First off I've never been a fan of the term "poaching" in HD, but I am 100% for realism in the game.

Call it sour grapes or whatever, but if I'm Indiana (A prestige) and am 'Very High' on a recruit for every cycle and no other school being higher than 'Moderate' in what universe does a player wake up and say "Hey I'm going to go to Valparaiso" who is a C prestige. This kind of randomness is the crap that will more than likely drive me out of the game.

Maybe I have misunderstood while reading these forums, but I thought 3.0 was created to eliminate that? Now any school can jump in on any school?

Do I have a valid point or am I out of line and this is what coaches wanted from the game?

It is for sure not gone.

So this recruit just signed with valpo?

Not any team can jump in because you need to unlock actions first. So while you were ahead valpo was still putting in effort.

We talked on the beta forums alot about preventing the signing if there was a huge swing in interest level. Just delay it 1 cycle so the other team has a chance to adjust. But the idea didnt gain much traction.

I want to add Valpo was "Low" the cycle prior to signing.

Posted by Benis on 9/21/2016 11:55:00 AM (view original):
So this recruit just signed with valpo?

Not any team can jump in because you need to unlock actions first. So while you were ahead valpo was still putting in effort.

We talked on the beta forums alot about preventing the signing if there was a huge swing in interest level. Just delay it 1 cycle so the other team has a chance to adjust. But the idea didnt gain much traction.

Yes, delaying 1 cycle if a school goes from Low --> Very High. Why would there be opposition to that?

since it seems like the signing cycles for each recruit are predetermined (is this right?), i guess it just was really unlucky timing that valpo put in all that effort the cycle the recruit was set to sign. that's pretty crappy.

Posted by joeykw18 on 9/21/2016 11:58:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 9/21/2016 11:55:00 AM (view original):
So this recruit just signed with valpo?

Not any team can jump in because you need to unlock actions first. So while you were ahead valpo was still putting in effort.

We talked on the beta forums alot about preventing the signing if there was a huge swing in interest level. Just delay it 1 cycle so the other team has a chance to adjust. But the idea didnt gain much traction.

Yes, delaying 1 cycle if a school goes from Low --> Very High. Why would there be opposition to that?

I doubt it.

Specific signing cycles are not predetermined. There is a chance that any given recruit with a signing preference could sign during any stage of the designated period.

Essentially each recruit rolls a random number in each cycle of their designated signing period and based on that roll they either sign or they don't.

Had you done all the home visits? It's designed so that the valpo's can't sneak up on you. You'll be able to see if there are humans on the recruits, and if they've offered a scholarship or not. You have to assume that a human who offers a scholarship intends to come after the guy. At that point, your decision (if you haven't already maxed effort) is to walk away, or roll with him and go all in. There's still a chance he's going to be able to surprise you, even with a prestige disadvantage, especially if the recruit's preferences match up well.

Posted by pkoopman on 9/21/2016 12:16:00 PM (view original):
Had you done all the home visits? It's designed so that the valpo's can't sneak up on you. You'll be able to see if there are humans on the recruits, and if they've offered a scholarship or not. You have to assume that a human who offers a scholarship intends to come after the guy. At that point, your decision (if you haven't already maxed effort) is to walk away, or roll with him and go all in. There's still a chance he's going to be able to surprise you, even with a prestige disadvantage, especially if the recruit's preferences match up well.

I had some home visits and the campus visit, could have had more, but when you're trying to recruit 4 guys you can't go all in on everyone. It seemed reasonable not to add more when I'd been Very High and he was at Low on every cycle. If I'd been given 1 cycle to see a change I could have shown the recruit "more love" if that's what he wanted. I just don't see how this situation would ever play out realistically.

The words in the VH / H / etc. listing are misleading and meaningless in 3.0. Fun, right?

for sure had that happen in the beta

Posted by kcsundevil on 9/21/2016 1:00:00 PM (view original):
The words in the VH / H / etc. listing are misleading and meaningless in 3.0. Fun, right?

I dont think this situation is the same as we were talking yesterday. Not much different with current WOTS where it says the recruit is tight with a school and then someone drops 30HVs on the cycle before signings.

Posted by Benis on 9/21/2016 1:34:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kcsundevil on 9/21/2016 1:00:00 PM (view original):
The words in the VH / H / etc. listing are misleading and meaningless in 3.0. Fun, right?

I dont think this situation is the same as we were talking yesterday. Not much different with current WOTS where it says the recruit is tight with a school and then someone drops 30HVs on the cycle before signings.

WOTS was intentionally placed off to the side, didn't update every cycle, and didn't pretend to give reliable information.

Posted by kcsundevil on 9/21/2016 1:00:00 PM (view original):
The words in the VH / H / etc. listing are misleading and meaningless in 3.0. Fun, right?

Yes, the VH and H are quite ambiguous but there is still meaning in them because VH still has greater probability of signing any given recruit than H but probabilities are what they are. Besides, based on our conversation yesterday, it still appears you'd much prefer the terms were even more ambiguous and had less meaning.

And in season's past when the Valpo's of HD were sitting on a solid mid-major recruit for two days of recruiting and the Indiana's of HD needed a reserve bench player to play five to ten minutes a game and swooped in at signing cycle and "strategically" "out-recruited" the Valpo's leaving them with no time to recover because the good players not in battles had all signed, that was fun for them too, right?

This version of the game isn't perfect, it's not how I would have designed it, and likely isn't how any of us other than seble would have designed it. In fact, there are probably very few of us who would agree with each other on how this game could be perfect. But at least now no one is immune from the "fun" you reference, and now most of this happens early enough in recruiting where there is plenty of time to recover and find a second choice.