It's training wheels for elite D1 teams. It should be removed. If Baseline Prestige wasn't so powerful, you wouldn't have to cheat to win at Hawaii. And you shouldn't have to.

If baseline prestige is updated it necessarily must coincide with conference realignments.

Posted by texrangers18 on 11/4/2022 3:31:00 PM (view original):
Without looking at your profiles, I would bet my left nut that all of you are at high baseline prestige schools.

yeah, no....wrong. Only 1 of my 5 teams is high baseline.

Anyway, I do agree that the baselines need to be re-evaluated to make them more in line with modern times. I mean Maryland was my school, but there is no way it should be an A+ baseline.

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/4/2022 7:21:00 PM (view original):
It's training wheels for elite D1 teams. It should be removed. If Baseline Prestige wasn't so powerful, you wouldn't have to cheat to win at Hawaii. And you shouldn't have to.

How is it training wheels tho? You know how long it takes to get to a big time program? That’s the training period.

and to poncho, we CAN make small schools elite and big schools can fall off. Have you ever seen Joeykw Vermont in Naismith? Or Chaps Delaware St team? Or baumaway UAB team? Their success is exactly what people that oppose baseline want.

on the flip side? Generally speaking does Kansas ever go 10-19? UNC had a couple really bad seasons, and one or two mega classes later they’re winning a title again. That’s what “prestige” is. It’s not who is the best this season.

One thing I would agree with the naysayers on, is that I feel like success should/could hold more weight. For a longer period of time across seasons. I think that would help solve problems for all. If a coach wins a title at Small U, and could hold that baseline longer, a god coach would essentially lower the “current” prestige’s of the bigger schools. Long term.

I think everybody could be happy with that for sure

It’s used to be the training wheels were the other divisions. It’s pretty easy to move up from my understanding now. I got UNLV after like 8 seasons at D2 in Iba, that’s why I jumped to D1 so quick (and unfortunately broke my HD band up doing so), I was shell shocked It was available due to its baseline prestige right as they opened the floodgates and didn’t want someone else to grab it first. Idk when it is but I’m glad they’re bringing in firings. But then I left and came back to be in the same conf (diff school). Success should def hold weight but to me it feels like this stuff impacts the prestige too much. It just hold bad coaches up.

i say that and easily my most success in D1 has randomly came at Sac State in Wooden. Love those Cali JUCOs. I got love for all the small schools, and I think you can win there. I think it’s been harder for the little guys since they made the hiring easier bc we all are competing with each other.

I will say “One thing I would agree with the naysayers on, is that I feel like success should/could hold more weight. For a longer period of time across seasons. I think that would help solve problems for all. If a coach wins a title at Small U, and could hold that baseline longer, a god coach would essentially lower the “current” prestige’s of the bigger schools. Long term.” Agree with every word, 100%

im excited for them to implement firing. I feel like it will help all of this. Cycle in the new guard

Posted by topdogggbm on 11/4/2022 9:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/4/2022 7:21:00 PM (view original):
It's training wheels for elite D1 teams. It should be removed. If Baseline Prestige wasn't so powerful, you wouldn't have to cheat to win at Hawaii. And you shouldn't have to.

How is it training wheels tho? You know how long it takes to get to a big time program? That’s the training period.

and to poncho, we CAN make small schools elite and big schools can fall off. Have you ever seen Joeykw Vermont in Naismith? Or Chaps Delaware St team? Or baumaway UAB team? Their success is exactly what people that oppose baseline want.

on the flip side? Generally speaking does Kansas ever go 10-19? UNC had a couple really bad seasons, and one or two mega classes later they’re winning a title again. That’s what “prestige” is. It’s not who is the best this season.

One thing I would agree with the naysayers on, is that I feel like success should/could hold more weight. For a longer period of time across seasons. I think that would help solve problems for all. If a coach wins a title at Small U, and could hold that baseline longer, a god coach would essentially lower the “current” prestige’s of the bigger schools. Long term.

I think everybody could be happy with that for sure

Simply put: Any coach at an elite D1 school should not need baseline prestige to prevent them from falling if they have a string of down years. You know, like training wheels do. Has nothing to do with a training period. And yes, I know how long it takes to get a big time program because I used to run several of them.

The game should always be performance based. As currently constructed at D1, that's not always the case. Baseline prestige acts as an invisible ceiling, stifling the growth of anyone that tries to build up lower-tier schools and their conferences, and an invisible floor propping up underperforming coaches at highly-sought after schools, preventing those jobs from becoming vacant and filled by more deserving coaches.

