PGA 2K25 Can't Squander Hot Start With VC Greed

[misterkrabz2]

Re: PGA 2K25 Can't Squander Hot Start With VC Greed

I bought the game early because I loved the demo. And as I was playing the game that week I was really enjoying the progression. The upgrades were coming in fast and furious and I got my buffed to a 91 overall. And thought to myself that 2k has really turned the corner and this is great and I had already started plotting out what my next "my Player" might look like and how I would progress him differently. Then they patched out the fun. Now the prospect of actually building another My Player and evolve him to something competitive is so far away that it's sort of demoralizing. I don't play 24x7, I don't grind career mode and I don't pay to win....so that leaves me on the outside looking in. I still have fun with the game but I'm not crazy inspired to fire it up...same thing happened to me with the EA golf, the player progression came to a drop dead halt and the time and energy it took to continue to move the needle was so daunting it just sort of drove me to stop playing it. It's crazy how the "reward" system is what keeps you drawn to and playing the game.

[Limadawg]

Re: PGA 2K25 Can't Squander Hot Start With VC Greed

I bought the game early because I loved the demo. And as I was playing the game that week I was really enjoying the progression. The upgrades were coming in fast and furious and I got my buffed to a 91 overall. And thought to myself that 2k has really turned the corner and this is great and I had already started plotting out what my next "my Player" might look like and how I would progress him differently. Then they patched out the fun. Now the prospect of actually building another My Player and evolve him to something competitive is so far away that it's sort of demoralizing. I don't play 24x7, I don't grind career mode and I don't pay to win....so that leaves me on the outside looking in. I still have fun with the game but I'm not crazy inspired to fire it up...same thing happened to me with the EA golf, the player progression came to a drop dead halt and the time and energy it took to continue to move the needle was so daunting it just sort of drove me to stop playing it. It's crazy how the "reward" system is what keeps you drawn to and playing the game.

Perfectly said! I have my player at 95 as of now. I wanted to go through all of the different archtypes but at the pace its at now that's never gonna happen. I only get to play maybe 6 hours in a week max with more time on weekends. Not gonna spend my time grinding. This update has essentially ruined the game for me. I just don't look forward to playing it much anymore. Once the show comes out Friday this game witll never be touched.

[golfnut67]

Re: PGA 2K25 Can't Squander Hot Start With VC Greed

Just read every post in this thread. Disheartening. I get my copy on Monday, after not being at all interested in it after playing the demo for less than an hour. I'm still having fun every day with EA in spite of it's many faults, but after reading so many posts about how great the game play is, I decided to jump in.

At least I only paid $40 for a new disc without the packaging. I'm really hoping they do something about this VC issue.


For long time respected and uber knowledgeable members here to be stating emphatically that this is a major issue, especially members that display an incredible amount of etiquette and restraint when commenting on games, then it most certainly is a major issue indeed.

[Dawgfan1]

Re: PGA 2K25 Can't Squander Hot Start With VC Greed

I did some research this past week to give a proper estimate of just how much VC was removed from quests, since the 90-95% I had previously estimated seemed pretty off after further info came forward that there was more VC in the quests than we had thought.

TLDR at the top: based on my research, I found that pre-nerf there was ~51.5k VC found in quests outside daily and weekly quests, and post-nerf there is ~36.5k VC. If you did every daily and weekly in a week pre-nerf you'd get 3875 VC, post-nerf you get 1800 VC. If you combine the two and measure how much VC you'd get by doing every quest over a week, there has been a reduction of ~30% of VC in quests post-nerf. With regards to the progression of your character to 99 OVR, I'm claiming a 40-50% reduction of VC through quests because some quests don't really count towards progression (i.e. the quests for getting your character to a certain OVR, you're basically spending VC to get VC back there).

If we combine everything that the VC nerf did to progression in this game, it's the following: a 40-50% reduction in progression through quests (1.7-2x slower), a 40% reduction in VC/hole (1.7x slower), and a 40% hike in AP costs (1.4x slower). That is, if my estimates are correct, a total of a 4-4.8x reduction in progression from pre-nerf to post-nerf, which if we're going by the claim 2K made that people were progressing 5x faster than intended in early access, means they did not actually overcorrect on the nerf to a level slower than they intended (ignoring opinions on if that intended level is too slow).

That said, I'll adjust my claim that they overcorrected on the VC nerf (not saying the current rate of progression is fine tho) to saying that they went about it in the wrong way. Should have nerfed XP gain/hole instead of VC gain/hole, and raising the price of all cosmetics in the store was a greedy move that has nothing to do with "competitive integrity and balance". These 2x XP weekends, while probably something planned well in advance, are also making the issue worse. Also I was just way way off with my initial estimate, I should have looked more into the quests before claiming that.

For those curious about exactly the main changes made to the quests post-nerf: they basically took almost all VC out of MyCareer quests, cut down the amount of VC you could get from daily and weekly quests, and removed some quests that gave you 600 or 4k VC (pretty dumb imo). Some small tweaks elsewhere but that's the bulk of it.

My Google Sheet with the info I could find for all quests in the game, pre-nerf and post-nerf, is here for those who want to check my work - https://shorturl.at/9yPfj - I had to make a lot of assumptions in some parts so some of it could be pretty off, but I think the quests with big VC rewards I have mostly accounted for.