I think that attention points as they are currently applied are problematic. Seble limited the number of home visits and campus visits per recruit for a good reason. The limit reduces the effectiveness of the 6 open scholarship strategy and it gives team with fewer openings a chance to compete for a player. That is a good thing.

But then he (seble) turned around and allowed unlimited attention points to be used on players, giving the 6 open scholarship teams back the huge edge and again making it difficult for teams with fewer openings to compete. They also act to punish a coach who cannot start recruiting on the first cycle...that aspect of the game is far worse than in the old recruiting. Now missing the first day or so of recruiting is a huge liability.

Perhaps attention points could have a cap at 300 or 400 after which they would have little or no value. The impact of attention points needs to be scaled back after a certain point. Perhaps after 300 or 400 points, no more attention points could be assigned.

I generally agree, but it's worth noting that APs have now been capped at 80 per player, per cycle. It's better than nothing.

And also, some teams might want to use the strategy to take one or two good players and then backups for the other openings .. while other teams might want to recruit good players at all positions, etc.

Now that battles are promoted and happen more often, a team can not put a bunch of APs on every single player. You also lose attention points when players sign, so a team MIGHT choose to sign only late players to keep more APs in play longer, etc.

I don't want only cookie cutter, one way possible to recruit, etc. Let coaches develop different strategies.

If I take a 6 recruit team and sign 4 early in the first session, I am not going to have as many total APs as someone with 4 recruits who signs everyone late in the 2nd session (for example). So, who you recruit when and when you offer your scholarships and how fast you unlock other things all play a role.

Yeah but why limit the amount of home visits an and then allow 80 FREE attention points on a player per cycle ad infinitum? The intention regarding home visit was sensible...to prevent a coach from gaming recruiting with the old superclass gimmick. That is a good thing. But then attention points as they are now set give the unfair advantage to those big class strategies.

In fact hughesjr, I think the almost unlimited attention points does exactly what you don't want. The one way to get a top class is to leave a couple scholarships open (maximizing resources) find one great player who will sign first cycle and dump all your attention points on him until you sign him. Then focus on late signers. That IS the cookie cutter. Signing 12 players is a distinct disadvantage...balanced attention point allotment also leaves a coach behind and unable to catch up. It just recreates the old superclass gimmick.

Guys, there is a penalty to a team that uses max AP points and wins a battle. After a player signs with him, he losses the twenty points for the slot, PLUS a calculated percent of those assigned. I have a situation on a team where I still have seven open slots heading to part two recruiting, but down to only 114 AP's total. I remember seble explaining this back during early beta in the forums, but that post is gone.

Have asked CS and admin to alter this penalty until AFTER you only have six openings. As I go into part two, I realize that I will actually lose more in a battle then the recruit. Any battles, will now be more lost AP's.

What does a calculated percent of those assigned mean wvufan?

Posted by kobo on 11/13/2016 7:36:00 PM (view original):
Yeah but why limit the amount of home visits an and then allow 80 FREE attention points on a player per cycle ad infinitum? The intention regarding home visit was sensible...to prevent a coach from gaming recruiting with the old superclass gimmick. That is a good thing. But then attention points as they are now set give the unfair advantage to those big class strategies.

In fact hughesjr, I think the almost unlimited attention points does exactly what you don't want. The one way to get a top class is to leave a couple scholarships open (maximizing resources) find one great player who will sign first cycle and dump all your attention points on him until you sign him. Then focus on late signers. That IS the cookie cutter. Signing 12 players is a distinct disadvantage...balanced attention point allotment also leaves a coach behind and unable to catch up. It just recreates the old superclass gimmick.

No doubt, coaches will use the strategy you describe. Go after only the top players, leave 3 open scholarships and play with 8 or 9 every year. It's a calculated move, like it always was, but with EEs more difficult to replace now, big holes in your lineups can be more damaging. There is actually some risk to this strategy now.

There is some "Unexplained" percent you will lose on recruits you sign, and seble explained it during beta. However the forum post was not pinned and perhaps somebody here can explain the "how".

But if you have 40 AP on a guy and sign him, you lose the 20AP for the slot PLUS part of the extra 20AP you used to sign him....you do not get the full 20 AP back. So if you actually maxed one at 80AP, and sign him you will lose a part of that 60AP (hope I am wrong). I signed two guys and had 40 AP on both, and now I have a total of 114 AP (total) and seven open slots. I lost AP because I signed them and used extra AP to do it!

What wvu is referring to is a situation where you have 7 or more openings. I believe he originally had 9. The way APs are allocated is a base of 20 plus 20 per recruit (up to a maximum of 6 openings or 120 APs). Because he had 9 openings his APs per opening was 13.33. So, for every recruit he signs he loses 13 APs. He started with 140 (120 + 20), he then signed two recruits (140 - 26 = 114) so he now has 114 APs for his last 7 openings.

Posted by possumfiend on 11/14/2016 12:46:00 PM (view original):
What wvu is referring to is a situation where you have 7 or more openings. I believe he originally had 9. The way APs are allocated is a base of 20 plus 20 per recruit (up to a maximum of 6 openings or 120 APs). Because he had 9 openings his APs per opening was 13.33. So, for every recruit he signs he loses 13 APs. He started with 140 (120 + 20), he then signed two recruits (140 - 26 = 114) so he now has 114 APs for his last 7 openings.

