I'm so excited to see some big scale recruiting changes potentially happening.


It can only enhance the game for the majority.....

under the pinned topics is a thread started by seble for the discussion of selected topics!

But I am so glad we are finally seeing something being worked on!

it sounds like a mashup of all the other 'sim' basketball games out there. i may not be an elite coach, but i've gotten used to the game the way it is and i do not want to re-learn the entire recruiting process. 15-30 minutes/day during the season and 2-3 hours (or so) per day during the recruiting window is all i want to invest in a make believe game. it sounds like a major upheaval in in store for HD, when all we want is small changes.

I hate the idea of in-season recruiting. I want to focus on recruiting during recruiting and focus on the actual games when I have important games to play. Recruiting during the season takes the focus away from actual game play. In my opinion, recruiting is the best part of the game right now, and to do it during the season takes the focus away from the actual point of a basketball sim - winning pretend basketball games.

Nearly all of seble's detailed problems, not related to new players, are DI specific problems. Not battling for top recruits, advantages of elite schools, long distance recruiting - all are only issues at DI and have nothing to do outside of it (before anyone points out you can't recruit at distance at lower levels... that's the biggest forum myth in the game). I think there is a conscious that DI recruiting, specifically recruit generation, needs improvement, but I'm worried he is going to royally mess up the lower levels in a major overhaul.

As far the "auction" system goes, what better can you do? This is a GAME and results have to be consistently based on something for the game to make sense. Is the new system going to be more random? This is another very worrisome issue for me. What better system is there then something based on an auction system where the team who puts in the most value based on numerous factors (money, prestige, promises) wins?

Are scholarship messages often vague? Yes. But Word on the Street also tells you exactly what place you are in, so this doesn't seem like a big problem. A new set of messages would be a nice fresh change to the game though.

I do completely agree that SimAI recruiting is awful and they need major help.

I need to study more fully, but on first review this appears to throw out much of the existing scouting and recruiting process

1. Big risk of unforeseen consequences
2. Looks like a lot more time consuming - not a good idea because some (like me) may decide that even if we like it, we dont have time to run several teams.
3.  Risks the business model - fixing problems is good, adding some nuance and texture would be great - total revamp unwise.

I'm also hugely against in season recruiting, I agree it makes it more realistic and gives us another thing to do, but it is impossible to expect people to be able to give so much time to HD.

I like the 5 day period(i think it should be shorter) because you know when you need to be around, when it starts, when signings are, and to check on things in between those 2 periods.

However I like some things offered mainly how scouting would work I think that is really cool, it would be interesting to see how people work and what people have success with such as in depth scouting on less recruits, or less informed scouting on more targets.  I really like that idea.

I don't like the idea of no recruit generation changing.  I think that is a big problem

As for doing something besides the auction system, something that might work however only at D1, would be similar to how recruiting worked in the ncaa football games where you put effort into pitches such as location, prestige, academics, playing time, coach ability, etc.  If that is something that might be considered you'd have to figure out what the pitches" are going to be for HD and how the correlate into a "effort"

I think the worries about unforseen consequences and risking the business model can and will be fixed through extensive beta testing mentioned by seble.

Posted by the0nlyis on 9/10/2015 3:54:00 PM (view original):
I'm also hugely against in season recruiting, I agree it makes it more realistic and gives us another thing to do, but it is impossible to expect people to be able to give so much time to HD.

I like the 5 day period(i think it should be shorter) because you know when you need to be around, when it starts, when signings are, and to check on things in between those 2 periods.

However I like some things offered mainly how scouting would work I think that is really cool, it would be interesting to see how people work and what people have success with such as in depth scouting on less recruits, or less informed scouting on more targets.  I really like that idea.

I don't like the idea of no recruit generation changing.  I think that is a big problem

As for doing something besides the auction system, something that might work however only at D1, would be similar to how recruiting worked in the ncaa football games where you put effort into pitches such as location, prestige, academics, playing time, coach ability, etc.  If that is something that might be considered you'd have to figure out what the pitches" are going to be for HD and how the correlate into a "effort"

I think the worries about unforseen consequences and risking the business model can and will be fixed through extensive beta testing mentioned by seble.

+1

Posted by jsajsa on 9/10/2015 3:39:00 PM (view original):
I hate the idea of in-season recruiting. I want to focus on recruiting during recruiting and focus on the actual games when I have important games to play. Recruiting during the season takes the focus away from actual game play. In my opinion, recruiting is the best part of the game right now, and to do it during the season takes the focus away from the actual point of a basketball sim - winning pretend basketball games.

