NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

CWSapp757

SimWorld Draft Class Guru

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 4652
#1

NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

09-15-2017, 02:05 AM

2k18 is here ladies and gentlemen and with that comes another edition of our Good, Bad and Ugly thread. I considered not doing it this year but I have to remember that each year we find something that is a little concerning or needs to be addressed so I figure why not raise some awareness as soon as possible. We will look at a few of the basic aspects of MyLeague and discuss what they got right, what they got wrong and what we are just straight up disappointed about. Speaking of disappointment, first up is newly added GLeague:

GLeague
Well the catch here is that there isn’t one. Let me explain. When I started the mode I expected to see a list of players that were already on my NBA squads GLeague team. I know that they said that we wouldn’t be able to play the games but I still thought that there would be rosters that we could manage while the CPU simulated the game. Not quite. If you already knew this you can skip to the next section but I was shocked to see that the Gleague isn’t actually a league but just an individual option for players. You still are limited to your 15 man roster (actually I think it is more but only if you have a player that has a contact overseas) and you simply have the option to send a player to the GLeague or call him up. If he is sent to the GLeague, you can check his stats in the “GLeague stats” menu but that’s it. No roster, no standings, no GLeague MVP. None of that. Although it is a pretty cool option I would have loved to see them have full rosters where undrafted and lower drafted players could go since most of them sit in free agency for a year and retire anyway to make room for the next 150 rookies coming into the game. Also disappointing is that it didn’t appear to have any effect on their progression either as rookies that didn’t get sent down and got little to no playing time still saw dramatic jumps in their overalls. Missed opportunity here but maybe next year.

MY LEAGUE AWARDS
This year I only listed awards after the first year and the sixth year. Those players can be found below. My biggest issue was a 34 year old Russell Westbrook winning his fourth MVP in six years. Not saying it can’t happen, but just something to look at. Also, most of the winners are players that are all real life players but that’s a recurring issue that we will address in a little.




MY LEAGUE STATS
Always an important section of this post. Once again I only took a look at the stats at the end of year 1 and at the end of the sixth year. I don’t see much problem with the stats at the end of the first year and honestly have to give 2k props on making steals more realistic. Last year there were guys averaging over 4 steals a game which is honestly not very realistic if you look at real life stats as of late. Blocks also seemed to have gotten a bit of an adjustment. Moving in to the future, I noticed a couple of things. First, most of the usual suspects were still there in the top 15 which I understand, but you would think with the high rated/high potential rookies coming in (we will get to that too), that more of those guys would be present especially in points per game. It appears that once again, tendencies will be an issue as some of these higher rated players with good scoring ratings simply aren’t shooting the ball. There was one beastly shooting guard generated player with an overall in the 90s that was only averaging 11 points a game. Anyway, the stats can be found below.





MY LEAGUE DRAFT
So I decided to focus on two drafts and as I did with the previous section (and the rest of them moving forward, I looked at the draft after the first year and the sixth year. There were a few surprises in the first draft with a player with a 92 potential being taken at number 11 behind guys with much lower potential. I would say that is a good thing but I think the CPU values overall a little more than potential as they did in 2k17. In the sixth year, the draft went about as expected. There were also some things that stood out to me about the draft after looking a little deeper. First, the potential is a pretty high for a lot of these players (especially in the first draft). I believe this was done to stay in line with the base roster but I will share why that ends up being a problem in the future. Also, a problem that has been present since 2k implemented the “peak start” and “peak end” option is that all of these players had peak ends over 30 and most of them at 34 or 35. Realistically, there is no way that all of these players will be at their peak all the way until age 34 or 35 especially when we are looking at potentials in the 90s. Take a look at the two draft’s top 15 selections below. I must say that I do love that they added the ability to have players stay overseas. The way it works is that the player stays on your roster but can’t be used until his contract is up. Pretty cool addition. For what it is worth, this was done with draft class quality at 50 so if you aren’t using custom classes you may want to lower it if these are a bit high for you.



