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it doesn't make any sense to run a team at a profit... i mean if you are talking about long term profit. You should be spending every cent you have in the long run. Sure you want your weekly operating income to be net positive, but you are just saving to spend it on something else later. Its not like you are getting some benefit from having money in the bank, you can't cash it out of the game, you can't pass it on to your grandkids.

Conversely it makes no sense to be running your team at a loss.. there is no investors going to bail you out, there is no loan you can take on. This argument that everyone in a top division is going to be forced to lose money to compete is simply fallacious... everyone can't be losing money, its not a good strategy in the long term... a team with a better more financially conservative strategy will beat you. Though it is true we don't want the best players to be unaffordable, cause that is sort of silly.. and that's the reason for the new salary changes.

All that really matters is that
1.Everyone can compete if they plan well on the level they currently are playing at.
2.There are advantageous to being in higher divisions to offset the increased competition people will face.
3.That it is possible for a team once promoted to a higher division to compete once they too are receiving these advantageous. This is one of the reasons behind the arenas changes.

I actually had a hard time to understand what are you reply to and have to search my post. Since iknow what you were replying to:

I wouldn't say that a team which is trying to win BBB (last year finalist) is runnning team for a profit, period. I can't see why he shouldn't have just players with sane and efficient impact : cost ratio - shich is what he is exactly doing and it is obvious that he is doing it well.

The point of my post was that it is simply not true that DIV 1 teams will be forced not to have best players lor to lose money. Pretty much what you said in the second article. Except I think that it may not be a bad thing if championship (Div 1) contenders would even lose some money if they wouldn't have build their team carefully. Simply to make closing the gap a bit easier for newcomers.


3) I don't think you chose the right way really. They just lost one way how to spend their money (or even get some from destroying the extra seats) and have them free to get another edge ovet those who didn't finished building arenas yet. Part of that will be flush out in near future but the wise ones could get long term advantage because they have money now to get the right impact/salary players or the best draftees of their nations.

Better way would be faciliating the life of teams in lower divisions. As a new Div 1 team I can tell (and it is pretty much a consenzus as much as I know) the difference between Div 1 and Div 2 is too big. It may simulate reality but I would say it is nto a desitrable feature. Also the promotion bonuses, cup income and surely starting money for new teams are too rigid and maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to bound them the new "players organization" salary formulas, market prices or something to reflect current state of economy to ease start for teams who happen to join during inflation times.

i agree.. massive inflation is bad... we would like to avoid it.

this is why we now have mechanisms to tune the income to the expenses, so the total amount of money is better regulated in the game.

by unaffordable i meant in terms of salary.. in terms of transfer prices i agree with you.

1 million is surely not the only difference between first and second division.

pardon i think that i replied to you, in part simply because you mentioned making a profit, but really I was replying more general to some of the reasoning i saw in this thread.

as far as whether the gap is too big, we are monitoring the percentage of teams which promote and then immediately demote. I think its fair to say that is an important measure of the gap. Certainly you will agree that being in the top division for two seasons is probably enough to equalize out any advantage being there before gives.

I'd ask the community to think about what that percentage should be. For reference, remember 4/16=25% of teams demote every season, and so a guess of 25% would mean that newly promoted teams were just as likely as the average D1 team to demote. I would posit that the ideal percentage should be higher than that... but how much higher is an open question.. what do you think?

Thanks Forrest ;)

Only few words about the monsters; if they can be affordable they will still have a market, let them free to cost 1m/week no one will miss them.

About 1m I understood what you mean but if you want to survive in first division you must be competitive since the beginning and you can't do that with 1m.

Anyway you've got all the points, thanks once again ;)

. As a new Div 1 team I can tell (and it is pretty much a consenzus as much as I know) the difference between Div 1 and Div 2 is too big.

This doesn't have to be true. I certainly isn't in Holland, and I think we can compare Holland with Ceska, both medium sized countries.

Almost every season we got one or more teams promoted from D2 reaching playoffs immidiately. It even happened two seasons a promoted team made the playoff finals. This season we again got a team that promoted, and got a good chance to compete, reach playoffs, maybe even finals.

I might be in some countries, but it certainly isn't everywhere.

Another good thing to monitor could be how many of demoted teams returns back next year and/or within two years i.e. the other side of the change. Because as Crazy Eye mentioned Div 1 teams don't see many new faces. Similar situation fro lower levels depending on how big particualt country is, how long the country exist in BB and how dense competiton pyramid has been created.

Certainly you will agree that being in the top division for two seasons is probably enough to equalize out any advantage being there before gives.

It depends on conference.

First things first - diclaimer: you can see how i am doing so i should clarify I'm not complaining; I have got there pretty early after playing 4 real seasons naturally not having a team as well builded as others, older teams have;I got unlucky and became the only rookie team in a tougher conference, where the rest 7 teams would be all top 10 in my country (including BBB finalist) - so be it, those things happen.

Now to the nitty gritty. To equalize? With good management and bit of a luck maybe. Any advantage? I doubt that. The period needed to catch up with other teams on the next level is becoming naturally longer - i.e. it is different to get into Div 1 the second or third year of its existence or now. There are of course teams you can catch up with quite easier and then there are powerhouses. Catch up with them won't be any easy, depending on country specifics it could be managable to quite impossible. In Div 1 you usually have not only better rosters but better managing managers too and that is the difference. I guess you meant average team of that divison - I can't tell yet. One big factor is how ready you were to promote - whether you were a clear winner of your league, a dominating hegemon or just oen of the bunch of above average teams or a dark horse. Injuries to key players, running into good team in rebulding mode and other events are often big factors and luck is usually involved. In addition play off engiune can be pretty random as I learned in my very first play offs. All I can say is that although I stayed in Div 2 3 seasons (from promotion to promotion) that such a scenario is not widely typical and I got lucky, took my chance albeit there were teams with better rosters on paper (when healthy).

