BuzzerBeater Forums

Don't depend too much on the draft for improvement, it's a lot of luck in this game. I'd start by building your arena. If you want any training advise I'd be glad to help as well :)

And you said you read the guide on the help forum right? It's got a lot of useful stuff

Considering I have $300k, what sort of arena adjustment do you reckon I should start with?

Anything will be fine for your first expansions but you should consider some luxury boxes, courtside seats and lower tier as they will probably be filled each week with your current ticket prices.

Try to get a feel for your attendances and then tweak the price when you get a chance.
Your bleachers attendance will be more volatile and depend on recent performances where as your luxury boxes are more related to your longer term performance and your die hard fans.

This game - the development of your club into a successful one - is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes patience and experimenting but it is very rewarding. Lots of managers find training the most rewarding part and others making as much money as they can or winning as many games and getting promoted quickly.
Its possible to achieve all these things but its takes time and there are many ways of getting there.

Dont be in a rush, read the help topics on the forums and the user manual. Do it a bit at a time. Id recommend learning the different ways to train players (it is a bit odd!) but this is a very enjoyable part of the game.

Its the kind of game you can put a small amount of time in or a lot of time in, but the main thing is to have the sticking power to build a great team :)

Please keep posting and asking questions we will try to offer some good advice :)

enjoy your season!

managing the gameshape off your players is a big help in winning games too

i think in the help section on the forums, you can find more information on how to manage this, but in short playing your players between 60-75 minutes a week gives you a good chance in increasing it and therefore get more out off your players

In terms of game shape, on the 'manage my team' page it shows in the training box that my players have 48+. But I've only played one game so far and my top minute player was 36. How does that work? Also if my guys in a normal week have 2 league games, does that mean I shouldn't play scrimmage games to avoid over playing the players?

on your manage my team page you are looking at the training minutes summary. all this does is tell you how many minutes each of your players has at the training position you have selected for the week. id strongly recommend learning how training works. Friday lunchtimes are generally when the training updates happen for us and is the chance to see how your players have improved given the training you have selected. 48+ means the player has received enough minutes to get full training this week at the position you have chosen. players who receive less than that by friday only receive a smaller % of the full training. There is no advantage to giving a player more playing time at the training position once he reaches 48+ for the week.

For game shape, i find a handy page is to go to "set your line up" and click "weekly player statistics".
ive copied a bit of mine below (sorry pasting tables doesnt work well on this forum)

Weekly Player Statistics: Week 01/09/2012 - 07/09/2012 MIN
Elliot Moyse 81
Robbie Harris 77
Alberto Vigo 72
Andrew Guest 70
James Gascoigne 70
Bosco Ahearne 68
Ty Raftery 67
Radomir Garczarek 65
Yiorgos Tatsidis 57
Dezider Bukuš 57
Anton Dunn 44
James Carruthers 30

OK so it shows Moyse and Harris received over 72 minutes which is generally too much basketball in one week and their gameshape may suffer as a result. Vigo down to Grarczarek got 5 to 6 quarters of basketball (60-72mins) and this is perfect, so this will improve their gameshape. Tatsidis/Bukus at 57 mins isnt bad but not great, but poor old Carruthers and towelboy Dunn got so few minutes (<48) that their gameshape will almost certainly drop a level or two this week.

Proficient is the best game shape you can get and then strong scond best. Good game shape management will leave all your players on strong/proficient every week. Your gameshape is most affected by your last weeks minutes (once it is updated with training) but the previous 2 or 3 weeks minutes also have a smaller impact on gameshape. this means that it is important to consistently play your players between 5 and 6 quarters of bball each week.

Your cup games/ scrimmages count towards your minutes for the week for game shape and training purposes.

If you enter a friendly league (as a supporter) this doesnt affect GS/training minutes.

One level of game shape between players is like a level or two in their skills in terms of performance on court so GS management is very important. a well managed team of players on low 5-15k salaries in proficient gameshape could probably beat a team of players with much higher salaries (30-40k) on respectable or worse game shape, all other things being equal. The numbers here on salaries on performance arent backed up by solid evidence but are to demonstrate the point and are based on my judgement from experience.

Enthusiasm management is another good thing to look at over time and can make games you'd lose by ten or more close, or close games win by ten etc.

good luck

Just to add to that excellent post from Fluff, certain team training types, such as free throws and stamina, automatically show players as having 48+ minutes of training regardless of how many minutes they have played that week. This is because you don't need court time to improve those skills.

Cheers for the tips. Very helpful. So my player who has got 70ish minutes from 2 games I should take out for the 3rd game of the week to avoid overplaying him? Basically I should use scrimmages to add minutes to players who didn't get enough game time?

a basic way to manage minutes is to have 5 starters and 5 backups on your roster.

The starters start the two league games and are left out of the selection altogether for the scrimmage/cup game.

This means the starters may play 36 minutes twice (72 minutes) minutes and the back ups 12 minutes twice (24 minutes) in the league games, plus all 48 minutes in the scrimmage so all 10 players get 72 minutes.

You won't actually get 72 minutes for each player - it'll more likely be somewhere between 52-92 depending on how close your league games are - but it's a good system to adopt while you are learning the game.

I've just had a look at your roster, your best trainee for age/potential is John Goodman, so I would put him at the centre of your training plans and single position train him. Then look for a similar player in his position on the transfer list aged 18 or 19 who has starter potential or better (starter potential is ok to train for the rest of this season and next) and make that player Goodman's backup.

While you're not in the cup, you don't need more than 10 players on your roster (you can play scrimmages with only three players) so you might want to sell or fire your third-sting players to save on the wage bill.

Last edited by Elmacca at 9/7/2012 5:41:57 AM

i want to add 1 thing to fluffs post

between seasons gameshape will get reset back to respectable