Posted by bathtubhippo on 1/6/2018 3:37:00 PM (view original):
Posted by shoe3 on 1/6/2018 1:47:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bathtubhippo on 1/6/2018 9:54:00 AM (view original):
yeah the off the board guys suck. i lost an off the board soph 2 seasons ago in tark, and it completely tanked my season. no way to prepare for that--usually you have a high chance at retaining sophs that are on the board!
Not to split hairs, but it really depends on where he is on the board. Sophomores can be “likely going”, “on the fence”, or “likely staying”. The ones who are “likely going” are not, to my knowledge, less likely to go just because they’re sophomores.
The big problem is people’s expectations and misunderstandings, not the function of the system itself. People continue to look to the big board, rather than their own evaluation of a player’s standing, to tell them if he’s a risk to leave early or not. That’s a mistake. If you’re at a level where you’re recruiting elite players, you’re advanced enough to make your own determination of whether he could possibly leave early, or not. My Naismith UV team (as pkoopman) has two players who could definitely leave early, though they are not currently on the big board. I know they can leave early, and am preparing for the possibility, because their attributes are in line with players who typically consider leaving early: a number of core attributes in the 90s, LP/PER combo at or above 145 or so, that sort of thing.
If youre surprised by a player leaving early, you either failed to properly evaluate him, or you failed to understand the system properly. User error, in either case. And of course it sucks. It’s supposed to. That’s the game. Elite commodities are volatile.
what i meant in my post was that the bulk of sophs on the big board are on the fence or likely staying and significantly fewer sophs go EE than do juniors. this is simple fact.
I completely disagree with your last paragraph, at least as you're posting it, as a blanket statement applied to all EE. this is bunk. of course you can tell many players will go EE but you can't waste resources preparing for the most unlikeliest of events. i am willing to bet the # of soph players who have gone EE off the board is very tiny, probably single digits in each world since the inception of HD3. having that happen is just extraordinary bad luck. of course you can and should make the argument that one should endeavor to prep at least a backup option for even a likely staying player, but there's no way you can possibly prep backup options for guys who are so unlikely to go as an off-the-board soph.
EE decisions are a function of probability, which is determined by the player’s attributes. The big board can be useful, especially for sophomores, for estimating where a player’s probability thresholds are. But it’s simply not designed to unambiguously tell you whether a player is going to go. Of course it’s bad luck when a player off the board leaves early, and of course it hurts. But it’s not a design problem. If there’s a gameplay problem, it’s on the user’s end, not the game design.
The question of what someone can afford to “waste” in preparing contingencies is a matter of individual user preference. You certainly don’t need to invest visits in those backups, at least not until the second session. But tossing 2-3 APs per cycle at a potential late-signing backup is not a “waste”, if preparing contingencies is a priority for you.