BuzzerBeater Forums

Huh? Because users in leagues where they can be competitive rather soon are leaving, your claim that the game is uncompetitve is true?

Much as I hate to jump on the Pini bandwagon I will point out something.

The GMs keep telling us that things are fine and balanced. That the 2-3 zone works. That LI isn't better than all the other tactics. That coming 5th isn't better than coming 4th. That the draft isn't broken. That micronations work. That the salaries for big men are fine. That free agents pushing prices for $50,000 a week big men down to $200,000 is good. That it is still worth training when the prices of players is so low.

The trouble is the players don't believe it and the BBs silence doesn't convince anyone. I don't know how much time the BBs spend working on the game but surely between the group of them (I don't even know how many there are they are so low profile) they can find five minutes once a week to actually say something. Surely. Right now there is a feeling amongst some of the player base that there are obvious problems and that nothing is being done about them. They feel like the BBs are using the Ostrich tactic rather than communicating with them.

Not wanting to be all doom and gloom let me say there have been a ton of positives. The site is working much better than last season. No training delays in recent memory. Games all running well. Transfer market operating. Some of the new features like polls and ranking ladders are cool.

It is claimed that the BBs read all the suggestions. What I would love to see is once a week they just take five minutes to reply to a few. Some positive news, even if it is spin or propaganda would make the playerbase in general much more happy to at least feel like they are being heard.

There is always a massive turnover in a game like this. I have probably signed up to 10 similar games and this is the best, the others have lost me. Lets make the game work and arrest the declining numbers. Some new features even cosmetic ones would be good. The game is sensational even with the issues, the PR and advertising is pitiful.

Last edited by yodabig at 1/15/2012 6:42:44 PM

Come on Yoda - about half the recently opened Suggestions outside Pini are from me - I´m the first to admit that there´s things to target in order to make BB -better-. There´s valid points about things worth spending a thought on - but it´s a difference to have a concept which works - in principle - which might need some "new ideas" here and there and a "great game, but let´s change everything and do something completely different".

The GMs telling you that 2-3 works are not telling it because of any conspiracy but because their experience. Crazyeye is a perfect example. He´s not defending the 2-3 because he HAS to, he´s making a point about using the 2-3 "in the right way", and honestly, while reading his posts concerning 2-3 I learned a lot about how to build a team to make a 2-3 actually work. I adopted some of the principles and was able to understand ALL kinds of defence (outside 1-3-1, which is imho far off in simulation what it´s supposed to be in real life).

Take a look around and the current GMs. The majority of them is -lower class- players, at least the ones I have most contact with. Alot of 2nd and 3rd division coaches who have been around for a long long time.

There´s topics of real "headache" for the community - off season structure (concerning the non-transparent situation between 5th place and 3rd 4th), the "dominance" of LI, the Draft, the economy, the site performance, forfeits and "tanking". But once you go back to recent seasons, there have been PLENTY adjustments and attempts to balance things. Actually the "5th-place-situation" arose from the problem of 6th / 7th place dominance. So the original problem was solved - it´s worth becoming 5th atm. Now there´s two different opinions about whether or not it´s worth becoming 4th instead of 5th, and the community asks for more transparency there, fine. Do you really doubt that this will be targeted sooner or later?

So most of the people around seem to favour a clear cut and easy-to-understand solution for the "offseason income". There´s different approaches, and obviously most have their pros and contras. Fine. But honestly, you cannot blame all and everything on that.

Aswell it´s hard to blame the tanking for everything. Tankers make what - 2 Million a season (without income losses, who cannot be instantly seen on paper)? You won´t get far with 2 Millions without having a team, won´t you agree? It doesn´t hurt having the money, but it´s not like "yeah, let´s tank a season and then it´s all mine". I´m pretty sure after 5 seasons of tanking (70 weeks!) you grow impatient at some point when you miss a promotion because of an injured player or some bad luck.

And that´s it for pretty much every point. There will never be a -perfect- game, and it´s fine to collect thoughts and ideas about what MIGHT be better, but please don´t pretend it´s the end of the world, everybody-who-is-not-me-sucks, I´m-right-and-everything-else-is-cheating and so on.

