I missed the random game engine change as well. The game/tourney isn't more random. The best team will still win but the difference between the best team and 32 best team will be closer than 2.0 and will lead to more upsets and a larger group of teams having a chance to win it all. I will avoid any more comments about what others want though I only repeated what has been expressed to me directly or in the forums.

Posted by kubasnack on 10/12/2016 1:22:00 PM (view original):
I am really tired of the "I quit" posts. Most of the time, no reason given for why the person is done other than they, I only assume, didn't like something that changed from 2.0 to 3.0. In BETA, we just had complaints about changes before even they were tested. People complained and tried to sabotage the BETA not even working through changes.
We have rehashed this already. Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you feel, we took votes in BETA repeatedly, and recruiting changes were always wanted by more than half the voters. Not one change was put in by Seble that at least half the users didn't approve of. I am going to sum up the elite coach argument here and now so that at least they can move on to either work with 3.0 or quit blaming the changes for their failures. If you quit, too bad for you, but I don't care, it doesn't help anything and just sours the Forums.

Elite coaches summary..
1. There was no issue with recruiting in 2.0 other than someone trying to recruit my guys at the last minute. I liked knowing if I spend 1 more $ then I would get the recruit. I really liked knowing, how many openings my opponent has, how much money, which recruits they targeted, and how much it costs them to take actions. Oh, and I want to make sure that there is no possible way some guy with a B school or worse can even talk to my 5 star recruits. I really liked having lots of EE's and find it completely unfair if I just can't go replace them every year.
2. Job logic needs to change but I just don't know how. Please don't mess with my game.
3. I hate 3.0. I don't understand why a recruit who prefers every thing my team is "not" won't just sign with me. I don't understand why my A+ elite team just doesn't get to pick its recruits. I don't like it when another coach puts in almost the same amount of effort as I do and the recruit chooses them. Why do I have to scout. I should just be able to look at the top 100 list and pick my recruits. I lost the advantage of having tons of conference money every year and have to use "strategy" and "skill" to fill my roster now.
4. I am giving up half my teams. It is pointless now to have two teams in a world because I don't have an advantage scouting only half the country and using the extra money to beat those who don't have 2 teams for recruits.
5. You people aren't Elite and so cant talk. You don't know how hard it is. I have masted the recruiting auction process of 2.0 and now you want a part of my success.

This summarizes all the points I have been seeing from the coaches who are mad or quitting that actually posted why. Not one had a suggestion that benefited WIS as a whole but rather only themselves and keeping their Elite status. If you look whats best for the game's growth, its putting a system in place that allows for competition, a challenge, and the knowledge that one day, in the not too distant future, it could be "me" holding up the trophy. Under 2.0, most of this was not possible.

So, I ask you to please post something constructive but stop posting "I quit" or "this sucks, I quit". It just ruins the experience for those of us trying to make things work and any new users trying to pick up the game.

Seriously, half the coaches voted for these changes? Do you seriously believe that? Please show where you got these numbers from, because that's a load of crap. Additionally, a lot of the votes were for pieces of the game no one wanted in the first place. If I have an apple, and you want an orange, and I tell the group you can have the apple cut in squares or triangles, then yes you got to vote, but for something that you don't want to begin with. A lot of 3.0 was going to be put into place whether it was wanted or not.

As far as your elite coaches summary (I am not one), it's so misguided it's not even funny, except for your first sentence in point 5. I can understand why someone would say that to you. You sound like someone who was just bitter, because you couldn't get past the 2nd round, and now 3.0 adds some luck to the game and you think it's going to give you a shot, but I doubt it.

Posted by kubasnack on 10/12/2016 8:36:00 PM (view original):
I missed the random game engine change as well. The game/tourney isn't more random. The best team will still win but the difference between the best team and 32 best team will be closer than 2.0 and will lead to more upsets and a larger group of teams having a chance to win it all. I will avoid any more comments about what others want though I only repeated what has been expressed to me directly or in the forums.

The engine is the same. But if you can't build a team with a decent chance to win the tournament - say, at least 10%, bare minimum - then the game is too non-deterministic for my tastes. The 32nd best team shouldn't be good enough to have more than a few percent chance to beat the top team. How many years in real life do you think half the teams in the NCAA tournament have a meaningful chance of winning?

