Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 9:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by noleaniml on 10/12/2016 9:32:00 AM (view original):
Scouting,as a whole, does take me longer than it used to... maybe 2 to 3x longer. However, I am NEVER in a situation where I have ONE DAY to do scouting and if I miss it, I am effed. So what if I go from scouting for 1 hour over 3 weeks vs. scouting for 3 hours over 3 weeks?

Maybe people didn't spend as much time as I did deciding what states to FSS in 2.0, but that alone took me 20+ minutes every team, every season, so I knew how many of the types of players I was interested in in each state I would be paying for. It's much simpler now, because I can specify per level. Plus there were those asinine scouting reports to sift through to find the "hidden" potential levels of the players. That took time (and frustration) as well.

Thats what I mean when I say I don't spend any more time on scouting in 3.0. Those frustrating and time-consuming parts of the game have been replaced with something I find more realistic and fun - and as you say, something I can do in my own time.

Just to be clear - I am posting in support of your view that scouting has changed for the better from HD2 to HD3. I wasn't trying to imply that scouting can't or doesn't take the same amount of time for you as it did before. That's pretty much my entire point. There are a bunch of ways to do it now. I'm not about to publish my strategy here on the forum, but I can tell you that precisely some of the things I see people complaining about are the things that I think make scouting more engaging now and are potential advantages for me. Who knows? Maybe not. I don't know this to be true, but I would imagine that the veteran coaches who have embraced the changes are going to find successful strategies more quickly than others.

shoe3 (and others), you talked about using the advanced filters, and I have been. But filter by what? In 2.0, it was simple - you filter by minimum ratings for each position. Then you're down to a much smaller subset that you can either contact or get potentials on. (I agree that reading the scouting reports to decode potential was inefficient, and I'm glad that's gone.)

Now in 3.0, there's eight preference filters, in addition to a scouting level filter and the usual ratings filters. If I just use ratings, I'm missing less-scouted recruits as well as not factoring in preferences, which are apparently really important. But if I try to go by preferences... I mean, there are eight of them. And there's no filter like "Matches X of your preferences" which would roll up that info into one neat number. And when I try a hybrid approach of ratings and preferences, I end up with a minuscule list of recruits who cross-match, even after I've spent a significant portion of my budget on camps and FSS. So what I'm ending up doing is really granular filters to make sure I don't miss anyone obvious. And that's just at a local level - whereas in 2.0 I was often FSS'ing 20-30 states, either before or after signings.

It seems to me that if you want to do a decent job of finding not-crappy local recruits, yes, 3.0 is less time-consuming. But I'm struggling to see how you maximize scouting value without putting in quite a bit more time.

You do have to get creative with the ways you use the preference filters and do multiple searches- but the ability to organize those results is much better. Exactly what you said is missing has been requested (the "X positive preferences" filter) but it will take some serious thought in how to implement, so I am hopeful we will see something along those line, but it will be a while.

I don't worry about preferences until I've got my final level 4 pool pretty much set. I may go back and do another advanced search or two for a few key preference advantages I may have, but that's the extent that I worry about them until I'm setting priorities in my last step. During my step 5, where I'm running the advanced searches for interesting recruits to "scout up", it's on the same general filters I used for 2.0. ATH/SPD, DEF, BH for guards, ATH, DEF, REB for bigs.

Posted by bhansalid00 on 10/12/2016 11:46:00 AM (view original):
shoe3 (and others), you talked about using the advanced filters, and I have been. But filter by what? In 2.0, it was simple - you filter by minimum ratings for each position. Then you're down to a much smaller subset that you can either contact or get potentials on. (I agree that reading the scouting reports to decode potential was inefficient, and I'm glad that's gone.)

Now in 3.0, there's eight preference filters, in addition to a scouting level filter and the usual ratings filters. If I just use ratings, I'm missing less-scouted recruits as well as not factoring in preferences, which are apparently really important. But if I try to go by preferences... I mean, there are eight of them. And there's no filter like "Matches X of your preferences" which would roll up that info into one neat number. And when I try a hybrid approach of ratings and preferences, I end up with a minuscule list of recruits who cross-match, even after I've spent a significant portion of my budget on camps and FSS. So what I'm ending up doing is really granular filters to make sure I don't miss anyone obvious. And that's just at a local level - whereas in 2.0 I was often FSS'ing 20-30 states, either before or after signings.

