Posted by beachhouse on 6/22/2016 9:59:00 AM (view original):
If you're a D3 level coach and you have the possibility to get a 'D1' level player, then why bother wasting scouting money on D3 level players. You're much better off waiting and then scouting all of the players who aren't good enough for D1, but are great for D3.

Totally agree with you on a D3 level -- wait, see and say thank you. Move in late to grab guys who want to sign by the end of period 1 who look good and aren't being grabbed. Lather, rinse, repeat for recruits whose tendency is toward the late period.

I've spent very little time scouting this time, considerably less than the first season, and about in line with what I spent on my teams in Naismith ~ 20 minutes. Out of 550 in my recruit pool, I've slated about 15 tier 1 players (2 scholarships) and multiple backups if they fall through. We'll see how it goes.

Put in my first AP bids for the top two guys with early signing preferences. Split them 40/20, with the 20 going at a position that I think I have adequate backup options on should I not get out to a good start with the primary target. Both jumped to the moderate interest level, but neither has had further recruiting actions unlock.

Total elapsed time: 3 hours, 53-ish minutes.

The UMSL Season 2 beta signing class has been completed. Total time spent on recruiting, roughly 4 hours, 10 minutes...it really wasn't a big deal after the initial scouting period, partly because of reasons I'll get to below.

First, the new guys, let's welcome them to campus!!

Charles Lavender was ranked the #152 PG in the nation (unranked overall) projected to go D1, but he decided we were a cool place to crash for 4 years instead...he had a "whenever" signing tendency and I had one bad and one good preference working on him. It took between 80-100 AP's to unlock the option to offer him a scholarship and move from moderate to very high. 60 more APs and 2 HVs unlocked the CV opportunity, which I found later was a total waste of money on my part because it influences nothing with regard to signing...so since I was the only team on him I could have just sat there and waited. I still sat there and waited. As the only team on him from cycle 5 of signing period 1 as he waited...and waited...he signed the 11 a.m. cycle the final day of recruiting. I was the only coach to ever offer AP's.

Chris Lavendar (Fr., starting rating 554)
Ath: 49 (low), Spd: 64 (very high), Reb: 15 (high), Def: 38 (high), Blk: 10 (high), LP 24 (low), Per: 58 (very low), BH: 46 (very high), Pass: 51 (very high), WE 45, Stam: 75 (avg), Dur: who cares (but it's 79 and high), FT: C- (high).

My other signing was Charles Deleon, the no. 87, but overall unranked PF in the pool. He needed between 90 and 135 AP's to unlock the scholarship. He was an ASAP signing tendency. He signed 2 cycles later. There was one bad and one good preference working on him. His numbers...

Charles Deleon (Fr., starting rating 562)
Ath: 65 (avg), Spd: 39 (low), Reb: 52 (avg), Def: 58 (very high), SB: 46 (low), LP 40 (very high), Per 16 (avg), BH: 25 (very high), Pass: 42 (avg), WE: 76, Stam: 67 (avg), Dur: 36 (low), FT: D+ (avg)

BETA THOUGHTS AFTER SEASON 2

Both players are good grabs for a D2 team, so don't tell me there won't be an upward creep in team ability in the D2/D3 divisions. If you want Exhibit B of this, check out the players D3 Fisk has signed in the beta world -- I'm not saying he's the best example, I just kept noticing his school name on the list of recruits I had ranked in my final list. But that will be a monster D3 program in the not-too-distant future.

I was in favor of the 6-hour cycles before this season because I thought the 3-hour cycles moved too fast and I felt pressured. Y'know what. I'm going to call a mulligan on that one -- 6 hours felt too slow (partly due to the requirements for signings never getting changed from the premise of 3-hour cycles to correspond to the 6-hour running cycle, as we were informed 36 hours before signing period 2 ended...). Bottom line though, I think a lot of the pressure I felt the first time around was my unfamiliarity with what I needed and didn't need to do, because it turns out...

