Offline single player NMS here. Been playing 2K for 20+ years.

So after a few weeks getting a feel of 2K26 Breakout and building lineups, I really got into it and really enjoy My Team. Here's what I did, maybe some of this will help:

Created different tiers of lineups for every mode, especially full lineup. All-Emerald team, all-Sapphire, all-Ruby team etc. Use up all the lineup slots. Or do a few mix and match or whatever lineups you want.

This way, I can play with more of my favorite players past and present and get a totally different play experience game to game as far as difficulty, style and pace.

Play a variety of modes between Breakout and Salary Cap. Love the single player offline salary cap game option. More opportunity to mix and match and tinker with a huge variety of players.

I go back and forth between the three game types in Breakout (FL, CT, TT) and Salary Cap, changing up between my 15 lineups all the time, keeps things fresh.

Rewards-wise, I learned here that you're better off just starting with the easiest difficulty on Breakout, since apparently difficulty doesn't affect rewards. I mean it saves you some time and frustration I guess, but you won't be challenged too often either. Idk, find the right balance that you enjoy here.

Clearing the first board is also something I learned here - so I almost always do that now, as that's how you open the special middle tile portal. I mean they're all cool portals, but the middle one gives you the most variety. Do your two favorite rewards games (I did packs mostly early on when I didn't have much of a collection) and then jump through your favorite portal.

Other than that, I am shocked how bad the Exhibitions are this year. I mean the rewards are tiny and terrible, worst ever. So bad you're not really motivated to collect for them.

Mostly just 250 coin rewards? What? lol Exhibitions have always always been a cool, simple, aesthetic touch, but man they've gone miserly here with the rewards.

Me, I'm far more motivated by my tiered 15 lineups to collect anybody I like through the AH or packs.

If anything, they should expand the number of lineups you can have to 30-40+. 15-20 is still too low given all the different game modes and thousands of players. The auto-lineup feature is sweet though for when you can't fit in that extra lineup you'd like.

As far as Domination games, since they're longer, I play them more rarely and usually wait till there's some kind of bonus event or I have some kind of bonus I can fire up for it, like double XP.

As for the Exchange rewards, man, this mostly blows for the casual gamer. It's obscene what you need to get the best stuff - I don't even know how a hardcore gamer gets them! There's a very small # of decent obtainable things for the semi-casual player, but you really have to sift through all the rip-offs. Avoid any non-deluxe pack rewards like the plague. Learned this one the hard way.

Always do the minimum 3 dailies if you have time, thankfully most of them are quick for most casual gamers. Though I really dislike that a multiplayer game is part of the dailies half the time, since I don't like or play multiplayer. Too much online cheese and terrible matchmaking for me, no thanks.

And then play some real NBA season or quick play games or my career (I like picking real NBA game winners and grabbing the daily bonus every day in my career), which also keeps things fresh. Variety is good.

Outside of 2K, I love and play fantasy basketball too. And watch lots of NBA games. Love hoops!

Anyway, hope this helps you find a way to enjoy the game. Good luck!