RATINGS IN THE FUTURE
Here is where some problems start to show up. If you look at the picture below, you will see that 4 of the top ten players at their respective positions are sitting in free agency. This is a problem that I saw every single year as I simulated. I determined that the problem is that the game has too many highly rated/high potential players and there isn’t enough money to meet the financial demands of free agents. At the end of the third or fourth year we had Steph Curry (who had averaged 30 points the previous year and was a 94 overall) sitting in free agency along with 90 rated Joel Embiid. Both players did not get signed until after the season started and both players signed 1 year deals for 1.63 million. That… is not… acceptable. Of course us roster editors will be able to fix this but it just shouldn’t be happening at all. Also, you probably notice that a lot of very old players are at the top of their respective positions. Once again, this goes back to peak end being so high for so many players. This is something that will have to once again be addressed by the roster makers as it simply isn’t very realistic. You’re probably also wondering why a lot of the generated players rated so high didn’t show up in the top 15 stats. Once again, tendency issues which have been an issue with the game for many years.



ADDITIONAL THINGS I NOTICED
- Although I have heard a lot of complaints about the CAP system, I will say that this year, the generated rookies have more unique looks and most of the top guys drafted didn’t look similar to one another at all. They actually do a much better job giving different hair styles and facial hair which can make a big difference even though it is a small change.

- A lot of the top player movement was due to teams not signing big free agents and those players receiving criminally low contracts at the beginning of the season. I know I said it already but that needs to be looked at as soon as possible.

- When editing a draft class, you have the option to give an overseas player a contract to stay over there for one, two or three years.

- A weird glitch happened where a player named Noah Owen stayed in England to play ball for one year (see the draft picture). He stayed on the Nuggets roster and then the same exact player was drafted in the top ten the following year to the Raptors with the same overall, same potential and same appearance. Both players stayed in the league so that is definitely an issue that I need to look at in the future.

- Staying with the draft, if you look at the first draft there was a player from Italy that came into the league with a 99 potential. The kid tore his Achilles the second year and literally never recovered to reach that potential which is why you didn’t see him listed in the top point guards. I like seeing those Brandon Roy type situations so that was cool.

- I can not stress enough that peak ends need to be adjusted along with tendencies or else the league stats are going to dip once your stars like Curry, LeBron, Anthony Davis, Russell and Giannis retire. In the real NBA you have players like LeBron who play at the highest level in their 30s but you also have a lot of guys like Deron Williams that fall off the map. Everybody can’t be LeBron and Kobe and the peak ends have it programmed for that to happen.

Well that’s all I have for you guys. Of course after all that work I’m going to plug me and my team’s work so please check us out at the threads below:

SimWorld official NBA roster thread:

NBA2KGOAT: A SimWorld - Hyperballer - DC Collaboration (NBA 2K18 for Xbox One) - Operation Sports Forums

http://forums.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k-basketball-rosters/913883-nba2kgoat-simworld-hyperballer-dc-collaboration-nba-2k18-xbox-one.html

SimWorld Fictional Class thread

NBA2KGOAT: SimWorld presents the NBA 2K18 Fictional Draft Class Thread (for Xbox One) - Operation Sports Forums

http://forums.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k-basketball-rosters/913960-nba2kgoat-simworld-presents-nba-2k18-fictional-draft-class-thread-xbox-one.html

SimWorld Fictional League Thread

NBA2KGOAT: SimWorld presents "The LEAGUE" NBA 2K18 Fictional Roster (for Xbox One) - Operation Sports Forums

http://forums.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k-basketball-rosters/913962-nba2kgoat-simworld-presents-league-nba-2k18-fictional-roster-xbox-one.html

And just because me and especially my boy Blindside put so much work into it, please do me a favor and check out the 400 plus page scouting report for the fictional league. It is literally everything you could want in a fictional league with an ongoing storyline, stats, award winners, drafts, champions etc. Please download it and give us some feedback:

File sharing and storage made simple

http://www.mediafire.com/file/hx38vh4lrg3klxb/2k18+league+guide.pptx



Last edited by CWSapp757; 09-15-2017, 02:08 AM.

