NBA 2K16 MyLEAGUE and MyGM Details

Over at Operation Sports Erick Boenisch, a Senior Producer at 2K Sports has put out a NBA 2K16 Blog on the latest NBA 2K16 MyLEAGUE, MyGM Details and more.  Some brand new 2K16 screenshots have came out today involving the MyGM and MyLeague game modes. Make sure you click on the video below to hear the detail breakdown of the new features being shown. It seems both trade logic and the game of trading players have gotten a mass overhaul for 2K16. AI controlled teams will no longer all try to contend, they will actually each have a different goal in mind. Every decision the AI makes will be based on its ultimate goal for the team it controls. A late first round pick from GSW will not be seen as very valuable by a team in contention; however a team in full rebuild mode will value the same pick differently.

Watch the video for more details. Finally it seems like franchise heavy players are getting the attention they deserve. Make sure you stay tune and check in often for more 2K16 related news 🙂

Check out Eric’s blog post below:

MyLEAGUE Online

This season, gamers will be allowed to do all those and more with the announcement of Online MyLeague. Before you even start playing games, the commissioner will have complete takeover on setting, making their MyLeague differ from any other MyLeague. Commissioners will be allowed to choose how many teams out of 30 are real players and how many are AI’s (ex: 30 real, 0 AI’s) and will also get the choice on whether the league will complete a fantasy draft or not. In addition, the commissioner will have the choice of importing a custom roster, which could mean a MyLeague with the newly introduced classic teams.

When you finally step into the game, you’ll be allowed to change rotations, make trades, etc. In addition, the schedule will run in the form of a flex schedule, meaning you can play anyone whenever as well as play games out of order. Though the mode’s core content is intended for single season use, the commissioner will have the choice to continue to a second season with the end-of-season rosters. Basically, you skip the NBA off-season and get straight into the second season with all trades from season 1.

Team Relocation

After years of requesting, Association/MyGM fans got their wish of team relocation. In it’s debut, the developers have allowed you to go full control, allowing you to adjust everything from the city selection to the stadium (think retro NCAA 2k Basketball team creation).

City Selection

The first step in any Team Relocation is deciding where you want to move the franchise to. This is a big decision. We have created complete metro profiles for most of the big North American cities. These profiles include the population of the metropolitan area, the income of the people residing in this area, and how many TV homes there are in the market. We take these numbers and boil them down into three very simple meters for you: 1) How the Median Income of the market affects the future financial success of your franchise, 2) The overall population of the metropolitan area in comparison to other relocation city options, and 3) The overall fan interest of you moving your team to their city. And you thought you were just going to pick your favorite city with no other factors. That’s cute! This is big business.

Once you have selected your city, you then need to decide whether you want to build the arena in a Downtown setting or in a Suburban setting. Land prices cost more downtown, so that will be a costlier relocation and will incur higher operating costs, but with the uptick that your team will be centrally located to where the action is (higher attendance), and to where your more affluent fans reside. Wait, it costs money to relocate a team? Of course it does!

You’re just the GM of the team in MyGM. You will need the blessing of your owner to relocate his franchise. Fortunately, the owners in NBA 2K16 are more than willing to support your relocation endeavors, but with caveats. The level of contribution you can expect from your owner will vary depending on the city you want to relocate to. For example, when you are GMing the Thunder, you can expect your owner to kick in a few extra bucks when you choose to relocate the team to Seattle, over say, Anchorage, Alaska. You can earn your own funds to add towards a relocation by completing the goals your Owner sets forth to you each season. While you apply for a relocation application in year 1 of MyGM, it might behoove you to bide your time for a few seasons and bank some money to plan for the ultimate relocation.

Team Branding

Ok, you’ve selected your city. We’ve only just begun. The next order of business is Team Branding. This is where you can choose your primary/secondary/tertiary team colors, select a new name for your team, and select a new team logo. You don’t have to do any of this. If you want to move the team and keep all of this the same, more power to you. But if you DO want to change these, we’ve given you some robust options. We have a large selection of on-disc team logos that you can choose from, otherwise you can head over to our website and upload any image of your choosing to be your team logo. If you want to upload a picture of a hummingbird and name your team the Hummingbirds, have at it. Feeling lazy? You can also browse uploads from other users and choose to use one of those as your own. The options are endless.

