The Beta = Operation Market Garden

Elaborate solution to a tactical problem.

LOL
Spud must be the English general carrying the umbrella.

Well, Beta Season 3 began today...a few minor changes in play for this season from last season. For starters, we have a "mass level-up" screen for scouting that might help cut down the clickfest that has been recruiting. My opinion is it's in the wrong location however...it's currently on the targets screen rather than the recruit pool screen where ratings actually appear normally. Yes, some clicks have definitely been saved, but the incessant need to flip screens to see the effects of your latest mass level-up is still annoying.

But as my favorite quote from The Equalizer goes -- "progress, not perfection." And we definitely made progress by getting this in the game.

The second significant change is the ability to determine what player level you invite to your personal camp and/or that you send your assistant coach after. This is a VERY GOOD thing -- no more paying money for D3 players if you're a D2/D1 program hosting a camp.

The third change is that Level 1 letter grades are now dependent upon position. So the "offense" rating of a PG is now compared against other PG's (and maybe SG's?) to decide the A/B/C/D/F basic grade. Unfortunately, I think this created some ripples that weren't foreseen in how players' overall grades were shown at higher levels of the scouting process. For instance, here are some letter grades some of my targets had after Level 3 and the resultant numerical rating that the players showed. To say that it's all over the board is putting it mildly...

Clarence Woodall — A (possibly A-minus...I wasn't paying attention to Level 3 non-C grades until this one...) -- 491
John Tash — B-plus -- 586 = B+
Randall Red — A -- 525
Carlos Minton — B-minus -- 443
John Johnson — B-plus -- 551
Ralph Blom -- A -- 471
Ronald Moore — B-minus -- 607
Raymond Koller — B -- 489
Alfred Bauman — C-plus -- 558
Gordon Tate — B-plus -- 497
Justin Parker — C -- 505
Harold Ormond — A-minus -- 572
Raymond Green — B -- 620
Paul Hills — A-plus -- 579

Now, you may be thinking "maybe some are JUCO and they get their own ratings"...nope, all 4 year players. "Well then, red, maybe they're given different rankings for different positions?"...nope, Moore, Koller and Bauman, for instance, are all SF's. I can find no vector that explains things...not divisional projection, not position. Heck, I don't even think they accidentally slipped and let post-potential potency get reflected in the overall grades. This simply appears FUBAR at this stage, and I can't count the amount of money I wasted scouting players who wound up having overall rating totals that put them lower than I'd ever consider. I don't mind making decisions based on vague or generic information, but I don't think I"m out of place asking for/demanding consistency in the generic information I receive. A player rated at B- should always end up with a higher overall rating than a C+. An A should be higher than a B, etc. I feel really bad for all the D1 teams that scout A-rated overall players only to discover they have high-400 starting value. There's also going to be some great value on players that rated out at B-/C+ that D1 programs probably won't scout thinking them too weak to bother with. Great news for we little folks.

SEASON 3 SCOUTING STRATEGY -- As promised last year, I didn't bother holding an on-campus camp because when I did the math I calculated the ROI is better to FSS rather than sending out a camp. From there, I just scouted up players who had at least a C overall rating and a D work ethic. At Level 2, I dropped all players with a D defense rating and post players with a D or lower athleticism rating. At Level 3, I stopped checking recruits if the overall rating dropped to a C- and also players who had a bevy of yellows in the key categories.

I wound up scouting too many "bad" players (and by "bad" players, I mean folks I'd gladly recruit in the current game for D2, but players who are a notch below what I expect to pick up in the beta...) and found myself running short of money well earlier than I'd expected. Part of that was due to the variation in overall rating grades causing me to scout extra times on players I wouldn't have progressed on (or scouted past Level 1 in the first place...). But even with that, it felt like somehow I was short on funds.

And that's when i realized that I was a complete dipshit who F'd up the math I'd done last season leading me to believe campus camps are a losing ROI. They aren't. By a long shot. $10K/200 players = $50 per player for 2 levels of info. 2 levels of scout for any player = $200 minimum. @!#$!!...oh well, learn from my mistake boys and girls. Team camp. Every. Single. Time.

