BuzzerBeater Forums

The main problem is that BBs never changed the prices of building the arena, even though the economy of the game changed drastically.

Way back during the first 15 or so seasons of BB, there was no salary floor, so one could tank in Div I with 700k+ weekly income. Even after the salary floor was introduced, it was possible to tank in DivI with 400k+ weekly income, and almost 300k in DivII. Nowdays, with the current salary floor as it is, it's difficult to even have 200k income in DivI, if one has trainees.

Because of more money in the game, players were valued more, especially trainees, so one could buy 7-8pot for cheap, and sell them for 2-3m in 4-5 seasons. Now, new managers can't make as much money on selling trainers as managers from 30-40 seasons ago were making.

Furthermore, trainers were cheaper. I remember buying a low salary lvl 5 with career extension for about 300k, and low salary lvl 6 with career extension for about 600-700k. Today, prices for such trainers are about 2x as much. Back during seasons 15-25, a vast majority of managers didn't have their arena built, so a lot of the income in the game went into arena development. Now, most managers do have their arena built, so a bigger % of managers is buying trainers than before.

Much has changed in BB over time, but the prices for building the arena remained the same.

Even someone as experienced as me is having trouble building the arena in Utopia (I started in s49), while I had no trouble building the arena when I started the game with my main team in season 15.

In general, the way BB is now, it's much more difficult for new managers, and much less fun.

Utopia arena should definitely be larger - it starts smaller than a main arena and you don't get the extra bonus payments a new main team gets. As an experienced manager it's annoying to buy a second team and then have to waste several seasons tanking and building the arena before you can even get started.

For main teams I would remove the extra bonus payments and give them a larger arena instead. It would reduce the amount they waste in the transfer market and allocate it to something beneficial. It's good to have enough to buy a few trainees, but there's no need for new teams to be able to spend $200-300k on players that are useless for them. It's bad for their team, and bad for the game as it encourages dodgy transfers. There's plenty for a brand new manager to learn and experiment with even with the starting squad (plus some cheap trainees). By the time they have a grasp of the game they'll have enough saved to start investing in their squad if they choose.

If you wanted to refund current teams the difference, then maybe a decreasing percentage depending on how long the team has been running. For example if new teams start with $1m extra in arena improvement, then give a team one season old $900k, two seasons old $800k, and so on. (change the exact figures as you prefer). I'd give it as real cash, it can be spread out in several payments if you don't want to create a temporary transfer boom.

I'm probably in the minority but I enjoyed building the arena starting out (on my main team, not Utopia). I guess because it feels like you're building something from scratch, and it's clear tangible progress. But a slightly larger starting arena doesn't take away from that. Another alternative is to discount the first part, e.g your first 2k bleachers only cost $40 instead of $200 and so on. That's probably unnecessarily complicated though.

Just to understand:
Do you propose to remove all the "difficult" and "boring" parts of a game because no one is enthusiastic about playing them?
So why don't we make all players 15/15 HN / DR? I think no one is excited to train 1vs1 wings for 1/2 seasons of play to have the advantage of using the rubber bands .. so why not give them now?

You also propose to convert some money (those that users have invested in the arena in the past seasons, not counting the time lost) with some scout points .. when probably the draft is one of the least merit-based things that exists in the game? It sounds a lot like "let's give them a sop so they can't complain" ..

I would also like to point out that for several seasons they have been making moves to the advantage of new users, because poor things you have to keep them under a glass bell otherwise they get cold and run away ..
First the "players with the star" were included in the rosters once the apprenticeship period was completed, then all the new players were moved to compete with each other in order to steal promotion seats (with relative revenues and not expenses) to others teams from the same nation and division ..
They do not pay the minimum wage threshold (I would like to investigate how many "new users" of Utopia make the most of these first seasons to accumulate as much money as possible) ..

Now we're giving him a second division arena.

And the question I ask myself is .. has anyone ever bothered to see if these ingenious moves have actually enticed some users to stay?
Because otherwise here's another thing that I don't think anyone likes in a game .. changes that don't bring any advantage to the game itself .. but changes just for the sake of it ..

As someone who has left and come back three or four times since season 11, I personally wouldn't want it to change. I've seen a good many additions and changes with each time I've come back to the game, and every time, there are things I like and things I think in my head, "why?"

I may be addressing the wrong end of the issue here with the suggestions to improve building rather than eliminating it, but here are my ideas:
1. Speed up the build process, and eliminate the randomness element of it. I do enjoy waiting to see if my "completed in 2 days" project will be ready in time for my league game in two days or not, but knowing that it will be allows me to place an order that I'm confident the seats will be ready in time. Also, I propose an increased rate of 33% (i.e. What was once a "6 days" project would now be "4 days", 7->5, 10->7, etc.)

2. Rather than giving new players a free arena, let players build as they will. Financially, learning how to make money and be competitive is part of the game. I'm managing just fine, I see several others in my division are picking up on it, and the ones that aren't are the folks that registered and disappeared. They'll reset again soon enough. However, if you're concerned about players choosing to be competitive early and not having an arena capable of sustaining it at all, here are a few options:

3. The $50,000 weekly bonus for new players can be made into an arena upgrade voucher for $50,000 in free construction. It is not a lot of seats, but if it can only be used for that purpose, that's at least a good cheering section each week being added on, or wasted.

4. Implement an "Arena Size Floor". Roughly what I'm picturing is that, when a player starts, said player receives a roughly 6k capacity arena. Set a size floor for each division wherein it can be described that "In higher divisions, more fans are taking notice and becoming excited about your team, and about the team's you're facing! Make sure your arena can support that increase!" Basically, if the arena is below the Size Floor and there aren't additions being added, slowly even what's there will stop selling out because too many fans will be left standing outside the arena angry that they can't come in to watch the game and those last few fans will start to worry they won't get seats either, and thus start to leave before they can buy tickets or come inside. And it becomes gradual up to maybe a 20% current capacity range. The floor would work as follows:
Starting Division: new arena
Starting Division +1: 8500 seats
Starting Division +2: 11000 seats
Starting Division +3: 13500 seats
Starting Division +4: 16000 seats

That way it becomes based not on the Division you're in, but on where teams in your country are starting. It seems completely unfair to require 16000 seats for a D1 team that started the previous season in D2 in an unpopulated country.

Probably needs a lot of refining or work to implement, but it's an idea; regardless of that idea, I do quite like the "arena voucher" idea as opposed to free cash.

I remembered reading posts in which it was said that it existed, I asked a user who has recently activated the Utopian team and he confirmed that it exists and lasts more than a season.
But mainly we were talking about newbies, so for them there is definitely.

Every time someone brings up an idea to speed up the progress for new managers, there are old managers like you who urge for such a change not to happen.

“It's not boring.”
“BB was always slow.”
etc.

Always the same excuses. But nobody bothers to mention that BB was a much faster and forgiving game when WE started playing it. It's like the old managers don't want competition, and are stopping any change that could help new managers reach our level faster.