BuzzerBeater Forums

Questions from Serbian forum:
1) Will you add some of the following features in order to make this simulation of basketball more realistic?
-tactics efficiency ( teams which play their games with only one type of attack would play worse if they suddenly choose to change it)
-teamwork (so teams couldn't change their roster frequently)
-compatibility of the new signing(player) (how he gels with the rest of the team)
-enthusiasm reset before the play-offs (so everyone would start with the same chances)
-national team games without enthusiasm involved (like in B3) (this would prevent constant deals TIE vs. TIE)

2) What are your plans for fighting against so many multiaccounts in the world? Will you finally ask some sort of identification document from users?

3)If all 16 teams in the league invest 40k weekly in draft will they get better players than league in which only one team is investing 40k, or amount of quality players from draft is just a random thing?

4)Are all trainers with, for example, level 5 ability the same, or they vary 5.0-5.99? Also, if several player's skills are on 12.4, is there any difference in his wage than a player whose skills are on 13 or 12?

5)Do you have plans for improvement of game engine and how many new features could we expect in the future?

out of the question forum:

Does that point per 100 shots statistic in the game results include free throws, or not?

OK, here are the answers I had time to write. I consider this thread already a success since it's a nice way of bringing some key issues to my attention. There are some hard questions here so please don't bash me if you don't like the answers. Also, I don't intend to make this a full dialogue, so no point in asking for explanations of specific answers, I'm afraid I just don't have the time for that.

Mod-Ballin: Any plans with the forums? As in changing any designs, layouts, adding some things. (208622.2)
Currently no. We have decided to focus on new features in other areas and bugs.

Mzungu77: The 2-3 zone is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the game play. Can you explain how it is meant to work from your perspective? If possible, could you elaborate on the ideal skillset for players running a 2-3 zone? (208622.3)
It is useful to google 2-3 zone and try to understand how it's used in real basketball. This applies to all tactics. The best skillset definitely includes three players with good ID, SB and REB.

Petrus Magnus: Have you ever considered the idea of extending the best-of-3 format to all play-off games? (208622.5)
No, we don't have enough time for that in the offseason. If we extend the offseason then other managers who have not qualified might deem the period too long.

GM-CracyEye: Are there other hidden attributes then physicality? Who are the free defenders in the box and one defences? (208622.8)
I can't tell you if there are any hidden attributes, because, well, they are hidden intentionaly The free defenders are those that have been calculated to be the best for the chosen defense type. Read more about it bellow, in my answer to Biffo.

Coach D: Is there any curently work involving new GE.Or algorithm involving game sim or new wightning in skill ? Is the price of JR and SB reasonable? (208622.9)
There are no current developments on the GE, the simple truth is that we lack dev time and knowledge in that department. The price of JR and SB is reasonable, of course. Those skills are very hard to appreciate correctly because their impact is not as easily visible as some other skills.

yiannis paros: you have put Player Salaries Floor.. why don't you put Player Salaries Ceiling? (208622.11)
The salary floor has been introduced to reduce intentional tanking (which is not a good idea for any team to start with, when you sum it all up), but we don't have a similar problem with teams having too high salaries. There's just no reason why we should do it.

Murl: I read some where that manager believe that "Lucky fans" are displaying some advantage over regular players. Is that true or imaginary? Also why do manager have to pay salary for fired staff members twice(update and severance fee) instead of a 2 week notice for the staff member in question? (208622.13)
Pure imagionation. A lucky fan is the worst player you can field, no contest. The severance fee is intentionally added so you wouldn't fire&hire staff too often. The 2 week notice is just another approach to the same problem, but we think the severance fee is a better solution.

SREZ: Is SB worth the salary on bigs and useful on guards? Are their advantages (or disadvantages) that we do not already know about? (208622.14)
In a word, yes. It's useful all around and it has an impact on shots even though it's not as obvious as a reported block. The amount of that impact is something we do not want to disclose, of course, you just have to find that out for yourself.

Coach Regan: What are BB's ideas for the on-going detection, management and dealing of cheaters in this great game? (208622.16)
We have our great GM's and EGM's to thank for the excellent work that they are doing to prevent cheating. So far the system works and we intend to keep the base of it, without changing much. On the other hand, new tools for cheating detection are always under development but we can't disclose what they do, can we?

