"I think everyone, including the "stop at DII", "play EA Sports" and "it's just random" guys, knows D1 was a poor consumer product. The established, entrenched owner who got there first 10-12 years ago couldn't be beaten by anyone who didn't get there first 10-12 years ago with them. "

1. Many of those guys didn't think that. When the update first came out there were a lot of posts that, and I am paraphrasing, about having earned their advantages. Many thought that the changes punished them for their success. It was a pretty natural and predictable response, those who had mastered the system didn't want it to change all that much. It's the "they didn't need to ABC, they just needed to do D" response.

2. The second statement is also not an absolute. There are a dozen or so owners who were able to crack the "old boys" network. It was REALLY HARD to do and plenty of kinda good owners (like me and you) pretty much gave up on D1 when we figured out how much the odds were stacked against us.


Just sayin'

Posted by Benis on 11/20/2016 2:46:00 PM (view original):
"The only people who want to be dominant at Adams St probably went to Adams St."

It may start out that way but this isn't true in the grand scheme of things. A lot of coaches develop a connection with a particular school and stay there the entire time. I had never even heard of Chestnut Hill before playing this game but it's my #1 team now and I don't plan on leaving it anytime soon. Because coaches recruit players and get to watch 'their guys' grow and improve and get accolades and that's the fun part of this game in my opinion. The name is just a name. I'd like to coach Syracuse one day because I'm a huge fan but it's not a must for me to enjoy the game.

Look at mfmyers. That dude is happy as a clam coaching Dickinson in 10 worlds.

I am almost positive I read you post that you stayed at D3 because it's an entry point and allows you to play with/against anyone you bring to the site.

No?

Posted by Trentonjoe on 11/20/2016 3:50:00 PM (view original):
"I think everyone, including the "stop at DII", "play EA Sports" and "it's just random" guys, knows D1 was a poor consumer product. The established, entrenched owner who got there first 10-12 years ago couldn't be beaten by anyone who didn't get there first 10-12 years ago with them. "

1. Many of those guys didn't think that. When the update first came out there were a lot of posts that, and I am paraphrasing, about having earned their advantages. Many thought that the changes punished them for their success. It was a pretty natural and predictable response, those who had mastered the system didn't want it to change all that much. It's the "they didn't need to ABC, they just needed to do D" response.

2. The second statement is also not an absolute. There are a dozen or so owners who were able to crack the "old boys" network. It was REALLY HARD to do and plenty of kinda good owners (like me and you) pretty much gave up on D1 when we figured out how much the odds were stacked against us.


Just sayin'

1. I never said they didn't earn the advantages. Quite the opposite. Post #1, paraphrasing, "They beat me to the elite schools because they were better at HD than I was." I just felt the advantages were impossible to overcome by S20. Season 20!!!! We're in season 90 now. How much bigger is the earned advantage now for someone just joining?

2. Nothing is an absolute except one day we'll stop breathing. Nobody beats Father Time. But, in HD, the odds were so heavily stacked against me, again by season 20, I felt I could spend time/money elsewhere. That's not a good product for the consumer. Or the provider.

And, for the record, I'm not a "This sucks. I quit" kind of person. I don't think I won my first SLB title until 40+ seasons. I didn't get my first HBD until 30+ while taking a ton of **** for being an "expert" with no championships. And I was the worst friggin' baseball player in the US in my first season before making all-stars every year after in league play before HS.

But I also know when I'm beat. By the end of S20 in HD, I knew I had no chance. Something wasn't right.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/20/2016 3:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 11/20/2016 2:46:00 PM (view original):
"The only people who want to be dominant at Adams St probably went to Adams St."

It may start out that way but this isn't true in the grand scheme of things. A lot of coaches develop a connection with a particular school and stay there the entire time. I had never even heard of Chestnut Hill before playing this game but it's my #1 team now and I don't plan on leaving it anytime soon. Because coaches recruit players and get to watch 'their guys' grow and improve and get accolades and that's the fun part of this game in my opinion. The name is just a name. I'd like to coach Syracuse one day because I'm a huge fan but it's not a must for me to enjoy the game.

Look at mfmyers. That dude is happy as a clam coaching Dickinson in 10 worlds.