Take off the training wheels and give the coaches the freedom to turn a team like Morris Brown into the next Duke. We play in a make-believe-universe but are constrained by a subjective baseline created when the game was first conceived. That's silly.

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/5/2022 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 11/4/2022 9:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/4/2022 7:21:00 PM (view original):
It's training wheels for elite D1 teams. It should be removed. If Baseline Prestige wasn't so powerful, you wouldn't have to cheat to win at Hawaii. And you shouldn't have to.

How is it training wheels tho? You know how long it takes to get to a big time program? That’s the training period.

and to poncho, we CAN make small schools elite and big schools can fall off. Have you ever seen Joeykw Vermont in Naismith? Or Chaps Delaware St team? Or baumaway UAB team? Their success is exactly what people that oppose baseline want.

on the flip side? Generally speaking does Kansas ever go 10-19? UNC had a couple really bad seasons, and one or two mega classes later they’re winning a title again. That’s what “prestige” is. It’s not who is the best this season.

One thing I would agree with the naysayers on, is that I feel like success should/could hold more weight. For a longer period of time across seasons. I think that would help solve problems for all. If a coach wins a title at Small U, and could hold that baseline longer, a god coach would essentially lower the “current” prestige’s of the bigger schools. Long term.

I think everybody could be happy with that for sure

Simply put: Any coach at an elite D1 school should not need baseline prestige to keep them from falling if they have a string of down years. You know, like training wheels do. Has nothing to do with a training period. And yes, I know how long it takes to get a big time program because I used to run several of them.

The game should always be performance based. As currently constructed at D1, that's not always the case. Baseline prestige acts as an invisible ceiling, stifling the growth of anyone that tries to build up lower-tier schools and their conferences, and an invisible floor propping up underperforming coaches at highly-sought after schools, preventing those jobs from becoming vacant and filled by more deserving coaches.

Take off the training wheels and give the coaches the freedom to turn a team like Morris Brown into the next Duke. We play in a make-believe-universe but are constrained by a subjective baseline created when the game was first conceived. That's silly.

Well put.

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/5/2022 2:39:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 11/4/2022 9:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 11/4/2022 7:21:00 PM (view original):
It's training wheels for elite D1 teams. It should be removed. If Baseline Prestige wasn't so powerful, you wouldn't have to cheat to win at Hawaii. And you shouldn't have to.

How is it training wheels tho? You know how long it takes to get to a big time program? That’s the training period.

and to poncho, we CAN make small schools elite and big schools can fall off. Have you ever seen Joeykw Vermont in Naismith? Or Chaps Delaware St team? Or baumaway UAB team? Their success is exactly what people that oppose baseline want.

on the flip side? Generally speaking does Kansas ever go 10-19? UNC had a couple really bad seasons, and one or two mega classes later they’re winning a title again. That’s what “prestige” is. It’s not who is the best this season.

One thing I would agree with the naysayers on, is that I feel like success should/could hold more weight. For a longer period of time across seasons. I think that would help solve problems for all. If a coach wins a title at Small U, and could hold that baseline longer, a god coach would essentially lower the “current” prestige’s of the bigger schools. Long term.

I think everybody could be happy with that for sure

Simply put: Any coach at an elite D1 school should not need baseline prestige to prevent them from falling if they have a string of down years. You know, like training wheels do. Has nothing to do with a training period. And yes, I know how long it takes to get a big time program because I used to run several of them.

The game should always be performance based. As currently constructed at D1, that's not always the case. Baseline prestige acts as an invisible ceiling, stifling the growth of anyone that tries to build up lower-tier schools and their conferences, and an invisible floor propping up underperforming coaches at highly-sought after schools, preventing those jobs from becoming vacant and filled by more deserving coaches.

Take off the training wheels and give the coaches the freedom to turn a team like Morris Brown into the next Duke. We play in a make-believe-universe but are constrained by a subjective baseline created when the game was first conceived. That's silly.

I understand the argument, but I think you have more faith in things than the public would. You can’t attract (and retain) humans to play your game that way. This game has to appeal to the masses. It’s a product that has to sell. Mirroring what college basketball represents is a massive subconscious point of interest for all of us. I’m not saying that nobody would play HD. Sure they’d still have a good product to put on the shelf. But there’s just no way it would be AS appealing to the world. What sells more? Cheerios or Kroger brand Os with a colorful box?

