BuzzerBeater Forums

The OP, maddoghellas, sees it:

c) the horizontal salary floor raise, by definition, will also punish the teams that play the game and remain fully competitive while keeping the salaries and expenses low, hence maintaining financially healthy and long lasting teams.

Here’s how it affects Knecht:

I have two teams in my league that are fighting for promotion, ~2-3 treadmilling teams and ~12-14 bots/bottom feeders. Now I am forced to spend more, which changes absolutely nothing. I lose to the good teams by the same and beat the bots by an even bigger margin.

Here’s another manager’s experience:

Last season, I managed to make it to the finals with my payroll below the salary floor. With some players up and down in their salaries, my salary total remained same after the preseason update and I will be paying $30.000 each week basically for nothing

Phyr sees it:

If I have a super salary-efficient team that is able to compete in my league, the salary floor punishes those teams too.

There's a problem here. It’s part of the job of the authorities to defend the changes that have been made. So what is their defense? Let’s look at that in another post.

Their defense of raising the salary floor is … the new manager has 16 weeks to (1) build his arena, (2) acquire players, (3) train up players, and (4) get a promotion bonus. (5) Plus now each new team gets an all-star potential trainee. (6) They (the veterans) could do it so anyone can do it. (7) So it’s a “perceived problem.”

Point by point … (1) building his arena doesn’t add players or raise salaries, so it doesn’t help against the salary floor. (2) Effectively acquiring players in this hyper-inflated Transfer Market is nigh unto impossible, certainly an unrealistic expectation of a new manager when even so many veteran managers are voicing their complaints about the hyper-inflation. (3) Training up players takes several seasons at least to get significant results, and requires expenditure on staff. (4) ONE manager in a league gets a promotion bonus; no help for the rest. (5) The new all-star trainee doesn’t create a better competitive position against other teams with their own all-star trainee, and he cannot be trained up in just 16 weeks. (6) It is true that a new manager who does everything right can succeed, even with the increased salary floor – how many of them are that skilled right off the bat? (7) I won’t even dignify that with an answer.

Let’s not hear any more “...as my economy grew ... after another promotion ...” etc. The new manager isn’t given that amount of time to learn to do things right. Let’s look honestly at the pros and cons of this change.


Last edited by Mike Franks at 2/23/2016 9:49:20 PM

I think the best way to go about it would be to actually study tankers' behavior right now, this season. Easier said than done I know, but that could actually provide a reasonable estimation of weekly negative PD.

I'm a "tanker" in the context of this discussion. I don't deliberately lose, just straddle the salary floor to maximize profit. This season is the first time I've been above the floor, and I've never missed a playoff. Last season, I was a certainty to promote, until I lost the semi final in overtime after losing a key player at the start of the second half.

I make $190k while being competitive (without trying) in div3. I shouldn't be allowed to, but I would fly under the radar in that scenario.

(6) It is true that a new manager who does everything right can succeed, even with the increased salary floor – how many of them are that skilled right off the bat? (7) I won’t even dignify that with an answer.

The salary floor percentages changed as follows (as a percentage of TV revenue)
I: 180% to 210%
II: 140% to 170%
III: 100% to 130%
IV: 80% to 100%
lower: 60% to 80%

I think it's more than fair to say that people in small countries face special challenges here. A new team that ends up in a mostly-full and veteran I with no II to fall into.

I also think that for most "new" players, the increase from 80% to 100% or even 100% to 130% is inconsequential - using my III in the USA as an estimate, the 30% increase in the salary floor is a little less than 27k/week, which comes out to a maximum change in position of just over 400k (a maximum of 15 salary-paying weeks where the floor applies).

Now, let's look at what the actual situation is in III, for a team at the salary floor. Merchandise plus TV contract revenues are pretty much sufficient to entirely cover the new salary floor at this level, leaving gate receipts as profit, minus the cost of staff and scouting (if that's spent on). It's hardly crippling to this class of new teams.

No, the main complaint isn't from new teams who are finding this onerous, though there are of course always those who are confused by the way the floor is reported and looks like it's being charged when it's not actually being asssessed the first 16 weeks. The complaints instead are pretty much teams who are already established, who are having the amount of money they can bank season over season cut into, mostly because they are in a country where there's little enough competition that it's been easy to be insanely profitable and still moderately successful with barebones salaries.

It never ceases to amaze me, though, how there are apparently so many crippling problems punishing new teams, and of course we know this because there is a lot of noise from some managers, none of whom really fit the description of new manager. Of course, this is likely because in the grand scheme of things, a 20-30k/week change does not make any significant detrimental impact, but of course an actual sober analysis of the impact iof the changes isn't always the agenda.

No, the main complaint isn't from new teams who are finding this onerous, though there are of course always those who are confused by the way the floor is reported and looks like it's being charged when it's not actually being asssessed the first 16 weeks. The complaints instead are pretty much teams who are already established, who are having the amount of money they can bank season over season cut into, mostly because they are in a country where there's little enough competition that it's been easy to be insanely profitable and still moderately successful with barebones salaries.

It never ceases to amaze me, though, how there are apparently so many crippling problems punishing new teams, and of course we know this because there is a lot of noise from some managers, none of whom really fit the description of new manager. Of course, this is likely because in the grand scheme of things, a 20-30k/week change does not make any significant detrimental impact, but of course an actual sober analysis of the impact iof the changes isn't always the agenda.

