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going backwards in terms of your post. I'll just ask you the troll exactly which posts you want from yourself about how often YOU have suggested that new owners ignore developing talent correctly. and by correctly, i mean not like that thread you've tried linking repeatedly with others shooting you down and you just downright going argumentative in an effort to prove that you are right and everyone else is wrong.

I am trying to debate, not argue. You are the only one making this personal.

Also please point out where I have have "suggested that new owners ignore developing talent correctly". You keep saying this but won't back it up at all. I honestly have no clue what you are referring to.

onto the 3rd point, i guess you're just not interested in the 24-27 bracket, and would rather focus exclusively on the 28+ crowd. It sounds as if you somehow have decided that talent development must stop at 23, and that 80% of the roster should be 28+ at all times. I dunno how you want me to talk you out of something that you will refuse to listen to anyways, so moving on up.

Most users do single position training. Single position training can only be given to 20% of your minutes every week. Training is not relevant to the other 80%, which is the portion I am discussing. When you say stuff like I " somehow have decided that talent development must stop at 23" this is really confusing to me because I have no clue where you are getting this and you refused to explain yourself.

to the 2nd point, i think this is true to a fault. I'd rather not argue again, because you will again come to a simple conclusion that your logic is faultless and mine is full of holes. Why bother with a troll.

I honestly don't get what you are trying to say here (besides more baseless personal attacks).

the first point suggests why i think you are a troll. You took a statement and tried to somehow make it something it wasn't. Thats pretty standard.

I quoted you and said you were wrong, then proceeded to explain why in the next thing I wrote. Ya, that's pretty standard for a debate. Not my problem that you can't handle people explaining why they disagree with you.

Let's get this back on track. Please explain why this is wrong instead of just deflecting it as "trolling":

If the way to win is having performance exceed salary, and the way to have performance exceed salary is buying older players, then the way to win is buying older players.

This was by far the most important sentence of my previous post and you totally ignored it.

Last edited by w_alloy at 10/24/2012 11:09:07 PM

"Every time I make good points you ignore them and start with more straw men and personal attacks that obfuscate the issue. I am encouraging you by responding to your whole post instead of just ignoring all that garbage. I have dropped some valuable knowledge that people reading this won't get because of all the irrelevant crap, and that you refuse to see because you are convinced I'm on some personal crusade against you. "

You're not on a crusade against me. You're in this phase where you can't get over the fact that what you've 'debated' with is a complete and utter misunderstanding of what someone else tried to say to you, and then you proceed to just try and spin it off as you being right and them being wrong. It's like this crusade of trying to prove your the best, but it's fatal flaw isn't me coming in and personally attacking you, it's you posting links to your strategy of level 1 across the doctor, the trainer, and the PR staff. You post that for others to read, and i guess assume that logical arguments made thereafter are just 'trying to hide your valuable knowledge'. And again, you posted something about how players at 32 are worth more than 27-28, someone came in and said that's half true but he cant agree with it fully, and then you somehow misinterpreted his entire 2-3 posts worth of information and decided that he should've crowned your method 100% correct.. Against, it's either trolling, or it's some elitist mentality. you tell me.

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"If the way to win is having performance exceed salary, and the way to have performance exceed salary is buying older players, then the way to win is buying older players. "

A) you, like me, have not won division 1.

B) you, like me, have not won division 2.

The only thing that you have done is quickly ascend to D.III. However, it's not the way to 'win', it's just a strategy to improve to a given point and make a good arena in the process. Nothing to fault you for on that, i'll be interested in seeing how you manage to buy your way into D.I's winners cricle.

Here is one example of where he suggested that you are only halfway correct:

"I see a few things worth noting.
1) The longer you plan to keep a player, the more worthwhile it is to pay a high price on the TL.
2) Salary makes up the bulk of the average cost per week (91% for Player A & 82% for Player B). This suggests that the biggest advantage is to be gained in having players who perform well in comparison to others with the same salary."

There are two key things to note here. A) He can't fully agree with you because of statement #1. Of course, you disagreed with his math by stating something about the time value of money (which is actually just opportunity costs, because a given team in a given situation may gain nothing more from building a stadium at a given time. They just as easily could gain something and prove you to be accurate in one situation, and wrong in another if it were anything to do with time value of money). The second thing to note here is that he said something that you would agree with, and to which i also agreed with.

