Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

i generally think small random factors that have the ability to totally screw someone over are bad for the game. more realistic, maybe, but is it really fun to have your star player, the prize of your team, come in for senior year and just randomly be -40 athleticism because he ate too much cheese cake?

i can see the other side - the random ups - that could be fun. but random downs just suck. 

Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

I started playing HD years ago. I played for a few seasons, then potential was implemented and I didn't think I had the time to commit. Now I have more time and I'm back.

I'm not sure how to perfectly implement Steve's idea, but I like the randomness that comes into play here that was there a little bit before potential existed. It would even the playing field a little bit so that coaches just starting out could get a leg up. As it is now, it seems like once you hit the A-, A, A+ range it's pretty easy to stay atop since you'll be seeing much better recruits. This would make things a little more cyclical, and it would place more emphasis on gameplanning than just scooping up all the best talent. Sometimes a player wouldn't work out and you would have to really put your game planning hat on. Just my 2 cents...

Posted by aperi on 12/15/2012 12:29:00 AM (view original):

Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

I started playing HD years ago. I played for a few seasons, then potential was implemented and I didn't think I had the time to commit. Now I have more time and I'm back.

I'm not sure how to perfectly implement Steve's idea, but I like the randomness that comes into play here that was there a little bit before potential existed. It would even the playing field a little bit so that coaches just starting out could get a leg up. As it is now, it seems like once you hit the A-, A, A+ range it's pretty easy to stay atop since you'll be seeing much better recruits. This would make things a little more cyclical, and it would place more emphasis on gameplanning than just scooping up all the best talent. Sometimes a player wouldn't work out and you would have to really put your game planning hat on. Just my 2 cents...

I don't see that. How was it MORE random before potential? You had your starting ratings, and your practice plan, and that was it. Recruit a player. Plug in x at initial rating, y at minutes of practice and z at work ethic and you could figure out where someone would end up. You would have been seeing much better recruits then to; recruits that started higher and thus, with the same amount of minutes, would be liable to end higher.

With potential, there is always the chance of a high high being REALLY high, and of that low rated player with seven highs ending up better than the higher rated player with four highs, or even than the higher rated player with seven highs, depending on what type of highs they had.  Players don't work out all the time right now, especially when you look at all of the "my rating turned black/red after gaining only one point!" threads; obviously the people making the threads were expecting higher gains and didn't get them.  And I've had a guy I was disappointed in and thought was a bust in the initial year suddenly ... keep growing, and growing ... and that twenty per offensive wasteland becomes a marksman averaging over twenty a game.  At least in my head, "practice plan dynasty" is the one that would have the problems you are talking about worse.  With potential, there is always the "potential" of hitting the jackpot on an underated player with high potentials.

(Cleaned up formatting.  Cazn be hard to type long tracts on the iPhone.)

Posted by a_in_the_b on 12/15/2012 6:17:00 AM (view original):

Posted by aperi on 12/15/2012 12:29:00 AM (view original):

Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

I started playing HD years ago. I played for a few seasons, then potential was implemented and I didn't think I had the time to commit. Now I have more time and I'm back.

I'm not sure how to perfectly implement Steve's idea, but I like the randomness that comes into play here that was there a little bit before potential existed. It would even the playing field a little bit so that coaches just starting out could get a leg up. As it is now, it seems like once you hit the A-, A, A+ range it's pretty easy to stay atop since you'll be seeing much better recruits. This would make things a little more cyclical, and it would place more emphasis on gameplanning than just scooping up all the best talent. Sometimes a player wouldn't work out and you would have to really put your game planning hat on. Just my 2 cents...

I don't see that. How was it MORE random before potential? You had your starting ratings, and your practice plan, and that was it. Recruit a player. Plug in x at initial rating, y at minutes of practice and z at work ethic and you could figure out where someone would end up. You would have been seeing much better recruits then to; recruits that started higher and thus, with the same amount of minutes, would be liable to end higher.

