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because those taxes, as I repeated several times, are just the same as before, just slightly harsher for the teams selling 15/20+ players each season.

Well they are affecting all rational people, since they constrain roster changes at all levels. Trainerman is an extreme example (personally I thought of buying a player to fill in for an injured one and then fire him instead of selling him in the first half of the season), but the turnover of players per team is much lower this season. I see that in both my main league and Utopia.

So you could say I'm talking based on direct observation of the environment I'm in. If you want to say that's not hard evidence, go right ahead, however I dare you to equally explain with hard evidence how people are not affected in their decisions by the tax (and assuming you manage the impossible, I would then like to hear why we have the tax at all, if it doesn't affect the managers' behaviour re: listing players). Or even, more simply, if in your opinion people have not modified their behaviour in terms of number of roster changes over a season, please do make a case on why rationally you think that's the case.

Logic would have it this way: higher taxes on roster changes = fewer roster changes (without even getting to people firing players instead of selling them which has happened as we know); fewer roster changes = fewer players on the market; fewer players on the market = higher prices. I'm not saying the tax caused inflation by itself, I'm saying it contributed to make it worse. So BBs have created extra inflation in the overall market to prevent daytrading, which was my argument in trying to explain what I meant by "overdoing" and having "unwanted"/"unexpected" effects.


EDIT for Perpete: I've found at least another who was going to fire instead of selling to keep taxes low: HAHA. It's in the daytrading taxes thread.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/23/2015 12:52:44 PM

Yea, the amount of users is making inflation worse but. hopefully utopia can get us out of the problem that they started with their managers finishing out the product that is their trainees.

Utopia is the main reason for the inflation. Suddenly you had 1000 teams with garbage rosters looking to upgrade. So all the mid-low level players cost spiked immediately after Utopia started. In the long run it might balance out IF people stick around...of course the big question now is what's going to happen to the players in those teams who will not renew their Utopia package. We all know the answer to that question given the current policy (they will all be deleted).

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/23/2015 11:36:44 AM

There is currently 470 players with a current bid (or starting bid) at 5000$ or less. People are still selling low end players.

Lots of good comments since I read this thread yesterday. Forgive me for going back to page 2 to respond to the comment above. I think this is important for illustration.

Perpete is correct. When I did this same search, I found 475 players with a bid of $5000 or less. But let's consider the following scenario:

I just got my new team today. I see a roster of "scrubs." My best players earn $3000 to $4000 a week. The new owner checklist wants me to go buy a player on the TL. OK. If I'm going to buy a player, I'm going to buy a better player than the scrubs I already have. So, I search for players who have a maximum bid of $5000 and a minimum salary of $5000. What do I find? Of the 475 players who have a maximum bid of $5000, only 73 have a salary of at least $5000. That means of Perpete's 470 players, more than 80 percent are players that aren't going to make any team better ... at least not right now. Also, I've read the game manual and I've learned that at age 34 players begin to lose their abilities. Crap, I don't want no old guy who's not going be as good at the end of the season as he is now, so I add a maximum age of 33 to my search. What do I get then? 22 players with a minimum salary of $5000, under the age of 34 and with a low bid.

The thing is, though, 5000 salary is just an arbitrary point as well. I know I did a search just now for players under 5000 salary with at least 36 guard skill points and a current bid under 5000. Now, of course, of those 64 players there are some that are total junk, and others that are certainly an improvement above starting players but still very cost effective. 22 of those guys are 19 or younger, and some of those even have decent to good potential, while 58 of them are age 32 and below.

The same thing happens when you use 24 big man points - I'm seeing 62 currently, 18 of them at age 19 or below and 57 are 32 and below.

And you are signing up some 200 new owners every week and this is what they have to choose from?

Now granted, you don't have to be so cheap when shopping for players. So, let's change our maximum bid to $100,000. New owners certainly can buy at least one player for that amount of money and still have enough left to start building the arena, pay for scouting, buy other players, etc. I still want a $5000-a-week player and I still want a player who won't start dropping in skill after I sign him so still a maximum of 33 years old. And the total is ... 107.

