BuzzerBeater Forums

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It seems to be the same thing in every online sport management games. The end result is tons of low divisions filled with inactive users and bots... and it really hurts the community aspect of the game.

I'm sure this game lose a lot of (potentially) active users every month because they get tired of being the only owner alive in their div.

I think it would be nice if there was a way to regroup active users in the same divisions in the course of a season. For example, let's say that at week #7 the system realize that there are :

4 active users in III.1
1 active user in III.2
6 active users in III.3
4 active users in III.4
1 active user in III.5

Then it could regroup all these teams in III.1 and the rest of the season would be much more interesting for everyone. Of course a system like this would probably only be useful for lower divisions as higher ones are more active by nature.

I'm really not complaining... I'm just tired of competing against abandoned teams. I am also playing Hattrick (soccer management game) and the same thing happens in lower divisions. Tons and tons of users sign up for a new team every day but only a tiny fraction of them are actually interested by the game. I just think something should be done about it.

What's your take on that?

Unless I don't understand how it works, bot cleanup doesn't solve the problem. I think we should all think of ways to put active users in the same divisions.

At the moment the only way to compete with real people in the beginning (lower divisions) is to be really lucky and fall in an active division or win the title and move to a higher one.

You can't re-order the teams in different series mid-season. I dont think you understand what that is asking.

My take is alot of people dont realize it is a management game, not a video game. They see free and basketball and that is it. Still others are kids who are bored signing up for everything free. There are a few one-day people who might get lured in when they see how cool it is.

If you are playing nothing but dead teams and bots, you should be able to promote within a season or two. Probably get all the competition you want then.

Last edited by Heathcoat at 2/4/2009 11:16:51 PM

New teams are assigned ionto the same division if possible. You can't really do what you suggest - how would promotion work?! This a longterm planning game you can't do twist like that.

Your suggestion would make it much more difficult for active teams to promote than for new teams. I don't think that is an especially good solution. With just 1 team of 16 promoting as it is right now it might be almost same quality playing in the best third division as in second division then.

I think that the current solution is the best one for this reason even if it might be boring to play in a non-active division.

I have seen a similar solution as yours in one management game and as I am pretty inactive I am doing really poor as I was moved to one of the stronger divisions from one with just weak teams. Does not motivate me more to be more active in the game I can admit.

I appreciate your comments on the subject guys.

Maybe what I am proposing is not the best solution but I don't have any other at the moment.

Still, the problem remains... and some creative people will have to find a solution one day because BB is a social game... everything should be made to encourage competition and trash talking between players (and not only between players in the higher divisions.)

Sure there are players who just want to do their own little thing with their team and not interact with anybody (imo they would be better off with a single player management game but that's another story) but in general, people play these games in part for the sense of community. I'm sure that the majority of new users don't stay in the game season after season until they "Oh one day" get promoted to a higher division so they can finally trash talk with their division buddies.

I just think of another solution to prevent the flooding of lower divisions with inactive users. Maybe instead of jumping right into the action, new users should compete in a short tutorial season against 4 or 5 bot teams. The tutorial would guide the user a bit like the actual manager checklist does but with more "hand holding". For example, when you edit your lineup, there would be a text saying something like "This guy would make a good starter in the SF position. However, his stamina is low, you need to choose a good backup. Maybe that guy?". People not that interested in the game would leave before the end of the tutorial so it would mean less ghost teams in real divisions. I don't think that people really interested to learn the game would be so mad to wait 4-5 weeks to play "for real".

The objective would be to quickly eliminate the players who realize that this game is not for them the first time they login.

Hello,

I think that this tutorial could be good only as a voluntary thing, because I cannot imagine how would start people like me - I'm always bothered by forced tutorials, because there are a lot of things, which are obvious and such a tutorial easily turns into forced evil and boring feature.

You have right about that (if I understand it by this way well) people which want an social (whatever) action, they should get it. However there isn't and never will be any universal method how to do that, because every community is a different, like every human is kind of original thing.

So what we can do is to create an opportunities and see what will happen. Actually I'm thinking on suggestion forum about world tournament. Without any opinion.

You got a point. However, maybe I would not be facing real competition because the league is too big in the first place. In Canada for example, I think there are 3 divisions... maybe just 2 would be enough if they were all filled with real and active users.

It would be great to say that whenever you enter the game for real (after the tutorial), you have 90% chance of playing against other motivated humans.

I'm just trying to think of ways to prevent the "In and Out" type of players to reach the same divisions than the active players and dissipate the fun factor.