mully, I would be a fan of simplifying DIII in some way. Whether it would be the elimination of potential or some other change I think WIS needs to do something to make it easier for newer coaches to get the hang of it and be successful rather quickly to keep them ineterested.

These results really surprise me.

Naismith
DIV III - Total teams =	384
Season	SIMS	%	Change	%
17	160	41.7%
33	82	21.4%	(40)	-10.4%
34	82	21.4%	0	0.0%
35	71	18.5%	(11)	-2.9%
DIV II - Total teams =	276
Season	SIMS	%	Change	%
17	86	31.2%
33	59	21.4%	6	2.2%
34	66	23.9%	7	2.5%
35	55	19.9%	(11)	-4.0%
DIV I - Total teams =	324
Season	SIMS	%	Change	%
17	121	37.3%
33	126	38.9%	4	1.2%
34	125	38.6%	(1)	-0.3%
35	127	39.2%	2	0.6%
Total World #1 =	984
Season	SIMS	%	Change	%
* 17	367	37.3%	(1st year)
33	267	27.1%	(30)	-3.0%
34	273	27.7%	6	0.6%
35	253	25.7%	(20)	-2.0%

So much for the mass departures...

One word: FREEHD.

I think you're seeing a few people moving from D3 to D2 because of potential, a few leaving, and a ton of people getting FREEHD accounts to scout with.

I could be wrong of course. It will be interesting to see what happens when you can't scout with FREEHD anymore.

Quote: Originally Posted By srunstro on 11/10/2008

Two Predictions:

1. The number of FREEHD accounts will swell dramatically for the first season or two of the FSS service in each world, making it look like there is a surge of interest in HD.

2. The changes will actually result in a decrease of actively managed D3 teams, of somewhere between 10-20%, as long-term D3 coaches either move up to D2 or "retire" from HD.

I will be interested to see if the numbers bear this out.

I stand by this prediction until proven otherwise.

It certainly seems to be the case in Knight and Tark, where my D3 conferences have gone from 3-4 human coaches to 9-10 humans the last few seasons, but almost all the new coaches are FREEHD (based on the fact that they disappear every offseason only to reappear as soon as the world opens to new coaches).

Quote: Originally Posted By HalfAstros on 2/03/2009
One word: FREEHD.

I think you're seeing a few people moving from D3 to D2 because of potential, a few leaving, and a ton of people getting FREEHD accounts to scout with.

I could be wrong of course. It will be interesting to see what happens when you can't scout with FREEHD anymore.

Thats what surprised me. You couldnt use FreeHD to scout this time around in Naismith. It could be coaches didnt realize this until recruiting started.

i think the mass exodus is 2 seasons away - many coaches are just now realizing that their players are maxing out in season 1-2 - e.g i am in the 2nd season and i just found out my RS freshman coming into campus has no more high potential in anything and is limited in many areas...and he's just now a freshman after his RS after 1 practice!!

and most coaches have a few pre-paid seasons to work through...like all their crap roll outs, it takes 2-3 seasons at least for them to fix things and get it manageable

I say dont let the door hit them on the way out.

Still no drop off in Smith. Either the silent majority likes potential or the DIII FreeHD coaches are too dumb to know they can't use FSS to recruit anymore.

I for one, love potential, and would hope that it ushers in an increase in users....If I came to the game without prior knowledge of the old recruiting system I would simply think of potential as an obvious, but cool feature of the game, that made recruiting an interesting an involved experience.

Just curious kd, what is it that you like so much?

I can only speak from the perspective of D3, but I like the fact that you have to make certain sacrifices now that you didn't have to make before....for instance the likelihood of having a post with 90+ Reb & Low Post is very very low, which I think brings an element of strategy into recruiting....it would be possible to go after a post with 90+ rebounding, but he probably won't have too much low post skill and vice versa. I think that this makes building a complete team much more difficult and strategic.

I can also understand many of the frustrations that people have with potential, and the implementation has obviously not been very smooth. A lot of the control is taken out of the coach's hands as far as the practice plans are concerned, but all in all I think that the final player ratings look more realistic than they did before, and we see new types of players...and that is what I like.

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1113836

This player is an example of someone who wouldn't have existed pre-potential.

Why wouldnt he have existed before? I think I can find several pre potential Naismith players with those same ratings right now.

I mean that Adamsky wouldn't have topped out at 53 rebounding....he started in the 40s and that was a limitation that I wouldn't have encountered before...whereas before he would have been very highly rated in LP & Reb he just isn't that good of a rebounder, and I find that adds some strategy to the game. Now, even though Adamsky is a player that I like a lot, he might really cost me in a game if he goes up against a player whose ratings in LP & Reb are the opposite of his, because he would be so badly outrebounded. I guess another way of saying it is pre potential I don't think I would have started a center with rebounding that had maxed out at 50.