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Mikelopedia

The Real Birdman

Join Date: Jan 2008

Posts: 1523
#2

09-15-2017, 02:20 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Excellent write up.

The G-League disappointment is very frustrating as Erick specifically said in his blog that 2nd rounders and undrafted rookies "help populate the league."
So what was he refering to then?

Die hard Heat and Dolphins fan since '89

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nddot

Pro

Join Date: Sep 2012

Posts: 611
#3

09-15-2017, 02:33 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Man....this is awesome. Thank you for posting this and for the first reports.

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MacD

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Join Date: Sep 2015

Posts: 110
#4

09-15-2017, 03:01 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Great info, thanks. I do wonder how many of those issues are realistically fixable via patches. I hope they will fix some of those things, in the meantime I'll have to take a closer look on user created draft classes then.
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CWSapp757

SimWorld Draft Class Guru

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 4652
#5

09-15-2017, 06:01 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Ughhhh. So it looks like some othera have confirned the duplicate draft class player issue that apparently occurs when players are stashed overseas. That is going to be need to looked at as soon as possible.

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Boogee134

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Join Date: Feb 2014

Posts: 128
#6

09-15-2017, 06:34 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Thanks for you work.
What about the other issues ? Like 7'2'' PG and 6'0'' Center and unrealistic contracts given (2 billions for Diallo) ?

Basically, what need to be patched as soon as possible is :

- The duplicate players from the Draft & Stash
- The Peaks, it's unacceptable to have players rated 82+ sitting in the free agency because the talent in the league is too strong.
- The unrealistic contracts (2 billions for Diallo) if it's confirmed.

These 3 things make MyLeague unplayable right now. That is downright unacceptable.
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VAWereWolf65

MVP

Join Date: Jul 2016

Posts: 1734
#7

09-15-2017, 06:43 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I'm guessing free throws are still messed up in Sim?

Players like Westbrook and Harden only averaging 6 free throws per game when in reality they average over 10?

VAWereWolf65's Custom Draft Class Thread - 2k19 (Xbox One)
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wodi

Pro

Join Date: Jul 2014

Posts: 752
#8

09-15-2017, 06:46 AM

NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I've been saying it every time they released ratings, it's going to be a problem in myleague.

It's the same thing every year, 2k does not test in myleague.

Now I'm gonna have to wait till January 2018 for simworld to dig through all the problems and create new rosters.

Hopefully at least the rookie creation is easier and maybe we can get simworld draft classes at a quicker rate.

Simworld here to save the day.....again

Last edited by wodi; 09-15-2017, 06:53 AM.
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CWSapp757

SimWorld Draft Class Guru

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 4652
#9

09-15-2017, 07:02 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Originally posted by Boogee134

Thanks for you work.
What about the other issues ? Like 7'2'' PG and 6'0'' Center and unrealistic contracts given (2 billions for Diallo) ?

Basically, what need to be patched as soon as possible is :

- The duplicate players from the Draft & Stash
- The Peaks, it's unacceptable to have players rated 82+ sitting in the free agency because the talent in the league is too strong.
- The unrealistic contracts (2 billions for Diallo) if it's confirmed.

These 3 things make MyLeague unplayable right now. That is downright unacceptable.

This is the first time hearing about the 7 ft ooint guards and undersized Centers but I'm not at all surprised. It is probably just because I didn't pay much attention to it but I am sad to say this doesnt surprise me much.

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SimWorld NBA 2K19 Fictional Draft Classes
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CWSapp757

SimWorld Draft Class Guru

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 4652
#10

09-15-2017, 07:02 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Originally posted by VAWereWolf65

I'm guessing free throws are still messed up in Sim?

Players like Westbrook and Harden only averaging 6 free throws per game when in reality they average over 10?

I'll check in a few minutes brother.

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SimWorld NBA 2K19 Fictional Draft Classes
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ChiTownDominican

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Join Date: Apr 2017

Posts: 10
#11

09-15-2017, 07:04 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Live for this type of post [emoji91][emoji91][emoji91][emoji108][emoji108][emoji108]

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Pizarro24

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Join Date: Jan 2012

Posts: 272
#12

09-15-2017, 07:12 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Yeah I´ve been looking a bit closer into my test from yesterday, and there are still some major flaws, most of them being already mentioned.

