world pop data /discuss Topic

jetwildcat
Posts: 1204 (0)
Hall of Famer
198 3
Prospect
Posted by gillispie on 12/29/2010 3:02:00 PM (view original):
Posted by jetwildcat on 12/29/2010 2:51:00 PM (view original):
it would be nice, tho a bit of a pipe dream, if we could also keep track of the number of users (not just number of "coaches")

a drop in number of teams per user could very well have different correlations as a drop in the number of users. perhaps 'the economy' cuts into the teams per user, while major engine changes causes more of a drop in total users but NOT teams per user. perhaps there's a snowball effect with empty worlds causing users to quit but not coaches to drop teams. perhaps the saturation of the game from the rest of WIS is more gradual from a user standpoint. etc.

maybe WIS will give us those numbers if we say please
maybe I will give you those numbers if you say please :) honestly, you have about a million times better chance of getting it from me than from WIS, as sad as that may be.
i didnt realize the nature of the beast that is the database of your HD data ;-)

i have off work tomorrow maybe i'll make a few cool annotated graphs of the data if you could post it or send it me
12/29/2010 3:30 PM
Rails
Posts: 263 (0)
Hall of Famer
21 193 13
Prospect
What are the % of humans, billy?  I also think that a more conclusive opinion can be formed by date, not season because users dropping in a world wouldn't tell us much if another world had just opened up (i.e. If # of users dropped in World 1 by 100 after World #2 opened with 200 it would still be a net gain). 

That said, I have been unretired for three seasons and can tell you that if the last three unretired seasons would have been my first three seasons, I would not have chosen to stay as long as I did (and every other game I think to myself why did I unretire).  Is that the engine, FSS, or general apathy?  I don't know.

12/29/2010 3:33 PM
coach_billyg
Posts: 2072 (0)
Hall of Famer
92
Pro
well jets, i scrape the data off the history page, so anything you can compute off that, i can compute. i think that is the only place you could put together a list like this world pop data one anyway, but really its for the rankings that i did it originally. i just have to write the code to do every thing i want to compute, which may or may not be quick/easy depending on the case. something you could do trivially in something like an excel sheet or a simple data base (like access, or hopefully, anything but access) winds up being more difficult, but the hard stuff (like coming up with a ranking for the top 100 10 year streaks that have happened in the history of HD) is easier than it would be, or else, feasible when it would not be. so i guess it cuts both ways.

jets/rails - to answer both of your questions, i need a piece of info i got once but never used... does anybody remember how many days are there in 1 a day seasons and how many in 2 a day seasons? that is the only way i can put dates on this stuff, and it won't be exactly perfect because of holiday extensions and the current season's progress. but it doubt that matters - except when the changes are dramatic, like when a new world opens or promo (but then i would expect you would lose 1 data point, so you could still look for example at a month before a new world opened and then a month after).
12/29/2010 4:05 PM
oldresorter
Posts: 646 (0)
Hall of Famer
1110 1
Prospect
Posted by Rails on 12/29/2010 3:34:00 PM (view original):
What are the % of humans, billy?  I also think that a more conclusive opinion can be formed by date, not season because users dropping in a world wouldn't tell us much if another world had just opened up (i.e. If # of users dropped in World 1 by 100 after World #2 opened with 200 it would still be a net gain). 

That said, I have been unretired for three seasons and can tell you that if the last three unretired seasons would have been my first three seasons, I would not have chosen to stay as long as I did (and every other game I think to myself why did I unretire).  Is that the engine, FSS, or general apathy?  I don't know.

Rails - funny - I sort of am enjoying it a bit more again, d1 is a whole new game from before, I now have 2 d3 teams again, one a total rebuild with a C prestige and 9 scholies - it ain't so easy finding those gems in d3 with a C prestige and only about 18k to play with - I am pretty sure at the highest level, the engine has little holes in it that even the game designers really did not imagine, such that each time a major change comes along, it is a challenge to sort it out ... from what I can tell, seems like those who have the new engine wired may be different coaches from the usual crowd, although the usual crowd still does very well.  I am in the process of overhauling several aspects of my 'base' attack in the game - of course, one still needs the horses ... hopefully that never changes about the game.

