I don't think a single user can recall a truly successful or genuine marketing push by wis. The most "successful" are the emails to previous users with free season codes which data in the forums has shown to be a temporary uptick followed by rapid departures.

This is why killing off some worlds makes sense...

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

I actually think this isnt a bad idea...most owners do not want to wait a bunch of seasons until they can get to D1...just start them off at a low D1 school to begin with. You can still have the D2 and D3 schools if coaches wish to start off there, but give them the option to start at D1.

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

in the old days, a novice player wouldn't have a chance. But now, why not? D1 shouldn't be that much harder with the 'more' random recruit choices, and with the larger budgets in d1. Heck, I think d1 might even be easier to learn / understand / gain minimal competence at than the tight budgeted d3, or at least the gap is not near as great as those vaunted 'good old days'.

By the way, I think the admin's comments about letting go of past concepts is possibly the best advice I've heard about the new game. I've thought of several ways to navigate thru some of the issues I have, and several of the solutions are near 180 degrees different than the way I played the old game. So if we let go of old concepts, nothing wrong with considering ideas like yours.

Good job thinking out of the box!

Posted by oldresorter on 9/29/2016 11:32:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

in the old days, a novice player wouldn't have a chance. But now, why not? D1 shouldn't be that much harder with the 'more' random recruit choices, and with the larger budgets in d1. Heck, I think d1 might even be easier to learn / understand / gain minimal competence at than the tight budgeted d3, or at least the gap is not near as great as those vaunted 'good old days'.

By the way, I think the admin's comments about letting go of past concepts is possibly the best advice I've heard about the new game. I've thought of several ways to navigate thru some of the issues I have, and several of the solutions are near 180 degrees different than the way I played the old game. So if we let go of old concepts, nothing wrong with considering ideas like yours.

Good job thinking out of the box!

I agree that it might be easier at D1 now with the very small scouting budget at D3 which will take time to figure out. But I think also the entrenched D3 coaches are going to have better teams than ever before with no more hard caps. Hope these new guys will like losing by 80!

we had all these new users when they sent out codes during march madness. almost nobody stayed. there are lots of reasons people didn't stay, but having to start out at a D3 school instead of a D1 school they saw playing in the tournament has to be kind of deflating. even more so when you realize you're looking at 5+ seasons at D2/D3 before you get to a school you wanted to coach way back in march. even more so when there are 100+ vacant low D1 jobs you can't access.

honestly, in the interest of fairness to folks working their way up with intentions to get to D1, if i were WIS I'd open the lowest D1 schools (say, D prestige) in each world to new users and existing users. let anyone who wants to play D1 try it out. letting people in at the bottom of D1 does not devalue high D1.

anyway I'll submit the question to the dev chat, see what they think.

Posted by Benis on 9/29/2016 11:36:00 AM (view original):

Posted by oldresorter on 9/29/2016 11:32:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

in the old days, a novice player wouldn't have a chance. But now, why not? D1 shouldn't be that much harder with the 'more' random recruit choices, and with the larger budgets in d1. Heck, I think d1 might even be easier to learn / understand / gain minimal competence at than the tight budgeted d3, or at least the gap is not near as great as those vaunted 'good old days'.

By the way, I think the admin's comments about letting go of past concepts is possibly the best advice I've heard about the new game. I've thought of several ways to navigate thru some of the issues I have, and several of the solutions are near 180 degrees different than the way I played the old game. So if we let go of old concepts, nothing wrong with considering ideas like yours.

Good job thinking out of the box!

I agree that it might be easier at D1 now with the very small scouting budget at D3 which will take time to figure out. But I think also the entrenched D3 coaches are going to have better teams than ever before with no more hard caps. Hope these new guys will like losing by 80!

I know my first few seasons in HD I blew all my money early and spent it poorly. I think my son did too. My son also thought that booster gifts were a solid recruiting strategy. I think in those days they sort of worked even, except I think the penalty took place 'after' the gift worked. I assume most new players who are trying hard do overspend though. If i were the game designer, I'd make the d2/d3 budgets for scouting and recruiting the same for d2 and d3. The game (IMO) is simply alot more fun to play with bigger budgets.

Posted by oldresorter on 9/29/2016 11:44:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 9/29/2016 11:36:00 AM (view original):

Posted by oldresorter on 9/29/2016 11:32:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

in the old days, a novice player wouldn't have a chance. But now, why not? D1 shouldn't be that much harder with the 'more' random recruit choices, and with the larger budgets in d1. Heck, I think d1 might even be easier to learn / understand / gain minimal competence at than the tight budgeted d3, or at least the gap is not near as great as those vaunted 'good old days'.

