see alternative approach to update

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=488522&TopicsTimeframe=30

we have a lot of info now, there are a lot of supporters and detractors. there was one poll, but it was a little strange, with 3 answers that leave it somewhat unclear who supports and who is against. also, we've learned a TON about seble's intentions over teh last week. now that he says he mostly has enough to go on, and has reduced his presence on the forums, we have to assume we have a good idea where he's headed. time for another poll - 3 questions - very simple. have at it:

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?ForumID=30&TopicID=488530&page=1#l_10791123

I added a couple polls. Simple ones. 

i was contemplating taking the 10 or so biggest issues and doing individual polls separately. the point would be to demonstrate which items have the most support, which ones have little support (like, im guessing, dropdown/pulldown overhaul).

Posted by possumfiend on 9/18/2015 11:45:00 AM (view original):
The propensity for histrionics and hysteria on these forums lately is laughable.  By mully's definition in one of the posts above, I'm a good coach.  I took over a C+  school that had one PI berth in the 10 seasons prior to my arrival.  I have built them up to an A prestige, I have made the NT 12 seasons in a row including 3 Sweet 16s and an Elite 8 in the last 10 seasons, and in the current season I'm ranked #12, with the #7 RPI and I'm sitting at #9 on the projection report with one game remaining in the regular season.  I probably could "move up" to a school with a higher baseline prestige, but I don't want to. I also know I'm not even in the running to be considered among the top coaches in this game (but who really cares - it's all very subjective anyway) because there are too many people out there with better resumes and better success, but I certainly don't have trouble competing and I'm also willing to cede some of the advantages that I now have if it helps to make the game more fun for other guys stepping into the world.  I don't just want to hand everyone an A+ franchise so we can all compete evenly every single season while holding hands and singing kumbaya but the barriers to succeeding in this game are far too steep compared to what it takes to stay on top.

And let's also be clear that I'm not advocating for UMBC to be as attractive as BC (but then I'm not sure why BC should even really be that attractive ... the RL squad hasn't made a tourney appearance since 2009 and haven't advanced beyond the second round of the NCAA's in over 20 years).  Still, I do think Big 6 schools SHOULD have advantages over the Horizon league, and they do in the way of baseline prestige.  As I understand it that's not going away.  I do think baseline's should be updated to more accurately reflect the current RL NCAA environment (I actually would like to see them updated annually after the National Championship game) but I have yet to hear one convincing argument for retaining postseason cash - particularly at the D1 level.

The issue with conference money is that even among the Big 6 conferences, the playing field isn't level in HD (and by and large there are very few SIMs in the Big 6 so presumably the disparity shouldn't be so great).  I'm not talking about individual teams, I'm talking about conferences as a whole. Go back and look at the data over each world over the last last 10 seasons.  One thing that is very obvious, and has emerged more so in some worlds than others, is the ACC has distinctive advantages with respect to recruit generation and how that ties into what stewdog refers to as "location, location, location".  In every world except Phelan, Rupp and Wooden, the ACC has, over the past 10 seasons, outperformed every other conference in terms of post season cash.  In Phelan and Rupp the balance is pretty even.  In Wooden the ACC has taken a backseat to the Big East for territorial dominance and the Big East dominates that world like the ACC does in Allen, Iba and Crum.  Excluding Phelan, Rupp, and Wooden, the average postseason earnings per team in each Big 6 conference over the last 10 seasons is:

ACC        $41,482
Big 10      $24,655
Big 12:     $30,179
Big East:  $23,660 
Pac 10:    $24,357
SEC:        $19,458

I could go on with more examples of the disparities among the Big 6 conferences which all pretty clearly demonstrate the problems and imbalances even among the Big 6 conferences. Imbalances and disparities that favor the East Coast in general and more specifically the ACC.  Sure there are other schools around the country that are generally pretty successful season in and season out.  The Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 10 have some isolation benefits that allow the higher baseline schools in those conferences to field successful teams.  So teams like Kansas, Michigan St, Illinois, Wisconsin, UCLA, Arizona and Stanford all have above average chance for success.

Smart coaches like Stew figured this out a long time ago and of course someone in Stew's position will argue for keeping conference money and dumping prestige because if you dump conference money in favor of prestige then every season Stew has to actually compete on more equal footing with a schools like Kentucky and Florida that have similar or higher prestige (just like in RL).  This would create a more real world scenario of ebb and flow among the elite baselines teams where some years the SEC is on top and some years the PAC 10 is on top and some years the Big 10 or Big 12 is on top and some years the ACC is on top.  Conversely, if you eliminate prestige and allow the ACC to keep their money, Coaches like Stew are now on even footing from a baseline perspective but because the ACC is armed with such a distortion of funds in Allen, Crum and Iba the other Big 6 conferences will still be unable to compete.  Stew will still get the cream of the crop and the cycle will perpetuate.

