The Transfer Portal is now a major aspect of the real-life college game, and I think it can play a role in HD. There needs to be another viable option to add players in Recruiting Phase 2. When teams take a hit from bad luck recruiting rolls and NBA draft EEs, it is often impossible to get in on decent Div I recruits before they are snagged by Div II & III teams. A Transfer Portal that opens in Phase 2 and only contains Sim AI coached players would be a good way to make more players available. If no one signs those players then they leave the portal and return to their current team. This would also probably generate more transfer options as teams with specific needs may decide to cut a player and add someone from the portal. Then at the end of Phase 2, any Sim AI team that lost a player via the portal would sign available players to fill the roster.

1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

i like the idea of a transfer portal but if it was all sim ai players, they'd mostly be too bad to be relevant to most d1 humans. i would be fine if they just said look, there is no way to make a genuine transfer portal without human coaches suffering from those transfers on the other end, let's just generate some dudes and use that to balance the competitiveness of recruit gen, and everyone can just pretend they transferred from somewhere...

Posted by gillispie on 3/24/2023 12:34:00 PM (view original):
i like the idea of a transfer portal but if it was all sim ai players, they'd mostly be too bad to be relevant to most d1 humans. i would be fine if they just said look, there is no way to make a genuine transfer portal without human coaches suffering from those transfers on the other end, let's just generate some dudes and use that to balance the competitiveness of recruit gen, and everyone can just pretend they transferred from somewhere...

I totally agree. You have to take the good with the bad. If a team is stacked 10-12 deep, there will be some discontent with some players wanting a bigger roll.

Posted by gillispie on 3/24/2023 12:34:00 PM (view original):
i like the idea of a transfer portal but if it was all sim ai players, they'd mostly be too bad to be relevant to most d1 humans. i would be fine if they just said look, there is no way to make a genuine transfer portal without human coaches suffering from those transfers on the other end, let's just generate some dudes and use that to balance the competitiveness of recruit gen, and everyone can just pretend they transferred from somewhere...

Yeah, or like I've been saying for 7 years, they are HD's versions of Diamonds in the Rough, a concept they already have in Hardball Dynasty. Players have breakout seasons all the time, and suddenly get on everyone's radar. There is no harm whatsoever of adding a few dozens of these ~650ish, low potential placeholder types for 2nd session every year. The hesitation to do it always struck me as pretty dense, and kind of spoke to the fact that the developers really saw this as an economics and distribution sim first and foremost, and just sort of superficially and aesthetically about college basketball.

What if a player that was promised minutes as a freshman but now saw his minutes greatly reduced as a soph could enter the portal? Might force coaches to not over promise as much?

Posted by rds_lsu on 3/23/2023 9:26:00 PM (view original):
1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

Do people actually think HD has zero transfers?

Posted by Napoli on 3/29/2023 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rds_lsu on 3/23/2023 9:26:00 PM (view original):
1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

Do people actually think HD has zero transfers?

its pretty close, at least in mid to high d1. he did not literally mean zero - i think anyway

Posted by gillispie on 3/29/2023 1:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Napoli on 3/29/2023 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rds_lsu on 3/23/2023 9:26:00 PM (view original):
1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

Do people actually think HD has zero transfers?

its pretty close, at least in mid to high d1. he did not literally mean zero - i think anyway

Thanks gil. What you're describing seems fine to me. This game isn't really set up for mid to high D1 to get two bites at the apple for strong recruits.

If my C- Pepperdine team wins an elite recruit (lol), that should be the end of it. I shouldn't have to re recruit the same kid evey year. I know real life is headed that direction, but real life also has NIL deals and bididng wars for coaches too.

Posted by JerryRay23 on 3/25/2023 8:39:00 AM (view original):
What if a player that was promised minutes as a freshman but now saw his minutes greatly reduced as a soph could enter the portal? Might force coaches to not over promise as much?

I have long argued that promises should be throughout a players career. As is, the elite teams offer every recruit 25 minutes and a start, then bench him in tourney and then give him 8 minutes as a soph. I believe limiting the number of promises the elite teams could toss out (without risk of losing players) would bring more parity to D1. As is, the A+ teams toss out promises to the elite players AND the 2nd/3rd tier recruits that will likely be a back-up on those teams most of their career. Game play strategy and game theory will increase when coaches have to be selective about those decisions. At least I think so, I know there are many dissenting views on this topic.

I also see other downstream benefits being a few more quality transfers in RS2 and (I believe) it would likely slightly discourage the all practice minutes study hall / drive players down the big board strategy as there would be incentive more to grow the players they have promised starts too as those players have to be in their starting lineup.

Posted by texashick on 3/29/2023 9:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by JerryRay23 on 3/25/2023 8:39:00 AM (view original):
What if a player that was promised minutes as a freshman but now saw his minutes greatly reduced as a soph could enter the portal? Might force coaches to not over promise as much?

