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There are some great suggestions in here, and as usually we do not interfere much to keep the dicussion lively. Your contributions are highly appreciated, though. Since so many people are contributing to the topic, I would like to weigh in a bit as well by asking your opinion about another part of this possible issue.

In between the many suggestions for solutions to tanking, some people also highlighted another interesting point. What exactly is tanking and why do people choose this strategy? Are we talking about a season strategy or a tactic for a single game, when is a game tanked?

Probably we think we know what tanking is, but untill we are quite sure that we are all talking about the same problem its hard to define the best solutions.

Thanks for the reply, Patrick. I don't consider that coming here chatting a bit with us and telling what you think about how this thread is going after the last BB news is interfering. More improving the communication and the team chemistry between us (:p) about the way our wishes and your long term plans may work together.

I'll take your word, "tanking a game" leads to a reality in BB. And that is because of the enthousiasm system. We lose on purpose a game by saving enthusiasm and play time for our best players in order to be sure to get the good place in the end of season, or to be sure to win another important match in this season (because it is against the rival, against our main opponent for the place we want, or because we will get more money for the home match just after this one), or to go for the cup etc. This works the same way than the usual tanking for at least a good part of the season but the economical advantage is not always direct. Sometimes it may even be for a competitive reason.
Honestly, this is the thing I don't like in BB. For me, when the boardscore shines with a big 0-0, you want to win a match. If you win it, you're happy and you have more enthousiasm. If you lose, you're less enthousiastic. And if you put much efforts in a game, well, negative repercussions should be about the minutes played, what brings to the game shape.
But right now, the relationship between minutes and game shape are too random for this to be more obvious.

Still, we focused ourselves in this thread about the usual long time tanking as it is the one that did a huge impact on the game lately, whereas tanking a game is a strategy there from the very beginning of BB. The discussion about this system already happened several times, so it is hard to think that it will be changed now.
And because season tanking, contrarily to game tanking, is more a saving/training strategy for the time someone is tanking, not a competitive one, except when the tanker tanked then got a big team for the play downs in the same season.

Last edited by Dunker Joe at 5/31/2012 3:16:08 AM

Tanking:
- sell expensive players so that you definitely don't pay more than the player salaries floor
- buy really good trainees and trainer
- train these trainees
- lose all the league games in a season. TIE all of them
- most of the times only 3 players will show up for a game
- If you have to, enforce so many Walkovers in the league to be definitely last
- go as far as you can go in the cup with your good players. CT as many as you like
- get first draft pick
- fill your pockets with money from those stupid fans that still fill your arena although they should know that their team will most likely lose by at least 50 but more likely 100 points
- relegate and buy a NBBA team to promote
- tell all the other people that you have a long term plan and that you are soooooo smart and they are not

If you want to see some examples, I can easily show you from German Bundesliga / II. leagues.

Intentionally losing one game: I don't care. Almost everybody does that from time to time.
Intentionally causing a WO: Hate that, never do that.
Saving money through the season and spending it before playoffs because you don't want to relegate or try to win your league: that's competition.

I believe we can define it as long streaks of loses associated with large amounts of incomes, so it's not only teams that loses all their games but teams that in the middle of the season decides to sell out their players lose 50% of the rest of the games, make a good profit and stay in the same division. While defining tanking we should be very cautious and omit teams that want to rebuild and sell out all their roster and teams that loses on purpose to have better GS in cup games or playoffs.

Last edited by Ghost Master at 5/31/2012 4:54:18 AM

In between the many suggestions for solutions to tanking, some people also highlighted another interesting point. What exactly is tanking and why do people choose this strategy? Are we talking about a season strategy or a tactic for a single game, when is a game tanked?

Probably we think we know what tanking is, but untill we are quite sure that we are all talking about the same problem its hard to define the best solutions :).

Diferents ways of tanking;

1-Tanking all the season(it's hapening on D1 in Spain every season) and earning 400k/week(or more). Also it happens a lot in DII, a team that comes from D3, he prefers to tank and come back to D3 with money than trying to compete because it's not sure they can stay in D2.

It's also helps to tank that the teams who promotes have better assistence to the arena, so if they lose by 80 nothing happens to their income.

Consequences:

- Poor competition. If there are 3-4 teams doing this, it makes the league less atractive, so at the end it's more boring. If there is a higher level of competition, this means also more fun for the managers.

-If you are the team that goes before or after the team that tanks you are harmed, because your opponents play stronger against you than against the team that tanks, pretty unfair situation.

- Creates imbalances between leagues through the economy.

2- You make a good run on league, but you don't think you are enough powerfull to promote(being the 2on or 3rd), so 3 weeks before play-off you start tanking(that happens a lot on D2). If you are able to make it 2-3 seasons, you can save money and invest it in the arena&having better trainees. This team is an example (77189)

Consequences:

- Creates imbalances for the next season between the teams that tried to stay competitive until the end of the season and the ones who didn't try.

- Makes a poor competition for play-off

Example of this:http://www.buzzerbeater.com/league/193/overview.aspx?seas...

-The first 3 teams on the east tanked before play-off

- The team called 4GT from the west, 3 weeks before, he was on the first position, but he tanked, because he thought he wasn't the strongest team and preferred to save money.

The 50% of the teams who qualified for play-off, tanked. That's a boring play-off.


As a conclusion, remember that the managers we play for fun and we try to make our team the best competitive as possible, but we don't play a game where you play 1 season at 100% and the other 2 you tank. That is boring and what is worst, by tanking there are other managers affected on that season and affected on the future season due to the imbalance on the economy.

Last edited by Marot at 5/31/2012 5:27:00 AM

Know what we mean by tanking now?

I hope you do after being told so many times!

Yes, there are different opinions, but by collecting different opinions you can come to a simple conclusion:

Current system allows tanking teams to make big profit by losing.

I think this sentence encompasses the whole problem.

I think my definition in the beginning was sufficient.

I don't think there are differing opinions as such, but just different ways of describing it and different perspectives on its severity.

Current system allows tanking teams to make big profit by losing.

I don't think there are differing opinions as such, but just different ways of describing it and different perspectives on its severity.

Well okay, but this lenghty thread proves people have numerous opinions of the severity of the problem and what should be changed or sanctioned.

This problem has been discussed for weeks or months and we still have no clear point. Yes, tanking "is making money by losing".

What is the limit of money making is authorized before the team strengh is considered weak. What is losing voluntarily to tank and make money or just managing game shape or competition is too high and I'll be better of the level under ?

Yes a team who lose his 22 games by 50 is tanking, this is easy to say. The difficulty is to mark the limit in the grey area. And here, we have multiple opinions.

Well of course since tanking relates to several ways of dealing with.
The fact that everyone expresses about it is the first necessary step.
Then, it is up to the GMs and the BBs to start to synthetize by telling us what they think about it, to give us examples, among propositions and assertions done here of what could be done or not.
And after that, once we know what can be done or not, managers will be able to compare their evaluation for precise limits, measures.
How about a form, a survey to get more easy-to-read and to-analyze answers ?

1°) Expression of the issue (think tanking)
2°) Back to reality, narrowing the possibilities (staff BB participating so that we know what could be done or not, and then know on what to focus to be more precise)
3°) Measuring, defining the possible suggestions (what % for the raise salary floor, how many games lost by how much point to consider one is a tanker that has to be concerned by x suggestion, etc).

Last edited by Dunker Joe at 5/31/2012 10:11:35 AM

It's pretty clear what tanking is... The process when a team saves up a few hundred thousand dollars a week on salaries, because he knows even though he'll lose every game by 50+ points, he'll still make almost the same amount of money in attendance, as the teams that beat him.