O jee, the official NBA 2K account has tweeted that hey rolled out their simulation feature and predicted that Cooper Flagg – the most talked-about player – would win the Rookie of the Year award with Dallas. The tweet claims “A star in the making for Dallas” with a few starry-eyed emojis and link to what appears to be a video of the sim. Usually, this is the kind of content that 2K releases in order to demonstrate the extraordinary predictive capabilities of their game; however, the players’ reactions are rather different.
No kidding, the tweet shows a lot of positive vibes and hype for Flagg, but one of the replies paints a different picture. The game company was showcasing their amazing simulation technology and at the same time inadvertently allowing all the players’ grievances regarding the current game state to surface. In fact, the whole situation is quite hilarious; on one hand, they are trying to promote their brilliant simulation predicting NBA futures, while on the other hand, gamers are just complaining about the last patch.
Very quickly, the discontent with the latest update was voiced by some players. Da Real Big Feed very clearly states “Ruined your game with that latest patch gg can’t dribble at all without getting ripped.” Others are on the same wavelength – Spi_ryan just says “Yall ruined the game with this new patch” and adjetives goes with even more concise “Revert the patch.” One might even say it is nothing but pure frustration and it is all over the place in these replies.
Pusha_Deezy gives just one reason why players are dissatisfied: “I get nerfing the fading 3s, but middies too? I’m getting animations on my pull that I’ve never even seen. This ain’t it.” So, it seems that the patch viewed shooting mechanics from an unconventional perspective and players responded by saying that they are in the area of off gameplay. Ua5ive appears to refer to a different issue when he states “What happened to crew boost ya patch one thing and fuck the whole game up” – it is not only gameplay changes but possibly some progression or social features getting messed up as well.
Then, there are the players who are reporting technical problems and issues. derrickbigwilly comments “The patch has my app crashing when I pick my build?!?! I’ve redownloaded the game twice. Cleared cache. Rebuilt data base. All that. wtf is happening?!” Well, that does sound extremely frustrating – like the game is totally unplayable for some people after this update. elimd7 also talks about server issues, saying “Every update you guys make you fuck up the servers more and more had 4 people just get kicked out of a game because you guys can’t get shit going for your servers.”
Where was I? Ah yes, the initial tweet about Cooper Flagg. It is surprising how little discussion there is about the simulation prediction when the community is so disaffected by the present gameplay issues. Still, there are some comments about the actual content – nb_rich thinks that “Gone be Ace Bailey” instead of Flagg for Rookie of the Year, and DWhitedefender asks “Has the sim ever given a take that isn’t consensus?” which is a valid question as far as the predictive capability of the game is concerned.
There is even some confusion regarding the players being generated, with Jcole24 inquiring “Who’s the generated player on the wolves? He’s wearing #5” – this shows that people are actually playing these franchise modes and noticing the computer-generated prospects. And bmore_cowboys reminds that “2k sim also predicts LeBron retiring” which, if true, would be much bigger news than any rookie prediction.
And the international players are equally annoyed – there is a Chinese reply that translates to “Are you making the game with your dick? The number 1 position can’t get away, how to get away?” which… yes, that is yet another complaint about the dribbling mechanics being broken after the patch. In essence, the sentiment is shared by all types of players.
To add pro and con, this one positive tweet from 2K has turned into a practically magnet for all the existing complaints about the game. It is almost like players have been given a chance to air their grievances in an area where the developers might actually hear them. A lot of people are calling this the “worst 2k ever” and saying they “cannot play the game at all” due to error codes and crashes.
At the same time, we have returned to the actual simulation content – Cooper Flagg is undeniably one of the most hyped prospects entering the NBA, and hence, 2K’s betting on him as the winner of Rookie of the Year is not too far-fetched. However, considering the hardships the community is going through, it is hard for players to be thrilled over future predictions when they can’t even enjoy the game at the moment.
The disparity between what 2K is trying to showcase and what players are experiencing very obviously comes out in these replies. They try to generate enthusiasm around their simulation technology and the features of the franchise mode, while the player community is struggling with basic gameplay issues, server problems, and technical glitches that make the game difficult or impossible for some to play right now.
It serves as a reminder that sports games are played and live by their current gaming experience – no matter how many cool simulation features or realistic predictions there are, there is no way that players will accept the core game as not functioning. Gamers want to play basketball, not just see basketball simulations, and at present the latest patch seems to have made that basic experience worse for a lot of people in the community.
Thus, whereas 2K’s algorithms predict Cooper Flagg to be a future basketball superstar, the essential point here is the community’s reaction to the game’s condition. The developers have to put in extra effort to fix these widespread complaints before they lose the player’s attention and never get to see if the predictions turn out true or not.
