Posted by npb7768 on 3/7/2016 5:39:00 PM (view original):
Not many have mentioned this, but an issue that Seble's proposal may solve is that in all divisions, but especially Div-3, teams with 5 or 6 roster openings have a lopsided unfair recruiting advantage.

In Div-3 I'm in Connecticut. If I have 6 openings ($18k) and my local human rival has only 2 openings ($6k), and if our prestige is relatively similar, then I will have my pick of the best Connecticut talent over him, and I can basically win any battle against him. I never thought this was fair, and I think Seble's proposal solves this problem. Under the new plan, I'll be able to offer a great recruit 1 campus visit, and my rival will too. It will be based less on openings in this case, right?

When I was at Div-2 Merrimack, one year I had 3 openings and there were no humans near me, and I was B-minus... I had identified a half dozen talented local guys that I could reasonably expect to land. In the offseason, a great coach showed up at Lowell, which had 7 openings and was C+. So when recruiting started, I knew I was at a disadvantage of $35k to $15k right off the bat. And sure enough, he grabbed my top 3 targets.

well, good news then - maybe you'll get lucky and lose but still win...

Posted by tarvolon on 3/7/2016 4:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmax on 3/7/2016 4:33:00 PM (view original):
I believe the official seble answer as to the need for a total overhaul is that the existing programming is a hodge podge of legacy software that is too klugey to edit effectively to make small changes. I think his view - his story - is that the choice is no change or total overhaul.

I confess, I would have thought that some improvements could be made outside the core, klugey legacy systems. But heck if I know

I also think this is the official line, and I think that if a kludgy system gives them an excuse to try to make the game better (even if it's not one of the worst features of the current game), then I'm okay with that (pending testing of actual changes).

That said, given that there's near unanimity saying that most of what appear to be recruiting problems are actually driven by recruit generation, it seems like it would've made a lot more sense to address that first.

It is also because of lack of battling between big six teams. It seems Seble will solve that with two new things, one is to make top 50 recruits available for everyone and he will work on player preferences too, want to be in a big program, prefers to start and so on.

This is something that he could of worked on right now with the same recruiting system in place. I like it though.

In Tark, I won't name the program, but I saw a guy get two four stars and a five star uncontested... I wanted to battle... I could not at B-. I saw a guy overcome a SIM A reputation, and get slowly in the lead... to be knocked out on the last day by a A+ big six team who did not have its way elsewhere I guess. Anyways, It's time to change the recruiting system in D1. Hopefully, it does not screw DII and DIII and it is something that makes the game more fun.

I don't think that the idea of a player not always signing with the school with the most effort is a good idea though. It will only lead to frustration. Say I am spending twice as much and the guy ends up on the other squad... It will be enough for me to quit. I don't want recruiting to become a lottery. And right now, I can, if I decide, pretty much know everything from every player so I can make my own decision. With the new system, there are a lot of players I won't even know live or breathe somewhere... So it's lottery to me also. If my region or the camps I attend don't have the talent I need... If it happens to be a year where I have six schollies, I am going to suffer through four years of misery. Right now, even If I am in CAL, I can always go see what NY players look like. It can make me competitive if I am not satisfied with what I have in states surrounding my school. It could even be a strategy I use from time to time to separate myself from the pack. I can also build on pull-downs... But in the new system, there won't be any.

There are lots of questions to be answered.

I'm not saying its the right update (I'm hopeful) but I'm kind of shocked how its being written off before its even beta tested. But, I've never been 'happy' with the recruiting system (at any level) as I felt it was always like walking in a minefield, a glorified auction (without clear cut bidding amounts) while waiting for some 'bigger' team to decide they wanted your guy after you put in all your resources. If anything in real recruiting, it's usually the other way around with the big guys sending out the 'thanks but no thanks' letters and then the little guys going after those folks.

I'm also very excited about not seeing every player- it's one thing to be able to find they exist and maybe their high school stats, but it's another to know their attributes on a 1-100 scale. That to me has made for a more clear cut 'better' player, which isn't good for the system.

