I know there has been a lot of talk lately with the WIS announcement that more attention will be paid to HD.  I just had a few thoughts on how to improve the game.  These are not perfect but just some initial thoughts I had:

1. As mmt suggested, I would make the hiring process based on baseline prestige.  So, a D- school that has been turned into a B+ won't go SIM as often.  I would add up to a 1/3 letter decrease to the current prestige based on which coach gets the job.  This would keep the mid-majors more populated and hopefully keep some of these teams from getting destroyed.

2. I would give more options for gameplanning (matchups, situational lineups, etc...) that allows users to make better use of their teams and to add a little strategy.

3. I would increase the number of recruits and decrease the number of players who start out as studs.  In real life, I'm guessing there are maybe 20 5* players each year.  I would make them fewer so that there would be more battles (see change in recruiting below).  The top teams would have to make a decision on who to go after.  And a couple of these 5* players should be able to come in with a high IQ and dominate.

4. The biggest change would be to recruiting.  Now, I'm not sure how well thought out this is so please dont blast me if it turns out awful!  Basically, I would make recruiting national.  Home Visits and Campus Visits would cost the same regardless of distance.  All players ratings would be blind (you could not see them).  All that is visible would be the # of stars or the players ranking (rankings would have to be extended to all players so that this could work in DII and DIII).  In addition to your budget, you would get a certain number of scouting visits.  You can use your scouting visits on any players you want.  The more times you scout a player, the more you learn about his ratings and his potential.  There would be more players with high potential who dont start out as 5* players.  Potential would be changed to go off the amount the player can improve in his entire career (i.e. the highest potential player could increase by 150 points in his career).  There are could be 5* players who just dont get better and are not very good.  This might allow mid-majors to find some players that the big time programs can't.  So, you wouldnt be able to scout an entire state, you would be limited to scouting a certain number of players.

5. Player improvements would be more based on the practice plan with a "soft" cap on how much a player could improve at each category.  The thing I like about potential is that not all players are 99 in everything.  So, in this system, a C may come in at 43 LP.  He will be able to improve but there will be a limit.  So, initially, he might improve 1 LP point every 2 days if he has 10 minutes of practice time.  Once he gets to 60 LP, his improvement slows to 1 LP every 4 days with 10 minutes of practice, etc...  So, at some point his improvement will slow down and while he still will improve, he would get better all around if those practice minutes were used in other categories.  So, if you really want his LP to improve a much as possible he might only improve 80 points in his career as opposed to 150 if the practice minutes were spread around.  This would give coaches more control on how good the players can be.

So you'd let a human coach that has 4-5 years of game experience take over a B+ D1 school, just because their baseline is D-? I can agree that the job hiring / firing logic needs work but that is a bit of an extreme.

If a player has 4-5 years of experience with 3-4 years at DII (i.e. eligible for a D- DI job) then yes I would.  Why not?  Wouldn't that get more people involved?

Posted by zhawks on 9/15/2011 10:37:00 AM (view original):
So you'd let a human coach that has 4-5 years of game experience take over a B+ D1 school, just because their baseline is D-? I can agree that the job hiring / firing logic needs work but that is a bit of an extreme.

as one HD vet aptly pointed out in another forum "...human coaches are better than simmy? I think that is obvious..." it makes sense to have a human coach take over a team rather than a simmie 99 times out of 100.

there's been a lot of talk of how to get people to move up to di...having tried out dii for my 2nd season now, i can honestly say that its by far my favorite (and i forgot that i coached at di way back before my postpotential implementation sabbatical); in fact, i'm leaving my current diii job @ the end of the season to move to dii. my only real problem with dii - and i realize that this is a problem with all divisions - is that there is a shortage of humans coaching. i don't know if sully's ideas will generate more interest in dii, but i'd like some input from the programmers as to what their plan is to encourage new humans to join; and to encourage current coaches to move up from diii.

one idea that i'd add to sully's list (para. 2) is to be able to designate a 'shadow' in the zone or m2m def. so that instead of having to dt a player (which generates 2-3 x's the number of fouls the player usually gets), you can out a specific defender on him at all times.

i'd also make FSS cheaper @ the dii / diii levels. i know that with the collusion / multiple teams - same world goings on that this will only make the "rich" get richer, but when you have only one or two open schollies @ a lower division school, it breaks the bank to have scout multiple states.

and sully - in conjunction with mmt's baseline suggestion, wouldn't you also be in favor of floating baselines (as some other coaches suggested)? a team's success - whether bcs or not - should determine and influence what the baseline is, so that, a team that has a baseline of d- but floats a B+/A- for 8-10 seasons would not remain a D- baseline, but will instead creep up steadily as the success continues (and vice versa for the high baselines that can't cut it).

Posted by sully712 on 9/15/2011 10:40:00 AM (view original):
If a player has 4-5 years of experience with 3-4 years at DII (i.e. eligible for a D- DI job) then yes I would.  Why not?  Wouldn't that get more people involved?

No I don't think so - I think you would see these coaches messing up recruiting and then leaving the game.

