Posted by MikeT23 on 4/24/2017 10:21:00 AM (view original):
A vocal minority is still a minority. Huffing and puffing about the end of days is still just huffing and puffing.

Mike, did you look at the numbers or...? The number of HD players has significantly decreased.

Many of the silent folks have spoken too...they closed their wallets...

And lots of new users have signed up. If they follow the same pattern as those who left, they'll add teams one at a time.

You see it still in this thread. People who weren't paying for the game, and thought it should cater to them anyway, as if their mere participation is valuable.

This, along with your offhanded dismissal of my workup of the financial situation, indicates your obstinate lack of understanding of the economics of this game. It's really extremely transparent. And the people who "aren't paying for the game" are just as valuable to the game as the people who are paying. If they aren't there, somebody else makes the tournament, wins in the tournament, etc. Until things get so bad that sims are making serious noise in the NT, the amount of rewards given away per season is basically fixed. The variable is how many human players are left paying after that.

I find myself in an ironic place. I had major doubts about 3.0 and even dropped out for a season. But, I found that not playing was worse than playing a what I prematurely concluded was a terrible game. I suspect that there are a lot of folks like me who will play to the bitter end. Came back and urged myself to try to master the new recruiting system and have found that to be challenging. Makes me a 3.0 convert, I guess. But I felt it deserved the old college try (no pun intended). Glad I did.
The irony: if WIS doesn't fix the little annoying things (4 seasons without updating the national champs list, inconsistencies in the player rating totals, only being able to see 10 teams on the considering list, SIM teams that have 6 walkons and drive your RPI into the dirt, non-functional job logic) and a couple of other items, it will convince me the game is headed towards atrophy. No one in my conference chats anymore (we're down to 7), I have to challenge 25 human coaches to get 6 to play me and the forums have become yet another example of Trumpian era animosity. I suspect if I ever leave the game again, it will be from lack of interest on the part of WIS management and boredom on my part and I'm afraid I'm approaching half way there.

Posted by dahsdebater on 4/24/2017 5:52:00 PM (view original):

You see it still in this thread. People who weren't paying for the game, and thought it should cater to them anyway, as if their mere participation is valuable.

This, along with your offhanded dismissal of my workup of the financial situation, indicates your obstinate lack of understanding of the economics of this game. It's really extremely transparent. And the people who "aren't paying for the game" are just as valuable to the game as the people who are paying. If they aren't there, somebody else makes the tournament, wins in the tournament, etc. Until things get so bad that sims are making serious noise in the NT, the amount of rewards given away per season is basically fixed. The variable is how many human players are left paying after that.

One thing you're leaving out. If you aren't paying for the game and you're publicly shitting on the game, your value is minimal if not negative.

Posted by dahsdebater on 4/24/2017 5:52:00 PM (view original):

You see it still in this thread. People who weren't paying for the game, and thought it should cater to them anyway, as if their mere participation is valuable.

This, along with your offhanded dismissal of my workup of the financial situation, indicates your obstinate lack of understanding of the economics of this game. It's really extremely transparent. And the people who "aren't paying for the game" are just as valuable to the game as the people who are paying. If they aren't there, somebody else makes the tournament, wins in the tournament, etc. Until things get so bad that sims are making serious noise in the NT, the amount of rewards given away per season is basically fixed. The variable is how many human players are left paying after that.

I dismiss your "workup" because it's meaningless. You don't have any vision or understanding into the economics of FoxSports or WIS. Stop pretending you know what their revenue was, or is, or that it matters to anyone but FoxSports and WIS.

People who aren't willing to monetize are objectively NOT as valuable to WIS as the people who are. The people a game like this needs to attract and retain are the people who are willing to pay for it when they don't win free credits. Players who are willing and able to pay through rebuilding and losing seasons are *absolutely* more valuable.

I agree that in any given year, having more players overall means more revenue. But that's short-term thinking, and it certainly doesn't mean the people not willing to monetize are "just as important" as the ones who are. You are ignoring the tandem problem of the Big 6 logjam and the perpetuating gameability in the previous version. By moving from a deterministic to a more intelligent and realistic probabilistic recruiting model, which is undoubtedly reason #1 for the exodus at the top, 3.0 instantly made the game less gameable at the top, and more competitive at mid-major and even low conferences. So even if Big 6 conferences fill up again - which I say will be pretty rare in the long term, without the conference cash and rollover subsidizing the doormats - the game is more attractive to a player moving to a mid-major. That's huge in terms of getting people to monetize in the long term. But it's not going to happen overnight, because it still takes a long time to work up. The guys like Mike who are giving it a try now are still a number of seasons away from being eligible for D1.

Or to look at the credit issue another way, from WIS standpoint, the ideal is to have a competitive game where lots of owners in a given division are competitive for those incentives. For this reason, WIS would much rather have 50 people competing for the sweet 16 every season, rather than 20. If there's only 20 people competitive for those credits, the game gets stagnant below them. When more people have a chance, there is more room for growth. So it goes back to who do you cater to, the people who aren't willing to pay, or the people who are?

And before I get hit by the participation trophy brigade, I don't care about parity. I care about competitiveness. There's a huge difference.

