ekswimmer, I think that is a good point. Recruit generation is obviously bad. But changing all of those at once could be worse than doing nothing. If we've learned anything from changes over the years, it's that they're often wrought with unintended consequences.

Seble - Can you please table #4 in your plan for a later update and instead address one or more of the items people have been bringing up here and so often bring up in the forums? There are so many good and necessary ideas here and in other threads, it seems crazy to me to go ahead with #4 when things that people care about more are hanging in the balance.

m4284850: Fair enough. Let's limit it to 1 ratings.

Even if we went with under-10 I think the benefits would outweigh the costs by a fair amount.

Girt - the old system was still favorable to elites.  The difference is that there were so many high level recruits that the lower schools could get players nearly as good.  That's why they could remain competitive.  The only way to return to that is to return to days where there are too many elite recruits.  What I'd like to accomplish is a recruiting system where mid level schools can occasionally land a really good player. 

Also keep in mind that the changes coming to prestige will make it easier for a good coach to build and maintain a higher level prestige, which obviously gives them more recruiting power.  There's a chance that I'll tweak the postseason money system as well.  So clearly I am trying to level the playing field, I just disagree that changing recruit generation is the best way to do that.

Posted by m4284850 on 5/17/2012 9:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by backboy13 on 5/17/2012 9:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by m4284850 on 5/17/2012 9:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by llamanunts on 5/17/2012 8:01:00 PM (view original):
I don't play D1, but the 5 player rule really seems like a chainsaw where a butter knife would do just fine.

The suggestion to change scouting trips seems like it wouldn't be a beast to implement.  You don't have to go all the way and allow us to customize our scouting trips, but there is one seemingly-simple change that would knock out about half the issues.

If an attribute starts under 10, never return information in the scouting report.

If my PG recruit has a 1 in rebounding, blocks, and low post, it's crazy to ever report on potential.  If my C has a 1 in PE, it's crazy to report that.

I disagree with your point on the Scouting report for several reasons.
1) What if I find an offensive dynamo is 9 at DEF, if he's high-high he's gonna be 38 DEF which is passable.
2) What if a find a PG who is 5 REB and he's high-high potential he'll end up 33 REB which means he could play SF.
3) What if 2 players are very similar and I just want an attrbute like SPD for a big man, which I would use as my tiebreak for choosing between the players.

What I've seen suggested about the Scouting report issue is- a single attribute scouting trip (you would have to pay more) but for example if you want to find whether your PG is high-high in passing or not, you send a specific scouting trip and it tells you only that attributes potential.

I'm not sure if I'm making this up or not, but I don't remember seeing anyone with a single-digit rating being high, let alone high-high.

This guy came in with a 2 REB rating and was a high-high and now has a 31 REB rating.
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=2099241

Fair enough, but the benefits of eliminating the under 10 ratings in the scouting report are much greater than the occasional/rare player that has a single-digit rating that is high potential. If so, consider it as a bonus, but it's probably very infrequent.

Posted by fmschwab on 5/17/2012 9:50:00 PM (view original):
ekswimmer, I think that is a good point. Recruit generation is obviously bad. But changing all of those at once could be worse than doing nothing. If we've learned anything from changes over the years, it's that they're often wrought with unintended consequences.

Seble - Can you please table #4 in your plan for a later update and instead address one or more of the items people have been bringing up here and so often bring up in the forums? There are so many good and necessary ideas here and in other threads, it seems crazy to me to go ahead with #4 when things that people care about more are hanging in the balance.

I am addressing the issues raised here.  I may be coming at it from a different angle, but the goal is the same. 

I completely understand that many of you can't see the value in the player roles change, but it will save time and make the game more fun.  That's a no-brainer to me. 

seble.... I admit I'm at a disadvantage in the argument of recruit generation because I took about 4+ years off from this game... but I will say that at the Div 1 teams I've had, I can't find anyone worth squat to recruit at PG.  I had to go to a JUCO PG ranked #116 with 2 years of eligibility remaining to have a chance to recruit a player who deserved to be on the court.  I couldn't even find anyone who would be a good project PG.  

