Posted by dan2044 on 9/10/2015 3:43:00 PM (view original):
-         Possibly a search page still, to show only visible recruits.

- A major change here is that you can't just go to a list and see all the recruits.  You now have to "discover" them through the various scouting techniques.  

OK, maybe I just can't picture the changes.  But based on the above statement, it sounds like recruits that each team will have access to becomes more random.  At least non DI teams that are seeing the top players.  So now, I might miss out on a player just because I never saw him?  
Right now, recruiting is the most important skill in this game.  The best recruiters are the best coaches.  I major change in recruiting like this is a huge risk.  I don't want recruiting to be more fair.  I want the best recruiters to have the best teams.

I could be misunderstanding this whole thing.  I'll need to see it before I really understand this whole thing.

Not more random, but more limited.  Outside of the top 100 (which will be known to everyone), the number of recruits that you end up seeing to pick from depends on what scouting tools you use.  With this change, recruiting skill will be based more on how you use your scouting money as opposed to how good you are at sifting  through a bunch of data.

Preliminary thoughts, which I am allowed to change based on additional information and/or alcohol...

Resources
-- Obviously some additional cash is needed since the inflation economy appears to be coming. What will the effect of different ratios of cash be from D1 to D2 to D3? Right now, D1 programs can basically blow a D2 out of the water (which is as it should be IMO) if they want a player. Under the new system, I'm wondering if D2 programs can put up too good of a fight against D1 programs battling for other recruits. Also looks like it will be harder for a D3 to go after a D2 player as opposed to the current system. 
-- Is carry-over cash still going to be a thing? If so, are teams that don't sign anyone still going to receive a 100% rollover? Because if I can get $30,000 on top of another $30,000 at D2 and suddenly have a budget on par with or bigger than that of the D1, I don't see how we don't have superclasses running amok at D2 in every world. Obviously that's not a problem if you like superclasses, but to me it is a cause for concern.

Recruit pool
-- Love the idea of the various tiers and information, but without pricing information it is hard to make a good/bad determination regarding pricing points for each level. 
-- I understand the premise behind the offense/defense/physical categories and it makes logical sense from a "real world' standpoint to divvy things up in that manner. But from a game play standpoint, since ATH, SPD and DEF are, by far, the drivers of success, wouldn't it make the most sense to make sure only one of the three appeared in any one category? 

Camps
--Great idea...again, I like where this is going (although the pricing concerns me at $30-$50 per player...but again without pricing information for all other actions this is just in a vacuum, but it appears it might turn D3 schools and possibly D2 schools into regional magnets rather than allowing them to recruit nationally as is the case now. 
-- Speaking of regional ability, I'm a bit concerned over the camp option and geography's effects on it since it notes that camps pull from their area...okay, great, but if I'm in New York City I have a lot more kids in my area than the poor guy coaching Alaska-Fairbanks or Maine-Presque Isle or such. Is there a mechanism to ensure enough players will attend to make it worthwhile to hold a camp at any of the game's campus locations? Does this mean the coaches at Puerto Rico will finally be able to get scouting information for their local kids? 
-- Will there be a way to know how many kids will attend regional camp BEFORE we get charged for it? I know it says "about 100," but it would really suck at $30/kid to be expecting 90 and then suddenly realize I have 115 people attending camp. 

Lots of great ideas here...most of my concerns are just off the lack of details, so don't misconstrue this as being a negative nancy. I like the general thoughts. It's the blending of information, cash and the effect it has on varying levels of geography and game hierarchy that will ultimately determine my like/dislike of things. 

ETA -- How will Sim teams recruit under this new system? How will they determine who is "visible" to them? 

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.

Posted by possumfiend on 9/10/2015 3:48:00 PM (view original):
What about job changes? If a coach changes jobs at season end does scouting effort carry over to the new team? Or would one need to start over at the new school? Also, if one changed jobs and filled a spot previously occupied by another coach would they be left to the mercy/benefit of how the prior coach spent the scouting budget? Or would it refresh to allow a coach to start anew?

