Posted by shoe3 on 3/15/2019 12:26:00 PM (view original):
I coach a D2 team. I have resources for 2 scholarships. I need a guard, I’d like to get 2. So most of my resources are devoted to my top guard choice, and I’ve split the remainder on a couple backup options, hoping that 1) I win my top choice via battle, and 2) I get one of the other two options. The worst outcome for me is that I lose the battle, and both of my other two options are picked off by lower level teams. I have to make choices, I have to prioritize.

Consider my position in relation to a top level D3 team who might be challenging me for those backup options, and a random new D3 player. Who benefits the most from caps? The new player? Of course not. I would benefit most from caps, because I could go all in for the guy I really want, and have my pick among a large pool of backup options patiently waiting for me. The top level D3 team is going to get hers regardless. Prestige and preferences are going to swing toward the top in situations where new players have to challenge for top recruits. But the game as it is, the new player could just as easily be the team challenging to lock in my backup options. They have the same access as A+ D3 teams, assuming they know how the system works, and how to scout.

Caps benefit folks at the top.

No dude. That's not how that works at all. With a cap the top team wants his top players, but so does everyone else. They are forced to use their resources over that player. He cannot just wait for his backup because he will not have the resources that he's using in his primary battle. Someone who didn't get involved in that battle, or backed out is now taking that backup option with the resources they didn't use.

Under the current system, top team is not only swinging for the fences, but then has like 4 or 5 uncontested backup options who aren't much worse than the primary option. There is very little planning currently. I do more planning on scouting than i do recruiting at this point. Currently it is find your top target and load up the AP and move to backup option when the DI team shows up

Lol, that is literally exactly how it is currently working. Like exactly how my recruiting is going this session. You can’t talk about how caps “work” because the game has never had hard caps. Pull downs and drop downs were part of the game long before 3.0. You’re describing what you think will happen (or perhaps more likely, what you want others to think will happen) and it has no basis in any understanding of economics or economic game theory that exists.

Bottom line, the game that exists has a wide range of options and outcomes. You are arguing to severely limit that range, and supposing that it will magically make vets parked in D3 less dominant. Failing grade.

Actually shoe, before you started the game HAD caps. When you contacted the recruit, if they hung up on you that meant they were above the cap and no amount of recruiting (except bribes in some cases) was going to pull that recruit down. Thought Id throw that bit of a history lesson in there.

PS - TheONLY says hi. He loves your take on the game and looks forward to reading more of your posts.

Posted by shoe3 on 3/15/2019 3:27:00 PM (view original):
Lol, that is literally exactly how it is currently working. Like exactly how my recruiting is going this session. You can’t talk about how caps “work” because the game has never had hard caps. Pull downs and drop downs were part of the game long before 3.0. You’re describing what you think will happen (or perhaps more likely, what you want others to think will happen) and it has no basis in any understanding of economics or economic game theory that exists.

Bottom line, the game that exists has a wide range of options and outcomes. You are arguing to severely limit that range, and supposing that it will magically make vets parked in D3 less dominant. Failing grade.

HAHAHAHAHA. You're telling me what i think will happen, but i know how it happens, because that's how it was set up before. Mully just beat me to it, but the recruits beyond the cap wouldn't talk to you. Some of us have been here a lot longer than you think and have seen a lot more in this game with the changes. The problem before was never a cap issue. The problem before was issues with carryover cash and conference cash giving the top teams additional advantages. Remove those things and get rid of pulldowns and dropdowns and you severely limit a top teams ability to hoard top talent.

Posted by mullycj on 3/15/2019 5:30:00 PM (view original):
Actually shoe, before you started the game HAD caps. When you contacted the recruit, if they hung up on you that meant they were above the cap and no amount of recruiting (except bribes in some cases) was going to pull that recruit down. Thought Id throw that bit of a history lesson in there.

PS - TheONLY says hi. He loves your take on the game and looks forward to reading more of your posts.

That kind of soft cap (minus the bribes) was in place when I started. That’s what I mean when I say in the previous version, high prestige D3 teams could reach teams new players couldn’t even talk to.

And don’t think you’re special mully, he’s been sending me sitemail, too. Poor guy, nothing better in his life, stuck playing this game he tried so hard to sabotage.

Posted by rugburn on 3/15/2019 5:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 3/15/2019 3:27:00 PM (view original):
Lol, that is literally exactly how it is currently working. Like exactly how my recruiting is going this session. You can’t talk about how caps “work” because the game has never had hard caps. Pull downs and drop downs were part of the game long before 3.0. You’re describing what you think will happen (or perhaps more likely, what you want others to think will happen) and it has no basis in any understanding of economics or economic game theory that exists.

Bottom line, the game that exists has a wide range of options and outcomes. You are arguing to severely limit that range, and supposing that it will magically make vets parked in D3 less dominant. Failing grade.

HAHAHAHAHA. You're telling me what i think will happen, but i know how it happens, because that's how it was set up before. Mully just beat me to it, but the recruits beyond the cap wouldn't talk to you. Some of us have been here a lot longer than you think and have seen a lot more in this game with the changes. The problem before was never a cap issue. The problem before was issues with carryover cash and conference cash giving the top teams additional advantages. Remove those things and get rid of pulldowns and dropdowns and you severely limit a top teams ability to hoard top talent.

Nice try. See response to mully.

Again, bottom line, you are arguing for a limitation of the range of options. Just be honest about it. It’s not about new players, it’s about YOU, and the game producing results you want to see.

Think in terms of real life economics. Poor folks benefit most when resources they need - food, shelter, education, health care - are abundant and inexpensive. They are harmed the most when the supply of those things are suppressed, and their access to them is limited. This is basically an economic law (and we don’t need to make this political, I’m not presuming that you have to care about what harms poor folks any more than I’m presuming you have to care about what harms new players). There are different ways to go about policy making, but in the end, if you’re limiting the range of commodity options people have, you are harming the prospects of the least well off.