Design Arena

The next order of business is designing your own custom arena. You start off by selecting one of 13 different arena sizes (each with varying capacity levels). Once that is done, you’ll need to give it a name. Now is where the customization gets crazy. Rather than me telling you the rest of the things you can do here, I’m just going to list out the options and let your imaginations run wild:

• Full colorization of the seating in the arena.
• Selection of what type of basket stanchions you want to use, plus the ability to colorize these to any color you want.
• Selection from a number of differently sized Scorer’s Tables, each with a different amount of advertising boards.
• Full control over what advertisements play on the Scorer’s Table (note: YES, of course you can head over to our website and upload anything you want to display on the advertising boards of your chosen Scorer’s Table).

• Choose from 24 different Jumbotron styles for your custom arena. Once you have chosen your Jumbotron, you can choose from a number of different animation packages that will play on your Jumbotron (yes, your uploaded customs logos will play here!) as well as the LED marquees that span the circumference of the arena.
• Select custom sound effects that play in your arena during key events in the game (e.g. after a made 3PT shot by the home team, when the away team commits a turnover or misses a free throw, when the home team makes a FT, and so on). This was a late touch we added that really puts the icing on the cake. No custom sound uses here (only what we provided on-disc). I’ll see what we can do for 2K17 on this front!
• And, the best for last. You have COMPLETE control over how you build your court floor:
  • Choose from a selection of different wood patterns for your court floor.
  • Choose how you want to color the wood. You can break this down by zones on the court (in the key (the key is even broken down into sub-zones), inside the 3PT line, between the 3PT lines, etc.). Whatever you want.
  • Full control over every single line on the court. I’m talking the out of bounds lines, the half-court line, jump ball circle, hash marks in the key, media box where the camera guys go, EVERYTHING.
  • Choose a center court logo for your custom floor. Once again, you can choose from our on-disc selection or upload your own over on our website.
  • Choose secondary court logos (these appear next to the key near the baseline) by selecting one of ours or uploading your own.
  • Choose arena name logos (think STAPLES CENTER, ORACLE ARENA, etc.) by selecting one of ours or uploading your own.
  • Choose from a large selection of fonts and write whatever you want on the two baselines (e.g., put ‘SAN ANTONIO’ on one baseline and ‘SPURS’ on the other) as well as the sideline text in front of the team benches. This text is fully colorizable to match the theme of our floor.

But wait there’s more! When you are done with the in-game experience, you next need to deck out the concourse of your arena with various facilities. These all cost money and come out of your owner’s contribution bonus in addition to the funds you have accrued by completing goals from your owner. So what can you buy/upgrade for your new arena?

• Luxury suites for your upscale clientele (5 upgrade levels to choose from)
• Parking garages (5 capacities to choose from; more parking = more parking revenue)
• Concourse Merchandise shops (5 sizes to choose from; bigger = more revenue)
• Concession Stand types (5 types to choose from)
• Restaurants offered (5 types to choose from)
• In-Arena Seats (4 types to choose from)
• Green Initiatives (4 upgrade opportunities to go ‘green’)
• Public Transportation Hub (do you want to build an on-site Bus or Train terminal to increase attendance?)
• Amenities (Children’s Play Area? Medical Facilities? Baby Changing Stations?)
• Digital Services to increase attendance (in-arena Wifi, in-seat power, etc.)

