WIS has already helped make practice easier by having the player stats appear in the right hand side of the practice screen. This is very useful in establishing what areas have the most developmental opportunities (blue), average (black) and little to none (red).

However, there is still a small teak that I believe would make things easier. This is when players typically reach Jr or Sr. level and have reached max in several (or all) categories, but may have a little growth despite all "red" attribute scores.

I propose a small tweak based off the emails we receive that notify us that a player's stat is actually maxed. Typically, these read, "I suggest we practice something other than footwork." Especially for Sr. players, you may get 4 or 5 of those emails in a year, but there is still growth in other areas. Personally, it is a pain to be on my phone and trying to flip between emails and the practice plan to figure out what stat has not been maxed. Since we have the emails anyway, why not tweak the practice screen to reflect the email notice. I have two ideas/proposals:

1. Simply add red text within the box that is maxed and where we have received an email. I am speaking specifically of the box in which we change the practice minutes, not the red stats to the right of the assignments in the player profile screenshot. This way, players have automated feedback regarding actually "maxed" stats rather than flipping screens and threatening to throw my phone across the room.

2. Lock-out and auto-reduce the maxed attribute to which an email has been received to a maxed stat. When PE is maxed, the blocked is greyed and the practice is auto assigned "3" to the practice time, for example.

More and more players are moving to tablets and cell phones. I believe such a change would increase player satisfaction and would definitely automate the process more.

Personally, I prefer option 1 so that players are still responsible for checking lineups and making adjustments daily.

Between the two, I prefer option one as well.  We're already spoon fed practice plans as it is, I'd hate to see it changed to make it even easier by blocking out categories as suggested. 

Being able to really set efficient practice plans was one way to separate mediocre from average from good from great coaches.  Of course, that was back in the "primordial" days of HD.  There was actually an art to dealing with practice plans and the best coaches could get more growth/development out of their players than an average coach.  And that was even without exploiting any of the practice plan glitches that some of the shitheads (even some of the most "respected" and "helpful" coaches were guilty of it) did way back when.  There was no gray area with those folks, they were flat out cheating, but I digress.

My feeling is that dealing with practice plans has been made easy enough as it is, I personally wouldn't want to see them made any easier.  My nickel's worth....

However, I DO sympathize with the coaches that are in the same situation as you are.  Must really be a pain in the ***.

Posted by emy1013 on 12/4/2015 1:17:00 PM (view original):
Between the two, I prefer option one as well.  We're already spoon fed practice plans as it is, I'd hate to see it changed to make it even easier by blocking out categories as suggested. 

Being able to really set efficient practice plans was one way to separate mediocre from average from good from great coaches.  Of course, that was back in the "primordial" days of HD.  There was actually an art to dealing with practice plans and the best coaches could get more growth/development out of their players than an average coach.  And that was even without exploiting any of the practice plan glitches that some of the shitheads (even some of the most "respected" and "helpful" coaches were guilty of it) did way back when.  There was no gray area with those folks, they were flat out cheating, but I digress.

My feeling is that dealing with practice plans has been made easy enough as it is, I personally wouldn't want to see them made any easier.  My nickel's worth....

However, I DO sympathize with the coaches that are in the same situation as you are.  Must really be a pain in the ***.

I appreciate the empathy.

Basically, #1 is not giving any new info, just carrying it over from another source. I also do not like locking a stat for the same reasons you stated, but wanted to throw it out there just in case.

When I get the maxed message, I cut practice minutes to a specific lower level rather than my standard level.  I can look at practice minutes and tell which have received a maxed out message by looking at those minutes.  When they all have maxed out messages, I have a different standard practice distro.

max

hmmm   you guys dont put minutes at zero when you get the max message?

Posted by oldave on 12/4/2015 4:53:00 PM (view original):
hmmm   you guys dont put minutes at zero when you get the max message?

I put them at 7 (3 for PE and LP) when maxed for most players. If the max is below 10 in a category, I will usually zero that out. I thought they started to drop if you assigned less than 7/3 respectively. Was there a change I missed? Does the drop not occur when maxed and I never knew?

Posted by oldave on 12/4/2015 4:53:00 PM (view original):
hmmm   you guys dont put minutes at zero when you get the max message?

i do, and so should you (and everyone else). zeroing stuff out at low (before max message) is practical in a plethora of situations as well. this sometimes is controversial because of somewhat misleading statements by seble over the years, but to anyone who cares to test it, its not even close - the benefit of 0ing out vastly outweighs the potential negative of doing so.

ermackey - no, nothing changed. its been this way since potential existed - when a rating is near max, its rate of improvement or decrease is roughly zero, regardless of how many minutes you've put in. the rate of increase has been repeatedly been stated by admin to tie to the amount of improvement left, and its true - well, decrease is just a negative rate of improvement - the same statement holds. if you zero out maxed categories, you may occasionally see a -1 when a guy was like say a 94.501 and he drops to 94.499 or something. generally speaking the rate of decrease for 0ing out a guy with 1 point of improvement or less is less than 1/10th of a point per season. so technically - to stop ANY decrease, you need 7m (or 3 in lp/per) in the worst case, as seble has said forever. but practically, this fact is useless. the reality is the rate of decrease for an almost maxed rating is so low, its completely negligible. i will 0 freshman out in lows when they come in all the time, even when they are a few points off max. the rate of decrease is very low, just like the rate of increase. better to use those points in something you can grow, if there is anything....

I do zero when low, but keep them at 3 or 7 when maxed because of the marginal rate of return at that point. It is speculative, but if a SG has a 30 REB and it gets me one more rebound per 2 games at that position, All stats at all positions have value, even if they are nerfed. Therefore, anything less than 15 or so is zero'd by me unless it is blue. Then I set it at 3 or 7, respectively, and let my annual WE increase it. it is worth it to me.

Therefore, the "just zero them out" does not really work for my strategy.

Back on topic, does anyone OPPOSE #1?

An issue with option 1 is that it will require a bunch of explaining - maxed doesnt actually mean maxed in the sense that some improvement is technically possible.  Some coach will see maxed and be shocked that maxed was not an absolute statement,.

As someone that uses their phone do do game planning, etc during the season, and uses a laptop to recruit. I really want like this idea. Would save a lot of time.... now whether it will ever get implemented is another story..

Now I don't want to derail the thread but since its been dead for 10 days......I have always used 7 for maxed out skills and 3 for maxed out LP/PE. Idk why but its just something I read when I was doing my research as a newb. So what I understand is every time I get a maxed out message, I can set the practice time to 0 and it will have almost no negative affects? I normally already do it when a Fr. guard has Red on a low rebounding skill or etc. but I have always moved down to 7 on a normal maxed out skill so it doesn't deteriorate. Would anybody care to explain, I feel a bit dumb now as I think a lot my players could have really used that extra time in the gym.