Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 8:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 6:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:31:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 6:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:28:00 PM (view original):
No, I'm arguing that you'll accept a game result that shouldn't happen but whine about losing a recruiting battle. It's the same concept. You do everything you can to tilt the scales in your favor. Then the program runs and gives you the outcome.

The difference is that teams and players can have off nights which accounts for a REASON to utilize RNG. There is no reason to use RNG for recruiting.

The only thing RNG does in recruiting is help people that are bad at the game.

Because 18 y/o males are so consistent in how they behave?

Mike, I don't think this is a particularly good analogy. I think the reason why certain people accept the RNG for gameplay, but have a harder time for recruiting is because for recruiting, the results are longer-lasting. You lose the dice roll in a game, you come back next night. You lose it in a battle, you could be screwed for a season (or more).

I think a secondary reason for the reaction is because in 2.0, if your strategy was correct, you always (ALWAYS) won the recruiting battle. If you got poached, it was because you made a misjudgment (or gambled and lost). That allowed the users who understood the game better (and who had prior success) to really keep a hammerlock on the top recruits. That transition from the deterministic model to the probabilistic model has been very difficult for many longtime users (me included). I think the pendulum has gone way too far to probabilistic (I think they could have added some randomness w/o making it a total free-for-all), but I admit my biases, since I liked/was successful in 2.0.

I'll say that this is an internet game. If you're screwed for a season, my guess is your dog will still be glad to see you when you come home.

The game was changed because the entrenched, long-time users had too big of an advantage. Not only are/were they better at the game, their schools/prestige/etc made it too difficult to break into the inner circle. You can say "We earned it" and I'm not going to argue against that. But the first thread I opened when I signed up for my free team was "I've won 7 of the last 12 NT and now, because of EE, I'm screwed." If Kentucky wins 7 of 12 in the real world, so be it. But that's a terrible game to sell to the new guy.

WifS may have botched the update so bad that HD becomes CRD. But HD had stagnated to the point that it was going to go extinct anyway.

Ah, your old "it's an internet game" fall-back -- I often see that one from you when you don't have a good answer.

Not disputing that elites had an advantage in 2.0 - strongly disagree that it was solely due to them being "long-time." The cream rose to the top. But I don't disagree that the state of 2.0 made it too easy for elites to dominate. I think the main problem is that WIS completely botched the update -- they could have made several incremental changes that would have fixed many of the competitive imbalance issues. But they went radical instead, and I think they're going to wind up (literally) paying for it.

A good answer for what? I think it's ridiculous to be all a flitter over a down season of HD. It's really not the end of the world. My assumption is I don't take this game as seriously as some. If I lose out on a recruit, I'll go play with my dogs. They don't give a damn about HD.

Now, with that aside, I think we largely agree. Not sure why you chose to focus on "long-time" when my next sentence was "Not only are/were they better at the game" but whatever makes your argument stronger I guess. After that, we agree that the program made it too easy for them stay on top. I said WifS "may" have botched the update, you claim they did.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Why is that, because I don't eat up the crap you're putting out?

"But if we're shooting for realism, why hasn't the EE issue been fixed? This is (one of the things) driving me crazy about 3.0. If the powers that be are going for realism, fine, go for realism -- make it possible to replace EEs like-for-like. But don't use realism as the fig leaf justifying the recruiting changes and refuse to fix this issue."

I want the game to shoot for playability and competitiveness. Realism is a nice feature, and the game should feel like a solid simulation of the real process up to the point where realism doesn't make the process mundane or tedious.

The EE issue is very much like real life, in practice. In real life, it is exceedingly rare for teams to deal with 4-5 early entry candidates in a season. And it would be very odd to think that they would just replace themselves, as though all Coach Cal has to do is spin the "resources" from the EEs he just lost into his cherry-picked next Top class. That isn't how it works in real life either. And aside from all that, it was a bad multi-player game. Success should never be perpetual, or able to be gamed in such a way that those elite commodities aren't fought for and the best teams don't get challenged for top recruits. Once they announce early, I think the only thing left to really improve both playability and realism is have a couple signings-free cycles for late preference players in the second session - more for coaching changes than EEs, but it will affect both teams - and increase the number of late preference players among the 3-5 stars.

