I've been playing HD since the game started.  I have coached extensively at every level along the way, so I have an understanding of how the game looks different to users at different levels of the HD hierarchy.

The two biggest changes that I can recall to HD were:

1. The introduction of potential.  People were angry beyond all reason when this was first implemented.  Now the great majority of coaches will concede that it added much more depth to the game and was, on the whole, a very positive change.

2. The rewriting of the game engine.  There were also a number of people who were angry about this at the time it took place, but I think it is clear that Seble's engine is superior to the previous engine (where almost every team would have several utterly inexplicable losses per season - at least now when a coach loses a game, he can generally understand why).

Both of these changes were yelled about quite a bit by those who frequent the forums, and both of them ultimately improved the game to a large degree.

I think keeping this history in mind would be good as we consider the changes that are now being proposed.  I can only speak for myself, but I'm looking forward to figuring out a new scouting & recruiting system that will offer a different type of challenge and perhaps more realism.
9/30/2015 10:25 AM
Well, now Davis, that is a well-thought-out, reasonable post, with examples to support your point. There's no place for that here. Be careful.
9/30/2015 10:51 AM
Well said Davis.  Time to move this game forward so more coaches stay engaged over the long term.  IMHO, there is no point in playing this game if there is absolutely no hope of ever winning a NT.
9/30/2015 11:12 AM
nicely said Davis.
9/30/2015 11:42 AM
i agree, nice post. my concern is that both of those changes also had some major downsides. potential was a wreck until tarek got canned and seble cleaned up the mess. the new engine rewrite cost a ton of d1 coaches. the problem in both cases, is there wasn't enough follow up to the initial changes, to keep what worked, and adjust what didn't.

my concern today is that recruiting is hands-down people's favorite part of the game, and it just seems the scope is so massive, significantly bigger than either of the releases you mentioned. if the admins were not able to keep up with changes, to follow through on updates of the size of the ones you describe, why are they taking on something twice as large? i am all for a significant change, and even better, for a series of significant changes over time (like most other games in the world do it - significant chunks, every year, maybe 6-18 months, but not nothing for 4 years and then redo the entire game...)
9/30/2015 1:26 PM
Posted by davis on 9/30/2015 10:25:00 AM (view original):
I've been playing HD since the game started.  I have coached extensively at every level along the way, so I have an understanding of how the game looks different to users at different levels of the HD hierarchy.

The two biggest changes that I can recall to HD were:

1. The introduction of potential.  People were angry beyond all reason when this was first implemented.  Now the great majority of coaches will concede that it added much more depth to the game and was, on the whole, a very positive change.

2. The rewriting of the game engine.  There were also a number of people who were angry about this at the time it took place, but I think it is clear that Seble's engine is superior to the previous engine (where almost every team would have several utterly inexplicable losses per season - at least now when a coach loses a game, he can generally understand why).

Both of these changes were yelled about quite a bit by those who frequent the forums, and both of them ultimately improved the game to a large degree.

I think keeping this history in mind would be good as we consider the changes that are now being proposed.  I can only speak for myself, but I'm looking forward to figuring out a new scouting & recruiting system that will offer a different type of challenge and perhaps more realism.
Agree to disagree with #1.  Should read the majority of (remaining) coaches  concede it added more depth.....

By in large, HD is a ghost town at most levels with maybe 30-40 real players in each division out of a possible 1000.  When a business loses a ton of clients, I think most would consider that a bad thing.  What went wrong they should ask?  What changed?  ---  I didn't take stats along the way pre potential  and post potential, but WIS should have them.  Are there more users now or before?  How about paying customers, which are different than customers.  If the numbers have dwindled since potential, it probably wasn't good.