Sidi Knecht: What are your short and long term plans for the game? (208622.17) Are there any plans to release BB apps in the near future? (208622.39)
The short term plan is to finalise game optimisation, clean up bugs and develop a couple of nice new features, while the long term plan is to grow our user base and dev staff while modernising the game through new technologies. I know I'm being vague but this game is in an ongoing state of evolution and plans do change from time to time. I don't know what you mean by "apps".

Prof. Bricks: please explain why someone is allowed to not put any players in a lineup and forfeit the game (208622.18)
Each game allows total freedom of choice for the manager. Choosing not to field a lineup is also part of it. I know you're asking this because playing against such a lineup prevents you from getting exact training minutes, but you must remember that this game was not designed for 48 minutes per game kind of training. Sometimes you just have to adapt and tolerate forfeits.

Thabo91: Why are the top salaries so high that nobody can afford them and thus the best players are cheaper than just good players? Is that the BB's opinion how a market should work? (208622.20)
Economy is a big part of this game. It takes knowledge and skill to master it and find the right balance. Having a team with very high salaries is not sustainable on the long run in real life, and it's something we like to simulate here too. If that means the best players have incredibly high salaries, so be it.

Biffo: some clarifications about BoA defences: The best player/scorer is guarded M2M. How is "the best" calculated? Before the match or during the match? If before the match, what are the parameters...? Salary? Season average? Others? If during the match I guess that "the best" to guard could change over time. The "fifth player" is used to defend M2M. Who is the "fifth man"? The best (outside/inside) defender? Or just the player set in the same position as the opposite "best player"? (eg. the best opposite team's player is a PF... your M2M defender is your PF no matter what?). Is the "fifth man" fixed or changes over time? Why didn't you designed the system to allow managers (us) to decide which man (or position) to guard and which man to use in M2M defence? (208622.21)
While I can't disclose all the details, I can give you a general idea of how the BaO defense works. Before the game starts, both the best offense and defense players are calculated based on their skills, with the offense/defense type in mind. You cannot "set" those players, but you can probably guess who they would be, using some rational thinking and common sense. It was intentionally coded that way. Those player roles remain the same even after substitutions occur, so there are no changes during matches. I may have even said too much already

Pini: What is planned to be done in order of improving this game competitiveness? A hard Salary-Cap? A soft Salary-Cap with a Luxury-tax? A tax on any amount that in the bank, the tax is by a growing percentage? (208622.25)
The level of competitiveness is fine in our view. Currently, no new taxes are planned.

LA-Korperboy: Can you give us a bit of insight into your future plans so we can be sure this game won't vanish in 1-2 year's time? Planning 8 seasons ahead is two years exactly; I know you aren't fortune tellers, but you probably have also long-term plans. (208622.27)
Look at the Sidi Knecht question.

Grullo and Pini: are there any plannning for all those countries who has less than 20 users? (208622.28) and (208622.30)
No, we treat all countries the same. Their advantage is the ability to play in a high league level right from the start.

GC 30 Why do teams benefit so much more in terms of profit when they win away matches and lose home games instead of the other way around? Do you plan on changing the home court advantadge, or do you think it's good the way it is now? (208622.29)
We have been discussing about this topic a lot and I don't think it's good the way it is, but it doesn't have a simple solution and takes a lot of testing and calculation in order to change. It's something we definitely want to do in the long run, though.

Coco: Charles used to say that one of the design principles of the game was that there shouldn't be a dominant strategy. (1) If the BB's think that LI is now a dominant strategy, what is being done to steer the game away from it? (2) If they think it's not, what standard must be met to prove the claim that some strategy is dominant? (208622.31)
Great question and a tricky one. It's true, most of the people play LI now. Does that make it dominant? Maybe so, I can't say for certain, but looking at B3, it sure seems like it. There's another side of that coin that needs to be addressed. People need to modify their team tactics in a way that would make them better at defending LI, and currently, some of the misconceptions like the value of shot blocking and others prevent them from doing so. A little bit of creativity and research into the way real defense works is needed too. Also, not having players with good shot range also prevents teams from winning games with perimeter based tactics. All these contributed to the situation we are in now. The fact that inside players are cheaper than outside players certainly doesn't help the issue. Currently, no changes in the GE are planned and it's still unclear if we're going to do anything about it.

