Dev Blog: MyGM 2.0 (and some MyLEAGUE info too)

[ThePointForward]

Posting it first, might edit with some highlights or commentary:
FB Announcement: https://www.facebook.com/notes/nba-2k/n ... 477752267/
Reddit Mirror: https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA2k/comments ... _myleague/

New MyGM features

• Action Points
• Score and leaderboards
• Skills, featuring a skill tree and an updated leveling structure
• Completely new task system
• Revamped relationships
• Sponsorships and branding

Action Points: Limited amount of actions per day (in-game of course) to force players make decisions instead of making everything all the time. Basically a representation of limited time you have per day with some caveats like banking it.
They're to be adjusted per difficulty, higher difficulties having less APs.

New UI:


Score and leaderboards: MyGM is now global and by playing you will compete with others on leaderboards. Higher diffculty means longer scoring period (and less AP as already mentioned). Easy: 5 years, Medium: 10 years, Hard: 15 years before score locks up - you can continue playing, you just won't earn score anymore.
Unsurprisingly score is earned by actions like... winning the games. But also having your players get awards.

Leaderboards UI:


Leveling: Each save starts at Lvl 1, you earn XP by primarily winning and completing random tasks. They expect that you'll get to Lvl during each playthrough (assuming playthrough here means end of the scoring period).
Each level will also improve your AP per day and increase the amount you can bank to next day.

Skill Tree: With leveling there will be skill tree with several branches.
Leadership, Diplomacy, Insight, Finance and Facilities.
You will be able to respec the tree once a month.

Skill Tree UI:


Revamped relationships: You will be able to build relationships with all players, the team staff, the owner (called governor in the blog) and opposing GMs. For example head coach will keep the game day strategy locked down until you build sufficient relationship with him. And you have to keep it high enough too.

Revamped Goals and Tasks: Is the major way of improving relationships. Previously you got tasks and goals from the owner, now you can get goals and tasks from not only them, but also all staff members and players. Not everything is going to be good for the team so you might have to decline or fail some on purpose and deal with the consequences.


General sentiment seems to be allowing new players to have somewhat guided version of MyLeague instead of having the learn the Australian way, throwing them in a pool and then throwing a crocodile after them (Andrew can confirm).


Some extra info for MyLeague:
Staff Card: Similar to player and team cards, now with staff. it's not anything groundbreaking, just having info in one spot.

Revised Morale and Team Chemistry: Somewhat carries over from the MyGM, but as an example having players with big differences in work ethics will make an impact on team.

New Personality Badges for Max Players:

• Media Ringmaster - Prefer big markets with media attention.
• Warm Weather Fan - Look for warm destinations like Miami, LA, etc.
• Finance Savvy - They try to get most money out of contracts, factoring in state taxes etc.

History and Records: Shows players on team history essentially. Portraits or renders. You can see how the teams changed over the years.

Improved Draft Class Authenticity to the Current NBA: Tweaks to draft class generator to make it produce more realistic draft classes. Apparently they ran a lot of simulations for that.

Improved Player DNA: Mostly improvements to GUI.

LT/RT to speed up scrolling: Quality of life change, LT RT will allow you to adjust sliders faster. Or when editing players.

Option to Force Winners: After simming you can set winners to craft situations. Like getting one team to playoffs or forcing Game 7 in Finals.



And finally some credits:

Special thanks to the franchise team led by Dave Z: Tim, Leftos, John, Ash, Yu, Brad, Vlad, Michael, Jeff and of course special guest star Erick ‘SimBaller’ Boenisch. Everyone worked hard to deliver something special, and we hope that you’re as pumped for 2K20 as we are.

[PeacemanNOT]

From first viewing this seems a bit underwhelming compared to last years blog and it's additions, unless there's another one to come for MyLeague?

[Andrew]

I think we're getting to the point where it's difficult to add new stuff to MyLEAGUE and MyGM. They can do a bit more with MyGM because of the RPG experience, and that seems to be the case here.

MyLEAGUE is more my speed and I'm looking forward to putting MyCAREER aside to return to my franchise gaming roots this year. What they've done with MyGM does sound pretty cool though so I might end up giving it a look, but I think the sandbox experience where I can imagine/tell my own story still holds more appeal for me.

