BuzzerBeater Forums

I agree with you and that's exactly how I prepare my matches.
BuzzerBeater (and probably basketball too) is a game of "small advantages". There many small parts of the game where you can win or loss, and the match outcome is a combination of all these small things. Fortunately there is not a dominating skill (like playmaking in HT), so you may be good at some and less good in others sides of the game. I think the main idea of the game is "you can't have everything", so you have to decide.

Team ratings simply can´t summarize perfectly all this complexity, but they can help if you know how to understand them. And of course, you can easily hide you real potential to those "rating and tactics" users.

No, something is wrong with some managers, because tactics are quite useless if you don´t have the appropriate players.

Tactics are useless without the adequate 5 starters and 5 backups.

The faster you learn this, the faster you will get to the top and win games.

I am not really interesting is a conversation like this. Please, my god, enlighten me! :D
Seriously, I guess we are talking two different languages. Of course the best manager is the one that adapts the best to the game engine. Of course the best manager is the one winning the most.

Tactics are not so important in BuzzerBeater

That's exactly my point. They should be more.
But not because I am not good enough to take the best from the GE... because it would be more fun. As simple as this.

I am not sure what you are talking about. To me, setting a line-up is a part of setting tactics. So I would say that tactics are incredibly important in BB.

Ok, I have read some of the points of people defending the new engine and I am starting to understand them. Here is my main issue, though:

-the new tactic that is emerging is for people to play PGs at the SF position when they play look inside. This does two things: it bolsters your outside defense so that the SF cannot make passes. It also allows you to get the ball into the hands of your big men at a fairly high frequency.
-it is a great way to find a fairly inexpensive SF. Not many SFs in the world can do everything. But there is almost no trade-off here. You defend well and you play offense pretty well using a PG here. Of course, PGs are fairly rare, too and this is driving up their prices.

But does this not seem unrealistic? Would you put an NBA PG up against Lebron and expect good results?

I have a suggestion to end this silliness, but again my question is: is this the way we want BB? If so, then there is no point discussing suggestions.

Tactics are not so important in BuzzerBeater

That's exactly my point. They should be more.
But not because I am not good enough to take the best from the GE... because it would be more fun. As simple as this.

When you say "tactic", you probably mean "look inside, run&gun, motion...", what is a poor concept of tactic. This "tactic" is not so important in BuzzerBeater. It is just a limited model for the simulation of the "pace" and "focus" in real basket.

But "Tactic" (with capital letter) is something much wider than just setting "look inside" and set a line-up with 3 centers. This "Tactic" involves the design of players with training according to your long-term strategy.

Anyway, everybody is free to build their own kind of team based on their basketball knowledge or personal preferences, and use whatever "tactic" or "Tactic" accordingly. What I don´t like is that those who fail in this, are willing to change the game engine instead of changing their mind.

I may be wrong but I have the feeling that some users who don´t fully understand how the GE works, are trying to promote GE changes on the basis of a very simple view of the game: tactics and ratings. My apologies if I´m wrong, but that's my feeling from reading this long debate thread.

I am from Spain (one of the biggest BB countries which is, by the way, very under-represented in these kind of discussions), and in my conference two pretty well-designed "inside teams" played the conference final after defeating strong outside teams and even suparssing the "incredibly powerful" HCA... and another inside (but versatile) team of my conference played the final of the national tournament.

Shall I promote a game engine change to favor equilibrated teams against highly specialized outside/inside teams?

Last edited by Emilio at 1/26/2010 9:53:45 AM

But does this not seem unrealistic? Would you put an NBA PG up against Lebron and expect good results?

The Pistons played Stuckey at the 3 for long periods on LBJ & others, with good results. I merely point this out as I am a Pistons fan!!!

There are alot of Post on this one, so please forgive me if someone else has already brought this up. Push the Ball seems to be the best Tactic, most BBB Finals have been won playing this way & your coach will play to where the team is having the most success. I play this way mainly & see a better performance from my team, although my Offensive flow is down compared to LIS or RNG.

