Huge problem with recruiting (nothing new) Topic

what is the benefit of capping actions? Doesn't it just hurt the teams that have more money? What's the point of having more money then? And battles would just come down to prestige and distance then, right? 
8/13/2013 2:54 PM
Posted by dacj501 on 8/13/2013 2:54:00 PM (view original):
what is the benefit of capping actions? Doesn't it just hurt the teams that have more money? What's the point of having more money then? And battles would just come down to prestige and distance then, right? 
I agree, I'm not sure of seeing the point, recruiting stays a math problem, but only 2 variables rather then 3. Also, I think if they make a cap on actions per cycle it can drive some users away, since recruiting is SO important you might have to be able/willing to hit every single cycle; which could be more than coaches want.
8/13/2013 3:03 PM
Posted by kmasonbx1 on 8/13/2013 10:37:00 AM (view original):
Posted by crickett13 on 8/13/2013 9:45:00 AM (view original):
In real life a kid going to Division 2 or Division 3 is going to base his choice on the schools curriculum more than how good the basketball team is.
Not true in the vast majority of cases. There's a reason why there are Division 2 and 3 powers. You'd be surprised at how much cheating goes on at the D2 level, I'm not sure about the D3 level. I covered high school basketball for a few years in the NYC area, and had a D2 coach tell me how wide spread cheating was in D2. 
I would think you may want to rethink your "vast majority" statement since by definition the vast majority of D2 and D3 athletes do not go to powerhouse programs.

  My real point is there has to be a difference between the way the game works and the way it works in real life. In real life guys don't pay to coach at Kings they get paid to coach there and hope they do well enough to move on to Scranton and then Kutztown State or some other D2 school who will pay them more.
8/13/2013 3:10 PM (edited)
I don't agree with capping actions.  But I continue to stand by my statement from a couple of years ago in this thread --- I think there ought to be some consideration to the % of your money used.
8/13/2013 3:34 PM
Posted by crickett13 on 8/13/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):
Posted by kmasonbx1 on 8/13/2013 10:37:00 AM (view original):
Posted by crickett13 on 8/13/2013 9:45:00 AM (view original):
In real life a kid going to Division 2 or Division 3 is going to base his choice on the schools curriculum more than how good the basketball team is.
Not true in the vast majority of cases. There's a reason why there are Division 2 and 3 powers. You'd be surprised at how much cheating goes on at the D2 level, I'm not sure about the D3 level. I covered high school basketball for a few years in the NYC area, and had a D2 coach tell me how wide spread cheating was in D2. 
I would think you may want to rethink your "vast majority" statement since by definition the vast majority of D2 and D3 athletes do not go to powerhouse programs.

  My real point is there has to be a difference between the way the game works and the way it works in real life. In real life guys don't pay to coach at Kings they get paid to coach there and hope they do well enough to move on to Scranton and then Kutztown State or some other D2 school who will pay them more.
I get your overall point of things being different than real life, but I think you're underestimating the delusions of grandeur 18 year old kids have. Many these kids getting basketball scholarships to D2 schools think they are going to play pro ball somewhere and are going to the school that affords them that best opportunity. I went to a D2 school, it was not a power by any means, I lived with a kid on the team so I knew most of the team and none of them spoke about them going to the school because of the curriculum. I also lived with football players and even heard 1 kid make the statement "I just want to maintain a 2.0 so I can play ball."

When all you've done is play a certain sport you aren't necessarily thinking about life after playing that sport, especially at 18 years old. 
8/13/2013 3:40 PM
Posted by dacj501 on 8/13/2013 2:54:00 PM (view original):
what is the benefit of capping actions? Doesn't it just hurt the teams that have more money? What's the point of having more money then? And battles would just come down to prestige and distance then, right? 
It means you could go after more players. Which, in an action-capped world, would help you a lot. Let me expand here.

The desire for an actions cap, i've found, comes from three places:
1. The frustration that comes from recruit "poaching"
2. Lower-prestige D1 schools (say, C-range) are more limited than they should be during recruiting
3. The current recruiting system is almost irresponsibly unrealistic (we all know realism isn't always the answer, but visiting a recruit 100 times during the real-life equivalent of a cycle would be akin to one team scoring 200 points in a game)


DISCLAIMER I believe the cap would have to be high enough that it only really affected D1 teams in terms of TOTAL recruiting effort. For D2 it would probably end up being similar total effort levels (in terms of # of HVs, STs) just more spread out.