I don't really mean to pick on Stew (he just happens to be the one who decided to post his treatise in response to seble), but I did find his comments interesting.  "Duke, unc, wake, nc st will all die if there's no conference tourney money".  Maybe that's true, maybe not, but with continued conference tourney money going to the ACC every season it has been amply demonstrated that the SEC and Big East can't compete and have already died in IBA and ALLEN - but I guess that doesn't matter.

I guess I look at it this way, a while back there was a thread on these forums from a guy who liked to play NCAA Football or some video game on "easy mode".  The community eviscerated the guy because everyone here likes "competition".  Yet everyone gets completely out of sorts when seble says he is going to eliminate "easy mode" and force you to actually compete and not just "pick" the guy I want ever season because I've been at my school for 30+ seasons and I've won 4 consecutive championships and and have an A+ prestige and carryover more than most people dream about ... yada, yada, yada. Is that really fun for you?

If it is why don't we just ask seble to develop a What if Final Four game where we just pick the four most dominant schools in each world and just place them in the Final Four every season while the rest of us will play some meaningless games to bide the time?

I am concerned about the ambition here with this project, I really advocated for some textural changes in line with what FD and others have posted in these forums but I don't think that is going to happen and I'm still curious to see the product that the dev team comes up with and trust that they will take the time to get it right - I also trust if they don't, they'll scrap it or alter it (I may be wrong on that point).  So if my choice is move forward with the proposal being developed or nothing at all I opt for moving forward and testing because I think the game would benefit if we all got to actually compete a little more and didn't just rely so heavily on the loopholes and advantages we exploit along the way.

Interesting take... but you didn't address a single solution I gave. 
I do NOT want status quo and AGREE FULLY that I have ridiculous advantages that need to be mitigated... which is why I posted. But I also am not sure you read or commented on a single proposed solution or why they wouldn't work or help. 
That would be more helpful to me than to say I want "easy mode" which I thought was clear from my post. I want to have to compete with UConn, Texas, UCLA, KS, etc. I want to have to debate whether to leave a high potential guy to Georgia and instead go after a top guy in California. 

You wonder why BC is attractive in HD, not real life? Location- they are an outlier in a good conference. Location. 
Why is ACC best? Baseline prestige attracts the best coaches produces a longer term cycle. I think if baseline prestige was eliminated, we would see great coaches spread into Big 12, which could be just as good other than the fact they don't typically have as high of calibur coaching from 1-12 (bc of prestige). 

1- critique my solutions. I would love that. Simple "its not fair he's on top &he wants to play easy mode" are incorrect conclusions towards my aforementioned "rants." I would prefer a solution and critique of my proposals... that's why I put myself out there. I told you the loopholes and weaknesses and offered very real and very doable solutions. 

2- Give me a realistic justification for why a "real life sports simulation" should do away with conference tourney money if there are other more realistic ways to even it out? 

3- Does Wichita State EVER beat Kansas for priority recruits? Why can they compete in real life? Is recruiting really the problem here? 

Just throwing this out there since I haven't seen it anywhere in regard to the proposals...

According to the devchat and things posted elsewhere, players will now contact "their favorite schools" on their own sometimes and will be visible to coaches without scouting being necessary. This leads to two questions in my mind...

1. Does this mean we'll actually have players contacting schools IN THEIR DIVISION? The way the game is now, even the worst recruit in the game has a D1 "favorite school" despite having zero chances of actually playing there. Are D2-level recruits going to contact D2 coaches? 

2. If not, then how annoying is it going to be for D1 coaches to have to wade through all the suck that contacts them in order to find the recruits they actually want? 

whats the good coaches theory? that good coaches are what makes top bcs conferences good? coaching definitely is a big factor in the game. when i started, it was really **** on, to be honest... people were so apathetic about game planning and to a lesser extent team setup, said it was all recruiting. then a rookie recruiter beat them all and people started to wonder if they might be missing something. today the climate is way better, ill take about 20% credit for that... and in todays climate, i don't feel the need to argue that coaching matters (in the olden days, such a position would put me in a colonels-esque position of me vs the world, except that i was right). it clearly matters... its a huge impact... and its a huge reason why the same guys keep winning and why great conferences are great. another reason is that once you get to the top tier, you have built in advantages that are too severe, given the context of today's recruit generation. i don't know what the proof would look like but i think its obvious to most people that its a combination of quality coaches and built-in advantages that make the great conferences great. its both, shades of gray and all that... its not one or the other, and anyone who thinks it is either of the two, but not the other, is really limited in their understanding of a complex situation.

I'm going to need a PhD in recruiting. No thanks.

Guy 1: I wish my house was laid out better and was more energy efficient, I've lived here a while and realize it really needs some work.

Guy 2: you going to remodel?

Guy 1: No I'm going to burn my house down and start over.

Posted by vandydave on 9/18/2015 8:16:00 PM (view original):
Guy 1: I wish my house was laid out better and was more energy efficient, I've lived here a while and realize it really needs some work.

Guy 2: you going to remodel?

Guy 1: No I'm going to burn my house down and start over.

great stuff.

