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I categorically reject your premise, and therefore the answer is irrelevant.

The premise being? Just wanna make sure we're still on the same planet. As I say blue and you say it's not magenta.

If the goal is to build a 20k arena as fast as possible, with all other factors put aside, sure, it's the fastest way. If competing in the game, growing your team for future competition, etc. matter, it's not the best way. But who signs up for a manager game to ... manage?

Again this is your opinion based and you assume everyone thinks rationally or share your point of view. I'm not sure if you really believe most new users (again I don't mean you and I) are willing to invest 2 years just to get to a point where their revenues are close to those of their opponents. D3 in England has plenty of 20k arena teams and that's the division you start in.

It's the same argument, except that of course one makes explicit the assumption that you're competing against people from your league/country and the other ignores that and insteads focusing on "leveling the playing field" as if a user should worry more about what happened 36 months or more ago to teams they're never playing.

This is again your view of this game (and mine too) and there is no evidence whatsoever that the new managers see the game this way. Perhaps the correct way to address this would be to ask new managers what they believe the worst aspects of their "induction" are and what bothers them the most. So we can stop ranting about opinions and arguing without a shred of evidence.

Now, the counterpoint: prove that you have to have a 14k-4k-500-50 arena to be competitive, and that the inability to do so is responsible for even a quarter of the people who leave the game. On the last point, since neither of us have details about why users leave as a general matter, please feel free to cite the people who claim that this needs to be fixed, as compared to the number of posts about how many people think LI was overbalanced or training needs to be fixed or game shape training needs to go away or the blank lineup is overpowered or how GDP is overpowered or the draft needs to be fixed or... well, you get the point.

Straw man again as of course I've never said that this should be a top priority. My point, so that we're clear once and for all, is that user retention should be combined with bringing in new users via app or marketing. This discussion started in the first thread where someone suggested faster training as a mean to retain more players. I just added that another big barrier was spending a huge amount of cash and time towards the arena. What I got in response here are Utopia ants and flying unicord turds.

At least we seem to agree that nobody here has any evidence to back up his claims except that it does take about 2 years to buld a competitive arena. The correct way to address this would be to ask the new managers what they think. Unless of course you also believe that people who think 2 years are too long shouldn't play this game.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 11/3/2014 6:12:46 PM

At least we seem to agree that nobody here has any evidence to back up his claims except that it does take about 2 years to buld a competitive arena. The correct way to address this would be to ask the new managers what they think. Unless of course you also believe that people who think 2 years are too long shouldn't play this game.

Clearly, we'd need to ask people what their idea of competitive is, since we're several thousand words into this by now and we can't even agree on that. I will point out for the record that 11 of the 16 teams in the NBBA currently fail to feature a 20k arena either, so I suppose you may be right and the problem is worse than I feared. If the top teams in one of the toughest countries in the BB world can't even have competitive arenas after all their time playing the game, what hope do any other teams have?

The correct way to address this would be to ask the new managers what they think. Unless of course you also believe that people who think 2 years are too long shouldn't play this game.

In my humble opinion, it is not the size of an arena which is the biggest hurdle to new managers in this game, but instead it is the knowledge of the game.

I would think that 2 years is a reasonable expectation about the time period it would take to acquire that experience and knowledge.

I believe that the lower divisions should be the training grounds of "learning" managers and I also think it is appropriate that the arena "matures"at the 2 year point which is about the same time that a "good new manager" is ready to tackle Div II or 1 in a reasonably size country.

Should new Managers be able to compete "equally" with seasoned experienced Managers in this game, straight away, then this game will cease to be the strategic challenge that it is.