There is no way that you can expect a coach to compete in this game if he can't find someone who can play immediately OR eventually.  There are way too many PGs who have under 50 passing ability highly ranked.  There was a top 25 PG who had 37 passing ability with either Average or Low potential.  I have no complaints about the SF, PF and C distribution in recruit generation, but in the 3 seasons of returning to Div 1, I've yet to find a decent PG that I could recruit and I've got 2 of my 3 Div 1 teams in Big 6 conferences.  I should be able to find better PGs.  I'm not asking for more elite PGs.... I'm asking for a lower talent gap between elite and 2nd tier PGs.

I can't believe I'm saying this after what I've been thinking since the big change, but I think seble has a good point.  If more elite schools battled for top-tier recruits, BCS money would be spent on those guys instead of second-tier guys.  

In theory, seble might be right.  The problem is that so many of us can immediately determine whether we will a battle because it's not difficult to determine how much money everyone has.  Why would I battle for a guy, elite or not, whom I'm confident I won't get and will waste all my money getting?  Plus, distance is such a big factor that there's no reason to try and battle someone in a much better geographic location with same number of scholarships, which there almost certainly will be if I'm 1000 miles or so away.

I'd be all for a complete overhaul, but I think that would require significant input from the community and serious testing otherwise you might as well forget about keeping most of us.  On the flip side, if done right, you could rejuvenate the game.

EDIT: Of course, I do think there need to be better second-tier recruits, as most other people have mentioned.  There is just a ton of crap from 50-100 positional and 100-150 is almost entirely useless.

Love the idea of the mass phone calls. That would be spectacular!

It's great that seble has responded to a few of the comments here, but can I get some kind of reply about the 5 player rule? I railed against it at the beginning (as did girt), sent out a support ticket while getting the customary response "we'll look at it, thanks for the concern", and see people helped the most by it believe it's a bad for the game. Please seble, get rid of this ASAP.

Yours Truly,
Stine

Something needs to be done to address the hoarding of senior transfers by Big 6 schools.  It has reached epic proportions and distorts all levels of recruiting.  Although it has always been part of the game, the problem has been badly aggravated by the new EE rule (as a means of gaming the system).  I have always thought that recruits, especially senior & junior transfers and JuCo Juniors,  should demand that coaches recruiting them promise them minutes or starts before they sign.  There is simply no way that a player will transfer to be the worst player on UCLA's bench for their final season (as a guy from my UNCW team did this offseason).  That transfer would always prefer to go to a school that would let them on the court at some point.

The precise demands would be determined from home visits and/or scouting trips.  The next fix would be to impose reputation penalties for failing to live up to such promises to seniors.  Obviously, the expectations would need to be scaled to the school's prestige, but still any senior would want to hear at least 10 minutes a game before signing to play for even, say, Kansas or Kentucky.  That would impose a cost to using seniors to create more recruiting cash and address the distortion of the recruiting market.

We will never, ever, ever see battles for all elite players like we do in real life. The reason is simple.

In real life, if Duke goes hard after the #5 pg and doesn't get him, they will get the #10 or #15 guy. In HD, if Duke goes hard after the #5 pg and loses out, they don't have the cash left to sign anyone else even remotely as good.

Posted by seble on 5/17/2012 9:53:00 PM (view original):
Girt - the old system was still favorable to elites.  The difference is that there were so many high level recruits that the lower schools could get players nearly as good.  That's why they could remain competitive.  The only way to return to that is to return to days where there are too many elite recruits.  What I'd like to accomplish is a recruiting system where mid level schools can occasionally land a really good player. 

Also keep in mind that the changes coming to prestige will make it easier for a good coach to build and maintain a higher level prestige, which obviously gives them more recruiting power.  There's a chance that I'll tweak the postseason money system as well.  So clearly I am trying to level the playing field, I just disagree that changing recruit generation is the best way to do that.

No, the old system was not favorable to elites, I don't know why you keep saying that. There were tons of really good players -- elite teams didn't really have players that other, non-elite schools didn't also have. Non-BCS teams were wildly successful, way moreso than real life.

This is the opposite of being favorable to elites.

And that's OK. But let's not misrepresent how things used to be.

