Show Me the Numbers - 2K12 Drops the Ball With Stats

[fjccommish]

Sports are about what happens on the court or field, sure, but they're also about stats and history. There wouldn't be fantasy sports without stats. And there couldn't be arguments about whether historic or current players are better with stats. After all...



Oh for crying out loud forget the introduction! NBA 2K12 and MLB 11 the Show, two of the greatest sports games of all time, are lacking in the stats department!

NBA 2K12 has decent stats displayed for the current year. There is a bug in that when an association game is saved and completed all the box scores prior to that game disappear. But 2K can patch that. Overall, like MLB 11 the Show, 2K12 adequately displays stats for the current season.

Where both fail is in historic stats. In 2K12 try to look back at last year's playoff teams. Who was part of the brackets? Who knows?

Who had the most rebounds in that Myplayer game when your player scored 75 points? Did it happen last season? Too bad. It's all lost.

2K12 is ahead of MLB 11 the Show. 2K includes detailed career stats on each player's player card. These include graphs that display how each stat trends over time. For example, Kobe's scoring is trending generally down over the last six seasons, including season 1 of an Association. Split stats exist, but don't display properly because of the mid-game save in the association. Split stats exist only for games since the last mid-game save.

NBA 2K12 also displays some history. It includes lists of past leaders in all major stats. Who led the league in scoring in 2006-2007? It was Kobe Bryant with 31.6 PPG. Who was second? Real NBA stats show that for past years from the real league. The answer for 2006-2006 is Carmello Anthony with 28.9 PPG. But who was it in the first season of the 2K12 association? Who knows? Team history shows past record for one season along with total number of division titles, playoff appearances, conference and NBA championships. But after 10 years of an association the specific year(s) the Bulls made it to the NBA finals is a mystery.


Recently I loaded NBA Live 2001 just to compare then to now. While game play is miles better after a decade, stats aren't. NBA Live 2001, at least on the PC, had the ability to save everything. Save box scores, save stats screens, then look back at league leaders and all the stats and results from past seasons. Most PC owners have 500 GB to 1 TB hard drives, as well as access to free online storage. Let them save all the box scores, stats, playoff trees and results from every association season. It could be saved to a nice database that could display all that info in game. Or at least save it in a text file that the ambitious could pull into a spreadsheet or even incorporate into their own database. Until it happens, maybe the technology exists to turn screen shots of stats into numbers in a database. We can dream.

Detailed stats and league history is important. Is it asking too much to have this in a 2K12 association?

[Lamrock]

Now they have something to add in NBA 2K13.

Despite the fact that I've been playing associations for a long time, and am prepared for everything (and so I have about 3 saves for each past season), it's somewhat disappointing to me as well. I love sports stats, even virtual ones.

However, it's a video game, not basketball reference. They don't need to put time into knowing who was the second leading scorer in 06-07. The stats for prior seasons would be a good thing to archive, but really, what percentage of the 2K-buying populace cares about who was second in rebounding in a simmed season from 7 game years ago?

The stats take a hit anyway as you go on, as most of the game's generated rookies are old (for a rookie) and/or have low shot tendency. By year 10, you're having LeBron still winning MVP's with numbers around his rookie season ones and 15 PPG scorers are getting max deals (though 2K did fix up the progression somewhat - in 2K11, by year 5, every CPU-controlled team is well over the luxury tax because all the young point guards become superstars in season 3).

They had a somewhat similar thing with the association blogs for the last two games. However, it wasn't nearly so comprehensive, had glitches and no longer exists.

[chaodck]

You could always take the hassle and record everything yourself. Nothing a little "ImprPant" + Paint can't solve. When I play association I usually keep a journal of it (I'm a stats junkie), saving screenshots of league leaders, team stats, playoff teams, team records, awards, all-stars, mock drafts, actual drafts etc. You can do whatever you want.

I am even considering making a wiki in wikia to preserve my first association (when I start one) in NBA 2K12. It's easy, and not much time consuming, 'cause you do it once a year (I actually do it twice a year, half-season and full season)

[shadowgrin]

Sports are about what happens on the court or field, sure, but they're also about stats and history. There wouldn't be fantasy sports without stats. And there couldn't be arguments about whether historic or current players are better with stats. After all...



Oh for crying out loud forget the introduction! NBA 2K12 and MLB 11 the Show, two of the greatest sports games of all time, are lacking in the stats department!

NBA 2K12 has decent stats displayed for the current year. There is a bug in that when an association game is saved and completed all the box scores prior to that game disappear. But 2K can patch that. Overall, like MLB 11 the Show, 2K12 adequately displays stats for the current season.

Where both fail is in historic stats. In 2K12 try to look back at last year's playoff teams. Who was part of the brackets? Who knows?

Who had the most rebounds in that Myplayer game when your player scored 75 points? Did it happen last season? Too bad. It's all lost.

2K12 is ahead of MLB 11 the Show. 2K includes detailed career stats on each player's player card. These include graphs that display how each stat trends over time. For example, Kobe's scoring is trending generally down over the last six seasons, including season 1 of an Association. Split stats exist, but don't display properly because of the mid-game save in the association. Split stats exist only for games since the last mid-game save.

