You guys are looking at the wrong things when judging how succesful the non BCS conferences are. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the reason why non BCS conferences are less succesful right now is because they are much less populated than they've been in the past. BCS conference membership stays pretty steady, what has dropped is the rest of D1. If humans proliferated the lower levels of D1 you would see more mid major schools make deep runs. I just joined the MWC in Tark on my other ID, and we have a group of 7 or 8 coaches 2 of whom have been very succesful at their current schools, and I have no doubt as long as we can keep our membership at 7+ schools we will routinely have at least 1 team making a deep NT run every season.

I'm in two worlds -- Smith and Wooden -- both of them have at least one mid major conference that is well populated and those conferences are not making "deep runs" in the NT.  Not unless you define a deep run as Sweet 16.

People didn't randomly abandon mid-major D1 teams.  Each season I see longtime coaches at mid-majors quit.  You can blame the coaches themselves if you'd like, but the truth is the game is worse for it.

I have an elite team in one world and a mid-major in another.  I like the challenge of approaching the game two different ways.  But lately the challenge of the mid-major is Sisyphean -- in the 2nd round or the sweet 16 I'll run into a team that's 100 points better than me, with no deficiencies.  If I actually won one of those games it would seem like a failure of the game engine.   

I've tried to combat the problem by doing as you suggest, recruiting good coaches to my league, but even an in excellent season like we had last year in Smith -- 6 teams in the NT, $240K tournament money -- no team had the chance to with the national title that Butler has in real life.  No one had 1,000th of that chance.

So, I keep hanging around in that world, hoping that WIS will make a change -- if only to reclaim lost revenue.  But if nothing happens eventually I'll just keep my one elite team and drop my mid-major, like so many coaches have done before me.

Illinois-Chicago is currently in the Final Four in Knight...

OR pointed something out in another thread that is overlooked when it comes to mid majors. There are 2 reasons for them being less populated and it's hard to gauge which is the bigger reason, recruit generatoin and the fact that D2 and D3 get full rewards now. Mid major populations began decreasing when coaches could stay in D2 and D3 and get 100% reward points, they didn't need to jump to D1 to get those rewards.

Also 1 conference being full doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't mean the coaches are good. I didn't say all it would take is 1 conference being full, I said if overall the conferences were fuller, it would lead to better postseason performances. Let's say there are 50 coaches at non BCS, if that number was 100 do you not think there would be more mid majors making big runs? What about 150?

In real life there are over 330 D1 teams only 73 play in BCS conferences but those 73 teams make up 85% of the teams that make the Elite 8. And in real life 100% of the teams are human coached, in Tark there are 67 human coaches of a possibly 72 in BCS conferences and average of 11.2 humans per conference, there are 74 human at the non BCS schools in the other 21 conferences that is less than 4 humans on average per conference. In real life non BCS schools outnumber BCS schools by over 250 and still the BCS schools dominate postseason play. Why do people expect that in this game when there are only marginally more humans at non BCS schools and they're spread out very thin that they should be more succesful? If there is a world where there are 3 or 4 non BCS conferences with 9+ coaches and have had these coaches for a few seasons and nobody is having any sustained success I'll readily admit it's because of the recruit generation but until then I'll continue my stance that people didn't give the recruit generation a chance abandoned low D1 which made it very hard for the coaches still there to make things happen.

I actually don't think it matters as much how good the mid-majors coaches are, as it does how good the Big 6 Conferences' coaches are.  If the Big 6 Conferences' coaches are good, and there are enough of them, the only excellent recruits that they won't get are the geographically remote ones.

I don't believe 100-150 human coaches outside of the BCS would matter very much -- because there aren't enough elite players for those teams to get.  More coaches at mid majors would probably mean more competition for the scraps.  I wish there were a world like that so we could see for sure who was right, but I certainly can't come up with any good reasons other than a sort of "science experiment" to recruit coaches to do that.

