Offline & Online Association Insight (STATS BUGS FIXED BABY)

[JaoSming]

it was one of the more fun things to do in Association for me....having a second team of scrubs and letting a terrible bench player dominate until I brought him back up. Nevermind the generic players being good fodder for Blacktop Revitalization.....

[RedPhazon8]

When they say that they have fixed the bugs from 2k12, I wish that includes the in-game crashing. Nothing is more frustrating than playing 3 good quarters and then the game crashes after the 3rd quarter. Please 2k, please!

This happened to me numerous times in 2K12, one of the main reasons I stopped playing it.

[kevin02]

The start today feature sounds interesting. Maybe it lets you jump into association with everything that has happened in the real NBA up to that point.

It's been mentioned by the devs to be that exactly.

Cool, not the most important thing but it is always something that makes me lose motivation for starting an association mid-season so I'm glad they finally added this feature.

[Leftos]

On the bad news front though, D-League seems to be completely out as Jao said, and trade logic is still... eh. Haloofduty reports that in Year 4 of an Association LBJ joined the Cavs again (not sure if by trade), and a Melo-Manu trade happened between Knicks and Spurs.

[Nucky]

Interesting to see how "improved" the trading logic is.. That Melo-Manu trade is a red flag for sure!
Another annoying thing in Association mode is the signing logic of CPU teams, you can see contracts of role players/bench warmers being extended by maximum length. And then star players coming off their rookie contracts (Harden, Lawson, S. Curry) being signed with mid-level exceptions which is to me is just too unrealistic.

[dare]

Trade Logic, Contracts and Draft Prospects. If they really improve those then I'm good with it.

[homicide1550]

WTF? seriously? No D-League? I don't particularly play with it but I do send down some of my young scrubs into the D-League so they won't bitch about getting some playing time and screw up the team chemistry.

[bowdown]

WTF? seriously? No D-League? I don't particularly play with it but I do send down some of my young scrubs into the D-League so they won't bitch about getting some playing time and screw up the team chemistry.

Agreed. That is the one thing it was useful for and considering how much some of the players bitch and moan, it can really save some major headache.

[Nick]

If the improvements they're claiming are true, and if there are no new bugs that arise, then i can be satisfied with that.

Here are the problems for me from 2k12:
- League leaders in individual stats didn't look NBA-esque (no double digit assist leaders, around year 3 onwards players very rarely average over 25ppg for some reason, blocks not that high, rebounds not that high, even when a player has 99 for their given rating)
- Rotations. Players not playing over 37mpg.
- Teams making moves without an aim.
- Max contracts were given out too easily (i.e. 75 rated centers)
- Generated players had weird attribute/tendency/hotspot/etc combinations. Draft classes were too strong most of the time. Lack of specialized players. Etc etc. Generated players were way better than in the past but had many problems that i have already documented in my fictional draft class thread.)
- Probably a few other things.

I don't really care about the removal D-League, since i never paid attention to it anyway. Though it seems weird to take it out... but i guess it gives them something to improve for 2k14
I don't really mind about the trade logic either, because lop-sided trades happen in real NBA anyway. All i want is team direction. I.e. teams should specifically be in either "win now" mode, "rebuilding" mode, or "sell tickets" mode, or whatever other states of being for a team/organization (based on their owner maybe?), and they should make their moves based on their direction/intention.

We'll just have to wait and see how it plays, but it atleast sounds like they've done SOMETHING to enhance it, which is good enough for me.

[volsey]

Really random question, could you import a draft class into MyPlayer in 2k12 (before the start of your 2nd season obviously)?

Anyways reason I ask is one of the first things I want to do is create a fictional draft class for Association/MyCareer. Looking forward to grabbin one of your draft classes too Nick, hopefully the 'sweet spot' for potential is found relatively quickly.

[shadowgrin]

The last one he mentions is the bug that would make all box scores disappear if you saved and exited in the middle of a game. When that happened, Split Stats would disappear, in-game overlays that were based on split stats would be off or non-existant, and any future awards were screwed up because they only took into account any player performances in box scores that actually existed.

Saving then exiting in the middle of a game occasionally results in bugs or glitches even in past versions. Gotta hand it to 2K for being consistent for 3 years straight. (2K10-2K12)

[Andrew]

On one hand it's a shame that it doesn't sound like there's a great deal of innovation with Association this year, but the mode is already fairly deep so if they've ironed out all those bugs, tweaked the logic a bit and so forth, it should be solid and the experience enjoyable at the very least. I guess that's about as much as you can expect with the focus being on other areas the past couple of years, though it's good to know the feedback about bugs and the like didn't go unnoticed.

[Nick]

Really random question, could you import a draft class into MyPlayer in 2k12 (before the start of your 2nd season obviously)?

Anyways reason I ask is one of the first things I want to do is create a fictional draft class for Association/MyCareer. Looking forward to grabbin one of your draft classes too Nick, hopefully the 'sweet spot' for potential is found relatively quickly.

In 2k12 you couldn't import draft classes into MyPlayer. It certainly would be cool if that is possible in 2k13 though.

And yeh, i'll be lurking over at OS to see any Player progression research! I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same to be honest.

EDIT: With that said CWSapp757 from OS has already started research on Association mode. (he's THE guy that inspired me to release fictional draft classes. The dude knows his shit) See here: http://www.operationsports.com/forums/n ... r-1-a.html
(it looks like the same stuff from 2k again... it's sounding like some of their improvement claims are not really apparent.)

[dare]

Bad news there, so we need more tweaks to the roster especially the potential ratings and tendencies. Scoring average is a bit low for me too.

[Andrew]

Disappointing to hear.

[shadowgrin]

EDIT: With that said CWSapp757 from OS has already started research on Association mode. (he's THE guy that inspired me to release fictional draft classes. The dude knows his shit) See here: http://www.operationsports.com/forums/n ... r-1-a.html
(it looks like the same stuff from 2k again... it's sounding like some of their improvement claims are not really apparent.)[/color][/b]

HA.
Looks like the same old shite that was still present in associations for 2K10 or 2K9.

That makes me weep.

[Bsktblking25]

Is it possible to control more than 1 team in the online association? And I can't seem to find the League Leaders.

Anyone else also experience the bug where the scoreboard disappears?

[Andrew]

The scoreboard disappearing is a common bug, yes.