Storyline Ideas, Injuries, & Special Events - Personalities?

[JaoSming]

Leftos and I recorded an impromptu podcast the other day which went live, like, minutes ago. In the last 50 minutes or so (starting around the 1 hour 58 minute mark) I brought up an idea to Leftos that I've on and off discussed since Live 07. Having a manager-type game outside of NBA 2K that directly affects your Association.

http://youtu.be/iHrD-zHXQYs

phpBB [video]

http://youtu.be/TSWa4C5WN_s

phpBB [video]

Personality Types

• DILLIGAF
• Cancer
• Veteran Winning only
• Veteran mentor
• Veteran bench warmer
• Bench Lifer
• Breakout Star
• Superstar
• Role Player (specifics?)
• Prospect
• Overlooked
• Fearless/Bomber
• Emotional
• Team Player
• Happy Go Lucky
• Killer Instinct
• Snarky
• Dirty
• Mean
• Good Sport
• Ricky Rubio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZgU0cT_TfI
• Hot Head
• Flopper
  
  Player Personalities
• Governs Game Goals, Morale Effect Resistance, PreGame Animations, Sig Skills
• Higher Boosts/Nerfs based on goals/streaks (Lin)
• Use Hustle rating to govern work ethic/potential
  
  Staff Personalities
• If too negative can kick user to different team
• Owners Cutting Payroll, winning championship, make playoffs, rebuild, how to initiate?
• Coaches, does anything need to be added?
• Add staff from retired/retiring players, only if floor general?
• Affected by TV Ratings, simulate nonuser ratings?
• Coach Ratings Progression
  
  Crowd/Fan Personalities
• Dynamically change crowd attendance based on team streaks, star players.
• Game automatically weighs visiting team value and playoffs.
• If attendance too low, team relocation? other factors?
• Home Court Advantage boosts
  
  Injuries/Suspensions/Leave
• Accessories added see list
• Each injury has 1:5,000 of being career ending, customize % for each injury?
• First downgrade major injuries to minor ones (sprain to sore), does the game already do this?
• Injuries affect Potential
  
  Roster
• Keeping Overseas Draftees Overseas
• Sending Players to DLeague
• Fluctuate Draft Class Ratings to mess with scouting
• Dynamic Potential Ratings, based on goals?
• amnesty clause
• Team ratings boost for streaks
• Coaches/Players with high Teaching/BBIQ ratings affect prospects more
• More difficult for small market to land big stars
• FA stars finding other stars to duo/trio with & recognize that
• Happy superstars impossible to trade
• Boosts for rivalry games
• Better recognition of team position needs
• Veterans positively affecting younger players in same position
• realistic lineups for preseason
• Resting Stars before playoffs to prevent injuries
  
  Players
• Working out with Legends in postseason, how?
• Weight & Stamina fluctuations based on in shape/out of shape (nerf FAs/unhappy players)
• Retired players returning, how to determine?
• Take into account large/small market
• Hometown preference
• Veterans coming into FA after trade deadline, team hopping
• Veterans asking to trade to contender
• Better Role awareness & change demands
• Severe injuries affect ratings permanently
• Stats affect contracts
• Preferred #'s after trades, how?
• If unhappy lowers trade value (potential rating?)
• Unhappiness affects nontraditional ratings (hustle, quickness, on ball D, emotion)
• (un)Guaranteed contracts, sign and trade,10 day contracts, etc
• Contract Value boosts for legit 7 footers
• Players taking less money to play for certain team
• Clearing injuries, but waiting a bit longer to come back, change injury to personal reasons?
• Hot/Cold Streaks
• Teammates from same college affecting morale/chemistry/etc
• Award contention boost
• Near Milestone boost
• POTW/M boost
• Delusional Contract Worth
  
  AI Insanity
• Redo trade, FA, draft AI
• Player Agents
• GM Personalities
• Minutes & Rotation Manager
• Trade/Retirement/FA Rumors
• Player Relationships/rivalries
• All Star Saturday Night
• Short term/Long term wants
• Add Team Directions (Rebuild, Win Now, etc)
  
  Events
• Baby Born
• All Star Snub
• Award Snub
• Milestones
• Injury
• Practice Effectiveness
• Practice Conflict
• Team trips/activities (Harlem Shake)
• Infidelity...
• Twitter fights with fans
• Sickness
• Disease
• Cancer
• Death
• Media Hype
  
  Already Implemented
• locker room tension (Chemistry)
• Coaches calling out players (goals system)
  
