[Leftos]

Let me take a stab at clearing up the confusion although Rashidi pretty much has it down.

Each Position has a set of Archetypes (or Player Types, if you will). All-Around, Athletic, Defensive, etc. A player has an overall per player type per position. So a player has (NumberOfPositions * NumberOfPlayerTypesPerPosition) overall ratings. Each Positional Player Type has its own overall formula (so PG All Around has a different formula than PF All Around has a different formula than C Defensive).

Whenever his overall rating gets updated, we calculate all the overall ratings for his position by player type. The player type that gives him his the highest overall is the one we determine "most compatible", so we assign it to him along with that Overall.

So yes, a player that might be C All-Around but as years go by sees his offensive attributes regress but you've made sure to keep him up to par defensively using (cheap plug but I'm a dev) our new in-season Training system, might see his player type change to C Defensive, and his value to the team will still be there.

As for team-building AI, we've taken some steps to make sure teams take into account specific needs as far as more specific skills go. So if that player losing his offensive ability means that the team lost their main source of points, they'll value players that can bring the team's scoring up more than players that might be contributing to needs sufficiently covered (such as defense, in this example). (Let me clarify that the examples of "offense" and "defense" are shallow and the "skills" teams look at go beyond that; there's 13 different categories actually.)

That said, Team Style is still a factor, so teams won't all "average out" by trying to cover skill needs, if a coach prefers to play a certain way. So if a team prefers outside scorers over inside scorers, it won't value inside scorers as much, even if it has more of a need for them than another team.

Also, we pay much more attention at position stacking which has been a problem for years in the franchise. Teams are much more aware of trying to build each position with a player of starter quality, a decent bench player and a 3rd string backup (less important but good to have). Not every team is going to be perfect, and if they were, they wouldn't be able to replicate my frustration with Detroit's roster all these past years. :P More than 3 players in a position starts making teams reconsider unless their skills and secondary position mean that they're of significant value to the team. No more "Oh, another 80+ point guard available? Never mind that we have 5 of them already, let's get one more since we can fit him under the salary cap!" I cringed so bad when someone showed me a screenshot of that and I made a point of starting to fix that logic that very same day.

You can see how a system like this gets really complicated. I'm very happy with our new overall formulas and logic this year, and along with the improvements to team-building (which isn't going to be perfect but we've taken strides in the right direction, trust me) gives us nice results and a nice base to continue working off of based on this year's feedback.

A lot of things have been changed this year, so I'm really looking forward to fresh feedback once you get your hands on the game.