BuzzerBeater Forums

So I'm fairly new here (about a month in) and very excited about this game, but maybe not so much anymore.
After getting ahead of my opponent in a must win game to avoid demotion, my coach put in all my scrubs at the start of the fourth. Thats not too crazy as I was up by 23 or so. But then the other team's starters came back and closed the lead to FIVE before my coach put my starters back in. Under no circumstances should the game have ever been this close. My starters should have been put back in when the lead shrank below 20. The other team ended up winning on a last second dunk. Yay.
Why spend all this time and effort trying to make the best strategy when it can be nullified by the A.I. of the coach by not even playing your starters in crunch time?
Has anyone else experienced this sort of ridiculousness?

There are random factors involved and when they simulate so many games every day, some anomalies occur, as they do in the real game. You hate it when it happens to you but them's the breaks.

how was your Enthusiasm.. i have noticed in alot of your games you have been putting more effort in than your opponents, have you been CTing or just playing normal? If CTing, your enth would be lower...

it is hard to survive when you join so late in the season.. you should be able to bounce back up to div 4 quickly enough.. i hope you have been scouting well and have a good target for the draft.. if so, spend the time to train him up so he can contribute upon your return to div 4.

Like others said...tough break. The game has a logic built in at 20+ points in the 4th quarter to rest starters to prevent injuries and improve game shape. I have never had a problem with it and rarely hear people complaining about this logic. I think your match result was a statistical outlier. It also hurts having a new team with poor starters and a worse bench.

Read the forums and stick with it. This game is very enjoyable once you get the hang of it and have a few players you have trained up yourself. If you need any pointers, you can send me a BB-mail...but read the stickies at the top of this forum first. They are very helpful.

Last edited by Alan Ellis at 1/22/2012 2:18:02 AM

I appreciate everyone's sentiment that this is abnormal, but the algorithm running 'scrub time' needs to be changed so this type of error doesn't happen. Imagine if this took place in a relevant game, like a 1st place match. That would be really lame. Me, I'm new, I'll drop a league now and that's fine. But, if a big game went down like this it would not be cool.

I've always been enthusiasm normal except for the game prior to this one where I took it easy to increase my enthusiasm for this decisive match. Tonight's game was my first crunch time game ever. I did it to clinch this game, specifically, so I could play the relegation tourney and have a fighting chance of not getting knocked down a division. It would have worked perfectly if my 'coach' didn't leave my scrubs in the game until it was too late. Arg.

I've never had a problem with my starters being subbed at the end of 3rd. The point difference can sometimes go down from 25 to 15 for example, but I've never lost a game this way. What is the average stamina of our players?
I understand the algorythm may not be ideal, but I don't see how it can be changed for the better. Giving your starters a rest when you're in the lead is quite important for many managers.
I would suggest buying better subs or increasing your players' stamina.

Last edited by Dodor at 1/22/2012 5:30:34 PM

in some games, dependant upon what your tactics are, your coach will puut the best players on the court, based on stamina/skills etc.

So for instance, in some games, if you play FCP, and man-to-man, and your starters have crappy stamina, your bench players may in fact get lots of minutes compared to say, if you played Low-post and 2-3 zone.

There are many factors like this, ive only highlighted some basic examples, but essentially, what can happen is that, given a set of criteria, such as offense/pace/stamina/enthusiasm/gameshape/tactics, a teams scrubs will be left on the court because the coach has decided that they would have performed better than the starters.

A basic real life example would be like, if you told your starters, to play their ring off for 3 quarters. After 3 quarters they are all flat on their backs, so coach sends in bench. Bench is going to perform better than starters correct?

So yer. its not always such a simple case of 'oh my coach shoulda put my starters back in, becuase my scrubs were getting killed'.... maybe if your coach put your starters in you woulda lost by more.

Just a different way of looking it really :) It does happen and the more you play the game, the more you learn how to lessen the chances of these things happening. Just experience is all. best of luck.

2 avoid this problem, shorten your bench. You don't have to field 10, or more players. Play only 7 or 8. That away, when garbage time hits, you still have some starters out there. You may have to change how you manage your minutes, but once you learn how to keep your best players on the court, you'll have a nice advantage.

I haven't had something like this happen over 3 seasons so I'm curious on what coaching setting you used with your lineup? Your answer could lie there. Coach stricktly follows depth chart is safe.

But overall I think you'll find relegating might be a blessing in disguise for you right now. It's better learning the game on the lowest levels rather than trying to compete against teams you don't match up with immediately out of the gate.

Just glancing, you're making one huge error right now that you need to fix sooner rather than later. Stop playing your top players in scimmages when they've already logged a lot of minutes that week. Take them out of your lineup completely. All you're doing is ruining their effecitiveness for the future in what amounts to a meaningless game. 60 minutes a week is ideal and you want to keep them under 72 if possible. Most of your roster is lower than respectable game shape and ideally you want them all at strong-proficient.