BINGO!

Those of you who do not feel the attention points situation makes no sense, could you tell me this: if they are going to limit home visits to 20 and campus visits to 1 to prevent recruiting from being an auction....how is unlimited attention points not exactly that...an auction scenario? Why fix the "auction problem" with paid visits and replace it with attention points? The only difference I can see is this shift reduces the advantage of distance because attention points, unlike paid visits, are not impacted by distance...hmmm did I just answer my own question?

Posted by kobo on 11/14/2016 3:13:00 PM (view original):
Those of you who do not feel the attention points situation makes no sense, could you tell me this: if they are going to limit home visits to 20 and campus visits to 1 to prevent recruiting from being an auction....how is unlimited attention points not exactly that...an auction scenario? Why fix the "auction problem" with paid visits and replace it with attention points? The only difference I can see is this shift reduces the advantage of distance because attention points, unlike paid visits, are not impacted by distance...hmmm did I just answer my own question?

Because they are NOT unlimited. You lose 20 every time you sign a player.

Because they have limited it to 80 max per player per turn.

Posted by hughesjr on 11/14/2016 4:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kobo on 11/14/2016 3:13:00 PM (view original):
Those of you who do not feel the attention points situation makes no sense, could you tell me this: if they are going to limit home visits to 20 and campus visits to 1 to prevent recruiting from being an auction....how is unlimited attention points not exactly that...an auction scenario? Why fix the "auction problem" with paid visits and replace it with attention points? The only difference I can see is this shift reduces the advantage of distance because attention points, unlike paid visits, are not impacted by distance...hmmm did I just answer my own question?

Because they are NOT unlimited. You lose 20 every time you sign a player.

Because they have limited it to 80 max per player per turn.

They are unlimited. Signing a player is not losing the attention points...that is the end of recruiting for one player...and you signed him with those attention points. THAT ain't losing, That is winning. But I can actually see a bit of logic in the logic now. Attention points are distance proof while visits are not. So attention points counteract distance advantage to some degree. I think I am done with my crusade against attention points. But that still ain't losing!

So here's a question relating to the value of APs. Here is the background.
I am at a C- prestige in the Big 10. The other school here is a C+ prestige in the Big 10.
I had 1 opening (40 APs), the other school had 6 openings.
The recruit had two preferences - Wants to Play and Close to Home.
I was 218 miles from the recruit the other school was about 350
I offered 20 minutes of PT and a start.
I maxed out on my 20 HVs and a CV, all of which came AFTER my promised minutes and start.
I maxed out my 40 APs beginning in the first cycle. There wound up being 17 cycles before he signed, I had 680 AP allocated to the recruit.

Other than APs, the only advantages I can see are: two partial letter grades (C+ to C-) and possibly 5 additional minutes of PT.

When the recruit signed the other school was listed as VH and I was only listed at Moderate.

I understand that the difference here was probably APs - I'm guessing the other school probably went all in on their APs but does that makes sense? If all else was relatively equal should the number of openings a school has be the driving factor in consideration? And to such a degree that it drove me down to moderate?

FWIW, here is the CS response to my ticket questioning whether APs are working correctly if a school can be knocked out of consideration in a relatively close battle simply because one school has more openings than the other:

"The Attention Points were a part of this instance in recruiting, but [the other school] also had a higher Prestige rating and outspent you."

I just sent a follow up ticket requesting them to explain how the other school "outspent" me (other than APs) since I maxed out my 20 HVs and performed a CV.

Posted by sparky4173 on 11/15/2016 10:12:00 AM (view original):
So here's a question relating to the value of APs. Here is the background.
I am at a C- prestige in the Big 10. The other school here is a C+ prestige in the Big 10.
I had 1 opening (40 APs), the other school had 6 openings.
The recruit had two preferences - Wants to Play and Close to Home.
I was 218 miles from the recruit the other school was about 350
I offered 20 minutes of PT and a start.
I maxed out on my 20 HVs and a CV, all of which came AFTER my promised minutes and start.
I maxed out my 40 APs beginning in the first cycle. There wound up being 17 cycles before he signed, I had 680 AP allocated to the recruit.

Other than APs, the only advantages I can see are: two partial letter grades (C+ to C-) and possibly 5 additional minutes of PT.

When the recruit signed the other school was listed as VH and I was only listed at Moderate.

I understand that the difference here was probably APs - I'm guessing the other school probably went all in on their APs but does that makes sense? If all else was relatively equal should the number of openings a school has be the driving factor in consideration? And to such a degree that it drove me down to moderate?

FWIW, here is the CS response to my ticket questioning whether APs are working correctly if a school can be knocked out of consideration in a relatively close battle simply because one school has more openings than the other:

"The Attention Points were a part of this instance in recruiting, but [the other school] also had a higher Prestige rating and outspent you."

I just sent a follow up ticket requesting them to explain how the other school "outspent" me (other than APs) since I maxed out my 20 HVs and performed a CV.

Really interesting. To me, it's a matter of VH to H... But his C+ to C- definetly gives him an edge. Did he have other préférences? Offense, defense? And it's point where battles, mean falling down on our nose and not being able to recuperate... I lost a VH to H and a H to VH, where I spent everything. My two schollies will go unfilled. Something needs to be done for that.