For years, the composition of conferences in HD has been imperfect and now and then criticized.  With the major shuffles in the last couple of seasons, this will get worse.

BUT, HD has a lot of its mechanics build around 12 team conferences so I see no easy way to fix it.

We've had major shuffles in all the BCS conferences - and major shuffles in many others,

Leave as is?

Anyone have a brilliant idea for how to make say 16 team conferences work?

Problem isn't the mechanics of making sixteen team conferences work. Its the fact that existing conferences would be busted up.

Also maybe schedule problems, play more or less conf games?It would have to be one or the other.

A while ago, I tried to re-organize the confeernces, maintaining the 12-team format.  No matter what I tried, I ended up with some weird configurations. 

It's actually even worse at DIII.  One eastern conference has had over 50 teams as members since it's inception

Not to mention coaches who are at schools that would be moved out of the Big 6 would get screwed pretty hard.

Posted by metsmax on 2/9/2014 8:32:00 AM (view original):
For years, the composition of conferences in HD has been imperfect and now and then criticized.  With the major shuffles in the last couple of seasons, this will get worse.

BUT, HD has a lot of its mechanics build around 12 team conferences so I see no easy way to fix it.

We've had major shuffles in all the BCS conferences - and major shuffles in many others,

Leave as is?

Anyone have a brilliant idea for how to make say 16 team conferences work?

This is the NCAA's doing, not WIS'.  The NCAA's conferences have whored themselves every which way possible and have done EVERYTHING in the name of money.  There's no guarantee that the conference shifts are over and theoretically conferences can (and basically always will) be in flux forever...it seems like there have been major conference realignments every year since about 2004.  I do not and will not hold WIS accountable for this, and I feel that them NOT changing the current format is the best thing they can do that's in the best interest in the game as well.

At this point, the game has been around for almost 10 years, and there's not really any college basketball game close (push-button, text, or otherwise) in quality, price, experience, camaraderie, etc.  Within the framework of the game, conference alignments are really/rather inconsequential, so I'm not opposed to the discussion, but I don't think there's any kind of scenario regarding this matter where the reward outweighs the risk.  Are people really turning away from the game because the Big East still exists? because Florida Gulf Coast is still in D2? etc?

I love this game so much that if you refuse to join because of the conference alignments, I would outright tell you to **** off.

The only RIGHT way to do this is to create a brand new world with a somewhat/pretty new framework and beta the hell out of it.

A new world with updated conferences would be cool, but over time it has appeared that HD cannot run different worlds different ways.  One set of programming for all - with the exception of transition periods when some stuff was introduced as worlds re-upped.

Its not a big problem, but in time the conferences here will seem antique.  But maybe that is okay - the HD conferences are close to the "classic" conferences a generation will remember

I personally think that adds to the allure of the product/game

There's no way WIS can keep up with the changes. What would they do with Texas Christian,.......1999 (WAC);  2001 (Conference USA);  2005 (Mountain West);  Oct. 2010 (Big East); Nov, 2011 (Big 12)???

Posted by alblack56 on 2/9/2014 2:19:00 PM (view original):
There's no way WIS can keep up with the changes. What would they do with Texas Christian,.......1999 (WAC);  2001 (Conference USA);  2005 (Mountain West);  Oct. 2010 (Big East); Nov, 2011 (Big 12)???

I think a cool touch, though completely impossible would be users in worlds being able to change conferences.

So if I was coaching at, for example, UTEP and built a successful program but didn't want to leave them and the Big 12 had a program that was continuously crap the Big 12 could vote to trade UTEP with that school. 

I realize theres a number of things that wouldn't work with this, I'm just saying it'd be fun.

i think in previous conversations, we have mostly come to the conclusion that it is impossible to re-configure existing worlds. moving a team with a coach is just a disaster, especially with moves across divisions or in and out of big 6 conferences. there could possibly be an effort to move teams as they became sim-ran, but boy does that seem like a big mess!

i think the best we could realistically hope for is for new worlds to support a new configuration. if it was important to people, some time frame could be put on the worlds. i think the idea of ending worlds is bad for the reasons tons of people have pointed out - they will become thin towards the end (who would join an almost done world) - many coaches won't replace teams - etc... but what i could see happening is every 100 seasons, worlds get "reconfigured". i would leave this open ended. ideally, the world would just start over, and most people would mostly be unaffected - but as teams shifted conferences and conferences got blown away - people (with existing rosters) might be moved around. obviously its a disruption but you have to do something eventually, don't you? i guess in 50 years its unlikely HD will exist but if it did, it would make it rather hard to attract new people, i assume (think about playing a basketball sim from 50 years ago, would be pretty foreign to us, it seems to me). so i think some sort of plan to move things forward is important. for example, i hate the new NCAA tournament format but in another 10 years, i doubt i will be the majority there, and i think young people starting this game would be like huh, why do they use a 10 year old tournament format?

anyway, i think the reconfiguration process could be open ended to also allow nasty things like reducing the # of worlds, if necessary. 

