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But some are forced to take steps down in order to rebuild their team. Thus leaving room for new teams to go for gold.

If you look at the top divisions around the world you'll probably find that most teams sit there from the beginning - this game is really tough when it comes to vertical mobility between the leagues.

If stepping down to rebuild means to play for 3rd to 5th spot in a league something fundamental is wrong - but thats a whole different issue we are touching there.

What would be so bad about playing a guy in his "natural" position and giving him training too? Suddenly all the teams would play to their full potential, so who is the victim there? I can abuse the system as I play a league full of bots, where it really doesn't matter if my 0 passing C runs the show for weeks - thats a bit unfair to those who are stuck in competitive leagues, don't you think?

You just have to measure how much you feel it's worth losing in training over the risk of losing a game.

And you don't see that as illogical? There is certainly no RL counterpart to that.

As a reflection of real training ofc it is illogical. But there's also the part where you need to look at game design and adding balance to the game's different aspects. Competition vs training.

Yes, exactly, "Competition vs training" is what this game has come to. But what if it were competition against other teams that becomes the central conflict? Like real life athletic competition, eh? There is nothing necessary to game design about the artificial conflict of training vs competition. Only HT and its spawn, BB, use that strange system as far as I know. (There may be a few others). But most athletic sims do no such thing. Most have competition vs opponents as the central theme, just like real life.

This doesnt seem like something you'd support as you dont seem to be for the rich getting richer way. And thats sure what this would lead to.

Au contraire. It would lead to every team being able to train and compete. Competition against 20,000 other teams instead of competition against the few at the top would not be the rich getting richer, would it? It would be 20,000 teams all with a shot at the top. I support that. I honestly think a lot of guys at the top understand that, and that understanding underlies their opposition to changing training.

This doesnt seem like something you'd support as you dont seem to be for the rich getting richer way. And thats sure what this would lead to.

Au contraire. It would lead to every team being able to train and compete. Competition against 20,000 other teams instead of competition against the few at the top would not be the rich getting richer, would it? It would be 20,000 teams all with a shot at the top. I support that. I honestly think a lot of guys at the top understand that, and that understanding underlies their opposition to changing training.

Thought exercise:

Currently, what levels can you be competitive in and still train optimally? I'd say in V it's laughably easy, quite simple in a IV, somewhat challenging in a III, nearly impossible in a II and suicidal in I (and I've got experience actually doing that in all of those but I, and know enough about the NBBA from competing with those guys late in the Cup and in private leagues).

Your hypothetical lets *everyone* do that.

How much does a guy in V gain in your system? Nothing - except maybe instead of beating a bot by 50, they beat them by 75. Or not. How much does a guy in I gain? A massive benefit - because instead of having to replace entire starting lineups over time, they can use no-effort training to create three ideal players and then replace fewer players, thus removing some of the erosive effects that competition at the top levels causes.

Taking away literally the only advantage lower level teams have over higher level teams is pretty much a textbook definition of 'the rich getting richer'. It'd be different if it were reversed, and training was laughably easy in I and painful in IV - then, naturally, leveling the field would eliminate an inherent advantage of being at the top. But as always, I am impressed with how closely your knowledge about training matches up with your love for how it's implemented.

I think that two of the most unrealistic aspects of the game come from training. The two biggest culprits are the 48+ minute training requirement and out of position training.

Obviously I agree with you, but you will see in this thread that there are some outspoken people entirely dedicated to preserving the status quo. Good luck.

It's not the challenge of training, that I have a problem with. I designed Okobi/Chen's training program nearly 2 years ago and have played both of those guys at PG, SF, PF, C in our DII league with alot of success despite my team's lack of salary because of the way that I designed my team and designed their builds. I have also never had a probably getting guys 48+ minutes. If you get prospects that are not aggressive I think that its quite easy to get 48+ minutes a week for your trainees. Of course there are also a couple times a season where your last trainee doesn't get his minutes, but if your last trainee is lower potential than it doesn't really matter. The challenge of training should be the long-term nature of it and the build you actually design. If it takes me 10 season to train player, I shouldn't have to be grinding week in, week out.

I would also be totally ok with increasing the minutes needed for training so that only 2 players get training in single position or 4-5 players get training for two-position, but I think the way that the market is these days we need more players training and lowering the training limits will see more players train. Seeing players get 48+ minutes a game is just cringeworthy.

The issue with out-position is not the difficulty but the fact that it leads players to train LI teams. Getting rid of out-of-position training will help us see more diverse/outside builds and make this game much more interesting. Right now there are 50 players on the TL with at least 16OD/10IS but only 6 players with 14 ID/10 JR.

Last edited by Phyr at 10/17/2015 8:14:53 AM