[Melbournelad]

I'm going to copy and paste what I have said in other threads about Association so this post can be easily seen by the devs for the next 12 months. I'm sure I speak for many here when I say that Association finally needs to have some attention after five years of nothing. And I don't have much faith Next Gen 2k14 paid attention to any of these issues, so this needs to be said.

"There are many more issues, but here are the most basic ones which wreck the whole mode:

Player progression is ridiculously messed up. After a couple seasons every team has numerous 90+ and 80+ rated players which means great players don't stand out, great teams don't stand out and most teams are around .500. This also leads to half the league looking for max contracts. It's just an absolute mess. And this also means no one can start a realistic association until a quality roster team has spent several months adjusting every single player rating and potential. This is such a basic issue to fix if they actually tested association. Players all decline and hit their peaks at the exact same stage in their career's.

The default generated draft classes are just as bad, if not worse, then the real players ratings. They also have extremely high potential. No busts, all end up rated as stars. To make it worse, they have extremely low tendencies. You have big men with high 3pt tendencies even though they are horrible 3pt shooters. Guards with high close and inside shot tendencies even though they are horrible inside but good outside shooters.

Trade and FA logic is horrible. You will have Cp3 choosing to sign with teams like the cavs and twolves even though he would never do so in real life, not to mention they already have quality point guards! Kyrie Irving ends up as a backup point guard! The only trades that ever occur are involving bench warmers and role players. Never any starters or stars. Players are handed out contracts depending on their overall and potential rating, instead of how they played during the preceeding season. A player who had 6 points on 45% shooting and played 10 minutes could get a max contract.

There is no logical team building for any CPU teams. What they do just does not make sense. They have no plan for their team. What SHOULD happen is: Rebuilding teams should trade veterans for young assets and picks. Contending teams may be inclined to do the opposite. A season could be given up as a team sets up cap space for a big FA class etc. Or there could even be teams that perennially contend for 6-10 seeds because that's what their owners tell them to do.

Teams aren't given the correct draft picks. For example the Lakers have all their draft picks for the next 5 years even though in real life we have traded half of them away. You can't trade protected picks. You can't stash picks in Europe. You can't trade picks that are more than 2 years away.

The draft logic is terrible. You might have a draft where Andrew Wiggins is by far the best prospect. But the CPU will go ahead and not draft him until the 18th pick.

They removed the D-league for no apparent reason.

Player roles makes no sense. It's guaranteed that all players rated above 66 want to be a role player. All players rated above 72 want to be a sixth man. All players rated above 80 or so want to be a starter. Players in real life who are sixth men such as JR Smith, Manu etc will never be set as sixth men by the CPU. They will always start. The CPU also generically assigns the same amount of minutes for the same rated players. For example a player will always be given 36 minutes if they are rated between 80-84. There are no defensive specialists or 3pt specialists. Star players are always happy no matter what when given sufficient playing time. They never get frustrated at their team not winning or not being number one option etc.

The salary cap randomly goes up by 2 million every year so in 10 seasons it will be set at 78 million (Its 58 million in real life).

80% of the leagues coaches are fired each season for no reason. Every single single generic coach that replaces them are given A ratings in offense and defense. All scouts, nba scouts, trainers are generic. All staff in the coaching pool is generic. Assistant coaches can't be promoted to head coach.

Assist leaders rarely have over 9 a game. Rebound leaders rarely have over 10 a game. Scoring leaders rarely have over 25 a game. Team stats each season are really messed up compared to real life. Minutes leaders rarely have over 37 a game. MVP's are rarely given to the best player. Same with DPOY and MIP. The stats engine just has to have a bigger range of results. Also teams take way to many FTA and barely any 3FGA every season.

You can't have 4 team trades.

Players are never rested, matchups never change, and coaches never experiment with different lineups. In real life game to game players recieve different amounts of playing time depending on if they are playing well. In the Playoffs each series coaches should be using specific lineups depending on what type of team they are playing.

Every year in the playoffs you will have 6th and 8th seeds in the conference finals.

Teams in FA never overpay (or get players under market value) like they do in real life.

When players suffer significant season ending injuries there are no consequences. They should automatically have their potential and/or durability lowered. Look what happened to Brandon Roy and Greg Oden.

In the playoffs and at the end of close games the crowd is never animated as they should be.



I'm sure there are things that I have left out, and trust me there are many more smaller issues. I know this seems like a very long list, and some of these might not seem that significant, but they really get in the way of a solid association mode. Also, everything I have listed is just existing issues that should be fixed. We would just be happy with this, let alone all the new features which could be added (Improved draft scouting, get rid of the overall rating system, expansion, summer league, dynamic player progression system allowing for busts such as what PES has, ability to be an owner and dictate the financial aspect of the team, intricate player moral system, the ability to watch a game in progress (just watch it in hoopcast, which 2k already has) and intervene in the 3rd or 4th quarter liked Live used to have, etc).

*** Highlighted IMO what are the absolute worst issues."