goodtymes, I can't talk you or anyone else off the ledge if you're really hate the new game and don't want to play it. You have to want to play it and everyone has to draw their own conclusions about the game. They're no longer posted in these forums but admin's primary reasons for this rollout were as follows:
- Elite schools have too much advantage, with the combination of prestige and extra recruiting money.
- There is not enough battling going on for the top recruits, most likely due to the belief that elite schools can't be beaten and the fear of losing that money.
- The status of your school related to a recruit can be confusing and hard to track due to vague messages.
- Some battles last until the end of recruiting, leaving the losing schools in a bad position.
- There are not enough schools willing and able to recruit outside of their region.
- Scouting players is rudimentary and frustrating.
- Player decisions come down mostly to money spent (assuming other factors are fairly equal), making it a glorified auction system.
- Recruiting takes place at the beginning of the season, which is tough for new coaches, who haven't had a chance to learn the game.
- Due to the benefits of postseason money, there is way too much cooperation between teams in the same conference.
- SimAI teams are pretty terrible at recruiting, leaving many undesirable rosters.
We can all debate about whether the changes went to far, whether they could have made less drastic changes and whether or not the game is better now. Vandydave argues very passionately about a game he loves and how changes could have been made that would potentially have appealed to more users, I respect his passion but I never loved recruiting the way he and others did. That being said, 3.0 isn't the game I would have produced if I had been designing it but then everyone probably would have hated what I did too.
I think the thing to remember here that one of the primary goals of seble's version of HD was to spread talent around and he designed a system that appears, in its early stages to be doing that. It's not happening at alarming numbers from what I'm reading and seeing in Knight, but top recruits certainly aren't being hoarded by a small handful of schools anymore and that is a positive for the game.
The old game was bleeding users, this version is driving off a lot of long time users, that's unfortunate - it's unfortunate that many of those leaving never appeared to give the game a chance. Many of the long time users in the Beta walked out en masse after the first season of Beta in what appeared to be a very orchestrated and deliberate attempt to show seble what the game would lose if he carried through with his changes. Instead of working through the Beta to make it better, many just stopped playing, and the same predictable voices that walked out on the Beta continue to be the same dissenters on these forums and on the CCs today after less than one season in the new format.
3.0 isn't perfect, but it's not bad either. The thing that I think is important to remember is that one of the "features" of the new game is a system that allows you to battle for recruits but that if you lose doesn't blow your entire recruiting period if you do. For it to work as it was intended teams (particularly lower level teams) have to have an incentive to battle and the only way they will have that is if they (as the underdog) can win occasionally. The questions is what is that magic number? What is the sweet spot that will continue to provide lower prestige schools the incentive to battle? I'm not sure what that number is but I firmly believe
the more you strip that away by reducing or eliminating the random element that comes up at signing and gives a team a chance, the less lower prestige teams will be willing to challenge others in the first place. This means fewer battles and more of a return to the status quo.
* Addendum: With reference to the comments I made about long term users leaving beta en masse in what appeared to be an orchestrated endeavor I will add, based on comments from both vandy and kc, that those were largely irresponsible on my part. I do not wish to suggest there actually was an orchestrated effort on anyone's part and if that offended anyone I apologize. There certainly was a mass exodus of long term users after the first beta season, likely because many of them grew tired, frustrated and felt their voices were ignored. It is still unfortunate so many chose to abandon the beta because the Beta lost those voices and the chance to make the game better and more appealing to more users.
9/24/2016 2:26 PM (edited)