I guess I'm much more positive on this than a lot of the new coaches, probably in part because fresh in my memory are a couple attempts at recruiting with one opening at Dallas where I felt like I was doomed to failure no matter how well I did. 

I think the game is good as is, but I think there are ways to make recruiting not so dependent on the number of openings that would actually improve the game. As long as they extensively test it and genuinely listen to feedback, I'm on the "this is a good idea" side of the fence. 

this is part of what I offered to admin about three years ago:

Scouting trips: My thought on these are to continue offering the single scouting trip which returns results for four random categories.
Also offer a "complete" scouting trip which returns results on all twelve categories. This cost could be around five times the current random evaluations.
Possibly even offer a single trip which allows a coach to select one single category to gather information. Possibly a bit harder to implement as you'd need to create a dropdown list of categories to choose from.


Tournament Cash: I'd suggest reducing the rewards. At the D1 level, cut them in half, $10k for a NT game, $2500 for a PIT game.
Even possibly look into distributing the pool unevenly. Call this the Big12 policy. The team that earned the cash keeps part, 30-50%(?), and the remainder goes into the conference pool.
At first this may look like only the rich getting richer(and they do), but it also could help a NT team in a mid or lower conference.
If a team from a low conference plays two tourney games and nobody else from the conf gets a bid, they would get their cut first, plus 1/12 of the conf pool.

example:
current: The ACC plays in 24 PT games and currently earns $480k. Each team gets $40,000.
proposed: Since the totals are cut in half there only is $240k total. If each participant keep 30% that leaves $14,000 per team from the conf pool. If a team keep 50%, then the conf pool is down to $10,000 each.
current: Montana makes a run to the Sweet 16 but they're the only team in conf to reach postseason. They earn $60,000 for the conf, their 1/12 share is $5,000.
proposed: Total is cut to $30k. If keeping 30% Montana pockets 9,000 plus 1,750 from the $21k conf pool. If keeping 50%, they earn $15,000 and $1,250 from the $15k conf pool.

current scenario: Both National champ Duke and 0-26 Wake Forest earn $40,000. Montana earns $5,000 after a Sweet 16.
proposed: Champion Duke pockets $34,000-40,000, Wake earns $10,000-14,000. Montana earns $10,750-16,250.


FFS: Increase the scouting funds every team gets and allow for optional pre-recruiting scouting.
Possibly every D1 team gets $5,000-10,000 rather than 1,500.
But if a coach leaves for a new job, the monies spent in early-recruiting at the first school are reduced from the new school's recruiting budget.

Posted by crazyivan on 9/11/2015 4:17:00 PM (view original):
i have the same problem next season, with only 1 Sr graduating. so what?  deal with it - that's part of the strategy of the game.
as a coach, it's on me to sign a balanced class - if i'm afraid of recruiting w/ only 1 scholly and bonus money.
spend all your cash on an ineligible (and if he doesn't sign, you'll have a walk-on and extra cash the next season). it's not the end of the world to take a walk-on.

It's not like I can't or haven't dealt with this. I just think it's an example of number of open scholarships having too much weight and this being a flaw in recruiting. I prima facie support an attempt to mitigate this (although I certainly understand that the fix can be worse than the problem, and I'm not going to support anything without significant beta testing)

Posted by tarvolon on 9/11/2015 4:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by crazyivan on 9/11/2015 4:17:00 PM (view original):
i have the same problem next season, with only 1 Sr graduating. so what?  deal with it - that's part of the strategy of the game.
as a coach, it's on me to sign a balanced class - if i'm afraid of recruiting w/ only 1 scholly and bonus money.
spend all your cash on an ineligible (and if he doesn't sign, you'll have a walk-on and extra cash the next season). it's not the end of the world to take a walk-on.

It's not like I can't or haven't dealt with this. I just think it's an example of number of open scholarships having too much weight and this being a flaw in recruiting. I prima facie support an attempt to mitigate this (although I certainly understand that the fix can be worse than the problem, and I'm not going to support anything without significant beta testing)

Totally agree that other factors should be weighed more heavily in recruiting than open scholarships.

If anything, it SHOULD be harder to recruit six openings than one.

Personally, I think your teams success/prestige should be the biggest factor in your budget. Secondly, I think academic record should play into budget as well, there needs to be some type of reward in place for having players with higher GPAs. Third, should be conference prestige, IMO.

My wish list for recruiting changes would be extensive. First, and foremost, I think it's silly that FSS has a 100% accuracy rating. Currently, a players entire career arc can basically be seen before they even sign with you. Sure, occasionally a high high can shoot up 50 points, but you can always assume athleticism growth will cap around 35 and LP and Per have the chance to really sky rocket. This is completely unrealistic. In the real world even with AAU tourneys, tons of HS basketball, etc. players are still routinely overrated and underrated.