Should new Managers be able to compete equally straight with the most experienced managers. then I reckon they're going to get quickly bored because they will have nothing to aspire to

Rather than enabling new managers to be able to run before they are walk (build stadiums to completion before they learn the game), I believe that it would be better if we could speed up the rate that managers can gain the level of knowledge required to compete with the best

I.e. more resources that aspiring managers can access , perhaps Youtube training sessions or interviews

Utopia has shown me that there are lots of long term participants in this game who just havent got a clue

i.e. gameshape etc etc etc

Last edited by Sid Vicious at 11/4/2014 5:30:46 AM

I will point out for the record that 11 of the 16 teams in the NBBA currently fail to feature a 20k arena

King of declarative statements and now also adept to cherry picking:
14k+4K+500+50=18550
Number of NBBA teams below 18k arena: 3. Number of teams below 17.7k: 1 (who has 0 wins in the league, will see how long it takes before he wins a game).
Number of teams above 18.9k arena:11

If you don't see the fallacy in your reasoning I can't do it for you, mate.

Here's what you wrote:

Incidentally, I think you're committing a fallacy that a lot of people make - equating things that you personally don't like and assuming that it's the reason for something else you don't like

You don't see how this perfectly applies to you, do you?

I've never mentioned half the points you guys are trying to counter here. In particular, I've never said or thought new managers should be allowed to compete on equal grounds "straight" away. I said that it likely that new managers find a 2 year time period to train players and complete the arena to be a too high time investment for a new game.

There is an issue with user retention. The game is complex and it takes 2 years to compete on equal grounds. If people are voting to increase the number of new users (app/marketing of the game are still topping the vote I believe) then increasing user retention also seems logical.

Possible issues which should be checked with the new managers themselves so that we understand which one needs addressing the most:
- Complexity of the game (your point). It takes 2 years for an average human being to understand the nuances of the game.
- Training is too slow, it takes 2 years to raise a trainee from scratch (someone made a similar point in the other thread and I agree this is an issue)
- Arena building is too slow, it takes 2 years. On top of this it was not this slow in the early seasons so this is not by design. (my point)
- There is no issue with waiting 2 years because those who can't wait that long shouldn't be playing this game or we don't want them playing this game (CaptainTeemo)
- I don't know what you're talking about/ I can't contribute any opinion on the subject (GM-hrudey)

CaptainTeemo's seems like a logical standpoint.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 11/4/2014 4:47:21 AM

I will point out for the record that 11 of the 16 teams in the NBBA currently fail to feature a 20k arena

King of declarative statements and now also adept to cherry picking:
14k+4K+500+50=18550
Number of NBBA teams below 18k arena: 3. Number of teams below 17.7k: 1 (who has 0 wins in the league, will see how long it takes before he wins a game).
Number of teams above 18.9k arena:11

If you don't see the fallacy in your reasoning I can't do it for you, mate.

Did you not ask:

would you please be kind enough to clarify whether you think waiting 2+ years to have a 20k arena is: ...

or not opine:

Of course most D2 teams have 20k arenas, so you're really only making the case for the lowest divisions in each country.

or:

I'm not sure if you really believe most new users (again I don't mean you and I) are willing to invest 2 years just to get to a point where their revenues are close to those of their opponents. D3 in England has plenty of 20k arena teams and that's the division you start in.

See why I keep asking you to define "competitive"? Because it's a moving target. You keep referencing 20k arenas, both before and after you mentioned the 18550 arena query, but apparently that's your personal cherry that I'm not allowed to pick. Clearly, the fallacy in my reasoning is thinking that just because you said something that you actually said it.

Here's what you wrote:

Incidentally, I think you're committing a fallacy that a lot of people make - equating things that you personally don't like and assuming that it's the reason for something else you don't like

You don't see how this perfectly applies to you, do you?

No, but to be fair, neither of us has seemed to clearly grasp anything else you've been saying. Maybe in a post or two that quoted bit will mean something else that will then make some sort of sense, at least for whatever period of time that it is before it then means something else. Maybe I should just let you discuss this among yourself and see if you can formulate a clear, cogent and consistent series of thoughts rather than confusing what you are trying to say by repeating what you actually say.