[ThePointForward]

There's definitely some stuff that could still be added to MyLeague. My impression is what I already wrote: this year is pretty much last of this gen and the improvements so far sound to me like stuff that is fairly cheap from work perspective. Not saying they're slacking off, but more like it gives me the impression they're working on future stuff already.

The biggest parts are definitely the scoring and leaderboards along with the limitation via action points. The rest of the stuff seems to be relatively small changes that can be sold to players well or quality of life changes. All of this is welcome of course and like I said, I do not fault the dev team for this.

As for what could be in MyLeague... Sign and trade, MLE, better team financial decisions etc. AI controlled teams tend to end up with deep Luxury Tax bills after few years.

[Andrew]

The MLE isn't in MyLEAGUE as yet?

Sign and trade would definitely be good, along with further management AI enhancements.

[ThePointForward]

I don't think I got players take MLE to play for a contender, that's what I meant.

[[Q]]

Action points makes sense. In UFC 3, they have something similar so that you can only put in so much work every week of your training camp

[Andrew]

I don't think I got players take MLE to play for a contender, that's what I meant.

Ah, gotcha. If it's underutilised in that regard, then it's definitely something to address.

[[Q]]

I forget which version of Live had that where teams didn't have enough cap room to sign free agents so superstars would go to teams on MLE and minimum deals iirc lol

[Aston]

This new MyGM looks pretty nice. Your choices are more important and you arent the big master when you start the mode. More realist and roleplay, loving it. For the MyLeague, its already a good sandbox but the sign & trade would be nice (in MyGm too ofc)

Its will be an interesting GM year so far.

[Andrew]

I forget which version of Live had that where teams didn't have enough cap room to sign free agents so superstars would go to teams on MLE and minimum deals iirc lol

I can't remember which one that was, but free agents often wouldn't sign/re-sign in NBA Live 2004, leading to superstars being available at the minimum at the end of the offseason.

[ThePointForward]

Yeah, dunno if it can be fixed by sliders, but even in 2K19 the teams few years in were generally going hard into luxury tax. Think there needs to be something to limit number of years in luxury tax since teams that are not winning tend to not be able to cover luxury tax penalties multiple years in a row.
It is still a business after all, owners want their money back. MyLeague seems to have pretty much unlimited funds in this regard, even small markets able to take big losses and eventually ending up with whole league having contender teams.

[Andrew]

Perhaps some of the financial management attributes of MyGM will also apply to the AI in MyLEAGUE? They do share resources and mechanics, after all.

[JEDL]

Staff Card: Similar to player and team cards, now with staff. it's not anything groundbreaking, just having info in one spot.

It's nifty to have and nice to look at. But yeah nothing too groundbreaking.

Revised Morale and Team Chemistry: Somewhat carries over from the MyGM, but as an example having players with big differences in work ethics will make an impact on team.

So basically team chemistry, morale, and personality badges like Team Player, Extremely Confident, etc. were essentially worthless in 2K19? Why else would there be a need for a revamp?

New Personality Badges for Max Players:

• Media Ringmaster - Prefer big markets with media attention.
• Warm Weather Fan - Look for warm destinations like Miami, LA, etc.
• Finance Savvy - They try to get most money out of contracts, factoring in state taxes etc.

It's great they added something like this, but it is still very lacking. Definitely could've made up more of them. Maybe like a:

• "locker room leader" type of badge
• a glue guy badge
• a player refusing bench/lesser roles or minutes
• and many more

I find it peculiar that they only let the new personality badges be applied for max players only.

Improved Draft Class Authenticity to the Current NBA: Tweaks to draft class generator to make it produce more realistic draft classes. Apparently they ran a lot of simulations for that.

It'd be interesting to see on what they mean by "improving" the draft class authenticity. Every iteration of the randomized draft classes has been horrible, it's nice they finally noticed though I still doubt how they're actually going to improve. However, I'd be also concerned with the randomized appearance, accessories, and signature moves might be atrocious still which really concerns me. Looks like I'm still gonna have to continue my fictional draft classes.

Another concern of mine is the Peak Start and End for the draft classes, will they also take this into account? In 2K19, lots of them start in the late 20's and reach 33-34 which ends up ballooning their ratings before even reaching their peak. I remember starting 2K19 MyLeague back when it was new and used historical draft classes. I would have several random scrubs from the G-League in the same season reach 86+ OVR within a few years. Ridiculous.

Improved Player DNA: Mostly improvements to GUI.

