2K: Learn from other Genres

During the early age of Playstation 3, I remember conversations on OS about how Sports Games should use story elements to enhance the experience. Posters talked about how creating yourself in-game and having a career would be fun. Some people laughed at it, they thought it'd be stupid. "Never happen." some said. Fast forward 10+ years later and MyPlayer and other mechanics like XP--which are borrowed from RPGs, make NBA 2K one of the most popular titles in gaming.


Its funny how that works. In the end good mechanics are good mechanics regardless of where they come from.

Take FPS: Shooters aren't perfect by any stretch. But what they do have--is EXPERIENCE. They've been online longer than any other genre and that means they've tried and failed at more concepts than most titles have even dreamed of, and they've learned from their mistakes.

My first online H2H experience was SOCOM in 2003, and it was a really good game. But one of the popular exploits was something we called "grenade force fields". The enemy team exploited the fact that friendly fire wasn't on by having a few guys throw grenades into the best choke-points on the map when the match started. The rest of their team would sprint to that area and the grenades would essentially cover them while simultaneously killing the enemy.

Cheese exists in every genre, apparently.

You see the same thing in hallways in Battlefield. A few guys spam grenades or gunfire down a hallway to allow their teammates to advance. If the enemy moves into the hallway they're killed while the team pressing forward is immune.

Here it is in Fortnite: A sticky bomb turns a teammate into a suicide bomber (minus the dying part)

Savvy players can create their versions of force-fields in 2K19 as well. Because block timing largely doesn't matter, they can spam block at the rim endlessly and rarely worry about being called for fouls, bad timing actually registers as a contest, which is crazy.

Think about it, you literally have to time your shot attempt to wait for a defender who's left his feet to come down so it won't affect your shot, how crazy is that? 🤨  That's putting the emphasis on the wrong user--its also not authentic. Here are a few examples of what NBA players do to defenders who leave their feet.

George
Redick
Love

Let's be clear, The defender who mistimes his block IS the person in jeopardy...not the other way around. In the meantime, due to Neutral Outcomes the user is free to jump a second time or try a block with the next closest defender. This is why its important that EACH missed block has a downside EVERY TIME. Either the defender's momentum takes them out of the play or they're whistled for a foul. We don't get mulligans in H2H gaming--and mistiming blocks/contests certainly can't result in smothered contests on jumpers like it does below:

 Just ask KD how effective jumping twice is. He couldn't be reached for comment unfortunately.

Missed Blocks can't provide rim protection because users are pogo-sticking on defense. And gameplay certainly can't reward good timing but then just pretend like bad timing didn't happen via a Neutral Outcome.

 That's literally 2Ks version of the spam force field. The faster its addressed the better.