Couple ideas for spicing things up -- got any to share?

[vetmin]

Thought I'd share a couple things I'm gonna try out this year in my MyLeague, in case it's of interest to anyone in their own playthroughs. Also, if you have other ideas, please share.

MAKE COACH RATINGS MATTER

Apply a formula to coach and assistant coach ratings that result in forced wins for positively ranked staffs and forced losses for negatively ranked staffs. What I'm gonna try initially is:

- Treat A+ -> F as the numbers 1 -> 13.
- Average out the Offense, Defense, and Potential of the head coach ("HC_RTG"), then also of the assistant coach ("AC_RTG").
- Run 0.75(HC_RTG) + 0.25(AC_RTG).
- Round up or down and then use the following scale of forced wins/losses:
--- 1: 18 wins
--- 2: 15 wins
--- 3: 12 wins
--- 4: 9 wins
--- 5: 6 wins
--- 6: 3 wins
--- 7: 0 wins/losses
--- 8: 3 losses
--- 9: 6 losses
--- 10: 9 losses
--- 11: 12 losses
--- 12: 15 losses
--- 13: 18 losses
- Assign the forced wins/losses for each team at the beginning of each season. Each group of 3 should be a win/loss to a bad team, an average team, and a good team (as judged by your pre-season common sense).

The overall point is that, while player talent is still the #1 factor in team success in the NBA, around 25% of the teams wins/losses could be swayed by good or bad coaching. I'm just making up that number, but it feels right and I suspect that it'd play out pretty well in 2K. Thoughts? Too conservative?

BADGE OVERHAUL

I experimented with the system below in 2K21, but even though the in-game results were nice, it wasn't practical for multiple seasons on console, so I ditched it, but I'm committing to it in 2K22 because I'm on PC now where it can be maintained using NBA 2K Tools. Maybe useless to many of you folks, but thought I'd share just because what the heck.

(Optional Pre-Steps: Make a spreadsheet with all the badges in the game laid out -- of course omitting any that you think are stupid or OP and that you don't want in your roster -- then choose one person per badge for who is the best player in the NBA for that skill/ability, max of 3 per player. Don't do this for Floor General and Defensive Leader; instead make a short list of deserving players for each of those badges, and try to limit it to guys who have/had real MVP- or DPOY-level talent/potential, like CP3, Harden, LeBron, etc. for Floor General, and Gobert, Giannis, Draymond, etc. for Defensive Leader.)

Step 1: Make sure that every player's primary positions are in good shape. You should do this anyway, but definitely do it before doing any of the stuff below.

Step 2: Use the following scale for Intangibles ratings, based on position:
--- PG: 85
--- SG: 75
--- SF: 65
--- PF: 75
--- C...
------ 6'11" or taller: 75
------ 6'10": 80
------ 6'9": 85
------ 6'8": 90
------ 6'7": 95
------ 6'6" or shorter: 99

The purpose of this scale is to neutralize 2K's positional biases in calculating OVR.

Step 3: Delete all badges. Personality Badges can stay, if you want, but it's easier to just delete them with everything else. It's not like they matter anyway.

Step 4: Now that every player has their "true" OVR, use the following scale for how many Bronze, Silver, and Gold badges each player deserves...

OVR // B, S, G

72- // (no badges)
73 // 1
74 // 2
75 // 3
76 // 2, 1
77 // 1, 2
78 // 1, 1, 1
79 // 2, 1, 1
80 // 1, 2, 1
81 // 2, 2, 1
82 // 1, 3, 1
83 // 1, 2, 2
84 // 2, 2, 2
85 // 1, 3, 2
86 // 1, 2, 3
87 // 2, 2, 3
88 // 1, 3, 3
89 // 2, 3, 3
90 // 3, 3, 3
90+ // (same as 90)

Step 5: Assign badges to each player according to their top 3 strengths, as displayed in the Roster view. Go in order from top strength to bottom strength, from Gold to Bronze. So, if your guy is an 82 with the strengths 3-pt Scoring (top), Inside Scoring (middle), Perimeter Defense (bottom), he might be assigned:

-- Gold: Catch & Shoot (for 3pt)
-- Silver: Fearless Finisher (for Inside)
-- Silver: Clamps (for Perimeter D)
-- Silver: Chef (for 3pt)
-- Bronze: Slithery Finisher (for Inside)

I've been using the default badges, listed at 2kRatings.com, as a rough guide of what badges are in the realm of possibility for each guy, since I'm no expert on every NBA player's strengths and weaknesses. Also, there's gray area about which badges go with certain strengths, like, I treat Lob City Finisher as both an Inside Scoring and Athleticism Badge. "Basketball IQ" in particular is a pretty nebulous strength that you could take different approaches to (even omitting it and just cycling back and forth between the other 2 strengths).

(Optional Step 5.5: You should do this prior to Step 5, but it's easier to explain here: As a completely separate matter from the badge-scaling above, assign HoF badges for any players who you chose as the best for that particular badge [see Optional Pre-Steps above]. Also, add Gold Floor General and/or Defensive Leader to anyone who you decide is deserving of it. You could do HoF there too but I think might be OP and also I hate the percentages thing on HoF. Personally, I don't assign Bronze or Silver Floor General or Defensive Leader to anyone; it's off limits for normal badge assignment; only the Gold guys get it.)

[NOTE: The max number is badges is 14. That would be if a guy is rated 90 or higher (in which case he gets 3 Gold, 3 Silver, and 3 Bronze badges, per the scale above), is the best in the NBA at the max of 3 badges [so that's 3 HoF badges, bringing the total to 12 badges so far], and is both a Floor General and Defensive Leader (2 Golds, bringing the total number of badges to 14).]

Step 6: Freely adjust Intangibles now as needed to get realistic rotations. Durant's, for instance, should be 25. His rating is through the roof, but he shouldn't be playing 46 minutes per night.

In conclusion: The above sounds elaborate and complicated, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to get a feel for it, given how formulaic it is (it takes me about 15 minutes to completely overhaul a 100% default team on the official roster). Indeed, that's the point, really, in that it's a way to maintain reasonable badge distribution / progression / regression without having to use formulas with real-world stats, which is obviously impossible if you're playing years into the future of your franchise. Most importantly, it plays very well, since there are enough badges for guys' special skills to pop without the league being wildly uneven in terms of overpowered and underpowered players.

The problem with this approach on console is that every offseason, 2K's progression system completely botches your badges. That's not unique to this badge overhaul, but to any, and for that reason I was always either a no-badge or default-badge guy, because it's just too much of a pain to micromanage badge overhauls every offseason. 2K Tools on PC allows for more modularity in terms of 'Player DNA' though, so that it's easy enough to just transfer the Badge overhaul back into the roster after 2K's progression screws it up, rather than having to do it all again manually, though of course you would have to manually take account of which players have improved or gotten worse, so that their badges can progress / regress accordingly.

For those who don't mind maintaining a Badge overhaul on console though, give this one a shot with a couple teams and run some test games to see if you like it.

[cmebfresh]

I dig this idea especially for the badges


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