Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

[Mikelopedia]

While this is probably the best 5 on 5 user vs CPU gameplay of any 2k, every user is different so tweaking some sliders has always been useful.

This year however I recently noticed that adjusting ANY slider even by 1 (enough to change the difficulty setting from Hall of Fame to Custom) dramatically changes the gameplay. "Custom" becomes a significantly easier experience than "Hall of Fame" despite making the most minimal slider adjustments.

Let me show you the numbers I have to back this up..

For the first few weeks of playing the game I didnt make any slider adjustments and played 12 minute quarters on Hall of Fame. Play Now mode only.
Gameplay was great and made much better by tendency adjustments I made to each team I played to make each player play more like themselves. I won maybe 10 times out of 25 games. Each game shooting 40-48% while the CPU shot 46-55%. Stats looked good across the board with my tendency and ratings edits except maybe too few steals.

So I bumped CPU 3 point shooting down to 49, mid range to 49, and increased User and CPU steals to 47. That's it.
The next handful of games were absolute cake walks. I was undefeated and never shot less than 50% while the CPU never shot more than 46% . Hmm...

So here's the test I ran. Over the past few days I played 20 games. All Heat(user) vs Celtics(cpu). Boring, but had to control the variables of course lol.
First 10 games were on Hall of Fame, no slider adjustments, 12 min quarters.
Record: 3-7
Avg. User FG%: 44%
Avg CPU FG%: 50%
Avg User 3pt %: 32%
Avg CPU 3pt %: 43%
Avg CPU Assists per game: 25
Avg CPU FTs per game: 22
Irving averaged 31ppg, Hayward 22ppg

Next, I played 10 games, again always as the Heat vs Celtics, 12 min quarters, Hall of Fame, increased user ball security to 30, thats it! No shooting sliders or Off/Def Awr or Consistency were touched at all.
Record: 10-0
Avg. User FG%: 51%
Avg CPU FG%: 40%
Avg User 3pt %: 46%
Avg CPU 3pt %: 19%
Avg CPU Assists per game: 16
Avg CPU FTs per game: 11
Irving averaged 19ppg, Hayward 12ppg

As you can see, theres a bug somewhere as the game treats the "custom" setting as a completely new difficulty setting no matter how minor the slider adjustments are.
While it still may be true what DaCzar said that you can keep HOF ACE impact by adjusting sliders from a HOF base, there is nothing Hall of Fame about those last 10 games.

Has anyone else experienced this? I have not checked if this affects Superstar or All Star in the same way.

[Crossover1]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Usually I'd say this is just placebo but I did notice the CPU percentage would plummet significantly once I changed it's midrange and 3 point slider to a 49.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Operation Sports mobile app

[Mikelopedia]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Usually I'd say this is just placebo but I did notice the CPU percentage would plummet significantly once I changed it's midrange and 3 point slider to a 49.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Operation Sports mobile app

Of course, which is why I tested it so much. But this was even without touching shooting sliders. Also, in the 2nd set of 10 games, I was giving less effort in regards to closeouts, daring them to make a shot, and they still would shoot horribly.

And its not like it was just a few outlier games dragging the average up or down. The first 10 were as consistent as the 2nd 10.

[Retropyro]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Could it also be, that your own play on both ends of the court just got better during that time?

I know for me the first 10 or so games I played, my numbers weren't great and the cpu was pretty solid. But then as I got back into 2K, my numbers improved and play on defense nullified the cpu more and more.

Perhaps take a step back and do another 10 with the original default settings you were using and compare them to the first 10.

[DreamAgain]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

I proposed this question a few weeks ago and still have no idea the answer but they said ACE features turn on for superstar/hall of fame and off for easier difficulties.. what happens when you make a custom slider?! Is it on or off?

[Smirkin Dirk]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

I proposed this question a few weeks ago and still have no idea the answer but they said ACE features turn on for superstar/hall of fame and off for easier difficulties.. what happens when you make a custom slider?! Is it on or off?

Start off at HOF, then adjust sliders, and you'll get full ACE

[Luke Skywalker]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

I have not noticed this at all. I use custom sliders, I try to replicate MyTeam experience because I love how the game plays and challenges you in the Domination mode.

