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Something like that concept applied to listing tax and a maximum initial bid price might be a decent solution - if a guy has only played 10 minutes in your club, for example, you might only be able to list him for sale at 1k for free, or up to his initial purchase price with a listing tax. If he's played for you 2000 minutes, conversely, you might be able to list him up to a $2M initial bid price with no listing tax.

This is another good idea.

If you buy an 18 year old trainee, give him seven seasons of training and turn him into a superb player, and then list him at a fair price but don't get bites for a while, the listing tax would be hurting a person for a behavior that one presumes should be encouraged.

I can see how a listing tax could be punitive, but we have to agree on what behaviour we're trying to encourage and what we're trying to prevent.

I believe the original point made while suggesting a tax on listings was to encourage lower asking prices and hit day traders. If you imagine a day trader buying for 1k and reselling for 250k he'd be hit by 50k (as the minimum fee used to be around 20%) whether he sells or not. With such a change he will likely list at a lower amount fearing the player would go unsold at 250k. A tax on listing would reduce the average listing price for players (hitting daytraders the most), but also would lower the number of players on the TL and increase the number of players being cut, which obviously are unwanted bad consequences.

The current minimum fee which is going to be deducted from a sale is 3%. That is only applied if you sell the player. If you're trying to sell a draftee for 800k, you could list at 1k and hope there is enough demand to push the price to that level or list at 800k and hope someone bids on him. Assuming 800k is a fair price, if the market is very liquid listing at 1k would often yield better results. If you had a tax you stand to lose a minimum of $3 plus the difference between the actual purchase price and 800k (which may be as high as $799k) in the first case; or $24k for each time you try to list the player in the second case.

3% is an arbitrary number which was decided upon by the developers. I'm not sure people would be against reducing that 3% number further for players held for 3+ seasons.

I believe Sokker.org has a similar system and doesn't charge you just for listing (I may be mistaken on this though). Sokker.org also differs in that the transfer market is a lot more liquid and you continue to get money from further sales of players you developed.

All in all, a lot of proposals on how to change the buying/selling mechanisms in the game have merit. I think what Marin decided to implement was quick and easy, it has a few unwanted consequences, but it does serve its purpose and people can easily live with it. The main criticism has been that it came into the game unannounced and that it (mildly) affects non day traders.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 11/10/2014 12:23:10 PM

Too in HT. If you buy a player you can´t sell him and get 100% selling fee, it´s takes time. For example player you bought 7 days ago mean that if you sell him after 7 days you get 86.38% of the selling fee. Very good rule and may be better than tax for selling beccause it´s more fair.

What you're describing sounds exactly the same as last season's regime.
a) you could not sell a player within 4 days from the purchase price, so you had to pay at least one week salary (although I think it might have been theoretically possible for Utopia teams as even the economic update there runs late). In hattrick you pay one week salary upfront when you purchase a player too.
b) after 4 days you could list a player and you'd receive roughly 80% of the sale price. That was a fixed percentage.
c) after about 14 weeks you could list a player and receive 97% of the sale price (that was also a fixed percentage and it is the maximum you can receive even today)

The change introduced in the last offseason modified that 80% and 97% and linked them to how many players you sold in the previous 14 weeks. The result was that there were managers who would obtain less than 20% from an immediate resale.

The requisite that Hrudey is advocating would likely to kill most of the day trading from top managers. Tankers in lower leagues with a plump bank account would be less affected although it would take more time to be able to make the same money they were able to make in the past.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 11/10/2014 1:09:34 PM

There has been no change to that this offseason. The only thing who changed are the numbers. It was already working like that in season 28 and before. It was just more permissive.

Yes, indeed.

One important thing are here to have in mind. We are only talking about exactly the player you bought= If you buy John Smith you buy his salary same day as you bought him so you pay always one week salary no matter when in the week you buy him. Too, if you decide to sell him after one week you get 86% and then more and more of the salary fee after how much longer he stay til you keeo 97%.
But, this is only question of John Smith. You can buy or sell as many players in normal way, each of them have this personal rule.