It seems to me that if you want to do a decent job of finding not-crappy local recruits, yes, 3.0 is less time-consuming. But I'm struggling to see how you maximize scouting value without putting in quite a bit more time.

Your post is interesting to me. It underscores how many strategies -- how many different ways of accomplishing something -- are available to us in HD3.0. "In 2.0, it was simple." Yup, and in 3.0 there are many more ways to get creative in our scouting. I haven't used the same way twice in several beta seasons and now in the regular worlds. Sometimes an approach has bombed, sometimes one has worked pretty well. I'm still learning. That's part of why I think it is so sad that guys are dissing 3.0 without learning it. If you don't learn to speak French you can diss the language, but is it valid? I think not.

Is scouting and recruiting in 3.0 more time consuming than it was in 2.0? I don't know yet because I am not yet as efficient as I expect to be, but I suspect the answer is going to turn out to be "yes, a bit." After all, "In 2.0, it was simple." Now, however, we can spread it out and do it at our convenience. That is another big advantage of 3.0 over 2.0.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 11:58:00 AM (view original):
I don't worry about preferences until I've got my final level 4 pool pretty much set. I may go back and do another advanced search or two for a few key preference advantages I may have, but that's the extent that I worry about them until I'm setting priorities in my last step. During my step 5, where I'm running the advanced searches for interesting recruits to "scout up", it's on the same general filters I used for 2.0. ATH/SPD, DEF, BH for guards, ATH, DEF, REB for bigs.

"I don't worry about preferences until I've got my final level 4 pool pretty much set."

You're talking about D1 I believe, right? In D2 and D3 I have found the budgets to be so constricting that I have to maximize my preference matches almost from the beginning. If I were to set my final targets before I looked at preferences, bad preference matches would decimate the selections and the budgets aren't big enough to start over. I think Preferences are quite significant (a good thing) and I use them a lot to help shape my final pool and back-ups. Maybe in D1 I'll be able to do it differently.

Posted by CoachSpud on 10/12/2016 12:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 11:58:00 AM (view original):
I don't worry about preferences until I've got my final level 4 pool pretty much set. I may go back and do another advanced search or two for a few key preference advantages I may have, but that's the extent that I worry about them until I'm setting priorities in my last step. During my step 5, where I'm running the advanced searches for interesting recruits to "scout up", it's on the same general filters I used for 2.0. ATH/SPD, DEF, BH for guards, ATH, DEF, REB for bigs.

"I don't worry about preferences until I've got my final level 4 pool pretty much set."

You're talking about D1 I believe, right? In D2 and D3 I have found the budgets to be so constricting that I have to maximize my preference matches almost from the beginning. If I were to set my final targets before I looked at preferences, bad preference matches would decimate the selections and the budgets aren't big enough to start over. I think Preferences are quite significant (a good thing) and I use them a lot to help shape my final pool and back-ups. Maybe in D1 I'll be able to do it differently.

No, I use the same basic strategy at all levels, just scaled back at D2/3. Im not saying I do it the "right way", because there is no right way, at least there shouldn't be. But I find at D2 and especially 3, it's about patience and flexibility. So the pool I scout up to level 4 is smaller at each level, and likely more local; but I'm still mostly not looking at preferences until I'm assigning categories in the prioritization stage. If I don't like how my final pool looks, that's when I may go back and filter for a preference advantage or two. But that will be for a very small number at D2/3.

Interesting. I'm definitely with you on "patience and flexibility" as well as "likely more local." I guess I have just had some bad experiences getting recruits lined up before checking preferences, and finding a bad match blows me out of the water. Thanks for the conversation.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 9:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by noleaniml on 10/12/2016 9:32:00 AM (view original):
Scouting,as a whole, does take me longer than it used to... maybe 2 to 3x longer. However, I am NEVER in a situation where I have ONE DAY to do scouting and if I miss it, I am effed. So what if I go from scouting for 1 hour over 3 weeks vs. scouting for 3 hours over 3 weeks?

Maybe people didn't spend as much time as I did deciding what states to FSS in 2.0, but that alone took me 20+ minutes every team, every season, so I knew how many of the types of players I was interested in in each state I would be paying for. It's much simpler now, because I can specify per level. Plus there were those asinine scouting reports to sift through to find the "hidden" potential levels of the players. That took time (and frustration) as well.