I am almost positive I read you post that you stayed at D3 because it's an entry point and allows you to play with/against anyone you bring to the site.

No?

Yes that is one of the reasons I like D3 because I've gotten a lot of friends to try it out. I think I've gotten 11 people to sign up and join the conference. Unfortunately only 3 of them are still there and I think I'm out of friends to ask to play.

But regardless, I've built up the program and have a vested interest in Chestnut Hill now. The name means what I want it to mean. It's just a name. It's like not wanting to hook up with a hot girl because she has an ugly name. Who cares, it's not what's important.

The only reason I'll move on from this team is if D3 is no longer fun to me.

Well, in the grand scheme of things, I think people join to compete at D1 at schools they know. It's not the only reason and maybe there are more exceptions than either of us could ever dream of but how many people join if the ad header reads:

"Hoops Dynasty. Join and dominate at Chestnut Hill!!!!"?

Again, NCAA Football was hugely popular game for EA Sports. Once they lost the rights to use school names, images, unis, etc, etc, the franchise was discontinued. Why?

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/20/2016 4:31:00 PM (view original):
Well, in the grand scheme of things, I think people join to compete at D1 at schools they know. It's not the only reason and maybe there are more exceptions than either of us could ever dream of but how many people join if the ad header reads:

"Hoops Dynasty. Join and dominate at Chestnut Hill!!!!"?

Well if I was a Chestnut Hill grad I'd be pumped!

I think there are a ton of people who did graduate from a school that was only D2 or D3 in sports. Where else could you 'play' a game with those schools? EA sports didn't have a football or basketball game where I could choose to play a game against my friend where I'm Chestnut and my friend is RIT. So this is your only option if you have any inclination to do so. And I did think it was pretty cool to see RIT since that's where I went to school.

Again, maybe WIS knows why people only play 1 season and the reason is that they don't want to start at D3 and want to start at D1 right away. Maybe that is the reason why we can't get people to stay. I do know that I've gotten 11 people to play this game and 8 only played 1-3 seasons. None of them had any problem with not playing at D1, they just didn't find the game fun.

Btw, we had a new guy join the conference and it looked like he was struggling so I sitemailed him and offered help. His response was "thanks for the offer but I don't really have time for this game. I just signed up because it was free".

We already disagree on advertising but, if the the lead is "Coach at Chestnut Hill", I pass. "Coach at Duke" might catch my eye.

It's a limited market. I you want to coach at Duke, you should expect to pay your dues. But, if your best option is "Coach at VaTech and get shitkicked on the reg", that's not a good selling point either.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/20/2016 4:50:00 PM (view original):
We already disagree on advertising but, if the the lead is "Coach at Chestnut Hill", I pass. "Coach at Duke" might catch my eye.

It's a limited market. I you want to coach at Duke, you should expect to pay your dues. But, if your best option is "Coach at VaTech and get shitkicked on the reg", that's not a good selling point either.

I might be in the minority, but for me the ad that would work is "Coach well enough at Chowan and who knows, maybe someday you can coach at Duke!". I'm on board with the idea of top tier D1 jobs being the endgame for some people, but I'm with Benis on the "getting attached to your players" thing. I'm a huge Houston Astros fan, but my HBD team is the "Danke Schoen". The reason I've stayed interested in that team is a combination of the league I'm playing in and the players I've grown attached to. I don't see why it would be any different in HD.

I don't disagree. The changes can be good and it should be possible to move up. 3.0 will totally flip the game on it's head and the names on the jerseys really won't mean anything when Cornell starts going to the Final Four regularly.

I will add that my biggest gripe with the update is the imbalance at D3 and how horrible it will be for new coaches.

mbriese, I'm almost positive I stayed an extra season at Elon in IBA because I thought I had a guy who'd be drafted(my first and only). However, HD isn't quite the same as HBD. You get a guy 4-5 seasons here. HBD is 12-13 or more. It's not quite the same.

As I understand, D3 can move to D2 even with a lack of success. I've mentioned before that long-time D3 owners will forever have an advantage. I don't really have a problem with that if the first sentence is true. So, if your goal is D1 competition, no big deal. Pay your dues, move up, move on. However, if getting crushed by experienced owners at D3 prevents you from moving up, maybe the entire game sucks. Trash it like they did with Clutch Dynasty in that case.

