BuzzerBeater Forums

#2 the reason isay these palyers are worthless, is not per se that they can't be sold to someone, but that they can't be sold to someone winning out of those lower leagues...because the player is not effective to that end. maybe some star potentials are topp trained to some use, but in todays market, in a playoff race? peopel are gunning up with lpayers that can't be made with that potential constraints...as low as D4 in some cases, but definitely DIII, without adoubt (unless its a tiney country...in which case they shoudl go after their NT - they have the money!!!)

This is where I'd mostly disagree. I am currently holding my own in III with my star potential guards (well, one who is listed as a guard is a SF project with allstar potential, but he's nowhere near the star potential cap). And when I decide to sell one or more of them and upgrade with more veteran players with an appropriate skillset, they'll certainly be attractive enough players for teams in IV and V. And their money is just as good as the money of a guy in the NBBA or a guy who's training NT caliber players. If you're selling a Lamborghini, of course, you have to cater to the high finance shoppers, but there's plenty of profit available in selling Hondas to working folk too.

#1) Well, if we're talking about a hypothetical manager doing the training, if he can't evaluate initial trainees to buy, and can't perform training effectively, then he won't do it well for a low potential trainee OR a high potential trainee. That could easily lead to a larger loss if the manager screws up a high potential trainee.

#2) Good players with builds that fit into star potential are likely to be useful for teams in D3,4,5. And there are many more of those teams than the D1 and D2 teams, and far more of them fighting for promotion. Right? 4 times as many D3 as D2 leagues, and 16 times as many D4 leagues. So there will be more possible buyers for those players (note that in USA D3, most teams roll with ~240-300K total salary, which gives ~24-30K over 10 guys- right in the star potential wheelhouse). And that doesn't even figure in the D5 teams, which may be completely filled by human managers for big countries like Spain and Italy, or ~30-50% filled in countries like USA, Poland, France. But it's possible that your location in a top league of a very small country makes you less acutely aware of that.

#3) As I tried to point out, when you consider all the costs, from initial purchase through salary for the trainee, then your net profit on a highly trained, high potential guy, isn't as much as you think.

#4) I see what you're saying here, but in this case we are just valuing the trainees themselves, and what their return will be. For the moment, stipulate for argument's sake, that the process of training the guy doesn't affect the team's ability to promote, or maintain, league position. (perhaps we assume that the trainee is going to occupy the scrimmage game slot. Then in order to show that the higher trained, higher potential guy gains more than the capped, lower potential guy, you have to show that in his 4th and 5th season, his increased salary is offset by more league wins, more league attendance, and a greater chance to promote. Like you said, salary starts to rise very quickly in these trainees, so your player better have a very impressive contribution to your team's performance to counteract that salary growth.

Also it's useful to note that in this 4th and 5th year of training higher potential guys, the star potential trainer is now 2 seasons into completing the next trainee.

I certainly know about how fast a trainee's salary can rise, as my current crop of guys will be having a substantial increase at the next season rollover. And the "discount" of low salary but better performance due to training is a great reason to train guys, whatever division level you are in. It's allowed me to have lower than league average salaries every season, yet still be able to promote or stick in my league. That extra cash can then go towards arena construction, opening up space for future salary growth.

Check it out I did a search, not for star potential, but for any potential and 500k or less....lots of great options available...many of which destory that star potential cap with their skills. and salaries obviously are gonna be a bit higher, but we are talking the difference between 20k range topend of balanced star potential and about 35k for allstars and perrenials, most of whom still ahve training room elft and are just amybe older players etc. besides which is the last week of tradeline and prices are inflated now, by this time next week the market should deflate 50% or so....

Of course there are 35k options also. But teams in IV and V in the USA don't need a 35k player - and certainly couldn't afford a team mostly comprised of players at that salary. And in every large nation, there are more teams in IV and V than there are in III by a significant factor -- who all need affordable players in positions that they're not training, who are suited to play in the IV and V leagues and maybe hold their own in III.

And let's face it, not only are there more users in IV and V than in III and up, but new users that come into the game are the ones who most need to upgrade their rosters in their first seasons. And they (at least the intelligent ones) are not going to be buying a 35k player -- but many of them will get guys in the 8-15k range. Too many even go up to the 20k range. And these players must come from somewhere, right?

Point is caution. You guys want to talk up, in todays market, this idea that training low potentials has meaning. There just isn't much evidence. Training ST and FT has meaning and is free.

As a new player, I picked up a guy for $10k. Trained him for four seasons, moved up to IV and then III, and sold him for several hundred thousand. Saved money up front vs. buying either a higher potential trainee or a "finished" veteran for that position = profit. This money invested into the arena = profit. Saved on salary by training him rather than playing a guy who already had skills developed to a similar level = profit, invested into the arena = more profit. Didn't have to churn out replacements as I promoted twice, which not only saved up front costs but also increased the "familiar with star players" and merchandise parts of the fan survey = profit, invested into the arena = more profit. Sold him for $450k and purchased a trainee with a particular profile and higher potential because I'm now at a different place in the game.

