I think that each team should get a combined amount of recruiting money and scholarship money. You can use it as you see fit, but each scholarship will cost you whatever $$$ a scholarship is at your level. If you have enough $$$ you can get more players on scholarship or you can spend it on getting better recruits and have less scholarships. Red-shirts would be unlimited but they will cost you a scholarship. You would have to think about quality with no depth or more depth with less talent. Adding in fatigue and injuries based on the appropriate attributes (randomness would kill the whole concept) would then be one more aspect of playing the game and recruiting.

Posted by cjsweat on 6/30/2015 12:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by colewharton on 6/30/2015 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Just throwing this out there. I would like to see a system where if a guy doesnt sign with you youll recieve say 50% of that money back. Ac scouting trips not counting but anything beyond that would be interesting. It could make the process very interesting with alot of battles and more activity after the signing period. I know this is non realistic but lets be honest so are the costs and the budgets. I however dont have a huge issue with it as is but especially at d1 would like to see locations of recruits fixed or just more balance instead of loaded north east and sparse everywhere else. 

I think the system that would compliment your suggestion would be an increase in scholarships BUT you don't have to sign all of the scholarships. So, let's say you have 65 scholarships, WIS could change the minimum roster size to only 55. So, as long as you have 55 players on your roster, you don't have to worry a bunch of walk-ons joining your team. If they did this, they would need to change how budgets determined, it couldn't be based on open scholarships. But if you could figure out the budget issue, you then would have a system that allows a lot of flexibility. 

I actually would like something like that alot. You could determine budgets by success basically like vision.

Really enjoy recruiting, but it could be shortened a day or two. 

Just so you guys know, there is no money exchanged here. Consider spending "effort points". The more effort points you use, the more likely it is that you will sign a recruit. 

And muckraker, the reason the recruiting is as long as it is is so that the five week cycle can be maintained. It is very important to me the day of the week that recruiting starts. If it changed all the time, I would not be here. (Maybe that would be a plus)

Posted by muckraker on 6/30/2015 6:04:00 PM (view original):
Really enjoy recruiting, but it could be shortened a day or two. 

This.

Posted by badaxe on 6/30/2015 6:18:00 PM (view original):
Just so you guys know, there is no money exchanged here. Consider spending "effort points". The more effort points you use, the more likely it is that you will sign a recruit. 

And muckraker, the reason the recruiting is as long as it is is so that the five week cycle can be maintained. It is very important to me the day of the week that recruiting starts. If it changed all the time, I would not be here. (Maybe that would be a plus)

I agree, the actual schedule has to be maintained. For WIS and us. However some things that could be added to help the time pass would be more exhibition games, allow it to be a time where we can play inta-squad practice games and have our newly signed recruits be placed on our rosters the cycle of signing.

It's a Poker game if you recruit the best in your vision. Actions are antiquated but it is the same for everyone. Game on.

Yes, shorten recruiting by a day or two, lengthen exhibition play by a game or two, and keep the recruiting schedule the same for those who need it that way. Sorry wasn't suggesting changing the recruiting day every season.

I like the intra-squad idea. Like spring football.

IMO, recruiting is the best part of this game and the basics of it should stay the same.  That said, I strongly agree about shortening the recruiting period.  And about keeping it on the same day every season.  I  also was only able to keep playing this game by moving to a world where I could do most of my recruiting effort on the weekend every season.
   
Also, I'd like to make the first few cycles a little less critical.  Right now, if you have a lot of Sims to recruit against, and you are busy on the afternoon of the first full day of recruiting (cycles 2-5), it can really hurt your recruiting class.    Meanwhile, the last few days of recruiting are agonizingly slow.    There must be a way to slow it down in the early portion  and speed up the later part.    A simple fix would be to follow the 24 hr cycle with 2 12 hr cycles and then 4 6 hr cycles before going to 3hr cycles, move the start of signings back a day, and just chop off a couple of days at the end.

Posted by realist9900 on 6/29/2015 7:00:00 PM (view original):
I enjoy it, but, mostly because of Guess reports and Yatzr recruiting tools. In fact, when I get home tonight I will check my Warner team one more time. Yatzr recruiting wasn't working yesterday. If it's not working when I get home I will be leaving a 17 win team....and the rest of my teams if WIS keeps changing things to prevent Yatzrs from working.