The points per 100 shots, would this be affected by the 3pt shot, miss 2 3's=6--miss 2, 2"=4 & vise vercer. Bigger affect on your scoring percentage, one way or the other?

I do go along with the idea that the 3-2 Zone is too strong when defending the Inside, yes you could argue that the inbound pass would be harder, but good drivers, aka Wade, can & would eat up a 3-2 zone because they wouldn't need the inbound pass.
I've only been in this game since Christmas, so I'm still learning, so please be gentle if some of my comments don't make sense. :-)

The Pistons played Stuckey at the 3 for long periods on LBJ & others, with good results. I merely point this out as I am a Pistons fan!!!

Well, I do not know the game of basketball very well. But if a PG is a good option against a SF in real life, then I guess BB has it right and there is nothing to complain about.

But does this not seem unrealistic? Would you put an NBA PG up against Lebron and expect good results?

Of course it's unrealistic. True well-rounded SF's are very rare and historically haven't performed at a high enough level at their position to justify the costs to create/buy them.

The new GE made it difficult for the average big man at SF to perform successfully by finally increasing the importance of offensive flow skills. Now it's easier to succeed with more of a guard type player. It's not ideal, but considering the restraints caused by training options, it's definitely an improvement.

It's not ideal, but considering the restraints caused by training options, it's definitely an improvement.

Ok, you said it's not ideal so I'll give my suggestion:

-For the sake of defending a pass or dribble, limit the outside d of the player defending the SF by his inside d. So let's say his outside d is 12 and his inside d is 6, then when it comes to defending anything flow related, his outside d is only 6.

I can explain this logically by saying that a SF can be active inside or outside. So when defending a pass, if a player does not have high enough inside d he is not able to properly position himself to effectively stop both the pass and the shot. He has to stay back a bit to respect the fact that the SF could drive inside, or he is not able to post up well enough to stop both the shot and the pass, so he chooses to attempt to stop the shot.

I really don't see why you fix one issue (Cs dominate as SFs) to only replace it with another (PGs quite effective at SF).

To me, the most concerning part of your post was this, and it explains to me why high level PGs seem to sell for about the same as high level SFs, in spite of the fact that SFs are more rare:

True well-rounded SF's are very rare and historically haven't performed at a high enough level at their position to justify the costs to create/buy them.

I would tend to disagree with that somewhat, as I have managed to have good success with some fairly average players and one dominant (but cheap) SF this season. But it certainly seems to be the prevailing wisdom.


Last edited by HeadPaperPusher at 1/26/2010 10:54:58 AM

There's also a disadvantage of having a PG at the SF postion compared to having a high driving inside men there.

If you play another PG there, 3 out of 5 positions fail to execute inside shots very well. You are relying heavily at your PF/C then, hoping they take the right amount of shots (which happens faster due to playing 3 PGs instead of 2, I agree).

Also you inside focus rating will be lower by playing an outside guy there. So playing a PG as SF isn't always the best option in inside focussed offenses I guess.

If you play an inside guy at the SF slot, you got 3 out of 5 shooters that should hit a fair % of shots, but you've got 1 guy less that can pass, thus you offensive flow will be worse. At the same time your OD will be lower so you defense will be worse.

So yeah, it's actually tough to choose which one to play at the SF slot. Isn't SF always the toughest position to choose players for? ;)

I would tend to disagree with that somewhat, as I have managed to have good success with some fairly average players and one dominant (but cheap) SF this season. But it certainly seems to be the prevailing wisdom.

Right, that's why i added "historically". In the past you could just as easily put a big man with tons of IS and overpower the other team at SF, plus you'd get all the extra rebounds without getting very man TO's, even against the guys you have built. The new GE has changed that, which i think is better (much better for the guys you've built too).