I think i may have figured out why you aren't getting it however when you asked me to go back and read some of your posts and link them for you (which you can easily pull up yourself by clicking on training questions that you've got a red arrow next to). There were 5 different threads on the USA and help folders that you've made comments on. Only one points back to a thread in which you clearly point out that you are in fact developing two or three younger players. the other four do not, and make zero mention whatsoever that you actually have some talent in development (although neither will make it to D.I or D.II level, so again it's just profits that they will generate, and you are hoping that you can buy enough talent to make it happen with those profits).

Last edited by FuriousSK at 10/24/2012 11:51:36 PM

And again, you posted something about how players at 32 are worth more than 27-28, someone came in and said that's half true but he cant agree with it fully, and then you somehow misinterpreted his entire 2-3 posts worth of information and decided that he should've crowned your method 100% correct.

I like Rhymin Symon, and he knows this (I hope). I said his first post was good analysis and that I agreed with much of it. I picked out the thing I disagreed with because that is what I thought was the most interesting thing to discuss. And it wasn't some minor point, it was the crux of my argument. Then when he made a good followup I asked for clarification. I think your reading of our interaction is extremely off base.

"If the way to win is having performance exceed salary, and the way to have performance exceed salary is buying older players, then the way to win is buying older players. "

A) you, like me, have not won division 1.

B) you, like me, have not won division 2.

The only thing that you have done is quickly ascend to D.III. However, it's not the way to 'win', it's just a strategy to improve to a given point and make a good arena in the process. Nothing to fault you for on that, i'll be interested in seeing how you manage to buy your way into D.I's winners cricle.

D4 and D5 teams "win" by getting to D3 and performing well while making money. I think this whole idea of preparing for D1 while you are in D4 is at best flawed and at worst destroys teams. You know how long long it would take to train a full team of D1 players yourself? I don't either but I'm guessing it's 30+ seasons.

Everyone has to use the TL. Newer players haven't had time to train up a lot of players. Let me remind you for the 10th time that all my posts in this thread are not referring to players that have been or are being trained by their current owner, and instead are referring to the players that need to be bought off the TL (which is by far the majority of players for newer users).

Also I don't know why you brought my record into this; I have intentionally left it out. But is long as you have, at the risk of sounding even more "elitist", let me point out that it's not like just getting to d3 quickly is my only accomplishment. I won every playoff game by 36+ points in a tough d4 league in my second season, and in my 3rd (current) I have the lowest salary of any team in my league by 40k yet have the highest PD, routinely beating teams with double my salary. I have absolutely crushed this game so far. But I believe my arguments stand by themselves and there's no reason to bring my record into it.

Last edited by w_alloy at 10/25/2012 3:12:35 AM

" I think your reading of our interaction is extremely off base."

Sigh. This guy is incredible. I don't even need to respond to let your argument that your strategy is so superior to everyone elses fail in the eyes of people trying to learn this game.

Of course, you disagreed with his math by stating something about the time value of money (which is actually just opportunity costs, because a given team in a given situation may gain nothing more from building a stadium at a given time. They just as easily could gain something and prove you to be accurate in one situation, and wrong in another if it were anything to do with time value of money).

Your statement that teams may squander money or not gain anything from stadium upgrades is certainly true. I am only saying the average dollar spent has a slightly positive outcome, which is all I need for my argument. If the average stadium upgrade yielded 0 long term revenue, the net total of money made on stadiums would have to be 0 when you subtract out profits from the initial stadium, which seems obviously false to me. Another point in my favor is that teams tend to get better over time.

I think i may have figured out why you aren't getting it however when you asked me to go back and read some of your posts and link them for you (which you can easily pull up yourself by clicking on training questions that you've got a red arrow next to). There were 5 different threads on the USA and help folders that you've made comments on. Only one points back to a thread in which you clearly point out that you are in fact developing two or three younger players. the other four do not, and make zero mention whatsoever that you actually have some talent in development (although neither will make it to D.I or D.II level, so again it's just profits that they will generate, and you are hoping that you can buy enough talent to make it happen with those profits).

Maybe I didn't talk about it cause all those posts were on different subjects? I don't see how it has any bearing on this debate whether one sells or continues to train trainees (please explain).

