Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The only way to not delay getting your recruits until season 2 is to move the entire recruiting process to the beginning of the season.  To do that while implementing these changes would probably necessitate doubling or tripling the current length of recruiting.  So that's not going to happen.  The only way to legitimately expand recruiting is to move it to the end of the season. 

Cut down the days job apps take as well as getting rid of that "renewal day".  And push signings back a day since that last day is rarely used than by a few battles.

Start job apps, the 2pm cycle after the nc game.  end it after 2 days we see a lot of transfers in the first 2 shifts, but few later on. And start recruit earlier.

Even better to add more time to recruiting under the current schedule time(27 days/45 days).

• Once recruits sign they can be added to depth chart and practice plan
• Get rid of that 11th non-conf game which is possible since it now happens quite often(add that waiting day to the end for recruiting
• Start job apps the 12pm after the nc game and 2pm is when all the non-renewed jobs open
• Cut job apps down a day(and add that day to recruiting)
• Bam recruiting has now 2 extra days where you can make the first one only for scouting and then start it a day earlier and take off the last day completely if wanted

I think the greater question for the community might be:  do you want these wholesale changes to scouting and recruiting, or just tweak the current system?

We are a hard bunch to satisfy, so I don't know if there is an easy answer!

seble I think you need to add a button to your poll above: "Like the scouting changes but don't like scouting\signing players during the current season"

Here is why: If I am in a lower level D1 mid major conference and moving up to a good mid major or power 6 conference team--I would have to pay for a season where I have no control of the players. This goes the same for starting in a new world. Why would I want to pick up a crap SIM team and be totally bored to death for 7 weeks watching them get creamed every game with all SIM players. Think of the new player who has never played HD: This newbie has no idea what a good team or a bad team is and he picks up a horrible team full of SIMs with a team rating in the 460s and goes 5-23. A person becomes attached to the make believe players they recruit and sign. You are taking this away from the new HD player and I see this discouraging new coaches and they would be more likely to quit after one season than they would quit because they had a rough first recruiting session. At least they would have some of their own players and would learn from their mistakes. The first time you recruit in this game is rough no matter if it is right away or during the first season as proposed by you. You would also be discouraging current HD players from moving up in Divisions like from D3 to D2 or in the same Division like moving up in D1. Personally when I am taking over a new team I like see a team with at least 4 openings if not 5 or 6 so I can have an immediate impact with recruiting on the roster. Just my opinion and I am only 1 person. I love the ideas in the new scouting and think it with testing will be a huge asset to HD. Maybe you could find a way  for either new people who are joining HD to be able to scout before they get the team or do job searches\coaching changes\ with say 8 games to go in the regular season so if you do move up and switch teams you have a say in the roster for the first season I would be fully on board with what you are doing.  No matter what you do you are going to lose some coaches with change.

slim: the way I see it, you're not paying much attention to the on-court results that first season, but that means you have a lot more time to dedicate to scouting/recruiting. 

To an extent it's being flagged as an issue because we're used to it the way it is now.  Seble is right, for our current teams it won't matter as much, but the issue still remains when picking up a new team, or moving.  In some ways we all already know that taking a formerly human coached team is better than one that was sim coached (unless you want to do a more thorough rebuild), so how is this different?

I voted yes because it's STILL UPDATES!!!  wheeeee :)

tooslim is correct though - recruiting your players creates HUGE ownership.  It would stink to move to D2, D1, etc and have to basically wait a whole season to get started on changes.

Perhaps those seasons could be greatly discounted (1/2 off?).  You are a place-holder for a season otherwise.

Posted by brianxavier on 9/11/2015 1:05:00 PM (view original):
tooslim is correct though - recruiting your players creates HUGE ownership.  It would stink to move to D2, D1, etc and have to basically wait a whole season to get started on changes.

Perhaps those seasons could be greatly discounted (1/2 off?).  You are a place-holder for a season otherwise.

personally for me the issue isn't paying for a "bust" season, but the added length of an extra season(s) it takes to rebuild and move up.

I don't want to get too in depth on my thoughts because frankly if the game gets a major overhaul like what seems to be in the works I'd probably just leave then learn an entirely new game, but just in regards to Seble's last question, another issue you have to worry about with in season recruiting is for people who know they are leaving the school after the season, either by moving up/down/lateral or leaving the game entirely, why would they bother putting any effort into recruiting for the next guy? At least with recruiting before the season there is incentive to recruit well for the team you are about to coach that very season.

I think tooslim is spot on. His thoughts are well reasoned considerations and the idea of ownership is important but I think tarvolon is right too ... You'd immediately be going to work in scouting to take that ownership. Still I'd hate to see the whole update scrapped over this issue. Maybe there could be some extra scouting budget provided for taking over a sim controlled team so that one could more freely make cuts without repercussion to a certain number of sim recruited players?

But that's another issue that hasn't been addressed what do you do about player cuts?

Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 10:49:00 AM (view original):
Transfers could technically work by having them sit out a year.  So a guy transfers at the end of season 90, he enters the recruiting pool for season 91, then resumes playing in season 92. 

Early entries is a tougher problem.  We could potentially determine earlier in the season whether a player is leaving, then add money to the budget.  That could be a pretty big issue though for schools that have a lot of them, as they'd be getting a late jump on things. 

Maybe it makes more sense to move the recruiting period to after the season ends.  So scouting would still take place during the season, but the actual recruiting would be at the end. 

I think having transfers sit out a year is a great idea. This will make coaches think about offering promises they know they cannot keep as well as coaches signing a senior transfer just to keep more money for next seasons recruiting. I know I have been guilty of this on many occasions.

Because of EE, I think it makes the most sense to move or keep some part of recruiting until after the season ends because of the need to fill more holes on the roster.

After reading most of the previous posts, here are my ideas/thoughts.

1. I understand we are only discussing scouting at this moment and REALLY like the idea of being able to scout and recruit during the season. This is no different than what takes place now with coaches that have carryover now. They can use FSS and be better prepared for the next seasons recruiting cycle than the coach that has to wait for money to be distributed.

2. I think not allowing coaches to carryover their scouting budget from season to season is a mistake. While I understand we are trying to create more parity and give coaches more control with regards to scouting and recruiting, you would be taking away a vital part of the process in my opinion. How coaches manage their budget, especially at the lower levels, is what makes one a better recruiter than another coach. Why should I be penalized and lose what I didn't spend if I only had two openings and found two local kids that are going to be nice players for me to recruit. I believe we should be able to carryover unused budget, even if at current 25%, for the following season when I may have 5 openings and need to look to other parts of the country to find players.

3. Someone mentioned having an early and a late signing period if recruiting is done during the season. I think this is a great idea. If we use this model, we can solve numerous issues. First, coaches that decide to change jobs will have an opportunity to recruit and sign their own players who will play that first season which seems to be an issue for some based on the previous posts. These coaches will be at a disadvantage because of a limited time to scout available players and possibly limited budget to perform scouting trips. As things stand now, we barely have 36 hours to scout or use FSS once the season rolls over so this would not be a big change. Secondly, this will give coaches that are hit with EE a chance to fill those holes in their roster. Will there be a smaller pool of player to recruit from, yes of course but that happens now in real life. As long as there is a balanced approach on players committing or signing with schools in the early signing period versus the late period I think this would be a good compromise and element in recruiting. It could be simple as a player waiting to the late signing period in hopes a Top 25 school shows interest in them or waiting to see what all of their options are. If we wanted to make it where the amount of effort or interest from a school helped sway a recruit to sign early versus signing in the late period would be a nice added layer in the process.

If we leave recruiting to take place until the end of the season or beginning of the next season, we have done nothing but change how we get the information about the players. You will still be trying to condense the most important part of the game into just a few days that some coaches may not have the time or access to participate. Making a change to be able to recruit throughout the season is one of the best changes that could be made to the game if done correctly. Determining when signings happen and allowing coaches to adjust for EE and transfer impacts before the next season is a big part of making it successful.

Let me think this through some more over the weekend and see if I can come up with a compromise to address some of these concerns.

I definitely second tarvolon's suggestion of having an early/late period. That alleviates both of the primary problems under discussion here (getting some recruits that first season, and accounting for EEs) and also makes the game a little more realistic at the same time.

I would suggest not paying much attention to people threatening to quit before they've even beta tested it. Just talk, IMO.

just for sure - no grad student transfers!

A couple things I just thought of.

One benefit I can see of this scouting is that you spend money to scout recruits you actually care about unlike right now with FSS. You get info about D1 recruits when you're D3 and it's useless.

At first I really liked the idea of being able to do scouting all throughout a season and then you'd basically have recruiting the same time as current. Then for new coaches, they could do their scouting and recruiting at the same time of the new school they get to. But let's say you're doing scouting at a D3 school in NY throughout a season. Then at the end of the season, you switch to another D3 school in NY in the same world. So if you get more scouting money when switching that means you could use your old scouting reports and combine them with the new one? Even if not officially, you can certainly write notes down on guys to target in recruiting or whatever.  Right?
 

Posted by arssanguinus on 9/11/2015 11:24:00 AM (view original):
Recruiting being after the season itself would be for the best, letting the counting system during the season be as described would be fine with me.

Just an observation, but if scouting is being done IN SEASON and recruiting is done AFTER the season....at what point would new coaches enter the loop? If they come in during recruiting, they would either have no visible players or be stuck with whatever the Sim version of finding players is because they missed the scouting phase. If they come in AFTER the recruiting phase, I see a Pandora's box where current coaches F-up their recruiting and decide to transfer to a different school rather than live with the ramifications. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but the in-season scouting (which I like) does throw a question mark into how the arc of s season would flow and where the entry point for first-time players would be.