While I know several people want to see changes to HD, and I certainly think there can be a few tweaks to make it better, I think they should ONLY be tweaks.

I do NOT want to see this game get a major overhaul. By and large, I LOVE it the way it is.

If there are to be changes, perhaps make them happen in only some worlds or create new worlds for the new game. Do not force everyone who likes this game the way it is to change.

I have played for years and have many teams. If there are major changes to this current game and I can no longer play it at al, I'm not sure what I will do at this point except be sad and unhappy that I've lost the game I loved.'

I may give the new game a shot, but I'll still miss this one if I can no longer play it. If the new one isn't as fun (and it likely won't be since this game is awesome the way it is in my opinion) then I may very well stop playing.

1. Allowing a school to see the recruits with 50-75 miles of campus. As pointed out, every coach knows their local recruits.

I'd think you need to be cautious on setting a flat mile limit on knowing local recruits.
Currently in Rupp, a team in NYC has 203 overall recruits within 50 miles.  My team in Kentucky has 7.

Great point, oldwarrior! I have two Kentucky teams and recruiting is already difficult enough in a small state.

i agree, that is a great point... maybe it should be like, your closest 200 recruits, or whatever correlates to the distance seble was going to set for the average school. i would much rather see it work that way, personally. regional situations are just way too important to success, it should be as much about coaching prowess (across the whole spectrum, recruiting, player evaluation, actual coaching, etc) as possible.

I would like to see a rather large overhaul just not to the best aspect of the game. I can't comment on d1( this seems to be the level that's really pushing all of this ) recruiting because I don't play there but d2 & d3 seem to be about right. I'm not opposed to some of the changes but minor tweaks is all that's needed imo. Killing postseason and rollover cash will cripple the strong or populated conf's at the lower levels. D3 schools are already working with low budgets and restricted to how much we can do but these changes seem like they will restrict them even more while giving a huge advantage to the few already isolated & highly coveted d3 powerhouse schools. With the current format I've had several seasons in which I FSS'd states that left me scratching my head wondering if any of them were scholarship worthy so while the camp and discovery idea sounds nice but expensive I think there WILL be several top tier coaches that experience long droughts if nothing is done to the recruiting generation. As far as recruiting nationally goes there are high schools that do it. I remember a local school and national powerhouse in Huntington prep that starred OJ Mayo & Patrick Patterson and another espn top 150 recruit back in '06(coincidence?)....Mayo was recruited by a private Ky HS as early as the 7th grade! Whatever seble decides I hope he takes his time with it and if need be I will participate. In fact I'm in 4 different worlds now....Knight, Phelan, Naismith, & Tark. Seble can make mock worlds of any or all of those and ask those users in the worlds to help out with feedback on testing. How about changes to team/player game planning and depth charts. Shouldn't there be more than one depth chart. I mean just because I start a freshmen due to either a promise or just wanting to work on WE doesn't necessarily mean I want him in the game at its most crucial time....how about a normal depth chart and other ones for the last 2 mins and overtime. Maybe some offensive and defensive subs too after dead balls or time outs depending on the situation. Make small changes to the recruiting and bigger changes to the game itself for coaches to have more influence on the outcomes of games played. I would like to see caps on iq's in different sets but I also think it's miserable for them to have f ratings in sets such as man and zone when anyone that has ever played the game plays these sets starting from an early age. Whats wrong with giving coaches the ability to run variations from a certain set like trapping from a zone or man....pick and rolls or back doors. You could even add letter grades and caps to recruits on such variations.....maybe even a clutch attribute. I vote minor changes to recruiting and more minor tweaks to the game itself as the game is already great as it is.

Posted by bistiza on 9/19/2015 5:50:00 PM (view original):
While I know several people want to see changes to HD, and I certainly think there can be a few tweaks to make it better, I think they should ONLY be tweaks.

I do NOT want to see this game get a major overhaul. By and large, I LOVE it the way it is.

If there are to be changes, perhaps make them happen in only some worlds or create new worlds for the new game. Do not force everyone who likes this game the way it is to change.

I have played for years and have many teams. If there are major changes to this current game and I can no longer play it at al, I'm not sure what I will do at this point except be sad and unhappy that I've lost the game I loved.'

I may give the new game a shot, but I'll still miss this one if I can no longer play it. If the new one isn't as fun (and it likely won't be since this game is awesome the way it is in my opinion) then I may very well stop playing.

Years ago this game had a major change it was Potential and making the sims recruit tougher. That was almost 6 years ago. This game needs to revolve and grow. Nothing can stay the same forever. A overhaul is long over due and a fresh prospective needs to be added to this game. When a change is made they do let us users test so they can get fresh Input from actual users. If you decide to stop its ok others will stay because this is the only game of its kind. It's a great concept.