With potential, there is always the chance of a high high being REALLY high, and of that low rather player with seven highs ending up better than the higher rated player with four highs, or even than the higher rated layer with seven highs, depending. On what type of highs they Players don't work out all the time right now, especially when you look at all of the "my rating turned black/red after gaining only one point!" Threads; obviously they were expecting higher. And I've had a guy I was disappointed in and thought was a bust in the initial year suddenly ... Keep growing, and growing ... And that twenty per offensive wasteland becomes a marksman averaging over twenty a game. At least in my head, "practice plan dynasty" is the one that would have the problems you are talking about worse. With potential, there is always the "potential" of hitting the jackpot on an undated player with high potentials.

+1

there is SO MUCH more randomness now, in d2 recruiting. not only in a single season, but the impact of who is coaching where in low d1 is MASSIVELY bigger than it used to be. on virtually every front, potential increased the randomness, and along those same lines, increased the team for advanced team planning. it made the game harder, because before a recruit had potential, they had the ability to be molded however you like, and now you just didnt have that control, so you had to try to achieve the same team compositions, but you had to be planning ahead and doing it through recruiting.

and as far as randomness goes, its pretty tough to beat the randomness involved in how 1 player can have a high/high in per and go +29, and another can go +80. 

Posted by gillispie2 on 12/15/2012 12:25:00 AM (view original):

Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

i generally think small random factors that have the ability to totally screw someone over are bad for the game. more realistic, maybe, but is it really fun to have your star player, the prize of your team, come in for senior year and just randomly be -40 athleticism because he ate too much cheese cake?

i can see the other side - the random ups - that could be fun. but random downs just suck. 

100% agreed, gillespie.

And by the way, breakout and fallback seasons do happen all the time, they're just not programmed in. Due largely to weaknesses in the engine and small sample size (yes, even one of our seasons is too small), you see quite frequently players who seem to over or under perform their ratings. Most (but certainly not all) regress (or progress) towards the mean the following season.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 12/15/2012 8:13:00 AM (view original):

Posted by aperi on 12/15/2012 12:29:00 AM (view original):

Posted by stevejones16 on 12/15/2012 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Breakout and fall back seasons: Very small, random chance that one or more attributes gain or lose a ton of potential while the player is already in college. This happens in real life... someone learns to knock down the 3 over the summer, improves foul shooting, gets a few new post moves, gets fat, forgets the playbook, etc. Would have the effect of making the game more realistic and also less predictable. Even if you just made this change to WE, that by itself would make things more interesting.

I started playing HD years ago. I played for a few seasons, then potential was implemented and I didn't think I had the time to commit. Now I have more time and I'm back.

I'm not sure how to perfectly implement Steve's idea, but I like the randomness that comes into play here that was there a little bit before potential existed. It would even the playing field a little bit so that coaches just starting out could get a leg up. As it is now, it seems like once you hit the A-, A, A+ range it's pretty easy to stay atop since you'll be seeing much better recruits. This would make things a little more cyclical, and it would place more emphasis on gameplanning than just scooping up all the best talent. Sometimes a player wouldn't work out and you would have to really put your game planning hat on. Just my 2 cents...

I don't see that. How was it MORE random before potential? You had your starting ratings, and your practice plan, and that was it. Recruit a player. Plug in x at initial rating, y at minutes of practice and z at work ethic and you could figure out where someone would end up. You would have been seeing much better recruits then to; recruits that started higher and thus, with the same amount of minutes, would be liable to end higher.

With potential, there is always the chance of a high high being REALLY high, and of that low rated player with seven highs ending up better than the higher rated player with four highs, or even than the higher rated player with seven highs, depending on what type of highs they had.  Players don't work out all the time right now, especially when you look at all of the "my rating turned black/red after gaining only one point!" threads; obviously the people making the threads were expecting higher gains and didn't get them.  And I've had a guy I was disappointed in and thought was a bust in the initial year suddenly ... keep growing, and growing ... and that twenty per offensive wasteland becomes a marksman averaging over twenty a game.  At least in my head, "practice plan dynasty" is the one that would have the problems you are talking about worse.  With potential, there is always the "potential" of hitting the jackpot on an underated player with high potentials.

(Cleaned up formatting.  Cazn be hard to type long tracts on the iPhone.)

