This gets discussed ALL THE TIME here. Not that it's bad that you mentioned it once again. We're all here to discuss things.

It seems its a low priority topic. For a couple of reasons. 1) right now with 12 teams in every conference, that "somewhat" looks like what it should, it creates a good balance for scheduling. Today's conferences have 16, 14, 8 teams in it. Changing would create scheduling difficulty and also difficulty in balancing it correctly. A difficulty that isn't "needed", but just desired by some. 2) the hardest changes to make in this game are the ones that affect the established vets in this game. The coaches that have been here for years and years, real life time. Some have been at their schools for 100 seasons, and have aligned themselves with a group of coaches they love to play along side. If realignment happens, and veteran coaches get moved around to places they don't wanna be, the tears will pour out in buckets. And upsetting your most loyal customers is not something needed to be done, when the alignment isn't terribly broken. Sure it's outdated. But it's close enough

If realism is not the goal of realignment, I think it could be fun to let conferences swap out teams, but still cap at 12 so no schedule issues and no ending of rivalries. Maybe have an elected conference head who can kick out a team and invite another team. This would allow for completely full conferences without someone getting stuck doing those total rebuilds of the last one or two SimAI squads.

Posted by bpielcmc on 3/17/2021 9:50:00 PM (view original):
If realism is not the goal of realignment, I think it could be fun to let conferences swap out teams, but still cap at 12 so no schedule issues and no ending of rivalries. Maybe have an elected conference head who can kick out a team and invite another team. This would allow for completely full conferences without someone getting stuck doing those total rebuilds of the last one or two SimAI squads.

Would just get totally out of control, and I think realism *is* the goal of realignment.

The negative of realignment is gameplay...

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/17/2021 9:43:00 PM (view original):
This gets discussed ALL THE TIME here. Not that it's bad that you mentioned it once again. We're all here to discuss things.

It seems its a low priority topic. For a couple of reasons. 1) right now with 12 teams in every conference, that "somewhat" looks like what it should, it creates a good balance for scheduling. Today's conferences have 16, 14, 8 teams in it. Changing would create scheduling difficulty and also difficulty in balancing it correctly. A difficulty that isn't "needed", but just desired by some. 2) the hardest changes to make in this game are the ones that affect the established vets in this game. The coaches that have been here for years and years, real life time. Some have been at their schools for 100 seasons, and have aligned themselves with a group of coaches they love to play along side. If realignment happens, and veteran coaches get moved around to places they don't wanna be, the tears will pour out in buckets. And upsetting your most loyal customers is not something needed to be done, when the alignment isn't terribly broken. Sure it's outdated. But it's close enough

These are the two reasons I suspected it hasn't been done yet. I agree the conferences should be kept to 12 teams each. But even with that limitation, much work could be done to fix conferences and get closer to reality, just in the P6 alone. Conferences with 8,10, or 16 would have to be modified as needed. But it could be cleaner than it currently is. The real MWC isn't even close to the to WIS MWC.

The assertion that "tears will pour out in buckets" I find to be hyperbole. I wager the vast majority of coaches would enjoy a reshuffle that more closely approximates real life conference match ups, and any true coaching rivalries can continue in non-conference. With the new job advancement process, and ease to move around, I see this as a perfect time to reshuffle the conferences and bring us back to 2021. The game currently looks horribly dated to potential new users with the current alignments. I know that was my first thought when I looked into jumping back in.

I've been in HD since 2013. i'm a huge proponent of realignment in D1 at least, and years ago put together what i think is a feasible D1 realignment. I'll try to find it.

In D1 i've found that staying or splitting with certain human conference-mates is no biggie.

D2 and D3 is different, and there's more appeal to sticking with conference mates, and those divisions to me shouldn't be touched.

Following up on my last post...

I had a realignment scenario that only adjusted things for maybe 6 of the major conferences... and another that made wholesale changes across the board.

One for example just simply rotated Nebraska, West Virginia, and Notre Dame, into the Big Ten, Big-12, and Big East.

Another did a WCC/ Big West/ Mountain West/ PAC-12 rotation... Fresno and Hawaii shifting out of the Pac-10 and getting Utah and Colorado in...

Also, i dont think it's necessary to promote D2 teams like FGCU, Bryant, Merrimack, Incarnate Word, etc...

