There's no way to know what happened in the abstract like that. How efficiently did you spend that cash? Do you know the other coach didn't sink anything more into him?

Posted by point_piper on 9/19/2012 7:36:00 PM (view original):
What you said is not so different from what I said, but I'm almost 100% certain there's at at least one more category.  In my experience "not a priority for them" goes between the first two categories that you listed.  It is not as strong as "*very solid*" but it is stronger than "options wide open" and similar messages.

The scenario you described with "A" and "B" may happen with "options wide open" and "very open to other offers," but it does not happen with "may not be a priority for them" unless something changes.



Edit, that was responding to dahsdebater before isack posted.  I stand by that point though, I have seen that too many times, you never get to "not a priority for them" as easily as you get just to being considered (where the "wide open to other offers" notes start).

It may be easy in D1 to knock a school off a recruit showing "not a priority for them" but it is not easy on a D3 budget.

i did a study on this and conclusively proved there were only 2 categories. with 9 FSS messages in existence, i thought, well maybe there are 3 categories? but there aren't. just the 2.

the thing to remember is this. there is HUGE variation in those FSS messages. i mean afterall, with two categories, and a hundreds or thousands of amounts of effort, there basically have to be. suppose in d3, it takes 15 CVs to get to the tight message. well, then you can see the loose message with less than 1 CV, or 14.9 CVs. so just because in your case, what you say happened happened, it doesn't really mean anything about the message.

if you want to study this for yourself, you can. it only took me 1 season to conclusively prove how this worked at d1 (i mean, i guess its theoretically possible its different at d2/d3, but i strongly doubt it). when you are on a player's list by yourself, its impossible the amount of effort goes down without your knowledge. so, when you see the FSS messages, track them over time. you end up with relationships like, message A must be AT LEAST as strong as message B. if in the end, you have something like, message A must be at least as strong as message B, B at least as strong as C, and C at least as strong as A, you know they are all interchangeable. in the end i had proven that the lower 6 messages are interchangeable and the top 3 were as well.

tbird, the dollar amount you spend on the guy is not very helpful in this case.  What is more important is the kind of effort you put in and if you were trying to pull him down or not.  Did he show up on your DII list or was he a direct recruit.  How far away from you was this recruit?  If he was close to you, say 100 miles, you can get a lot of home visits in for that amount of money, but if he was further away, say 450 miles, and you are sending campus visits then you may have only sent two or three visits.  How much of that $3400 was in scouting trips?  This is probably a best suited for another thread if you wanted more input on your specific case.  Sorry if I took this off topic

In my situation, it was a sim-coached team and I doubt very seriously that I spent my cash efficiently as I am unsure of what that is and still trying to figure that out.  I hope by the time I sink 1k into this game, I'll have it figured out but still a ways from there and imagine most will give up before that amount.  This definetely goes back to the point that this is a game where the rules may be the same for everyone, but you have to pay to discover those rules.  Just seems like it would make sense to have a chart so newbies would be on a level playing field with the A and A+ prestige teams that already have a huge inherent advantage.  Not complaining as I see myself becoming one of the "haves" at some point and can't wait to use that advantage to destroy new players to the game.  It'll be like Christmas and kicking the dog all rolled into one.

Millwood and others-- I hope you are seeing my point and don't take offense to that-- My point is that while I understand not wanting to make this a math problem, I would rather the variables be in recruiting, potential and actual gameplay.  Right now, the largest variable is in game knowledge and while the argument of "I paid to learn so everyone else should too," carries some weight, it really is like comparing apples and oranges at this point because of the tenure of the experienced players and the amount of teams that are entrenched at A+ across all levels. 

Posted by tbird9423 on 9/19/2012 8:16:00 PM (view original):
I don't know who is right or wrong, but would like to know-- At D3, I just sank 3400 into a guy who had that message on him thinking it would be easy to overcome and not only did I never get considered, the player signed with the comp team very quickly before I could even spend more.  Would love to see a table on what someone thinks each of those message means and then get some conversation/debate around that.  One thing Piper was right on for sure was that I definetely thought I would easily be able to overcome that message and I was very wrong for sure. 

