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I hired three competent or better staff members when I first started playing 6 months ago and have since fired them all, going for the triple atrocious. My justifications for these decisions are all pretty heavily math based, but rely on assumptions that I can't be confident in because of my lack of experience. I will try to use assumptions that err on the side of being bad for my arguments so that they are more robust. Remember that this is not meant to apply to teams in higher divisions.

Does this seem reasonable?


Doctor
Let's say a team with an atrocious doctor averages 8 games of injury per season, and that the difference between an atrocious and competent doctor is a 20% reduction in injuries for a cost of 7k more per week. This would mean that over a 12 week season we are basically paying 50k per extra injury game avoided ((7k per week * 12 weeks)/(.2 injury reduction * 8 games missed) = 52.5k).

One way to evaluate that price of 50k per game is to ask oneself "Would I take 50k to have a semi-random player miss a game, if I had a little time to plan ahead?" The answer for me is that for the vast majority of games I would. I also think my assumptions are conservative and the real cost per game avoided is higher.

PR
I'm not gonna try to put real numbers on this, but since I have been selling out almost all my tickets for a while this just never seemed worth it to me. My impression from a thread I saw here was that this is the least controversial atrocious staff member, so I won't dwell on it. However, I may pick up a crowd involvement specialist for the playoffs if I can get home court and it's cheap.

Trainer
I've heard it estimated that each trainer level leads to 5% faster training, which seems reasonable to me. Let's say that with an advanced trainer, over a 12 week season you have 3 players that each gain 8 skill pops. Let's say an atrocious trainer get 85% of the skill points and costs 15k less per week. You are then paying paying 50k per skill point, which seems like far more than one pop is worth on the transfer market for trainees that most beginning teams would have ((15k * 12)/(8 * 3 * (1-.85)) = 50k).

Other advantages to the default trainer is that there is less cost for messing up or using cheaper players, which is inevitable for newer managers. Trying to train a less valuable trainee, carrying older trainess, carrying bad height trainees, and carrying a smaller number of trainees all become more economically viable because you aren't paying an extra 180k per season that you have to recoop before you turn a profit.

Edit: It's important to note that I have totally ignored specialties in this analysis. This is partly because they add to costs which means they should be treated seperately, and partly because I have no idea of the magnitude of each effect.

Last edited by w_alloy at 07/09/2012 17:38:14

Doctor: I kind of agree with you on the doctor, but if you're a trainer who's trying to train a world-class player, you can't really afford for him to miss any weeks with injury. So even though the chances are likely that he won't actually ever get injured, for a really committed trainer it's not a risk he's usually willing to take. Here's the decision he has to make: is it worth paying let's say $10K per week for a competent trainer, or would I rather not, knowing that if my player gets injured, it could derail his chances?

PR: I think in your case you are selling out your tickets because you just promoted to D.IV this last season. The first season after promotion, you get a strong attendance boost that all but guarantees you will be coming close to selling out if your arena is at all reasonably proportionate and your prices are at all reasonable. In your case, you have a relatively small arena, but even still I would be willing to wager that without the attendance bonus, you would not sell out at those prices. They're all significantly higher than they probably should be, IMO. If you want, you can play around with the attendance planner to find a decent price. Basically what I'm saying is that I believe a good PR guy is important; you just aren't seeing the effects of it because you have the attendance bonus for this season, which compensates for the lack of a good PR guy. The other factor to consider is, a PR guy's specialty can be very valuable. Right now I'm also rolling with the minimal PR guy, but for the playoffs I'm going to buy a National Appeal PR manager, because I have a tough away game that basically will decide my chances at promotion and National Appeal helps reduce the effects of my opponent's HCA. I know you said you ignore specialties but I just thought I'd mention it.

