Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five weird bugs and design errors that I’ve encountered in the modes of basketball video games.

It bears repeating that no video game, basketball or otherwise, is going to be perfect. If it were possible to design games and software that were completely bug-free, it would’ve happened a long time ago! As basketball games and their modes have become deeper and more sophisticated, the chances of there being a few bugs here and there has only increased. Likewise, while there have been some very smart and passionate people working on basketball video games past and present, not all ideas pan out as well as hoped, leading to what we could reasonably call design errors.

Needless to say, it’s frustrating for everyone when bugs and design errors stand in the way of modes being as fun as they could and should be. In the best case scenario, a patch can fix the problem, or the issue will be resolved in next year’s release at the latest. Sadly that isn’t always the case, and there are times when we’ve been stuck with bugs and design errors for a few games running (and sometimes, even longer). Even when bugs and design errors don’t completely ruin a mode, they still have an impact on the experience, and they become one of the things that we remember most about a title. Here are five weird bugs and design errors that I’ve encountered in modes I play.

1. “Trade this player who isn’t here!” (NBA 2K14 MyCAREER)

Unlike the PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K14, MyCAREER in the PlayStation 4/Xbox One release doesn’t allow you to visit with the GM on a whim. Therefore, if you want to ask for a trade, demand a teammate be traded, vouch for the coach or try to get him fired, or express your happiness with the team’s direction, you have to wait until the periodic GM meeting occurs. As I’ve mentioned, while I’m still having a blast with MyCAREER in NBA 2K14 PS4, I’m not thrilled that Michael Carter-Williams getting the starting nod has pushed me over to shooting guard, as well as moved my all-time favourite generated player – Terry Hanson – to the bench.

After much deliberation – because frankly, I care way too much about what NPCs think about my avatars in video games – I decided that I’d be the bad guy and try to get MCW traded. Unfortunately, when I select the conversation option that leads to asking for a teammate to be traded, he’s never listed. However, Marvin Williams – who hasn’t been on the team in over a year – is still one of the options. I’ve picked that option, thinking it might just be referring to MCW by the wrong name, but no, it had no effect. Choosing the “another player” option didn’t work, either. And so, thanks to this odd bug, it would appear that I’m stuck with MCW in the lineup for a while yet!

2. Rarely Accessible Menus (NBA 2K14 MyCAREER)

Once again, NBA 2K14 MyCAREER has been a joy to play. I wouldn’t be in my sixth year and counting if I wasn’t having a great time with it! With that being said, much as the aforementioned bug has bothered me in my NBA journey to date, I’ve also been frustrated by another issue that I encounter between games. As in MyGM, MyCAREER tracks all manner of stats, from league leaders to advanced metrics to team and league records. That’s awesome, and it’s what makes multi-season play so enjoyable, whether it’s a franchise or career mode. The problem in NBA 2K14’s MyCAREER is that unlike MyGM, many of those screens aren’t readily accessible.

They’re obviously supposed to be, but they’re just not there in the stats menus. The only way to bring them up is if they’re related to a news story listed on the in-game NBA.com. For example, if you want to check out the advanced metrics, you can only bring up that screen when a story such as “Who is #1 in PER?” is generated. Team and player records can also only be viewed when they’re broken, and there’s a link to a virtual “article”. It’s not surprising at all as the menus in the PS4/X1 version of NBA 2K14 had several design errors, in the backend and frontend alike. It certainly is a bummer, but in all fairness, I can’t say that it’s prevented me from enjoying the mode.

3. No Dunking For You! (NBA 2K18 MyCAREER)

So, there’s a reason that it’s close to impossible to create a MyPLAYER build that can do absolutely everything at a high level. Balance is essential for the online scene – and it makes the NBA side of MyCAREER more interesting as well – so it makes sense that some sacrifices are necessary, and that all-around builds tend to be “jack of all trades, master of none”. Of course, there are still builds that are less viable, and others that are overpowered. To that point, it can feel as though the build system is punishing gamers who just want to make a fun MyPLAYER, while rewarding those who want to dominate the meta. I guess the road to broken builds is paved with good intentions.

While balance may be the goal, I must say that none of the recent approaches have been as fun as my NBA 2K14 and NBA 2K17 players. My NBA 2K18 MyPLAYER was a low point in particular, and not just because of the widespread issues with the game. For some reason, despite having the appropriate ratings and dunk packages assigned, my point guard often refused to dunk. It didn’t matter if I was wide open on the break with a full sprint meter; nine times out of ten, it was a layup. Supposedly there was a bug with the tendencies that was fixed, but my pre-existing build was out of luck. 2K Support made that clear, once again emphasising their utter uselessness.

4. Training Makes Players Worse?!? (NBA Live 2004 Dynasty)

For many years, I figured that the risk of players declining when assigned training time in NBA Live 2004’s Dynasty was a bug. I’d long assumed that that’s why the mode presented us with the option to skip Training Camp at the beginning of every season; a makeshift solution to a bug that was caught way too late to fix. However, when I dug deeper into the game’s DBF files, I discovered the one that governs the increases and decreases that can occur when training players in Dynasty mode. The file – which is named c_tt.dbf – contains positive and negative figures that correspond to assigned training time, potential attributes, and all of the individual player ratings.

This demonstrates that players seeing their ratings decline if they weren’t assigned enough training time was by design, and not a bug! While I can see the logic in that – basically, you can’t just assign 100% training time in one area to raise player ratings without enduring a penalty in other areas – it was too harsh. Of course, seeing as how it is a DBF file, it’s something that we can edit. Indeed, some twenty years later, I finally created a fix that removes the possibility of ratings atrophy through training, simply by replacing all of the negative numbers with zeros. I’m not quite sure how I overlooked that for so long, but it was a fun discovery to make after all this time!

5. Cumbersome Rotation Menus (Dynasty in Several NBA Lives)

The lingering roughness that was introduced in NBA Live 07 made it difficult for me to get hooked on the seventh generation NBA Live releases back in the day, even as a long-time fan of the series. There was no denying that it had fallen on hard times! The series bounced back slightly with NBA Live 08, and NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10 were even stronger releases, but I still found it hard to get into them. It didn’t help that Dynasty – my favourite mode – was disappointing. Not only did it lack the depth that NBA 2K’s The Association boasted, but it was riddled with bugs and puzzling design errors, from inaccurate simulated statistics to training drills that were ineffective.

One of the biggest annoyances for me as a Dynasty/Franchise enthusiast was the decision to replace the regular Re-order Roster menu with the new Rotation system; an issue that unfortunately also plagued the PC/prior gen versions of NBA Live 07 and 08. Although being able to set the depth chart and assign minutes was a good idea in theory, NBA Live’s take on the concept was poorly executed. It didn’t allow us to assign specific minutes or easily change the starting five and bench order, making it a much worse version of the function that NBA 2K also offered. It’s not the only issue with those games, and arguably far from the worst, but the little things do still matter.

Did any of these bugs and design errors impede your enjoyment of the titles they’re found in? What are some other bugs and design errors that have frustrated you? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

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