Posted by coach_ms on 3/6/2016 5:34:00 PM (view original):
I've been out of HD for over 2 years after what i would call a semi-success at the D1 level.. just came back and started seeing all these proposed changes.. I might be in the minority here, but just wanted to throw some things out there and see if some of you guys that have been playing the past few years may know...
1) Sounds like the recruit signing 'random-ness' is an attempt to make this process like real life.. Are we sure we want to emulate real life? Cause in real life the top players already have their top 5 schools in mind.. If we were to know which players had interest in our programs, it would create dynamic battles amongst the top programs in the world. After all, real life top recruits arent really thinking about the random-ness of playing at Iona.
2) Early entries.. When I left the game 2 years back I couldnt stand how my teams success in the NT would make a back-up player leave for the draft only to be the 40 something-ish player taken in the draft. Has this changed? Was anything put into the game to ***** the value of the the player leaving early? Ive seen the draft board of potential players leaving.. why would any player leave for a non-guaranteed mid to late 2nd round pick?
3) Isnt the point of this game to build our programs and coach against each-other? I believe one of the developers contradicted themselves.. I read somewhere that they said this game is not 100% based on Recruiting.. Scheduling (to get an at-large), Recruiting (good players) and Game Planning is what makes this game fun. My point about the contradiction is if the developers add a 'random-ness' to recruits signing, then wouldnt Recruiting process become a major luck factor in the game? if i want to play a major luck factor game I'll play powerball.. Developers, please understand, we play this game to become good at it.. If you continue to make this game random, the real coaches will bounce and the mediocre compilers will reign. Oh wait, thats where the majority of the money comes from, the guys that cant recruit, cant game plan and cant win to earn credits.. So the Developers are throwing those guys a bone?

This.

Yeah, it makes sense they want to balance out who is good and who is not good. If only the great coaches stay then they will be playing for free. The mediocre coaches, who generate the most income won't stick around forever (some do but a lot don't). So yeah, those people they should want to keep.

What about this. Would people care if we got rid of reward credits completely?

Posted by Benis on 3/6/2016 8:23:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, it makes sense they want to balance out who is good and who is not good. If only the great coaches stay then they will be playing for free. The mediocre coaches, who generate the most income won't stick around forever (some do but a lot don't). So yeah, those people they should want to keep.

What about this. Would people care if we got rid of reward credits completely?

I'm not trying to be condescending, just asking: were you here when they had the credits being rewarded at diminished values depending on how many times (or was it how long) a coach had made the NT at that particular level? Coaches threw a **** fit. Getting rid of reward credits altogether would probably result in an even worse backlash. If they got rid of rewards altogether I'd think they'd "have" to lower the price for a season otherwise the mass exodus of coaches leaving for that simple reason would probably be the death of the game.

Nope, I wasn't here. But that's kinda my point, people would not want to give up getting credits. But what if it allowed the game to be more profitable and then allowed them to do more with the game (more advertising, more development, more tech support, etc). Would people want those things at the cost of giving up their credits?

No? Well then it makes sense they're going to do something else to make some profits by helping out those coaches who aren't playing for a significant reduced price (or for free) and try to balance it out. I don't know for sure this is the motivator, just speculating. But it makes sense to me.

If we have a month before testing begins does anyone have a clue as to when these changes will finally be implemented? I'm leaving without trying them and was wondering if I should renew in Knight or let it run out after this season? Thanks for the info, Coaches.

I too would like information on a more precise timeline if one is available, because its likely I'm gone when the changes are made. I enjoy the game as it is; I don't see any reason in the world to make wholesale changes just to fix a few issues here and there.

Leaving without trying them. Lovely.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 3/7/2016 2:48:00 PM (view original):
Leaving without trying them. Lovely.

My leaving is more geared towards Seble and his indifference in listening to his customers instead of the changes...some of which sound cool.

Posted by p6453 on 3/7/2016 3:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 3/7/2016 2:48:00 PM (view original):
Leaving without trying them. Lovely.

