First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby ripkobe » Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:57 am

- First off; no European leagues this year? Can't see a way to activate it from start-up. Was a cool system, especially with how frequently NBA players who aren't-so-hot wind up overseas, was fun to keep up with them over time.

- Looking through old players awards (started in 1976) and I don't see any Finals MVP award - does that mean it wasn't added? Seen a lot of people asking for it over the years, I would really emphasize adding it in before FirstAccess ends if that's at all possible. Most Improved Player would be awesome too, though I imagine that's a little more complicated to try and set up.

- For career almanac stats, would you consider extending the list to 50, or even 100? Especially for scoring, it's really neat to track people's way up the ranks over time as a way of comparing players across time.

- Playoff almanac stats seem like another thing that would be relatively easy to add. Looking some things over, I'd imagine your biggest issue here is that you don't have these playoff stats recorded pre-game (as in players recorded playoff stats are empty for everyone upon starting a new game). Compiling all of these might take time - some people on here might be tech savvy with that sort of thing if its as simple as transferring it to excel - but at the very least, you could have them start at 0 beginning game and build up from there overtime. A lot of guys over time don't shine per say in the regular season, but have had insane playoff runs throughout their career, would be neat to have to look at.

- Noticed you made it so you can sort players by team in the editor - WOOOOO thank you so much, that's huge! Before I dive into things, I'm interested in the new G-League highschoolers-college-option you mentioned in the twitch. You said there'd be anywhere from 4 to 8 a season, is this something that you can set up manually if you set a players age to 18 or something like that, or just not possible where things stand as of now? No big deal, just curious, that sounds like a really cool feature.

- On the topic of thoughts from the twitch - I just got around to watching it yesterday, it was cool to see how responsive you guys are to player feedback! The game itself looks great, the strides in presentation from 15 to now is huge and it feels more and more like a universe (fun new game mode btw, psyched to check it out :)) every year. I saw you guys put a lot of work into trades, but I do see there's still only three years of draft picks you can ship forward. Are you sure you can't push this up to five-seven? It's becoming more and more common now, look at teams like the Clippers, Rockets, and Thunder and where they're at with picks as things stand. Pick swaps and multi-team trades would be really neat down the line too, though I understand those are a bit more complicated.

- I'm pretty sure, at least as of the last game, that when a coach retires they aren't kept on file in Coach Records which I'd imagine is a little hiccup. If you have a season on file about to end, try editting a coach up to like 99 so he retires to confirm.

- Draft presentation looks excellent this year! Something that truly grows year to year :). I really like the little commentary at the bottom, things like "2nd player drafted from USC by Charlotte", or other little anecdotes, would definitely make those more prevalent, but all in all its really gotten great. Also maybe boost AI's willingness to toss you trade offers during the draft, though I imagine now with the new "Get Offer" feature it'll be easy enough to play with that kind of stuff :).

- Summerleague is something that's always bothered me a little bit. It's fun, and a good chance to test some guys out, but I think it should count for a bit more. Would be cool to at least track the winners, and I'd also suggest adding a Summerleague MVP award.

- Gameplay is fun. I think the presentation again continues to improve, and it's easier than ever to follow the pace of game, feeling more and more fluid each year. I like that when simming you get the notifications in the corner now too, nice touch. Milestones seems really neat too.

All in all, game seems sharp as always :).

Edit: Small sidenote; with Universe Mode in full swing, is there a way to set GMs to being fireable perhaps at the beginning of the season or something, or just in a similar fashion to how you can fire and rehire coaches for AI teams as comish? Also, is name GM as Head Coach not an option for AI teams if on global? Understand why, just trying to figure out how best to align leagues.
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby slybelle1 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:55 am

For European league, I believe that was actually removed 1-2 versions ago....doesn't change the fact you liked them and want them, but wasn't removed this year.
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby ripkobe » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:19 pm

Ahhh, that’s a huge bummer. Maybe I didn’t try turning it on last year but could’ve sworn it was still in, I know it was for 19.
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby Gary Gorski » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:40 pm

ripkobe wrote:- First off; no European leagues this year? Can't see a way to activate it from start-up. Was a cool system, especially with how frequently NBA players who aren't-so-hot wind up overseas, was fun to keep up with them over time.

- Looking through old players awards (started in 1976) and I don't see any Finals MVP award - does that mean it wasn't added? Seen a lot of people asking for it over the years, I would really emphasize adding it in before FirstAccess ends if that's at all possible. Most Improved Player would be awesome too, though I imagine that's a little more complicated to try and set up.

- For career almanac stats, would you consider extending the list to 50, or even 100? Especially for scoring, it's really neat to track people's way up the ranks over time as a way of comparing players across time.

