BuzzerBeater Forums

Very interesting read with a lot of good thoughts and considerations. I have a few comments to make:

First of all let me just point out that I think the game has improved drastically since the hiring of new staff and the introduction of the development calendar. I don't know whether or not this is reflected in the growth or decline of the userbase though.

a) rewrite your entire Game Manual. it's been outdated. or update the FAQ that was once written by Naker Virus & have the LA's translate that FAQ to the own respective language so that that forum can be linked in the welcome message to new users. This would be a HUGE major update (one that could be penciled in the calender, and one that doesn't require the BB's to work on it! You could leave this to a group of community members, all while you are working on coding solutions for other problems! Although, i do feel somewhat bad for the LA's in this case, because they are going to have to translate an entire new manual, which would be a lot of new work!
b) set up a mentoring program that is wide spread acros the entirety of BB. (but overseeing the correct appointment of mentors and new candidates can very well be a full time job or a part time job for multiple people!

I really like these propositions. I agree that the game manual could use a serious revamp since it doesn't really seem that the latest changes have been fully integrated. About the translation part, that should be possible. Personally, I'd be happy to help even though I'm not an LA.
A new and improved mentorship program would be a huge step in the right direction to keep new users, which I think is one of this game's biggest problems. I'd propose that it would be done as an integrated part of the site instead of "just" a forum thing. Just take a look at hattrick for inspiration!

a) tie TV rights in a country to the results of your U21 & NT. that way, managers and teams get more incentive to be interested in the U21/NT teams and that will demand that whoever is managing them, does his best for the job. Increasing the merchandise wouldn't be a bad thing, However, you want to motivate the entire community. Hence, i suggest that the TV rights should also be influenced by the U21/NT (and not a minor influence, but a serious one.) The reason why i'm not suggesting a change in merchandise, is because i want the merchandise to represent something concering the players on that own team. TV rights are division & nation wide, so let the U21/Nt results factor into those instead of directly

I agree that making NT's more important would increase the overall interaction between users. This being said, I have some concerns about your suggestion. If you tie TV money to NT results it would certainly punish small countries no matter how involved their userbase is. Therefore I don't think that this suggestion would solve the problem, but instead, give an unfair advantage to teams from larger nations who have a much bigger pool of players to pick from. To make this suggestion valid you could do two things:
1) Make sure that the decrease or increase in TV money is influenced only by how the nation performs compared to nations of similar size - there's no way a nation like Denmark could compete with Spain, no matter how engaged we are in the NT.
2) Merge ALL micros and mid-size countries and make an NT for the new merged country and scrap all the old NT's.
Even if this is done I'm still not sure how I feel about this; tieing clubs' income to the success of their NT would make users in a nation dependent upon each other, which could hurt teams' chances to succeed at an international level. We shouldn't have have to depend on our fellow countrymen to be active in order to succeed ourselves.

You both posted some interesting stuff to read!

I am however not a big fan of merging the smaller countries NTs, instead I think BB should start with some small improvements.

I think that if you want to increase the interaction on NTs it would help to make the NT more visible on the website. You really have to search for a link to the tournament your NT is competing in.
So let's start with a couple suggestions to create more awareness for NTs:
First I think the menu needs an extra tab that directly leads you to the World Cup or Continental tournament of the current season.
Next, NT games should be more advertised. For example all players should have an extra clock that’s counting down to the next tournament/qualifier round. When that tournament starts, the clock should be counting down till the next NT game. So similar to the clock for your own games.
Last I think that creating a global forum for the World cup could improve the interaction between players.

These suggestions are intended to make the activity or games of NTs more visible. The next suggestions are to intended to get more people involved.
First, I think if BB would organise a World Cup Prediction just like it exists for B3, more people would follow the games.
Second, why not create a poll in the previous proposed global forum, so that we can vote on the MVP of the tournament, or do it for each country separately. Just like you can vote on how the NT-coach is doing, you could vote for the best player of the campaign of the current season.

Finally, as I already said, do I not believe in the merger of several countries into one. However it is true that more stronger (small) countries would make the games more fun to watch instead of making them predictable. Therefore I would like to suggest a reform of Utopia teams. As they do not have a NT, why not add players from small countries to their draft in the future? Perhaps 1/3 (so 16 per Div) are from countries with less than 15 active users. 2/3 are still utopia players or perhaps another way to divide the draft could be 1/3 utopia 1/3 small countries and 1/3 first team nationality. I think it would give supporters a nice extra feature. Maybe also by adding an extra drafting option ‘e.g. show nationality’. As the draft is random, players with a different nationality could still be dreadful, so supporters are not too much favored and the impact on other non-supporter users isn’t too big. It would simply make smaller countries stronger as they have more players to choose from.
Another suggestion would be to add more good players of those countries on the TL as free agent after the draft. This was suggested here (273519.611). I would however apply it only for small countries and not for all nations.

However, because some managers in the top divisions have hoarded so much cash, it makes it impossible to catch up to them.

