Don't like hardly any of it.

If that's even close to the final product, I'm out.

.

I want to know how much time these changes will add to making a competitive team.

If we change the resources (killing postseason cash and carryover) and institute prestige based more on performance instead of conference prestige and team baseline, then this game gets a whole lot better for those that want to make this Hoops Dynasty instead of Big 6 Dynasty.

I like a lot of this, but as most everybody else seems to be, my overall reaction is split.

I do worry about these changes as a whole requiring too much of a time investment so I think that the modes of scouting you laid out can be simplified some. My main concern is that these changes, as described, will transfer the advantage from coaches that have an eye for talent and are good team-builders to those who just spend a ton of time on the game. I guess that this just requires that it still be a competitive option to purchase potentials for entire states at once (at least all local ones or their local regions). 

I do like the idea of scouting during the season but it does bring into question exactly when the job changes process should fit into the entire recruiting schedule. It does make sense that new coaches have a season to scout before being thrown into a rapid-fire recruiting period, but I don't want to change jobs to take over a school and then have to wait an entire season before recruiting my own players. I'd probably never change jobs if that were the case. At least give me a late signing period. 

I think it makes sense to reduce the level of postseason money-sharing, but I'm not sold that it should be eliminated completely, at least not for both scouting and the actual recruiting of players. It encourages coaches to compete with other humans and not reside in ghost conferences that they can beat up on, which makes everyone that's learning the game develop quicker and the game more competitive overall. Beta testing could reveal what the ideal amount of postseason money-sharing would be. 

Those are my only major qualms. I tend to like the rest and it does seems like a lot of thought has been put into these proposed changes so I'm just appreciative that you're enlisting the community to help mold the final product. I think as long as you (assuming seble is a one-man army) listen to the rational-thinking community members and allow time for extensive beta testing, the release should really enhance the game. Recruiting has gotten a bit stale for me so it's exciting to think that it will be improved in the relatively near future. 

A couple quick suggestions I just thought of. 

Maybe it would be best that the jobs change process occurs during the scouting period. It would make this period of time less boring for coaches that aren't changing jobs frequently. That way, you don't get screwed if you change jobs by a botched scouting job from the previous coach. Scouting would have to continue to be available during the actual recruiting period as well so that coaches who change jobs near the end of the period aren't left in a crazed rush. If a new player reserves a team before the season ends, then they will be able to scout and then recruit. If they join anytime thereafter (the whole offseason) maybe they get a discounted first-season rate but don't get to recruit. 

I think that a recruit generation update would be a great complement to what these changes are really accomplishing. Improved generation would have the potential to make low-DI more alluring and perhaps create more intrigue in isolated or obscure locations (although I do think that changes to the rewards system are really the key to pushing more people to low-DI, but that's a conversation for another day). 

I also feel pretty strongly that effort still be the primary factor in any recruit's choice of school. It's too essential to recruiting right now to be discarded completely, although priorities could make things more interesting, especially in battles where one school has a distinct distance advantage. 

After thinking some more, I realize that perhaps the most important changes need to come to the actual recruitment process because scouting is on much more solid footing currently. 

does this activity occur during the season and not at the time when recruiting occurs now?

if during season, how do we know number of openings to determine dollars?  transfers and EE not known.....???

general comment - scouting can use improvement but is one of the least broken features of the game - skeptical about wholesale changes in scouting as a use of effort.  Would have preferred more modest efforts to fix a handful of easier to solve issues that would have improved the game a bunch.  

He hasn't really said anything about the recruiting side yet - this is all about scouting.

I'm trying to keep an open mind.  It's certainly completely outside the box compared to what we do now.  I suppose you could say it's more like "real life" by creating camps.

If you compare it to the current system, there are some similar aspects, but they are just re-named.  For example, now we scout states.... instead of states we'd be scouting camps or holding camps.  Camps essentially would be covering regions.  My point is - that's really just window dressing.  The content ultimately is ALL THE SAME - eventually we see a player and his numbers/potential after going thru some steps.

In the current system we start with a bunch of numbers.... in the new system it would be more obscure - starting with clumps of letter grades for some skills (offense, defense, etc), then letter grades for each attribute (which I am sure folks would fairly quickly just translate to a range of numbers (A = 90-100 range, etc).

I'm not sure I like the whole letter grade idea, especially since it comes in stages (first it's an aggregate letter grade for offense, defense, physical; then it become letter grade for each attribute).  Ultimately I think most coaches would find level 1 info of aggregate letter grades mostly useless and quickly progress to level 2.  Even level 2 is mostly useless for D3 and D2.

I do like the camp idea and holding camps.  I know it's window dressing, but I like that it mirrors real life more so than scouting states (although scouting states/geographical areas appears to still be an option).

It seems t me that this would be a sea change, though not necessarily a bad one.  All of a sudden you wouldn't want to be in big conferences, but smaller ones if i am understanding these changes. You would get no advantage for playing in tough conferences, ie postseason cash.  You may have an advantage by playing in a less populated area since there would be less competitors for the good recruits depending on how recruit generation is handled.  As someone who spent a short time at the bottom of D1, I agree that things have to be fixed, but the trickle down to D2, and D3 might destroy the allure of coaching at that level. All of a sudden if you are limited by a geographic boundary instead of being able to spend your funds as you see fit.  It would make D3 less desirable since the odds of competing nationally from a place like Ferrum VA like I am, virtually impossible.

I think the incentive to decrease full conferences is one really bad aspect of this.  I think the 'community' of a full conference is something many really like about the game.  Right now there is a financial incentive to have full conferences.  Removing that would be a big negative IMO.

