I don't know how you guys do it. No fault to the D-1 coaches of course, but more of an issue with the way the game is structured. You put APs on a guy only to lose out on him at the mercy of any D-1 team that wants that player. I ended up picking up a D-2 team this past season and will probably only last this one season. Some coaches have a higher tolerance than I do when it comes to having players picked off.

I've mentioned this before, but why not keep each division separate? Add D-1 caliber players to the D-2 and D-3 pool and it's basically the same thing and those D-2 and D-3 teams can sign players right at the same time as the other D-1 teams are signing their players. I think it will also help maintain coaches and they don't quit in frustration.

Seems like a simple solution.

I know this is probably not really new to anyone, but maybe some thoughts about keeping each division separate with regards to recruiting.

An even simpler solution is to keep things as they are, and if you don’t want to take the risk of recruiting guys from higher divisions only to lose them, they just recruit from your own level.

It’s a bad solution in search of a problem. Hacking up the game is not a good option - drop downs and pull downs have always been a part of the lower levels of this game, and are generally popular. If your targets are consistently getting picked, you’re reaching too high. Commodity evaluation and speculation is an important skill.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels. If recruiting is going to continue to be a bidding based commodity game, each pool of commodities needs to have the demand pressure from the lower divisions to make the market work.

Posted by tecwrg on 10/26/2018 10:25:00 PM (view original):
An even simpler solution is to keep things as they are, and if you don’t want to take the risk of recruiting guys from higher divisions only to lose them, they just recruit from your own level.

Yeah, I understand and not saying you're wrong. However, only way you can actually compete at D-2 is to be able to recruit D-1 players. And by compete, I'm guessing by trying to win a national championship. Not saying it's entirely impossible to win recruiting D-2 players, but it's much harder.

So for most teams that are successful, they are recruiting D-1 players. As much as luck plays a part in recruiting when it comes to a dice roll, there is also more luck involved in which D-1 teams jump on that recruit, you can't really even make an educated guess, especially if you're in an area with a lot of mid major teams.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/26/2018 10:39:00 PM (view original):
It’s a bad solution in search of a problem. Hacking up the game is not a good option - drop downs and pull downs have always been a part of the lower levels of this game, and are generally popular. If your targets are consistently getting picked, you’re reaching too high. Commodity evaluation and speculation is an important skill.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels. If recruiting is going to continue to be a bidding based commodity game, each pool of commodities needs to have the demand pressure from the lower divisions to make the market work.

But not every aspect of the game should be applied to a real life situation in order to have a successful game, IMO. If we tried to do that, it would probably fail.

I don't agree. There is some strategy involved, but again too much of getting D-1 recruits(at D-2 level) relies on even more luck than it does in D-1.

I don't think it helps retain coaches, which is another drawback.

We might not be be as in much disagreement here as you might think, but think our disagreement here mostly is about the amount of luck that should be involved in this game.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/26/2018 10:39:00 PM (view original):
It’s a bad solution in search of a problem. Hacking up the game is not a good option - drop downs and pull downs have always been a part of the lower levels of this game, and are generally popular. If your targets are consistently getting picked, you’re reaching too high. Commodity evaluation and speculation is an important skill.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels. If recruiting is going to continue to be a bidding based commodity game, each pool of commodities needs to have the demand pressure from the lower divisions to make the market work.

Also, you said it's a bad solution in search of a problem. So you're acknowledging there is a problem? or was it a response to my original post?

You had stated examples of real life situation, but are there drop downs or pull downs in real life recruiting? I've never heard any D-2 team, IRL, refer to a player they had gotten as a "drop or pull down".

I don't think targets getting picked is always as a result of reaching too high, but more about D-1 mid majors needs, which involves a bit of luck in a D-2 team getting that recruit.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels.

Could you give an example of these negative unintended consequences? I'm not exactly seeing it.

Posted by thewizard17 on 10/26/2018 11:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/26/2018 10:39:00 PM (view original):
It’s a bad solution in search of a problem. Hacking up the game is not a good option - drop downs and pull downs have always been a part of the lower levels of this game, and are generally popular. If your targets are consistently getting picked, you’re reaching too high. Commodity evaluation and speculation is an important skill.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels. If recruiting is going to continue to be a bidding based commodity game, each pool of commodities needs to have the demand pressure from the lower divisions to make the market work.

Also, you said it's a bad solution in search of a problem. So you're acknowledging there is a problem? or was it a response to my original post?

