NBA 2k19 MyLeague Blog

[maumau78]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianmaziq ... 96ae1e55bf

I should probably put this one down lower, but I absolutely geek out over features like this. Our Import Draft Class feature has silently been a highly used feature for a number of years now.

In NBA 2K19, we now have pre-created draft classes for the following drafts:

1960 – Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and more
1965 – Gail Goodrich, Rick Barry, Jerry Sloan, and more
1969 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jo Jo White, and more
1970 – Bob Lanier, Pete Maravich, Dave Cowens, Rudy Tomjanovich, Nate “Tiny” Archibald, and more
1974 – Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes, Maurice Lucas, George Gervin, and more
1976-2017 – ALL of the modern NBA!

[PeacemanNOT]

I'm extremely interested in the historical draft classes. How exactly are they going to fill in the gaps for missing players, have they gone out and licensed a bunch of players or what? I hope they don't just shove in the few players they have and leave it at that.

[maumau78]

I'm extremely interested in the historical draft classes. How exactly are they going to fill in the gaps for missing players, have they gone out and licensed a bunch of players or what? I hope they don't just shove in the few players they have and leave it at that.

I mean from 1976 it's a lot of player!

It's like we can every single season roster from 198x and so on.....or do I miss something?

[ThePointForward]

Thes draft classes will be editable so that you're able to fill in the gaps for players 2K doesn't have a license to use. I still don't know if the players from the draft classes will be accessible in any other aspect of the game for roster building. You will, however, be able to edit the legends, but not their ages.

I still think it will be one half of the feature and besides missing players you will have to create proper starting roster to start the season with before you get first draft class.

[PeacemanNOT]

I'm extremely interested in the historical draft classes. How exactly are they going to fill in the gaps for missing players, have they gone out and licensed a bunch of players or what? I hope they don't just shove in the few players they have and leave it at that.

I mean from 1976 it's a lot of player!

It's like we can every single season roster from 198x and so on.....or do I miss something?

Pretty sure it's just the draft classes... right? I'm just wondering will they have a lot more licensed players that we can use for possible retro rosters.

Also just got to the end of the video, and they briefly talked about how you can put hairstyles on already existing scanned players. They might have misunderstood each other but if that's actually the case then that's pretty dope. Didn't even think that could be a possible feature.

[Dee4Three]

This is cool, it means the possibility of a lot of new licensed players.

But....

The gameplay..... the gameplay needs to be good.

[PeacemanNOT]

This is cool, it means the possibility of a lot of new licensed players.

But....

The gameplay..... the gameplay needs to be good.

Oh of course, but you have to appreciate some of the stuff they're doing here. This is probably something 2K will always have over other sports games... they just do franchise mode features better than anyone else.

[RayRay_953]

I think they're just going to fill in the draft classes of players they can't get with placeholders. Something just tells me that the draft classes are gonna be incomplete in some way. If they did manage to get the rights to all of those players for the draft classes, shouldn't we have heard anything about them filling in the fakes on the classic teams?

Also, "1976-2017 ALL of the Modern NBA"...I find that hard to believe. If that's supposed to be "all" of the players, then Barkley and Miller should be present in the 1984 and 1987 Draft Classes respectively. Also, there shouldn't be any missing players from the 1990's-2010's classic teams by that logic. It doesn't make sense to advertise "all" the players being present if there's going to be fakes.

Also hoping that they improve the CF's on the legends. Ever since the switch to next-gen, some legends look nothing like they're supposed to (Joe Dumars, Alex English, Danny Ainge, Chris Mullin, etc.)

[Rosque]

2K has the best devs, fuck y'all honestly. Look at how shitty myleague equivalent is in FIFA and PES. Only Football Manager is miles better but career mode IS the game there. This is only one game-mode in the game

Absolutely speechless

[Dee4Three]

2K has the best devs, fuck y'all honestly. Look at how shitty myleague equivalent is in FIFA and PES. Only Football Manager is miles better but career mode IS the game there. This is only one game-mode in the game

Absolutely speechless

They have the best devs in regards to modes/depth. Development on gameplay is certainly debatable, especially considering the gameplay since this switch to this gen has been mostly riddled with issues/bugs/legacy issues.

And for the comments stating "You have to give them credit for innovation". Why? Does that mean I can forget about the actual gameplay not even being playable for me in 2K18? So because the resources have been dedicated to ramping up the features (bells & Whistles) I should be giving them credit? Absolutely not. The gameplay is the most important piece to the puzzle. I said this on Twitter, it doesn't matter if the gameplay dev team and the features dev team work completely independently, they are all under Take Two Interactive. All departments reflect the bottom line, and the higher ups in the company have to choose what resources, time and money they want to dedicate to certain parts of the game. All of this reflects on the bottom line for the company. So I absolutely do not have to give credit, if I don't think the actual on court actions is getting the credit it deserves.

