3 reasons.

1. Time
2. Money
3. Learning Curve

1. Time

1x worlds are ~45 days and I beleive 50 days beween each cycle.  Thats means a first season coach doesn't get his first recruits to graduate for 6 months!! Six months!  Did you read that?  6 MONTHS.  That is a long time to see how you first did, how high you build up prestige, and even determine if you like the game, since you can't really make that choice the first few seasons since you most likely suck unless you take over a strong school.

Even for the faster 2x worlds is ~30 days 35 I beleive between each cycle.  so 120 days of 4 months to get you're first class to graduate.  Better than 6 but 4 months is still a long time to determine whether you like the game or even learn how to play the game.

2. Money

The way HD works you pay upfront in hopes of winnign to not pay later, the better you are the less you pay.  You can use the 4.95 first season but you really can't learn anything or even have fun unless you take over a decent school.  then it's around 45 bucks for 5 more seasons or 95ish dollars for 10 seasons.  Depending on the world speed it's $9 bucks a month(2x) or 6 bucks a month for 1x speed.  Now granted it's not a lot of money for the entertainment value it provides.  However for someone new who has no experience and really no idea based on that first season I think the cost to pay 45 or 95 bucks to continue to even find out if you like the game is a lot of money upfront even though some may not think so, even if you make a lot of money I think that's still a lot of money for people to play a "computer game"

3. Learning Curve

Very few coaches start off really strong, and then it takes a lot more time to reach the elite level status.  yes I know we have exceptions who come in and win right away, but those guys are more rare.  It's clear a lot of coaches don't read the forums or work on getting better through sitemail, conference chat or whatever and just sit there paying to play a game they have no idea what to do(even though WIS loves these people)  Now this ties back into the first two as since there is a steep learning curve if you still learn fast it's ~4 seasons to start to do well and build up prestige and then say you really learn after that 4th season and kill it in recruiting then is another 4 seasons to get those guys to senior status making it 8 seasons or 1 full year in 1x worlds or 8 months in 2x worlds.  It would be interesting to see for coaches that won a NC how long it took them(~1.5 years personally for me)

Basically HD is anti new users, and relies  on a select few coaches that put in a lot of effort to learn and wait the time to experience the results.  Which is a problem for a game that relies heavily on a strong userbase and is currently struggling in that area.

Just figured I throw this out since it's kinda coming up right now(due to me lol)

Edit: also that was all based towards D3.  D1 is another beast.  Also D1 is what I assume most coaches are joining HD for, I don't think anyone originally planned to play this game for the D2/D3 level, but of how it works made that decision.

Getting to high D1:

Fast:
Season 1 - Join D3 doesn't matter as you can move to D1 right away
Season 2 - Moved to D2 and took over a strong term from a returning coach, S16 or farther
Season 3 - S16 or farther
Season 4 - S16 or farther
Season 5 - S16 or farther loyalty is A+ and you can move to Cish job possibly low Big 6 job
Season 6 - rebuild D1 school as it's much harder to land a big 6 job with returning talent thts good early
Season 7 - rebuild
Season 8 - rebuild start to see some results from 1st class reachign junior status and get  NT 1st round/2nd round assuming this is Big 6 and get to B prestige
Season 9 - first class is senior see results S16 bid and get to B+
Season 10 - continue success and bring in talent get to A- prestige

Then you make the choice to either stay with the low big 6 school you landed sometimes these can be good schools like Oregon, Minnesota, Utah, Clemson are all schools that aren't hard looking to build up and seem to be NC contenders with a good coach.

or you suffer through thr job process and/or wait and pray a coach at the elite high prestige or your dream job suffers a stroke and leaves HD which you probably can't land unless you are equal prestige meaning you've built you're school to A-/A prestige.

Then you finally land your job and don't get through your first class for another 4 seasons....

Yes that was the fast version about 14 seasons also including a lot of luck to getting your first class through at your final destination job(which may not even be A- or better prestige at the time you take over so that's building your last job up.  21 months(1 year 9 months) for 1x or 14 months(1 year 2 months)

I'm not even going to do the slow version because the fast version is 1+ year regardless

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?

Well, I plan on staying for a long period of time. So I am willing to learn and try to learn to be succesful. But I plan on making Chowan a A+ prestige then think about jumping into another job possible a division 1 job if the loyality and success meets qualifications.