...MONEY DOESN'T MATTER!! No, seriously, unless you're in a battle, don't spend a dime on recruiting! AP's will unlock the scholarship. The scholarship will take most players to very high immediately upon offer. After that, unless you're not the only school on the player, don't spend a thing. It's useless. You can't speed up how quickly the player signs. So until there's a threat..just coast. Keep feeding AP's as needed. But just wait. Most of my recruiting check-in consisted of looking to see if my guy signed. Seeing they hadn't. Checking to make sure nobody had bid coming in. And then leaving. It was really exciting stuff. Kept me occupied between the World Paint Drying championships and the late-night movie on the Watch My Grass Grow channel.

Overall though, now that I've had a season to experience and formulate a strategy rather than just dive in and test it out, some of my Season 1 complaints and dislikes have melted away. I won't say I'm a big fan of the beta still -- largely because it's a very cumbersome process to do pretty much what we've been able to do all along. I can't talk about the affect it's having at D1, but like I said there will definitely be an upward creep of talent in D2 and D3 if things remain as is. And the effect of that shift will appear most markedly at D3 I suspect.

I have yet to experience the lottery system of being in a battle. My outside impression is that they're just resource traps and avoiding battles is a huge component of D2/D3 strategy in the new game -- get the second tier players from the D1 schools while they're all distracted battling for the big fish. I don't necessarily LIKE that strategy or think it's good for the overall health of the game. I'm just saying that's the strategy I'll be using for as long as it's available to me. When I see teams like Kansas signing recruits that I have on my board below the one I'm actively recruiting...I don't think that's a perfect situation, either because I can't effectively rank players or because there's something messed up.

Rednu, for those of us not in the beta, can you give a quick block of instruction about "attention points"? How do they work? How many do you get? Do they diminish as you use them or do you have the same amount for each player you recruit? Maybe some questions like that. If you don't mind of course? I've enjoyed and gotten the most and best info from your posts so far by the way.

I'm going to assume that they subtract from your overall total as you use them on players, otherwise why wouldn't a coach just dump the maximum on each player every time? That seems like a no brainer. But could you tell us things like how many a team starts with? Is it the same for each team or is it dictated by open schollies, etc., and so on? Thanks in advance if you have the time to answer, if you don't or don't wish to answer, totally understand that as well.

As I said in the post above this one, I appreciate everything that you've "already" posted, anything else is just gravy.

Now I wish I would have asked to join the beta because it sure looks like those who didn't are going to be at a pretty big disadvantage for at least the first season, maybe two.

emy - you get new attention points every cycle, so the goal is to spend them all every cycle. You get 20 + 20 per opening at this point. Took a lot of us a few cycles to figure that out in beta season 1.

Posted by emy1013 on 7/1/2016 1:09:00 PM (view original):
Rednu, for those of us not in the beta, can you give a quick block of instruction about "attention points"? How do they work? How many do you get? Do they diminish as you use them or do you have the same amount for each player you recruit? Maybe some questions like that. If you don't mind of course? I've enjoyed and gotten the most and best info from your posts so far by the way.

You get 20 AP's per open scholarship, plus another 20. (so I had a pool of 60 to work with...20x2 open scholarships + the freebie 20). Once you sign a player, you "lose" the 20 AP's for that scholarship from the total pool.

Each recruiting "cycle" you assign attention points to players you want to recruit...each player has a "minimum" that they're looking for to unlock higher actions like HV's, CV's and scholarship offers. The scholarship offer unlocks first in every situation from what I can tell. Once you set AP distribution, it carries forward to subsequent cycles unless/until you change it (so it can be a set it and forget it thing...what I did is assign 40 to my prime target and 20 to my other...once I got to the scholarship offer, I shifted everything to the other one until both were unlocked and then split them 30/30 until one signed, then shifted the remaining 40 to the player who hadn't signed.

Basically once a player unlocks, the "extra" AP's aren't good for anything unless/until you get into a battle, when they increase your odds of getting the player compared to those with less AP's totals invested. But HV's, CV's, preferences, etc. play a role here too.

for those not in the beta how good was Thiel's class like out of this world or just really good for D3?

Posted by the0nlyis on 7/1/2016 3:34:00 PM (view original):
for those not in the beta how good was Thiel's class like out of this world or just really good for D3?

