BuzzerBeater Forums

Well, we already increased them once, to 8. I believe it will be a good idea to consider increasing them once again, especially in light of the infrastructure and youth trainers added since.

Here is the math behind my suggestion:

Max 8 (as it is now) for a 19 y.o. means a possible range of 1-8, instead of 1-7 for 18 y.o. In other words 4.5 on average instead of 4, or ~ just 5 more starting TSP. If the starting max is increased to 9, that will mean ~10 more starting TSP for 19 y.o. players and a maximum of 20 more (which is extremely unlikely).

Properly training an 18 y.o. now results in ~ 12-22 pops for the first season depending on the type of training, and notably in skills we desire. So increasing the max starting skill to 9 will not make 19 year-olds more appealing than 18 year-olds, except in very rare cases, but it will make them more appealing, much closer to 18 year-olds.

This in turn will increase the value of scouting points and make the draft a lot more interesting and worth investing in, as there will be more first-rate prospects. It will be closer to RL as well. This will also be especially nice for smaller community national teams (such as ours), where we only get like two or three 18 y.o. HoFs per season.

Lastly, if you guys feel that it is too much, I would suggest a slight tweak. Since max now is 8.99, I believe, the increase could be to 9.49, instead of 9.99. Effectively the 18/19 y.o. starting difference will be limited to ~7.5 on average and 15 at the most, which will guarantee that 19 y.o. cannot be better than 18 y.o. They will also look much better with the "proficient" tags.

Looking forward to your thoughts on the matter!

Poll:  Would you like to see that implemented?

Yep, I absolutely agree here. Considering 9.99 as new max - getting a maxed out 19 y.o. will be better than training a maxed out 18 y.o. Not only TSP-wise but especially because of the reduced cost of training which you described. There are two major considerations though:

1) If you get a 18 y.o. you are guaranteed those extra pops from 1 season of training. If you get a 5 star A+ 19.y.o. you have no guarantees - he might (like less than 0.1% chance I guess) be a 80+ TSP guy but he might also be a 52 TSP guy. This presents us with one more decision to make, one more risk to take, which imho is a good thing.

The chance to get a 90+ TSP guy would be ~0.001%, so - astronomical. And we are talking not displayed TSP, but real TSP including sub-levels. The chance to get an 80+ TSP guy is ~0.28%, so one guy in ~350... We have ~20 000 19 y.o. draftees each season. 700-800 of those are HoFs. So there will be ~two 80+ TSP 19 y.o. HoFs brought in the game every season. I am pretty sure we have a whole lot more than two 18 year-old HoFs with 80+ TSP counting sublevels, trained for a season in the game right now...

2) Why do we approach this traditionally thinking that a 18 y.o. must necessarily be a better pick than a 19 y.o.? Like one season as a starter in G league Ignite might be a better development choice than one season on the bench in Orlando, for instance. The vast majority of 19 year-olds will still be worse picks than 18 year-olds, as it is supposed to be.

That said, I do agree with you to a certain degree, that's why at the end I added that raising the max to 9.49 might be a better choice. Also what alter_ego said is yet another approach worth considering. Making the max 9.49 AND also limiting TSP to say 70-75. It will be a little harder to implement but not impossible by all means.

If we make choosing between a 18 y.o. and a 19 y.o. pick a much closer affair than it is now, this will add yet another choice we have to make - whether to take a big risk with a 19 y.o. A+ who could be anywhere between 45 and 90 TSP (45 and 70-75 if TSP max is also added), saving one season of training costs or to go the safe path, pay more but be sure that you get a top notch guy.

Decisions, decisions...

Last edited by mink0ff at 06/23/2021 23:28:04

This can open a possibility to value and use more Scouting Points and use the other Scouting options namely:
Gather&Shoot
Extra Pass
Post Up Dribble
On Ball Defense
Cut Inside

It could promote Draft and Scouting even more... Tanking may be reduced even more and can even be a disadvantage at some situations...

Last edited by Bro_Khen at 06/24/2021 00:14:49

I do agree with you on this. Training is much faster nowadays (not to my liking too) and yet the coin has two sides - that does make game progress a little easier as many users want it to be and also it allows for the development of new winning strategies. The downside is that starting skills matter less and less and potential matters more and more. Thus those very high starting TSP 19 y.o. players will indeed be great at the early stages but later on their TSP will still be limited by potential. And that's something that will be perfect for U21 national teams, as they will then have to actively scout 19 year-olds as well. Right now I do not believe that a 19 y.o. draftee has a shot at U21 at the top level. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If something should be done, it would be better to simply increase the probability of drafting a high TSP(70-80 range) 19 yo

Well, that is precisely what I want too. And what I described is a way of achieving it, as ~30-35% of those 19 year-old picks will then be in the range 60-80 TSP(right now with a 8.99 max this percentage is ~12%), with only 1 in 350 being over 80 TSP. There are numerous ways to approach the change. And we can discuss and refine the ideas at a later stage. We should not forget that some ideas are much harder to implement in code than others and our new BBs do have quite a lot on their late right now. What I'm interested in currently is whether such a change does have the support of the community. I would myself consider further steps only if at least 70-80% of the votes are in favor and right now it seems we are right at this threshold.

I do not think that the proposed change will lead to an avalanche of additional great players in the game. It's main idea is to promote interest in the draft, make it a lot more balanced and a little more "fruitful". Right now probably 90+% of all users who invest in draft still completely disregard 19 year-olds (I know I do). And a large portion of the community completely disregards the draft, preferring to save some 70-140k per season which is insane... Knowing that even 4-th, 5-th or 6-th picks could give you a shot at a good prospect might even discourage hardcore tanking to an extent as Bro_Khen mentioned and probably reduce trainees' prices a little. All good side effects.

I appreciate the discussion, guys! Keep it up.

Last edited by mink0ff at 06/24/2021 09:37:19

I don't understand your point here : 19 yo have the same probability to have MVP, HoF or ATG potential than 18yo.

Exactly. My point is that although 19 y.o. will have slightly higher starting TSP, that will not result in higher end builds.

It's not common, but it does happen already. A couple seasons ago, I almost put one of my french trainees in the U21 squad, despite drafting him at 19yo. And he started with a very low TSP.
Scouting all U21 squads for the past two seasons to help the french one, I also saw a few players in those squad who were drafted at 19yo.

I agree - it is possible, yet not at all likely. I guess the vast majority of those players would be very tall pure centers and the most relevant increase there would only be ID, IS, RB, SB all + 0.5 (from 8.99 to 9.49 as max) which is just 2 TSP in primary skills, which taking elastics in consideration will only result in less than 1.5 TSP gain @ 21. It is not too much imo. Certainly not enough to make them more viable than 18 year-olds starting with 7.99 on primary skills.

Last edited by mink0ff at 06/24/2021 10:34:01