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Add me to the list of people who like the "idea" of the new system (especially introducing staffs with various specialties), but totally dislike the implementation. Most of the criticisms of it in this thread have been spot-on, and the defenses/responses given by the GM's/BB's have been pretty hollow.

It's both unrealistic and stupid that staff salaries go up while staff performance remains the same. All that does is leave a player with two choices: continue to pay higher and higher salaries for ZERO increase in performance, or else fire your current coach and pay ridiculous auction fees for staff that gives you zero increase in performance. LOL what a choice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I signed up in this game because I was interested in basketball. I don't have much interest in micro-managing weekly fluctuations in staff salaries. Ugh. Why would anyone think this is interesting?!? Fun? Honestly (really, I mean this), do the creators of this game expect that we are supposed to find this fun? That we're going to sign on each day going, "Wow, my doctor and my trainer are now demanding ridiculously overinflated salaries, hey you know what, I bet it would be a blast if I went to the staff auction and poured through fifteen pages of staff listings to try to find a staff member who might be able to provide me with the same level of performance, without paying an overpriced salary or a ridiculous auction fee!!!"

I also want to say that this seems like development time that was poorly invested. As others have pointed out, the actual level of *basketball* strategy in this game is pretty minimal. Pathetically minimal, actually. There are, what, about a half dozen offensive tactics options, and maybe an equal number of defensive ones. That's it. I would think the game would benefit by GREATLY expanding the BASKETBALL part of the game, rather than introducing tedium and frustration in forcing players to attempt to constantly monitor dozens of staff member listings so that they can figure out if it's worth it to auction $300k in order to grab a lvl 3 trainer asking $9k a week versus staying with their current lvl 3 trainer who's asking $11.5k a week, and breaking down the rate of salary increase for each based on their current salary and thus calculating the exact optimal time to make a staff chance based on percentage salary increases per week versus current market fluctuations in auction values for staff members of various levels.

Bleh. No thank you.

And just so the devs don't think I'm just whining without contributing anything positive, here are some of the basketball strategy things that could be added:

* a momentum system in-game (influenced, perhaps, by home court advantage)
* a "hot hand" system where players who make several good plays in a row get a temporary boost (and also, tactical settings for how much to "force" the ball to a player with a hot hand)
* special 4th quarter strategies when up/down by a little/lot
* implementation of "big plays" (alley-oop dunks, etc.), perhaps linked to the aforementioned momentum system
* implementation of actual coaches (of all staff, this would be the only one truly interesting) who have differing strengths/weaknesses (in-game strategy, recruiting, team motivation, end-of-game scenarios, etc.)
* implementation of player "special abilities" or "special traits" (similar to Hattrick's "Specialities" like Quick, Powerful, Unpredicatable, etc.)
* some meaningful implementation of team chemistry

Those are just a few things I could think of off the top of my head. Any of which, IMO, make the game a lot more interesting than paying more and more money each week just to keep the same crappy staff members I already have, all of whom obviously must be mentally retarded since they never get one bit better at the job they do, no matter how long they do it.

a "hot hand" system where players who make several good plays in a row get a temporary boost

Already implemented.

But not to the degree that when setting tactics for a game, I can't *choose* how much my other players force (or don't force) the ball into the hands of the guy with the hot hand. I can't adjust telling them to pass up an open shot (they would normally take) in order to get the ball to that other guy.

So while the basic mechanic might be in the game, it doesn't "add" anything at all to me as a player...it doesn't add any complexity or any strategy to the choices I need to make. THAT's my point. That this game as it stands now essentially forces us to spend a lot of time thinking about things *other* than basketball strategy, and almost no time thinking about actual basketball tactics.

Is your opponent's strength his inside game? Then you have one (maybe two) choices for your D. Is his strength his outside game? Then you have one (maybe two) choices for your D. Same thing is true when you have the ball. That's all there is to the "strategy" of this game, at least when it comes to basketball. The entire rest of this game is a simulation of stock-market-like economics of buying, training, & reselling players (and, now, staff--at least the buying part).

Give us more basketball. Please.