Design Uniform

Time to create your threads. The uniform creator is rooted with one simple philosophy: Complete Customization. You’ll be creating both a Home and Away uniform for your team. For those wanting a quick experience, we’ve created a number of a presets for you to choose from. For those wanting a robust experience, you will have the ability to choose from:

• Full colorization of the base uniform itself.
• A selection of collar types on the jersey (U-neck, V-neck, etc.)
• A selection of different design patterns for both the jersey and the shorts.
• A selection of stripe patterns for the Neck, Shoulder, Jersey Side, Shorts Side+Bottom, and Shorts Waist regions of the uniform. Full colorization within these patterns are fully supported.
• Full control over player names and numbers anywhere on the uniform. This includes sizing, placement, selection of font, and colorization of all aspects. You can even apply a curvature to the text if you really want to get fancy.
• Full support for uploading your own team logos and images for use on the uniforms. You can skew, resize, and rotate images to your heart’s content.
• Full layering support. This allows you to intricately stylize your uniforms by prioritizing which layers take precedence over others. An example of this is in action is the Warriors uniform where they cleverly place the jersey number within the logo on the front of the uniform. With our robust uniform creator, you will have the same tools at your disposal to create whatever you can imagine.

The deadline to submit a relocation application is on March 31st. Any applications not complete before that date will have to wait until the following season. Once your application is accepted by the league office, it will go to the relocation committee, who will mull over your proposal and decide if this relocation is in the best interest of the league.

During this time, you will have the ability to speak to the other owners and get their thoughts and opinions on your relocation. Through conversation, you will be able to uncover why they are voting the way they are, and what you can do to potentially sway their votes. These owners aren’t pushovers, they are highly intelligent businessmen. If you try and relocate a team to say, Anaheim, don’t expect to ever get a yes vote from the owners of the Lakers or the Clippers. They don’t want to share the market any more than they currently are. Teams are very savvy, and they have their own motivations as well.

League Realignment

I’m particularly proud of this feature addition to the team relocation process. I’ll never forget how many conversations, meetings, and frankly, how many engineers came up with different algorithms on how to best model divisional alignment based on new geographical location. It was a stern reminder to me just how serious we take even the most seemingly small features in our game.

When you relocate a team, there is a strong chance that the divisional breakdowns will no longer make sense, with respect to the chosen city for your relocation. For example, does it make sense to keep the Knicks in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference when you have chosen to move them to be the third team in Los Angeles? Of course not! Following an approved team relocation, the league offices will realign divisions and conferences to geographically account for the new location(s) of all the teams in the league. This means the Knicks will be the newest member of the Pacific Division in such a move! It can be viewed as a small addition, but to me, it really accentuates the level of detail the team has gone into in creating this experience. And let’s be honest, it’s pretty fun to see how the league reshapes itself based on your decisions.

Team Relocation in MyLEAGUE

As you all know, MyLEAGUE is our ‘sandbox’ franchise mode, where anything goes. In this experience, you will be able to rebrand and relocate teams without the requirement of going through the application, voting, and approval process. If you want to move the Thunder to Seattle, you can do that right away. Go ahead, no one is going to stop you!

The All-New Offseason

The offseason, and the elements within it, is one of the oldest modules in our backend code. Not anymore! We’ve spent a considerable amount of time revamping (and adding!) many time periods that occur in the NBA offseason. I’d like to take a few minutes and go over some of my favorites:

Draft Lottery

This is an all-new take on the Draft Lottery with a fresh presentation that adds suspense to each pick that Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum reveals. We have a reporter on-hand to give you analysis of each team as every pick is revealed. It’s a simple, yet elegant execution that will keep you on the edge of your seat as you cross your fingers in hopes that the ping pong balls bounce your way.

Staff Hiring

Internally, we refer to this time period as the Staff Carousel. Why is that? We’ve completely overhauled how Staff Hiring works. The end result is a feature that is endlessly more compelling than what we offered previously. It is no longer a ‘fill open slots and press start to advance’ type of experience.

This time period now lasts 7 days, and features a full promotion system. You now have the ability to hire staff away from other teams, or promote from within your own. If you think Nate McMillian is doing a solid job as the assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers, you can approach the Pacers and ask for permission to speak to him, to see if he wants to take a promotion and become your head coach. Not all coaches have the same ambition. Some are content with their careers as an assistant. Others dream of one day becoming a head coach and will jump ship at the first offer for such a position. Be careful, this totally works against you too! Other teams will come to you asking for permission to speak to members of your staff. If you decline the option for teams to speak to a member of your staff, that staff member may become frustrated with you and your organization and pine for a move on his own. This isn’t always true, and really, it comes down to the motivation and drive of each individual person. On the other hand, declining the approach is a surefire way to make sure your top talent doesn’t get poached. It’s a delicate game, and one that should be played with caution.