Way too much!!!

Tweak the budget. Tweak the home visits, campus visits. Tweak scouting and be done with it. Then work on the actual gameplay itself.

Recruiting is currently the best part of the game and doesn't need a major makeover.

Tweak the job hiring/firing process. Not sure there is a firing process actually.

I think that the higher prestige schools should have more players list them as Childhood Favorites. For example, with Connecticut, I scouted the entire northeast, and there was only one player, and a bad one at that, which had us listed as their favorite. I don't think it would necessarily need to correspond to "baseline" prestige, but if there is a program in HD which is consistently very strong, it would seem like this would appeal to High School players.

I love the idea of scouting and recruiting both being available during the season but I don't like the rigidness of limiting it only during the season.  Recruiting/scouting should be fluid and available both in season and off season.  

Also, in order to address the issue of moving to a new school and not getting any of your players until the second year, maybe limit the number of in season (or early period) signings to a max of 2 per team, then they have to fill the rest of their openings in the late signing period after job changes, transfers, and early entries occur?  Also increase the number of transfers from a school if the coach that recruited them leaves.  That would give the new incoming coach a chance to recruit their own guys during the late signing period.  Now the complaint here would be that a lot of the good recruits would be taken by that point, but 1) that would be exactly like real life where only 20-30% of the elite recruits sign in the late period, and 2) could be offset by the late signing period being when ineligibles could switch to being eligible.  And there should be a change in the frequency of ineligibles becoming eligible.  It doesn't happen enough in the current engine.  

I'm also not a fan of the two separate budgets.  You should be able to dip into your scouting budget for recruiting purposes and vice versa.  Having two budgets is just creating something unique in the game not reflective of real life.  If I'm a coach with one open scholarship and I have a $10k budget and I allocate $5k to scouting, $5k to recruiting, but I find the guy I really want after my first camp, I'm going to throw the remaining $9k or so I have at him not limit myself to holding onto $4k of scouting money for no reason at all.  

I also like what chapelhillne suggests above.  The Favorite school mechanic needs to be drastically overhauled.  New players could be generated with a list of favorite schools through some sort of algorithm taking into account the recruits location, skill of the recruit, school prestige, recent success, etc.   

Also, I'd suggest keeping FSS around but only as a scouting tool for the late signing period to allow new coaches who didn't hold camps etc. to get a feel for undecided players that are available. 

Posted by tcnelson1315 on 1/16/2016 11:17:00 PM (view original):
I love the idea of scouting and recruiting both being available during the season but I don't like the rigidness of limiting it only during the season.  Recruiting/scouting should be fluid and available both in season and off season.  

Also, in order to address the issue of moving to a new school and not getting any of your players until the second year, maybe limit the number of in season (or early period) signings to a max of 2 per team, then they have to fill the rest of their openings in the late signing period after job changes, transfers, and early entries occur?  Also increase the number of transfers from a school if the coach that recruited them leaves.  That would give the new incoming coach a chance to recruit their own guys during the late signing period.  Now the complaint here would be that a lot of the good recruits would be taken by that point, but 1) that would be exactly like real life where only 20-30% of the elite recruits sign in the late period, and 2) could be offset by the late signing period being when ineligibles could switch to being eligible.  And there should be a change in the frequency of ineligibles becoming eligible.  It doesn't happen enough in the current engine.  

I'm also not a fan of the two separate budgets.  You should be able to dip into your scouting budget for recruiting purposes and vice versa.  Having two budgets is just creating something unique in the game not reflective of real life.  If I'm a coach with one open scholarship and I have a $10k budget and I allocate $5k to scouting, $5k to recruiting, but I find the guy I really want after my first camp, I'm going to throw the remaining $9k or so I have at him not limit myself to holding onto $4k of scouting money for no reason at all.  

I also like what chapelhillne suggests above.  The Favorite school mechanic needs to be drastically overhauled.  New players could be generated with a list of favorite schools through some sort of algorithm taking into account the recruits location, skill of the recruit, school prestige, recent success, etc.   

Also, I'd suggest keeping FSS around but only as a scouting tool for the late signing period to allow new coaches who didn't hold camps etc. to get a feel for undecided players that are available. 

I personally think that money should have to do only with scouting a player and that effort should be used directly (modified by prestige) to recruit a player.  And that you can not just build up cash over a long period of time to use whenever you want.

So, if there is no cash carry over and you can only scout with cash (and that too is modified by prestige), then I think that is more realistic .. and effort is controlled separately and is NOT unlimited.  Then the best teams can still recruit the best players, but they can't game the system with 6-6-0-0 type classes and maximize carryover, etc. 

Posted by seble on 9/10/2015 3:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by the0nlyis on 9/10/2015 3:47:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for responding.

