Association turnaments getting boring ?

[nikolgiorgos]

Associations competition it’s near to close one year in T11.
When it started, it was amazing. I gave congratulations to nordeus with this thread.

https://forum.topeleven.com/top-elev...s-nordeus.html

Time has past and this promising feature doesn’t have the first shining image anymore.
Maybe the problem with loans it’s fixed but there are more issues.

The super teams which created by this, still remain and gonna be there for many more seasons as many of them staying in the same lv league or have a slow progression (and a good stock of greens and tokens).
The draw isn’t fair anymore as the beginning. There is a (weird) mix of quality of the group members, teams of 8*-9* and 4*-5* playing vs 6* teams, loaning players to weaker teams and winning points with that.
There are “pro” teams who are staying on purpose in the same lv league, keeping a very high or a very low quality. Those of these low q teams, after the draw buying players and selling them after the tournament.
Some groups with strong tanking teams, replace those teams with their normal teams in the last tournament of the season, so their normal teams to earn the token prizes.
There are managers of course, who don’t use at all their “normal” teams but their reserves, just to win the asso games doing a kind of show off, in T11 local or universal fb groups.

I want to make some suggestions, don’t know if you agree or you want to add some more. Feel free about it

1. When a new season starts, an asso group will start with 6 (or 4/5) teams and gonna finish the season with these teams. Only the next season can switch members

2. All the teams must have max 7* players. A team with 8*-9*-10* will participate but the program gonna recognize those players as max 7* players (tanking is a “weapon” for the strategy of a player or someone who want to make a break, but not using it for getting high q players).

3. Each team of a group, can loan max 3 players (as it gets from other members also 3 players).
4. After the draw of Friday, a team can play the tournament games only with the roster which had at the draw time.
5. The draw can be with the asso goups of all categories. So can be a variety of opponents and not playing with the same division teams. I don’t why a group of Gold 2 division not to play with a Bronze 1 group.
6. There must be convenient time for the games. A team from far east Asia, with a setting time 05.00 , 06.00 (CET), cannot play with a team from Europe.

7. Finally (I know that many of you may disagree) reduce the token price of Platinum division and for World top 10. 100 or 200 token is a motive for a manager to try to “abuse” the system.

Also I would like to know a responsible answer from a nord dev, how the draw of the asso tournaments is working and what is the logic of the games. I ‘ve seen many games and still many times I cannot understand them – or why the behavior of the team, is so different from the other competitions.
• I understand that some (maybe few) managers from all over the world, maybe “destroying “ the asso competition but it’s nordeus that must “protect” their project.

The first idea was so nice and simple. To play with our teams, with friends, simple friendly style games and win some prizes too.
Can we go back there or it's over ?

[ronnymvc]

I haven't had too much expectation from association games, for me was "something nice to have " until my association was relegated to Gold 2, due to Nordeus bug (feature maybe the correct word ), only 9 points missing to stay in Gold1. I am confused about the draw procedure and match engine in association games, is to way different than others anyhow , '"nik" I am agree with you more or less .

[LeManiaque]

I disagree with some of the limiting suggestions, like the maximum 7*, or 3 loans max (seems irrelevant, we've both said 1-3 all-star players can't win the match).

+1 for reducing the token rewards, I would call that a motivating factor for abusing the systems as you said. It's also not a lot of change, maybe more dynamic changing prizes. My association will never be top 10 global, and ending up top 10 in division or whatever feels random... we just seem to be there in the end. Challenges maybe changing randomly, secret for just your group - your association scores more than 35 goals this weekend, all members gain +x tokens. That sort of thing.

Tanking is nothing new, there's just more motivation because associations offer tokens, while advancing levels just "scales" everything. That's an issue in itself, making level advancement more desirable than tanking.

Btw Nik, is " after the draw buying players and selling them after the tournament. " giving away exploiting methods?

[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%.

[khris]

Pff.... well is not easy all this XD

I think that the draws should be made using the promide of AvQ that the assos' had when last round of last Sunday maches started.... so then theres no space for modifying the Q. during the season and do decrease of Q. at least as now...

Regarding the results think that many times we add loans and this modify too the base of the team, because evey new player we add changes the whole team some times and the way it plays... for ma viewpoint results are not so surprising after 55 seasons Ive played...

