Recruiting in NCAA 13 - What would you like to see?

[griffin2608]

I know it's early but I have been thinking about some things.

I hope next year the recruiting gets some work. I would like to see some type of zone system for the states. Take the big football states for example Florida, Texas, California ect. There are multiple big programs in Florida. UF, FSU, MIA then USF and UCF are up and coming. FAU and FIU are lower tier but still D1. Take a map of the state with county's on it and where the school is located and give a small boost to schools in their area. Just like UM when Schnellenberger was there schools had a hard time going into south Florida and pulling recruits.

Top tier recruits are not going to sign with schools that are not offering them a scholarship period. These guys know their worth and they will not accept a prefered walk on status when other big programs are offering and I am tired of seeing it happen.

More to come....

[JeffHCross]

Take a map of the state with county's on it and where the school is located and give a small boost to schools in their area. Just like UM when Schnellenberger was there schools had a hard time going into south Florida and pulling recruits.Pretty sure this is what Pipeline (and Proximity to Home) is designed to do, but I agree that re-doing pipelines would be nice. No matter how many players Ohio State has from Florida, Luke Fickell is not going to have the same pull in Florida that Jimbo Fisher or Will Muschamp will. I think the A+ Proximity to Home rating is supposed to differentiate between a local school and a pipeline school, but it doesn't count for enough, imo. Or too many guys don't consider Proxmity to Home important.


Top tier recruits are not going to sign with schools that are not offering them a scholarship period. These guys know their worth and they will not accept a prefered walk on status when other big programs are offering and I am tired of seeing it happen.Agreed, but I don't think the fix for this is in the player logic. Based on my observations, a player will only be getting interest, yet not getting a scholarship, from a CPU school if he's on the school's board but not "important enough" to get an offer.

As human players, I think most of us have three states for our recruits: Targets, Keep Him in the Back Pocket, and Not Important. It's pretty rare that I hear about an NCAA player keeping a guy on his board that he has no interest in recruiting. They're either current targets, or players that we're keeping on the board as backups in case we can't sign our primary targets. But I don't think the CPU has that middle tier. It seems to me that the CPU makes a scholarship offer to every player they want, but also fills the board with 35 targets every week. If you look at the CPU time usage, they're only talking to 10-15 players each week (maybe more at the beginning of the season).

Basically, I don't think the problem with walk-ons is that they're not considering the scholarship. I think the problem is that the CPU is keeping them on the board, even though they have no interest in signing them. That's one reason you end up with things like Alabama signing 3 5* QBs in the same season -- they sign two of them early on, and then never drop the third guy from their list. The way the point system works, 60 minutes is 60 minutes, whether or not the player has a scholarship offer.

Unless they thoroughly revamped the recruiting point system, I don't see it changing that a player will sign without a scholarship offer. I agree with you that it shouldn't happen, but I think the fix is in getting the CPU to properly drop players from their board.

[Rudy]

I'd like the ability to sway DOWN a topic. If a kid lives far away and being close to home is a big thing for him then I would like to be able to convince him that it's not such a big deal.

I'd also like to see some of the time in recruiting to be used to scout the prospect instead of always just talking to the kid. What if you use some time to review game film (20 minutes) or actually be at one of his games (60 minute pitch). Maybe they can show you a video clip of the kid (just for fun) and then you get a hard lock on some attributes and/or potential. (ie maybe that B+ arm on that QB is actually an A/93 THP). Watching game tape might let you unlock 1-2 attributes, watching in person might let you do 3-5. It would certainly make it more interesting and add another twist.

Having kids rated for discipline and having discipline in dynasty would certainly add another dimension. Are you willing to recruit a troublemaker or do you only want clean cut kids?

[cdj]

This is a great thread idea, griffin2608. I think a lot of people feel like recruiting may be getting stale or they want an improved methodology to the existing system.

Share any and all ideas here and we'll make sure to pass it on.

[baseballplyrmvp]

---decommitments would add a lot of fun to online dynasties. imagine stealing that prized qb or rb from your rival, who had a verbal from that kid all year long, and at the last second, you steal him away. :D oh to see the look on your rival's face when he sees that his prized recruit went somewhere else.....priceless!

---maybe being able to offer recruits a preferred walk-on spot? this would act like how a promise is treated, where if you dont reward him with a scholarship before his career is up, it negatively affects your coach prestige.
ideally, though, this would need require bigger rosters for your team. maybe team size limits could be changed from 70 players total to 70 scholarship players and up to 15 walk-ons? maybe too, this could be a user-only feature, so the cpu wouldnt be able to have walk-on spots? this would only make the roster file 180 players bigger (assuming 12 users getting 15 more players) rather than 1800 if it were applied to every school.

---i like rudy's idea of having some kind of scouting involvement, and i'd actually like to see a range for the recruit's ratings. how good the coach is at recruiting, could determine how big or small that range is. combined with rudy's scouting idea, going to a game, could lead to an exact grade for a couple of different ratings.

[Pig Bomb]

I'll come back and give some ideas later but i wanted to say really quick to griffin... it's NOT EARLY!! EA are already working on NCAA 13!
If we don't hurry up and give suggestions it just gets harder for them to add it later. The sooner you give them something the better the chance it gets in the game and actually works!

[JeffHCross]

Here were some of my "Little Things" wishes last year:

Redo Pipelines: Having 4 players on the roster from the same state doesn't establish a pipeline, at least not in real life. I guess they're trying to replicate that in real life certain coaches establish ties to areas, know the HS coaches, and are known to the parents. Sure, that's all true. But that's established over time, not by X number of players on your roster. Pipelines should be created and lost with time and successful recruiting in the states, not X. They should be gained and lost by who you play and who you beat. Ohio State shouldn't have to work to establish a pipeline to Indiana, Pennsylvania, or Michigan ... conference states should come automatically, at least at some level. And there should be varying levels of pipelines. No matter how many Florida players come to Ohio State, Jim Tressel is not going to recruit Florida at the same level that Urban Meyer will.(Ironic, neither of those coaches are around this year ...)

When using "Find Prospects" in Recruiting, instead of "View All Matching Prospects", the option to only view Matching Prospects above a certain percentage would be awesome. If I search 3 different sets of criteria, more often than not, I only care about the guys that are 100%. In fact, the vast majority of the time I'm using Find Prospect, I only care about 100%. Yes, I can sort on percentage, but why load all 300+ prospects that match the search when I'm really only interested in 22?

MVP mentioned "bragging rights for beating a school in a recruit's Top 10" last year, and I think that would be huge to see. Especially if you bring a recruit in for a rivalry game, and the two schools are #1 and #2 on the recruit's Top 10. That outcome should have some kind of an influence on the recruit.

And my thoughts on Dealbreaker pitches:

Now, along those lines ... I don't like when a player had Early Playing Time as a Most, and I have it as a D, yet I'm still able to get him to come to my school. Yes, on the one hand, I clearly put more effort into him than I would otherwise. But if a player is most concerned with getting playing time ... he's not likely to choose a school where he's not going to get that playing time. That's something I think the team should think about in the future, though I wouldn't put that high on the list.

if I, as a football recruit, am saying that the absolute most important thing to me is Early Playing Time ... that should be a dealbreaker. And deal-breaker's don't exist in NCAA recruiting.

It's something worth thinking about though. At the very least, I think there should be a "Dealbreaker". Where if I pitch a D to a Most+Dealbreaker, I actually get Negative points rather than just very few.

The problem there is the differentiation between "Low" meaning "It's not that important to me" and it meaning "I want a school with Low Prestige". If you look at the responses the recruits give, it seems like it means either one.

[Dr Death]

Obviously I am the only one to vote for a new system so far! :D But I will say this... Early Playing Time should NOT be determined by how many players you have at a particular position. Some may have 6 RB's and the highest is a 71... if he's recruiting a 5-Star RB, he should be able to tell that kid that yeah, my RB's are deep, but don't worry, you will start. I know we can do this w/ the promise of Significant Playing Time or whatever it's called... but it needs to go deeper than that and the rating should NOT be based on how deep you are at whatever position it is.

Edit: In fact, I believe that WE should be able to set up Early Playing Time when we set up our recruiting board. You recruit a 5-star player, you determine his EPT... A+. You're recruiting a 2-star CB who you want to Red-Shirt to give him a year to learn and improve, you set his EPT at D but... and this is key... we also need to be able to explain to them our plans for them.

Example: "Okay, here's the deal. I have 3 CB's who are all Juniors, next year they'll be Seniors. I want you to come in and learn the D and learn from them. They're good and one year will make you even better. Then, your first year of eligibility you can expect to play because you will go from... {whatever his rating will be}... say 62... to 67-70..." If we could do things like this... real life stuff... recruiting would be much deeper and much better!

[morsdraconis]

It actually does do what you're saying with their abilities, but it's also based on the number of guys you are going after. Doing what you're doing in recruiting to try and get one of them is actually sabotaging your ability to have A+ Early Playing time. I went after a :5star: WR with my lower rated team and was able to pitch A+ Early Playing Time even though I had like 7 WRs on my roster and was only going to lose one or two of them to graduation.

