And if you hate being poached, become a poacher.  Don't spend anything the first 24 hours of recruiting.  You'll see it isn't as easy as you think it is.  Only the overextended are cheaply poached.  Once you can identify the people that are easy to poach, you can avoid looking like them.  And THAT is how to stop poaching, once people stop getting overextended and making it such a strong tactic.

I just got poached by B ACC school while I'm D+ in the cycle before signing. Really don't have a problem with it, just part of the game. 

Let's not pretend that the rash of last-minute cash being spent is because people didn't have time to recruit earlier.  It's largely a strategic effort to drop as much money in without being in a protracted battle.  Not that there's anything inherently "wrong" about that.

But in any case, I think any change that would reduce the number of battles is a bad thing rather than a good thing.  I agree that the frustrating thing is the 2 scholly team being at such a severe disadvantage vs. a 6 scholly team.  There should at least be diminishing returns after a certain amount of money is spent, then let the player's attributes decide where he wants to go.  Also, there should be much more room to have "back-up" options without other schools jumping on you for having too many considering.

If seble really wanted to think outside the box, he'd consider expanding recruiting to a year-round task, always running in the background of the actual games being played.

Posted by swiftwsut on 6/14/2012 2:30:00 AM (view original):
This thread is dumb. Terrible idea. I don't even wanna imagine the rat race this would be for the first three cycles of recruiting...not to mention everyone would blow their bankroll in the first six cycles. Recruiting is an even playing field currently, no need for change.  

Talk about dumb-- "Recruiting is an even playing field currently"   Where have you been???  I think everyone agrees it is intentionally designed to not be an even playing field.
    I agree that "poaching" is part of the game and isn't really poaching anyways but do think it is too easy to have guys totally flip flop at the rate and numbers they do in this sim.  It's very unrealistic and is another added advantage for those guys that have invested in the game longer.  Those are hidden at every corner and I am willing to admit it-- The best solution is to become one of them and then you'll have all the same advantages as well. 
    I imagine we all miss certain recruiting periods so weighing any of those too heavily could present a problem but a minor increase in the value of early recruiting that would allow a team to become tight with a player would seem to make sense.  
    I will say it is very frustrating to see users point out that real life shouldn't be considered at all on an issue like this but that removing the advantages would create a world "unlike real life" when discussing other issues.  I don't really care about the recruiting but a little consistency in your arguments would go a long way in adding to your credibility.  
    Ultimately, in my mind, the question comes back down to do you want a sim that mimics real life in outcomes or mimcs real life in actions?  That question needs to be answered before we continually debate the smaller issues that play into that.  
   

Posted by dacj501 on 6/14/2012 1:34:00 AM (view original):
ike, I get what you are saying, but it is not fair to penalize those who had to recruit later. There is no way to ignore that fact. You can state a desire to award teams that get on a recruit early (although still not sure why that should automatically get any reward) but the net result is a penalty on those who recruit later.

The reason why a parallel in this area still doesn't make sense to compare to real life is that RL teams have paid personnel on their staff whose job it is to make early contact with recruits that the school is interested in. We pay to play a game. I don't expect the same kind of effort and attention from people playing a game vs those getting paid to do their jobs.

Dac, I think your views here go a little bit overboard.

First, it's rarely because a team "had to" recruit later. That may happen occasionally. But by-and-large, any team coming in on a recruit on signing day is doing so because they chose to, not because they "had to". That's just the reality.

I hardly think it should be impossible to recruit late. I think it should be very possible. But I do think it should be incrementally more difficult than it is now. Recruiting someone significant from the get go should be worth something tangible. (And this wouldn't apply to a coach that just put minimal effort at the beginning to get considered, because he'd be knocked off the recruit easily, even if they tightened things up a bit.) 

Also, please don't listen to jcfreder, as he is a Minnesota-coaching traitor.

Marquette and then Minnesota.  Not sure how my UW diplomas haven't spontaneously combusted yet.

