St Joes Recruiting Gambit Data Topic

great stuff metsmax, thanks for sharing!! sounds like a pretty legitimate point being made about this going further than redshirt / no redshirt, as the redshirt was probably put on many more players than it was removed from.

also interesting these guys are using it on really highly rated recruits. there was a claim that it worked on some players but not others. if it didn't work on everyone, looks like a pretty limited set who it didn't work on.
11/23/2022 2:54 PM
I infer - cant know - that step one - the inform of redshirt - happened with a good number of guys because I stumbled across a few and did not scour for them

And it makes sense. Since inform of redshirt has no cost, you pick, lets say, ten guys who would be break glass in emergency players. Like if you lost battles and had only two playable guards, who would you take as guard #3 or big #3.

There are lots of guys who fit that profile. You dont want to pick just one or two, because some of your emergency guys could draw heavy investment from someone who likes them. You pick ten, cycle one you inform of redshirt. Then lets say on the last day of the first cycle you are in dire straights - poof, you inform of no redshirt and unlock actions, grab the emergency guy without having to divert AP earlier.

Deft! Just what I imagining, but it fits the data and makes sense. If they didnt do it, they should have.....err no
11/23/2022 3:27 PM
This just gets more and more sleazy.
11/23/2022 4:48 PM
in what other worlds are there teams once coached by banned coaches? any other rosters that can be claimed and reviewed?

there is Mississippi in Naismith, but I'm not leaving Maryland to explore that.....

other teams where the coach was banned?
12/1/2022 11:13 AM (edited)
Texas in Naismeth,
12/1/2022 1:20 PM
someone needs to take those teams and publish what shows in the recruiting histories - of the kids they signed and the others they chased
12/1/2022 4:29 PM
IMO this is a rough sketch of how the strategy worked, supported by the data from metsmax:
  • 5pm Cycle A: Focus available AP on 1-2 top targets, with goal to offer scholarship at 11pm cycle. You would not use Inform of Redshirt here b/c that would block you from offering until 5am cycle. There's also a possibility of a bad reaction to the Inform of Redshirt and recruit won't consider you at all following (this is a hypothesis, I'm not sure if this happens in practice)
  • 5pm Cycle B: Use the Inform of Redshirt across several other targets. How many? Unclear, but metsmax data indicates it could have been quite many. Goal is to be able to offer a scholarship to a few of these targets at 5am cycle with little or no AP investment
  • 11pm Cycle A: Offer scholarship to the targets unlocked via AP. Continue to use your AP budget however you want
  • 11pm Cycle B: Use Remove Redshirt from players informed at 5pm cycle
  • 5am Cycle: Offer scholarships to a few guys where Inform / Remove Redshirt was used. Don't abuse this in a way that is obvious that you have more scholarships out than your AP budget would allow. But use in a few cases where it would be advantageous - e.g. there is no competition or competition you're comfortable battling.
  • Later cycles: Continue to use Inform / Remove Redshirt as needed to open up scholarship offers with minimal or no AP needed

The main advantage here is the ability to get to scholarship offer by the 5am cycle for more guys than you would be able to if you only had your AP budget. And to have the option (b/c you can do the Inform/Remove Redshirt for as many guys as you want with no cost) to pick and choose your spots where you make those additional offers to maximize the effectiveness, avoid battles, etc. The guys involved can claim that isn't a big advantage, but anyone that's played D1 knows it is, especially if the team that's able to run out ahead with the offers is a high prestige team.
12/2/2022 11:58 AM
my main thing this whole time was waiting to reserve judgement until the facts were out. my opinion has changed pretty much as a result of this thread. the usage of the pre-emptive redshirt in many cases is a big deal. another big deal is that i see scholarship being applied in the same cycle as promised minutes in one of those mets posted. that is a big amount of effort difference, that means the redshirt-noredshirt was significantly more powerful than we initially thought. that is a LOT of effort.

i find it harder and harder to believe that long time, well connected coaches - even who do not really peruse the forums - would not have recognized that their experience was substantially different than basically all of their peers.

