Picture Credits: 2K/Take Two Interactive
The 2K series is a game I have purchased or been gifted every year since 2K11. While I haven’t enjoyed the series my entire lifetime, it still is one game that I purchase every year, due to having a love for the game of basketball. In the last few years 2K has had a stretch of terrible games from 2K20 all the way up to 2K23. While I want to 2K24 to be a perfect game, I know it can’t be, but they can make improvements to make it at least enjoyable. For me personally these are the things I would love to see fixed/improved in NBA 2K24….
Bumping - Bumping has always been an issue in 2K for many years and it’s time time they finally address it. Players shouldn’t be allowed to stay attached to you down the length of the court and it makes it hard to do anything in a full court setting. While i don’t mind it in certain Situations, being allowed to do for an entirety of a game is ridiculous.
Stamina - This issue goes alongside the idea of fixing the bumping animations in 2K. More times than not players are going to use a majority of their stamina trying to get around other player bumping them. Stamina always becomes an issue with players who are dribbling, speed boosting, and rim running. 2K’s stamina in 23 was a major issue once you make 2 moves because you would lose 2 bars of your extra stamina just making simple dribble moves.
Contact Dunking with the stick - As a person who creates builds that can shoot, pass, and dunk, it’s nice to be able to do all things with the press of a button. If you are like me, you don’t want to use a stick to shoot and do your fancy dunks. It makes no sense that 2K makes you spend almost 3K VC on dunk packages and contact dunk packages but yet you won’t see all the animations unless you know how to use the stick/time your dunks.
Less story in MyCareer - I don’t mind that 2K has a story in the game and I am not a person that thinks they should completely get rid of it, but man 2K23 was where I draw the line when it comes to the MyCareer story. 2K23’s MyCareer felt more like an RPG story based game, than an actual sports game. 2K23 had too many side missions from getting clothes, doing fashion walks, creating music and a bunch of other mess it was too much going on that stopped you from actually playing basketball. The best thing that 2K can do to get players back into the MyCareer games is making sure story aspects of MyCareer are optional, and let players get back to playing the NBA games.
Different ways of reaching Level 40 - Lastly this was one of the biggest issues I saw over the last 2 years especially as a MyTeam player in 2K. Every player doesn’t have the time or the money you need to reach level 40 and this is one of the biggest issues especially in MyTeam. 2K makes it to where you have to buy packs and get certain players so that you can do the goals and gain the XP that is needed to reach level 40. For young kids and casual players they won’t have the time nor the money to get everything needed to reach the final level of 2K’s season rewards which is why they have to find new creative ways of getting to level 40.
While I know 2K is going to do what 2K wants to do, it would be nice for future games to have these improvements moving forward. 2K makes enough money and it’s time they start actually listening to their community. It’s too many people that put money in their pockets and even if they have to do things one step at a time, they should do it for the sake of their fans.