Deleting a Custom Player from Dynasty?

[lomanity]

I have made a player as a Free Agent.

He is now in my Dynasty, as a Free Agent. I have played about half a season with the Raptors.

I have deleted him, but he remains in the Dynasty's Free Agency.

Is there any way (through editing or otherwise) to delete him in the Dynasty's Free Agency?

Thank you.

[Andrew]

Did you actually delete the row of data from the database? If so, then you're just creating more problems. The easiest way to remove a player from the active/visible rosters is to change their TEAM value to 32, thus placing them in the Retired Pool. For more information, please see this guide.

[lomanity]

Thank you... it seems to have worked.

Now I am trying to improve the BLKABILITY of Andrea Bargnani. (I use DB Commander 2000).

There are a total of 580 records in players.dbf.
Bargnani shows up twice: once on Record 359, once on Record 479.

Record 359 seems to be in order by PlayerID#, while Record 479 looks like my Toronto roster.
Before any changes, Bagnani's stats are slightly higher in 359 than 479.

Should I change his BLKABILITY in the two records to be the same? (Currently it is 50 in 479, and 51 in 359).
I've tried a few times... but my attempts have caused the game to crash.

PS. If I have DB Commander open (with the players.dbf open), would that cause NBA Live 08 to crash?

[Andrew]

There should actually be two entries for Bargnani if he's on your team, as one is used for development comparison at the end of the year. You need to change both of them; the correct ones will have 27 (Toronto's ID) in the TEAM field.

You should close DB Commander (or at least use the logout option to close an open database if you want to keep the program open) before re-loading a saved file. Leaving it open can either cause the game to crash or the database to fail to load properly (the game will report that it's loaded, but you won't see the changes). Bottom line, close the file you're editing before you re-load.

[lomanity]

Thank you Andrew! You are a saint.

I moved Greg Oden (rookie) from Memphis to Toronto.
Here are the adjustments I made in the players.dbf for that save:
ORIGTEAM: from 13 to 27
TEAM: from 13 to 27
(SCRATCH 2 changed itself from 698 to 808)

Oden is now on my team... but stat changes I made to him did not appear in the game. And, upon opening the players.dbf again, the numbers were the original ones before my changes. Why is this, and how do I make the changes work?!

(Strangely, even though I changed CASH_TEAM to 27, it returned to 13 when I checked. Maybe this is the problem?)

I thank you.

[Andrew]

To be honest I'm not sure why the ratings changes aren't showing up or why CASH_TEAM reverted to the previous value, as far as I can see you've done everything right.

[dare]

well when I'm editing a record in the dbf I always click the check button everytime I edit one record before I closed it and as far as I know you can't trade players fpr your team in a dynasty using dbf, it crashes all the time.

[Andrew]

I'll have to re-check the steps. As for clicking the check button, you certainly can do that but moving to an adjacent cell in the database when editing with DB Commander should save the changes automatically. That's the method I use.

[KidJustin]

trading through dbf in dynasty is sktechy

one key thing is that u have to make sure the number of players per team is 15 or less

u only need to change the TEAM and CASH_TEAM
ROSTERPOS is helpful also

also the problem with dbf trading is that the development gets kind of sketchy as well
ex.
If u trade Oden for Bosh
when you look at the development screen it basically shows the change from Bosh's stats at the start of the season with Oden current stats...not a big deal or crash problem...but just to let you know

also if you trade unevenly (2 for 1) the team that is losing the extra player will still have their spot taken up and if that team tries to trade or sign or release a player it will crash
ex.
Oden for Bosh and Calderon
if toronto started out with 15 players before the trade, then it will read 14 players after the trade
but when a transaction is made...it will get confused because 14 says their is still space, but somewhere in the database it says the roster is still a full 15
you could try:
in this example
in game, release Calderon
dbf trade Oden for Bosh
dbf sign Calderon to Portland
....however i'm not sure if adding a player will affect the "hidden player count" situation above if your adding a player
.......also u can always edit the news.dbf if u want it to read Calderon and Bosh for Oden instead of release Calderon
..or to show any other transactions, but that's another story

[Andrew]

Thanks for the insight. There might be a few workarounds but it does seem to present some risk. The key, as always, is to make a backup before you start tinkering inside the databases.

