Its a bit early yet, for me to decide whether I will buy NBA2k19 or stick with 18. I have bought NBA2k every yr since they have made the game, except for NBA2k9. There have been yrs when I have said Im not going to buy it, only to buy it on day 1 anyway,lol.
It will likely depend on where were at financially, likely more than anything. I have enjoyed 18 for the most part, outside of the lack of shooting fouls on 3pt attempts, along with some sim stats in being off in Association modes. Also the CPU lack of calling timeouts needs fixed. Along with the CPU poor management of fouls trouble, especially when using advanced rotations is a major issue, and these things have been a issue for a few yrs now. So its about time the devs get these problems fixed.
Outside of those things being issues, 18 did do some good things, so its not all bad by any means. I do think some tweaking needs done with bigs who arent good rebounders IRL, yet in NBA2k18 they look like Rodman. For instance Myles Turner of the Pacers, is not a good rebounder, IRL, yet grabs them with ease in 2k18. I think part of the problem is the poor rating with both attributes and tendencies. If the people who did the attribute and tendency ratings right, I think this would likely solve the problem, it would definitely improve it a great deal, but there probably needs to be some under the hood tweaks as well to totally fix it.
I may take the wait and see approach this yr, to see if these things have been corrected, but I also know the closer we get to basketball season, and the closer we get to release day for NBA2k19, that it will be hard to resist pre ordering it for early release.
So its easy to say right now, that Im going to wait and see if they have fixed issues from previous versions, only to get caught up in the hype and get it on early release.
I have been able to break myself from getting caught up in the hype with Madden, and I havent bought Madden but once in the past 10 yrs. I also have been able to break myself of the hype of MLBTS, and didnt get it this yr. But for some reason when it comes to NBA2k each yr I give in to the hype, so Im definitely not going to say nope Im not buying it, because I know its likely depending on if we have the money to spare, I will probably get end up getting it day 1,lol.
What will break my weakness for buying in to the hype and getting NBA2k day 1 each yr, will be if they become soley focused on the online play, and this Esports stuff, to where offline modes get ignored and/or do to catering to how the online players play, that it ends up affecting the gameplay against the CPU. There have been yrs when they try to improve gameplay for the online crowd that it has impacted the offline gameplay in a negative way. As I believe thats why there is now a issue with the lack of fouls on 3pt attempts, and it due to them designing it for online play, rather than designing it around the CPU acting in a realistic manner. I may be wrong, as I no nothing about making games, it just seems odd, this use to not be too much of a issue, and now with 18 it was a major issue.