You have to work hard to get to the top in M圜areer, and realistically you have to drop some coin on it too if you want to hit 99 overall before the heat death of the universe, but as ever the fundamentals of how the game of basketball is played offsets the obvious tedium of the game’s grindier elements. Seriously though, if you could let me know about that high rise, 2K…
#SKIP CUTSCENES IN NBA 2K18 HOW TO#
For example, I still don’t know how to get the Michael Jordan high-rise M圜ourt in 2K17, but in 2K18 I know exactly what hitting 85 overall, 90, 91 etc will bestow upon me.
Visual Concepts is much more communicative about the other incidental progression rewards, too. It’s great to have all this info presented so clearly, but slightly disconcerting to see how long it’ll take to get a few diamond badges. How these were unlocked and upgraded (from bronze up to diamond) was a bit mysterious last year, but in 2K18 a handy overlay after each activity shows you a) what you did, b) the badge that action counts towards unlocking, and c) how many more times you need to do it before actually unlocking it. The ‘ankle breaker’ badge, for example, will make your crossover and double moves much more effective, whereas unlocking ‘mid-range deadeye’ improves 2-point jumpshots. These permanently buff certain abilities and offer an even more profound effect on your player than several cap-breakers would. Anyone who spent as long as I did doing the jump test drill last year will be ecstatic to hear that. They might as well have named it the ‘That’s It, Dickheads, Keep Grinding Away’ Bar), which could only be progressed outside of games. Career games, multiplayer, gym work and training drills will all fill up a cap-breaker bar, and happily it fills much quicker than last year’s glacial Doin’ Work Meter (seriously, that’s what they called it. Those initial attribute caps can be raised substantially, but the only way to do it is with hard work. Why did you have to be a… cap breaker?Įnter the first of 2K18’s big time investments: cap breakers.
It’s just a shame all the M圜areer cutscenes are unskippable, so starting again with a new build takes more time than it should. It feels like there are more ways to create a terrible archetype than a great one, particularly if you want to play a lot of multiplayer with them, but the dual archetype system is a step in the right direction, and is worth experimenting with. In reality, my 6”10 rebounding slasher is… okay at both. They’ll still be limited by physical traits - height, weight, wingspan, shoulder width - but in theory you have more freedom to play the way you want. For example, if you really did want to be a lights out three-point shooter while also excelling at rebounding, you could build a player with those two archetypes. Attributes are capped once again this year, but with the introduction of dual archetypes you do at least get a bit more control over how they’re capped. Particularly those who’d enjoyed creating a Michael-Jordan-but-seven-feet-tall archetype in previous years, and had been able to dominate in all aspects of the game. It makes sense from a basketball perspective, but many players found it restrictive. Last year’s game took flak for introducing stat caps based on particular player archetypes, so that a six-foot, three-point specialist of the Steph Curry mold couldn’t also become a league-leading rebounder, and if you gave your player Manute Bol’s dimensions you couldn’t buy him Muggsy Bogues’ speed. To understand why these are important, a quick history lesson is required.