Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

[Steve_OS]

Prior to the advent of card-collecting modes or single-player campaigns, the most anticipated mode in a...

Written By: Brandon Kosal

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[Gramps91]

This is still, by far, my most played mode. I appreciate the ability to use sliders but it sure would save time if it worked more realistically right out of the box. I haven't played around with the sliders but I have ran a few test MyLeagues myself to see how things pan out. A.I of the CPU simulation decisions is what needs to be most improved. If there's a free agent as good as Julius Randle available a team should definitely have picked him up before the season starts. Even simulation wins and losses from non controlled teams can be pretty wonky at times. Of the test MyLeagues I ran it seemed kinda inconsistent as to whether it was unrealistic or more spot-on. So, I'd say A.I. decisions of CPU, more realistic contracts, and more consistent sim stats are what's most important for me as far as needing to be improved. There also seems to be an issue with an unrealistic number of G-League players becoming eventual all-stars but again, this seems inconsistent. I still haven't started my official MyLeague yet for this year as I have been hoping and waiting a patch may come out to address some of these issues with the default sliders. It's likely I'll start within the next 2 or 3 weeks regardless as I'm really eager to get started. 

[bucknut7]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

The most glaring is that after 10 years of sim, 80-89 rated players shot from 60 total in Y1 to 233 in Y10. Like, did they do any testing? It's great to give us sliders, but it feels like they're just saying "we don't feel like putting any effort into this, so you guys figure it out."

[Barncore]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

At the start of season 11, 17 teams were more than $60 million over the salary cap, with a handful of those teams $100 million or more over. That probably has something to do with the diluted talent pool. Out of the box, 2K19 features 60 players rated between 80-89. But by the start of the 2028-2029 season, that number shot from 60 to 233. That likely helps explain why so many teams are way over the cap as there are so many players that fall into max or near-max salary range. Sliders are definitely needed to help fix this.

There are so many variables at play, and some things aren't related to sliders.

Other factors contributing to it:
-Roster (most players reaching their potential rather than busting)
-G-League and euro-stash guys progressing 7-8 pts overall. It's not uncommon to see a random G-League get up to 80ovrl within 1 or 2 seasons. There's probably like 5 or so of these guys per offseason. This is creating a big misbalance where obscure players are taking up space in the league. It's cool that random guys break out every now and then but it's far too common at the moment, and it shouldn't be limited to just G-Leaguers and euro-stashes.
-Player peaks are ending too late (this is a roster issue. 2K's roster by default has a lot of guys that start their decline too late, so they stick around in the league too long. In general, a player's peak would start around 25 and end around 30, give or take a year or 2. It should be rare to see player peak ends at 33 and beyond.

I'd be interested to try and compare how many injuries there are in MyLeague compared to real life. I suspect there's way less in MyLeague, possibly half. Perhaps injury frequency needs to be increased in the MyLeague sliders so that it creates more space and keeps the oversaturation of talent at bay.

[haloofduty]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

The most glaring is that after 10 years of sim, 80-89 rated players shot from 60 total in Y1 to 233 in Y10. Like, did they do any testing? It's great to give us sliders, but it feels like they're just saying "we don't feel like putting any effort into this, so you guys figure it out."

I agree. Although I love myleague customization I feel like we have to figure out everything instead of things just being fixed. I don't really feel like myleague changed at all. Needs better presentation for increased immersion.
Customizing sometimes gives me headaches. Sometimes I just want to play instead of adjusting things.

[trekfan]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

There are a number of issues remaining in MyLeague that need to be adjusted -- the ages of imported draft classes with historical players, the inability to upload created alternate jerseys and use them, the contract extensions for rookies (which, yes, can't be done during the offseason but you should be able to extend the rookie's rookie scale contract in the regular season, as was recently demonstrated by the T'Wolves with KAT -- it is impossible to do that at this moment however for any rookies, as the game tells you that the they don't have the right amount of years (4) on their original contract but the correct amount is 4).




More attention to these and other issues across multiple game modes is needed. We're all just sitting here waiting on a Patch to fix things but there's been little communication either through direct postings here, on twitter or reddit, or via 2K support (which, as per usual, is a mixed bag of responses).





If OS is going to do an article on NBA 2K, I think one focusing on the remaining issues with the game and bringing attention to that (hopefully garnering an official response from 2K) would be more welcome by myself and the rest of the community.



For me at least, and probably some others, it feels like all the posts in the Bug and Glitches thread, the multiple 2K support tickets, and the multiple "Official Feedback" threads on reddit are just screaming into the void. The community needs video game journalists to highlight the continuing issues we're facing and bring attention to the issue that the makers of the game will have a hard time ignoring.



As nice as a MyTeam or MyLeague or MyCareer article is highlighting what's right with the mode, there should be articles to highlight what's still broken with those modes and those articles should be asking why they're still broken and what 2K's official stance is on it.

[eraserx13]

In your sim are you experiencing this bug beginning in year 2 where Centers in the draft are not ranked properly?
Prospect Bug - Centers Not Ranked and Drafted

Even with 100% scouting, the Centers end up not getting drafted by the CPU in simulation and they end up in the FA pool. Of course, the highly rated ones demand a ton of money and end up with bloated salaries. This along with the inflated talent pool, can lead to many teams over the salary cap after several years

[fzdoom]

I think, when it comes to too many players rated 80+, you just have to edit the drafts classes.  If you let 2K auto-create a draft class every year the potential ratings are too high.  I usually create my own and try to realistically edit the incoming rookies.  maybe a 90 potential on a couple of guys for instance, but after the lottery bring those potentials down to the low 80's - high 70's.  