I agree with #2 and the overall, I think people fear the unknown more than they should.  At the end of the day it's their business and their game.  It's not a democracy.  If we don't like it we can quit  (which many have post potential).
9/30/2015 4:50 PM
Posted by gillispie1 on 9/30/2015 1:27:00 PM (view original):
i agree, nice post. my concern is that both of those changes also had some major downsides. potential was a wreck until tarek got canned and seble cleaned up the mess. the new engine rewrite cost a ton of d1 coaches. the problem in both cases, is there wasn't enough follow up to the initial changes, to keep what worked, and adjust what didn't.

my concern today is that recruiting is hands-down people's favorite part of the game, and it just seems the scope is so massive, significantly bigger than either of the releases you mentioned. if the admins were not able to keep up with changes, to follow through on updates of the size of the ones you describe, why are they taking on something twice as large? i am all for a significant change, and even better, for a series of significant changes over time (like most other games in the world do it - significant chunks, every year, maybe 6-18 months, but not nothing for 4 years and then redo the entire game...)
I agree with the first note, potential now is probably a net plus (although it has significantly reduced the impact a coach can have - practice planning is no longer really a skill that is required or a place a coach could separate themselves from the pack) - but people do remember what a hot mess it was for the 7-9 months we were all paying to finish the debugging.  A lot of my resistance stems not just from the changes themselves, but on the fact that I don't think WIS has ever successfully rolled out a  major change to any of their games, and if it took 7-9 months of actual gameplay to fix potential, what will it take to fix everything that goes wrong with these updates?
9/30/2015 5:02 PM
well said davis 
9/30/2015 6:18 PM
Posted by options on 9/30/2015 5:02:00 PM (view original):
Posted by gillispie1 on 9/30/2015 1:27:00 PM (view original):
i agree, nice post. my concern is that both of those changes also had some major downsides. potential was a wreck until tarek got canned and seble cleaned up the mess. the new engine rewrite cost a ton of d1 coaches. the problem in both cases, is there wasn't enough follow up to the initial changes, to keep what worked, and adjust what didn't.

my concern today is that recruiting is hands-down people's favorite part of the game, and it just seems the scope is so massive, significantly bigger than either of the releases you mentioned. if the admins were not able to keep up with changes, to follow through on updates of the size of the ones you describe, why are they taking on something twice as large? i am all for a significant change, and even better, for a series of significant changes over time (like most other games in the world do it - significant chunks, every year, maybe 6-18 months, but not nothing for 4 years and then redo the entire game...)
I agree with the first note, potential now is probably a net plus (although it has significantly reduced the impact a coach can have - practice planning is no longer really a skill that is required or a place a coach could separate themselves from the pack) - but people do remember what a hot mess it was for the 7-9 months we were all paying to finish the debugging.  A lot of my resistance stems not just from the changes themselves, but on the fact that I don't think WIS has ever successfully rolled out a  major change to any of their games, and if it took 7-9 months of actual gameplay to fix potential, what will it take to fix everything that goes wrong with these updates?
Yes options, I agree.  Practice planning is a joke, used to be one of the most important parts of the game.  I seldom look at it once I set it these days, I used to change it all the time.  A long time ago, a user went in for cancer treatment, and asked me to recruit and run his team for a season.  It was a very midling team, one season later, when he came back and looked at my settings for practice planning (as well as his team's winning record), he was shocked, he claimed how I set up his team was worth a couple of wins a season, for one season, and that compounded over the careers of his players, would make him a championship coach. 

And although the FSS idea (along with the corresponding increase in the high level recruits and substantial decrease in the rest of the recruits) now is ingrained as part of the core of this game, it really harmed the game MORE than anything that ever was done in the game.  This was the only change that cause massive departures.  Remember, the disgruntled and vocal part of any consumer community is a small portion of those unhappy, the rest simply quit using the product.

I agree the change to the engine being done well, which IMO was done more to upgrade the code and make future change possible, was done flawlessly.   I don't think the engine sims all that much better or differently than b4.

