to avoid these ridiculous inlays (where is the quote last 2 button that is lacking on all forums in the world?), i'm responding to your 4/25/2014 1:53 AM about you being too old to play bridge. god damn it. now my font is all messed up.
OK thats better. my bridge example does work because you don't know what the most valuable card or hand is :) you can't read the instructions and tell me, its not obvious. you could say well its an ace, but it depends on the situation which and and it depends on the situation what the best hand is, it would only take you several paragraphs but maybe you could encapsulate most of it. what about the second or third most valuable card? many books could be written on that subject. what about which of two hands is better? there are a nearly infinite number of examples with no right or wrong answer to that very simple question. so bridge is a great example, but you don't really know, because you don't know the game. i can tell you for certain the bridge rules are as well documented as about any game in history, and if you went and read for a few hours, i could still talk to you about stuff and you'd not be able to follow it, even if you were naturally a really good card player. you'd get SOME of it, but frankly, without playing, you'd probably get a very low %. and im no bridge expert, just gifted at cards. i haven't even played in almost a decade (and for what its worth, i learned at 12, played some in my teens, never since - so i don't know about that not being that old stuff :) out of curiosity, what is another game (other than dolphin sim which i know nothing about) that you have mastered? any reasonably complex game i've ever played, whether its madden or sim city or an rpg like diablo 2, a card game like bridge or a RTS like starcraft, you never know all the things a veteran knows, simply by reading the manual. so im curious what games you've played (you know, substantial, not tic-tac-toe) that fit this model you wish this game followed? again, this game documentation sucks, but still.
you think i give this game too much credit? each player having a self worth is a fact, not my opinion. and again, its about the other guy putting in more effort. this is auction style recruiting. maybe you aren't familiar with auction style? it simply means he who pays the most, wins, and you have to be close to offering as much as the top guy to be in the race at that time. you can always up your ante and get in on the action. HD recruiting works *exactly* like that. this guy didn't drop you out of preference, out of self worth. the self worth thing affects what i told you it affects, who he considers and how much it takes to pull him down, and such. once he will let you recruit him straight up (home and campus visits allowed), his self worth DOES NOT play into the auction. only effort does, keeping in mind money != effort. so that is why you are no longer considered. i know its not realistic, but its completely normal in an auction style setting.
on the issue of what it takes to get considered, nobody can tell you exactly for every player, like that guy takes 1 HV and 5 phone calls but 1HV and 4 is not enough. that level of detail is not relevant. 1 HV + scholarship is enough to get most players who show up in your d2 search to consider you, and 2 HV + scholarship or 1CV + scholarship works for 100% of them. its no more complicated than that. this is normal - in other games, you can give facts that tell you how to get close to a line in the sand, but describing a line in the sand is generally very difficult. in bridge, any set of bridge guidelines has holes and shoddy explanations around boundary points, line in the sand points. for example, a 16, 20, or 21 point hand is not going to be explicitly bid one way or another, i mean at least 1 of those 3, in any set of bridge guidelines - at least none of the dozens i've seen. some include 16 or 20 or 21 in some of their guidelines, but none include them all. edge cases are tricky, that is the nature of edge cases. the 2HV guideline for 100% of players and 1HV for most should be all you need. and actually, at your prestige, 1HV is risky, so you best play it safe and go with 2HV or 1 CV.