Regression/Progression and Contract sliders

[jakalfc]

Quote: Originally Posted by Comduklakis

When you change the contract sliders, it will effect things from that day forward. You may actually see contract extensions change as teams offer more money and players become more inclined to sign or vice versa. As for progression/regression, I also assume that changing the settings will make sure that those settings create the progression/regression for the offseason, but I don't promise. I doubt that anything is "under the hood" for progression/regression during the season, but I can't say I'm 100% sure. Just mostly sure. Progression/regression seems to be based on performance, sliders, injuries, and ratings. I don't know if the new sliders would wash away prior performance or injuries that are factored in, but I would assume so. My assumption would be that progression/regression is simply figured at that time in the off-season based on the sliders that are active at that time and then factor all the in season stuff based on those current sliders.

Sorry if I tell you, I wanted to know if you're close to sharing your cursors

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Operation Sports mobile app

[Comduklakis]

So I come bearing bad news for some. After diligently working on my sliders, hoping that 30 team control would not be required, I can say that the answer is a resounding no. There is just too much wrong with the logic at this point that even sliders can't solve to MY satisfaction.

However, I will post my slider set in the 1st post because I promised, because I think the progression/regression is solid, and because for many players the problems with logic aren't game breaking and I feel my sliders will allow for a fun experience for those who aren't quite as "uptight" as I am about realism.

For those who who just want to try the sliders, you can go back to the first post and check out the numbers. For those who want to hear my reasoning, both good and bad and the whys, this long post shall continue.

I'll start with the positives, which is largely progression/regression. I was able to get it to a place that I"m comfortable with other than issues that might be fixed with a quality roster (dealing with potential and peak/decline age issues). Remember all this testing was done with default rosters and default sliders other than my work on contracts, trades, and progression/regression.

First the bad news and why I feel 30 team control is a necessity for my world. The G League glitch is still here and it worsens significantly in year two and beyond. 30 team control allows a myleague player to choose to not send anyone down to the G-league and hopefully avoid large jumps in OVR. First offseason wasn't too bad. Some G league guys rising anywhere from 2-5 points. But the 2nd year I saw G leaguers going up 9 or 10 points in OVR. Unfortunately based on issues last year as well, this is not something I see fixed by a patch.

But putting that issue aside, i feel the progression/regression is pretty solid. My perspective is that players don't get dumber. Now Shaqtin' the fool may show visual proof otherwise, but 99% of players only get smarter as they play. Better shot IQ, better Passing IQ, better recognition of when to switch on D, how to play the Pick n Roll, etc. As a result of this I aimed to see players in their 30s regressing significantly in physical categories and very little if at all in IQ categories, and even rising. At the same time younger players should also get smarter but athleticism type categories should stop rising after 3 or 4 years other than strength. Players tend to be at their most athletic in their first 3 or 4 years in the league and it's the other skills that grow as they hit their peak.

I'll be honest, I prefer familiar names in Myleague. As a result I may not regress players quite as fast as some desire. That's fine. These are MY sliders and each person has every right to enjoy a faster regression, a faster progression or vice-versa. It's not hard to do. Each attribute can be adjusted, with negatives obviously causing a player to lose skills faster.

On progression one of the issues is that I wish that top potential players progressed faster without dragging all the young players along. I think that is largely an issue that can be fixed with a roster that pays attention to those details, but I chose sliders that hit a happy medium on the Zion's progressing fast but the end of the bench 2nd round guys not going up too fast.

One other note on regression is that strength is often something that doesn't decline with age (not NBA age that is) and shooting tends to decline far slower, if at all, than athletic categories. My decline phase attributes reflect this. I wasn't able to completely eliminate players losing IQ points in the decline phase, but i came pretty close. As a result of this you may think the OVRs aren't declining as fast as you'd like. It's because the IQ attributes are staying up and the decline is largely in vertical, speed, etc. So on the court these players won't be nearly as effective as you might think with the OVR.

Now to trade logic. It's completely broken. I tried. Nothing I did could get the CPU to offer trades that had any semblance of similarity to real life. The AI just doesn't not understand the concept of teams selling off expiring deals, trying to horde assets, etc. The trades, no matter the settings continue to be player for player, often at the same position. Examples include Mike Scott for Ersan Ilyasova. That's a pretty standard type of trade offered. So as a result of this flaw that can't be fixed, I have no trade sliders to suggest. I moved all the sliders all over the place. I had rebuilding and selling teams valuing picks at max levels and contending buying teams at minimum amounts. I moved all the possible sliders from one direction to the other and everywhere in between. Nothing seemed to change except how absurd some of the AI's offers became. The Hawks offered me Damion Jones for Luke Kennard and a top 3 protected 1st. For real.