[Dr Death]

Yeah, but that doesn't work for my style. I must have 10-12 WR's. W/ formation subs I can put my starting 5 in and also have sets where the 6-10 guys are on the field, allowing me to constantly switch sets thus keeping all my WR's fresh throughout a game. I know I am in the minority but dammit... minorities are always taken care of in this country! :D

[PDuncanOSU]

I think adding 2 attributes to coaches and removing the random pitch selecter would really improve recruiting. Each coach would have a Scouting rating that would affect what we see as the recruits ratings, and a Recruiting rating that would affect how many points can be earned for each pitch. The scouting rating for offensive coordinator will affect offensive recruits, deffensive coordinator affects deffensive recruits, and head coach affects athletes, kickers and punters. All coaches would see the same star rating for each recruit.
Recruiting next year would look something like this:
-Head Coach 1 has an A scouting rating and sees a 3* athlete has B+ speed
-Head Coach 2 has a C scouting rating and sees the same 3* athlete has speed in the range of B- to A-
-You choose 1-6 topics at 10 minutes per topicl for each recruit
-A 6 topic/60 minute call will have 3 topics that are recruits choice, and 3 that are coaches choice
-A recruits choice topic will always be an above average or higher interest level for that recruit regardless of the schools ratings
-A coaches choice topic will be any topic that you choose
-A 5 topic/50 minute call could have 3 recruit choice/2 coach choice or vice versa, possibly random depending on the recruit
-The 3* athlete has his interest in playing time as Most is being recruited and both teams have A+ for playing time
-Head Coach 1 has an A recruiting rating can earn 70-90 points for pitching playing time
-Head Coach 2 has a C recruiting rating can earn 60-80 points for the same pitch
This wouldn't be a huge change from the current system, so it shouldn't be difficult for EA to do, would add depth to the coaching carousel, and allow recruiting to be more realistic while still not too easy.

[psuexv]

The problem there is the differentiation between "Low" meaning "It's not that important to me" and it meaning "I want a school with Low Prestige". If you look at the responses the recruits give, it seems like it means either one.

Jeff this is a huge point. Especially as I've said I would love to actually be able to pitch in scenarios where interest is low. There really should be an "opposite" category for each rating. Proximity to home and I want to get away, Program Prestige and small school... etc. Then you should also have the "It's not that important to me" rating for all of them.



Redo Pipelines: Having 4 players on the roster from the same state doesn't establish a pipeline, at least not in real life. I guess they're trying to replicate that in real life certain coaches establish ties to areas, know the HS coaches, and are known to the parents. Sure, that's all true. But that's established over time, not by X number of players on your roster. Pipelines should be created and lost with time and successful recruiting in the states, not X. They should be gained and lost by who you play and who you beat. Ohio State shouldn't have to work to establish a pipeline to Indiana, Pennsylvania, or Michigan ... conference states should come automatically, at least at some level. And there should be varying levels of pipelines. No matter how many Florida players come to Ohio State, Jim Tressel is not going to recruit Florida at the same level that Urban Meyer will.

Personally think Pipelines are a joke, as you've stated Jeff just because I have 4 kids on my roster from Tx doesn't mean every kid from Texas should want to come to my school. They true Pipelines you see in Recruiting are Geographical, which I think Proximity to Home tries to cover. The only thing you might see is on a High School Level with Pipelines, so and so from my school went to this school and they're showing me interest... yada yada.

[Jayrah]

Personally think Pipelines are a joke, as you've stated Jeff just because I have 4 kids on my roster from Tx doesn't mean every kid from Texas should want to come to my school. They true Pipelines you see in Recruiting are Geographical, which I think Proximity to Home tries to cover. The only thing you might see is on a High School Level with Pipelines, so and so from my school went to this school and they're showing me interest... yada yada.

Oh I don't know. Wsu is recruiting some big kids out of Florida based on a few kids being from that area and some ties to the Florida area in real life. I like the 4 recruits deal, but it should have to be 3 star recruits and above. None of this stealing 1 star fbs for a pipeline.

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[psuexv]

Oh I don't know. Wsu is recruiting some big kids out of Florida based on a few kids being from that area and some ties to the Florida area in real life. I like the 4 recruits deal, but it should have to be 3 star recruits and above. None of this stealing 1 star fbs for a pipeline.

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You mean these guys they signed last year, the 2 stars? 2 of them are from the same High School and if you look at the ones they are targeting this year 2 are from that High School and 2 others are from the same school and they are 3 stars(not to play down WSU's recruiting but when you said Big Kids I think 4 and 5 stars). Like I said I do think there are pipelines to certain High School or if a coach has a tie to a specific geographic area, but definitely not an entire state.

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m521/psuexv/2010.jpg

[griffin2608]

[QUOTE=psuexv;101157]You mean these guys they signed last year, the 2 stars? 2 of them are from the same High School and if you look at the ones they are targeting this year 2 are from that High School and 2 others are from the same school and they are 3 stars(not to play down WSU's recruiting but when you said Big Kids I think 4 and 5 stars). Like I said I do think there are pipelines to certain High School or if a coach has a tie to a specific geographic area, but definitely not an entire state.

This is why I would like to see the states broken up into zones in some way. Or a ever growing/ shrinking zone around the schools location. It doesn't have to be exact but it would add something to recruiting in your home state. The way the "proximity to home" is set up it is just too general. I am Georgia right now and when I have recruits on my board from louisana it is a B pitch for that. It is not like you can go home every day if you choose to come to Athens to play ball.

I have a question for some of you guys that interact with the devs. Is there any talk of putting in spring games, any type of scouting mini games or the discipline ratings? I really miss these features that were awesome on old gen.

[keyser soze]

- I would like to see the entire recruiting and player progression done in such a way that you end up with a similar roster to what is made for the original roster set. That is to say an equal number of talented guys at every stage of their college career instead of what we have today.
- I would also like to see STATS and playing style MATTER a great deal with recruiting. HBs should be lining up to go to schools that RUN THE BALL and schools that get more HBs involved and have second and third stringers who get meaningful caries should be more apt to get more running backs.
- Same goes for WRs and QBs. Schools that throw the rock should get kids who want to play at schools where they are going to get the rock thrown to them.
- Stats and game time snaps should factor into a player's progression ratings. Players "awareness" type ratings should go up with snaps. How well a player does or doesn't do should have some sort of possible impact with how a player progresses. Example: QB "A" finishes a season with 2,500 passing yards, 20 TDs and 5 INTs should get a bonus that a QB "B" who throws for 1,000 yards 8 TDs and 10 INTs does not get. Of course I would not want this overdone, but surely performance on the field should matter a little.
- I would like to see SIZE matter at the very least with potential UPSIDE. In real life recruiting a 6'9" offensive tackle is viewed as having more potential upside then a 6'1" offensive tackle. I would love to see a players frame matter and somehow, potential get factored into recruiting. Perhaps some recruits come in from better high schools more polished and ready to play early but there are guys who are less polished that are huge with tons of upside but might struggle with technique and awareness early but have high ceilings.

[BCEagles]

I know I'm asking for alot but I think the coolest thing they could add would be recruit videos where you got to see all that players highlights so you could truly see their speed, elusiveness, and other abilities on the playing field. Another cool thing would be breakout players so if you sign a 3 star recruit and make him a redshirt he might breakout the next year and gain 15 overall points in the offseason. A real life example would be luke keuchly of the Boston College Eagles who was not a great recruit but has turned into
one of the best linebackers in the ncaa

[JeffHCross]

Obviously I am the only one to vote for a new system so far! :D
I will, practically, never vote for a complete re-do of an existing system (unless we're changing console generations), simply because of the amount of time required. I can live with the existing system enough that I wouldn't put it higher than certain other items.


But I will say this... Early Playing Time should NOT be determined by how many players you have at a particular position. Some may have 6 RB's and the highest is a 71... if he's recruiting a 5-Star RB, he should be able to tell that kid that yeah, my RB's are deep, but don't worry, you will start.As mors said, but I might be able to expand on ... the system already does this. The system knows the recruit's OVR rating, and compares that to the depth you already have. So if he's going to be a starter, chances are very good he'll have an A+ rating, your existing depth be damned.

Obviously, that doesn't work for a system like yours where you're talking about 10-deep WRs ... but it's also not as simple as just looking at the # at a position. It's a middle ground.


Oh I don't know. Wsu is recruiting some big kids out of Florida based on a few kids being from that area and some ties to the Florida area in real life.Absolutely true, but you had the key phrase "being from that area". If they're from South Florida, that's not too likely to matter to a kid from the panhandle. Maybe it'll help, just to assuage any fears of "Washington's so far away and so different!", but it's not going to be nearly as significant of a factor as Pipelines are this year. If memory serves, it's around a 25% bonus for every call. That's insane, based on 4 players per state.

Ohio State has an inherent attraction to practically every high school athlete in Ohio. But our "pipelines" are to individual high schools, not the entire state. Just like I'm sure Nebraska will be able to utilize Bo Pelini's Ohio connections into individual pipelines as well. But, no matter how many connections Bo Pelini has, Nebraska isn't going to recruit Ohio like Ohio State does.

[baseballplyrmvp]

jeff, i absolutely love the idea of the "dealbreaker" you mentioned earlier. taking it further, it'd be awesome if the recruit actually hung up after that too. maybe even to the point of refusing to talk to you lol. it'd be like if a kid grew up in a very pro :USC: family and if :UCLA: came calling, he'd tell neuheisel to never call him again. :D

[JeffHCross]

jeff, i absolutely love the idea of the "dealbreaker" you mentioned earlier. taking it further, it'd be awesome if the recruit actually hung up after that too.While on the one hand I'd absolutely like that, with the current roulette system, that would be too extreme of a punishment for something you have little control over. Of course, there'd have to be some tweaking to the roulette system to allow for something like a Dealbreaker. But yeah, I love the idea -- glad you do too. I just can't stand the idea of a player saying "Playing Time is absolutely crucial to me" going to a school where he's going to sit for 3 years.