Getting back to the progression, over the course of a franchise, you will likely see a Head Scout eventually become an Assistant Coach. If he performs well enough and develops his skills properly, he might one day become a Head Coach. If he has the business acumen, you may even one day see him as an Assistant GM or GM of another team. You will see fired Head Coaches try and get back into the game by latching on as an Assistant Coach elsewhere in the league. This ebb and flow is how this feature, at least internally, came to be known as the Staff Carousel.

NBA Draft

I’ve always liked our draft presentation. Even today, I think it is head and shoulders better than offerings in any other sports game out there. But, for me, it was getting a little long in the tooth. With the offseason being such a huge focus for us this year, I wanted to make sure the showpiece was fresh. We’re no longer in Madison Square Garden itself, but nonetheless, we are still offering a full presentation helmed by none other than the Commissioner, Adam Silver.

One of the things I didn’t like about our previous draft was how difficult it was to skip through picks and/or get to your next pick quicker. We’ve addressed this complaint of mine with our new design. On the presentation side of things, the first three picks in the draft receive a robust unveiling complete with full vitals, college stats, tweet reactions from the fans of the drafting team, and so on. It’s a draft. It’s fun. I think you will all like it.

Summer League

Here’s another feature that has been on the table for a solid five years that we have wanted to do. In 2K16, it’s a reality. There are actually two Summer Leagues in the game this year: 1) The Samsung NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, and 2) The 2K Summer League. Your team will get an invite to one of the summer leagues each offseason.

The setup of the Summer League in Las Vegas completely mirrors the real-life setup of the actual event. This is a tremendous chance for you to play with your newly drafted rookies, with and against the best of the undrafted rookies from the previous draft, and with the younger non-rookie players on your roster.

2K Hoops Summit

This is a small thing we chose to add, but we’ve found it to be a very fun way to conclude the offseason. This a single game you are able to play with the best players in next year’s draft class. The USA team is comprised of the best domestically born prospects, while the World team is comprised of the best international prospects. It’s your first look (on the sticks) at what the next draft class has to offer, which may be key in you deciding if moving up in the draft will be worth your time. Can you spot the next LeBron? If so, you may want to start working the wire for some high potential lotto picks…

Team Building

A franchise mode is only as good as its core. The core of NBA 2K’s franchise mode are the logic systems. I’m talking trading logic, signing logic, the simulator, progression/regression, and Team Building. We continue to make strides in all of these areas each and every year. This year I wanted to take a different approach to our annual logic improvements. Dave Z, Tim, Leftos, and I huddled pretty much all year long to discuss how we were going to make Team Building our focus, and how it would affect the other logic sub-systems.

With Tim doing the heavy lifting, we put together a plan that would truly set our logic apart from any other simulation on the market. As succinctly as I can, I’ll try and break down our approach:

• Give teams the ability to be forward thinking. Historically, teams have lived in the ‘now’. They now live in both the ‘now’ as well as the ‘future’. More so than ever, teams are incredibly aware of the state of their roster. They can properly assess when it is time to leverage their assets (draft picks, young prospects) into bonafide stars if that is what they need to elevate their current roster to contender status. They can better assess when it is time to start a full rebuild. They have a true awareness to the quality of the upcoming draft, meaning, if the class is weak, they won’t value lotto picks nearly as much as if the class is strong and/or if it has a generational player sitting at the top of it.
• To present ‘Team State’ for every team to the user. We want you to better understand the moves that teams are making. Without context, it can be difficult to follow along with why teams make the decisions they do. To solve that, we now have a new screen in the game called ‘Team Intel’:
  • This screen allows you to trigger through each team and learn about what they are up to. You can quickly view if a team thinks it is Rebuilding, Selling, Contending, or Buying.
  • You will get a one-line statement from your Assistant GM that summarizes, in a nutshell, what kind of moves (if any) he thinks the team is willing to make.
  • You will be able to quickly view which players a team currently has on their Trading Block.
  • It will offer you insight into any players the team may currently be targeting (CPU teams maintain constantly evolving Target Lists), whether that be through a trade right now, or through free agency in upcoming offseasons. The key take-away from the second half of the last sentence is this. Teams now think. They plan. They strategize. And we’ve programmed them to be pretty efficient at what they do. They have a plan and they don’t want your junk. They keep their eyes on the prize. If LeBron is going to hit the market in the offseason, a number of teams who think they can reasonably land him will work very hard to ensure they have the cap space to make him the max offer needed to reign him in. This type of logic never happened in previous NBA 2Ks.
  • You can look at a list of players the team currently views as ‘Untouchable’ on their roster. When you see this, don’t even bother offering for those players. They either aren’t moving them, or they will make you pay dearly to acquire them. Their Team Building logic values them intensely.
  • You can also quickly view the expiring contracts on a given team. This can be extremely handy when you yourself are looking to create cap space in the upcoming season. We’ve made it easier for you to target these players.
  • In NBA 2K16, teams do a much better job of looking at their roster post-trade when deciding if they should bite on a trade offer. Previously, a trade offering good value would be jumped on. This year, even if the trade offers them REALLY good value, they may pass solely because, for example, the trade may leave them without a true starting point guard when they think they are good enough to make a deep run in the playoffs. This inherently makes it more difficult to perform trades in MyGM and MyLEAGUE this year. Fortunately for you, opposing GMs will now tell you exactly why they are not interested in your trade offers. It may be that they feel like they would be too thin at a position post-trade, or maybe they just don’t feel like the age of the player you are trading them meshes with their current roster. It could be any number of reasons. The take-home point here is that we tell you why they are making the decisions they are making. Listen to what they are saying. Try not to get frustrated; it’s not as easy as it used to be. More than ever, you will have to give to get. Personally, I’m LOVING the challenge.
  • Teams value players VERY differently. Let’s take Joe Johnson’s 2015-16 contract as an example. To the right team, Joe Johnson can be an INCREDIBLY value trade piece. He has a massive $25M expiring contract. On a scale of 5-stars, the right team may value him as a 4-star player, solely based on the fact that he can clear a ton of cap in the offseason, thus giving them a chance to make max offers to the big name players of the upcoming free agent class. On the other hand, some teams won’t value him nearly as high. These teams are trying to win, and while Joe Johnson still shows a respectable amount of skill, the teams realize that what they have to give up, player-wise, to match his $25M salary does not make sense for their winning ambitions. We do a good job this year of showing how opposing teams value each player on your roster. It’s pretty cool to trigger through the teams and see the star-values change.

Ticker

The most compelling aspect of a franchise mode, to me, is the storytelling. Sports are full of drama. You have star players getting hurt that change the landscape of a league. You have players demanding trades and/or getting traded. You have general league news. You have game results. You have upcoming key games. I don’t think we have ever done a tremendous job of presenting this type of information in a medium that is easy for you to consume. Enter the Ticker.

The Ticker is exactly what it sounds like. Let me start off by saying that you aren’t going to appreciate this feature until you have the game in your hands and have spent some time with it. We have carved out a space on every single screen in the modes, where we will present you with a continuously scrolling ticker containing the latest news from around the league. You’ll certainly see last night’s scores and who the leading scorers were for each team. You’ll see tonight’s matchups. You’ll see the latest news headlines. Later in the season, you’ll start to see all-star weekend content, and eventually draft previews and big boards. If you are IN THE DRAFT, you will see real-time updates of the pick order and who each team has picked.

SimCast Live

In NBA 2K15, we introduced a new way to simulate games, SimCast. The reception for this feature was, frankly, overwhelming. We’ve listened to all of your feedback on the subject and have crafted yet another way for you to consume games in NBA 2K16.

