Posted by the0nlyis on 6/7/2016 11:49:00 AM (view original):
so you are saying if I leave I was never a fan of the game? that might be the biggest piece of baloney ever

You're only looking bad. You could have actually tried to emphasize your point without coming off as childish. I am not a fan of certain aspects as well. I am actually one of the people who first realized the AC scout needed to be corrected. Minor tweaks will go a long way.

Okay, so a recruiting update in the chance that it doesn't get buried in my own thread...

I was out of the country last week and, during that time, the decision was apparently made to accelerate the beta world some 20 games. Suddenly I find myself beta testing what happens to coaches who don't get an early start on recruiting. Thanks WhatIf... , but anyhow, here's the dirt. From what I can tell with late recruiting/rushed recruiting...it's do-able, but isn't necessarily quick or fun. I have applied some $18,000 additional dollars into recruiting and still have a budget of $20K to play with. I'm probably going to use that to do accelerated scouts on players that look intriguing and pop them to Level 4 (or cut off at Level 3 and take my losses if something looks bad going from 2-3...). Bottom line...if you get a late jump, you'd better have a decent chunk of time to devote to sifting through players. Oh, and don't forget the stats on the recruit window aren't the same order as they appear on the player card...can't count the number of times I've almost spent money on kids thinking they were high-high in both rebounding and defense only to realize as I go to click that, no, that's Stamina and Durability.

In the space of 6 hours, I have signed two players using pretty much the same technique -- I targeted players that weren't considering anyone who were also within a 300 mile circle of campus. I threw a disproportionate, but not huge, number of attention points at them (40 on one, 30 on another, I believe). The 40 points were on a freshman recruit that I considered a step above what I would be able to get at UMSL under the current system. He signed for two cycles of 40 points, the scholarship, a couple of home visits and a 10 minutes promise. He's also the #119 player at his position which, again, puts him above anything that I've been able to get in the current system. To be clear, he won't GRADUATE as the No. 119 player at his position...but he'll start with ratings above what a typical non-redshirt freshman would have at a D2 school and will be no slouch at graduation. Point being, my C prestige beta school just grabbed a kid that I wouldn't have been able to get the time of day from with my A prestige UMSL team in Naismith.

The 30 attention-point kid was a 2-year JUCO player that somehow nobody else was on. He'd look better as a guy with 3 years of eligibility but, again, he's not going to be a bad catch. The strategy here was 30 AP's and a schollie, which triggered a campus visit. I also gave him a 10 minute promise. cha-ching, done!! I won't call this one a player I couldn't get at UMSL in non-beta, but I would have had to fight off a mosh pit for him as a JUCO rather than being able to walk in clean on him.

Four recruits left to find...

...three recruits left to find. Used the same process mentioned above, more or less, to grab another 2-year JUCO player that nobody else had gotten in on. He is, again, a player that I think probably would have been D2 under the current system, but since nobody else "saw" him, I got him without the fuss that usually accompanies having to go after higher rated JUCO players most seasons.

My last three players will all be freshmen. I'll be trying again to target players whom I don't reasonably think I could land with UMSL under the present system. For those worried about the recruiting budgets, let it be noted that I've spent less than $1,000 of my $12,000 recruiting funds to sign half my class. Down to about $17K in the scouting fund and have my next recruit squarely in my sights. We'll see if he signs overnight or if I'll have to ply him with a home or campus visit in the morning to seal the deal. I'm hoping to stumble across a "swing for the fences" sort of situation, just to see what happens.

Posted by rednu on 6/10/2016 4:37:00 AM (view original):
Okay, so a recruiting update in the chance that it doesn't get buried in my own thread...

