BuzzerBeater Forums

I disagree that there is a clear disadvantage. I'd suggest that both teams receive slightly different, but overall equal, advantages.

If a team gets an easyish run in the cup, they can play TIE more often and get 50k winnings each week.

If a team gets a hard match in the cup and loses first round they have the advantage of being able to maintain gameshape and train much more easily. They are also able to beat teams that are still in the cup by playing their full side because the other team needs to reserve some of their good players for the cup. These extra wins increase attendance in your arena which means more money. And allows you to be higher on the league standings which means you can avoid relegation and might even get to play in the playoffs.

In other words, there are advantages and disadvantages to being in the cup and not being in the cup, and in the end they are balanced out.

I'm talking about situations where teams can easily get away with playing their lessor players in the cup without even having to worry about it affecting their training or gameshape.

For example, let's say my II league opponent gets knocked out in round 1 because they have to play an ABBL team that they are unable to compete with, while I get a run of IV bots and/or new players for the first few weeks. I'm clearly at a huge advantage compared to my league opponent who didn't have the same opportunity at an easy cup run like me.

If a team gets a hard match in the cup and loses first round they have the advantage of being able to maintain gameshape and train much more easily.

This is also entirely possible under a seeded draw. There's nothing stopping you from throwing your cup match if you don't want to be in the cup because it's easier to train and maintain gameshape by being eliminated. At least everyone is afforded a fairly equal opportunity in the first place though, from which they are then able to make a decisions about what's best for their team.

Enthusiasm is ridiculous.

Wouldn't a seeded cup draw give a hugely unfair advantage to ABBL teams? They would be gauranteed easy teams for many many weeks. This makes it even harder for teams to catch up to the ABBL teams.

don't forget to get your tips in if you want to compete

(218868.2)

No, ABBL teams are playing against each other in the league anyway, so there's no advantage.

You missed my point.
If the cup is seeded each ABBL team will win their first 4 or 5 cup games very very easily because they will constantly play bots and div 4 teams. This is essentially free income for them.
On the other hand, div 2 teams will draw div 3 teams, which means that many div 2 teams and div 3 teams will get knocked out in the early rounds of the cup.

This means that the teams in div 2 and div 3 are getting less income from the cup compared to the ABBL teams.
This means that it is even harder for div 2 teams and div 3 teams to beat ABBL teams.

In addition, because the ABBL will have very easy cup games every week for the first few weeks, they will have very high enthusiasm. On the other hand, div 2 teams that make it past the first few rounds will have had to play tough teams to get there, which means their enthusiasm might be lower and that is another disadvantage.

Yes, but their enthusiasm won't be lower (on average) compared to their league opponents, which is where the disadvantage currently lies.

II teams don't directly compete against ABBL teams in league play, so there's no point comparing the two to determine if there's an advantage or disadvantage.

In reality, the ABBL teams will probably still make it just as far in the cup, so the financial advantages for them are largely irrelevant to the issue of unfairness within leagues around extra TIE games.

Yes there is a slight disadvantage at the moment for teams in the same league. However, your idea simply shifts this disadvantage to the lower leagues, so the ABBL gets a lot of benefit and the lower leagues get none.

"II teams don't directly compete against ABBL"
Yes they do in a sense. They compete whenever an ABBL team drops down to div 2. All the extra income that the ABBL teams will get from a seeded cup means more money for them to promote back up with.


Look at the following:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

There are 16 "teams" above, and they are in the order of best to worst.
In a seeded cup draw it will be:
1 v 16
2 v 15
3 v 14
4 v 13
5 v 12
6 v 11
7 v 10
8 v 9

Teams 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 will almost definitely win. And either 8 or 9 could win, but let's say 8 wins.
So you will be left with the following teams:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

The next round will be:
1 v 8
2 v 7
3 v 6
4 v 5

And again the teams 1, 2, 3 and 4 will likely win.
Then you will have 1 v 4 and 2 v 3.

As you can see, in a seeded cup draw, the top 4 teams are almost always going to end up all the way to the semi finals without even having to have a very tough match.

This is hundreds of thousands of dollars that you are giving to ABBL teams for basically no effort at all.

Great post, couldn't agree more

I like the cup the way it is -
league games give you games that allow you to compete with teams around your own level
private league games allows you to compete with your mates that could be in different leagues
and cup games gives you a shot at competing with the entire country

if the cup games were seeded, a div 3 or div 4 team would have no chance of getting past the first few rounds. It would all become terribly boring and predictable. The way things are, given the right circumstances a lower div team has a fair shot at making it further if they play their cards right and get a good draw. I remember when I was in div 4 i made it all the way to the 5th round by drawing bots and div 3 opponents that underestimated me, and I crunched them!

If anything, I'd love for them to give lower div teams a handicap to allow them to compete with teams that are in higher divisions. Maybe a boost in enthusiasm or gameshape.... that would really make the cup exciting.

As for ABBL teams getting an easy run and making easy cash.. that can be fixed by simply making the reward porportional to the competition they are facing. No one would want to watch an ABBL take on a div 4 team..so if an ABBL team beats a div 4 team, they only get 10k. If a div 4 team beats an ABBL team, they get 100k. Yeah that sounds cool!

I think that a suitable handicap that should be implemented in cup games is that the team with the lower country ranking should always have HCA.

Interesting solution regarding the different prizes. Pretty sure ABBL teams would complain about only winning 10k though...