect types. I've seen some 5'10" PGs trying to make it in the NBA (one of which was an absolute stud for the Raptors after DeRozen and Lowry both left), seen some 6'7" PGs, seen some 7'3" godlike center prospects while others are more like the 6'9" 7'4" wingspan variety.
I plan on controlling all 30 teams (letting AI handle rotations and stuff, but I'll be doing the drafting, free agency, trading, and staff management for all 30 while controlling all aspects of my Bucks), so some of the issues (ex: it being way too easy to sign free agents) won't really impact me much.
However, I simmed a bunch of seasons to check out some of the issues and some of the things I noticed:
1. My lord Lonzo turns into a basketball god in this game. He pretty much won MVP every season after his first 2 years, averaging roughly 22/15 per game and the Lakers basically turned into the Steve Nash Suns, except they were actually winning titles. My 2nd season had Lakers vs. 76ers in the Finals.
2. Seems like a lot of people are reporting that Durant leaves the Warriors after the first season and that's the same experience I've had. In my two MyLeagues, Durant signed with the Pacers in one (and the Pacers were the 2nd worst team in the NBA) and the Nets in the other. Again, this doesn't really impact me since I'll be controlling free agency, but still.
3. Seems like a **** ton of 1 and 2 year contracts for role player types.
4. Obviously we already know this by now, but the draft and stash issue did arise for me.
5. Also had the draft classes that had 85-90 overall rookies at the top.
6. Seems like the draft and stash guys are perhaps a bit OP by the time they come over. More on that below.
7. AI teams actually ended up with some busts. More on that below.
8. The Most Improved Award is broken. Every year, the top 5 candidates are guys who have seen very little or zero improvement at all. For example, you'll see a guy win it after improving his averages from 15/6 to 15.2/6.2, and this is the case every season.
The draft classes are of most importance to me since I can control the free agency kinda stuff myself, so looking at that more:
A lot of draft classes appear to have 1 player around a 90 overall, and then roughly 1 80-82 overall guy and a bunch of 70s after that. Obviously a 90 overall is a bit excessive for a rookie, but on the flipside, in my limited experience, they at least don't develop very much. For example, the Kings drafted a guy that was a 91 overall. 4 years later, he was a 93 overall. Obviously he's still a stud, but point being, it doesn't appear that these Superman-esq prospects are turning the NBA into a league full of GOATs. The guys in the upper 70s/lower 80s seem to develop much better. I saw some guys that started in that range developing to the 87-89 range within 4 years.
Also, an easy workaround if you don't want to deal with a rookie being that high for this is to just hit "Create/Edit Draft Class", see if the draft class has realistic looking overalls, and if it does, save that draft class. If it has a 90+ overall guy and you don't want it, back out and then select "Create/Edit Draft Class" again, and rinse and repeat until you find one with realistic looking overalls. For my 2nd test league, I did that and then I'd select the "Create Storylines" thing so that the overalls might be slightly tweaked from what I had seen so that it would still be a surprise for me.
Also, for the first time that I can really remember, the AI controlled teams actually ended up with some busts. For example, I saw a couple teams end up with guys in the 60s despite having a top 5 pick while much higher rated players were available later.
Regarding the draft-and-stash bug, it appears that it occurs only when the prospect's European contract is set to expire, so for example, if you select a guy that will be stashed for 3 years, his duplicate won't show up until 3 years in. No matter how many draft classes you generate via the "Create/Edit Draft Class" option, those stash glitch guys will still be there. However, it's pretty easy to identify who these players are by scrolling through the prospect list. I'm not in front of my PS4 right now, but it looks like their contract status is listed as "Eurostash N/A" or something like that instead of it saying "Eurostash 2 years" like the regular draft-and-stash guys. So it would be relatively easy to scroll through the draft and just edit those glitch guys and turn them into different prospects. Obviously I would hope that 2K will fix this, but editing 1-5 prospects in each draft class isn't all that bad.
While we're on the topic of draft-and-stash guys, it seems that they develop at a much faster rate than regular prospects. For example, a rookie in the NBA might see their ratings increase by like 1-3 points per year in their developmental years. I drafted a guy that was stashed in Europe for 2 years before coming over. I love that these players show up on your roster so that you can see how they're developing even while overseas. As a result, I learned that the 66 overall PG that I had selected had developed from a 66 to a 75 in one season. By the time he came over from Europe, he had blossomed into an 80 overall. 14 points in 2 seasons is way above any of the American prospects that I've come across and this kind of development was pretty consistent with all the draft-and-stash guys that I picked (probably 3 or 4 of them in total).
All in all, I've been relatively happy with the auto-generated draft classes. This is the first time in the past 7ish years that I might actually consider using a generated draft class. Prospects look far more realistic than years past and there seems to be a decent variety of prospect types. I've seen some 5'10" PGs trying to make it in the NBA (one of which was an absolute stud for the Raptors after DeRozen and Lowry both left), seen some 6'7" PGs, seen some 7'3" godlike center prospects while others are more like the 6'9" 7'4" wingspan variety.
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