In about 2 more seasons now, we will be past the point where teams are routinely dealing with more than a couple early entries every year. So a long term "fix" for a short term problem isn't what they should be focusing on anyway.

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Why is that, because I don't eat up the crap you're putting out?

Because you are sore about losing a guy you don't think you "should" have lost, and you're spewing bullshit about the whole process because of it.

If you think it's "luck" and only benefits coaches like me who are "bad", why don't you pick up your Brown team again, and you just randomly select your targets, and just randomly set your priorities, and just randomly assign your attention points, and let's see how long it takes you to pick up a championship that way.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Why is that, because I don't eat up the crap you're putting out?

Because you are sore about losing a guy you don't think you "should" have lost, and you're spewing bullshit about the whole process because of it.

If you think it's "luck" and only benefits coaches like me who are "bad", why don't you pick up your Brown team again, and you just randomly select your targets, and just randomly set your priorities, and just randomly assign your attention points, and let's see how long it takes you to pick up a championship that way.

Never said you were a worse coach than me. I have no interest in picking up my Brown team again to play this game because the recruit selection is completely random at the end of the day. You're selecting an aspect of recruiting that you have control over instead of the whole thing. In the end recruiting comes down to RNG. A coaches skill level plays no part in a recruit picking one school over another.

It's random. I just beat Alabama when I was High, went all-in, we had same preferences. It came down to a roll, the kid was in SC, under 300 miles from Alabama, on the top 100 list for everyone to see. The last four rolls, I won 1 out of 4... was happy to finally catch a break since I had lost two rolls when I was VH to H. There is no strategy in this... you look to the top 100, and think, this kid is good, and hope people get to other battles or fear your prestige or your preferences. If you are in a battle, know you will get to a roll, you focus on this. D1 is in need of some programming.

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 10:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Why is that, because I don't eat up the crap you're putting out?

Because you are sore about losing a guy you don't think you "should" have lost, and you're spewing bullshit about the whole process because of it.

If you think it's "luck" and only benefits coaches like me who are "bad", why don't you pick up your Brown team again, and you just randomly select your targets, and just randomly set your priorities, and just randomly assign your attention points, and let's see how long it takes you to pick up a championship that way.

Never said you were a worse coach than me. I have no interest in picking up my Brown team again to play this game because the recruit selection is completely random at the end of the day. You're selecting an aspect of recruiting that you have control over instead of the whole thing. In the end recruiting comes down to RNG. A coaches skill level plays no part in a recruit picking one school over another.

Again, your approach is very myopic, and a really bad way to play. The coaches skill in scouting efficiently, setting priorities, executing various recruiting strategies (instead of simply "run away when a bigger fish comes along", which was the previous version in a nutshell), establishing contingency plans when applicable (or committing to taking walk-ones, which is a perfectly viable option, as ever); all of that determines how good your class will be. There is some chance involved, but it is dependent on a host of other factors you control. Continuing to say absurd things like "skill plays no part" is just being willfully obtuse, i.e. dense. And it's obviously sour grapes, and everyone reading along should know that and take your posts with that big chunk of salt.

Posted by zorzii on 12/19/2016 10:13:00 PM (view original):
It's random. I just beat Alabama when I was High, went all-in, we had same preferences. It came down to a roll, the kid was in SC, under 300 miles from Alabama, on the top 100 list for everyone to see. The last four rolls, I won 1 out of 4... was happy to finally catch a break since I had lost two rolls when I was VH to H. There is no strategy in this... you look to the top 100, and think, this kid is good, and hope people get to other battles or fear your prestige or your preferences. If you are in a battle, know you will get to a roll, you focus on this. D1 is in need of some programming.

