Quote: Originally Posted By achampa1 on 2/24/2010I'd say it's at a decent point now, but WAS better in the season or two before potential. Much as I like the game now, FSS has helped kill D3, and I'm hoping some solution can be implemented where that doesn't funnel up and eventually REALLY thin out D2 and D1

Right now it appears that Player Growth is going to be slowed down quite a bit, so you will be able to choose more where your handful of improvement points go and players won't all max out. Hard caps are here to stay as well. I really hope these things can be re-considered.

I am very happy with where things are now. I really only play DI so I can't speak as to the lower levels. I think with a few tweaks here and there it will be in great shape in the near future.

Quote: Originally Posted By sully712 on 2/24/2010I am very happy with where things are now. I really only play DI so I can't speak as to the lower levels. I think with a few tweaks here and there it will be in great shape in the near future.

I agree with you Sully, but they have to be the right tweeks, ones that are good for the health of the game not just 'because its real life'.

Quote: Originally Posted By zhawks on 2/24/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By sully712 on 2/24/2010
I am very happy with where things are now. I really only play DI so I can't speak as to the lower levels. I think with a few tweaks here and there it will be in great shape in the near future.

I agree with you Sully, but they have to be the right tweeks, ones that are good for the health of the game not just 'because its real life'

Completely agree Z. I hope we are on the right track. Definitely what happens in RL is not always best for HD.

Quote: Originally Posted By sully712 on 2/24/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By zhawks on 2/24/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By sully712 on 2/24/2010
I am very happy with where things are now. I really only play DI so I can't speak as to the lower levels. I think with a few tweaks here and there it will be in great shape in the near future.

I agree with you Sully, but they have to be the right tweeks, ones that are good for the health of the game not just 'because its real life'.

Completely agree Z. I hope we are on the right track. Definitely what happens in RL is not always best for HD

Not so sure, but i really really hope so!

Why was player potential added? Was this an admin/seble thing or were people clamoring for/griping about this? How was/is player potential different from before the potential days? I genuinely am curious, so please answer truthfully.

Quote: Originally Posted By colonels19 on 2/24/2010
Why was player potential added? Was this an admin/seble thing or were people clamoring for/griping about this? How was/is player potential different from before the potential days?

It's been awhile but these are my recollections:


1) Before potential, any player could improve in any category with practice/playing time. There was a top cap in each division, I think.

2) Some categories were easier to improve than others. DEF was very difficult to improve. You had to recruit good defenders, rather than develop them. FT improved greatly. Categories with a rating of <10 improved slowly. In the offseason, players with good WE could improve 30+ points.

3) Noone maxed out in their sophomore season. A senior-driven team was always a championship contender because the players had more years to improve.

4) FSS was started at the same time, I believe. Prior to potential, you could recruit nationally and see the ratings of all the players. You didn't have to pay extra to see their "potential." The star' system of rating player is still figured in the 'before potential' method. That's why you sometimes see a 2-star player who's actually a better recruit than a 4-star.

Admin was determined to add potential. I warned them that it was 1) unnecessary; 2) would be unpopular; 3) would drive coaches from the game. I wrote them repeatedly; other coaches did the same. But to no avail.

Quote: Originally posted by zhawks on 2/24/2010The pulldowns with phone calls were a joke, I don't think that added anything to the game what-so-ever.

Not only were they used for pull downs, but they were used to do long distance recruiting and really the only way to do so. You didn't have a cap on them, and at 10 bucks a pop it carried more weight using 1,500 dollars worth of them over 1,500 dollars campus visit. It was something like 500 bucks of them got them to consider you, so about 1000 bucks worth of it or so would = a campus visit. When they took this away they took away long distance recruiting. Not sure if many people used it for that, but I know a couple did.

I think the reason why potential was added, in a nutshell was that the main thing that mattered was having upperclassmen. With no caps and a gain of ~40-50 pts per year for everyone, the juniors and seniors would always beat the freshman and sophs and your success was SUPER dependent on having upperclassmen (at least at D3, and by success I mean being a NT contender, not winning 20 games and being a 10 seed)

Personally, I like the game engine the best now, but the game was probably more fun a little before potential, etc. were added when the worlds seemed more full, the forums were better, and coaches as a whole seemed more content.

Pre-fatigue setting for substitutions

Pre-potential

Pre-homecourt advantage

Games was truely "what if" instead of the "here you go" we have now.