- Playoff almanac stats seem like another thing that would be relatively easy to add. Looking some things over, I'd imagine your biggest issue here is that you don't have these playoff stats recorded pre-game (as in players recorded playoff stats are empty for everyone upon starting a new game). Compiling all of these might take time - some people on here might be tech savvy with that sort of thing if its as simple as transferring it to excel - but at the very least, you could have them start at 0 beginning game and build up from there overtime. A lot of guys over time don't shine per say in the regular season, but have had insane playoff runs throughout their career, would be neat to have to look at.

- Noticed you made it so you can sort players by team in the editor - WOOOOO thank you so much, that's huge! Before I dive into things, I'm interested in the new G-League highschoolers-college-option you mentioned in the twitch. You said there'd be anywhere from 4 to 8 a season, is this something that you can set up manually if you set a players age to 18 or something like that, or just not possible where things stand as of now? No big deal, just curious, that sounds like a really cool feature.

- On the topic of thoughts from the twitch - I just got around to watching it yesterday, it was cool to see how responsive you guys are to player feedback! The game itself looks great, the strides in presentation from 15 to now is huge and it feels more and more like a universe (fun new game mode btw, psyched to check it out :)) every year. I saw you guys put a lot of work into trades, but I do see there's still only three years of draft picks you can ship forward. Are you sure you can't push this up to five-seven? It's becoming more and more common now, look at teams like the Clippers, Rockets, and Thunder and where they're at with picks as things stand. Pick swaps and multi-team trades would be really neat down the line too, though I understand those are a bit more complicated.

- I'm pretty sure, at least as of the last game, that when a coach retires they aren't kept on file in Coach Records which I'd imagine is a little hiccup. If you have a season on file about to end, try editting a coach up to like 99 so he retires to confirm.

- Draft presentation looks excellent this year! Something that truly grows year to year :). I really like the little commentary at the bottom, things like "2nd player drafted from USC by Charlotte", or other little anecdotes, would definitely make those more prevalent, but all in all its really gotten great. Also maybe boost AI's willingness to toss you trade offers during the draft, though I imagine now with the new "Get Offer" feature it'll be easy enough to play with that kind of stuff :).

- Summerleague is something that's always bothered me a little bit. It's fun, and a good chance to test some guys out, but I think it should count for a bit more. Would be cool to at least track the winners, and I'd also suggest adding a Summerleague MVP award.

- Gameplay is fun. I think the presentation again continues to improve, and it's easier than ever to follow the pace of game, feeling more and more fluid each year. I like that when simming you get the notifications in the corner now too, nice touch. Milestones seems really neat too.

All in all, game seems sharp as always :).

Edit: Small sidenote; with Universe Mode in full swing, is there a way to set GMs to being fireable perhaps at the beginning of the season or something, or just in a similar fashion to how you can fire and rehire coaches for AI teams as comish? Also, is name GM as Head Coach not an option for AI teams if on global? Understand why, just trying to figure out how best to align leagues.


European leagues were removed - I mentioned that a few times in the developer dynasty streams (for anyone reading if you're not watching those live on Twitch or afterwards on Twitch or our YouTube channel please follow those outlets - lots of good comes from the dev dynasties and are a great way to get your feedback directly heard by the developers). The reason I took them out was that they were sort of cumbersome and really from an idea years ago when for a hot second it was thought that European teams were going to start signing NBA players away from the NBA (paging Josh Childress). Of course that didn't pan out and the feature was pretty stale. If there is enough support for it I will bring it back in the future when some real work is done to it.

The awards have not changed at this point - I will make a note of your request though

The career stats are staying as a top 30 especially considering that is how they are setup for the 2020 leagues which can be imported

Playoff stats are kept and tracked in the game but there's no internal variables storing like a leader thing like with the career stats nor is there a place in the almanac where just stats are displayed as a whole so would probably have to make that sort of thing a future idea

The g-league select players are auto generated as part of the draft pool - you cannot change how many are created each year as its setup to stay in line with the talent in the pool.

Trading needs time to implement new things - for example this year I added sign and trades as well as completely changing how the AI looks at pick valuation. I want to make sure those are right before expanding it further. Perhaps in the next version having more picks to trade will be the next thing but I also am cautious on this because I'm considering both MP leagues (who wouldn't want someone to trade picks away five seasons from now and quit) and also the challenge from the player side where its difficult enough to make the AI have a reasonable guess at what the value of the picks you are trading 3 years from now are worth let alone 5 or 7. Getting the AI to be a smart trader is probably the most difficult piece of logic to implement in the game and is why games like 2K do it so poorly.