"While your agent's advice is crucial for knowing where to apply, it's important to remember that he is not working with the full body of information. Schools hire coaches based on 4 categories.
1.Success
2.Experience
3.Loyalty
4.Reputation "
players guide
Experience check because I have a C- prestiege here at Chowan in Allen and that depends on 1. Success and recuritng
to get it to a A+ prestiege. I am going to build a resume here at the division 3 job its a active conference so its going to be hard to gain some success but I am here for long term.

I think that in order to fill this game with more people WIS needs to 1. Lower the price of seasons to like 8$, I can see why people see 12.95 for a single season and think that is completely outrageous and then never give the game a second thought. While we all know that it is worth it new players do not see it the same way. 2. Decrease the amount of days it takes to get to low D1. Everyone here when they joined the game had the goal to get to D1 and compete with all of the teams you see in real life, nobody thought that they would spend the next year struggling to reach the depths of D1. Which is why they need to decrease the length of the season and decrease the requirements to reach bottom D1. The length of the season can be decreased in the job searching stage by at like a day, and in the recruiting stage by at like 2 days and then changing the cycles to 2 hours to get the same number of total cycles. Also they should get rid of off days I don't really know the point of those anyway. There is probably more you can cut off but that is still like 6 days, which after multiple seasons adds up and I think could really improve the speed at which new players feel the game especially since a lot of the waiting days are in the start when the players just got to the game.

I wish WIS cared about dumb saps like me!  They have made plenty of money off me and I still keep coming back.  I have made elite eight once or twice and the sweet sixteen a handful of times, but I like basketball.  And as on this morning I am in all Worlds and have 6,644 games on my resume (under two user names, and don't freak one has been inactive for several years).  I have had two of my sons try to play, but does not hold the same lure of RTS online gaming.  But for a hobby, it is fun and I have enjoyed my time.....Just wish I had heard about it five or six years sooner so I would not have spent all that money on EA Sports Madden Franchise.

I hope selbe trots out these highly anticipated updates in a new World instead of beta rolling in to the existing Worlds.  That way he will see an increase of money from all us dumb saps, who new got to their dream jobs!  I suppose just like Coaches in real life I will never get the "Dream Job" I seek.

0nly: The game is designed to allow people to participate once (or twice) a day except for recruiting. That is what lots of people want. People with jobs can't spend the time that goes into recruiting every day for every team. While a 3 or 4 games per day world might be fun, the pace would be hard for many to meet.

Not sure how you would speed up games and allow people time to make adjustments between games. You could reduce time of recruiting.. Especially after signings begin.. But even that would impact some coaches.

I know we've talked about this before Only but I 100% disagree about money being an issue.

I'm a pretty new coach and I've recruited a bunch of friends to join me in the Captial Conf in Iba. I've been able to convince 10 of my friends to give HD a shot and we were able to fill the conference last season for the first  time (maybe first time, not totally positive). This past season, 4 of my friends decided not to renew and play again. One guy only did 1 season, 2 guys did 2 seasons and the 4th guy did 3 seasons. Not one person mentioned cost as even a small factor to playing. It literally does not come up when talking about the game and whether they like it or not. Not even a little bit.

Yes, for some, it may be a lot of money but frankly, it's really not if you only have 1 or 2 teams. Compared to other forms of entertainment, it's a perfectly reasonable cost.

I also don't believe Time is an issue either. Yes, it takes awhile but A LOT of people like that. It's a slow game that doesn't require a ton of attention and that's perfectly fine for a lot of folks. They have other things going on in their lives and a game that requires them to log on at work and make line up changes may not be preferred to them. In fact, for my scenario where we come in every day and talk about last night's game, it's perfect. I wouldn't really want it sped it up any. Again, the friends who haven't gotten in to HD have never cited the game being too slow as a reason. I believe it's an issue for experience users like you Only but for newbies, it's not the reason they don't stick around.

Learning curve- there ya go. For some reason you've listed it as the 3rd reason but I believe it's a HUGE reason why new people don't stick around. Not the biggest but it's huge. The game is tough to learn and unless you're on the forums, it's tough to figure out what you're doing. How else do you explain the coaches out there who routinely finish seasons with 1-5 wins. That should not be possible.

