Posted by Benis on 12/21/2016 10:08:00 AM (view original):
Posted by cwisniewski on 12/21/2016 9:58:00 AM (view original):
We understand that scouting takes more time than it did in HD 2.0 and that is because there really wasn't any scouting besides FSS, which only required you to select a few states. Scouting in HD 3.0 is much more intensive and is now a much larger part of the game and that is why we give you plenty of time to scout before any recruiting actually starts.
So you are correct that scouting takes longer than the previous but the biggest issue may be that you are trying to do all of your scouting at one time. There is a reason the scouting period is so long and that is because our idea was that each user could spend 10-15 minutes scouting each day (obviously you can spend however much time you want, but this is what we had in mind). If you do this, you will realize that scouting is not really time consuming and that you have plenty of time to scout any number of recruits to any level that you want by only spending a few minutes here and there per day (like MikeT said).
I think the recruiting portion is what is much more time consuming. You need to be active from the very first cycle which is much different than in 2.0.
One suggestion - when someone you're recruiting signs with another team, can the APs that were allocated to that player be redistributed automatically to other players you have APs set for? It's tough to check the over night cycle (11pm to 5am), at least for me. So if I have 80APs on a guy that signs, they are wasted if I don't log in and reallocate. Which doesn't take that long, but if I have multiple teams recruiting at the same time, it can be tedious and annoying if I'm unavailable.
This is easily my biggest gripe. I spend similar if not less time scouting than I did in 2.0, granted I basically looked at every single recruit before and now i can scout the states and much more quickly pinpoint who I'm targeting. Having a scouting budget also restricts the amount of time I could spend. So that's not a concern.
I like the AP portion much better than the phone calls etc. but there's still a miss somewhere with 3.0. D2/3 recruting is pointless. It's a waiting / hoping game. At least in previous versions drop/pull downs were a thing, here it's too regimented, period one they can do very little but put some AP out and hope. The second recruiting period it's far too difficult moving into a new job to recruit effectively, even at D1. You're basically stuck throwing all your AP at a player or two with only a lower division school on them and hoping you unlock anything before they sign. I think AP's need to be much less restrictive in period 2 for sure and maybe less restrictive overall.
But it let's be honest, two things matter in recruiting, prestige and effort and really prestige should matter more. This game is meant to be (somewhat) realistic not fair. If you're looking for fair, I've got a shiny participation trophy you can have.
I like the the idea of camps, but there needs to be game or camps for AP too, where the kid sees you in the crowd and you get credit for recruiting the kid too. That would allow for a wider range of secondary targets with AP for more focused attention and recruiting.
That said... A lower level school should have to work their butt off to compete consistently. That's how it works. Time spend scouting, recruiting and game planning. It shouldn't be easy.
Having said that - I don't agree with everything WIS has chosen to do, but I do believe they gave a solid vision that they need to refine. And I don't think they can get there without input and feedback from the coaches, both longtime and newer. I've said this many times before, but I think WIS has missed the boat many times, including not working with the coaches and setting up some sort of feedback group that they talk with consistently and I think they should keep beta open and run a few beta worlds and make tweaks to each. I get they are probably worried about having open (free) beta and losing paying customers but for the logetivy of not only the site but the game they really need to consider having us as users and coaches having a greater impact in the priority of changes.