Scouting efforts only apply to the current season, so a new coach would begin scouting for the next season's recruits.  New coaches would take over a full roster, so their first recruiting class would come in the second season.

Posted by fd343ny on 9/10/2015 3:52:00 PM (view original):
1.  must test extensively
2.  consider the time commitment for a participant - to some degree, more to do is better - but at some level it makes the game too much - there is risk here that folks will cut back on teams
3.  question - for the various functions that involve 100 or other number of players - I understand that there will be a geographic element to it - beyond that, how will the 100 players be selected?  if I hold a camp at my school and randomly sucky players attend am I out of luck?
4. gotta have a search page that searches whatever I can see - a home place during recruiting so I dont need to keep notes outside the game - on XLS or paper

1. yes
2. I agree we don't want to make this too time intensive, which is why it's spread out over the whole season.  I think the current system could be a big turnoff to new coaches since they have to make a heavy time investment up front, before even really experiencing the game.
3. We'll try to get a good cross-section of players at various levels of talent. 
4. Yes, there will definitely be a way to track all the visible players.  Just not sure yet what form that will take.

Posted by rednu on 9/10/2015 4:01:00 PM (view original):
Preliminary thoughts, which I am allowed to change based on additional information and/or alcohol...

Resources
-- Obviously some additional cash is needed since the inflation economy appears to be coming. What will the effect of different ratios of cash be from D1 to D2 to D3? Right now, D1 programs can basically blow a D2 out of the water (which is as it should be IMO) if they want a player. Under the new system, I'm wondering if D2 programs can put up too good of a fight against D1 programs battling for other recruits. Also looks like it will be harder for a D3 to go after a D2 player as opposed to the current system. 
-- Is carry-over cash still going to be a thing? If so, are teams that don't sign anyone still going to receive a 100% rollover? Because if I can get $30,000 on top of another $30,000 at D2 and suddenly have a budget on par with or bigger than that of the D1, I don't see how we don't have superclasses running amok at D2 in every world. Obviously that's not a problem if you like superclasses, but to me it is a cause for concern.

Recruit pool
-- Love the idea of the various tiers and information, but without pricing information it is hard to make a good/bad determination regarding pricing points for each level. 
-- I understand the premise behind the offense/defense/physical categories and it makes logical sense from a "real world' standpoint to divvy things up in that manner. But from a game play standpoint, since ATH, SPD and DEF are, by far, the drivers of success, wouldn't it make the most sense to make sure only one of the three appeared in any one category? 

Camps
--Great idea...again, I like where this is going (although the pricing concerns me at $30-$50 per player...but again without pricing information for all other actions this is just in a vacuum, but it appears it might turn D3 schools and possibly D2 schools into regional magnets rather than allowing them to recruit nationally as is the case now. 
-- Speaking of regional ability, I'm a bit concerned over the camp option and geography's effects on it since it notes that camps pull from their area...okay, great, but if I'm in New York City I have a lot more kids in my area than the poor guy coaching Alaska-Fairbanks or Maine-Presque Isle or such. Is there a mechanism to ensure enough players will attend to make it worthwhile to hold a camp at any of the game's campus locations? Does this mean the coaches at Puerto Rico will finally be able to get scouting information for their local kids? 
-- Will there be a way to know how many kids will attend regional camp BEFORE we get charged for it? I know it says "about 100," but it would really suck at $30/kid to be expecting 90 and then suddenly realize I have 115 people attending camp. 

Lots of great ideas here...most of my concerns are just off the lack of details, so don't misconstrue this as being a negative nancy. I like the general thoughts. It's the blending of information, cash and the effect it has on varying levels of geography and game hierarchy that will ultimately determine my like/dislike of things. 

ETA -- How will Sim teams recruit under this new system? How will they determine who is "visible" to them? 

Remember that this budget is for scouting only, not recruiting.  DI teams will still have more resources than DII, and so forth to DIII.  The details of actually recruiting players will come later.

No, I don't plan on there being carryover cash.

As I said, the numbers here are preliminary and incomplete.  I expect them to change throughout testing until we find the right balance.