i dont have the 9 messages in front of me, but the 3 that say very tight, that kind of thing, those are all the same. the 6 that sound looser are all the same too. its not clear exactly what amount of effort it takes to get the messages, and it might be different by division, im not sure, its not something i have looked at as closely as i should. you can fairly easily get a rough idea if you are willing to put experimentation over short term success (and you should, if you are really into the game - i did a **** ton of experiments like that when i was learning the game. it held me back substantially for a while, i definitely would have gotten to 3 titles faster than i did. but at the same time, by the time i had been in d1 for half a year, i had experimented and studied so much, that even with only 6 seasons of d1 experience in my life, i was able to rattle off one of the few runs in history of HD that can arguably be considered the greatest d1 run of all time - and it overlapped my d2 run that fits in the same category. its unheard of to have d1 success like that so young in your d1 career, and its purely a product of extensive and excessive experimentation and studying. if i had went for short term success, id probably have never made it where i made it. i guess its a digression, but i like to encourage coaches to experiment more whenever i can!). 

anyway, the experiment you could do is to put in like say 20 HVs into a local recruit, and see if that makes you high or not. if not, put in like 5 more, and see if it does. considering credit will slightly skew your result, but once you have nailed it down tight (like, say between 25 and 30 HVs he goes to tight), you could always refine if that wasn't enough. this would give you a pretty good idea of the effort required. keep in mind that effort is affected by prestige, and that different recruits could possibly have different thresholds for FSS based on the relationship of a recruit's perceived prestige (if you will) and your school prestige. so you want to try to do experiments on a consistent type of recruit (like, on a recruit at the high end of those you can talk to. maybe pull one down first, who is at the high end of who you can talk to).

Posted by tbird9423 on 9/19/2012 8:51:00 PM (view original):
In my situation, it was a sim-coached team and I doubt very seriously that I spent my cash efficiently as I am unsure of what that is and still trying to figure that out.  I hope by the time I sink 1k into this game, I'll have it figured out but still a ways from there and imagine most will give up before that amount.  This definetely goes back to the point that this is a game where the rules may be the same for everyone, but you have to pay to discover those rules.  Just seems like it would make sense to have a chart so newbies would be on a level playing field with the A and A+ prestige teams that already have a huge inherent advantage.  Not complaining as I see myself becoming one of the "haves" at some point and can't wait to use that advantage to destroy new players to the game.  It'll be like Christmas and kicking the dog all rolled into one.

Millwood and others-- I hope you are seeing my point and don't take offense to that-- My point is that while I understand not wanting to make this a math problem, I would rather the variables be in recruiting, potential and actual gameplay.  Right now, the largest variable is in game knowledge and while the argument of "I paid to learn so everyone else should too," carries some weight, it really is like comparing apples and oranges at this point because of the tenure of the experienced players and the amount of teams that are entrenched at A+ across all levels. 

i made my response before your post, but your post really ties in. why not experiment and figure it out yourself? many coaches don't know where the cutoffs are, it can definitely give you a leg up. and at some point, you can share your wealth of knowledge with the community and help others, if you enjoy helping people like that. or even if not, sharing some knowledge like that helps you get some back. i bet if you had a study on this, a really good one, you could share it with some top coaches and ask some questions in return, and get some really good info (in sitemail if not on the forums). or something like that.

if you are unwilling to take the hit on your main team, you could use a secondary team, or even pick one up for experimentation, or something. 

Posted by tbird9423 on 9/19/2012 8:51:00 PM (view original):
In my situation, it was a sim-coached team and I doubt very seriously that I spent my cash efficiently as I am unsure of what that is and still trying to figure that out.  I hope by the time I sink 1k into this game, I'll have it figured out but still a ways from there and imagine most will give up before that amount.  This definetely goes back to the point that this is a game where the rules may be the same for everyone, but you have to pay to discover those rules.  Just seems like it would make sense to have a chart so newbies would be on a level playing field with the A and A+ prestige teams that already have a huge inherent advantage.  Not complaining as I see myself becoming one of the "haves" at some point and can't wait to use that advantage to destroy new players to the game.  It'll be like Christmas and kicking the dog all rolled into one.

Millwood and others-- I hope you are seeing my point and don't take offense to that-- My point is that while I understand not wanting to make this a math problem, I would rather the variables be in recruiting, potential and actual gameplay.  Right now, the largest variable is in game knowledge and while the argument of "I paid to learn so everyone else should too," carries some weight, it really is like comparing apples and oranges at this point because of the tenure of the experienced players and the amount of teams that are entrenched at A+ across all levels. 

