BuzzerBeater Forums

yep

Who says you need to win? You just need to ensure you don't get a 3rd game, which, in the OP's case, should be extremely easy to control, be it losing both or winning both. He clearly stated from the beginning that teams in his league can't demote.

This presupposes that the loss of season ticket holders due to demotion is not assessed, which I don't know to be the case (or not to be the case). If it's treated as a team demoting, and then autopromoting due to bot promotion, the STH loss is not offset with a corresponding gain, and that'd be significantly detrimental to future revenues. I might have to actually check that next season if I can manage to lose enough games in IV, though I won't be going out of my way to do so. ;)

I understand that. If losing a relegation series without demoting is equivalent to "demoting" and "bot promoting" then you'll have 2 effects conflicting: the demotion and the bot promotion (it's a fair assumption that if one is taken into account, also the other is). The end result is difficult to quantify, but I agree that you probably lose some revenues the following season. However since you can also build seats (if you're not capped) or generate profits with the extra revenues that should absorb some of the potential losses.

Besides this should be only relevant to tanking teams or teams who decide to drop to the salary floor. If someone is able to "choose" where to finish (like the OP would be if he hadn't piled up so many victories so far) and decides to drop to 6th he should be able to win in 2 games in most circumstances: the OP potential opponent is only marginally better than a bot.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 10/7/2015 10:16:52 AM

And I agree that if that's how it's accounted for you will have a lower attendance the following season. I just don't think that people in the middle of the pack in lower divisions should worry about that any more than missing out on (sure money) immediately.

In any case yeah, if you are 4-6 in a league where you can't demote, then it means that you're better than your opponent and he has no major incentive to buy and win a relegation series and you should be able to control the outcome of the series. If you're 7-8 then you really haven't much choice. Best outcome end 6th and win in 2 games, good outcome win in 3, middle outcome lose in 2, bad outcome lose in 3.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 10/7/2015 10:28:05 AM

I understand that. If losing a relegation series without demoting is equivalent to "demoting" and "bot promoting" then you'll have 2 effects conflicting: the demotion and the bot promotion (it's a fair assumption that if one is taken into account, also the other is). The end result is difficult to quantify, but I agree that you probably lose some revenues the following season. However since you can also build seats (if you're not capped) or generate profits with the extra revenues that should absorb some of the potential losses.

The main point is the significant difference in bot promotion and promotion via winning the title. From the game manual:

Both promoting league champions and teams that promoted from a bot cleanup will get the extra cash, though bot-promoted teams will not experience the same boost to their season ticket holders.

So the distinction there is that if relegation from the lowest active series counts as a relegation and bot promotion, it's very harmful to a team's season ticket holder base. It very well may not process that way, of course, and it may not be entirely relevant to this specific user, but it's the sort of thing that one would definitely want to be aware of and try to find good data on if they're in this scenario.

Long term beats short term strategies.

If you can control where you end between 3rd or 4th and 6th (which is the OP's situation and what he is asking), presumably you can also win with minimal effort the relegation series (especially because you play the first game and tiebreaker at home). This also means that you can focus on away games.

In Utopia there were a lot of top managers who chose not to promote and in order to boost their finance were focusing on road games. In a lower league, where you can win most of your road games because you can end 3rd but have no chance to beat the top 2 seeds, the best long term strategy might well be: win all the away games, focus on the cup and throw all the home games. Season after season. Until you see that you have a reasonable chance of going through the playoff first round.

Ending 4th 5th or 6th really has marginal effect compared to winning the games before a home game, winning the TV and rival games...demoting is another story, but again I can't believe that even selling someone who can choose whether he ends 3rd-6th is going to lose to the 7th team in the other conference even if he sells a few players

Last edited by Lemonshine at 10/8/2015 5:37:29 AM