The pull down/drop down thing was always... weird. I understand for game mechanics, but seriously, no guy would see you in the stands for a few games and decide "well, I didn't believe in DII anyway". It also gave a hidden advantage to the experienced folks that knew of this 'trick' (and seriously, back in the day it was one of the big bad secrets that top coaches knew and some others didn't). Let's not forget back in the day when some knew how to manipulate their URL's to see all the recruits when others had to be very specific in their search criteria to find the same players. (Big point is not everything has been fair, and sometimes changes help that out)

There are plenty of things that haven't made sense in recruiting for years, but have simply been 'the way it is' for so long, some act like its the best way. A large part of recruiting is your ability/patience/time to sift through data to find players that fit, then deciding which is best. Not a terrible feature,

I've actively played and lurked enough to remember and have seen a lot of changes, some were total wins, others not, but EVERY single one was met with resistance. I'm not sure I would've stayed around if the 12 player superclass was still an option, pull downs were secret, some made macros to find all the recruits while I was clicking. There have been changes for the better (I even believe potential created more variety in recruiting), and changes for the worse (Anything related to booster gifts), and proposed changes that will never see the light of day (I was confident by now Fastbreak and Press would be 'modifiers' to the O/D). Let's not get out pitchforks before beta. In the event that beta is terrible, an unfixable product, etc. etc, then let's go crazy.

what was the manipulate URL trick?

Posted by asher413 on 3/7/2016 10:50:00 PM (view original):
I'm not saying its the right update (I'm hopeful) but I'm kind of shocked how its being written off before its even beta tested. But, I've never been 'happy' with the recruiting system (at any level) as I felt it was always like walking in a minefield, a glorified auction (without clear cut bidding amounts) while waiting for some 'bigger' team to decide they wanted your guy after you put in all your resources. If anything in real recruiting, it's usually the other way around with the big guys sending out the 'thanks but no thanks' letters and then the little guys going after those folks.

I'm also very excited about not seeing every player- it's one thing to be able to find they exist and maybe their high school stats, but it's another to know their attributes on a 1-100 scale. That to me has made for a more clear cut 'better' player, which isn't good for the system.

The pull down/drop down thing was always... weird. I understand for game mechanics, but seriously, no guy would see you in the stands for a few games and decide "well, I didn't believe in DII anyway". It also gave a hidden advantage to the experienced folks that knew of this 'trick' (and seriously, back in the day it was one of the big bad secrets that top coaches knew and some others didn't). Let's not forget back in the day when some knew how to manipulate their URL's to see all the recruits when others had to be very specific in their search criteria to find the same players. (Big point is not everything has been fair, and sometimes changes help that out)

There are plenty of things that haven't made sense in recruiting for years, but have simply been 'the way it is' for so long, some act like its the best way. A large part of recruiting is your ability/patience/time to sift through data to find players that fit, then deciding which is best. Not a terrible feature,

I've actively played and lurked enough to remember and have seen a lot of changes, some were total wins, others not, but EVERY single one was met with resistance. I'm not sure I would've stayed around if the 12 player superclass was still an option, pull downs were secret, some made macros to find all the recruits while I was clicking. There have been changes for the better (I even believe potential created more variety in recruiting), and changes for the worse (Anything related to booster gifts), and proposed changes that will never see the light of day (I was confident by now Fastbreak and Press would be 'modifiers' to the O/D). Let's not get out pitchforks before beta. In the event that beta is terrible, an unfixable product, etc. etc, then let's go crazy.

This strikes me as an intelligent and thoughtful post. Paraphrasing, "Everyone, put your pitchforks away until we all know what we're talking about, because right now none of us do. Let beta happen and learn from it " I like that.

Posted by metsmax on 3/7/2016 11:59:00 PM (view original):
what was the manipulate URL trick?

Back in the day, you could only get 200 or 50 results (can't recall) with each search, so you couldn't see all recruits easily. You had to go into the URL and change which player the 'listing' started with if you wanted to see everyone that fit the category (I can't remember exactly, but it was changing a number in the URL). Back then, the search options weren't as complete as they are in the last 'big' UI update.

I've not encountered a single reason why a complete re-do or overhaul is necessary in any way.

That being said, I agree that there should be some changes. SIM teams need to be more viable recruiters. My biggest concern is putting everyone in DI with $50K for recruiting plus $5K per recruit. Teams with EEs that have 4-6 openings will be killed by teams with one or two openings. How does that make sense?

Posted by npb7768 on 3/7/2016 5:39:00 PM (view original):
Not many have mentioned this, but an issue that Seble's proposal may solve is that in all divisions, but especially Div-3, teams with 5 or 6 roster openings have a lopsided unfair recruiting advantage.

In Div-3 I'm in Connecticut. If I have 6 openings ($18k) and my local human rival has only 2 openings ($6k), and if our prestige is relatively similar, then I will have my pick of the best Connecticut talent over him, and I can basically win any battle against him. I never thought this was fair, and I think Seble's proposal solves this problem. Under the new plan, I'll be able to offer a great recruit 1 campus visit, and my rival will too. It will be based less on openings in this case, right?