  Impossible?
• Changes based on All NBA teams
• Power Rankings affecting Teams
• Negotiate new CBA in 2016 season
• 13 Active players & 2 IR
• Handling & Simulating College/Euro leagues (possible, just...wow)
• New in game Sliders
• In game things, fan fighting, stuff like that
• Technical/Flagrant Fouls
• SlowMo Buzzer Beaters
• Fights
• In engine interviews
• Visible Twitter Fights

Basically, adding tons of features to the modes already in place. Examples can range from ACL injured players returning automatically with a knee brace accessory, a player with low morale being at a higher risk of being suspended or even taking time off from a game, maybe your drafted rookie has anxiety issues and won't play away games without a major ratings hit, or maybe when a team's chemistry gets high enough everyone starts doing silly pre-game warmups if their leader clowns around (high emotion rating).

There are basic personality ratings in these games already, so this really boils down to find a rating, probability of triggering an event, enacting that event, and informing the user of that event. Simple in theory, difficult as hell to balance and put into place, and endless in the options and events possible.

So, what Leftos and I need from you guys are ideas. Ideally provide a rating for the event to be based off of, but we'll just take any event right now. Suspensions, personal issues, special injury reactions, team based events/boosts/nerfs, animation stuff, all of it is fair game. And my all means, if you need more explanation outside of the podcast, let us know.

[Andrew]

Awesome project.

Something that springs immediately to mind is the prospect of trade demands. If the player's personality is volatile enough, morale low enough and the team not doing well enough, there'd be a possibility that they'll demand a trade which you can then choose to ignore or try to accommodate. If you're past the trade deadline then obviously the demand would be in regards to the upcoming offseason rather than immediately getting a deal done, though particularly pushy players could continue to reiterate that they want to be gone as soon as possible.

If owner personalities and traits can be implemented, perhaps there could be directives from the owner to trim the payroll, or the green light could be given to spend, spend, spend in order to improve the team. Goals could be set as far as rebuilding, simply making the Playoffs or seriously contending for the championship if you're in a position to do so. If those goals aren't met, then the directive could change and you'd be charged with making a blockbuster deal to improve the team, tinkering with the roster a little or in some cases, blowing everything up and starting over.

[TUSS11]

Here's what I've got so far:

- owner's goals and concerns
- GM contracts

- draft pick busts and steals
- undrafted success stories (Jeremy Lin)
- future picks traded (protected and unprotected)
- foreign draft picks staying over-seas to develop
- draft class ratings fluctuate throughout the season

- dynamic potential ratings
- players working out with legends in off-season (affects ratings, tendencies, and possibly adds new animations)
- player getting into or out of game shape(weight + stamina fluctuations)
- locker room tension
- coaches calling out players (Doug Collins)

- retired players coming out of retirement
- retired players becoming head or assistant coaches

- rewrite trade, FA signing and draft AI (30 team assoc.) since 2K's is broken
- players preferring to play in large/small market
- players prefer to play in or near hometown, or near their kids (Steve Nash), etc.
- Matt Barnes, Derek Fisher team-hopping
- veteran players brought in to be locker-room leaders
- amnesty clause

[JaoSming]

friggin rabbit hole.....we could generate basic stories for every dang player....

[Leftos]

I told you in the Podcast Jao. I'm never going to have any social life after we start this. In any case, I can start basic building tomorrow. I'll make a repository on GitHub, commit early, commit often. If you get on Skype and you see me in, you definitely contact me. TUSS11, if you use Skype you may want to add me as well.

What do you think should be the first thing to build on? Well, obviously importing and exporting from REDitor, but that's done. Say we already have a snapshot of the user's save data, and he imports one from the next day. What do we check? I mean, we check a gazillion things, but what should we try to code first?

An easy starting point would be giving players accessories after an injury, and then taking them off after a while (if it was minor) or not (if it was major). Jao or TUSS11, think you could map the injury types to the kind of accessory that should be added, and how much time after the injury the player should keep it? Obviously, if the player is already wearing an accessory there, we don't change it.

EDIT: Rewriting the trade logic to be based on actual team needs, injuries, GM personalities and goals, player performance, etc. is going to be the most daunting yet most impressive job ever undertaken. This alone could take months, if not more.

[JaoSming]

on top of doing the formulaic stuff (which I'll work on later) I'll get that injury/accessory list going.

BTW, since this is going to be released, moving back to the Releases forum for the time being. If we start a new thread, we can close/move as needed.

[TGsoGood]

-unlockable free agents (hidden/ retired players) if team is a contender, 1st- 3rd in the conference, in the last month of regular season
(ie players coming out of retirement to try for a championship)

-For players which winning is not important will be more likely to play in a small market.

