BuzzerBeater Forums

If you thought the player was worth 400k then you're to blame if you buy him for 500k. If the only other bidder is the owner, then he loses money if you stop bidding at 400k. If there are others who are willing to pay more, then that's their problem.

In response to GM-rip, the buy-back button could be introduced. When listing the player we could have an option "Buy player back if bid is below X". But the way it would work would be having an automatic bid of X being placed at the end of the auction, of the bid at the time was lower than X. If there were other bidders still willing to go higher, the auction would proceed. If not, the owner got his player back.

Last edited by rcvaz at 7/31/2010 5:34:30 PM

Back within this post are the suggestions of how to facilitate a buy back

1. Yes, you have a buy back button, if used, the manager is charged, either current bid on that player or a market value ( Although this would be difficult with the value system being so inept)
2. You simply dont have a buy back option, and take the view that once a player is on the market, you have made that choice, so encourage caution and make people aware of the risk involved of their choice
3. You may wish tio employ sytem 1 but only allow a team to do it once ot twice a season
4. You could charge a team the tax penalty they would have incurred if the player was sold for market value ( Determined by current bid or a default value for that type of player
5. You could just employ a tax rate , for example only ,Div 3 teams $150,000 per player , Div 2 $200,000 per player and so on

These are just ideas and I am sure not perfect, but atleast they do not involve any corrupt behaviour and if everyone knows the situation of a new system then we can all be responsible for the outcome.

I do not agree with the red flag comment, well not completely, sometimes it does mean he is above value, but many players actually go for less than they should in the market as well, so it doesnt always mean what you claim.

I agree the word VALUE mean so many different things based on so many variables at different times of the season, I personally think the one value that should not be allowed within the ever changing market conditions is a fake interference for a " sleazy " or as i call it, corrupt reason.

It seems that the dispute with this is the buy back option, as I said before, nobody agrees with managesr even having the opportunity to price kick their players in the market for the simpe reason or trying to get more money, so I cannot get away from that surely a new system need to be sort that stops an action that nobody has got a good word about, and then work out a system for a buy back option.

I think it's great that you can bid on your own player. It isn't unfair in any way. If the owner is not satisfied with the highest bid on his player, it's only fair that he can bid over it, and keep the player. Or, bid higher and see if people are ready to pay more for the player. The player is worth what you bid on him, so if you and the owner are the only ones still bidding, and you finally get the player, it should be positive for both managers as you only bid what you think is fair. Nobody would have cheated on you, since you decided to keep bidding.

Some of you guys obviously dont know much about economics.

This is not Economics. It is auction theory, which is a part of applied game theory.

In a frst price auction like this the market price is not what the highest bidder is willing to pay but rather whatever the second highest bidder is willing to pay + 1. And this option to bid on your own player totally disrupts that.

It doesn't disrupt anything. It just changes bidding strategy. If this was a second price auction, all bidders will be willing to make an extra bid beyond their real willingness to pay.

LOL. You didnt actually say anything here... except copy paste a sentence or two from Wikipedia.

I already said its an auction, so no need to repeat that. Game Theory is most widely used in Economics (check Wiki again), and as far as this problem is concerned it has everything to do with economics.

For your information I am currently doing a PhD in Game Theory, at an Economics department.

But to get to my main point....

Bidding on your own player disrupts a fully functional market, because if the owner has bid on his own player you are not truly paying the market price.

I understand that yes, everyone can see who is bidding and that if one doesn't believe that the price is right he shouldn't bid any higher.

But isn't this game supposed to be beginner friendly? How is a new player supposed to know what is the right price if it can be easily manipulated?

But this doesnt only concern new managers. How many times has it happened that someone doesn't notice that the actual bidder is the owner, or maybe didnt even know that the owner can bid on his own player so never cared who is bidding? (I myself learned very recently)?

Many of you defending this issue said that only an IDIOT will bid on if the owner is bumping the price too high! But lets face it, just like in the real world, I am sure there are quite a few "idiots" (as you called them) playing this game as well. So what is this game, trying to achieve... force them to quit the game within a month because the market can be easily manipulated and they spent all their money on a 18 yo announcer. With a perfect market this can not (or very rarely) happen... but with the current situation all you need is one sleazy owner + 1 idiot.

As far as I know these unreal prices due to sleazy owners + idiots, beginners, people not careful enough, people not informed enough... (I probably listed more than half of the population) actually drive the Transfer Price Estimate up for all the similar players... which in turn tricks the other half of the population.

I think we all agree that it's sleazy and unethical. But is it really that big of a problem? I have only played this game for about a year, I've bought ~40 players, bid on a few hundred others, and I've only witnessed this issue once!

Regarding new owners, there are a few beginner-friendly tools. First of all, the 18 y.o. announcer would have a message below saying that players like that never sell for more than a few thousand dollars. So this is only a risk for players where we don't see the transfer price estimate, and new owners have limited cash and small-money deals are more frequent, they should have estimates available most of the time.

One issue that hasn't been touched is that we can actually be in an auction where the owner is driving the price up and not notice it. Suppose you place a bid, then the owner places the next bid, and then a different guy places a bid before you refresh the page. You won't know the intermediate bid was not placed by an "independent" bidder.

But like I said, there is no way the rules can distinguish the evil plotter driving the price up from the honest owner who wants to buy his player back because either the deal is not good enough, or he missed a better deal somewhere else, etc... If we just want the second kind, then I left a suggestion a few posts back, which is forbidding the owner from placing any bids, giving him the option of setting a "buy-back price" when he transfer lists the player.

I think this would be solved with a warning sign: "WARNING! The bidding teams is the same as the selling team".
I don't think we need any set buyback price. If the team wants to keep his player he may bid on him. But with the above warning sign. I agree that a lot of newbies get conned by managers bidding on their own players, but I believe that a big red warning sign would frighten the newbies and they would stop bidding. Thus protecting them from making a mistake.

I don't think there should be a warning sign. First of all, I don't think it happens that often. Second of all, it is the players responsibility to notice who the opposing bidder. Next people will want the following:

Warning! You are bidding too much for this player.
Warning! The player you are bidding on in monoskilled and you are not getting good skills for the high salary.
Warning! This player is too old.
Warning! Don't bid on this player as the starting price is too high.

People learn from mistakes. We do not need a warning for every single thing that they could do wrong.

I think the main reason an owner would bid on a player is to buy the player back.
A simple buy back option where the player will get taxed on the current bid is sufficient.

A simple buy back option where the player will get taxed on the current bid is sufficient.

As in noone else sees the bid? Or? It would be funny to bid on a player, win it and then boom the player still stays at the same team:D

Again, you are focusing on the wrong part of this, a question that need to be answered is

Why are managers allowed to bid on their own players with the only intention being to gain more money for themselves and thus attempt or achieve in creating a false economy.?

The PHD guy ( Sorry, cant see his name at the moment ) is spot on with that he says.

People say this isnt a big problem, as they have only noticed it once or twice, I guess the issue is how many other times does is go unnoticed. I have had it twice out of 25 purchases, meaning an average of 8% of the time for me. I think that is something of a concern.

The game has rules stopping people owning 2 teams and farming money from one to another, although this is a much nore diluted form of it, the action is still falsly farming money into your team.

A warning button could also be a solution, I dont buy into the guy that said next we will be asking for warning buttons for X other things, there is no mention of that, as those choices are honest mistakes that people make, the price hicking is not an honst mistake, its underhand, not always easy to see happending and takes advantage of new managers or managers that dont see what has been happening.

It is not the responsibility of the manager to keep eye on this, the game should prevent any actions like this that are in their control