Thats what I mean when I say I don't spend any more time on scouting in 3.0. Those frustrating and time-consuming parts of the game have been replaced with something I find more realistic and fun - and as you say, something I can do in my own time.

Now I understand your struggle in 2.0, although, I'm attributing that fault to you alone for not adjusting your strategy. You spent 20 min on FSS, seriously? FSS was literally less than 30 seconds for me. If I had more recruits, I might add 1 or 2 extra states. Maybe now you can understand why this is so much more time consuming. What took me 30 seconds now takes 10-15 min. The specifying per level actually makes it take much longer, although it's necessary, because I now have to worry about scouting levels for multiple levels. As far as I should only "pour" over recruits if I love scouting is about as false as it gets. I should do this if I love winning. Scouting levels is getting in the way of recruiting.

As far as formulas, I don't know why you keep referring to them. I legitimately never used a formula or spreadsheet to play this game and I did just fine. The closest thing you could call a formula was knowing the general idea of how much a HV was compared to a CV, and I don't even remember exactly what that ratio was. If you're referencing scholarship money, knowing how much money you have hasn't changed anything, with the exception of the RNG for the final decision, which means you've removed knowledge for luck. I could see a team with 5 open scholarships and I can tell you it doesn't mean a lot if you don't know how much he spent on the other recruits. He might be in 5 battles and easy to beat, or signed all 5 with ease and have tons of money to work with. In the current game, I can still "calculate" how much AP someone is going to have and how much recruiting money they have. Very little has changed here as far as calculating, other than I can't see their recruit list and the RNG. Give it some time, there will be some guys on here that will have the preferences figured out very quickly which is going to make those guys and their "formulas" that much better.

Ultimately, we will continue to disagree which is fine. You are mistaken to think this is my issue with your stance. I will still voice my opinion, because we are early in this rollover and there is hope that they can make changes to improve on what we currently have.

Posted by poncho0091 on 10/12/2016 8:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 9:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by noleaniml on 10/12/2016 9:32:00 AM (view original):
Scouting,as a whole, does take me longer than it used to... maybe 2 to 3x longer. However, I am NEVER in a situation where I have ONE DAY to do scouting and if I miss it, I am effed. So what if I go from scouting for 1 hour over 3 weeks vs. scouting for 3 hours over 3 weeks?

Maybe people didn't spend as much time as I did deciding what states to FSS in 2.0, but that alone took me 20+ minutes every team, every season, so I knew how many of the types of players I was interested in in each state I would be paying for. It's much simpler now, because I can specify per level. Plus there were those asinine scouting reports to sift through to find the "hidden" potential levels of the players. That took time (and frustration) as well.

Thats what I mean when I say I don't spend any more time on scouting in 3.0. Those frustrating and time-consuming parts of the game have been replaced with something I find more realistic and fun - and as you say, something I can do in my own time.

Now I understand your struggle in 2.0, although, I'm attributing that fault to you alone for not adjusting your strategy. You spent 20 min on FSS, seriously? FSS was literally less than 30 seconds for me. If I had more recruits, I might add 1 or 2 extra states. Maybe now you can understand why this is so much more time consuming. What took me 30 seconds now takes 10-15 min. The specifying per level actually makes it take much longer, although it's necessary, because I now have to worry about scouting levels for multiple levels. As far as I should only "pour" over recruits if I love scouting is about as false as it gets. I should do this if I love winning. Scouting levels is getting in the way of recruiting.

As far as formulas, I don't know why you keep referring to them. I legitimately never used a formula or spreadsheet to play this game and I did just fine. The closest thing you could call a formula was knowing the general idea of how much a HV was compared to a CV, and I don't even remember exactly what that ratio was. If you're referencing scholarship money, knowing how much money you have hasn't changed anything, with the exception of the RNG for the final decision, which means you've removed knowledge for luck. I could see a team with 5 open scholarships and I can tell you it doesn't mean a lot if you don't know how much he spent on the other recruits. He might be in 5 battles and easy to beat, or signed all 5 with ease and have tons of money to work with. In the current game, I can still "calculate" how much AP someone is going to have and how much recruiting money they have. Very little has changed here as far as calculating, other than I can't see their recruit list and the RNG. Give it some time, there will be some guys on here that will have the preferences figured out very quickly which is going to make those guys and their "formulas" that much better.

Ultimately, we will continue to disagree which is fine. You are mistaken to think this is my issue with your stance. I will still voice my opinion, because we are early in this rollover and there is hope that they can make changes to improve on what we currently have.