Last edited by w_alloy at 10/25/2012 3:42:50 AM

I can't believe we've had 20 or so posts with such elaborate detail of the cost/benefit analysis of outfitting players in short shorts vs. baggy shorts. I am on the side of baggy shorts now, though I am old enough to remember when short shorts ruled the day. That's the great thing about BB - there's no single dominant strategy, except of course for that one strategy that everyone uses that dominates. But besides that . . .

yeah i just gave up.

Alright. There's been some flaming going on here. Please remember this is a game and forums are places for good-natured opinion. (5542.1)

I answer this question by looking at the larger goal: to have players that outplay their cost.

I agree with you, w_alloy, that older players generally do this, if you pay a reasonable price on the TL. My analysis showed that the older player was cheaper, both in the long-term and the short-term. But to my view, this isn't the whole picture. There are things my analysis didn't cover, like merchandizing revenue and the different price-to-salary ratios of players of different levels and at different positions.

You can succeed by getting old players that are undervalued because of the stigma many managers have about skill drops. But having star players with longevity on your team can earn merch/sell tix. This is hard to quantify. But it can be worth, depending on your division and team make-up, maybe $5k-$20k per starter per week-ish? emphasis on the -ish ;-). This is the factor in the game that balances (or attempts to balance) the advantage of being able to get older players comparatively cheaply.

This is part of why I suggest that managers diversify. I won't claim that I've got it all figured out, or else I would be winning the B3 championship as we speak. But I think that there are three main categories that players will fit into on a team.

1) Trainees - These players help you outplay their cost by getting better over the course of the season. This is 20-40% of your roster, since the most development comes from 1 or 2 position training. They are either long-term players-in-training, or train-for-sale players. Since they gradually get better as your team improves, you can keep long-term players-in-training throughout the development of your team, increasing the amount of merchandise they can sell.

2) Long-term players - These players help you outplay their cost by keeping fans happy, which earns you merch/sells you tix. They are good enough to be on your team for seasons in a row. And you maximize their merch/tix selling by playing them often. So they are likely starters or primary back-ups. You probably buy them when you promote and hang onto them until your team outgrows them or they are rotting.

3) Short-term players - These players help you outplay their cost by being better than similarly priced younger players and/or by being sold for a profit on the TL. They can fill out your roster around long-term players and trainees.

Then there are "rentals." These are players that are beyond the budget of the team, but are signed specifically to make a run at the post-season and dropped before the team goes bankrupt or retained upon promotion if finances allow.


It's like investing in the stock market. And you want to invest according to your goals. And there are ways to climb to the top quickly by making lots of good short-term, high-risk deals or you can make good low-risk, long-term investments for a nice retirement. I think the savvy manager will be well-positioned to take advantage of trends in the game and have assets spread (to different degrees) among the three kinds of players as well as cash-flow.

I think that the game at the lower levels rewards quick deals (and rightly so, from a game design standpoint). But I'm not convinced the same is true about the higher levels. I think at every level you need to be aware of how many players of each category you've got, and to make sure you're maxing out what you get from each type. w_alloy, this is what I was hinting at when I remarked about Gatovskis on your team. I think your roster shows that you understand the benefit of diversifying your assets.

Hope this makes my posts clearer... I agree about older players, but I see the "older player tactic" as one of a number of feasible tactics for getting good play out of low-cost players in this game.

Thanks for the post Simon, you do an excellent job articulating your position as usual. I would like to point out a few places that I disagree, just so that my position is clear. I realize most of this has been covered (and re-covered) already so sorry if I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. For this reason and for the purpose of length I won't go into any detail unless asked (I would enjoy debating some of these finer points).

-I think your three categories of players is a good classification system, but I think in 99% of situations D4/D5 teams shouldn't own any players in the long term category as you have described it. The only exception is if they don't want to put much time into the game.

-I could be wrong, don't have numbers to back this up, but I think you are overstating the "extra" financial benefit of owning players long term. I have crazy fast turnover, never buy players from my country, and have always been close to league average merch.

-I think your stock market analogy is misleading because in this case the "short-term" deals are really the lowest risk (along with having the highest returns).

-I think all d4/d5 teams who want to succeed in this game should have very similar goals (doll house strategies aside), and I believe there is always a singular best way to do anything.

-I agree with you that at higher levels it can be important to hang on to great builds, but that is only a function of how rare the builds needed to win at those levels are. I don't think this is relevant to teams in d4/d5 and I still think using mostly older players can be quite effective at least until d2.


Last edited by w_alloy at 10/26/2012 1:50:58 AM