Okay. I just might blow your mind with this one... so stick with me.

First off, how many of you love the strategic element of games like HD and would like to see strategy become more important in HD3?

I realize that some folks feel realism is the most important thing, and others like the social interaction, but i dare to say that i am not the only one who values the strategic aspect above all else.

if you are not a strategy-lover, then you may as well return to the main forum and move on to another topic, because i absolutely promise that this idea will not interest you at all and may even **** you off a little bit.

but, if you intersted in discussing ideas that would improve the strategy of HD and have a fiarly open mind, then by all means, read on, my friend, read on.

HERE IS THE IDEA:

Reduce the number of practice minutes available to us. instead of 130, make it 115 or 110 or some number that continually puts us in a difficult position and forces us to make tough choices.

Now, i gotta admit, this is a crazy idea on the surface ("Dude, I want MORE minutes, not less!") and in some ways i hate it when i have SF, especially in D3 becuase it is so hard to decide where to put the minutes. But, if we were all forced to make these tough choices, wouldnt we likely see some of the player differentiation that some of us are clamoring for? would we also see an increased importance of study hall? i have allways felt that the smartest coaches are the ones with the lowest GPAs. again, a game within a game... how far can you reduce your studyhall minutes without risking ineligible players? right now, espeically in upper D1, it seems like nearly every player will max out in every category (or hit his ceiling) so there is no need to cut Studyhall to a bare minimum.

one of the things that some of us have hated about potential is that we are not able to differentiate our players (and hopefully gain an advantage over our rivals) by intelligent allocation of practice minutes. this small idea would reintroduce the importance of practice plans and we would once again be able to mold our players the way we see fit.

if you have a few spare minutes... try it. see what difficult decisions you come up with. would you reduce team practice drastically? would you try to get away with fewer SH minutes. would there be more categories at 0?(accpeting that those ratings might fall). would you make sure to put 12-15 minutes into the hipot areas, even if at the expense of areas that are actually more important? surely there would be no "cookie cutter" and there would be a wide variety of decisions..no?

They could also accomplish the same thing by dramatically increasing the # of SH minutes needed to get decent grades. not sure which would be easier to implement or if one or the other would be more palatable to users.



Okay. that's all.

i know this is just a waste of space. this will never happen. too may users will complain that they are being screwed over or the game is being made too hard. but just wanted to see if i could convince anyone that it would be a good idea. anyone?

i guess one unfortunate side -effect of this idea would be that combo defenses would be nearly impossible to achieve.

but, maybe a zone press with C's in both would be more effective in certain situations than a straight zone with A's. i would not think that is the case now, but maybe with a little tweaking and a bit of tinkering they could make it so?

interesting concept,
in a sense create more by less.

I think WIS would have to be a tad more lenient of how fast a category would fall w/fewer maintenance minutes.

no youre missing the point novadude!

let those categories fall! (in fact, make sure that all of them are falling instead allowing some of the lower values and some of the higher values to stay level despite zero practice minutes) as difficult as that would be for us... it would be the same for everyone, and it would lead to some very interesting decisions.

davey - IMO you are causing two things to happen,

first a return to practice planning meaning something like the old days, because the best planners will start to gap the worst with fewer minutes to use.

second, all by iteself you idea would start to implement your own form of a reduction in maxed out players

On first glance, I like the idea

Hmmm... I don't want to jump the gun saying I like it. I would need to see it actually in play to decide that (ie i don't want to see all my players losing 6-9 points in 5 categories throughout the entire season) but I do like the fact that it limits the 'maxed out' players.

really jumping off into the deep end, eh...
that's very little water for most WIS players.

Personally, I'm willing to try anything to improve the game...
'od dude'..;)

I like it. Maybe they could mandate that we use 50/60 minutes on team prac thus creating more teams using combos or switching off/def game to game.

Quote: Originally Posted By Fregoe on 10/21/2009
I like it. Maybe they could mandate that we use 50/60 minutes on team prac thus creating more teams using combos or switching off/def game to game.

This doesnt make much sense. it would just make the type of defense you play a chess game and many other consequences.

zee, why does it matter to you that your players lose 6-9 points in 5 categories? just because you are used to that not being the case?

or is it a realism issue? i realize that i might lose points on the relism scale becuase real life college players generally do not have thier skills erode as a result of "no time to work on that area". at least i dont think so.

i guess i could live with an ammendment that reduced the rate at which skills erode (maybe 1-2 points per season if zero practice minutes?)

How about this oldave, work ethic would play a much bigger role in deteriming how fast skills declined? So those rare kids with 85+ WE would not lose too many a year while the 20 and under guys would... well get fat and well, they were already lazy.

Quote: Originally Posted By zhawks on 10/21/2009
How about this oldave, work ethic would play a much bigger role in deteriming how fast skills declined? So those rare kids with 85+ WE would not lose too many a year while the 20 and under guys would... well get fat and well, they were already lazy.

i like it. yes. i could definitely live with that.

Quote: Originally Posted By oldave on 10/21/2009
no youre missing the point novadude!

let those categories fall! (in fact, make sure that all of them are falling instead allowing some of the lower values and some of the higher values to stay level despite zero practice minutes) as difficult as that would be for us... it would be the same for everyone, and it would lead to some very interesting decisions.

Dont like it. Just have WIS make it so that most players dont max out with their current minutes. Then you have to choose which categories to try and max out in.