I'm not sure I agree that ATH, SPD, and DEF are more important than other ratings.  It really depends on how you recruit and coach.

I don't expect DIII schools to do a lot of national recruiting.  I don't think they do in real life either.  DII schools could probably recruit further out.

The idea is that regional camps would be located such that we can get enough kids to support a camp.  Still work to do on how to determine attendees.

I'd like for SimAI teams to recruit with the same tools as humans, just with some basic strategies to follow.  They wouldn't be top notch recruiters, but wouldn't be the disaster that they are now.  If we can get that working right, we could even allow human coaches to turn on AI recruiting if they want to, either because they don't like recruiting or don't have time to do it.

I'll just keep firing off questions since I have a bunch.

So obviously the game is best when everything is full, but otherwise is it supposed to flow more towards 3/4 coaches in a conference now since the recruiting adv from a super conf is now gone and staying in a super conference will weaken the teams there(except for the few elite coaches that can recruit better than others at a distance).  I see conferences like the S. Cal being nearly obliterated in terms of popularity since they won't be able to dip outside of Cali in a competitive manner against other schools and result in fights in conference for the talented local schools while the few .01% can still do things like wait for signings and find gems in random states or get lucky and grab those out of state kids.  At least how thats how I see things turning out at the lower divisions right now without any testing for the moment.

As for new coaches I think this puts an even greater barrier of entry and will even more reduce the number of incoming coaches, they already have a high barrier of entry in terms of cost and time.  At low levels just going off 4 seasons for a rebuild(when you get you first class to seniors) it takes half a year in the 1x worlds to even see how your first class did.  Not to mention its 4.95 + a 5 pack at $60(or like 58.50 with a reward from the first season assuming total rebuild) so it takes half a year and 65 dollars to find out if you did well or not already.  Now adding in another season its still the same cost(since that 1+5 gets you 6 seasons), but now it's 7.5 months compared to 6 months to find out if your first class did well, and depending on when you figured out how to recruit at a somewhat reasonable level its basically 6 months currently from when you figure out how to recruit until those recruits start coming in whether its after your first season so about 7 months to see results and maybe a year if you dont learn until your first batch of seniors go through and disappoint.

Just saw some more responses so heres so more questions:

I do see some benefits of no carryover cash(maybe coach is more willing to fight for a certain recruit since he aready has 4 guys lined up and a bunch of remaining money so it makes sense to spend it trying to get that one guy who is really good.

I'm not sure I agree that ATH, SPD, and DEF are more important than other ratings.  It really depends on how you recruit and coach.

I'm sorry you have to be joking, ath/spd/def are clearly the most important ratings to building a successfull team.  At d3 you can recruit nothing but ath/def and build nc teams.  Yes obviously you need more than those 3 to build elite level teams year in and out but there is a crystal clear adv ath/spd/def has over all other ratings.

I understand that D3 schools dont and shouldnt recruit out of state much, but that means you either need to A) work on recruit generation or B) expect a huge group of ****** of coaches.  because what happens when cali has a bunch of crappy prospects one year and the s. cal conference has 8 members and cant go recruit nationally.  You now have it make more sense to have a bunch of 3/4 team conferences where schools that are more isolated gain an even bigger adv.  If this was to happen I really think there would need to be a change in recruit generation or at least change how the number of recruits go and focus on the talent it doesn't matter if the s. cal conference with 8 members has say 95 total D2/D3 prospects to look at if really only 10 of the D3 prospects are good and there is only 20 or so D2 prospects that are going to be pd/dd.

With camps is there going to be any way to limit the type of recruits that come, I wouldn't want a guy with F off/def coming, because who knows what if you invite 50 players but 45 of them are total crap?(I might have missed something about this earlier so if this was addressed I missed it)

Try to keep an open mind until you see how it actually works.  We're not doing this just to do it.  It's meant to make the game more fun, more realistic, and more engaging.  We're not trying to add limitations to lower divisions schools, but there has to be some strategy involved. We don't want every school to be able to go after any recruit in the country.

