Posted by topdogggbm on 1/25/2020 2:34:00 PM (view original):
Ok a recap..... shoe, what is your opinion of.....

#2 stays. And #'s 85, 95, and multiple not on board all go. Your arch rival gets to keep his #2. And you lose all your guys that I just listed.

A) such a wonderful system!
B) this **** sucks!

Please choose A or B

No. That’s binary thinking. There is a sh!++0n of space between wonderful and sucks.

The system isn't ideal, is not the best possible system, and is not “wonderful”. But it’s much *much* better than the system Benis wants or would design, if he was capable. More importantly, Benis consistently misrepresents the system that exists, either because he doesn’t understand it, or because he wants others to not understand it. He should stop doing that. Until he does, I’ll gladly point out his misrepresentations.

FWIW, an ideal system would be more realistic regarding: how high the top few recruits every year are ranked in projections; how often freshmen and sophomores leave; accounting for potential, not just actual attributes. Additionally, an ideal system would have a player’s desire to play pro be a scoutable preference during recruiting, and should affect his probability decisions later. In other words, it should be harder to game.

But some guys who are projected high should stay. It should never be absolute, because it’s a decision players, not coaches make. Also, some borderline players should leave, for the same reason.

Player evaluation is a skill, and should be a prime component of success in the game. That means more than knowing how to count, and knowing that guards don’t need to rebound, and bigs don’t need to shoot 3s. The system that exists is fine (even if not ideal or “wonderful”), to the extent that player evaluation does matter, and coach decisions all come with a (somewhat) rational risk/reward outcome range.

Posted by mullycj on 1/25/2020 3:36:00 PM (view original):

Trash the 2 recruiting sessions and a lot of the crap features of 3.0 are minimized.

If only we had a programmer to do that.

Thankfully, mully is not the programmer.

Posted by mullycj on 1/25/2020 3:36:00 PM (view original):

Trash the 2 recruiting sessions and a lot of the crap features of 3.0 are minimized.

If only we had a programmer to do that.

What a brilliant idea the 2 sessions thing was.. hahahaha

Posted by upsetcity on 1/25/2020 3:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by upsetcity on 1/25/2020 2:47:00 PM (view original):
I've only been playing 3.0 a short period, and was vastly under recruiting early, so I have only recently had to deal with the whole EE issue. My first run-in was with a sophomore big who was clearly going to get drafted, just a matter of when. With about 4 games left in the regular season, he was still listed at ~45 on the big board and was likely staying. I was feeling like "hmm - I guess he stays one more and then DEFINITELY leaves after his junior year". After the upcoming game, he went to ~30 and on the fence. After the second to last game of the season, he was ~20 and likely going. It happened in a flash from projected staying and second round pick to projected going and just outside the lottery.

In retrospect, I didn't realize really how to manage a player like that. At the time, a team in conference had a similar big who he played off the bench after his freshman year. He was right next to my big, ~45, on the big board and he moved up about 4 slots in the same time period. He stayed for his junior season despite being a similar skill level. Should I have sat my big to hinder ratings progress and his ability to win an award? Should I have put more minutes into other categories outside of perimeter / BH / pass (where he gained most of his attributes his sophomore year) to avoid him progressing to the extend he did?

I'm especially curious as I have another sophomore big that is on a similar path, skill wise, as the previous big I mentioned. I'm debating putting him on the bench, limiting his touches, and avoiding putting minutes into things like passing (where he has ~25 points of potential growth remaining). He honestly won't improve much this season outside of passing - his only other non-yellow/red categories are speed, defense, stamina, and durability (all black).

I understand I started ranting a bit here, so let me bring myself back on track.

In my opinion - EEs in HD aren't done well right now. However, I don't believe it's entirely due the initial point of the big board being inaccurate. Although not entirely common, it's also not uncommon for players to leave after their first three years for the NBA draft and then go undrafted. 14 non-seniors left college last year and went undrafted. Imagine if that happened in HD? You lose one of your best players early AND you don't even get a prestige boost. To make at least somewhat realistic, they have to add some variability (It's part of the reason why, even though I've been crushed by it recently, I don't see the recruit roll being that bad. Conversation for another time.)