No offense taken.  I am very new at this too.  I am not very good at this game, but i have realized that the answers to most of your questions are out there.  That is why I suggested starting a thread.  people are very helpful and give you as much insight as you seek.  The point is that a lot of the A and A+ prestige coaches got there with help from the forums.  You don't have to feel like you are learning on your own, there are a lot of great posters that will help you figure things out along the way and your learning curve will be much quicker.

Billy-  Thanks for the info and will follow this thread to get other helpful info as well.

I don't want to sound like a whiner, which means I am going to sound like a whiner but...

I think the difficult part for me is because there is so many other variables that are changing or I don't know it makes it nearly impossible for my experimenting (which is what I have definetely been doing in recruiting) to make concrete sense.  If I had a prestige level that was stable or recruits that were always at the same distance or recruits that always responded the same, that would help.  Once I get to A+ and stay there, it will at least remove one of those variables.  

I am not really too concerened about a recruit that is considering no one else-- that seems simple, spend more until you get em.  But those recruits that are considering someone else are what I am working on and just when I think I have a pretty good idea of the value of an individual recruiting activity, I get a result that makes me scrap my equation and start over.

My bigger point is that while I am experimenting I am paying to experiment and paying more I may add than the veterans to learn what they already know.  Since I think it is agreed that many "baselines" or "approximations" are known to many who have some tenure, why not have WIS make that general information available to everyone?  I guess I am failing to see who benefits by keeping folks in the dark?  

How many times have people posted on the forums, "Don't battle if you are going to lose."  That is the funniest comment ever as how in the **** are people supposed to know if they are going to lose?  Just give me the equation WIS and throw in a multiplier that is different for each player to affect the formula in some way.  We would all be playing by the same rules and there would actually be more randomness in the game then there is now.  

Anyone who doesn't like that idea must already have a good idea of the "recruiting/battling equations".  Imagine WIS saying, we are re-doing recruiting.  I think they did say that a while back and I heard from many veterans that "I had to learn this system so if they change it, I quit."  Again, not trying to be offensive but that reads to me... "I can't win if the rules are the same for everyone."  I admit that many of the veterans had to pay to learn the system so again, understand their perspective.  I just think this is doomed to long-term failure if the deck is so stacked against new players at every turn as I have already seen my cost/season dramatcially decrease with only very limited success.  I imagine the reason many of the long-timers have so many teams is that their credits were going to expire and would be very interested in knowing when the last time someone who is successful actually paid to play?  

Thanks for keeping this positive as hoping to learn and help make the game better at the same time.   

I get your point, but we all had to learn the intricacies of the game.  Where do we stop with transparency?  By your logic, WIS should publish the value of CVs and HVs.  Like everything else in life, you pick up things as you go along.  I guess I don't see the problem with that.

tbird, i am pretty wasted right now (baby has been crying more today than he has any other day in his short, 10 week life), so i apologize for any incoherency. in ANY GAME, there are going to be learning curves. if you play poker, you learn the probabilities of hands over time, the probabilities of hitting certain combinations of cards at certain points in the game. even though they are published, there is a significant barrier to being an expert there. if you play one of the biggest real time strategy games of all time, starcraft or warcraft or command and conquer, anything like that, there are major learning curves. again, much of it is published, but learning the units and buildings is easy - learning the unpublished stuff, what counters what, what strategies are effective, that kind of stuff is all going to be learned by you, over time. you experiment, and you learn. 

so, i inherently disagree with the idea that you shouldnt have to pay to experiment, or pay to learn.

now, that said, i generally agree this game needs a little more transparency. ive argued for the publication of the meanings of scholarship responses, scouting trip messages, etc, etc. i don't like that all these barriers exist for new players. IMO, the experimentation and learning should be more along the lines of progressive strategy, than experimentation to learn simple things like, does this message mean i am winning? i also have argued that things like HV:CV ration (to take from isac) and the values of prestige should be published. i am not sure i believe those arguments but ive made them, i forget the setting, but there is definitely merit in wanting to know the mechanisms going into things.

however, the problem with that is this. in some games, like poker, spades, chess - there is somewhat infinitely progressing strategy. in this game, if you think of recruiting, if everything was certain - if you knew exactly what a recruit would look like, if you knew exactly how far ahead you were, exactly where you stood, exactly what everyone's prestige was, exactly what the value of that was - then i think it would really take a lot of the uncertainty out of recruiting. there isn't deep and infinitely progressing strategy like there is in chess, risk, etc... and to manufacture the need for decision making and tradeoff comparison, and all that stuff, i think WIS intentionally keeps all that stuff hidden. otherwise, i think recruiting would have a lot less of its appeal. especially in d1, its hyper competitive, people dont know who is going to win top recruits, and that creates excitement.

