The effectiveness of Blinders, Mismatch Expert and Unpluckable have all been adjusted in NBA 2K22 as part of a hotfix Friday.
All three of the changes have taken effect in both the Current Gen and Next Gen versions of the virtual basketball title, with no download required for the update.
A minor badge balancing update will go live for current and new gen tomorrow morning containing the following:
? Slight reduction in the effectiveness of Mismatch Expert and Blinders
? Increased effectiveness of Unpluckable
No patch download is required for this update.
— NBA 2K (@NBA2K) September 24, 2021
As stated by NBA 2K Gameplay Director Mike “Beluba” Wang on Twitter, the dev team reportedly made these “pretty conservative” Badge tweaks in mind with keeping the game’s day one gameplay balance intact as best they can.
Until further testing reveals just how drastic the balancing adjustments actually were, this is essentially a buff and a nerf for defense.
Early on into the game, Mismatch Expert and Blinders were notoriously known for dramatically increasing the likelihood of shots — often bad ones — to go in.
In a game where Wang specifically stated beforehand that the point of emphasis for this year’s gameplay was that players must take higher quality looks in order to be successful on offense, these changes sound exactly what most of the player base would accept without batting an eye.
With the Unpluckable buff on the other hand, however, there definitely two sides divided in the player base on whether or not this is the right move.
It’s been no secret that Pick Pocket has been as strong as it’s ever been in the series in NBA 2K22 thus far, with players being able to strip ball-handlers with ease no matter the setting. This coupled with that fact that Unpluckable this year requires MyPlayer builds to have an 87 Ball Handle to get it to Gold, and a 99 for its Hall of Fame capability, it’s safe to say that most players are only using it on Silver.
While those with more offensive builds will view the Unpluckable buff as a much-needed change to counter the “ridiculous” steals rate, there are undoubtedly those with more defensive-minded builds who view the Badge as a “bail out” badge that lessens the skill gap.
With one side complaining about how defenders can get steals by constantly reaching, and the other arguing that they need to learn how to use L2/LT, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see just how much this hotfix affects NBA 2K22’s gameplay moving forward.
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