There was a time I'd scout as soon as the database updated. These days I'm lucky if I remember to do it the night before recruiting starts. How many people find this a chore? I've heard HD is better than some of the other WIS games, but I just don't find it fun. I'm still enjoying most aspects of this game, but I hate the thought of having "busy" work for a game I'm supposed to be having fun with.

I don't know how to make it better. Maybe it doesn't need to be better. I just don't enjoy it as my seasons in this game add up.

Here’s one suggestion: Set yourself a constraint. I was tired of D3 scouting (still love D1-maybe cause it’s easier) so I decided I was only going to scout recruits 230 miles from Sul Ross and from Mexico. This is a small player pool and may limit my high end success but it makes scouting and recruiting in general much less of a chore and more of “ooh what did I ge this year - Christmas Eve” kind of feeling.

It would be wonderful if if the game dropped money altogether, started recruits out at level 1, and just said you can attend x number of camps, your scouts can do x number of visits (varies by division), and that’s your pool every year. You get what you get and work from there.

The sad truth is that scouting and recruiting could both be a lot better, but are what they are mostly because of concerns about multiple accounts and cheating.

Would that really be great though? At the D2 level, I pride myself with my preparation going into recruiting, I spend the extra hours to plan everything out and I have spent hours upon hours both researching and then putting into practice scouting techniques that have helped me find more high level players. It has been my main focus of improvement since I have returned to this game and I can see with the classes I'm bringing in that I've gotten way better at it. Tbh, if you take that all away and just give everyone a more even pool, I would hate it. I like that the game rewards putting some extra time in and when it comes to scouting, you have from 5 PM the day before exhibitions to the middle of conference play to get it done, that's plenty of time.

Plus as mentioned, you don't have to put tons of hours into scouting, you can get a solid pool from just FSSing states and then doing assistant coach searches. I love that in this game when you do put in the work though, you can and often do get rewarded.

For me, my scouting strategies I’ve discovered and execute have majorly improved my HD success. It is a lot of work and I do sometimes get fatigued with it, but reaping the rewards feels nice.

Gameplanning is cool and all, but this game is won in recruiting. Scouting, I find to be a big key. There are so many ways to implement new strategies.

I'm still trying to figure out the best ways to scout. I usually end up disappointed with my recruit pool despite trying several different approaches.

Check the guides pinned in the forums. There's ton of great information. Also read Shoe's guide: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=509170.

I don't have an issue with the amount of time we are given, or anything like that. When I actually get to it, I do put in the work and use Shoe's method to maximize my pool of level 4 recruits and go through each one. And that's the problem I guess. I know that you have to put in the work if you want to have the best options, and more importantly, know the best sleeper options around your area. Perhaps creating a google sheet to filter from there would help at least make the process quicker and less painful. My point mainly was that the whole thing is just not that fun to me.

I love it. I just hate running out of money looking at all the junk international players

Similar to what bpmeilcmc said, I give myself constraints - but the constraints are more based around the type of team I want to build. Its fun to build a team with a certain style of play and personality and seeing how it works out. I've recently done this for all 7 of my teams, and I stick to this 80-90% of the time. It makes recruiting less boring for sure.

If you're just sifting through the all of the best players without any constraints, it might be less fun and feel more like work.

This has been my general strategy for all 7 of my teams. Some of these team-building strategies I just came up with recently, so the team doesn't fully reflect it yet. Some teams (Rhode Island , Bucknell, and St. Marys specifically) have been built with a specific strategy in mind for quite some time. I don't know if I'll have less or more success with these constraints, but I'm enjoying it more.

Texas Southern (Naismith) Motion/Man	High-potential Low Cores - at least 5 green, or 4 green and 2 blue, or 3 green and 4 blue)
Rhode Island (Wooden) - Triangle/Man	Balanced Players (smalls that can Reb/LP, bigs that have BH/P) - positional flexibility
Lipscomb (Rupp) - Flex/Man	Defense Defense Defense - also good Rebounding/shot blocking.. Build the team for a lot of normal/slowdown. Take on Walkons if needed for a few top players. Recruit players that know Man defense Offensively, always have a few elite 3-point shooters.
Idaho St. (Smith)- FB/Press	Ath + Speed + Stamina - make sure to always have 12 players for depth. All 12 players must be able to run. Higher cores if possible. Recruit players that know FB/Press. at least 25/25 on IQ
Clayton St. - Triangle/Zone	FT shooting must be elite. 3-guard lineups. DEF also very important. Recruit a team built to win close games in a brutal conference. Go out of your way looking for players with these skills.
Bucknell - Flex/Man	Kind of the opposite of my Rhode Island team - get guys that have the potential to be amazing (90+) in 2 or 3 areas, and are passable everywhere else All players have the potential to get to 80+ ATH
St. Marys - FB/Press	Stamina/Speed/Ath for sure (in that order). High-stamina team. Spend 25/25 IQ on FB/Press every year, so players with higher cores is preferred (or same system) - look for FB/Press players in recruiting. Recruit local - make sure you can fill all 12 spots.

Posted by tmacfan14 on 4/6/2022 10:21:00 AM (view original):
Would that really be great though? At the D2 level, I pride myself with my preparation going into recruiting, I spend the extra hours to plan everything out and I have spent hours upon hours both researching and then putting into practice scouting techniques that have helped me find more high level players. It has been my main focus of improvement since I have returned to this game and I can see with the classes I'm bringing in that I've gotten way better at it. Tbh, if you take that all away and just give everyone a more even pool, I would hate it. I like that the game rewards putting some extra time in and when it comes to scouting, you have from 5 PM the day before exhibitions to the middle of conference play to get it done, that's plenty of time.