The idea of training ST/FT in V is ridiculous, as well. I am not going to argue whether training the stamina and FT on a guy with high salary increases his value or not, but a guy in the 5k-20k range (which is where players in V and IV will be) is not going to see any worthwhile increase in transfer value from that. If increasing a star player from the lower level of his skillset to the cap is worthless, how exactly is taking the same guy and then adding stamina and free throws a profit driver?

maybe its as hard is getting profit out of stars, or similar difficulties, here is the difference~ IN the one hand I showed you people can maek huge profits and worldbeating players, best players got to be trained by someone right? in the other hand we see that its very very iffy even the topend of training star potential, and if its profitible, we know by a very finite small amount and only for teams in bottom division.

You mean, exactly the type of teams who are just starting out and can't afford to sink 250k+ into trainees (and if they could, should be sticking that money into building their arena)? Heaven forbid they sell a 1k purchase after a season of training for 75k, or a 10k purchase after a few seasons for even a couple hundred thousand!

Hmm, I just looked through the TL, for star potential guys no older than 24, with good OD and PA. Players with ~13-19K salaries, and ~70-75 total skill points, had TPEs around 200-900K. Now I agree 900K is way top end, but perhaps you were looking at older guys, whose worth on the transfer list declines as they have fewer years until drop status kicks in. Something in the range of 300-450K doesn't seem crazy to me, as long as we're talking younger players. Plus, many of the players had no TPE for their particular skill distribution.

And in this hypothetical we're considering the training of an 18 year old guy low potential guy until he's 21. So in this case, talking about whether the players end up as world class, or desireable among the highest division teams, or whether they make NT status is irrelevant.

Here, let's do a step by step comparison. We'll take two teams, one is gonna buy a decent star potential guy, one is gonna guy a decent MVP guy. Train the first star potential guy for 3 seasons, and the MVP guy for 5 seasons. Let's assume 11, 10, 9,9,8 skill pops in the 18-22 seasons (actual numbers not completely crucial, so long as they are equal for the two trainees). Assume the star potential guy costs 50K, and the MVP guy 600K, and that they have 6 in all outside skills and 4 in the inside skills (so ~3K salary and 52 total skill points).

First season, both star and MVP trained:
3K * 14 weeks = 42K
ending skills: 8/8/9/8/8/7 4/4/4/4

2nd season, both star and MVP trained: salary now ~7K
7K * 14 = 98K
ending skills after 10 more points: 11/9/11/9/9/9 4/4/4/4

3rd season, both star and MVP trained, salary now: 15K
15K * 14 = 210K
ending skills with 9 more points: 13/9/13/11/11/10 4/4/4/4, needing 19.04 cap number. Middle of road star potential.

Now at this point, let's sell the star potential guy. I think that build would easily go for 450K.

450K sale - 50K initial purchase - 42K year 1 salary - 98K year 2 salary - 210K year 3 salary = 50K.

The MVP guy keeps getting trained.

4th season, salary starts at 24K.
24K * 14 = 336K
ending skills with 9 more points added: I dunno, 14/10/16/12/12/12 4/4/4/4

5th season, salary starts at 45K
45K * 14= 630K
add skills to whatever you want, with 8 total points added. The player will be sold at the start of his next season, and assume the trainer won't pay any of his updated salary.

Ok, so how much more does the high potential trainer need to pay for that 4th and 5th year? That's the amount above the star potential sale price that needs to be covered in order to make more of a return.

336 + 630K = 966K.

So, how much does the MVP potential guy need to sell for in order to make 50K, like the star potential trainer did?

X - 600K initial purchase - (42+98+210+336+630 salary) = 50K

X = 1,966K. The high potential trainer needs to sell his trainee for nearly 2 million just to break even with the star potential trainer. And that represents a 1.3 million net difference between purchase and sale prices, which is largely above the players on your own transfer history.

Now, sure, you could train the MVP guy in some secondaries, lower the total salary burden in the 4th and 5th training seasons, and thus reduce the needed sale price for break even (even if you assume zero salary growth in the 4th and 5th seasons, that's still implies a required sale price to 1.42 million to break even).

Remember too though that the star potential trainer will have had two extra seasons to do some other training as well. So they added value there. They could be two years into training another star potential guy in the same exact way, if they wanted to.
-EDIT - oops, that's 12 pops in year 1. Doesn't change anything since each trainee got it. :)

Last edited by Tangosz at 4/25/2012 1:11:41 PM

Of course, it's more complex than that, unfortunately. The star trainer will need to have someone replacing the sold player's position on the team, which will offset the salary somewhat. Likewise, one could also assume that the star trainer could put the 550K difference in initial investment into building out the arena, which would essentially give an additional profit until the second team could match that investment (plus any subsequent ones the initial team makes).

I still am of the opinion that the first few seasons, train someone you can get cheap who has enough room to grow for several seasons, and put everything you can into building the arena. If you get better potential than star at a low price, wonderful, but arena first.

Yeah, there are a lot of other variables, but here we are just reducing it to a consideration of just the cost of acquiring, training, and supporting the trainee himself. I think it helps make it clearer to think about how other possible decisions would impact this.