One of my favorite things in HD that stands out to me is in my threads that I maintain for “Player titles” and “school titles”. If you check out the Teams thread, take a look at the total number of championships by D1 conference.(Keep in mind that I feel like updated baselines would be great, but I’m not for a free for all like D2/D3 are)……. Other than the fact that the poopy PAC-10 leads the way, the breakdown of conference titles is almost deadly accurate to real life. While also mixing in a bit of interesting small school love for gaming purposes. I used to talk to Adam about that when he first took over.

what I mean is, the pac 10, big 10, big 12, and ACC leads the way, significantly over the next tier (again, give or take which of those groups has better/worse coaches over the long haul, and that some of the baseline are ‘outdated’ according to most of us that play). Then you have The big East in a tier alone by itself just below that. Sure if you go back to the 70s/80s the big East was one of the best. But in the 90s/00s They seemed to be a step behind besides UConn. Finally you have the SEC which has always been the least successful in basketball, having UK and that’s about it.

Then just below that is a good mix of the little guy schools. Not too many. But in my opinion, just enough to make it interesting enough for gaming purposes. Off the top of my head maybe there’s 7-10 small conferences that have teams that have won titles. Obviously this last part is not realistic for real life bball, as NO small schools win titles. But for gaming, it clearly shows that it’s possible to do what the baseline haters don’t like, and that is that it’s possible to win at the small schools

personal interest aside, for business purposes it’s gotta look like real life somewhat to maintain interest as a whole. I’m not sure why more people don’t naturally see that to be essential

This is what I’m referring to

https://imgur.com/a/DR15YCj

Personally I am for baseline prestige, without it there would be a greater disparity within conferences. Any coach with any success just camps out at the same school because they have now sunk 10-20 seasons into bringing them from a D to A prestige. There would not be any reason to ever leave the job unlike now where there is the benefit of a higher baseline prestige to chase.

What I would like to see is an update to the baselines which could be adjusted at 1/3 a letter a season or two until they reach the new norm. Additionally I think there should be a second 'buoyancy factor' or trend line in addition to what there is now. Currently only the most recent 4 seasons is taken into account and the higher above your baseline you are the harder it is to keep that prestige. Take a look at Chap's team at the link below from seasons 170-173. 2nd round exit, Elite 8, Final 4 and another Final 4. The year he got the second Final 4 in a row his prestige dropped from A+ to A due to a national championship falling off. No fan base is ever so delusional to say that back to back Final 4s is a dropping off of the the program. This is where this buoyancy factor comes in. It looks at the last 10 (or 20,15 etc) seasons to create a long term prestige which would degrade alot slower due to the larger sample size. Then take some weighted average of the 2 to create the displayed prestige.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=11854

Edit: forgot the link

Baseline prestige has been one of the main drivers for me playing this game over the years (besides the community). It has given me a reason to continually learn and improve. I want to work my way to the top and earn those "training wheels".

Anyways, it's not like you can just get an A+ baseline and then turn your brain off and enjoy free championships. There's a lot of coaches that fail, and once the firing system is introduced, there will be a lot of opportunities for newer coaches to achieve those jobs. So you may gain "training wheels" but you also have a lot more pressure to win consistently.

I put in years of work so I could finally be in a position to land an A+ prestige, and that has finally paid dividends when I got the Duke job earlier this year.

I'll also agree with topdog when he said that it should be easier for lower prestige teams to keep their prestige after building a successful program. But there's also a lot of examples of great coaches who build consistent contenders with lower baselines. Another example is jimmychino and his Northwestern dynasty in Crum.

Basically, I think the current system is fine, but I'd like to see NT success be more impactful for lower prestige schools. Also the introduction of a firing system will help add balance to the higher prestige schools.

i'm re-hashing my old ideas but...

I like baseline, but i think every school *within each conference* should have equal prestige. (exceptions noted below for UCLA UK KU etc)

So we could keep the 4 conference tiers.

Tier One: 6 conferences.
every team has A prestige.
ACC B1G B12 BE SEC PAC.

Tier Two: 4 conferences.
every team has B prestige.
A10 CUSA MWC WCC or whichever is best.

Tier Three: 6 conferences.
every team has C prestige.
BWEST CAA MAC MVC HORIZ and a 6th.

Tier Four: 11 conferences.
every team has D prestige.
the rest.

