I used to talk to only quite often, but I haven't gotten a response from him in about 6 months. Hope he's doing well.

Posted by topdogggbm on 1/26/2020 5:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 1/26/2020 5:26:00 PM (view original):
“I also don’t have a problem with EE. I have always found benis’s complaining about it a little whiney. I don’t like shoes counter points either though.”

That’s interesting because the first two sentences are a pretty good summary of my position; dealing with early entries is a coaching gameplay decision. All the other stuff is just because I am notoriously easy to drag down a rabbit hole.

Oh come on now shoe, you have your supporters too! No reason to be all negative!

Tj asked if anyone still talks to 0nly. What about MikeT? Anybody ever hear from him anymore? I've always considered him a possibility to be the fakewardo.

I like shoe. I just don’t always agree with his analysis. When he’s talking about how HD works I think he is generally spot on. When he opines about how non game mechanics work (or should) I tune out. I feel mostly the same way about Benis but replace the last sentence with something along the lines of “cries like a baby”.

i am glad Only is doing well. He was just a kid when he played. He understood the game really well and loved talking about it but at some point he stopped learning and wouldnt listen to counter points. He really suffered from group think at the end. his explosions were generally immature which can be forgiven because of his age, somewhat.

miket was a straight up internet tough guy. He ruined the forums. I am happy he is gone. He brought nothing to the table.

And I still have no beef with EE, and programs like
mine (Fordham) are the ones who really get hurt by them because I only land EE quality players every 4 years or so. I just can’t replace them with quality and don’t have enough quality without them. I am still trying to figure that out.....

Posted by thewizard37 on 1/26/2020 6:04:00 PM (view original):
All the problems with early entries would be solved if you just had the draft at the beginning of the season, this way teams losing players can utilize their APs and recruiting money for the first cycle. Seems like a simple solution to me.

I’ve always thought sophomores leave early if they are a lottery pick, juniors leave if they are a first round pick. That way only the best players leave.

Your point about replacing EEs at Fordam was exactly what I thought when Piman mentioned his EEs at Kansas and UCLA. Much easier to replace talent there. If I lose EE at MSU it isn't so bad. But losing guys not on the big board at schools like Utah and NMSU is rough.

Also I cant tell if you think that sophomores that leave early are lottery picks or you just want it to work that way because it def doesnt today. My soph that went EE that wasnt on big board went late 2nd round at #54

shoe, i'll give you that some of the anti-EE sentiment just comes down to either whining, or wanting that reward without the risk. those folks are certainly more vocal, but most people who don't really like EEs don't post about it all the time, and they just don't think its that great or that fun of a system. i include myself in that group, i am not dogmatic in my hatred of EEs or anything, but i do think the system could be done better. folks like me haven't been fans of EEs for much longer than folks like benis or the0nly have been playing.

i guess my gripe with you is how dogmatic you are, in turn, in being anti-anti-EEs :) frankly, i was at least half way with you for the first couple pages, because a lot of the anti-EE stuff especially on page 1 was just whining. but your rebuttal is just as whiny and just as closed minded, just as dogmatic, as those you are complaining about. painting folks who don't like EEs as wanting changes for personal gain (for ultra d1 dominance) or as whiners who just don't like losing coin flips, with as wide of a brush as you do - its wrong, small minded, and mildly irritating.

I think Gil is the only person who has been able to understand my position. I don't think the current EE system is fun, competitive or realistic. All 3 are things that everyone on here claims to want in a college bball simulation game. Lets summarize each of them.

Fun- the only one that is subjective but how is it fun to be given a tool (the big board) to make informed decisions (which is the basis for basically the entire game), to only have it obscured so drastically that you cant plan or prepare for the outcome. This game is all about planning and preparation but off the board EEs make it nearly impossible or at best, impractical. Do people SERIOUSLY recruit every season as if every one of their players is gonna go EE?

Competitiveness - Coach A keeps #1 player on big board while Coach B loses #100. Coach A has done absolutely NOTHING to gain a HUGE advantage over Coach B the following season. It boggles my mind that people could possibly think that this is a system that can produce a competitive game where you actually have to think and make difficult decisions. Blind luck has as much influence on who the title favorite is for the following season as being a good coach who knows how to recruit and build a team.

Realism - My absolute favorite excuse to explain some stupid aspect of HD when its called out. On what planet does a college coach try to make his players WORSE which will decrease the team's chances of winning a title in order to slightly decrease the likelihood the player will leave for the NBA. That is the only lever given to the coach to influence the EE results in HD. That's it. Besides, ya know, recruiting bad players who aren't NBA worthy- which is also super realistic. Right?