I was out of the country last week and, during that time, the decision was apparently made to accelerate the beta world some 20 games. Suddenly I find myself beta testing what happens to coaches who don't get an early start on recruiting. Thanks WhatIf... , but anyhow, here's the dirt. From what I can tell with late recruiting/rushed recruiting...it's do-able, but isn't necessarily quick or fun. I have applied some $18,000 additional dollars into recruiting and still have a budget of $20K to play with. I'm probably going to use that to do accelerated scouts on players that look intriguing and pop them to Level 4 (or cut off at Level 3 and take my losses if something looks bad going from 2-3...). Bottom line...if you get a late jump, you'd better have a decent chunk of time to devote to sifting through players. Oh, and don't forget the stats on the recruit window aren't the same order as they appear on the player card...can't count the number of times I've almost spent money on kids thinking they were high-high in both rebounding and defense only to realize as I go to click that, no, that's Stamina and Durability.

In the space of 6 hours, I have signed two players using pretty much the same technique -- I targeted players that weren't considering anyone who were also within a 300 mile circle of campus. I threw a disproportionate, but not huge, number of attention points at them (40 on one, 30 on another, I believe). The 40 points were on a freshman recruit that I considered a step above what I would be able to get at UMSL under the current system. He signed for two cycles of 40 points, the scholarship, a couple of home visits and a 10 minutes promise. He's also the #119 player at his position which, again, puts him above anything that I've been able to get in the current system. To be clear, he won't GRADUATE as the No. 119 player at his position...but he'll start with ratings above what a typical non-redshirt freshman would have at a D2 school and will be no slouch at graduation. Point being, my C prestige beta school just grabbed a kid that I wouldn't have been able to get the time of day from with my A prestige UMSL team in Naismith.

The 30 attention-point kid was a 2-year JUCO player that somehow nobody else was on. He'd look better as a guy with 3 years of eligibility but, again, he's not going to be a bad catch. The strategy here was 30 AP's and a schollie, which triggered a campus visit. I also gave him a 10 minute promise. cha-ching, done!! I won't call this one a player I couldn't get at UMSL in non-beta, but I would have had to fight off a mosh pit for him as a JUCO rather than being able to walk in clean on him.

Four recruits left to find...

So to summarize, you were able to grab a kid who would normally be way above your level. Hmmm? And you got a JuCo player most probably because no one else had seen him. Great, sounds an awful lot like this is going to be luck of the draw in regards to recruiting. And this is better how (to all the people in favor of this)?

No offense meant to you personally Rednu, let me get that out of the way. But I thought I remember one of Seble's selling points being that Sims would be recruiting better so their teams weren't garbage like they traditionally have been. Point being, I find it very difficult to believe that the #119 ranked player at his position was so lousy that a Sim team would rather pass on him for what will eventually, no doubt, end up a walk-on. All this while a C prestige D2 team is able to land him apparently quite easily.

I realize this is only one example but I haven't seen many others posted. I'm not in the beta so I've been following along through the forums and I must say that if scenarios like Rednu just posted are the new status quo, just go ahead and refund my money right now and I'll make sure not to let the door hit me on the *** on the way out because this is going to be a debacle of "first roll out potential"-like proportions. From what I've read so far, this sounds horrible.

I agree with something Taniajane said earlier. WIS should implement the new system in about half the worlds and leave the old system in the other half. That way we could choose based on our preference which way we would rather play. Not a programmer but I believe the way this game is set up that it would be very possible to do. Reason being is that when potential was introduced, it was simply rolled out as each new world rolled over. We never had to shut down worlds for any extended period of time to have it rolled out all at once, so I don't see why it would have to be done like that here. Hell, it doesn't even need to be half and half, leave 2 1x worlds and 1 2x world like they are and I'd be fine cutting back to 3 teams instead of what very much looks like it will be 0. This does not sound good so far. Not at all.

I've signed 1 guy- a ranked PF at D3 because I looked at the still undecided DI players right before signings that showed up at the camp, and just put attention points into a couple. Mind you, I only had level 1 and don't even care if they are really good or not. I just wanted to see if it would work. Like Emy said, this is not a good thing. This is a problem.