I have long argued that promises should be throughout a players career. As is, the elite teams offer every recruit 25 minutes and a start, then bench him in tourney and then give him 8 minutes as a soph. I believe limiting the number of promises the elite teams could toss out (without risk of losing players) would bring more parity to D1. As is, the A+ teams toss out promises to the elite players AND the 2nd/3rd tier recruits that will likely be a back-up on those teams most of their career. Game play strategy and game theory will increase when coaches have to be selective about those decisions. At least I think so, I know there are many dissenting views on this topic.

I also see other downstream benefits being a few more quality transfers in RS2 and (I believe) it would likely slightly discourage the all practice minutes study hall / drive players down the big board strategy as there would be incentive more to grow the players they have promised starts too as those players have to be in their starting lineup.

Yeah I'm one of those of dissenters, as you know. :) 4 year promises will have a serious chill effect on promises, and that will hurt lower end programs a lot more than the elites. My UConn and KU squads don't need promises to recruit quality players every season, especially if there are fewer promised starts to go around for everyone; and the promises I would use would go to super-elites I won't need to bother with holding back anymore. But the Richmond team I just picked up would struggle to move up if I can't use multiple promises yearly without worrying about guys transferring. So the prestige window effectively closes, and it becomes a less competitive game.

The better option, IMO, is to have players with the wants to play preference carry that preference with them for their career. Have those players always in coaches ear about transferring if their time goes down; and then follow through. That's the thing that changed with 3.0, for the worse, I think.

part of the problem around changing the promises or a playing time preferences is how many wrongs are tied up in it. players don't play as much in HD as they do in real life, unless you run a minutes rotation, which can be totally fine sometimes but pretty problematic at other times. the amount of players needed on a team is signifiacntly higher, we have 12 scholarships instead of 13, and the hand we have in developing players feels significantly lower than real life. press, fastbreak, and tempo are all pretty screwed up compared to real life. the quality of freshman especially around IQ is significantly different, too.

i guess i am relatively non commital about the entire thing, but i feel like this is a tough issue to work on because of how differently the sim plays out than real life. the current paradigm where the best teams are mostly starting their youngest players all year and then benching them for the NT, is relatively nuts. its kind of hard IMO to make a promises / playing time preference system work, in a way that makes sense from a real life perspective, with all the other stuff in HD that is out of whack.

my vote would probably be to eliminate promises altogether. i kind of hate the idea from a recruiting standpoint, but also promises are just stupid as heck in the current system. i did not like promises before the jobs change when recruiting was kinda goofy but i feel like its even worse now. everyone is promising every good recruit, not even just top ones anymore, its just kind of like, whats the point? maybe those players should have a strong expectation on playing time, with no option promise - with lower players who don't demand a start, being able to be promised a 4 year start or minutes or similar, so that lower teams can punch up? i could see that making more sense, if recruiting wasn't already such a bloodbath, making it really tough for higher teams to recruit mid level players as it is.

Posted by Napoli on 3/29/2023 2:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 3/29/2023 1:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Napoli on 3/29/2023 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rds_lsu on 3/23/2023 9:26:00 PM (view original):
1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

Do people actually think HD has zero transfers?

its pretty close, at least in mid to high d1. he did not literally mean zero - i think anyway

Thanks gil. What you're describing seems fine to me. This game isn't really set up for mid to high D1 to get two bites at the apple for strong recruits.

If my C- Pepperdine team wins an elite recruit (lol), that should be the end of it. I shouldn't have to re recruit the same kid evey year. I know real life is headed that direction, but real life also has NIL deals and bididng wars for coaches too.

Your Pepperdine example is why I originally suggested that the transfers only come from SIM coached teams. If a portal were expanded to include human coaches, then I would argue that a happy player shouldn't enter the portal just b/c he is playing at a "lower" level of competition.

I don't think enforcing promises for 4 yrs makes sense, but there could be a preference added to account for the desire to see playing time, being a starter, team player, etc. This could give you an indication that a player might be happy being a career role player or that a player will expect his playing time to increase with his experience. Below is a pretty standard progression that a player might want to see. Also, with the portal, if that career role player does complain about playing time, enters the portal, but doesn't land an offer, then he is back on the end of your bench the next season. Unless you fill his spot while he is in the portal and cut him!

GP	GS	MIN	FG%	FG3%	FT%	OREB	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PTS
24	24	20.0	.497	.462	.771	0.8	2.7	3.0	2.0	2.0	0.1	2.0	12.5
32	0	13.3	.425	.353	.712	0.5	1.9	1.8	0.7	0.8	0.2	1.5	3.8
32	0	10.8	.520	.500	.794	0.5	1.4	1.3	0.6	0.7	0.0	1.2	1.7
			.480	.426	.757	0.6	2.0	1.9	1.0	1.1	0.1	1.5	5.4

Posted by Napoli on 3/29/2023 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rds_lsu on 3/23/2023 9:26:00 PM (view original):
1,800+ players in the real-life Portal. Zero in the HD.

Do people actually think HD has zero transfers?

There are actually zero players in the HD Transfer Portal lol

Yes, I understand there are transfers in the current game, but my post was specific to a transfer portal, so it was sarcasm, as they say.