Posted by shoe3 on 2/22/2017 5:41:00 PM (view original):
Put another way, PBAU mostly competes with a few other D2 teams for a local pool of just-under-high-D1 quality recruits. And with the recruits it gets, it gets to play games against D3 teams. Sure, the geography stays what it is. But who you have to beat to get the incentives changes.

So why aren't more teams scouting florida?

Easy to scout, but hard for D3 teams to battle down there for a player PBAU wants. Just not enough cash. But a savvy D3 coach should definitely keep an eye on Florida, their scraps might be better than the ones in your backyard.

Posted by CoachSpud on 2/22/2017 9:01:00 PM (view original):
1. "Regarding the first question, I'm not saying my proposal makes the hill smaller. Simply that it's not all that much bigger. In Phelan, for example, D3 PBAU starts the season with a higher OVR than all of D2."
C'mon, one school in one world isn't the measure of the mountain. Under your proposal the entirety of D2 is added to the mountain that a low D3 team would have to overcome. That is huge. You're starting to sound like a lot of the gremlins on the forums, using a single outlier to try to prove an argument.

2. "The incentive to play in competitive conferences ... encourage experienced coaches to schedule tough ..." Yeah ... maybe so. But for a lot of guys the attraction of full conferences seemed to stop with the post-season payout.

3. "On the red light ..." In short, I think a coach's results should essentially reflect the skill with which he plays the game. As regards recruiting, I call that "organic," the coach's ability as an adept recruiter determines the success of his efforts. The red light is directly contrary to that. A skilled D2 or d3 coach is stymied by Seble's arbitrary, capricious red light.

4. Again, one team isn't the way to support an argument.

Good conversation, thanks!

There always has been a gap, and there always will be, as long as coaches can park. That's the bottom line. The point of having more than one division is to give new players a place to learn the game and work up. It isn't so gamers can rack up credits in easy mode. So the underlying principle here, if we can't have a limit on number of seasons a coach can spend there, is to make sure there is appropriate competition for the credits. New players, in my proposal, would have lots of places to "hide" from the big fish, in emptier conferences, learning the game by building teams that start by getting competitive for conference championships, and PIT runs. And meanwhile, the big fish gamers need to fight for their credits against appropriate competition. It doesn't make new players lives worse.

The red light conversation is a non starter. It makes perfect intuitive sense to expect a guy who is projected to go D1 will want to wait until he gets no serious offers and effort from D1 teams before signing with a lower division team. 3.0 players are supposed to be more intelligent. Their preferences *and* their projections should mean something, or they're back to dumb.

Posted by shoe3 on 2/22/2017 11:34:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 2/22/2017 9:01:00 PM (view original):
1. "Regarding the first question, I'm not saying my proposal makes the hill smaller. Simply that it's not all that much bigger. In Phelan, for example, D3 PBAU starts the season with a higher OVR than all of D2."
C'mon, one school in one world isn't the measure of the mountain. Under your proposal the entirety of D2 is added to the mountain that a low D3 team would have to overcome. That is huge. You're starting to sound like a lot of the gremlins on the forums, using a single outlier to try to prove an argument.

2. "The incentive to play in competitive conferences ... encourage experienced coaches to schedule tough ..." Yeah ... maybe so. But for a lot of guys the attraction of full conferences seemed to stop with the post-season payout.

3. "On the red light ..." In short, I think a coach's results should essentially reflect the skill with which he plays the game. As regards recruiting, I call that "organic," the coach's ability as an adept recruiter determines the success of his efforts. The red light is directly contrary to that. A skilled D2 or d3 coach is stymied by Seble's arbitrary, capricious red light.

4. Again, one team isn't the way to support an argument.

Good conversation, thanks!

There always has been a gap, and there always will be, as long as coaches can park. That's the bottom line. The point of having more than one division is to give new players a place to learn the game and work up. It isn't so gamers can rack up credits in easy mode. So the underlying principle here, if we can't have a limit on number of seasons a coach can spend there, is to make sure there is appropriate competition for the credits. New players, in my proposal, would have lots of places to "hide" from the big fish, in emptier conferences, learning the game by building teams that start by getting competitive for conference championships, and PIT runs. And meanwhile, the big fish gamers need to fight for their credits against appropriate competition. It doesn't make new players lives worse.

The red light conversation is a non starter. It makes perfect intuitive sense to expect a guy who is projected to go D1 will want to wait until he gets no serious offers and effort from D1 teams before signing with a lower division team. 3.0 players are supposed to be more intelligent. Their preferences *and* their projections should mean something, or they're back to dumb.

