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This guide is for all the future V.116 teams following in our footsteps. This is mostly stuff you can find scattered about the forums but I thought it'd be nice to have it here in one place. Some links:

http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr...
http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr...
http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr...
http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr...
http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/rules.aspx?nav=Rule... (Game manual)

New teams start out with (15-20?) players, some starting cash (400k? I forget), and a bonus 50k/week for the first four weeks. Now what? It's not always clear what you should be doing in the beginning to give yourself a good start but the hope is that this guide will help fill in some of the blanks. The first thing you need to decide is how you will be training your players: training is the free way to improve your team all season long.

1. Training- Read over the game manual/links above to get a better understanding of the mechanics. Basically each week you need to decide what positions (PG, PG/SG, Fowards, PF/C, etc.) you want to train, and what "type" of training you will be doing ('one on one', 'shot blocking', etc.) The different types of training will improve different skills (ie 'one on one' for guards will improve JS, DR, HA) so use the links above to help you become familiar with what you need to train to raise a given skill.

The way training works is that if you set your training type to 'passing' and your training position to 'PG', any players who collect minutes at the PG position that week will get training in 'passing'. 48 minutes at the position being trained equals full training, and going over 48min doesn't help you any. Less than 48min will give you less than full training. You get two league games and one scrimmage per week, so you can get three players full training each week (there are 48min x 3games worth of PG minutes to divvy up.) Training 'happens' Friday mornings, you can change your mind over the course of the week and the only thing that matters is what training you had set when BB updates Friday morning.

Training one position (ie 'Passing' for PG only) will increase skills faster than training two positions ('passing' for PG/SG), however with two position training you can train more players each week (48min x 6, vs 48min x 3). Training younger players (18-24) goes faster than training older players. Three position training and team training are so slow that it's not really worth it, with the exception of stamina/FT's, so you mostly have to decide between one or two position training.

Because you have to actually get your guys minutes at certain positions to train them in certain skills, it's often difficult to train big men and guards at the same time; you end up either having to play somebody out of position (ie putting your PG at C) and possibly costing yourself some wins, or not giving training to some of your trainees that week (ie guards get no training if you train SB and decide you can't risk playing your guards at C or PF). For this reason most managers end up having all 3-5 of their trainees be either all guys who need guard training, or all guys who need big-man training. Then, if you're training guards, you fill your big men spots by buying players off the transfer list.

Benefits of one-position training: skills improve faster, you only need 3 trainees.
Benefits of two-position training: you are improving 5 players on your team instead of only three, you can sell 1-2 of your trainees for a profit after training and still have guys left to play for your team.

My experience with two-position training is that the skills still went up quickly enough and having 5 players constantly improving really helped build my team's depth.

Last edited by J-Slo at 3/20/2010 12:26:20 PM

Once you know what you want to train (bigs vs. guards, one vs. two position), you need to assemble your trainees. One of the best ways long-term to do this is through the draft, because you get a bonus to merchandising income for having your draftees play a major role on your team (which can be significant as you rise through the divisions), but depending on when you joined BB, the draft might be up to a couple months away still. Your options in that case are:

1) Training the guys who were 'born' on your roster when you created your team
2) Buying guys off the TL to train

Probably the best thing to do is look at your roster, decide which of the players you started with are worth training, and then build your training program around those guys. So, if you begin with 3-4 youngish, decent big men, do big man training and fill in your guard spots with older, good-value guards off the TL. If you don't have any decent prospects on your team or you need to add more players to fill out your training rotation, you need to buy trainees off the TL.

Things to look for when shopping for a trainee on the TL:
1) Age- The younger the better because younger players train faster and can obviously be trained for more years, so 18yr is the best, but these players also go for a premium. 22 is considered sort of the 'no-longer-young' cutoff but anybody 24yr or younger should train decent for at least a few seasons.