Plus as mentioned, you don't have to put tons of hours into scouting, you can get a solid pool from just FSSing states and then doing assistant coach searches. I love that in this game when you do put in the work though, you can and often do get rewarded.

You may love it for now, but an intensive approach is a recipe for burnout, especially with multiple teams. To be sustainable, I think most coaches need a more balanced approach. And if we assume it’s in the game’s interest that coaches have teams in multiple worlds, then scouting is probably too complicated/consuming by half. I put out my efficiency guide in hopes of giving folks a solid 5-minute primer, but even that gets tedious for me with more than 3-4 teams to keep track of. I’m sure I will forget altogether until RS2 again eventually (it’s already happened once, shortly after 3.0 was released).

I do agree that the discovery concept in general is fun, and shouldn’t be lost. I’m not suggesting there should just be one way to do it, or that it should all be “evened out”, or anything. I don’t think you lose much except tedium by ditching FSS and private camps. I’ve got a pretty detailed process in my head (remnants from discussions during 3.0 beta, haha), but probably not worth going into detail about now. The broad idea is that rather than rewarding time spent, I’d rather see more rewards on ingenuity and strategic thinking. But again, the confounding problem in the developers minds has always been folks with multiple accounts.

Posted by Basketts on 4/6/2022 11:49:00 AM (view original):
Check the guides pinned in the forums. There's ton of great information. Also read Shoe's guide: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=509170.

I don't have an issue with the amount of time we are given, or anything like that. When I actually get to it, I do put in the work and use Shoe's method to maximize my pool of level 4 recruits and go through each one. And that's the problem I guess. I know that you have to put in the work if you want to have the best options, and more importantly, know the best sleeper options around your area. Perhaps creating a google sheet to filter from there would help at least make the process quicker and less painful. My point mainly was that the whole thing is just not that fun to me.

Oh, I definitely have checked the forms and Shoe's guide. I just think I'm still not getting all quite right based on the quality of my pools. I feel like where your school is located makes a difference in how you should approach it but I haven't quite gotten it there yet.

Scouting your pool early to maximize to L4 (Shoe’s method) is only one strategy. While not a bad one at all, it’s not the only one.

I know a coach at D3 who would scout a very large pool to L2, creating a wide web of potential targets (and some long distance.) Then during early phases of the first recruiting period, he would eliminate recruits seemingly targeted by D2 and D1 coaches. He had the majority of his scouting $ saved to individually scout realistic targets that were less likely to be “stolen” by upper divisions.

The way the game is set up now, there is a large space for creative thinking and strategizing (even though it can get tedious.) There isn’t one correct way to do it.

I don’t really view the discovery aspect as fun, it is, but discovering the right talent in the right location in D2 can land you a great talent for D2 for 0 dollars spent. That is a huge advantage for D2 and D3 coaches, im for sure open to a change in the system where that is still available but just like in real life, if you spend more real life hours scouting then others, you’ll get an advantage and if you don’t, you’ll still have a pretty solid pool available to you to work with. Maybe your argument is more D1 based and it’s more tedious there as scouting lower end players doesn’t give you a great talent in most situations as from what I’ve read, those players are more higher level backups who compliment the big time star recruits you are able to sign.

As for burnout, I have 3 teams I really care about, I’m going to give 1 big cycle of recruiting in Naismith a try before fully writing off 1 a day worlds but I just don’t love them. Anyway, any burnout I would get from this game would not be from over preparing, I put in the time I want to with each team. I was burnt out from this game 10 years ago or whatever and never did any kind of recruit preparation, I just hated EEs and was sick of losing my star players. And I’m sure there will come a time, either through interest or situation, where I don’t want to prepare as much but if or when that time comes, I’d be more then happy with someone else having the ability to out scout me because I just think it’s a part of the game where you should be able to out work people.

Love scouting and recruiting, but am only about a .500 Coach so I must not be real good. But proximity is the best tool. Would really like to see D3 and D2 teams get zero AP actually applied until second cycle of RS2 on Projected D1 guys, and then if not signed all accumulated AP would apply. That would help mid major D1 teams or Coach Change teams actually have a cycle to apply AP before lower teams can try.

Posted by Basketts on 4/6/2022 11:49:00 AM (view original):
Check the guides pinned in the forums. There's ton of great information. Also read Shoe's guide: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=509170.

I don't have an issue with the amount of time we are given, or anything like that. When I actually get to it, I do put in the work and use Shoe's method to maximize my pool of level 4 recruits and go through each one. And that's the problem I guess. I know that you have to put in the work if you want to have the best options, and more importantly, know the best sleeper options around your area. Perhaps creating a google sheet to filter from there would help at least make the process quicker and less painful. My point mainly was that the whole thing is just not that fun to me.

The spreadsheet definitely helps. You can just copy/paste them in there and let your formulas decide who best fits your needs. It also ranks them for you so you can easily look through backup options if recruiting breaks down. I also like to add some quick notes like "Juco", "2.3 Ineligible", "bench shooter", etc. If you want to go the extra mile, you can also add a formula to calculate the cost to max (1 CV, 20 HV) each player, but you'd need to manually enter the distance for each recruit. I've even toyed around with a preferences formula although never really got comfortable with it. Creating all of this takes some time, but it will save you time in the long run.

With all that said, I'm not sure if any of that will help cure you ailment. To me, one of the best feelings is pulling off a masterclass in recruiting, but it usually takes a ton of effort which starts with scouting. If scouting is already feeling tedious to you, I'm not sure if putting the upfront work into a spreadsheet will be appealing.