MyPOINTS (XP) Earnings Already Nerfed?

[Andrew]

According to Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA2k/comments ... xperience/

If so, that's some dirty pool, because NBA 2K19's MyCAREER was promoted and previewed as having reduced the grind for XP and Badges. To nerf it so quickly after release smacks of a bait and switch that's on par with last year's shenanigans.

In all fairness, and giving 2K some very generous benefit of the doubt here, it's possible (as noted in the Reddit thread) that someone did the math, saw what level people had been getting to over the weekend, and realised that too many people would be getting to 90+ (or even 99) way too quickly. That doesn't do much for longevity, nor online balance with so many 90 Overalls running around in the first week, so perhaps some correction was in order. However, there's still a lack of transparency here, and when it comes to balance, nerfing the rewards from here on out isn't really going to address that. Now it'll be even harder to catch up, after all.

In any event, whether it's another move that's lacking in goodwill or just a necessary correction (though perhaps an over-correction?), it's an unfortunate turn of events, and could benefit from some transparency and explanations.

[ThePointForward]

Saw it, looks like it's on average like 30% down.

The real issue isn't that they did it, because as mentioned it might be just a simple balancing act. People got HoF badges before the standard edition released, the grind really was easy at that point.
The real issue is the stealthy approach. If they had made an announcement for the hotfix (because they also added 2 more queue spots for the daily spin wheel etc) and said "OK guys, we saw that it really got way too easy, so we scaled it down a bit, you get to keep your badges though", there would be some uproar, sure, but the optics would be infinitely better.

Also this is Ronnie's job - to manage the bloody community. Did we really expect proper news?

[Andrew]

Agreed. It's another example of how for all the good things 2K has done over the years and as much as we've enjoyed the games, PR and communication remains something that they're really bad at.

[EMan]

One of the devs said they're gonna revert this little stealth XP nerf in an upcoming patch. https://twitter.com/choops4life/status/ ... 70656?s=21

The fact that this was an undocumented stealth change in the first place makes me believe that they will try it again in a few weeks, after all most people will think that if 2K got spanked on this once already, they wouldn't be greedy enough to try it again would they?

They would though, they would.

That might be pretty cynical, but given what their CEO has said in the past, I'm not feeling too kindly toward Take Two right now.

[[Q]]

They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. So they're taking it back. They'll probably wait until people forget about this and try it again and hope they don't get caught

[Andrew]

It's therefore on us collectively as a community to ensure that they don't try to keep getting away with this. Or, if we want to argue that there's some merit to the nerfs, that there's more transparency about it.

Also, boosting Park and Pro-Am to be more on par with NBA games seems like it would've been the logical move in the first place.

[ThePointForward]

Thought about it some more and it didn't really made sense.

Nerfed XP = you need to play more games to break caps.
More games played = more VC earned.

So by the time you break the caps and can upgrade your player again, you have more VC than before the nerf to upgrade with. Which means less incentive for players to actually pay for VC.

[Andrew]

I don't think it was intended to sell more VC. If anything, it might boost retention/hours played stats, which I'm sure they'd like as well. I'm inclined to believe that it was done to even out progression in online and offline modes, but they went the wrong way with it (decreasing MyCAREER XP instead of increasing it for Pro-Am and The Playground).