Posted by zhawks on 9/15/2011 12:04:00 PM (view original):

Posted by sully712 on 9/15/2011 10:40:00 AM (view original):
If a player has 4-5 years of experience with 3-4 years at DII (i.e. eligible for a D- DI job) then yes I would.  Why not?  Wouldn't that get more people involved?

No I don't think so - I think you would see these coaches messing up recruiting and then leaving the game.

Well, would they (the d2 coaches) be the likely ones to get the B+ level jobs? 

Wouldn't it be more likely to go to a guy who's currently at C+ after 5 years of building up a small school? Right now he can't... And if none of those guys applies, why not let a human have it? If they mess up and leave, we're right back where we started. If they do well, we've taken a step forwards.

Posted by zhawks on 9/15/2011 12:04:00 PM (view original):

Posted by sully712 on 9/15/2011 10:40:00 AM (view original):
If a player has 4-5 years of experience with 3-4 years at DII (i.e. eligible for a D- DI job) then yes I would.  Why not?  Wouldn't that get more people involved?

No I don't think so - I think you would see these coaches messing up recruiting and then leaving the game.

Messing up recruiting worse than Simmy does?

That recruiting concept is completely untenable.  It makes sense to you since you coach only high D1 teams.  It doesn't make any sense for D3 or D2.  At those levels there are no rankings.  Scouting and recruiting them would become a process of taking total shots in the dark.  This would make luck much more important, as the guys who happened to scout several good recruits would have an instantaneous advantage in no way related to any particular ability they have as coaches.  I also don't find the suggestion to be very realistic.  In real life information about players is very accessible in the modern era, and that includes information not only on how good they are but also where their skills generally lie.  Obviously it's not so quantitative as what it is here, but it's not like "there's this center over in Nebraska that they say might be one of the best 25 big men coming in this year.  Nobody seems to know how good of a rebounder he is, though.  Or if he hustles on defense.  Maybe he can block shots?  Not really sure if he can shoot...  Or has any moves down on the block.  But they said he was good.  So he has to be able to do something well.  Probably a lot of things.  Right?"

sully - I wanted to start off by saying nice post - nice POV.  The details of any one idea, is sort of not important, it is more the way the thinking needs to be, open minded.

I really don't think making B+ mids more accessible would make much of a difference in the game, when I saw that is the bug up mmt's craw, I sort of had a LOL moment, it certainly won't help the game much, but it also won't hurt it at all - I'm all for it.

But, if you really want to fix the mid major game without messing too much with recruit gen, probably the best fix is to change the effect that IQ has on results.  Most major teams rely on low IQ 800 level frosh and soph's somwhat heavily, while mid majors rely on higher IQ, 700 level jr's and sr's. If the net effect of A IQ vs B- IQ now is say 20 overall rating points, I'd propose the effect be increased to 30 or 40 (I think in the old days the effect was closer to 100, IQ seemed to almost trump ratings, it was scaled back some time ago, probably over corrected).  IMO this change would bring the mid major teams closer to the majors competitively.  It would take a while, but once mid major coaches felt they had a chance, they will come back.

I say this based on experience from the old game, when I was quite successful as a low and mid major coach with teams that often were 100 total overall pts worse than my competition, as well as experience in the current game, where I am playing with frosh laden high rated teams and holding my own, as well as my memory of how the changes seemed to feel over the years as they came on line.

Of course, some changes to recruit gen would fix this too.

Finally, the problem with nationalized recruiting is cheating, right now, it exists in localized pockets, if recruiting went national, 3 or 4 A+ friends (I know of a few that have existed over the years, plus I think we all have gotten some messages that let us know such things are going on) could take all the recruits, especially if you make even fewer of such ones.  When these guys practice their craft local, they just screw the local competition - on a national basis, it would sap the fun straight out of this game.  I have some ideas how to fix recruiting, the key is to lay out the goals one wants to accomplish BEFORE coming up with the ideas.

one goal is to deny the A+ prestsige school from signing 3 top ten players with 1 scholy worth of money (I think this just happened in world 2).  One idea to fix this would be nationalized recruiting, another might be to make a minimum for 5 star and 4 star players, say 30k and 15k?  Another fix would be to make so many top recruits, that how many one school got would not matter (the pre-recruit gen reduction HD game)

another goal would be to limit the ability of cheaters to prosper.

another goal might be to spread the wealth around a bit, while still allowing top programs and coaches to prosper (i.e. don't take it too far, which means very different things to very different people)

But to repeat, nice post sully, you are on the right path.

"But, if you really want to fix the mid major game without messing too much with recruit gen, probably the best fix is to change the effect that IQ has on results.  Most major teams rely on low IQ 800 level frosh and soph's somwhat heavily, while mid majors rely on higher IQ, 700 level jr's and sr's. If the net effect of A IQ vs B- IQ now is say 20 overall rating points, I'd propose the effect be increased to 30 or 40 (I think in the old days the effect was closer to 100, IQ seemed to almost trump ratings, it was scaled back some time ago, probably over corrected). "

I really like this

Here is an idea I had for fixing the job process and the loyalty issues. It is something that's been brewing around in my head for a long time now, ever since I moved from Colorado St. to Utah in Phelan and from Washington St. to UNLV in Rupp.