Last edited by J-Pop at 10/14/2008 1:05:20 AM

It's both unrealistic and stupid that staff salaries go up while staff performance remains the same. All that does is leave a player with two choices: continue to pay higher and higher salaries for ZERO increase in performance, or else fire your current coach and pay ridiculous auction fees for staff that gives you zero increase in performance. LOL what a choice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In the old system performance went down and the salary remained the same. So essentialy there is no differance there. And in the old system you just had to do with whatever came around. If your 25k trainer had dropped to lvl 8 and all your choices
where lvl3 to lvl6 replacements: tough luck!

But not to the degree that when setting tactics for a game, I can't *choose* how much my other players force (or don't force) the ball into the hands of the guy with the hot hand. I can't adjust telling them to pass up an open shot (they would normally take) in order to get the ball to that other guy.

So while the basic mechanic might be in the game, it doesn't "add" anything at all to me as a player...it doesn't add any complexity or any strategy to the choices I need to make. THAT's my point. That this game as it stands now essentially forces us to spend a lot of time thinking about things *other* than basketball strategy, and almost no time thinking about actual basketball tactics.

Is your opponent's strength his inside game? Then you have one (maybe two) choices for your D. Is his strength his outside game? Then you have one (maybe two) choices for your D. Same thing is true when you have the ball. That's all there is to the "strategy" of this game, at least when it comes to basketball. The entire rest of this game is a simulation of stock-market-like economics of buying, training, & reselling players (and, now, staff--at least the buying part).

Give us more basketball. Please.

The reason why you can't set this is because players will always take the shot they think is best, and whether a player is hot or not is already factored in shot quality. I am sure you're dying to be able to have _more_ ways to tell your players to take inferior shots, but you should just have to go without that.

I am not a fan of micromanagement. I don't want to have to set how tightly player X ties his shoelaces. 'More basketball' can be found by picking up a ball and going to the playground. More detail in an online management game is not necessarily a good thing.

I'm one of those who are against rising importance of financial aspect, and one of those who wants more basketball in basketball manager, but nevertheless, your statement is absolutely true and points in the only right direction...

'More basketball' can be found by picking up a ball and going to the playground

P.S. I know that there are people who aren't able to do that from various reasons, so please don't be offended by my expression

My leg is broken (:D)

Well competition in a highest leagues shouldn't be only about cash ballance. If it is starting to be by this way, it starts wrong

Last edited by Iordanou at 10/14/2008 3:23:15 AM

I totally agree with you.
In critics and in proposals.

In the old system performance went down and the salary remained the same. So essentialy there is no differance there.

I agree that the old system had the flow that you had to wait until a specialist fitting for you show up.
But you really can't say that this system is the same, the new system is way long worst, because now I had to pay to fire the overpayed specialist and to rebuy another, of the same level, at prices that I still see very high.

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Incorrect.

In the old system, I simply replaced the old staff with the new one and paid a severance fee. Now on top of that, I have to pay a big transfer fee. There is a difference, and a big one at that.


JPop encapsulates the sentiments of the community exactly. The explanations by the GMs (Who perhaps feel they are responsible in defending the new changes) are hollow to say the least. Saying you have to go down to the basketball court for more basketball is turning a convenient blind eye to the fact that the game CAN be improved.

You guys find financial management interesting? Ask the developers to come up with WallStreet.org or something similar. I spend my day crunching numbers in a financial institution and believe me, it's no fun.

Minimize the financial aspect of the game. Take it out of the players hands even. Players manage the team and buy players based on a set budget given to them based on the club's previous season performance. Daily debit and credit will be left to the club accountant. Expand more on tactics and player variance.

Listen to us. We are the fans. We are the players. We're not blinbdly taking out the whacking stick on all and sundry, we're giving out views and new ideas and where we would like the game to go. The worse thing you can do now is get the GMs to come and attempt to justify some changes and swim against the current.

Honestly. All this talk about huge transfer fees is rediclous and pre-mature to say the least. Of course the fees are large at the moment (new toy etc) but we cant say how large they will be in the long run at all. I guarentee just a fraction of the ones at the moment and i would definatley say that most of them will be smaller than the previous 1 weeks wages we had to pay.

Patience is a virtue and complaining about the transfer fees after 4 days is severe impatience.