another note. a lot of this stuff, it just isnt that well known. ask 5 veteran coaches what the value is on a letter grade of d1 prestige, and you will get 5 answers. and likely, all 5 coaches will be wrong!! stuff like, the different meanings of scholarship messages (exactly, not roughly), the value of different recruiting tools, prestige, impact of work ethic on growth, FSS messages, this stuff is not that well defined. i think i have a pretty good grasp on some of these concepts, and i don't really publish some of my beliefs on just a couple key areas, because i think its better that most people don't know. there may only be a a couple people who KNOW the value of d1 prestige, and i may or may not be one of them. but with so many people not knowing, what is really the harm? you can come to the forums and get a ballpark. one top coach might say the value of prestige is 1.5 per grade, another might say 2x, and you might guess its 1.75 and be closer than both of them! 

so while i kind of agree i dont like the stacking of the cards in the vets favor, after a handful of seasons and a bunch of interaction on the forums, you can have nearly as good of a guess on most of these topics as most people. i dont know if anyone has ever published a guess at specific values on the amount of effort it takes at the boundary between tight and loose FSS messages. many of us say, there are two categories. but what does it take to get from category 1 to 2? i have a decent guess, but its different for different prestige ranges and divisions and its not even easy to articulate what my guess might be (even if i was sober). there may be zero coaches in the game who can give you the answer (within reason, within say 5-10% of the actual answer. its tough to ever know if you are 100% right on a lot of this stuff). so why not spend some time experimenting, and try to figure it out yourself?

one last thing, its really the experimentation that makes this game fun to many. i mean, of course, its also the strategy of recruiting and building a good team and all that. but trying this and that, in a quest to learn more about the engine, or about recruiting, that can really be a lot of fun. so yeah, you might be "paying" to experiment, but if that is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game, whats the problem? the name of the game is "what if sports". ok, well i guess its hoops dynasty, but you know what i mean. the "point" of the game, if you will, is to try something, and see what if! thats experimentation, its core to the game, and it can really be a blast. im sure experimenting to find the optimal composition is probably more fun than experimenting to find the HV:CV ratio but if you get into it, its easy to enjoy all of it. i probably played this game harder than 99% of people, i used to spend like over an hour almost every day. i seriously used to spend half an hour a game just analyzing the results. i loved trying to understand how this game worked, at a very detailed level, its really awesome if you get into it. 

and one last thing (for real this time, maybe). one thing that is different about me than most coaches is i like to really pin things down. i try to establish things like, in the press, for a guard, from a purely defensive standpoint, is 1 point of speed worth .8 points of athleticism? .9? .7? i like to pin it down quantitatively. i think most people are happy to pin things down qualitatively. you have to decide what you are into. if you want to, you can do the experiments and figure out, if you go for the best recruit you can talk to (in terms of WIS rankings, not true skill), exactly how many home visits does it take to get "strongly" considered. you can say its 27, not 28, not 26. but a lot of people don't care. thats why so much of this stuff DOESNT have quantitative answers. a few things, like value of prestige, HV:CV, much of the forum community tried to pin it down. but most stuff, people don't look at it that way. im not sure anyone has even tried to nail down things like, if you get scholarship message X, and we know it means your leading, does that mean you have somewhere between a 5-10% lead? or is it 7-12%? i haven't. and does it even work that way? or is it an amount of effort you are leading by? if so, is it 1.5 - 3 campus visits? or 2-5? or what? if you enjoy it, you can try to figure all that **** out, and you can really benefit from it. i spent an insane amount of time on that stuff years ago, and got super in tune with the details of what was going on. so much has changed, and its been years, and now there is a ton of that stuff i don't know anymore. but thats fine. i didnt just spend all that time so i could be a better coach today. i spent that time because i ENJOYED it, every pain staking minute of it. if you don't enjoy that stuff, its simply not worth it. old resorter told me i was a fool for putting so much time into game planning (i am paraphrasing), because i could have easily spent a **** ton of time for 1-2 points a game. and if i did it just to win, maybe he was right (i dont think so, if you are trying to win championships in strings, every point counts - and i think i proved the effort i put into game planning yielded significant dividends). but i really enjoyed it, so no matter what it was worth point wise, it was worth it. if i had not enjoyed it, it really doesnt matter how much it could have helped me, it was just way too much time, and it wouldnt have been worth it.