But, most of the changes I think should occur are game engine related as opposed to recruiting related. I think the game engine is basically broken. Recruiting is always going to be hard to get perfect, it's super nuanced. But, the game should not be as simple as go recruit high athleticism and defense and win automatically. Really, at D3 ALL you have to do is offer high ATH/def guys. Don't even waste your time with FSS, you don't need it. PG with 27 BH and 32 passing? Don't worry if he's a 85/85 ATH/def because you'll have a huge advantage on TOs regardless.

if I were in charge of HD, I would be throwing all of my time towards figuring out proper player ratings, and how to create a game engine that could produce championships for dominant offensive teams as well as dominant defensive teams.

I think it is funny that the coaches who don't want recruiting to change are the ones with all the money and best players! I love the idea of it during the season. Makes it more realistic and adds a new dimension to the regular season. Imagine battling for a recruit and having to win a game in the same day! Excitement back in the game.

To me DIII, except for the walk-on thing, and maybe some minor recruiting things like scouting trips, is allright. I would not do much.

In DII, I'd start to make promise start and other promises more important. And fix the walk-on thing and the scouting trips so you can get more infos.

In D1 is where it hurts. There are stuff to be changed to make the game more competitive and more realistic. I'd even change the teams in the conférences if possible. And the base prestige too. I like when it's realistic.

Posted by ryan75 on 9/11/2015 7:03:00 AM (view original):
On the time consuming issue, i.e. inseason recruiting, I would think making recruiting more complicated and taking place over a longer time period with more time related milestones and deadline, thereby consuming more user time will cause users in general to carry fewer teams - it almost has too at some point - right?  My observation is the time required is one of the biggest reasons why users do quit or scale back on teams.    This in itself can't be a good business model strategy - right? 

If you think about it, it will take less time - season long, the importance of recruiting every cycle will be diminished, and it won't be as intensive over five days. You could probably get away with checking just a couple times a day if you wanted to.

Exactly. I think the changes are good. I hate that stress of having to get on to recruit in those tight windows. If im working or just living life, I may miss the first few cycles which I hate. And then rushing to the computer to spend two hours sifting through recruit data. It's just boring. I like recruiting if I have time at the right time and don't have to get too many players. But it's my least favorite part of the game. Adding an extra dimension to the game would be both great and more realistic. Some coaches will quit because of it but that will happen if you don't change it too. So I think seble has to look at the long term hewlth of game. Retaining the few elites who resist change while staring down empty worlds and apathy is much worse than losing some to strengthen the game in the long run

I’m open to recruiting changes, but I echo the sentiments of some others here in that I think recruiting is one of the better designed parts of the current game. If it were up to me, I would focus on improving the game engine, and expanding game planning options. Being a good “coach” is WAY less important than being a good “recruiter” in the current game. I’d like to see more balance between those two aspects. 

I certainly agree there. I think recruiting changes isn't even in my top 5 on my wish list

Most of my teams are high DI, and I am very leery of these proposed changes.  In-season recruiting is a TERRIBLE idea, in my view.  I think that most of the issues seble identifies could be fixed with a few very minor tweaks (assuming you think they need to be fixed at all, which I don't): (1) ryan's idea of expanding the "local" recruiting zone from 360 to 500 miles seems pretty smart -- maybe also expand the 200-mile line to 300 or 360; (2) I'd be ok with adding a couple more categories, similar to the close to home/far from home and favorite school categories to tweak the process a bit -- something like "conference preference," or "offense/defense preference" -- that gives teams fitting that category a bit of a boost.  In my view, though, recruiting ain't broke and doesn't need to be fixed.

John : money for the NT needs to be fixed. It will truly help out competition. Other than that, I agree with you.

Gotta love the "Who Moved My Cheese?" crowd.

It's going to be fine. The key is that it's going to be tested extensively to make sure it works as intended. The idea that "nothing was wrong" with recruiting is absurd. It's unrealistic, it's too condensed, and too high-stakes. The very idea that people are waking up twice in the middle of the night so they can get ahead of their sleeping competitors on certain cycles is completely asinine, and if you don't think that's driving anyone away from the game, you're myopic. Making prospect discovery a season-long process that coaches can tailor to their own schedule and preferences is FAR more player-friendly; and making it a strategic process that is more than being able to glean important color-coded data from a spreadsheet without stabbing yourself in the eyes with forks will improve gameplay for everyone who doesn't love working with excel.

Let's at least see how it plays in testing before we start threatening to jump off bridges.

Recruiting is pretty much OK the way it is. I would offer a few minor changes. 1) Make the fist cycle 3 hours instead of 2. 2)Increase "local" to 100 miles from 70. 3) Scouting Trip info should be expanded. You shouldn't get the same info on the seventh ST that you got  on the first one. 4)  Change the disbursement of post season $. 14 units for 12 teams. The team earning the $ receives 3 units, the other 11 get 1 unit.