I'll try and illustrate the point with a few 'scenarios'




SCENARIO 1A - Equal Effort, Prestige Difference


Team X - B+ Prestige, $100k recruiting budget
Team Y - B- Prestige, $100k recruiting budget

Player Z - 2 stars, no distance preference, favorite school not X or Y, equidistant from X and Y


RESULT - Both teams put in the max effort for Player Z and hit the cap (involves sending the max number of visits, scouting trips, calls, etc.) Say this costs exactly $10k for each school. Because of the prestige difference, X's effort is multiplied by about 130%. Team X wins the recruit.


SCENARIO 1B - Same as above BUT Team X promises 10 minutes, Team Y promises a start and 25 minutes

RESULT - Thanks to the promises, Team X's effort is multiplied by 110% while Team Y's effort is multiplied by 140%. For those keeping track at home, that's now 143% for Team X and 140% for Team Y. Team X still wins the recruit.

SCENARIO 1C - Same as above again BUT Player Z's favorite school is Team Y

RESULT - The Favorite Team bonus is a 125% multiplier (if you haven't noticed, I'm pulling the numbers out of my *** here) so now Team Y, at B- prestige, wins the recruit. (as a litmus test, which team do you think would win if this battle happened in real life? Probably Team Y, despite the B- prestige, due to the favorite school bonus).

CONCLUSION - Under the current system, the only way the B- Team Y wins the recruit is he Team Y spends more money on the recruit. Sure, the extra promises would help, but does anyone believe promises are worth more than, say, an $800-$1000 Campus Visit? An important part of this is how the effort cap ensures that both teams still have $90k to spend on other recruits, so the B- didn't have to overspend and make his team more vulnerable to other battles to try and land this guy.

The battle becomes not just about whether each team spent the max, but promises TRULY matter, AND the recruit's preferences matter as well. A recruit preferring far schools could permit far-away schools to get away with spending less than the max. A five star recruit could, once in a long while, decide to go to a school with less than B prestige. Heaven forbid that ever happens in today's game.

An option to think about is hidden preferences. Much like how schools have 'hidden' preferences in the types of coaches they hire, players could have 'hidden' preferences in terms of coach longevity, coach reputation, short-term or long-term team success, etc. With an effort cap, these preferences might ACTUALLY matter! In Scenario 1C, Team Y only needed a 102% player-preference multiplier on top of the guarantees to outdo Team X despite equal effort.

What it comes down to is that, despite the cap, the higher prestige school will more likely win the recruit but is far from guaranteed to win the recruit. Pursuing multiple avenues will make it easier for you to land players as that’s more players that may prefer you to another school.





SCENARIO 2 - A+ D1 school with 6 open scholarships looking to land the new Fab 5

One of the criticisms of the effort cap is the notion that A+ teams would dominate MORE. How do you define dominance? I think we can all agree that a dominant team can consistently recruit the best TEAM full of players. Sometimes this is confused with a team’s ability to recruit ONE great player. The effort cap would mean that, if the A+ school wants a player that also prefers said school, that school can probably guarantee landing that player by spending the max amount (admittedly not a huge amount of its budget). But what about an entire class?

From my perspective (of having held at most A prestige in D1, for what it’s worth) even the big schools have to evaluate the following variables continually during the course of recruiting:

1.    
What recruits do I go after at Cycle 1? And with how much?
2.     What recruits should I jump on at Cycle 2 or later?
3.     How much money do I have? How much money do I appear to have?
4.     Do I want my recruits to appear “very tight” or “not tight”?
5.     How much money do my opponents have? How much money will it take to win each recruit?
6.     Do I need to pursue backup options?
7.     Are there any potential poachers in my area, and how should I adjust my strategy accordingly?
8.     Do I need to make any promises?