with in-game glitches where you don't have like, clear attempts to hack in, or to use tools or code to exploit exploits... there's a real question around intent, does the user know what they are doing is not intended behavior. frankly, most users do not think about that stuff, so the general way i look at these things is, someone using a tool (like aimbot in a shooter) or going outside the intended user interface, those folks generally are assumed to know they aren't supposed to be doing that stuff, and having to prove otherwise. folks going through the UI, are generally assumed to be ignorant of their abuse, basically getting the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty.

as far as, did they guys know they were abusing a significant exploit, or should they have known... i have struggled with that the whole way. i think this thread here puts a pretty good amount of evidence on the 'they either knew or should have known' side of the scale.

do we know which of the coaches this particular team belonged to? i can't tell anymore because it says simai for all the history where the previous coach was...
12/2/2022 1:43 PM
Posted by gillispie on 12/2/2022 1:44:00 PM (view original):
my main thing this whole time was waiting to reserve judgement until the facts were out. my opinion has changed pretty much as a result of this thread. the usage of the pre-emptive redshirt in many cases is a big deal. another big deal is that i see scholarship being applied in the same cycle as promised minutes in one of those mets posted. that is a big amount of effort difference, that means the redshirt-noredshirt was significantly more powerful than we initially thought. that is a LOT of effort.

i find it harder and harder to believe that long time, well connected coaches - even who do not really peruse the forums - would not have recognized that their experience was substantially different than basically all of their peers.

with in-game glitches where you don't have like, clear attempts to hack in, or to use tools or code to exploit exploits... there's a real question around intent, does the user know what they are doing is not intended behavior. frankly, most users do not think about that stuff, so the general way i look at these things is, someone using a tool (like aimbot in a shooter) or going outside the intended user interface, those folks generally are assumed to know they aren't supposed to be doing that stuff, and having to prove otherwise. folks going through the UI, are generally assumed to be ignorant of their abuse, basically getting the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty.

as far as, did they guys know they were abusing a significant exploit, or should they have known... i have struggled with that the whole way. i think this thread here puts a pretty good amount of evidence on the 'they either knew or should have known' side of the scale.

do we know which of the coaches this particular team belonged to? i can't tell anymore because it says simai for all the history where the previous coach was...
Looks like this is St. Joe’s, which would be cimmy’s team. In my thinking, that’s the most culpable coach - the one who reached out, asked about how it was working, and was given an indication that it was not intended to be used that way. How clear that indication was is debatable of course - if seble thought it was a serious issue, or a potential cheat, it should have been investigated seriously at the moment of contact. Putting the onus on the user to self report, and really to interpret the response as to how future use of the “exploit” (if that’s how it would be viewed) would be handled is just an outrageously bad response. But yeah, cimmy should have known better after getting that response; certainly better than to share and use it with a circle of friends/family in conference. THAT is the ban-worthy offense, I think.
12/2/2022 2:07 PM
Another way to use this glitch would be to test how invested another team is on a guy because it’s pretty common for someone to bluff hard the first couple of cycles and then when it looks like all the competitors have backed off, switch the AP away/save money.

If you have to divert AP to maybe a chase a solid battle, it’s not worth it typically. But to be able to figure this out for free is a big deal.

If you do the glitch and offer scholly and stay as very low, well nothing lost. But if you get to low or moderate then you have an idea of how much you need to get to high and you can jump right in. And I feel like I definitely saw that happen because I was extra weary of robin or swenske (coaches I’d identified as using a shotgun recruiting approach) popping up on late on my recruits because they often seemed able to get to high late in the game.
12/2/2022 3:38 PM
the data that I was able to pull is very interesting - if someone could take Mississippi in Naismith just to see the recruiting history it could add to the info

Any other teams once run by the banned coaches?

If someone takes over a team, I can give some tips on where to look beyond players signed and players contacted - some others where I found stuff - there were juco's (w three years left) who showed contact in the prior season. Just an inform of redshirt. A search for jucos led me to some when I looked at their recruiting history.