And if it's the norm, what the heck was the point of scouting in the first place if the goal is really just to wait and pick off undecided D1 players? I should just visit a camp, run a camp, and use individual scouting on the late undecided D1 players. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be fun or good for the game.

Posted by jsajsa on 6/10/2016 6:04:00 AM (view original):
I've signed 1 guy- a ranked PF at D3 because I looked at the still undecided DI players right before signings that showed up at the camp, and just put attention points into a couple. Mind you, I only had level 1 and don't even care if they are really good or not. I just wanted to see if it would work. Like Emy said, this is not a good thing. This is a problem.

And if it's the norm, what the heck was the point of scouting in the first place if the goal is really just to wait and pick off undecided D1 players? I should just visit a camp, run a camp, and use individual scouting on the late undecided D1 players. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be fun or good for the game.

+1

BETA has a long way to go and a lot of stuff to fix.

Could be that D1 players should take longer to sign or have higher thresholds than they do now. Or, perhaps the recruiting power of D3 teams should be lessened. Or that prestige should be more important in recruiting.

My son (toknowpepsi) just signed the #5 PG in the country at Tennessee Chattanooga. He was a 4 star guy. UTC has a C prestige. He put most of his effort into this guy including PT, and apparently Big 6 teams put very little into him. He was also close to campus. I could see something like this happening in real life. A guy gets tons of attention from a team, and promised minutes, and maybe just a few calls from other teams and no promises. He decides he wants to go somewhere where he will be able to have an impact right away, where they want him bad.

I have not signed anyone yet, but I am finding this very interesting

Posted by chapelhillne on 6/10/2016 9:11:00 AM (view original):
Could be that D1 players should take longer to sign or have higher thresholds than they do now. Or, perhaps the recruiting power of D3 teams should be lessened. Or that prestige should be more important in recruiting.

My son (toknowpepsi) just signed the #5 PG in the country at Tennessee Chattanooga. He was a 4 star guy. UTC has a C prestige. He put most of his effort into this guy including PT, and apparently Big 6 teams put very little into him. He was also close to campus. I could see something like this happening in real life. A guy gets tons of attention from a team, and promised minutes, and maybe just a few calls from other teams and no promises. He decides he wants to go somewhere where he will be able to have an impact right away, where they want him bad.

I have not signed anyone yet, but I am finding this very interesting

But it doesn't happen. Looking at ESPN's top 100 for 2016, the vast majority of kids signed at schools in a major basketball conference (A-10 or better). The exceptions are 2 kids who signed with Gonzaga, which is much higher than a C prestige Southern Conference school, 1 kid from UT who signed at BYU (also much higher than a C prestige Southern Conference school, to say nothing of the likelihood that location/religion played in that decision) and 4 kids who signed with Harvard (probably higher than a C prestige Southern Conference school, and one the most prestigious academic institutions in the world).

So, WIS could have left recruiting mostly alone, and tweaked recruit generation (which, lets not forget, is the biggest problem with DI recruiting) to narrow the gap between the best recruits, who go to the A+ elites, and the rest of the recruit pool, and tweaked the value of the close/far preference, and listened to numerous user suggestions, to add other preferences, like a kid might want to go to an Ivy, or wants to play near the beach, or requires PT/starts as a Freshman, etc.

Posted by emy1013 on 6/10/2016 5:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rednu on 6/10/2016 4:37:00 AM (view original):
Okay, so a recruiting update in the chance that it doesn't get buried in my own thread...

I was out of the country last week and, during that time, the decision was apparently made to accelerate the beta world some 20 games. Suddenly I find myself beta testing what happens to coaches who don't get an early start on recruiting. Thanks WhatIf... , but anyhow, here's the dirt. From what I can tell with late recruiting/rushed recruiting...it's do-able, but isn't necessarily quick or fun. I have applied some $18,000 additional dollars into recruiting and still have a budget of $20K to play with. I'm probably going to use that to do accelerated scouts on players that look intriguing and pop them to Level 4 (or cut off at Level 3 and take my losses if something looks bad going from 2-3...). Bottom line...if you get a late jump, you'd better have a decent chunk of time to devote to sifting through players. Oh, and don't forget the stats on the recruit window aren't the same order as they appear on the player card...can't count the number of times I've almost spent money on kids thinking they were high-high in both rebounding and defense only to realize as I go to click that, no, that's Stamina and Durability.

