BuzzerBeater Forums

Well it is a problem when you know you have to pay that eventually, but I agree that inaccessible TL prices are even worse.

Is that true? I mean, do you know of any apps out there that only cost $10k?
I'm asking both out of honest curiosity and based on some unrelated app development conversations I've had where they are many times more expensive.

It depends on the things you want an app to do, prices range from a few hundred bucks to 500k. I had interest in a pretty complex gaming app and got offers from freelancers ranging from 5-15k. Unfortunately a pretty similar game was released in the meanwhile, so my plans did not materialize.

An app that would allow us to set lineups and watch the games would be quite cheap I assume, but the problem would probably be the very outdated infrastructure we have in this game.

If you want to buy existing apps/games and get them redesigned:
https://flippa.com/apps
http://www.chupamobile.com/

Get somebody to code for you:
https://www.freelancer.com
https://www.upwork.com/

If the BBs WANT to do something, there are ways to get it done. I think wasting the ad money for an app, would have been much more successful.

Thanks for the perspective. As with most things, the details matter a lot. I think the app I was looking at developing was pretty complicated, as far as apps go.

A Buzzerbeater App would be nice, of course, or what about making the website itself mobile friendly?
Personally, I've never had an issue logging on and changing lineups, checking for Friday morning pops, watching games, and all that jazz. It is very small on the screen of course, so being a mobile friendly interface would make it easier on the eyes without having to zoom in all the time.

I think the discriminant would be whether you consider the changes major improvements, minor improvements or no improvement at all. Changes don't automatically make a product better and some of the largest issues with the game have not been addressed at all. The game only had 1 significant GE change 5 or 6 years ago. Sure small improvements do help, but it really isn't something that alters the perception people have of this game.

Improve the GE, improve the website and viewer, improve the game balance (as in make all tactics viable and well defined, not just minor patches here and there), improve access to new users, solve the micronations conundrum with a solution that works depending on changing number of users. All of these would be significant improvements. A little boost to SB, overextension tax, GDP, GS hit after a sale, a little boost to outside shooting, removal of blanks, TL search by TSP, forum notifications, FA policy are not major or groundbreaking changes really.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 10/5/2016 5:30:41 AM

the game when viewed on its own merits is a quite a bit better now than it was in 2010. Since that time there have been a lot of upgrades and fixes made to make it better. There's obviously still room for improvement in many areas, but when viewed in a vacuum I don't think it's fair to say that the game is actually worse now.

Acutally I think the game is a lot worse than 2010.

In 2010 tactics, salary formula and many other things were not fully figrured out, we had more managers and a much better experience overall - the game viewer was state of the art and the game was much easier to play. The few tweaks that have been made in the meanwhile have been of mixed success I would say and the only major upgrade (Utopia) is a borderline fail in my opinion.

The game has become really hard to endure - especially for new users it's a huge drag and thats why like 99,9% quit during the first few weeks. It's no fun to play a full year until you can buy a semi-decent declining old fudge. What's the point in this? Give the people something to cheer about.

Also the tendency to shy away from big changes, just because someone could be offended (micromerger) is a bit awkward - maybe that's why Utopia has become such a lukewarm compromise - it was the least controversial change...

What affected the most new users is the lack of other new users. Before, when you started, there was many other newcomers to compete with. It's not the case anymore.

What you say is true, but even if you join a low league - like I did in Utopia, there is no fun in starting out. Its a huge drag until you win your first game. We discussed many times that newbies need like 1-3 seasons of pure bot bashing to remain interested long enough before they get gangbanged by grandfathered teams. You can't even buy a player (except scrubs) these days as a new team.

I do agree on the fact that there is a fear of big changes (even though Utopia was one, no matter how it's presented and I think it was/is a success). However, any gripe that an user have about BB will suddenly become the biggest reason people are leaving according to that user. We saw that with the discussion about micro-merging and many other changes. What's happening is the fear to lose a lot of users, before possibly gaining more than what was lost, and thus slowly losing some is the default choice.

In my opinion the way it goes its a business decision - the way the game is running the profit is decreasing, but seems to be a better choice than investing some money and redsigning a game. Basically the cow will be milked until death. Okay.

Not merging nations because a handful of users from micronations went buckwild is a bad move. From a business standpoint those nations never contributed financially. So losing them is really no risk. As there is no comparable game to BB, there is no risk losing the players to a competitor either. So even if sb. is pissed with such a move, whether or not he/she quits or not makes no difference.