-older players asking to be traded to contender

- consecutive hot streak of games changes the players role to sixth man or starter

-All nba first team, 2nd team selection for players 25 or under changes player role to star

-All defensive 1st team selection adds defensive anchor signature skill or lockdown defender/ and role as a starter

-Former coaches and legends can be GMs

-If team finishes last in conference, trades a player or players for smaller contracts

-If team is winning 20% or less, it will trade for expiring contract(s)

[Leftos]

tgsogood, all good ideas, thanks for the suggestions.

[dare]

- If player averages low numbers = lower contract, vice versa
- If player suffers major injury his potential rating should take a downgrade

Can't really think of anything else, all good ideas are already mentioned

[SC1211]

This would be the single greatest mod released for 2k (and arguably basketball games as a whole). I have some ideas I will share upon returning home from work.

[ClLUTClH2K]

This is absolutely brilliant. Is there any way we can implement some sort of a assigned jersey numbers for when players get traded? (I.E Mo Williams' preferred jersey is #25 if available, and then #5, #2, etc.)

This way, we don't end up with players getting weird numbers like #39.

Also, not sure if it has been mentioned but player suspensions being handed down from both the league office AND the teams themselves. Players taking personal leave for lost loved ones, etc., would be cool.

[SC1211]

Warning: long post coming. Just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Biggest issue in my opinion with Association is player development:
-Dynamic potential - This seems to be the best idea in order to make sure that players progress at a realistic rate. This could maybe have a roll value associated with it (adding a bit of chance to the experience), or it could be based off of performance (success in games, participating in live practices, etc). Or there could even be a combination of the two (the more time you put into player development, the higher the roll chance leads to success). This would create more busts/would also create more steals.
-Continuing from this idea - Introducing work ethic as a variable to potential. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the hustle stat doesn't do a ton in the game. Perhaps this could be used to gauge a player's work ethic. If a player has a higher work ethic (i.e., hustle rating), they are more likely to have their dynamic potential increase as time goes on. This has two cool things: one, it allows guys to truly develop later on as second round steals as productive players (think Chandler Parsons, Chuck Hayes etc.) and two it allows rapidly diminishing trade and contract returns for athletic busts. It's so annoying to see Anthony Randolph and Terrence Williams get big money or return a lot of trade value. Now, you could draft a guy with 75-80 potential but really low hustle. He might have significant trade value his rookie year, but doesn't produce and the role value calculates him as a bust. His potential may drop to a 72-73, and his value will diminish, creating realistic busts. Because CPU trade/draft logic is so built on potential and overall, this could be a feasible way to get busts/steals. It would also be really cool to be in the draft, faced with a guy who has a 73 potential but a 90 hustle, or a guy with a 85 potential with a 40 hustle. Do you roll the dice on the high upside or do you take the guy who will work hard and be a productive role player?
-New scenery boost - Let's say you have one of those players that is a bust I discussed above. There should be a mechanism that stores the value of their original potential, and allows them to reach it again if they go to a different team. This should not happen very often, but let's say you get a boost if you're a winning team with high chemistry. Could be a cool way to salvage talents that originally weren't very good on their original teams.
-Coaches/Veteran developments - Based off of this, teams should get a higher probability of their prospects reaching their potentials based off of the "Teacher" ratings for their coaches or by having high BBIQ veterans on their teams. This would be cool, because it would allow the Spurs for example, to churn out role players out of most of their prospects (think Danny Green, etc.), and make young chaotic situations like Sacramento the basketball hell hole that it is.


Player movement/Free Agency:
-Favoring big markets for free agency. This would be HUGE for realism (ugh I HATE seeing Dwight and Paul sign in Cleveland). Basically, you make it much, much, much harder for small teams to get free agents, especially if they are bad teams. This could be based off of the Financial security statistic. MOST players should put a decent amount of importance into this stat (especially if they are young).
-Favoring teams with established stars - wouldn't it be cool to see CPU super duo's/teams being formed? Basically, if a team has an established star (say, 87-88+), they get a significant boost in having other stars being interested in them. That means that teams like Charlotte and Cleveland could theoretically have good teams, but they need to acquire a star one way or another (through the draft or a trade).
-Making true superstars that are happy nearly impossible to trade - happy superstars should be borderline unobtainable through trades. This should be the top 10-12 guys in the NBA.
-Unhappy players - Unhappy players should have their trade values slightly lowered to accommodate deals. Teams without another star should value future assets more (i.e. The Magic in trading Howard). Teams with 1 or 2 stars besides the unhappy player should seek compensation that features a good player to help them continue to contend (James Harden for Kevin Martin). Unhappy players should have their hustle/effort ratings lowered (Rebounding, quickness, on ball D, etc.). This could maybe be treated as a yellow injury? Then you can't trade, so have to figure out something here.