Thanks gillispie1 your points (as always) are valid. I would be in favor (I understand the programming challenges) of having the conferences reflect real world. After all, most of us enjoy the game because it is the best simulation of real world basketball concepts and implementations-realignment, for better or worse, it part of the real world.
I'm not all that concerned about coaches that would be upset by moving to a different conference...in real life, I doubt a coach would be happy to move from the Big East to the AAC (unless your the midget Mick Cronin), but they had to move with the team. I would be disappointed if I had to leave my current conference, but understand that is just part of the game.
Strong point about newer and younger coaches gillispie1-I am sure they would want it to reflect real world even more than us old timers-and this may tip the savvy ones that perhaps the program is not being updated much (reality).
I sent in a ticket about 6 months ago asking about realignment, and they stated that there are no plans to make any changes. So, we are going to likely continue with the way it is now-and honestly, what we have is pretty darn good.
Enjoying the discussion.

nowadays, i would personally agree with you, bob. i wouldn't care that much about my team being moved. it is kind of cheap if your team gets moved from d3 or d2 to d1, and also guys would be very upset in the reverse, but i think that is decently rare? the conference shuffles seem pretty common though, and i guess when i think back to my favorite conference, it would have really sucked to have people moved out or in. also some guys get together in a bunch to start a conference, 12 guys will try to make a mid major competitive with a BCS conference, and such. if 5 seasons in, 2 guys get randomly drawn away... i guess it would really screw up those attempts! i think some coaches aren't that big on their conference, or really that most coaches with most teams don't care too much about the conference. but certainly a decent % of coaches have some teams where they really care. it seems those strong conference connections are much more important to those people, than the conferences being accurately aligned. so even though i don't personally care today, that is my biggest concern, i think that would be bad for the health of the community. moving in and out of big 6 conferences isn't great either, but i guess that is a secondary concern to me.

it seems, based on the above, devs would have to get involved to mitigate the effects of particularly harmful moves - say, if a d1 school decides to drop to d1. people would be ****** but if the devs would move you, it would go a long way to make those people less ****** :) bob, as someone who cares about the organization of conference, do you think moving on a schedule would be good enough? like, every 5 years, or every so many seasons? it seems minimizing the work for the staff would be of some importance, and i think going through this every year would be a little much.

the other issue that goes hand in hand with updating conferences is baseline prestige. many want to disconnect this from real life, having baseline prestige change based on actions in game. but the argument could go the other way - baseline prestige should be updated based on real life events. i think baseline prestige would first need to change to a formula, im pretty sure old admin just winged it, instead of basing on actual team history, or anything like that. eventually, the current baseline prestige setup will theoretically deviate pretty far from reality - not sure its that big of a deal, considering it already deviates quite a bit, and mostly because of the way it was set of, not because of teams moving up or down within the world. i personally think the baseline for new worlds should be set to reality, and then the performance of those teams in the world should be treated as the basis for change, not the performance of real teams. im curious if others think existing worlds should actually be updated for baseline prestige changes, too?

Reading what has been said - and remembering other past discussions - I have a couple of further notes

1. In the past, there were small disconnects between real conferences and HD.  With the surge in movement - at DI at least - those disconnects are bigger

2. But, cleary this is a game first and one doesnt want to screw up participant expectations

3.  I would NOT try to conform on an ongoing basis to what happens in real life - too messy

4. BUT, some sort of conform after say every 50 seasons might make good sense.  Along the lines posted above.  Maybe one gives coaches whose schools are realligned a bonus jobs cycle to switch schools if they want at the time of reallignment.  Maybe give them a free season at that time as well to increase the odds that they stay involved.

Posted by tannermcc on 2/9/2014 4:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by alblack56 on 2/9/2014 2:19:00 PM (view original):
There's no way WIS can keep up with the changes. What would they do with Texas Christian,.......1999 (WAC);  2001 (Conference USA);  2005 (Mountain West);  Oct. 2010 (Big East); Nov, 2011 (Big 12)???

I think a cool touch, though completely impossible would be users in worlds being able to change conferences.

So if I was coaching at, for example, UTEP and built a successful program but didn't want to leave them and the Big 12 had a program that was continuously crap the Big 12 could vote to trade UTEP with that school. 

I realize theres a number of things that wouldn't work with this, I'm just saying it'd be fun.

I've always wanted the Big 10 and MAC to do something like this in real life for football. The MAC championship game would determine who gets to move up to the Big 10. And the Friday of the Big 10 title game, the bottom 2 teams would square off to see who gets to stay and who gets relegated to the MAC. Tell me Northwestern vs Purdue wouldn't have gotten monster ratings.