In sokker: "I believe Sokker.org has a similar system and doesn't charge you just for listing (I may be mistaken on this though)."

Sokker charge you always, and actually heavy, each time you sell. If you put on almost 0 you don´t pay but if you want some reasonable minium floor the charge you.

In my opinion the system in HT have worked very well.

I can see how a listing tax could be punitive, but we have to agree on what behaviour we're trying to encourage and what we're trying to prevent.

That is the trick, isn't it? Just with the label of "daytrading", one could mean those who buy players worth little but with high potential and relist them at high prices, those who buy players for relative cheap prices to use for a short term and then sell for a modest profit afterward, or those who do the time zone trading where they find players selling below market value at a relative dead hour and then sell them at a reasonable price (and often benefit from bid wars) during peak hours. And then of course, for each of the various facets one then has to see how it impacts user experience for various groups of users, and how harmful or beneficial each of those scenarios is for the involved groups and for the game as a whole. Luckily, any community of this type has a very active feedback loop when any changes to the ecosystem are made, though I've seen many a game fail to handle that feedback well. ;)

In sokker: "I believe Sokker.org has a similar system and doesn't charge you just for listing (I may be mistaken on this though)."

Sokker charge you always, and actually heavy, each time you sell. If you put on almost 0 you don´t pay but if you want some reasonable minium floor the charge you.

In my opinion the system in HT have worked very well.

Just for clarification because English is, as you no doubt know, a very silly language: when you say:
"Sokker charge you always, and actually heavy, each time you sell"

Do you mean that when you offer a player for sale, you are charged, or does that only happen if the player actually receives a bid? My understanding is that you mean the fee applies simply for offering the player for sale (by putting him on a transfer list) but it could be read either way.

True, sorry for that. The fee applies simply for offering the player for sale which is not the right way in my opinion.

I'm not a fan of Lemonshire propositions, nor I was agreeing with him in his way to discuss with hrudey, but if we look at the real facts, he did play 3 seasons in D3. In season 23, he joined the game and received his team for the last two scrimmages of the season. He didn't even play an official game, the play-down were before he signed up.

Thank you for the clarification, Perpete. For the record, I stand corrected.

I love all the changes introduced this season. I'm still having my doubts about the Stamina and Game Shape thing (if I understand it, Stamina has been enhanced in detriment of Game Shape). I actually loved bad game shape ruining the high K players of one-minded bullying teams. I like more the Spurs or Chicago teams type of play than, say, the Lakers or the Sixers of Iverson's days (although, I love AI).

Fellows will complain about anything. They think they are entitled to it, and bring a conservative me-me-me customer attitude. And althoug partially right, since some pay, and since this is too business for the BB-Marin (I guess), in my case I take it as a challenge and with a strategic point of view, rather than cry foul for EVERY little thing that supposedly goes wrong or "miss the mark", or whatever.

And for all the cry babies, they want realism and stuff, but they don't tell you what type of realism they are talking about. They want porntube-type realism where they can say "Please me, please me", not actual BASKETBALL MANAGEMENT realism, with strategy and analysis. Please, take a hard look at the NBA and perhaps consult the two or three Trade Machines at sports network's (like ESPN), or actually read the entire NBA's Collectibe Bargaining Agreement (CBA), and perhaps you can take a look at the REAL world of baskeball management: those are some strategically challenging set of rules you have there. Ey, people actually take PhDs on that CBA. I bet you would not last a day as a real GM.

So let's just take this game as it is, a strategic management masterpiece that simulates Xs and Os are basketball players. I like the narrative. I welcome more changes in the future, and some glitches (I would still like to see Starters names in Bold on the Game reports, just to mention a small example, to visually make it easy to check, track, compare and analyze stuff).

But for the most part, I think things are going good. Yeah, you have less users. I, as player, I prefer 20k good long-standing users, than 40k whining human bots that included, perhaps, 5k farms, or so.

Anyway, keep it up!

Good post :)