So now that we have dispatched with fixing trade logic, lets' get into contracts. I got the sliders to a point where I felt like the contract sliders had a balance. I had to reduce the fame slider to zero to keep teams from signing Carmelo and to make offers for Dwight Howard (still get overpaid relative to what the Lakers gave him recently) lower.

I turned up the CPU resign aggressiveness in order to get teams to pick up options on rookie contracts. By doing this, teams were much more likely to pick up a team option. The only player I simply could not fix, regardless of CPU aggressiveness in resigning was Michael Porter Jr. Consistently Denver turned down his team option and consistently he went and signed 3/60m contracts elsewhere. But by turning up the aggressiveness, Sexton, Monk and a couple others started getting their options picked up like they would IRL. And it didn't seem to impact who moved on too much either. This year isn't exactly a banner FA class. AD resigned with LA every time. Drummond rarely moved on, often picking up his player option and sometimes signing a long term deal with Detroit. Lowry stayed with Toronto about 65% of the time. Same with Reggie Jackson, although his contract was usually only 10 million or so a year over 3 years.

So the dollar amounts seemed to be pretty good. The years pretty good. That's the good news. I was very happy with what players were signing for. Well, NBA players that is.

Another fun glitch in 2k20 is that the AI doesn't sign any 2nd round picks. None. Not in year 1. Not in year 2. Not when they have tons of roster spots available. Never. And then to make it worse, many of these 2nd round picks turn around and sign 2/6m deals. So in the case of some, that might have got cut on the non-guaranteed rookie contract, they instead take a spot a vet might have taken. And they get paid far too much to do it. This leaves some solid contributors in the free agent pool. No, it's not a game breaker for Markieff Morris or Elfrid Payton to be unsigned. But to someone as anal about all this as me, it was frustrating that this glitch was causing that.

And of course the G league glitch guys also took some way too large contracts. This resulted in both quality players left in the FA pool and some NBA players taking vet minimum deals when they should have been the ones taking a 2/8m contract, not a G leaguer.

I put player potential down at 25 because in past games players like Anthony Randolph, who never produced, would get really nice contracts based on a weirdly high potential rating the 2k roster makers gave him. I want players largely being paid on performance. Reducing the salary curve to 25 seemed to help with more players being signed rather than sitting in the FA pool still holding out for 10 million a year. We've seen contracts for non star players come down a bit since the salary cap spike year and also many, many of the rank and file of the NBA now sign one year deals or two year deals for 5 or 6 million a year. The MozGov contract days are over, barring another salary cap spike.

I also put player non-financial ambitions at 60. I wanted this to kick older players into signing with top teams. Which leads to our next "broken" aspect of 2k20. Teams are dumb in who they sign and players don't seem to consider non-financial ambitions much. Turning that up to 100 just resulted in some older players signing for too little, but it strangely didn't result in them signing with the "right" teams. So I found a happy medium. And as in past years, some teams still stockpile too many players at the same position. For example Atlanta signed Favors, Whiteside, Cousins, and Damien Jones in the offseason. There is no slider for taking into account the market (probably because the NBA doesn't want to admit LA or Miami is more desirable for a player than Minnesota or Detroit) so top players would head to some weird places. Since I really only simmed the first offseason 95% of the time, there wasn't too much of this. Because the top talent wasn't moving anyway (Siakam, AD, Drummond, DeRozan, all consistently staying home). Buddy Hield was generally the top guy to move around, or Kyle Lowry. And playing on a winner didn't seem to matter much. A few times I followed through each day of the offers, and it seemed whatever the top money offer was, a player took it.

I wish that contracts had some of the depth of the trade sliders (assuming they worked). Trade sliders allow you to adjust for player type, which might have helped with the issue of bigs being overvalued (and not stretch bigs either but traditional Dwight Howard types). I also wish there was options for playing style as well like in the trade sliders, where a player and team would assess if they were a good fit.

