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No that is all understood and the basis for the arguments in this thread and the training options thread.

The most vocal managers are often the ones that think very deeply about how to continously improve and optimize their wages/performance/training etc

I guess also we are questioning ourselves (whilst trying to get some affirmative response) from you (BB's) to see if our deep thinking is actually going in the right direction.. (as the deeper you go offsite the more difficult it is to get back on track!)

I have a picture as to a) how I want my team to play and b) what players I need to buy/build to execute that plan.

Rightly or wrongly this involves me wanting to know more about potential (as we all do) and I want to know if and if so when we can be allowed more creative freedom with the training of our players.

Now if Im wrong in my approach to training or players that fit the mold of an 'ideal' team then I will slowly fall back in progress terms... i just want the ability to keep trying to inch ahead over my peers with correct decisions.

Last edited by Superfly Guy at 5/11/2008 10:33:45 PM

I don't see why you have to be penalized for having an all 'round player though. It's like there's been a sudden flip on the whole "well balanced" thing and BBs have decided the focus should now be on specialised players only.

If this is correct, it's a big step backwards in my opinion.

i'm confused... how does the potential system penalize all around players?

the game engine hasnt' changed.. so single skill players are going to be just an ineffective as they were before.

Well from what i've read here (and as i've said, please correct me if i'm wrong) but it seems like the potential system is designed as a salary cap sort of system instead of a skills cap system.

For example, a 'starter' might be able to get to 10k salary and with those skills you could either go for a few main skills and mostly bad skills or go for an all 'round player that doesn't really have any weaknesses but one that isn't really strong in any fields either.

A Center player with prolific IS/ID/Reb is going to perform better than a Center with respectable IS/ID/Reb/SB/Handling/Passing/OD for example and so the well rounded player is penalised for working on his complete game instead of a specialised skillset.
Granted, the well rounded player in this example will suffer fewer turnovers and a couple of things like that but overall the specialised center will perform better.

Again, if my interpretation of this potential system is incorrect then i'm more than happy to be corrected or if there's something else i'm missing then please let me know but otherwise .....i'm a bit skeptical of the new potential system at the moment.

I really don't understand the point of this post, but the MVP from season 3 was indeed the best player in the league that season. I agree completely that a player's listed position is unimportant, if that is what the second part of your post meant.

Another thing about having players without any super high level skills ( prolific and above) but a quantity of average skills (respectable - prominent) is their salaries are lower.

The last thing is that most of the time it appears the "most vocal" managers are the ones that are complaining and/or want to be spoon fed information.

well.. as i see it the point you made isn't really a function of the potential system... because if having an all around game wasn't really a good idea before potential is still isn't.

you already had a limited set of points to assign to a player, it was simply dictated by the amount of time you have to train that player. So you were already forced to make a choice between an all around player and a player really good in one category. We hope that we have designed the game engine to be such that players have to be good in more than one way... and even if a team is really good in 3 areas can be defeated by a team which exploits the few areas they are weak in... and in this way make these sorts of tradeoffs a more interesting challenge.

adding potential perhaps makes the problem a bit clearer to you that you have to make this tradeoff... but you had to make it before potential too.

what potential does do is enforce that there be a spectrum of player skills, and limits the number of absolute top tier players that can exist in the universe to be a proportion of the total players. In this way we hope to have a manageable supply that makes these players a rare resource even for top teams.

what potential does do is enforce that there be a spectrum of player skills, and limits the number of absolute top tier players that can exist in the universe to be a proportion of the total players. In this way we hope to have a manageable supply that makes these players a rare resource even for top teams.

this somehow contradicts the free agents.
Free Agents where put on the market because otherwise it would take to long for enough players to be very good players.
Now you tell there should not be too many realy good players...

Either way is fine for me, but does this mean that BB will not release any Free agents any more (unless they are NT -players ofcourse)?
I think it would be better for the active teams that there are no free Agents any more, this way they have more chance of selling off their average players instead of having to fire them.

These two do not necessarily contradict each other. One assures that most top players get listed when their teams disappear. The other creates a pyramid structure for player skills, where there aren't too many players that are extremely skilled. These are more like the two sides of the same coin.

yes, but if it wasn't for the first, the second wasn't nessecary ?

If they do not release free agents, potential isn't realy needed because fewer players will be able to grow real tall...

See what I mean?

Now with the potential, they might need to release free Agents to be able to get 'some' real good players.
;)

I wonder if they will release free agents if they have a Potential below 'Star' if their salary is high enough, because they will not do what the Free Agents-thing was supposed to do anyway.

yes, but if it wasn't for the first, the second wasn't nessecary ?

Not true.

The fact that players disappear does not dictate anything about the distribution of player skills.

Imagine the game had only 10 players. Without potential, all of them could be trained to an all-time great level. Imagine this happens. Then no matter how many players get released, the whole 'field' still contains only all-time great level players.

With potential, you have maybe 1 all-time greats, 2 MVPs, 3 stars and 4 role-players, figuratively speaking. If they're all trained to the maximum, the game will prevent the best players, but since this particular level of potential comes about rarely the situation is controlled much better, because the game generates much more low-potential guys. So it's a natural pyramid.

Last edited by GM-kozlodoev at 5/12/2008 1:09:26 PM

well.. no because we only release the top level players releasing free agents does flatten the distribution to some extent. However, I think releasing free agents is still a good idea in that it gives us a handle on supply and demand that we can manipulate instantaneously as opposed to player creation which would really take a long time to have an effect. I think of it like the Fed with interest rates... in order to help guide the economy we need instruments like that. Now I don't think we (or the Fed for that matter) always knows what the right approach to twisting the handle is.. but I don't think having potential means we should abolish free agents even if they do act in opposition to some extent. After all the number of free agents is smaller than the number of players in the game so it can't wash out the effect of potential all together.