Posted by weirdrash on 9/29/2015 3:42:00 PM (view original):
Frankly, I think the bigger the changes the better. I think this game is seriously broken for all but the A+ prestige programs.

I used to have two such programs and remember how easy recruiting was, but then I stepped away from the game for about 35 seasons and now I know how hard it is to try to build up programs from lower prestige levels. It seems almost impossible to build them beyond a B level.

There is no room for a Gonzaga, Butler, VCU to develop in HD. And it is very difficult to lose an A rating once you have one.

The playing field needs to be leveled or B level coaches and below will not stick around. I debate it every time I have to renew a team.

For DI, I agree the game is seriously broken but they won't do anything about it.  There is no room for any school that WIS has not preordained with unnecessary baseline and conference prestige.  Big Five Dynasty...bullshit.  This is a fantasy game, not a simulator.

Posted by zorzii on 9/30/2015 7:51:00 AM (view original):

Posted by the0nlyis on 9/30/2015 12:52:00 AM (view original):
also need to increase juco/transfer players at D1.

theres maybe a 20/30 of juco's at D1 and very few transfers.  D1 teams tend to drop to D2 to grb more juco's that will never play.

I'm did this last season there were only 2 Juco's near me with any resemblance of talent in D1 if I remember both 100+ ranked taken by A+ programs since they were 90 ath/spd/def pot so they were also super underranked.  then i grabbed 4 D2 juco's since their were no other juco's at D1 with more than d3 talent

Which falls under recruit generation which is clearly the biggest problem outside post season cash.

Agreed. D1 needs something done when it comes to recruit generation and maybe the way recruting works. My MSUV in D1, all players recruited by myself, is a DII team not even a top DII team right now because there is nothing to grab to compete. I won't compete next season, so it's four years before you actually see something happening. It's either the way the recruiting works or the recruit generation. Honestly, I'd get fired as soon as I would of presented my first class. The AD would of said, how do you expect to win with these kids the next three seasons?

Post cash money is easy to change. No change at DIII, DII, half at DI. Increase the cash for successful NT teams... the further they go.

If you cut off Postseason cash but give cash to successful NT teams the haves will still get all the money.  My problem is the Recruiting Generation and more people have said that.  Seble needs to listen to us on this. 

I think there should be changes but I doubt that the changes contemplated are the right changes.  I have commented in other threads on that.  This week, I dropped one of my teams - Seton Hall in Crum.  May drop another since I expect rocky times when the changes come.

I'm still at Arizona, Maryland, Stanford, Grambling and Harvard.  A nice mix of elite and non elite, each with different fun.

I think some modest improvements could make a huge improvement in game play and interest.  I think SOME marketing could make the game better by increasing the number of players.

i hope the changes are not as bad as I fear.

Huge changes needed.  Ask the 250-300 SIM coaches in every division of every world.

first change - fire the marketing department!

ooops, there is no marketing department so we can fire them.....

Posted by Rails on 9/30/2015 4:39:00 PM (view original):
Huge changes needed.  Ask the 250-300 SIM coaches in every division of every world.

unless you're talking about huge changes in marketing strategy, material changes to the game will only result in a decrease in the current number of users. this is just a shot in the dark, but i'm sure that there is an inconsequential number - if any - of potential users that come to the site, look over the gameplay, and decide that its not for them. any changes should have positive affects on gameplay for the current users; which would result in positive word of mouth advertising on social media (which is the only marketing that i am aware of) from the current users and which will generate clicks on the site (again, from the current users) to sustain third party advertising revenue (this doesn't benefit the users directly, but pays the bills to allow maintenance etc. of the site).

i am in the camp leaving once the proposed changes are implemented (perhaps sooner) without even bothering to give the changes a chance. i did not have that reaction to potential because potential made sense to me. as a d2 / d3 coach (with no d1 teams), the proposed changes don't make sense to me. instead, they are threatening to adversely affect recruiting, one of my favorite aspects of the game. to wit: i enjoy pulling down recruits. pulldowns are gone. i like postseason cash and the comradery it creates between conference mates and the rivalries it fuels between successful conferences. post season cash is gone.

so, while i agree that we need to fill up the worlds as much as possible, the current changes don't do anything to champion that cause. instead, they affect the current user base and threaten to cause a new wave of departures, which is or should be the antithesis of the goal(s) of any change(s).