About the panorama of Tanking teams, I think is bad and myself I do it for lack of time really, depending of the "époque" bu myself and, even sems this go against me, Ive suggested to relate the economical benefits from sponsors and so and relate them to the "accomplished targets" such as promote, play the CLand so etc


Of course too, we have to think that Top Eleven has been and still been a game that give a lot of freedoom to managers to play as want, and put the things so easy to play without complications and this has been the key too and the reason why many of us still playing here and did not go to another football manager simulator,lets deal with this too.....

Now wit the loans fixed we will need at least 6 more months to see a effect in these teams that used the trick.... time needed to adapt the points more to the realit without abuses... then I think that the assos feature have way long posibilities to have a expansion and be a new challange if dev's propound it well.

[LeManiaque]

^^^

Both pcmac and khris make a really practical suggestion about some way of "locking in" association average quality.

Btw, THANKS NORDEUS for snuffing out the initial exploiters. Good to be beyond that able to discuss other aspects like this.

[gamer5289]

Nice post Nik.
I totally echo your sentiment that playing association has become a bit boring over the past 2 seasons.
However, placing limit on players quality is not something that sounds good.
Getting players to 7 stars is not too difficult with right training and if you stop progress after that, it defeats the purpose of power training someone.

I agree with the proposal of loans, but in a different way.
A suggestion would be to limit the loans per team to 5, but you can only loan 1 player from any team.
SO if there is a strong 9 star team with 5 weaker teams, each of the weaker teams can get only 1 strong player from the 9 star team.
This would go a long way in evening out the playing field for the matchups.

As far as the association draws are concerned, I believe the Nordeus philosophy is to draw all teams around same star level and association division.
Facing teams in same association level is understandable, since both of you are competing for the same next level.
If a GOLD1 team faces a Bronze1 team, it might not be fair since 1 is competing for Platinum and 1 for Silver3.
However, what annoys me is the fact that a 6 star association in GOLD1 does not get a chance at a 5 star association in GOLD1.
If the 2 associations are competing for the same next division, they should compete against each other to get there.

[woopypooky]

For me its boring because troll results in abundance. More than league and cup games.Things like lose 0-4 at home, then win 4-0 away only happen in association.

[nash123]

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. .

No, absolutly disagree.
This season, we have world 11 - THE LIONS in there. Their whole FA started at 5*, because there's a 1* team. after the draw, he bought 8 player from the scoutlist, loaned 3 8* player and has now a quality of 126%. The FA raised up to 7*. This isn't much fair to normal tansfermarket. Maybe you think, 8 scouts are expensive - yes, for sure, but in this way it's only pay2win.

The only thing, what makes me wonder: they were only 5* before the draw, why they were put to 3 7* FAs?


I liked FA a lot, but with the beginning of the loan exploit, it got really boring and annoying. Our FA still playing, because of the 100T every month... and not because of fun. Maybe Nordeus can fix it, to become funny again. But I doubt...


I see another 3 possibilities:

-) completly random draw or
-) the punish-draw like new CL: the higher the FA on the raking, the more high quality is the draw:
world 1 is 5*, so they get a draw with 7-8* FA. -> but if this comes, TM has to be closed during the weekend.
-) prizes based on FIFA list, like:
If World 1 (points 1600) plays against 500 (1200 points), #1 got only one token for a victory nothing more, #500 got 1 token for each goal they score, 1 for each draw and 2 for each win. If #500 win, they earn 50 additional.
prizes can be based on the difference of the points or only on the position on the list.
No prizes at the end of the season.

[nikolgiorgos]

I disagree with some of the limiting suggestions, like the maximum 7*, or 3 loans max (seems irrelevant, we've both said 1-3 all-star players can't win the match).

Btw Nik, is " after the draw buying players and selling them after the tournament. " giving away exploiting methods?

- In their competitions the teams can have as much q they want or can.
(of course I don't agree with that and added an older suggestion https://forum.topeleven.com/suggesti...A-players.html
only by paying money to have the ability to increase q over the max 7*).
the problem now is that those loans exploiters (who are tanking too) destroying the asso competition for many months as for the future too.
A descent 5*-6* team with a good coach can have some luck vs a 7* team - but not above.

- About the 3 max loans, it's very different when one of our group members has a squad of 11-12 8*-9* and another team has 20 9* and give the bench to his group mates. Both will play vs each other but this is changing the balance of the draw for the other teams.


about the last comment, if you go to top100, find the BMW group and check Dragon Kovalski team, you 'll see that his 5* players don't have participation in official games - not even in the Cup. Well, he went to the draw with his 1-2* players and bought after that those 5* players.