When I was at Div-2 Merrimack, one year I had 3 openings and there were no humans near me, and I was B-minus... I had identified a half dozen talented local guys that I could reasonably expect to land. In the offseason, a great coach showed up at Lowell, which had 7 openings and was C+. So when recruiting started, I knew I was at a disadvantage of $35k to $15k right off the bat. And sure enough, he grabbed my top 3 targets.

I am hoping that this will address the issue, but it may not--given that HVs will still be unlimited. That said, seble said he was doing more to work in recruit preferences for things like playing time, which I hope would balance that out a bit.

I've wondered why the developers just can't turn down the prestige advantage of the higher prestige schools at D1. And for what it's worth, in Iba and Phelan, I see plenty of Big Six schools battling. It seems like most of the A+ along with 'many scholarships open' schools don't have much battles because the lever is so much in their favor. But I often see B+, B, B- to A-, even A range schools battle, even in conference.

Posted by zorzii on 3/7/2016 7:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tarvolon on 3/7/2016 4:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmax on 3/7/2016 4:33:00 PM (view original):
I believe the official seble answer as to the need for a total overhaul is that the existing programming is a hodge podge of legacy software that is too klugey to edit effectively to make small changes. I think his view - his story - is that the choice is no change or total overhaul.

I confess, I would have thought that some improvements could be made outside the core, klugey legacy systems. But heck if I know

I also think this is the official line, and I think that if a kludgy system gives them an excuse to try to make the game better (even if it's not one of the worst features of the current game), then I'm okay with that (pending testing of actual changes).

That said, given that there's near unanimity saying that most of what appear to be recruiting problems are actually driven by recruit generation, it seems like it would've made a lot more sense to address that first.

It is also because of lack of battling between big six teams. It seems Seble will solve that with two new things, one is to make top 50 recruits available for everyone and he will work on player preferences too, want to be in a big program, prefers to start and so on.

This is something that he could of worked on right now with the same recruiting system in place. I like it though.

In Tark, I won't name the program, but I saw a guy get two four stars and a five star uncontested... I wanted to battle... I could not at B-. I saw a guy overcome a SIM A reputation, and get slowly in the lead... to be knocked out on the last day by a A+ big six team who did not have its way elsewhere I guess. Anyways, It's time to change the recruiting system in D1. Hopefully, it does not screw DII and DIII and it is something that makes the game more fun.

I don't think that the idea of a player not always signing with the school with the most effort is a good idea though. It will only lead to frustration. Say I am spending twice as much and the guy ends up on the other squad... It will be enough for me to quit. I don't want recruiting to become a lottery. And right now, I can, if I decide, pretty much know everything from every player so I can make my own decision. With the new system, there are a lot of players I won't even know live or breathe somewhere... So it's lottery to me also. If my region or the camps I attend don't have the talent I need... If it happens to be a year where I have six schollies, I am going to suffer through four years of misery. Right now, even If I am in CAL, I can always go see what NY players look like. It can make me competitive if I am not satisfied with what I have in states surrounding my school. It could even be a strategy I use from time to time to separate myself from the pack. I can also build on pull-downs... But in the new system, there won't be any.

There are lots of questions to be answered.

How would you know how much the other guy spent anyway?

And "Its not 100% the guy spending more will get the guy" Is in no wise even close to remotely in the same zip code as 'Its just a random lottery."

Posted by CoachSpud on 3/7/2016 4:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by taniajane on 3/7/2016 4:30:00 PM (view original):
I agree it is a Div 1 prblm....I ask..if you have two different sets of recruiting for 1 and 2-3.....how would that work? People would have no clue when moved up to div 1. Plus how would current drop and pull downs work..it wouldnt

Good point. Changing it ONLY for Div. 1, as some have advocated, would make the game worse, not better.

There's no need for a complete overhaul at ANY division. Some changes to how D1 functions would help, but a complete revision is ridiculous.

Posted by npb7768 on 3/7/2016 5:39:00 PM (view original):
Not many have mentioned this, but an issue that Seble's proposal may solve is that in all divisions, but especially Div-3, teams with 5 or 6 roster openings have a lopsided unfair recruiting advantage.

In Div-3 I'm in Connecticut. If I have 6 openings ($18k) and my local human rival has only 2 openings ($6k), and if our prestige is relatively similar, then I will have my pick of the best Connecticut talent over him, and I can basically win any battle against him. I never thought this was fair, and I think Seble's proposal solves this problem. Under the new plan, I'll be able to offer a great recruit 1 campus visit, and my rival will too. It will be based less on openings in this case, right?