Absolutely -- way more randomness now, in a good way. Not even close. In addition to the really high-highs and other stuff that a_b mentioned, you also have player who start at 500 and end as high DI players. The pre-potential, everyone-is-exactly-the-same, liner progression was terrible in comparison and the definition of predictable. It's not even close.

I want an option that if my team is really bad, I can say I have back problems and take the season off and allow my assistant coach to take the losing record and not hurt my coach prestige like Coach K did with duke about 12 years ago.

One more thing I can't believe I didn't mention:

Fix the schollie messages so you can actually tell if you're winning or not.

It's f'n ridiculous that some of the messages are so ambiguous that even the most experienced coaches don't know if they're winning or losing. There are even situations where you're losing and the message clearly sounds like you're winning -- seble has admitted this to me and agreed it needs to be fixed.

Easy fix. No movement.

point taken, all

Posted by girt25 on 12/15/2012 11:38:00 AM (view original):
One more thing I can't believe I didn't mention:

Fix the schollie messages so you can actually tell if you're winning or not.

It's f'n ridiculous that some of the messages are so ambiguous that even the most experienced coaches don't know if they're winning or losing. There are even situations where you're losing and the message clearly sounds like you're winning -- seble has admitted this to me and agreed it needs to be fixed.

Easy fix. No movement.

+!

Posted by ryrun on 12/14/2012 1:40:00 PM (view original):
In season recruiting would be nice, but that's a pipe dream.  The recruiting is too limited, especially now that people have it down to a science basically.  Need to expand it to include more actions to spice things up and add a little more strategy to it... right now it just seems like you see a certain distance (depending on what you think the HV:CV ratio is) and then just load up HV's or CV's.  If another school comes in, you pretty well know before the battle starts who is going to win (in over 90% of the battles I'd guess this is true, especially below high-level D1).  If you could actually use your reputation or if your school had certain selling points to use (that you could choose or earn/lose), things like that would be interesting and just add some depth to the process.

I know most complaints are about player generation and the engine process... but expanding the recruiting process really wouldn't be that difficult and I think it'd make the game a lot more fun as that is the most fun part of the game for a lot of coaches.

</pipe dream rant>

Since recruiting is such a huge factor in overall success, I've always loved the idea of in-season recruiting.  As it stands now, the future success of your program basically hinges upon jamming effort into the first two or three cycles of recruiting and hoping to win a battle or two.  It's just plain lazy and boring.  

Your other suggestion to add a little spice to recruiting by basing recruit decisions on something other than money, proximity and prestige would make it vastly more fun and interesting.  Imagine if recruits were heavily basing their decisions on such factors as climate, academics, playing time, religious affiliations, etc.  You wouldn't know who you'll end up with until deep into the recruiting process.  If it was in-season, you would have something to do besides the daily 30 seconds of game-planning.  The extra layer of strategy based on different school's attributes would make job selection more interesting as well.

Speaking of job selection, it doesn't make sense that simmy teams aren't actively trying to hire human coaches.  Wouldn't it be cool to receive a job offer from another team's AD?  If you're a good coach, higher level and higher prestige sim programs would offer you a better "contract", which could manifest itself in bigger credits/discounts on the cost of playing this game.  

Posted by coach_billyg on 12/15/2012 12:13:00 AM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 12/14/2012 8:13:00 PM (view original):
Positioning absolutely matters.

+1

+2

Posted by spectarticus on 12/16/2012 12:44:00 AM (view original):
Speaking of job selection, it doesn't make sense that simmy teams aren't actively trying to hire human coaches.  Wouldn't it be cool to receive a job offer from another team's AD?  If you're a good coach, higher level and higher prestige sim programs would offer you a better "contract", which could manifest itself in bigger credits/discounts on the cost of playing this game.  

Building on this make it so that if you are successful and focus on recruits locally, higher level teams in state actively try to hire you

we are moving into the realm of things that would be cool, but would be harder to do - Santa doesnt have a lot of time to program new stuff....

in that area, picking up on the local idea, folks have long talked about adding a recruiting pipeline effect - if you recruit a guy from a particular school you get an edge on the next guy from that school, recruit some guys from a city or other small geographic area and you get a pipeline there.  The more you do, the bigger the effect.  Imagine a Korea pipeline or Puerto Rico or just an area in your state.....