What is different about the beta from the current game that you think negatively impacts the experience of playing?

If you think "recruiting", can you say specifically what you object to? Please be detailed, I'm very curious!

It may be that I need to learn how to use the format better, but based on my experience so far it is clear that scouting/recruiting will take waaaay more time for me than did the prior scheme. Way more time to even begin to feel that I have scouted thoroughly Lots of effort, clicks, time spent on the site to discover players and lack of efficient tools for handling the players even once you can "see" them. Perhaps I was very efficient in terms of time used in the old scheme, dont know. But unless there are better ways than I know to do this stuff, this is more time than I have available for a game.

Given that the new system does not focus on the primary things that I think are wrong with the game, this major increase in effort in order to compete is a nonstarter for me. I've cut 2 of 4 teams. Will likely go down to 1 team once the new game launches and unlikely that I will buy any more seasons.

Posted by fd343ny on 6/26/2016 1:25:00 PM (view original):
It may be that I need to learn how to use the format better, but based on my experience so far it is clear that scouting/recruiting will take waaaay more time for me than did the prior scheme. Way more time to even begin to feel that I have scouted thoroughly Lots of effort, clicks, time spent on the site to discover players and lack of efficient tools for handling the players even once you can "see" them. Perhaps I was very efficient in terms of time used in the old scheme, dont know. But unless there are better ways than I know to do this stuff, this is more time than I have available for a game.

Given that the new system does not focus on the primary things that I think are wrong with the game, this major increase in effort in order to compete is a nonstarter for me. I've cut 2 of 4 teams. Will likely go down to 1 team once the new game launches and unlikely that I will buy any more seasons.

Interesting, I haven't found scouting to be very time consuming and I think the new filters have reduced the need to click around (which I agree was a huge issue in the first beta season). Here's how I've been scouting:

1) FSS the states I'll be recruiting from. No different than current game other than a few extra clicks. Perhaps this is an area where click could be cut down.
2) Run my private camp with maximum amount of players.
3) Once camps have run, use my Assistant to scout 25 players at a time. Number of times sending out the assistant depends on how many recruits are around me, but usually 4 or 5 times should do (Less times in the mountain west for example). At this point, I have at least 150-200 D1 players at levels 3 and 4, which is more than enough information to make decisions on whether I want to recruit them.
4) I'll search by position, just like I did in the current game (PG/SG, SF, PF/C). I'll use the advanced filters to find guys that have preferences that line up with what I can give them and then I open up the filters to capture everyone, regardless of preferences. Occasionally I'll find a guy at level 3 that I'm very interested in and I'll go to level 4 scouting to see if he has high-highs in the right place. When doing this scouting, I'll add guys to my target list using the colored circles at the top of the recruiting screen. Perhaps we could streamline this by being able to assign a recruit to our target list without having to open up his recruit profile?
5) Once I have added all the necessary guys to my target list, I'll figure out my recruiting strategy.

I haven't found this to be overly time consuming. If I wanted to split it up more, I might do one set of positions (PG/SG, SF, PF/C) per day, since we have so much time to scout.

I see filters for preferences but not for ratings - alphabetical or numerical. Are there filters that would let me look for a guy - for example - with DEF of at least A or 50, ATH of at least A or 50 and REB of at least A or 50? or anything like that?

Not as far as I know, but I think seble could implement that. I put in a few comments in the beta forum about preference filters and they were there when we started this season. You should suggest it!


What are the other problems with the beta?

I agree with tkimble that scouting doesn't seem to take me much longer and it's also spread out over the entire season which is a huge plus for me because I don't always have time on the day before recruiting begins to scout extensively. So I typically just buy the few local states that I usually recruit from which makes for a boring, strategy-less experience. I'm a big fan of scouting levels too (though I still think different levels should cost different amounts and Level 1 is trash without being position-adjusted).


I think the big issues right now are with recruiting and concerns about sniping, lack of recruits available in the second period for DI teams with EEs, etc. The potential is there though and I find it much more interesting than the previous version. Also, sims have better logic/do a better job in recruiting now so if coaches start dropping teams, it won't be as big of a loss as in the previous system.

Posted by trail on 6/26/2016 2:35:00 PM (view original):
I agree with tkimble that scouting doesn't seem to take me much longer and it's also spread out over the entire season which is a huge plus for me because I don't always have time on the day before recruiting begins to scout extensively. So I typically just buy the few local states that I usually recruit from which makes for a boring, strategy-less experience. I'm a big fan of scouting levels too (though I still think different levels should cost different amounts and Level 1 is trash without being position-adjusted).