Sorry kid, you're apparently just as dense as our mets pal. Saying "there's no strategy in this" and 'It's random" is just flagrantly asinine.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 10:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 9:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 12/19/2016 8:55:00 PM (view original):
shoe3, your understanding of HD 3.0 is subtle and complex. But don't forget that some of the guys you are debating with do not have that depth of understanding. When they constantly complain about luck, "the RNG deciding," "DUE TO RNG," coin flip, dice roll, etc., and attribute their own failures to the imagined deficiencies in the game, they are doing their best in most cases. They aren't going to understand the game at your level and are therefore not going to agree. Leave 'em be. They have been good at 2.0, most of 'em, and believe their own press clippings as it were. In that case, how could the shortcoming possibly be their own? It has to be the game. They aren't able to believe you if they cannot understand you.

It is due to RNG. Skill has no determing factor in what school a recruit picks. At the end of the day if there is more than one school listed at high it becomes a RNG game and has nothing to do with skill. Someone can be heavily favored on multiple recruits and lose out on all of them because of the RNG. The game is set up to reward people of a lower skill level.

My god you are dense.

Why is that, because I don't eat up the crap you're putting out?

Because you are sore about losing a guy you don't think you "should" have lost, and you're spewing bullshit about the whole process because of it.

If you think it's "luck" and only benefits coaches like me who are "bad", why don't you pick up your Brown team again, and you just randomly select your targets, and just randomly set your priorities, and just randomly assign your attention points, and let's see how long it takes you to pick up a championship that way.

Never said you were a worse coach than me. I have no interest in picking up my Brown team again to play this game because the recruit selection is completely random at the end of the day. You're selecting an aspect of recruiting that you have control over instead of the whole thing. In the end recruiting comes down to RNG. A coaches skill level plays no part in a recruit picking one school over another.

Again, your approach is very myopic, and a really bad way to play. The coaches skill in scouting efficiently, setting priorities, executing various recruiting strategies (instead of simply "run away when a bigger fish comes along", which was the previous version in a nutshell), establishing contingency plans when applicable (or committing to taking walk-ones, which is a perfectly viable option, as ever); all of that determines how good your class will be. There is some chance involved, but it is dependent on a host of other factors you control. Continuing to say absurd things like "skill plays no part" is just being willfully obtuse, i.e. dense. And it's obviously sour grapes, and everyone reading along should know that and take your posts with that big chunk of salt.

Skill doesn't play a part because you can execute a plan that you have to 100% perfection but due to RNG lose out on everybody. Sorry bud but that means that in the end it comes down to the RNG and not skill.

You're trying to make the best out of a game that you've liked for a long time but it's become trash.

Like I said earlier, it's like playing craps. You can't be a good craps player, you can only play it the "right" way. In 3.0, you can't be a good recruiter. You can only play the "right" way.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zorzii on 12/19/2016 10:13:00 PM (view original):
It's random. I just beat Alabama when I was High, went all-in, we had same preferences. It came down to a roll, the kid was in SC, under 300 miles from Alabama, on the top 100 list for everyone to see. The last four rolls, I won 1 out of 4... was happy to finally catch a break since I had lost two rolls when I was VH to H. There is no strategy in this... you look to the top 100, and think, this kid is good, and hope people get to other battles or fear your prestige or your preferences. If you are in a battle, know you will get to a roll, you focus on this. D1 is in need of some programming.

Sorry kid, you're apparently just as dense as our mets pal. Saying "there's no strategy in this" and 'It's random" is just flagrantly asinine.

I am not a kid. No strategy...

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 9:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 8:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 6:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:31:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 6:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:28:00 PM (view original):
No, I'm arguing that you'll accept a game result that shouldn't happen but whine about losing a recruiting battle. It's the same concept. You do everything you can to tilt the scales in your favor. Then the program runs and gives you the outcome.

The difference is that teams and players can have off nights which accounts for a REASON to utilize RNG. There is no reason to use RNG for recruiting.

The only thing RNG does in recruiting is help people that are bad at the game.

Because 18 y/o males are so consistent in how they behave?

Mike, I don't think this is a particularly good analogy. I think the reason why certain people accept the RNG for gameplay, but have a harder time for recruiting is because for recruiting, the results are longer-lasting. You lose the dice roll in a game, you come back next night. You lose it in a battle, you could be screwed for a season (or more).