I have heard so many companies release a game, or talk about a game before release, stating things like "We wanted to perfect "X" before we added "Y". In this scenario, the gameplay is X and the features are Y (in my opinion). If the gameplay isn't improved, and the frustrating continues to mount with the on court action, Y is just cosmetic. From watching the early gameplay videos, I see:

1. Skating still present
2. Blow Bys still present (And confirmed by Smoove)
3. Body steals/body blocks
4. Floaty passes

Number 1 and 2 were introduced to us in 2K18 with the new motion system, and 3 and 4 are legacy issues that have been in the games for years. Now, without trying the game I can't confirm how major the above 4 are, but I am not optimistic at this point based on what I have seen.

[PeacemanNOT]

Okay but atleast give credit to the developers, and leave Take-Two/other departments out of the equation. You have to appreciate some of the new things they're working on. One of our very own Leftos is part of that team, and out of any aspect of their game it seems like these are the areas they make the best strides.

Leave gameplay out of this for now. Although I would say that you should definitely take everything into account when deciding on a purchase. People who buy the game just for the franchise aspect are really just kidding themselves, as what good is an amazing franchise mode if the gameplay is bad. Too many people on OS right now getting fooled by that hype.

[Dee4Three]

Okay but atleast give credit to the developers, and leave Take-Two/other departments out of the equation. You have to appreciate some of the new things they're working on. One of our very own Leftos is part of that team, and out of any aspect of their game it seems like these are the areas they make the best strides.

Leave gameplay out of this for now. Although I would say that you should definitely take everything into account when deciding on a purchase. People who buy the game just for the franchise aspect are really just kidding themselves, as what good is an amazing franchise mode if the gameplay is bad. Too many people on OS right now getting fooled by that hype.

Ill say again. I am purchasing the game for the on-court action, not for features. For me, those things are meaningless if the gameplay is bad.

Credits to Leftos/Vlad for the work on said features/new features. But, I buy NBA 2K video games, I don't buy the game for cosmetics. I don't watch a game on TV for the cool halftime show, I watch it for the on-court action.

I just want the game to play right on the court, Peace. You know that.

[Andrew]

Honestly, these enhancements sound great! Getting the full MyLEAGUE experience into the online version is really good news. The additional tuning sliders will hopefully allow us to tailor the experience as necessary, and perhaps address a few quirks in the sim engine, should they arise. The historical Draft Classes are a great idea for additional content, and I like the added depth of player mentorships, traded player exceptions, updates to the CBA for more realism and accuracy, and so on. NBA 2K already had the deepest franchise experience we've seen in basketball gaming, and it seems like they've found a way to make it deeper and better. Credit where it's due, it sounds like some great work has gone into it this year.

While I prefer the MyLEAGUE approach myself, I also really like that they've added a more traditional option for MyGM players who don't want to play through the story. As the blog put it, it's the best of both worlds. Frankly, I'd love to see that done with MyCAREER as well. Maybe it has been - I guess we won't know until that developer blog drops - but I think it's the right way to go to avoid tedium, and provide a viable alternative to people who don't like the story or are fed up with that approach in general.

There are other concerns that will need to be addressed, and I don't think we can be blamed for being sceptical given certain issues in NBA 2K18, or discrepancies when we go back and review the developer blogs from last year. As far as the franchise modes in NBA 2K19 are concerned though, this does sound fantastic, and comes as very welcome news.

[JEDL]

Wow as a mostly MyLeague/MyGM player, I am hooked! Sure gameplay may be a disaster but I barely touch it anyways and its nice knowing they put in some effort into modes that are not even profitable for them (or even considered as inferior in terms of popularity compared to MyCareer and MyTEAM) which says something. And yes the Historical draft classes are guaranteed to have a lot of missing players but we can always fill them in with our own edits.

And just as Andrew said, there are still some aspects or features which need some tweaking or added but this is a step in the right direction.

[Uncle Drew]

Okay but atleast give credit to the developers, and leave Take-Two/other departments out of the equation. You have to appreciate some of the new things they're working on. One of our very own Leftos is part of that team, and out of any aspect of their game it seems like these are the areas they make the best strides.

Leave gameplay out of this for now. Although I would say that you should definitely take everything into account when deciding on a purchase. People who buy the game just for the franchise aspect are really just kidding themselves, as what good is an amazing franchise mode if the gameplay is bad. Too many people on OS right now getting fooled by that hype.

Ill say again. I am purchasing the game for the on-court action, not for features. For me, those things are meaningless if the gameplay is bad.

Credits to Leftos/Vlad for the work on said features/new features. But, I buy NBA 2K video games, I don't buy the game for cosmetics. I don't watch a game on TV for the cool halftime show, I watch it for the on-court action.

