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I'm not even sure FA would make a big dent in that, either, since it can only add players back to the pool that are actually being created or purchased

Yeah it does help. U21 players (or potentially so) would not go to waste when teams are banned and decent/good low to mid level players are also present in teams who go bot naturally.

Well, if you're referring to U21 in terms of the U21 national team and not just as a general age range, that's a narrow example (and of course, there's every possibility that the player wouldn't be trained in the seven weeks it takes to go bot). But I sincerely doubt that enough decent low to mid level players are out there to move the needle in a big picture sense. It might free up more guys who are in their low to mid 20s with high potential that got barely any training or just got stuck on JS for their entire career, though, but a lot of the players that could have been the 15-20k salary guards of today were fired as the "only 2k star potential" wasted draft pick five seasons ago.

I suppose one could spend his or her time worrying about how they're getting screwed in the current economic climate, or instead take the view that no matter what the state of the market is, any player you train you should be able to use or transfer and replace with an equivalent talent.

This is true, but those who have assets (players) are not losing as much as those who have cash instead

Before those who focused on cash instead of players profited, and of course that was pretty unpopular on the forums as well. I guess the economy is just too important to leave to the market. ;)

The thing that I always am amused by ...

Go ahead, laugh. That'll encourage people to stick around.

I hope the BB's are able to set aside their amusement and look at this serious matter for what it is.

Ironically, encouraging people to stick around would only aggravate inflation. Of course, I think people staying is much more important.

It's a serious matter when prices rise. It's a serious matter when prices fall. It's presumably a serious matter if the economy stays flat, since prices will be either too high or too low, and even if they're somehow just right, that doesn't mean everyone will see it that way.

I think that the slope of the price curve at any given time is not something that can be effectively managed, since if BB announced today that JR is going to be only 10% of the salary that it was, and that it was 200% more effective in outside offenses, it would still take a year for outside guards to be trained in quantities to meet the demand for them. What absolutely has to be bullet proof is that the fixed costs and revenues are balanced properly, and then as long as those are in balance, prices will adjust based on that supply and demand principle.

But the economy breaks down pretty simple - a 24 year old player with X skills will always have an intrinsic value based on his skills. Whether that breaks down to one game's arena revenue or fifteen just depends on the users in the game - when people train a lot of players, the cash value drops, and when people avoid training, it rises. To the extent that you choose to deal in dollars rather than players, you're ceding control to the other 20000+ users in the game - if they're all either training the next MVP/HOF guy to high salary levels or training GS every week because it's a waste of money to have a trainer, that'll certainly have an impact on your future purchasing ability.

there's every possibility that the player wouldn't be trained

There is also the certainty that the player will not make the team because it's going bot or has been banned and his GS is horrible. Which means you're not going to be able to save him. And I'm talking about 15k+ 21yo trainees at the begeinning of their 21st year.

Before those who focused on cash instead of players profited, and of course that was pretty unpopular on the forums as well. I guess the economy is just too important to leave to the market. ;)

Yes, but not recognising that the conditions changed and making no adjustment is shortsighted. You don't have to wait for the problem to reach epic proportions only to then scramble to fix a solution changing something else in the game.

When I mentioned cash vs asset I just pointed out the most evident trade-off. However assets vs assets (and let's include both the players owned and the arena built) is also a problem. Younger managers are penalised on a general basis because they have less assets, because they can support fewer or less valuable assets (they don't earn as much). Therefore inflation in this game is especially bad for newer teams and lower level teams.

It sounds like the idea behind Marin's words is that they would like to force lower level and new teams to focus on training lower potential trainees because they are priced out of better options, not fully realising how this creates a problem in progression opportunities for such teams. Bottom-up movement should be encouraged not made increasingly difficult in my opinion.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/21/2015 8:50:23 PM

But the economy breaks down pretty simple - a 24 year old player with X skills will always have an intrinsic value based on his skills. Whether that breaks down to one game's arena revenue or fifteen just depends on the users in the game - when people train a lot of players, the cash value drops, and when people avoid training, it rises. To the extent that you choose to deal in dollars rather than players, you're ceding control to the other 20000+ users in the game - if they're all either training the next MVP/HOF guy to high salary levels or training GS every week because it's a waste of money to have a trainer, that'll certainly have an impact on your future purchasing ability.