[Comduklakis]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

it's a shame you have to go through what we do to enjoy the mode.

Right now the following are required to truly get a good franchise experience

1. User created rosters that focus on peaks and also tendencies.

2. great slider set for contracts, progression/regression, and trades (at this point I STILL can't find the trade slider set to make trades work like the do in the NBA: teams dumping salary instead of trading player for player like 2k often does).

3. user created fictional draft classes with more young players and lower ratings and potential

4. edit down G-league players

5. Create a random system to make more players bust out and a few boom (I use a system where each team protects 4 and I use a random number generator online to bump one player and regress on player per team far beyond the AI progression/regression system). It is just a little thing to let us see more Khris Middleton's and more Kwame Browns. Not every high pick pans out and some 2nd round guys (Dinwiddie is another) hit it big.

6. edit tendencies from year to year to fit the roster makeup of the team. It would be nice if the AI had the capability of adjusting shot tendencies based on the makeup of the squad. For example last year's Clippers would have an Austin Rivers with a high tendency to shoot while this year's Wizards would have the same player with much lower shot tendencies. One of the issues is that players don't grow in their aggressiveness to match the team's needs or their growth in other categories such as shooting skills.

[CaseIH]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

While I am happy that the devs added in sliders to help fix, or to try and fix some of the issues that have been part of the Association modes for yrs now.



Unfortunately I feel this gives them less incentive to actually fix the glaring issues that have plagued NBA2k forever. Once the online side of the game took off, and their gimic mode MyTeam, the actual game being a simulation of the NBA, seem to go right out the door.



Again I am happy they added in these sliders, but between trying to fix the Association mode with slider adjustments, on top of trying to fix gameplay with slider adjusting, has become a game in itself,lol. We spend, or atleast I do anyway, seem to spend almost all of the NBA season trying to get the game to play just right, that spring training has started and Im burnt out on NBA2k and ready for some baseball.

Yes, part of this is do to being so OCD about sim stats,lol. And it seems about the time I have gameplay sliders just right, or as close to being right as possible, the devs do a update, either with patch or tuner update thru a roster update that its back to square 1.



Obviously I have no idea the time it takes to make a video game, Im sure its very time consuming, but it seems they need either better testers, or more testers, so some of this stuff gets fixed. Quite frankly sometimes, I think they dont know how to fix it, so they just say say nothing when people point out these flaws, rather than admitting, they cant figure out how to fix it, or it possibly is just a flaw in the game/sim engine. That or they just ignore it, because there more concerned with the online side of things, because of the VC.


But, to give them some props, and not just point out all the negatives, is out of the 3 major sports, basketball, baseball and football, the devs of NBA2k do put more effort and have the deepest Franchise mode out of all the 3 major sports here in the US. So they do, do more than those other devs do, which is the sole reason I do still support them, and why its the only console video game I play now days, as I quit Madden yrs ago, and I quit buying MLBTS last yr due to lack of effort in Franchise mode by them. So atleast the NBA2k devs havent forgotten about us offline gamers completely, even though I do wish more effort was put into fixing some of the issues, that have plagued the series for a while now.

[Barncore]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

There are a number of issues remaining in MyLeague that need to be adjusted -- the ages of imported draft classes with historical players, the inability to upload created alternate jerseys and use them, the contract extensions for rookies (which, yes, can't be done during the offseason but you should be able to extend the rookie's rookie scale contract in the regular season, as was recently demonstrated by the T'Wolves with KAT -- it is impossible to do that at this moment however for any rookies, as the game tells you that the they don't have the right amount of years (4) on their original contract but the correct amount is 4).

This is a big one, especially since players who have a high rating for Loyalty in the game will have their morale decreased until their contract is extended. But you can't extend guys on rookie contracts...

[schnaidt1]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

I'm extremely close to having this all solved with sliders... Like.. Super close... Hang tight

Sent from my H3123 using Operation Sports mobile app

[Detroit Red]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

I'm extremely close to having this all solved with sliders... Like.. Super close... Hang tight

Sent from my H3123 using Operation Sports mobile app

Awesome!

Going to hold off on starting MyLeague until then. Keep us posted and thank you.

[Mister Magnus]

Hey hey -- I've been hoping for a follow up to this article. Any love on the way?

[aimlessgun]

Re: Taking a Look at NBA 2K19 MyLeague and Why Sliders Are Necessary

The most glaring is that after 10 years of sim, 80-89 rated players shot from 60 total in Y1 to 233 in Y10. Like, did they do any testing? It's great to give us sliders, but it feels like they're just saying "we don't feel like putting any effort into this, so you guys figure it out."

Yeah. I'm tired of every year having a super screwed up myleague to start out with before I figure out everything I need to fix. Would be nice if there was some PSA or central resource for all the stuff you need to fix so you could actually just play the game without testing. Like a lot of slider settings are user opinion but things like draft class quality, objectively too high and everyone should be told they need to lower it.