BuzzerBeater Forums

how much you spend on staff

Just 12k/week, see more on my thoughts about staff here: (221642.1)

if this works for you, meaning it gets you to div2, I would have to put it down to smart moves on your behalf, and i noticed your arena is growing at a solid rate which of course is helping.

Well nobody is getting to D2 without some smart moves. Although I think going old is an important part of my strategy I believe there are other parts that would be hard for most managers to emulate, which is why I didn't mention my own team in my OP. And I'm in no rush to get to D2.

I still don't think this would work for 95% of players, as one bad purchase can cripple your team

Which is more crippling, overpaying 20% for a 600k 24yo SG or overpaying 20% for a 300k 32yo SG? In the latter case the mistake costs half as much and you still have more cash to work with. Also if you buy a build that just doesn't work on your team, you are gonna lose less cash flipping him cause the transfer fee will be cheaper.

its not uncommon for a noob to over spend in their first few weeks of the game

Definitely true. These players also have a tendency to buy older players. But over spending and buying old players are two totally separate topics. Just because people who make the former mistake like to do the latter does not mean it has any impact on what is good strategy.

Will be interesting to see what you get for Tyberiusz Zelek, i assume you expected to lose money on him, but got him in order to win your playoffs anyway

Yup, but it turned out I didn't need him at all as my closest playoff game was 34 points. In hindsight it was a pretty big mistake considering how much I will probably lose on him. But it's not all bad, right now he is a very sold D3 player with an efficient build and I don't mind carrying him until I can find someone to overpay for him. I'm just praying his skills don't drop too much in the mean time.

Last edited by w_alloy at 8/29/2012 7:17:37 PM

Skill drops seem very rare on 32 year olds. Most of my experience is with players age 29-32, so I don't really feel qualified to answer for older player. My impression is that 33 year olds still decline pretty slowly, and it gets faster every year from there. I have also heard that players with high secondaries decline more slowly and this has seemed to be true for me.

As someone who has most likely had a fair few 32+ guys, how often do you see skills drop? and does a higher popped player drop quicker?

I had a 34 year old drop every training update. Not much experience with players that age though, prefer oldies in the 30-32 range

Below is a complete list of skill drops due to age since I acquired my team. You can check my transfer history for dates bought and dates sold but they were each on my team for about one full season. All were 33+ at the time of the skill drops.

I've had a couple other old dudes on the team who haven't ever dropped. At age 35, one even popped in driving when he got caught up in 1on1 training one week!

I employed a career extension trainer from the beginning until May 18, 2012. Since then, I haven't employed one.


8/24/2012 Didi Gercke ↓dropped↓ in Outside Def. from respectable to average .

8/3/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from strong to respectable .

7/27/2012 Michael Parlapiano ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from respectable to average .

6/29/2012 Radu Nicolaescu ↓dropped↓ in Driving from tremendous to sensational .

5/25/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Inside Shot from respectable to average .

4/20/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Jump Range from average to mediocre .

3/16/2012 Jostein Kjos ↓dropped↓ in Driving from prolific to prominent .

3/9/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Rebounding from average to mediocre .


My conclusion is this: Skill drops aren't a very big deal if you're in the lower leagues, but they are quite inconvienent and you need to remember that your player is invisibly deteriorating in every skill, every week. So, don't rely fully on them. Use them to cheaply fill gaps, but spend your money on an arena, good trainees, and eventually good younger players who fit your individual plan. Use them to help you promote, so that your sustainable core of young talent and smart financial planning can reap the benefits of being in a higher league quickly, and just dump them at a minuscule loss when they're not good enough anymore.

Last edited by 五毛党 at 8/30/2012 11:24:19 AM

A few of those guys had 13+ skills in some areas (hnd/drv usually) and I didn't notice a difference in drop frequency. Is there one? This needs to be studied at far greater length, since skill drops (like pops) only show when the drop is from one number range to another (e.g.13.05 to 12.96) and the decay happens across the board every week.

I'm searching the TL and I came across a 34yo who dropped in two skills last week. Yikes. I wonder if anyone's landed the vaunted quadruple-pop in the opposite direction. Considering the slow rate of decay, a triple would be pretty impressive.

A good way to measure yearly decline is salary drops... although it ignores less important skills, it has the advantage of factoring in sub-levels and capturing the whole year in one number. My 34 yo PF went from 26k to 22k and my 33 yo SF went from 44k to 30k.

If someone wanted to actually put some numbers on decline without a massive data collection project, one could look at a large section of old players when the salary changes over (you could use 30-31 year olds as a control to adjust for formula changes). Too bad we'd have to wait ~3 more months for this.

Salary decline is tough, though, because salaries drop across the board every season as it is, and like you said it's influenced by certain skills at every position which have varying degrees of importance. It's still something to keep an eye on. That 14k salary drop is ridiculous, never seen anything like it.

Yeah, it would be great to collect that data while specifying if a career extension trainer was used. We could get a picture of the rate of decline, and the worth of a career extension trainer.

A career extension trainer will limit the drops in skills to 1 or 2 drops a season period from my experience. I must note that I have seen a drop in more than 1 area only once with this type of trainer.

Last edited by BarryS at 8/31/2012 1:41:46 PM