Posted by dan2044 on 9/11/2015 10:31:00 AM (view original):
As I keep reading through this thread I see a lot of clarifications on details and what's actually going to happen.  

Can I just vote no to any changes.  I mean, we all agree that this game can be improved with a few tweeks, but you are talking about major changes to the most important part of the game.  So you are changing the entire game, and how it will work.  The reason we are all here and playing is because we like the game the way it is now.

If the choices are either this major overhaul, or no changes at all, I'd much rather keep the game the way it is.  Not sure I want to invest (my time and money) in learning a new game.

Just my opinion.

I think it does seem like big changes to the biggest part of the game.  I tend to agree with the aejones thread, 80% of this game is recruiting.  Sure, there's scheduling to have good RPI, gameplanning to a lesser extent, and putting numbers in the right areas in practice, but THE single biggest thing to have a good team is recruiting.  Whether or not seble agrees, I think we all agree that you can exclusively recruit ATH and DEF and get to the NT, there's more to it than that, but that's the known formula to start with.

I think the end result would be similar?  It sounds like we'd still wind up with a view of what kids would look like to recruit them, but it's the lead up to that point that is big, new, different and scary.

Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 10:09:00 AM (view original):
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?

Why not just eliminate EE's - make the draft for graduating players only. As for transfers - playing time is in a coach's control. Maybe that's just an additional penalty for ignoring a players demand - you have a very small window and recruiting pool to choose from if you decide to let someone go.

I think eliminating EEs would skew the game more heavily towards the elites, which would be a problem. 

One thing you could do, and this is just off the top of my head, is have (like in real life) an early and late signing period. The early signing period could be some time in the middle of the season, and the late signing period would be after the NT was over. Even if all your known empty spots were filled in the early signing period, you could still keep recruiting players, and if you have openings because of EEs or transfers, you could then sign more players in the late signing period. 

I think in order to make this work, you would have to have some hard commits who refuse to sign in the early signing period, wanting to keep their options open in case they get late interest. That could depend on a combination of effort and the recruit's opinion of himself relative to the schools pursuing him. 

Transfers could technically work by having them sit out a year.  So a guy transfers at the end of season 90, he enters the recruiting pool for season 91, then resumes playing in season 92. 

Early entries is a tougher problem.  We could potentially determine earlier in the season whether a player is leaving, then add money to the budget.  That could be a pretty big issue though for schools that have a lot of them, as they'd be getting a late jump on things. 

Maybe it makes more sense to move the recruiting period to after the season ends.  So scouting would still take place during the season, but the actual recruiting would be at the end. 

Yeah I thought about the skew towards the elites in eliminating EE's but only suggested it because more often than not the teams that lose EE's just replace them with a new batch of guys who eventually go EE as well.

Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 10:49:00 AM (view original):
Transfers could technically work by having them sit out a year.  So a guy transfers at the end of season 90, he enters the recruiting pool for season 91, then resumes playing in season 92. 

Early entries is a tougher problem.  We could potentially determine earlier in the season whether a player is leaving, then add money to the budget.  That could be a pretty big issue though for schools that have a lot of them, as they'd be getting a late jump on things. 

Maybe it makes more sense to move the recruiting period to after the season ends.  So scouting would still take place during the season, but the actual recruiting would be at the end. 

Transfers sitting out a year would solve the issue for the new scouting regime - and would be like real life.....except for grad student transfers ....which I hope we will not try to emulate

EE's seems tough.  If part of the formula for scouting $$ is based on vacancies, you kinda need to know.  OR maybe the answer is that I get extra scouting money when the EE's are announced at the end of the season.  The variable portion of scouting $$ is small.

Thinking of that formula, you will need to decide whether the variable portion is - like recruiting $ has been - limited to six vacancies.  or might you get scouting money for say 8 vacancies???

I am going to try and recap what I think will happen. We will have 2 budgets; one for scouting and one for recruiting. The majority of scouting will take place the season before, and instead of having everyone known and FSS you will now have to discover players through camps. Once the NC is played and EEs + transfers are announced you could get more money for scouting. Job changes will occur and new players will join and this will be when the recruiting period starts. One concern I have is that new players will not have as much time to scout. I am excited for the new scouting change because I think FSS was to easy and this adds a new challenging level to find the best players.

Recruiting being after the season itself would be for the best, letting the counting system during the season be as described would be fine with me.

As for the 'being easier not having to recruit the first season while you figure out good players' if you allowed the toggle to have the sim recruit for you, that would take care of that. And experienced player could turn off the toggle taking things over from day one. The inexperienced player could let the sim do it. Perhaps the sim would even send emails sort of explaining what is going on under the guise of the assistant coach as a sort of 'tutorial' if you had the toggle on. Heck, having a 'sim assistants give advice in email' toggle might be a nice way of tutorial mode.

I think from reading this I still am siding with:

1. I do not want in-season recruiting under this current structure, I like the idea of season long recruiting with a tweak on shift length during the season, but I absolute HATE the idea of not getting your recruits until season 2, like guyo mentioned I would seriously never move again I'm not going to go now 5 seasons to rebuild a program.  I've mentioned it and ars just mentioned it, create a tutorial to teach new players, I cannot explain how far against the idea of not getting my recruits until season 2 I am.