[Pig Bomb]

ya the logic behind it all needs to be better

if i run the wishbone offense we should have to beg 1 star WR's to come to our school, not have 4 star WR's lining up at our door

plus it would be cool to have more promises available and have them be weighted.... if i tell a guy "hey you will start as a freshman"...that should be a deal clincher for guys where early playing time is big when other schools wont make that commitment to him

[baseballplyrmvp]

While on the one hand I'd absolutely like that, with the current roulette system, that would be too extreme of a punishment for something you have little control over. Of course, there'd have to be some tweaking to the roulette system to allow for something like a Dealbreaker. But yeah, I love the idea -- glad you do too. I just can't stand the idea of a player saying "Playing Time is absolutely crucial to me" going to a school where he's going to sit for 3 years.ya, this could be a community made feature though, where the community comes up with exactly how we want it implemented, and then you guys with the connections pass it on to ea saying, "this is exactly how we want this done. do it" :nod:

i think the Most/D pitch rating is a good baseline for causing a dealbreaker. that should be something that immediately raises a red flag for a recruit. maybe if they averaged his 2 Very High pitch ratings and 2 High pitch ratings and it came out to be less than a C+ average, then it definately causes that recruit to stop talking to you altogether. this would make swaying pitches for the better, even more important. rudy's idea of swaying down a topic would help in this too, as there'd be a chance of swaying down the recruit's Most important pitch. swaying a most, though, should rarely happen....maybe 10% of the time.

[Dukie98]

I agree with the comments regarding pipelines and distance from home. Pipelines make sense on a more localized level, but if you have four players from San Diego, for example, that shouldn't realistically have any bearing on a recruit from Sacramento. Similarly, basing the "proximity to home" variable solely on being in the same state, or the number of adjacent states disregards basic geography. For an extreme example, a recruit from El Paso should not have an A+ for proximity to Houston, compared to a B+ for the New Mexico schools. Toledo (which is on the Michigan border) should not have a better grade for Cincinnati-area recruits as compared to Detroit-area recruits.

I think that EA could make it more realistic, either by going on a mileage-based system to determine proximity, or by subdividing larger states into regions (i.e. north/ central/ south Florida). For a mileage-based system, they could simply have concentric circles determine the score-- for example, an A+ would be within 50 miles of the school (regardless of state lines), an A would be from 51-100 miles, etc. Since we can't be expected to know the location of every town in every state, the game would have to display the mileage to each school in the recruiting screens, and it could be another variable for finding players. The regional split might be easier from a programming basis, and instead of simply having a pipeline into Florida by virtue of having four players from anywhere in the state, you might need three from one of the regions to get an advantage in that part of the state. Just a thought...

[JeffHCross]

ya, this could be a community made feature though, where the community comes up with exactly how we want it implemented, and then you guys with the connections pass it on to ea saying, "this is exactly how we want this done. do it" :nod:I hope you know it doesn't work like that. I don't think even the government gets to dictate that well when they're the customer. ;)


Since we can't be expected to know the location of every town in every state, the game would have to display the mileage to each school in the recruiting screensI don't think so, actually. It wouldn't be required to display it at least. It may be helpful information, but I think most players would go "Oh, I'm an A+, cool", or "Darn, I'm only a C". Once you know what the rating is (and that's present on the More Info screen before you even make a single call), does it really matter if he's 49 miles away versus 51? It's not like you're going to move the school ;)

[Jayrah]

You mean these guys they signed last year, the 2 stars? 2 of them are from the same High School and if you look at the ones they are targeting this year 2 are from that High School and 2 others are from the same school and they are 3 stars(not to play down WSU's recruiting but when you said Big Kids I think 4 and 5 stars). Like I said I do think there are pipelines to certain High School or if a coach has a tie to a specific geographic area, but definitely not an entire state.

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m521/psuexv/2010.jpg

Like the Devard Darlings and CJ Mizzel's of the Fl area.

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[baseballplyrmvp]

MVP mentioned "bragging rights for beating a school in a recruit's Top 10" last year, and I think that would be huge to see. Especially if you bring a recruit in for a rivalry game, and the two schools are #1 and #2 on the recruit's Top 10. That outcome should have some kind of an influence on the recruit.



you think the easiest way to implement that would be exactly like the pipeline bonus on pitches (ie: 25% of the pitch points)? or is 25% too high? or not enough?

[JeffHCross]

you think the easiest way to implement that would be exactly like the pipeline bonus on pitches (ie: 25% of the pitch points)? or is 25% too high? or not enough?If you're talking about 25% on each call, that would be too high. My personal preference would be a sliding scale for beating #1 to beating #10, but nothing as drastic as 25% for each call. I'm trying to think if there's some way that it could be included as a Negative Recruiting aspect, but without adding a pitch for it, I don't know how that would work.

[Jayrah]

Beyond the mechanics of it all, I would REALLY like to see some personalization. Character to ALL players, starting as recruits.

Instead of just giving a % of liking for a recruit, add a reason (a player tweet every week would be cool) for the % instead of a generic quote only when you spend time on any topic. If a guy's still got Arizona #1 by a ways in front of everybody, give his tweet status this week as "still in love with ". When they soft commit throw an exciting tweet up like "I think im going to be a Wildcat!". Hard commit would be: "headed to Southern Cal this fall gonna go win a title!"

Give the recruits an identifiable character/personality towards you as they're being recruited, and not always positive. If their visit went crappy I wanna know! "I wasn't impressed with the loss last week, I'm thinking about changing my mind" OR "the visit to Oregon went well I loved Autzen!"

This may not sound how I want. I'm so tired

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[keyser soze]

The whole recruiting thing needs some serious work. I am an almost exclusive RUN team this year and yet the only 5-star kids I can get are WRs. Heck, I grabbed not 1 but 2 5-star WRs this year and didn't start recruiting them until week 7 or 8! On the other hand my HBs are racking up heismans and my D-Line are taking home hardware but those 5-star position players don't want any part of me.

I am NOT saying the current system is broken or anything, it could just use a nice face-lift as well some added logic to who wants to go where for what reasons. Currently I could finish a season with ZERO pass attempts and this would not deter any WRs from coming to my school.... that is silly.

[baseballplyrmvp]

The whole recruiting thing needs some serious work. I am an almost exclusive RUN team this year and yet the only 5-star kids I can get are WRs. Heck, I grabbed not 1 but 2 5-star WRs this year and didn't start recruiting them until week 7 or 8! On the other hand my HBs are racking up heismans and my D-Line are taking home hardware but those 5-star position players don't want any part of me.

I am NOT saying the current system is broken or anything, it could just use a nice face-lift as well some added logic to who wants to go where for what reasons. Currently I could finish a season with ZERO pass attempts and this would not deter any WRs from coming to my school.... that is silly.

ya, i'll agree with this, that there needs to be some better logic in identifying which positions a school produces more talent in. an elite pass heavy team (a couple of years down the line) should not be getting serious interest from the top 4 runningbacks in a class,(7 out of the top 10) regardless of how much playing time is available (in my case, none). i've taken hawaii to the top 6 years in a row now, and i have to fight to go after the top receivers from california, let alone the nation.

it'd be cool for schools to develop "identies" like what some have gotten over the years. in my case, hawaii could become "wr u," usc is "tailback u," penn state is "linebacker u," etc. creating an identity could receive an additional boost of interest to that position.

[GatorBait06NC]

I would like to see them remove the new players that show up in offseason recruiting. Thats about as unrealistic as anything in the game. New players just dont appear out of nowhere. Especially 5 star players.

[Rudy]

I would like to see them remove the new players that show up in offseason recruiting. Thats about as unrealistic as anything in the game. New players just dont appear out of nowhere. Especially 5 star players.

It isn't realistic but it's still fun. What they could really do is simply refuse to allow certain top level prospecst in the game to allow their interest meter to get more than 75% full until the offseason. That would keep you working for some flaky elite kid who can't make up his mind.

What would be even cooler is if the recruits had rankings that fluctuated during the year. Maybe that kid everyone thought was a 4* prospect has a bad senior year and ends up not as much in demand. The opposite could be true as someone has a breakout year that people start fighting over. I think that's what the new prospect list in the offseason is supposed to represent.

[illwill10]

ESPN Scouting Reports/Player Description.
A brief description of a recruit's play style. Like, "RB Thomas is a powerful workhorse RB. Runs with good balance. He has decent speed, but good enough burst to break off runs. Always finishes runs. Not much of a East-West runner, just a North and South Runner." You could guess that he has 85+ Speed, 88+ ACC, 75+ STR, 87+ TRK/STF, 80- Juke/Spin, and 90+ STAM. SO, users will know what type of player they are getting.
Preferred Team Playstyle
Something small. But, adds depth. Where a player has a preferred offense or defense he wants to play in. Ex, Balanced QB Kelly wants to play in a Pro-style Offense. Speed RB Jones wants to play in a Aggressive No-Huddle Spread. Pass-Rushing OLB wants to go to a 3-4 D. A top recruit might skip on a powerhouse for a team with his preferred scheme. Where a team has to recruit the hell out of a player that doesnt want to go to their Offense. It can make teams look realistic and have good to average teams with studs.
Scouts and Emails/Communication
Scouting and I would like some type of communication from coaches, recruits, and scouts. Where you have scouts have a list of preferred players that fit your scheme. Scouts can send you emails saying, " Look at this QB, He looks to be a perfect fit for our scheme." AD can email you saying generic stuff. Ex. "Hey Coach ____, We would like for you to look for a RB who can make history or a QB that can be the face of our university." or " We want you to be in the top 20 in recruiting or sign at least 3 players in the top 100".
High School All-Star game
Important. It can show you the future of college Football.

[keyser soze]

LOL, this just shows how different people want different things. Personally I would be PISSED if I had to watch a CPU HS All-Star game to determine who is good and who isn't. It's hard enough to get through a couple of OD's now and avoid all the landmines that blow up and lock up an OD. Adding an all-star game seems to be a lot of work on EA's part that likely will end up in 10 more bugs.

[Jayrah]

LOL, this just shows how different people want different things. Personally I would be PISSED if I had to watch a CPU HS All-Star game to determine who is good and who isn't. It's hard enough to get through a couple of OD's now and avoid all the landmines that blow up and lock up an OD. Adding an all-star game seems to be a lot of work on EA's part that likely will end up in 10 more bugs.

No all star games.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

[baseballplyrmvp]

what about adding "strength of schedule" as a recruiting pitch?

