Posted by shoe3 on 2/24/2022 12:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by poncho0091 on 2/24/2022 12:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/24/2022 11:27:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 2/24/2022 11:01:00 AM (view original):
the whole idea of having three divisions of recruits is to minimize the time wasted sifting through crap recruits (or way too good ones). overall rating is a poor measure and requires scouting level 4. i don't think merging all three and making folks deal with the massive set of players is going to help, i think that just takes us in the wrong direction.

Well no, you’re looking at this the wrong way. The scouting game is always about how you build your pool. Where are you drawing from, how many guys are you scouting up and when/how, etc. It’s still going to be about that. I’d just remove the clunky red light stuff that exists because of the unrealistic and arbitrary divisions and replace that with expectations to make the process feel more natural.

I suspect those of us who already scout efficiently and get nice big pools to L4 really won’t see any problem with what I’m talking about (though like I said, budgets would have to be readjusted, though this would need to happen with any big change we’re dreaming about). There are always going to be guys who experience FOMO and can’t grasp the notion of letting good prospects around them go by unseen, but I don’t know what you do about that. Scouting in a resource allocation game can’t possibly work if everyone sees everyone, and it won’t be much of a game if there is *one right way* to do it.

The thing is there is no red light that exists currently. Recruiting is wide open to all and we already have "expected" level. It's just called "projected level" now. I'm one of those people that dislike the current model and scout fine (well enough for consistent championship runs). I'm fine with the amount of resources, but the current process is just tedious.

There is a red light. It’s the mechanism that makes lower division schools wait until cycle x for a player in the higher pool to sign. That’s what we’re referring to. Having those cycles defined and known is arbitrary and causes all sorts of problems.

If you find scouting tedious now, I suspect it’s not really fine, and you should try other methods.

I misunderstood your red light statement and agree that it's an issue to have to wait to sign players at upper levels, which is, unfortunately, a necessity if you plan to compete.

Posted by mlitney on 2/24/2022 1:00:00 PM (view original):
I'm probably in the minority when I say that I'm all in favor of things that require knowledge and/or effort. I put a lot time/effort into learning this game and getting better. I want my time/effort to allow me to climb to a higher level than most other coaches. Scouting is just one of many, many facets of this game where a little extra effort can go a long way in determining success. This isn't a response to any particular poster (*cough* benis *cough*), but just a general thought.

Poncho, I'd genuinely like to hear what you think is so tedious about the current process. The assistant search method takes about 10 minutes once you've figured it out. I can't think of a way it could be less tedious unless you just want all recruits automatically scouted to level 4 with the push of a button. But what would be the fun in that?

Miltney, I'll make the comparison to HD2.0 vs current 3.0. Under 2.0 you had enough resources to scout states for your level and you had the info you needed. That concept would fall under your auto level 4. Now maybe it doesn't have to be that automatic under the current system, but if the only thing you're relying on is camps, scouting, and asst searches, you miss a whole lot in more densely populated areas and still likely end up with limited noteworthy recruits. Asst. search is fast but returns tons of garbage. I can do that fine with a California team, because there's limited recruits within a 500+ mile range, but at somewhere like a North Carolina, you'll need to know what's available and end up having to save for individual scouting at various scouting levels and division levels. It's really not enjoyable, and for busy folks, it's not ideal. It's time-consuming and if not for the credits I build which basically keeps the game free for me, I'd have already left.

Posted by gillispie on 2/24/2022 11:01:00 AM (view original):
the whole idea of having three divisions of recruits is to minimize the time wasted sifting through crap recruits (or way too good ones). overall rating is a poor measure and requires scouting level 4. i don't think merging all three and making folks deal with the massive set of players is going to help, i think that just takes us in the wrong direction.

Yeah totally agree. Literally in this thread someone asked to separate the top 100 players because his d3 team will never recruit them. Now we want to just throw them all together in one giant pool. Huh? How does that help?

I'm still really confused about how this would be an improvement. Let's say I'm at d1 today and I can scout ~ 200 players to Level 4. Then I go look through that list and pick maybe 50ish that I like. If we expanded the pool to include all the poop d3 projected players, I may only find 10-20 that I would even want to consider.

You could increase scouting budget to compensate. But then I'm just scouting 600 players to find the same 50 players that I used to have. Why would this be better or more fun? Sounds so tedious.

You could say, well just use asst coach to scout to a certain level and then do individual scouting from there so you dont waste money scouting the poop d3 players but that just adds so much unnecessary work. Personally, I have zero interest in making the scouting process any more involved or time consuming than it already is.

