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As far as the economy is concerned, I would say BB is structurally very similar to Hattrick (which is probably a feature). I've been around Hattrick since 2003, so I've had the chance to follow the economic phenomena there a bit. As an economist (I'm a Ph.D. candidate at Clark Uni in Worcester, MA), hopefully I can provide an insight or two that can be useful.

To boot, I completely agree with your assessment about game calibration. A thing to have in mind is that BB is somewhere in its late infancy, as far as game maturity is concerned -- both in terms of number of seasons and number of users. I would expect at least 10 or 15 seasons before things start clearing up a bit.

My take is that trading should be regulated naturally (taxes on transfers, team chemistry drop), not artificially. This means one should probably avoid stuff like direct wealth tax and limitation of the number of transfers, which will be, by definition, arbitrary. Put structural limits in the transfer system and let the market play it out.

An implication of having multiple trained skills is the fact that any sort of transfer compare will be hugely ineffective. For one, there will be a huge price volatility for the same level of primary skill(s) based on secondaries. Consequently, market scanners are almost guaranteed not to work due to the lack of enough comparable transfers. For those who play HT, the situation will be comparable to the TC for wingers -- they compare 5 skills, and there are barely ever enough matches for a meaningful comparison. And HT is significantly bigger in terms of transactions.

Likewise, I am also skeptical about an automatic bidder and its ability to assess prices correctly. Not to mention that it will needlessly complicate the market.

I think 3) is almost a necessity at some point, and one might also play with the magnitude of the transaction tax to reach a good trade-off between financial gain and team chemistry penalty. However, it should be structured in a way, in which one shouldn't be able to offset the enthusiasm drop with the ability to purchase and maintain the wages of significantly better players.

What has to be considered for the long run, though, that once teams 'saturate' with players to the level where all their income goes for wages, the economy will be hit by a sharp liquidity crisis. As in, the more saturated teams there are, the less disposable cash there will be out there for transactions on the transfer list.

There isn't really an easy way around this structural flow. HT regulates by counting on having enough 'unsaturated' teams and a good amount of new teams, which inject fresh liquidity on the market. However, this approach is only of limited use, as multiple ticket price increases were needed over time in order to maintain a healthy amount of cash fluctuating around.

Maybe one of the solutions will be to introduce a luxury tax type of feature in the end of season. I haven't thought about this much (and it will likely have to work exactly the opposite way that real NBA luxury tax works), but I guess I can post again when have I spend some time rationalizing this idea in game terms.

Charles - what levels of active teams are you hoping there will be by start of season 5, 6 and beyond if you can see this far?

Why does the market need to regulate naturally? It is an enclosed economic situation and regulations are not the norm rather than the exception.

I may as well just use the NBA as my prime example. There is a roster cap which regulates, there is a salary cap which regulates further, and trades are regulated by salary equivalency. (Actually a roster cap might be a good solution now that I think about it)

I realize that those are not necesarily options, but it the presence of regulation I point out. I assume European leagues have some sort of regulations involved as well.

I didn't say players are available at 80% of their market price. This a logical nonsense, since market determines the prices. All I am pointing out is that traders will always drop out at 80% of the price, since they can't make any profit. The final sale price is then determined by how much buyers are willing and able to pay.

Traders cannot 'push the prices above the threshold' this way.

I know you didn't say that (although you facetious implied it), but you are ignoring my point. My point is that the day traders are setting the minimum bidding point for everyone else.

Trader speculation inflates different markets all over the world on a regular basis (no I'm not saying it is the only factor, but it is a factor) so why do people so vehemently deny that it could be a problem here?

In my opinion the best solution is to make a mix of 2 proposals; increase a little bit the taxation, moving it from 80% to 70% and the introduction of chemistry for the ts. In this way the top teams that have some $ extra because they are on the first divisions, should care better before to making wild day trading cause they will risk to lose some matches and it gives some possibilities of trading the the newcomers that are playing against some bots. I'll be for a more drastical reduction, but I can understand that some people can consider funny to make $ over the heads of the noobs

8) A proposal that I've in mind now is to put a limit of the $ coming from the trading per season, for example 2 millions then you must put the new players bought at zero as bid start. Of course this will be for 1 season, it means that if I buy a player today, I can resell with huge profit next season and this will be not counted as "trading profit"

I've to go out, only a small consideration regarding the comparation of the prices; I think it's too early, a lot of people doesn't know exactly which is a "good" price, for example I never spent 3,1 millions for a player but there are users disposal to do that. The difference from ht is that here the skills are more important and always making a comparation with ht, this way to proceed didn't solve at all the problem.
Last, the big profit that dt realised are coming from players booted, too many players put on the market at the same time, if someone can stay at home all the day, for sure he'll find a good price.
Charles can "monopolize" this discussion whenever he wants, I suggest that he will monopolize this discussion We are really happy to discuss with the big boss ;)

Taxation is already at maximum level.

I would vote heavily on 3(which is a realistic effect); and in lesser favor on 4.

I am a strong believer of the free market with all its weaknesses and strenghts.

So any further interruptions by some governed party is not how things should be.

Please; I am also disappointed if I cannot keep up because a trader outbids easily. That's life.

I like number 1 and number 3. Tax profits (heavily in the first few weeks) and introduce team chemistry (but not randomly like in HT, not sure how it works here for NT).

Further suggestions:
- Tax the starting price (even only 1%, with 1k minimum). So manager are less willing to place the same player on the market over and over again at ridiculous prices.

- I am really concerned about skill trading. It can become in BB much more severe than it is in HT. I would not consider minutes played in the previous team for training, except for game shape.

Last edited by Newton07 at 3/11/2008 5:01:25 AM

But with that in mind, let me throw a few possibilities out there, and I'm curious how you'd rank these. Not all of these are particularly good ideas, but it's more just to stimulate discussion. These aren't in any particular order.

i like 2 and 3

2 leaves room for a moderate trading (which is perfectely acceptable)
3 helps the equilibrium between users who rotate training to train the entire team and those who train 1 role and trade and buy better players in the non-trained roles

1 & 3 are very good ideas!

...and team chemistry shouldn't be resetted at the end of the season...

I haven't read every single post, but I haven't seen this mentioned, so I will:

why not a roster limit of 15? The first two weeks of a season this would be 18 to give teams time to incorporate their three draft picks into their plans.

If you can't play with 15, even with three injured players, you don't know what you are doing.