If a recruit’s only preference is “Wants Rebuild,” and you have an A prestige school against a C prestige school, does the prestige advantage still outweigh the preference, giving the A school the upper hand? If so, this kind of seems to defeat the purpose of having a wants rebuild preference in the first place.

Any thoughts?

If the preference is one among many preferences, then yes, the prestige advantage almost certainly nullifies the preference for a rebuild. If it’s the only preference, or the only preference with a significant discrepancy, then wanting a rebuild mitigates some of the advantage that higher prestige has. Doesn’t necessarily overcome it, but it gives the lower school a shot, where they may otherwise not have one.

The C prestige is probably only Neutral for Wants Rebuild.

No, it doesn't even come close to outweighing the prestige disadvantage.

Personally i think it should.

Recruit.... "all I wanna do is play for a team that's rebuilding. And i can be the star. And the focal point"

Options.... Duke, UK, Kansas and.... Iowa.

Recruit..... "Coach X visited me 20 times. I'm going to Duke! Forget about what i want!"

I just think preferences need to be weighted much much more. I think the preferences should somewhat narrow the choices down for a recruit. If a recruit says he wants success, that should eliminate every school C+ and south of that.

I realize it would make the game harder for recruiting in a way. But why have preferences if they don't mean a lot? I know it's not "demands". It's preferences. But it's just odd to me that a "wants rebuild" ends up being a starter on a championship team. It just makes no sense because the player did not want that. The coach MADE that happen.

Completely agree, preferences should matter much more than they do.

Posted by Benis on 5/23/2018 7:20:00 AM (view original):
The C prestige is probably only Neutral for Wants Rebuild.

No, it doesn't even come close to outweighing the prestige disadvantage.

Right, but wouldn’t it be Very Bad for the A school, in effect watering down the effort they put in?

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/23/2018 10:50:00 AM (view original):
Personally i think it should.

Recruit.... "all I wanna do is play for a team that's rebuilding. And i can be the star. And the focal point"

Options.... Duke, UK, Kansas and.... Iowa.

Recruit..... "Coach X visited me 20 times. I'm going to Duke! Forget about what i want!"

I just think preferences need to be weighted much much more. I think the preferences should somewhat narrow the choices down for a recruit. If a recruit says he wants success, that should eliminate every school C+ and south of that.

I realize it would make the game harder for recruiting in a way. But why have preferences if they don't mean a lot? I know it's not "demands". It's preferences. But it's just odd to me that a "wants rebuild" ends up being a starter on a championship team. It just makes no sense because the player did not want that. The coach MADE that happen.

Exactly what I was thinking. In the case of Wants Rebuild alone, the lower prestige school should have the advantage, but it sounds like this is just kind of overridden by the impact of the higher prestige.

I agree that preferences should mean more. Here is my proposal for what should be done to make them more important/valuable: have recruits get worn out by overrecruiting within a cycle. Here is how I propose it would work:

1. A recruit will determine how many home visits it will accept from you each cycle based on how preferences match up. For example, if Team A is VG, VG, G with the rest neutral and Team B is G, G, B with the rest neutral, the recruit will let Team A take more visits each cycle. Maybe Team A can get away with four visits each cycle, but Team B can only get away with two. Each team would be guaranteed a minimum of one visit per cycle, regardless of preference matches. You will not be told in advance how many visits they will accept.

2. The number of visits permitted would vary within each cycle, depending on interest and how contested the recruiting is. If you are the only human team on VH and the rest are sims on low, the recruit may reduce the number of visits he allows you to have because he doesn't want/need to be bothered when you are the only game in town. Conversely, if you have 3 teams on VH and two teams on H, the recruit will probably allow each team to have more visits because he wants to make sure that he is making an informed decision. But the recruit that has 5 teams on VH/H will likely reduce the number of visits that he will permit from teams other than those 5 because he doesn't want to add to the craziness.

3. If you go beyond the visits that the recruit will accept, they will turn you away at the door. You are still charged for the visit.