I don't like the idea of walling off recruits by division for the reasons Shoe is describing. In fact, I wish those recruits wouldn't even be tiered off. I'd much prefer one big recruiting pool with increased control over recruiting filters that let me target by ratings, not only in search results, but with scouting and assistant coaches. D2 schools challenging D1 schools for backups and low level recruits means more diversity and variability in a game that sometimes lacks both. D1 schools can't easily protect backups for cheap. D2 schools have the added fun of figuring out just how far they want to push to bring a game changer to their roster, without the game limiting that decision for them. WIS is a zero-sum game. Balancing risk with reward is the best aspect.

With that said, isolating D3 (or whatever your lowest division is) from the other part of the game has merit. You don't have more of a reason to say it "won't work" than other's saying it will "work" because there is no data for an isolated division. On top of that, no one is polling the new players that quit so all we have left is speculation. I particularly think that tutorials and introductory help guides are severely lacking for anyone who does not see the user generated guides or forum posts. Hell, if I hadn't read Shoe's excellent scouting guide that I accidentally stumbled on in these forums, I might have quit out of frustration for inefficient scouting. It's just not intuitive for someone who is new to the game.

Tutorials aren't designed to increase parity across the board. There's no danger of giving out participation trophies. The only parity is with new coaches who need the environment to understand the game's mechanics before they truly compete. Losing players who aren't good at the game is one thing, losing players before they've really had a chance to understand the game's mechanics is a problem. There's a reason why tutorials exist in almost every game you've ever played. It's the same reason MMR (matchmaking rating) exists in multiplayer games, particularly at the lowest levels. It's not a new concept.

What does that tutorial look like for a game like this? I'm not exactly sure. It would probably be something like this:

1. Your lowest division is purely a tutorial division with isolated recruits.
2. As a new coach, your first team won't be a team that made the tourney the year before and will have at least x amount of open scholarships so that you have to experience recruiting.
3. Clear overlays with instructions on the different areas of the game.
4. Once you've gone through a season, you have the option to advance to the first real division of a game world (whether that's D3 or D2 or whatever).
5. Once you've made a tournament in the tutorial world, there's a forced promotion to the next division.
6. If you join a new world and aren't a new coach, you skip this tutorial division.

"You don't have more of a reason to say it "won't work" than other's saying it will "work" because there is no data for an isolated division."

Not quite. It was pretty isolated in 2.0

Even with pull downs, it was very rare for D3 to battle D2. And D3 never battled D1 - even sims.

I do like the idea of an open recruiting pool, as I’ve said before. It will take some programming and structural adjustments in how scouting works, though. I’ve also supported having singing tendencies be “floating” instead of fixed, so for a team at D1 level a prospect may be an early session signee, but at D3, it will show up as final day, or final cycle. I’d also want plenty of top recruits still show up as late or RS2 for everyone, signaling that they are going to hold out for teams with early entries.

I also like the idea of a tutorial season, but my personal preference is to turn D3 into a free sandbox. Some folks think this will empty D3, others say that’s all people will want to play (being free). I suspect it will be somewhere in the middle. It would be fine to have such a sandbox be “tutorial mode”, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Extra credit if it can be turned off.

Posted by mullycj on 3/15/2019 8:09:00 PM (view original):
"I’ve also supported having singing tendencies be “floating” instead of fixed"

One thing we agree on. Mentioned it in BETA but I think Seble was already done making changes to his new game. In fact in real life I know of a few Baritones that became Sopranos after a mid-life crisis.

Everyone sings a different tune when signing day comes and goes with no D1 offers.

Posted by Benis on 3/15/2019 7:19:00 PM (view original):
"You don't have more of a reason to say it "won't work" than other's saying it will "work" because there is no data for an isolated division."

Not quite. It was pretty isolated in 2.0

Even with pull downs, it was very rare for D3 to battle D2. And D3 never battled D1 - even sims.

Ahh gotcha. I guess I haven't quite wrapped my head around pulldowns and how it used to work.

Posted by Basketts on 3/16/2019 2:31:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 3/15/2019 7:19:00 PM (view original):
"You don't have more of a reason to say it "won't work" than other's saying it will "work" because there is no data for an isolated division."

Not quite. It was pretty isolated in 2.0

Even with pull downs, it was very rare for D3 to battle D2. And D3 never battled D1 - even sims.

Ahh gotcha. I guess I haven't quite wrapped my head around pulldowns and how it used to work.

Basically before 3.0, you could reach up into the recruits for one division up and see if they were willing to talk to you. You would submit a recruiting action and at the end of the cycle, get a response that you were a backup option and they might consider you in the future. Usually the bottom 1/3 of recruits in the higher division might be willing to accept recruiting actions from you at this point, but until they were pulled down or dropped down, they could not be signed by the lower division school. If they rejected you, they would not accept further recruiting actions. This is basically where the cap existed which is why the divisions were isolated. DIII could not recruit DI players.

Dropdowns - towards the later part of the recruiting cycle, typically just before or after signings, if a recruit was not getting the attention from the schools in their own division, they would "drop down" and let the lower division coach know they were willing to sign with a lower school at this point. The risk was waiting and hoping the guys you wanted did drop down and someone was not way ahead recruiting already.

Pulldowns - If a recruit was willing to accept recruiting actions, coaches could dump home visits and such to get the recruit to drop down before they normally would, hence "pull down". The risk is dropping a lot of money on the recruit early in hopes of being the leader early and scaring off competition.

There was a set amount of money, no AP. Once signings started, recruits could sign at any cycle regardless of division (assuming he has already dropped down or has been pulled down for the lower division).