"I will add that my biggest gripe with the update is the imbalance at D3 and how horrible it will be for new coaches."

Is that the imbalance that existed in 2.0 or the imbalance you fear might happen in 3.0 because new coaches are so stupid now compared to before?

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/19/2016 6:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by poncho0091 on 11/19/2016 3:44:00 AM (view original):
Here are a few key thoughts that could have easily fixed the old game.

As far as DI goes, improve firing logic, remove carryover, remove conference cash, and remove baseline prestige. I know everyone wants to be Duke or UNC, but there is only one of each and it makes it hard to truly build a dynasty at a lower tier school when the prestige will never match those higher tier schools. This by itself is a significant reason why DII and DIII have always been better. I could take over the worst team in the game at DII and with success eventually match the prestige of the best teams and battle with them for recruits. If the prestige was more of a dynamically built in thing where only a certain number of seasons factored in with the most recent meaning more, it would be easy to build a competitor and keep coaches happy at all levels.

Mike this one is for you, but it's been mentioned to you in another thread that there were simple fixes for a lot of issues. Your response was that they can't listen to all, or even should not listen to the consumer. The problem here, is that there were a lot of coaches asking them to fix firing logic where a coach could have poor performance at a top tier school and still stay. This was just as much of an issue of coaches locking up the top tier schools. One of the issues here is many of you are so focused on DI that you don't care how the rest of the game gets affected. Like another poster said, are you here for the elite school with the name, or just here to build the dynasty? If it's the name, then the 4 suggestions above would have done a lot to help. If you just want to enjoy building a dynasty, you don't have to play in a broken division. I love DII and DIII and hate the fact that every recruit at every division is available now and I was/am one of the teams near the top of the divisions (or at the very least respectable). I would much rather see them cap it and remove drop downs and pull downs.

Some of you guys sound like you just want recruits handed to you, before you've built a program up. Others sound bitter, because they couldn't just show up in the game and just jump to Duke or UNC. This is going to tie back into prestige as well, but at the lower levels, there were built in advantages for schools that were on top. If I take over a new school, I usually could not compete right away, because the higher schools could get drop downs and pull downs that I could not. In time though, with solid recruiting, I could also build a top program and compete.

I may have mentioned this before but, if not, here you go:

EA Sports had a NCAA football game. Due to a lawsuit from Ed O'Bannon, they stopped producing it. The NCAA would not give rights to school names, logos, etc, etc to avoid future lawsuits. Now, EA Sports still had the engine. The game could have been produced and teams could have been Miss1, Miss2 and Miss3 for the MS schools. Generic uniforms, stadiums, etc, etc. EA Sports chose not to take this route. Why? Because much of the allure was taking Texas State and eventually beating Alabama for the championship. Or simply taking your favorite school and doing the same.

You can't ignore the fact that some of the allure of HD is taking a school you've heard of rather than some backwater DIII. That may not be everyone's goal but I imagine it is for many.

This is extremely frustrating, because NCAA is a game that I think could have found a way to maintain the licenses if all they did was randomize player attributes, looks, numbers, etc. Again, super simple fix, and while I do think there would have been some drop off in the customers, it would not have been a huge drop off. The loss of the licensing for schools and such would have been a hard one to win over though. I still play NCAA today and kept my 360 for thar reason alone simply because Madden isn't as good of a game as it used to be, but honestly when we play NCAA, we don't even use the real teams. We have created teams, because it's more fun.

Now back on point. I think you've kind of made the point right there for many. Texas State is no one. Might as well be a DIII school, based on how many people really know anything about Texas State. So why not remove baseline prestige and allow a school like Texas State to compete with a Kentucky. Yes the build up in prestige will take more time and effort, but there should not be a ceiling that restricts them from being equal.

You're right that DI was broken, but a new recruiting system does not fix the issue. It just makes it not fun to be at a top school. You're also right that everyone aspires to be at one of the big schools, but those who typically stay in the game are those who end up enjoying the team they have built up. That's what makes DII and DIII fun, you're not restricted by a ceiling, so you can build up any program into a contender. Not as much the case at DI.