I guess I don't recall the people being massively upset over the engine recoding b4 it was done, other than maybe a hangover or coupling effect due to the lousy job done with recruit generation and the FSS change.  As I said, I don't even think the engine was changed that much, I felt the key to that change was it didn't change things much at all.

10/1/2015 8:39 AM
I'm going to toss out my plan for improving the game.  For those who might not know, this is Oldresorter.

First off, a bit of background.  If one were to make the game strictly about practice planning and zero , all the d1 (d2/d3 with correspondingly different values) recruits would look the same, a PG might come in 60-75-10-70-0-10-55-70-70-50-65-DU for example, while a C might come in 75-25-65-65-65-65-10-20-20-50-60-DU, with SG/SF/PF some other way.  All the FSS potential's would be black or medium.  Nobody or hardly anyone would like that game (I would by the way - LOL), much like few really like the wild advantage the top 20-40 d1 recruits have over the rest of the pool.

But, a small backing off of the current recruit generation ratings at the top, and a small increase of the amount of medium and high improvement rates over reds from the rest of the pool would substantially 'even' out the game.  I like the notion of a randomness in all of it, as long as the randomness does not overpower  the game.  Like all things HD, moderation is the key.

Second, the current recruiting costs have two major break pts, at 200 miles and at 360.  To increase the competition to the max using the current game, those would be wiped out, making all recruiting cost the same.  My proposal would be to beta test distance.  IMO some distance gatekeeping numbers keeps the game sane, but I'd bet somewhere around 400 and 720 would greatly improve things (300 and 540 might even work)  Actually, the best approach would be to change the distance, based on the market, so a coach in Wyoming might get a longer reach than a coach in New York City, but I'm not exactly sure how that might work.  Anyone who has recruited for Hawaii knows what I mean.

Third firing logic needs to be toughedned up.  Moderation might not be the key here, but does need to at least come into play a bit. 

4th baseline prestige needs to be backed off.  Did I mention moderation.

5th (this can be done today) - post season money should go away.  This seems so basic if the overwhelming feeling is conference band together, and those that do have too big of an edge.  ANy of the so called super conf coaches know this is a fact, I've never joined such a conf, IMO it was cheating - kind of fickle, since I do play major conferences in d1 I know, but at least there I feel like I've earned it and didn't artifically create the situation.  Oh well, the money should go.

6th conferences should be realigned to reflect modern real life changes.  I know this is near impossible, but yet, it is important.  Compromises will be needed, and not everyone will be happy, but still, it needs to be done.  This is one of those things that doing will at least appeal to the majority of the coaches, and I don't think anyone will quit over the changes made, even if they disagree with the compromises required.

7th hiring logic should be addressed.  A survey would help here.  IMO whatever is done won't work as the vocal minority will always rule this issue, but along with the other changes, it should be changed.  In general, I liked the game more when getting new jobs was harder.  That was a long time ago, I think the reality is new jobs need to be easier to get.  This not knowing the answer on my part is why I think a survey is required.

8th and final, many of seble's recruiting ideas could be incorporated about preferences as part of the old recruiting windows.  Generally I'd love to see promises mean more, they do in real life.  And the effect of breaking promises being more severe.  IMO one of these super recruits isn't promised playing 25 mpg and starting, he should not go to the school, period.

I lied, a bonus idea, in general, stamina has too big of an effect, players should be able to play longer, shorter rotations should be successful.  If this idea is done, the FCP logic needs to be de-toothed, because reducing stamina in the game and making teams tired, is how the FCP was declawed.  This shorter rotation game would also lessen the effect of recruiting in the game, which needs to be the overall number one goal in this game.

Yet a final caution, making this game realistic is not always smart, for the vets here, remember the delemma concept?

I realize many here won't agree with any or all of these ideas, and I apologize for not making this more of a coherent post, this is not something I spent any time on, I simply typed what I felt. 