One way to at least try and fix the current system could be: if a player is on "an NBA teams", even if it isn't the big board, you should receive an email from the player saying "I'm x% sure I'm leaving / staying" and be given a recruiting budget that player based on the % he states. If the player is 100% likely to leave, the team should be allotted maybe 10 additional AP and 1/2 of an open slot's budget for recruiting / scouting (in other words, 1/2 of what they would have gotten if the guy was a walkon or senior). If they are 50% likely to leave, they would get 5 additional AP and 1/4 of the open slot's recruiting / scouting. Doing this makes it so you are aware he could leave, you don't get a huge advantage of AP and money if he stays, and recruiting talented players doesn't come with the inherent punishment that is currently around.

In Knight, I saw the new coach of A+ Syracuse hasn't played since before 3.0. He asked his conference mates for some advice and they mentioned how 5-stars might just not be worth attacking as they come with normally come with a battle, the roll could not go in your favor even if you 'win', and if you successfully recruit them - they leave in 2 years. It shouldn't be like that. Kentucky, in the real world, doesn't avoid a 5-star as it might hinder them when he leaves.

Another rant but this one a bit more on topic.

First, my approach to Knop, based on what you’ve said, would be to go ahead and let his passing improve to ~60, or until he starts moving up into the 30s on the big board. With his high starting rebounding, defense, and LP, there wasn’t much you could do to keep him off the board, but you can keep him out of the projected first round this year, which will increase your odds of keeping him. His less-than-elite athleticism might help you keep him longer, but I think he’s still a good bet for ending up projected in the first round next season, so you need to look at a senior season from him as bonus.

There were lots of ideas batted around during beta, a few looked like yours. Essentially, the guiding principle is that the game doesn’t want coaches to be able to stock a roster with an endless stream of NBA talent. Even if there was a team in real life that could fill its roster with NBA talent, that isn’t good for a competitive multiplayer simulation. So because of that guiding principle, elite commodities (legit 4-5 star players) need to come with high volatility. There must be risk to go along with the reward.

So managing that volatility becomes a coaching skill. Instead of one single way to approach recruit prioritization, there are many viable strategies (take multiple walkons and go after only elite talent, take projects and redshirts and ineligibles to mitigate the damage “unexpected” early entries might do, manage player development to reduce the risk of early entry, etc etc). Even Coach Cal has to deal with negative consequences of high turnover; as evidenced by Kentucky’s lack of a closet full of trophies despite all the one-and-dones.

All of this complaining is exhausting.

The simple solution is to view everything like a simpleton. Recruit a 4/5 star player? Expect him to be an EE every season, regardless of where they fall or do not fall on the big board. Ignore the <1% or 30% chance bullcrap. Thats how I operate every single season. Expect the unexpected.

i personally am not a fan of the whole EE in session 2 thing. i get its kinda realistic on one hand, but on the other, in real life players leaving has nothing to do with resources - the coach cals and ks of the world are possibly guessing at who might leave, but its not like they don't have a shot at finding someone for those spots until after those players decide.

i think the overall system is not horrible, but i'd kinda like to see a few changes -

1. make highly rated 2nd round juniors more likely to take the opportunity, maybe for the 1st half of the 2nd round. it seems in real life it definitely becomes more of a crapshoot who goes when you hit the 2nd round, but it feels like in HD, it drops off a cliff (after 28). i think the 'long tail' of potentially leaving players in HD is too long - and this is largely a result of the (IMO too) low odds of upperclassmen leaving. i would actually change high 1st round picks to 100% as well.

i actually liked the NBA preference - it helped make things predictable. the problem was it was so poorly documented so only a handful of coaches really benefited from it (although many coaches only have themselves to blame - folks like lostmyth and myself were fairly open about its existence). i would be alright if they added the nba preference back, and made it visible - or if certain players were more likely to leave, so things weren't quite so unpredictable for the rest. i think some unpredictability is good - folks should have to have contingency plans and adapt, that is a fun thing IMO (albeit frustrating, at times). but i think its a bit too much at the moment.

