I think that’s somewhat true. I believe user credentials can be still used before 2019.1.
· In 2018.2, 2FA will be made mandatory for Administrator, Full Access, and any role that has been granted a highly privileged permission for access to the NetSuite UI in all existing NetSuite accounts.
· In 2019.1, we will begin enforcing the mandatory 2FA requirement in 2019.1 for non-UI access. 2FA-required roles employing user credentials for API authentication will fail in 2019.1.