Good luck to seble and all of us, my guess is the next months are going to be plenty rocky.
10/1/2015 9:24 AM
ryan75 / OR - not sure if you only coach d1, but at d2 and d3 (and i am assuming at lower level d1) it is crucial to tinker with the practice plans to maximize / squeeze out all of the potential. at these lower levels, its impossible to find an all american freshman and extremely rare (but its happened) to find a player good enough to carry a team as a sophomore... its therefore crucial to monitor and adjust the practice plan on a regular basis, taking into account the varying speeds of improvement based on amount of potential remaining. 
10/1/2015 11:24 AM
Posted by Rails on 9/30/2015 4:50:00 PM (view original):
Posted by davis on 9/30/2015 10:25:00 AM (view original):
I've been playing HD since the game started.  I have coached extensively at every level along the way, so I have an understanding of how the game looks different to users at different levels of the HD hierarchy.

The two biggest changes that I can recall to HD were:

1. The introduction of potential.  People were angry beyond all reason when this was first implemented.  Now the great majority of coaches will concede that it added much more depth to the game and was, on the whole, a very positive change.

2. The rewriting of the game engine.  There were also a number of people who were angry about this at the time it took place, but I think it is clear that Seble's engine is superior to the previous engine (where almost every team would have several utterly inexplicable losses per season - at least now when a coach loses a game, he can generally understand why).

Both of these changes were yelled about quite a bit by those who frequent the forums, and both of them ultimately improved the game to a large degree.

I think keeping this history in mind would be good as we consider the changes that are now being proposed.  I can only speak for myself, but I'm looking forward to figuring out a new scouting & recruiting system that will offer a different type of challenge and perhaps more realism.
Agree to disagree with #1.  Should read the majority of (remaining) coaches  concede it added more depth.....

By in large, HD is a ghost town at most levels with maybe 30-40 real players in each division out of a possible 1000.  When a business loses a ton of clients, I think most would consider that a bad thing.  What went wrong they should ask?  What changed?  ---  I didn't take stats along the way pre potential  and post potential, but WIS should have them.  Are there more users now or before?  How about paying customers, which are different than customers.  If the numbers have dwindled since potential, it probably wasn't good.

I agree with #2 and the overall, I think people fear the unknown more than they should.  At the end of the day it's their business and their game.  It's not a democracy.  If we don't like it we can quit  (which many have post potential).

the numbers can fairly easily be drawn up for each world over time, i've posted those over the years, here's a pretty recent one:

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?ForumID=30&TopicID=487261

whats never been done, is to calibrate the worlds based on starting time and progression speed, to get a real number for the actual coaching pool at a given point in time. everything could be converted to a date, or to season number on the world 1 basis (every third or so d2 world count would be thrown out), and then the numbers need to be aggregated.

i don't actually think the drop over potential was that large, but, its pretty hard to tell now, having no memory of when that happened (in terms of seasons). i guess if we can get some basic info together here i'll take a crack at aggregating this stuff -

- how many days in a 1/day season?
- how many days in a 2/day season?
- what date or season in world 1 did potential go out?
- what date or season in world 1 did the new engine rewrite / recruit gen release go out? 

10/1/2015 11:44 AM
Posted by ryan75 on 10/1/2015 9:24:00 AM (view original):
I'm going to toss out my plan for improving the game.  For those who might not know, this is Oldresorter.

First off, a bit of background.  If one were to make the game strictly about practice planning and zero , all the d1 (d2/d3 with correspondingly different values) recruits would look the same, a PG might come in 60-75-10-70-0-10-55-70-70-50-65-DU for example, while a C might come in 75-25-65-65-65-65-10-20-20-50-60-DU, with SG/SF/PF some other way.  All the FSS potential's would be black or medium.  Nobody or hardly anyone would like that game (I would by the way - LOL), much like few really like the wild advantage the top 20-40 d1 recruits have over the rest of the pool.