2. fix the session 2 EE recruiting situation - the penalty is too much at the moment, IMO. i don't know what the answer is, but i have thought something like what upsetcity suggested could work. its certainly kinda messy though. i never really liked the 2 session idea at all, i know what i'd do (go back to 1), but with 2 sessions its a tricky problem.

3. i am pretty good at EE management in the vein shoe is talking about, but i don't think it is good for the game for that to be a viable tactic. replacing stat-based EEs with ratings was an improvement, but i think they should go further - when you are old enough, base it off caps, perhaps?

4. one major EE weirdness relates to freshman and sophmores - in real life, there are a bunch of 1-and-dones and such, here that doesn't happen, although a bunch of sophs have some low crapshoot chance of leaving (which feels wrong). the game doesn't have true star freshman like real life, and i think that is kinda dumb. if you are gonna have FR and SO leaving, they should be able to be top players, like they are in real life. i would rather see the top 100 players lose a bit of ratings but pick up some IQ (not necessarily like, just the top 100, but something along those lines). i think IQ should be part of the EE equation (90% sure its not), and that some freshman should start with good IQ (and not like jucos do, either give those star freshman similar IQ across the board or else change IQ system to make more sense - having a guy who is an A+ in man but an F in zone is fairly stupid, IMO).


in summary - i like some volatility in EEs, but i think the current scheme goes too far, and the built-in need to game the system is just kinda bad for the game. real players have behavioral attributes that give the coaches a decent idea of whether those players should leave or not. i actually think the NBA preference coming back (maybe differently than it was) is one of the best solutions to the overall balance on that issue - but something should still be done about session 2 only EE recruiting, IMO (maybe offer an option like, hey coach, you have a current expectation of 1.5EEs, do you want 80% of that AP/money now to forgo any EE money later?)

oh yeah - one more related to EE so going to throw it in. for the love of god, don't have the ******* sim sign players for us when we are actively coaching! when you are sitting there in high d1 with A+ prestige and just got hit with 3 EEs, and now are going to only have 8 scholarship players - the last thing you need is your stupid *** of an assistant signing some low end d3 player. its just beyond the pale. i don't know what the hell they were thinking!!

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/25/2020 10:34:00 PM (view original):
oh yeah - one more related to EE so going to throw it in. for the love of god, don't have the ******* sim sign players for us when we are actively coaching! when you are sitting there in high d1 with A+ prestige and just got hit with 3 EEs, and now are going to only have 8 scholarship players - the last thing you need is your stupid *** of an assistant signing some low end d3 player. its just beyond the pale. i don't know what the hell they were thinking!!

I can't recall how many times that has happen and glad it didn't happen this time. But I have lost a boat to the EE system.

Posted by indiansrck27 on 1/25/2020 7:46:00 PM (view original):
All of this complaining is exhausting.

The simple solution is to view everything like a simpleton. Recruit a 4/5 star player? Expect him to be an EE every season, regardless of where they fall or do not fall on the big board. Ignore the <1% or 30% chance bullcrap. Thats how I operate every single season. Expect the unexpected.

I’m glad you brought it up, because i meant to talk about the “<1%” thing, but forgot after I got to point 5.

Thinking in terms of a “<1% chance” to lose a player off the board is a *really dumb* way to do it. A player who is sitting just off the board, say #101, if we could see such a thing, has essentially the same odds of being selected as the #100 guy we see, assuming they’re in the same class. If they’re juniors, they’re both “on the fence”.

The only question is whether the draft will get to them. That’s why you want to pay attention to how many graduating seniors are on the big board, if you care about rounding up recruiting options for possible early entries.