Marot: Are you planning a change about play-off incomes or thinking about different ways to encourage the teams to compete instead of doing a stand by? I always have read BB-Charles saying they were trying to find an equilibrium on the market(when we had a high inflation on the prices) now we have the opposite, do you plan a change on this area? For example, stopping the introduce of free agents? (208622.37)
We have discussed some possible changes that would affect playoff income but it's something we have not decided yet. As for the player market, finding an equilibrium is hard. Everything we do has a big effect and so we are wary of changes in that area. Stopping the free agents is not an option, but we just reduced their share in the market by upping the salary threshold and making it variable.

PeterBr: Will we ever be able to see career stats for all our players rather than just the players we place in the Hall of Fame? (208622.41)
New features are currently in the making, so we may even decide to do something in that area.

Coach Regan: do the BB's have any plans to formalise any analysis that has been done as official game manual instructions/definitions? Or to a lesser extent, are there plans to (including in the future) confirm/deny any statistical work done by the users on particular topics? (208622.42)
If I understand you properly, the question is whether we are going to confirm user aquired and calculated statistics. Truthfully, I don't think we have enough time to do so, even if we wanted to.

Karangula: Do you calculate gameshape by the minutes played in a single week or do you take more than a single week to calculate gameshape? (208622.43)
I can't disclose that

Mod-Bballin: Why aren't Mods recognized as part of the staff? Im not asking for free supporter(although thatd be nice ;) ), but maybe a mention in the staff page would be nice (208622.48)
I guess it's because Mods don't have as much responsibilities as LA's and GM's.

Chekreyes: do the BB's plan on hiring any new members to help either with the much requested superficial artwork improvements or with public relations in the forums? (208622.55)
We are always on the lookout for new people that can help, but we have budget restrictions. Currently, new devs are our top priority, but working for BB demands a wide range of abilities and proficiency in many different programming languages, and that's not easy to find. Me answering these questions is our way of saying "we are working on our public relations"

RazorSharp: What is being done to attract new users to this game? (208622.57)
Some advertising campaigns have worked great for us in the past so we believe they will do so in the future too. Currently, we want to make sure that the users we attract, stay and spread the word about our game. The best way to do that is to keep our users happy.

profit007: What do you think about teams that win titles while using their saved money to pay excessive salaries? (208622.63)
I call that long term planning. You should be able to save and use that money when it matters most. The current system prevents users from dominating the competitions over the seasons (remember Toroo) and I think it's a good thing.

grullo: When a bench player subs an injured one, he makes his own numbers or he makes the numbers that would be done by the injured if he would have stayed in court?? (208622.69)
Yeah, he makes his own numbers.

Burninator: Are there any plans on changing the salary formula and what is weighted more heavily (208622.74)
No, nothing planned there.

Karangula: Did you make some changes in patient-offense? Before intruoducing these Isolation tactics, patient offense seemed to work differently. I still suspect you mixed up patient and outside isolation. (208622.77)
No changes in existing tactics were made. Also, I understand why they might seem similar, but I assure you, they are not mixed up.

Biffo: is there any chance to see implemented triggers? An option for garbage time would be just an example of this. (208622.83)
We have not discussed this option, but it does not mean we won't be open to it in the long run.


Cheers to all! Marin

I don't know what you mean by "apps".

I thought that would be a common term, especially for some software developers...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_apps

I know some people won't like these answers but they are pretty interesting. Thanks for answering.

Well, I can't say this was exactly what I was hoping for, but honestly I'm just glad they answered some questions, even though half the responses were, "I can't disclose that information" or "No plans there." :D I love this game though, and hope that they are not lying to us about developing new features and some of the changes they may be making.

Last edited by SREZ at 2/20/2012 8:52:33 PM

Thanks for your time.

Are other BB's going to answer some more question or is that it?

I like the old forum day setup better.

Most of the questions didn't even get a useful answer. I just don't see the point in having a ask the BBs thread if you just avoid what is intended in this thread, ( answering our questions) this just looks like a collection of all the unanswered questions in the forum.





Last edited by whitemaggot at 2/21/2012 3:32:03 AM