In the space of 6 hours, I have signed two players using pretty much the same technique -- I targeted players that weren't considering anyone who were also within a 300 mile circle of campus. I threw a disproportionate, but not huge, number of attention points at them (40 on one, 30 on another, I believe). The 40 points were on a freshman recruit that I considered a step above what I would be able to get at UMSL under the current system. He signed for two cycles of 40 points, the scholarship, a couple of home visits and a 10 minutes promise. He's also the #119 player at his position which, again, puts him above anything that I've been able to get in the current system. To be clear, he won't GRADUATE as the No. 119 player at his position...but he'll start with ratings above what a typical non-redshirt freshman would have at a D2 school and will be no slouch at graduation. Point being, my C prestige beta school just grabbed a kid that I wouldn't have been able to get the time of day from with my A prestige UMSL team in Naismith.

The 30 attention-point kid was a 2-year JUCO player that somehow nobody else was on. He'd look better as a guy with 3 years of eligibility but, again, he's not going to be a bad catch. The strategy here was 30 AP's and a schollie, which triggered a campus visit. I also gave him a 10 minute promise. cha-ching, done!! I won't call this one a player I couldn't get at UMSL in non-beta, but I would have had to fight off a mosh pit for him as a JUCO rather than being able to walk in clean on him.

Four recruits left to find...

So to summarize, you were able to grab a kid who would normally be way above your level. Hmmm? And you got a JuCo player most probably because no one else had seen him. Great, sounds an awful lot like this is going to be luck of the draw in regards to recruiting. And this is better how (to all the people in favor of this)?

No offense meant to you personally Rednu, let me get that out of the way. But I thought I remember one of Seble's selling points being that Sims would be recruiting better so their teams weren't garbage like they traditionally have been. Point being, I find it very difficult to believe that the #119 ranked player at his position was so lousy that a Sim team would rather pass on him for what will eventually, no doubt, end up a walk-on. All this while a C prestige D2 team is able to land him apparently quite easily.

I realize this is only one example but I haven't seen many others posted. I'm not in the beta so I've been following along through the forums and I must say that if scenarios like Rednu just posted are the new status quo, just go ahead and refund my money right now and I'll make sure not to let the door hit me on the *** on the way out because this is going to be a debacle of "first roll out potential"-like proportions. From what I've read so far, this sounds horrible.

I agree with something Taniajane said earlier. WIS should implement the new system in about half the worlds and leave the old system in the other half. That way we could choose based on our preference which way we would rather play. Not a programmer but I believe the way this game is set up that it would be very possible to do. Reason being is that when potential was introduced, it was simply rolled out as each new world rolled over. We never had to shut down worlds for any extended period of time to have it rolled out all at once, so I don't see why it would have to be done like that here. Hell, it doesn't even need to be half and half, leave 2 1x worlds and 1 2x world like they are and I'd be fine cutting back to 3 teams instead of what very much looks like it will be 0. This does not sound good so far. Not at all.

That's a pretty accurate summarization, emy -- and no offense taken whatsoever. The whole point for starting this thread was to share what I found with the masses so that even those who aren't a part of the beta can maybe learn from playing "ride along."

Posted by the0nlyis on 6/7/2016 11:26:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/7/2016 6:30:00 AM (view original):
So only, it's perfectly alright for you to slam and refuse to accept this update being anything but 95% crap? 'Remove the plank from your own eye before complaining about the mote in someone else's,'. You think the only opinion anyone has a right to hold on the update is yours?

don't you have a chair to kick out from underneath your noose?

Refusal to answer noted.