It is of course the established managers that are vocal about this problem, as they have a better understanding of the game. There must be a reason that 99% of new managers never make it past the first 16 weeks and the huge gap between new and established teams is a HUGE reason.

A 20-30k cut coming hand in hand with much shorter cup runs, due to removed bot leagues makes a huge difference. Assuming that a newbie can build the stadium, add a coach, promote once or even twice, buy trainees and train them to a level where they heavily impact the salary, while at the same time learning the x and o's of the game, is a bit cocky and arrogant at least.

We have seen that user retention is horrible and making the game easier for new users is paramount. As I pointed out earlier, for me it makes no difference. I abuse bots/newbies and lose to more motivated managers, or teams that demoted and are going for instant re-promotion. Raising the floor for full leagues might be a good thing in the long run, but for half-full/empty leagues it fails its purpose.

I'd rather see some kind of punishment for teams that are on a losing streak, have a lot of savings and close to the salary floor. If you can squeeze those three variables into an equation, you have your cure for tanking. Teams that are salary efficient and can win games should not get punished.

Everybody saying contrary is either a communist or a hippie.

WOW talk about stereotyping and making assumptions!

There must be a reason that 99% of new managers never make it past the first 16 weeks and the huge gap between new and established teams is a HUGE reason.

We should remove finances altogether, have the exact same lineups as each other and give the newest team to the game home court advantage so they can compete from the day they sign up. Why don't we do away with tactics as well? We don't want experienced players scaring away newbies with knowledge of the game...

Seriously, people shouldn't expect to be successful in the first 16 weeks. If that is why people leave, you will never change that.

Raising the floor for full leagues might be a good thing in the long run, but for half-full/empty leagues it fails its purpose.

You're right. I'm in a half full league, and I pay just over 30k more than last season. I make the exact same profit. Had my highest ever gate receipt, first game of the season, against a bot. When it comes to taking money away from me, it fails its purpose.

When BBs have stated time after time, throughout the years, that any anti-tankink solution, first and foremost will have to take into account and not punish even one team that stayed inactive for a couple of weeks for instance, cause the user may have been on holidays without internet access or in hospital...

then punishing even one team, that manages to stay competitive borderline or below the (old) salary floor, is either a case of double standards or hypocricy.

There's no sugarcoating this.

Moving on, i am surprised that you consider 400k per season, for a division III team, regardless if it is a new or old team, inconsequential since it is not crippling!
More so, when there is an elephant in the room...


Futhermore, it...never ceases to amaze me, when people doing team economics and management on the fly, soooo easily, always forget MAINTENANCE COSTS!

It is common sense, that what we see as a weekly/yearly profit in our books, is not "true", since in order to replace your assets(players) because of aging, you will get less money due depreciation and/or wil need more money to replace them(without upgrading) due to inflation...
There is the elephant in the room again...

Yes, im talking about the market's state!
As if the measure wasn't injust on its own, this is happening in today's suffering market and you are knitpicking and profiling who are those that make the (very reasonable and justified)"noise"?????

It is of course the established managers that are vocal about this problem, as they have a better understanding of the game. There must be a reason that 99% of new managers never make it past the first 16 weeks and the huge gap between new and established teams is a HUGE reason.

A 20-30k cut coming hand in hand with much shorter cup runs, due to removed bot leagues makes a huge difference. Assuming that a newbie can build the stadium, add a coach, promote once or even twice, buy trainees and train them to a level where they heavily impact the salary, while at the same time learning the x and o's of the game, is a bit cocky and arrogant at least.

We have seen that user retention is horrible and making the game easier for new users is paramount. As I pointed out earlier, for me it makes no difference. I abuse bots/newbies and lose to more motivated managers, or teams that demoted and are going for instant re-promotion. Raising the floor for full leagues might be a good thing in the long run, but for half-full/empty leagues it fails its purpose.

The half-empty leagues are precisely the ones that are the biggest problem; if you are in a league with, say, four bots in each conference, you can have a "salary efficient" roster of some $40k total, go 12-0 against the bots and 0-10 against everyone else, have generally happy fans and have significant profit still. Making those teams pay $90k in salary floor instead of $60k is not going to have any real effect, when as you said yourself the gap between the new teams and the old teams is so huge. The way to bridge that gap is not by encouraging teams to not improve, subsidizing them for keeping their salaries as low as possible.

I actually am being impacted by this change a little in Utopia. I looked for a time for another player to improve my team (as it is actually needed) but I just don't really feel like I want to mess with that. I would have been over the old cap, but that's life. I set my prices suboptimally because I honestly had no clue what to do with them since I was a bot promotion, and I guessed poorly. Still making plenty of money, though.

And on the point of user retention, absolutely I agree that it is a priority. It is not the only priority, however; the game must be balanced for the good of the game as a whole, and then when there are issues with the new user experience those should be addressed appropriately. I looked back through this thread, and how many people from IV posted? One, and he's an EGM (and French, so pay him no mind). But what I do see is plenty of posts from people who don't like how this affects *them* or how these changes aren't the ones they've pushed for, and who are saying "but what about the new users?"

I've already run through the numbers above in the post you responded to. New users outside of small nations are not significantly worse off than before. Small nations are of course another issue and frankly I agree that if there are only two or one levels for a country, this is a much more significant problem. But that's an issue that you know and I know that has been an issue for years and will probably be an issue until the micronation experience is completely revamped, but of course I hesitate to say that word in the forums much because it tends to also lead to explosions in post volume. ;)