Okay, here's what I think is the reason. There is little to keep the player engaged throughout the season. You get on, check if you won or loss and that's it basically. You don't know what tweaks to make cause you don't understand the game so it's not like you're game planning. Maybe you check an email from your assistant coach and alter a practice plan. But that's it for the most part right? During the season, it's not like a whole lot is going on for a new player who doesn't know what he's doing. So, he's not engaged throughout the month watching his team win or lose. He loses interest because you're basically just hanging out in a silo and unless you got an active coaches corner, it can be very boring.

i think this is a tough game for folks who are really focused on "getting to the destination", whatever that is. its always a strange thing to me personally, to hear stuff like, "once i get max level and get all this stuff THEN i can actually play for real". F that. i don't want to play something that sucks for months to get to something that is fun, i only want to play if its fun along the way. i think HD is fun along the way, many of my best memories of HD are in the lower divisions, so that's why it worked for me. i am a goal-driven guy, just not a destination-driven guy. my first big goal was to win a d3 title, and i was able to feel like i was in contention for that pretty quick, my 5th season i pulled a 1 seed (and lost in the 2nd round to a -5 slowdown, but still). from there on out, the hunt was on...

anyway, i wonder how many folks are really destination-driven folks, who having a 15 season walk to high d1 is really something they worry about on day 1 and are turned off by? versus how many just want to enjoy something along the way, and look at different parts of the game as a way of keeping things fresh over time? maybe its just a small segment of people who are happy to just enjoy it along the way, and thats part of why WIS struggles? i suppose HD is not an instant gratification kind of thing, which is big these days - but then again, MMORPGs have been wildly successful - and they have a long grind before you can get to the high stages. 

For me, i just try to enjoy the ride, enjoy re-builds, and enjoy my team's improvement season to season (if any). Just me maybe, but in picking jobs i look to take over trainwrecks and see if i can get the team back to respectability. Although it would be cool to grab an A+ school, i just wouldn't find it as interesting.

I try not to think of HD as a sprint to Div-1 Big-6, which is good for me cuz i just finally got qualified for my first 2 (sucky) Big-6 jobs after 17 Crum seasons.

I like the pace of the 1x a day worlds. I had tried 1 year of a 2x world (Knight, Rhode Island College), and found it to be faster than what i needed. It seemed like my entire day was consumed with HD and that i was gameplanning on the fly, especially for the 2pm afternoon games. Often when i had a busy morning i had no chance to log on and my gameplan couldn't be adjusted.

I've played 27 full seasons across 4 worlds and this Wednesday it will be 28 months since i first joined HD. Really i'd recommend this game to anyone. At a minimum it's a great diversion from the day to day grind, and i think takes less time than regular fantasy baseball where i need to check 15 boxscores and injury reports daily. What's better than browsing thru the recruits list as you wait for your kid to get off the bus at the end of a school day?

As far as retaining humans, my advice:
- Ath and Def means a lot... but beyond that, there are many different ways and strategies to win at HD.
- if getting to Div-1 is your goal, then jump to Div-2 in your year-2 and learn the game there. It takes minimum 3 NT's and a great reputation to qualify for Div-1. In my first season, someone that was trying to be helpful told me to stay in Div-3 for a long time to learn the game... the journey to Div-1 took longer that way though.
- easy for me to say since i'm 0-11 lifetime in NT competition, but don't obsess over winning championships. A select few humans who have played HD have ever made a Final Four, much less a National Title. Ignore threads where people count up their gold and silver.
- also, in recent months there has been a flurry of threads that focus on the negative aspects of HD. These are fine in general as a way to try to improve the game, but they rarely are combined with companion threads discussing ghings we enjoy about HD. If i was a new owner and clicked thru the forums, i would run possibly run from HD as fast as possible... sometimes constant negativity... some is important, but c'mon it gets repetitive... so to new owners I'd advise them to not take those threads too seriously... every game, really every part of someone's day can have room for improvement, and HD is no different, but chill on the constant repetitive complaints.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/10/2016 11:40:00 AM (view original):
i think this is a tough game for folks who are really focused on "getting to the destination", whatever that is. its always a strange thing to me personally, to hear stuff like, "once i get max level and get all this stuff THEN i can actually play for real". F that. i don't want to play something that sucks for months to get to something that is fun, i only want to play if its fun along the way. i think HD is fun along the way, many of my best memories of HD are in the lower divisions, so that's why it worked for me. i am a goal-driven guy, just not a destination-driven guy. my first big goal was to win a d3 title, and i was able to feel like i was in contention for that pretty quick, my 5th season i pulled a 1 seed (and lost in the 2nd round to a -5 slowdown, but still). from there on out, the hunt was on...

anyway, i wonder how many folks are really destination-driven folks, who having a 15 season walk to high d1 is really something they worry about on day 1 and are turned off by? versus how many just want to enjoy something along the way, and look at different parts of the game as a way of keeping things fresh over time? maybe its just a small segment of people who are happy to just enjoy it along the way, and thats part of why WIS struggles? i suppose HD is not an instant gratification kind of thing, which is big these days - but then again, MMORPGs have been wildly successful - and they have a long grind before you can get to the high stages. 

you know my destination answer ;)

It is very hard for even fairly bright people to rise above 2nd tier BCS IMO, but there are really only what, 10 A+ baseline teams per world, so only 100 of those available means the competition for them is pretty high as it should be I suppose. 

