I'm out for now

Posted by CoachSpud on 3/4/2016 12:22:00 PM (view original):
RE "a lot of newer coaches thnk veterans are just bitter ... "

What else can we think if we read the forums?

I followed the Chat and I am very encouraged. I also re-read the Scouting and Recruiting threads at the top of the Hoops forums, and I can see the thinking behind the update. I can also see many areas that can only be tweaked based on experience, so I hope the Beta comes soon. I guess an open mind helps a lot in this case.

You haven't gotten to D1 yet, I used to hear gvsujulius complaining about his time at Louisville a lot and didn't understand, boy I was wrong.

D2 and D3 are pretty good right now, and really just need tweaking to make them great. D1 is a mess.

This change will not fix anything wrong with D1 and in the process messes way to much with D2/D3 which is what most people agree are very good.

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/4/2016 12:22:00 PM (view original):

Can you explain the changes to the schedule with respect to recruiting, jobs, and EEs? How do those all fit together now?(gillispie1 - Hall of Famer - 12:02 PM)

The first recruiting period runs from mid-season until the start of the postseason. There is a dead period then until the second period, which is after the job period. So coaches who change jobs may have an opportunity to do some recruiting for their new team. Also, coaches who lose players early to the draft will have a chance then to fill those openings.


i was trying to find a question in there to say something positive about, just, you know, to be a good sport. but then i saw he answered this. yeah, this one will level the d1 playing field... because coaches who lose players to the draft will be completely screwed. you don't even know who is going to be on your ******* team, until after the bulk of recruiting is over? give me a break. on the upside, all those coaches pining over those A+ baseline jobs, they will be getting their wish soon here.

It'd be like in real life today. Harder to reload.

Yeah DII, DIII, just make distance a little less important in recruiting, and it's all good. No need to change anything, except maybe you cannot jump from a B DIII team to a A DII team... Need to get some experience and winning experience because when someone leaves a DII school at A, it is normally stacked and it speeds up the winning curve. I wish people had to show their talent before moving to a certain situation at DII. But it is minor.

In D1, the job logic does not work. The destroying of the Big Six teams, you have to rebuild, does not work. The recruit generation does not work, the battles that never happens unless you are at B- or B, or lower, need to start. Anyways, just fix D1 and will be good.

No need for anything else really.

And I am totally against getting rid of the money in power conférences, especially in DII and DIII... Why? Cause we are there because we want to compete against each others and it makes the game a lot more fun.

Posted by CoachSpud on 3/4/2016 12:22:00 PM (view original):
RE "a lot of newer coaches thnk veterans are just bitter ... "

What else can we think if we read the forums?

I followed the Chat and I am very encouraged. I also re-read the Scouting and Recruiting threads at the top of the Hoops forums, and I can see the thinking behind the update. I can also see many areas that can only be tweaked based on experience, so I hope the Beta comes soon. I guess an open mind helps a lot in this case.

like i said, you are half right... i totally get where you are coming from. but its not like we all came into this game hating change and pining for the 1950s.

recruiting needed to be fixed - I think we all agree. If 3 simple things happen, the update should help the game (for me). I would make the change differently, but it is not my job to fix the game. Seble is going to do it his way, we all know that by now. So what I wanted done was:

1 - the recruits get spread out more making the game more competitive top to bottom

2 - the total time to recruit stays the same for most users (I have 11 teams, I would blush to admit how little time I spend recruiting, I know I will have to spend more time, but for most, the time needs to stay about the same)

3 - less time sensative, small time window, constraints (like those first 2 hr / first cycle, or the signing period rush)

I'm cautiously optimistic that the changes as outlined have a better chance to succeed than not. It might take a little while, but at the end of the day, if those three things can get righted, I'll be happy.

I will add, other than the catostrphic losses of coaches that either the recession or some of the less popular changes might have caused, I think issue #3 has lost the game more coaches than any single issue.

The key thing that needs to happen with issue #1 is that the awarding of recruits, and the subsequent spreading out of recruits, needs to occur in a manner that feels at least somewhat 'fair', and logical, as opposed to more random and ambiguous. This level of logical vs random balance will be different for each one of us, so it'll be impossible to get it right for everyone. But it has to not be really out of whack, or coaches will drop like flies.

These are the areas I will be watching.

I had asked if a player could commit during the season but I didn't receive a response. Anyone know if I missed this?

Posted by Benis on 3/4/2016 12:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/4/2016 12:22:00 PM (view original):

Can you explain the changes to the schedule with respect to recruiting, jobs, and EEs? How do those all fit together now?(gillispie1 - Hall of Famer - 12:02 PM)

The first recruiting period runs from mid-season until the start of the postseason. There is a dead period then until the second period, which is after the job period. So coaches who change jobs may have an opportunity to do some recruiting for their new team. Also, coaches who lose players early to the draft will have a chance then to fill those openings.


i was trying to find a question in there to say something positive about, just, you know, to be a good sport. but then i saw he answered this. yeah, this one will level the d1 playing field... because coaches who lose players to the draft will be completely screwed. you don't even know who is going to be on your ******* team, until after the bulk of recruiting is over? give me a break. on the upside, all those coaches pining over those A+ baseline jobs, they will be getting their wish soon here.