Some coaches make scouting sound so much more difficult and tedious than it really needs to be. In certain cases, I know they are just stuck on doing it a particular way and will never give it up, that is what it is. But it doesn’t *have* to be that way. I picked up another D3 team a few days ago to reacquaint myself with it again, and with 2 scholarships have ~100 guys at L4. Now ~30 of those guys are going to be out of range as starred recruits (in the recruit-rich southeast region), leaving me 70 L4 recruits. Eyeballing it, I can toss about 33% of them as RAW (rather a walkon) leaving me just shy of 50 usable, potentially recruitable plays in my pool (I’ve color coded roughly half of them targeted for initial recruiting). That’s plenty. Am I upset that there might be hidden gems a couple hundred miles away that I am missing? I am not. At D3, it is unlikely that there is a meaningful difference between those gems and the gems I see. What can I do with what I can get? That’s the whole game.

Combining the pools only really requires a budget adjustment (maybe dropping FSS and starting everyone at L1, but not considering them “scouted”), and re-thinking how camps are done (and possibly the assistant bullseye I talked about). And for coaches stuck in their ways on getting a *wide* L3 pool then diligently watching and scouring considering lists for players to bump, if the camps and assistants are revamped, your process doesn’t even have change. The advanced filters and the color codes are always there for you to organize by whatever parameters you want to set. Whatever potential change happens would require testing. But again, no change is much preferable to hard caps anywhere. A competitive market economy relies on pressure from above and below to keep prices healthy and avoid dysfunction.

Posted by Benis on 2/24/2022 1:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 2/24/2022 11:01:00 AM (view original):
the whole idea of having three divisions of recruits is to minimize the time wasted sifting through crap recruits (or way too good ones). overall rating is a poor measure and requires scouting level 4. i don't think merging all three and making folks deal with the massive set of players is going to help, i think that just takes us in the wrong direction.

Yeah totally agree. Literally in this thread someone asked to separate the top 100 players because his d3 team will never recruit them. Now we want to just throw them all together in one giant pool. Huh? How does that help?

I'm still really confused about how this would be an improvement. Let's say I'm at d1 today and I can scout ~ 200 players to Level 4. Then I go look through that list and pick maybe 50ish that I like. If we expanded the pool to include all the poop d3 projected players, I may only find 10-20 that I would even want to consider.

You could increase scouting budget to compensate. But then I'm just scouting 600 players to find the same 50 players that I used to have. Why would this be better or more fun? Sounds so tedious.

You could say, well just use asst coach to scout to a certain level and then do individual scouting from there so you dont waste money scouting the poop d3 players but that just adds so much unnecessary work. Personally, I have zero interest in making the scouting process any more involved or time consuming than it already is.

The current division "hard caps" could be coded to be "Division preference" and then be a screen you recruit for. For me some of the enjoyment is the randomness and the unknown (if at least strategic and applicable to all users). I dont believe in 100% known. Like shoe I accept that my Camp>FSS>Asst Search missed a recruitable player 180 mls away. Why? Because I trust that I found a recruitable player someone else did not see. It becomes another element to build a team to your suitability. Otherwise, just have "these are the players, these are their attributes" and go...

I guess its just different strokes for different folks. I enjoy spending more time cultivating my list of recruiting targets. Some people see the entire scouting process as an annoyance. And I'm not someone with a lot of free time either, but this is basically my only hobby these days.

Benis, I think the improvement would come from newer players being less confused and not having to learn how to pull players down. It's a much more straight forward approach. It would also allow D2/D3 coaches to sign any player on their preferred cycle instead of having to wait for a certain date. With that said, I don't strongly oppose the current system. I'm okay with it.

Poncho, I'm not sure what density of recruits has to do with it. With a North Carolina school, you could just recruit at 300 miles instead of the 500 you would need in Cali. You'd get the same amount of recruits and have the same amount of work to scout them. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your point. To be honest, it sounds like you're burnt out on the game and want to just go through the motions with as little effort as possible. I'm not sure if the dev's goal should be to accommodate that mindset.

Posted by mlitney on 2/24/2022 4:17:00 PM (view original):
I guess its just different strokes for different folks. I enjoy spending more time cultivating my list of recruiting targets. Some people see the entire scouting process as an annoyance. And I'm not someone with a lot of free time either, but this is basically my only hobby these days.

Benis, I think the improvement would come from newer players being less confused and not having to learn how to pull players down. It's a much more straight forward approach. It would also allow D2/D3 coaches to sign any player on their preferred cycle instead of having to wait for a certain date. With that said, I don't strongly oppose the current system. I'm okay with it.

