I think beta testers should be drawn from a variety of coach types. Having long-time veteran coaches is a no-brainer, but including a mix of some intelligent novice users that are able to represent a wider cross section of the coaching pool also makes sense.

They've had a beta test world in place for quite some time.

One suggestion I have on potential is the elimination of the hard cap on ratings. If you want to have a cap on ratings thats fine, just make it a soft cap.

Here is my suggestion for what its worth.... Say Johnny Basketball is generated by the engine with a cap of 80 in PE. Once he reaches 80 his improvement rate would decrease something like 50 or 75%. By doing this coaches would still be able to practice a skill and get some improvement out of a player albeit at a greatly reduced rate.

I don't know how other coaches would feel about this but I believe it would make things a lot less frustrating.

Bingo.

This idea has been sent to ADMIN by numerous users with numerous tweaks. An example is a post of mine from long ago. But HD is convinced they can make this work with hard caps.

I'd personally propose 2 major changes to the concept of potential:

1) Eliminate the caps all together and reinstate the "bell curve" improvement scale with the following change. Players will improve more early on in their careers by multiplying the practice time by a factor :

For example :

Freshman = daily practice time X 1.2

Sophomore = daily practice time X 1.1

Junior = daily practice time X 0.9

Senior = daily practice time X 0.8

5th year (SR) = daily practice time X 0.8



2) Players as a whole are rated as high/meduim/low potential, vs rating the individual skills. Individual practice time is then multiplied by a "factor" based on potential. Players will remain as high/meduim/low potential for their careers.

For example :

Average Potential = daily practice time X 1.0

High Potential = daily practice time X 1.1

Low Potential = daily practice time X 0.9



So to put this in a real example lets consider 2 players :

Player A = high potential FR with 20 mins practice in LP. The actual daily improvement would be ased on the new calculated minutes .

20 mins X 1.2 (for being a FR) x 1.1 (for being high potential) = 26.4 mins

Player B = low potential JR with 20 mins practice in LP. The actual daily improvement would be ased on the new calculated minutes .

20 mins X 0.9 (for being a JR) x 0.9 (for being low potential) = 16.2 mins

Positives

1) Player development would be back in the hands of the coaches

2) You would still have a nice differentiation between High and Low potential players.

3) You will still see the concept of players growing more earlier in their careers.

4) Players will still 'cap out" the closer they get to 100 because the "bell type" improvement curve will still be in place.

Maybe I am crazy, but I think it is much better that a guy can:

Improve well at some areas (Defense and PE for example), but not well in other areas (BH and Passing, for example). I think things like this happen all the time. No matter how much time you put into it, George is just not going to get any better at ball handling or passing, he just does not do that well ... he does, however, excel when practicing Defense and shooting from the Perimeter.

In fact, I don't even think that they should TELL US which areas the guy is not going to develop in ... I mean, Rick Pitino or John Calhoun do not KNOW that recruit1 is not going to develop well at PE but will develop well at BH, but it certainly does happen.

I see threads all the time where everyone complains because their guy is not performing at 90/90/90 levels because everybody has a 90/90/90 player. This will prevent that and create diversity in players after they develop.

I do not see why people have problems with this. I think it perfectly logical that a guy can progress in some areas and not others. I think it is absolutely unrealistic to expect anything else.

Watch out. YOu aren't allowed to have a different opinion about potential then 'it sucks' or you are a 'Stooge of administration' and 'just don't understand'.

my allen team has the $5.00 credit but my phelan team doesnt

they clearyly differ in their potential - you get only one credit per coach, not per world

Thank You for the credit. I still have some issues with potential and the scouting service but I am impressed with how HD is handling the problems. I am not ready to forgive and forget, but I will keep an open mind.

Very well said. Wish the best of luck to you making other improvements to this game.

Quote: Originally posted by sd2416_jr on 4/29/2009my allen team has the $5.00 credit but my phelan team doesnt

Its $5 an account not per team

Welcome to "ThisIsSports."

First off, thanks for the post seble. I think it is hard making everyone happy with all of the changes all of the time, and it is nice seeing the WiS folk let us know that something is not working.

As for the problems with potential, I don't know if it is better or worse, but at least on my end, I used to like the old way of developing players with practice time than the current development method. That said, I can also see a happy middle ground where potential and practice time work well together and I think you guys are striving towards that.