MyPlayer builder and Badges Courtside Report

[ThePointForward]

Link: https://nba.2k.com/2k24/courtside-report/badges/

All of the added features and enhancements below are only available on PlayStation®5 and Xbox Series X|S on New Gen consoles.
That's a direct quote. If you're on previous gen version of the game, that's it, you can stop reading now, sorry.

New Player Builder
You can start from scratch or use a template made out of an NBA player. Personally I think that takes the hidden build descriptions from 2K23 and now you'll be able to pick them in the builder and adjust as wanted.
Takeovers are no longer in the builder, that was announced earlier anyway.
More emphasis reportedly went into preventing meta builds and attribute caps for some size combinations have been overhauled.
Maximum weights and heights have changed per position (check the mike wang tweets thread for heights).



Badges
Badges have been split into 4 tiers: S, A, B and C. Tier assignment is determined by height and each badge again has unique set of attribute requirements.
As an example, a 6'4" shooting guard has golden clamps put into S tier and to upgrade it to HoF you'd need 99 perimeter D and 60 acceleration.

24 new badges have been added to the game. Some older ones were removed, so the total now is 77 badges - this counts only skill badges, so personality badges or e.g. gym rat are presumably not included in this number. 2K23 had 64 if I'm counting correctly.

BADGES REMOVED: Limitless Takeoff, Bully, Clamp Breaker, Menace, Mismatch Expert, Quick First Step, Vice Grip, Amped, Clutch Shooter, Floor General, Volume Shooter.

BADGES ADDED:
SCORING: Float Game, Scooper, Bunny, Spin Cycle, Two Step, Precision Dunker, Hook Specialist, Post-Fade Phenom, Open Looks, Spot Finder, Whistle, Free Points and Bulldozer.
BALLHANDLING/PASSING: Relay Passer, Touch Passer, Big Driver, Blow-By, Physical Handles, Speed Booster, Triple Strike.
DEFENSE: Fast Feet, Right Stick Ripper, Immovable Enforcer, 94 Feet.
You can read up on details in the article, most of these are fairly self explanatory.

Badge progression overhaul

Badge levels are now fluid. The more you use a badge in games (manage to have it activate) the higher level it will go towards. On the other hand if you do not use the badge, eventually it will start dropping the progression back down.
You cannot go below bronze level (once earned I guess). Also badges that cannot even activate in some game modes will not drop in those (example by 2K is Relay passer in 2v2 games). You can also earn badge progression in practices (NBA team practice, Brickley and the "sport drink not made by Coca-Cola" training facility). Can't lose progression there.
Also you still need to have the attributes for the higher level of the badge, so that has not changed.
And this is where the tiers come into play. Higher tier badges are harder to gain and faster to lose.

Ultimately the badges will tell exactly what your playstyle is over longer period of time.

BADGE PERKS
Yo dawg, I heard you like badges, so we made badges for your badges.
- Mike Wang, 2023, colourized, literally

You can now also unlock Badge Perks, which provide some benefits for badge progression. Each perk has 4 slots - 1 for each badge tier, so you can apply this perk on one C-tier, B-tier, A-tier and S-tier badge (no word if you can put for example B-tier to S-tier slot). Only one perk can be applied to a badge at a time.
Perks:

• Overdrive - more progression in games.
• Immunity - less regression in games.
• Drill Savant - more progression in Team Practice Facility.
• Scholar - rotational seasonal prize - more progression in PvP games when you have high teammate grade. None if you don't.
• Winner's Circle - rotational seasonal prize - more progression in PvP games when you win, none if you lose.
• High-Risk - rotational seasonal prize - more progression in PvP games when activating perks, but faster loss of progression when not activating them.

PERFORMANCE MULTIPLIERS and FLOOR SETTERS
Performance multipliers are similar to perks, but for every badge at once.
Each major game mode has it's own category - NBA, City, Rec and Pro-Am.
Each category has 3 multipliers:

• Grade A Student - games with high teammate grade will accelerate progress.
• Winner Takes all - games won will accelerate progress
• Up for the Challenge - playing against tough opponents will accelerate progress

Floor setters are seasonal prizes from the free season track. 18 slots total, 9 for silver and 9 for gold badges. Essentially it will let you lock your badge floor to silver or gold, it's permanent and if the badge is currently lower it will autoprogress to the silver or gold level once you have attribute levels for it. So the badge when not used will not drop below that level instead all the way to bronze.
You can still level the badge up, it doesn't lock the badge, just the floor.

[ThePointForward]

You can start from scratch or use a template made out of an NBA player.

One more part of this feature was announced: if you use the template and do not customize it, you will get that players' signature animations automatically equipped immediately. Even at 60 OVR when you might not fulfill all the requirements.

[Andrew]

There's stuff here that sounds good on paper, including the pre-made NBA templates. Of course, now that the game is out, I'm seeing reports that certain ratings in the NBA presets are way off and don't properly reflect the players' actual ratings, so they might not be optimised and desirable. Some adjustments might be needed, and it remains to be seen if they're fixed. No doubt it won't help anyone who has already created their MyPLAYER.

The new approach to Badges is intriguing. I really liked the Badge system in NBA 2K17, where each Archetype had core Badges that could be upgraded to Gold after they were earned, and then to Hall of Fame if you met the in-game targets. You could also earn Bronze badges for things outside your Archetype, but those couldn't be upgraded. This new system isn't quite like that, and I'm sceptical about the Badges regressing, but I like the idea of playing to your strengths and having Badge progress be tied to your style of play. It has merit.

Even though they talked about getting away from meta and OP builds though, there's still obviously a meta at play here. I expect there'll still be builds that will be more desirable than others, and there's clearly a lot of stuff to worry about when creating your player. I can see it making the online scene even worse because everyone is focused on keeping their Badges as well as grinding for them (and attribute upgrades, as always). Unfortunately, the increase in choice and flexibility hasn't necessarily improved the experience in MyCAREER and its connected modes, because it can easily go wrong. And of course, if you've already spent time and/or money upgrading a build that's ultimately undesirable...well, too bad! It's certainly turned me off the mode as much as the terrible stories and non-basketball quests have.

Speaking of the online scene, it'll be interesting to see how the revamped build names will affect attitudes towards other gamers. Some builds got a bad reputation because selfish gamers tended to create them. A good example of this would be the Playmaking Shot Creator, which turned out to be the build of many a selfish point guard online. Of course, I didn't know this when I created my point guard that was intended to be a pass-first playmaker who could also help out with some shooting. My build ended up being called a Playmaking Shot Creator, even though it was more about the playmaking than the shot creating.

Needless to say, when I ventured into The Rec, the reputation of that build name didn't do me any favours. It suggests that Playmaking Shot Creator was a name that was assigned too broadly, so we'll see if the changes to names avoids preconceived notions. Then again, it's NBA 2K's online scene, so probably not.