With a per-cycle effort cap, I anticipate the variables will look more like this:

1.-5. Mostly the same
6.     When should I pursue my backup options? When should I offer them scholarships if I’m battling for my first options?
7.     Are there any potential poachers in my area, and how should I adjust my strategy accordingly? (Note that the threat of poaching goes way down, especially if you’ve been putting in max effort per cycle)
8.     What promises can I afford to make? What promises are my opponents likely making?
9.     What recruits should I be putting max effort into every cycle, battlegrounds or not?
10.   What are my targeted recruits’ preferences? How will it affect the outcomes of recruiting battles?
11.   How will the outcomes of other battles affect the outcomes of my battles? Will any of my opponents back off automatically if they win other battles?

So an A+ team with 6 openings and $120k in the bank, say, wants 5 recruits, one for each position. He identifies his top choice for each spot and a backup option (PG1, PG2, SG1, etc.) Now remember, since max effort still leaves a lot of your budget, there’s less of a deterrent for pursuing multiple recruits at once. This goes for every team, so there will be more battling. His outlook could be the following:

PG1 – Five star. Prefers me, good enough to start right away for me, I can guarantee myself this recruit. I will put in the max to start and if there’s any threat, put in the max every cycle. (note that the max likely means anywhere from $10k-$30k depending on the distance of the recruit)

PG2 – Two star. No need to worry since PG1 is a sure thing

SG1 – Four star. Shows no real preference towards me, but another equidistant A school is going after him. I really shouldn’t be making him any promises, but I will since the A is probably promising him a lot I will make a few. I have to put in the max with him unless the A is backing off.

SG2 – Two star. I might not get SG1 so I will have to make sure I have a shot at him come signing time. A B- school likes him but I can probably scare him off.

SF1 – International stud. Another A+ also wants him who has 5 openings. This will be my biggest battle. Max effort and guarantees all the way.

SF2 – One star. A C+ likes him and might put the max into him just for kicks, but I won’t go heavy unless the I’m going to lose the SF1. There’s a slim chance I will be too late if the C+ does the max and makes promises. I probably won’t get a worth SF if that happens.

PF1 – Four star. Can’t guarantee him much or else I’ll really hurt my team next year. Despite 6 openings I could make the NT if I play my upperclassmen. I have to go the max since an A- AND a B+ are on him too. I hope they don’t give max effort and promises. Hope.

PF2 – One star. High potential guy, no real competitors. Thank god. I will put just enough effort in and hope nobody poaches.

C1 – Three star. I will probably not be able to afford going max on him given my other expenses. An A- wants him but the A- is involved in a lot of other battles. Taking this one cycle-by-cycle.

C2 – Three star. An A, a B+ and a C+ all want him. ****.
 
Max effort means freedom to challenge for more players. The players could make slightly unorthodox decisions based on player preferences. Once signings begin, the dominoes will fall, and the aforementioned Three Star C2 might have nobody considering him anymore after signings start, who knows? More variables, more fun, and satisfyingly realistic, too.

I think getting the ability to plan cycles in advance would be vital for making this work, though.

Could WhatIf royally screw up a cycle cap? Absolutely. Could it be a lot better than it is now? I think so.
8/13/2013 5:15 PM (edited)
Also, allowing for different types of actions (Head Coach Home Visit vs. Assistant Coach Home Visit) could add another interesting layer to recruiting with an effort cap, but would be a pretty bland addition in the current system.

Also of note is that while "max effort" per cycle might be the best way to go, not all actions are of equal value per dollar obviously, so you have that to balance as well.
8/13/2013 5:06 PM
I feel like randomness is already too big an issue in recruiting (recruit generation) and significantly increasing the power of the utter randomness of the favorite school/distance preference is a recipe for disaster. I doubt too many people will be happy losing that stud from 10 miles away because their favorite school happened to be a different school, especially given the lack of any logic in the favorite school determinations.

I also think the max/cycle cap provides too big of an advantage to people who can be on every single cycle.