When I was at Div-2 Merrimack, one year I had 3 openings and there were no humans near me, and I was B-minus... I had identified a half dozen talented local guys that I could reasonably expect to land. In the offseason, a great coach showed up at Lowell, which had 7 openings and was C+. So when recruiting started, I knew I was at a disadvantage of $35k to $15k right off the bat. And sure enough, he grabbed my top 3 targets.

I don't have a problem with the schools with more open scholarships getting more money. You need more players, you need cash to go get them. That's how the system is set up.

If you don't like having fewer open scholarships, just use super classes. I do it with most of my teams, and one reason is so I don't have to deal with that issue.

I try to keep my class distribution relatively even (3-3-3-3) because that's my personal preference...but why are we complaining about teams with 5 or 6 openings? A DI team that gets hit with a slew of EEs will have 5-6 openings and that not by design. A DII or DIII team with that many is doing it on purpose, and why not and so what? You can too. You have complete control over how many (up to 6) are in each class if you are in a lower division.

It's called strategy.

LOL, what the hell is going on here?

Posted by johnsensing on 3/7/2016 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by taniajane on 3/7/2016 11:12:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bistiza on 3/7/2016 10:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by taniajane on 3/6/2016 3:52:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hughesjr on 3/6/2016 3:42:00 PM (view original):
There are plenty of users who want recruiting totally redone. I certainly do.

I agree...though as I assume everyone, I am wondering if for the best...it was broken at Div 1

I've seen a few of you voice this opinion, but I've never seen anyone say WHY they want recruiting totally redone...except in some cases to list a few things that could be fixed easier with much smaller tweaks.

I've not encountered a single reason why a complete re-do or overhaul is necessary in any way.

From my experience in Div 1 there were several factors I believe.
1) A extreme value for Big 6's prestige compared to other factors that should be nearly as equal to recruits (as they are in real life: Immediate playing time, close to home, family connections to school, (extreme rare today sure but a few) educational opportunities, style of play, recent success to name a few off top of head.
2) Tied in somewhat with #|. Job firing process. Would a recruit really want to got to a Big 6 that is a perennial loser and cant even start there early?
3)) Too many 90-90-90 5 star and they are almost exclusively the property of the Big 6's.
4) Problem not associated with the current system is the fact that these advantages lead to well populated Big 6 conferences (or sims that cant be replaced for what ever reasons) and others (unless coaches organize mid majors for players) are left with empty conferences which again affects RPI's and thus tourney monies.

None of those issues required a "complete re-do or overhaul" of recruiting.

1. I would agree these tweaks could (and probably should) be made, at a minimum of violence to the current system.
2. Not sure what this has to do with recruiting, but agree that the jobs firing process needs a tweak, esp. at A+ prestige schools.
3. I think you have this backwards -- the problem is that there aren't enough 90/90/90 guys, so the few that exist are snapped up by the elite programs. If there were more created in recruit gen (or more guys that start marginal, but end up at 90/90/90), there would be a larger pool of elite players, which would trickle down to the have-nots. There should be many more low-ranked players that make large -- like 200+ points -- gains over four years. My feeling for years has been that if you fix recruit gen, you fix lots of other recruiting problems.

These changes could be made without throwing out the old system -- which, while not perfect, is pretty good.

I thought the last recruit generation dramatically increased the number of 90/90/90 guys we saw? And that was a cause of a lot of problems?

I figured it would make more sense realistically and for HD purposes that we see more 80/80/80 guys and the 90/90/90 are rare and therefor worth battling for.

However I can see how having more 90/90/90 guys would work HD purposes as at a certain point there would be so many they would spill to non big six schools, and they would start to get much closer in talent. However I find it highly unrealistic as already a team full of 90/90/90 doesn't have real life counterparts consistently and increasing midmajors to 90/90/90 teams seems even more unrealistic?

Posted by metsmax on 3/6/2016 8:53:00 PM (view original):
I've cut back on teams in anticipation of the changes and plan to cut back further. It seems like it will be a totally new product and I would not start with multiple teams in a new product. Disappointed that they have not figured out some smaller improvements to implement over the last few years.

My mind is open on whether the changes will be good or bad, but I'll experiment with a reduced slate of teams.

Ditto! I hope that he understands not to take a restriction to current cash flow as a "natural" reaction to the forthcoming changes. Most people would go into a new situation with caution. That is how I see it.