[Jayrah]

what about adding "strength of schedule" as a recruiting pitch?

I don't like this idea seeing as we set our own schedules.

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[hawkeyeguy]

Buddy of mine wrote a good blog on some things he'd like to see fixed

http://wideright3.blogspot.com/2011/10/eaput-this-in-game.html

[Coachdenz]

This is a great thread idea, griffin2608. I think a lot of people feel like recruiting may be getting stale or they want an improved methodology to the existing system.

Share any and all ideas here and we'll make sure to pass it on.

I'm in this group, it's boring and takes to long, but I dont want the computer to do my recruiting so I'm forced to do it.

[oregonman]

I think that recruits should be better. If I'm recruting a 5* prospect and he is only an 85 rating whats the point. I got him to be a starter not to sit for 3 years. what about the Marcus Lattimores of the world.

[psuexv]

I think that recruits should be better. If I'm recruting a 5* prospect and he is only an 85 rating whats the point. I got him to be a starter not to sit for 3 years. what about the Marcus Lattimores of the world.

Personally I think a Freshman 5* coming in at 85 is about right. Maybe could see it pushed to 87, 88ish. Lattimore is rated a 93 in the game this year as a SO, if he came in as a FR at 87/88 then a 5 point jump to his SO year would put him about right where he is and should be.

[gschwendt]

Personally I think a Freshman 5* coming in at 85 is about right. Maybe could see it pushed to 87, 88ish. Lattimore is rated a 93 in the game this year as a SO, if he came in as a FR at 87/88 then a 5 point jump to his SO year would put him about right where he is and should be.I could see a very small selection coming in high 80's but for those, I would expect their progression to be lower... instead of jumping 5 points they would jump 2-3 on a good year since their window for progression is smaller.

Alternatively, I would like to see some lower rated players come in low (high 60s) but with higher progression... so one season you might see them jump 10 points, but the rest of their seasons it would be 3-5.

[psuexv]

I could see a very small selection coming in high 80's but for those, I would expect their progression to be lower... instead of jumping 5 points they would jump 2-3 on a good year since their window for progression is smaller.

Alternatively, I would like to see some lower rated players come in low (high 60s) but with higher progression... so one season you might see them jump 10 points, but the rest of their seasons it would be 3-5.

Yeah I think the high end recruits are pretty much on par now. Coming in mid 80s and they don't seem to progress too rapidly.

The low end recruits with more range in progression would be pretty cool to see. I know it's hard to generate a formula to replicate real life, but there is always that walk on or 1 and 2 star recruit that turns into a stud and also those high end recruits that turn into flops.

[baseballplyrmvp]

i want to see the way that recruits were rated go back to what the system was last year. i dont like how they factored in a recruit's potential into how he'll be rated. it's causing too many recruits to have an inflated star rating. i'd like to see it where recruits were rated based purely on their talents; either that, or make the recruit's talents matter a lot more than what they currently do (if its currently a 50/50 split of talent/potential for how a recruit is rated, it should be changed to like 75/25, talent/potential). i'm seeing receivers get a 5* rating only because they have a good hidden potential, even though their catching, spectacular catch, catch in traffic, and route running ratings are all listed as a D. if potential wasnt a factor for this recruit, he'd be either a low 4* player or 3* player, depending on his speed.

additionally, since it seems that the cpu teams only target the recruits who are ready to play and not the work in progress recruits (regardless of star rating), its actually causing a smaller talent pool for the cpu to choose from, which makes it harder and harder for the cpu to compete with us.

[illwill10]

i want to see the way that recruits were rated go back to what the system was last year. i dont like how they factored in a recruit's potential into how he'll be rated. it's causing too many recruits to have an inflated star rating. i'd like to see it where recruits were rated based purely on their talents; either that, or make the recruit's talents matter a lot more than what they currently do (if its currently a 50/50 split of talent/potential for how a recruit is rated, it should be changed to like 75/25, talent/potential). i'm seeing receivers get a 5* rating only because they have a good hidden potential, even though their catching, spectacular catch, catch in traffic, and route running ratings are all listed as a D. if potential wasnt a factor for this recruit, he'd be either a low 4* player or 3* player, depending on his speed.

additionally, since it seems that the cpu teams only target the recruits who are ready to play and not the work in progress recruits (regardless of star rating), its actually causing a smaller talent pool for the cpu to choose from, which makes it harder and harder for the cpu to compete with us.
I agree.
I see 4 or 5 star players with the ratings of a 3 star player. I rather see them come in as a 3 star player, then grow into the star players. You will see the Mark Ingrams, Tyrann Matheiu's, and RG3 of the NCAA world. If Those 3 were graded by NCAA 12 scouts, they would have been 4 or 5 star players coming out. You will see smaller schools with one of these players(that are 3 stars with the potential of the 4 or 5 star player) eventually become schools like Baylor or Stanford.
I would like to see the recruits have personality. I would want to see them have preferred Playstyles. When I see a QB with average THP and high THA, I see a spread QB. When I see a 5'10 or smaller Rb with great Speed, I see a Run-1st Spread RB. I would like to see players go to teams they fit more.

[illwill10]

One thing I noticed is the size of CBs. I barely see CBs under 6'0. There is alot of undersized CBs, but it doesnt even compare to 6'+ CBs. Even though I prefer 6'+ CBs, I would like to see more undersized CBs. I would like to see more undersized CBs graded lower for their size. Only the great undersized CBs are graded highly. Therefore, you small schools and good school have great CBs

[danfido]

I would like to see the ability to recruit underclassmen, like the College Hoops 2k series did. You could start recruiting all high school levels so that when their senior level arrives and they're ready to make commitments, you've planted yourself on their board, even if it's a player that right now you wouldn't have a shot at. Obviously you're using time that could be spent to get commitments at generating recruits for the future, so it provides the challenge of balancing between today and the future.

Like Coach Prestige follows you from program to program, I'd like to see your recruiting influence/pipeline states follow the coach from program to program. Urban Meyer is a great example of a coach that pretty much cornered the Florida recruit market, and now at Ohio State, his former dominance in Florida will help him recruit Florida players to Ohio State.

[Jayrah]

After thinking about this forever and playing 8 seasons in OD, I've figured out the biggest problem with recruiting: No connection to play style. There are 3 things I really wanna see here that would change all aspects of a dynasty with recruiting being the common denominator. Let's delve in.

1: Adding 2 play styles with even more specialized rating values per position. Let's use RB's and WR's as an example. Currently there are the "power", "speed" and "balanced" RB, and the "speed", "possession" and "balanced" WR. Adding a "Breakaway" (DeAnthony Thomas or Lamicheal James of Oregon) and "Bruiser" (Laveon Bell of Mich St) RB type and a "playmaker" and "team player" (WR who would be more likely to improve blocking skills for down the field blocking) WR type would add more depth to creating your team philosophy. This needs to be the case for offense before and more importantly than defense, but both would be preferable and extremely beneficial. With this the current ratings don't necessarily have to change, but I would like to see more discepancy between certain attributes. Also select attributes need to carry more weight towards overall rating. In general I think with added player types you could begin to also seperate player rankings into "player type" rankings, so that we'd have 3 levels, including Overall recruit rating, position rating and player type rating. If you're the #23 receiver but the 3rd best "team player" wr, Stanford would look at you and conversly you should be interested in Stanford. If you're the #5 rank overall and #1 ranked "breakaway" Rb, you shouldn't probably be interested in Washington State. However, a small percentage of recruits are interested in schools that don't fit, for a reason such as in-state ties or something like that, so the chance of a "pipeline" giving you a chance at a recruit that doesn't fit your style needs to be available too.

2: The game needs to classify your play style as it classifies a playbook. The cpu plays (or sims) like their playbook dictates their style to be. But with a user, it needs to track the plays you call and depict what you are doing. If you have a run and shoot pb but run 60% of the time you are a spread run team. If you throw 10-12 times a game and run 40-50 times you are a power run team, and Vise-versa you are a Pass Attack team. This is important for point 3.

3: This is where recruiting brings it all full circle. A very small percentage of the extreme player type (Breakaway RB/Playmaker WR) Will want to play for the opposite extreme play style (Power Run style team). This would be the case consistently regardless of where a team is located in relation to a recruit or any other factor. But as i said, sometimes it does and should happen in the game. THE MAIN SELLING POINT FOR RECRUITING ANY PLAYER IS YOUR PLAY STYLE AND HOW IT RELATES TO THEIR PLAY STYLE. A "Blocking" TE should be more prone to look at a Running offense (unless said Running offense throws the heck out of the ball to its TE's: see Stanford).

The main problem with the game as it relates to dynasty is that it's far to easy to stack a team based solely on prestige rating. You should have to stack a team based on your play type regardless of the rating of players vs school. This also means that the second and third tier schools have too much problem catching up, even if they are "better" at recruiting to their style of play and coaching/playing games. This is what would change the game in dynasties, especially for ODs. As long as the top teams keep winning, their ratings will always b A+ in all areas because the top 5 recruits at every position are always interested regardless of anything, which makes them impossible to beat. As we all know real life teams fluxuate all the time between winning and losing (or not so winning) seasons. This should be the case in game. It would make a dominant team more worthy and more admirable.

[JeffHCross]

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't see much extra differentiation in your suggestion for RBs. A breakaway back is still, largely, a Speed back. A Bruiser is still, largely, a Power back.

Now, NFL Head Coach 09 had a massive amount of personalities and characteristics of players. I'd love to see both Madden and NCAA go down that route.