I finally got time to read the whole post carefully You nicely pointed out some issues BB has to deal with and offered some nice suggestions.

However I don't believe that your ideas on hoarding are that effective, they are more a punishment for teams that have been successful. As I recently rejoined BB and got promoted to Div. II the gap between me and older teams is way big. I don't stand a chance (probably will be an elevator team) But still, taking away money from other teams seems too harsh, because let's face it: there are just not a lot of things experienced managers could spend their money on. Their stadiums are already build as attendances for games is capped, if they spend too much on salaries they'll get an overextension tax.. They can only spend a lot on buying players and staff and those don't need to be changed that often.

Why not work with a limit on the budget they can spend? Let's say if a team reaches 15 million, all the extra budget would build up as a reserve. If they drop below 15, they would get X% of their reserve each week until they get back to 15. So they can buy a new team but then te next season they won't be able to invest that much. All the money they've earned would not be "stolen" from them. I think this would not upset that many users.
This is just a raw draft proposal, a lot of details would need to be sorted out e.g. the percentage rate, what to do with overextension tax etc. But it's a new starting point for a further discussion ;)

Very interesting. I agree to most of it. Especially with your concerns with the winning (contender) teams in a particular league.

There is a definite need to change something, as we can't keep losing users if we want this game to continue. I get the feeling that the only way to truly fix everything in Buzzerbeater is to create a new version of it. Not a new game entirely, I would want the existing teams, players and history to carry over, but there's so much that could be improved, including many of the things that you touched upon, that I believe the game in it's current form is outdated.

I'm about to make my own thread on Global expanding on what I'm trying to say. As for this thread, I think the BB's need to reflect on most if not all of these ideas if they can understand them.

i don't think you've read my posts properly.

1) it's still a well known fact and there are plenty of conferences with that problem. You just don't seem to see it too often, but every country has atleast 1 if not more. As for more games per week, then you are evolving into a PPM type of game. we already got 3 games a week ( 2 competition + a cup/scrimmage game) More than enouhg

2) Getting up to II is doable in most nations. but the way your team is constructed, that is as far as you will be going. You've hit your limit and soon you'll start feeling annoyed by it. I've seen some teams go from V to I in 6 seasons time. so i know it can be done, but those are the exceptions. Still nice run. i doubt you'll be going much futher tho for a while now.

3) The reason they ain't interested is because they have nothing invested in them. if they do, they would have more interest in them. question is, do you want to keep U21/Nt a side show or do you want to give your community something to rally behind?

4) And this is what shows me that you aren't a starting manager. Not a single new user would complain about the game engine, since they don't understand how bad it is to build a team for the future, only to see a change in the game engine screw your entire long term planning. Don't fix what ain't broken! (ow and btw, if you got the knowledge to build a team and know how the game works, then it's rather easy to promote fast.)

5) forum dies because people don't want to invest in it. having BB's answering people means they aren't programming new features. You just got to know what you would prefer. them answering for your every small complaint here or them answering.


I'm sorry but i disagree with almost everything you've written down. Now i can spend time trying to point it out, with examples etc. However, that just won't help out this thread because it will simply become waaaay to long ( my original post was 22 posts, so i've already cut it in half and then some.

thx for taking the time to read through it tho.

as always, kind regards

Az~

I like your point about the "addition" to the TV money that you make. That should be taken into account, but i ain't sure how you are going to make a divide the U21/NT's into groups (unless you take the same groups more my U21/NT suggestion that is. Still, thanks for pointing that part out.

@Goldenhoop: interesting views. i wouldn't agree with the merger view tho, as i prefer good competition that playing bots (i've had bots in IV. very boring time...) but that is just me.

@Jay Keep me posted. i'm looking forward to seeing your post(s)

Just to clarify: I support the merge that was introduced this season (and earlier for Africa) I was only talking about merging National Teams, as Underwood suggested. That's why I suggested my idea on Utopia draftees, in order to let each nation keep their own NT.

Div.2 Spain is stronger than div.1 Belgium, in terms of managers strength. So you are clearly talking nonsense.

We'll agree to disagree on this comment. and i'm not even going to bother going into it, because it's Irrelevant for this topic.

do you want to keep U21/Nt a side show or do you want to give your community something to rally behind?

I want them to be a side show, or even better, I want them to disappear.

Then another interesting aspect would dissappear from BB, leaving very few options for some Managers. it's compete or quit. here, with the U21/NT you can train for the U21/NT and run for the U21/NT job. So you would make BB more one dimensional, which means that more people will quit.
.

Not a single new user would complain about the game engine,

I am not complaining about the GE. It is very good. I am complaining about not a single BB understands the GE, so it is impossible any sensible talk about changes or improvements, or any feedback about research done by managers. This is what is really killing the game in the long term, because the game engine is the essence of the game.

Going to say it again. What ain't broken, don't need fixing. It doesn't need changing cause it works more than good enough!

Anyhow, no point in argueing with you. it's clear that we have very different visions on the game. all i can say is if we follow yours, the game is over within 1 year.