I think that promises do need to be much stronger than they currently are (and combined with that the penalty should be significantly harsher). This could tie in with a coach prestige; where broken promises cause huge prestige hits. To add some murkiness, maybe the coach prestige should only be visible to the specific coach; so I'd know mine and maybe I could ballpark yours, but it wouldn't be as exact a calculation as it can be now.
8/13/2013 5:46 PM

jet, I appreciate your argument and believe I understand how your proposal would work. Its not something I'm in favor of, mostly because I'm not worried about "poaching" (I've been on both sides frequently), and I don't really have a problem with a C- D1 not being able to really recruit against a A+ head up in most cases. Realism is irrelevant to me on this particular aspect, since anything that is done to handle recruiting will be unrealistic, unless WiS makes us start driving around the country IRL to log in from different locations to view scouting evals or something... 

While recruiting now is basically a math problem with 3 main variables, its also much more. There is a psychology to it, and a bit of an art form to get it right. I think I do a pretty decent job most seasons with that, and I'm just not a big fan of any changes that make it easier for those who I might be better than in this regard. I commend you though for your thought out explanation. 

Also, given past performance as a metric, I can see any changes like this making things much worse before they got better, and frankly, with the amount of time it takes for TPTB to make corrections and what not and the fact that by and large I am closer to disinterest and retirement than not if you were to graph my passion for HD right now, I'm mostly worried that I wouldn't stick around waiting for them to get it right, but that's more of a personal POV on it...

8/14/2013 6:17 AM
Posted by jcfreder on 6/5/2012 10:13:00 AM (view original):
The problem is that losing a battle is super punitive right now.  Nobody wants to lose a battle where they've sunk so much money in.  In real life, nobody puts in 90% of their recruiting budget into 1 or 2 guys.  Nor is it really an auction - kids decide where to go based largely on preferences.   A better way to do it might be to have a cap on how much effort "matters" to a recruit, and then the final decision rests with their internal attributes. 
I think jcfreder hit on a problem that is much more key than most people are giving it credit for. If you miss on a key recruit, especially if you are trying to build a program, you have really damaged your chances for a few years. I think the key motivation that discourages battles are the penalties if you lose. With the money system- if you miss on a recruit and you spend all your money- you are taking a walk-on. There needs to be some sort of system that allows coaches to still get left over scholarship players on the roster without having to take multiple walk-ons. I think the solutions lies in a fundamental "re-thinking" of the money system in general and it needs to be an effort based system. Very similar to the EA Sports NCAA Football Series of games. You get a certain amount of effort each cycle (with each cycle being a longer period so that you don't have to be at your computer every few hours or miss out on your allotment for that cycle) and the multipliers could be calculated after the effort has been allotted. Success on the court is already reflected in prestige- it should not also be reflected in the amount of recruiting effort you have available.
8/14/2013 6:36 AM
Posted by noleaniml on 8/14/2013 6:36:00 AM (view original):
Posted by jcfreder on 6/5/2012 10:13:00 AM (view original):
The problem is that losing a battle is super punitive right now.  Nobody wants to lose a battle where they've sunk so much money in.  In real life, nobody puts in 90% of their recruiting budget into 1 or 2 guys.  Nor is it really an auction - kids decide where to go based largely on preferences.   A better way to do it might be to have a cap on how much effort "matters" to a recruit, and then the final decision rests with their internal attributes. 
I think jcfreder hit on a problem that is much more key than most people are giving it credit for. If you miss on a key recruit, especially if you are trying to build a program, you have really damaged your chances for a few years. I think the key motivation that discourages battles are the penalties if you lose. With the money system- if you miss on a recruit and you spend all your money- you are taking a walk-on. There needs to be some sort of system that allows coaches to still get left over scholarship players on the roster without having to take multiple walk-ons. I think the solutions lies in a fundamental "re-thinking" of the money system in general and it needs to be an effort based system. Very similar to the EA Sports NCAA Football Series of games. You get a certain amount of effort each cycle (with each cycle being a longer period so that you don't have to be at your computer every few hours or miss out on your allotment for that cycle) and the multipliers could be calculated after the effort has been allotted. Success on the court is already reflected in prestige- it should not also be reflected in the amount of recruiting effort you have available.
I disagree about needing a system to still award non walkons.. This is similar to the NBA (or any pro sports league I guess) needing to be protected from itself so they don't keep doing things like Allen Houston's 70 gajillion contract. And how does it mess things up for years? You get to do it all again the next season. It may mean a bunch of walkons and a bad year, but the next season you load up and try again, hopefully a little wiser about how to (and not to) win a battle (or choose a winable battle in the first place, which really is the most important part of a battle...)
8/14/2013 10:02 AM
Posted by acn24 on 8/13/2013 5:46:00 PM (view original):
I feel like randomness is already too big an issue in recruiting (recruit generation) and significantly increasing the power of the utter randomness of the favorite school/distance preference is a recipe for disaster. I doubt too many people will be happy losing that stud from 10 miles away because their favorite school happened to be a different school, especially given the lack of any logic in the favorite school determinations.