Again, you're signing up some 200 new owners every week and there aren't enough players on the market for all of them to be able to complete the dang checklist ... unless you expect them to sign some old fogey or some crappy player that is no better than the scrubs you handed them on their original roster. Any wonder why new owners don't stick around for long?

The assumption there, of course, is that everyone who signs up immediately logs in, hits the transfer market when they're allowed to, and tries to buy players. I suppose it would be an interesting experiment to track the people who join the game in a given time and see how frequently they log in the first few months if they last that long - not one that I have the time or inclination to do, and maybe Marin's already got some data on that.

But yeah, when prices were falling we went from 40k+ users to 20k+ users, and now that prices are rising, that's causing the loss of users. The simple fact is that this game is a dinosaur in the modern internet, and the type of people who would enjoy it are for the most part already here.

the thing is why teams at lower leagues strides harder making myself an example. it took me 3-4 seasons of tanking meaning out of my frustration i just left my team hanging even to the point i got a warning 3x on my email stating if i dont log in in a week ill lose my team. wasted training on 2 of really good players having good base skills sets.

to make it short, it took me that long to just muster up close to 1.8 million that i can afford to buy a player that i bought at a staggering 1.5 million 70k salary player that is already 27 yrs old. because of that i have to sold 2 players of mine at a total of of 1.4 million ( i have to list them a number of times ) to cover it which let me be able to buy a 28 yr old 50k salary center at 730k

The truly unfortunate thing is that you're probably far from the only one to do this. But while it is unfortunate for you, I'd rather the game move toward rewarding teams for creating players rather than making players so inexpensive that the practice of throwing away three seasons just to pile up cash continues to be profitable and encouraged.

tell me hrudey and your all wondering how come your losing people in this game? now for you to say we are all complaining about this and that try to put yourself in our shoes. its easy to say things out of summary of ones experience but what your going through doesnt mean we are going through it the same way.

The funny thing is that it would be easier for me if we went back to deflation. My run with my core of players is coming to an end soon, and even if I can replace the three guys that I didn't build myself, the other six guys in my core are running up in age. It would be nice - for me - to see 29 year old guards at 300 or 400k, bigs at less than that, but those days are gone.

But I don't believe we're losing people because of inflation, any more than I think we lost more than 20k teams during the deflation era because of deflation. My presumption is that we're losing people because this is a very narrow target audience in the first place - guys who are willing to put in months of RL time for a single season of progress in a world where plenty of online gaming alternatives provide a more instant experience.

look before i use to get to train players at all star level from 3k salary to almost 40k consistently now i have to just satisfy myself with star level only to be so much happy if they reach a salary surpassing 20k ( im training balance guards )

is it easy to just say sell em when the time comes so at a price of around 200-400k in which i can afford to buy a better player which i have a struggling team have to try to put money on the expansion of my arena that does get full by means of having close to minimum prices

All-star potential trainees are still relatively cheap and if you're training for profit, they'll certainly end up selling for more than you paid for them, while still being good enough to play for you at any level - I mean, my two star potential guys are playing close to 20 minutes a game in the league and more in the Cup and I have no real complaints, other than the age.

another point which i agree with you is having enough talents on the market to compensate the needs of teams which in effect lowers prices. such a time in BB when centers were not expensive since its easier to train them compare to guards.

And that's sort of the whole issue here. The market rises and falls because of what is trained and what is desired (and what is lost, though the number of players lost through teams going bot I still think is not nearly as significant as some). If it were my decision to make, I probably would have made training lower potential guys significantly faster some time ago, which would help now of course and would always give new teams an avenue to improve quickly and inexpensively regardless of the market. But it's not my game.

But yeah, when prices were falling we went from 40k+ users to 20k+ users, and now that prices are rising, that's causing the loss of users.

Very few people here have been arguing that there is a connection between the prices on the Transfer List and the number of users and those who have suggested it, including yourself, had the causality reversed (the loss of users has driven prices, not vice versa).

It's an interesting way to move the discussion in a territory where you're clearly more confident. Even the numbers you have provided (I'd check if I could search for TSP) seem to suggest there is a shortage of players.

