BuzzerBeater Forums

I think that teams should be able to bid more than the amount of money they have. In real life teams are allowed to be in debt, as long as they it back quickly and with interest. I think it would be more realistic if this could be done in the game as well.

For example, lets say I have 500k, and I need a player for the playoffs but I don't have a chance to earn any more income before my match. I think a manager should have the option to spend 600k for example on a player and he will simply be 100k in debt. This is already penalised as he will have to pay a 10% interest on the amount he is under at the end of the week. And if a player goes below 500k then there is already the penalty for him going bankrupt after 2 weeks.

I realise that some arguments may include "managing your income so that you can afford to buy players is part of the game" and I realise this, but I'm saying that players should have the option to spend a little more than their bank balance in some circumstances if they wish. Kind of like how if I have 50 dollars in my bank account, I can still spend 100 dollars on eftpos and it will put my bank account in to negative 50 dollars. And I will be fined 10 dollars for going under 0 dollars.

Another argument might be that this will allow players to make more money from cheating by creating a team and buying an overpriced player and going into bankruptcy, however I would argue that this would make cheating easier to detect if players did do something like this as it should be a clear red flag if a player overbids on a player by a lot and goes in to backruptcy soon after.

I just thought it would be interesting.

We've discussed this before, and our policy is basically that there has to be a line past which teams cannot spend, and what better line is there than $0?

There's always going to be a fixed line somewhere, and we've never really seen a reason to establish that line in negative figures - it's always going to be relative, right?

We (the BB team) rarely post in Suggestions threads, as we find that any posts that we make tend to mold the shape of the discussion, and we're much more interested in reading on the forums what the community thinks than how the community reacts to what we think.

In this case, where we've had previous discussion and a concrete policy, I feel comfortable posting this, but if a truly compelling argument is made to allow users to go into debt, we're all ears.

Thanks for the quick response.

My response would be, why does there need to be a line past which teams cannot spend? I agree that if you are already below 0 you should not be able to purchase anything. However, if you have 500k and want to spend 600k why should this not be allowed as it may be the difference between winning and losing a championship.

Purchasing staff can often result in negative bank balance, so why not allow it with players. For example if I have 100k in my bank, and buy a staff member for 98k. Then I will have 2k left, but perhaps my current staff members salary is 50k, then I will go in to the negative. So why is this not taken in to account when buying staff?

500k seems to be the line that BBs have decided should result in bankruptcy if left there for too long, so why not allow managers the freedom to spend whatever they wish? If the manager uses his discretion to purchase a player that might risk putting him in bankruptcy then isn't it his decision?

The same points were discussed before. There would be a lot more bankrupt teams. As people tend to spend more if they have the means available. So they should actually move the bankrupsy line to -1mil. Thus making no difference from -500k and 0. Remember it changes nothing. You have extra cash, your bidding opponent has it aswell. Current system is ok, no player leasing please, make deals with the money you have available.

This is the only game Im playing, but I played hattrick in the past for like a two years, debt limit was 20M CZK and I was 12-17M in debt all the time.
This was not the reason why I quit, but could be harder for me to stay in here, because I cant help myself if I can bid for something, I doesnt have.

Last edited by aigidios at 4/27/2010 3:22:04 AM

Fair enough, I just thought the idea of an "overdraft" system that allows you to withdraw slightly more money than you have would be useful in many circumstances.

It was mentioned that the bankruptcy line should be moved to 1 million, but that is not necessary. Keep the 500k line as the bankruptcy line, but let me withdraw as much money as I want. If I wish to spend 1 mil when I only have 600k then I don't see why I shouldn't be able to, it is up to the individual manager. And in real life you can do this.

I understand your logic. But also in real life are lot of people which are constantly in debt (me included:)). However the point is that in the game is noone who could earn any money from it - and aditionally - most of loan payments would be done only by these which doesnt earn very much. Therefore it is just against the point to make things more difficult for settled div1 teams.

Last edited by aigidios at 4/27/2010 4:44:09 AM

I can see a solution:

A team goes into debt. A team with lost of spare cash loans money to the team with debt. Collateral is placed for the debt -- say a star player. Team does not pay off -- loses star player to team that already has lots of cash. Rich get richer -- BB now has become more "realistic".

It gets better. Team C realizes there are lots of teams in previous situation -- rich teams, teams living beyond their means. Team C decides to match creditors and debtors, taking a little off the top of each transaction. BB financial world now has become more "efficient", the free market improved by financial services.

It gets even better. Team D sees booming market of banker Team C. Realizes that rich teams can get much richer if they, too, start borrowing to loan to teams in debt -- "leverage" is how Team D describes this deal. Rich teams now measure their wealth by how much debt they can accumulate and leverage as they help out those poor unfortunate debtor teams, who because of competition and poor luck, can never seem to get out of debt. Indeed, to get loans, many of them simply are turned into farm teams for the creditor teams. "Tenant managers" we now call them.

And, finally, a few financial wizard teams like Teams C and Team D -- the only ones who are positioned to fullly understand all these complex financial interactions -- now go collectively to BB developers and "suggest" improvements to the game that suit their interest. If the game is not "improved" as they wish, then they have the power to bring the entire game down through collective, universal financial ruin.

But luckily people are too smart to ever let this happen.

And, finally, a few financial wizard teams like Teams C and Team D -- the only ones who are positioned to fullly understand all these complex financial interactions -- now go collectively to BB developers and "suggest" improvements to the game that suit their interest. If the game is not "improved" as they wish, then they have the power to bring the entire game down through collective, universal financial ruin.

We have a Fed specifically set up for this that even contains 3x BB's. *cough* signature *cough* :D

Time to call Michael Moore!

We've discussed this before, and our policy is basically that there has to be a line past which teams cannot spend, and what better line is there than $0?

There's always going to be a fixed line somewhere, and we've never really seen a reason to establish that line in negative figures - it's always going to be relative, right?

We (the BB team) rarely post in Suggestions threads, as we find that any posts that we make tend to mold the shape of the discussion, and we're much more interested in reading on the forums what the community thinks than how the community reacts to what we think.

In this case, where we've had previous discussion and a concrete policy, I feel comfortable posting this, but if a truly compelling argument is made to allow users to go into debt, we're all ears.

The only reason for something like that are different times of financial expenses and revenues based on country i.e. Monday financial update and gate recipts after match. But then again this could be taken into account (unless technicakl problems postpone something) and there are timezones that make it even trickier (although those times for gate receipts differ even within one timezone) so I think laissez-faire is better choice here.