Problems at D1- baseline prestige. Get rid of it completely so people can actually build dynasties long term and coaches with great baselines who have played awful actuslly get penalized.
Tourney money- the 0-12 ACC team gets 50k extra recruiting money; the deleware state who made the final four gets an extra $5k.
Solution: penalize the crappy ACC teams while not penalizing the ones who earned all the money. Reward the deleware states of the world for building a good team. But don't reward them too much or they will never play anyone good and the sim conferences will be rewarded.
Proposal: conferences split 70% of the pot equally, and the other 30% percent goes to the team's that actually went far in the tourney, example- each nt game gets $5k. Georgia tech plays 5 tournament games, wake forest plays zero. Gt gets $25,000 x 70%/12 plus $25,000 x 30%.
The rich seem to get richer, which I know you're against... But the small conference e Delaware state (poor) also gets richer bringing them closer to the rest of the ACC (or big east in this case) and allows them to compete for recruits vs. Big conferences.
Further... The ones who advance far in the tourney tend to be the ones who lose a lot of players. To the draft or graduation... So they need more recruiting cash. And if you lower the total amounts each team gets as proposed, it will not punish team who plays well as much as you would if you just gave a flat fee to each team (socialism). That would kill this game. Don't punish success. Make it more attainable but you will kill it if you go to socialism.
In season recruiting:
I like the idea of scouting before the first round of recruiting greatly. I've always hated the fact that I can't know offense/ defense or don specific scouting trips before I have to decide if he's my guy.
Love this.
Finding diamonds in the rough is important in bridging the gap btw great teams and average team. Increase the number and potential of players in the middle of the recruiting world. Get better mid level players, hidden potential. Imperfect scouting... This way a b prestige could build a great team in four years. And the great team might have a miss every once in awhile.
Revise scouting trips, please. I do NOT want to spend money to learn for the fourth time in five trips that my center recruit doesn't have ball handling upside... And my pg can't block shots, ahhhhhh!!!! I know and don't care! If I'm spending money... Tell me something new!
Solution: either a) let me choose what areas I will scout (even if it's cheaper and just one area); 2) don't repeat any areas if I repeat a scouting trip ; finally) give me an expensive option for a complete scouting report...
More time before first recruiting cycle,,, 2 hrs is not enough as that recruiting cycle is so important. Give me 24 hours to put my effort in.
My fear: socialism.
In college basketball, kansas, Kentucky, duke, unc, ucla, etc. have built in advantages. They will always out recruit butler, even when they're good. Further, they will always kill deleware state recruiting. This should not change in this game or you are over- correcting and going to make this game awful. Don't penalize the good. Give mid range team's chances to be good easier by finding hidden gems ( I like the idea of scouting to find good players outiside of the top 100 ranked, that's real life); by increasing mid level recruit potentials (maybe not in athleticism as much as realistic areas of increase?); by expanding recruiting territories, particularly for higher level prestige.
Here's a realistic way to make the upper prestige levels more competitive against each other- in real college basketball, a+ prestige schools all compete nationally for recruits. Kentucky cheats, but they have a better chance at a Florida guy than Florida, even if Florida gies to 3 straight elite eights.
Proposal- have the costs for scouting trips/ campus visits, etc proportionate to your prestige... If you're super high a+, it's cheaper to go 1000 miles away than if you're lower a+ than if you're a-. Just do a sliding scale that no one knows.
How does this help even things out??? My a+ Georgia tech will actuslly have Texas A&M, kansas, Connecticut, etc. battle me for more players. I will take a chance and go against Syracuse on a recruit in Michigan , risking mich state jumping us both late. We would actually see battles for top recruits. This currently doesn't happen often because i don't wanna jump a conference mate for a stud recruit, and conference mates are the only ones I can afford to jump becuase they are within 360. Realistically, providence doesn't have a shot at a duke/ Kentucky battle. Good. They shouldn't. But if dukes battling UConn for a stud, prvidence should be able to jump a local guy late. Currently Duke and UConn don't battle. UNC, Kansas, and Duke dont battle. That's the problem at the top of d1. And the solution isn't socialism. The solution is- allow greed to actually cost someone something and let's have nation wide battles where the highest prestige school actually battles the 2nd highest even though they are 1000 miles apart. If cost is determined by a sliding scale of prestige and distance (distance doesn't cost as much for high prestige schools), Georgia will get some local recruits Georgia tech leaves behind, there will be a few more prospects at mid levels that can actually turn out to be studs, and Georgia actually had a chance to get better if tech gets people far away and battles ucla for recruits.