- As far as the Peak start/end goes, I will test it later with Draft Class Quality at 25 instead of 50, maybe this will change some things.
- The generated players have their "Touches" and "Shoot" Tendency very low, I saw some players rated 95-96 Overall with a Touches Tendency in the 60s.
- Some Ratings for generated players are again weird (see WhoMario´s Thread).
- After a couple of years you have way too much 90+ rated 3-Point-Shooters in the league, same as last year. Last year we could prevent this with changing the training for every team, not sure if this workaround works this year.
And mybe lowering the Draft Class Quality will help in this case, need to test this.

I hope they fix the Draft&Stash bug/glitch very soon, but for the other things, I don´t know guys. This year I was hoping to play a decent MyLeague till SimWorld drop their stuff, but it seems that all I can do is wait for SimWorld. I don´t have the time to edit things after every season, I just want to play. But the only chance to play MyLeague is 30 Team control and hours of editing after every season.
And the second problem is, the SimWorld guys don´t have the time to create 20-30 Draft Classes, but I´m a guy who loves to play long term saves.

Sucks, especially because the gameplay is extremely good and this game has so much potential.

Don´t play video games, play Basketball
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CWSapp757

SimWorld Draft Class Guru

Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 4652
#13

09-15-2017, 07:29 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Originally posted by VAWereWolf65

I'm guessing free throws are still messed up in Sim?

Players like Westbrook and Harden only averaging 6 free throws per game when in reality they average over 10?

Yup. In the last season I simulated MVP Russell Westbrook avaraged 6.2 feee throws a game. Scoring leader James Harden averaged only 5.0 per game.

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wodi

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Join Date: Jul 2014

Posts: 752
#14

09-15-2017, 07:29 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Originally posted by Pizarro24

Yeah I´ve been looking a bit closer into my test from yesterday, and there are still some major flaws, most of them being already mentioned.

- As far as the Peak start/end goes, I will test it later with Draft Class Quality at 25 instead of 50, maybe this will change some things.
- The generated players have their "Touches" and "Shoot" Tendency very low, I saw some players rated 95-96 Overall with a Touches Tendency in the 60s.
- Some Ratings for generated players are again weird (see WhoMario´s Thread).
- After a couple of years you have way too much 90+ rated 3-Point-Shooters in the league, same as last year. Last year we could prevent this with changing the training for every team, not sure if this workaround works this year.
And mybe lowering the Draft Class Quality will help in this case, need to test this.

I hope they fix the Draft&Stash bug/glitch very soon, but for the other things, I don´t know guys. This year I was hoping to play a decent MyLeague till SimWorld drop their stuff, but it seems that all I can do is wait for SimWorld. I don´t have the time to edit things after every season, I just want to play. But the only chance to play MyLeague is 30 Team control and hours of editing after every season.
And the second problem is, the SimWorld guys don´t have the time to create 20-30 Draft Classes, but I´m a guy who loves to play long term saves.

Sucks, especially because the gameplay is extremely good and this game has so much potential.

It's got potential because of all the "selling points" they add which sound amazing. But the core of the mode has been broken for many years.

It's clear 2k doesn't test, they don't make ANY changes, just add stuff to hype people and then we all have to wait for simworld to fix everything, which usually gives us a great product with 5 classes by the time 2k19 rolls around..... it's just awful.
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VAWereWolf65

MVP

Join Date: Jul 2016

Posts: 1734
#15

09-15-2017, 07:35 AM

Re: NBA 2k18: THe Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Originally posted by CWSapp757

Yup. In the last season I simulated MVP Russell Westbrook avaraged 6.2 feee throws a game. Scoring leader James Harden averaged only 5.0 per game.

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Wow that's even worse than last year wtf. Such a disappointment

VAWereWolf65's Custom Draft Class Thread - 2k19 (Xbox One)
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