BuzzerBeater Forums

It is a fact that the number of people playing BB is decreasing but what are the reasons?

Of course main reason is that most people don't like this kind of games where things are happening slowly.

But as you said, for some time the number of managers is stable but still it decreases and the main reason is the way you have to play the game since few years.

Strong teams are strong and it is very difficult to compete with them and in order to build a strong team now you need at least 15M for players. To save this money you should tank a couple of years. And a couple of years doing nothing leads to that trend.

It is really difficult for new teams to develop in this environment and after a couple of months playing and realizing that they just stop playing.

My point is, if you want to make people train players - make training easier, don't make such market. I say again, this is the case where BBs don't want to lose more and more people.

I agree with many of you guys but the main reason that led to prices going out of control is that there are too many teams which are "tanking" for years (not seasons) and have 10-15-20M. They are not very active but when they log in and see a good player, they can bid 5-10M for him and in many cases become bots shortly after. Yes, lack of players on market is one problem but thousands of teams with such budgets is the main reason.

I think that the amount of money is of course a component, but the current higher prices affect pretty much every range of player - including those that teams who have tanked for seasons would really have no use whatsoever for buying, but that make perfect sense for teams at lower levels of the game. If the amount of money for tanking teams was the primary driver, you'd also expect to find that once you're into the season, prices would drop to more reasonable levels, since teams generally don't awaken from seasons of tanking only to buy players a month or two into the season - maybe some additions here and there.

A lot of people here talking about training forget a few basic truths about the system as currently designed:
1) it's impossible for anybody to fully train a team of 8 rotation players for D1 before one or more of them start declining in skill. That means training at least 5 superstar or better players to their cap (starters) and 3 star-perennial allstar potential (backups) to their cap
2) Point 1) is also applicable to D2 teams, because although the potential required for the starters is lower, you cannot train different positions simultaneously
3) With the userbase shrinking teams falling under 1) and 2) are also a higher percentage of the total BB population...

So every discussion about training should start from this inescapable truth: if there was no Transfer List and users quitting leaving their players behind for others to recruit, nobody would be able to have a D1 o D2 team of the level we're used to today. Everybody would have a mediocre team at best.

The number of homegrown teams above the first non-bot level in their nation is, unsurprisingly, a well rounded 0. Obviously there are also 0 homegrown teams in D1 (although one could argue that it would be possible for someone in a micronation, where D1 is the bot league level, to do it).

Now, people can rant all they want about how the system is ok and the staff has got no responsibility in anything, but this problem is a glaring flaw that should be addressed, especially since the users turnover has been much lower in the last few seasons than it used to be. Nobody is to blame for a major flaw like this except those who have the power to do something about it.

And until someone who has the power to do so addresses this issue (and there are multiple ways this could be done), we are in a situation were a turnover of users is required by the current system to sustain itself (because only D3 and under are in fact capable of sustaining themselves with players if they train them for no longer than 4-5 seasons...).

So there it is. It's not like people don't want to train: it's that even if everybody was training with maximum efficiency every week, we wouldn't be able to sustain 20k teams with fully trained under 32yo players...

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/17/2016 3:10:38 PM

The major flaw in your argument is that the quality of teams has to stay consistent. It doesn't. You're right that with less managers it's only natural that the quality of players is going to drop as well, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. When BuzzerBeater was starting out and had only a few thousand people playing there obviously weren't top end players like we envision them today, but there were top end players relative to their time and the amount of people playing/training. I'm not saying that lower quality players and teams is a good thing either, but it's a non-factor as everyone is going to be on a level playing field regardless of the quality of players.

It worries me that a BB is saying something like this. I can't comprehend the kind of thinking that says its ok if the quality of players drops. I don't really care what Buzzerbeater was like when it was starting out. For one thing, I wasn't here, for another its a different situation entirely as presumably then the user base was rising and not falling. Don't tell me its stable now just because for a few weeks there's been a tiny rise. That's not statistically meaningful.