I think a secondary reason for the reaction is because in 2.0, if your strategy was correct, you always (ALWAYS) won the recruiting battle. If you got poached, it was because you made a misjudgment (or gambled and lost). That allowed the users who understood the game better (and who had prior success) to really keep a hammerlock on the top recruits. That transition from the deterministic model to the probabilistic model has been very difficult for many longtime users (me included). I think the pendulum has gone way too far to probabilistic (I think they could have added some randomness w/o making it a total free-for-all), but I admit my biases, since I liked/was successful in 2.0.

I'll say that this is an internet game. If you're screwed for a season, my guess is your dog will still be glad to see you when you come home.

The game was changed because the entrenched, long-time users had too big of an advantage. Not only are/were they better at the game, their schools/prestige/etc made it too difficult to break into the inner circle. You can say "We earned it" and I'm not going to argue against that. But the first thread I opened when I signed up for my free team was "I've won 7 of the last 12 NT and now, because of EE, I'm screwed." If Kentucky wins 7 of 12 in the real world, so be it. But that's a terrible game to sell to the new guy.

WifS may have botched the update so bad that HD becomes CRD. But HD had stagnated to the point that it was going to go extinct anyway.

Ah, your old "it's an internet game" fall-back -- I often see that one from you when you don't have a good answer.

Not disputing that elites had an advantage in 2.0 - strongly disagree that it was solely due to them being "long-time." The cream rose to the top. But I don't disagree that the state of 2.0 made it too easy for elites to dominate. I think the main problem is that WIS completely botched the update -- they could have made several incremental changes that would have fixed many of the competitive imbalance issues. But they went radical instead, and I think they're going to wind up (literally) paying for it.

A good answer for what? I think it's ridiculous to be all a flitter over a down season of HD. It's really not the end of the world. My assumption is I don't take this game as seriously as some. If I lose out on a recruit, I'll go play with my dogs. They don't give a damn about HD.

Now, with that aside, I think we largely agree. Not sure why you chose to focus on "long-time" when my next sentence was "Not only are/were they better at the game" but whatever makes your argument stronger I guess. After that, we agree that the program made it too easy for them stay on top. I said WifS "may" have botched the update, you claim they did.

People pay to play the game. If people lose on a dice roll, they get ******. Good on you for being more well-balanced.

I do think we largely agree (at least on that one narrow issue). My reaction was to your oft-stated opinion that success in 2.0 was simply a matter of being the 1st person to get to UNC/Duke/etc. I strongly disagree with that -- better players could always fight their way to the top of the heap. But hey, at least we aren't insulting each other.

Posted by zorzii on 12/19/2016 10:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/19/2016 10:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zorzii on 12/19/2016 10:13:00 PM (view original):
It's random. I just beat Alabama when I was High, went all-in, we had same preferences. It came down to a roll, the kid was in SC, under 300 miles from Alabama, on the top 100 list for everyone to see. The last four rolls, I won 1 out of 4... was happy to finally catch a break since I had lost two rolls when I was VH to H. There is no strategy in this... you look to the top 100, and think, this kid is good, and hope people get to other battles or fear your prestige or your preferences. If you are in a battle, know you will get to a roll, you focus on this. D1 is in need of some programming.

Sorry kid, you're apparently just as dense as our mets pal. Saying "there's no strategy in this" and 'It's random" is just flagrantly asinine.

I am not a kid. No strategy...

Cool. If there's "no strategy", then prove it. Don't look at who you're scouting, don't bother to prioritize, just randomly select guys to put attention points on. Haphazardly move them around in a "random" way. Don't worry about strategy, right? There is none.

Put your gameplan where your forum drivel is. Show us it's "random".

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 11:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 9:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 8:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by johnsensing on 12/19/2016 6:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:31:00 PM (view original):

Posted by metsmaniac2 on 12/19/2016 6:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/19/2016 6:28:00 PM (view original):
No, I'm arguing that you'll accept a game result that shouldn't happen but whine about losing a recruiting battle. It's the same concept. You do everything you can to tilt the scales in your favor. Then the program runs and gives you the outcome.