So your assessment of why scouting is so much easier and less time consuming for me than it is for you is... I don't like winning enough. That about right? Even though I just got done explaining to you how much time I spent on the previous version (I didn't enjoy the method but I got real value out of it, only spending FSS $ on states where I had the most recruits I was interested in, thereby wasting less money getting potential for players I was never going to recruit). I must have just stopped caring about putting myself in the best position to win, lol.

Nah. I do understand. Youre trying to play 3.0 as though it was 2.0. Basically everything I see you advocate is rolling back some aspect of 3.0 so it plays the way 2.0 did, or at least closer. You're having trouble adapting. Don't feel bad, I know you're not alone. But as I said before, I'm not compelled or obligated to care about how you're adapting.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 11:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by poncho0091 on 10/12/2016 8:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/12/2016 9:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by noleaniml on 10/12/2016 9:32:00 AM (view original):
Scouting,as a whole, does take me longer than it used to... maybe 2 to 3x longer. However, I am NEVER in a situation where I have ONE DAY to do scouting and if I miss it, I am effed. So what if I go from scouting for 1 hour over 3 weeks vs. scouting for 3 hours over 3 weeks?

Maybe people didn't spend as much time as I did deciding what states to FSS in 2.0, but that alone took me 20+ minutes every team, every season, so I knew how many of the types of players I was interested in in each state I would be paying for. It's much simpler now, because I can specify per level. Plus there were those asinine scouting reports to sift through to find the "hidden" potential levels of the players. That took time (and frustration) as well.

Thats what I mean when I say I don't spend any more time on scouting in 3.0. Those frustrating and time-consuming parts of the game have been replaced with something I find more realistic and fun - and as you say, something I can do in my own time.

Now I understand your struggle in 2.0, although, I'm attributing that fault to you alone for not adjusting your strategy. You spent 20 min on FSS, seriously? FSS was literally less than 30 seconds for me. If I had more recruits, I might add 1 or 2 extra states. Maybe now you can understand why this is so much more time consuming. What took me 30 seconds now takes 10-15 min. The specifying per level actually makes it take much longer, although it's necessary, because I now have to worry about scouting levels for multiple levels. As far as I should only "pour" over recruits if I love scouting is about as false as it gets. I should do this if I love winning. Scouting levels is getting in the way of recruiting.

As far as formulas, I don't know why you keep referring to them. I legitimately never used a formula or spreadsheet to play this game and I did just fine. The closest thing you could call a formula was knowing the general idea of how much a HV was compared to a CV, and I don't even remember exactly what that ratio was. If you're referencing scholarship money, knowing how much money you have hasn't changed anything, with the exception of the RNG for the final decision, which means you've removed knowledge for luck. I could see a team with 5 open scholarships and I can tell you it doesn't mean a lot if you don't know how much he spent on the other recruits. He might be in 5 battles and easy to beat, or signed all 5 with ease and have tons of money to work with. In the current game, I can still "calculate" how much AP someone is going to have and how much recruiting money they have. Very little has changed here as far as calculating, other than I can't see their recruit list and the RNG. Give it some time, there will be some guys on here that will have the preferences figured out very quickly which is going to make those guys and their "formulas" that much better.

Ultimately, we will continue to disagree which is fine. You are mistaken to think this is my issue with your stance. I will still voice my opinion, because we are early in this rollover and there is hope that they can make changes to improve on what we currently have.

So your assessment of why scouting is so much easier and less time consuming for me than it is for you is... I don't like winning enough. That about right? Even though I just got done explaining to you how much time I spent on the previous version (I didn't enjoy the method but I got real value out of it, only spending FSS $ on states where I had the most recruits I was interested in, thereby wasting less money getting potential for players I was never going to recruit). I must have just stopped caring about putting myself in the best position to win, lol.

Nah. I do understand. Youre trying to play 3.0 as though it was 2.0. Basically everything I see you advocate is rolling back some aspect of 3.0 so it plays the way 2.0 did, or at least closer. You're having trouble adapting. Don't feel bad, I know you're not alone. But as I said before, I'm not compelled or obligated to care about how you're adapting.