This is a bit looking ahead but I'm a bit worried that the abolishment of post season cash will hurt super conferences at D2/D3 which rely on that extra cash to be able to recruit nationally a bit better than most other schools in the same divisions.  I don't know what you have planned for recruiting options, but I'll not dwell to far into that since this is about scouting only for now.

How come there is no plan to change recruit generation there seems to be some support for that or at least fixing ratings to be a bit more realistic like getting rid of players with sub 20 ath/def and still be a ranked D1 prospect.  I don't exactly know how these changes would go into effect, but I would expect to still see the big 6 teams that are nc contenders being full of 90+ ath/def guys which personally I do not want to see since thats not how it is in real life.

Can you explain the budget a bit better it seemed like it was going to be the base+ scholly opening but now it seems like it will be 2 seperate budgets?  1 which can only be used for scouting options and 1 only to be used to actually recruit players?

I'm don't necessarily want the game to have "super conferences".  The main reason to do that in the current game was to maximize your recruiting advantage.  I'd rather conferences evolve more organically, where there's some ups and downs, and coaches aren't afraid to really compete with conference mates.

I know the entrenched long-timers like the advantage that clustering in a conference gives them, but I like this idea better.

RE "There is a big issue with forcing new coaches to coach players that they didn't recruit for their first season. … Any thoughts on this?” Yeah. My first season I coached mostly players I didn’t recruit. At both teams I have coached. So that isn't a big deal.

My biggest concern is $50K plus $5k per opening. It seems like elite teams with a lot of early entries will be at a huge disadvantage. How can someone with $80k for 6 openings compete with teams that have $55k for 1 opening?

Posted by seble on 9/11/2015 10:09:00 AM (view original):
Hitting on some of the questions:

- I want this new system to be something you'll want to spend time on, not a chore.  The testing process will tell us if we need to tweak things to reduce time commitment.  Also, it's designed to let each coach scout on his own time-frame.  If one guy wants to do everything in a 3 hour binge, that's fine.  If another guy wants to spend 15 minutes a day, that's fine too.  Also remember that scouting resources are limited.  So having more time shouldn't really be an advantage.  If fact, I believe having more time would become less of an advantage than it is now.

- I don't expect the dropdown/pulldown system to exist in the same way it does now.  Recruits would definitely behave in some of the same ways though.  For example, I think a low DI recruit would hold out longer to sign if he only got interest from DII schools.  He would eventually sign with a DII school if that's the only interest he got.

- Scouting would continue throughout the season, even after signings start.  So you could go out and find backup options if your top ones don't pan out, assuming you save some scouting money.

- Open camps (ones where any team can attend) would generally uncover players of all talent levels.  School sponsored camps may be more focused on that school's range of talent, not sure yet about that.  We may consider adding some other specific camps, such as elite camps, where it would focus on a subset of the top 200 or so players.  On the flip side, when your assistant coach finds players for you, those would be within your expected range of talent.

- The plan is not to keep schools from recruiting nationally, even at DIII.  Like the current system, it will likely be costlier to do so, but it should still be possible to some degree.

- The scouting levels on a player are meant to add strategy.  If we find that it only adds annoyance, then we can adjust how that works. 

- During the scouting phase, there will be no indication of what players another school is scouting.  Once recruiting starts, you'll be able to see some amount of information about a school's targets, but at that point it's probably too late to base your scouting strategy on it.

- There's a good point raised about early entry players and transfers.  I'll have to think about that some.

- I'm not sure I understand the comments about encouraging teams to be in empty conferences.  The only real change in that regard is eliminating postseason money.  Being in a strong conference still helps you in building a postseason resume.  And obviously makes the game more fun to play.  Am I missing something?  Why would someone choose an empty conference in the new system?

Bump, per recent thread about 2 sessions 3.0. Possumfiend was the first to raise the EE issue, on page 3, as far as I can tell.

I chose empty conferences because I wanted to move to a top level of D1 and you move up quicker if you win your conference. I haven't learned a lot about game coaching by playing a lot of sims but I'm working on that now that I have one team that can get close to the prestige level I want.
I like the recruiting pool interface but would like to be able to select what positions I want like you can do with categories. I like to limit how many positions I'm looking at to focus my resources. Also, I'd like a button for categories for the recruits shown on the page that would work like the scouting button and check all of the recruits on a page- I want to make them all red or blue or have my choice of colors but not have to manually change them all.

You know of course that you've created a system where any team can compete for any recruit. Does it make sense to still designate recruits to D2, D3, etc.? Why not put all recruits in one pool and allow scouting searches by ranges of talent (A,B,C,D or numerical choices)?
Thanks for your continued interest in improving the game!