You had stated examples of real life situation, but are there drop downs or pull downs in real life recruiting? I've never heard any D-2 team, IRL, refer to a player they had gotten as a "drop or pull down".

I don't think targets getting picked is always as a result of reaching too high, but more about D-1 mid majors needs, which involves a bit of luck in a D-2 team getting that recruit.

Capping the pools is unrealistic (real life players are not limited to consider schools for the division they are projected in) and would have negative unintended consequences on recruiting competitiveness at all levels.

Could you give an example of these negative unintended consequences? I'm not exactly seeing it.

“Solution in search of a problem” means the problem is imaginary, made up to justify some change. Change your gameplay if you don’t like the results. This aspect of the game doesn’t need to be changed.

Pull downs have always been part of the game, at least since I’ve been playing. They are unpopular among certain users in 3.0 because there is more battling for recruits, by design. But as above, recruiting is about prioritizing and making choices. If you don’t like the consequences of your choices, it’s an issue with the way you’ve chosen to play.

Of course there are “pull downs” in real life, ie players that are playing on teams below the level where they may have been able to play. Of course, in reality there is no prestige grade assigned to real life teams, and no division projections assigned objectively to real life recruits. It’s just schools and players. People have made good (I think) arguments for removing the projected divisions, and just having all the players in one big pool. But that’s a pretty big change in scouting, and would take some beta testing, and I’m not holding my breath.

Those negative unintended consequences of superficial and unrealistic caps would show up in how it affected the market. The limited pool would drastically increase the effect of prestige on D2 and D3, because there would be fewer “top” players, and thus a lot more competition for them. At all levels, it would incentivize maximizing and overloading top targets with AP and visits, because there’s no demand from lower division schools who can’t touch the backup options.

It’s also worth noting most of the cap proposals I’ve seen would allow D1 teams to pull up, so those top recruits are still going to be picked off by mid major and low D1 schools trying to fill their roster after losing battles.

I think the change I’d be most likely to support would be one single pool, and having signing tendency fluid, depending on the level of the school; so the #45 C in the country would sign with A+ Kansas early, B Mississippi by end of period 1, D2. Western Alabama Late, and D3 Sul Ross St. Last 24 Hours. I don’t think the system is problematic as it stands, though I think this change would be an improvement, as it would be a better representation of how it works, it would reduce the already rare instance of lower division teams stealing a top level recruit away from a D1 team that really wanted it, and it would emphasize prioritization and finding good program matches, and would make the system a little less gameable.

Posted by thewizard17 on 10/26/2018 10:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 10/26/2018 10:25:00 PM (view original):
An even simpler solution is to keep things as they are, and if you don’t want to take the risk of recruiting guys from higher divisions only to lose them, they just recruit from your own level.

Yeah, I understand and not saying you're wrong. However, only way you can actually compete at D-2 is to be able to recruit D-1 players. And by compete, I'm guessing by trying to win a national championship. Not saying it's entirely impossible to win recruiting D-2 players, but it's much harder.

So for most teams that are successful, they are recruiting D-1 players. As much as luck plays a part in recruiting when it comes to a dice roll, there is also more luck involved in which D-1 teams jump on that recruit, you can't really even make an educated guess, especially if you're in an area with a lot of mid major teams.

It isn’t “luck” when it involves choices that other users make. Aim a little lower. Find players with more obvious flaws or less obvious elite skills, who are less likely to attract attention. Or find players with preferences that would mitigate prestige and level disadvantages you might have. Lots of ways to do it. There are folks really really good at D2 and D3, and they aren’t just getting lucky.

I'm not going to go back an forth on this, you're entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree.

Choosing to go -5 0 or +5 is a choice. Selecting your player distro is a choice. Selecting what type of O/D you're going to run and other game setting is a choice. Who you decide to recruit is a choice. Putting a bunch of APs on two players and having a D-1 human coach team jump in 2-3 days into recruiting(not even putting an AP point on him), because he was busy or whatever the reason he didn't recruit for the first 2-3 days and then losing out on that player, is most definitely not a choice. There was also a second team that jumped in 3 days in with no previous APs on him and will end up getting that player, unless I foolishly try to battle for him, that is most definitely not a choice on my end. It wasn't my action, it was the opposing coach that jumped in, therefore it becomes his choice, not mine.

You make the claim that it was my choice to go after certain players.....ok.

Should I next time look into my crystal ball and try to guess which D-1 teams are going to jump my players, 2-3 days in? And these players that I'm targeting aren't anywhere near the Top 250 ranked overall. Keep aiming lower, using Coach Spud's strategy and never getting more than 20 wins or past the 1st round?