so basically you have to decide if you like that stuff or not. if you love the experimentation, if the experimentation IS the game to you, then dive in, and you will learn a lot. but if you really dont like that part of the game, you can pretty easily ask around on the forums, and you can get a pretty good idea of the situation, relative to other people in the game. 90% of people probably dont have a very good idea of the FSS cutoffs, actually probably more, depending on your definition of good. but you can still talk about it here and get close to as good an understanding as those people. i include myself, i really dont know the cutoffs except around d1 a+ prestige. so you just wont get that good of an idea - but relative to the group, you will - if that makes sense. so its like, its not really going to hold you back, except maybe from the elite coaching range. where as some other things, like the meaning of a particular scholarship message, a lot of coaches know for sure if it means you are ahead, and if its slight or not. so you can ask around, and get a good understanding, relative to the rest of the coaches. it just so happens that somethings, good relative to the rest of coaches might mean you have a really good idea in an absolute context, and in other cases, it might mean you have a ****** understanding in an absolute context. and if its fun for you, you can experiment on those things to find out more, and build a good understanding in an absolute context, and a GREAT one relative to the rest of coaches. but if you don't want to do that, its really not going to hold you back that much. 

i really wish this game did have a better FAQ though, to help new coaches get going. although OR made it way better, there is just SO MUCH.

i apologize for the ridiculous length there. i mean, ive made plenty of posts that long, but they are usually about something much more interesting and there is much more insight into them. that is just the wasted ramblings of a madman, basically. i apologize to anyone who wasted a good portion of their life reading that post in its entirety. 

god damn, i wonder how long i was writing that thing? typing is like walking to me, only easier, i can type easier wasted than i can walk. so i stil type really really fast. but man, even at 100 words a minute (which i hit sober, doubt i do now, but probably not that far off), that had to take a while. didnt seem that bad though. oh well. i should probably head towards the bed room before i pass out on the floor.

man, ive got to stop posting drunk. i additionally apologize if i came off as an arrogant dick... i really didnt mean to... i am just not very good at saying "when i was really into the game i did X and it was really helpful for me" and making sure not to include anything that can be percieved as tooting my own horn. wasnt my intention at all. i suck at english in the first place, and doubly when drinknig, so please pardon anything along those lines that comes across like that. i thought about trying to edit a couple parts but im not up to the challenge, lol :)

A lot to digest but maybe my issue is my perception that vets know more than they actually do -- In that case, maybe I should stop trying to figure out exacts and work with the rough ideas I do know?  

I do disagree about Poker but you most definetely make what I agree with is a valid argument from many points of view. 

I realize this is a deep side note, but based on some things you said above I think you MASSIVELY overrate the importance of prestige in D2 and D3.  In D1 prestige multipliers are huge.  In D2 I'd say there's no more than maybe a 15-18% advantage for the highest and lowest prestige programs in a world, at D3 no more than maybe 10%.  I think those numbers are actually much too high already, but I want to give a very liberal estimate just to demonstrate the point.  Higher prestige programs will be able to talk to better recruits and have the same players drop sooner, but there certainly are plenty of solid recruits available to lower prestige teams.  Is recruiting a competitive team tougher with lower prestige?  Absolutely.  But it's not impossible.  It would be virtually impossible for a C- D1 team to recruit a 6-man class that would take them to a national championship, or even an E8.  A good D3 coach could conceivably recruit a 6-man class with C- prestige that could compete for a title, easily an E8.

coach billyg, did you do a thread about that study?  Sounds interesting, I'd like to see it.

For my own part I've never done anything I could call a study, just dogged but admittedly unscientific observation.  Everything that is said about "msg A must be at least as strong as msg B," "B as strong as C" etc., I've tracked that before and never found an example where "wide open" etc. could be proven to be as strong as "the favorite -- right now" or "not a priority," to me it seems those messages are in a middle tier.  IDK if the difference between them and the "open" messages would appear more than negligible from a D1 perspective though.

Regardless, I'm not trying to be a stubborn a-hole (well at least not an a-hole) and I don't presume any keener powers of observation than other posters possess.  And TBH I don't find the differences I perceive or think I perceive between these messages to have great practical effect even at D3.  But for the next season or two, in each of which I will have 3-4 openings, I'll study it more carefully and post results, should anyone be interested.  I don't care if it proves I'm right or not, I just want to know.