BuzzerBeater Forums

You guys are talking all hypotheticals and theories, when you pull up the payers, the cost of your actual trainers, your record with such players, the player's skills and relative value, you will see time and time again that those trainees end up near worthless by age 25.

I mean, other than the examples you have already been shown, of course. And the guy that I bought at 55k with more skills than the guy who sold for 450k. Or my draft pick who has higher skills even than that. All of whom were regular players on my team pretty much from the day I acquired them, meaning I didn't have to spend money on a veteran of higher skilll levels and upgrade each promotion.

And as far as the cost of the trainer, until I upgraded to a level 5 trainer this season, the amount I brought in above the league average in merchandise pretty much covered the full cost of the trainer (except when I got lazy and kept one of the trainers a bit too long).

I don't care what you did - I am not presuming to tell you what you did when you toiled away in the low levels of Japan's II was wrong or worthless. But likewise, you should not presume that you are the owner of the true with regards to the USA's lower levels. Last thread on this, you pointed out that all the people discussing this were in IV and so their opinions were worthless -- so now I suppose guys being in III and safe from relegation in their fourth full season of the game have no bearing on how to succeed in V and IV either? Shall we wait until I promote to II at some point before I am judged worthy of having an opinion?

But you're right. My trainees are worthless. I mean, they're only the starting rotation for a team that is very likely to make the playoffs in III, and I'm only pulling in close to 150% the league average in merchandise. The worst of the four remaining star guys just sold for almost half a million, which is apparently not even worth wiping my nose with. But I forget -- that's all theory. I mean, what relevance does any of that have to a lower level manager in a big country, when you have all the experience of slumming it down in II to rely on?

oh and here is a warning to all these people supposedly buying your trained up star pot. players~

Look at the purchase price and skills of players you can get, over star potential

Kévin Barrau Bought Mouson 1/10/2012 $ 371 900 56k C allstar
Ermes Arca Bought Milano Knickerbokers 2/8/2012 $ 450 000 35k allstar
Samuel Falcón Bought Free Agent 2/8/2012 $ 306 800 30k perrenial
Albert Solano Bought Free Agent 11/30/2011 $ 408 000 19k superstar
Panos Vlimas Bought Free Agent 10/18/2011 $ 246 090 20k salary allstar

Yes. And none of those players have any business being on a team in USA's V because their salaries are way too high. Heck, just the first two combined have more weekly salary than my entire team as I came out of V, and I could have probably shaved some salary still considering how easily I promoted. The top three really shouldn't appear on a well-built team in IV, either - I had one 25k guy and everyone else around 16k or less as I promoted out of IV.

I mean, sure, if your idea of lower level is II.whatever, yeah, you can surely afford a 120k+ salary for a fairly new team. But if you're advocating that new players go out and buy 20k players, you're simply too unfamiliar with lower level finances in larger countries and maybe you should leave the discussions about those to people who *do* understand.

if you are shopping players in the under 20k salary range...then aren'T they pretty much all worth 100k or less (unless they have potential and are young). If you consider what a trainer costs, claerly its not worth training players that are worth so little.

No, many of those players go for 300k or 400k or even higher. We've already seen the profiteering on Tuozzi from my roster, we can see the star potential FW I picked up a couple of seasons back previously sold for over 400k (though I don't know when he received his massive FT training, so he may be a poor example). I'm seeing guys on the TL who are 24 with star potential with transfer compares generally in the 300-400k range.

Heck, capped starter potential players can go for over 100k if they're fairly well balanced. I would never suggest training one of those personally, but I know I got three good seasons from an about 11K center type. He sold for 270k earlier in his career. I had another 6th man type that I picked up in V that lasted to be a backup in IV - again, not a guy worth training, but one that could play SF or PF at my level - he sold for over 150k earlier in his career. And none of these guys were close to the caps for star potential.

There's a major gulf between where you think new players start at and where the reality is, if you're espousing the "oh, go spend hundreds of thousands on premium trainees since they'll last with you" theory. When the time comes that they can afford to do so, by all means it's ideal. But going for bargain trainees early on that have a decent resale value in the low-salary price range where a large number of users actually reside is something that can work while the team develops the infrastructure to support higher priced trainees and higher salaried players.

you got guys making 21k, 31k, 55k that i see, and several in the 10~20k range.
Solano made 19k, Vlimas made 20k. that looks like player's you got in terms of salary amount.

I looked at your recent transfers. I see the one player you sold, the guy who bought him is now daytrading him to a new account it seems, arleady a bid of 700k. I think we should report that, brand new account bidding that much on a player worth aroudn 300k.

Look for Cassanavate, i paid too much for hi ma few seasons back and barely moved him out for 299k. That, like I said is about topend I think for your star potentials. Even if we grant you that one you sold for 450k.... I see sales of much mcuh less in your transfer history.

Yes, now, in III. The 55 and 31k guys were additions this season, which still puts me below league average but were guys that filled a major hole. The 21k guy I had last season, as well as the 16k and 13k pf/C big men and two that were around 11k that were replaced by the new ones. The guards of course had lower salaries last season.

And of course you see sales of much less in my transfer history; I've essentially sold four "trainees" in the time I've played the game. One was a scrub I picked up for 8k or so in free agency with very low potential (6th man) who I ended up selling for around 140k. I'm not sure how he went that high, though, and I consider that a lucky bidwar rather than anything I've done. I sold a guy I picked up at 1k after the draft for 75k after a season of training, and then sold the guy I bought at 10k for 450k. The only other player who I would ever considered a serious trainee was an MVP draft pick who I got some pops on the first month of the season and then sold. Oh, there was an original player that was also 6th man potential and arguably a small forward who took the extra training minutes and sold for 8k, but that's also not at all of note.

The other three main trainees from that time period are still on my roster, receiving occasional 1v1 training and possibly 2pos passing when I need to play stronger league lineups. With them is the Allstar SF/SG I picked up when I sold the MVP, and three 18 year old big men (one a draftee, the other two TL guys) who are all 7-8 potential (and the star draftee who's a 6-10 PG who will be cup fodder and RB minutes soaker).

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Now I'm rolling on the floor. The last refuge of those who can't answer an argument is to head to Ad Hominem Avenue.

If you really want to learn something about this approach to BB, you need to get out of your mindset that everyone starts in D2 with D2 TV contracts, D2 attendance/pricing ability, and the ability to avoid relegation by playing against a bunch of bots. This is not what the vast majority of BB managers experience.

Furthermore, spare me your prattling about trainer costs and whether you made more money 2 years ago by day trading, or exactly what my transfer balance is. We are discussing here whether training high potential players gives significantly more return on investment than training lower potential guys (check the thread title). It's not a complete cost-benefit analysis, nor is it an analysis of how to maximize overall return on investment. Those are interesting and important questions for sure, but in some sense they are a separate issue. Stop conflating them, or start a new thread to discuss them.

In the example I gave above, there's no need to include trainer cost, because they are the same for both conditions..
But that example is pretty illuminating by itself. It shows that you must regularly sell a 5 season trained player for 1.3 million more than what you bought him for, to be even with a 3 season trained, lower potential guy. You can call it a false theory, or that I'm blowing smoke, but you really haven't argued with that outcome. You just ignore any all all examples of star guys who sell for decent prices (remember that TPEs are based on actual sales). Still, even assume the prices are 300K. That just slightly reduces what the high priced guy needs to sell for to get to break even point.

And as I have said many, many times, this analysis doesn't show that the best approach for all teams is to train star potential players and only star potential players. But it is certainly a far cry from "training star potential players is worthless."