My leaving is more geared towards Seble and his indifference in listening to his customers instead of the changes...some of which sound cool.

paul, you know i am pretty soundly against seble's approach here... but, i think you are being a bit hard on him, if that is what you are leaving over. i've been a developer for a long time, and i've played fairly "serious" games for most of my life, been able to watch the complaints of the community and to see how development handled it. it is very important to listen to your customers, but that doesn't always mean its best to do what they ask for. a truly good company listens to their customers, to identify their pain points with current solutions, or to identify business problems their customers have, that need to be solved. however, customers are not solutions architects. they are customers, and they aren't paid to sit around and come up with the best solutions to the problems they are having. a truly good company can hear the problem and pain points, and come up with a better solution, that will really help the customer. businesses also have to factor in a lot more than a single customer factors in, in their own requests.

i think seble feels he has generally listened to the community requests thus far, and in large part, he has. now, hes looking at a decline of a game, to the point where this may be his last chance. he doesn't believe small tweaks to stop the bleeding are enough, and its not because he hasn't listened - its because he's reached a different conclusion. if he had simply ignored us, that would be different, but i genuinely don't believe that to be the case. that said, i still don't agree with his decision, but i do think he's listened and that his approach deserves its day in court.

Basically, the above.

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/8/2016 1:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by p6453 on 3/7/2016 3:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 3/7/2016 2:48:00 PM (view original):
Leaving without trying them. Lovely.

My leaving is more geared towards Seble and his indifference in listening to his customers instead of the changes...some of which sound cool.

paul, you know i am pretty soundly against seble's approach here... but, i think you are being a bit hard on him, if that is what you are leaving over. i've been a developer for a long time, and i've played fairly "serious" games for most of my life, been able to watch the complaints of the community and to see how development handled it. it is very important to listen to your customers, but that doesn't always mean its best to do what they ask for. a truly good company listens to their customers, to identify their pain points with current solutions, or to identify business problems their customers have, that need to be solved. however, customers are not solutions architects. they are customers, and they aren't paid to sit around and come up with the best solutions to the problems they are having. a truly good company can hear the problem and pain points, and come up with a better solution, that will really help the customer. businesses also have to factor in a lot more than a single customer factors in, in their own requests.

i think seble feels he has generally listened to the community requests thus far, and in large part, he has. now, hes looking at a decline of a game, to the point where this may be his last chance. he doesn't believe small tweaks to stop the bleeding are enough, and its not because he hasn't listened - its because he's reached a different conclusion. if he had simply ignored us, that would be different, but i genuinely don't believe that to be the case. that said, i still don't agree with his decision, but i do think he's listened and that his approach deserves its day in court.

Nail on the head. 100% agree with the probable reasoning behind the decision for the change.

Instead of trying to figure out when to leave, how about you instead figure out how to participate in the beta so you can see what is happening and help make it better?

Very valid points, gentlemen. Appreciate the differing viewpoints....maybe I'll think it over a bit more.

I know there have bee a lot of complaints about the luck factor that some now perceive in recruit signings. So in case you missed it, seble did provide an update yesterday in the pinned threads above.

I've been on the opposed side to the updates, partially due to the content and that I think other, less draconian actions would improve game play. My largest concern though, is a general history WIS has with their releases, which can charitably be called checkered. I was a beta tester the last time and the process was not particularly thorough or systematic. Things would speed up and go through a bunch of things one day (without regard for the number of users who had signed on), and other times there would be days at a time where nothing went on. Perhaps the beta testing and release will go off without a hitch, but I'll need to see that to believe it.

Now, in talking about the actual release - I'm not huge on the impact for teams that have EEs. Given the potential for a team to get gutted, perhaps a tweak to the EE decision tree that makes each potential EE less likely to go. So if you have 4, 14, and 22 on the Big Board, if 4 decides to go, it becomes less likely that 14 or 22 will go, if 4 and 14 leave, it makes it much less likely 22 will go, etc.

Given the trouble that EEs can cause and the potential that you could be leading 2-3 battles and end up losing them all, I'd like to see a change to the game engine to make it more viable to play with 7 or 8 players. If recruiting is being made more realistic, I think it is only right that rotations can be shortened, since it is unusual for teams to often play 9-11 10+ minutes per game. That way being unlucky with recruiting doesn't necessarily impact whether or not your team can compete.

I do like deeper preferences, and I hope that there are some additional expectations. I think it is ridiculous that the #1 recruit in the country can sit on the bench the entire season, and get 0 minutes, and they are OK with it. I think that elite recruits should expect a promise on a sliding scale - maybe 10 minutes at A+ Maryland, Start + 25 minutes at a C+ Rutgers.

If promises become more important (and I think they should), please increase the cost of breaking them.