I also think the max/cycle cap provides too big of an advantage to people who can be on every single cycle.

I think that promises do need to be much stronger than they currently are (and combined with that the penalty should be significantly harsher). This could tie in with a coach prestige; where broken promises cause huge prestige hits. To add some murkiness, maybe the coach prestige should only be visible to the specific coach; so I'd know mine and maybe I could ballpark yours, but it wouldn't be as exact a calculation as it can be now.
Is there a better alternative to "random" recruit generation? I could see a system where your team's success could "inspire" more theoretical 6 to 12-year-olds to pick up basketball and increase the number of recruits in your area down the line, and I think more recruits should come from populated areas...beyond something like that, how could recruit generation *not* be random? Not all HD jobs can be of equal difficulty.

I agree that adding some logic to players' favorite schools *could* be an improvement...but there are pitfalls there, too. Logically, more kids will favorite the good or local schools. Also, FWIW, I know people will be upset if they lose a recruit 10 miles away, but that's more of a trope of the current system than an inalienable right. Happy does not always equal Fun or Quality Game Design.

Agreed on the need for promises to be increased in value.
8/14/2013 12:33 PM
Posted by dacj501 on 8/14/2013 6:17:00 AM (view original):

jet, I appreciate your argument and believe I understand how your proposal would work. Its not something I'm in favor of, mostly because I'm not worried about "poaching" (I've been on both sides frequently), and I don't really have a problem with a C- D1 not being able to really recruit against a A+ head up in most cases. Realism is irrelevant to me on this particular aspect, since anything that is done to handle recruiting will be unrealistic, unless WiS makes us start driving around the country IRL to log in from different locations to view scouting evals or something... 

While recruiting now is basically a math problem with 3 main variables, its also much more. There is a psychology to it, and a bit of an art form to get it right. I think I do a pretty decent job most seasons with that, and I'm just not a big fan of any changes that make it easier for those who I might be better than in this regard. I commend you though for your thought out explanation. 

Also, given past performance as a metric, I can see any changes like this making things much worse before they got better, and frankly, with the amount of time it takes for TPTB to make corrections and what not and the fact that by and large I am closer to disinterest and retirement than not if you were to graph my passion for HD right now, I'm mostly worried that I wouldn't stick around waiting for them to get it right, but that's more of a personal POV on it...

There are shades of gray to realism...I'm not sure I understand your argument against placing any value on realism here. Of course the game won't be a perfect simulation of recruiting...does that really mean that it's not an improvement to eliminate the 500 home visits at once situation? Right now the game is basically a bastardized auction with dynamic currencies veiled as real life recruiting elements.

I think that any system with the right level of complexity will facilitate an art form to exploiting it. That's what I was trying to demonstrate with my second example, how the art form could be even more diverse and complex without delving into utter chaos.

I think any change in the recruiting system will obviously hurt the experienced players vs. the general population, just to different degrees. I think it would be fun to bring things to a more level playing field as the system improves.

But you hit on an important point, which I'm in agreement with. I am very wary about the programmers-that-be and their ability to make swift, effective improvements. It's unfortunate, and kind of depressing. I don't think changes should be avoided because of this, but I do get it.
8/14/2013 12:48 PM
Posted by stinenavy on 8/13/2013 10:05:00 AM (view original):
If the D2 school is offering an athletic scholarship he's going to go there, since D3 schools can't.
Plenty of ways D3 schools help out their athletes. Academic schollies, even if they aren;t the most qualified. I had several friends take D3 over D2 simply to play on a team that was competitive. 
8/14/2013 12:52 PM
Posted by jetwildcat on 8/14/2013 12:33:00 PM (view original):
Posted by acn24 on 8/13/2013 5:46:00 PM (view original):
I feel like randomness is already too big an issue in recruiting (recruit generation) and significantly increasing the power of the utter randomness of the favorite school/distance preference is a recipe for disaster. I doubt too many people will be happy losing that stud from 10 miles away because their favorite school happened to be a different school, especially given the lack of any logic in the favorite school determinations.

