Here are some other things that I will share about strategies of the new release:
Each player has preferences that he likes, so one good strategy is to find good players that match up well with your school. Last year, I landed a 5 Star PG with a C+ prestige. This year, two 5 star guys with a B prestige. Also focused most of my attention points on them.
Everyone is recruitable - even a 5 star guy can go to a D- team, but that would be pretty impossible. But if you find a player that matches up well with you on preferences, you have a decent shot at them.
Each player only accepts one CV from 5 schools
A team can only do 20 HVs on a player - so it’s not such a big deal if you are battling a team that has 6 openings because you can compete with them on equal footing. Also, a team can’t come in a the last cycle and do 150 HVs after a guy has been considering you all along.
You also have attention points that you can use on players. These are totally free. Every team gets 20, plus 20 per open scholarship. This is where you can sometimes beat out a more powerful team, if you use all of your AP on one guy. I think that 20 AP = 1 HV in terms of power, or it may be 60. You can sign a player using only AP and a scholarship.
If you offer playing time and a start at the beginning of recruiting to a player you know you want, then every HV and AP and CV after that point gets a multiplier, so you want to offer that early. Promises of PT and a start are very powerful.
You can recruit longer distances - 201 miles is not hardly more expensive than 199 and 361 is not a big jump from 359. If you find a player across the country that wants far from home, you have a shot at him, because of the 20 HV limit.
Cross country recruiting is possible, especially if the player wants to be far from home.
If you rescind a scholarship of a player you did not recruit, you get recruiting resources for them.
There is no penalty for walk-ons. You still get full resources.
Cycles are every 6 hours in recruiting
The first cycle starts at 8 AM and processes at 5 PM so you have 9 hours to get your first actions in.
Players are programmed to want to sign at different times - not everyone at all signs right away:
Whenever: Will now have about 50% chance of signing at some point in period 1 and 50% chance in period 2.
As Soon as Possible: Previously, these would sign almost definitely within 18 hours of the start of signings. I'm going to spread that out longer, so that they will definitely sign by the end of period 1, but not quite as quickly as they were.
By the end of period 1: Almost all will sign by the end of period 1, with odds increasing each cycle.
Late: None will sign in period 1, but almost all will sign by the end of period 2, with odds increasing each cycle.
Of course, anyone who hasn't signed already will sign on the very final cycle, regardless of tendency.
In cases where a team is chasing a recruit from a higher division, interest level is now limited to Moderate until the start of the second recruiting period in cases where it's a one-division difference, or until the final 24 hours of recruiting if it's a D3 team and a D1 recruit. This means they will not sign until that point, because you have to have them at High or Very High interest to sign. On the final recruiting cycle, if a recruit has no valid offers from teams at High or Very High, he will accept an offer from a team at a lower interest level. So he would first look for a team at Moderate, then if there were none there, he would move on to Low, then to Very Low.
Occasionally a team with "High" interest will beat a team with "Very High". The odds are not favorable, but it can and does happen.
Human coached teams will now auto-sign players after recruiting ends to get to 3 openings or less. So, if a team has 5 openings, they would auto-sign 2 players.
8/10/2016 7:03 PM (edited)