Poncho, I'm not sure what density of recruits has to do with it. With a North Carolina school, you could just recruit at 300 miles instead of the 500 you would need in Cali. You'd get the same amount of recruits and have the same amount of work to scout them. Maybe I'm misinterpreting your point. To be honest, it sounds like you're burnt out on the game and want to just go through the motions with as little effort as possible. I'm not sure if the dev's goal should be to accommodate that mindset.

I actually reduce down to 200 miles at this point as the asst search only uncovers a certain amount, the majority of which are pretty underwhelming. That's fine if you're ok with taking what you get from asst search. To each their own, but if I'm going to recruit, I want quality recruits in my pool, and asst search alone doesn't do it for me. The current recruiting system is the only thing that really creates any burnout for me so there's that. I don't dislike everything about the current system, but I'd rather simplify it than make it more in-depth. I enjoyed the old recruiting system as it was just a significantly quicker process overall. It's what held me in the game as long as it did. I enjoy this game as a 5-minute getaway each day and I think if they want to bring in new users, they need that level of simplicity to get their interest.

"Benis, I think the improvement would come from newer players being less confused and not having to learn how to pull players down. It's a much more straight forward approach. It would also allow D2/D3 coaches to sign any player on their preferred cycle instead of having to wait for a certain date."

I think these benefits could be accomplished by just restricting D3 teams to recruiting only D3 projected players. It's simple and logical to understand for the noobs and it doesn't disrupt D1 or D2 in any way. IMO, it's a MUCH better idea and so much easier to implement.

Also, the point of the signing 'delays' for lower levels is so you don't have all the d1 quality players signed during the 1st recruiting session. Taking over a new team or getting EEs sucks now but it'd be even worse if there was a giant pool and D2/D3 players are signing up a lot of the talent in the 1st session.

And how would Sim recruiting work with just 1 giant pool? Sims are just going to randomly and arbitrarily start signing players from this pool? So you'll have players with sims from all 3 divisions recruiting the same player? So you'll have D1 Sim teams with D3 projected players which will be indistinguishable from walkons.

Just restrict the divisions and you solve the problems without needing to introduce any downside to the other divisions. And you wouldn't need to do a bunch of stuff to offset those cons like increasing budget, reprogramming sim recruiting etc. We're not building a rocket ship, no need to overcomplicate things.

One pool is bad on so many levels. Your scouting budget could be largely eaten up just scouting either Texas or California. Then what? You can't even find other players to sign so your whole roster is walkons.

Anyone who supports one large pool obviously has multiple teams in one world and should be watched carefully IMO.

Posted by ftbeaglesfan on 2/24/2022 6:53:00 PM (view original):
Anyone who supports one large pool obviously has multiple teams in one world and should be watched carefully IMO.

Lol no.

I doubt it has any effect one way or the other on the incentive to cheat, but the game should definitely *not* be designed based on whether it might cause people to use multiple accounts to cheat or not. If that is a real concern of the developers, then their priority in that regard should be to make it functionally/structurally impossible to cheat (obviously not true now). And maybe that means removing cash from the process altogether (oh wait, another thing I’ve been pushing since beta).

Regarding the TX-CA thing, if you’ve been following along, no one suggests they could just lump all the pools together and just leave it. It would require at minimum restructuring the scouting budgets, and probably reworking other concepts as well, including camps and the assistant, which I’ve talked about, and possibly scrapping FSS entirely. In any case, it would require testing, and would probably be a 4.0 type update.

Posted by Benis on 2/24/2022 5:33:00 PM (view original):
And how would Sim recruiting work with just 1 giant pool? Sims are just going to randomly and arbitrarily start signing players from this pool? So you'll have players with sims from all 3 divisions recruiting the same player? So you'll have D1 Sim teams with D3 projected players which will be indistinguishable from walkons.

Just restrict the divisions and you solve the problems without needing to introduce any downside to the other divisions. And you wouldn't need to do a bunch of stuff to offset those cons like increasing budget, reprogramming sim recruiting etc. We're not building a rocket ship, no need to overcomplicate things.

The idea that there is “no downside to any other divisions” if you cap divisions is just ridiculous, and we’ve been over this so many times in the last 5 years Benis obviously knows what I’m going to say, but since he like to pretend he doesn’t read anything I write, I’ll say it again here.

Restricting divisions benefits the teams at the top the most. It obviously affects the other divisions *a great deal* because now higher division schools will have a bunch of good backup options just sitting there for them, without worrying about lower division schools nipping their heels. This nerfs the power of prioritization, which is ultimately exactly what these guys want, of course. This will affect all schools in all divisions, as power schools feel more comfortable loading up on a few, rather than spreading effort out early. This is a move toward less upward mobility.