What you say, it sound a bit like this to me: "the BBs really wanted to push training for all managers and on all sorts of players, so we like inflation because it penalises banking and buying rather than buying trainees and training them". That's fine in principle, but has some side-effects which I outlined elsewhere in this thread. If they wanted to make training more profitable or more palatable to everyone, they sure are choosing a very convoluted and potentially dangerous way to do so.

You know, it's like boosting OD over the top and changing the GE so that OD stops every single outside skill to stop R&G and ending up making all outside based tactics broken. Now you say they announced changes (boosts) to JR? I wonder if this would have been needed if they found a better and more balanced/flexible solution compared to making OD so good in the past. And what next? Since there is no testing whatsoever in 10 seasons they will have to change something else because this boost to JR was too much and created another unbalance? It's the same for inflation, using a solution with side-effects is never a good idea, especially if it's not clear what or how large those side effects are.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/21/2015 9:06:56 PM

there's every possibility that the player wouldn't be trained

There is also the certainty that the player will not make the team because it's going bot or has been banned and his GS is horrible. Which means you're not going to be able to save him. And I'm talking about 15k+ 21yo trainees at the begeinning of their 21st year.

And how common an occurrence do you really think this is? Seven players have been banned in the past 7 days. I don't keep track of how many go bot but it's hardly a huge number.

When I mentioned cash vs asset I just pointed out the most evident trade-off. However assets vs assets (and let's include both the players owned and the arena built) is also a problem. Younger managers are penalised on a general basis because they have less assets, because they can support fewer or less valuable assets (they don't earn as much). Therefore inflation in this game is especially bad for newer teams and lower level teams.

I disagree entirely with your conclusion. A new team, unlike an older one, will need to build their arena - at a cost that is entirely unrelated to the market. So in a hyper-inflated market, it might only cost the equivalent of one well-trained player with decent potential to come up with the cash to complete the arena. In a hyper-deflated market, it could take six or more highly-trained elite prospects to come up with the same dollar amount of cash. The more inflated the market is, the less valuable the higher division's revenue advantages become, and the easier it is for newer teams to generate the cash they need for the fixed costs of building the arena that ultimately is what allows teams to progress upward.

It sounds like the idea behind Marin's words is that they would like to force lower level and new teams to focus on training lower potential trainees because they are priced out of better options, not fully realising how this creates a problem in progression opportunities for such teams. Bottom-up movement should be encouraged not made increasingly difficult in my opinion.

The thing is, even in the deflation times, the high end draft picks were still going for exorbitant sums, though of course there was never hope to recover that investment. In the end, good managers will make their way up, poor ones won't. It's just the ones who relied on 2013's strategy of tanking, buying a roster and moving up that way are going to have to adjust to 2015.

Last edited by GM-hrudey at 3/21/2015 11:06:44 PM

But the economy breaks down pretty simple - a 24 year old player with X skills will always have an intrinsic value based on his skills. Whether that breaks down to one game's arena revenue or fifteen just depends on the users in the game - when people train a lot of players, the cash value drops, and when people avoid training, it rises. To the extent that you choose to deal in dollars rather than players, you're ceding control to the other 20000+ users in the game - if they're all either training the next MVP/HOF guy to high salary levels or training GS every week because it's a waste of money to have a trainer, that'll certainly have an impact on your future purchasing ability.

What you say, it sound a bit like this to me: "the BBs really wanted to push training for all managers and on all sorts of players, so we like inflation because it penalises banking and buying rather than buying trainees and training them". That's fine in principle, but has some side-effects which I outlined elsewhere in this thread. If they wanted to make training more profitable or more palatable to everyone, they sure are choosing a very convoluted and potentially dangerous way to do so.

You are aware that the prices are being set by the market, right? It's not like BB-Marin clocks in on Monday morning, runs a report, and says "Oh, let's make players cost 14% more this week". For years there was a glut of players because of decreasing userbase flooding the market with FAs, and people deciding that there was no point in training since they could just go pick up a player at will from the TL. And this is the result - suddenly the player supply has dwindled, so unsurprisingly the prices have increased. Unless we eliminate the market entirely and just come up with a fixed price for players, or unless players are created out of thin air by BB whenever prices increase, this is the natural result of a sustained lack of training across the game's ecosystem.