As for new coaches, I doubt most new coaches put together any kind of decent class in their first year anyway.  I would guess that's a wasted year in most cases.  Doesn't it make more sense to give them some time to learn what makes a good player and how to build a team before throwing them in the fire?

Posted by seble on 9/10/2015 4:19:00 PM (view original):
Try to keep an open mind until you see how it actually works.  We're not doing this just to do it.  It's meant to make the game more fun, more realistic, and more engaging.  We're not trying to add limitations to lower divisions schools, but there has to be some strategy involved. We don't want every school to be able to go after any recruit in the country.

As for new coaches, I doubt most new coaches put together any kind of decent class in their first year anyway.  I would guess that's a wasted year in most cases.  Doesn't it make more sense to give them some time to learn what makes a good player and how to build a team before throwing them in the fire?

I do have a very open mind and I do support many of these ideas, I'm just trying to think of as many possibilities and questions that may arise so that this can go well as possible because I would say I'm the biggest supporter of changes to the game

But without seeing results from beta testing, I can't help but currently think that the HD landscape turns into one where super conferences are eliminated(minus the few elite/brave that can win under any circumstnace) and that schools in the northeast where there is more recruits generated to have the most success on average for when schools in cali with too many coaches dont have enough talented recruits to divide under the current recruit generation logic.

I understand how it makes sense to try and get them to learn before but I was just putting out the fact that it might actually turn off coaches at an even higher rate with the added length it takes to start building up a team of talent(hence my forced walkthrough idea)

Will there be a mechanism in place to keep someone from recruiting players based upon someone else's priorities?  For example, if I have only recruited to level one, would I be able to see who the recruits are considering and have a pretty good idea whether I ought to recruit them too?

Posted by bullman17 on 9/10/2015 4:29:00 PM (view original):
Will there be a mechanism in place to keep someone from recruiting players based upon someone else's priorities?  For example, if I have only recruited to level one, would I be able to see who the recruits are considering and have a pretty good idea whether I ought to recruit them too?

Even at level 1 scouting, you'll have a decent idea of how good the player is.  You can certainly recruit without going past level 1 scouting, but I doubt most coaches would be comfortable with that.  And since scouting resources are totally separate from recruiting resources, it's not like you can skimp on scouting to get an edge during recruiting.

I haven't determined yet exactly what information will be available about which teams are recruiting a player.

There is a big issue with forcing new coaches to coach players that they didn't recruit for their first season.  So that means for season 1 of any school, I cannot sign and coach a single player.  Not liking that one.  Any thoughts on this?

I have some other thoughts on the priorities here.

I've tried to read as much as possible and it's very interesting. Unless i missed it, is there any plans to tie school prestige into the caliber of recruit that attends a camp for a particular school? I think it would certainly add to the realism of the scouting process outside of JUST regional awareness and reward those schools with higher prestige.

Posted by rogelio on 9/10/2015 4:51:00 PM (view original):
There is a big issue with forcing new coaches to coach players that they didn't recruit for their first season.  So that means for season 1 of any school, I cannot sign and coach a single player.  Not liking that one.  Any thoughts on this?

I have some other thoughts on the priorities here.

I am puzzled by this comment.   At the start of a season, before one plays one gets a chance to recruit.   Unless there are zero openings, the new coach will have recruited some players.  Am I missing the intended point?

Posted by metsmax on 9/10/2015 6:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by rogelio on 9/10/2015 4:51:00 PM (view original):
There is a big issue with forcing new coaches to coach players that they didn't recruit for their first season.  So that means for season 1 of any school, I cannot sign and coach a single player.  Not liking that one.  Any thoughts on this?

I have some other thoughts on the priorities here.

I am puzzled by this comment.   At the start of a season, before one plays one gets a chance to recruit.   Unless there are zero openings, the new coach will have recruited some players.  Am I missing the intended point?

As described earlier in the thread (somewhere) it sounded like recruiting would be moved INTO the season rather than coming after the NC...if so, a new coach coming in would be starting at the Scouting phase for the following season because all the new players would have been signed to the new coach's team by the previous coach or SImmy during the previous season.