BuzzerBeater Forums

I really like Lemonshine's analysis during this thread. Lemonshine makes a great observation here that because of the way this game is played, there will always be a shortage of good, trained players on the market. This then manifests into player market, economy, and competitive disparity problems which are daunting for new managers to overcome and hurt the game's adoption rate.

Because of the nature of this game, there is emergent behavior that results in the amount of skilled players to dwindle over time. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's something the developers will have to manage as time goes on. They will have to ensure some sort of balance is kept between the market and the number of managers playing.

In the past, I feel like alterations to the game have been bandaid fixes aimed at fixing symptoms of the problem, which haven't always helped. In solving a complex problem, it is imperative that we correctly identify the root cause before we get into solutions. Thus, I think it is so very important to point out that I feel Lemonshine is onto something here and has expressed through various examples that this will be an ongoing fact of the game.

I wholeheartedly believe addressing this problem will also help address many of the other pain points I have seen other managers express.

Last edited by Procta at 8/8/2017 8:26:32 PM

Dang times change, huh?

I just hope that prices drop a bit and stagnate at a fair balance in the near future. Whether it's done one way or another doesn't really matter to me, as long as it's done.

Shortsighted? People who listened understood. The result is falling skill level across the game because that's what we can produce. If you don't see a problem with players average level getting better and better until it started declining (and it probably still is declining) then probably you are shortsighted.

When a user sees he can't afford the same players he once could, will usually be pissed, he becomes upset that the devs do nothing about it and eventually it contributes to him quitting. Sure we're all in the same boat, but the boat is sinking.

Why would you want that salary problem again, players fired because they make too much money?

Obviously to help new users. Have you read anything in this thread, like, for example, the first post?



Last edited by Lemonshine at 8/10/2017 8:05:47 AM

The problem is not just sinking skill levels, players got more expensive relative to the average skill level as well, mainly due to higher demand from Utopia.

Which is...what I said? Because skills are sinking you have to pay more for the same skillset of course. I think I was always very clear that the limitations of the training system, 1k new teams over a few days and zero Free Agency were responsible for the beginning of inflation. So I don't understand where you're coming from, but obviously I agree.

Just because people listen and understand, doesn't mean they can't disagree.

Look, skill dropping leads to 2 things: higher prices and worse average team level. They are 2 sides of the same coin.

The first affects (mostly) new users (which is what this whole thread is about), the second affects old users.

Your "training is the only solution"-approach will mean average skill levels rise, but average divison 2 players will still cost the same, just that this average skill level is higher. This offers no particular help for new users to catch up at all.

If you go look for my rows with Marin over Free Agency you will see that I asked that instead of almost shutting down FA, I did ask that he lowered the requirements, the exact opposite. So no, training has never been the only solution for me.

PROBLEM: there is a shortage of players, due to a number of reasons, but mostly because as a whole we cannot create the number of players we were used to 10-15 seasons ago. The level back then was artificially high and it was made possible by 2 things happening simultaneously:
a) thousands of users quitting or being banned. Note that Wolph was right when he said that many farm teams were multiaccount and, when banned, their players shouldn't have gone into FA. A banned team is more likely to have trained players than one that quits. There was a guy on forums who came back to BB and said he had been previously banned for having 20 teams as he really liked training;
b) FA! So many of the players of those users got recycled into the economy. FA back then had only salary requirements and all players with over 20k-35k salary depending on position were always going to the market.

SOLUTIONS:
1) Let it run its course (do nothing). Teams will get worse and the same players will permanently cost more. In 10 seasons, if the game is still alive, probably few people will remember the pre-Utopia economic environment. I have a feeling that the economic measures taken to reduce bank accounts and profits suggest this is not an acceptable solution for those in charge because it hurts user retention.
2) Increase FA. Problem here is that the user turnover is much lower now. There are quite a lot of FA on the market and the FA policy is very loose now, but there simply aren't that many teams quitting with trained, valuable players.
3) Create players out of thin air or unretire players (this was requested too)
4) Make some changes to training so that we are able to create some more players one way or another

I think 4 is preferable to 3, for reasons I have already outlined. 15 seasons ago most of the wealth in the game was mostly arena seats and bank accounts. Now most of the wealth is in players, the richest people in this game are the ones with the most valuable roster. These people can sell players (making millions, for each player) and replace them, provided they can run a weekly profit, they can go on and on and on.

So whenever you leave things to the Transfer List people with more money (players or bank account) will always have an advantage. Now, if we had daytrading and no sale restrictions, it would be different because you could work to increase your bank account faster.

Training, on the other hand, is hard to do while competing, therefore if you boost it you will help people in lower divisions and/or not competing and you will address (over time) the problem of skill decline.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 8/10/2017 10:10:33 AM

...
SOLUTIONS:
...
3) Create players out of thin air or unretire (this has been asked too) players
4) Make some changes to training so that we are able to create some more players one way or another

I think 4 is preferable to 3, for reasons I have already expressed.

I concur that 4 is by far preferable to 3. Creating more players out of thin air is basically asking BB to micromanage the player pool, while 4 is giving users the agency to influence the pool themselves. Of course, they can do so now, but only to an extent. I don't expect many people would suggest that the amount of players in the game suitable for newer teams or mid-level teams and who are significantly under 33 is sufficient, nor does it really seem like there's significant incentive for teams to create them (as, otherwise, they would be).

Man, this limit to characters really bugs me, especially in the BB-mail. I think I will buy supporter soon just to stop this.

I just want to add that 1) option is also viable, but it needs to be managed and properly explained from the top. Expectations need to be managed.