I noticed that all the attributes and ratings for every player is -5 for the current player cards, so I did just that with my sliders. I took the Hall of Fame setting and -5 every single slider (minus tendencies, fouls, defense, etc).

This game plays GREAT!

[Luke Skywalker]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Start off at HOF, then adjust sliders, and you'll get full ACE

I did just that. Maybe that is why other people are experiencing issues.

[Crossover1]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

I noticed that all the attributes and ratings for every player is -5 for the current player cards, so I did just that with my sliders. I took the Hall of Fame setting and -5 every single slider (minus tendencies, fouls, defense, etc).

This game plays GREAT!

Unless something has changed this year, slider adjustments don't work like you think they do. A straight 1:1 is ideal but not how it works .

I'm not entirely sure what the exact figures are but for every single change you make in slider adjustments, it is the equivalent (or average?) of about +/- 1.666... in ratings difference.

I believe they had to do so because player ratings start at 25. If you raise all the sliders to a 67-68, all players would receive a +25 boost to every attribute that can be raised with sliders. That will also give you a minimum/baseline rating of 50, and anyone 74 or above will be maxed out at 99 .

So if you change the lateral quickness slider to 0/100, every player will have a rating of 25/99 respectively.

There was a thread about 5 years ago explaining this so it might be outdated now but I'll see if I can dig it up.

I did just that. Maybe that is why other people are experiencing issues.

I always play on HOF or adjust sliders from that difficulty, so no that's not the issue.

[Luke Skywalker]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Unless something has changed this year, slider adjustments don't work like you think they do. A straight 1:1 is ideal but not how it works .

I'm not entirely sure what the exact figures are but for every single change you make in slider adjustments, it is the equivalent (or average?) of about +/- 1.666... in ratings difference.

I believe they had to do so because player ratings start at 25. If you raise all the sliders to a 67-68, all players would receive a +25 boost to every attribute that can be raised with sliders. That will also give you a minimum/baseline rating of 50, and anyone 74 or above will be maxed out at 99 .

So if you change the lateral quickness slider to 0/100, every player will have a rating of 25/99 respectively.

There was a thread about 5 years ago explaining this so it might be outdated now but I'll see if I can dig it up.

I always play on HOF or adjust sliders from that difficulty, so no that's not the issue.

Please do, I want to somehow make the players play like they do on MyTeam, which is adjusting their ratings.

I always thought this:

If the player has a 76 On Ball Defense rating, then with the slider set at 50, it's the baseline rating. However, if I drop the 50 down to 45, the rating then becomes 71 for that player.

[Crossover1]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Please do, I want to somehow make the players play like they do on MyTeam, which is adjusting their ratings.

I always thought this:

If the player has a 76 On Ball Defense rating, then with the slider set at 50, it's the baseline rating. However, if I drop the 50 down to 45, the rating then becomes 71 for that player.

Found it.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...fficients.html

So it is an average of about 1.5 and not 1.666 like I thought. Makes even less sense but I remember testing this out for myself at the time and this was legit.

I've always wondered why this thread didn't take off like it should have. It would've helped so many roster/slider guys. I've always used it to even out CPU ratings with the user's to cut out the BS, but when they took out the ability to see the adjustments they made for CPU boosts I pretty much stopped playing the CPU since.

[Mikelopedia]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

Could it also be, that your own play on both ends of the court just got better during that time?

I know for me the first 10 or so games I played, my numbers weren't great and the cpu was pretty solid. But then as I got back into 2K, my numbers improved and play on defense nullified the cpu more and more.

Perhaps take a step back and do another 10 with the original default settings you were using and compare them to the first 10.

Thats a fair point usually, but in this case no. These werent my first 10 games, Ive been playing alot over the first few weeks. Also, as I said in my 2nd post, I was leaving the CPU open on purpose at times in the 2nd 10 games, yet Kyrie was still consistently going around 9/27 throughout those games.

I've also played 6 games since that test, each on default Hall of Fame, and again its a significantly more challenging experience.