And I agree that the full rewards for D2 and D3 make those games more attractive.  But I make a point to see if longtime mid-major coaches are moving down levels or just quitting, and lately I'm seeing a lot more quitting than moving down.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, or twist what you said.  You can take my word for it that the coaches in my Mountain West Conference in Smith are good or not.   I'm not trying to be tricky when I say that it seems to me that your position is that people playing money to play this game at D1 should be happy with a system in which only teams from 6 conferences have a chance to win a national championship.  And it seems to me that you blame the customers who've quit, because they don't like that system.  All I'm saying is that if people are quitting the game, then that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong with the game. (I know for sure I would feel that way if I was the one selling the game.)

As to your BCS/non-BCS numbers -- Butler made the national finals last year.  A year's worth of WIS is around 60 national tournaments -- something like that?  Has any mid-major made the national finals in -- essentially -- 60 WIS years?

Maybe there's been a few, but I haven't heard of any.  I know that before the update in February that de-emphasized stamina, I was able to put together teams at Texas Southern that I thought -- if my tournament draw broke just right -- could win an NT.  I got pretty close a couple times, but lost to the eventual NC. 

Did I have a good chance to win a national title either of those years?  No.  But I had some chance.  And I think that's what's missing from D1 right now and I certainly don't blame people who feel like they have no chance to win, if they decide they don't want to play.

drsnell, I don't think we need more elite players. For the vast majority, the real-life mid-majors that make the Sweet 16 or crack the Top 25 aren't doing it with 4 and 5-star recruits. Butler didn't make back-to-back national championship games with 4-star recruits, and in fact, even after making back-to-back title games, haven't landed any 4 or 5 star recruits (their baseline prestige just isn't high enough to compete with Indiana, even after the title game appearances!).

The problem is that there aren't enough recruits out there that wouldn't be attractive to BCS type schools, but could be developed into good players by mid-majors over time. I'm not quite sure how you would incorporate that type of player into the game... more guys with low starting ratings but High-High potential across the board? Making IQ's matter more? Bringing back some form of dilemmas, where you have talented players out there, but who are a big gamble whether they'll stay out of trouble? Simply generating more mid-range recruits to expand the pool? I'm not sure exactly, but that's the key thing that's missing from this game. It's not the prestige system, or the inability of mid-majors to compete with BCS schools for 4* and 5* star recruits, because they generally don't do that in real life, either, and yet are still able to be competitive. It's that there aren't "overlooked" recruits that mid-majors can use to turn themselves into competitive programs like in real life. 

 I realize I may be making a fine distinction here, but I believe its an important one nonetheless.

Someone mentioned here or elsewhere, that there should be a minimum amount of recruiting effort needed to sign starred recruits. I think that's a very good idea. If it  cost a minimum of $15K to sign a 5-star player, that would at least prevent the BCS schools from signing 4 or 5 stud players on the cheap and carrying over thousands of dollars into the next season. Something like: 

5-star: $15,000
4-star: $12,000
3-star: $9,000
2-star: $6,000
1-star: $3,000

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/19/2011 10:31:00 PM (view original):
You guys are looking at the wrong things when judging how succesful the non BCS conferences are. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the reason why non BCS conferences are less succesful right now is because they are much less populated than they've been in the past. BCS conference membership stays pretty steady, what has dropped is the rest of D1. If humans proliferated the lower levels of D1 you would see more mid major schools make deep runs. I just joined the MWC in Tark on my other ID, and we have a group of 7 or 8 coaches 2 of whom have been very succesful at their current schools, and I have no doubt as long as we can keep our membership at 7+ schools we will routinely have at least 1 team making a deep NT run every season.

kmason, I think you are horribly misguided here, and have the cause-and-effect flipped around.

There is a reason that non-BCS conferences became ghost towns, and chiefly that was because of the change to recruit generation. People felt they simply couldn't compete any more at a level that would've made things interesting and worthwhile. I saw it happen in an incredibly obvious and vocal manner in Allen, which used to be the absolute hotbed of non-BCS success.