I completely agree that it can be a safe harbor for a noob to find a relatively empty conference in which to learn the game. But. We already have plenty of that in D3. And they don't have to swim with the bigger fishes. And making them swim with bigger fishes doesn't make them safer. BTW, when you say "a guy who is projected to go D1 will want to wait until he gets no serious offers and effort from D1 teams before signing with a lower division team," I agree, and I observe that you are speaking of Preference for Late signing, not Seble's red light. Did you notice that, too, after you read what you wrote? I think when WIS increased the preponderance of Late preference among top recruits, it was a good change.

BTW also, why can't we limit the number of seasons an experienced coach can park?

I firmly favor a system in which a player's skillful play leads to success, and artificial impediments to that course are to be avoided. If you cannot accept that, we'll have to agree to disagree on Seble's red light..

Thanks again for good conversation.

Shoe - I like your suggestion on the whole. I think it does find a good balance between making it harder on experienced coaches in good conferences and leaving empty ponds for people to learn in.
But I'm not on board with this comment:
"The point of having more than one division is to give new players a place to learn the game and work up. It isn't so gamers can rack up credits in easy mode"
1-how do you know thats the point of having more than one division? What if the point is so that the users can pick whichever dynamic they want to experience when playing the game?
2-I feel like a case could be made running an A+ baseline prestige team at D1 is easy mode. I've never done it, but conceptually, you have an inherent advantage over all other schools in the game with that baseline which sounds like easy mode to me

Spud:
I don't argue that it's safer, and I don't really care to make their world safer. It's the same reason I'm not in favor of capping how high teams can choose to reach. If they want to hide, they can hide. Same as now, as you say. The length of time it will take a new player to learn the game and figure out how to be competitive is likely exactly the same in my proposal. The difference is not in how it treats new players, but in how it treats veteran controlled teams currently benefitting from playing in the small pond of D3.

"BTW also, why can't we limit the number of seasons an experienced coach can park?"

I'm ambivalent. If WIS wanted to do it, I'd be ok, but I'm not going to advocate for that specifically. Some people park for sentimental reasons, and I don't have any problem with that.

Posted by benrudy on 2/23/2017 1:42:00 AM (view original):
Shoe - I like your suggestion on the whole. I think it does find a good balance between making it harder on experienced coaches in good conferences and leaving empty ponds for people to learn in.
But I'm not on board with this comment:
"The point of having more than one division is to give new players a place to learn the game and work up. It isn't so gamers can rack up credits in easy mode"
1-how do you know thats the point of having more than one division? What if the point is so that the users can pick whichever dynamic they want to experience when playing the game?
2-I feel like a case could be made running an A+ baseline prestige team at D1 is easy mode. I've never done it, but conceptually, you have an inherent advantage over all other schools in the game with that baseline which sounds like easy mode to me

In the previous version of the game, I'd say you're right. With the revamped and more intelligent scouting/recruiting, high levels of D1 don't feel like winners ball to me anymore. Teams are really competing with each other for those top players, and top perches. I think we're going to start seeing the number of teams with a chance to break into the E8 in any given year expand. D1 feels about right to me now.

As I said to spud, I'm fine with coaches parking for sentimental reasons, and I wouldn't suggest or advocate for a forced limit on how many seasons you can play at a certain level. No reason they can't keep their team. But they'll have to deal with more competition for the credits, if that's what they're interested in.

Posted by mbriese on 2/22/2017 5:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 2/22/2017 3:05:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 2/22/2017 1:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by crabman26 on 2/22/2017 1:41:00 PM (view original):
I think the idea of having everyone able to start at a low D1 school is still the best. This fills out D1 much more, and creates more recruiting battles and spreads the power around a little more I believe...

Agreed.

double agreed

Disagree. Disagree hard. D1 should be something to aspire to, and should be difficult to compete in. I'm not eligible for a D1 team in any world yet, nor should I be.

Not to high jack the thread, but low D1 and high D2 are virtually the same. I agree it should be difficult to get into a high D1 program...but low end D1s are nothing special. In fact its almost better just to build a powerhouse D2 program, then jump directly to a Power D1 conference...the low D1s are just a wasteland for the most part right now. By filling them up you are filling D1 up more than it currently is and creating more competition for recruits as well as competition for higher end jobs.

"The difference is not in how it treats new players, but in how it treats veteran controlled teams currently benefitting from playing in the small pond of D3."