What you say, it sound a bit like this to me: "the BBs really wanted to push training for all managers and on all sorts of players, so we like inflation because it penalises banking and buying rather than buying trainees and training them".

Well, it sounds like that because that's exactly what they're saying. They're so focused on training that they view the game from the point of view of a training sim and lose sight of the fact that this is a basketball sim. Training becomes God; it is the dog that wags the tail that the rest of the game becomes.

In a basketball sim there would be a balance between training players for your team and buying an occasional free agent for your team. Nowhere in the real world do basketball teams train players for the express purpose of selling them, with rare exceptions. Certainly nowhere does the entire economy of a league at any level on any continent work that way. The focus on training wouldn't be so omnipresent in a basketball sim.

You are aware that the prices are being set by "the market," right?

You are aware that it is not that simple, right? Because if the GM's aren't aware of that and the BB's aren't either, there is no hope. The level of prices is a result of the interaction of amount of cash chasing the players, and the quantity and quality of the players available. THAT is "the market." When that interaction results in a player that would be useful for a mid-level team or a lower-level team costing more weeks or games worth of income than the team can possibly manage, then the economy is broken, even if the top-level teams are flourishing in this economy.

Now to be fair I have to allow that you might be right in this: maybe only the managers of the top-level teams are intelligent, so the input from managers of mid-level and lower-level teams can be ignored and those managers belittled. It is also possible that BB would be more successful as a training game rather than a basketball game. I have to be open minded about those two possibilities ... but down deep I don't believe either one pertains.

I disagree entirely with your conclusion. A new team, unlike an older one, will need to build their arena - at a cost that is entirely unrelated to the market. So in a hyper-inflated market, it might only cost the equivalent of one well-trained player with decent potential to come up with the cash to complete the arena.

You're assuming that new trainers are able to benefit from inflation revenues-wise which is not entirely the case. It's like an inflation bubble on a specific part of the economy (say, the property market) in real life. If wages don't grow (here revenues from gates are fixed, they don't follow inflation of the transfer market etc) the wealthy are still ok because they had invested ior still have access to the inflated asset and the middle and lower 'class' are wiped out. Comparatively new managers are now worse off than before Utopia came to be, using Utopia as the starting point of prices finally spiralling out of control. Yes in time they might also be able to benefit from the inflation to cover the arena expansion cost, however my point was that those who already have the arena will be able to benefit much more than them.

In the end, good managers will make their way up, poor ones won't.

That's fine, but making it exceedingly difficult is not going to end well for anyone. It looks like the usual 'fixing by overdoing' strategy by the BBs.

You are aware that the prices are being set by the market, right? It's not like BB-Marin clocks in on Monday morning, runs a report, and says "Oh, let's make players cost 14% more this week".

I have no problem with this, but Marin says that he doesn't want to lower the eligibility criteria because he's happy with the inflation and it is his choice and his alone, that there must be no lower and medium salary players coming to the market via free agency. It's a bit like the Federal Reserve setting the refinancing rate: does the Fed also set the cost of lending the banks then charge to their customers? No. Does it affect the cost of lending? Of course it does.

So let's not kid ourselves here, the amount of FA and the price of the FA is not up to the market, but to the individual choice and preference of the BBs. Also the fact that you are unwilling to separate the problem between the availability and the cost of the free agents is key. People here are not asking to put every single player back into the market, but to have a pool which may serve managers from D3 and below (and incidentally saves young prospects who are still trainable). Affecting the cost (through taxes or starting price) of the free agents is the smart way of regulating the market, not closing a part of the market altogether.

Unless we eliminate the market entirely and just come up with a fixed price for players, or unless players are created out of thin air

You just refuse to acknowledge that those players already exist. Assuming the number of managers is constant, any time an old manager is replaced by a new one, you delete the players of the old manager (no FA) and you replace trained guys with untrained old players (who are worthless because they are usually bad and untrainable). So the new manager looks at the TL to find decent players he could use at his level, but guess what? There isn't any because the old team's players have all been deleted. Every time you replace an old team with a new one and eliminate players you are depleting the overall talent pool in the whole game.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/22/2015 7:40:39 AM