Also, "everyone can view the top 100"  Is that for the level you're at?  Already the position rank dropdown is useless at D2 and D3, top 25, 50, etc mean nothing to me there.  Just like the favorite school means nothing to me there.  What defines "top 100"?  Overall rating?  So we'll get the guys with 99 WE and DUR and 2 ATH in the top 100?

Again, much of the planned updates seem geared to D1, specifically stopping the Big6 advantages to an extent.

Hitting on some of the questions:

- I want this new system to be something you'll want to spend time on, not a chore.  The testing process will tell us if we need to tweak things to reduce time commitment.  Also, it's designed to let each coach scout on his own time-frame.  If one guy wants to do everything in a 3 hour binge, that's fine.  If another guy wants to spend 15 minutes a day, that's fine too.  Also remember that scouting resources are limited.  So having more time shouldn't really be an advantage.  If fact, I believe having more time would become less of an advantage than it is now.

- I don't expect the dropdown/pulldown system to exist in the same way it does now.  Recruits would definitely behave in some of the same ways though.  For example, I think a low DI recruit would hold out longer to sign if he only got interest from DII schools.  He would eventually sign with a DII school if that's the only interest he got.

- Scouting would continue throughout the season, even after signings start.  So you could go out and find backup options if your top ones don't pan out, assuming you save some scouting money.

- Open camps (ones where any team can attend) would generally uncover players of all talent levels.  School sponsored camps may be more focused on that school's range of talent, not sure yet about that.  We may consider adding some other specific camps, such as elite camps, where it would focus on a subset of the top 200 or so players.  On the flip side, when your assistant coach finds players for you, those would be within your expected range of talent.

- The plan is not to keep schools from recruiting nationally, even at DIII.  Like the current system, it will likely be costlier to do so, but it should still be possible to some degree.

- The scouting levels on a player are meant to add strategy.  If we find that it only adds annoyance, then we can adjust how that works. 

- During the scouting phase, there will be no indication of what players another school is scouting.  Once recruiting starts, you'll be able to see some amount of information about a school's targets, but at that point it's probably too late to base your scouting strategy on it.

- There's a good point raised about early entry players and transfers.  I'll have to think about that some.

- I'm not sure I understand the comments about encouraging teams to be in empty conferences.  The only real change in that regard is eliminating postseason money.  Being in a strong conference still helps you in building a postseason resume.  And obviously makes the game more fun to play.  Am I missing something?  Why would someone choose an empty conference in the new system?

Regarding your last comment, seble, a lot of heavily populated conferences are geographically very close together. I believe the perception is that they can only succeed if they have enough money for some teams to go outside of their geographic area and still be competitive for recruits. Without this extra cash, they would not be able to recruit effectively, and it would be better strategy for coaches to pick teams that are geographically isolated from other human coaches, thus harming conferences that are not spread out. The D3 University, D2 NAAA, and D1 CUSA might be fine, but others would suffer. I'm not sure if I totally believe that, but this is the complaint. 

To your last point seble, I see one of the biggest draws to being in a strong conference as a way to get more postseason cash.  If I consistently get 1+ scholarship of "extra" money for recruiting, that's a huge advantage at D3, and to an extent D2 and D1 as well.

If I have 3 open scholarships at D3, no carryover, and an extra $4500 of conference post season cash that's a HUGE plus for recruiting, both scouting AND signing.

EDITED TO ADD:
Also seble, being in an empty conference means winning your CT and making the post season is generally easier (with the state of the SIMs today).  

Posted by brianxavier on 9/11/2015 9:25:00 AM (view original):
He hasn't really said anything about the recruiting side yet - this is all about scouting.

I'm trying to keep an open mind.  It's certainly completely outside the box compared to what we do now.  I suppose you could say it's more like "real life" by creating camps.

If you compare it to the current system, there are some similar aspects, but they are just re-named.  For example, now we scout states.... instead of states we'd be scouting camps or holding camps.  Camps essentially would be covering regions.  My point is - that's really just window dressing.  The content ultimately is ALL THE SAME - eventually we see a player and his numbers/potential after going thru some steps.

In the current system we start with a bunch of numbers.... in the new system it would be more obscure - starting with clumps of letter grades for some skills (offense, defense, etc), then letter grades for each attribute (which I am sure folks would fairly quickly just translate to a range of numbers (A = 90-100 range, etc).

I'm not sure I like the whole letter grade idea, especially since it comes in stages (first it's an aggregate letter grade for offense, defense, physical; then it become letter grade for each attribute).  Ultimately I think most coaches would find level 1 info of aggregate letter grades mostly useless and quickly progress to level 2.  Even level 2 is mostly useless for D3 and D2.

I do like the camp idea and holding camps.  I know it's window dressing, but I like that it mirrors real life more so than scouting states (although scouting states/geographical areas appears to still be an option).

+1 - It seems there is a great deal of criticism being leveled against the ideas floated based upon people's own assumptions of how things will work. Personally I think this is a very ambitious project but I want more details, and to see it in action - through beta testing - and we've already been told that will happen. It has taken WIS a long time to start paying any attention to this game at all and I don't think this project is being entered into lightly. I think it's fair to ask questions about how things will work and seble seems to be trying to address concerns. if you don't like change because you don't like change it can't be helped but I think it's important to remember that this announcement is aimed at improving the game.

We all may have ideas on how we think things could be better with this game we're not all going to agree and we're not all going to get everything we want. Some people may love the game as it is but look at the user population data that billyg posted a while back and notice that as of the most recent announcements on the cc's there are 308 d3 openings in Rupp and 301 in Knight. It sure looks like there is a bleed off of users in this game that continues to grow. Even if you advertise, if you don't update the game and attempt to fix the known issues that were identified in the original post, you're never going to grow the user base in a meaningful way.