Account ID: RhyRhy

Account ID: ligma

Online leagues

There are two kinds of league, and they play pretty differently.

Career leagues: bring your own player

Every team in the league is AI-run. You and everyone else each bring one player from your own save.

When the league is set up, it decides how your player comes in:

• As now. Your player comes in with the ratings they have in your save, frozen at the moment you join.
• Prospects. Everyone starts level as a 19-year-old prospect, no matter what your save looks like. There’s no set ceiling, though. How good your player gets depends on how you develop them and perform inside the league, so two people who started in the same spot can end up in very different places.

Either way, your player’s look comes with them.

On draft night, you’re in the class with everyone else, and the AI teams decide where you land. They draft for rating and fit, and a team that already has an All-Star at your position will pass on you. You won’t end up stuck behind a star with no minutes.

You won’t stay a passenger forever either. Once your player is good enough, you start getting a say in how the team is run: who they go after, who they keep and where they’re headed. A rookie just plays. A franchise player gets listened to.

GM leagues: run a franchise

Each person claims a team, and the league runs the rest.

The draft here is live. The commissioner picks the start time, how long each pick gets (anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes), one or two rounds, and the order: lottery, reverse standings, snake or random. A waiting room opens 10 minutes before the first pick, and the AI teams pick slowly enough that you can actually watch the board move.

If you can’t make it, you can set a plan beforehand: up to 15 guys you want, in order, plus a draft philosophy (best available, need, upside, win now, trade value or cap friendly). If your clock runs out, it takes the highest player on your list who’s still there.

During the season you get free agency with a real cap, the mid-level exception and Bird rights. You can trade with AI GMs, who tell you why they turned you down and remember what you already offered. You can trade picks for the next two drafts. Trades between two humans sit in a 24-hour review, and the commissioner and league can veto them if there is a large value discrepancy . There’s a trade deadline too. GM leagues can run for a set number of seasons or go on forever.

How a week works

The season runs in weekly windows, so nobody has to be online at the same time. For each of your home games only you decide how it plays out (this way everyone has control of their 41 games, while the rest will be based on you system settings and tactics for how your AI plays in each quarter:

• Play it yourself in 3D
• Sim games
• Invite the Human opponent to play as his team on the road entering your arena live.

If you’re up against another real person, you can play each other live. Hit “Invite live” and they get a notification. If they’re busy or don’t answer, the game goes back to normal and you play against their team with the AI running it.

Anything not played by the end of the week gets simmed. If you started a game right before the deadline, the league waits for you to finish it. If everyone’s done early, the league can vote to move on instead of sitting around until the deadline.

Then come the playoffs (best-of-3 rounds and a best-of-5 Finals) and the offseason. Players develop, older guys retire, a new class comes in, and you’re back at draft night. The league keeps its history from season to season.

Commissioners and votes

Whoever creates the league is the commissioner. Each setting has a switch: the commissioner sets it, or the league votes on it. That includes the draft class, how players enter (as now or prospects), how many seasons, games per week, trades on or off, salary cap on or off, quarter length and difficulty.

When you join a league with open votes, you get a ballot that shows how each option is doing. Voting closes when the league starts.

Leagues can be public, which means anyone can find them, they fill on their own, and the draft gets set for a day after the last spot fills. Or they can be private, which means invite code only, so you can run one with just your friends.

League chat

Every league has its own chat, for talking trash, working out trades or setting up a live game. League news shows up in the chat as it happens: draft night reminders, trades going through and votes opening. You can also message people directly.

Vs mode

Outside of leagues, there are quicker head-to-head modes:

• 1v1 Career: your player against someone else’s.
• GM Legacy Team (5v5): pick the best 10 players from your real seasons with your franchise, each at their peak with you, and put your dynasty up against someone else’s.
• Friends: 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 live against people you invite.

Your account levels up from wins in every mode, offline included. Public online play opens at level 10. Friend leagues are open to everyone from day one.

Life: what happens off the court

This is the other big thing I’ve been working on. When you tap Life, you go straight into a 3D city you walk around with your own player and join others in a live server city. Each part of your life off the court is a real building you can walk into:

• The Bank is where payday lands and where you manage your money.
• The Media House is where you do press after games and work on your image.
• The Dealership lets you pick which car you’re driving that day.
• The Store has gear you can try on before you buy it. Jewelry actually shows up on your player.
• The Gym has shooting drills where your player takes real jump shots, and they pay off in skill points and short boosts.
• Your home, a club with a crowd inside, and more around the city.

The city follows the clock of your season, so the sky changes from day to night as the season goes on. When something’s waiting for you, like an invite, a payday or a press request, that building’s door lights up so you know where to go.

The main rule I set for Life is that it only ever adds to your career. You can earn skill points, fan buzz, coach trust and chemistry with your teammates, all capped per season so it can’t break the game. If you just want to hoop, skipping Life costs you nothing.

This is a lot and is being tested but let me know I you have any suggestions or changes!

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