That said, I was still able to get a read on pretty much every player 4-year player within a 400-mile circle around my campus that met my criteria to recruit to Level 4. I'm sure I cost myself a contact or two (more like 20 ...*grumble*...) that would be worth going after, but I don't exactly see myself hurting for options.

clickfest captures some of the unfun chore aspect of the new scheme

together with absence of filters for skillz makes it a ton more work - I dont know how people think it isnt - unless they were spending a LOT more time than I do in the current system

Posted by fd343ny on 7/5/2016 12:33:00 AM (view original):
clickfest captures some of the unfun chore aspect of the new scheme

together with absence of filters for skillz makes it a ton more work - I dont know how people think it isnt - unless they were spending a LOT more time than I do in the current system

Not just you...I could get my initial scouting/recruiting done in < 30 minutes in the current. I "sped up" to about an hour and a half/two hours this time around in the beta.

It just seems like it's an awful lot of extra work, a bunch of fluff, and going around your elbow to reach your *** to get the same info we get now through just straight FSS'ing a state.

Every time I read an updated post from one of the beta testers, it just turns me off that much more. I had said earlier that I would keep a team or two to stick around and try the game but I'm not even sure I feel like doing that now. I guess now for me it'll simply be a matter of whether I still have season credits to use up or not when this thing rolls out. I can safely say that I won't be spending anymore money on this site, which actually makes me a little sad after so many years of playing what was once a great game that our admins have slowly (or in some cases swiftly) ruined. If only we could get someone higher up the food chain to pay attention to what was happening to the game and to see for themselves just how many coaches have already left and how many more are planning to go once this debacle is officially rolled out.

I guess to clarify a little. The actual recruiting sounds as if it may be okay. Heck it may even be an improvement over what we've got. But the scouting part of the update "sounds" like a dumpster fire. Maybe getting that part of it sorted out a bit more will increase some of the interest, I don't know and can't know until I actually try it personally. But a lot of experienced coaches whose opinions I respect very much seem less than impressed with what they've seen so far, so it would surely seem that some major changes still need to be enacted upon different parts of this thing before it's rolled out for good.

As I alluded to earlier, recruiting actually sounds kind of interesting. Scouting sounds like a lot of repetitious work for not much info. Another thing that should be a bit worrisome to everyone is how many coaches have already ghost shipped their beta teams. Surely it can't be because every one of them has it all figured out that quickly. So if that isn't the reason, what could it be? Well, I think we all know what the reasons probably are but if that many coaches basically giving up on their beta teams doesn't open some admin eyes I doubt if anything will at this point.

Posted by fd343ny on 7/5/2016 12:33:00 AM (view original):
clickfest captures some of the unfun chore aspect of the new scheme

together with absence of filters for skillz makes it a ton more work - I dont know how people think it isnt - unless they were spending a LOT more time than I do in the current system

I don't mean to be condescending, but it's because we've adapted faster. Scouting isn't really boring, tedious, work or to long for me. It's different. I also think that since we can do it over weeks instead of hours it will ultimately be better and lead to more detailed results. But it is different. You don't get all the information (or most rather) with one click of FSS. If that is important to you, you probably won't like the new system.

Posted by dcy0827 on 7/5/2016 2:50:00 AM (view original):
I guess to clarify a little. The actual recruiting sounds as if it may be okay. Heck it may even be an improvement over what we've got. But the scouting part of the update "sounds" like a dumpster fire. Maybe getting that part of it sorted out a bit more will increase some of the interest, I don't know and can't know until I actually try it personally. But a lot of experienced coaches whose opinions I respect very much seem less than impressed with what they've seen so far, so it would surely seem that some major changes still need to be enacted upon different parts of this thing before it's rolled out for good.

As I alluded to earlier, recruiting actually sounds kind of interesting. Scouting sounds like a lot of repetitious work for not much info. Another thing that should be a bit worrisome to everyone is how many coaches have already ghost shipped their beta teams. Surely it can't be because every one of them has it all figured out that quickly. So if that isn't the reason, what could it be? Well, I think we all know what the reasons probably are but if that many coaches basically giving up on their beta teams doesn't open some admin eyes I doubt if anything will at this point.

You're getting some awful advice if you think scouting is a dumpster fire.

I am somewhat biased because at home I use safari and can only read column headings by highlighting them - otherwise they appear as light grey text on light grey background, so I can only do anything comfortably at work on Chrome.

