So it’s a typical Pink Diamond/Diamond/Amethyst 10 man squad against my 10 man all Galaxy Opal squad except for 3 PDs. Usually I run a mixed squad myself (throwing in some Diamonds/Amethysts of my own to reduce EQ from hitting me as frequently, it’s been successful so far) but I had just gotten Melo last night and wanted to try him out with my best lineup.
Anyways, straight from the get go I knew I was in for rough Player Engagement experience just based off of all the stupid offensive rebounds he was getting off of bad shot selection. Even his team were constantly outrunning mines back in transition, and all of my guards and wings have 96+ speed thanks to their default stats plus MDA’s boost, and centers had 90+ as well. Didn’t matter, his 80-85 speed Diamond Porzingis and Jaren Jackson Jr. were speeding past GO Wilt, Kareem and Admiral. And of the shooting sliders were tweaked, as even when my 95+ 3 point shooters were wide open, I still getting full white bars, no matter how much I adjusted my timing. On the other end he was pulling up off the dribble and hitting shots with Kristaps. Uh, well ok then, seems fair.
So by half time he had 11 offensive rebounds to my 3, and a total advantage of 20 to 13 rebounds. 3rd quarter comes along, another 13 rebounds to my 6. Then in the 4th quarter, 10 to 5, for a grand total of 43 rebounds to my 24, with 19 of his being offensive boards, while I only had 6 total offensive rebounds. My Galaxy Opal Admiral, Wilt, Kareem and PD Boogie had 6, 5, 1 and 4 rebounds respectively. His PD Greg Oden alone had 16 REBOUNDS. 8 of them offensive rebounds off of contested shots. Meanwhile his Kristaps Porzingis also had 13 rebounds, 6 of them offensive. No matter how well I contested his shots, he still got 2nd chances after 2nd chances, all while never adjusting his defensive settings or running plays. It was literally his centers just flying around the court grabbing everything. On my end, whether it was me or the CPU boxing out for rebounds, it didn’t matter, his big men were gonna grab it 75% of the time. There was even one instance where the ball was headed towards 2 of my guys, none of his were around it. And then of course Galaxy Opal Wilt, with his max rebounding stats, goes for it and literally swats the ball away into his Oden’s hands. It was so ridiculous that it was actually a little bit funny.
Anyways, I know this post isn’t gonna some peoples’ beliefs on Player Engagement/Equalizer as their minds are already set, but for those who are still undecided on the issue, I just wanted to show you guys just had bad it can get, and how many of our complaints are valid. Does it happen every single game? No, of course not. But when it does occur, boy does it make the game feel unfair and just a pain in the ass. Luckily I’m just playing for fun these days as none of these Unlimited awards are interesting to me anyways, so a loss like this doesn’t really affect me in the long run. But if I ever do want to play to just win, I know my ass isn’t gonna be running an all Opal/PD team, and instead a mixed tier squad as that has yielded much better gameplay experience and results for me.
TL/DR: Yet another post about the controversial Equalizer/Player Engagement debate. It just happened to me in a game and I wanted to share my experience. Now yours may vary, but this just goes to show that it does happen, and is what I reckon most people who have experienced Equalizer as go through. Just remember to keep the inevitable arguments in the comments civil please!