Posted by Benis on 1/26/2020 11:03:00 PM (view original):
Your point about replacing EEs at Fordam was exactly what I thought when Piman mentioned his EEs at Kansas and UCLA. Much easier to replace talent there. If I lose EE at MSU it isn't so bad. But losing guys not on the big board at schools like Utah and NMSU is rough.

Also I cant tell if you think that sophomores that leave early are lottery picks or you just want it to work that way because it def doesnt today. My soph that went EE that wasnt on big board went late 2nd round at #54

your EE that was not on the board, the one you that spawned this thread - he was a soph? that's rough, that definitely gets you a pass on a good bit of your complaining here :)

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/26/2020 11:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 1/26/2020 11:03:00 PM (view original):
Your point about replacing EEs at Fordam was exactly what I thought when Piman mentioned his EEs at Kansas and UCLA. Much easier to replace talent there. If I lose EE at MSU it isn't so bad. But losing guys not on the big board at schools like Utah and NMSU is rough.

Also I cant tell if you think that sophomores that leave early are lottery picks or you just want it to work that way because it def doesnt today. My soph that went EE that wasnt on big board went late 2nd round at #54

your EE that was not on the board, the one you that spawned this thread - he was a soph? that's rough, that definitely gets you a pass on a good bit of your complaining here :)

Most recent one was a Junior. I had a Soph leave early not on big board at NMSU. Wasnt even that great. As anyone with at least one functioning eyeball can see, I did withhold practice minutes to decrease his chance of leaving. Only grew 24 pts as soph with 75 WE.

But let's have some fun with math.

Of the seasons I've tracked this stuff, there have been 694 EEs and 12 who weren't on the big board. 1.7% of all EEs weren't on board.

For me personally, I've had 15 EEs with ******* THREE not on the big board. 20%.

But ya know. I'm just a big ol whiner for no reason.

Posted by Benis on 1/26/2020 11:37:00 PM (view original):
I think Gil is the only person who has been able to understand my position. I don't think the current EE system is fun, competitive or realistic. All 3 are things that everyone on here claims to want in a college bball simulation game. Lets summarize each of them.

Fun- the only one that is subjective but how is it fun to be given a tool (the big board) to make informed decisions (which is the basis for basically the entire game), to only have it obscured so drastically that you cant plan or prepare for the outcome. This game is all about planning and preparation but off the board EEs make it nearly impossible or at best, impractical. Do people SERIOUSLY recruit every season as if every one of their players is gonna go EE?

Competitiveness - Coach A keeps #1 player on big board while Coach B loses #100. Coach A has done absolutely NOTHING to gain a HUGE advantage over Coach B the following season. It boggles my mind that people could possibly think that this is a system that can produce a competitive game where you actually have to think and make difficult decisions. Blind luck has as much influence on who the title favorite is for the following season as being a good coach who knows how to recruit and build a team.

Realism - My absolute favorite excuse to explain some stupid aspect of HD when its called out. On what planet does a college coach try to make his players WORSE which will decrease the team's chances of winning a title in order to slightly decrease the likelihood the player will leave for the NBA. That is the only lever given to the coach to influence the EE results in HD. That's it. Besides, ya know, recruiting bad players who aren't NBA worthy- which is also super realistic. Right?

it helps when your position is a slight variation off of a position that's been expressed around here for more than a decade. on the understanding bit, i mean.

i do think you take it a bit far. i agree it sucks when coach A keeps #1 and coach B loses #100, but saying blind luck has much influence as who knows how to coach, its a little extreme. without question, many teams have been there on the precipice, where good EE luck could deliver them the #1 overall team and bad EE luck could take them out of the running, so it does happen - but most seasons for top teams, their EE luck is roughly in line with general expectations. over a longer view than 1 season, like over 10 seasons, EE luck has some impact but is dwarfed by coaching.

the part about the absurdity, there i am with you 100% of the way. i think i helped popularize the EE manipulation tactics that are fairly common place now, to a pretty significant extent. so, while i'm good at it, and while it has given me MAJOR benefit over the years (ahem, shoe), that's not enough for me to like the scheme. strategy games should not favor strategies that are absurd, its a basic tenant. i have no problem with folks needing to be like 'i should probably get some 4 year guys, or at least 3-4 year guys, to offset some of this raft of EEs'. but i do have problem with folks being like 'i'm going to intentionally sabotage the practice plans of half my players to reduce their NBA odds', its just crazy.

to shoe's point, when i hear someone like topdogg saying he'll never try d1 just because EEs suck so much - it does raise the question of if the whole 'the sky is falling' around EEs does have some negative impact. its not really as bad as all that. although when i first got to high d1 and experienced EEs, it was a huge turn off. things are significantly better today though, it used to be pretty much worse

To your point about EE luck not having as much impact as I say, maybe I'm exaggerating but I also think you still have the 2.0 mindset about how easy it was to replace those EE players. It's harder for all teams now and bad EE luck is pretty crippling for those low prestige teams.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/27/2020 12:04:00 AM (view original):
to shoe's point, when i hear someone like topdogg saying he'll never try d1 just because EEs suck so much - it does raise the question of if the whole 'the sky is falling' around EEs does have some negative impact. its not really as bad as all that. although when i first got to high d1 and experienced EEs, it was a huge turn off. things are significantly better today though, it used to be pretty much worse

How was it worse?