I could go on for a long time on this subject, but I won't, except to say that the cause-and-effect here was glaringly obvious as it transpired and is truly not debatable.

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/20/2011 2:11:00 AM (view original):
OR pointed something out in another thread that is overlooked when it comes to mid majors. There are 2 reasons for them being less populated and it's hard to gauge which is the bigger reason, recruit generatoin and the fact that D2 and D3 get full rewards now. Mid major populations began decreasing when coaches could stay in D2 and D3 and get 100% reward points, they didn't need to jump to D1 to get those rewards.

Also 1 conference being full doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't mean the coaches are good. I didn't say all it would take is 1 conference being full, I said if overall the conferences were fuller, it would lead to better postseason performances. Let's say there are 50 coaches at non BCS, if that number was 100 do you not think there would be more mid majors making big runs? What about 150?

In real life there are over 330 D1 teams only 73 play in BCS conferences but those 73 teams make up 85% of the teams that make the Elite 8. And in real life 100% of the teams are human coached, in Tark there are 67 human coaches of a possibly 72 in BCS conferences and average of 11.2 humans per conference, there are 74 human at the non BCS schools in the other 21 conferences that is less than 4 humans on average per conference. In real life non BCS schools outnumber BCS schools by over 250 and still the BCS schools dominate postseason play. Why do people expect that in this game when there are only marginally more humans at non BCS schools and they're spread out very thin that they should be more succesful? If there is a world where there are 3 or 4 non BCS conferences with 9+ coaches and have had these coaches for a few seasons and nobody is having any sustained success I'll readily admit it's because of the recruit generation but until then I'll continue my stance that people didn't give the recruit generation a chance abandoned low D1 which made it very hard for the coaches still there to make things happen.

kmason, it simply doesn't matter exactly what the real-life breakdown is.

If you don't have an HD where people outside the BCS feel that have a realistic enough shot of assembling a team that can at least compete on a national level, DI is going to be a watered-down ghost town. (And that doesn't mean that non-BCS should be as strong as BCS, or that everyone should be able to make the Final Four, so please don't twist that around.) 

So I don't care if 100% of the S16 or E8 teams in real life are from the BCS -- to have that here would be disastrous for HD, and that's already been very clearly demonstrated.

Another idea that has always intrigued me (although I realize it would be very difficult to implement, and be even more unpopular!), would be to make recruit signings more probability-based, instead of automatically going with the team that put in the most effort. If you out-effort the other team 2-to-1, then you have a 67% or 75% or 85% (wherever you draw the curve) chance of signing the player, but the key is that it's not 100%. Now, you'd have to be on the considering list to have a shot at the player (to prevent massive shotgunning), and there'd have to be a way of prioritizing players/positions so that you didn't end up with 4 centers when you only wanted one, but I think it'd be a very cool system to beta-test. It'd give lower prestige schools some chance of competing for higher-level recruits, but without eviscerating the inherent advantages that go along with being an elite program.

Posted by professor17 on 8/20/2011 9:42:00 AM (view original):
Another idea that has always intrigued me (although I realize it would be very difficult to implement, and be even more unpopular!), would be to make recruit signings more probability-based, instead of automatically going with the team that put in the most effort. If you out-effort the other team 2-to-1, then you have a 67% or 75% or 85% (wherever you draw the curve) chance of signing the player, but the key is that it's not 100%. Now, you'd have to be on the considering list to have a shot at the player (to prevent massive shotgunning), and there'd have to be a way of prioritizing players/positions so that you didn't end up with 4 centers when you only wanted one, but I think it'd be a very cool system to beta-test. It'd give lower prestige schools some chance of competing for higher-level recruits, but without eviscerating the inherent advantages that go along with being an elite program.

prof, I'm in agreement with your earlier posts on this page, but absolutely hate this idea.

There is more than enough randomness already in HD -- game results, early entries, where recruits are located ... the list goes on. Quite honestly, to insert that level of randomness into recruiting would possibly make me stop playing HD altogether.