[lomanity]

Using players.dbf, I moved 3 players to my team, and 2 away.
When I go to "Assistants" in the game, the game crashes.
Maybe because when I traded away a player, and assistant was working with him? How do I fix this?

Also... I tried simulating a whole month to resolve the "Assistant" problem... when I reached the end of the month (February), the game crashed when simulation reached the last day, and there was an "ERROR" with workingdb/players.dbf.

What is this problem??

[Andrew]

You can try deleting the contents of the workingdb folder, the game will refresh them accordingly.

[lomanity]

So I cleared the .dbf folder, and simulated again to the end of February... still, an "ERROR" occurred in "workingdb/players.dbf".
Should I try actually playing till the end of the month? Would that yield different results from simulation?

Also, with the "Assistants" problem... if I don't use my assistants for the rest of the season, would that problem cause larger ones down the road?
Know any possible solutions?

Thank you.

[Andrew]

That probably wouldn't make any difference. To be honest I'm not sure how to go about correcting the problem with the Assistants, unfortunately that's one of the dangers of tinkering with the databases in Dynasty Mode.

[KidJustin]

my guess would be that if the assistant is training a person then they are "dbf traded" might cause problems

maybe try signing a player to a minimum contract in-game, then in the dbf trade it 3-for-3...avoiding the problem i stated above

[Andrew]

Actually, I might have a solution. Open staff.dbf, locate your assistant coach (TEAMID will be 27, TYPE will be 0) and change their TARGETID to -1. That way they'll no longer be assigned to the traded player, which should hopefully fix the problem.

[lomanity]

No... setting TARGETID to -1 didn't help... the game still crashes after briefly showing the Assistants page.
Thank you very much for trying though.

I think I'll just have to continue from my other save (10 games ago... T-T).

What are some things to watch out for in trading through editing the DBF in the future?
Could I, for example, actually propose a trade, and edit the DBF to make the trades be accepted instead? Would that cause fewer glitches?
In short, what is the safest method to form whatever roster I want?

Thank you very much.

[dare]

So far in my experience the trade through dbf never works, it just crashes the first time you sim a day

[Andrew]

No... setting TARGETID to -1 didn't help... the game still crashes after briefly showing the Assistants page.
Thank you very much for trying though.

I think I'll just have to continue from my other save (10 games ago... T-T).

What are some things to watch out for in trading through editing the DBF in the future?
Could I, for example, actually propose a trade, and edit the DBF to make the trades be accepted instead? Would that cause fewer glitches?
In short, what is the safest method to form whatever roster I want?

Thank you very much.

Well, the absolute safest way is to do everything legit and avoid trading through the DBF. If you want to tinker with the DBF though I think you'll definitely have to avoid trading any players that are currently being trained by the assistant coach, indeed it's probably best to avoid making any trades in the DBF when your assistant coach has been assigned training time, or when the trainer is assigned to an injured player. The important thing is to make a backup first in case anything goes wrong, try making the trade and then simulating to see if the game crashes. If all is well, carry on. If not, restore from the backup and try again or try to get it done in game.

[lomanity]

My DB Commander 2000 trial is almost up...

is there any free program like it?

Thanks.

[dare]

My DB Commander 2000 trial is almost up...

is there any free program like it?

Thanks.

It's okay if it expires we only need the basic functions anyway

[Andrew]

You can also use the spreadsheet utilities of OpenOffice, but as dare said generally speaking there's enough functionality after the trial period expires to get the job done.

[lomanity]

Ignoring the "Assistants" problem, after simulating until the end of February (All-Star month), an "ERROR" occurs after the last day of February (does not continue to March).
There is an error with "PLAYERS.DBF". Is there any solution to this, or would I have to re-start a completely new season?!

Are there exact steps to change the numbers of players (team, stats, etc.) that will not incur any problems?
I seemed to have followed the rules, but problems still arise.

Thank you very much.

[Andrew]

I think you're going to have to start over unless you can restore from a recent backup. Normally you can change player data such as numbers or ratings very easily with DB Commander without any problems, however trading players via DBF editing in Dynasty Mode is a little more complex because of the assistants and additional database entries for players on your team (and as such, more prone to errors).

[dare]

Have you tried to delete the workingdbf files. (files not the folder)