All of those features should have been added to the game a long time ago.

+1

Meh to the other stuff in this thread.

nitros (James)

I've never ever used the Yatzr recruiting tool and I would say I do fine in recruiting. I still use the old fashioned eye ball method, so I am not sure how much of an advantage others are getting out of it.
As far as those features being part of the WIS site, I 100% agree that they should.

Posted by rh32 on 5/23/2018 8:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by genuvar on 5/22/2018 2:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by rh32 on 5/21/2018 10:52:00 PM (view original):

Posted by clememp on 5/21/2018 7:23:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rh32 on 5/19/2018 10:11:00 AM (view original):
The fact that there is an app that facilitates discussion about the game outside of this forum (slack app?) is way more disturbing. Is that what Tigerpark used?

Also, I do a lot of my recruiting from my phone. Does that make people who use computers cheaters because I use technology that makes recruiting more difficult? (it's a rhetorical question and the answer is no)

What if you talked in Real Life with another coach. Same difference with 'Slack' it is a modern version of a 'message board' ... which this is.

That's why all of this about the yatzr tool is such a non-issue. People like tigerpark talked to people they knew in real life and colluded. That's cheating. Now there is an entire external message board where people could potentially collaborate, collude, share information nobody else has. And apparently using technology to share information with other players about the game is cool in chrondon's book, but using technology to aggregate information that anyone playing the game can get anyway is not cool with chrondon. It just seems inconsistent to criticize one and engage in the other.

So you want an online game where people do not communicate with one another?

Quite the opposite. My only point is the advantage that comes from forming an external community is potentially larger than using something like the yatzr tool. I never said don’t form an external community. My only point is that the whole discussion about the yatzr tool being bad is moot. A whole community that exists outside of these forums is a potentially bigger advantage, so why outrage from chrondon over the yatzr tool?

Someone is upset he doesn't have any friends...

You’re entitled to your opinion truedevil. But there are two types of information. 1) information everyone has access to, that’s what the yatzr tool aggregates and 2) information only some people have access to. It’s sharing #2 that constitutes cheating I’m my book. Now before everyone sharpens their pitchforks, I’m not saying that’s what people using the slack app are doing. We have no way of knowing. At least communication via this site is theoretically monitored by wis staff. I’m going to stop with this thread because we are beating a dead horse here. Feel free to insult me all you want truedevil, I don’t mean to insult anyone here.

Posted by rh32 on 5/23/2018 9:28:00 PM (view original):
You’re entitled to your opinion truedevil. But there are two types of information. 1) information everyone has access to, that’s what the yatzr tool aggregates and 2) information only some people have access to. It’s sharing #2 that constitutes cheating I’m my book. Now before everyone sharpens their pitchforks, I’m not saying that’s what people using the slack app are doing. We have no way of knowing. At least communication via this site is theoretically monitored by wis staff. I’m going to stop with this thread because we are beating a dead horse here. Feel free to insult me all you want truedevil, I don’t mean to insult anyone here.

Cjsweat said he is really enjoying the hockey game. Philfulmer98 said games 7s are always good. Genuvar is talking about throwing 6 INTs and still winning... awags says his gameplan in broken.

All scary stuff....

If you are so worried about it or think guys are out there cheating and mass colluding then join wilk and I will add you to the chat. If you have no interest in joining the community then move on and go bark up some other undeserving tree.

This thread just convinces me that insecure people will always be jealous of something. Slack, Yatzr, and Google Maps are not the reason for your mediocrity. For what it's worth, none of them have brought me out of mine either.

Posted by cjsweat on 5/23/2018 11:23:00 PM (view original):
This thread just convinces me that insecure people will always be jealous of something. Slack, Yatzr, and Google Maps are not the reason for your mediocrity. For what it's worth, none of them have brought me out of mine either.

well said

I've been playing this game for 13 years. I've never looked at either the recruiting tool or game analyzer so I don't really have an opinion on them. The whole idea of them is kinda weird to me. Recruiting, game analyzing and game planning are the REASON I play this game. That's the fun part. Why have a bot do it for you? That makes no sense to me. Are there that many people that are just so motivated to win that they let the essence of the game go to try to be more successful? Crazy. Its the journey, not the destination.

Posted by huckslim on 5/24/2018 5:31:00 PM (view original):
I've been playing this game for 13 years. I've never looked at either the recruiting tool or game analyzer so I don't really have an opinion on them. The whole idea of them is kinda weird to me. Recruiting, game analyzing and game planning are the REASON I play this game. That's the fun part. Why have a bot do it for you? That makes no sense to me. Are there that many people that are just so motivated to win that they let the essence of the game go to try to be more successful? Crazy. Its the journey, not the destination.

I think you are overestimating what the "bot" does but sure, why use a calculator when you can count on your fingers.

Posted by awags on 5/24/2018 5:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by huckslim on 5/24/2018 5:31:00 PM (view original):
I've been playing this game for 13 years. I've never looked at either the recruiting tool or game analyzer so I don't really have an opinion on them. The whole idea of them is kinda weird to me. Recruiting, game analyzing and game planning are the REASON I play this game. That's the fun part. Why have a bot do it for you? That makes no sense to me. Are there that many people that are just so motivated to win that they let the essence of the game go to try to be more successful? Crazy. Its the journey, not the destination.

I think you are overestimating what the "bot" does but sure, why use a calculator when you can count on your fingers.

