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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

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.

Not quite: I gave you examples of players who are not gone to free agency (at the very least those who are still in their teams gone bot). My point is that young, high potential, high salary players are going bot while previously they weren't and this is the opposite of what the news said. Your point is that the News Announcement and the actual Free Agency policy are coherent, am I wrong? I think it's fair if I ask you or anyone else having this opinion to show us why with actual examples, because so far the only thing we have seen is examples this is not the case.

Note that I have been challenged by Marin to find more cases to back up my claim and then he would discuss if I did. Now that I found a lot more of these cases what do you expect me to do? Don't you think it's you who's being unreasonable here? I've done what your camp suggested, the ball is in your court mate.

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.

I read the wording you provided and I simply stated the obvious: that sentence refers to old players. That's not what my opinion, that was literally written in your quote. Besides, I'm not the person who justified the change based on the fact that young players "were forever lost" in the previous system am I?

Marin should have just made the announcement with honesty saying that prices and rewards for trainers are still too low and so he has restricted Free Agency across the board, being more lenient on younger talent, which he kind of did here. And to be clear I agree with spirit of the Announcement and I disagree there was a need to reduce Free Agency across the board.

Besides we're not allowed to know the details of the new policy (for example Age impact) so I keep to what we know. Since Marin keeps stressing training, I think it's fair to assume that when he says "young" he means trainable players and not simply draftees. At least between me and you can we agree that it should be this way if the focus is to support players worth training through Free Agency?

I'll ask you 2 questions:
-Reading the news announcement, do you understand that more or fewer young players will retire?
- If you think the News Announcement means a higher number of young players will retire, do you think it's clear enough?


Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 12:26:33 PM

Not quite: I gave you examples of players who are not gone to free agency (at the very least those who are still in their teams gone bot). My point is that young, high potential, high salary players are going bot while previously they weren't and this is the opposite of what the news said. Your point is that the News Announcement and the actual Free Agency policy are coherent, am I wrong? I think it's fair if I ask you or anyone else having this opinion to show us why with actual examples, because so far the only thing we have seen is examples this is not the case.

Let me quote the paragraph of the news.

The current system of Free Agency has been seriously overhauled. So far, only one criteria was used to determine whether a player will end up on the transfer market as a free agent or be retired: player salary. 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 with one that determines free agency eligibility based on a wider range of parameters like age, potential and a total skill point count, all the while making sure the cream of the crop doesn't end up retired, as the wouldn't in real life. 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. However, young players compensate their lack of skills with high potential. This will surely change the range and flavor of free agents in the market, making them more spread out over the age spectrum, evening out some price discrepancies.

Now, you see that I have bolded a section. Please note that it's referring to a set of players (young, high potential, broader range of skills) as being forever lost in the old system. Your 22 year old SG with a 33k salary would clearly not have been lost under the prior system. None of the players you posted, would, in fact, be lost in the old system. Nor does it say anywhere that the intent is to save all players of trainable age, of a certain salary or skill set. It certainly appears instead that the goal is not to save everyone under 25, or 22 with high potential, but instead to eliminate the fact that all under-20s and almost all 20 year olds would be automatically retired, no matter what potential or training they had received.

If you consider 25 or 22 young, that's great. I've trained players older than that too. But those players were not the problem being addressed here, and they are instead older than the target group that was going to be saved by the new formula with potential adding extra weighting to the TSP calculation. And if they're not in this "young" group to be saved, I guess that would necessarily make them "older" with all that entails.

I'll ask you 2 questions:
-Reading the news announcement, do you understand that more or fewer young players will retire?
- If you think the News Announcement means a higher number of young players will retire, do you think it's clear enough?

I understand that every player under the age of 20 on the old system would have retired instead of choosing free agency. With the new changes, will the retirement rate of those players be more or less than 100%?

Last edited by GM-hrudey at 5/29/2015 1:02:08 PM

Your last paragraph simply isn't completely true.

That would have been more appropriate. The Cup was changed around season 6 I believe, so that's true. Manager turnover (the number of new signups essentially) and net userbase expansion should be the main reason for deflation, therefore the general point that the current environment is fundamentally different still stands, although I agree with you part of my reasoning was incorrect.

I'm reading this (152075.1), it has 654 posts so it will take a while.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 1:05:59 PM

It certainly appears instead that the goal is not to save everyone under 25, or 22 with high potential, but instead to eliminate the fact that all under-20s and almost all 20 year olds would be automatically retired, no matter what potential or training they had received.

I agree. So your reasoning would be like this:
1) some young players with sub 25k-25k-20k-30k-35k were actually TSP monsters despite their low salary and now they will be saved. As you noted it's next to impossible for a 20yo player to exceed those salary limits
2) some young, high potential players, far above those salary thresholds were saved in the previous system irrespective of skills, these should have been fine since they are not mentioned.
I thought it is crystal clear that the news post only talks about young players falling under 1), it does not say anything anywhere about players under 2). Unless you're telling me that "old" players describes also 21-25yo players.

Old players in the game commonly refers to 33+ players. Even assuming he's referring to slightly younger players, we can agree that labelling 21-22yo HoF as "old" is not reasonable and is not what a normal user, speaking normal English, would understand from that news announcement.

So here we are. He writes more will be saved, but then the only thing we have evidence of is that many players from group 2 have been slashed. As I said, I think the intention has been all along to deceive whoever cared to read that announcement. The reality is that many players meeting the old criteria are no longer going into free agency, so, like for like, the new criteria is clearly more restrictive given the results. Marin admitted to it here above. Yes some draftee now might potentially make the cut, while he couldn't before (this is to be confirmed), but in general the number of free agents, also of young free agents, will reduce. This is what should have been written in the news post so that it was clear that Free Agency was reduced.

None of the players you posted, would, in fact, be lost in the old system.

Of course I only picked young, high potential players I was sure have been penalised by the change. That is precisely what I was trying to prove, you know.

I understand that every player under the age of 20 on the old system would have retired instead of choosing free agency. With the new changes, will the retirement rate of those players be more or less than 100%?

I see you try your best to avoid my question which is the real issue for me here (the announcement goes one way, the implementation another and no additional information is given to anybody). However unlike you, I have no problems answering a question.

The answer is I sure hope the retirement rate is less than 100% as it should be obvious from the announcement. Am I completely sure of that? No and in reality nobody knows, only Marin (presumably) does. For example if he set 70TSP/9POT for 18yo, 85TSP/9POT for 19yo, 100TSP/9POT for 20yo as thresholds, I dare say your question would be purely academic. Do you know for a fact he didn't set such limits? He won't say anything about it, as you know. So, once again, I invite you to provide evidence of young low salary players (group 1 in my first paragraph) are now being saved.

I have provided evidence that, counterintuitively, more 21-25yo players (group 2 in my first paragraph) are no longer going to free agency. This is the only fact here, together with evidence that the change has been done well before the news were posted. I know of some players who were already in bot teams (and they shouldn't have, because they met the requirements) after the draft on 28/04/2014.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 5/29/2015 2:39:48 PM