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Well, did he not say this?

The result was that most free agents have turned out to be old and, in borderline cases, mono-skilled players. Young, high potential players, with a broader range of skills were forever lost. Therefore, we decided replace the current system

He has clearly justified the change with an old vs young argument. And nobody in his right mind reading this news statement can think that fewer young players are going bot than before he changed the system.

I suppose the fact that the announcement mentions wide range of skills twice is unimportant flavo(u)r text?

I know of the seven players you listed, five were big men, none of whom appear to have been given any significant training on guard skills (the first two have abysmal assist numbers, and the other three have one guy who played at PG four times as a rookie and no guard training at any time since).

Of course, there's a lot left unclear about what younger and older means in this case. If 21 is the cutoff for younger/older, for example, guys trained for U21 teams who graduate with big primary skills and nothing else may run afoul of the range of skills needed to keep them from retiring if they're lost at 22.

Naturally, I have reservations about TSP being a factor if it is - a season training JR in my opinion makes a player far more worth saving than a guy trained 1v1FW for a season, but the TSP discrepancy between the two is going to be significant.

I suppose the fact that the announcement mentions wide range of skills twice is unimportant flavo(u)r text?

No it isn't. It's like setting the price at $3 million when you claimed you improved the liquidity of the transfer market. It's misleading people into thinking you're saving more players than before.

I gave you examples. Now I challenge all of you to find players 21-25yo who would not have been free agents in the old system but they became free agents in the new system. Find these young high potential players who were lost and now are saved. Until you do, how do you expect us to believe that the change has been made to save more young players?

Besides are you seriously saying that a $220k C, who went 21-16 and shot nearly 60% from the field, is not good enough to play and should retire right away? You want lower salary players? There are actually a lot more of those...

Naturally, I have reservations about TSP being a factor if it is - a season training JR in my opinion makes a player far more worth saving than a guy trained 1v1FW for a season, but the TSP discrepancy between the two is going to be significant.

Of course I completely agree with you here, the same way I've never disagreed with the news statement.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 10:56:42 AM

I think honesty here would have gone a long way. He should have just stated from the beginning that the rules for free agency are a lot stricter than they used to be and most players that used to go to free agency now will retire irrespective of age, potential and salary, although the effect is more severe for older and lower potential players. This would have been representing the situation and the change for what it is.

Of course if he did that, now you'd have 3 times the number of closed threads and criticism you see, but at least we would be talking about the situation as it is and not the illusion of something that does not exist.

I believe he thought he'd outsmart everyone claiming something he knew to be false or at least extremely misleading, but that was a more palatable change for the community, so that people would agree with the news and not pay attention. After all, who tracks free agency, really? I did my analysis on the players who retired only because he was extremely arrogant, otherwise I would have probably just let it go. This kind of behaviour and dishonesty is utterly disappointing coming from the person running the show.

If you, he or anybody else has examples to show to support your claims, please link away, we would love to see them with our own eyes. I did provide examples and I am the only one who has supported his claims with facts rather than dubious statements.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 10:04:49 AM

I suppose the fact that the announcement mentions wide range of skills twice is unimportant flavo(u)r text?

No it isn't. It's like setting the price at $3 million when you claimed you improved the liquidity of the transfer market. It's misleading people into thinking you're saving more players than before.

I gave you examples. Now I challenge all of you to find players 21-25yo who would not have been free agents in the old system but they became free agents in the new system. Find these young high potential players who were lost and now are saved. Until you do, how do you expect us to believe that the change has been made to save more young players?

You are making the assumption that 21-25 is "young". Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. It might be that "young" in this context is a method to save the guys who would never have had a chance to make free agency because it was impossible - 18, 19, maybe 20 year old guys who may have been trained but would never come close to the salary requirements for FA under the old system. Guys who are in the 21-25 year old range have had enough time to be trained to reach a skill set that would have saved them in the old system, and maybe now they instead are going to be judged on their skill points vs. their age group - so perhaps there will be some with lesser salaries but more varied skills saved. I suppose if it were Monday when free agents were on the market I might be convinced to accept your challenge, but I'm sure you'll understand if I don't feel like searching through teams blindly trying to find players purchased from free agency in the past few days. ;)

Besides are you seriously saying that a $220k C is not good enough to play and should retire right away? You want lower salary players? There are actually a lot more of those...

I don't see what's so unclear about:

Older players have a higher tendency to retire and enjoy their hard earned cash, which means that in order to be free transfered, they need to have a wide range of skills.

But I suppose there's a real market out there for guys with 200k+ salaries and a 1:8 career assist to turnover ratio. I mean, the first guy you listed surely would have been saved - never mind that during this period you like to call hyper-inflation, he sold this month for $17,000. Would free agency have saved him (assuming of course he was never on the market in the first place and went unsold because he clearly wasn't worth 500,000)?

Would free agency have saved him (assuming of course he was never on the market in the first place and went unsold because he clearly wasn't worth 500,000)?

That's a possibility, I can only guarantee that the player still with their own team really never went on the market. But if you you really want to go with lower salary players I have hundreds of them.

I don't see what's so unclear about:

Older players have a higher tendency to retire and enjoy their hard earned cash, which means that in order to be free transfered, they need to have a wide range of skills.