2)Potential- Potential determines how high a player's total skills can be trained. Potential does not affect how quickly a player will train. Potential only affects how high a player can ultimately be trained. Because salary is roughly correlated with skills, you can use salary as a rough guide for how far you can train a player:

Bench warmer - 8k
role player -13k
6th man - 15-17k
starter - 21-24k
star - 33-40k
allstar - 40-65k
perennial allstar - 80-100k
superstar - 125-145k
MVP -165-195k
hall of famer - Unknown
all-time great – Unknown

The thing to remember when shopping for trainees is that you have to pay a premium on the TL for high potential, and you don't necessarily need to buy a player with an unlimited ceiling if you are just starting out in division 5. This player:

Shooting Guard
Starting Price: $ 1 180 000

Weekly salary: $ 3 841
Age: 18
Height: 6'1" / 185 cm
Potential: hall of famer
Game Shape: proficient
Jump Shot: mediocre Jump Range: respectable
Outside Def.: respectable Handling: average
Driving: inept Passing: respectable
Inside Shot: inept Inside Def.: atrocious
Rebounding: atrocious Shot Blocking: average
Stamina: mediocre Free Throw: respectable

Experience: atrocious

...is being sold for a lot more ($1.18 million) because of his age (18) and potential (HoF), than this player:

Shooting Guard
Current Bid: $ 66 800

Weekly salary: $ 3 263
Age: 19
Height: 6'1" / 185 cm
Potential: starter
Game Shape: strong
Jump Shot: respectable Jump Range: mediocre
Outside Def.: respectable Handling: mediocre
Driving: strong Passing: pitiful
Inside Shot: mediocre Inside Def.: inept
Rebounding: pitiful Shot Blocking: atrocious
Stamina: pitiful Free Throw: strong

Experience: atrocious

...despite pretty similar starting skills. Given that you can still train the 2nd player to ~20k salary (potential=starter), which would be enough to be a star player even in division III, don't burn your precious money on the 1st trainee while still in division V when you have a lot of other holes to fill in your roster first. If you draft or begin with high potential players it is good to keep them because of the long-term benefits to merchandise, etc. but as a new team buying players to train, you are probably better off looking for a good value vs. an impressive sounding potential. Remember that they are going to train at the same speed either way.

Last edited by J-Slo at 4/18/2010 9:51:44 AM

For both your trainees and the players you will buy/keep from your original roster to fill in your non-training positions, in division V you can do well with 'average' to 'respectable' in the main skills for whatever position that guy plays. If it's possible, you also want to avoid very low skills in the secondary skills (ie 'atrocious' passing, jump shot, etc on big men, 'atrocious' inside shot on guards, etc.)

When buying players for non-training positions also remember that, because you are not going to be training them, you don't want to pay anything extra for age or potential. If you are only going to use these guys for a season or two (because you will probably want to upgrade as you increase your income and promote from V to IV to III), you can often find bargains on older players (30-33ish) who will serve your team well for a few seasons before their skills start to decline with age. An example of a bargain division V big man:

Power Forward
Weekly salary: $ 4 124

DMI: 29000
Age: 31
Height: 6'11" / 213 cm
Potential: allstar
Game Shape: strong
Jump Shot: mediocre Jump Range: pitiful
Outside Def.: awful Handling: inept
Driving: strong Passing: respectable
Inside Shot: average Inside Def.: average
Rebounding: average Shot Blocking: mediocre
Stamina: respectable Free Throw: respectable

Experience: average

This player sold for 37k and has decent big man skills (IS, ID, RB), decent secondary skills (DV, PS, JS), and the bonus of decent experience too, and can be a respectable starter in our league for a pretty reasonable price. At 31 years old he can probably give you three good seasons before his skills start to slowly decline due to age, more than enough time to promote out of division V. You can often find players like this for 1-50k.

*DON'T* waste all your money on one player with unbalanced skills ('prominent' JS and awful/inept everything else). These sorts of players are not worth the 100-500k transfer list estimate price or the inflated price their owners set the auction at. It is a common mistake new players make to spend all of their money on one player, and often that one player is actually a player that someone with experience would not bid even 1k on. Just remember that 'respectable' is a good primary skill level for players in division V, and that having a bunch of very low secondary skills can seriously affect how well that guy is going to play in a game. There are some managers who will list a crummy player like that for 100-500k or more just because they know somebody who doesn't know any better will bid on him. Don't be that somebody.