By the way, I think the admin's comments about letting go of past concepts is possibly the best advice I've heard about the new game. I've thought of several ways to navigate thru some of the issues I have, and several of the solutions are near 180 degrees different than the way I played the old game. So if we let go of old concepts, nothing wrong with considering ideas like yours.

Good job thinking out of the box!

I agree that it might be easier at D1 now with the very small scouting budget at D3 which will take time to figure out. But I think also the entrenched D3 coaches are going to have better teams than ever before with no more hard caps. Hope these new guys will like losing by 80!

I know my first few seasons in HD I blew all my money early and spent it poorly. I think my son did too. My son also thought that booster gifts were a solid recruiting strategy. I think in those days they sort of worked even, except I think the penalty took place 'after' the gift worked. I assume most new players who are trying hard do overspend though. If i were the game designer, I'd make the d2/d3 budgets for scouting and recruiting the same for d2 and d3. The game (IMO) is simply alot more fun to play with bigger budgets.

I agree that the Scouting budget should be bigger. I sent in a question to the Dev Chat about this but it didn't get answered. That is one big challenge to new folks at D3, I think.

However, I do think there should still be a considerable gap between recruiting budgets for the divisions. Now with no more hard caps, D3 schools can compete with D1 schools for players (difficult but still possible to do it). So if the budgets were the same, then D3 would have an easier time battling D1 and D2 schools and that doesn't make sense to me.

Posted by crabman26 on 9/29/2016 11:25:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

I actually think this isnt a bad idea...most owners do not want to wait a bunch of seasons until they can get to D1...just start them off at a low D1 school to begin with. You can still have the D2 and D3 schools if coaches wish to start off there, but give them the option to start at D1.

+1, this is really the only way new users will stick.

WIS has long ago tapped out the market on players willing to pay $50 to slog a half year in the lower divisions before sniffing the worst D1 teams.

It's crazy seeing UCLA, UCONN, and SYCRCUSE all open in Knight......naturally I'm not qualified for any of them. As I've thought since the previous development chat (not the one this week). The recruiting update will be the death of HD. Really sad, I would have been a customer for life if it was left how it was (despite needing better job logic and revised recruit generation), but now I'll go one more season in Knight with Indiana then I'll play out my credits with Vermont then I'm unfortunately out. :(

Posted by oldresorter on 9/29/2016 9:55:00 AM (view original):
I saved the population data prior to the roll over:

by division d1/d2/d3 before vs after - 120/91/68 vs 98/62/49

Now there will be some late guys who re-up - I just did myself, so I'd expect those are not the final numbers. By the way, most worlds are right around these numbers, Knight might even have been slightly higher. the only world I don't have the info yet is Naismith, which beginning tonight will be the last world to recruit under the old system.

world 2 - 115/104/85
world 3 - 116/78/78
world 4 - 108/82/81
world 5 - 102/97/67
world 6 - 111/98/85
World 7 - 102/68/64
world 8 - 124/97/50
world 10 - 116/71/70

are these numbers before HD 3.0?

losing 70 teams is a lot (world 1, all divisions combined).

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

Bwahahaha, throw 'em right in with the BIG sharks. Big sharks say, "Yum yum yum."

"i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about."
I think one of the coolest things is starting at a nearby D3 whose campus you have visited and where you have some affinity already ... and where you can learn the game at your pace.

Posted by CoachSpud on 9/29/2016 1:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 9/29/2016 11:21:00 AM (view original):
we'll see how the marketing stuff goes. hopefully populations will recover. i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about. i think WIS would be better off just letting new players start at low D1. I'm sure some old time players will argue that they had to walk uphill both ways back in the day to get to D1, but i do think WIS would attract and keep new players more that way, so i think a move like that would probably be in their interest.

note: I'm not saying eliminate D2/D3

Bwahahaha, throw 'em right in with the BIG sharks. Big sharks say, "Yum yum yum."

"i think one of the hardest things for people getting into this game is starting in D3 at a school they never heard of and don't care about."
I think one of the coolest things is starting at a nearby D3 whose campus you have visited and where you have some affinity already ... and where you can learn the game at your pace.

It's fine you think that's cool, but a lot of potential players don't live within 100 miles of a D3 school and have no interest in the D3 dues-paying exercise.

spud, it's great that you think that's cool, and for some users it is. i say give people the option to do that OR start at low D1. you've advocated repeatedly that you love HD3 giving users more choices, more strategies, more options. this would just be another option. to me, more ways to enjoy the game and play it your way is a good thing. increasing the appeal to potential new users and giving them options is a good thing, too. wouldn't you agree?

the fact is that new users don't know how to pick potentially successful D3 teams (ie, # of openings, prestige, location etc), so there really isn't a huge difference letting them start there or in a low D1 conference if that's their preference.