Posted by girt25 on 8/20/2011 10:05:00 AM (view original):

Posted by professor17 on 8/20/2011 9:42:00 AM (view original):
Another idea that has always intrigued me (although I realize it would be very difficult to implement, and be even more unpopular!), would be to make recruit signings more probability-based, instead of automatically going with the team that put in the most effort. If you out-effort the other team 2-to-1, then you have a 67% or 75% or 85% (wherever you draw the curve) chance of signing the player, but the key is that it's not 100%. Now, you'd have to be on the considering list to have a shot at the player (to prevent massive shotgunning), and there'd have to be a way of prioritizing players/positions so that you didn't end up with 4 centers when you only wanted one, but I think it'd be a very cool system to beta-test. It'd give lower prestige schools some chance of competing for higher-level recruits, but without eviscerating the inherent advantages that go along with being an elite program.

prof, I'm in agreement with your earlier posts on this page, but absolutely hate this idea.

There is more than enough randomness already in HD -- game results, early entries, where recruits are located ... the list goes on. Quite honestly, to insert that level of randomness into recruiting would possibly make me stop playing HD altogether.

Yeah, like I said girt, it'd be unpopular, and I completely understand your point of view! But I still think it'd be neat to try on a beta-test level, to understand all the implications, see how strategy worked, see if it might be a feasible system or not, etc. It'd have to be done right, and extensively tested, and frankly I don't think I'd trust WIS to get it right. The probabilities would have to make sense, to insure it wasn't too random. IMO, the problem with EE's, for example, is not that they're probability-based, but that the probabilities don't correlate strongly enough with the things they should. They're *too* random.

"It'd have to be done right, and extensively tested, and frankly I don't think I'd trust WIS to get it right"

Bingo ... I think we've learned the hard way that the chances of WIS getting something right that really needs to be nuanced and properly balanced are, well ... about zero.

Girt, I just don't buy the idea that non BCS schools don't have a chance at putting together a team that has a chance to compete. Like was posted a little earlier Illinois-Chicago made the Final 4 in Knight. If there were a few conferences in every world with 8+ humans I guarantee it would be a common thing to see a couple of teams in the Sweet 16, 1 in the Elite 8 and every few seasons 1 slipping into the Final 4.

100% reward points in D2 and D3, and people perceiving recruit generation as dismantling all chances mid majors have of competing are what caused the current situation not that mid majors actually have no chance.

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/20/2011 11:39:00 AM (view original):
Girt, I just don't buy the idea that non BCS schools don't have a chance at putting together a team that has a chance to compete. Like was posted a little earlier Illinois-Chicago made the Final 4 in Knight. If there were a few conferences in every world with 8+ humans I guarantee it would be a common thing to see a couple of teams in the Sweet 16, 1 in the Elite 8 and every few seasons 1 slipping into the Final 4.

100% reward points in D2 and D3, and people perceiving recruit generation as dismantling all chances mid majors have of competing are what caused the current situation not that mid majors actually have no chance.

First of all, I'm not saying that non-BCS schools have no chance to put together a team that can compete. You are too caught up in saying things like "no chance" and "impossible". It's not impossible. No one is suggesting that.

The problem is that it became exponentially harder to do so after the change to recruit generation. And that change made a large number of people feel that it was simply too difficult to compete in a meaningful way any more. It's not impossible, but it is much harder -- and the exodus from DI shows that people believe it was made too difficult, and that the difference between the haves and have nots is too large.

Those are facts that speak for themselves.

You're talking to someone who specifically left his D2 dynasty (four titles in seven seasons) to take a D+ non-BCS team and actively recruited people to join him. So obviously I relish the challenge and think that there are some coaches out there with the ability to do it.

But that doesn't change the reality for most people, which is that WIS made a drastic change to recruit generation that chased people out of low and mid DI. The change was awful for HD, and really the death knell for DI.