If they ever fix safari and if they ever install filters that allow one to avoid the need to manually compare and compile recruit information, it could possibly not be a disaster for me. As it stands, I wont even use my credits once they switch to the new regime.

I hear you on the filters. It doesn't look like seble knows how to handle the filters, he's come out and said it's a hard problem to fix.

I

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/5/2016 6:10:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dcy0827 on 7/5/2016 2:50:00 AM (view original):
I guess to clarify a little. The actual recruiting sounds as if it may be okay. Heck it may even be an improvement over what we've got. But the scouting part of the update "sounds" like a dumpster fire. Maybe getting that part of it sorted out a bit more will increase some of the interest, I don't know and can't know until I actually try it personally. But a lot of experienced coaches whose opinions I respect very much seem less than impressed with what they've seen so far, so it would surely seem that some major changes still need to be enacted upon different parts of this thing before it's rolled out for good.

As I alluded to earlier, recruiting actually sounds kind of interesting. Scouting sounds like a lot of repetitious work for not much info. Another thing that should be a bit worrisome to everyone is how many coaches have already ghost shipped their beta teams. Surely it can't be because every one of them has it all figured out that quickly. So if that isn't the reason, what could it be? Well, I think we all know what the reasons probably are but if that many coaches basically giving up on their beta teams doesn't open some admin eyes I doubt if anything will at this point.

You're getting some awful advice if you think scouting is a dumpster fire.

Perhaps you can advise me then. Seriously.

I haven't heard much that sounds better about this new update than what we currently have besides it being stretched out over a longer period of time. Yes, I understand that it's "different" but different doesn't necessarily mean better. There isn't anything wrong with the FSS system we have now. It, in and of itself, is fine. Yes, scouting trips needed fixed and that's been taken care of but this whole update still feels like change for the sake of change.

This is what scouting looks like now:

1. To start you can see zero players, your initial tasks is to discover them via a number of tools. There are many options (FSS, large camps, specific camps, large scale assistant coach camps) that have different costs. These discovery trips are quite adjustable (I only want PG's or D2 players, or D2 PG's).

2. Minimal information is given about the players who are discovered, you then need to scout these players to ascertain there skills. There are three additional information levels. Each level costs more money. Some guys you scout tend to be not very good. Sometime you know that after one additional scout (Level 2) sometimes you need to go to level 3 or 4 to figure out if you want them. The scouting takes places instantaneously.

All of this has a budget that is separate from the recruiting budget. In season 1, I spent MAYBE 1/3 of my scouting budget. In season 2, I went out and spent it all. I probably discovered 1/3 of the guys available to me in the current engine although I scouted probably 20 times more.


It is different, it is not a dumpster fire.

The three biggest complaints I have noticed are:

1. "The discovery process doesn't reveal enough relevant information." I get this I guess, I just think people are missing (or not enjoying) the discovery aspect of the game.
2. "I need to click to many buttons to get what I want." To me this isn't a big deal since the information arrives right away and is complete.. It's a significant improvement to having to wait three hours and then translate a scouting report and hoping you get the skill you are waiting for.
2a. "It takes to long to scout". Maybe it does but I was able to do a pretty solid job without any added time. I did spend more time in season 2 but it was because I wanted to play with more bells and whistles. YMMV.
3. "They didn't need to make the change, just fix firing, recruit generation, etc." Well, there is no counter argument to this.

And EMY, this might actually make you happy:

From Stewdog" i haven't really analyzed this fully, but it looks to me like there are not as many high quality D1 players as there has been in the past.

Has as recruit generation been messed with as well as everything else or am I just blind to the quality out there?"

So for #2 you say

I need to click to many buttons to get what I want. To me this isn't a big deal since the information arrives right away and is complete.. It's a significant improvement to having to wait three hours and then translate a scouting report and hoping you get the skill you are waiting for.

But we already get FSS instantly, the only thing is the current version of ST is instant?

So we make it longer to get what we had instantly and easier to get what we didn't have before? You completely avoiding that. Sure it might be really nice to have ST info easily right away but now to get basic information I just have to click a crap ton of buttons with scouting levels that still don't really seem to work even by making level 1 position specific(instead of just eliminating it...)