Quote: Originally Posted By bredden18 on 5/14/2010What kind of time commitment is HBD in general
As mentioned above, a little more time at first, but once you get a handle of it, you can spend 5-10 minutes most days and be OK, or if you really want to tweak a lot of things, or get involved in a lot of trade chats, you can put in an hour before you realize it. Most days there is little to do other than read box scores, some days you might be working on a trade and find yourself spending 20 minute chunks every couple of hours.
Unlike HD, where you get a team, then all of a sudden find yourself in the most important part of the game, recruiting, w/n the first 24 hours and can easily burn your first season in fustration, HBD rolls things out a bit more slowly. There are a lot of activities scheduled around the first couple of days that a world fills, but little is time critical w/n a day. For instance, the first thing you do is set a buget, doesn't matter if you set that buget at 5:00 am or 10 PM, as long as you set it sometime that day, you're good. Better yet, say you set your buget in the morning, but after looking things thru decide you want to tweak it, no biggie, you have all day to tweak it as you like.
Free agency is one of the bigger events, and is similar to recruiting, however, it doesn't really matter if your there cycle 1 or not. Its mainly about who offers the most money w/ a couple other small factors. So even if you don't get to it for a couple of cycles, you'll be ok. The draft is also a big deal, but you get a week to set your draft board, so do a little here and there thru that week and you'll be ok. Plus, after the first 4 rounds, you're not going to find many major leaguers, so you don't have to sweat making sure you've got the right kid slotted in the 150th spot or not. If you worry that there are few majore leaguers found later in the draft like an Albert Pujols or Mike Piazza in real life, take comfort that there are very few busts in the first couple of rounds. Outside of injuries, which usually are not too big of a deal, most prospects come close to their projections.
As mentioned above, in HD you can flub your first recruiting experience and have a ****-poor roster and not have much fun to do in HD that first season. In HBD, you may have a bad roster your first season if the previous coach wasn't very good, but you always have the draft, making sure your minor leaguers are getting enough playing time, there are international free agents to watch out for that will drop a handful at a time to add to your minors, and there are always trades that can be explored to improve your roster long term.
2 spots remain in this world, 1 of which I know someone was thinking about taking, but hasn't yet. One just went thru a big rebuild, but the previous owner had to leave due to time commitments. Much of the heavy lifting is done, there is some great talent in the minors, and the #1 draft pick awaiting you. You likely won't win much at first, but if you're patient for a few seasons, you can have a team that can contend for pennants.
the other team is playoff worthy right now. Tweak the roster a bit, with some already good young talent, and you can compete right away.