I think what Davis was sayiing is that we tend to over-react without giving it a chance--that is no more evident than in rl college sports programs that struggle ALL TTHE TIME.  Change and Hope, Change and Hope as opposed to sticking with a program.  Give a new coach a short leash.  Can't win in 3 years, and they are gone.  And back to Square 1.  There are some people out there like that.  I think we should have an open mind--as though we have no previous history of the game.  How would we feel if we came upon the site without having experience with it.   But marketing dept job is to get people to the site, the game is clearly not keeping its current players. 

I have never seen marketing anywhere for WIS - has anyone?

Posted by metsmax on 9/30/2015 11:17:00 PM (view original):
I have never seen marketing anywhere for WIS - has anyone?

Once upon a time they had adds on MLB.com for the Sim league baseball. That's how I got here originally, and moved to HD a bit later.

Posted by acn24 on 10/1/2015 4:46:00 AM (view original):

Posted by metsmax on 9/30/2015 11:17:00 PM (view original):
I have never seen marketing anywhere for WIS - has anyone?

Once upon a time they had adds on MLB.com for the Sim league baseball. That's how I got here originally, and moved to HD a bit later.

me too

Oldresorter here with my alias account, since several oldtimers (Rails, Davis, mets, acn, fd343, sorry if I missed some) have joined in the discussion here something struck me about 'change', that I wonder if you guys notice too.  It seemed to me in the 'old' game, the changes came piecemeal, and the user community sort of felt part of the change, almost trying to make the changes work.  Even then, many of the changes had consequences that nobody could have predicted, but the issues always seemed to get sorted out, then the community moved on to the next issue.

Now, with the more massive change approach, it feels much more like change is being rammed down the group's you know what's (pick your least favorite orifice).  I doubt seble can understand how it makes the 30-50% of the community feel who have been getting up early each morning and checking in several times a day for the last 10 years or so playing what has to be described as an obsession.  I sure wish he'd LISTEN, and attempt to make a more piecemeal approach to fixing things.  The game 'might' be fixed with some pretty minor changes, which once he rewrote the software to something he understood could be made in fairly rapid order.  This seems so fundamentally 'simple' to me, that it is enormously frustrating that the message is not being HEARD.

Am I missing the boat with these observations?

I think approach being taken is unwise for the product.

That said, I wont bail completely, but i have trimmed and will trim further my teams.  I'll see what its like but I fear the worst.  And I think a bunch could be improved with much less effort and change

Posted by ryan75 on 10/1/2015 8:21:00 AM (view original):
Oldresorter here with my alias account, since several oldtimers (Rails, Davis, mets, acn, fd343, sorry if I missed some) have joined in the discussion here something struck me about 'change', that I wonder if you guys notice too.  It seemed to me in the 'old' game, the changes came piecemeal, and the user community sort of felt part of the change, almost trying to make the changes work.  Even then, many of the changes had consequences that nobody could have predicted, but the issues always seemed to get sorted out, then the community moved on to the next issue.

Now, with the more massive change approach, it feels much more like change is being rammed down the group's you know what's (pick your least favorite orifice).  I doubt seble can understand how it makes the 30-50% of the community feel who have been getting up early each morning and checking in several times a day for the last 10 years or so playing what has to be described as an obsession.  I sure wish he'd LISTEN, and attempt to make a more piecemeal approach to fixing things.  The game 'might' be fixed with some pretty minor changes, which once he rewrote the software to something he understood could be made in fairly rapid order.  This seems so fundamentally 'simple' to me, that it is enormously frustrating that the message is not being HEARD.

Am I missing the boat with these observations?

Not only are you NOT missing the boat, but with what you just posted you might be the CAPTAIN of the damn thing!!  Good post OR.

In seble's partial defense, (IIRC) he has stated that the recruiting code/script is so antiquated that he basically has to re-write from scratch. So I understand why he wants to go big in this update.

What I would like to see is this: start with the big change of in-season recruiting. This would allow seble to do his overhaul of the code and institute the game's biggest change (which I am in favor of -- if the 3 or 4 recruiting days fall at an inconvenient time when you can't devote several hours to them, your team suffers. I would rather spend 10 mins every day doing some recruiting than compressing it into a 4 day period).  During this period, recruit generation, pulldowns, scouting, etc. all remain the same as now. 

Once we get through that initial big change, then smaller changes are gradually instituted.  Pulldowns disappear.  Scouting changes to a largely camp-based model.  We pause, work out bugs and then go on the next issue, so on and so forth.  I get why Seble wants to do everything at once, but he will be unable to isolate the variables causing bugs if it is one big change.