I'm in no way a supporter of Mike Franks generally, but he's right in saying that the situation affects lower to mid level teams. You know the situation is not right when it becomes preferable to rent (for a limited number of weeks) Vasja Dežman (27910214) over players with half his salary who cost several hundred thousands bucks to acquire. You know there is a disconnection in different levels of the transfer market and things aren't working properly if, in a period of high inflation for 75% of the managers, high salary players who sold for over 1 million in S27 at 23-24 years are now trading for less than 10k at 26. Dezman is an extreme case, but high salary players have not become much more expensive and in some cases have actually become cheaper. Is this another intended effect of Marin's brilliant reasoning about how we are in the best of all possible worlds (transfer market-wise)?

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/23/2015 11:31:09 AM

If this was a basketball simulation then what happens in games would be what was the thing that only matters. However we're playing a basketball management simulation where we take the role of managers of a basketball club. Hence training becomes important as it made so that it is an important part of the game.
Luckily we are not forced to do anything as building our arena or training players. But it sure helps to do both.

Actually, training isn't an option, it is the only option. No one said anything is "bad about training lower potential players." Except, of course, for observations about how illogical training is currently set up (left over from the similarly illogical training in Hattrick). Maybe fixing that would make forced training a little more palatable.

And two years ago, the post would have been: "Actually, tanking isn't an option, it's the only" option." Heck, almost four years ago I was engaged in a nice forum discussion with a well-known user who said,

"Thinking that training is possilbe at your level in the game. This is not really your fault. One would hope this game is set to reward you for training your own players...that really only happens in small nations where they have the finances or established teams taht bought pre created players at around 22. Its just the way they set this game up."

Every time you replace an old team with a new one and eliminate players you are depleting the overall talent pool in the whole game.

You not only resist correcting the player market by adjusting the FA basement, you drain the game of players w/o replacing them. Steps in the right direction are resisted while steps in the wrong direction persist.

For the teams that go bot without logging in, of course, the players lost are offset by an equal number of newly-created players of about the same aggregate skill. Occasionally teams that have been around a while sell off a majority of their roster, sit on cash and think they may someday come back - or maybe know they never will - and have essentially no useful players to return to the market. The thing is, for these "desirable" players to be able to be returned to the market, they have to have existed in the first place - and while there are certainly some players, I highly doubt it's a significant enough number to move the needle.

Here’s another guy who gets it:

However, eliminating all free agents whose salary falls below some arbitrary number has had an adverse effect on mid- and low-level teams. It has created a shortage of players on the TL and consequently has caused prices to skyrocket for players who are on the market in those salary ranges.

Player prices being high as an adverse effect on mid-and-low level teams. Prices being low has an adverse effect on mid-and-low level teams. Two years ago, prices being low was killing the game. Now, prices being high is killing the game.

because those taxes, as I repeated several times, are just the same as before, just slightly harsher for the teams selling 15/20+ players each season.

Well they are affecting all rational people, since they constrain roster changes at all levels. Trainerman is an extreme example (personally I thought of buying a player to fill in for an injured one and then fire him instead of selling him in the first half of the season), but the turnover of players per team is much lower this season. I see that in both my main league and Utopia.

If the tax only has increased for people selling players 15+ times in a season, it's only rational to consider firing instead of selling if you're at or near 15+ sales in a season - or if it would have been rational to consider firing instead of selling before the change, of course.

I suppose in the "non hard science" category, I could just as well propose that any perceived drops in transfer activity are because of the changes in the blank lineup, which means that it's economically less rational to carry a deeper roster since you can no longer get the same balance of minutes... which I suppose means that it's caused inflation to get worse, more of that overdoing again. I'm coming around on this.

If the tax only has increased for people selling players 15+ times in a season, it's only rational to consider firing instead of selling if you're at or near 15+ sales in a season

The change affects all level of sales but it becomes more evident after a certain level. The number 15 is a number Perpete has thrown at us, but so far everyone has refrained to say exactly how it's calculated probably fearing that people like Darkonza will figure out the optimal amount of daytrading that the current system allows. So let's dispel the myth that the tax applies only over 15 sales. If it is true, by all means please do amend the Game Manual to reflect this.

it would have been rational to consider firing instead of selling before the change, of course.