I think Gillespie said something important. Why is there so much negativity at the moment? It sure does not help new owners to stick around.

It's a great game but a tough one. The learning curve is about six months to a year, then you will work to get from being competitive to put yourself in a position to win it from time to time, and maybe become a top coach. If the game was childish, it would be boring.

What's the perfect job? To me, the answer lie somewhere between having some success and being in a good situation. It depends on what you are looking for. If you only have fun when you win NTS or when you are in a big six job in a top school with A+ prestige, this game is only going to frustrate you. Everybody here wants the same thing. Show your skills, learn the game, be patient, you will get there. It took me a year to get to a big six job and I am still going through tough seasons. But it was fun!

Every job is fun! My only advice is this, don't take a job you won't keep or don't somewhere where you do not want to be at. It applies to
All divisions. I made that mistake too often. Remaining on a job you built is always the right decision unless you are getting a real chance to climb the ladder. Secondly, don't go in empty conferences. It's really boring.

I think people have a wrong view of what negativity is if they think this has been negative. This is a discussion of the shortcomings of the game, and why there are so few coaches and so many worlds. If you can't have a frank and honest discussion about it for "being negative" then nothing will get done...ever. This goes for the real world. You can't pretend there's no issues.

Discussing the cost of the game is a very real and appropriate issue to ponder, especially considering WIS has put almost no effort into the game for years. $12.95 seems awfully high when a full season on netfllx or hulu costs half that.

If WIS really wanted to drum up business i think they should offer a discount rate to students.  As a college student whenever it comes time to buy more seasons I have to scramble to have enough money to comfortably buy more seasons.  Plus i think if college students could play for say $5 a month as long as they are in college that it would entice a lot of college students to play and stick around.

Only, I completely disagree about money being a factor. It's not that expensive of a game. I do think they should sell the first coach a 3 season deal or something because one season means nothing. My first season in HD was at Cal Tech Tark and I think I won 2 games. Maybe 8 total in the first 3 seasons. I had no idea what I was doing. But I'm competitive and fought the urge to quit and also asked a million questions to better coaches and got better. A lot of people get frustrated and quit.

Two: I think new coaches need mentoring. Maybe formalizing that somehow or making it easier and clear to new coaches that they should each out via the forums and really engage and learn the game.

To me, one place where we completely agree is that everyone joins to be in D1. But in reality most coaches need to learn D3 before they worry about D1. It's taken me two years in D3 just to finally win a title. Zorzii is dead on. This game takes 6 months to a year just to get competent for most people. Another place I think is just spot on in your post: one a day worlds are TOO SLOW. I keep thinking I'll add a 4th team but it's just mind numbing. If I want to do a rebuild in a one a day world, it's something like 5 or 6 months before I can complete that rebuild. I just don't have that kind of patience for an online game. I think two a day are perfect. It moves briskly.

Nobody will stay in the game if they feel isolated or on their own. I've said it a million times. WIS has to figure out ways to make it easier to keep all the coaches engaged with one another. Most of us on the forum will speak up but a lot of coaches go it alone and so when they decide to quit, who's going to care? But if you're in a good league with supportive coaches who want to help and then compete with you, it makes it so much harder to quit. At least for me. There are a group of coaches in this game that are leaders who go out and corral people together and that makes the game amazing. People like only, zorzii and many others. Imagine if every world and every division had a coach who wrote up pre season predictions and post season thoughts like in knight and phelan. Something more engaging and interesting. What if the "news" feed was actually news and not system generated bs? I think they should give 1 coach in every world and division free HD service in exchange for being the moderator of the division and in charge of writing up what's going on to keep people interested. It works.

Most of sports in real life is the discussion about sports. The actual games are fun but it's the discourse and the engagement between fans that makes it fun. That's what is really under valued in the game in my opinion.