Trainer: maybe for you this works. However, if you're trying to train a NT player, you'll obviously need as many pops as possible and you'll pay whatever you can reasonably afford to maximize those pops. Also, you might think no single pop is worth $50K on the transfer market, which is debatable. In any case, put a few pops together and you'll find that you've greatly increased your player's value. And if you pay $180K per season for your trainer, that's a bargain. My trainees definitely increase in value by more than that with a full season of training. Also, for me at least, if you're not at least making a reasonable attempt to cultivate a pipeline of young talent then you're missing out on at least half the fun in this game. So there's that to be considered too.

Summary: if you want to do training, you'll need a good trainer and you'll probably want a good doctor to protect your investment in your trainees. If you don't care much about training, you don't need a trainer obviously and a doctor is a luxury at best since you can probably survive the occasional temporary incapacitation of one or two of your players. I would argue that a good PR guy is important whether you want to do training or not, unless you have the promotion bonus. However, it's up to you and to every individual manager to decide what he or she finds to be fun about this game, and the various staff levels will vary based on that decision. If you want to stick with your all-minimal staff, more power to you. Hope this post helps.

Thanks for the detailed response.

Doctor: I kind of agree with you on the doctor, but if you're a trainer who's trying to train a world-class player, you can't really afford for him to miss any weeks with injury. So even though the chances are likely that he won't actually ever get injured, for a really committed trainer it's not a risk he's usually willing to take. Here's the decision he has to make: is it worth paying let's say $10K per week for a competent trainer, or would I rather not, knowing that if my player gets injured, it could derail his chances?

That's a valid point, but I think it is a mistake for basically all DV teams and most DIV to be attempting to train world class players. If you are experienced enough to make a killing raising these players then more power to you, but this post isn't really targeted to you. If you are not planning to sell the player, then his salary is probably going to grow too fast for your team. I know having your best trainee hurt can be a really annoying as I had a 3 week injury to mine earlier this season, but even with this major bad luck I think the cost of the doctor for the last 2 seasons would have been more than his value lost (i just sold him for 700k, bought him for 100k 5 months ago).

PR:<snip>

That's interesting; you could very well be right. Would love to hear more opinions on this.

Trainer: maybe for you this works. However, if you're trying to train a NT player, you'll obviously need as many pops as possible and you'll pay whatever you can reasonably afford to maximize those pops.

I don't think it's worth it for managers in D4 or D5 to be trying to train NT players, as it wraps up too much of your total value and salary in one player.

Also, you might think no single pop is worth $50K on the transfer market, which is debatable. In any case, put a few pops together and you'll find that you've greatly increased your player's value.

I don't believe no single pop is worth 50k on the transfer market. I said that for most teams in DIV and DV most pops on trainees are not worth 50k. A quick way to measure this is, if you are getting 24 pops per season, are you making 1.2m in added value per season? If so, than more power to you, but I don't think these results are typical of DIV teams.

And if you pay $180K per season for your trainer, that's a bargain.My trainees definitely increase in value by more than that with a full season of training.

Ya, I intentionally used lower numbers so that people couldn't argue them. And my tainees increase in value by more than that as well (with atrocious).

Also, for me at least, if you're not at least making a reasonable attempt to cultivate a pipeline of young talent then you're missing out on at least half the fun in this game.

You can easily do this with atrocious too. In fact your player will probably get too good for your team in either case if you keep him a while (if you are in DIV), in which case it would probably be best to sell him.

Summary: I remain convinced that atrocious trainers are best for most D4 and D5 teams, even if they care a lot about training.


Last edited by w_alloy at 07/10/2012 03:50:07

There are so many ways to look at this.

The importance of money in this game means that any relevant argument could be stated in the terms I used in my post, with everything having a dollar equivalent. Of course the assumptions could change, but that's not taking a different approach. It all boils down to only one way of looking at it.

First my PG for 2w then my NT SF or 2w and when they both were back a 1w injury on my SG.

Do you think these results are typical? What would you estimate is the average total games missed per season per team for teams in your league? I certainly could have underestimated the likelyhood of injuries.