Guy 1: I wish my house was laid out better and more energy efficient. I've lived here since 1990 and I realize it needs some work.

Guy 2: This house is iconic. If you are going to make a change, why don't you just replace the siding on the west side of the house 1st, kind of just patch it up and see if it is more energy efficient. That way if it isn't more energy efficient, you can just tear it down and keep the old stuff!

Guy 1: No, I think we need to do everything at once. Thanks for your advice. I'll keep you posted about when we are going to make the changes and you can provide me with feedback.

Guy 2: Weil, I am never coming back to visit if this house is any different.

I'm going to double check this with my hometown coaching 'expert', but in real life, I'm pretty sure in d1/d2 players are limited to 5 total official campus visits, and 1 per campus.  And coaches don't make real many home visits either (mostly cause coaches are pretty busy, and recruits are too), even for the top players.  Coaches largely go to the same AAU tournies, and will go to many (all in some cases) of the players games, where they are not allowed to talk to the player or his family.  Is there any thought to applying some limits to campus and home visits, since real life is the goal? 

I see this having several advantages, probably the biggest edge would be to save coaches from themselves. And bidding wars really are bad for this game.  In the old game, I never ever sweated losing a recruiting battle.  I was always confident I could win a NT with the next guy, mostly because recruits were more equal, and prior to FSS and potential, I could improve the right thing to make my players better than everyone elses for my team, which I used to view as 'coaching them up'.  Now, I barely look at practice planning, it is completely boring once set. 

I think soome limits to offer amounts when scouting and visiting is much more real life And in real life, coaches are not limited in any manner who they can go after, even after dozens of fails, they still can keep recruiting.  hard working coaches in real life kill the lazy ones in the long run.

There is so much now out there, maybe this is all explained by seble already, but it would seem to me that if one gets recruiting pts and is allowed to put them all into one player, it simply is the old game with the misery shifted into the season rather than the 5 day recruiting period.  But some limits on, it is much more real life and was done for much the same sort of reasons, to protect coaches from themselves along with the recruits.

Posted by ryan75 on 9/19/2015 10:11:00 AM (view original):
I'm going to double check this with my hometown coaching 'expert', but in real life, I'm pretty sure in d1/d2 players are limited to 5 total official campus visits, and 1 per campus.  And coaches don't make real many home visits either (mostly cause coaches are pretty busy, and recruits are too), even for the top players.  Coaches largely go to the same AAU tournies, and will go to many (all in some cases) of the players games, where they are not allowed to talk to the player or his family.  Is there any thought to applying some limits to campus and home visits, since real life is the goal? 

I see this having several advantages, probably the biggest edge would be to save coaches from themselves. And bidding wars really are bad for this game.  In the old game, I never ever sweated losing a recruiting battle.  I was always confident I could win a NT with the next guy, mostly because recruits were more equal, and prior to FSS and potential, I could improve the right thing to make my players better than everyone elses for my team, which I used to view as 'coaching them up'.  Now, I barely look at practice planning, it is completely boring once set. 

I think soome limits to offer amounts when scouting and visiting is much more real life And in real life, coaches are not limited in any manner who they can go after, even after dozens of fails, they still can keep recruiting.  hard working coaches in real life kill the lazy ones in the long run.

There is so much now out there, maybe this is all explained by seble already, but it would seem to me that if one gets recruiting pts and is allowed to put them all into one player, it simply is the old game with the misery shifted into the season rather than the 5 day recruiting period.  But some limits on, it is much more real life and was done for much the same sort of reasons, to protect coaches from themselves along with the recruits.

Ignore that whole post, it looks like that is indeed what seble is proposing, more or less.

Yes, I think seble really is trying to follow the NCAA recruiting guidelines.  Here is a link to a nice summary chart of the men's basketball recruiting guide that the NCAA publishes if anyone is interested

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Men%27s%20Basketball%20Guide.pdf

While I know several people want to see changes to HD, and I certainly think there can be a few tweaks to make it better, I think they should ONLY be tweaks.

I do NOT want to see this game get a major overhaul. By and large, I LOVE it the way it is.

If there are to be changes, perhaps make them happen in only some worlds or create new worlds for the new game. Do not force everyone who likes this game the way it is to change.

I have played for years and have many teams. If there are major changes to this current game and I can no longer play it at al, I'm not sure what I will do at this point except be sad and unhappy that I've lost the game I loved.'

I may give the new game a shot, but I'll still miss this one if I can no longer play it. If the new one isn't as fun (and it likely won't be since this game is awesome the way it is in my opinion) then I may very well stop playing.

Good job of offering any ideas or specific things you think are fine or could be tweaked.  Instead of just completely shitting on without any reason besides "liking it the way it is"

If you think the game is perfect you are delusional.  At least try to help out.

Also if you could post this a bit more on every thread, it would be cool, I don't think 1 thread you started and posting in every thread about the updates.

Although I do guess you might be worried about the sims recruiting better since that makes 95% of your opponents a tad tougher.