I think that the question of how long a newly promoted team needs to catch up to become ... (slightly above average?) would be an interesting topic for a discussion - at least from the how-users-perceive-that point of view.

. As a new Div 1 team I can tell (and it is pretty much a consenzus as much as I know) the difference between Div 1 and Div 2 is too big.

This doesn't have to be true. I certainly isn't in Holland, and I think we can compare Holland with Ceska, both medium sized countries.

Very roughly. Albeit simillar in start (season 2 and 3 respectively) in Czech Republic (Česká is just and adjective not a name of anything) we have confernece winners of world rank 3 (B3 finalist last year; semifinalist Season 8) and 43 (B3 semifinalist Season 9). You have 63 and 65(or playoff finalist 113) and winner of the tournament is 82 of the world rankning. I admitt the conditions here are kind of unique but I was just explaining myp oint that those two countries are pretty much nothing alike. The compatition toughness though should be a czech specific.

Almost every season we got one or more teams promoted from D2 reaching playoffs immidiately. It even happened two seasons a promoted team made the playoff finals. This season we again got a team that promoted, and got a good chance to compete, reach playoffs, maybe even finals.

That scenario is I guess quite unique to your league for some reason, never heard of similar pattern actually.I checked and last time that happened was Season 7. Reaching finals is out of question. It is pretty much out of question for regular teams too not only for new teams. In Big 8 there are actually 6 teams occupying first six places since Season 7. Nothing against it just saying.

I might be in some countries, but it certainly isn't everywhere.

I actually wanted to mention Crazy Eye stating the similar but forgot to include that. Of course it doesn't have to be like this everywhere but to my understanding it is a situation which teams are or (in smaller/newer countries) will be facing in the majority of countries.

Very roughly. Albeit simillar in start (season 2 and 3 respectively) in Czech Republic (Česká is just and adjective not a name of anything) we have confernece winners of world rank 3 (B3 finalist last year; semifinalist Season 8) and 43 (B3 semifinalist Season 9). You have 63 and 65(or playoff finalist 113) and winner of the tournament is 82 of the world rankning. I admitt the conditions here are kind of unique but I was just explaining myp oint that those two countries are pretty much nothing alike. The compatition toughness though should be a czech specific.

That's only because both Riceball and Icecream Deluxe got a bit of bad luck with selling at low prices just before the huge inflation and/or less interest in the game the last few seasons. If you looked a few seasons ago they were both at the top. F.e Icecream Deluxe was in the B3 semi finals in season 7 and in the final few rounds in S8 and S9.

So you theory might apply for this season, but certainly doesn't for all past seasons, where teams from D2 still managed to get into playoffs.

Actually if I compare the match results of this week, with the Holland ones of this week, I think Holland is at least even (and probably even stronger) than your league. Yes, your top 3/4 teams are very strong, but the ones below that top 4 are not that strong and leaves a lot of room for D2 teams to join them.

Last edited by BB-Patrick at 1/2/2010 7:34:24 PM

Actually if I compare the match results of this week, with the Holland ones of this week, I think Holland is at least even (and probably even stronger) than your league. Yes, your top 3/4 teams are very strong, but the ones below that top 4 are not that strong and leaves a lot of room for D2 teams to join them.

Based on? Seriously I would like to know. (salary payroll, rank,...)?

Based on rank f.e. We got 8 teams in the top 250 of the world, while the D1 of Ceska Rep. got 3 teams in the top 250 of the world. Also most of the teams in D1 in Holland show higher team ratings than the teams in Ceska Rep. for what it's worth.

As I said, the best few teams in your league are top of the world, but below those few teams there is just a gap. That's different than a league with let's say 12 equally skilled teams, where it should be way harder to stay for D2 teams.

Last edited by BB-Patrick at 1/2/2010 7:58:02 PM

For reference, remember 4/16=25% of teams demote every season, and so a guess of 25% would mean that newly promoted teams were just as likely as the average D1 team to demote. I would posit that the ideal percentage should be higher than that... but how much higher is an open question.. what do you think?

I don't think that (using BB-Charles terminology) there should be any programmer's intervention to alter this percentage: the best teams win and the best teams stay in the division or they are promoted. I just demoted because I was the worst team in my conference (that, by the way, was way stronger than the other, but that's another story, although a relevant one). Demotion should not be a dramatic event: the manager just made an experience of what it means to play in a higher division and should have a clear idea on how to improve his/her own team to get back and stay there.

My point is that a demoted team is being overly punished for trying to make it to a higher division, because the programmer's intervention on demoted team is simply excessive:
- fans are reduced to one half or even less; their satisfaction in the new season will never be 5 balls simply because of the last season; they will increase but I seriously doubt I will be able to exploit the size of my arena (that was moderately expanded to exploit the opportunity of being a higher division);
- if it's not the end of the month you don't have the opportunity to lower ticket prices, which further increases the fans problem: they are unhappy and they have to pay prices that would be reasonable only for a higher division;
- merchandising does not only drop on the first week in the lower division, but even in the second week after a row of 4 wins, one of which against my rival team (please note that I did not dismantle my team: in overall my salaries have increased slightly); we'll see if this week the drop will stop after 7 wins in a row.

All the above means of income reduction (I didn't mention TV rights) are reasonable in their motivation, I just say that they are excessive when aggregated. While fans of a team that is going to demote are easily calmed by a win or two, when you are demoted they simply disappear and they do not come back just as quickly. In this way demotion becomes a nightmare since it is extremely hard to keep a competitive team while not being at a constant loss.

I think that you should gather another information about users' behaviour: how many of them leave the game after a demotion?