Blog: Customization in MyNBA2K16

[ActionJack]

Yeah, and the funny thing is, there was a card hierarchy anyway in 2k15, even with stats being so close.

People hated on World B Free so hard, but his card was very good. People are going to favor the more popular players anyway. Might as well make it numerically logical to match.

[SilkiestSkillzz]

Quote: Originally Posted by ActionJack

Yeah, and the funny thing is, there was a card hierarchy anyway in 2k15, even with stats being so close. People hated on World B Free so hard, but his card was very good. People are going to favor the more popular players anyway. Might as well make it numerically logical to match.

Hope this happens

[PrimeTime2K]

I keep checking backing hoping that Danan or our community manager will respond Maybe this weekend

[NWGameDad]

Not sure how this thread became the stats discussion thread, but with such an excellent post from ActionJack in here it seems the place to reply.


To boil AJ's post down, I would say you hit the head on the nail for several pieces. When we create stats for players it is complex and has to take into account several factors:


1. Stats that make sense for the player so that cards feel like they are based on the NBA.


2. Balance amongst the cards so that a Super Rare feels like a Super Rare and not a Rare or Ultra Rare. At the same time, keeping to #1 so we don't completely break a player.


3. Variety - We want cards to not all be alike and have some personality besides just a different picture. Something that can be quite tough when we have so many cards in the game.


Trying to balance all 3 of those things can be challenging. Last year we thought bumping up to 5 stats would make it easier to get the variety we hoped for, but it ended up making it more difficult to balance. A lot of the cards ended up feeling the same. By dialing back to 4 this year we can give cards a bit stronger roles and identity in your deck (and just visually make the game easier on the eyes). It has also allowed us to change the formulas for converting the NBA 2K16 spreadsheets into our 4 stats to be more accurate.


Accuracy on stats is always a difficult thing too, as you can tell by the stat discussions that happen on NBA 2K every year. Is a player with high PPG a great offensive player or is he just playing with really poor teammates? Is he just hogging the ball? How do you measure a great defender? Someone like Michael Cooper was a fantastic defender, but his stats don't reflect it. We try to get the right feel with what we do, sometimes we're on it, sometimes not. We always try to make it better (like the change with PO cards this year). We also start from a good place with the data we get from the 2K Sports team each year. Those guys have years of working with those stats, and have dedicated people to making sure their player stats are right, and the players feel right in the game. We draft off of that quite a bit.


With that said, we still end up in situations where we have to make some changes to suit our game. One example for you, recently we got the '16 roster. After building the starter decks for each team a few teams don't have any players in the Rare rarity. We *must* have at least 1 Rare card for each team, or the starter decks just don't work. So we're in the position of having to elevate someone or lower someone on the team to make it work for us. If we didn't everyone would just choose the team that gives you a Super Rare off the bat vs. a Rare.


Like I said, lots of things for us to have to juggle. I know you may not always agree with the decisions, but we put a lot of effort into trying to get the cards right. It definitely hurts to read things like, "CD doesn't care" when we spend hours each week trying to get the stats right for our new cards. You can disagree, but I certainly know that we care a lot about getting it right. I think we're on great path for '16 with the new system, of course time will tell when we get the game launched, and I'm sure you'll all let us know how we did. :-)


ActionJack - Thanks for the post. I appreciate the constructive nature of what you write.

[joesseoj]

Quote: Originally Posted by NWGameDad

Not sure how this thread became the stats discussion thread, but with such an excellent post from ActionJack in here it seems the place to reply. To boil AJ's post down, I would say you hit the head on the nail for several pieces. When we create stats for players it is complex and has to take into account several factors: 1. Stats that make sense for the player so that cards feel like they are based on the NBA. 2. Balance amongst the cards so that a Super Rare feels like a Super Rare and not a Rare or Ultra Rare. At the same time, keeping to #1 so we don't completely break a player. 3. Variety - We want cards to not all be alike and have some personality besides just a different picture. Something that can be quite tough when we have so many cards in the game. Trying to balance all 3 of those things can be challenging. Last year we thought bumping up to 5 stats would make it easier to get the variety we hoped for, but it ended up making it more difficult to balance. A lot of the cards ended up feeling the same. By dialing back to 4 this year we can give cards a bit stronger roles and identity in your deck (and just visually make the game easier on the eyes). It has also allowed us to change the formulas for converting the NBA 2K16 spreadsheets into our 4 stats to be more accurate. Accuracy on stats is always a difficult thing too, as you can tell by the stat discussions that happen on NBA 2K every year. Is a player with high PPG a great offensive player or is he just playing with really poor teammates? Is he just hogging the ball? How do you measure a great defender? Someone like Michael Cooper was a fantastic defender, but his stats don't reflect it. We try to get the right feel with what we do, sometimes we're on it, sometimes not. We always try to make it better (like the change with PO cards this year). We also start from a good place with the data we get from the 2K Sports team each year. Those guys have years of working with those stats, and have dedicated people to making sure their player stats are right, and the players feel right in the game. We draft off of that quite a bit. With that said, we still end up in situations where we have to make some changes to suit our game. One example for you, recently we got the '16 roster. After building the starter decks for each team a few teams don't have any players in the Rare rarity. We *must* have at least 1 Rare card for each team, or the starter decks just don't work. So we're in the position of having to elevate someone or lower someone on the team to make it work for us. If we didn't everyone would just choose the team that gives you a Super Rare off the bat vs. a Rare. Like I said, lots of things for us to have to juggle. I know you may not always agree with the decisions, but we put a lot of effort into trying to get the cards right. It definitely hurts to read things like, "CD doesn't care" when we spend hours each week trying to get the stats right for our new cards. You can disagree, but I certainly know that we care a lot about getting it right. I think we're on great path for '16 with the new system, of course time will tell when we get the game launched, and I'm sure you'll all let us know how we did. :-) ActionJack - Thanks for the post. I appreciate the constructive nature of what you write.