Last edited by J-Slo at 3/20/2010 12:35:21 PM

2) Economy- Once you've collected the players you plan to train and the non-trainees you plan to start/keep on your roster, you should get rid of all the guys you won't be needing: there is no point carrying 18-22+ guys on your team if only 11-13 are going to be seeing any minutes. That is a lot of money you are paying in salary to guys who aren't even playing. You can try to sell these players if you think they have some value, but generally if they aren't good enough to find a spot on your team nobody else is going to want them either and it is easiest to just fire them. Getting your roster down to 11-13 will give you starters/backups at each position and some flexibility for training/injuries while helping you save money each week.

Income:
Merchandise income will go up with more American guys playing important roles on your team, and will go up even more if your own draft picks are starting, etc. Merchandise will go down if your team is heavy with foreigners. Generally though merchandise in division V is not a huge amount of income (the difference between an all-draft team and an all-foreign team in division V might be 25k vs 15k) so don't worry too much about it when first starting out, but it is something to keep in mind as you move up the divisions. Putting together a good team and making sure you win games should be your top priority though.

Arena/ticket sales will be your main source of income. A rough goal is to set your prices so that you almost sell out each seating section each game. If you raise prices too high, attendance will drop sharply and you'll lose money; if you set them too low, you will sell out your seats but be missing out on income because fans would have been willing to buy just as many seats at higher prices. Winning games will increase attendance and let you charge slightly higher prices. Expanding your arena gradually is a good way to increase your weekly income and also prepare your team to make a nice profit once you promote to the next division.

It's tough to give a guide for specific prices and number of seats but look around at what other people are charging and how many seats they are selling; browse through other leagues in division V and try to find teams similar to your own and then try to estimate how many seats you think you can sell at certain prices, etc. Look and see how many seats you will need in division IV. A rough goal to shoot for by the end of the season/promotion into division IV is:

Bleachers: 5500
Lower Level: 600
Courtside: 120
Luxury Box: 6

More doesn't hurt necessarily, but remember you can always build them at the start of next year and that there is a limit to how many people will come to your games no matter how many seats you build, so if you overbuild by a lot they will just sit empty until you promote into a better division or lower your prices drastically.

TV income is set based on your division and there isn't much you can do about it.


Last edited by J-Slo at 3/20/2010 12:37:36 PM

Expenses:
Player Salaries can be kept in check by not carrying a giant roster of 20+ players when you don't need them. For individual players salary can be an okay estimate of their general skill, but don't assume one guy is better than another just because his salary is higher; make sure you decide between them based on the skills themselves.

Staff Salaries depend on the level of staff and how long they have been with the team: each week staff gets a slight raise. Read up in the manual on what each staff member does. Their importance from most to least is probably: trainer > PR > doctor. You do want to upgrade from what you start with but remember there is a limit to what your team can afford at this division. Also note that the difference between levels decreases as you move up in levels: the difference between a 'basic' staff and a 'competent' staff is greater than the difference between an 'exceptional' staff and a 'world-renowned' staff, however the prices rise drastically as you move up in level. An 'advanced' trainer is probably the best value in general as far as what you get for the price. My own recommendation would be 'advanced' trainer, 'competent' PR, 'basic' to 'competent' doctor, depending on what you feel comfortable with paying in staff salary..

Each type of staff can have a couple different specialties, or no specialty. The game manual explains what each does. Having either of the two specialties on your PR guy is important, either one is fine depending on your preference. If you can find a doctor with the 'massage' specialty and a trainer with the 'fitness' specialty those are a nice bonus but probably not necessary.

Scouting is paid every week over the course of the season and then at the end of the year you get to see a list of draft prospects and what you know about them. You rank the players as you see fit and then during off-season processing the game determines how everybody in your league drafted and who you end up with. http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr... gives a decent overview of what to do once the draft list is released.

Because of the number of bots/inactive players in division V, I would recommend spending either 10k or 20k on scouting every week, even if you expect to finish near the top of the league and end up with a late draft pick: You will probably get one of your top three rated players even if you are picking 10-16, so it's nice to know something about the guys you're ranking. 40k feels like a lot to spend at this division given you are spending twice as much money for not much more information (4 players/week vs. 3 players/week) and because the draft quality can be a bit random, but people argue it either way.