Gil, did not mean to belittle the stats you posted or the trend - I see it too - if I saw some exit strategy that would fix this I am all for it - otherwise, best I can do is try to make the game as it is  as fun as it can be for myself and anyone else that asks.  As you know, nobody who coaches here tried harder to stop this mess before it started, but that is water over the damn.

12/29/2010 4:47 PM
edw1225
Posts: 207 (0)
Hall of Famer
234 150 38 11
Prospect
Didn't they change rewards so D2 and D3 no longer reduce after X number of NT appearances?  That has to contribute to fewer people in D1. 

Overall, WIS doesn't seem to market the games as well.  GD and HBD also seem to have fewer players as far as I can tell.
12/29/2010 9:06 PM
grantduck
Posts: 290 (0)
Hall of Famer
73
Prospect
Posted by rednu on 12/28/2010 1:38:00 PM (view original):
I think the thing that jumps out to me in the data is that there's no evidence of a clustering at the D2 level.

When the new engine hit, after the first season or two, there were a lot of calls on this board that play at Division I had been ruined. Many at that time were heard saying that they would drop back down to D2 because it was the "most fun." Combined with the natural progression of coaches promoting up from D3, the natural conclusion would be that you'd see a clustering effect of sorts at the D2 level.

Instead, it appears from what I see here that this isn't the case. D2 looks like it is suffering about the same rate of decline as the other divisions across pretty much all worlds. Looks like the rate of attrition is pretty universal regardless of world and division played.
I actually intentionally left d-II after the new engine.   I like d-1 more in the new engine.
12/29/2010 9:40 PM
jetwildcat
Posts: 1204 (0)
Hall of Famer
198 3
Prospect
Posted by coach_billyg on 12/29/2010 4:05:00 PM (view original):
well jets, i scrape the data off the history page, so anything you can compute off that, i can compute. i think that is the only place you could put together a list like this world pop data one anyway, but really its for the rankings that i did it originally. i just have to write the code to do every thing i want to compute, which may or may not be quick/easy depending on the case. something you could do trivially in something like an excel sheet or a simple data base (like access, or hopefully, anything but access) winds up being more difficult, but the hard stuff (like coming up with a ranking for the top 100 10 year streaks that have happened in the history of HD) is easier than it would be, or else, feasible when it would not be. so i guess it cuts both ways.

jets/rails - to answer both of your questions, i need a piece of info i got once but never used... does anybody remember how many days are there in 1 a day seasons and how many in 2 a day seasons? that is the only way i can put dates on this stuff, and it won't be exactly perfect because of holiday extensions and the current season's progress. but it doubt that matters - except when the changes are dramatic, like when a new world opens or promo (but then i would expect you would lose 1 data point, so you could still look for example at a month before a new world opened and then a month after).
ok well it looks to me like its 28 days between recruiting beginning in a 2-a-day world and the renewal deadline; plus 4 job change days would be 32? and 1-a-day worlds its 45+4.

all i remember offhand since i joined for season 30 in iba is that potential was in place by iba season 32's recruiting and the new recruits by season 44's recruiting, so that narrows it down to 49-ish day windows at least (probably more given random holiday extensions). promo dates would likely be evidenced by spikes in user #s but someone with a good memory could help with that a lot. i agree that i dont think exact dates are necessary to get the gist of it.
12/30/2010 12:29 PM
Lizak
Posts: 94 (0)
Hall of Famer
1 89 8
Prospect

Here's one coach who left because the game wasn't fun anymore.  Can anyone say that recruiting isn't 80% of the game?  So when that part of the game became more work than enjoyment, when I saw that no matter what I did, one of the A level schools would go after the recruit I wanted because there were so few good ones around, that no matter how much effort I put into it, I would still be the little sister to the UNC and Dukes who could take whatever recruit they wanted (and oddly not lose them to EE like everyone thought), I decided it wasn't worth the time I needed to put into it.  Maybe it's realistic but I sure as hell didn't want to pay to play in that reality.

