BuzzerBeater Forums

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, of course there is maintenance. And thankfully, it's more expensive the higher up you go - replacing top-tier talent costs significantly more than replacing III level talent, for sure. The whole issue about the gap between new and old teams? This is one of the things that helps newer teams start to bridge the gap.

You'll also note that since the new salary floor increases are essentially 30% for all leagues above 3, but that the TV contracts are higher by a good margin higher up, this erodes a little more of the advantage for teams tanking at top levels (or staying up in half-bot leagues with much lower salaries), which is the main purpose of the change.

Frankly, I think the main thing is that the idea that a team should ever consider it wise to tank and collect as much money as possible so they can buy future success is detrimental to the game. Thanks to the maintenance issue, I finally had to go through the painful process of getting rid of most of my roster and starting over with a new set of trainees - which, after having trained up a significant core of players and building around them over time was hard to take. I know another twelve seasons or so I'll be doing that again as well. But just sitting around skimming profit weekly and doing the bare minimum isn't something the game should encourage. If you choose to do so, sure, good luck with it, but when the best way of succeeding in a game is simply not playing it for a year or two, it's not worth playing at all.

I understand that it seems strange and uncomfortable for our smaller nation managers out there to increase their roster salary when they're already competitive relative to their league strength, but it's a step in the direction to help balance out financial discrepancies within the BB world.

If you consider those leagues not part of the BB world it is a good measure to reach balance. But in my opinion it completely fails new users, who are in my opinion the most important part of the BB world.

There are other ways to stop tanking, if you decide to take the easy route I won't be able to stop you.

As you said, my complaint isn't about the newcomers.

p.s i really appreciate the lenghty reply. I may disagree with you, but it is always welcome when GMs and BBs alike, put this amount of (precious)time in their interaction with the community.

when the best way of succeeding in a game is simply not playing it for a year or two, it's not worth playing at all.

I was not playing for "a year or two" and still can't buy promotion, so how is that the best way to play the game? With the 5 mil in my account I can buy one or two good players, that won't get me nowhere, big deal. The inflated prices by themselves are a good obstacle to make tanking worthwhile.

I don't see how increasing the salary floor hurts retention among new users and I think making the teams that are trying to stay lean more competitive with the teams trying to promote makes for a better game in general. This increase in the salary floor is too small to matter much though.

I joined the game just before last season and my only issue with the salary floor increase is it made me use the TL which is usually a frustrating experience.

Adjusting the attendance formula so that tankers can't make money, punishes tankers.

I've mentioned in the past that I like the idea of a revamped attendance formula. As others here have already pointed out though, coming up with a perfect formula for that is a lot easier said than done.

here ... from this very thread ...

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.

How hard was that, really? And really, what are the priorities to fix? Micronations? Tanking? Training? Fan survey? Attendance formula? Where does salary floors fall on the list of priorities? It has to be waaay down the list.

I think that when we "users" (what an unfortunate term) see some action toward fixing what needs fixing, we get excited. I just think that playing the game gives us a different set of priorities from running the game. Who is to say which is right, but we'll still put our priorities out there, hopefully for consideration.

Last edited by Mike Franks at 2/24/2016 1:44:55 PM

Catching up on an active thread …

Here’s a step in the right direction:

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.

BB-Ryan says:

The problem with this statement is that a competitive, salary efficient team from a large nation does not look like a competitive, salary efficient team from a smaller nation.

…which throws into question the one-size-fits-all measure that was employed. If the nations are so different, isn’t it better to acknowledge and address those differences than to paint them all with the same brush?

GM-hrudey says something similar:

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. ;)

Another disagreement with painting everyone with the same brush. Should tanking have been the first priority, or evening out the BB experience from nation to nation? Did the wrong perceived problem get hit?

Frankly, I think the main thing is that the idea that a team should ever consider it wise to tank and collect as much money as possible so they can buy future success is detrimental to the game.

That's another argument to fix the economy, dampen the hyper-inflation that currently exists, eh? Doesn't say much about the salary floor.

Agree or disagree, this is always true:

p.s i really appreciate the lenghty reply. I may disagree with you, but it is always welcome when GMs and BBs alike, put this amount of (precious) time in their interaction with the community.

Thank you.

Catching up on an active thread …
BB-Ryan says:

The problem with this statement is that a competitive, salary efficient team from a large nation does not look like a competitive, salary efficient team from a smaller nation.

…which throws into question the one-size-fits-all measure that was employed. If the nations are so different, isn’t it better to acknowledge and address those differences than to paint them all with the same brush?

GM-hrudey says something similar:

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. ;)

Another disagreement with painting everyone with the same brush. Should tanking have been the first priority, or evening out the BB experience from nation to nation? Did the wrong perceived problem get hit?

If this had been the only change regarding the economy in the past several seasons, of course, it would have been inadequate to address many of the issues currently ongoing with the economy. It might have helped slightly - money not added to those teams who have significant cash but choose to still operate at a minimum salary level is money that is unavailable to them to drive up the price of players when they wake up from hiberation.

But this, instead, was a targeted specifically for those teams who are just spending a minimum amount and not being competitive, or those who can be competitive because of the lack of competition in their league. It does have collateral damage for those who can compete in actual strong leagues with low salaries (I've been that in the past), and small nation users after 16 weeks.

There was also the recent change to free agency, which is supposed to try to somewhat aid in stabilizing prices for a specific segment of players, the vast majority of which are the ones that the vast majority of teams in this game would consider useful. It's still only a band-aid, as free agency is still a very insignificant part of the transfer market overall, but it's some progress.

There's also been a recent change to severely curtail the strategy of accumulating insane wealth and then just buying a team to win a title.

Although not directly an economical change, the 18 year old with allstar potential for a new team is definitely a nice bonus. Teams still need to add at minimum another trainee, and of course if they don't train it's small benefit - but having a homegrown player with the merchandise boost that leads to is nice.

The point is that you're correct, one-size-fits-all doesn't always fit. Expecting one component in a set of changes to itself be a fix for all issues is an equally untenable standard. Whether the salary floor is the *ideal* fix for the specific issue of tanking is of course a matter of opinion. It does also address in a small way the advantages inherent in being an established team in a small nation, where a minimum salary team can thrive, but it hurts those who are newly registered in some very small nations and those who are able to be competitive in very competitive leagues very cheaply. When you look at the whole, the tanking issue is a widespread concern affecting a lot of users, while draining the high-end micronation teams probably only affects other opposition in B3. The ones who are hurt, while unfortunately a non-zero number, are at least a minimal amount comparatively: newer teams in micronations and the best low level guys. For most people, the changes do no harm and improve the balance overall, which is the criteria I imagine the BB staff would look at.