[illwill10]

Improved recruiting- When think of guys like Les Miles, Saban, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Stoops, and the FSU Guy, you think of guys that can continuely bring in good talent. I was watching the Unser Armour practice. John Gray said that he knew that he was going to Texas once he met Mack Brown. Do you think that he or the guys would talk about a Recruiting topic that is C or worst to a good recruit. I want to see the "Slot machine" type of recruiting go. I hate going after a big recruit when I am in a recruiting battle and end up losing him because I was stuck using my worst topic. I remember in NCAA Basketball(one of them) where you couldnt schedule with some teams because they didnt feel like your team would be competitive. I would like to see some recruits not pick up the phone, if they felt you had no chance. Better Height and Weights for recruits. Too many 6+ CBs and undersized RBs, DL. Especially since there isnt weight progression. Ability to recruit for the future. It can be just for the following year. Imagine having a good JR QB and signning a good Qb in the following class, you would be set for the future. You wouldnt have to recruit a Qb in the QBs SR year. QBs should have a personality. They should have requirements like how CHoopz had. Like, Big Time School, Good Conference, Good Coaches.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't see much extra differentiation in your suggestion for RBs. A breakaway back is still, largely, a Speed back. A Bruiser is still, largely, a Power back.

Now, NFL Head Coach 09 had a massive amount of personalities and characteristics of players. I'd love to see both Madden and NCAA go down that route.adding personalities to ncaa would only do so much, imo. it'd certainly be a welcome addition, dont get me wrong.....but players still need to be rated accordingly. as it stands now, ncaa players are WAY over-rated in their actual weaknesses/skills they dont excel at.

the example i've brought up in the past, was terrance cody. in ncaa10, he had power/fineese move ratings of 98/70. in madden11, those ratings were 95/30. just by looking at those ratings, you'd get a sense that he has an awesome power move, but he'd also try to run around you at times too. that was clearly not the case in real life. every year in the recruit database, i see this kind of thing going on with every position. its especially evident, though, with d-ends and d-tackles as their power and finesse move ratings are always rated very similar. you dont see any kind of separation of skill talents, like A power move and C- finesse move. those 2 ratings are always within like 1 letter grade in the top prospects. the same thing happens for runningbacks with juke and spin moves.

[Jayrah]

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't see much extra differentiation in your suggestion for RBs. A breakaway back is still, largely, a Speed back. A Bruiser is still, largely, a Power back.

Now, NFL Head Coach 09 had a massive amount of personalities and characteristics of players. I'd love to see both Madden and NCAA go down that route.

You're right its just an example of a larger extreme. Monte Ball is a balanced back, Chris Polk is a power back, etc. There are lots of "speed" backs, but then there's Lamichael and De'Anthony who are gamechangers. And there are only so many Brandon Jacobs and Ron Dayne's. Just saying speed backs go to places like WSU and Baylor, but gamechangers go to spread run teams and big bruising goaline guys go to Wisconsin

This isn't the case in the game dependinding on their rating vs your prestige is all that matters. The players don't look at schools and how they can benefit most from the system

[Jayrah]

Improved recruiting- When think of guys like Les Miles, Saban, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Stoops, and the FSU Guy, you think of guys that can continuely bring in good talent. I was watching the Unser Armour practice. John Gray said that he knew that he was going to Texas once he met Mack Brown. Do you think that he or the guys would talk about a Recruiting topic that is C or worst to a good recruit. I want to see the "Slot machine" type of recruiting go. I hate going after a big recruit when I am in a recruiting battle and end up losing him because I was stuck using my worst topic. I remember in NCAA Basketball(one of them) where you couldnt schedule with some teams because they didnt feel like your team would be competitive. I would like to see some recruits not pick up the phone, if they felt you had no chance. Better Height and Weights for recruits. Too many 6+ CBs and undersized RBs, DL. Especially since there isnt weight progression. Ability to recruit for the future. It can be just for the following year. Imagine having a good JR QB and signning a good Qb in the following class, you would be set for the future. You wouldnt have to recruit a Qb in the QBs SR year. QBs should have a personality. They should have requirements like how CHoopz had. Like, Big Time School, Good Conference, Good Coaches.

Requirements are exactly what I'm looking for. Except different in the fact that its not so much random as player type vs comparable offensive/defensive system.

[illwill10]

Requirements are exactly what I'm looking for. Except different in the fact that its not so much random as player type vs comparable offensive/defensive system.
Something I always wanted to see is preferred/suggested Playstyles for recruits. For some recruits it wouldnt matter. But I would like when I look at recruits, I want to see a playstyle that best suits them. For example, If you see a QB with high THA and Low THP, he will fit in a air raid or spread.

[baseballplyrmvp]

anyone have any ideas on how to get your coordinators involved into recruting?

just throwing an idea out there, but what if you could only see the measureable ratings for recruits (speed, acceleration, agility, strength, possibly awareness?). you'd then be able to either spend your weekly recruiting time scouting a recruit (which would unlock random ratings), pitching your recruiting topics to him, or a combo of both. better coordinators would offer a smaller range of where a certain rating comes in at (like 83-87 for good coordinators, 60-90 for bad coordinators).

*obviously, this assumes that coaches are going to have some amount of ratings*

[illwill10]

anyone have any ideas on how to get your coordinators involved into recruting?

just throwing an idea out there, but what if you could only see the measureable ratings for recruits (speed, acceleration, agility, strength, possibly awareness?). you'd then be able to either spend your weekly recruiting time scouting a recruit (which would unlock random ratings), pitching your recruiting topics to him, or a combo of both. better coordinators would offer a smaller range of where a certain rating comes in at (like 83-87 for good coordinators, 60-90 for bad coordinators).

*obviously, this assumes that coaches are going to have some amount of ratings*
Probably involve their prestige as a topic. I think there should be a menu that shows 3 players each coordinator wants you to target and a description. Like, "This QB isnt a big name, but I could wonders with him" or "This is is a athletic freak, but he is raw. Give me 2 years and I will turn him into a star"
I think there should be a "Show Stats" topic where it tells players where your team ranked on stats. Like being in top 20 in rushing, should entice some RBs to go there.
I would also like Playstyle playing a factor. Like, a bruiser rb would not prefer a spread team unless the coach is a great recruiter/

[oweb26]

anyone have any ideas on how to get your coordinators involved into recruting?

just throwing an idea out there, but what if you could only see the measureable ratings for recruits (speed, acceleration, agility, strength, possibly awareness?). you'd then be able to either spend your weekly recruiting time scouting a recruit (which would unlock random ratings), pitching your recruiting topics to him, or a combo of both. better coordinators would offer a smaller range of where a certain rating comes in at (like 83-87 for good coordinators, 60-90 for bad coordinators).

*obviously, this assumes that coaches are going to have some amount of ratings*

I would think the only way to get them involved woudl be to have coach specialty i.e Spread option coach, 3-4 coach etc. And then formula would have to take into consideration what that coaches more detailed would be QB coach, RB coach, etc. calculate that with the the style of player. Anything short of that I can see how a coordinator would matter on this game.

I would like for the coordinators to have more of an impact like if "I" bring in a number of big recruits the coordinator gets a boost for recruiting and he becomes a star recruiter and then we can go back to having an option like BB where we can send the coordinator to visit recruits.

[Jayrah]

I agree.
I see 4 or 5 star players with the ratings of a 3 star player. I rather see them come in as a 3 star player, then grow into the star players. You will see the Mark Ingrams, Tyrann Matheiu's, and RG3 of the NCAA world. If Those 3 were graded bty NCAA 12 scouts, they would have been 4 or 5 star players coming out. You will see smaller schools with one of these players(that are 3 stars with the potential of the 4 or 5 star player) eventually become schools like Baylor or Stanford.
I would like to see the recruits have personality. I would want to see them have preferred Playstyles. When I see a QB with average THP and high THA, I see a spread QB. When I see a 5'10 or smaller Rb with great Speed, I see a Run-1st Spread RB. I would like to see players go to teams they fit more.

This is also the reason bad teams stay bad.

I would love what you're saying if there was a way to eventually see potential. So like you pump x amount of time into a player and you get to see his hidden potential rating. This way you could also back off of a 4 or 5 star player if he's got bad potential and a smaller school could recruit him. This way teams could get good "starters" for themselves while knowing he's not gonna progress, and you dont have torecruit a good player that will never play for you. Good way for smaller schools to stay competitive imo.

[JeffHCross]

anyone have any ideas on how to get your coordinators involved into recruting?Tons of ideas, but it all depends on what direction they'd want to go. There's the obvious (use CH2k*'s method of having assistants sometime do the recruiting for you, and the assistant's recruiting rating dictates how successful the visit/recruiting/whatever goes) and the simple (head coach's recruiting rating + assistant coach's recruiting rating are combined to do a modifier on the recruiting's call/visit point scale). And practically everything in-between.

The meat of the question, in my eyes, is how many other mechanics the team would be willing to upgrade/change/modify in order to facilitate an influence by assistant coaches. Your suggestion of scouting is certainly up there, but that would be a fundamental change to how players are currently recruiting. Not that I disagree with it, just saying that it has the potential to impact a lot of areas. I mean, just the introduction of ranges and the potential for a recruit's rating to be "wrong" would have drastic effects on recruiting.

Personally, I think, long term, that scouting will return and your coach (maybe not the assistant, but at least the head coach) will have an influence on the success of both scouting and the actual recruitment. Short-term ... harder to guess.


So like you pump x amount of time into a player and you get to see his hidden potential rating.I don't want to ever be able to see the player's potential. At least not the real potential. However, I would love to see something that may or may not be accurate -- I call it "Upside". So you get a player's Upside, and say it's an A. I have a bunch of caveats and factors going through my head whenever I think about this, but short summary is that the "A" might be an "A+", or a "B+", maybe even a "B". Or maybe, depending on the factors involved, really a "C". There'd be ways to know how true it is, but, at least in my head, you'd never know the potential with absolute certainty. So there'd be a huge amount of risk/reward there.