My entire class was signed during my overnight...in addition to getting the next player I was targeting, I picked up a couple kids for whom I was not the leading candidate when I went to bed (one of them, I was sitting fourth on...not sure if I surpassed everyone ahead with AP's during the overnight or what).

Anyhow, to summarize -- with a C prestige D2 program, I was able to pull in the No. 109, 119, 120 and 139 freshmen at their respective positions. All four of these players would surpass my present record (grabbing No 148 with an A+ prestige at this same school in Naismith) and two JUCO players who were sitting empty well into the signings window. I accomplished this while spending just $1,296 from a $12,000 recruiting budget. (I also have more than $19K left in my scouting budget...I kind of gave bailed on finding "the best" talent and just looked for easy signings after WIS sped up the world while I was away on a trip and I returned to find myself well behind in recruiting.)

I know of at least 2 D3 schools that have managed to sign top 100 talent. The strategy of sitting and waiting to see what falls through the cracks appears to be a potent one...and from a game theory standpoint makes the most sense since schools' visions will cluster around the major regional camps they attend and the top 100 players that are visible to everyone. The good players found there will create a mosh pit mentality as many go grabbing for the few good players found via such avenues. Running your own camp at max capacity and FSS'ing nearby states for not only your own division's talent but ESPECIALLY that at levels above you (I doubt I even FSS for kids at my division next time...I'll focus all my energy at D1) seemed to get me a lot of "unique" views (players that I could see that many could not). Then I just used my recruiting cash to take to Level 2-3-4 the kids that nobody was on that continued to look good and moved on (again, to be clear, I had to adjust my strategy due to the acceleration...I was looking for competitively functional kids, not the BEST kids by doing this).

Side note -- does anyone know the breakdown of how many humans coach teams at each level of the beta world?

Final assessment of the first round of recruiting -- I had the "big hammer" of a 6-person class to swing, but really didn't feel like I needed it to pull off what I did. If anything, it was too easy. This class surpasses anything I've been able to grab at the "real" UMSL team I've recruited for, and by a significant margin, despite sitting on only a C for prestige. I don't know what's going on above me in Division 1, but I am stunned that so many "good" players are sliding down without anyone on them. Assuming that I am correct and the beta world is more populated with humans at D1 and D2 than anything we're running in the real game at the moment, I shudder to think of what this will mean for the game in worlds that are already high on the Sim count. It will be like walking through a candy store -- I never had to use more than 40 (of a possible 120, to start) AP's and a scholarship offer to get a kid's attention. I used barely more than 10% of my recruiting budget, so realistically I could have waded into a battle late in the process and probably had a hell of a chance to steal someone of high caliber...(but why do that when I can grab for free and without hassle?).

Has this changed recruiting? Absolutely, and not just in a window-dressing sort of way -- I pulled in a class that was COMPLETELY out of line with anything that I've experienced at the same school, having coached there for roughly 40 seasons in the main game. I garnered that class with a C prestige in the beta where an A/A+ prestige would not in the real game. I grabbed it on just over 10% of my recruiting budget and a fraction of my scouting budget. And I don't remotely think that I happened to blindly "luck into" some wildly awesome strategy here. As it stands right now, the door is wide open for some incredibly stacked D3 and D2 teams. Again, I won't comment on D1 because I'll leave that to those with the proper frame of reference to make observations, but the gap between the have's and the have-not's in D3 and D2 will widen under this system. I assume Sim teams are locked into going after players listed as "their division," meaning they will be at an inherent disadvantage against human teams that are in no way constrained similarly. I've been trying to keep an open mind throughout the process, but you may now color me as somewhat concerned.

