My recent signee Nathan Taylor:

http://www.wisjournal.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=2034671

My recent ticket exchange w/ customer service:

12/9/2011 8:44 PM	garger
Here's a quote from a scouting report on my recent signee Nathan Taylor: "Pretty good understanding how to play defense - I'd expect to see decent improvement." Now he is signed and his DE rating is orange: "low potential" What gives? This is not right. Be honest and consistent with your recruit generation, please.
12/13/2011 10:25 AM	Customer Support
Taylor had the minimum potential to be listed as Average, so as soon as he went through one practice cycle he improved enough to move him into the Low range.
12/13/2011 6:49 PM	garger
Well thanks for your response, but please. I recruited a guy with a good WE and avg. DE. But I didn't really. I recruited a guy who had a LOW DE all along. One practice and he's crapped out? That's pathetic. How is "decent improvement" a euphamism for " very little improvement ?"Like I said, be HONEST about recruits and their potential. You screwed this one up.

THat is what it means.  Each type of potential has a band of improvement.  AVG is 7 - 20.  It always has been.  How is that dishonest?

 

He's not capped out.    They explained it.  He has 9 or so points of growth left.

I don't see a problem here, and I think these are the tickets that generate the auto-responses that happen when real issues are happening.

Did he improve any in that one practice?  No.  I don't think it's a nonissue.  With just a few minutes of practice to start the year lowered his potential from avg to low without a substantial increase in the rating.  There does seem to be a disconnect that the percentage points gained that dropped potential down a full level wasn't enough to bump up the rating just one point....again especially after a one HD practice.

Even though there is no visible improvement, that doesn't mean there is no improvement.  If a player has 7 points of potential, then after one practice maybe they have 6.9, they're still no longer at or above 7, so they're no longer average.

there has to be a line - turns out he crossed it - one could be totally transparent with exact info, but that would tend to hurt the game more than help IMO

My main point stands-I recruited a player with LOW DE potential, even though the FSS and over a dozen scouting reports indicated and AVG. potential with 'decent' improvement. He was my biggest recruit expenditure by a fair margin and I don't recruit players with LOW DE potential. This was misleading.

No.  It wasn't.  Average potential is defined as the range between 7 - 20.  The potential was between 7 - 20, therefore it was average.  There is risk inherant in recruiting.  You recruited average potential: the low end of average potential.  THat low end of average potential became the high end of low potential after the first improvement.

I somehow imagine if you recruited a guy with low potential in something and he ended up getting seven points of improvement, or average potential at something and he ended up at 20, you wouldn't complain.

Your point doesn't really stand at all.  Every potential (low, average, high) is defined by a set range.  You recruited a guy at the very bottom of one range.  He improved very slightly, putting him into another range.  He'll still improve six or seven points (or whatever the low end of average is).  

Anyone who has played the game more than one season understands there is no distinction in messages between the low end of average and the high end.  We all know the risks of recruiting average.  You're coaching a D1 team with almost 300 games under your belt.  I know you know that average means anywhere from 7-20 (or whatever) and that the recruiting message does not distinguish between the two ends.  If you don't, you shouldn't be coaching D1.  You took a chance, you lost, and now you're pissy about it.  

You can be ****** about it, but you should at least own it and acknowledge it for what it is.

wow this is an extremely simple concept to understand and this guy just flat out doesnt get it

garger it is simple: 

low = 0 - 6.9
average = 7- 20
high = > 20

You recruited a guy that was average in that category. Meaning he could gain anywhere from 7 to 20 skill points during his career. Seble already posted that after the first practice he could have improved a little (but not yet enough to show an improvement of 1 in the category).

However, since he is now below 7 pts of improvement remaining he is now shown as low. Yeah it sucks that he was AVG and will only improve 7 points but that is a part of the game.

yes, I get it and I realize I was being a bit obstinate. It's strange seeing it happen from game-to-game and I wasn't sure why that happened so quickly. I'm still not pleased, but whatever, the guy is just a silicon figmant of my imagnation anyway. I appriciate the patient explanations. Next time a brick upside the head might get the lesson thru faster!