[baseballplyrmvp]

The meat of the question, in my eyes, is how many other mechanics the team would be willing to upgrade/change/modify in order to facilitate an influence by assistant coaches. Your suggestion of scouting is certainly up there, but that would be a fundamental change to how players are currently recruiting. Not that I disagree with it, just saying that it has the potential to impact a lot of areas. I mean, just the introduction of ranges and the potential for a recruit's rating to be "wrong" would have drastic effects on recruiting.
what if instead of ranges, they just stole the page from madden's scouting and it would just tell you that "this player's stamina rating is 85" or "this player's speed rating is 92" or something like that?

[psuexv]

I would like to see this -http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2012-02-01/Top-recruit-Green-Beckham-chooses-Missouri/52913250/1

No way the #1 recruit in the game would go to Missouri


Dorial Green-Beckham, the consensus No. 1 recruit and USA TODAY's Offensive Player of the Year, stayed close to home Wednesday, commiting to Missouri.Green-Beckham, a 6-6, 220-pound wide receiver from Hillcrest (Springfield, Mo.), picked Missouri over Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Texas.

[oweb26]

I would like to see this -http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2012-02-01/Top-recruit-Green-Beckham-chooses-Missouri/52913250/1

No way the #1 recruit in the game would go to Missouri

I was just looking at this guy and saw that he committed to Missouri, That I was thinking though was that I would want to see this,

396

[oweb26]

Sorry for those who don't know the key it is in order,

possession, speed, route running, catch in traffic.

I like it simply for the snapshot effect without me having to look at a ton of ratings I don't care about.

[morsdraconis]

Sorry for those who don't know the key it is in order,

possession, speed, route running, catch in traffic.

I like it simply for the snapshot effect without me having to look at a ton of ratings I don't care about.

Is that from a video game, website, or what? I've never seen that setup before.

[oweb26]

That's from ESPN U it was the #1 wR guy traits.


Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk

[baseballplyrmvp]

I was just looking at this guy and saw that he committed to Missouri, That I was thinking though was that I would want to see this,

396if they removed the ability to see every rating, except for the certain measurables, and had that on every recruit's info page, that'd be awesome!

[illwill10]

if they removed the ability to see every rating, except for the certain measurables, and had that on every recruit's info page, that'd be awesome!
FULLY AGREE
Theu could just show that and I would be good with it. That shows you what type of player you are getting without telling you everything about him. As of now, we know the strengths and weaknesses of every player and exactly how they are gonna play. That shouldnt be the case. It would be a great/bad feeling to get a WR that has the Stopwatch, Jumping, and YAC signs; and realize after you sign him and has a big drop habit and cant get his self open.
Too much predictability

[JeffHCross]

what if instead of ranges, they just stole the page from madden's scouting and it would just tell you that "this player's stamina rating is 85" or "this player's speed rating is 92" or something like that?It would obviously be less effort/impact, but could still require a significant amount of changing, unless you allowed the CPU to "cheat" and didn't force them to scout. Otherwise you're talking about a significant change to the interface, the flow, and to the AI logic.

Not that it should be a reason for them not to do it. I'm just saying that I have tons of ideas, but no idea of how much of the bath water we can throw out at the same time. It's easy to just list ideas without regard for what they cost .... I'm just not wired in a way that I can do that anymore. I just see budget spreadsheets and design documents floating through my head :D

( Not that it should stop you guys, or me, for that matter, from throwing out ideas. I'm just saying that I just can't do as simply anymore :D )


No way the #1 recruit in the game would go to MissouriBeen waiting all day to come on here and post that. There are no circumstances that I can think of where a #1 kid, even from Missouri, would commit to Mizzou in the game, over UT and Oklahoma. Nor come down to a final two of Missouri and Arkansas.

I've said in other threads that one thing I want to see is a "Dealbreaker" type thing where some recruits treat certain pitches as Absolutes. There are some things they absolutely want, and some things they absolutely don't. Ideally, I'd want to see it where if you try to pitch a recruit with a "Most + Dealbreaker" with a C- or whatever, then you'll actually lose points. It wouldn't quite work under the Russian Roulette style of recruiting, but it still could. Either way, the main point is that right now there's very little harm in hitting a "Most" - "C+". It doesn't give you as much points as a "Most" - "A+", obviously, but it still gives you something. I think that needs to change where top schools can't just spam every topic, but you actually have to line up with a recruit's desires.

Which brings me to the second point, or really with DGB, the main point. "Most" needs to mean more. If you line up a "Most" and "A+", like Mizzou and Arky would have had with "Proximity to Home" as A+/B+ (which is another topic for another time), you should absolutely be able to pull away from schools that can't pull that. Partially due to the roulette system, and partially due to the point values associated with it, you can't pull away (or make up ground quickly) in the current game with just one pitch lining up. You have to be solid across the board, with many pitches. And that inherently gives a Texas or Oklahoma or Ohio State an advantage in in-game recruiting. I'm not saying that those schools don't have that advantage in real life, but their true advantage, in my opinion, is that they have breadth. They can take 20 guys who have ten different #1 priorities and probably line up solidly on all ten of those priorities. But when you're Mizzou, and you have a guy who wants to stay home, you should be able to use that enough to make it count. And unless you're lucky enough to hit "Proximity to Home" on every call, that's simply not going to happen. Personally, I don't think returning to the old Spam style would work either, because the Texas/Oklahoma/Ohio State advantage was still true there too. But the point spread for different combinations should be increased, so the ability to pull away, or make up ground, under the right circumstances is increased.

[morsdraconis]

It would obviously be less effort/impact, but could still require a significant amount of changing, unless you allowed the CPU to "cheat" and didn't force them to scout. Otherwise you're talking about a significant change to the interface, the flow, and to the AI logic.

Not that it should be a reason for them not to do it. I'm just saying that I have tons of ideas, but no idea of how much of the bath water we can throw out at the same time. It's easy to just list ideas without regard for what they cost .... I'm just not wired in a way that I can do that anymore. I just see budget spreadsheets and design documents floating through my head :D

( Not that it should stop you guys, or me, for that matter, from throwing out ideas. I'm just saying that I just can't do as simply anymore :D )

But, we can agree that the product on the field is pretty close to being a great football game, though (of course there is always room for improvement, but, for the most part, the game plays pretty damn good) so if they spend most of the time fixing the things that are significantly screwed up in recruiting and dynasty stuff in general, I think it would be money and resources well spent. Anything that can be done to make recruiting more in depth and, therefore, more strategic is always a great thing in my opinion as that is an aspect of it that is sorely being missed. Recruiting is nothing but a chore right now and it's annoying beyond belief.

[JeffHCross]

But, we can agree that the product on the field is pretty close to being a great football game, though (of course there is always room for improvement, but, for the most part, the game plays pretty damn good)Ehhhhhhh ... I wouldn't go quite that far. It's a good product, but there are some major pieces missing, especially on the O/D-Line.

But yes, I agree with your basic premise. My post wasn't intended to discourage anything, just an acknowledgement that I have no idea what kind of money/time they'd be willing to spend on X, and since budgets and resources are a daily discussion at my work, I can't help but obsess with something like that.

[baseballplyrmvp]

It would obviously be less effort/impact, but could still require a significant amount of changing, unless you allowed the CPU to "cheat" and didn't force them to scout. Otherwise you're talking about a significant change to the interface, the flow, and to the AI logic.the computer already cheats by knowing the recruit's potential. its why you see so many 4 and 5* recruits not talked to at all by the top cpu teams- because they have shitty potential and wont develop at all. it might be possible that the cpu already knows the recruit's interest in the school pitches, and if that's the case, then it doesnt matter if the cpu is forced to scout or not, since it already knows the interest of each pitch.


I've said in other threads that one thing I want to see is a "Dealbreaker" type thing where some recruits treat certain pitches as Absolutes. There are some things they absolutely want, and some things they absolutely don't. Ideally, I'd want to see it where if you try to pitch a recruit with a "Most + Dealbreaker" with a C- or whatever, then you'll actually lose points. It wouldn't quite work under the Russian Roulette style of recruiting, but it still could. Either way, the main point is that right now there's very little harm in hitting a "Most" - "C+". It doesn't give you as much points as a "Most" - "A+", obviously, but it still gives you something. I think that needs to change where top schools can't just spam every topic, but you actually have to line up with a recruit's desires.completely agree. the dealbreakers are something that would impact recruiting a lot, and there are a couple of other "branches" that could be involved to really make that idea tree something fun.


Which brings me to the second point, or really with DGB, the main point. "Most" needs to mean more. If you line up a "Most" and "A+", like Mizzou and Arky would have had with "Proximity to Home" as A+/B+ (which is another topic for another time), you should absolutely be able to pull away from schools that can't pull that. Partially due to the roulette system, and partially due to the point values associated with it, you can't pull away (or make up ground quickly) in the current game with just one pitch lining up. You have to be solid across the board, with many pitches. And that inherently gives a Texas or Oklahoma or Ohio State an advantage in in-game recruiting. I'm not saying that those schools don't have that advantage in real life, but their true advantage, in my opinion, is that they have breadth. They can take 20 guys who have ten different #1 priorities and probably line up solidly on all ten of those priorities. But when you're Mizzou, and you have a guy who wants to stay home, you should be able to use that enough to make it count. And unless you're lucky enough to hit "Proximity to Home" on every call, that's simply not going to happen. Personally, I don't think returning to the old Spam style would work either, because the Texas/Oklahoma/Ohio State advantage was still true there too. But the point spread for different combinations should be increased, so the ability to pull away, or make up ground, under the right circumstances is increased.again, completely agree. imo, "high interest or better with B+ or higher school pitch" should yield a significantly higher point total. "high interest or better with C- or less school pitch" and "low interest or worse with B+ or higher school pitch" should yield negative points. anything between "low interest to above average interest combined with C to B school pitch" should hardly give/lost any points. this would drag out the recruiting process (another plus and it'd bring a ton of excitement to the offseason recruiting :nod:).