I think the big issues right now are with recruiting and concerns about sniping, lack of recruits available in the second period for DI teams with EEs, etc. The potential is there though and I find it much more interesting than the previous version. Also, sims have better logic/do a better job in recruiting now so if coaches start dropping teams, it won't be as big of a loss as in the previous system.

I haven't read the EE thread extensively, so if this has been brought up I apologize.

It would seem that, with the draft big board, teams can anticipate having a player that will leave. Now obviously there is some uncertainty about the player leaving, but that is part of the strategy of recruiting. If you anticipate one of your players is going to leave, it would make sense to recruit some players during period 1 who might be able to fill that spot if the player does leave. You'll have to build up points and effort on these backups (probably target guys with late signing preference) in case a guy goes EE. As seble said, recruiting effort will not disappear even if you fill your scholarships. As a D1 coach, I find this to be a very interesting wrinkle that should create more battles between big 6 (with less effort) and mid-major (with more effort/PT promises) that we see in real life.

I think 1) the multiple recruiting periods / EE issues and 2) the ebay-style recruit sniping are going to cause a lot of frustration without a justifying increase in entertainment value.

Other big-to-me issues: D3 coaches are signing D1-quality talent, which is apparently a feature and not a bug. Recruiting jucos and transfers is unnecessarily difficult. The number of recruits in the beta is actually lower than we're currently getting in production when the number should be doubled or tripled. And the whole premise of "discovering" recruits seems like we're moving back in time 50 years; this feature would make sense and would even be fun if recruits were more numerous, but they aren't, so the "discovery" process in the Scout.com age is just inane busywork.

I'm not here to trash the beta, just providing the feedback this thread requests.

1) sniping-People won't always be able to refresh constantly near signings.
2) no caps-will become a system of who is furthest from a clustering of d1 schools at d2/3
3) separation of scouting and recruiting budgets- so the process is longer and we make this move to combine budgets that decreases strategic decision making. If I'm going to spend more time recruiting long term I want more depth to the process to be fostered.

where to begin?

Lets start with the fact nothing the was pretty much an agreed upon consensus was worked on and the best we got was adding other solutions to try and heal the problem without actually addressing it . I think we all know what those are, but I'll focus on the actual recruiting.

-recruiting punishes elite schools through EE's read this fully if you want. pretty much you get sloppy seconds for recruiting if you have EE's it's funny literally anyone "for" punishing EE's has either a) never coached D1 or b) is a bad coach at D1

-two signing periods also hurt new coaches and coaches who move jobs because they also get "sloppy seconds" but apparently we are "easing" them into the game, but really we just let them suffer through rebuilds and not even get to have their own players grow at least.

-the talent not really spread out and made D1 pretty inbalanced, so the solution was to punish teams for being good through EE's and adding hoops to jump through to find recruits in hope that players would now be hidden from good schools as well as adding in random signing and what seems to be wiping the value of prestige out.

-increased time it takes to scout, except for tj and chapel everyone has said it takes a lot longer and really its not like you are getting more information except for level 4 which is a requirement since there's no split between current FSS information and scouting information as thats all level 4. so currently scouting takes 20 minutes for a team and you have a 36? hour window to get it done which bothers people so now we force everyone to scout over a period of time instead of still have the ability to get it done in a reasonable chunk at once a massive overcorrection. as well as many coaches saying they are/currently cutting teams because of the added time requirements. so a game with a population problem will change the game which will cause more population problems and be fine with that?

-no limits on the players you can recruit will cause extreme concetration of talent among a few coaches at D2/D3 yes right now maybe not everyone is bringing in B6 talent but I don't think anyone is saying that will happen, however the best coaches will bring in better talent that has no business playing D3 basketball and coaches like rednu, qb are saying they are brining in classes they'd have no chance of landing at their current schools which are better run and better prestige. So like GD expect to see a few elite coaches becoming more dominant at D2/D3 and become completely unbalanced with maybe a group of 2-4 coaches winning the NC every single season(go check some GD dynasties where coaches will win 10+ titles in a row and thats what we are headed for at the lower levels), but aparently this update was meant to make it easier for new coaches as we are doing things like seperating budgets so you can't blow all your recruiting money and complain when you screw up.