I think when applying for a job, a coach should be given the option to sign up for a 1 year, 2 year, 5 year or 10 year contract. By choosing a 1 year contract you would only be able to land jobs you were over-qualified for, if you choose a 2 year contract you could land jobs you were qualified for, if you chose a 5 year contract you could land one of the jobs that is now "Keep Looking" if you signed a 10 year contract you could land the "Longshot" jobs. (Another way to get to basically the same result: if you are over-qualified for "C" level jobs with a 1 year contract, you could land C+ level jobs with a 2 year contract, B- level jobs with a 5 year contract, or B level jobs with a 10 year contract.) 

If you coach your full contract, there is no loyalty hit for a move. (If anything there would only be a reputation hit for moving to a lesser school-you filled your contract, you've been loyal). If you move jobs or retire before your contract is up, you get a large loyalty hit, which gets bigger the more seasons you had left. That way you can decide if you want to take a job your are over-qualified for just one year, as a stop over, or you could sign up for 10 years at a destination school. 

Also when your contract is up, the job opens up for rehiring, with the incumbent getting preference, but allowing someone else to apply for the job. If you coached Duke on a 10 year contract and never made it past the first round, a coach who'd taken Marquette to the National Championship game the year before would probably beat you out for the job. But if you'd had a good run at Duke over your contract, you'd be able to beat out any competitors because of your "incumbent" advantage. Right now, the guy at Marquette has to sit around and wait for the guy at Duke to get fired or retire, which takes way, way too long. If you didn't get rehired, there would be no loyalty or reputation hit and you'd be able to get another open job (or enter a job competition) at the level your resume puts you at. So maybe you lose your Duke job to the Marquette coach, but you could turn right around and land a job at Colorado, Arizona St., Utah, etc, instead of having to go all the way back down to DII.     

Anyway, just some rough ideas.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 9/16/2011 10:26:00 AM (view original):
"But, if you really want to fix the mid major game without messing too much with recruit gen, probably the best fix is to change the effect that IQ has on results.  Most major teams rely on low IQ 800 level frosh and soph's somwhat heavily, while mid majors rely on higher IQ, 700 level jr's and sr's. If the net effect of A IQ vs B- IQ now is say 20 overall rating points, I'd propose the effect be increased to 30 or 40 (I think in the old days the effect was closer to 100, IQ seemed to almost trump ratings, it was scaled back some time ago, probably over corrected). "

I really like this

I'd second this as well.  It seems whenever someone talks about how there are no mid-majors in the swwet 16/elite 8 in WIS, but there always is at least one making a run in the real Big Dance, we always forget it usually is a different school each year.  While Butler did make back to back championship games, they are the exception, not the rule.  The last mid major to do it was UNLV, 20 years ago (as someone mentioned in another post I believe).  Rather than have mid majors be able to compete year in year out with the big boys, making IQ more important would allow A and A+ IQ heavy teams to make a run without really upsetting the applecart to much so to speak.  
Perfect example is the classic Princeton/Georgetown 1 vs. 16 game.  In WIS terms, G'Town was probably 200 points better overall, but I'd argue everyone on Princeton was at worst an A in off and def knowledge.

Posted by dahsdebater on 9/15/2011 5:23:00 PM (view original):
That recruiting concept is completely untenable.  It makes sense to you since you coach only high D1 teams.  It doesn't make any sense for D3 or D2.  At those levels there are no rankings.  Scouting and recruiting them would become a process of taking total shots in the dark.  This would make luck much more important, as the guys who happened to scout several good recruits would have an instantaneous advantage in no way related to any particular ability they have as coaches.  I also don't find the suggestion to be very realistic.  In real life information about players is very accessible in the modern era, and that includes information not only on how good they are but also where their skills generally lie.  Obviously it's not so quantitative as what it is here, but it's not like "there's this center over in Nebraska that they say might be one of the best 25 big men coming in this year.  Nobody seems to know how good of a rebounder he is, though.  Or if he hustles on defense.  Maybe he can block shots?  Not really sure if he can shoot...  Or has any moves down on the block.  But they said he was good.  So he has to be able to do something well.  Probably a lot of things.  Right?"

I don't know, I kind of liked the recruiting idea.  While in the way recruiting is currently set up you wouldn't know immediately where a player's skills lie, what if you made the HS stats actually mean something?  So if a player averaged 25 rebounds a game, you could guess he was a pretty good rebounder.  You could augment this with some information about the competition the player played against in high school (ie was he at a d1,2,3 etc. high school).  And since some players play in nationally televised games (like the All American game), more information could be available about them from the get-go (here, I'm assuming every coach watches nationally televised high school games).  Based on this information, you could decide whether to scout and learn more about a player.  This might end up favoring the high prestige teams, but it is relatively realistic (I think).  Now that I'm thinking about it, it might make sense for a coach to have more information available initially about local recruits, since presumably there would be an existing relationship with local high school coaches.