[WarEagle]

FULLY AGREE
Theu could just show that and I would be good with it. That shows you what type of player you are getting without telling you everything about him. As of now, we know the strengths and weaknesses of every player and exactly how they are gonna play. That shouldnt be the case. It would be a great/bad feeling to get a WR that has the Stopwatch, Jumping, and YAC signs; and realize after you sign him and has a big drop habit and cant get his self open.
Too much predictability

May have to disagree with this one.
At this level -- and we are 'playing' the game like we are an Alabama or USC or even a Western Ky. -- a coach is aware of, using your example, the guy's drops problem. He's been looked at in person, countless tapes of him have been watched, the HS coach has been talked to and even opposing HS coaches have been spoken to.
I would bet that there's not a single (applicable) attribute we see in our game for a guy like Dorial Green-Beckham that wasn't known IRL by Mizzou, Arky, and everyone else. OK, so maybe they don't know his Kick Power, but his CAT, CIT, SPC ratings, along with SPD, AGI, ACC, BCV, ELV, BTK, TRK, SPIN/JUKE, probably even his blocking footwork/power, are all pretty well fleshed out in the recruiting reports that these coaches -- and remember, we're playing at being on the same level 'in this game' -- have become knowledgable about.
Maybe I could go along with a 'hidden' asterisk in a category that becomes an area he just never improves on, or maybe solidifies the concept thrown about on all the forums about true duds/diamonds in the rough. But as for not knowing all these grades? I just have to think that Chizak IRL at Auburn or me at an Xbox Auburn are aware of these attributes.

IMO, the recruiting pitch (recruit's vs. ours) and the Russian Roulette of pitches are the concepts that need re-worked. Love the idea of a Most really meaning something (like w/ Green-Beckham and Prox Home) more than how it works in our game. I'm also still on my soapbox about a weighted roulette system where a recruit's Most category has 14x more chance of coming up than his Least. If Green-Beckham's Most was Prox Home and I rated a C there at Auburn, this pitch would come up often enough where I would eventually be losing out b/c it's coming up for Mizzou the same number of times and they're hammering the points, killing me.

[WolverineJay]

1)Better recruiting/scouting/training by adding it as part of a school's budget (weekly time based on program prestige, coach prestige, coach recruiting rating, and % recruiting budget, also make all recruits not offered scholarships and those that are cut from the game added as walk-ons in the off-season)

2)Homecoming game and senior day/night for last home game of the season (specific pre-game presentation, specific in-game commentary, louder fans, more attendance, and biggest impact on visiting recruits)

3)New recruiting pitches(Coaching style, Bragging rights by state, by conference, by rival, and by BCS champion, conference title contender, minor bowl game participant, and major bowl game participant) and get rid of off-season recruiting all together replaced by post-season recruiting (weeks 15-18) with National Signing Day show in off-season where the recruit will actually hard commit to your school with some top guys flip flopping to another top 3 school. Soft commits show a meter with filled up levels of commitment(low meter= solid chance he may uncommit(maybe 25% chance of picking another school), medium filled meter= low chance he may commit elsewhere (say 10%), and completely filled meter= 0% chance of going elsewhere.

4)More true prospects for recruiting (increase the number of 2 and 3 star prospects only by eliminating the 1 star category all together- make a small % of 2 and 3 star prospects that are hidden gems(came in as a Fr. 63 Ovr but makes huges strides in the off-seasons so after 3 years he is an 90 Ovr as a Sr.) as well as a small % of 4 and 5 star prospects as busts(actually only increase from their initial rating from 0-3 pts over their careers-say he came in as a 77 but only left as an 80)

5)Post bowls All-Star game (HS all-star game for the top players at their position with a few announcements (5 min. quarters)

6)New scouting feature- In addition to what scouting told you in last gen with more accurate workout #'s, the new scouting feature informs you of a prospect's HS G.P.A., more accurate height and weight, all positions he played in high school, player devotion level to school and head coach, and his top pitch he is most interested in and least interested pitch. End of Off-season recruiting phase adds the ability to send a letter to 50 prospects max which can result in a recruit having new Top 10 interests once the season starts if he receives letters from other schools not in the game's auto generated list. Have the game give you feedback during the pre-season when you build your recruiting board with arrows showing the impact of your letters of interest with the 50 recruits.

7)Slot machine recruiting upgrades(You select a Recruiting Coordinator (HC, OC, or DC) who then decides his recruiting plan for each position group and assigns coaches to recruit that particular position with the top 3 pitches for your school pertaining to that position during pre-season and each recruit has a recruiting plan as well based on their prestige, position, and location)

8)Slot machine recruiting tweaks (increase the likelihood of getting a coach's choice to 1/3 of the time so in a 60 minute phone call I will be guaranteed two topics that I am interested in pitching, add in a player's choice that shows up around 1/3 of the time that chooses only a prospects' above avg, high, very high, and most interested pitches, and finally the last 1/3 can be random poor topics which will allow for the unplanned bad call(least, very low, low, avg, as well as your schools lower c or d graded areas).

9)(Paired with #6)Near the end of the off-season the next recruiting class is generated rather than in the pre-season starting at the end of year 1(Each team is allowed to send out up to 50 Letters of Interest and scout up to 25 players in the off-season)(Letters of interest can be sent to any prospect but don't expect a 5* stud to be automatically interested in you if you're a low prestige school just because you sent them a letter saying you're interested in them, criteria for showing up in a prospect's top 10 in the pre-season is based on many factors(Prospect prestige, Team prestige, Coach prestige, Recruiting rating of head coach, Location, Team needs, Player pitch preferences, and the overall amount of letters that prospect receives from teams) scouting of players will show that players hidden potential(in the form of letter grades F=very poor(4 years progression range 0-4) D=bad (range 5-9) C=Avg (10-14) B=good (15-20) A=Excellent(20-30) (Example: 2* hidden gem with excellent potential comes in as a Fr 63 Ovr will be in the range of 83-93 Ovr as a (RS) Sr., or say you got a 5* bust with F potential came in at 82 Ovr as a (RS) Sr he would be just 82-86 Ovr), discipline(on the field(examples: mental penalties like false start and getting burned on PA passes) off-field grades will be shown(likelyhood a player will commit an infraction(team or academic), examples:cheating on an exam(academic) or skipping practice(team), true height and weight(hgt and wgt shown on an unscouted prospect may be +/- 2 in off in hgt and +/- 20 lbs, and HS stat updates after each HS game, and HS G.P.A. (awareness indicator and academics pitch indicator).

As I said this is more of what I would like to see by NCAA 15, but if some of these ideas could be added earlier then that would be great.

[baseballplyrmvp]

May have to disagree with this one.
At this level -- and we are 'playing' the game like we are an Alabama or USC or even a Western Ky. -- a coach is aware of, using your example, the guy's drops problem. He's been looked at in person, countless tapes of him have been watched, the HS coach has been talked to and even opposing HS coaches have been spoken to.
I would bet that there's not a single (applicable) attribute we see in our game for a guy like Dorial Green-Beckham that wasn't known IRL by Mizzou, Arky, and everyone else. OK, so maybe they don't know his Kick Power, but his CAT, CIT, SPC ratings, along with SPD, AGI, ACC, BCV, ELV, BTK, TRK, SPIN/JUKE, probably even his blocking footwork/power, are all pretty well fleshed out in the recruiting reports that these coaches -- and remember, we're playing at being on the same level 'in this game' -- have become knowledgable about.
Maybe I could go along with a 'hidden' asterisk in a category that becomes an area he just never improves on, or maybe solidifies the concept thrown about on all the forums about true duds/diamonds in the rough. But as for not knowing all these grades? I just have to think that Chizak IRL at Auburn or me at an Xbox Auburn are aware of these attributes.

you're exactly right......but only because that player has been scouted by coaches/recruiting analysts....and even then, the coaches/recruiting analysts have spent a ton of time watching the recruit play in order to get an idea of what the recruit is capable of. as ncaa recruiting currently stands now, you're able to know every important rating the very first time you look at a recruit. no coach on the planet, could tell what any recruit specializes in just by looking at him for the first time ever.

[illwill10]

you're exactly right......but only because that player has been scouted by coaches/recruiting analysts....and even then, the coaches/recruiting analysts have spent a ton of time watching the recruit play in order to get an idea of what the recruit is capable of. as ncaa recruiting currently stands now, you're able to know every important rating the very first time you look at a recruit. no coach on the planet, could tell what any recruit specializes in just by looking at him for the first time ever.


May have to disagree with this one.
At this level -- and we are 'playing' the game like we are an Alabama or USC or even a Western Ky. -- a coach is aware of, using your example, the guy's drops problem. He's been looked at in person, countless tapes of him have been watched, the HS coach has been talked to and even opposing HS coaches have been spoken to.
I would bet that there's not a single (applicable) attribute we see in our game for a guy like Dorial Green-Beckham that wasn't known IRL by Mizzou, Arky, and everyone else. OK, so maybe they don't know his Kick Power, but his CAT, CIT, SPC ratings, along with SPD, AGI, ACC, BCV, ELV, BTK, TRK, SPIN/JUKE, probably even his blocking footwork/power, are all pretty well fleshed out in the recruiting reports that these coaches -- and remember, we're playing at being on the same level 'in this game' -- have become knowledgable about.
Maybe I could go along with a 'hidden' asterisk in a category that becomes an area he just never improves on, or maybe solidifies the concept thrown about on all the forums about true duds/diamonds in the rough. But as for not knowing all these grades? I just have to think that Chizak IRL at Auburn or me at an Xbox Auburn are aware of these attributes.