I just want the game to play right on the court, Peace. You know that.

I'm with you Dee. All that other fluff, and deeper immersion building and running a team is nice, but doesn't really concern me. It's the gameplay that'll decide for me, of which they've dropped the ball (no pun intended) in these last versions.

[The X]

Mentorship sounds good in theory. At the very least it might be a nice touch. Hopefully a player needs 10 years plus experience to activate.

Regarding past draft classes I think it could work only if all players are at their ratings at time of being drafted so MJ in 80s etc.

It's great that they are continuing to invest in the offline modes.

[RMJH4]

I like the sound of a lot of this. I find I sim a lot and like writing franchise stories so this is excellent news to me. The historic draft class news is excellent to people like me who enjoy retro nba. Id imagine you will get a handful of proper licensed players that gradually increases per draft class leading up to the later 2000s when most players are still in game. And that should be fine, good base drafts for people to complete and add our own touches too. The myleague sliders will be great, and I love the thought of regular mygm mode, as we can create retro rosters and use them in mygm with retro draft classes. Really wanted to do that this year with my 2001-02 roster, looks like next year it'll be great, and can tinker with sliders to get better salary numbers relevant to the time possibly. I'd imagine gameplay will improve slightly but not enough to fix some of those core issues fully, as usual. Again its down to personal preference, but for me, I had always planned on buying it, I can always find some elements in game that satisfy my bball needs!

[adsefhr]

Wow as a mostly MyLeague/MyGM player, I am hooked! Sure gameplay may be a disaster but I barely touch it anyways and its nice knowing they put in some effort into modes that are not even profitable for them (or even considered as inferior in terms of popularity compared to MyCareer and MyTEAM) which says something. And yes the Historical draft classes are guaranteed to have a lot of missing players but we can always fill them in with our own edits.

And just as Andrew said, there are still some aspects or features which need some tweaking or added but this is a step in the right direction.

I totally agree! I mostly play MyLeague/MyGM modes especially when the game gets old and MyPark becomes unplayable and these changes are of course great additions. I'm not sure how are they planning to monetize MyLeague Online in the future but for now, I'm excited to try it out.

[Rosque]

I was fairly satisfied with the gameplay on 2K18 so these changes make it a definite purchase for me. No matter what some of you guys say. I can finally manage to get older players stronger, with less stamina, better standing shot and better IQ. I can finally have players that work hard improve faster and finally have lazy players like Beasley flame out of the league despite peak ages.
Things like this make it a day-one purchase.

[I Hate Mondays]

I love the mentor ship idea. Is this a 1-on-1 relationship thing, or can a player be the mentor of 2 or more players on the same team?

[Rosque]

Probably 1-1 thing. Now I can finally justify signing Emeka Okafor, Vince Carter or Matt Barnes even tho they are crap instead of making stuff up in my head

[I Hate Mondays]

Probably 1-1 thing.

1-1 would be a little too much anime, sensei-master scenario and a little bit unrealistic IMHO.
A quick example that comes to my mind, I don't see Lebron picking favorites and being the mentor of just one young player of the Lakers. He is probably sharing his knowledge of the game with every young piece of that team.
Even if you land a great mentor, you still wouldn't assign the whole team under his name because of the whole archetype stuff mentioned in the article. So in order to really take advantage of this feature, even with 1-to-many mentorship, you'd still have to sign at least 3 veterans to tackle most badges of every position on the court.

Now I can finally justify signing Emeka Okafor, Vince Carter or Matt Barnes even tho they are crap instead of making stuff up in my head

I feel you man, that's exactly what I was doing haha. Signing Brandon Bass just because that would be the right thing to do in real life and stuff.

[Rosque]

Yeah but Lebron in LAL will probably mentor Ingram mostly, Rondo will mentor Ball. Hart and Kuz are already polished and near-finished products. McGee can mentor Zubac. So it's mostly aimed to get a balanced roster with 7-8 vets, 1-2 rooks, rest 2nd or 3rd year players which is what I'd aim for. Also probably gonna be used to get AI to sign Vince Carter's of the world way after their prime. Maybe we can finally see Haslem type of careers using these new sliders to adjust how valued these types of players are.

[Andrew]

Even though a player may have a positive effect on the entire team to some extent, it's unlikely that they'd be able to spend enough time working with everyone to make them significantly better, or in some cases, have the skills to teach everyone on the roster. I think the 1-on-1 mentoring is the right approach to the mechanic, and I like the idea that Archetypes also matter in the effectiveness of the mentoring.

[TGsoGood]

The historic draft classes will not have every player due to licensing but that is where player DNA plays a large role.
The additions to Myleague are great, especially if you are a guy/gal that likes to manage the team/ league and sim most of your games.