Quote: Originally posted by wisefella99 on 2/24/2010
There have been lots of improvements to the game, without a doubt, but I don't think that makes today the golden age of HD.

To me, the golden age was when a new world opened up and you had to jump on a team with almost the first 30 minutes or you got shut out of starting on season 1.

When Crum opened, it was the 7th world at the time and it was regarded almost as a who's who in HD as many of the veteran coaches (and by veteran, keep in mind, the other worlds had at most a 4-5 month head start.) from other worlds tried to get a team at the ground floor.

Back in that golden era, you had MANY MANY guys widely admit to staying up late to check their scores almost every night or getting up in the middle of the night to run to their computers. Some may still do that now, but nothing like guys used to admit to doing.

Also, if you walked away from the forums for a few hours, you could easily miss threads that had started and been already moved to the 2nd page. There was TONS of activity and it was not uncommon to have multiple threads reach dozens upon dozens of pages all at the same time.

Now, it seems once a week a hot topic comes along that gets that kind of activity.

So, yes, the game has improved greatly since those days, but to me at least, the golden age was when we all started this journey together and we were all so hooked that we spent TONS and TONS of time on the site in the forums and checking scores.

If anything, all of that excitement and enthusiasm from the early days has allowed us now to be a bit more on cruise control and to nitpick about tweaks to improve the game here and there.

I agree 100% with this post. When Crum opened it was wild because it was felt that, at the point in time that Crum opened, the Sim Engine was "perfect" and we all had 6 other worlds to gain experience to hone our talents. Crum was the chance for all of us, especially those of us who had been there since Wooden Season 1, to have a clean slate and start fresh with what we had learned. That was the Golden Age of Hoops Dynasty.

At that time I had 13 active teams on two usernames and at least half were in D1 and then for some reason I just started not renewing teams and within a year or two I wasnt playing anything at all. I dont know if they tweaked the engine too much or what, but for some reason it just stopped being fun. I bought a team 4 or 5 months ago and it was my first team in probably three years and it just wasnt fun either. I miss the Golden Age. How much time at work I wasted refreshing the General Discussion page because there was always a new topic or posting that you just couldnt miss. Remember the tdowdy password episode? So scandalous! Remember hailing plumpy and everyone thought the picture of the guy in the gorilla suit standing next to the tricycle was him? Good times, good times.

The reason the forums aren't as active is pretty simple:

1.) The vets are tired of rehashing the same debates... for the 100k time.

2.) Up until this last week or so, it hasn't really matter how much we've screamed that something is blatantly wrong, it just fell on deaf ears.

Quote: Originally Posted By mlatsko1 on 3/02/2010The reason the forums aren't as active is pretty simple:

1.) The vets are tired of rehashing the same debates... for the 100k time.

2.) Up until this last week or so, it hasn't really matter how much we've screamed that something is blatantly wrong, it just fell on deaf ears

Right on.

Quote: Originally Posted By wisefella99 on 2/24/2010
There have been lots of improvements to the game, without a doubt, but I don't think that makes today the golden age of HD.

To me, the golden age was when a new world opened up and you had to jump on a team with almost the first 30 minutes or you got shut out of starting on season 1.

When Crum opened, it was the 7th world at the time and it was regarded almost as a who's who in HD as many of the veteran coaches (and by veteran, keep in mind, the other worlds had at most a 4-5 month head start.) from other worlds tried to get a team at the ground floor.

Back in that golden era, you had MANY MANY guys widely admit to staying up late to check their scores almost every night or getting up in the middle of the night to run to their computers. Some may still do that now, but nothing like guys used to admit to doing.

Also, if you walked away from the forums for a few hours, you could easily miss threads that had started and been already moved to the 2nd page. There was TONS of activity and it was not uncommon to have multiple threads reach dozens upon dozens of pages all at the same time.

Now, it seems once a week a hot topic comes along that gets that kind of activity.

So, yes, the game has improved greatly since those days, but to me at least, the golden age was when we all started this journey together and we were all so hooked that we spent TONS and TONS of time on the site in the forums and checking scores.

If anything, all of that excitement and enthusiasm from the early days has allowed us now to be a bit more on cruise control and to nitpick about tweaks to improve the game here and there

good post, when crum was opening is a pretty good estimate