4. Each rejected visit causes a penalty because you are annoying the recruit, making them think less of your school. Lets say the recruit will allow you 3 visits per cycle, but you use 4. The actual value of the visits would be 2.7 instead of 3, because you took a 10% penalty for that fourth visit. A fifth visit drops your value down to 2.4. If you use 7 visits, it drops to 1.8, so you have just negated the positive value of that third visit.

5. The value of promises go up because getting in your promises early unlock more potential visits when a player has a "wants to play" preference.

6. This will reduce poaching/sniping/swooping in late because a team cannot drop 10 visits in one cycle unless they have insane preference matches.

7. You can remove caps on how many totals visits are used. Use as many visits as you want and see what happens. The only time you run into a true resources problem is where teams are evenly matched on preferences, but one team has six openings and ton more cash to spend on visits than the team with one opening does. But I don't think the goal should be to eradicate those advantages, but to create fewer situations where it matters. Under this model, if the 1 scholarship team is Team A and the 6 scholarship team is Team B, then Team B's $$$ advantage is reduced because Team A can get away with more unpenalized visits each cycle. If they both put in 4 visits per cycle, Team A gets credit for 4 visits, but Team B only gets credit for 1.6 visits.

Those are great ideas as well grimace.

But just for the main two... Distance, and Success/Rebuild.... I literally think teams should be eliminated in some way. Even if no human coaches come along, there are sims that fit the criteria.

if i'm in California, and a New York kid has a close to home preference, I shouldn't even have a shot at him. The kid wants to go to Niagra Falls every weekend with his mother. My massive amounts of visits and AP should not change that. That particular kid is not coming near California. Period.

Now the other preferences, maybe not as bold (as far as completely eliminating a school)..... If a kid wants to play in the triangle offense because he thinks it's his best ticket to a pro career, so be it. And schools that play triangle should have a leg up. But if they don't try hard to get him, that one is easier to "give in on". Rather than changing your opinion on moving across the whole country

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/23/2018 4:50:00 PM (view original):
Those are great ideas as well grimace.

But just for the main two... Distance, and Success/Rebuild.... I literally think teams should be eliminated in some way. Even if no human coaches come along, there are sims that fit the criteria.

if i'm in California, and a New York kid has a close to home preference, I shouldn't even have a shot at him. The kid wants to go to Niagra Falls every weekend with his mother. My massive amounts of visits and AP should not change that. That particular kid is not coming near California. Period.

Now the other preferences, maybe not as bold (as far as completely eliminating a school)..... If a kid wants to play in the triangle offense because he thinks it's his best ticket to a pro career, so be it. And schools that play triangle should have a leg up. But if they don't try hard to get him, that one is easier to "give in on". Rather than changing your opinion on moving across the whole country

I agree on distance, but not as much on success/rebuild. I think the other big one should be playing time, If a recruit wants playing time and you are unwilling to promise it, they should be incredibly slow to consider you. And if there is 1 team at VH on that player and that team has not promised minutes, they should be extremely vulnerable to being poached by a team that promises minutes/starts from the get go. And sims should make promises.

I know there is a multiplier for promises (i.e. a visit made after you have promised playing time is worth more than a visit made before the promise), but that multiplier should be significantly increased. If a recruit wants playing time, a team that promises 20 minutes a game from the get go should always beat a team that never promised any minutes, regardless of how the other preferences/prestige line up. A team that does not promise any minutes should not get above moderate in that situation.

Also, a player who wants a rebuild should almost always want playing time too (who would choose to ride the bench for a bad team????) -- correlating these two together would improve preferences as well.

One problem with preferences is that they are randomly generated independent of each other, so you end up with stupid combinations like a player who wants a rebuild with a longtime coach ("I want to go to a bad school to be a part of making it good again, but I only want to play for a coach who has been trying for 10 years to turn the place around with no success").

