nachopuzzle, what do you think about the recent cascade of changes in HD? Think they're on the right track? Hopeful that some of your suggested changes will come to fruition? 

Posted by kbc167 on 5/31/2014 3:43:00 AM (view original):
nachopuzzle, what do you think about the recent cascade of changes in HD? Think they're on the right track? Hopeful that some of your suggested changes will come to fruition? 

Well kbc, thanks for asking about my opinion on the current changes, I have been following them rather closely. What's your opinion?

Let's not forget that only a very small number of the proposed changes that were listed in the polls were actually my own personal suggestions, the vast majority of them came from the HD community at large (and even then I wasn't able to incorporate them all).

With that being said, in general, I am a fan of the new changes. I think it's worth pointing out, that in the flurry of new updates, there seem to be three that have the most significance: roughly (1) availability of past player ratings, (2) giving coaches the option to choose players' listed positions, and (3) changed the logic for PIT selection. And of those three, two were actually listed options on the "Cosmetic" polls, with "availability of past player ratings and stats" being the #1 most popular overall choice in the portion of the poll.

Though, and more importantly, I think HD is on the right track because of the renewed interest the admins (specifically the aloof & mythical seble, haha) have in improving the HD experience...and a VERY large part of this is the increased frequency of communication/interaction between seble and the HD community. Which will only be a positive as the admins, in my opinion, make more significant changes to the simulation.

...and I wasn't gonna leak this, but what the hell...For those of you that aren't aware, the only people that can see which selections individual users made in a poll are the site administration and the user that created the poll. And, since seble took part in the user polls himself, I am privy to seeing which individual selections he actually made...and here is what they were:

Engine
#1 - remove fastbreak & fullcourt press as individual sets
#2 - remove fastbreak & fullcourt press as individual sets
#3 - make current offenses more unique or different from other sets

Recruiting and Jobs
#1 - greater variance +/- in freshmen entry IQs
#2 - increase DI firings
#3 - increase DI firings

Cosmetic
#1 - availability of past single season stats and ratings for individual players
#2 - give coaches the option to select which position a player is listed as
#3 - allow coaches to save multiple depth charts

As a disclaimer, I want to say that I'm not making any assumptions as to what his individual choices meant or if they meant anything at all (he could have been voting as a coach himself or his choices could indicate what direction he plans on taking the engine or they could be subtle counter-intelligence operation), BUT since the time of his votes he has actually made the corresponding changes to his #1 and #2 choices for Cosmetic improvements.

I agree with you. It's probably not a coincidence that those are the first two major changes. Past player stats will be a big help.

For me personally, I think anything that will increase the number of coaches and make it easier to create community and league challenges is more essential. In my view the biggest challenge in the game is lack of participation. Too many coaches off in their corners and it's too difficult to coral the marginal coaches together. By marginal, I mean those who are good coaches but just don't engage or interact unless prompted. I think coaches with roots and rivalry in a league are much less likely to jump. Coaches moving programs can quickly destabilize a league and lead to the sheer numbers of empty or near empty leagues you see across the worlds.

Here are a few general ideas I sent to seble. Albeit they need to be fleshed out:
1. Formalize a way to create conference challenges and organize coaches in a league in some way to take action as a league. League identity is only there in a few leagues in every division. It should be much better

2. Formalize a way for coaches to vote for coach of the year, player of the year etc. it shouldn't just be the coach with the most conference wins. Seble mentioned that this is tough because many coaches don't vote. Well if they don't then the sim can vote for them in the same manner it does now. But this adds one more element to the game.

3. Add a coaches poll to HD. Let coaches vote for the best teams. If a coach doesn't submit, then his "assistant" can do it. You can't tell me that won't create more engagement across leagues.

4. Add world announcements as teams advance to the chat box. Why not announce the sweet 16 or final 4? The tourney is a big deal and coaches who reach that level should get extra recognition amongst peers. Like on Facebook,,the coaches could post congrats to the successful coaches' chat boxes.

5. For the love of the god, allow us to edit or delete chat posts in case if error or typo. It sucks that it's do permanent.

6. I could go on but as you can see, just anything to create more community. Maybe a chat feature to replace sitemail. More akin to Facebook.

I know most coaches don't agree with me that these are priorities but hey, you asked ;)