I like "spreading my word everywhere" because I want to make sure I'm heard.  I'm sorry if that offends you somehow.

To be perfectly honest, while I'm acknowledging tweaks could be made to make the game better, I have none I feel strongly about personally. I'm fine with the game the way it is.

I didn't say the game was perfect. I do think, however, that it is great as it is and that I do not want to see it changed in any major way, as I believe such change would inevitably make it worse. 

I'm trying to help out by posting my feelings on the matter. You disagree, fine, but you're coming across as very hostile and I get the impression you believe I somehow don't have a right to my opinion - and that type of attitude is not only wrong but is not helpful itself.

For someone who is asking for me to "try to help out" your sarcasm shows how much you're helping.

Anyone can schedule opponents and make a number of choices in the way they wish in this game. That's part of what makes it so great. So get off of your high horse about my playing against sims or whatever nonsense that last statement was about.

I'm fine with you spreading your word, but at least try to help out, that's all I'm saying I mean you have to know they're changes going to be made by now there not going to stop for one person, so instead of complaining why not attempt to help out a bit since you said a few tweaks would be okay what would those be?

Not that anyone cares, but I really like these changes that are being discussed.  I also like the idea that everyone will be starting new on the changes.  Almost like being on the first cycle of a new world (or at least that is how I think it would be like since I never was on the first cycle of a new world). 

Unfortunately, everyone will not be starting new. Those that get to test in Beta will have a major advantage.

There are a horde of outstanding ideas in this package. It is critical that we don't overload the system and make the game too time consuming to play. I think we should crawl before we walk. Incorporate the highest priority developments into the game in phases. We may find we don't need the dramatic overhaul this proposal introduces. And if we do, it will make for a less strenuous learning curve and reasonable time management  impact..
Note to Seble: don't confuse criticism and debate for a lack of gratitude for the effort. The thought behind this is impressive and the discourse should lead to the best possible outcome.

Posted by rsvphr on 9/23/2015 7:14:00 AM (view original):
There are a horde of outstanding ideas in this package. It is critical that we don't overload the system and make the game too time consuming to play. I think we should crawl before we walk. Incorporate the highest priority developments into the game in phases. We may find we don't need the dramatic overhaul this proposal introduces. And if we do, it will make for a less strenuous learning curve and reasonable time management  impact..
Note to Seble: don't confuse criticism and debate for a lack of gratitude for the effort. The thought behind this is impressive and the discourse should lead to the best possible outcome.

Seble - this is a really well thought out summary of my feelings.  

If I were to stress one issue it's time required to play. 

If I were to mention the area I'm most concerned about, it's exactly how the pool of 50 - 100 recruits that are worth getting in each d1 recruiting session end up getting divided up among the human coaches, esp with a more even playing field, and esp if sims start becoming better recruiters.  I struggle to see how that all works out without greatly increasing the number of serviceable players in the recruiting pool and also without greatly increasing the level of effort time wise that must be devoted to the game.

One thing that won't make the top of anyone's list (including yours) but that you probably should consider, is rather than having a full d1 world beta test, you should have 1/3 full d1, d2, d3 worlds beta test, that way the entire game gets tested, and the 1 to 3 ratio of human to sim coaches should more resemble the way the game is played given the population in most worlds.  I suspect that requires more work on your part, but might be worth doing anyhow?

Is Making mock worlds of the current ones we have now not possible? That way we would be testing this from exact and current situation that we are playing from right now...2-3 mock worlds should do it as I know people play at different levels under different circumstances in all sorts of different worlds.

I might be the biggest proponent of changing recruit generation here.  But ... I don't see how one can justify changing the generation process with all these other recruit related changes, as the best way for me to tell (and I think most of you to tell) if the playing field got leveled out or not is to leave the actual generation process alone.  Right?

As far as the mock or beta worlds, if I recall, last time world nine was used (a copy of world 9, the real world 9 also kept simming), and only d1, at least that's what I remember.  I'm pretty sure it was fully manned, i.e. no sims.  IMO the better approach is to mock or beta up all three divisions in a world, with the same number of sims as usual.  It still should allow for 300 or so coaches to participate, but would make the conditions more real, esp given that sims are a pretty big part of competitive (or lack of competitive) recruiting.