It'd be like in real life today. Harder to reload.

it wont be like real life. in real life, you target way more players than you have scholarships for. you have second options and backup options for those options. in real life, you can run a key player for nearly 40 minutes, in some cases. 6-7 players often get the vast majority of the playing time.

in short, there is WAY more wiggle room, in terms of how many players you need, and how many players you can recruit for your openings. plus, you don't have a fixed budget, you can recruit up front, spending money, not knowing who will leave for sure, but planning for the event they might. here, we have a fixed budget. spending 5 scholarships of money in 3 and 2 scholarship increments, is a massive disadvantage, over having 5 from the beginning. so basically, it would be nothing like real life today.

Posted by gvsujulius on 3/4/2016 12:36:00 PM (view original):
I had asked if a player could commit during the season but I didn't receive a response. Anyone know if I missed this?

Sign right away? After signing starts tough, right? There will still be a signing day/time for both periods that signing actually begins. So guys don't sign 1 hour after the period for scouting opens up. (hughesjr - Hall of Famer - 12:07 PM)

Sorry, yes. The signing period starts about 3 days after the first recruiting period. Signings can then take place until the end of the second recruiting period.

The answer seems to point that signings will occur during the regular season, at random times set by the players tendency and schools recruiting them

I swear I'm like the only forum semi-regular who doesn't think these changes are a disaster. Maybe because I haven't lived through a major update before. I hope that some of the concerns will come out in testing and will get tweaked. By I really, really like the idea of adding some randomness so that it isn't just "spoils to the biggest budget." I also like the concept of changing the recruiting timeline and of camps.

The biggest concerns I have are (1) If grades are A-F and aren't division-relative, they're going to be useless as hell, and (2) I'm fine with the schools with EEs having some uncertainty as to who they'll need before the 2nd recruiting period (this is 100% realistic, and they'll have the big board as a guide), but they are going to need some sort of budget bonus to allow them to recruit in the first period (even if they can't actually sign some of the guys until the 2nd period)

It's a better proposal than what we received last time. I actually don't mind that the team leading for a recruit might sign elsewhere. That seems like fun randomness but other types of ingrained randomness seem dumb. Still have some concerns.
1. Why are we using letter grades for players instead of numerical ratings? Seems video gamelike and kinda dumb.
2. How will this impact coaches who are changing jobs?
3. Splitting the scouting and recruiting budget drives me crazy. Seble said it's so new coaches don't waste all their funds. Why not just limit the % of funds you can spend at one point if that is the concern. Some of the most fun I've had in hd is when I find a diamond in the rough that no one else has because of using my scouting resources wisely. I also thought it was interesting that there are successful coaches who barely scout at all. Now everyone will be scouting to the same degree. It's like we are making it so that you have to recruit in just a few ways. I think the best thing that can be done is to allow for more strategies for coaches to use to get recruits. It's the equivalent of saying everyone has to run a flex offense now but hey you still get to pick the tempo and lineups. Why limit the options at all?

Seriously, though, has Seble been living with his head buried in the sand to say that he doesn't think updates drove away customers? Gil touched on this. It just indicates how seriously out of touch he is with the user base. So I guess he's going to be shocked when this update comes out and the game basically dies.

At this point, if we lose the same immediate 33% or so of the user base that we did with past major updates - especially if it's also followed by some slower follow-up as has happened before - it's basically going to kill the game. We seem to be operating at the bottom of the number of coaches required for this to be a fun game. It's not too far until literally every human coach can make the NT every year. That's less fun and eats into profits.

I'm fairly certain this will be it for me. I'm down to 1 team at this point anyway, so I doubt WIS cares much. But I'm trying to publish 3 papers and finish my dissertation by the end of summer, I don't have time to learn a totally new recruiting system. Maybe after I graduate I'll consider coming back...

How long do you predict it will be until all worlds are changed to new update? (whitey34 - All-Star - 11:18 AM)

The plan is that once we're ready for release, we'll pause each world after the recruiting period. Once all worlds have been paused, we'll release the update and convert some data to the new structure. Then we'll restart worlds in the order of pausing to keep them spaced out.


i missed this - so, worlds will basically be down for 1-2 months, each, during this change. wow, did not see that coming. what do you guys think of that? a break wouldn't be so bad... its going to mean the folks coming back are probably energized. others may just realize living without HD is pretty good, and may not come back. thats a long break, if i understand him right - pause the first world after recruiting, wait till all other worlds reach the same state, the restart it shortly after - that is a 2 month gap! if we are keeping the spacing the same, if one world has a 2 month gap, don't they all?

Posted by tarvolon on 3/4/2016 12:44:00 PM (view original):
I swear I'm like the only forum semi-regular who doesn't think these changes are a disaster. Maybe because I haven't lived through a major update before. I hope that some of the concerns will come out in testing and will get tweaked. By I really, really like the idea of adding some randomness so that it isn't just "spoils to the biggest budget." I also like the concept of changing the recruiting timeline and of camps.

The biggest concerns I have are (1) If grades are A-F and aren't division-relative, they're going to be useless as hell, and (2) I'm fine with the schools with EEs having some uncertainty as to who they'll need before the 2nd recruiting period (this is 100% realistic, and they'll have the big board as a guide), but they are going to need some sort of budget bonus to allow them to recruit in the first period (even if they can't actually sign some of the guys until the 2nd period)

i like some stuff, attention points and camps and all could be interesting. its really the balance of the game i am worried about, seble is so casually ready to rip bonus money out of d2/d3 (although he is now undecided), pulldowns/dropdowns are gone, who knows what will be left. at one point, i was excited about the possibilities, but the more seble talked, the more worried i got - because the change is just so massive in scope.