Original post:

In practice you need to invest roughly 7 million to complete your arena with 20k seats. That's a huge amount of cash, no matter how you slice it. Tanking in the lowest leagues for a year (3 seasons) won't get you anywhere near there, even 2 years might be challenging, except perhaps in micronations. Knowing that you need 2 years or more in order to be able to finish your arena and compete is a huge barrier for new managers.

I read a comment from you right under this one. Now, if it's not raining unicorns' turds in hrudeyland and if british and american english still have some affinity, 20k is the number I gave to complete an arena in my very first post and which I kept referencing to. I know there is no point going beyond 20k, you know it and most people in this thread know it, too. I then gave a lower target, inviting people to check if my 2 years estimate was too long even for that. My point has always been about the time it takes not the size. Even a 18k arena will take more than 5 seasons (20 months) to build.
Either you seriously think it is worthwhile to nitpick between the building speed of a 18k, 19k instead of a 20k arena or you're a) building a straw man focusing on the actual number which I always stated to be the maximum goal rather than the time require to build it; b) arguing that there are 11 teams below the maximum you can fill and 5 at or above it. Of course, you're perfectly able to realise that arenas with <20k and >=19k seats are perfectly efficient arenas since seats above 20k are wasted. So yes, technically you're nitpicking based on a false premise (size over time) rather than being cherry picking.

Clearly, the fallacy in my reasoning is thinking that just because you said something that you actually said it.

Your fallacy in reasoning is that "big arenas" from any number you want to the useful m.a.x.i.m.u.m. you can fill of 20k were not the point here. The point was that it takes 2 years, at 18k, at 19k, at 20k.
Your fallacy is representing my arguments for what they are not.
Your fallacy is believing that your bucolic idea of competition (which, again for the 3rd time, I even agree with) should be shared by the swathes of new users we're asking to bring in with an app or marketing (which is exactly why you own quote describes you).
Your fallacy is thinking that my opinion is that the game is not enjoyable unless you have an arena on par with the competition. This has nothing to do with me: I'm perfectly fine with how things are at the moment, I nearly promoted to D1 with the 4th lowest salary in my league last seasons. I just believe this to be a problem with other new users and with retention of said users who are not like you and me. CaptainTeemu made the perfectly reasonable point that he doesn't want those users. You have made no point whatsoever because you're just charging at the straw men you create and claim to be someone else's opinion. I hope I don't have to repeat all this another time. It's becoming really dull.

Maybe I should just let you discuss this among yourself and see if you can formulate a clear, cogent and consistent series of thoughts rather than confusing what you are trying to say by repeating what you actually say.

Buffoonery. Of course CaptainTeemu was able to understand the point and take a coherent and logical stance on it. You, on the other hand, do not seem able to grasp a very simple concept that I repeated ad nauseam nor to formulate one of your own. You're too busy creating straw men that suit your narrative and attacking them. Perhaps reading what others write from the beginning rather than when they post to respond to people, like you, focusing on out of context excerpts and misrepresenting their opinions, would help.

Please read (264729.32) again. Then read it again. Then if you still cannot get it, I suggest you go back to your unicorn fanta

Last edited by Lemonshine at 11/4/2014 4:11:35 PM

None of it's worth the bother, to be honest.

The simple answers are that I don't think arena costs are in any significant way responsible for users leaving the game. Heck, the stupid back and forth we're having probably is more likely to drive people away if it persists than arena costs ever will. Larger economic issues, sure, game balance issues, absolutely. Some arbitrary two year deadline to "complete" an arena, depending on the definition of "complete" in play at that time? That's almost certainly inconsequential, as a review of the threads in the suggestions/help/global forums would suggest - there's simply nothing to substantiate that there is a groundswell of people who get frustrated at the cost of building an arena.

Anyway, enjoy the last word. This is going nowhere, and we could either spend another hundred posts going nowhere without grace, or I can just walk away. I like that option better.

Here we are, talking about how to save this game... and BBs are doing what ?

I think that we need them to get more involved into the community again. This is a great game with a poor management.
And an APP :)