Meh. I mean in Quick Edit, Reaction Time is missing (ever since 2K18 or 2K17) so this probably fixes it...uh...hurray?

LT/RT to speed up scrolling: Quality of life change, LT RT will allow you to adjust sliders faster. Or when editing players.

Very useful for console players, worthless for PC players. I could just use the mouse on the sliders (and attributes/tendencies in Edit Player) and type the numbers for the attributes and tendencies (on quick edit).

Option to Force Winners: After simming you can set winners to craft situations. Like getting one team to playoffs or forcing Game 7 in Finals.

A great addition! I can finally make a 74-8 season with any team I want without the hassle, make any team I dislike go 0-82, or recreate past seasons by meticulously choosing which team wins/loses.

[Nick]

Looks like MyGM is directed at the newer less experienced crowd, and as a hardcore MyLeague guy i'm actually okay with that, because the more new user engagement MyGM attracts then the more resources 2K will throw at it in future developments, which ultimately will benefit MyLeague by association.

With that said, as a hardcore ML guy, looks like 2k20 is a year i can pass on and actually be a productive human for once. There's just nothing there that shows it has progressed to a level i can be excited about. A few nice add-ons, but it looks like it'll be the same christmas tree this year with a few new baulbauls on top.

And ultimately i think it's simply an issue of lack of resources. I don't think they're slacking off, this is a business decision from the higher ups. From their perspective, what's the point in pouring resources into something only a small % of users play?
So, hopefully this year's MyGM generates enough engagement to get MyLeague enough developmental resources for 2k21.

On the bright side, it's nice to not have my expectations raised to unrealistic levels for once. I can peacefully skip 2k20 with calm confidence

[ThePointForward]

And ultimately i think it's simply an issue of lack of resources. I don't think they're slacking off, this is a business decision from the higher ups. From their perspective, what's the point in pouring resources into something only a small % of users play?
So, hopefully this year's MyGM generates enough engagement to get MyLeague enough developmental resources for 2k21.

On the bright side, it's nice to not have my expectations raised to unrealistic levels for once. I can peacefully skip 2k20 with calm confidence

Yeah, as it's mostly quality of life improvements I'd say it goes in line with what I wrote elsewhere and that's that they're partially working on 2K21 already to have lots of new stuff ready for next-gen.

[Andrew]

In terms of functionality though, is there anything that MyLEAGUE particularly needs at this point? I'm not talking about enhancements to AI or tinkering with mechanics and tendencies, but big additions that are a selling point, like MyGM 2.0. It feels like MyLEAGUE has pretty much everything it needs, though whether it's working as well as it possibly can is obviously a different matter.

[Nick]

In terms of functionality though, is there anything that MyLEAGUE particularly needs at this point? I'm not talking about enhancements to AI or tinkering with mechanics and tendencies, but big additions that are a selling point, like MyGM 2.0. It feels like MyLEAGUE has pretty much everything it needs, though whether it's working as well as it possibly can is obviously a different matter.

The word "needs" is subjective depending on the person, but i could write a whole list of things it needs to make me personally immersed. Maybe my standards are too high because i was addicted to Football Manager 2009 for a while, which was the most advanced sports landscape simulation i've ever played, but the the fact that was 10 years ago says it all. I've seen the mountain top of season mode sims (FM09), and i've been patiently waiting for 2K to catch up for a decade, which it hasn't quite been able to do, and over that time i have played MyLeague enough for it to lose its' shelf life. So, if you're asking me if there's anything MyLeague needs, then the answer is yes, a lot. I can write a huge list but maybe my needs are different to yours or someone else's, so that's probably wasted energy.

That's not to take away from MyLeague. It's a great mode. And i understand the mindset of "it's good enough so lets just appreciate it for what it is". But it just doesn't progress fast enough for me continue investing time into. I'm actually kind of relieved that i can take a year off if i'm honest. The [expectation-->disappointment] journey was getting draining and repetitive.

[Andrew]

It wouldn't be wasted energy to have a discussion about it. I also certainly don't mean to imply that we should just appreciate it for what it is.

I'm just wondering what it needs as far as features and functionality are concerned. Again, I'm not talking about enhancing the AI or improving existing features for a better experience, which I'm all for. For that matter, I'm all for adding anything if it's missing, I'm just not sure what big features are currently absent. I'd be interested in any examples.