Ones And Twos Is An Imbalanced Scoring System

After two years of ignoring one of MyPark's biggest issues, NBA 2K16 finally smartened up and changed the Park's scoring system to a normal NBA style of two pointers and three pointers. For some reason, though, The Gauntlet remains stuck with the old, unbalanced scoring setup.

Scoring baskets by ones and twos rewards reckless outside shooters who chuck up contested bombs all game long while penalizing players who are efficient scorers from mid/close range.

The Gauntlet needs to adopt the standard scoring system to decrease the value of outside shooting and make dominant post players/mid-range specialists worth having on your team. Right now, superstar perimeter players like Grant Hill and Michael Jordan, whose only weakness is poor three-point shooting, are less desirable cards than one-trick ponies like Steve Novak or Hedo Turkoglu.

You Can Somehow Receive A Loss If Your Opponent Quits

This mysterious and maddening problem also happens in Road to the Playoffs, but it occurs much more frequently in The Gauntlet. It happens more often in The Gauntlet because losses matter very little, and so people more frequently leave the match if they fall behind early.


Nothing in NBA 2K16 annoys me more than mistakenly receiving a loss in a match I rightfully won.

Randomized Card Selection Creates Unfair Matchups

My first Gauntlet game pitted Jason Kidd (amethyst), Jannero Pargo (bronze) and Quincy Acy (bronze) against Phil Pressey (bronze), Bradley Beal (gold) and Patrick Ewing (gold). I don't understand why the system would not be smart enough to match me up with someone who had a lineup of similar strength, In the example I just gave, my opponent had a clear advantage with only one bronze player compared to my two bronze players.

Even with that severe disadvantage at center, I should have at least been able to shutdown my opponent's Beal card with my Kidd card. But since you can't alter the default defensive assignments in Gauntlet, Kidd was stuck guarding Pressey the entire game. And whenever I tried manually moving Kidd on top of Beal, my CPU Pargo teammate would be too late to switch over onto Pressey, giving up a few free layups before I was frustratingly forced to settle on guarding a gold stud with a bronze scrub. Like every other online mode in NBA 2K16, The Gauntlet needs to let players manually assign defensive matchups.


You Can't Adjust Your Defensive Or Offensive Settings

Regardless of whether they're bronzes, silvers, golds or amethysts, computer-controlled players in Gauntlet games generally do a terrible job of defending. They'll frequently sag off perimeter threats, completely botch their pick and roll assignment and foolishly leave dangerous shooters open to help out on cutters who were already being well defended. And you simply cannot tweak these awful default AI tendencies. The defensive settings are not available on The Gauntlet's pause screen, even though they're available in every other head-to-head online mode.

Offense in The Gauntlet also suffers from reduced strategic options. You can't pick a base set (all that's needed are basic one-out, two-out, and three-out alignments), so you'll often get stuck with non-shooting bigs spending the entire game behind the three point line, or short perimeter players diving down into the paint where they stand no chance of getting a shot off. You can't even call a quick iso for the ball handler, or a quick post-up for a big man because those D-pad commands have been curiously disabled. If you try to use the player icons to initiate a pick and roll with a specific teammate, a bizarre bug/glitch will often prevent you from using directional passing for the remainder of the possession.

The Gauntlet just does not give smart users many ways to outwit their opponents because the mode's coaching options are so limited. Success is almost entirely dependent on card luck, stick skills and shot timing, which is not a compelling gameplay formula for people who want to test their brainpower along with their reflexes.


Unlimited Fouls And Unlimited Turbo Foster Cheesy Gameplay

Fatigue is a concept that does not make much sense in a simple game of 21, but to prevent zig-zag cheesers from endlessly holding down turbo and weaving left, right, left, right, left, right until they finally create enough space to take an open shot, how about introducing an NBA Jam-style turbo meter that rapidly depletes while the sprint button's being held, and slowly refills once it has been released?

A team foul limit also needs to be introduced to prevent cheesers from auto-fouling the offense and resetting the possession every time there's an easy fast-break opportunity, a wide open lane to the basket or a favorable matchup in the post. Visual Concepts should implement a system similar to Midway's NBA Showtime arcade game where the offense is given a free throw and gets the ball back after the defense commits their fifth team foul. Once the defense commits their seventh team foul, the offense should start getting two free throws and the ball back.

At Least The Rewards Are Nice

I do appreciate the quality rewards Visual Concepts is giving people for suffering through Gauntlet games, as it's arguably the most lucrative mode in MyTeam because you can acquire lots of currency, plus all kinds of players, cards and badges just for finishing a few 10- to 20-minute online matches. Amethyst Bob Cousy may not be as good as the amethyst Jason Kidd you can earn by beating Domination, but Cousy's still a solid two-way point guard who can help your team complete Road to the Playoffs. The Gauntlet's amethyst Clyde Drexler, though, is one of the best all-around wings in MyTeam at this moment.


You Can Try Lots Of Rare Cards

The only other reason I would want to play The Gauntlet in its current state is the chance to test out high-priced amethyst cards like '09 Dwight Howard, '08 Carmelo Anthony and '94 Hakeem Olajuwon. Gauntlet is a great way to see whether or not you like the way these expensive players feel on the court as animations and wingspan are crucial parts of a player's success in NBA 2K16. The odds of pulling amethyst trial cards also seems very favorable -- I've already gotten four amethysts in 12 Gauntlet games thus far.