Post NBA 2K League Combine Retrospective: Achieving Catharsis
Did you get the email? If so, congratulations! You are one of 250 people out of 72,000 that made it. There now is the possibility of making a 6-month salary for playing basketball on the internet. What is running, sweating, or actual jumping anyway? The opportunity to showcase the highest quality of basketball possible through the magic of console gaming and competing for a piece of esports large moisty pie will be quite an ambitious task.
Personally, I look forward to observing how the inaugural league will compete with established products like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Starcraft II, as well as up and comers such as Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite, and Dragonball Z Fighters.
Will the NBA 2K League become more popular than pro-wrestling and American pies or will fans simply be more entertained by watching real humans play basketball? The possibilities, like the universe, are endless, but endless possibilities are what makes things fun.
This article is dedicated to everyone that participated in the event. While the Twittersphere and the media attention will be geared towards those that got acknowledge for years of dedicated 2K gaming, let us formulate a sphere of ideas and solutions towards achieving catharsis.
Catharsis
According to the community defined the definition of Catharsis from urbandictionary.com, Catharsis is:
The process of relieving strong feelings eg thru drama or other artistic activities, targeting provision of relief from anger or suffering.
The release of emotions or emotional tension to restore or refresh the spirit.
Many of you are experiencing a multitude of various emotions right now, trying to rationalize the situation, and coping with whether all our precious time and effort was all worth it. Remember, you are not alone. Were you given an equal shot? Was the process of selection fair? Was there any pre-existing deals, bias, or nepotism?
Honestly, I do not know the answer to these questions, but you are free to seek such answers. I can, however, guess with some deductive reasoning so let us do a retrospective on the NBA combine.
I think in general, the selection process was fair... to an extent. The trend that I saw from known prospects that got interviews was that many of them had been involved in the 2K Pro-Am scene for years, was on top-ranked teams and built a following on social media.
While some may be discouraged in spite of these factors, it's important to give credit when credit is due, it takes much effort to gain followers, organize games around every member's schedules, and form a stable cohesive unit that stuck together long enough to win games and establish a presence.
However, it was implied that the combine would "even the playing field", in a way that measured individual players skill in a somewhat controlled environment, where teamwork and communication would be deciding factors. A sort of method to test and challenge players away from the cuddles and comforts of their pre-existing teams and watch how they perform with new players and teammates.
Would the same success with one team carry over with a team of randoms? In a way, the combine was supposed to partition outside the Pro-Am scene and what remained to be evaluated was the gameplay and content created on the 2K Combine platform.
The Combine platform itself felt like a vanilla version of Pro-Am Team mode with many features removed from it. It is like having a version of the "Call" app on your phone without the contacts list and mute functions. Some notable omissions:
- Live updated boxscores
- Switching matchups
- Voice chat toggling (could not mute, but I love the sound of static, cell phones, and people eating or yelling or both!)
- Custom Builds <-- This one is key and I will explain
- Squads <-- key too
Mixing and matching personalities is a puzzle in itself and as I experienced in the combine, this yielded some interesting results. There were friendly players that communicated well, encouraged others, and played great basketball. Then there were those that would argue with their teammates, complain, and played selfishly. It was a mixed bag of an experience from the gamer, pilot, beta tester perspective. It was like playing high stakes poker in a casino.
If you were lucky enough to be matched with 4 other players with mics, basketball skills, and a semblance of a passing ability, the odds of winning definitely became more favorable. This is comparable to getting a royal flush. The luckiest of the draw. On the other hand, you might get a good pair or three of a kind, hey maybe even 4 of a kind. Some players chose to fold their hand and quit. Just like the world of poker, you can win with nothing. A bunch of offsuit cards can still somehow win a couple games.
The configuration of the combine and the randomness of matchmaking added high variance to the outcome and quality of the gameplay product and limited creativity. The high variance influenced individual players to prioritize stats over team play, agenda clashing, and at times mechanized and over-regulated the game of basketball instead of making the experience flow naturally and freely.
A better approach would have been to allow players to use their custom builds and match up with their squads. If someone wants to go solo, he or she would be matched up with other mercenaries.
Many of the players that received interviews were on the same team. Would it have been better to allow players to team with their squads and play other teams that qualified for the combine? 72000 players, that's about 14400 unique teams and this could of lead to some interesting combinations and awesome matchups.
This opens up the possibilities for some upsets too, a 64th ranked team beating a 1st ranked team for example. Just like in college basketball. Or even a team of high skill randoms beating an established well-known team. There could have been some hidden gems out there that would have highly benefited from directly facing a high ranked organized teams.
This is what I originally envisioned as what the combine was going to be like and there could have been many exciting games to watch. The underdogs gaining some exposure versus well-known teams would help generate more buzz for the 2K league as a whole.
The 2K Combine event would also be a perfect opportunity to for up and comers to discover new teammates and find new friends to play 2K with. Essentially a way to further build and bond the community. Scenario: random team plays together, beats a well-known team, friendship, and bond instant like ramen.
Did you know that the popular PC game League of Legend has 134 different characters to choose from? Large character selection pools have always been an important element in a video game because it empowers a player with numerous possibilities on how to approach each match. 2K adds an extension to that concept by allowing you to create your own player, grow the player, and ball out.
The combine allowed the choice of 5 pre-selected builds for all 5 positions. 25 builds in total. There is only so much variety to be discovered when players will usually select whatever is the most OP build from a conservative amount of choices.
Allowing custom builds would have opened up the community to showcase unique and creative starting lineups and help the community discover new and interesting offense and defensive styles and forms. It would be refreshing to watch teams to use the combines platform to explore the game much more deeply, experiment with archetypes, and compete with the common 5 out sets with a different unique flavor.
Achieving Catharsis
There are many perspectives one can choose with the recent days results and outcome. In regards to the NBA 2KLeague:
- There could be recruitment opportunities this year and next year
- New positions can pop up (coaches, chef, tech expert, hacker, bodyguards, dragoon, scouts, alien friend, backups)
- random openings due to circumstantial changes
- 13 franchise could possibly join in if the basketball video game league is a success. More roster spots possibly.
- Scale-able easy to run international teams or team representation (Asian, European, African, South American, Antartica teams)
- Free Agency, Players Union, etc gets established (which give more rights to players and player choice.)
Making peace with the idea of attempting to pursue the opportunity again when it presents itself is the healthiest mindset.
Before I decided to buy a PS4 and NBA2K18 on early release night, I told myself that I would invest about 50% of my time in NBA2K18 and 50% into cryptocurrency mining. I was working in parallel with 2 projects, attempting to become an esports player as well as researching and investing into crypto-currency.
You are free to discover what you feel is the ultimate importance and purpose of blockchain technology.
A Chance to Start a New Project!
There are a lot of paths to choose from this point forward. Many of you might continue to pursue this dream or branch towards a new direction.
Some ideas:
There are new video games being released all the time. have you played Persona 5?
Playing real-life basketball is a good way to learn more about basketball. Work on your own game or helping train kids a local college or community center could be a good mental release.