Your reasoning may hold in lower leagues but the higher you go the more you want to get out of your trainees and the less you want your expensive players gone for a long time.

Most of the users playing this game are in lower leagues, and most of the players giving advice are in higher leagues or are parroting stuff they've heard from people in higher leagues. I think this causes a lot of newer or more casual players to follow advice that's not best for them, and I think spending too much on staff is one of the biggest areas this is true.

I don't think it's worth it for managers in D4 or D5 to be trying to train NT players, as it wraps up too much of your total value and salary in one player.

Well... not just the 1 player, since you can train 2 other guys with him.

But, in this sense, its easier/safer to do it in D.IV and D.V because its less likely you'll lose games when you have to train your player out of position to work on secondary skills.

Last edited by LBJisaCancer at 07/11/2012 05:20:45

If you're selling out most of your games, it's quite possible that you could raise arena prices, hire a higher level PR manager and increase your arena profits. But it's uncertain that you would increase your arena profits enough to justify the addiional salary you pay that guy.

That said, I generally agree that paying for higher level staff in the lower leagues is poor use of your funds. I think the number one goal of lower leagues is to maximize your profits. That's how you afford to expand your arena and purchase/afford the better players needed to win your league.

Well... not just the 1 player, since you can train 2 other guys with him.

But, in this sense, its easier/safer to do it in D.IV and D.V because its less likely you'll lose games when you have to train your player out of position to work on secondary skills.

What I meant "it wraps up too much of your total value and salary in one player" is that one of the more important resources a manager has to work with is the total value of your roster. If you have a trainee that is worth one million, and the rest of your roster combined is worth one million, your team will be a lot worse than another player with cheaper trainees and a two million dollar roster since so much of your roster's value is potential instead of ability. Similarly a high priced trainer will take away from the salary you can pay your team each week. My impression is that getting a better team and promoting faster (within reasonable limits of course) is usually the best way to improve revenue for DV/IV teams.

Also this post is targetted towards the advice people give managers in lower leagues, and because there is far far more users than there are NTs this means it will be impossible for most people to have players on NTs.

To be honest, a lot of teams expanded trough the creation of one star, a little like Lebron James allowed Cleveland to reach the Finals. You'll say that now he is gone, they are back to zero, but imagine that here, it's possible to negociate a good transition.

The reason that star players are so important in the NBA is that there is a ceiling on the amount individual players can be paid. If there was no cap and Lebron received his true value, he would command over half his teams' salary and they would probably be pretty average without the massive luxury tax. Also Lebron in this game would have a 600k salary.

Your first star will allow you to win D5 and D4 just by getting himself, then after that he will save you in D3 and you can start to think about the transition. Back in my days, a future French NT allowed me to go from D4 to D2, then make some money to get a nice team. With his money, I bought the current biggest salary of my team who ship me to three seasons in the D1 and could get me back there again this season.

You first made D2 in season 9. Stadiums are bigger now and the transfer market is cheaper. I do not doubt this is a viable way to build a team, but I am still not convinced it is the fastest (optimal) way. There are two main reasons:

First, training and money really ARE interchangeable because of the transfer market. There are certain trainees that will be undervalued relative to your needs, and certain trainees will be overvalued. Train and sell the overvalued ones, and then buy and train the undervalued ones. The transaction costs are low. Put another way, it is unlikely that the most profitable trainee will also be the trainee who is best for you, and at some point it will almost always be possible to swap the two while making a profit. Or better yet, buy oldish guys who depreciate less with the cash and just keep making money selling trainees.

Second, in my admittedly limited experience, the more balanced a team is the more likely it is to punch above its salary weight. It makes sense because of the exponential nature of skill cost: a 10k increase in salary will buy a lot more skills on a 15k player than it will on a 25k player. Now of course there are viable tactics and strategies that make certain players more important that can be quite effective, and I'm not saying your top 8 players should always have the same salary. But I think that especially for newer managers, a more balanced approach will win more games for the same salary most of the time.