SimCast Live, in a nutshell, is the hybrid version of simulating a game and playing it. It’s a coach mode for the armchair quarterback. In a true game cast fashion, you will watch representational ‘chips’ of the players move around the court in real-time. You won’t be controlling player movement, but instead, you’ll be pulling ALL of the strings. You’ll be calling plays on both ends of the court. You’ll be making substitutions as needed. You’ll be making POE and strategy changes as needed. In order to get through games quicker, you will be able to adjust the speed of the simulation on-the-fly from real-time speed all the way to up to 6x the normal speed.

• 3-Team Trades. They are back! Tweet pictures to Ronnie, I want to see the best 3-Team Trades you can pull off!
• Autosave OFF – In MyLEAGUE, you will now have the ability to disable the Autosave feature. Additionally, you will be able to ‘Save As’ copies of your MyLEAGUE, thus creating multiple instances of it. I hear you…and here you are!
• Multiple Injuries – Since the beginning of recorded video game time, a player could only have one injury at a time. In NBA 2K16, you can now have up to two simultaneous injuries per player.
• More MyLEAGUE Customization Sliders – In our continued efforts to make this the most customizable franchise mode in sports, we have added some new sliders to help you out. These include an adjustable Salary Cap Value, Salary Cap Inflation Rate, Injury Severity, Injury Duration, Player Regression Rate, and more.
• MyLEAGUE Automation – For those users who like to control multiple (or all 30!) teams, but don’t want to perform all of the actions of running that team, we now have a new screen where you can completely customize your level of control with a given team.
• Player Lock – Under the Options menu in both MyGM and MyLEAGUE, there is a hidden gem of an option called ‘Position Settings’. In this menu, you can choose to play your franchise either player locked to your favorite player or locked to a given position. Definitely a unique way to play the modes that people will uncover as they explore everything we have to offer.
• MyLEAGUE Setup Slider Sharing – Let’s be honest, MyLEAGUE has a LOT of customization sliders at this point. We now allow you to save your custom slider set so you don’t have to tweak them all every time you want to start a new MyLEAGUE. Additionally, these slider sets can be uploaded and shared for others to use.
• Gameplay Slider Sharing – Additionally, you can now also save, load, and share your User/CPU sliders for others to download and use. Obtaining the perfect 2K experience customized to your liking has never been easier or quicker.
• Training Slider Sharing – We like to create work for ourselves, for your benefit. You can ALSO save, load, and share your Team Training sliders in both MyGM and MyLEAGUE. Finding the PERFECT set of sliders is something that can take a lot of time. Now, you can quickly switch between different sets of sliders depending on how you want your team to focus. Do you have the perfect set of Training sliders? Upload and share them with the rest of the community.
• Long-Term Owner Goals (MyGM) – Your owner will now give you goals that extend beyond just the current season. Some of these can feel a little tough (depending on the personality of the owner and how demanding he is), but remember, you have a few seasons to pull them off. Be calm, keep your eye on the prize, and don’t lose track of the target.
• Customizable Progression/Regression – Every player in the league now has a unique editable entry called ‘Peak Start’ and ‘Peak End’. ‘Peak Start’ is the age at which players have developed as much as they can, and will not see additional ratings increases outside of training. ‘Peak End’ is the age at which players will start their inevitable ratings decline. This is all in your control now!
• NEW STATS – LOTS of new Player and Team stats that will give you more insight on your players than ever before. My personal favorite addition here is the ability to see Opponent FGA/M and FG% PER PLAYER. Finding the best defensive stoppers in the league has never been easier.
• All-New Landing Menu/Calendar – We’ve completely re-designed the landing menu for the modes to incorporate your team calendar, the latest social media news, your personal target list of players you want to acquire, your team’s trade block (CPU teams will inquire about the players you put up here), and your untouchable list (CPU will NOT inquire about the players you put up here). It’s a design that had a lot of thought put into it with respect to usability.
• The 2016 NBA Offseason – We’ve all read stories about how the salary cap is going to jump next offseason, and create a whole new free agent market. How will it play out? Find out right here in NBA 2K16!