The difference is that teams and players can have off nights which accounts for a REASON to utilize RNG. There is no reason to use RNG for recruiting.

The only thing RNG does in recruiting is help people that are bad at the game.

Because 18 y/o males are so consistent in how they behave?

Mike, I don't think this is a particularly good analogy. I think the reason why certain people accept the RNG for gameplay, but have a harder time for recruiting is because for recruiting, the results are longer-lasting. You lose the dice roll in a game, you come back next night. You lose it in a battle, you could be screwed for a season (or more).

I think a secondary reason for the reaction is because in 2.0, if your strategy was correct, you always (ALWAYS) won the recruiting battle. If you got poached, it was because you made a misjudgment (or gambled and lost). That allowed the users who understood the game better (and who had prior success) to really keep a hammerlock on the top recruits. That transition from the deterministic model to the probabilistic model has been very difficult for many longtime users (me included). I think the pendulum has gone way too far to probabilistic (I think they could have added some randomness w/o making it a total free-for-all), but I admit my biases, since I liked/was successful in 2.0.

I'll say that this is an internet game. If you're screwed for a season, my guess is your dog will still be glad to see you when you come home.

The game was changed because the entrenched, long-time users had too big of an advantage. Not only are/were they better at the game, their schools/prestige/etc made it too difficult to break into the inner circle. You can say "We earned it" and I'm not going to argue against that. But the first thread I opened when I signed up for my free team was "I've won 7 of the last 12 NT and now, because of EE, I'm screwed." If Kentucky wins 7 of 12 in the real world, so be it. But that's a terrible game to sell to the new guy.

WifS may have botched the update so bad that HD becomes CRD. But HD had stagnated to the point that it was going to go extinct anyway.

Ah, your old "it's an internet game" fall-back -- I often see that one from you when you don't have a good answer.

Not disputing that elites had an advantage in 2.0 - strongly disagree that it was solely due to them being "long-time." The cream rose to the top. But I don't disagree that the state of 2.0 made it too easy for elites to dominate. I think the main problem is that WIS completely botched the update -- they could have made several incremental changes that would have fixed many of the competitive imbalance issues. But they went radical instead, and I think they're going to wind up (literally) paying for it.

A good answer for what? I think it's ridiculous to be all a flitter over a down season of HD. It's really not the end of the world. My assumption is I don't take this game as seriously as some. If I lose out on a recruit, I'll go play with my dogs. They don't give a damn about HD.

Now, with that aside, I think we largely agree. Not sure why you chose to focus on "long-time" when my next sentence was "Not only are/were they better at the game" but whatever makes your argument stronger I guess. After that, we agree that the program made it too easy for them stay on top. I said WifS "may" have botched the update, you claim they did.

People pay to play the game. If people lose on a dice roll, they get ******. Good on you for being more well-balanced.

I do think we largely agree (at least on that one narrow issue). My reaction was to your oft-stated opinion that success in 2.0 was simply a matter of being the 1st person to get to UNC/Duke/etc. I strongly disagree with that -- better players could always fight their way to the top of the heap. But hey, at least we aren't insulting each other.

I think the better players fought their way to Duke/UNC/etc and had 2 distinct advantages. One, they were better at the game. That's how they got there. Two, they received the built-in advantages of being at Duke/UNC/etc. As shoe stated on this page, the old "strategy" was "run away when the bigger fish came around." I don't like to run away. That's why it took me longer at VaTech to have a winning record. My pattern was suck, get better, win in my first three seasons at a new school. My failed strategy was to stay when Duke/UNC/etc showed up. They won the recruits 100% of the time.

FWIW, while this forum is populated with "This sucks. I'm gonna quit", WifS brought in 10 "users" in Smith, Little East. 11 of us from Moonlight Graham-HBD decided to try it out with our free credit. 10 returned and I'm pretty sure most of us bought a 5 pack. I acknowledge that a lot of established owners don't like the new version. But there are plenty of users that do.

I tend not to insult anyone until they all but beg for it. You're pretty reasonable even when we're not in 100% in agreement. I'm well-balanced. We really shouldn't have cause to insult one another.