I also think the max/cycle cap provides too big of an advantage to people who can be on every single cycle.

I think that promises do need to be much stronger than they currently are (and combined with that the penalty should be significantly harsher). This could tie in with a coach prestige; where broken promises cause huge prestige hits. To add some murkiness, maybe the coach prestige should only be visible to the specific coach; so I'd know mine and maybe I could ballpark yours, but it wouldn't be as exact a calculation as it can be now.
Is there a better alternative to "random" recruit generation? I could see a system where your team's success could "inspire" more theoretical 6 to 12-year-olds to pick up basketball and increase the number of recruits in your area down the line, and I think more recruits should come from populated areas...beyond something like that, how could recruit generation *not* be random? Not all HD jobs can be of equal difficulty.

I agree that adding some logic to players' favorite schools *could* be an improvement...but there are pitfalls there, too. Logically, more kids will favorite the good or local schools. Also, FWIW, I know people will be upset if they lose a recruit 10 miles away, but that's more of a trope of the current system than an inalienable right. Happy does not always equal Fun or Quality Game Design.

Agreed on the need for promises to be increased in value.
to me the randomness in recruit gen is one of the biggest problems in d1 today. of course the lack of "decent" recruits, or whatever you want to call it, resulting from seble's recruit generation change, would be #1 in my book. but before that, the randomness in geographic recruit generation and the pseudo-randomness of what good coaches/programs happen to be nearby, resulting in a very different difficulty level for various programs, was the #1 issue in my book. more accurately, i think its the variance in recruiting situations, more than the randomness in recruit generation - although that plays a part. some areas just naturally have more recruits and less high end schools than others, and thats probably a bigger issue. also who happens to coach nearby ends up playing a huge part in how hard your situation is, and im not sure thats a good thing. ultimately these all combine together to make some situations much easier than others, and i think the range there is simply too large.

to me the biggest single change that can reduce the issue is to decouple distance and cost. the problem is, you dont want to go too far, bringing back national recruiting of d2/d3 from the old days, which was incredibly tedious and boring. another mechanism to limit the pool of recruits you are looking at is needed - but it can't be distance, if you dont want it to be 3x easier to win a title at one high end BCS school than another (which is the case today, IMO).

a simple example of a potential limiter would be, how much does the recruit like your school, a psuedo random attribute that would be forced to conform to expectation with a small variation (so maybe always 25-35% of 4-5 star bigs would think highly of your school, something like that). this would need to be obvious to the school recruiting and would need to be searchable. im not sure im a fan of this particular limiter, but its just a simple example of something OTHER than distance that could be used to limit the pool people are closely looking at, which distance does a great job of accomplishing today. 

however, the advantage it provides, and im sure there is a better solution out there, but still - the advantage is recruit generation "luck" plays a much smaller factor, and more importantly, so does who happens to be near by. today if you happen to have a bunch of sims near you, they don't even recruit locally, which is retarded - competition in your area is now much lower than other areas, if you are a mid major. for higher end schools, the luck of how many high level programs and top coaches are nearby is huge. i dont have as much of a problem with one season you get a good mix of recruit and the next, a sparse one - it changes things up which is important to keep things fresh, and it rewards those who can adapt well to the situation at hand. but that is dwarfed by some regions just not having as many local recruits relative to the level of competition as other regions, and also, by who else happens to be coaching near by. i believe if distance was removed as a substantial driver of cost, at least for high end recruits, this would greatly level the playing field among top schools - and hopefully, would increase competition for schools who happen to be in areas with low competition, which really makes things crappy for everyone else, who has to watch the dominant school effortlessly sign four 5 star players every season.
8/14/2013 1:33 PM
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