I echo a lot of the sentiments above regarding player stories, etc. The one caveat I'd stress is that crazy stories/leaves of absence etc. should be VERY rare.

ALSO, before I forget. When a player suffers a severe injury such as an ACL tear, there should be a chance that they are significantly hampered. I.e., athletic stats/potential has a chance of being drastically lowered. The reality is that sometimes these injuries ARE career altering. This should happen from time to time.

I may come back with more ideas later. +1 to all of the other ideas suggested. I know almost all of this probably won't be possible, but figured I'd throw out some ideas!

[monkeyxy]

A good idea would to have free agents get a higher interest rating to teams with better cities, past teams ect. so like Chicago, Los Angelos, Boston. And having players Demand trades to you and three teams they would prefer to go to, and to have players come out of rettirement. and to have players in the draft getting drafted by teams other than your own end up being a bust. Ex. You draft a guy with the first pick, another guy gets drafted after you and he turns out being a giant bust.

[TGsoGood]

have players in the draft getting drafted by teams other than your own end up being a bust. Ex. You draft a guy with the first pick, another guy gets drafted after you and he turns out being a giant bust.

I like this idea. How I create this effect in my association is by editing my draft class player ratings every few weeks during the season in association. Teams draft based off of their scouting reports. So if week 1 a player had a 74 potential rating and "Team A" scouted his potential, they feel confident in that. If "Team B" scouts the player in week 14 but you go and edit his potential to be 42, Team B is less likely to draft this player then the other team. So if Both teams are pick 1 and 2 respectively Team A should be more likely to draft this player having scouted him early and not knowing his stock as far as potential has dropped. Teams usually scout certain players more than once during the season I assume (I have my CPU automatically scout for me and they do multiple visits during the year to check out particular players). I think scouting is based on your projected draft position based on my experience. When I am top of the league/conference my scouts are less likely to scout potential lottery picks.

The best results I had when doing this had the top overall rated player drafted after the first five picks. If you leave your draft class ratings the same through the season it's less likely that other teams will get steals in the draft.

[TGsoGood]

- players with a role of "sixth man" get a small boost to morale, contest shot tendency, and hustle rating during rivalry games. Bench warmers get a temporary morale rating of 66 which is "Anxious" (their number may be called to play a big roll in the rivalry game)

Does 2k even have rivalry games?

[Illini Boy]

Hello everyone,

I am a long time viewer of this forum, but I have never officially posted. I have loved several of the mods produced on this site, and think the community is very solid.
My brother and I are big time 30-team control association guys. The AI GM's are flat out terrible as most of you know. My biggest complaint has always been free agency. (We do the drafting for every team ourselves.) I always hate seeing Lebron James go to the Bobcats and never be competitive. So, about a year ago, I decided to create my own free agency based on team's market size, recent championship success, past championship success, All-stars on the team, and of course who is offering the most cash while using the players in-game ratings of "Play for a winner" and "How much I want money" ratings. I believe I have become very close to being quite realistic. I need to make a few adjustments, but the majority of it is done.

Here are a couple of screenshots...:







In the first picture, it well tell you which team he signs with, but my screen wasn't large enough to show it.

As you can see the tabs on the bottom, I have been working on GM and owner tendencies for all the teams, and working with the new CBA and the soft cap. I would love to share my work to help this project move along! I love the NBA 2k series, I just wish they made a better association.

Thanks,
Illini

[Leftos]

Illini Boy, uploading this spreadsheet somewhere (e.g. Mediafire) would do a ton, even if just to take a look. No promises are made right now on how we're implementing stuff, but the more ideas and formulas we have to work with, the better. I know all of us would love to see your work.

tgsogood, yes, open a roster file in REDitor and you'll see each team has rivals defined. It's one of the factors in deciding "key games" in MyCareer as well. Fluctuating draft class player ratings by safe margins while always keeping the original ones in mind is a great idea in making sure the CPU isn't sure which player to draft. Will keep that in mind.

SC1211, great ideas, but keep in mind, we need to be able to KNOW when to make things happen by looking at the decoded roster file (i.e. what REDitor gives us). So knowing when a player has done Live Practice is a no-go. We could implement a system inside the tool that allows you to simulate a practice in days that aren't game-days, and get the effects. As for yellow injuries, no, because that affects rotation regeneration; I'd rather go with the No Trade clause in the Contract, if it comes down to disabling trades for specific players temporarily.

