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You guys are lobbieing for 3 games a week with starters? Seriously?
It's all about choises. Get enough players to help you cruise through the early cup rounds. If you have 3 tough games in a week, you have to choose either cup or league success. If you want all the games, be ready to train game shape and cross your fingers. You can't have one's cake and eat it too.

I have to agree, I'm not quite sure where the tradeoff comes. As I read it, it seems like the idea is to allow for a certain number of weeks where players could play all three games, without resulting in a huge hit to gameshape after the update.

My gut feeling is with Kukoc, add more players, or train GS, or make a tradeoff between league and cup games. But if there's something more to the suggestion, perhaps running a hypothetical set of players through a few weeks under the current and proposed systems, would be helpful in illuminating exactly what the suggestion is.

I see the criticism for the offer isn't so positive, so let's take a step back and see if we agree on the problem presented.

This is as I see it in one sentence - in current system game shape has a big weight on tactical decisions, too big.

This game is great - it is challenging, its hard to master, and takes time until you start to understand how it works. that is a good thing, but sometimes the difficulties of the game has a less nice side-affects - lose of competitiveness.

Game shape does that. in the current system it is really easy to bring a player to level 7, but on the other hand level 7 is terrible when playing teams in the same strength as yours. the side affect is that usually after all-star break teams that are still in the cup, must forfeit games in order to stay there, it is "cup or league" with no room for anything in the middle - why should it be? where is the equivalence in realty?

Of-course when you try to win it all, you must pay a price, you cannot let all your stars play all of the time, but the system should allow more flexibility, maybe giving each week a rest to some of the starters, not force you to give all a rest.

a lot of you answered - tough on you - you want the cup, pay the price in the league - for a second I'll say: OK - your choice your problem. but what about the other teams in your league - these forfeits we see a lot (usually in the higher divisions) affects all the teams in the league, imagine two team fighting for position 7, each has a game left against a mid-level team that tries to go far in the cup - eventually one plays against the team, when it is still in the cup and gets a free win, while the other plays against it, a week later after the team lost in the cup and loses - this can affect which team gets relegated - that is a problem - that is not competitive sport.

So i think a new system which is a bit more subtle may solve this problem, and that one week of grinding the players wont have such devastating affect (one week only - not constant grinding)

what do say? Do you agree with the problem i presented? If so, suggestions please!

Hi Kukoc and Tangosz

I am actually against 3 games a week with starters- that would hurt competitiveness more than help it - try to read shadamher last response- he presents the problem well, as well as the entire discussion where we addressed these points.

The change we are offering would not allow a team to play her starters 3 games a week without punishment- but that the punishment will be less severe but at the same time it might hurt that team for longer (2-3 weeks instead of one).

The tradeoff is actually reducing the level that a team gets hurt per week and dividing it to a few weeks- so that you still get hurt from playing your starters in 3 games and even more if you do it constantly- but on the other hand- if you have one specific week that you want to be competitive in all 3 games- you can - and you will pay for it moderately for the next 2-3 weeks.


I will try to run the experiment you wanted Tangosz , I hope i understood what you are asking for:

Scale of GS is 1-20
changes in scale are between -3 to 3

starting season GS 7 (also debatable)
Starting player on team X:

week 1 : 75 min GS 9
week 2 : 65 min GS 12
week 3 : 75 min GS 14
week 4 : 70 min GS 17
week 5 : 115 min GS 14
week 6 : 115 min GS 11
week 7 : 70 min GS 14
week 8 : 70 min GS 17
week 9 : 70 min GS 20

Starting player on team Y:

week 1 : 75 min GS 9
week 2 : 65 min GS 12
week 3 : 75 min GS 14
week 4 : 70 min GS 17
week 5 : 75 min GS 19
week 6 : 75 min GS 20
week 7 : 90 min GS 18
week 8 : 85 min GS 17
week 9 : 70 min GS 20

as you can see in this hypothetical example- there is a punishment to extending minutes PER WEEK - it is less massive in it's effect since the scale is longer and it takes longer to improve it as well...

Last edited by TrinZ at 5/3/2012 12:24:29 PM

you can even make the decline due to over-play progressive:
if a player is over - played one week the effect is relatively small, but if he is over played a second week in a row and third and so on, every week the decline is bigger, making a one week over-play something you can handle, but not for more than that - this way teams can grind one or two players a certain week, and then let them rest the following weeks, and grind a different player - it's called rotation.

Last edited by Shadamher at 5/3/2012 9:52:09 AM

imagine two team fighting for position 7, each has a game left against a mid-level team that tries to go far in the cup - eventually one plays against the team, when it is still in the cup and gets a free win, while the other plays against it, a week later after the team lost in the cup and loses - this can affect which team gets relegated - that is a problem - that is not competitive sport.

I think you are basing your case on wrong presumption that everything has to be equal.
I'll try to keep this as short as possible as I don't want to resemble Wolph. When the season starts every team get's a schedule. At first glance, you can usually see which were good draws and which were bad (for example if you as a weaker team, draw all oposite side weaker teams away and stronger teams at home, you're schedule is already harder by random). As the season is long, there will be a lot of player movement, injuries, unlucky cup draws (and lucky cup draws), that might change that first impression of a lousy schedule.
Taking your 2 teams at 7-th spot example. What if they both play the same mid-lvl team. The first one get's a tough game and loses. The mid-lvl team secures PO or 5-th spot, decides to sell his older players for the "better before playoff market value". The second team get's a walk in a park. Or teams go bot at the time suitable for one team etc. Besides, if you are fighting for 7-th or 8-th spot, you seem to be in over your head anyway. If you have gotten there because you have made bad choises and losing league games you could have won, for cup success or played starters in 3 games a week. Then that is just bad management.
So if you have a tough week with 3 games you want to win. Sacrifice training in order to train GS or drop out of cup if you need those league wins to stay in your current division (cup cash does not make up the hit you take relegating).
The proposed GS change will make it easier for top tier teams (especially in cup, as I can't imagine lower tier teams beating higher tier teams with full lineups) + it makes the system more harder to understand for a new user.

Last edited by Kukoc at 5/3/2012 12:10:07 PM

That's helpful, and now it's easier for me to picture your proposed system.

Overall I don't find your proposal preferable, but that's because we disagree on whether there's an important problem in the first place. I like the fact that the current gameshape system forces any particular team to prioritize league games, or cup games. You can focus on the league games, at the expense of the Cup, which forces you to forgo the extra enthusiasm and cup win revenue for a chance to get a high seeding in your league. Or you can choose the other approach, go for Cup money, glory, and extra enthusiasm, but likely ending up on the road in the league playoffs.

And yes, there will be some amount of luck involved in how the opponents are affected by possible tanked games. But that is random, and changes season to season. So it doesn't have the long term effect of giving undue advantages to the top teams, while penalizing weaker teams. That's balancing between giving well managed, but weaker teams a shot to compete, while not being totally random at the expense of better teams. That's something I think that I think BB does pretty well.

Im not gonna do a pini, i said my reasoning, i hope you agree with me, if not - I KILL YOU.... (:

yes, i understood you completely - but i dont want to do a pini and start writing repetitive long threads on the subject...

told my side once - that's enough for me