As a D-1 coach as well, trust me, I feel for the D-2 and D-3 coaches in this game. I'm amazed at the amount of tolerance some of those coaches have.

There are also no unintended consequences, if you provide D-1, D-2 and D-3 with the same amount of and same quality of players that they currently have now. If you could see the whole picture, it makes a lot more sense than the current system. Even if you were right, let's say the unintended consequences was small, but noticeable. It would still be far less of an impact of losing out recruits to D-1 teams.

I'll let you have the last say, I really don't have the energy to debate this. It's 99.9% likely this discussion isn't going to change anyone's thought process, so why put more effort into it?

So maybe we agree that the player itself that you're recruiting is a choice, but our disagreement is with the outcome, where I think there is a major flaw?

I wanted to make one more thing clear, so everyone else that wants to chime in, isn't confused to exactly what I'm stating.

Any D-1 coach that wants any player should be able to get that player against a D-2 team, but that's not the problem.

It's the amount of attention and effort you're putting into a player, since resources are limited at D-2. If a D-1 team jumps in, all of those resources are now wasted, you can't get those AP points back and sometimes HV's and CVs as well. It should be entirely avoided, that shouldn't happen to any D-2 or D-3 team.

There needs to be some rules in place regarding overtaking a D-2 or D-3 team is basically what I'm trying to say. Keeping the divisions separate was one idea. Maybe a D-1 program offering at least 1 AP in the first 24 hours of recruiting otherwise they would lose out. on that recruit would be another idea?

Posted by thewizard17 on 10/26/2018 10:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 10/26/2018 10:25:00 PM (view original):
An even simpler solution is to keep things as they are, and if you don’t want to take the risk of recruiting guys from higher divisions only to lose them, they just recruit from your own level.

Yeah, I understand and not saying you're wrong. However, only way you can actually compete at D-2 is to be able to recruit D-1 players. And by compete, I'm guessing by trying to win a national championship. Not saying it's entirely impossible to win recruiting D-2 players, but it's much harder.

So for most teams that are successful, they are recruiting D-1 players. As much as luck plays a part in recruiting when it comes to a dice roll, there is also more luck involved in which D-1 teams jump on that recruit, you can't really even make an educated guess, especially if you're in an area with a lot of mid major teams.

I don't agree with you at times. But this statement is spot on! And i feel like coaches sometimes don't understand what "luck" means, when it comes to getting your players taken away.

First off, if you look at most (NOT all) championship type of teams at D2 levels, they have at least a handful of players that are better than Top 100 at their position. #44 SG, #66 C, etc. So if you want to compete, you need to get guys like this. Yes shoe, not always. There are exceptions.

What I mean by luck, and it's probably what wiz means as well, is this..... I target #50 PF and he's great and wonderful. Other D2 coach targets #44 PF and he's great and wonderful too. He's actually BETTER. But not because of his rank, just his attributes are much better, mainly for this discussion. Big bad D1 coach comes in and steals my #50 PF. No one comes in and steals the other D2 coach's better #44 PF. That coach goes on to build a great class. I have to scrap for someone's sloppy seconds.

So the answer to that is NOT.... you're aiming too high. Because you're not. Another D2 coach just signed a better player. And it wasn't because he did a greater job of recruiting. It's because he was LUCKY, in comparison to the fact that no D1 human made the decision to come after his player. But they did come after mine. There is nothing that can describe that situation better than the word LUCK. The other D2 coach lucked out and snuck away with a great player. I unluckily did not. There's nothing you're doing right or wrong as a recruiter, if you target a 2 star player and no D1s come for him. And there's nothing you're doing wrong if you target a 2 star player and D1s come calling.

Having said all that, I'm not complaining. I get picked off by D1s like clockwork. And I'm cool with it. I enjoy the system in play. And I have plenty of success doing what I'm doing. My point in this 1000 word post, is that D2 recruiting (and D3) is nothing but LUCK LUCK LUCK. Sure you can control things on your end. But when my players are getting taken by D1s, and other D2 coaches are signing much better players ONLY because D1s don't go after them, there's no other reasonable answer to that than luck. And again..... I like the recruiting how it is!!

If we want to compromise and keep everyone happy, let the D2 teams be able to grab D1 players on the last day of first session, D3 teams, D2 players on the last day of first session and D1 players right on second day of the second session. And do put a cap. 590 for D2, 550 for D1 would be my suggestion.