You guys can be really rude. Most of the insults on these tool threads (aside from the initial 'you are all cheaters', which I do not agree with) are from the pro-tool people, and I'm pretty surprised at some of it.
Communists? Really? Calling people friendless? Talking about 'panty wearers' or something? Yeesh.

I'm indifferent to the tool, but I'm with huckslim on this one - I spend all day analyzing & processing data; I rather like the process of digging out the information from GD the old fashioned way. I tried it, didn't like it & the java install necessary, and don't use it.

Different strokes and all that.

Posted by hypnotoad on 5/24/2018 6:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by awags on 5/24/2018 5:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by huckslim on 5/24/2018 5:31:00 PM (view original):
I've been playing this game for 13 years. I've never looked at either the recruiting tool or game analyzer so I don't really have an opinion on them. The whole idea of them is kinda weird to me. Recruiting, game analyzing and game planning are the REASON I play this game. That's the fun part. Why have a bot do it for you? That makes no sense to me. Are there that many people that are just so motivated to win that they let the essence of the game go to try to be more successful? Crazy. Its the journey, not the destination.

I think you are overestimating what the "bot" does but sure, why use a calculator when you can count on your fingers.

You guys can be really rude. Most of the insults on these tool threads (aside from the initial 'you are all cheaters', which I do not agree with) are from the pro-tool people, and I'm pretty surprised at some of it.
Communists? Really? Calling people friendless? Talking about 'panty wearers' or something? Yeesh.

I'm indifferent to the tool, but I'm with huckslim on this one - I spend all day analyzing & processing data; I rather like the process of digging out the information from GD the old fashioned way. I tried it, didn't like it & the java install necessary, and don't use it.

Different strokes and all that.

I think it's the suggestion that the efficiency-gain of the tool is somehow doing the *real* work for you. What do I mean by "real work"? I mean the actual decision-making of:

- How to rate recruits against one another
- How much to spend to get the recruits to sign with you
- How to allocate your available scholarships across positions
- How to break down the stats of a game and let that guide your gameplanning decisions
- How to configure your Formations and Playbooks to exploit opponent weaknesses

These things are not done by the tools. The tools are only efficiency-adders, in that they rapidly download and aggregate data, so that the *real* work of decision-making can begin. Not everyone has "all day" to manually pull recruits or PBP data, before sitting down to process that information. For those that do have that kind of time and inclination, that's great. But yatzr's tools are quite a long way from an AI that, say, uses Reinforcement Learning to optimize recruiting and game strategy, then carries out those actions for the coach, who sits back and reaps the rewards with no work.

Personally, I do not use yatzr's tools - neither the Recruting tool nor the Game Analyzer. Before yatzr began developing and published his tools, I had written my own (albeit in much less elegant form) using Excel and macros. If it weren't for those tools I wrote years ago, I would not still be playing this game, because I no longer have the time nor the inclination for the drudgery of doing that stuff manually. It's the "chess match" of the game that still kinda holds my interest enough to continue playing.. and I don't see recruit search and PBP reading as part of the chess match. That stuff is more like the drive through traffic on the way to your baseball game - it's a necessary component to enable the actual competition, but something to be gotten through as quickly and efficiently as possible, and has no influence on the actual competition, itself.

Cheating would be if yatzr's tools used some sort of server vulnerability to download information that is not available to users through the conventional GD user interface. Which is very much not the case.

i think if all the tool does is go on the website as you and do what the sim does for you (only faster of course) then its not cheating, its just being efficient

now the man said he processes in parallel. you can't do that. but whats the point of software if it can't cut to the chase. still not cheating, although there are apparently some wondrous things it does within a three hour time slot you couldn't do if you had twelve of you doing it and all of you clickety clacking your tails off. unfair to the new guy who never heard of the tool, still not cheating

then there's the big gray area of does it think-and-act for you. is it your proxy. like a lawyer who is the expert and you defer to his or her knowlege and judgement. are you bound by decisions it makes. everyone who defends the tool says Ludicrous, it does no thinking, its a long beautiful lever that moves a world. several users say it made them profoundly uneasy when they found out how powerful the tool is

where the hard cheat comes in: when it is proxying, while the tool process is running, does it use the information it has about all the people it is working for to improve their chances in some way. does it give them information the sim user doesn't have access to. because the sim user can't see what the tool sees. the sim user is just one guy. the tool has access to, sees, knows, the recruitment schemes of a pool of guys

seble asked Does it aggregate. the people said No. but mainly the people who say such are tool users and purveyors. only the source code knows if data is aggregated

then there's the big gray area of does it think-and-act for you. is it your proxy.

There is no gray area here. It unambiguously does NOT think or act on its own, to the users' advantage. It only does what you tell it to do. With only information that everyone has at their disposal.

several users say it made them profoundly uneasy when they found out how powerful the tool is

Please provide substantiation, because this sounds like the kind of vague claim that has zero basis in fact.

I am surprised at how weak and inconsistent, and in some cases obviously wrong, the attempts to defend the tool are. It may not be cheating but something is obviously wrong there.

I have been listening to this "blah blah" about whether it's cheating or not for this whole thread. And I am not here to jump on the Ye or Nay bandwagon.
But the bottom line is that unless management finds it shouldn't be done and stops it somehow then for all the reasons those who use it say they use it, it
Will Be Used !
To those on the Nay side, Accept It and Move On Already.