BuzzerBeater Forums

" 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

So, I agree with most of what you say. And I just want to throw in my 2 cents along with some of it.

- ... D4/D5 teams shouldn't own any players in the long term category ...

- ... 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.

Your experience with this game has been wildly successful, promoting 2 seasons in a row and setting yourself up for a decent post-season run in D.III. This means that your strategy has worked. But it also means that you haven't faced the challenges the game presents to managers who began slowly or who have missed promotion somewhere along the way (i.e. most of the managers in the game). You have only ever needed short-term players because you were in position to promote each season, bringing you more cash and forcing you to compete at a higher level in the near future, and thus making it easy and necessary for you to trade-up relatively often.

Managers who are recovering from mistakes, are stuck in monster leagues, don't have a promotion bonus and attendance bump to rely on, are trying to build a NT or U21 player, or who don't have the time to TL dive regularly need to find other ways to get by. And that makes other strategies for increasing the performance-cost ratio important.

-I think your stock market analogy is misleading ...
- ... I believe there is always a singular best way to do anything.

The stock market analogy may not be perfect. But what I'm talking about in terms of risk is the depreciation of the re-sale value of older players. Younger players hold their value better than older ones. And the TL can be very fickle. Yes, getting good secondaries mitigates this risk to a degree, since that buoys TL value. But you're gambling when you buy an older player that you can get more money out of them than the value they'll lose over the time you own them. This can happen if you are winning. But if there's a hiccup along the way, like an injury or a well-timed CT, you might not be able to make up for the loss.

I think that there are ways to build a team for stability and ways to build a team for promotion. What I'm saying is that managers need to assess their league and their chances in it, set appropriate goals for their season, and then choose tactics that will fulfill that goal. You advocate for building for promotion, and I think you've got the tactics for that down. But promotion isn't always a possibility.

To go back a few posts, I think that secondaries are the most important thing. And often a player's age lets you get into good secondaries at a lower transfer cost. Here we agree. And I think you would agree that managers have to look at each situation and do the cost/benefit analysis.

But BB hasn't given us the tools to do this definitively, since we don't know how big the effects or how random the algorithms are that govern attendance and merchandise. I think they can balance the equation. You don't.

Finally, I just want to express my opinions to those who read this (if they can make it this far through the thread without giving up):
1) A trend doesn't make a rule, so do you homework in each situation.
2) Managerial tactics should match your overall goals, season goals, and management style.
3) I think our goal should be enjoyment first and success (as you define it!) second. This is the beauty of a RPG. It's bigger than win/lose. Ask yourself if you actually enjoy the time you spend playing BB. And then if you have to even hesitate about it, do yourself a favor. Sell all your players, quit and find another hobby. This game takes too much time to not enjoy it.

Last edited by rhyminsimon at 10/26/2012 2:52:19 PM

Thanks for continuing the discussion Simon, very good post, and I agree with most of it.

You have only ever needed short-term players because you were in position to promote each season, bringing you more cash and forcing you to compete at a higher level in the near future, and thus making it easy and necessary for you to trade-up relatively often...

...And that makes other strategies for increasing the performance-cost ratio important.

I follow the school of thought that teams should have two modes, "make a lot of money while not demoting" and "try to promote". This strategy works great in either mode (or anywhere in between), so great that trying to do the former has accidently put me in the latter category two times in a row now. If promoting wasn't realistic last season I could have just stuck with the cheap, profitable roster I had assembled and set myself up for the future (like I am doing this year, my revenue is more than double my expenses and I'm not trying to promote).

I firmly believe this is the best way to have a high performance to cost ratio which is why it is applicable to a large range of goals and situations, including all the situations listed in your post. In fact I think it is even better for teams in worse circumstances since maximizing a weak cash situation is its biggest strength.


I would like to make a longer post on the riskiness of owning older players, and address some other things in your post, but it will take more time than I have now. Hopefully I remember to get back to it at some point.

I have always been told to be leery of keeping and by 30+ players. While I admit younger players give you a great future, they are just so expensive. I will still be training guards for a few more years so do I buy the older, cheaper big men or try and save up enough money to buy a younger one that will last awhile? The price difference is really huge. What are your thoughts?

I would go with 2 older guys with sum of salaries as of the 1 younger player.

Why? 2 older guys give you options in rotation (therefore better game shape management), they are probably more experienced then 1 younger player and if one gets hurt, the other can jump in.

Another point to take is this - opponent can have a beast at position where you have that one guy. Your 1 younger guy maybe can't defend opponent and can't score against him. When you have 2 slightly worse guys, they can compensate that. Opponent will probably score but your guys can play at 2 positions (PF and C), take turns on defending the "beast" and you'll win that battle (if ent and effort are equal). Maybe they will force fouling out of the "beast"? There are two of them still even if each fouls 4-5 times...

So to ignore all math and economy discussions in this thread, I think 2 older players beat 1 younger.

PS I saw your activity in transfer list and I think it's a mistake. Time will show...

well for longitvity i would take some younger player they will reap better rewards for you in the long run. Finacially and as team wise. i dont think smart bet to buy a old player just to regulate, while it s very sure bet that will you regulate becuase the skills and exp they have..

In long haul you cant sell them back and they lose value so it to me its not good idea( * this depend on fast you sell them back lol*) . But if you want to regulate and promote then by all mean buy a older more exp player and play the proper tatics. But i think a group of young beast will do alot more better things for a team in the long haul. Money wise and team wise

Haiku summary:

cash and as team wise
young beast alot more better
old men regulate