Maybe grab top eight A level programs and give A+... UCLA UNC Kentucky Kansas Duke... and pick any other 3... at least 1 from each top-6 conference.

In real life there are ebbs and flows within each conference, except for those elites pretty much. Providence, Seton Hall, Texas Tech, Iowa, Wake, Purdue, etc, have all had their great runs within the conference.

I always get mad that HD Boston College has parlayed a perpetual A-minus prestige over B-minus Providence due to BC's 3-year run in 2004 where they made a Sweet 16 maybe? BC has zero Final Fours. Providence at least has 2 and a handful of Elite 8's.

i do think the current prestige system is not great, 4 seasons really feels too short. i think floating baseline could be pretty cool, in allowing schools to perhaps float up a grade or down a grade based on performance. sort of allowing for a 'great restoration' and such, if you will.

i am not really a fan of totally eliminating baseline prestige, but i wouldn't be totally opposed, either. my only team these past couple years is a D baseline team in most likely the best D baseline conference in d1. it was an empty, **** conference when i started there. i really like that conference! i like the challenge. the conference moving forward feels like it means something because it i such a challenge. every final four for the big dog teams feels hard fought, every NT bid for the rest of the teams feels like real achievement for those coaches. i'd have gotten bored and retired some time ago if we had a handful of A+ teams and were just a normal BCS conference.

i know the above experience is not what most folks are playing this game for, but a lot of people do like rebuilds and challenges. i would support something along the lines of a softening of baseline, by either lengthing the prestige window, or letting baseline float some, but i feel like eliminating baseline completely would actually take away something meaningful from d1.

Posted by texashick on 11/4/2022 4:42:00 PM (view original):
I like the idea of updates to the baselines, but how do you do it? Does a coach that worked hard to get to Boston College wake up and get nuked one day? Does the guy that just took over a C- Baylor team blink and see B? Implementation is difficult. If they ever opened a new world, an update would be a no brainer.

I don't know that they're tackling any of this kind of thing on the rumored "re-write", but I agree it is not ideal to go imposing real world updates into a simulated universe that is 100+ years forward. Realignment should only happen if it can be done voluntarily - if they could design a relegation system where there are a few teams in every conference (ie, not UCLA, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, etc) that could be dropped if they are sim for x number of years, replaced by a user from mid major somewhere else. Older EA games had this feature, and it is a nice alternative to job change. It would also be a better way to engineer realignment in individual worlds - make them user-driven. As I understand it, they'd have to keep the conferences and the 12-team set-up (unless that's part of the re-write!) but there's still a lot you could do with user-driven realignment over time.

All that aside, I do think moving to floating prestige (over 20-40 seasons) would be fine, though. probably wouldn't be much more than 1/2 grade difference in anyone's functional prestige, and while it might make some difference in how they are able to keep and maintain that prestige, unless and until they impose the firing update, I'm not too concerned about that slight adjustment. I've always agreed with NBP's proposal of conference baseline instead of individual baseline, and I think coach prestige, a modifier that travels with the coach, should also be added (and perhaps replace the team's functional prestige). I'm not sure team prestige is really necessary at all, with the "wants success" preference being explicit for some recruits, and a separate thing. It's kind of a silly concept, really. Can you imagine looking at a sports website and seeing a letter grade attached to each program pretending to tell us how prestigious they are?

I made this argument over a decade ago...so I guess I'll make it one more time just for fun.

Hoops Dynasty is not a simulator. Hoops Dymasty is a fantasy game. Given that, let's say that the original intent of HD was to be a fusion between the two...any team CAN win a title (most definitely not real life) but the blue bloods have a much easier road to perpetual greatness (very much real life.)

The problem with this is we are now 100 "years" into this supposed simulation/fantasy union. If we went back in real time to the landscape of college athletics around the world wars, it would look nothing like it does today. Even real life evolves.

Hoops Dynasty must have some mechanism to allow for a school to raise itself...permanently...to the ranks of the blue bloods so that this fantasy/dynasty hybrid does not look like a total farse locked in to an arbitrary snapshot in time. I don't care how it is done...floating prestige, coach prestige, etc. but to forever relegate a school because the basketball Gods in 2000 declared, in Solomon-like fashion, that Coppin State (or whoever) will always struggle and that Providence (or whoever) will always be good, forever and ever amen, is asinine.

Call it Hoops Simulator if that is the programming goal. OK, thanks for letting me vent.