-preferences were cool but implemented terribly granted the worst were changed a bit, but still things like tempo should be changing on a constant basis in HD and things like strong def/3 shooting are very subjective and hard to establish a "identity" than in real life, so some seasons I got lucky with some high+ and got realy good lp but not per, and some seasons I got lucky and recruited good per but not lp, but a recruit doesn;t match because he wants per and the seasons before him I had done well recruiting lp even though I'd prefer to be a per team. or things like not including the average gpa of my students a very simple and easy can be translated to academic success.

-filters are not added even though they've been brought up but its something he is "working on" glad that wasn't a big concern to have right away...

-wonderful things like an even drunker assistant coach and camps being run by heroin addicts who think anyone should be allowed into a camp

-increased ability to snipe by allowing results to be instantanous. and then the next solution of making the cycles longer now makes it even more important to be on for recruiting(missing a cycle is a complete no-no) as well as making it more and more important to get recruiting first cycle granted they extended to be from 8 am to 5 pm(you know the time most people are working, so they can't even do a simple thing like allow longer first recruiting cycle right)

-punishing of strong conferences. people think conferences will still remain strong because of the 1 preference and rpi? um how about we take the talent away from those teams and see how good the conference is and their rpi is. the reason those conferences are strong and have great rpi's is because over time they were able to extend their recruiting reach because they had cash that let them recruit farther out and beat coaches who skimped by in sim conferences. without that you force coaches to fight each other and lower the collective talent of the conference and decrease each teams talent and their rpi "advantage".. so again a big f u to coaches who endure a strong conference

I could go on but thats enough I mean coachspud and his superior knowledge will come in and accurately refute everything and then chapel will come in and say yes but forcing coaches to cut teams and having coaches leave is a great idea!

I mean spuds clearly a good coach surely a 70 ath 90 reb 90 def 80 sb 45+ lp guy is a scrub at D3 lolololol what a tool

Posted by kcsundevil on 6/26/2016 10:20:00 PM (view original):
I think 1) the multiple recruiting periods / EE issues and 2) the ebay-style recruit sniping are going to cause a lot of frustration without a justifying increase in entertainment value.

Other big-to-me issues: D3 coaches are signing D1-quality talent, which is apparently a feature and not a bug. Recruiting jucos and transfers is unnecessarily difficult. The number of recruits in the beta is actually lower than we're currently getting in production when the number should be doubled or tripled. And the whole premise of "discovering" recruits seems like we're moving back in time 50 years; this feature would make sense and would even be fun if recruits were more numerous, but they aren't, so the "discovery" process in the Scout.com age is just inane busywork.

I'm not here to trash the beta, just providing the feedback this thread requests.

Can you say more about the multiple recruiting periods / EE issues? There was a mention of that above and I think it's actually a cool feature that coaches have to plan for a potential EE during recruiting.

Can you say more about the ebay-style sniping and why it'll be frustrating? How is it worse than what we have now?

Posted by therewas47 on 6/26/2016 10:27:00 PM (view original):
1) sniping-People won't always be able to refresh constantly near signings.
2) no caps-will become a system of who is furthest from a clustering of d1 schools at d2/3
3) separation of scouting and recruiting budgets- so the process is longer and we make this move to combine budgets that decreases strategic decision making. If I'm going to spend more time recruiting long term I want more depth to the process to be fostered.

1) How is it worse than what we have today? How could it be fixed? HV caps? 5 HVs per cycle? Doesn't that then make it harder for people who have EEs to come in during the 2nd cycle and make up the difference?

2) Well in the current system the best locations are the ones with few D3 schools and a lot of D2 schools (at D3). With reduced penalties for distance, I actually think this could be better than what we have today in terms of clustering.

3) I haven't found the process to be longer. The second part of your statement I don't quite understand.

viva-- I won't quote you because it'll make the page way too long, but I'll address your points. One thing I want to bring up before I address those points was that I was hoping this thread could be a constructive discussion about the beta and not devolve into the name-calling of coaches who haven't even posted in this thread. Ad hominem attacks poison the well for constructive discussion, so if we could refrain from that, at least in this thread, I would greatly appreciate it. I'll address your points in the next post.

I have found scouting to be much longer. I used to go through and scout in about 20 min for each team and be done. In the Beta, I scout, but I now I have to wait for camps to run to make sure I get all my recruits (which tends to break whatever my thoughts were when I first scouted them), and then it's a waste to break up the recruit pool by division since there is no division cap. The lack of a division cap will also delay my ability to start recruiting right away.

At DII and DIII, you would be stupid to not just wait to see what DI scraps appear unless you find a stud at your own division. DIII recruits are going to be useless. We might as well just get rid of projected recruiting divisions.

