2K has become a game of "Highlights" instead of basketball - are badges to blame?

[mcdowell31]

I play strictly MyLeague mode: I was extremely hopeful when I saw that NBA 2K18 would allow mass disabling of badges.

On opening day I created two files: One with badges, one without. I wanted to play with badges as the developers intended; I also wanted to see if improvements of how the badges affected gameplay had improved from 2K17. After 5 games in each file, I could tell that the badges were identical to 2K17. For me, no badges meant more fundamental gameplay; that is fun to me. Each new opening night of MyLeague I disable every badge league-wide; with the roster tool, it takes like 60-seconds to alter 450 players.

Here's what I said about 2K17:

https://forums.operationsports.com/m...y-in-myleague/

[ILLSmak]

I don't think it's badges, per se. It's that it's too focused on open shots and poster dunks. Those are the two go to successes in 2k, it seems. Get a wide open shot, get a poster dunk. Which is good, it makes sense... but not to base your game mechanics around.

I still think if they changed it to where open shots were less overpowered, contests were less overpowered, then it would change the game for the better. It would make people take bad shots and that would change the whole dynamic of the game. People have to believe they can make a shot, like when Kobe took a fade over 2 people, he was believing he could make it, not thinking "This is a heavily contested shot that has 20% chance of going in."

Contesting should be attrition. You should hope to lower a superstar player's shot percentage by like 10-15% and win by getting more boards, getting out on the break, etc.

Once certain players can score semi-successfully 1 on 1 w/ no pick, just creating a shot, the game will open up and, counter-intuitively, become less highlight based.

There will still be too many highlights (cuz video games), but when one outcome is basically 'nah' and the others (running behind picks or spam dribble/driving) are very high success if you can only trigger the right outcome, the game becomes stale and based only on creating those highlight plays. It's like if Street Fighter overwhelmingly favored the dragon punch and fireball and all people did was just spam fireballs and then dragon punch if you got close. It would create a really boring game to watch and play.

-Smak

[NoLeafClover]

For the sake of integrity in gameplay, I honestly think the Limitless Range badge should just be removed, or if not greatly scaled back as it's the one that has the biggest ripple effect on the rest of the gameplay.

Having to guard players just inside half court when it's so easy to blow by defenders pressing up (combined with the ridiculously high rate at which open shots go in) makes defense even weaker than it already is.

If it was only possible to hit a max of 45% on open 3s or something (similar to elite shooters in real life) then it would probably be OK, but given people can hit 60 to 70% of their open 3s it really needs a nerf.

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[ForeverVersatile]

Quote: Originally Posted by ILLSmak

I don't think it's badges, per se. It's that it's too focused on open shots and poster dunks. Those are the two go to successes in 2k, it seems. Get a wide open shot, get a poster dunk. Which is good, it makes sense... but not to base your game mechanics around. I still think if they changed it to where open shots were less overpowered, contests were less overpowered, then it would change the game for the better. It would make people take bad shots and that would change the whole dynamic of the game. People have to believe they can make a shot, like when Kobe took a fade over 2 people, he was believing he could make it, not thinking "This is a heavily contested shot that has 20% chance of going in." Contesting should be attrition. You should hope to lower a superstar player's shot percentage by like 10-15% and win by getting more boards, getting out on the break, etc. Once certain players can score semi-successfully 1 on 1 w/ no pick, just creating a shot, the game will open up and, counter-intuitively, become less highlight based. There will still be too many highlights (cuz video games), but when one outcome is basically 'nah' and the others (running behind picks or spam dribble/driving) are very high success if you can only trigger the right outcome, the game becomes stale and based only on creating those highlight plays. It's like if Street Fighter overwhelmingly favored the dragon punch and fireball and all people did was just spam fireballs and then dragon punch if you got close. It would create a really boring game to watch and play. -Smak

I agree, the game is too focused on creating space even for guys like KD who dont need really much space because he can create space just using his length. The game becomes more about 3's and dunks when thats not the strength of every team.

Can't face up like Lamarcus and pop a jumper because you'll miss those due to the strength of the contest.

Can't iso with KD and shoot over a shorter player because contests don't care how tall you are etc...



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[Yesh2kdone]

It's actually a lot simpler than badges; archetypes have ruined this game. In order to split skills and abilities up, they've weighted them too much, because who wants to pick an archetype that is slightly better than average at the chosen skill?

[JayOTT]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I can't weigh in on the realism debate, because I don't watch even close to enough IRL basketball. But I can say that, on a game design level, 2k have messed up the badge system. jk31 raised the main point that I would've raised; there are far too many examples of there being both a badge and an attribute/s for the exact same situation. There's two things I'd like to add;

1. If there's any badge that I could call unrealistic, it's Dimer. I get what 2k were trying to do; they were trying to make sure players who average high assists IRL do the same in game. But the badge magically turns mediocre shooters into good ones, when in reality, their chances are boosted by how open they are, not by who passed them the ball.

2. If 2kLab is to be believed, a lot of the 'weaker' badges got buffed in 2k18. It's at a point where you could argue that how dominant a player is in game has more to do with the quantity and quality of their badges, rather than their overall ratings. Key word could; I may have to test that out by giving a scrub all of the badges and seeing if they go off.

[jeebs9]

Quote: Originally Posted by ForeverVersatile

I agree, the game is too focused on creating space even for guys like KD who dont need really much space because he can create space just using his length. The game becomes more about 3's and dunks when thats not the strength of every team. Can't face up like Lamarcus and pop a jumper because you'll miss those due to the strength of the contest. Can't iso with KD and shoot over a shorter player because contests don't care how tall you are etc... Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

You know why right? We had a game that let people do exactly what your talking about. But we as a video community had to step away from that. Because it takes no skill to do what your just exampled (in the game that is). I'm old games users would just iso over and over. Doing the same few moves because they have a size advantage. Now you have to move your defender to get open. We should all want that. Because there are so many things we can't account for. Especially when you talk about general users. I'd hate to be defending someone and they just shot shoots over smaller players without doing any moves to get open. Once because your hot. Not the enough game. Especially with 2k pushing this my player thing. They couldn't have the exact thing from real life.

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[ForeverVersatile]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeebs9

You know why right? We had a game that let people do exactly what your talking about. But we as a video community had to step away from that. Because it takes no skill to do what your just exampled (in the game that is). I'm old games users would just iso over and over. Doing the same few moves because they have a size advantage. Now you have to move your defender to get open. We should all want that. Because there are so many things we can't account for. Especially when you talk about general users. I'd hate to be defending someone and they just shot shoots over smaller players without doing any moves to get open. Once because your hot. Not the enough game. Especially with 2k pushing this my player thing. They couldn't have the exact thing from real life. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

It doesn't take skill to turbo into a defender and get a hip ride animation, but we can do it and people still iso 95% of the time online so i dont see your point.

This game we have is watered down and it gets boring. You can't really play like certain players.

I wanna feel like I'm the players and not be restricted to playing the game within the game.





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