I fought the "ThisIsSports" baseline prestige problem/feature (depending on who you are) for years before I decided to play by their rules and move to a BCS conference where I could finally recruit the type of players that I could expect to compete with at a national level.  Then they made recruiting so frustrating that I didn't feel like doing it anymore no matter which school I was at.

Just one coach who left.  Maybe not representative of anyone but myself.

12/31/2010 1:43 AM
rednu
Posts: 2673 (0)
Hall of Famer
185 2 5
Pro
Could the number of user-unfriendly D3 programs be another reason people aren't joining the game? 

I just spent this morning looking through two worlds and the number of teams that scream "don't take me" is astounding. We're 4-5 seasons after the engine rollover and at least 7-8 seasons, if not more, in most worlds removed from the edict that you can only carry six players per class. Yet just look at all the teams out there that have 7+ scholarships waiting to be filled. 

Many of those teams are virtual untouchables, especially for new coaches coming in to learn the game. That first recruiting cycle is always the toughest for new players because there's just SO much you don't know about the game.  It's hard to fill a roster when you need to dip into the transfer market because the number of transfers is so few and the battles that go on for those players are often intense, even at D3. WIS has been aware that there's an issue with excessive walk-ons being taken by D3 programs, but I've seen no changes designed to change this fact. I think this is a business-killer because it makes the game unfriendly for new blood.

You WANT people to get easily addicted to this game. The LAST thing you want is someone checking the game out, not knowing any better because they've never played, and then creating an environment where they're thrown into the most challenging initial recruiting position imaginable. Even if you somehow fill 9, 10 or 11 scholarships, you're going to wind up with a team that gets its butt kicked game after game after game. Who's going to pay money and get addicted to THAT? If that player messes up that initial recruiting class, they're now in even worse shape. Again, not an environment conducive to player retention. 

Something's clearly still out of whack because the class rotation on many sim-coached teams isn't remotely balanced, which I thought was the motivation behind limiting teams to no more than six players per class. The excessive number of high scholarship classes is an impediment to new coaches coming into this game, IMHO.
12/31/2010 3:03 PM
jetwildcat
Posts: 1204 (0)
Hall of Famer
198 3
Prospect
i noticed the same thing, there just arent enough recruits to go around obviously
12/31/2010 11:55 PM
abitaamber
Posts: 303 (0)
Hall of Famer
1 1 102 5
Prospect
Rednu, you hit on a MAJOR problem. 
1/1/2011 11:16 AM
aejones
Posts: 457 (0)
Hall of Famer
1 374
Veteran
it seems like it shouldn't be hard for them to balance classes at lower levels
1/1/2011 3:54 PM
rds_lsu
Posts: 145 (0)
Hall of Famer
248 2 39
Prospect
I'll add my thoughts.  I didn't read the whole thread so please forgive me if similar thoughts have been expressed.  I basically grew tired of HD but stuck around to see if the updates would inspire me to stick around.  The updates came and went and I found no reason to stick around.  It wasn't that the updates ruined the game for me or anything, they just didn't inspire me to stick around. 

I pop into the HD forum from time to time to see what is new in hopes that I will see a thread like, "HD reborn!!" and will be tempted to sign back up.  I will continue to check in and want to see something that will inspire me to sign back up at some point.
1/1/2011 11:39 PM
chattkia
Posts: 42 (0)
Hall of Famer
80
Prospect
I agree with rednu 100%. My first go around with WIS was a disaster......I messed up my first recruiting class with a FB/Press team and I was done.

I wish FOX would develop an APP for Iphone and Droid phone users.....it could be huge for WIS. That's marketing.
1/2/2011 9:42 PM (edited)
stinenavy
Posts: 4004 (0)
Hall of Famer
4 330 1
All Star
Update please.
6/27/2011 8:08 PM
◂ Prev 1234 Next ▸
world pop data /discuss Topic
△Top△Bottom

Search Criteria

Terms of Use Customer Support Privacy Statement

© 1999-2026 WhatIfSports.com, Inc. All rights reserved. WhatIfSports is a trademark of WhatIfSports.com, Inc. SimLeague, SimMatchup and iSimNow are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. Used under license. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.