For one of them, I withdrew the inform of redshirt and suddenly went to very high. This was odd - as if the exploit still applied. I asked support whether I could recruit the guy, they said sure, but I had no interest - and i think it would have been wrong.
12/2/2022 5:23 PM
So, to the best of my ability to understand this issue. If you 'remove inform a redshirt', it 'gave' you some benefit. We now know the absolute value of that benefit could be at most 80 AP. But that this benefit was variable based on prestige. The user had no idea of the absolute benefit, just that there was a benefit.

Is it possible that the coaches who chose it THOUGHT that they were promising NOT to redshirt a recruit?

Is it possible that this was actually intended to be in the programming when it was put in (those coders who wrote it are now gone)? The only reason removing the 'inform of a red shirt' option SHOULD provide any benefit based on prestige (or vary in any way and be called out specifically) is if it was intentionally put into the code. There would be no reason to do anything variable to it if you were just taking it away. Just reset the negative benefit (or reset some of it, like they have now) and be done with it. They did not do that when it was initially added to the code. They specifcally called out this condition .. they specifically based it on prestige .. they specifically gave benefit in different amounts to different teams.

Is it possible that benefit was put into the code on purpose because if you told a recruit that you might red shirt him, then you said later .. you know what, we won't red shirt you after all. Does that situation depend on prestige because that situation means more if Duke does it than of Coastal Carolina does it? I'm just spit balling here as to why someone might think this benefit is OK .. I can see this being something that a recruit might appreciate.
12/8/2022 9:46 AM (edited)
These coaches were unlocking players using 0 AP at a rapid fire pace. The one dude Swenske had 24 scholarships OFFERED in 5 cycles. That’s how the game was intended? That’s normal recruiting practice? Every coach doing this KNEW exactly what they were doing, and they knew no one else knew about it. I don’t care how we spin it. It’s blatantly obvious to me.
12/8/2022 9:19 AM
I get that, but IF telling a recruit you won't red shirt him had that benefit when put in the code base, and if that is what the coaches thought they were doing AND if they thought that is why it was added to the code base by the developer. Then the recent update fixed that bad thought process and programming.

Again, this is not something I ever did and I don't care one way or the other. But that was in the game and it seems to me it was added on purpose to the code, otherwise why would the code have it be different for different prestige?

I am not saying the change to take it out was bad, the game is better without it.

I just have a bad taste in my mouth that we call people cheaters for using something that existed inside the game and even SEEMS to be programmed in the code base on purpose. Not in any way saying it should have been put in there, just that it was.

I am not particularly fond of -5, slow down effect where underdogs win games .. but it is in the code base and I dang sure use it if I am a huge dog.
12/8/2022 9:36 AM (edited)
"But that was in the game and it seems to me it was added on purpose to the code"

I think we need to be careful making this assumption. Seble was a one man show rolling out the 3.0 update. He missed stuff, it happens.

We need to keep in mind the INTENT. What was the intent when Seble made the coding?

I go back to the renewal loophole thing. The intent was that a new coach could take over a team and get full resources. But after some time, it was realized that the same coach could apply through jobs and then get the full resources without a new coach reduction penalty. That was OBVIOUSLY not Seble's intent when he coded it.

And when the0nlyis discovered this, it took 3 messages to Seble to get him to even understand how this was a problem or how it could be abused (he showed me the messages, Seble was pretty dense).

So the ticket to CS from Cimmy asking about getting effort after withdrawing a RS. CS peeps don't play HD much so they didnt understand how it could be manipulated. Good on Cimmy for sending in the initial ticket, but he didn't really explain that you could potentially unlock actions for dozens of recruits almost immediately which would create an unfair advantage.

Again, the intention of the withdraw RS mechanic was not to spam it out recruits to bypass giving APs.
12/8/2022 10:22 AM
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St Joes Recruiting Gambit Data Topic

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