While I may not agree with parts of this post, thank you for at least taking the time to respond.

[apos1914]

Quote: Originally Posted by NWGameDad

Not sure how this thread became the stats discussion thread, but with such an excellent post from ActionJack in here it seems the place to reply. To boil AJ's post down, I would say you hit the head on the nail for several pieces. When we create stats for players it is complex and has to take into account several factors: 1. Stats that make sense for the player so that cards feel like they are based on the NBA. 2. Balance amongst the cards so that a Super Rare feels like a Super Rare and not a Rare or Ultra Rare. At the same time, keeping to #1 so we don't completely break a player. 3. Variety - We want cards to not all be alike and have some personality besides just a different picture. Something that can be quite tough when we have so many cards in the game. Trying to balance all 3 of those things can be challenging. Last year we thought bumping up to 5 stats would make it easier to get the variety we hoped for, but it ended up making it more difficult to balance. A lot of the cards ended up feeling the same. By dialing back to 4 this year we can give cards a bit stronger roles and identity in your deck (and just visually make the game easier on the eyes). It has also allowed us to change the formulas for converting the NBA 2K16 spreadsheets into our 4 stats to be more accurate. Accuracy on stats is always a difficult thing too, as you can tell by the stat discussions that happen on NBA 2K every year. Is a player with high PPG a great offensive player or is he just playing with really poor teammates? Is he just hogging the ball? How do you measure a great defender? Someone like Michael Cooper was a fantastic defender, but his stats don't reflect it. We try to get the right feel with what we do, sometimes we're on it, sometimes not. We always try to make it better (like the change with PO cards this year). We also start from a good place with the data we get from the 2K Sports team each year. Those guys have years of working with those stats, and have dedicated people to making sure their player stats are right, and the players feel right in the game. We draft off of that quite a bit. With that said, we still end up in situations where we have to make some changes to suit our game. One example for you, recently we got the '16 roster. After building the starter decks for each team a few teams don't have any players in the Rare rarity. We *must* have at least 1 Rare card for each team, or the starter decks just don't work. So we're in the position of having to elevate someone or lower someone on the team to make it work for us. If we didn't everyone would just choose the team that gives you a Super Rare off the bat vs. a Rare. Like I said, lots of things for us to have to juggle. I know you may not always agree with the decisions, but we put a lot of effort into trying to get the cards right. It definitely hurts to read things like, "CD doesn't care" when we spend hours each week trying to get the stats right for our new cards. You can disagree, but I certainly know that we care a lot about getting it right. I think we're on great path for '16 with the new system, of course time will tell when we get the game launched, and I'm sure you'll all let us know how we did. :-) ActionJack - Thanks for the post. I appreciate the constructive nature of what you write.

I think the main point of ActionJack's post and the thing that concerns us the most (as far as player's stats go) is that when you do the stats for next year's players, dont be "afraid" to make some players overpowered.

Players like Lebron James or Larry Bird, should be way way better than the rest. I know that those two are the strongest draftable POs in the game, but that's mainly due to an overpowered OFF and the rest of their stats are really low. Lebron should have a very high PM, a high REB and an extremely high ATH. Bird's REB is one of the lowest amongst POs, yet he averaged 10 rebounds per game through his entire career.

We really wont mind if there are huge differences between players. No one will have a problem with that, trust me.

[Daniel83]

Quote: Originally Posted by apos1914

I think the main point of ActionJack's post and the thing that concerns us the most (as far as player's stats go) is that when you do the stats for next year's players, dont be "afraid" to make some players overpowered. Players like Lebron James or Larry Bird, should be way way better than the rest. I know that those two are the strongest draftable POs in the game, but that's mainly due to an overpowered OFF and the rest of their stats are really low. Lebron should have a very high PM, a high REB and an extremely high ATH. Bird's REB is one of the lowest amongst POs, yet he averaged 10 rebounds per game through his entire career. We really wont mind if there are huge differences between players. No one will have a problem with that, trust me.

Yep i think most of us wont mind if some players are just significantly better than others.

Maybe if they widen the paramaters of the stats it would allow for more room to create accurate players.

Right now in 2k15 Stars are ranging from 3000-3500 (MVP around 3700, and HOF around 4100). But then PO cards jump to around 6400 as lowest card stats. Maybe if the range for PO cards would be say 5500- 7500 it would leave much more room to create correct stats.
A James Jones could have like 7000 OFF and then all his other stats around 6000, while LeBron would have all of his stats at 7000+

Stars still wont beat PO cards. And it means that James Jones PO only has a chance to beat LeBron PO with his OFF vs LeBron's lowest stat.

There is just no way it should be possible for Delly to beat Stockton at PM. And with a wider stat range you could solve these problems.

Delly should just be what he is; training fodder! (sorry joesseoj)

[Dextro]

Why do we even get a James Jones PO card? He is just not worth it - compare it to the RTTC Warrior cards - everybody is using Ezeli and Bogut.
Sure they reached the finals, but they are still not the best centers of 2015.

We do have so many worthless cards, just because of their policy. Hopefully this will change next year.