BuzzerBeater Forums

I'm in for season 2..

EDIT: Changed some team numbers and playoff scenarios after MrJ's withdraw notice concerning Season 2.

Thank you, that's a great decision! :) Now that you and Paul George have responded, we can conclude that 12 out of 16 original teams will continue in HGL on Season 2, and 2 new teams have informed they would be willing to participate already on Season 2.

So that leaves us currently with 14 participants for Season 2. It's an option to play season with 14 teams only, or then try to find one or preferably two more teams (in addition to Hårdboll and BC Eos) that would be willing to join.

As long as joining managers are committed for the duration of full season, I'd probably prefer having 16 teams instead of 14. But 14 would work out too, and actually we were very close to playing Season 1 of HGL with 14 teams.

If 14 participants for Season 2 would be locked though, it would just need to be reconsidered whether we want to include 12 out of 14 (which is about 86% of) teams to postseason play just as we do on this Season 1 (however, we have 16 teams this season and 12 out of 16 means 75% of teams are included in postseason play).
One of the other options, 10 our of 14 teams to the playoffs, on the other hand would mean that about 71% of teams would reach postseason play (instead of current 75%). This could be easily implemented by changing the number of teams who will automatically qualify for Second Round of Playoffs, from 4 to 2, and then First Round of Playoffs would be implemented in the same manner as on this season, but it would include teams on league table positions from 3rd to 10th.

As things get buried out in the forum so easily, here's another link to that participating teams-compilation post: (326589.154).


Last edited by Wagner at 5/13/2025 7:43:19 PM

I'm in for season 2.
I was thinking about becoming reserve team- I am not sure if I am able to promote to div II without additonal transfers. Maybe in season 70 I would have to buy one player so I might not be HG in S70.

Thanks, Paul George!
So by possibly becoming reserve team you meant like you were pondering earlier that you might have stepped out for HGL Season 2 or Season 3, due to buying non-HG eligible players..?

Have you already made up your mind completely, that you won't buy any restricted players during the full duration of the HGL Season 2 (including Playoffs, until the Season 2 HGL champion has been decided at the very least)? :)

Hi,

completly clean HG next season (S69).
S70 - not sure.

Hi,

completly clean HG next season (S69).
S70 - not sure.

Thanks for confirming that - I'll keep you added on the list of Season 2 confirmed HGL teams then. :)

League table updated again, after Round 11 matches. Some movement on the table this time, as you can see...

Club Trouville was able to find a way to a 2 point victory against Lielupes Melnas Sirdis in this very important match on Round 11... The hope is not still lost for teams at 2-9 records though (in terms of reaching Playoffs), but it's not on their own hands anymore.
Having said that, I haven't compared each teams' 4 last Regular Season matches opponents so that I'd get a number of "predicted wins/losses" for the remainder of the season, and to reach a "likely outcome" of the Regular Season.

But battle for positions, including a fierce battle for 3rd and 4th position on Regular Season table remains completely open currently!

Last edited by Wagner at 5/13/2025 8:40:42 AM

I'll keep playing out the season as competitively as I can because that keeps it as fair and level as possible for everyone that is fully invested in the league. It seems the fair thing to do to allow the other 15 managers a fair run at it.
You are, of course, quite right, I could go back through the early pages of the forums to find my post after each game and write in my scores. I also understand that you have your own reasons to, to use your words, make people jump, which are probably quite logical to you. But that doesn't mean I have to jump if they are illogical to me.
I feel I have been polite, fair and transparent in all of my communication leading up to and during this inaugural season.

Again, I wish all managers in the league well and hope you enjoy the concept for many seasons to come and I am happy to provide my spot in the league for an up and coming new manager from Season 2 going forward.

Wagner, I have done as you have asked and updated my list to reflect my games this season.

Thanks very much!

Well fellow HGL teams, after thinking on it a bit I have also decided to withdraw from the HGL in Season 2. I apologise for the change of mind but it is not exciting me enough at this point. My team is only going to be a bot for other teams for at least 2 more seasons.

It has been great to see the level of teams in this competition and although I look forward to fielding a strong HG team in the future, competing in the HGL contains little joy for me at present. Therefore, I will step away for now, continue on the HG journey that I am so excited by, and focus on my first and second teams and nothing else.

I'm sorry to hear that, it's bad news in many respects. But of course it's better to reach this decision now than later on, not to mention in the middle of the Season 2. And of course HGL will still in practice run "like it would be another day in the office", but you've been the most helpful of all HG managers when establishing HGL (well, the base work is now done/certain practices established for future seasons as well so it's all good in that sense), and helped HG community to accelerate their response rate and speed on many occasions (especially when we've been pressed with time - however, there should be less of these situations ahead as many of them concerned questions/challenges that arise when establishing the league).
Not just that, but I had a feeling you've been most active HGL manager to write on Official HGL (main) Thread, so I did some "research" on that. If we exclude my 11 first informative posts on main thread, it had 204 posts before this one. Those posts are divided among managers like this:
Manager/Messages (percentage of total messages on main thread)
1. Wagner/104 (51,4%)
2. MrJ/39 (19,1%)
3. demars/11 (5,4%)
4. Deano25/10 (4,9%)
5. Hadár/6 (2,9%)
6. 3 managers/4 (2% each).

And it's not only the 19,1% share that I mean, but you're one of those managers that keeps discussion alive by writing thorough posts and asking questions, and in a way are also trying to activate other managers to participate in discussions.