Here are changes that I think absolutely need to be made (keeping in mind that the second recruiting window hasn't even opened yet...) and that I reserve the right to change this list based upon seeing "the rest of the process"...
-- It seems entirely too easy for a player to get interested based on just AP's and a scholarship. I never offered more than 40 (they are apportioned so 20 would be "normal"). I could have offered up to 120 at a single target. Since they add up every 3 hours, I suspect this could have allowed me to blow pretty much everyone off any recruit I really wanted. I didn't test that theory this time around, but if I knew then what I know now, you can bet your arse that I certainly would find a nice 3 or 4 star to test that theory on.
-- How on earth was I able to sign players without spending a recruiting dollar on them? Yeah, I had to pay to scout them and we can rationalize that the kid probably knew I was scouting them and we had some sort of contact. But no home or campus visits needed? Again, it seemed all too easy. Maybe that's a function of me missing the early part of the signings window and the standards were relaxed because signings had started, but honestly it just felt too easy.
-- I felt that running scouting stuff every 3 hours was a bit overkill. I felt a need to "camp out" on my computer...and I don't like that because I have a life. I think running the process once every 6 hours would make for a more relaxed feel where I can just casually "look in" and see where I stand and, in battles, adjust AP allocations accordingly.
-- As much as I benefitted from it, there really seems like there needs to be some sort of a capping for lower divisions, much as there is in the current game where a D1 player won't give the time of day to a D3 school. Without this, you're going to see a feeding frenzy with every program going after D1 talent and, due to sheer numbers of D2 + D3 vs. D1 programs...winning that race. I don't need to play D1 to be able to state for the record that this is not a healthy environment for D1 in the game.

sounds really interesting and thanks for sharing the experience!

I am not doing the beta because I am leaving the game as soon as I use my seasons - maybe even before I run out of credits depending on when the new game is launched

All the descriptions make the changes seem (1) interesting (2) a bunch more work (3) maybe help a bit on the central flaws in the game (4) but nowhere near as useful as would have been some targeted changes. I hope seble takes suggestions like rednu's seriously - especially if the new game launches soon and I have the choice of wasting credits or playing some seasons of nuHD

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/10/2016 6:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by the0nlyis on 6/7/2016 11:26:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/7/2016 6:30:00 AM (view original):
So only, it's perfectly alright for you to slam and refuse to accept this update being anything but 95% crap? 'Remove the plank from your own eye before complaining about the mote in someone else's,'. You think the only opinion anyone has a right to hold on the update is yours?

don't you have a chair to kick out from underneath your noose?

Refusal to answer noted.

whew worried you actually listened and did kick the chair out with how long that response took.

answer what?

my opinion is the only one? if you've read the forums I'm doing more than just being an ******* at times.... making it clear i'm not just shouting give me what i want even though you might think it is... im not tarvolon for christ sake whinning about superclasses and only wanting parity when it helps me

rednu any chance you could share the potentials of thplayers you brought in would be really interesting to see the talent and compare if the ranked players are just ranked players that right now just get ignored at D1 and end up getting picked up by a D1 sim since you can't pull them down right now or is this really good talent people are just not finding

for the 3 hor cycles I forget how long recruiting lasts in season but would 3 8 hour cycles work better. like 6 am 2 pm and 10 pm or even just 2 12 hour cycles at 2 am and pm to not make it as important to be checking in all the time during the season too

Posted by the0nlyis on 6/10/2016 6:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/10/2016 6:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by the0nlyis on 6/7/2016 11:26:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/7/2016 6:30:00 AM (view original):
So only, it's perfectly alright for you to slam and refuse to accept this update being anything but 95% crap? 'Remove the plank from your own eye before complaining about the mote in someone else's,'. You think the only opinion anyone has a right to hold on the update is yours?

don't you have a chair to kick out from underneath your noose?

Refusal to answer noted.

whew worried you actually listened and did kick the chair out with how long that response took.

answer what?

my opinion is the only one? if you've read the forums I'm doing more than just being an ******* at times.... making it clear i'm not just shouting give me what i want even though you might think it is... im not tarvolon for christ sake whinning about superclasses and only wanting parity when it helps me

You seem to be horribly offended that anyone dares disagree with you or like the update. As if the mere existence of someone liking it somehow is a mortal offense.