That's only true about new players if you limit your examination to their first or second season, when they may be hiding. Once they get their bearings and start to look up, they realize the full height of the mountain in front of them -- WOW!

I don't mind a person parking at a school if it is their alma mater or their favorite school. My alma mater is at the D2 level and I have parked on them in football and considered it in basketball.

In terms of credits more credits should go to the winner in D1, next most to the D1 runner up, then the D2 winner, then D2 runner up, then winner at D3 and then the D3 runner up. If you combine D2&D3 perhaps credits could be equal between the 2 divisions (D1 and D2D3)

A 55 conference format of D2&D3 could be interesting if it came with a tournament of 124 teams. 55 conference tournament winners and 69 at large. Just shave off a game or two from the regular season at that level and start the tournament earlier or consider the first round a play-in for the tournament. Nothing says that D2&D3 schools need to play the same number of games as D1 schools.

Posted by ftbeaglesfan on 3/21/2017 9:50:00 PM (view original):
I don't mind a person parking at a school if it is their alma mater or their favorite school. My alma mater is at the D2 level and I have parked on them in football and considered it in basketball.

In terms of credits more credits should go to the winner in D1, next most to the D1 runner up, then the D2 winner, then D2 runner up, then winner at D3 and then the D3 runner up. If you combine D2&D3 perhaps credits could be equal between the 2 divisions (D1 and D2D3)

A 55 conference format of D2&D3 could be interesting if it came with a tournament of 124 teams. 55 conference tournament winners and 69 at large. Just shave off a game or two from the regular season at that level and start the tournament earlier or consider the first round a play-in for the tournament. Nothing says that D2&D3 schools need to play the same number of games as D1 schools.

I wouldn't support a doubled field for the tournament. One of the things I like about the proposal is encouraging teams to get into good conferences again, to fight for conference RPI and automatic bids for their conference champs.

Related to a current thread, eliminating the distinction between D2/D3 doesn't have to take teams away from anyone.

shoe, your statements contradict each other in that you say the mountain for new guys in DIII is too high to climb against veterans who are "parked", but you'd rather remove the limitations to recruiting from a lower division, because your recruiting skill determines your success and want to merge divisions. New coaches would have an even larger mountain to climb as they are now playing against vets who are pulling DI level teams at DIII. Just the release of 3.0 itself, there are DIII teams that would make deep runs in the DII NT and that is with the restrictions. Then you are taking an easier learning environment at DIII and merging it with DII which is actually very competitive and filled with solid vets. A new guy is not going to stick around for that.

Personally, it'd be better off to completely cap recruits to their divisions. There would be no advantages of someone pulling higher level recruits than someone else, and the new coaches would just have to learn to challenge the vets for their recruits which increases battles, and actually keeps "parked" coaches from building as much of a powerhouse, because they will be challenged constantly for good recruits. In the current setup, they just have to look for uncontested DI guys.

Except you create battles between vets/n00bs due to smaller player pool. That damn sure won't work out well for n00bs.

Posted by poncho0091 on 5/27/2017 2:55:00 AM (view original):
shoe, your statements contradict each other in that you say the mountain for new guys in DIII is too high to climb against veterans who are "parked", but you'd rather remove the limitations to recruiting from a lower division, because your recruiting skill determines your success and want to merge divisions. New coaches would have an even larger mountain to climb as they are now playing against vets who are pulling DI level teams at DIII. Just the release of 3.0 itself, there are DIII teams that would make deep runs in the DII NT and that is with the restrictions. Then you are taking an easier learning environment at DIII and merging it with DII which is actually very competitive and filled with solid vets. A new guy is not going to stick around for that.

Personally, it'd be better off to completely cap recruits to their divisions. There would be no advantages of someone pulling higher level recruits than someone else, and the new coaches would just have to learn to challenge the vets for their recruits which increases battles, and actually keeps "parked" coaches from building as much of a powerhouse, because they will be challenged constantly for good recruits. In the current setup, they just have to look for uncontested DI guys.

You may want to read the thread again poncho, you are confused about who said what. Spud is the one claiming the "mountain" is too high. My contention is that the gap is already miles wide, and that new players are always going to be facing that gap as long as veterans are allowed to park.

Capping divisions won't increase parity (not that I personally care much about that), and is generally a horrible idea. A smaller and limited pool is going to put an even higher premium on experience and location, where vets have entrenched advantages, and will make it harder for others to find gems. More important for gameplay, people simply like pull downs, and capping recruits to their divisions is going to make the game less fun for many players at lower levels because of that.