But seble, when you make a comment like this above -- "The only way to return to that is to return to days where there are too many elite recruits" -- it makes me think you're not listening to people. I don't see anyone clamoring for a return to the old days. Again, we're talking about a happy medium.

Improving the prestige logic will help, that I agree with.

Will you openly vet your thoughts on the prestige change with us to get feedback before implementing them? This is a super key change to the game that (a) lots of people have been asking for, and for a long time (b) is also serving as a proxy to address other significant DI issue. So this is a very important change. Past changes (recent EE "fix", recruit generation "fix", inital implementation of potential, etc. etc.)  haven't gone well... including us directly n this process is really key. 

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Posted by seble on 5/17/2012 9:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fmschwab on 5/17/2012 9:50:00 PM (view original):
ekswimmer, I think that is a good point. Recruit generation is obviously bad. But changing all of those at once could be worse than doing nothing. If we've learned anything from changes over the years, it's that they're often wrought with unintended consequences.

Seble - Can you please table #4 in your plan for a later update and instead address one or more of the items people have been bringing up here and so often bring up in the forums? There are so many good and necessary ideas here and in other threads, it seems crazy to me to go ahead with #4 when things that people care about more are hanging in the balance.

I am addressing the issues raised here.  I may be coming at it from a different angle, but the goal is the same. 

I completely understand that many of you can't see the value in the player roles change, but it will save time and make the game more fun.  That's a no-brainer to me. 

Seble, that makes me uncomfortable.

I have no doubt that you are trying your best, but the past changes have shown that your opinions on this stuff have frequently been off, and sometimes wildly so.

So instead of just pushing with what you think, why not go with what your dedicated users who pay to play the game every day are asking for?

Posted by girt25 on 5/17/2012 11:38:00 PM (view original):
We will never, ever, ever see battles for all elite players like we do in real life. The reason is simple.

In real life, if Duke goes hard after the #5 pg and doesn't get him, they will get the #10 or #15 guy. In HD, if Duke goes hard after the #5 pg and loses out, they don't have the cash left to sign anyone else even remotely as good.

Sorry, Girt. I feel like I'm rebutting all of your posts here.

I do disagree with this though. We may never have it where every top recruit gets battled over, but, I think this in large part due to the huge competitive gap that exists now. But if the gap closes to some degree, whether its between a B+ BCS and a C+ mid-major or an A+ BCS and an A- BCS, those schools that used to settle for lower recruits are going to start to battle for better recruits, knowing that the gap has decreased and the old disadvantages are diminished.

No, it will never mirror real life, but I think there will be more battles if more teams are on par with each other. If the recruit generation stays where it is and there are still very few elite recruits, then the top schools won't have a choice any longer. Since it will be harder to keep the A+/A prestige, they will actually need to go after those recruits to make NT runs, or they will lose the elite prestige that they have. At least that's what I believe.

Posted by girt25 on 5/17/2012 11:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by seble on 5/17/2012 9:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fmschwab on 5/17/2012 9:50:00 PM (view original):
ekswimmer, I think that is a good point. Recruit generation is obviously bad. But changing all of those at once could be worse than doing nothing. If we've learned anything from changes over the years, it's that they're often wrought with unintended consequences.

Seble - Can you please table #4 in your plan for a later update and instead address one or more of the items people have been bringing up here and so often bring up in the forums? There are so many good and necessary ideas here and in other threads, it seems crazy to me to go ahead with #4 when things that people care about more are hanging in the balance.

I am addressing the issues raised here.  I may be coming at it from a different angle, but the goal is the same. 

I completely understand that many of you can't see the value in the player roles change, but it will save time and make the game more fun.  That's a no-brainer to me. 

Seble, that makes me uncomfortable.

I have no doubt that you are trying your best, but the past changes have shown that your opinions on this stuff have frequently been off, and sometimes wildly so.

So instead of just pushing with what you think, why not go with what your dedicated users who pay to play the game every day are asking for?

Except several 'dedicated users' have now asked for that feature.  Just because YOU don't think its important or want it doesn't mean other 'dedicated users' don't.  Or, in other words, perhaps you can speak for yourself and what you do and do not want and let the other 'Dedicated users' speak for themselves and what they do or do not want instead of appropriating that duty?