NBA 2K12 also displays some history. It includes lists of past leaders in all major stats. Who led the league in scoring in 2006-2007? It was Kobe Bryant with 31.6 PPG. Who was second? Real NBA stats show that for past years from the real league. The answer for 2006-2006 is Carmello Anthony with 28.9 PPG. But who was it in the first season of the 2K12 association? Who knows? Team history shows past record for one season along with total number of division titles, playoff appearances, conference and NBA championships. But after 10 years of an association the specific year(s) the Bulls made it to the NBA finals is a mystery.


Recently I loaded NBA Live 2001 just to compare then to now. While game play is miles better after a decade, stats aren't. NBA Live 2001, at least on the PC, had the ability to save everything. Save box scores, save stats screens, then look back at league leaders and all the stats and results from past seasons. Most PC owners have 500 GB to 1 TB hard drives, as well as access to free online storage. Let them save all the box scores, stats, playoff trees and results from every association season. It could be saved to a nice database that could display all that info in game. Or at least save it in a text file that the ambitious could pull into a spreadsheet or even incorporate into their own database. Until it happens, maybe the technology exists to turn screen shots of stats into numbers in a database. We can dream.

Detailed stats and league history is important. Is it asking too much to have this in a 2K12 association?

No offense but that's been discussed/suggested before in one way or the other, yadda-yadda...
Tweet Ronnie or 2K about it. Or post in their FB page. Or add your suggestion to the Wishlist thread.
And NBA Live 99 stats were the best. You could make your own stat categories by making your own formulas using the raw stats.

[Lamrock]

And NBA Live 99 stats were the best. You could make your own stat categories by making your own formulas using the raw stats.

Was that as cool as it sounds?

[shadowgrin]

hella cool, or I think it was lol. I don't want to install Live 99 again and risk damaging the vacuum seal I made to preserve Antoine Walker's image on the box or cd case.

[fjccommish]

"hen I play association I usually keep a journal of it (I'm a stats junkie), "

So do I. I started with sports games with pong. I'd make up players and keep stats. In Atari baseball I'd assign names to players based on their lineup position, come up with a schedule, and then keep stats for every player in the league. Later, in Earl Weaver baseball, I'd purchase the baseball prospectus, Bill James' yearly stats book, and a few other references and then create all the real players and type in all their past stats. I created formulas for attributes and typed in attributes. I created trade and draft algorithms and used those for yearly drafts and trades during the season.

But in the mid-late 90's games progressed to saving and displaying detailed stats. NBA Live late 90's and early 2000's saved box scores and stats displays in txt files. Those could be parsed and imported into spreadsheets.

Sports are about stats. The problem is more glaring in the Show, because baseball is most stat-oriented.

2K12 has decent detail for the current season and for each player's career. It misses when it comes to figuring out who won the championship for the last 10 association years, for example. For associations I generally keep a record of the playoffs and playoff MVP. But it would be nice to have the game save the info.

The bug with split stats and box scores disappearing after completing an in progress save game is something I hope makes the 2nd patch. That shouldn't happen. There's no way around it except for never saving mid-game.

"Tweet Ronnie or 2K about it. Or post in their FB page. Or add your suggestion to the Wishlist thread."

I've posted that in suggestion and wishlist threads, for 2K basketball and the show, since at least 2008. When I worked with EA on the Madden Challenge, I mentioned it to many people involved in development (NBA Live). The answer was always "lack of drive space" for all that information. I do recall the stats and historic displays in MVP Baseball being pretty good.

NBA Live had, I think right until the last version, a listing (for every team) with their year by year record and how far they made it in the playoffs. It wasn't all on one screen, but I could see who won the title and who was in the playoffs season after season.

[Fresh8]

hella cool, or I think it was lol. I don't want to install Live 99 again and risk damaging the vacuum seal I made to preserve Antoine Walker's image on the box or cd case.

I got it on N64... I suppose this stat thing wasnt a feature on N64...

[benji]

Was that as cool as it sounds?

No. You can only have one stat at a time and have to re-enter it every time.

I got it on N64... I suppose this stat thing wasnt a feature on N64...

NBA Live 99 on N64 was an updated NBA Live 98.

When I worked with EA on the Madden Challenge, I mentioned it to many people involved in development (NBA Live). The answer was always "lack of drive space" for all that information.

How long ago was this? Because it's not a problem anymore on consoles if they do proper databases. It was when you had no internal storage.

[fjccommish]

It wasn't even a problem prior to 2005, because that data could be saved to external storage, and there were PC versions. PC has access to huge, cheap storage.

[benji]

There's only 8MB on a PS2 memory card.

[The X]

Lack of history is the reason I log Association progress in the Dynasty/Association forums. Then it's nice to be able to look back every now & then if necessary.

[fjccommish]

"There's only 8MB on a PS2 memory card."

8MB holds a lot of text files.

[shadowgrin]

But that's assuming that 8 mb is dedicated for one game alone, which normally isn't the case.

[Lamrock]

My Garden of Oden association notepad file has nearly 20000 words in it, and takes up 112 KB, a fraction of a Live 2005 save IIRC.

[benji]

Look at the size of your Association save file.

A simple text file is not going to work for the kind of database you want here.

[fjccommish]

Sure it is. If the game allowed saving the different stats screens to txt files, that would be enough. Just being able to look back to a year for the entire playoff bracket, regular season standings and league leaders is great. People who want more could import that txt data into excel or a database for more.

One big thing I didn't mention was the lack of quarter by quarter screens for in-game player stats and box scores. Who got hot in the 4th quarter, or carried the team in the 2nd?