As for Universe mode you should be able to add/drop GMs via the commish office as you would in a MP league. On global mode name GM as head coach is never an option for anyone because its not needed - it's only for the human player and in global mode you already can control everything. The AI does not ever need that function in any mode since its always using the appropriate ratings for whatever its doing.

Thank you as well for the kind words and compliments. Much appreciated to get good feedback as well!
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby ripkobe » Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:35 pm

Thanks for all the clarity Gary! Love how good you are at community responses.

Bummer about European league but I understand- could be something to bring back later on. I used it for prolonging players careers overseas, but I can see why it wasn’t as popular for everyone, I imagine on some computers the simulation times for all those teams could become cumbersome and complicated.

Finals MVP pleaaaase! Thanks for noting it down, if it’s easy to get in it’d be great to see this year. Guys like Tony Parker, Chauncey Billups, and Andre Iguodala (the legitimacy of this one I challenge personally) really solidified their legacies. MIP I think is more of a novelty, but looking at guys like Giannis, it’s neat to have it on record.

Yeah I know playoff stats aren’t recorded in the almanac now, sorry if that was unclear in my message. Was suggesting maybe they could be added? If it’s difficult my apologies, but if it’s easy enough to do I think it’s one of those small things that could go a long way. Understand the need to keep things at 30, honestly with the AWESOME new milestone addition I can probably keep good notes in an excel sheet or something :). Seriously really cool feature!

I totally get the skepticism of AI and players tendencies to undervalue future picks when setting how many are able to be moved around. I’d still suggest playing around with the idea for the future, or perhaps a compromise would be allowing the game to set those things up before a game starts? Ie, similar to how you can set defaults for 22 teams, 30 teams, etc in database editing now, maybe you could also set future picks there. This is more to help mimic real life. Sign and trade was an awesome addition (does it hardcap you like real life in game too? Warriors fan here, D-Lo was my first look at sign and trades on that big of a scale) and I understand building these things up over time, hope none of this came off as complaining, it’s really wonderful!

Thanks for answering everything :). Cheers!
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby Gary Gorski » Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:45 pm

None of it comes across as complaining so no worries there - I welcome all feedback and try to explain why decisions were made or what is possible now or maybe in the future and that's the best I can do. I absolutely consider all suggestions and do my best to work those in that I can and appreciate people being invested and interested enough in the game to make suggestions
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby ripkobe » Sat Oct 24, 2020 2:46 am

I think I mentioned this last year, but could you look into minimizing how injured guys sitting 10-13 get put into games? Steph Curry for example has had a wrist sprain recently, but we're really stacked with injuries at the moment (Klay is out for the season already fml this better not be a predication of real life) so he winds up playing 6 or so minutes of random gameplay despite not actually having to - plenty of guys on the court still with no fouls, and he's not set for garbage time or anything like that. I thought the game prioritized who would be put in from that deeper bench based on where they were, but even moving him the list hasn't helped, and both of my 14 and 15 spots are occupied by G-Leagues so I don't have much room for not bringing players onto the court entirely. Any tips on minimizing this? With enough diligence I can try to keep this from happening so much, though I worry a bit it'll end up messing with player's on other teams stats too, so might be worth looking into.
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby ripkobe » Wed Oct 28, 2020 10:35 pm

Database editing doesn't seem to be translating over for historical replay. Tried setting the default teams for 22 teams without any success. Not sure if it's supposed to or not, maybe it's only for custom league set-ups, but figured I'd mention.

Edit: As in, the from the menu option for configuring team names and logos and such, sorry if that was confusing wording.
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby Gary Gorski » Thu Oct 29, 2020 10:07 am

ripkobe wrote:Database editing doesn't seem to be translating over for historical replay. Tried setting the default teams for 22 teams without any success. Not sure if it's supposed to or not, maybe it's only for custom league set-ups, but figured I'd mention.

Edit: As in, the from the menu option for configuring team names and logos and such, sorry if that was confusing wording.


It will not edit the historical database - you can do that outside of the game still - the database editor only edits the defaults for non historical setups
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Re: First Access - Opening Thoughts and Suggestions

Postby slybelle1 » Thu Oct 29, 2020 11:44 am

Gary Gorski wrote:
ripkobe wrote:Database editing doesn't seem to be translating over for historical replay. Tried setting the default teams for 22 teams without any success. Not sure if it's supposed to or not, maybe it's only for custom league set-ups, but figured I'd mention.

Edit: As in, the from the menu option for configuring team names and logos and such, sorry if that was confusing wording.


It will not edit the historical database - you can do that outside of the game still - the database editor only edits the defaults for non historical setups


The realworld mod in the mod forum has been updated to provide the team names for historical.
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