Since my return to the game I've won almost no recruiting battles and the number of "upsets" or "bad luck" breaks against me is really absurd (I'm actually a scientist and very well understand stats, though my English writing ability is subpar). So I just lost another battle and it was expected b/c I was only "High" but I thought that might be advantageous considering all the "Very High" positions I've lost from. The reason this one has me scratching my head...

Battle b/w two B- Prestige schools.
I went all in with start, 20 min, max home & campus visits. The recruit had 3 preferences highlighted and I was "Very Good" on 2 and "Neutral" on 1. In the end, final % "Very High" 71 vs "High" 29. How do two seemingly even teams go into a battle and the results are so skewed? At first I figured it must have been preference related but that just seems impossible. Is there another layer of randomness added by the game to generate the "considering" percentages?

Any way, done with the recruiting rant. Thanks for listening.

Did the player want to play? If so, it’s very important when the promises were made. And how much AP did you spend? That can account for a bit of it, if your rival significantly outspent you. Preferences have degrees within the categories as well, so the other team may have also been a little more “very good” in those areas, which if combined with the other stuff, can add up.

Also keep in mind the considering odds you see after the battle have been stretched to favor the effort credit leader. So the actual amount of effort credit was actually closer, but the system gives the leader a little boost in order to decrease the number of recruiting upsets (which is fine, but then publishing the considering odds kind of defeats the purpose, when everyone dwells on the “bad beats” that now look even worse than they really were).

Anyway, my guess is likely big AP discrepancy explains most of it, but if the player wanted to play, and your opponent got promises in prior to the big effort while you failed to do that, this is the likely culprit.

I maxed out effort - Max home visits, Campus visit, Promised Start, Promised 20 mins, plenty of AP. I'm not at all surprised by losing but thought the battle should've been more evenly distributed in the end given no real differences b/w the schools. Maybe a bump for baseline prestige vs. current prestige? But even then, this wasn't a Blue Blood school.

agree w/ shoe. how many ap? ap are worth a lot... even ballpark would be helpful. the way you left them out at first and then said max effort with plenty of ap... just makes me wonder if you are considering them as important

Very likely there was a big difference in AP. Ask the other coach how much they put in.

40 AP per cycle is “plenty” in most battles, but then when you’re up against a team that prioritizes the guy so highly they spend 80/cycle, by the end of the battle all that cumulative AP adds up to a VH-H battle, sometimes more lopsided than this, depending on how long the battle lasts, and what else specifically is going on in preferences.

So yeah, how much AP was spent by both teams matters a lot. But if AP really was fairly even, like I said before, most likely what happened is that the player has the “wants to play” preference, and the other team got promises in early, and you didn’t. Minutes promises for players who want to play are a modifier/multiplier for all future effort once the promise is made, so if promises are made late for those players, you don’t get nearly as much credit. If the minutes promise was made at the very end of the battle, it might say “Very Good” on the preference, but from a preference standpoint it has negligible effect, apart from the stand-alone impact a promise has for every player regardless of playing time preference.

And again, the other team’s “very goods” just might be better. If the player wanted to play, even if you did get it in early, a 20 minute promise will not bring in as much return as a 25 minute promise; if the player wants to play close to home, 50 miles is a quite a bit better than 180. Even if they all look “very good,” you may not be keeping up exactly.

Some combination of these issues is what caused the discrepancy in the final odds. I’m not saying you have to enjoy the result, I’m just saying there is an explanation, there is no “other layer of randomness” involved here.

This has been said, but to put it simply - where "wants to play" is present, the order of effort counts. visits after a promise of playing time count meaningfully more than visits before the promise. Order counts.

Posted by mamxet on 9/22/2021 9:42:00 PM (view original):
This has been said, but to put it simply - where "wants to play" is present, the order of effort counts. visits after a promise of playing time count meaningfully more than visits before the promise. Order counts.

Yup, preferences are essentially multipliers for your resources at their time of submission. Hypothetically, the recruit has wants to play preference. Offering minutes will help to get this to good or very good. If you give him 20 HV/1 CV during the third cycle and then offer him 20 minutes in the fourth cycle - the preference wasn’t active when the visits were submitted so no extra multiplier. However, offering minutes before or during the same cycle will give you the preference multiplier since it’ll upgrade to good or very good upon submitting the visits. Keep in mind - some preferences are more impactful than others (I believe proximity to home is one of the most important, O/D least important) so that plays a role.

Everyone is mentioning AP and I’m in total agreement. AP is huge in swinging a battle but I won’t harp on it much more than that. However, I will mention that there is a notable difference between 25 to 20 minutes too. I think I remember reading somewhere that it’s about 3 HVs if all else is the same.

The AP, the minutes, the preferences and ordering it all correctly. All small things that can add up in these types on battles.

OP says plenty of AP. But the readers don't know what that means exactly. If plenty to you means 300, that's not enough in some cases. I aim for 1000 AP on my top target. 1000 may seem like overkill to someone that feels 300 is plenty.

More details needed. Along with what others are saying.
OP 20 min vs battle opponent 25 potentially
timing of the promises
Blah blah blah

Ok. It sounds like AP might be the primary driver in this case. The player didn't have "wants to play preference" so don't think that was the issue. The winning team had more open scholarships and didn't sign a full class so they could've parked more AP than I had available.

I've probably been undervaluing AP in recruiting.

Posted by rds_lsu on 9/23/2021 9:01:00 AM (view original):
Ok. It sounds like AP might be the primary driver in this case. The player didn't have "wants to play preference" so don't think that was the issue. The winning team had more open scholarships and didn't sign a full class so they could've parked more AP than I had available.

I've probably been undervaluing AP in recruiting.

Do you care to share how many AP you had invested? If recruiting is still open, maybe wait until it's over to share. But the number is likely important