I Think Association Has Gone Backwards

[Shelb]

Maybe it's just me, but the trade logic in Association is terrible. I was offered Joe Johnson and a 2nd Rounder for Jose Calderon and Nocioni. That wouldn't happen in a million years for a few reasons:

Joe Johnson is the backbone of the Hawks. He's more important to the team than his abilities because of how well he clicks with the rest of the core team. A "Franchise" tag should be added along with the "Star", "Starter", etc.

Joe Johnson's contract is gigantic. It's huge. But Atlanta JUST signed him. They aren't offering him to anyone for another year or so, at least. Not just because he's still in his prime, but because GMs don't admit defeat that early. I'm a Raptors fan, I know GMs don't admit defeat, Bargs is still a Raptor.

If the Hawks DID offer JJ to someone this year (it was in November this trade was offered), it wouldn't be for Jose, a 30 year old PG who's really a great backup and nothing more, and Nocioni, a below average also aged player. They'd want more than a basic salary dump for him this soon.

Hawks have a better PG and SF.

Hawks made the playoffs in this Association. They were 3rd seed infact. They did not struggle out of the gate (winning their Division easily from the beginning of the season), had no problems at all during the season.

It seems Association mode makes trades just to make them. Far more 2nd tier players are moved in a single season in 2K Association than in about 4 years in real life.

This is actually worse than past Associations. They've added nothing and made the trade logic worse. They made it harder to make mid-level players happy (Reggie Evans is bitching about being a bench warmer? You're rated 60, dogg). Aging players IMPROVED (Spurs won the ring, Parker as Finals MVP, with Manu 5th in regular season voting, Parker 4th and Duncan SECOND).

They added Online Association. Yay.

I don't play Online Association. I play offline. More than anything else, really. And it's gotten so bad I want to overrule trades just to give myself a chance to compete.

[jzero]

whilst i haven't played too much of association (waiting for the NBA to get its **** together) i can say for certain that the dynamics of it HAVE NOT IMPROVED
i don't know if they're worse, but the trade logic seems terrible
ive seen tim duncan get traded for the 15th pick in the draft...
ive seen other terrible trades during the draft that really piss me off as well
the players ARE harder to please and the minutes allocated by the AI for some players (melo = 35 minutes??) seems to be worse than last year
i really want to enjoy 2k12 but so far 2k11 is the better sim

[krakdol]

I agree with the OP. 2K devs should read your post and improve trade logic based on the reasons you just gave (franchise players, GMs admitting defeat or not, and so on.)

[Shelb]

Quote: Originally Posted by krakdol

I agree with the OP. 2K devs should read your post and improve trade logic based on the reasons you just gave (franchise players, GMs admitting defeat or not, and so on.)

Thanks.

But honestly, I haven't even gotten start on what should be added to the mode, just what were no brainers.

Bi-Annual Exemption was something that would've been added when it was actually added to the NBA.

The staff salary ("You do not have enough money to add this person to your staff") should be based on how much money you make, which should be based on how much money you bring in based on attendance, which should be based on how well your team does, and on and on and on. Bad team with no attendance? Deal with the bad coaching staff. Good team with sold out games? Congrats! Better staff!

Players cannot be traded back to their old teams within a year of a trade. Players also cannot be traded without a certain amount of days after being signed.

Draft picks are worth NOTHING on the trade market. The number one pick should be worth a tier 2 level player in a good draft. They are worth nothing in the current game.

Having 5 starters and a sixth man make sense. But 2 role players and everyone else is a bench warmer? That's insane. 5 starts/1 star/1 franchise player plus a sixth game, plus 3 role players is fine. Prospects are not role players either, they are prospects. I'll use my Raps as an example:

Jose/Bayless
DD/Barbosa
James Johnson/Kleiza
Amir/Ed Davis
Bargs/Alabi

That's just ten players on the 15 man roster.

Jose - starter
DD - starter
JJ - starter or prospect
Amir - starter or role player
Bargs - starter
Bayless - role player or bench warmer
Barbosa - 6th man
Kleiza - bench warmer (starter to start the season)
Ed Davis - prospect (starter at times)
Alabi - prospect

That's ridiculously confusing. Add something else (Contributor?) and give them secondary statuses (Role Player/Starter for example).

[rodrodrod]

there are lot of bugs in assoc. also. when you load your assoc. again the past boxscores will be all blank. At half time show the scores of the other games don't have info for box scores and the player's faces are bank because of this.
i guess 2k really left the offl association just as it is in 2k11

some of the stats are really inaccurate. i saw my team's team stats and i saw total rebounds +400 to other teams and tos per game +10 which is not really what my stats are while i'm playing

[Shelb]

Just ran into something I forgot about...

Cannot trade during times in the new NBA you'd be able to. Trying to sign Blake Griffin but can't because I can't trade other players to make room for his contract. This is not even close to acceptable.

[Rule of Two]

Quote: Originally Posted by krakdol

I agree with the OP. 2K devs should read your post and improve trade logic based on the reasons you just gave (franchise players, GMs admitting defeat or not, and so on.)

I bet if the devs added in even more factors for the trade "logic" it would become even worse than it is now. I can't imagine the number of calculations the CPU is making for Association Mode and the pain in the *** it must be to code it. I think it'll take a few more years before we see some decent "logic" being used by the AI.

[shadia147]

I don't know about Trade Logic because I havent gotten that far. But I know that last year, a big selling point was the Trade Logic. That the CPU would make trades that would only make sense as the Association played out. Might not make sense at that moment, but you'd understand later.
But my biggest complaint this year is how the tension and excitement and urgency seems to be missing in the 4th Quarters of games. The CPU seems to play the same in a tight game as a blowout. It goes along at the same pace regardless of the situation.
This wasnt the case last year. Granted, I'm only a couple of games in. But there's something missing in the drama dept.