You have it wrong. I am not bitter at all. I have won everyone I have coached and took my first big 5 team from D+ to B+ and made the round of 32 in my 4th season. I would have been fine with the previous recruiting process though I thought it was boring and just a plain auction. I am thinking of all the excitement that 3.0 brings other than the obvious improvements in mobile friendliness. Scouting now makes a difference, preferences play a new part in the game, and if I find a recruit that matches my program, I have an actual chance of signing them. Sometimes, recruits pick the other team, but it adds a little mystery and a lot of strategy. Do I go for broke on a few recruits or really try to bring in a complete class and develop my team for the long term. I haven't found anything "unfair" about the current system. What I have found is some coaches who aren't used to competing or losing out on recruits, getting upset when they do. You don't win every battle but at least we are battling.

Posted by vandydave on 10/13/2016 12:09:00 AM (view original):
I quit...reading any kubasnack posts - the initial post is full of flat out false statements about Beta and mostly biased perceptions which I literally haven't seen represented at all by a single coach I would call elite. All the post was is a bunch of stereotypes by someone either not in touch with reality or with a very sad inferiority complex. A lot of elite coaches wanted significant changes made to the game which would've considerably leveled the playing field.

+1 and i hope you guys continue to give advices to the devs so we get a better game down the line, less random more logic, more strategy.

Posted by kubasnack on 10/12/2016 10:13:00 PM (view original):
You have it wrong. I am not bitter at all. I have won everyone I have coached and took my first big 5 team from D+ to B+ and made the round of 32 in my 4th season. I would have been fine with the previous recruiting process though I thought it was boring and just a plain auction. I am thinking of all the excitement that 3.0 brings other than the obvious improvements in mobile friendliness. Scouting now makes a difference, preferences play a new part in the game, and if I find a recruit that matches my program, I have an actual chance of signing them. Sometimes, recruits pick the other team, but it adds a little mystery and a lot of strategy. Do I go for broke on a few recruits or really try to bring in a complete class and develop my team for the long term. I haven't found anything "unfair" about the current system. What I have found is some coaches who aren't used to competing or losing out on recruits, getting upset when they do. You don't win every battle but at least we are battling.

You really overestimate your success. Other SEC coaches in rupp built up way better programs than you did in the same time frames, or less, and your response was to blame the engine.

JP, I never in my statement said I did better then anyone else and I didn't blame the engine. In fact, the only thing I said about the old process was that it was boring and predictable. What I said was I found 3.0 more exciting to use. I in no way blame the engine. As someone who holds a degree in Math and Computer Science, having some randomness makes the game fun. If I can predict every reaction to an action I take, that is boring. It takes no strategy since I only need to make a plan, which by the way everyone else can also do, and as long as we have enough time, the results are the same. The only difference between that and 2.0 was that in 2.0, long time coaches already in top jobs had years as an advantage and therefore could impact the time it took newer coaches. The advantage of extra money and prestige made it just take longer to build up a new coaches team. Obviously, you guys were happy with the 100pts of effort is more than 99 thus the recruit is mine of 2.0, regardless of the needs or playing style of the recruit. Obviously, you were also happy with the same 15 or 16 teams making the sweet 16 every year. That is why the game was not growing and why when marketing efforts were put in place to bring new users in, they turned away from the game after one season. There was nothing exciting about it, just a repeatable task of logging in every 3 hours during recruiting and throwing money at a recruit until the other coach quit or ran out of money.

I will stick to enjoying 3.0 and finding others who do and you wont have to read any more of my posts. Without changes, this game was going to die.

I will leave you with a couple of quotes.
One from George Bernard Shaw:
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

And finally, from John F Kennedy,
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. "

I think that HD 2.0 was dying a slow death because the game was becoming incredibly stagnant, so I think that WIS felt that it was necessary to do something to keep the game alive. I may not agree with all of the changes, but I find 3.0 a more interesting game than 2.0. If you have a different opinion, I respect that completely.

My point of contention is that a fair number of people who do not like the changes are actively trying to sabotage the new game. I would like think that WIS would be interested in having an active dialogue with disgruntled users who weren't constantly using foul language towards those with opposing view points and flooding the message board with threads about how the new game is atrocious. If someone puts out nothing but vitriol in the forums about 3.0, they are delusional to expect anything positive in return.

A math guy quoting Bernard Shaw (!) in an online gaming forum = my day is made.

Seriously, good response kubasnack; although I don't agree with the tenor of the OP, I understand and share the frustration as someone who enjoys 3.0 much more than the previous version.