Assuming you mean Fisk, not Thiel (they haven't signed anyone yet)...his signings this cycle were

Degran (NR/#129 position)
50 (A), 74 (A), 10 (L), 67 (VH), 13 (A), 1 (L), 41 (VH), 75 (H), 54 (A), WE 16, 73 (H), 68 (VH), FT: C- (H)

Ladson (NR/#119 position)
82 (L), 32 (H), 42 (L), 64 (VH), 35 (H), 48 (VL), 38 (VL), 28 (VH), 24 (L), WE: 31, 62 (VH), 32 (A), FT: D+ (A)

Lieu (unranked)
52 (H), 60 (A), 6 (L), 52 (A), 14 (A), 10 (VL), 36 (VH), 45 (VH), 54 (H), WE: 36, 74 (A), 48 (A), FT: D+ (H)

Jacquez (unranked...I don't have potentials here....)
79-28-37-67-24-69-11-11-10-WE: 42- 60-24 FT: C

Currently this ranks as the No. 14 class in D3...so the game says there are 13 classes better. I'm not sure what mechanic it uses, but it must differ from the one currently in use in the "real" game. I only signed 2 players and have the No. 3 class in D2 currently...no way that happens with 2 freshman signings in the current game.

some context about the beta world... looking at some very rough estimates, I counted how many coaches were active during recruiting...

D3 - looks like ~40 coaches recruited players and about 60 did nothing despite open scholarships
D2 - looks like ~38 coaches recruited players and about 46 did nothing despite open scholarships
D1 - looks like ~79 coaches recruited players and about 126 did nothing despite open scholarships

SO, I think it's hard to say exactly what will happen in an actual paying world where coaches have more incentive to actually recruit.

Right now the system allows for D2 and D3 schools tor reach very high and there are actually a decent amount of D1 coaches recruiting...

but I think there are usually larger D1, D2 and D3 populations so the beta world might be a little skewed in terms of what recruits are attainable.

Posted by brianxavier on 7/1/2016 4:15:00 PM (view original):
some context about the beta world... looking at some very rough estimates, I counted how many coaches were active during recruiting...

D3 - looks like ~40 coaches recruited players and about 60 did nothing despite open scholarships
D2 - looks like ~38 coaches recruited players and about 46 did nothing despite open scholarships
D1 - looks like ~79 coaches recruited players and about 126 did nothing despite open scholarships

SO, I think it's hard to say exactly what will happen in an actual paying world where coaches have more incentive to actually recruit.

Right now the system allows for D2 and D3 schools tor reach very high and there are actually a decent amount of D1 coaches recruiting...

but I think there are usually larger D1, D2 and D3 populations so the beta world might be a little skewed in terms of what recruits are attainable.

Yikes!! I didn't realize we had that many ghost shipping the beta world. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of figuring out how things will work.

Yeah - I think Seble should remove the people that are not doing anything to get a better idea. It skews the results.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/1/2016 1:43:00 PM (view original):
emy - you get new attention points every cycle, so the goal is to spend them all every cycle. You get 20 + 20 per opening at this point. Took a lot of us a few cycles to figure that out in beta season 1.

Spend the minium possible on attention points emy the minium possible for a recruit is the way to go

Posted by brianxavier on 7/1/2016 4:15:00 PM (view original):
some context about the beta world... looking at some very rough estimates, I counted how many coaches were active during recruiting...

D3 - looks like ~40 coaches recruited players and about 60 did nothing despite open scholarships
D2 - looks like ~38 coaches recruited players and about 46 did nothing despite open scholarships
D1 - looks like ~79 coaches recruited players and about 126 did nothing despite open scholarships

SO, I think it's hard to say exactly what will happen in an actual paying world where coaches have more incentive to actually recruit.

Right now the system allows for D2 and D3 schools tor reach very high and there are actually a decent amount of D1 coaches recruiting...

but I think there are usually larger D1, D2 and D3 populations so the beta world might be a little skewed in terms of what recruits are attainable.

Sadly, I'm one of the coaches ghostshipping the beta. I tried to figure things out a couple times, was confused, wasn't a fan, and was tired of the time-consuming click fest and realized I didn't have the extra time to commit to learning the new game. There are a handful of good, long-time coaches I chat with fairly regularly in this game that are all ghosting the beta for the exact same reasons. I'm not trying to be debbie downer here but if this many coaches have already given up on the beta I'm fearful of what world population numbers will look like when it gets rolled out.