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Both great examples! If you train a player two-three seasons though, in the meantime he can actually contribute to your winnings, so you gain extra money off from him.

I recently fired a PR guy and forgot to hire one before the next game.

Against a poor team in my league, my seats were: 9289 / 979 / 243 / 13 = 10524 ($190,866) (with basic level PR)
Against the #1 team in my league, my seats were: 8426 / 973 / 247 / 14 = 9660 ($181,513) (with auto 2k PR)

Loss of more than 9k. Both were coming off a win on the road and with similar fan surveys.

I agree. I'll bet that he lost closer to $25-30,000 since it was the 1st place team.

I have hired 3 basic staff with specialties since I made the OP. I now think that a trainer and PR specialist with specialties are probably worth it for new players, but not by much.

I am still convinced that the vast majority of new teams spend too much on staff and that the conventional advice telling new players to get level 4 trainers is very flawed.

I am still convinced that the vast majority of new teams spend too much on staff and that the conventional advice telling new players to get level 4 trainers is very flawed.

I tend to agree. I think the the early days when training was paramount and could increase the value of a player exponentially in a short period of time, spending a little bit more on a level 4 trainer was worthwhile but I just don't see that as the case anymore.

Second, in my admittedly limited experience, the more balanced a team is the more likely it is to punch above its salary weight. It makes sense because of the exponential nature of skill cost: a 10k increase in salary will buy a lot more skills on a 15k player than it will on a 25k player. Now of course there are viable tactics and strategies that make certain players more important that can be quite effective, and I'm not saying your top 8 players should always have the same salary. But I think that especially for newer managers, a more balanced approach will win more games for the same salary most of the time.

+1

Punching above your salary weight is key.

What's interesting with this theory is that you can transpose it from the team level to the player level. Basically, "Team" becomes "Player" and "Player" becomes "Skill".
Each player is much more cost effective when he's versatile.

On another note, Manon said(221642.4):

every skill in this game has its highest gain at the first levels.

He forgot to say that for game shape, it's actually the reverse phenomenon.

Last edited by Thelonious at 9/13/2012 4:13:08 PM

I agree. This game has changed very much since the beginning (this is my third team, I have been playing on and off since season 3...mostly off though). This thread has opened my eyes a bit to training being not so valuable as it has previously in a traditional buy-sell sense. However, the above point about punch per dollar spent is clearly quite valid in the revised battlefield.

With the focus on rounded players, it may yet be valuable to carry great trainers. Not to exhibit unwieldy Joe Bronson characters who sell for a boatload of profit in mid range 3-5 years, but to create well rounded players in short time.

The vision of my Chuckers was to start a rotation of 9 players who received significant training while on my roster. To mold a team to fit my liking. It is difficult and expensive to locate and purchase well-rounded players. It is substantially easier, with the right training plan, to create those players. The profit isn't made on the market increase, but by crafting a team that is constantly improving and winning games while still making a profit like a team that is tanking.

Not to use my team as an example of success, because I haven't done jack squat just yet (went AWOL for 2 months in the peak training time of my first batch and undercooked my Christmas hams), but I am fully capable of beating any team in my competitive IV league with a thrifty salary expense and a phenomenal profit margin. My strategy has been to buy value trainees with average to sub average potentials to force myself to use every skill point wisely. Each step of my build will buy trainees with the next level of potential to keep moving forward, upwards, onwards while learning how to build compact killing machines.

Perhaps this could be a valid strategy going forward instead of an idealistic, overconfident and snobish way of running a team?

Last edited by Alan Ellis at 9/14/2012 1:04:40 AM

Having said this, I don't understand why raising the salary floor was picked as the solution against tanking, since I'm sure plenty of teams, including myself, are competitive at lower salary masses than the salary floor. I objected the salary floor reform since the beginning, and with this year's raise, I can tell you it penalizes versatile players and versatile teams. Simple as that.

Like I said in another thread, the solution to tanking should be the more money there is in your balance, the more fans stop showing up to the arena when you're consistently losing, because they simply realize you're not investing in the current season.

Hi There!!

Great Post!

I was just wondering what a NT player means?