I'll try to come up with a couple of revised scenarios.

Posted by npb7768 on 3/19/2021 11:21:00 AM (view original):
Following up on my last post...

I had a realignment scenario that only adjusted things for maybe 6 of the major conferences... and another that made wholesale changes across the board.

One for example just simply rotated Nebraska, West Virginia, and Notre Dame, into the Big Ten, Big-12, and Big East.

Another did a WCC/ Big West/ Mountain West/ PAC-12 rotation... Fresno and Hawaii shifting out of the Pac-10 and getting Utah and Colorado in...

Also, i dont think it's necessary to promote D2 teams like FGCU, Bryant, Merrimack, Incarnate Word, etc...

I'll try to come up with a couple of revised scenarios.

As someone who coaches Nebraska in the B12 with a great group of coaches (A- conference prestige) this would be tough to take. But maybe it's for the good of the game long term.

Leave the 10 existing worlds the way they are. Messing with realignment or “updating” baseline prestige to match real life performance in the past 20 years is far more trouble than its worth, and would require future updates as well.

If a new world (or worlds) are ever added, there are lots of possibilities.

1) Realigned conferences and divisions
2) Updated baselines (I suggest “floating” instead of fixed)
3) 50-60 year coaching career limits, with a hard reset
4) User initiated relegation - in addition to changing jobs, users could be given the option of replacing *some* sim controlled programs in higher divisions, or more prestigious conferences (those parameters could be under control of admin, so under certain conditions, say major real life realignment in 2024, for example, motivated users could be given a mechanism to facilitate a similar change; where otherwise, the default could be like programs need to fall under sim control for 3 seasons and under C+ prestige to be relegated, for example)
5) Pre-season tournaments - one of the least controversial additions I can think of

But those changes in existing worlds is probably a bad idea. Not that I’m specifically opposed to any of them, per se, obviously. But folks have invested a lot of time (and money in many cases) in the career they’ve built, and the first 3 of above anyway would all be pretty major disruptions in quite a few cases. Opening a new world(s) with some new features like this would be much preferable, I think.

Posted by shoe3 on 3/20/2021 4:00:00 PM (view original):
Leave the 10 existing worlds the way they are. Messing with realignment or “updating” baseline prestige to match real life performance in the past 20 years is far more trouble than its worth, and would require future updates as well.

If a new world (or worlds) are ever added, there are lots of possibilities.

1) Realigned conferences and divisions
2) Updated baselines (I suggest “floating” instead of fixed)
3) 50-60 year coaching career limits, with a hard reset
4) User initiated relegation - in addition to changing jobs, users could be given the option of replacing *some* sim controlled programs in higher divisions, or more prestigious conferences (those parameters could be under control of admin, so under certain conditions, say major real life realignment in 2024, for example, motivated users could be given a mechanism to facilitate a similar change; where otherwise, the default could be like programs need to fall under sim control for 3 seasons and under C+ prestige to be relegated, for example)
5) Pre-season tournaments - one of the least controversial additions I can think of

But those changes in existing worlds is probably a bad idea. Not that I’m specifically opposed to any of them, per se, obviously. But folks have invested a lot of time (and money in many cases) in the career they’ve built, and the first 3 of above anyway would all be pretty major disruptions in quite a few cases. Opening a new world(s) with some new features like this would be much preferable, I think.

You continue to bring up new worlds..... Although I'm not against (or for) your ideas about what to do with a new world. But it's not a discussion because new worlds are not gonna happen.

I'd expect realignment to happen before new worlds would come about.

To come full circle, for the game to stay relevant and forward looking I feel realignment needs to happen. (with a 12-team conference limitation) I believe it is a key factor in bringing in new users, which we need in order keep the game fresh and viable. If everything stays the same forever, we risk losing this game that we all love forever.

About a year ago, someone had a thread with how to realign the the major conferences in as few steps as possible and keep 12 per conference. I couldn't immediately find it on my search. With 12, its obviously wasn't perfect but I remember thinking it was better than I expected. That said, I also am mostly in the camp that it causes more issues than its worth. I think you will upset existing owners that get moved for a purely cosmetic reason. If they did make a new world, I would be pro some subtle shifts to make it better, but still prefer all 12 team conferences in the interest of fairness with respect to NT bids.