Nearly all of seble's detailed problems, not related to new players, are DI specific problems. Not battling for top recruits, advantages of elite schools, long distance recruiting - all are only issues at DI and have nothing to do outside of it (before anyone points out you can't recruit at distance at lower levels... that's the biggest forum myth in the game). I think there is a conscious that DI recruiting, specifically recruit generation, needs improvement, but I'm worried he is going to royally mess up the lower levels in a major overhaul.

As far the "auction" system goes, what better can you do? This is a GAME and results have to be consistently based on something for the game to make sense. Is the new system going to be more random? This is another very worrisome issue for me. What better system is there then something based on an auction system where the team who puts in the most value based on numerous factors (money, prestige, promises) wins?

Are scholarship messages often vague? Yes. But Word on the Street also tells you exactly what place you are in, so this doesn't seem like a big problem. A new set of messages would be a nice fresh change to the game though.

I do completely agree that SimAI recruiting is awful and they need major help.

+1

There are SO many other aspects of the game that could be fixed  Why overhaul the one area that is the most fun and seems to work the best?

I think jsa hit it, the majority of this seems like D1 stuff.

However, my thoughts:

I think battling could be fun, but because of the auction factor I usually try to avoid it. But I'm not sure how you make another recruiting system that isn't auction based. I like the0nlyis idea with the NCAA Football idea, but again, is that just D1? If you can make D3 kids like close location while big time recruits want to play on national tv I think something with more detail like that could work. Which by the way I think if you throw in national televised games and regionally televised games to draw recruits that would be really sweet! But, I digress.

Scouting would be more effective if you can pick WHAT you wanted to scout. I hate wasting money finding out the pg I'm recruiting isn't going to improve in the low post, rebounding, and blocking. Well no duh he is red in those categories, but can I please know if he is high-high in his blue perimeter, defense, speed, passing and ball handling?

And last, and I know I'm going to be in the minority here, but I wouldn't mind in season recruiting. Having said that, it would have to be a once maybe twice a day thing. If they made it a 3 hour cycle during the season like it is now, yes that is unnecessary. But one cycle along with games could be fun. My only concern is how prestige plays into in season recruiting. Do you recruit based on current? What if your prestige is going to go up after season? Take a hit? Will there be offseason recruiting still?

Seble please consider the opinions of long time players of the game here.  In season recruiting is a terrible idea.  In general, a huge change is not a good idea.  The recruiting process needs multiple small incremental change.  Here is one of the posters above comments which nailed it:

I need to study more fully, but on first review this appears to throw out much of the existing scouting and recruiting process

1. Big risk of unforeseen consequences
2. Looks like a lot more time consuming - not a good idea because some (like me) may decide that even if we like it, we dont have time to run several teams.
3.  Risks the business model - fixing problems is good, adding some nuance and texture would be great - total revamp unwise.

Expand the distance that local recruiting spans from 360 miles to maybe 500 - consider being flexible with that, growing it to possibly even 1000 miles, but I honestly think 500 miles itself might really help the game.  This is a small change, and could even be implemented to give you yourself feedback as to how a more 'nationalized' recruiting process might work.  Right?

Don't go too crazy on SIM recruiting changes, the game doesn't have enough good players already, if the sims take a bunch of them, it'll only get worse.   The game would get fixed pretty quickly if you simply went back to the old model, where the middle of the recruiting pool was better, it would help the sims, help the mid major and low d1 schools, and help the new coaches.

Making recruiting more competitive leads to bad blood in this game.  The distance limits for local recruiting has somewhat limits the bad blood to a locality.  I don't think making the users dislike each other is a strategy for long term success in the game.  In some ways, the conf cooperation you talk about has done some good in the game, and if you watch closely even non conf guys in a local market tip toe around each other pretty carefully.  It (the cooperation)  has more to do with long term mutual success than the post season money.

Auction based recruiting is flawed, but it is 100% in the hands of the customers, rather than in the hands of the programmers with things like the color of the flowers that the recruit's mom likes being important.  Again, if the quality of the recruits was better in the middle of the pool, the distribution of recruits in any given locality would be less important, thereby not making national recruiting as important or making the need to add non numerical things of importance. 

One of the true beauties of the current game, is it is strickly a numbers game, get the best team rating, add the right depth chart, distro numbers and game plan, and let er fly.  If you were to add changes, allow us to make more depth chart moves - like seperate ones for each defense or even for defensive settings, and expand the game planning options, that is the 'meat' of this game.

Also, the high end recruits should require more money to say yes, this alone would fix 50% of the high end d1recruiting process.   Again, this could be tweeked  with a few releases, I might start with doubling the amount it requires, and consider even triple the amount.  This would immensely even out the d1 field.  This change too is very simply, and could be done almost immediately.  If you did this, changed the local distance limits from 200 and 360 to 300 and 540, and made the middle of all three of the divisions recruiting pools better, recruiting would be 80% fixed.  That would be a remarkable return on your programming time investment. Small tweeks afterwards could probably get that number to near 90%.  I doubt max exodous would occur with such minimal change.