Yes the randomness creates a bad mix. And i agree that playing time should be one of the powerful ones. I just didn't mention it because all schools can offer playing time. And my argument is based more on the fact that having preferences should eliminate schools in some situations. And a coach should have to view it that way.... "wants close to home? Scratch him off, he isn't coming here"

Posted by slayterhill on 5/22/2018 10:32:00 PM (view original):
If a recruit’s only preference is “Wants Rebuild,” and you have an A prestige school against a C prestige school, does the prestige advantage still outweigh the preference, giving the A school the upper hand? If so, this kind of seems to defeat the purpose of having a wants rebuild preference in the first place.

Any thoughts?

If your a lower prestige team you need to find the recruits that get you in the ball game. Wants rebuild is a good start. You just need to get a High preference and then hope for a little luck.

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/23/2018 6:35:00 PM (view original):
Yes the randomness creates a bad mix. And i agree that playing time should be one of the powerful ones. I just didn't mention it because all schools can offer playing time. And my argument is based more on the fact that having preferences should eliminate schools in some situations. And a coach should have to view it that way.... "wants close to home? Scratch him off, he isn't coming here"

I don't think we are that far off on this one. I think playing time/guaranteed starts should be a big one because every school can theoretically offer it, but not every school can actually offer it. Here is an example. Lets say a recruit wants PT/starts, but I am a top 10 team and have a stud junior player at his position. I can't offer the start unless I want my best player coming off the bench and my starters playing with a low-IQ freshman. I might be able to offer 10 mins/game off the bench, but probably not much more than that.

Meanwhile, a C- rebuilding team can offer that same player start/20mpg right off the bat without giving it a second thought. For a player who wants PT, that should be huge. A player who wants PT/starts as a freshman, what they really should be saying is, "I'm not coming to any school to sit on the bench and learn from older guys. I'd rather be the big man on a D+ campus than just another face at the A- school. Now if the A- school is willing to make me the big man on campus, I'd definitely listen to them and probably go there, but if you aren't offering me minutes and starts, don't bother visiting my house...."

I've had players who wanted PT and I was the only human on them and landed them pretty easily without making any promises. Even in that scenario, it should be much harder to do that. If a player wants PT and it is not promised to him, he should refuse to sign with any team until the second recruiting session, regardless of what his stated signing preference is.

Posted by grimacedance on 5/24/2018 12:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/23/2018 6:35:00 PM (view original):
Yes the randomness creates a bad mix. And i agree that playing time should be one of the powerful ones. I just didn't mention it because all schools can offer playing time. And my argument is based more on the fact that having preferences should eliminate schools in some situations. And a coach should have to view it that way.... "wants close to home? Scratch him off, he isn't coming here"

I don't think we are that far off on this one. I think playing time/guaranteed starts should be a big one because every school can theoretically offer it, but not every school can actually offer it. Here is an example. Lets say a recruit wants PT/starts, but I am a top 10 team and have a stud junior player at his position. I can't offer the start unless I want my best player coming off the bench and my starters playing with a low-IQ freshman. I might be able to offer 10 mins/game off the bench, but probably not much more than that.

Meanwhile, a C- rebuilding team can offer that same player start/20mpg right off the bat without giving it a second thought. For a player who wants PT, that should be huge. A player who wants PT/starts as a freshman, what they really should be saying is, "I'm not coming to any school to sit on the bench and learn from older guys. I'd rather be the big man on a D+ campus than just another face at the A- school. Now if the A- school is willing to make me the big man on campus, I'd definitely listen to them and probably go there, but if you aren't offering me minutes and starts, don't bother visiting my house...."

I've had players who wanted PT and I was the only human on them and landed them pretty easily without making any promises. Even in that scenario, it should be much harder to do that. If a player wants PT and it is not promised to him, he should refuse to sign with any team until the second recruiting session, regardless of what his stated signing preference is.

Promises need to be totally reworked. It doesn't make any sense for a player to not care about starting once postseason hits. Or that he'd be cool starting every game as a FR to only ride the pine as a Soph.

If there was a bigger penalty for not hitting promises or if they were harder to meet then they wouldn't be offered as much.

I agree. It would suck as a coach. But promises need to be generally kept thru the 4 years