[antdoggydogg]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

So I think I might have experienced the same thing as Mike. The first thing I like to do every year is play a full 48 minute game with 2 Modern teams on default Hall-of-Fame difficulty and sliders. This way I can take a look at the stats at the end of the game and decide what sliders I need to adjust from there. This year I played with the Celtics against the Lakers.

I believe I beat them 103 to 89. Something like that, here is the box score.


I hadn't touched any sliders at this point, I felt like for the first time ever the game was very easy on Hall-of-Fame, but considering the talent disparity between the two teams, I was okay with it. I adjusted foul sliders a bit along with very tiny slider adjustments for awareness, etc. I did not touch shooting sliders.

From this point I like to play with classic teams that I won't be using in a legends league. So I start off with my 2008 Celtics against the 86 Bulls. Full 48 minute game, Hall-of-Fame base difficulty with custom sliders. And I always play on the opposing teams home floor. The final score was 92 to 46!!!


And no I'm not the best 2K player in the world, I always struggle with Hall-of-Fame difficulty. I was shocked at how bad the Bulls played, but I decided they didn't have enough outside shooting and I was packing the paint and forcing them to chuck jumpers with bad shooters. I moved on to the next matchup while turning up foul sliders even more. I played against the 89 Bulls next. The game was not as close as the final box score would lead you to believe, I was up by 20 most of the game until they closed the gap in the 4th quarter.



Okay, Jordan and Pippen were still young and they were going against one of the best defenses of all-time, fine. A 10 point win seems normal. I played against the 91 Championship Bulls next:



Again, I was up by 20 most of the game until they closed the gap late in the fourth quarter. I couldn't pinpoint what the problem is, we shot around the same low percentage. I think at this point I started believing that these classic teams that are missing ACE are a little dumber than the modern teams. But enough of the Bulls, I tried playing against the 91 Lakers next.



This game started off strong, I thought I was going to have my hands full against this team, things were all tied up after the first half. It definitely felt like more of a challenge than the previous Bulls teams were. But then the 2nd half started and once again I blew the other team out. I was disappointed, I played against the 93 Bulls next.



My biggest lead was 16, that's a lot lower than my biggest lead in all the other games. And I only won by 7, not bad. But I still remain undefeated, and without all that much effort. I played against the 97 Heat next.



This was the toughest matchup I've had up to this point, I actually trailed for most of the game and struggled to contain their big-men. Alonzo was killing me and if it wasn't for him getting injured near the end I probably would have lost. I felt like I was finally getting a real challenge now, and that me winning had a lot to do with how great the team I was using is/was. I played the 98 Lakers next for my first loss.



The game went to overtime so I wanted to record 48 minute stats only (for slider adjusting purposes). Shaq was just too difficult to stop. But lets look at the final tally now, and again I am not trying to brag about my stick skills, I probably am as good as the average 2K player:

W-L
7-1

I won 7 out of 8 games on HOF difficulty, with adjusted sliders. I beat/dominated 6 out of 7 classic teams with relative ease. 3 of those 7 teams were good enough to get to the NBA finals in real life, 2 won a championship. I understand the team I was using was also historically great, but something feels off. Especially with those early Jordan teams, it was too easy to blow them out. I don't know whether to attribute it to the Bulls only having 2 stars on those teams while my team had 3 Hall of Famers, or whether the difficulty really does revert to something easier if you change the sliders at all. I mean it's very plausible that the 2008 Celtics would have the same kind of success stopping those other offenses, especially since they didn't take as many 3's back then.

[Synonimms]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

There's definitely something off. I play and run cpu vs. cpu sims on superstar, and outside of the constant 20-rebound games and low turnovers, the stats are pretty on point.

But when I lowered the defensive awareness sliders, I noticed that the CPU's shooting would plummet to the upper 30's, lower 40's. How does your shooting get worse when I turned down your defense!?

I haven't recorded the stats for these games yet, but I'm definitely going to now.

[cam21224]

Re: Minimal Slider Changes have a Negative Impact

I've tinkered with a couple of sliders after starting on HOF default and I'm not seeing this type of stuff at all.

In fact I just got blown out twice back to back one to Golden State the other to Toronto.