I never understood people complaining about the time of the current recruiting system. After the first 2 cycles, I know what battles I have and I know which recruits I feel are comfortably locked up. I didn't have to check every cycle, because signings didn't start until a specific time and date, so there was no real penalty if you missed a cycle. When I do get on to check recruiting, I spend 3-5 minutes at most just to check where I stand. In the Beta system, if you miss any cycles, it could be the difference between losing a recruit or keeping him. So now I have to check every cycle just to make sure noone has caught me or passed me on the considering list. Recruiting in the current system I might spend 1-1.5 total hours over the entire recruiting cycle. In the beta system, I can see myself spending most of that time just in scouting, because I have to keep scouting for each level I want to see.

1) EEs-- It's hard to know exactly what will be around in the second cycle. You call it sloppy seconds, but we haven't even seen what the 2nd cycle will have yet because haven't actually gotten there in the beta yet! It should be interesting, but considering we haven't seen what'll be around yet, I don't think we should just to conclusions. I made this point earlier, but I think it is an interesting wrinkle to have to strategize in recruiting about a potential EE. If I thought I was going to have an EE, I would seek out recruits with late signing tendencies and stay on their radars and builds up enough points to unlock scholarships and HVs before the 2nd cycle rolls around. If I don't have an EE, oh well, that's actually probably a good result. If I do have an EE, I have targets lined up. I really don't think this'll be that hard of an adjustment to make, most coaches are capable of contingency planning.

2) 2 signing periods hurting new coaches/ job changers--Assuming the sim/previous coach has recruited, the 2nd signing period probably won't be too confusing for new coaches as they'll have to fill a reduced number of spots. It may actually be a good introduction to recruiting before they have to do the whole season recruiting in a week or two after. I'm not 100% sure if that's actually going to be the case, but I don't think we're really hurting new coaches by having them recruit in the 2nd cycle. I think the biggest thing for new coaches (which isn't really available today) would be a comprehensive recruiting guide. If we're worried about new coaches, a recruiting guide is the best thing that can be done. Having them recruit 2nd cycle is small potatoes compared to that.

As for job changers, it just means your own team full of your own guys happens in season 5 instead of season 4. Is this a huge issue? I don't think so. You'll still have the majority of your own guys on the team by season 4.

3) Not totally sure what you're trying to say in your 3rd bullet, something about prestige being wiped out? From what I've seen prestige makes a difference, but not as large of a difference as before. However, preferences obviously seem to matter a great deal. I think that's a cool feature. Not sure I addressed what you were trying to say, but I tried here.

4) Good coaches will be too good at D2/D3-- Good coaches at D2 and D3 already dominate. They have a huge advantage over new players with their knowledge of pull downs and their ability to recruit D2 and D1 talent from D3. A good recruiting guide that allows new players to have a better understanding of how to recruit and that lets them know they can recruit players from higher divisions, is paramount. As for the claim that 2-4 coaches will win every year, what is that claim based off of? I can't seem to find anything in your argument that clearly points to a new feature in the beta that allows talent to concentrate around 2-4 coaches.

5) Preferences--I love preferences, but I think the team playing style preference could not be worth that much. I'm not sure how much it's worth compared to other preferences. I'd also like to see it come into play only in extreme situations. For example, a 3pt shooter might want to come only if I'm shooting 50% of my shots from 3, or something like that. I'm not against it, I just hope little fluctuations in tempo don't have a huge impact.

6) Filters-- I'm a big fan of the preferences filters, which I campaigned for a bit in the beta forums. I'm sure ratings filters are coming. Could they have been here earlier? Sure, but it's a beta, and if they're here for the actual roll-out, I'm cool with that.

7) Camps-- Camps aren't great right now. I'm not sure how to fix them exactly, but they're definitely a place that could get some tweaking. However, I don't find this to be a big issue that makes recruiting less enjoyable.

8) Sniping-- Sniping goes on now, how is it worse than the current set up? Why is missing a cycle a huge no-no? The APs you spend in a cycle are worth peanuts when compared to the other recruiting actions. Most people can get on once every 12 hours for recruiting, so people won't be missing more than 1 cycle at a time.
8b) Longer first cycle-- The longer first cycle is an improvement for sure. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement. Could it be even longer? Sure, I'd be all for that. But let's not pretend it's not a big improvement over what we have right now.

9) Weakening strong conference-- I agree with you here. I think HD should incentivize being in a strong conference and one preference for strong conferences isn't going to cut it. There needs to be some budget increase for post-season success.