2.  I like the scouting implements, I think many people are scared with how different it is, I think the sooner a beta world can be released so it can be experienced and tested out the better, so it can calm people down.  Really all it is, is just a change in the way we find players.

3.  The first level of scouting needs the aggregates changed.  It will be pretty much useless, you need to seperate categories into something like(yes have some ratings added into multiple categories

•      Offensive Guard Skills, PER/BH/PAS/FT
•      Offensive Low Post Skills Ath/LP/FT
•      Defensive Guard Skills Spd,DEF
•      Defenseive Post skills Ath,Reb,Def, SB
•      Physical: Ath/spd
•      Conditioning: Sta/Dur

Under the current system it is nearly impossible to determine how good a Big man is at offense with the inclusion of ft/bh/ps/per.  It is too hard to tell how good a guard is at def with the inclusion of rebounding/sb.  And the 2 most important traits are still hidden by the inclusion of stamina and the most useless trait of durability.  The way I proposed maybe too many categories, but it gives a bit of a better picture for level 1 scouting.  Under the other system level 1 is still a crpshot of telling you if you need to scout more or not, because you cannot tell if the guy is good or not with the components of the aggregate.

4.  My point is still strong about the weakening of power conferences without post season cash, especially with you seble wanting to limit distance recruiting at lower levels and not change recruit generation.  What do conferences do like the S. Cal when Cali really only has 10 good prospects and 15 D2 guys woth getting and you might not be able to pulldown/dropdown.  You dilute all the Cali teams.  So why yes they might still get the increased rpi/sos and help come seeding time, but in fact you actually weakened them where a 8 seeded team in Wisconsin with only 1 other school actually is way more talented.  I think this would severly weaken geographically close conferences, lead to more less populated conferences, and see a rise in upsets of higher seeds at lower levels.  If post season cash is still off the table and recruit generation is not going to be fixed(which is one of the biggest complaints people have) something else needs to be done to continue to give a slight adv to these super conferences at lower levels.

Overall I think I enjoy the main aspect about scouting with really my only concern being the level one aggregates and just needing a beta soon to test it out.  I think it makes things a bit more realistic and is not really a "game-changer" as people are calling it as really it's just changing the way you find and evaluate talent, which like you mentioned at this point is just who can sift through the most pages of recruits.  This actually will take some talent imo.  However with some of the idea's brought to the table I'd have to vote no on the overall changes due to some major concerns that I previously mentioned as it is not worth the scouting update to deal with those problems I listed, personally.  I do really like the scouting idea however, it is a very smart idea and am excited to try it out.

I do think however this was not the first thing that needed to be addressed as someone mentioned scouting while not the most realistic was not the most "broken" thing out there. I'm excited to see what the next discussion topic is, but again those big problems in my mind are to large to fully agree with at the moment without actually seeing how it works(except for the season 2 for your own recruits, I cannot and will not ever get behind that idea, ever that is my absolute biggest concern)

The concerns about the super conferences, conference money and the availability of talent to recruit in certain areas is only valid if recruiting itself isn't changed. After those details are announced maybe your concerns will become moot. Maybe you'll be right but right now, without those details, it seems to me that your just making assumptions.

Posted by possumfiend on 9/11/2015 12:24:00 PM (view original):
The concerns about the super conferences, conference money and the availability of talent to recruit in certain areas is only valid if recruiting itself isn't changed. After those details are announced maybe your concerns will become moot. Maybe you'll be right but right now, without those details, it seems to me that your just making assumptions.

I did mention that was going off not knowing what will happen until beta testing is done and that this is just going off how recruiting works now since we don't know the changes there and only see small pieces of what looks to be changing.

Without knowing anything for sure all you can do is make assumptions based off what was given to us, we don't know how recruiting is being changed either or how anything else is being changed, just scouting in depth for the moment right now

And currently I do not think in some conferences you cannot have more than 4 elite teams just off local talent right now(S. Cal, NW, ASC) and it doesn't look like what was listed for recruiting changes or mentioned by seble is going to increase the benefit they get while also taking away distance recruiting and post season cash.

I do agree with cutting distance recruiting at D3 and to an extent D2, but like if seble said there are no plans for a change in recruit generation other things will need to be fixed.

And again thats all off assumptions and personally opinions.  Since we only know scouting and small hints of other changes.

The only way to not delay getting your recruits until season 2 is to move the entire recruiting process to the beginning of the season.  To do that while implementing these changes would probably necessitate doubling or tripling the current length of recruiting.  So that's not going to happen.  The only way to legitimately expand recruiting is to move it to the end of the season. 

Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 12:34:00 PM (view original):
The only way to not delay getting your recruits until season 2 is to move the entire recruiting process to the beginning of the season.  To do that while implementing these changes would probably necessitate doubling or tripling the current length of recruiting.  So that's not going to happen.  The only way to legitimately expand recruiting is to move it to the end of the season. 

if you implemented an early/late signing period (like I mentioned in regards to the EE problem), you could still do a little late recruiting at a new school when you took over a job, provided the previous coach hadn't already filled up all the spots in the early signing period. 

Like I said earlier, this is a half-baked idea, so it might be too problematic to implement, but I actually think it would help address both the EE and the new coach/new school problem. Essentially, your first recruiting class becomes a half-class, which (1) allows you some control over your first roster, (2) doesn't front-load things for clueless new coaches quite as much as it does on the current system, and (3) mimics real life