I feel better now that Girt has sort of endorsed the concept if not the idea (hopefully not mischaracterizing his comments).

As I said earlier, my suggestion was in no way intended to make it "impossible" to recruit late or "Easy" to block guys with minimal effort. It was a suggestion that there be some stronger preference/credit for going hard after a recruit early and continuing to put some effort into them.
As an alternative along the same theme, instead of a credit, the costs of certain actions could increase over time (for D1 at least).
Say a home visit costs $500 the first day of recruiting, as signing period approached, it would incrementally increase to say $1000 (these are arbitrary numbers and would have to be evaluated for proper balance). And then, after the initial signing rush, the price would go back to $500 as by that point, those who've put the effort in should have locked up the player.

Posted by uconnut on 6/14/2012 7:45:00 AM (view original):
impossible to perfume?

I would like to be able to make sophomore promises, which could have helped me when I had only two slots open and couldn't give any playing time first year ... but a ton of time was going to open up the next year.

YES please.  Would also like to be able to promise an incoming freshman minutes the next season to persuade him to redshirt.  (I mean once he is already on your roster, not as you can currently do in recruiting by making positive effort outweigh the negative effect of the "inform of redshirt" button.)

Re "poaching", my opinion it's just part of the game.  Of course the dreaded "poacher" (let's call him "dac-jay") is often someone who scouted the recruit as early as possible but did not do enough to get "considered", because he did not want other coaches to know he had spent much and he needed the scouting to evaluate the recruit.  Maybe another coach (call him "duke_nonenone") really liked the kid and did do enough to get considered in the first cycle.  Meanwhile, dac-jay's scouting showed him good things; he then sees duke_nonenone has spent more early, and decides to hold his bankroll for when it will do more good.  What's wrong with that?  Just strategy.

Of course duke_nonenone's strategy, i.e. hopping on one guy right away when you have multiple openings, plus maybe a proximity advantage and good prestige, can have the effect of heading off competition.  But If you are going to do that, you'd better be able to defend it.

Posted by dukenilnil on 6/14/2012 2:29:00 PM (view original):
I feel better now that Girt has sort of endorsed the concept if not the idea (hopefully not mischaracterizing his comments).

As I said earlier, my suggestion was in no way intended to make it "impossible" to recruit late or "Easy" to block guys with minimal effort. It was a suggestion that there be some stronger preference/credit for going hard after a recruit early and continuing to put some effort into them.
As an alternative along the same theme, instead of a credit, the costs of certain actions could increase over time (for D1 at least).
Say a home visit costs $500 the first day of recruiting, as signing period approached, it would incrementally increase to say $1000 (these are arbitrary numbers and would have to be evaluated for proper balance). And then, after the initial signing rush, the price would go back to $500 as by that point, those who've put the effort in should have locked up the player.

That last idea is really interesting . . . reflects what happens when you have to travel last minute.  More airfare, more hassle, etc.

It doesn't matter why someone recruits later. Recruiting last 50 hours before signings begin. There is already credit for being early. I strongly oppose making it even harder to recruit later. Since when in the internet is there supposed to be a real reward for being the guy who posts FIRST? Not sure why sending a kid a bunch of pretend home or campus visits first cycle should be substantively better than doing so 45 hours later. 

Posted by dacj501 on 6/14/2012 2:50:00 PM (view original):
It doesn't matter why someone recruits later. Recruiting last 50 hours before signings begin. There is already credit for being early. I strongly oppose making it even harder to recruit later. Since when in the internet is there supposed to be a real reward for being the guy who posts FIRST? Not sure why sending a kid a bunch of pretend home or campus visits first cycle should be substantively better than doing so 45 hours later. 

Agree.  If you don't like poaching, D2 is there for you.

I have been both predator and prey and its an ok system.  Waiting has negatives.

