Association insight

[Dan's Brain]

I wonder if Christian wants to deliver some Kudos to the 2k Dev team...

Otherwise, this is just unfairly awesome news. The under the hood things have bothered me the most about Association mode the last two years, (or more specifically, last year), and it was great that they gave those the most attention.

Aside from the draft day trades, I'm most excited about the Player and trade finders. Will save a lot of time and guesswork and cheating.

@fjccommish, as far as the teams acquiring players that suit their play style, the article mentioned that it would all come down to the coach and what he likes to run. So once Phil Jackson leaves the Lakers, which usually seems to be within a year or two, then we'll start seeing changes in their personnel and play style.

[The X]

Yep, teams are built based on coaching styles. Haven't seen that since CH2k8. Wonder if coaches change teams like in CH2k8, whether they take their playbooks with them. Would be great if they did

[|)e8*]

Gettin me more excited about this game!

[Andrew]

With Player Valuation complete, replacing the Trading Logic system was the obvious next step in our revamp of the under-the-hood AI systems. The first thing we did to help teams was to help them identify who they should and shouldn’t keep on their teams. Much of this is handled by the Roster Building system described above, but another safeguard that was used in the game is the addition of a new ‘Player Role’, called the ‘Core’ role.

Core players are guys like Kobe, Wade, LeBron, D. Howard, etc. These are guys that are so valuable to their team, that a trade involving one of these players is incredibly unlikely. I’m not here to tell you that you can no longer trade for these players, but I can tell you the CPU will be much, much stingier in parting with a Core player. In fact, they’ll demand one in return. Don’t expect to package two 82-rated players and grab a Core player in return. Not happening this year.

Beyond the addition of the Core role, the system now features new logic that can be best described as, “do I really need this player?” If you are trying to make a trade with the Jazz where the best player they are getting back is a point guard, they aren’t going to be overly interested as they now have the knowledge that they already have a Deron Williams filling the starting PG slot. When you offer a trade to a CPU team, that team will assess what their lineup looks like pre-trade as well as post-trade. This alone gives the CPU a tremendous amount of knowledge that it did not have in the past. In fact, prior to NBA 2K11, the trade system would simply look at the value of the items being swapped and make the deal if the values were close enough. This is how you ended up with CPU teams trading for stars at positions they already had stars at. I’m pleased to say this is no longer an issue with NBA 2K11.

It's probably not going to change a lot of people's misconceptions about the importance of overall ratings but from the sounds of it there's a lot more than just adding up the overalls and offering a trade, so they're not the be-all, end-all of making deals. I'm sure they do still come into play, I doubt you're going to be able to trade Ronnie Brewer (rated 69 overall, according to the listing that's been released) for Ray Allen (79) straight-up, but that's the way it always should be.

[nhike23]

YES! im very excited about the changes,, owning 2k11 is a must for those who are serious basketball gamers,, Go 2K Go!!!!

[Fresh8]

Great read and very very exciting news.

[Lamrock]

Very cool. In the past month my opinion about 2K11 has totally swayed, and now I've pre-ordered it. I think the roster building will probably be fairly broken though.

[The X]

I'm thinking a Thunder Association might be in order.

[shadowgrin]

Don't you mean Sonics?

So many developers out there tend to ignore their franchise modes for years on end

EA zing.

[dare]

Damn, now I really want to have this game.

[Andrew]

So many developers out there tend to ignore their franchise modes for years on end

EA zing.

Yeah, no doubt. Apparently Elite 11's seen improvement here and hopefully we'll have some more details soon in our second Q&A, but given the depth described in the Insight I'd have to give it to Association again.

[Houndy]

Two more damn weeks... Come faster

No more 100 trade seasons! Hurrah! I'm so excited for this game

[cyclone]

sorry in advance if i might just be missing something.

is there an update on the rotation both in association or in my player?

coz currently i just substitute manually coz i cant seem to have the substitution i desired based on the minutes i have given to a player in my association.

[Tha King]

this is so amazing ! i can't wait . i wish they already fix the damn colors of the jersey and the gayish red .

[tee-pane]

phpBB [video]

[gOry]

they have player finder now?? ..damn..thats great!!

[The X]

Player finder is going to be great, especially when you are a few seasons in

[thelegend23]

i can't wait to start my association

[gOry]

i can't wait to start my association

me too..

[NationalHoops]

Can we upload association's saved file to the 2kwebsite and have a association page similar on the online leagues? Or is it possible to extract stats on this game?