BuzzerBeater Forums

Games are calculated in batches, grouped 15 minutes before each starting time slot, at most 1000 at a time. Human vs human matches are calculated first, followed by human vs bot and finally bot vs bot. Rarely is there a possibility of some bugs or other deterring factors affecting less than a full batch. This might shed some light, if I can find which timeslot/batches have been negatively affected.

As for merchandise, most of the merchandise related data is calculated before the economy updates even start (economy updates are calculated country by country, following the same order as the matches). These updates (merch related) are global, however it is quite possible that they break mid-calculation, that is not the most likely scenario. Usually, if something breaks, it breaks for everyone. This then results in quite obvious merch drops that can then be quite easily identified (especially now, using the new table).

I'm explaining all this so it would be clearer how the backend works, enabling you to understand the mechanisms better, ultimately, hopefully, with a larger set of eyes we can find the cause faster. At least, it might help identify the problematic areas.

As for your specific suggestion, I will do something of that sort, considering all of the written above.

Could the missing Fan Surveys be responsible? For me, that's what started my attendance problems. However, even after that issue was resolved, my attendance never recovered, in fact, it dropped even further.

During the last few weeks of the season, my Fan Survey results seemed suspiciously low, even though all the individual components were fine. My guess is that missed Fan Surveys were still having an effect.

My fan survey results keep deteriorating even when nothing is happening to affect it.
For instance, right after I got disqualified from the cup I had 3.5 stars for cup run. However, every couple of weeks after that I kept losing half a star.
For fans being familiar with my team, about 3 weeks ago I got to 1.5 stars. Then it suddenly dropped to 0.5 even though no transactions occurred in that timeframe.
Finally, I was eliminated from the playoffs after the first round, after which point I had 3.5 stars for team performance this season. My season is pretty much over, but now I only have 2.5 stars for team performance this season even though I haven't played any more official games since then.

Here's a scenario for you
I was coming off my biggest road win in seasons.
I was playing my rival with a chance in the final week to finish first.
I went down 2000

My Fan Survey got worse again, even though I haven't played any competitive games since last time and the season has been over for me since after the 1st round of the playoffs.
Specifically, "I am pleased with the team's performance this season" is now down to 2 stars from 2.5 stars last time and 3.5 stars when the season officially ended for me.

I am a newly promoted team to D.3 and finished the season in 4th place, and lost the first playoff game.

Full disclosure, the statistics are not helping much, so I've decided to open the issue to suggestions. I've added a attendance averages table to the (/community/overview.aspx)

It looks like the overall attendance numbers didn't change much, so if there was a bug, it only affected a few teams. My suggestion would be to look at only those teams whose attendance was significantly down in the last few regular season games, as compared to their season average. We'd expect these teams to have done poorly in the later half of the season to explain their bad attendance. However, if you find that in general, these teams didn't do badly, then it could point to a bug somewhere.

I know for me, I won 8 of my last 10 regular season games, yet my attendance dropped dramatically. By the last game, it was down 100k to what I was getting earlier in the season. It was as if I got hit with a fan boycott.

I noticed during this time, Fan Survey results were much lower than expected so my guess is that when you recalculated the Fan Surveys, earlier season results were somehow over weighted, while later season results were under weighted or even ignored. This might also explain why only some teams seem to have been affected.

Last edited by Slug at 3/1/2020 1:04:09 AM

OK, some really good suggestions here. First of all, I agree, the fan survey is the cause, so I'll take a look there first and foremost. I'll try the other suggestions when time allows it.