Posted by ryan75 on 9/24/2015 11:14:00 AM (view original):
I might be the biggest proponent of changing recruit generation here.  But ... I don't see how one can justify changing the generation process with all these other recruit related changes, as the best way for me to tell (and I think most of you to tell) if the playing field got leveled out or not is to leave the actual generation process alone.  Right?

As far as the mock or beta worlds, if I recall, last time world nine was used (a copy of world 9, the real world 9 also kept simming), and only d1, at least that's what I remember.  I'm pretty sure it was fully manned, i.e. no sims.  IMO the better approach is to mock or beta up all three divisions in a world, with the same number of sims as usual.  It still should allow for 300 or so coaches to participate, but would make the conditions more real, esp given that sims are a pretty big part of competitive (or lack of competitive) recruiting.

i 100% agree with all of this. i want recruit generation way more than any other change, but i am against putting it into this release. a large part is because its already too big, but, you make a great point as well. 

definitely think d1-d3 will need beta testing as well and i agree whatever is comparable to the real game should be used, in terms of ratio. maybe not exactly, like ideally this system would work with more coaches than we have now, in the hopes the game rebounds some. you've made the point in the past, when people talked about how awesome full worlds would be, that they might not actually be that awesome, same with conferences even to some degree, that its unpleasant for the people at the bottom - so probably need a cushion of sims there. i think all of that is true, so i think a full world is probably not only unrealistic but also not ideal. seems to me once it was around 2/3rds it would be time to be opening new worlds. 

I've been playing this game for almost 10 years.  Worked my way up to a B baseline prestige BCS school but have not been able to get over the hump.  Recruiting is 100% of the game, Coaching is 0% here is why.  You need the talent to coach a team.  Due to that fact you can have all Sr. team with A+ IQ but if their cores suck you will not win at a BCS B- prestige level.  A PI bid will be your best situation. 

Recruiting money does not need to change, the way you recruit needs to change.  We need more diamonds in the rough. Higher Prestige schools need to stop poaching schools at the last minute.  The higher prestige schools needs to battle top recruits more.  Make A- and above get 4 star and 5 star players and maybe have 3 star players pass on those schools becuase they know they will not get playing time.  Big schools have too much advantage and there should be great protential 2 star players or 3 star players even 1 star players should have high protential but maybe have low ratings in the beginning.  This will help out the lower division schools and the mid majors or C- BCS level schools. 

Maybe not all the player but enough that makes recruiting rewarding for all schools.  Also people need to get points from recruiting from the first cycle becuase by the second day if you are in battles you are short on money and then the higher prestige school or the school with the most money left will come in and take that recruit away during sigining day.

I have worked my way up to a BCS level school I should not be punished becuase a guy that is at UMBC can't get the same player.  It's not fair for those who have played the game unless there is a Coach Prestige level added also then a guy like me that have been paying for 7 years will have a better shot also with the same amount of money.

recruiting is not even remotely 100% of the game. how many times do you see teams in the d1 pit who are outrageously good? i feel i could compete to be one of the best programs in the country, just with my pick of one team from the PIT each year. coaching is huge. i do agree, if you have **** players, there's not much you can do. but when you have a mix of decent, good, and great players, coaching makes all the difference. one reason i like high d1 and always have, is because coaching is amplified. so many teams are so good - you dont have to be exceptional recruiting wise to compete with the best teams (well, you didn't - now things are obviously different, to some extent).

when i started in d1, i was a god awful recruiter just like everyone. i had recruited exactly 1 championship caliber player when i won my first title, i won mostly with players i inherited from a guy who hadn't made the NT in like 5 years. a short time later, i was still a d1 rookie, 15 seasons, with 5 titles, and was not even remotely in the running as one of the top recruiters. the only reason i could manage that is because the fact that i sucked at recruiting didn't mean i had dramatically worse teams than anyone else. i was behind, for sure - my first NC in d1, i had a team that was not top 25 by talent. i was so new that i didn't even know what good teams looked like - and in my first 2nd round game of my d1 career (same season), i was shocked - my opponent (notre dame), an 8 seed to my 1 seed, was SO MUCH better than me, i was in shock, sheer disbelief, how as a 1 seed, could i have a second round match where i'd kill to be able to swap teams? but thats how it was. my next 4 opponents were all way more talented than me, too. my second NC team was so talented it made my first look like a d2 squad (got some lucky recruit gen, in the hit or miss life that is colorado). but still, it was enough... you only need so much talent, and once you get there, the marginal returns on better and better recruiting are quite small. then, its all about the coaching.