But, a small backing off of the current recruit generation ratings at the top, and a small increase of the amount of medium and high improvement rates over reds from the rest of the pool would substantially 'even' out the game.  I like the notion of a randomness in all of it, as long as the randomness does not overpower  the game.  Like all things HD, moderation is the key.

Second, the current recruiting costs have two major break pts, at 200 miles and at 360.  To increase the competition to the max using the current game, those would be wiped out, making all recruiting cost the same.  My proposal would be to beta test distance.  IMO some distance gatekeeping numbers keeps the game sane, but I'd bet somewhere around 400 and 720 would greatly improve things (300 and 540 might even work)  Actually, the best approach would be to change the distance, based on the market, so a coach in Wyoming might get a longer reach than a coach in New York City, but I'm not exactly sure how that might work.  Anyone who has recruited for Hawaii knows what I mean.

Third firing logic needs to be toughedned up.  Moderation might not be the key here, but does need to at least come into play a bit. 

4th baseline prestige needs to be backed off.  Did I mention moderation.

5th (this can be done today) - post season money should go away.  This seems so basic if the overwhelming feeling is conference band together, and those that do have too big of an edge.  ANy of the so called super conf coaches know this is a fact, I've never joined such a conf, IMO it was cheating - kind of fickle, since I do play major conferences in d1 I know, but at least there I feel like I've earned it and didn't artifically create the situation.  Oh well, the money should go.

6th conferences should be realigned to reflect modern real life changes.  I know this is near impossible, but yet, it is important.  Compromises will be needed, and not everyone will be happy, but still, it needs to be done.  This is one of those things that doing will at least appeal to the majority of the coaches, and I don't think anyone will quit over the changes made, even if they disagree with the compromises required.

7th hiring logic should be addressed.  A survey would help here.  IMO whatever is done won't work as the vocal minority will always rule this issue, but along with the other changes, it should be changed.  In general, I liked the game more when getting new jobs was harder.  That was a long time ago, I think the reality is new jobs need to be easier to get.  This not knowing the answer on my part is why I think a survey is required.

8th and final, many of seble's recruiting ideas could be incorporated about preferences as part of the old recruiting windows.  Generally I'd love to see promises mean more, they do in real life.  And the effect of breaking promises being more severe.  IMO one of these super recruits isn't promised playing 25 mpg and starting, he should not go to the school, period.

I lied, a bonus idea, in general, stamina has too big of an effect, players should be able to play longer, shorter rotations should be successful.  If this idea is done, the FCP logic needs to be de-toothed, because reducing stamina in the game and making teams tired, is how the FCP was declawed.  This shorter rotation game would also lessen the effect of recruiting in the game, which needs to be the overall number one goal in this game.

Yet a final caution, making this game realistic is not always smart, for the vets here, remember the delemma concept?

I realize many here won't agree with any or all of these ideas, and I apologize for not making this more of a coherent post, this is not something I spent any time on, I simply typed what I felt. 

Good luck to seble and all of us, my guess is the next months are going to be plenty rocky.
I agree with almost everything included here. I have just a couple comments/criticisms. 

I don't think postseason money should be abolished completely. I think it's currently overpowered, excessively so at D1, but I'm afraid that its abolition would create fewer competitive conferences as coaches moved as far as they could from the other top coaches. 

I love the idea of decreasing the rate at which players tire thus allowing players to play more minutes because it is realistic and should be straightforward to change. I also think recruiting is far too important right now so this would be a step towards balancing out the different aspects of HD. 
10/1/2015 1:09 PM
I also like the fatigue adjustment, this could also lead to more battles for elite recruits - if taking 3-4 walkons doesn't nerf your season, a coach can be more aggressive in looking to add that one stud.
10/1/2015 6:48 PM
I think the fatigue change would make DI more interesting. Smaller schools don't need as much depth to compete and might start running zone more. 

But a recruit generation fix is probably needed to make DI alluring to me--hopefully that's somewhere on the horizon. 
10/2/2015 1:39 AM

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