I’ve had a really, really bad string of recruiting losses as the favorite before the roll. I’ve lost 9 out of the last 10, and 14 out of the last 16. I’ve lost 5 consecutive rolls for my primary target over the last 5 seasons, all of which I was the favorite, all of which I had 80 AP every cycle, and maxed all promises and visits. For most of these rolls I’ve been 70/30 or better favorite, because I’ve gone all in with 80 AP per cycle, and maxed everything else. My last 16 rolls are as follows:

L 73/27

L 71/29

W 75/25

L 64/36

L 79/21

L 65/35

L 73/27

W 76/24

L 71/29

L 78/22

L 70/30

L 44/28/28

L 73/27

L 73/27

L 55/45
L 54/46

I know I’m not the best coach, I’ve been to a few NT Championship games but never sealed the deal. I know my game planning and understanding of the mechanics lacks well behind the elite coaches out there like Gillespie, piman, shoe, and cubcub (and many others). But I also know that recruiting is 80% of this game, and I am consistently putting myself in a position to win as a heavy favorite, yet I almost always lose. I’ve been taking 3-4 walk-ons a year for what seems like every year in recent memory, and signing DII level pull-downs (apologies to all the DII coaches whose recruiting plan I ruin) after I’m left with no resources following all these bad beats. I cannot field a competitive team at an A+ prestige school, because I keep losing as a 70/30 favorite.

I’m extremely frustrated, as I’m guessing soon I will get fired for lack of success, but I don’t know what else I can do. Shoe always gives the advice to prioritize your recruits and put yourself in a position to win, which I am doing. I’m the heavy favorite, I just always lose regardless. It’s not fun to always lose when you are really trying, and putting yourself in the position to win. It’s not fair to always lose and be on the verge of getting fired, when these outcomes have all been completely out of my hands. Does anyone have any advice? It’s gotten to the point where I’m pretty sure other coaches in my region are targeting my recruits late because they have a history of beating me as major underdogs. I don’t blame them.

In my entire WIS career I’ve won one roll as a major underdog, 24/76, and I felt guilty about it and apologized in conference chat after because it was ridiculous I won coming in so late. I don’t even care about a dynasty at this point, I just want to field a 10 man roster. What can I do????

im not sure man, but you have my sympathy. the spread required for a recruiting roll is too wide IMO, when every big recruit is a big battle it just makes it so easy to struggle hard like you are due to bad roll luck.

perhaps one option is to actually focus less on winning your biggest battle with so many resources, but instead to put like 40 AP into that same guy so you can carry another big battle per season or something? and also, there are decent players out there who you can target hard from the very get-go and have some chance of signing them on a 100/0 basis. shoe recommends focusing those guys first because its easier to find a top guy to battle for later than it is to find a decent guy later that you can get without a battle, which seems like reasonably sound advice. maybe his advice is about 80 ap on your key guy too, but i didn't take it that way, and i haven't really found much luck with that approach.

i find recruiting tough and hard to invest too much into with the dice rolls, but i have not had a bad stretch close to what you are on. maybe that's not true, i have definitely gotten up to 6 straight losses or so. but i don't think i was favorites on all those either. but those also spanned 2 and at most 3 seasons, i generally carry a couple walkons and have several battles per season, and i think that raw quantity stops me from having like, 5 straight seasons of losing every guy. i think my recruiting luck is better than average so far but not by a ton. i have had at least a couple 5+ loss streaks (just running 1 program most of that time, so not a huge sample size). i generally look for 1 solid but not great guy to try to get on a 100/0 basis per season, and if i don't get him on a 100/0 basis its usually a crappier school i am fighting so at least its an easier battle. i increase this to 2 or so when things are rough and/or big classes to just keep a floor on things. i think those guys are out there. i do also occasionally get a high end player on a 100/0 basis, it is not very common but occasionally it happens. i end up getting enough of those 100/0 guys that i tend to be ok even after losing 5 rolls in a row, like at least i am still making the NT. i definitely haven't went 4 seasons without winning a roll though.

Snafu4u, in Tark World alone:

- 40 times you've made the Sweet 16 or beyond... the breakdown is unofficially:

- Sweet Sixteens : 18.
- Elite Eights : 13.
- Final Fours : 5.
- National Finals : 4.
- Championships : 0.

That's unbelievably unfair. This includes seasons at UConn, Villanova, and Lock Haven.

HD has hosed me bad overall too, and it's crazy. I'm rooting for you my friend.