So there you have it. Hopefully the option bug will get fixed and maybe even not signing 2nd round picks. But in the meantime I do offer up these sliders for people to try and see if they work well enough that you don't feel obligated to try 30 team control if that isn't your thing.

The sliders are under the online ID Comdukakis999 and called Com P/R sliders. Please note that my online ID does not have an L in it (a typo that I did when I signed up with OS any years ago and never fixed)

If you want to just type them in I will also post the numbers in the first post of the thread.

[TheDominator273]

I think the work around for trades are 30 team control and trade approval. When you see a CPU/CPU trade offer look at it more closely. Which player being moved makes the most sense for his destination? Ok now change the terms of the trade (if possible) to be a more realistic swap, adding picks from a team giving up bad money and/or compensation appropriate for the other team and their current direction.

30 team control is also the solution for signing 2nd round picks. Simply sign them for all the CPU teams if over a certain overall threshold or even if they aren't if it's an over the cap team that simply needs the cheap roster filler.

[jakalfc]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheDominator273

I think the work around for trades are 30 team control and trade approval. When you see a CPU/CPU trade offer look at it more closely. Which player being moved makes the most sense for his destination? Ok now change the terms of the trade (if possible) to be a more realistic swap, adding picks from a team giving up bad money and/or compensation appropriate for the other team and their current direction. 30 team control is also the solution for signing 2nd round picks. Simply sign them for all the CPU teams if over a certain overall threshold or even if they aren't if it's an over the cap team that simply needs the cheap roster filler.

I agree, this problem also existed in 2k19

[Chrome_Claymore]

Can I just ask on why Regression on Defensive and Offensive Consistency is set to 0? I'll have guys like Ben Simmons have 96 Offensive Consistency at the age of 37 or Kawhi's Defensive Consistency be at 99 at the age of 38 which kind of absurd.

[Dishandime]

There is a "hack" to do in the offseason free agency to fix issue with too many good players staying FA. It goes along with a bit different settings for contracts and trade sliders.

I think you should spend more time with trade sliders, especially "player discounts" and "team style importance" sliders. I managed to get a pretty good balance last year and liked what I've seen in my leagues. I'll try to find time to explain some points, but are looking to post my sliders soon. Right now I'm testing by playing 4 user teams in myleague...

[Comduklakis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Chrome_Claymore

Can I just ask on why Regression on Defensive and Offensive Consistency is set to 0? I'll have guys like Ben Simmons have 96 Offensive Consistency at the age of 37 or Kawhi's Defensive Consistency be at 99 at the age of 38 which kind of absurd.

sliders are based on individual preference. I'm a firm believer players get smarter as they age and their physical skills is what they lose. With that in mind I think most players at age 36 are going to have a higher Shot IQ, a higher pass IQ, and be smarter on D than at 26. What they will lose is speed, vertical, hands, steals, quickness, acceleration, etc.

My sliders are also designed for gameplay. So while an OVR may be high due to those consistency and IQ ratings, you will find when the game is played that the downturn in physical attributes will make some of the older players not worth a lot on the court.

So that's my logic. By no means do I insist that my way is always right. I take base gameplay slider sets and adjust them to my liking and I assume others do the same with regression/progression sets. That's why I spelled out my logic in this thread on how I came to the ratings.

[Comduklakis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dishandime

There is a "hack" to do in the offseason free agency to fix issue with too many good players staying FA. It goes along with a bit different settings for contracts and trade sliders. I think you should spend more time with trade sliders, especially "player discounts" and "team style importance" sliders. I managed to get a pretty good balance last year and liked what I've seen in my leagues. I'll try to find time to explain some points, but are looking to post my sliders soon. Right now I'm testing by playing 4 user teams in myleague...

I generally use 30 team control and do my own trades so honestly I didn't want to spend a ton of time on them. I've found that no matter what I do I can't get the CPU to trade like a real team. Teams don't shed salaries. Teams don't hoard assets. Teams don't traded for expiring contracts to plan for Free Agency. So while I can make settings that make trades "fair" they aren't typical NBA trades. I don't think Garrett Temple for Seth Curry for example is unfair, I think it's pointless. And in my sims, all the trades were pointless 90% of the time.

I wish you the best of luck if you can find trade settings that get the CPU to offer up "real" NBA trades and not just player for player swaps (often at the same positions). I look forward to seeing them if you can pull it off