NBA 2K MyTeam Still Struggling To Match EA Sports' Ultimate Team
Submitted on: 05/19/2015 by
Jayson Young
No Currency Exploits
A currency-based mode absolutely cannot have loopholes that let users stockpile funds via exploits or bugs/glitches. But that's exactly what happened, right from the start of MyTeam's 2014-15 season. During release week, a widely abused bug let users infinitely redeem MT from expired auctions, pumping many players' accounts up to seven-figure sums.
After that was patched, people then realized that they could create alternate accounts and endlessly multiply their MT by repeatedly unlocking the team collection rewards. These kinds of design mistakes cannot happen in NBA 2K16, or else gamers will end up with another year where the handful of good cards in the mode cost a ridiculous amount of MT that's unattainable by simply winning a lot of games.
Real-Time Marketplace
MyTeam's current marketplace system updates its available selection of cards irregularly, roughly every 15 minutes, but sometimes taking 30 or 45 minutes between refreshes. The market also struggles to display accurate data on cards that are about to expire. Many times, a card will appear to have a minute or two left, when truthfully, the timer has already reached zero. NBA 2K16's marketplace should be up to the standard set years ago by EA Sports, where all auction house activity appears in real time.
Users Set Pricing
500 MT is currently the minimum amount that a card can be sold for on the marketplace, which prevents many items from ever selling at all. There should be no limit to how low a user can list a card, so that gamers can clear out everything in their collection that they don't need.
It'd be better to make 100 MT off an unneeded home court or 200 MT from an ugly away jersey than to have those cards sitting in the inventory screen forever.
Classic Courts
All of the historic teams in NBA 2K15 have arenas appropriate to their time period, but for some reason, you cannot use any of these classic courts in MyTeam. Jerry West's white tube socks and Converse high tops would certainly look a lot better in the old Inglewood Forum than in the overcommercialized Staples Center.
Real Attributes
MyTeam is supposed to answer questions like, “What if the Knicks had drafted Stephen Curry?” or “What if Wilt Chamberlain played against modern competition?” not “What if Blake Griffin had 99 speed?” or “What if Isiah Thomas had a 90 three-point rating?”
NBA Jam and NBA Street had more realistic attribute ratings than MyTeam does at this point. The ratings on many of MyTeam's special-edition cards have become more ridiculous than James Harden's wardrobe. The super-athletic, Doug Collins-era Michael Jordan should not be able to shoot threes better than Goran Dragic, but he can in MyTeam.
Athletes need to be realistically rated so they can all carry individual strengths and weaknesses. Instead, the majority of MyTeam lineups feature the same selection of godlike, supremely overrated cards that possess no flaws whatsoever. Visual Concepts is taking all of the strategy out of basketball by allowing people to build lineups with 13 players who excel at everything and have no real deficiencies that must be hidden or coached around.
Eliminate Emerald
This was NBA 2K's most active year for roster updates in series history, but none of the game's numerous updates benefited MyTeam users since the attribute ratings of MyTeam cards don't automatically update like they do in MLB 15: The Show's Diamond Dynasty mode.
Instead, MyTeam releases its ratings raises as separate Emerald cards that users have to buy, even if they already own the athletes who are being updated. In a post-MLB 15 world, the entire concept of Emerald cards reeks like a crock of [a well-known substance]. Only Visual Concepts' bank accounts are benefiting from releasing multiple versions of the same card.
Ditch Badges, Boosts and Contracts
MyTeam contains the most watered-down, waste-of-money card packs in this sub-genre. And while I have no problem with the mode's incredibly low odds of pulling star players, I do take issue with all of the useless crap that Visual Concepts stuffs into these packs,
Player contracts -- like Emerald cards -- are a completely bogus concept, which provide zero benefit to the consumer but lots of benefit to the game company's bottom line. Visual Concepts needs to take another cue from Diamond Dynasty and remove the contract system entirely from MyTeam.
Attribute boosts and badges are not only a waste of space in card packs, but they also negatively impact the gameplay by making it more cheesy. Stephen Curry shouldn't be able to become an energy-draining "Bruiser" like Zach Randolph just because someone stuck a few extra badges on Steph. And Dominique Wilkins shouldn't suddenly become a reliable jump shooter just because someone put some plus-nine shooting boosts on him.
Elite Needs to be Rare
On Playstation 4, there are presently eight gold Larry Bird cards for sale, costing around 200,000 MT a piece. On that same console, you'll find over 100 gold LeBron James cards, costing around 25,000 MT a piece. Both players are rated a 98 overall, but because LeBron is a current-day NBA player, he is much easier to obtain in [I]NBA 2K15[/I].
GOAT-tier cards like Kevin Durant and LeBron James shouldn't be this common; they should be just as rare as a Larry Bird or a Michael Jordan. If this doesn't change, NBA 2K16 will once again end up with every team having a Durant and LeBron in their starting lineup only one or two weeks into the game's lifespan.
Positional Restrictions
Every card in MyTeam has a primary and secondary position. To promote greater lineup diversity, NBA 2K16 should restrict gamers from using NBA athletes in unnatural positions. If Visual Concepts is going to continue to let people play LeBron James at point guard, for example, then they might as well only put three other point guards into MyTeam -- Magic, Penny, and Oscar because those are the only PGs who can physically matchup with LeBron.
Cards like John Stockton and Chris Paul, truthfully, don't have any reason to exist in MyTeam unless NBA 2K16 finally decides that it's going to make users play their athletes at appropriate positions.
Produce Playoff Content
If you booted up MyTeam at any point in the past month, you wouldn't even know that the NBA Playoffs were going on. There have been no playoff-themed challenges, and no playoff-edition cards.
Instead, Visual Concepts has been recycling old card packs, and rehashing the same stale challenges that restrict your team to three gold players. At a time when NHL 15 is releasing Stanley Cup-edition cards after every single playoff game, NBA 2K15's effort looks lackadaisical. Visual Concepts should be celebrating clutch performances by Josh Smith and Matthew Dellavedova with MyTeam challenges that ask fans to re-create those scoring sprees, and reward users with cards that are based on those ballplayers' single-game stats.
Create Draft Content
Visual Concepts has already noted that no new MyTeam content will be coming once the NBA playoffs conclude. That means NBA 2K15 will be missing out on an opportunity to bring people back into the game once draft night arrives at the end of June.
If NBA 2K's card-collecting fantasy mode wants to be “bigger than Madden,” then it should be offering draft-themed content, just like Madden has done for the last three seasons in Ultimate Team.
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