BuzzerBeater Forums

I'd like to make a case as to why the salary formula update for PG/SG/SF should be reverted immediately and sent back to the laboratory where it escaped from.

There are 3 major issues with this change:
1. It further enhances the existing problem of zones dominating over m2m.
2. It creates brand new problems nobody ordered.
3. It wasn't announced at all, apparently because surprise mechanics are now part of the gameplay.

We all see what’s happening with 3-2 zone dominating the top level, even though m2m is supposed to be the realistic choice. At this point, 3-2 has become so common at the top level that if I see a team playing m2m, my first instinct is to check whether the manager hasn't logged in recently and forgot to set his lineup.

I'd like to give a brief history of how we got here, so those who aren't aware of the issue can understand the chain of events, and those smarter than me who have been around long enough to witness this evolution can add anything I might have missed.

LI + m2m was the dominant combination for the first half of BB history. Since IS was free for guards while JR was expensive, we naturally ended up with lower-salary guards with high IS. And when I say high, I mean high by the standards of that era: world-class guards had IS 18-20, not the current generation of 23+ inside monsters. At one point, almost everyone at the top level played only LI + m2m, which is why BBs introduced GDP in season 26. After that, tactics like II and Motion became a bit more common, but only as a way to avoid GDP prediction.

To fight against the dominance of LI + m2m, BBs started adjusting the salary formulas. The cost of JR and SB was repeatedly reduced, with the changes happening gradually over time. Later, in season 36, they started increasing the salary cost of IS for guards. This was announced a season ahead, and was implemented gradually, over several seasons, so managers had time to adapt and nobody was suddenly waking up one morning to discover their perfectly planned roster had suddenly become financially radioactive.

The next big change came with the introduction of gyms, youth coaches, and better draftees. Before those, managers had a real choice when developing top-level guards: invest more into outside skills or invest more into inside skills. You usually didn't have time to train both to 20+.

However, gyms, youth coaches and better draftees further disrupted an already fragile balance. Managers were no longer really choosing how to develop their guards; the game made that choice for them.

185cm guards didn’t suddenly wake up one day and discover they had been carrying Wilt Chamberlain inside them all along. They were pushed in that direction by the game mechanics. Gyms and youth trainers accelerated development to the point where HOF players reached their caps before 25 unless you trained secondary skills.

So when managers looked for the optimal way to develop their guards, there wasn't really a choice anymore. There was one obvious path with a neon sign pointing towards it. Looking at secondary skills for guards, the situation was simple:
• RB? Taxes salary on every position.
• ID? Punishes guard skills because of the SF salary formula.
• SB? "Free"... except it also drags RB and ID with it when trained.
So what remained? IS - the one truly "free" skill for guards.

Naturally, managers spammed it. Not because they discovered some secret loophole, but because the game left them with only one good option. And that is how we ended up with guards with IS 23+ bulldozing m2m defenses like Shaquille O'Neal.

The balance between IS and ID for guards was disrupted further. To deal with guards with absurdly high IS, managers had to start using zone defenses, forcing those guards to take more inside shots over centers instead of guards who could never realistically afford enough ID to contest their shots.

Only after that did managers optimize the 3-2 zone even further by creating blockers with SB 23+ who could contest those inside shots from IS 23+ guards on an even higher level.

This is why 3-2 zone with two elite shot blockers is not the actual problem. It is simply the symptom.

Increasing the cost of SB for centers was necessary. I wouldn't even call it an increase, it was more like restoring it to the fair value it used to have. Doing a massive increase in one season is a problem of its own, but since there are more major issues atm, I'll not focus on it here. However, increasing the cost of SB for centers does nothing to make managers return to m2m.

If managers can no longer afford inside players with ID 22 and SB 22, what will happen? They will simply use inside players with ID 21 and SB 21. Because the reality is still the same: putting a low-ID guard against a high-IS guard in m2m is not a tactical decision. It is volunteering your defender to be a traffic cone in front of a bulldozer.

And if the price of SB for inside players is increased even further, managers will simply optimize around it again. Maybe they will use a 3-2 zone with only one elite shot blocker. Maybe they will use a defensive center with high ID and moderate SB, like ID 22 and SB 15.

And if SB becomes so expensive that training it twice will lead to automatic bankruptcy, managers will still find a way to play zone. They will even use 3-2 with normal centers, or switch to outside box and 1.

Because at the end of the day, anything is better than watching a guard with ID 13 trying to defend a guard with IS 23 in m2m. That is not defense. That is a player politely asking his opponent "Mr. O'neal, please step on me harder!"

And now we arrive at the current salary formula change for guards, so let's analyze it. This "SF" (50507521) received a salary increase of exactly 4%. He went from 201 272 to 209 482 with these skills:



Meanwhile, all-round SFs designed for m2m, with IS below 20 received a 6-7% increase. And those rare SFs with high SB who are even better for m2m, were hit even harder.

BuzzerManager's salary calculator wasn't 100% accurate, but it was still the closest approximation of the old salary formula. According to its calculations, we get the following:

PG: +1 ID costs about the same as +1 IS
SG: +1 ID costs about the same as +1 IS
SF: +1 ID costs about 46x more than +1 IS
PF: +1 ID costs about the same as +1 IS
C: +1 ID costs about the same as +1 IS

Read that again. Even if the BM calculations are off and +1 ID for SF costs only several times more than +1 IS, the point remains. So long as player's position is SF, you can pretty much spam IS as much as you want, until his position switches to a PF. That's how absurdly unbalanced the salary between IS and ID already is for SFs, and why managers spam IS.

Virtually every issue for guard salaries can be traced back to one absurdity: IS is calculated as a secondary skill for SFs while ID is calculated as a primary skill.

Let's take a closer look at the TL:

PGs:
• SB 15+? 9 players.
• ID 15+? 30 players.
• IS 15+? 136 players.

SGs:
• SB 15+? 0 players.
• ID 15+? 3 players.
• IS 15+? 29 players.

SFs:
• SB 15+? 3 players.
• ID 15+? 62 players.
• IS 15+? 188 players.

Thinking that PG/SG/SF need an increased salary cost for SB and ID is so far removed from reality that it completely misses the root cause of the problem and pushes the game even further in the wrong direction. It is an impressive achievement to create a change that manages to make the existing imbalance between IS and ID on outside players even worse.

This change incentivizes managers to train even more IS on guards, while keeping ID and SB as low as possible. If this change remains permanent, in the future we won't have guards with IS 24 who transform into Shaquille O'Neal and Wilt Chamberlain when they get near the basket. No. We will have Shaquille Chamberlains with IS 27+.

And that is not a joke, that is simply what the new salary formula is optimizing for. With the elastic effect decreasing, even higher IS levels become possible. The only reason we don't already have top guards with IS 27 is because the negative elastic effect is currently holding them back. Remove that limitation while making ID and SB more expensive for guards and centers, and the game will be a challenge of who can be the first to create a top level guard with IS 30.

Man, with the current state of the salary formula and the general approach to player skills, I would love to insert the "Look how they massacred my boy"-meme. It's a disgrace.

I mean we did some nasty stuff with 1-on-1 training for forwards back in my day, but what we have now is filthy. Add the free FT pops, every well trained player become the complete package sooner or later. Where is the fun in that?