If English is the same language on the other side of the pond, OLDER PLAYERS is the subject of that sentence. For the avoidance of doubt, older does not mean younger. The first time he mentioned "broad range of skills" it was to explain why he was making the change: i.e. salary alone does not let you save salary efficient players with high TSP, but the new system will. The second time it was to say, for old players the balance of their skills is a key factor on whether they will retire or not.

I don't know if you're being serious. You can say whatever you like but the news don't suggest in any way that fewer young players will retire. It says more old players will. The facts are that both young and old players are now more likely to retire.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 10:52:23 AM

Guys who are in the 21-25 year old range have had enough time to be trained to reach a skill set that would have saved them in the old system, and maybe now they instead are going to be judged on their skill points vs. their age group - so perhaps there will be some with lesser salaries but more varied skills saved.

You are speculating. You don't know how the parameters have been set, but if a 35k 22yo SG isn't going to free agency, then very few will. It may very well be like the $3 million in my transfer list example for SG and C.


Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 10:35:57 AM

First of all, I'd like to point out that I already addressed some of your points here (270150.28) and here's an explanation of the role of free agency in BuzzerBeater (270150.23). These posts explain the basic concepts that need to be understood about free agency, so please read and try to understand them before continuing the discussion.

I must add that that another BB concept is clearly misunderstood, as pointed out by The Sentinel and Brambauti. Training is a big and very important part of BB. Clearly, it is not a good thing when player trading takes more importance over training. Has that happened? I don't believe it has yet, but it was close. Some managers will always lean more on training, some more on trading, there's no way around that, but the general idea of the game is that training is more important than trading. Training should be rewarded as an essential part of a long term strategy game like this. That's the way it should be. I will try to explain how a situation has arisen where the opposite is true for some managers.

We've had very low prices in BB for a long time. It was a period where due to the reduction of active managers in the game combined with rather lenient free agency prerequisites the TL prices of most players have been lowered to the point where the purpose of training has come into question. A situation has developed in which it was very easy to buy old high salary players which in turn undermined everyone's resolve to put in the time, effort and know-how in training. A team that trains no players and is based solely on trading has no room in BB. Not in the long run, of course.

Free agency caused a big part of that and it needed to be changed. Due to the longevity of such an undesirable situation, more and more managers adapted to the low prices and shifted their focus to trading. Some even specialized in free agent acquisitions! The reduction in the amount of players released by free agency then directly detriments those managers, which is something I think we all agree upon. But, it is of my opinion that the effect of this change is overestimated. While the prices of high salary players do indeed continue to rise slightly, the prices of very young high potential trainees get lower at the same time as they make their free agency debuts, so there's some balance for it there. Also, let's not forget that the ratio of free agents versus normal players in the TL has always been rather small.

To conclude, I'd like to (again) remind everyone that BB functioned quite well before when prices were even higher (it was during the period with the highest number of managers!). It functioned well before free agents were added. We had seasons where they were completely removed even after implementation. If they would have been removed again the BB world would adapt and survive, so there's no need to fear change. This total removal has also been considered but it was decided instead that they can stay in a smaller capacity and that they can be used as what they were originally intended for - as a market balancing tool.

We've had very low prices in BB for a long time. It was a period where due to the reduction of active managers in the game combined with rather lenient free agency prerequisites the TL prices of most players have been lowered to the point where the purpose of training has come into question.

Nice way to dismiss all the criticism (not coming from me) that prices were too high, inflation is too high, that regularly popped up every week last season.

The reduction in the amount of players released by free agency then directly detriments those managers, which is something I think we all agree upon.

Do you wish to amend that news statement now, in particular regarding young, trainable players?

To conclude, I'd like to (again) remind everyone that BB functioned quite well before when prices were even higher (it was during the period with the highest number of managers!).

Another misleading statement. In the early seasons of BB revenues were higher (cup) and the userbase was expanding, this does not seem like the current situation at all...

Thanks a lot for these explanations, Marin.

And keep on the good work! I really appreciate how BB has evoluated these last seasons.

Guys who are in the 21-25 year old range have had enough time to be trained to reach a skill set that would have saved them in the old system, and maybe now they instead are going to be judged on their skill points vs. their age group - so perhaps there will be some with lesser salaries but more varied skills saved.

You are speculating. You don't know how the parameters have been set, but if a 35k 22yo SG isn't going to free agency, then very few will. It may very well be like the $3 million in my transfer list example for SG and C.

Yes, I'm speculating. You're speculating. We're both willing to admit I'm speculating. You're using your speculation as the foundation of a multiple post campaign essentially calling the BB Staff liars, while simultaneously requiring me to back up with evidence a hypothesis that I merely advanced as a possible explanation. If you're entering a discussion with the preconception that whatever you believe is necessarily true, and anything that contradicts that opinion is necessarily false, it's no small matter that the discussion fails to be constructive.

You focus on "older" vs. "young" without having any grounds for knowing what those are defined as in this context, and ignore the "wide range of skills" that applies to "older" because you've decided for this case "older" is what you think it is.
And you fall back on "evidence" of players where you know their age, potential and salary. That's nice. Post the skills of those players that weren't saved, so we can analyze their range of skills and maybe see if we can establish some sort of basis for figuring out what a range of skills is.





Last edited by GM-hrudey at 5/29/2015 11:23:28 AM