Trainerman clearly said he fired some players (who could have contributed to lesser teams) because intended to sell others in the future. That's rational behaviour and one that was not needed when the revenues from a sale were not dependant on the number of previous sales.

I suppose in the "non hard science" category, I could just as well propose that any perceived drops in transfer activity are because of the changes in the blank lineup, which means that it's economically less rational to carry a deeper roster since you can no longer get the same balance of minutes

Mathematically it's nearly impossible to have sub 72 minutes with less than 11 players (you'd need a miracle with 10), 12 is a more realistic number. Nothing's changed there, it was like that before and it's still true today. Here: http://www.buzzerbeater.com/team/91040/players.aspx. 12 players, 9 on proficient, 2 strong and 1 respectable. No GS training, 5 players receiving 48 minute+ training last week, same old story as any of the past few seasons. I really never used blanks in the past so, literally, nothing's changed for me and for many managers who, like me, never used blanks or were completely oblivious of the glitch.

The lower listing activity that you can see in your league's page might be due to other circumstances and it may be a statistical fluke, but you will have a hard time arguing and expecting people to believe that it's more likely due to the removal of blanks than to an extra tax on sales...

Edit. Oh dear me, hrudey look what I incidentally found: (264414.32)

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/23/2015 12:43:25 PM

I'm in no way a supporter of Mike Franks generally, but he's right in saying that the situation affects lower to mid level teams. You know the situation is not right when it becomes preferable to rent (for a limited number of weeks) Vasja Dežman (27910214) over players with half his salary who cost several hundred thousands bucks to acquire. You know there is a disconnection in different levels of the transfer market and things aren't working properly if, in a period of high inflation for 75% of the managers, high salary players who sold for over 1 million in S27 at 23-24 years are now trading for less than 10k at 26. Dezman is an extreme case, but high salary players have not become much more expensive and in some cases have actually become cheaper. Is this another intended effect of Marin's brilliant reasoning about how we are in the best of all possible worlds (transfer market-wise)?

That seems like an outlier, just based on a quick glance at the 200k+ salary players on the TL now (and really, the 150k+ as well), plus the prices recently paid for guys like that. I don't know that specific player's build, but he specifically seems to be sold consistently low, so perhaps he's a throwback to the old donkeys who had huge salaries and skillsets not commensurate with that, and simply isn't worth having to most teams but can't be fired because the NT saves him.

I suppose though that it would make sense that the demand for 100k+ players is not remarkably higher to the extent that 10k+ players are - it's not like Utopia added 1000 new users in I.1 with built arenas that can support those salaries. New users, the other group of people added, can't even bid on guys like this. Ironically, because people were told for so long "don't waste your time on that allstar potential guy, you need to train an MVP" and the love of the NT that persists, there's still probably more super high salary players than the game really needs and the lack of well-trained lower-tier players that the game really could use. Clearly, the solution here is to punish the guys who have been training those lower tier players, then, by forcing the prices to recede. ;)

For the teams that go bot without logging in, of course, the players lost are offset by an equal number of newly-created players of about the same aggregate skill.

This is so wrong, that can actually be easily proved by analysing if new teams actually tap the market or not. If they do tap it (and I think most new managers certainly do even if they don't stick around after 3-4 weeks), it means that pretty much any team which logs again after the first time, will invest part of the 300k they get at the beginning in players. Which also means they have improved their team before they go bot and their players are deleted. I can check how long it takes on average for a new English team to purchase a player after being given a team so that we have "hard evidence".

Player prices being high as an adverse effect on mid-and-low level teams. Prices being low has an adverse effect on mid-and-low level teams. Two years ago, prices being low was killing the game. Now, prices being high is killing the game.

Yes and failing to understand and acknowledge the structural differences of the game back then and now will not do anybody any good. There is more than one manager who was in favour of changes to the FA market back then and is in favour of new changes to the market now. You're presenting it as a dichotomy, but it isn't so. The situation is different, it's understandable that the problems and the solutions are also different.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/23/2015 12:18:35 PM