Thanks, Dave.
You guys targeted a few things I brought up last year. I'm going to report some things I brought up last year that didn't fit in for the 2K18 development cycle, to keep them under consideration:
MyLeague is Very Good, but Needs Improvement for Long Term Playability
Create A Player
The community has been clear in asking for greater face sculpting and improved player model customization. The standard has been set by 2K's WWE franchise, and we'd like to get as close to that as possible for player creation and editing.
Draft Classes
This is a huge area for league replayability, because as things now stand, generated draft classes do maybe a grade C job of creating players that approximate the living, breathing player types and variety of the NBA. Attributes, tendencies, hot zones, play types and badges still need better logic and alignment. Shooting tendencies scaled to offensive talent really need work because they highly affect player stats in the league through the sim engine. Default draft classes this year include WAY too many superstars as incoming rookies. There are also too many draftees at the top of the draft boards over 20 years old.
Dynamic Shot Tendencies
I'd like to see some adjustment by CPU teams/coaches in MyGM/MyLeague to assess and adjust player shot tendencies and maybe touches based on who their best offensive players are. Sometimes as years pass you see very good offensive players develop but their shot tendencies are low, because that's where they were when they were drafted. Maybe this can be partially addressed with better draft classes, but even so, CPU teams should not have more poorly rated or over the hill offensive threats taking more shots than younger, emerging offensive threats, just because of static shot tendencies.
So I'd like to see CPU rosters or coaches prioritize their top few offensive players by attributes and adjust overall shot tendencies and maybe touches to reflect offensive priorities, maybe based on head coach and assistant coach offensive ratings. That could mean adjusting some players overall shot tendency down and raising some others. Ideally, these CPU team adjustments could also adjust play types at some point, but that could take more years of development. I'm not even asking for shot tendency adjustments based on area of the court, just overall shot utilization stuff.
Contracts and Free Agency
Player contracts are a mess in 2K18. Leaving aside bugs in the implementation of the new CBA features added to this year's game, contracts are a mess because of overly high player ratings and static, inflexible player asking prices. Teams run out of cap room easily.
I brought this up last year, but my recommended solution for all of this involves building new logic and code for the free agent market. Right now, player asking prices are static based on some combination of player age + player OVR + player POT, modified by player contract preferences (play for winner, financial security, loyalty). They are also slightly modified by team staff ratings, like GM contracts rating, coach desirability ratings, etc. But they don't take account for the talent market beyond that.
Here are factors I'd like to see built into some free agent coding logic that determines player asking prices and what teams will offer:
- Team need: is the player that last piece that can make the team a real contender? Is the player the cornerstone of what the team wants to build around? How much of the team's cap is already allocated to that player's position (see roster construction logic below)? How does a player fit with the team coach's preferred scheme?
- Supply/Demand side market competition: are there many other comparable or good players at the same position also available on the market, and how many teams with cap space are bidding for them?
- Note: this stuff can't be built without improved team roster construction logic, discussed below.
CPU Roster Construction and Trade Logic
This is an area, frankly, that still needs a lot of work. Every year, I basically take over total control of trades and start-of-year roster adjustments and free agent signings for all teams. Otherwise, you end up with teams too thin at some positions and too heavy in others. Team building logic should include rules like these:
- At least 5 legitimate front court players whose primary positions are either PF or C.
- At least 5 legitimate back court players whose primary positions are either PG or SG, AND at least 3 of those are rated playmaking B- or better.
- All teams have at least 2 players at each position whose primary positional assignment is that position. In other words, all rosters have at least 2 each true PG/SG/SF/PF/C's.
- No more than one third (or some other limiting proportion, I'm open on this) of total salary is allocated to a single position. Teams should not be maxing or near maxing out two players at one position.
- No more than 4 players who share the same primary position.
- Some of this logic maybe can be accomplished be redefining how the CPU assigns roles to players on the team (core, etc.) Guys who are core but not stars should not be getting max deals. Also, make these roles editable by the user as a way to influence CPU signing and trade behavior.
- For players, they adjust their acceptable asking prices down as free agency progresses if they do not have offers that fit their desired contract target ranges.
Just putting some rules like that in place would improve off season free agent signing and trade logic.
QA
Guys, not to pick a scab, but you really need a lot more testing QA before release to check and optimize your league balance and features before release. As of this writing, core features of the MyLeague/MyGM modes are bugged to the point that the game really can't be described as finished. It's beyond the usual level of bugs and needed fixes, and it's worse this year than last year. You can only get so far using algorithms - you need people to try to play the modes over multiple game years to simulate what users see and notice.