Best strategies to not have good free agents go unsigned?

[PlanetCharisma]

My biggest gripe with the game is that good players always go unsigned (or get signed at the very end). What are some ways to combat this? 36-team league? Adjusting the salary cap (I don't want to turn it off)? Any other suggestions?

[disturbingcreation]

Contract sliders. Once the high dollar players are signed for proper amounts, crank the min and max rating sliders in the contract slider settings.

[jk31]

30 team control unfortunately...

[mustardnmayo]

In 2K23 adding 4 expansion teams worked well consistently for future seasons. Free agency would consist of 73-74 & lower rated players.

Trying to do the same in 25, not sure how different it'll be with CPU signing some 2nd rounders & longer guaranteed rookie contracts.

[Dorkington]

Easy answer is "contract sliders"

But there's also things like progression, injury, and draft quality sliders at play too.

Personally when I start a new myEras play, my base is to do the following, and then adjust as needed:

* Min Rating 50
* Max Rating 75
* Salary Curve 0
* Reduce the other contract sliders a bit to taste
* Progression 25-35
* Regression 65-75
* Draft Quality 25


If that doesn't help, you can increase Max all the way up to 100, Min up to whatever, and increase the cap at the start of setup.

[jeb4056]

Like others have mentioned, use the contract sliders. I usually keep it at 50 for the first half of free agency, then bump it up to 75 for 3 days, then bump it up to 100 for the lasts 3 days and never have any good players left in free agency.

[amioran]

There's a very good video by 2K with the PopBoy with contract sliders settings to resolve just this issue. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aaD488750M

[dwayne12345]

In addition to what others have stated teams go after free agents by position need. So if a team has cap space but isn't making any offers, what I do is temporarily adjust the positions of players on their roster. Make it so they have 1 or 0 players at the position you want them to sign a free agent at.
Simulate a free agency day and they will have made an offer to someone at that position. You can then move their players back to their proper position after the offer is made.
Or 30 team ctrl for specific periods.


You can also up the CPU Re-Signing aggressiveness. This will make it so teams aren't letting bird right players go as often.