The idea that its a non factor because we're all in the same boat sounds nice, because we're taught to believe that, but its utter nonsense. A diminution of quality brings all teams closer together in quality, making random events more meaningful than they are now, and making luck a greater factor than skill or knowledge. Not especially something I'd be looking forward to thanks.

Lastly, and this is more of a general comment to everyone, I readily admit that the transfer market is not in a great place right now. I suspect something will need to be tweaked in order to quell the mass inflation.

Well, it took long enough to notice. Other people noticed it long ago, I'm sure some predicted it in advance. As far as we know Marin still thinks inflation is a good thing.

I understand the fact that game economics require a conservative approach, and that large changes are risky. But a tweak is not going to work. The decision to stop free agents over 60k salary was a huge mistake, and one that went against the conservative approach. It needs to be looked at again, before more of those players disappear from the game.

In addition, you really need to read Lemon's post again. Point 1 is on the mark.

Incidentally, if the quality of players falls, salaries fall, profits increase and (I know you can see what's coming here) inflation will increase.

but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single professional basketball team in the entire world that drafted and developed even half of it's roster, let alone an entire team.

Well, maybe not in Canada or the USA but there are many examples (especially in the past) in Europe.

The major flaw in your argument is that the quality of teams has to stay consistent. It doesn't. You're right that with less managers it's only natural that the quality of players is going to drop as well, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So just to clarify: are you saying that you expect D1 teams to look more like D2 teams look like now, skill-wise? And how does that reconcile with the fact that you want to incentivise training (at least Marin does)? Do you want people to train players below their potential in order to make enough 'trained' BB players for everyone? Let's just be clear about this.

What you're saying is looks like this: managers should train with the current system, they will have a worse team than they had when they didn't have to train, but doing so they will be better off than others at their own level because the others will be even worse!

My point was to counter those who say that, if everybody trains, things will be just fine, as they have always been. I don't believe that for a second and neither do you, it seems.

As for teams not being able to field competitive home grown teams... well, yeah. I don't like to bring up the "realism card"

Realism is the last argument that should be used in this game. I think you misunderstood me. I did mention homegrown teams to prove the point that it's not possible to build a competitive team with just training, because training is too slow, too rigid, too limited. Yet Marin wants people to train. Without changing anything.

Again, let's spell it out for everyone. Given the current conditions, it's only natural that the average quality of teams will decrease, due to the conditions of the game and not due to how many people train (also it's worth noting that most people train anyway) . If this is understood and nothing is done, this must be considered acceptable and preferable to alternatives by the BB staff.

You're right that with less managers it's only natural that the quality of players is going to drop as well, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

And here we are finally: I think you are kidding yourself if you think this is not going to have any consequence when users realise this is going to happen. They should just look at the transfer list anyway to understand it: they already pay much more for worse quality players than they would have been able to get in the past.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/18/2016 1:22:10 PM

So most likely those who want to compete wil keep certain players until they turn to grandpas. If you have 32 yo guy with TSP 120 (or corresponding TSP for D2, D3... level) at the moment, why sell him at all? For the money you will get, you can hardly buy a younger, already partly developed player who could get to same skills in 4-5 seasons... Better just keep that guy then until he is 36... And this situation won't help the market.

With these trends, where buying and selling soon will make not much sense for those who want to stay at the same level, we will quickly have either tankers or grandpa hoarders, but no trainers. And quite a few quitters, former grandpa owners without any substantial cash, who will see no way ahead for them.

More FAs would at least partly help this issue.

can't agree more. the current situation is corroding my love for this game. i am one to two players away from a promotion, and i have been looking through the market every day for half a year but find no reasonable deal. i know my top players can sell for 5-6 millions in today's market, but i have gone so far that i don't want to get into the rebuild mode. so what can i do except training while that 1-2 hole in the roster remains and my top players age and my money in the bank increases at a turtle rate?

BBs, plz, do something, either more FAs or delay skill drop age.