BuzzerBeater Forums

I agree with all of your statement and want to add that new players often get caught in "get old for cheap" mantra. They often promote with only 30+ players and average trainees that may or may not train at all, only to find themselves demoting next season or the one after because their roster is worth less with each week passing and they can't lean on youngsters becasue they don't have them or they've been poorly trained.

The biggest mistake here I see is Arena not being expanded enough or at all. Sometimes it's better to wait one more season in lower league while expanding Arena and training players, thus being fully prepared to survive after promotion.

Good points, I agree.

The whole reason to go old is saving money so that you can buy more efficient builds and build up your stadium while competing. There are a number of newer players who make poor choices which have nothing to do with player age like buying bad builds, not investing in stadium, keeping salary too high, not training well, etc. If you are making bad choices it will lead to ruin faster with older players because you will be paying higher depreciation costs (as a percent of value) and the failure will be more visible. These people give old fogies a bad name.

I agree with all of your statement and want to add that new players often get caught in "get old for cheap" mantra. They often promote with only 30+ players and average trainees that may or may not train at all, only to find themselves demoting next season or the one after because their roster is worth less with each week passing and they can't lean on youngsters becasue they don't have them or they've been poorly trained.

The biggest mistake here I see is Arena not being expanded enough or at all. Sometimes it's better to wait one more season in lower league while expanding Arena and training players, thus being fully prepared to survive after promotion.

I didn't promote, granted I rid myself of my "old fogies" right before playoffs for younger guys that would last for longer at the next level. Not promoting hurt at first, but then I looked the bright side, could get another year of training on my guards, and build my arena more, and be better prepared for D.IV, I'd rather promote, and win more than I lose, than promotoe and either fight off relegation, or worse, bankruptcy from no attendance revenue after awhile.

"while competing" is a loose term though...If your goal is to just stay in the league and build the arena, then attacking the first or second place is a waste of money because you're not promoting anyway. The best way to go is assembling a team that can win at least one game a week, and that's an away game, to maximize attendance for your home games.

I appreciate the response and debate, but I think you are overstating my depreciation while understating my income, to a very large degree.

I am making 115k per week not including the cup, and my team as it stands is easily good enough to stay in d3. 115k times 12 weeks is ~1.4 mil. I also have 400k cash and should make at least decent money off training this season. So let's assume I take a 200k loss on my two 33+ players (which I think is pessimistic), I sell my younger trainee and keep my rotation one, and I'm able to make a similar cup run to last year. This would put me at ~2.7 mil in cash next season. It should be a bit lower because my fan support will dip some, and I'll need to buy a player to stay in the cup, but it will still be more than the value of my entire current roster... and I will be retaining 6 good rotation players.

And keep in mind I'm a 3rd year manager who has spent an average of 700k+ on his stadium each season. Of course it's going to be difficult to have a roster that is worth much at this point. People said the same things about my totally different but still old rosters when I was in D5 and D4.

Last edited by w_alloy at 8/29/2012 5:18:18 PM

how much you spend on staff

Just 12k/week, see more on my thoughts about staff here: (221642.1)

if this works for you, meaning it gets you to div2, I would have to put it down to smart moves on your behalf, and i noticed your arena is growing at a solid rate which of course is helping.

Well nobody is getting to D2 without some smart moves. Although I think going old is an important part of my strategy I believe there are other parts that would be hard for most managers to emulate, which is why I didn't mention my own team in my OP. And I'm in no rush to get to D2.

I still don't think this would work for 95% of players, as one bad purchase can cripple your team

Which is more crippling, overpaying 20% for a 600k 24yo SG or overpaying 20% for a 300k 32yo SG? In the latter case the mistake costs half as much and you still have more cash to work with. Also if you buy a build that just doesn't work on your team, you are gonna lose less cash flipping him cause the transfer fee will be cheaper.

its not uncommon for a noob to over spend in their first few weeks of the game

Definitely true. These players also have a tendency to buy older players. But over spending and buying old players are two totally separate topics. Just because people who make the former mistake like to do the latter does not mean it has any impact on what is good strategy.

Will be interesting to see what you get for Tyberiusz Zelek, i assume you expected to lose money on him, but got him in order to win your playoffs anyway

Yup, but it turned out I didn't need him at all as my closest playoff game was 34 points. In hindsight it was a pretty big mistake considering how much I will probably lose on him. But it's not all bad, right now he is a very sold D3 player with an efficient build and I don't mind carrying him until I can find someone to overpay for him. I'm just praying his skills don't drop too much in the mean time.

Last edited by w_alloy at 8/29/2012 7:17:37 PM

Skill drops seem very rare on 32 year olds. Most of my experience is with players age 29-32, so I don't really feel qualified to answer for older player. My impression is that 33 year olds still decline pretty slowly, and it gets faster every year from there. I have also heard that players with high secondaries decline more slowly and this has seemed to be true for me.

As someone who has most likely had a fair few 32+ guys, how often do you see skills drop? and does a higher popped player drop quicker?

I had a 34 year old drop every training update. Not much experience with players that age though, prefer oldies in the 30-32 range

Below is a complete list of skill drops due to age since I acquired my team. You can check my transfer history for dates bought and dates sold but they were each on my team for about one full season. All were 33+ at the time of the skill drops.

I've had a couple other old dudes on the team who haven't ever dropped. At age 35, one even popped in driving when he got caught up in 1on1 training one week!

I employed a career extension trainer from the beginning until May 18, 2012. Since then, I haven't employed one.


8/24/2012 Didi Gercke ↓dropped↓ in Outside Def. from respectable to average .

8/3/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from strong to respectable .

7/27/2012 Michael Parlapiano ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from respectable to average .

6/29/2012 Radu Nicolaescu ↓dropped↓ in Driving from tremendous to sensational .

5/25/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Inside Shot from respectable to average .

4/20/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Jump Range from average to mediocre .

3/16/2012 Jostein Kjos ↓dropped↓ in Driving from prolific to prominent .

3/9/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Rebounding from average to mediocre .


My conclusion is this: Skill drops aren't a very big deal if you're in the lower leagues, but they are quite inconvienent and you need to remember that your player is invisibly deteriorating in every skill, every week. So, don't rely fully on them. Use them to cheaply fill gaps, but spend your money on an arena, good trainees, and eventually good younger players who fit your individual plan. Use them to help you promote, so that your sustainable core of young talent and smart financial planning can reap the benefits of being in a higher league quickly, and just dump them at a minuscule loss when they're not good enough anymore.

Last edited by 五毛党 at 8/30/2012 11:24:19 AM