Posted by emy1013 on 6/14/2012 1:57:00 AM (view original):
This same topic seems to pop up about every six months or so, with the same arguments and counters every time.  Here's the question that hasn't been asked yet, but inevitably will, so I'm gonna get it out of the way early.  What happens to the coach, who for whatever reason, isn't able to start his recruiting until the day of signings?   He's not looking to "poach" recruits, he legitimately couldn't get to his team for the first couple of days.  Why should he end up penalized by having to overcome some outrageous considering credit? 

No problem here with having "some" considering credit, but not enough to make it impossible to take a recruit away from someone, even if they've been on him since the first cycle. 

I'd prefer it be somewhere in between some and impossible.  It's far to small of a factor right now.  The only reason I even think it is a factor is because they told us so.  I've certainly seen nothing to suggest it actually is, though.

Posted by tbird9423 on 6/14/2012 12:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by swiftwsut on 6/14/2012 2:30:00 AM (view original):
This thread is dumb. Terrible idea. I don't even wanna imagine the rat race this would be for the first three cycles of recruiting...not to mention everyone would blow their bankroll in the first six cycles. Recruiting is an even playing field currently, no need for change.  

Talk about dumb-- "Recruiting is an even playing field currently"   Where have you been???  I think everyone agrees it is intentionally designed to not be an even playing field.
    I agree that "poaching" is part of the game and isn't really poaching anyways but do think it is too easy to have guys totally flip flop at the rate and numbers they do in this sim.  It's very unrealistic and is another added advantage for those guys that have invested in the game longer.  Those are hidden at every corner and I am willing to admit it-- The best solution is to become one of them and then you'll have all the same advantages as well. 
    I imagine we all miss certain recruiting periods so weighing any of those too heavily could present a problem but a minor increase in the value of early recruiting that would allow a team to become tight with a player would seem to make sense.  
    I will say it is very frustrating to see users point out that real life shouldn't be considered at all on an issue like this but that removing the advantages would create a world "unlike real life" when discussing other issues.  I don't really care about the recruiting but a little consistency in your arguments would go a long way in adding to your credibility.  
    Ultimately, in my mind, the question comes back down to do you want a sim that mimics real life in outcomes or mimcs real life in actions?  That question needs to be answered before we continually debate the smaller issues that play into that.  
   

I'm curious about a sentence or two here.  Maybe it just going over my head or maybe I'm just totally missing the point but could you clarify the part about:

It's very unrealistic and is another added advantage for those guys that have invested in the game longer.  Those are hidden at every corner and I am willing to admit it-- The best solution is to become one of them and then you'll have all the same advantages as well. 

I guess what I'm asking is, what "advantages" do those guys who have "invested in the game longer" have?  Also, what kind of advantages are "hidden at every corner"?  I'm lost on these points, can you clarify?  This could be interesting....

Posted by udm_mike on 6/14/2012 3:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 6/14/2012 1:57:00 AM (view original):
This same topic seems to pop up about every six months or so, with the same arguments and counters every time.  Here's the question that hasn't been asked yet, but inevitably will, so I'm gonna get it out of the way early.  What happens to the coach, who for whatever reason, isn't able to start his recruiting until the day of signings?   He's not looking to "poach" recruits, he legitimately couldn't get to his team for the first couple of days.  Why should he end up penalized by having to overcome some outrageous considering credit? 

No problem here with having "some" considering credit, but not enough to make it impossible to take a recruit away from someone, even if they've been on him since the first cycle. 

I'd prefer it be somewhere in between some and impossible.  It's far to small of a factor right now.  The only reason I even think it is a factor is because they told us so.  I've certainly seen nothing to suggest it actually is, though.

I agree that considering credit needs to be worth more than it currently is.  The only time I've ever seen it possibly factor in was when a Sim team was the one on a recruit and it was close to signings.  In those cases, it seemed to take more effort than usual to knock the Sim team off the recruit's considering list.  In those cases, I felt like I could actually "tell" that there was some considering credit involved.  Never have I noticed it when it came to human coached teams though.  Not once.