Posted by snafu4u on 2/2/2023 7:45:00 PM (view original):

I’ve had a really, really bad string of recruiting losses as the favorite before the roll. I’ve lost 9 out of the last 10, and 14 out of the last 16. I’ve lost 5 consecutive rolls for my primary target over the last 5 seasons, all of which I was the favorite, all of which I had 80 AP every cycle, and maxed all promises and visits. For most of these rolls I’ve been 70/30 or better favorite, because I’ve gone all in with 80 AP per cycle, and maxed everything else. My last 16 rolls are as follows:

L 73/27

L 71/29

W 75/25

L 64/36

L 79/21

L 65/35

L 73/27

W 76/24

L 71/29

L 78/22

L 70/30

L 44/28/28

L 73/27

L 73/27

L 55/45
L 54/46

I know I’m not the best coach, I’ve been to a few NT Championship games but never sealed the deal. I know my game planning and understanding of the mechanics lacks well behind the elite coaches out there like Gillespie, piman, shoe, and cubcub (and many others). But I also know that recruiting is 80% of this game, and I am consistently putting myself in a position to win as a heavy favorite, yet I almost always lose. I’ve been taking 3-4 walk-ons a year for what seems like every year in recent memory, and signing DII level pull-downs (apologies to all the DII coaches whose recruiting plan I ruin) after I’m left with no resources following all these bad beats. I cannot field a competitive team at an A+ prestige school, because I keep losing as a 70/30 favorite.

I’m extremely frustrated, as I’m guessing soon I will get fired for lack of success, but I don’t know what else I can do. Shoe always gives the advice to prioritize your recruits and put yourself in a position to win, which I am doing. I’m the heavy favorite, I just always lose regardless. It’s not fun to always lose when you are really trying, and putting yourself in the position to win. It’s not fair to always lose and be on the verge of getting fired, when these outcomes have all been completely out of my hands. Does anyone have any advice? It’s gotten to the point where I’m pretty sure other coaches in my region are targeting my recruits late because they have a history of beating me as major underdogs. I don’t blame them.

In my entire WIS career I’ve won one roll as a major underdog, 24/76, and I felt guilty about it and apologized in conference chat after because it was ridiculous I won coming in so late. I don’t even care about a dynasty at this point, I just want to field a 10 man roster. What can I do????

My god that's a really bad run. Pretty much impossible to compete with that type of luck, just absolutely tragic.

Just keep trying I guess is my main advice. A year ago or so I would have recommended you at least set up some nice quality backup options (its nice to have 10 scholarship players, since if you have 1 young project at a time you don't really want to play you can still field 9 in the NT) but that choice is gone now, since you'll just have to drop 5.5k and fight a C+/B- for your backup options, which no one wants.

The good news is, it can only go up from here. I went thru a 6 win, 41 loss roll streak roughly two years ago. Wanted to quit, and almost did. Stay the course. Your luck will change. And honestly when it dies you’ll ‘feel’ unstoppable. Because of how bad it once was. You’ll see in a few months! Hang in there

This is why some people hate and argued against the concept of dice roll dynasty. It's not half as bad at the lower levels, but it's extremely brutal in DI where you not only lose the recruit and resources but could also lose an EE.

Jeez, snafu. I always feel bad when folks go on bad streaks. Especially now, since I recognize at least 2 of those rolls (Henry and Hallam).

With Hampton, I had to determine where to look to optimize recruiting and it was north. It looks like chapel at DSU does the same. That’s two A programs pushing into your territory forcing rolls. Tark D1 is a wild ground with the MEAC, Big Sky, CUSA, A10, etc. having varying amount of coaches/success. This is even more detrimental because the MEAC/A10 and other B6 schools also have really suppressed the other BE schools the past 10-15 seasons which limits your seeding potential without really great scheduling in noncon.

If it eases your mind, I don’t think you’re getting fired. The current firing system is incredibly lenient towards the coach. And you haven’t been that bad at all. When (if?) the firing logic updates, you’re still good to keep the job. You have enough 1st round NTs, that E8 appearance, etc. You need 3 1sts in 6 seasons (you’re good) or an E8 in the past 8 seasons (you’re good).

Dice roll dynasty

Small consolation, don't think anyone has been fired yet. You do have that to lean on.

Small consolation, don't think anyone has been fired yet. You do have that to lean on.

To add insult to injury - I lost 2 EE's, so now I have 5 open scholarships going into 2nd period with 8,000 total cash.

Just recruit crappier players so you don't have to battle or lose them to EEs

Posted by R0pey on 2/9/2023 9:25:00 PM (view original):
Just recruit crappier players so you don't have to battle or lose them to EEs

I don't know if it's in jest or not, but yeah. That's literally how it's supposed to work. I think folks forget or never understood in the first place how rare it is to see college teams in real life with more than 2-3 future NBA players. It's insane to think that a competitive and well-balanced simulation of college basketball would feature teams only recruiting 3* players and better - in other words, likely future NBA players. Part of the game has to be figuring out how many of those elite guys you can afford to go after, and the ones you land need to be a risk for leaving. Lose that, and it's not a good simulation of college basketball.

Now all that said, I'm certainly sympathetic to guys going through long losing streaks, and it's pretty absurd that there's this *enormous* dropoff of talent available after you get through the top tier of un-starred players. There should be a very large pool of replacement level D1 guys, low potential, starting around 650 OVR or so, who will always choose juco over dropping levels; and/or that should pop up as second session only juco players in the first place. This is a no-brainer that would make the game a ton more functional and realistic, and probably stop a lot of rage quitting as well. But the game has to maintain a nice wide window within which teams can reasonably compete with each other for elite recruits.

So I get OP's frustration. I've been there, as I've said. But for coaches only going after the best of the best, these are natural consequences you should have to manage to stay at a high level. I'm critical of many parts of this game, but this is an aspect it generally gets very right, post 3.0.