And I've tried to get Top to play D1 LOTS of times. My whining has nothing to do with it. He's a smart boy, he knows what he likes and doesnt like.

they did a few things to make it better, the big one was the big board. having a good sense of who is at risk is a big improvement, and a better sense of what attributes lead to high draft board rankings, that kind of stuff.

they also made it less likely to have a stupid amount of EEs, and they put in that thing where if you have 6 graduating + EEs, you can't have any more EEs. those don't have an impact most of the time, but some of the extreme cases are a lot better now.

i suppose on the other hand, the whole 2 sessions of recruiting thing made it a *lot* worse. but the biggest thing is just having an idea what to expect, i was totally blindsided when i ran into EEs initially. i suppose new coaches still may be, but in general, at least we have a lot more idea what is going on. with the big risk/reward tradeoffs, there is always going to be frustration and stuff, but the more we know about mechanically how those tradeoffs work, the better off we are (the less frustration, i guess).

random tidbit time, way back in the day (before my time), EEs were only stat based - which IMO is a more messed up system than the current one (it was so easy to manipulate, at least now you have to give up something real to beat the system). but also you had the NBA preference, so that helped with some of the uncertainty. i wish they'd bring that back - i think it would really help alleviate some of the issues we have. it would also be cool to help differentiate elite players - a guy who wanted to be 1 and done would be a lot less coveted than a guy willing to stick it out.

“painting folks who don't like EEs as wanting changes for personal gain (for ultra d1 dominance) or as whiners who just don't like losing coin flips, with as wide of a brush as you do - its wrong, small minded, and mildly irritating.”

Lucky for both of us, I don’t give any sh!ts about what you, or anyone else find irritating.
:)
To reiterate what I told doggggg instead of answering his false binary question back on page 2, I would change some things about the system. Calling me dogmatically antianti-EE is a misrepresentation of what I’ve said. And the changes I would make are not far off at all from what you talk about. I would have more Fr-So on the big board, and have the projections based more on potential than actual. I would have more of those top level guys leave early, to the tune of 90-95% lottery picks, and 75-90% 1st rounders. Something I’ve talked about since beta is having an academic vs pro ball preference for recruits, which should basically act as the NBA preference the game apparently used to have (I had no idea - see, I can admit there are things I don’t know).

There are lots of good ways to address the game in a positive way without reversing those guiding principles - the game doesn’t want teams stocked with NBA players, and the game wants to retain surprise elements via upsets and volatility. I am not at all opposed to positive changes that aren’t primarily based in resentment, and don’t disincentivize battling or reduce upward mobility.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/27/2020 12:04:00 AM (view original):
to shoe's point, when i hear someone like topdogg saying he'll never try d1 just because EEs suck so much - it does raise the question of if the whole 'the sky is falling' around EEs does have some negative impact. its not really as bad as all that. although when i first got to high d1 and experienced EEs, it was a huge turn off. things are significantly better today though, it used to be pretty much worse

My beef with D1 is just something I feel is bad game design. I'm a quality coach, whether other accept that or not. And I view each level of the game, as a totally different game. I wish I WANTED to play D1. But to me, it just makes no sense in how it's approached.

A coach spends his early (or entire) career, fighting for top notch talent, learning the game, finding trends to look for in how you can sign the best players. You master D3, you master D2, all is going well and you're having a great career.

Then you jump to D1 and it all changes. Sure, change isn't always bad. But you no longer have the logic of, sign all the best players you can at all times. Instead, you are forced to "not make your players as good" due to the EE situation. You REMOVE practice minutes. You have to "consider" NOT getting too much elite talent. And it's all surrounding the EE situation. That is so *** backwards it's beyond belief!

Again, sure it's just a different game, different choices. You can choose to have backups on standby (just like i do at D2). You can choose to not recruit elite talent non stop. It's all strategy. And I get it. But if EEs were different, and I could always recruit balls out if I wanted to, and had full resources for both sessions, I'd be right up there with you guys. I would still lose rolls like everyone does at times. But I would at least feel like i had a chance to make those decisions.

D1 is suppose to be the pinnacle of a game like this. And I'd love to be a part of it. I just don't feel like the apex of HD should consist of "I'm gonna make this player worse so I don't get screwed in the end". That's just something I choose not to be a part of.