However, that's not all. Now that we have temporarily lost our season schedule maker from our league (yes, I'm looking at you), I'm bit unsure how we'll handle that issue. May I ask if you might consider auto-creating that schedule for Season 2 when participating teams are "locked in"/decided, or do you think it would be too much work for you for something that doesn't gain you "anything" (as you're not participating next season)?

In a few seasons I will request to join the HGL again and, if accepted, will hopefully be competitive enough to keep my interest each week.

I am really enjoying the HG challenge and wish I had started it years ago.

This will be my last HGL for now...

...but I will be back :D

It has been interesting to get some idea how each level of Top8 salaries fare against each other... Like you've noticed, in terms of winning games, below $60K Top8 budget is very small.

For example Buckner Bandits, at 98K, have been able to give pretty decent opposition on some games against stronger opponents, while having "only" 2-9 record (but smallest losses of season 14, 22 and 23 points, which might be mentally lot more tolerable than losing by 45-65 points somewhat regularly as has been the case for your team mainly).

Holy City Hoopers, at 148K Top8 wages, have been able to win 4 out of 11 so far, and 4 of those 7 losses have been losses by 20 points or less, so again smallish upgrade in salaries produces much more competitive team.

Les Gueux du Marais, at $222K Top8-wages has a HGL record of 6-5 currently, so about 70K leap here in salaries compared to Holy City Hoopers has helped them to a very good salary efficient performance.

I'm glad to hear you enjoy being HG anyway!

I'll keep playing out the season as competitively as I can because that keeps it as fair and level as possible for everyone that is fully invested in the league. It seems the fair thing to do to allow the other 15 managers a fair run at it.

That's a sensible and appreciated approach, thank you for that.

You are, of course, quite right, I could go back through the early pages of the forums to find my post after each game and write in my scores.

Thanks for updating your box score post.
Now if some new to HGL-manager, or some of the current HGL managers who don't know the easiest methods to update box score posts read this, I think they might get the idea from your message that it's a dreadful/arduous process. I think it is not. Easiest solutions to that (that I could come up with) have been presented couple of times, I think last time April 15th, but I now copied my earlier response below (in italics and in quotation marks) so that everyone sees how easy it is:


"There is no need for anyone to read through the whole thread to find their original post in order to be able to update it, as has been mentioned before.
Here are two solutions on finding your personal season box score post as easily as possible: (326590.104)."

I also understand that you have your own reasons to, to use your words, make people jump, which are probably quite logical to you. But that doesn't mean I have to jump if they are illogical to me.

Well, I get your point, and responding to a comment like this is not easy, because on the other hand there's no point of me trying to aggravate your potential irritation, especially like you've said, you could've caused lot more harm to HGL but you tried to make it a competitive experience for your opponents and keep league running smoothly.
And currently there is no actual penalty set for not complying with that rule, so technically without changing the rule, I wouldn't have means to restrict such behavior. But that's also the kind of thing that I meant when I wrote to rules, that please follow the current rules/practices that we don't have to start enforcing penalties (on added "categories") in order to keep the league running more smoothly. While it's not perfect example, as it's not critical to have the scores of matches on 3 different places (as originally demanded/asked from managers), having them on 2 different places (current practice) is sensible due to reasons I have explained.

And to the question about "jumping", on the other hand, I think you were aware of the rules/practices when you "signed up" for Season 1, so in that sense it is expected from you that you follow such practices when you join the league. (Frankly, I can't remember if I had established that protocol at the time we were confirming participating teams, so I certainly don't blame you or anyone here, but on the other hand that rule/protocol doesn't include lots of work for regular manager so all of them have been an easy task to accomplish). Saying that "if I don't want to do/feel like doing something, then I won't do it no matter what are the rules/protocols" doesn't always give me the vibe that manager is especially committed to the HGL (having said that, I again thank you for not just throwing in the towel in a middle of season).

But again, I do not wish to start arguing about such things here, because that doesn't bring us or HGL any good. I just wanted to clear the table by saying league practices are meant to be followed and are there for a reason.

Again, I wish all managers in the league well and hope you enjoy the concept for many seasons to come and I am happy to provide my spot in the league for an up and coming new manager from Season 2 going forward.

I of course wish you well in the future as well, and remind you that you're not done with HGL just yet, as you have a very good shot at medal this season!

Yes. I used it at the start of the season to map out the value of every skill pop and end salaries for all my players.

1. I decide on the season's training plan. (all 14 weeks)
2. I then use the training coefficients to work out the likely values of total pops for the entire season.
3. I then use Buzzer Manager, input all of these 'predicted' TSPs and arrive at a close approximate of the end salary for each of my players. I have done this, and will continue to do this...for my 1st and 2nd team.

The coefficients I use are mostly accurate although some need to be updated. However, I still use them as they usually under predict the likely training. Therefore, I over predict player TSps so I can estimate worse-case salaries.

However, given the situation I am in (8 players) and making $60-80k a week profit, and not needing to worry about the salaries going higher, I'm not too concerned at this point. I still do it as I like to be prepared.

That sounds like a plan, maybe I should start implementing similar kind of system to my training.
Do you use these tables/posts as a guideline for expected training effects when trying to estimate how training will affect your players: (295510.5)? (All information on these 9 posts on that page, including age, coach skill level etc.).