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/24/2017 6:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 4/24/2017 5:52:00 PM (view original):

You see it still in this thread. People who weren't paying for the game, and thought it should cater to them anyway, as if their mere participation is valuable.

This, along with your offhanded dismissal of my workup of the financial situation, indicates your obstinate lack of understanding of the economics of this game. It's really extremely transparent. And the people who "aren't paying for the game" are just as valuable to the game as the people who are paying. If they aren't there, somebody else makes the tournament, wins in the tournament, etc. Until things get so bad that sims are making serious noise in the NT, the amount of rewards given away per season is basically fixed. The variable is how many human players are left paying after that.

One thing you're leaving out. If you aren't paying for the game and you're publicly shitting on the game, your value is minimal if not negative.

That's fair, but it doesn't have anything to do with how much you're paying.

"So it goes back to who do you cater to, the people who aren't willing to pay, or the people who are?

And before I get hit by the participation trophy brigade, I don't care about parity. I care about competitiveness. There's a huge difference."

And here is where things go clueless. Myself and others have no problem paying for this. Did for years. Had teams all over and bought 10-packs to work them....

Just have a problem supporting/paying for something when their giving us a crappy product based 'everyone gets a trophy' mentality and zero direction from the owners.

Does everyone get a trophy? I've heard that parroted a lot in this forum but no one has provided any evidence of it. Seems like the same users are still winning. Could you show me a couple of examples of users who were continual bottom-feeders bring home the hardware? Two will be sufficient. Thanks in advance.

Posted by rsvphr on 4/24/2017 6:08:00 PM (view original):
I find myself in an ironic place. I had major doubts about 3.0 and even dropped out for a season. But, I found that not playing was worse than playing a what I prematurely concluded was a terrible game. I suspect that there are a lot of folks like me who will play to the bitter end. Came back and urged myself to try to master the new recruiting system and have found that to be challenging. Makes me a 3.0 convert, I guess. But I felt it deserved the old college try (no pun intended). Glad I did.
The irony: if WIS doesn't fix the little annoying things (4 seasons without updating the national champs list, inconsistencies in the player rating totals, only being able to see 10 teams on the considering list, SIM teams that have 6 walkons and drive your RPI into the dirt, non-functional job logic) and a couple of other items, it will convince me the game is headed towards atrophy. No one in my conference chats anymore (we're down to 7), I have to challenge 25 human coaches to get 6 to play me and the forums have become yet another example of Trumpian era animosity. I suspect if I ever leave the game again, it will be from lack of interest on the part of WIS management and boredom on my part and I'm afraid I'm approaching half way there.

I agree. I like a lot about 3.0 and I'm going to continue to play. But the lack of involvement from the Devs doesn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I think the game could be really successful in the right hands but I'm not feeling super optimistic lately.

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/24/2017 8:39:00 PM (view original):
Does everyone get a trophy? I've heard that parroted a lot in this forum but no one has provided any evidence of it. Seems like the same users are still winning. Could you show me a couple of examples of users who were continual bottom-feeders bring home the hardware? Two will be sufficient. Thanks in advance.

People are using the participation trophy thing to annoy the other side. Its the same as when those people say long time users left only because they couldn't stay at the top of the mountain anymore with no competition.

Both are only slightly true in rare cases but mostly its an over exaggeration. Trust me, I know - I'm the king of hyperbole.

If anything my teams are more consistently "elite" than they were in the past.

Those quotes are significant, though. I hate recruiting, even more so in 3.0 than in 2.0. The talent is not elite because acquiring elite talents takes effort. Not a single one of my teams in 3.0 has been a serious F4 candidate. But I'm basically top 10 going into the tournament every season. Some of that has to do with the population dropoff, certainly. But some of it also has to do with the way recruiting works in this system. It's pretty easy to find some solid squad players to keep you strong against non-elite competition.

So we can put to rest the "participation trophy" nonsense?

Here's my experience: I came back after 10 years away.
With SIM players, I was bad my first year.
With 4 recruits, I was better but still bad my 2nd year(1 recruit is likely to be the all-time leading scorer, one backs him up, I cut one and one was a largely ineffective JUCO).
By my third year, I was around .500. I sort of got the feel for recruiting.
In my 4th year, I'm 24-2 and should be a 4-5 seed in the NT.

I won't win but, if I were to get lucky, would it be a "Participation Trophy" or did I just naturally get better thru experience? I've said a hundred times that the users who are good didn't invent fire, they simply played enough to where they learned the game. If the playing field is level, others will challenge them. Previous versions of HD did not provide a level playing field.

The participation trophy comment is aimed at D1 I think. So your example doesn't really count.

The whole idea is that you start at the bottom and work your way up over time. This includes starting at low D1 and then moving up to mid major and then finally getting to B6. From there you build up a program that has been mediocre and turn it into a contender.

It's much different now. Take my NMSU team for example. Took me 5 seasons to reach the S16 after starting with D- prestige. This would have been A LOT harder to achieve in 2.0 than 3.0. I didn't need to put in my dues and work my way up. You can just join D1 at any level and be successful. For those that spent real life years working their way up 2.0, this would understandably rub them the wrong way.