Last edited by J-Slo at 7/17/2011 7:18:06 PM

Game Shape: a measure of how fit/ready your player is to play, game shape starts each season at 'respectable' and can improve to 'strong' and then 'proficient', or decline down to 'average', 'mediocre', etc. GS is affected by how many minutes a player got the previous week (total minutes accumulated over the season may also play a role): ~60ish minutes/week is considered ideal for getting GS to increase up to 'proficient'. Too many minutes (80+) or too few (<40) will often but not always cause a decline in GS. Try to find a rotation that keeps your guys within that 50-80min range each week.

Game shape has a pretty decent effect on how well your guys play so if you can keep your players in strong-proficient GS you will give yourself an advantage over an opponent whose GS is only 'respectable'. It is possible to train GS. You generally want to be doing training which actually improves a player's skills, but if you are going into the playoffs and your GS has room to improve, you could train GS to give yourself an edge in promoting, etc. Beyond that training GS is usually not a good idea.

Enthusiasm/effort: Enthusiasm is a sort of team-wide measure of how well your team will play in a given game. The standard enthusiasm is 5 and you can increase/decrease enthusiasm by changing the effort your team puts into games (effort is called 'attitude' in the set-lineup page, enthusiasm and effort can both be seen on the set-lineup page).

Normal is the standard effort and does not affect enthusiasm. Crunch Time is increased effort and will cause your players to play harder/better in the current game but will also cut your enthusiasm by half following the game. Take It Easy is decreased effort and will cause your players to not try as hard in the current game, but will increase your enthusiasm by a third following the game. Enthusiasm slowly moves back toward a 5 over time, and it moves more quickly the farther you are from a 5: it make take a couple days for enthusiasm to decline from 7 to 6, but it may drop from 14 to 13 or even 12 in just one day. (The same is true for enthusiasm moving upward from a 1 or 2 back toward a 5.)

A TIE at 9-10 enthusiasm is generally considered to be equal to a Normal at 5 enthusiasm. So managing enthusiasm/effort allows you to build up enthusiasm for big games: you can TIE against weak opponents (or very strong opponents you think you have no chance of beating) for several games in a row to build up your enthusiasm and then play a normal or CT with high (7-10) enthusiasm and give yourself an increased chance to beat a team that is normally better than you. It's generally a good idea to TIE against bots/inactive teams, and generally a bad idea to waste enthusiasm by using a CT unless you really, really need to win that game (determines home court for the playoffs, etc), and even then you need to consider whether having a high enthusiasm might not still be more valuable. If you are just trying to give yourself an edge against a rival, a normal with high enthusiasm is often enough to get the job done.

Tactics: these are generally explained in the game manual. One thing to remember though is that even if you want to be an inside focused team, or an outside focused team, it is still important to have reasonably decent players at your non-focus positions. Even if your big men are great, if your guards are terrible they will have a hard time getting the ball inside to your big men or making shots when the ball can't get inside, and it will cost your team victories. Having a balanced team also gives you the option of switching tactics to suit your opponent, or to create an element of surprise.

Last edited by J-Slo at 1/7/2011 10:45:12 AM

So, a quick recap of things to take care of when just starting out:

1) Determine what you want to train: bigs vs guards, 1 vs 2 position
2) Figure out who your trainees are: guys 'born' on your team, any extra guys you need to buy
3) Figure out who is worth keeping on your team: these guys will be similar to the sort of guys mentioned earlier that you will be looking to buy on the TL if you need to pick up any non-trainees---> 'average-respectable' in the main skills, not terrible secondary skills
4) Look for bargains to fill in any holes in the non-training positions on your roster.
5) Fire/sell all the extra guys on your roster who won't be getting any minutes
6) Improve your staff: 'advanced' trainer, 'competent' PR/doctor
7) Have a plan for what you're training each week and try to follow it
8) Make sure you are scouting 10k-20k each week
9) Improve your arena gradually (as you are able): don't overbuild but don't totally neglect it either. Look at other people's teams and get an idea for what is possible and what is not enough/too much. Set a goal for where you want to be when you promote.
10) Manage your effort, enthusiasm, and tactics to win games.

Following these steps and spending time reading up in the forums/game manual will help give you the foundation you need to get started so that you don't feel lost/overwhelmed, and then it becomes easier to slowly develop your team and your ideas about how you want to build your team, what works for you, etc. There is a ton more to learn about training, tactics, etc. but hopefully this helps things go more smoothly in the beginning. Good luck!

Last edited by J-Slo at 3/22/2010 12:23:20 PM