So, to everyone, keep this last comment in mind. We need to somehow know when to trigger events. We need to be able to calculate the results (even if a bit of randomness is implemented). There are things that aren't implemented in-game (e.g. GM personalities) that we're looking to build inside the tool, and there are other things we can simulate, but you need to keep all these factors in mind when making a suggestion.

[Sir LaYz]

Hi guys, i know nothing about programming or the work that would go into a tool such as this (and it sounds amazing by the way) but would it be a realistic possibility to be able to enable custom draft classes in MC mode? as well as all the other features you're hoping to implement that could translate to MC mode such as automatic braces, morale, AI GM's etc.?

This would be an incredible addition to 2K on PC, hope to see it working in the near future!

[[Q]]

This is absolutely brilliant. Is there any way we can implement some sort of a assigned jersey numbers for when players get traded? (I.E Mo Williams' preferred jersey is #25 if available, and then #5, #2, etc.)

This way, we don't end up with players getting weird numbers like #39.

I have been wanting this since I played NBA Live 95. EA/2K needs to add a "secondary number" like they have "secondary position" in the database files. I've always hated wrong/strange/duplicate numbers, especially playing dynasty mode where i like to have fantasy drafts. i don't mind having duplicate numbers at first, because i know the players by their numbers but then when rookies get drafted, they shouldn't have the same numbers as your players.

also, in NBA Live 98, when players would suffer a major injury, you could go to the injured players screen to see what type of injury it is and when they'd come back. you would also see minor injuries but players are still playable, but i assume their stats aren't as good for the time being. when the major injury time is over, the player's injury would become a "minor injury" and instead of a "sprained ankle", it would become a "sore ankle". dont think many games have done it like that for a while. i assume once the injury time is over, guys become 100% again. this is where you can add your knee/ankle braces Jon. also, they should have a risk of re-injuring themselves during rehab or recovery and having setbacks like Andrew Bynum.

also, in 2k13 are 13 players on each team active during a game with 2 inactive? don't know if they've changed that yet

[BrotherJRB]

Excellent ideas. I am glad to see the main ideas I had while listening to the podcast have already been touched on from an association aspect.

I think one thing that would need created is agents. And players pull from outside influences. For instance listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h54pURywZI

Also my idea was I wanted the whole world of basketball existing at the same time. Implementation would involve having multiple associations representing various leagues. These players would then be moved back and forth from association depending whether they made it in the NBA or Europe etc.....I tackle college basketball with 2k8. This association project would be a similar idea with an outside "game" linking various other areas.

Ballcraft 2013!

[Rosque]

If, let's say player A is SG rated 73 and he is unhappy with his playing time and he plays for i.e. Magic and player B is C rated 74, who plays for Lakers, and also unhappy with playing. And Lakers have no wing players and then they make a trade. Hope u understand

[SC1211]

SC1211, great ideas, but keep in mind, we need to be able to KNOW when to make things happen by looking at the decoded roster file (i.e. what REDitor gives us). So knowing when a player has done Live Practice is a no-go. We could implement a system inside the tool that allows you to simulate a practice in days that aren't game-days, and get the effects. As for yellow injuries, no, because that affects rotation regeneration; I'd rather go with the No Trade clause in the Contract, if it comes down to disabling trades for specific players temporarily.

So, to everyone, keep this last comment in mind. We need to somehow know when to trigger events. We need to be able to calculate the results (even if a bit of randomness is implemented). There are things that aren't implemented in-game (e.g. GM personalities) that we're looking to build inside the tool, and there are other things we can simulate, but you need to keep all these factors in mind when making a suggestion.

Yeah I figured. I do think there's something to use the hustle statistic as a proxy for work ethic/probability of reaching potential.

[dare]

I don't know if there is a value in REDitor in this but if you guys can somehow change the AI's Draft Logic.

Maybe something like this:
Position Needs (PG,SG,etc.) is greater than Potential/Overall if Team Record is above or equal to .600
Potential/Overall is greater than Position Needs if Team Record is below or equal to .599

You get the idea, something along those lines.

[Leftos]

Nah, the only way to affect the draft would be to let it simulate and then reassign the players afterwards. The plan would be to have the tool do the reassigning for you.

[dare]

I thought you can somehow have the values from the REDitor and make it compatible for the Roster Editor, then we apply the changes from a spreadsheet.

I should really enroll to those programming courses, to somehow help you guys in the future.