Yesterday, WIS released an update and one of the two new features is improved walk-ons: "WalkOns have had their potential attribute scores increased to improve viability."

It's worth a discussion thread. Have at it!

looks at self in mirror

"i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation, i will remain civil in this conversation"

^lol

i am in favor of practically any change that doesn’t decrease competitiveness and parity at this point. so this is a fun one. curious to see what the new crop of walk ons look like and if they continue to bias positively to high baseline teams rather than teams with high present prestige (my main gripe based on anecdotal observation)

exciting to see WIS continuing to roll out updates. hopefully we see some community engagement at some point

I think this is good for pressing teams in particular, because one of the drawbacks of the press is if you can't fill your roster. If they are playable, that should help a little bit.

Posted by chapelhillne on 12/14/2023 8:51:00 PM (view original):
I think this is good for pressing teams in particular, because one of the drawbacks of the press is if you can't fill your roster. If they are playable, that should help a little bit.

I mostly agree. The game shouldn't be focused on scarcity economics, and anything moving away from that model, even just in baby steps like this, is a positive move. There are other things I would have preferred, but as really simple, easy band-aids go this probably isn't terrible.

So, if walk ons are now more playable and the computer gives you walkons at positions where you lack players,
does that mean that I need to start bothering to change players’ positions to reflect their actual roles.

Ahh yes. The press teams are the ones who need help. Lol

fyi just ran some analysis on the latest crop of freshmen in Iba. starting ratings for incoming freshmen are virtually indistinguishable from last season so it must be purely the potentials for walk-ons that have improved (i wasn't 100% certain that was the case based on the wording). anecdotally, the 3 walk-ons i took at CSU certainly have much stronger potentials than what i've seen in the past

Ill just say that one of my Tulane walk ons in Allen has.4 greens and 3 blues despite low cores....never seen that before from a walkon. I'm thinking it's the potential that was primarily updated.

The level of some of these walk-ons at all divisions is legit game breaking and just another wildly inappropriate addition of more luck to this game

Update from Jholthus via HD Discord: "We have been informed of some extreme developments and stats by some of the walk ons. The devs are going to look into it and make some modifications to the Walk On update to reduce the 'superstar' nature for the walkons."

really think there should just be a small percentage of D1 recruits that are unrecruitable till the 2nd session (maybe call them re-classifiers). That way if you happen to have EEs leave unexpectedly you have a chance to fill those scholarships. Making walkons better just benefits those who go all in on a couple studs and ignore depth. I just did that in a recruiting cycle and will have to take a walkon or two. I should not be rewarded for overextending myself in recruiting.

ya know i was originally somewhat optimistic about this one but it seems the execution was terrible. i believe it was suggested on the discord that a better solution would just be expanding the recruiting pool or tying it to the number of human coaches. i think that’s probably a favorable solution bc currently this doesn’t add a strategic element to the game — just more randomness, as R0pey said.

I'm guessing any good solution would require quite a bit of reworking of the core code and they seem terrified to work with it. This was the bandaid approach. We'll see if they ever get around to that core code rewrite but I'm not holding my breath.