The current model, though clunky and unrealistic in places, and with room for improvement, *features upward mobility.* That was seble’s goal, and he succeeded brilliantly there in the big picture, and that’s probably the nicest thing I will ever say about the guy. New coaches can compete with veterans in their very first recruiting season, if they know what they’re doing, and they know what is possible. All they need is the information. That *will not be remotely true if you restrict divisions.* And in the end, no other argument really needs to matter. I can dream all day about the ways I think this or that idea could make the process more intelligent, but in the end, no change is light years better than what benis wants.

Posted by shoe3 on 2/24/2022 8:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 2/24/2022 5:33:00 PM (view original):
And how would Sim recruiting work with just 1 giant pool? Sims are just going to randomly and arbitrarily start signing players from this pool? So you'll have players with sims from all 3 divisions recruiting the same player? So you'll have D1 Sim teams with D3 projected players which will be indistinguishable from walkons.

Just restrict the divisions and you solve the problems without needing to introduce any downside to the other divisions. And you wouldn't need to do a bunch of stuff to offset those cons like increasing budget, reprogramming sim recruiting etc. We're not building a rocket ship, no need to overcomplicate things.

The idea that there is “no downside to any other divisions” if you cap divisions is just ridiculous, and we’ve been over this so many times in the last 5 years Benis obviously knows what I’m going to say, but since he like to pretend he doesn’t read anything I write, I’ll say it again here.

Restricting divisions benefits the teams at the top the most. It obviously affects the other divisions *a great deal* because now higher division schools will have a bunch of good backup options just sitting there for them, without worrying about lower division schools nipping their heels. This nerfs the power of prioritization, which is ultimately exactly what these guys want, of course. This will affect all schools in all divisions, as power schools feel more comfortable loading up on a few, rather than spreading effort out early. This is a move toward less upward mobility.

The current model, though clunky and unrealistic in places, and with room for improvement, *features upward mobility.* That was seble’s goal, and he succeeded brilliantly there in the big picture, and that’s probably the nicest thing I will ever say about the guy. New coaches can compete with veterans in their very first recruiting season, if they know what they’re doing, and they know what is possible. All they need is the information. That *will not be remotely true if you restrict divisions.* And in the end, no other argument really needs to matter. I can dream all day about the ways I think this or that idea could make the process more intelligent, but in the end, no change is light years better than what benis wants.

This is just not true outside of the lower end of DI schools maybe. Under the current scenario, new users have no idea how to compete with the vets and no idea to pursue a player who is clearly out of their range. Even worse they might try to pursue a player out of their range and waste all of their resources leaving them further behind the vet. Under capped divisions, the competition for the top players will typically use up the vets resources as they battle off other vets, the same way you see in DI with everyone pursuing the same top tier guy. This is how it used to be with the exception of dropdown players which would no longer be a thing. A newbie could just as easily show up on the best player that division has to offer and beat out a vet, forcing the vet to scramble for backups or back off if he has multiple spots to fill.

Posted by poncho0091 on 2/23/2022 6:54:00 PM (view original):
I am open to the premise of closing off the D3 pool to D3 only while leaving D2 open to D1 players as the more experienced coaches will typically stick around D2 or D1. I also wish D1 would stop dipping in the D2 pool. If I, as a D2 school, go up to D1 recruits, I fully understand I may get my player scooped out of nowhere by a D1, but a D1 school has no business even looking at D2 players and it's infuriating to get a D2 prospect that you likely went after hard for the safety of securing him, only for a D1 to show up. Maybe they should up D1 pool talent to prevent the need of D1 looking at D2.

Cubs experiment here for example took the most viable D2 recruit in the last cycle that I was pursuing in what was a fairly abysmal class of big men, especially when I really needed them. I'm not that bothered by it, but it was definitely a "well that's annoying" moment without realizing he was even doing this experiment.

Edit, I think I'm the local D2 competition he was referencing in the post above for the guard, because I went all in hoping he wasn't serious about him lol.

I'm learning along the way in this discussion. I was generally "ok" with one big pool. But after reading some comments, i see how it can be an issue. But there's ways to make it work I'm sure. Filters of some sort, as some have mentioned.

But I have NO problem with D1 searching the D2 pool. Budgets are what they are. Bigger for higher division, smaller for lower division. Makes sense. But as far as the talent, a player in the D2 pool should never be off limits to D1 teams. D1 can do whatever they want. And it should be that way. I am a D2 coach at heart. And I made a living off picking my entire roster from the D1 pool. To think I'd be upset about ONE player getting signed from my D2 pool at a D1 school is just not being fair. We can't have rules that benefit only D2 and not D1 in the process. "D2 can reach up endlessly, all they want. But D1 can't reach down for ONE player". Saying that out loud should make it obvious that its silly to think that way. No matter how frustrating it may be