Gillispie I know you and what you mean speaks volumes but when you never get the type of talent to coach it makes the game harder. I remember Northwestern in Phelan won a NT without making one change during the enitre Post season. Actually he was away or something set his team and won the title.  That shows to me that coaching does not really make a big difference.  If I got 5 star players coaching will be so much easier because I have the talent to compete with the big schools.  Just my oponion and you know more on this than me.

Posted by iwanturmind2 on 9/25/2015 1:42:00 PM (view original):
Gillispie I know you and what you mean speaks volumes but when you never get the type of talent to coach it makes the game harder. I remember Northwestern in Phelan won a NT without making one change during the enitre Post season. Actually he was away or something set his team and won the title.  That shows to me that coaching does not really make a big difference.  If I got 5 star players coaching will be so much easier because I have the talent to compete with the big schools.  Just my oponion and you know more on this than me.

the difference here is context, we are talking about different things on two levels, and i think its worth explaining. also, there are a lot of areas in this game, and championship teams are rarely perfect in even one single area, so i would never consider a title won without doing X right to mean anything - you can say that about some aspect of almost every title team ever.

part of the difference here is our respective definitions of "coaching". if you define coaching as only game planning, then it is definitely a smaller portion of the game then i consider it to be (albeit still an important one). 

to me, coaching is a combination of game planning, team setup, and team composition planning / team building. recruiting mechanics are getting the players you want. i suppose its just as reasonable to consider player assessment and deciding who you want part of recruiting, but i think if you consider how the skills interleave, it makes more sense the other way. knowing who is good and knowing how to get them are almost completely unrelated. on the other hand, team building and team setup run in lock step, you have to get good at playing your team right, to know who you want, and once you get them, you re-assess their performance and that feeds back into who you want. they play off each other.

that said - when i say "coaching" here, i usually don't include team building, because i don't think other people think of it that way. i just draw the line between getting a team and then coaching it, which definitely includes team setup. depending on your team, game planning can be more or less important. really well constructed teams often don't actually require that much game planning, i've had teams, i mean back when i game planned every day, that i would make no changes at all at least half the time, and most of the rest, very minor changes. i had other teams where i went through the NT with lineups i'd never even played once all season. it just depends. its very hard to pin down the importance of game planning, but generally, the less optimally you built your team, the less optimal your base team setup is, the more game planning matters (note, that implies great coaches and great teams, like title teams, need game planning less than everyone else). 

that said, team setup is always very important, generally significantly more important than game-specific adjustments. the other way we are looking at this differently, is that you are still in the part of d1 where the talent gaps are massive - and in those cases, recruiting is much bigger - its when you have the great players already, and little room for talent increases, that the ability to set the team up becomes the differentiating factor. that's only the case for the top 10-15 most talented d1 teams (which generally almost always supply the eventually championship winner - so team setup's importance is actually higher the higher you go).

and just to mention - because this is rarely stated - one of the reasons game planning itself is so important, in conjunction with post game analysis, is because that's your best way to learn how to get better at setting up and constructing a team - which are, as a pair, the majority of what drives success at all levels of the game. in many ways, this is more important than the single-season impact of game planning itself. in general, team setup is one of the things coaches in the game are worst at, and a big part is because game planning and post-game analysis is downplayed. 

Frankly, I think the bigger the changes the better. I think this game is seriously broken for all but the A+ prestige programs.

I used to have two such programs and remember how easy recruiting was, but then I stepped away from the game for about 35 seasons and now I know how hard it is to try to build up programs from lower prestige levels. It seems almost impossible to build them beyond a B level.

There is no room for a Gonzaga, Butler, VCU to develop in HD. And it is very difficult to lose an A rating once you have one.

The playing field needs to be leveled or B level coaches and below will not stick around. I debate it every time I have to renew a team.

The alternative would be to reset a World every 50 or so seasons and have everyone in that world start over in DIII. So many people in HD don't know the fun of racing to DI in a new world.