You´re still here, and I take this as an agreement that the overall concept here is fine. Let´s try to collect some input in what may and what may not help the game advance. And discuss it. Most of us agree in principle about many topics. But things have to be seen in perspective.

Off topic out. Sorry for getting drifted away.

Well first if you say half the suggestions that aren't Pini's are yours that will still be miniscule as Pini seems to open about 10 a week. Just kidding. There was no dig at you intended.

I will take a close look at Crazyeye later and see how well he has done with the 2-3, it would be awesome if he cn make it work but most threads that have claimed success indicate the need for a team very strong in shot blocking and you know the difference in both salary and availability between big men with triple marvellous primaries and strong SB and those with quadruple marvellous.

Yes I agree there is some irony in that the current 5th place problem was an attempt to fix the horrible previous 5th place issue where it was so much worse than 6th.

Please don't blame the tankers for everything or anything. I have been here since season 10 but for the first time ever I am tanking this season. I am the youngest team ever to make the ABBL and really had almost no chance to stay up so rather than fight and end up with nothing at the end of the season I made the strategic decision to tank. But it is all luck. If I had been in the Big 8 I would have fought.

I think you underestimate how much you gain by tanking. I was making over $500k a week PROFIT including cup money early on, now my fans are less enthusiastic and I have bought some players for next season but I still expect to make about $7,000,000 profit overall this season including promotion money. It also let me build my arena like crazy and train an 18 year old, 20 year old and 22 year old with no fear of losing games. If I had different players I could have done the out of position training which is even harder. On the other hand any players you hang onto depreciate which is something important to factor in, a more rutlesss player would have sold them all and kept cash but I like my old core of Oliver, Vallo and Mu and hope to keep them forever.

The game is the best it is great, but I think it can be better and I don't like seeing 10,000 players leave while it looks like little is being done to address real or imagined greviences. Even an imagined one needs a real response.

With regard to your third last paragraph which came across in a very different tone, quite negative and critical actually, you are confusing me with someone else and I know who.

Thanks for the detailed response.

The GMs telling you that 2-3 works are not telling it because of any conspiracy but because their experience. Crazyeye is a perfect example. He´s not defending the 2-3 because he HAS to, he´s making a point about using the 2-3 "in the right way", and honestly, while reading his posts concerning 2-3 I learned a lot about how to build a team to make a 2-3 actually work. I adopted some of the principles and was able to understand ALL kinds of defence (outside 1-3-1, which is imho far off in simulation what it´s supposed to be in real life).

and there are also gm telling the opposite, like for example the salry imbalance betwen big and small dudes which is general gm view depending his post was often target of my critism. even when nowadays, the gap isn't that big anymore since people play very multiskilled big and there are 250k guards worth playing in a top team(even when they are still less then the 200k+ dudes on the c side).

But overall we ain't the speakers of the BB, we are moderators of the game we keep our own opions and thoughts of the game when we get gm. And the free supporter isn't that much payment to buy our voices, for me that salary makes it still a voluntary work^^

Last edited by CrazyEye at 1/16/2012 2:18:41 AM

The GMs keep telling us that things are fine and balanced.

No, we don't really. We are too busy working on other conspiracies specificallly against you.

The offseason PO/PD could be much simpler if all teams were involved :

PO same as right now

PD 5 vs 8 - 6 vs 7 no inter conf match best of 3.

It means the #5 can be relegated.

For the financial part there is a lot of ways to do something good for all teams and keep the equity.

The weakness of the suggestion is :

- tank all season
- 5th battles hard for a PO spot
- buy team of superstars before PD with the cash saved
- crush 5th
- stay up and get 1st draft pick

Yeah. I think this change would only make sense if it goes hand in hand with inventing a draft lottery instead of auto-assigning the first pick to the team finishing last.

You might aswell change the format as following:

playdowns:

5th vs 6th (interdiv, crossover)

winners stay in (automatically leads to "one week more salaries btw)

and then losers of 5th vs 6th plays a three game series against the 7th of the (crossover to 5th placed) group

so 5th places still can relegate, 8th places are down nevertheless, and you have "solved" several problems at once (and 7th place is a bad spot to count on, you lose tuesdays game and you better finish 6th).

True.

And yes - you might schedule an auto scrimmage between the 7th placed teams for that case.