2K8—developing players in Franchise by changing player type: intended or cheesing?

[doncicfan77]

So, the attributes that develop the most for each player depend on his player type. All attributes are sorted into five categories (for skaters, Scoring, Skating, Defense & Skills, Mental, and Physical), and the ten "training points" (more for Veteran/Elite/Superstar players) are allocated based on player type, e.g. the Playmaker type gets 1 Scoring, 2 Skating, 3 Defense & Skills, 3 Mental, and 1 Physical.

The game lets you edit a player's attributes and type as much as you like, so you could just cheese the ratings if you were so inclined, but if you go to your roster and select a player, there's an option to change his player type without entering the Edit Player menu at all. Which makes me wonder, is taking advantage of this the manner in which the devs intended for players to develop prospects in Franchise?

For example, I did a sort of dispersal draft with the Isles, replaced them with the created Hartford Seals—Whalers logo wasn't available, sadly—and did an expansion draft with VGK/SEA rules (lots of fun, btw!) One of my D-men is Tom Preissing, a promising offensive D-man with good shooting and skating, but average puck skills and mental attributes, and downright bad physical attributes. Leaving him as an OFD would help with the Defense & Puck Skills (4 points) but it also focuses on shooting (3 points), which is redundant for him, while it would neglect his Mental attribs (1 point) and especially the Physical skills he sorely needs (0 points).

Changing his player type to DEF, despite the fact that he's not at all a defensive D-man, would help him become a much more well-rounded player. It would (I assume) also help with line chemistry, since I have him paired with Chris Campoli, a young OFD.

My question is, would this be cheesing the system, or is it the intended mechanic for player progression, since you can't manually allocate those ten training points, and the game actually gives you the option to change each player's type—and therefore their training regimen—without actually editing the player?

Leaving each player to their assigned type wouldn't address their weaknesses in most cases, which is problematic because young players generally have poor Mental attribs across the board, and young goalies have poor Durability & Endurance. Butterfly & Positioning goalies only get 1 training point in those Physical stats, whereas Reflex goalies get 3, so it almost seems a necessity to temporarily convert goalie prospects to Reflex goalies for a while to get their Endurance high enough to be starters.

[snowdrift]

It's intended. Somewhere in the help menus in 2K8 it actually mentions that you have the option of changing player roles in the offseason.

Sometimes an elite option will be available when you go to change a player's type on the roster screen. I assume that's a bug, unless the developers just wanted to reward players who made full use of the game's features with the occasional surprise. Selecting the elite option when it's available can be a game-changer for mediocre prospects. My rule is generally to only use the elite option on lower-end prospects, or on a struggling team. Ultimately you should just do whatever you find the most fun.

Let us know how old Tom turns out. I find it amazing that more than 15 years later there are still things to discuss about this game.

[doncicfan77]

Thanks for clarifying, it's much appreciated!

I ended up trading Preissing back to the Kings in a package for Lubo Visnovsky. I really needed a #1 D-man and I have Ian White, my pick from Toronto, so I decided I'd rather have him getting NHL minutes.

I'm also glad you mentioned that the Elite label will randomly show up as an option. I saw it happen once when I was messing around in a test save, mainly to look at player contracts. I assumed after the fact I must have gotten confused, so it's nice to know I wasn't going crazy

Franchise mode should be a lot of fun, I didn't realize how much I missed the deeper mechanics of mid-aughts 2K hockey. Line chemistry doesn't seem like an issue since scrimmages crank it up so much, but managing fatigue should be an interesting balancing act. Looks like the best way to approach individual training might be to come up with a simple formula based on "games played the previous X days" and how many minutes each player gets per game.

Still getting used to the controls, but they're finally starting to feel natural. I can definitely see why people, myself included, started gravitating toward EA around this time (to the long-term detriment of hockey video games, IMO). But I'm loving the variety of goals and saves I've been seeing.

My only real complaint is something that seems to be an issue with hockey games in general: I can't get a cycle going in the O-zone to save my life, even with my top line using the Triangle offense strategy. So a disproportionate number of chances—100%, in fact—come on the rush and off rebounds, rather than created from good O-zone puck movement. Have you, or anybody else, managed to use the cycle in 2K8 effectively, maybe by changing a certain slider? Or should I not bother driving myself crazy trying to find settings to make the cycle work?

I still like the organic, "loose" feeling of never being entirely in control of the puck, it's much more realistic than EA's magnetic stick tape IMO, but it'd be so satisfying to cycle the D out of position and create those mini-2-on-1s every once in a while.

[snowdrift]

Maybe play with the sliders for puck retention, shot blocking, pass accuracy and pass interceptions. Player attributes and difficulty setting probably also factor in. I seem to remember the devs admitting that the higher difficulties invisibly skew sliders and player attributes in the background. You really see it sometimes when your top player can barely skate at the beginning of a shift, while the other team has some enforcer flying up the ice and getting a breakaway.

I feel like I've had some pretty satisfying cycles, and also had times where everyone just felt like standing around on the power play and no one wanted to get open. Every hockey game seems to have flaws you have to learn to play around... always appreciate it whenever my team gives up a goal in NHL 14 because a defender in perfect position decides to suddenly turn around and skate to the bench.

One last thing about the scrimmages: you can back out any time and still keep any boosts you've received to that point. Sometimes it's best to get out while the going is good to avoid overworking your players.

[doncicfan77]

Thanks for pointing that out about leaving scrimmages, good advice that I wouldn't have realized otherwise.

I've been playing around just a bit with the sliders and I'm having great results with them. It feels like the sliders all actually do what it says on the can, as opposed to EA sliders, which for me always seem to require extreme values to have an effect—if they ever do.

One issue is that I feel like your AI forwards aren't programmed to actually skate when on the cycle, almost as if the devs intended you to only pass around the triangle rather than having the half-board player take the puck to the net, the corner man skate up to the half-board and the net-front man to the corner to fill those spots, etc.

That's ultimately a nitpick though, since no hockey game I've ever played has gotten the cycle exactly right. With the sliders, though, I can at least sustain O-zone time passing around the perimeter (translating that to quality chances is a different story, as it should be).

I really appreciate all the advice, it's very helpful! I'll keep tweaking the sliders as I go, with a particular focus on the ones you mentioned. I played on Pro while I was getting used to the controls, still getting used to All-Star but I feel like it's gonna be the best baseline in the long run.

[doodyootz]

Thank you both for these posts. I'm just coming back to 2K8 now, 15 years later, to play the franchise mode. there were good tidbits here, thanks!