No, my assessment is based on what you said. You said I should only spend that much time if I love scouting, but that is false. In no way did I say anything about your desire or capability to win. As far as time, I have a little time right now, because I'm not scouting currently. It's near the end of session 2, and I have nothing left to scout.

if you think you need to pour over every recruit you discover, YOURE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. You should only be doing that if you really really love scouting and have a lot of time on your hands.

In addition, I never said scouting is easier or less time consuming for either of us in 3.0. I never even told you how much time I spent. I just did a simple calculation from the numbers you gave me. The only statement I made about the time I actually spent is on FSS.

It's amazing the assumptions you try to make to dig in. In no way am I playing 3.0 like 2.0. My strategy is significantly different than anything I did in 2.0, nor would it even make sense to try and do it that way. You think I'm having trouble adapting and I think you just have trouble with comprehension. Don't feel bad, you're not alone, but like you said before I'm not compelled or obligated to care about how you're comprehending. You can respond if you want, but you're on your own for the rest of this one. Hopefully you understand that.

Poncho, you're complaining about something other people enjoy. And in the process, you're spreading a misconception about it - that it takes more time to do a good job. It doesn't take me any more time, and I am pretty concerned about doing a good job. My approach to 3.0 scouting is to cast out your net as wide as you want, then use the filters at every level to determine who is worth your time looking at. Then prioritize, and re-visit as necessary. Done.

It's as complicated and as time-consuming as you want it to be.

there are some objective elements of the time demands - how long it takes to work through the basic processes - how much requires multiple clicks on multiple recruits

But, there also is a subjective element - how much effort is needed to FEEL that one has been thorough. My big issue is that I could spend ages and not FEEL that I have been thorough

I'm keeping one team to see if I can get comfortable without more effort than is fun for me.

I've already dropped to 1 team. Finally taking a strong look at the Beta although it's over now. It was so difficult to take the Beta serious when you have 3-4 other worlds using the 2.0. I wish now I dropped all those teams earlier and focused on the beta since there was little or no discussion about keeping the new interface/system.

These are a few things I wish would be tweaked or fixed excluding the look and feel of the new game.
1. You are critically wounded if you miss the 1st cycle. All your Att Points go unused and now you are behind everyone else and essentially behind on money since Att points considered when a recruit signs. Could your team automatically assign Att Points to local kids or the top 5 guys that attended your Camp? Or we should be able to assign Att Points before recruiting starts.
2. Recruiting pause - what is this? And now you must invest in 2 seasons to complete recruiting and see them play? That would especially turn me off if I was a new customer.
3. Re-align the new conferences and teams please. The original 3 guys building this out in there garage could do it why can't the current team? Are we lazy?
4. EE's

Things I like...
1. removing excessive cash from power conferences was a start but after all the other changes could probably be put back in to a degree to make top conference legit. I feel like any conference has the potential to be a power conference now which is fine I guess.
2. not being able to see how many schools are considering a school - but with new att points not sure this matters.
3. There is not I like about the new system but I'm trying. Eventually the smart kids will learn to bunk the system like in 2.0 and we will need to change things again. Just you wait, just you wait. My name is Alexander Hamilton

Posted by fd343ny on 10/13/2016 9:52:00 AM (view original):
there are some objective elements of the time demands - how long it takes to work through the basic processes - how much requires multiple clicks on multiple recruits

But, there also is a subjective element - how much effort is needed to FEEL that one has been thorough. My big issue is that I could spend ages and not FEEL that I have been thorough

I'm keeping one team to see if I can get comfortable without more effort than is fun for me.

"I could spend ages and not FEEL that I have been thorough"

Thats the heart of it, and that's what I mean when I say it requires adaptation and a change in mindset from 2.0 to 3.0. We were conditioned in the previous version to have accurate and precise attribute ratings for literally every player. We only "scouted" for potential. If youre still in the mindset that you need to see every player in order to do a good job, you probably won't be comfortable. First, no one is going to see every player. And there are going to be diminishing returns for the amount of time you spend beyond what I've described earlier. I sure could go back and loosen my filters and scout certain types of players more closely - and maybe I'll need to, if my targets don't pan out. But once I've found a certain number of good matches per opening for my program, I go back to my life. Am I certain my target list contains the best players potentially available to me? Of course not. No one can be certain of that, because no one can see all the players.

In the big picture, the reason I like 3.0 so much more than 2.0 - despite some successes - is that I want to play a game that feels more like a college basketball simulation; specifically one that rewards long term roster planning and day-to-day gameplanning over bidding acumen.