Association turnaments getting boring ?

[pcmacdaniel]

Nik, this is a good discussion to have, and i'm glad to see you started it! Overall, I think associations is a good idea, but susceptible to exploits. The biggest issue we currently have is sandbagging, which is a pretty easy fix. I don't think limiting loans to 3 per manager or a max quality of 140% players in associations is practical, as that's punishing token buyers, which is just a bad business model.

For an example of sandbagging, look at Legends Never Die (#4 in World Top 100), whom had two 9* teams and two 1* teams at the draw. A lot of focus is placed on loans, but by buying 8 players averaging 85% from the TM they can change a team with 1% quality to 61%, a 10% jump in average quality of the association.

This can be fixed quite simply by adopting the TM that pro leagues uses, where during certain points of the season, teams can't buy or sell players. And make this the associations tournament. Maybe make it so managers can't sell players and no nordgens are generated, but players can be bought via scouts list and recommended players.

I don't see tanking as being a big advantage. You just end up playing against other tankers, loan exploiters and/or token buyers. All of which are more active and have larger skews on their players than managers with sub 120% quality in general. The most dangerous thing in associations is a 5* or 6* team with players w/ the not important stats at 1%.