“something should still be done about session 2 only EE recruiting”

This doesn’t exist. You recruit for expected EEs from the start, if replacing EEs is important to you. That’s a gameplay decision.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/25/2020 11:02:00 PM (view original):
“something should still be done about session 2 only EE recruiting”

This doesn’t exist. You recruit for expected EEs from the start, if replacing EEs is important to you. That’s a gameplay decision.

you know what i mean, i'm not here to argue semantics. of course you can plan in session 1 - but you don't get any resources, and you can't sign guys ahead of time, which makes the overall penalty for EEs a lot higher than real life. i always take EEs into account for session 1 recruiting, but its not infrequent that there just isn't that much you can do about it - because the money you need to compete for the rest of those spots just doesn't exist yet - and when it does, the players you'd theoretically target are often off the table.

an example would be the kentucky team i am co-coaching with chap. 1 opening, 2 guaranteed EEs. could better planning have potentially prevented such a situation in the first place - maybe. but in essence, it creates a very unrealistic and challenging circumstance. coach cal knows hes losing two EEs, they are top 10 picks, he'd make them go - and he'd be working to fill those spots ahead of time, fully resourced. there's no gimmick where he can't fill a scholarship until another guy leaves - he has to stay under 13 for the regular season, but this isn't enforced semi-arbitrarily at other times, like it is in HD. overall, the two circumstances are nothing alike, and my opinion is the net result of having a way higher penalty / challenge associated with EEs, in HD, is far from ideal.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/25/2020 11:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 1/25/2020 11:02:00 PM (view original):
“something should still be done about session 2 only EE recruiting”

This doesn’t exist. You recruit for expected EEs from the start, if replacing EEs is important to you. That’s a gameplay decision.

you know what i mean, i'm not here to argue semantics. of course you can plan in session 1 - but you don't get any resources, and you can't sign guys ahead of time, which makes the overall penalty for EEs a lot higher than real life. i always take EEs into account for session 1 recruiting, but its not infrequent that there just isn't that much you can do about it - because the money you need to compete for the rest of those spots just doesn't exist yet - and when it does, the players you'd theoretically target are often off the table.

an example would be the kentucky team i am co-coaching with chap. 1 opening, 2 guaranteed EEs. could better planning have potentially prevented such a situation in the first place - maybe. but in essence, it creates a very unrealistic and challenging circumstance. coach cal knows hes losing two EEs, they are top 10 picks, he'd make them go - and he'd be working to fill those spots ahead of time, fully resourced. there's no gimmick where he can't fill a scholarship until another guy leaves - he has to stay under 13 for the regular season, but this isn't enforced semi-arbitrarily at other times, like it is in HD. overall, the two circumstances are nothing alike, and my opinion is the net result of having a way higher penalty / challenge associated with EEs, in HD, is far from ideal.

Yeah, those are all gameplay decisions. This system has been in place for 3 years now. The system didn’t leave you with resources for one scholarship and 3 probable openings. It’s not a “penalty”. Everyone is recruiting under the same conditions. Folks only call it a penalty when they are used to the previous system when EEs benefitted recruiting. That was absurd.

There is only one Coach Cal in real life, and he has one title in a decade. Top level coaches are still top level in HD, and winning way more often than their real life counterparts. They manage the roster, which involves planning ahead. If these commodities were as volatile as they are in real life (ie, ambiguous attribute levels and potential), this would be a different conversation. Ditto for if the absurd resource allocation model was scrapped. But those changes are not happening, so the current system is probably about the best option for competitive multiplayer gameplay we are going to get.

We could add a D-League, and 2-way contracts, and international pro teams, and then double the number of players that declare, with half of them going undrafted. That would be the model Coach Cal is operating in.

Do we really think people would be happy? No. The folks who complain about the system generally just resent the idea that some teams lose their commodities while others keep them. People who just resent other people’s breaks and good fortune aren’t going to be happy in a competitive multiplayer environment, unless there’s a way for them to set themselves up on top.

How about all the 30 managed teams in both GridIron and Hoops Dynasty now getting sanction and probably jail time I am assure that some of you won't dip but this actually happen and one of them got a share of the ship at a level.