D2/d3 recruiting is largely not broke, except maybe that if anyone is cheating with multiple users to scout, they would have an immense advantage - since d2/d3 is more national recuiting.  I would make d2/d3 recruiting free.  Making the sims better, would really hurt new coaches, as new coaches get better largely by learning to beat the sims.

The first session of recruiting should not be 2 hrs, or should be allowed to be done 12-24 hrs in advance, which is sort of the same thing, isn't it?

I'm going off memory on the proposals, and hesitate to say much more since the last major update was such a disaster in terms of how user feedback was considered and it seemed to get personal in some cases, which is never a good thing.  Good luck, as I do think recruiting needs fixing, so I am 100% behind the idea of attacking the issue.  These types of updates are tricky, as it seems to largely only lose customers, at least that is the perception I have from watching the game play out for over ten years now.   Again that's why I urge  you to consider  making smaller incremental changes and tweeks to the current game, rather than sweeping changes.  The basic formula the game has been based on which includes local auction style recruiting has made HD the best SIM basketball game ever invented.   I hope that you strongly consider user feedback before you get too far along that it will be impossible to reverse course.

A few random thoughts:

Regarding auction system - seble still hasn't addressed that.  This is all about scouting.  It may end up being auction style when it's all said and done in order to get players to your school.

Time commitment:  I'm not sure it will take that much more time.  it's literally a few clicks of the button and the secrets are unlocked as to player skills... this could all be done in a few cycles.  They could easily limit in season recruiting to certain periods (like non-conference for scouting and end of season for recruiting). 

As I said on the other thread, I think a lot of this is window dressing and re-shuffling the timing of tasks.  Ultimately, coaches will get to the numbers of each player if it's not too cost prohibitive. 

I do think it's a good point that the numbers aspect of ratings is very nice.  I'm not sure I see the need to make coaches jump thru hoops with letters, then numbers eventually. 

And no question, most of the issues addressed by this are D1.  But I do think it would be nice to do something to help D2 and D3 schools that only have a few roster spots open and can't win recruiting battles.

All the talk about creating less gap between elite programs and elite players for non mjaor programs seems useless to me. As a Georgia Tech fan if we get a 4 star recruit in football it is highly unlikely.  We haven't had one in years. A 5 star in like a decade. The point being is that elite programs and conferences get elite players. But Georgia Tech's program is constantly winning and thriving now. How. By scouting players that are as good as 4-5 star players but are under the radar.

So, instead of making so drastic changes to lessen the gap why not just increase the number of under the radar players who could be as good as elite players. A 2-3 star recruit or under the radar player is less likely to attend a elite program anyway because they would feel less convinced that they would play in those programs.

I also do not want to spend more time in this game and/or more time during the season to recruiting



 

I think quite a bit of this is geared to D1, specifically high D1, and I'm not sure the ramifications for lower levels are being taken into account.  Removing post season cash means that Big6 teams, in theory, have less of the advantage they do now battle wise, but there is *still* the prestige aspect which seble says remains and may be intensified.  So point taken, let the rush to D1, and up the levels of D1 commence.

For D2/D3 ... why is recruiting nationally bad?  Why is building a good conference bad?  If there is no more post season cash, then wouldn't the best strategy be to be in a conference with 11 sims as opposed to a conference with 11 other coaches?  You'd think the corners would be ideal, so presque isle, PBAU, PLU, etc would be good in D3, except now you are recruiting locally, so would the talent pool be there?  you're better off being near NYC, Atlanta, LA, or something like that.

I think long term this might make D3 less appealing, which may be the point anyway?  It's always been the entry point, some move up quickly, but some stay there because they like the challenge, or there's a good conference or whatever.  But what's the point of getting my brains beat in in Freedom in Crum if our conference doing well and having more money to spend on recruiting is a moot point now?  If I can only recruit locally to my school, I'm at the mercy of the recruit generation engine, which ... isn't ideal maybe.

How will this affect pulldowns/dropdowns?  It's SUPER bad that you can't have any input on the first year of recruits as pointed out by many.  I'd probably keep my one a day teams, but I doubt I'd ever take a new one if it takes a whole season before I can do anything meaningfully to the makeup of the team.  So at this point I think I'm working on moving all one a day worlds to D1 and we'll see how it works from there.

I don't think new coaches are going to like not having any of "their guys" (the guys they recruit) on the team until the next year.