Agree with hypno about real life. I was going to have to make a decision on some teams anyways for late August and see when the recruiting cycle was. 3 weeks biking Ireland doesn't leave much chance for recruiting

Edit: I would imagine many more people than not will say they like recruiting.... Since 90% of the game is recruiting and player development.

I like recruiting a lot, don't get me wrong.. but I have more fun game planning more.  If you think 90% of the game is recruiting.. I must be the outlier.  I think in D2 it probably plays close to 80% recruiting / 20% gameplanning.  But I know in Wilk D1AA I'd put it more at 65/35.  Just my opinion.

I also enjoy game planning more than recruiting, but GD has evolved in the other direction. The 3.0 engine is heavily geared toward recruiting. Game planning is meaningless without injuries and meaningful fatigue.

The poll numbers don't lie. The people who are still paying WIS for GD enjoy recruiting. That being the case, there's really little argument for changing it.

I think recruiting was designed to shine in full or mostly full worlds, and I liked it quite a bit when that was the case. I find simAI extremely annoying now, given the number of people playing. Its easy to knock them off early but it is a huge pain to be in day 3 of recruiting, realize you're going to lose a recruiting battle, and then discover your only other options are simAI recruits that will take a ton of effort to overturn at that point. In D1 there are not enough cheap undecideds at most positions due to simAI. Obviously anybody undecided late is going to be mediocre but that's better than having to pay $18,000 to knock of a simAI on a mediocre player. I'd rather see simAI recruits auto generated and have the recruiting pools reflect the number of users at each level. Recruiting should stay as competitive as it is, but there should be alternatives. Teams that miss on their first choice QB should always be able to find a lesser one that nobody else wants, as opposed to just missing on the position altogether.

Also, if they're not going to change any of the above, they should get rid of the redshirt we penalties for upperclassmen. Creative red shirting can help salvage a team that missed at QB one year.

Redshirt penalties never seemed too intuitive to me.  If you aren't going to play, having the coach give you the option to redshirt while on scholarship is a blessing.  It is more or less getting paid to practice and get better while saving a year of eligibility for when you will play.  The work ethic penalties don't make much sense too me as they are.  

More undecideds would help at all divisions.   Nobody enjoys seeing their watch list come up completely red before recruiting even starts.  As was said above, losing a recruiting battle leaves you to face a sim who could have a 3-4 days head start.

I think it would be a very cool feature to incorporate position success and formation into recruiting.  Coaches with good success at certain positions should be able to use that when recruiting that position.  Use conference and division awards and honorable mentions as the determining factor.  In real life, players often seek out coaches who can make the most of their talents.  It would be nice if GD reflected that.  Also, Coaches who utilize a formation that puts a premium on a certain position should be able to use that to their advantage during recruiting. A coach running a shotgun offense should be at a disadvantage when targeting a running back and in a battle against a coach who runs a wishbone for instance?  

Otherwise, I still really enjoy recruiting!
   

Posted by kcsundevil on 7/4/2015 4:34:00 PM (view original):
I also enjoy game planning more than recruiting, but GD has evolved in the other direction. The 3.0 engine is heavily geared toward recruiting. Game planning is meaningless without injuries and meaningful fatigue.

The poll numbers don't lie. The people who are still paying WIS for GD enjoy recruiting. That being the case, there's really little argument for changing it.

I disagree with game planning being meaningless. I haven't played for very long in any engine, however, I have played multiple seasons in every engine (I have another account that has been inactive for a while). Gameplanning is 1.0 was incredibly simplistic, it was wishbone for almost every offense and 4/4 for every defense. There were a couple of coaches doing things differently but very, very few. In engine 2, things balanced out a bit but you still had little customization. Version 3 gives the coach far more options than the previous versions. Because there are more variables, there are more opportunities for randomness and having talent can minimize the effect of negative plays.

However, I think you are going on a stretch to say that gameplanning is meaningless, especially when you compare this engine to the previous two. If you take a quick stroll through GD, you will find teams using all kinds of offenses. Some coaches still use wishbone, other coaches attack things more balanced with Pro-Set, some will spread the field with a Trips offense, some even use a complete Shotgun offense and then you have the I-Formation w/ throws to the RB's. And obviously, there are many combinations of the above. Say what you want about 3.0, but I can't recall a time where a coach had so many options in designing their team. 

I won't deny that there are problems with the current engine, some are just plain obvious. But I would take this engine over 1.0 and 2.0 in a heartbeat, and I think if WIS fixed CS and made proper tweaks to the engine, this game could really take off.