BuzzerBeater Forums

I wanted to ask Nik0 if he's in a similar situation to me or E.B.W. or can offer a different perspective on how the current market affects him. He's the third capable manager and GM after Manon (no longer GM unfortunately) and hrudey, who has intentionally demoted in the last couple of seasons and is in the process of rebuilding. Perhaps it's linked to the current economic environment, perhaps not and it's just a coincidence, perhaps they anticipated further changes or think the price of good trainees will go up much further than today. It would be great to know their perspective, if they want to share.

I haven't intentionally demoted yet - I failed to promote yet again last season, but I've never finished below 5th with either my primary or Utopia team, though that obviously is going to change when this season ends.

And in my case, it has nothing to do with the training/economy environment and everything to do with my players. My main core of players simply started to get too old and I knew that I could possibly ride them maybe another season and have one more shot at promoting, but I was already getting skill drops on Menard and Wray was going to have some this season as well. The whole core of my team was having a deep bench with guys that I felt could play legitimate backup minutes at the highest level supported by starters at big men that I created and the guards that I had purchased to round things out. When those guards hit 33 (some last season) and I started already losing some skills, I knew it was pretty much the end of times for this team. Either I was promoting last season, giving the NBBA one legitimate season, and demoting, or failing and starting the process a season earlier, since I was not going to be a guy who was going to promote knowing full well he wasn't going to compete the next season.

The sad thing is I still haven't figured out entirely what I want to do. I've actually thought about maybe trying to create an isolation team to see if I can make that work, or maybe actually start out aiming toward a full-on outside team rather than deciding on that halfway through the process. But instead I just sort of sputtered around below the salary floor until I found a guy that had godawful OD so I could at least feel like I was doing something by rectifying that, and I suppose I'll see if the draft has anything for me.

So in my case, the economy is in no way a factor in what I'm doing, nor is it likely ever to be. If I ever reach a point in the game where I let the state of the economy be a factor in deciding what I want to do, I've stopped playing the game and let the game play me, and at that point it's not worth the effort any longer. I play because I want to figure out a strategy that I want to adopt, hopefully one that's unpopular, and then see how effective I can make it within whatever parameters I decide to follow.

Thank you both (y)

Sometime I do wonder what I will do when I don't have to save to build the arena (and now I'm reasonably close to that goal). If anything higher prices and taxes force people to show some restraint in spending their money (i.e. not blow it at any possible chance) and that may be a good thing.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 6/17/2015 10:53:21 AM

I'm sorry to be harsh but I find this thread a bit silly. Prices are exactly what managers are willing to pay for those players. The more in-game money there is, the more expensive the players will be. I always think the players I sold should have more expensive but, at the same time, I always think the players I bought should been cheaper. Did I totally misunderstand the topic?

Real talk.

But another aspect of this Topic would be how the Prices influence the game for us Managers. In my opinion it is clear that high Prices lead to a Situation where the leagues become static as promited Teams have no Chance to buy the Players necessary to Keep up with the competition - which is pretty bad, as those treadmill Managers might and will become frustrated.

I think there is a mutual influence, I will try to explain what I mean.

Let's start from the situation you stated where market prices are very high, so high that no one can sell their players and no one can buy them. The best teams will stay at the top... for a few seasons but their players will age. During that time, all teams will earn money, or worst case scenario stay with a stable economical situation as the game doesn't allow you to lose money. The average teams, not being able to get better by buying players, will train their own players. This will affect the market in two ways: more players avaible due to the widespread training and relatively lower prices (not really lower but as teams have more money, they can afford more expensive players). Within a few seasons, the best teams which didn't have a economy or which didn't train players will have troubles staying at the top.

Let's be honest and say that the above is very simplified version of the actual variations but it doesn't mean that a simple model can't modelize a real situation. If you like mathematics and want a more formal proof of concept, I suggest you read Alan Turing's works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Pattern_formation_and_mathematical_biology) which also include some non-living patterns.

That's being said, it's not a reason not to speak about it.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 6/18/2015 5:25:50 AM

I think you did partially misunderstand. The problem is when prices rise not because of changes in the market, but changes in rules. Price changes are not up to the market if you change the rules in order to affect price formation.

And if the most important supporter of this ideas is the person in charge of making the changes and there is nobody to vet or help him in taking decisions, then we have a problem. At least now fans of making changes to push prices up cannot claim that actively encouraging higher prices is going to make users happier or indifferent, as people clearly voted that they would prefer the current situation to a situation where prices are higher.

If then prices increase because of the natural evolution of the game, that's life, but that's beyond the point of this thread (or better you could argue that based on this poll, things we can control should be used to keep prices stable).

Last edited by Lemonshine at 6/18/2015 8:47:11 AM

The average teams, not being able to get better by buying players, will train their own players.

That is your wish, but by no means is it necessarily true for the "average" manager. It could be true for managers that are a little bit masochistic, but not for the majority of managers the way training currently works. The huge expense, the illogical structure and slow pace of training will lead most "average" managers to avoid training at all costs. No one likes to beat his head against a brick wall, except of course a masochist.

They are making training the essential centerpiece of the game without reforming it, just forcing it upon us. That will just force a lot of managers out the door.

Training can be a challenge, to be sure, but not remotely an insurmountable (or head-beating-against-wall) one.
And then, as a result, you get all these customized players that you built specifically for your team.
For me, that's one of the best parts of the game.

Another amazing thing to me about BB is that every single player that isn't a scrub has been trained up an intentional way by another manager, or collection of managers, from the thousands of teams all across the world over the seasons. Some kid in North Dakota could draft a player, train up his ID, then sell him to a guy in Malaysia, who builds up his Passing, and then sells him to a lady in Germany, who trains him on OD, and then a professor from Iceland picks the player up off the transfer list, and rounds him out with JS, ID, and RB.

Seriously, it would make a cool documentary.

But more to the point, if it is the case that the more and more managers aren't training, then I'm glad, because I always incorporate it into my team and that will give me an edge. If you are wrong, and it is not case, I'm still glad, because then there will be more high quality players on the transfer list to choose from.

every single player that isn't a scrub has been trained up an intentional way by another manager

Well you can't customise that much since all the guys you train get the same exact training. Building a great team only with personally trained players is nearly impossible, because you get 2-3 starters every 5-6 seasons and they all look the same. Even if you mix it up (i.e. start with a big men out of position, then get 1 guard/1 SF/the big man in inside training, finish the big man, move to the remaining 2 guys to outside training and get a new big man to train out of position) it is next to impossible to build players the way you want. Maybe you can get 5 homegrown starters in 8-9 seasons rather than 10-12 but they will be less customised, although at least they will have more varied skillsets.

So I think that if training is the focus going forward you need to allow people to train different kind of players simultaneously and you need to make it easier/more rewarding to train lower potential players, because, even if that's a misconception, lower potential players don't get enough love.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 6/19/2015 6:10:51 AM

I actually agree with Lemon here. I don't think training is under powered and really enjoy that aspect of the game, even though it is pretty slow. (I've had my main trainee for almost 3 seasons and 8 or so months is a pretty long time in real life

But one thing training is not is flexible. Its very difficult to train a team to play how you want it to, since you can only really focus on one or two positions at a time and one or two skills a week. I don't really mind it but it is impossible to shape an entire team through through training.