IMO, the recruiting pitch (recruit's vs. ours) and the Russian Roulette of pitches are the concepts that need re-worked. Love the idea of a Most really meaning something (like w/ Green-Beckham and Prox Home) more than how it works in our game. I'm also still on my soapbox about a weighted roulette system where a recruit's Most category has 14x more chance of coming up than his Least. If Green-Beckham's Most was Prox Home and I rated a C there at Auburn, this pitch would come up often enough where I would eventually be losing out b/c it's coming up for Mizzou the same number of times and they're hammering the points, killing me.
I didnt fully think it out before I wrote it.
I agree that A coach knows every thing about a player.
I would like there to be actual scouting. Not like Madden, but something similar. I would like to get a email of the recruits ratings. This is where Scouts can come to play. Where you could ask scouts to "get some tape" on the player and send you an email back giving ratings back. Depending on the scouts grade, the more or less ratings you get back.
A coach doesnt know much about the players until the player is scouted. If anything, physical ratings should only be seen before the player is scouted.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I agree that A coach knows every thing about a player. not from day 1, he doesnt. the only time he's able to fully know everything about a recruit, is after spending hours scouting him, which is usually near the middle/end of the player's recruitment.

A coach doesnt know much about the players until the player is scouted. If anything, physical ratings should only be seen before the player is scouted.definitely agree with this.

[illwill10]

not from day 1, he doesnt. the only time he's able to fully know everything about a recruit, is after spending hours scouting him, which is usually near the middle/end of the player's recruitment.
definitely agree with this.
I meant to put the paragraphs together.
I meant a coach knows everything about a player once the player is fully scouted.
It kind of takes out the fun out knowing all the ratings and knowing how they are going to play.

[KCClassic7807]

I think it would be cool to see a press conference and a signing day in the game. Also, i would like to see a deeper scouting system. I feel that the system now is kinda basic. Finally, why not the Under Armour All American game? (For the top athletes for there respective postions) That would also be pretty good to see. If players did not making the UA All star game, have state high school all american games.

[JeffHCross]

I'm also still on my soapbox about a weighted roulette system where a recruit's Most category has 14x more chance of coming up than his Least.:+1:
Absolutely. That's definitely another option for what I was saying about increasing the "Most" value. And one that I have also advocated in the past, but probably forgotten about by now. If you kept the point values where they are now, but made it so that "Most", "Very High", etc have a significantly higher chance of coming up, then I think you could have the equivalent, or maybe even an improvement, over my idea.

[baseballplyrmvp]

just a random question, but why arent there any minus grade's for the pitches? its all base letters and +'s.

[SmoothPancakes]

just a random question, but why arent there any minus grade's for the pitches? its all base letters and +'s.

Because - has a negative connotation, and having a letter grade with a - attached to it could cause the recruit "irreparable harm" and bring about angry emails and letters to the editor from mothers and upset parents. ;)

[JeffHCross]

just a random question, but why arent there any minus grade's for the pitches? its all base letters and +'s.Heh. I've wondered that for a while.

Because - has a negative connotation, and having a letter grade with a - attached to it could cause the recruit "irreparable harm" and bring about angry emails and letters to the editor from mothers and upset parents. ;)Bahahahahahahaha.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Because - has a negative connotation, and having a letter grade with a - attached to it could cause the recruit "irreparable harm" and bring about angry emails and letters to the editor from mothers and upset parents. ;)i thought you were actually serious up until i hit the emails and letter to the editor part. well done smooth, well done. :D

[SmoothPancakes]

i thought you were actually serious up until i hit the emails and letter to the editor part. well done smooth, well done. :D

Thank you mvp. :) That was the very first thing that came to my mind when I saw your post. I'm not sure if that's sad or not. And even worse, I can sadly see that being true and happening in real life in some places in this country.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I'm also still on my soapbox about a weighted roulette system where a recruit's Most category has 14x more chance of coming up than his Least.


:+1:
Absolutely. That's definitely another option for what I was saying about increasing the "Most" value. And one that I have also advocated in the past, but probably forgotten about by now. If you kept the point values where they are now, but made it so that "Most", "Very High", etc have a significantly higher chance of coming up, then I think you could have the equivalent, or maybe even an improvement, over my idea."coach's choice" should also be included in that weighted system- depending on the prestige of the coach (or coach's rating if its ever added). the better the coach is at recruiting or however high his prestige rating is, the more opportunities he gets to talk about what he wants to talk about.

[JeffHCross]

"coach's choice" should also be included in that weighted system- depending on the prestige of the coach (or coach's rating if its ever added). the better the coach is at recruiting or however high his prestige rating is, the more opportunities he gets to talk about what he wants to talk about.That's another one I hadn't thought of. I like that.

[baseballplyrmvp]

we need more variety in the recruit's positions in dynasties. its pretty bad when i'm looking at the #6 rated wide receiver, who happens to be the #8th ranked recruit in the country......or the #10 ranked wr, who happens to be the #14 ranked recruit in the country.

i took the liberty of making a table to at least show what i'm seeing in my offline dynasties, there were 2578 recruits generated in this year's class (new recruits have NOT been included). keep in mind, this is from one sample year (year 2015).

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2249/tablep.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/tablep.jpg/)

this is absolutely terrible....16 5* wide receivers, yet 0 5* offensive linemen? better yet, only 4 of the 33 total 5* players, wound up to be defensive players. the 6 athletes all had ratings best suited for either wr or rb. with this amount of imbalance that is present (assuming similar type numbers will be used every recruiting class), its no wonder why offense rules the game, especially down the road in future years of dynasty.

[morsdraconis]

Just a cursory glance at the real :5star: commits from this year's class:

22/50 are defensive players
11/50 are offensive linemen
7/50 are RBs
8/50 are WRs
2/50 are QBs


Pretty interesting numbers.

Even more interesting is the fact that there are 50 :5star: recruits in real life this year and only 33 :5star: recruits in the game. Definitely doesn't look good.

[ryby6969]

I would also say the chances of the most of the 6 :5star: ATH being a WR is very good also. It is also a shame that it is very rare that there are any :5star: LB's ever. When the number of receivers and corners is that lopsided, it makes it damn near impossible to stop the passing game. They also need to make ATH's that are RB's be able to play LB also. A good portion of the time if a player is a RB but considered a ATH, he plays LB also. (Think Wilder) Also, get rid of :5star: ATH's who are basically just FB's.


Edit: Just read the rest of he post and noticed that you said the ATH's were either WR or RB. That is just unacceptable to have basically half the top recruits as WR's.

[JeffHCross]

with this amount of imbalance that is present (assuming similar type numbers will be used every recruiting class), its no wonder why offense rules the game, especially down the road in future years of dynasty.Based on some tests I did on NCAA 11 with this, this kind of stuff varies a ton from season to season. But I never saw that much of imbalance either, so maybe something changed.


Even more interesting is the fact that there are 50 :5star: recruits in real life this year and only 33 :5star: recruits in the game. Definitely doesn't look good.Who the hell lists 50 5* recruits this year in real life? Rivals only has 32 and 247sports has 25. Plus, the 32 that Rivals has is the highest number they've had since 2009 (33).

Even ESPN only shows 11. And as much as I have a problem with some of their player grades, that actually seems more logical to me than 33.

[baseballplyrmvp]

here is the next season's recruiting breakdown in that same offline dynasty.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7893/table1ke.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/table1ke.jpg/)

at least there were some more 5* defensive players this year. however, out of the 37 5* players, only 9 of them would have played defense, and 16 would have been wr's. :smh:

additionally, 3* players account for 45.7% of the recruiting class, while 2* players accounted for just under 25%!

[psusnoop]

Something I posted in a different thread, but for me I like this idea :dunno:

I'd like to see "committed" recruits still be able to be swayed to the point of de-committing from a school. Like after the season you have all these coaches changes now it would be nice to have recruits change their mind and de-commit.

Maybe after a recruit commits to your school you still have to maintain contact with him and it will show a bar with his level of his decision, if you ignore him or have coaching changes at years end this recruits bar goes down and can be swayed by a different team. Now I'd think there would maybe need to be slightly more time available to keep interest at its peak, or a separate time for committed recruits that you'd have to use but this would add lots to recruiting and I think it would be lots of fun too!

[JeffHCross]

I'd like to see "committed" recruits still be able to be swayed to the point of de-committing from a school.The only way I'd agree to that is if they made it an option to turn on/off. Simply because there are a lot of people out there that don't "enjoy" recruiting as it is, and I don't think the potential for decommits would do anything but make that worse, for those people.

Personally, I like the idea (as long as it didn't take tons of in-game time to keep a player interested), there's just a lot of things that need to be considered for something like that.

[morsdraconis]

I think, as the school that the prospect is committed to, you shouldn't have to do anything extra to the prospect to keep him interested in your school, but there is a small percentage chance that a school that lines up perfectly with what he's interested in could get him to decommit to the school that's he's currently committed to and resume the fight over the prospect. The school attempting to force the decommit would have to spend 60 minutes per week and, again, be PERFECTLY (A- through A+ in the recruit's Most and two Very High categories) lined up with what the recruit wants (basically, the only schools that are going to force a decommit are going to be :6star: prestige schools or maybe :4star: or :5star: recruits that just so happen to line up perfectly with the recruit's wants).

So, it COULD happen, but the school that got the original commitment would have a DISTINCT advantage throughout the process, even with the small percentage of the decommit happening.

The behind the scenes application would be to continue to keep count of what points were accumulated by the school attempting to force the decommit and use it as a basis of how much the school forcing the decommit would be behind the originally committed school once the process renews for the fight over the prospect since it's obvious that there is an arbitrary number that is needed for the prospect to commit to a school (even an instant commit has the +5000 thing).

[baseballplyrmvp]

you shouldn't have to do anything extra to the prospect to keep him interested in your school,i dont really agree with that, but there are some things that could be done to make sure it takes minimal effort to secure your recruits. when the recruit originally commits, he's given a percentage of how solid his verbal commitment is (maybe it starts at 50%?). at this point, you can continue to talk to him to further solidify his commitment, or just let him be, in which he'll remain at 50% if no other schools are talking to him. if this percentage drops below, lets say 30%, that recruit officially decommits, and is now fair game with however many schools are going after him, with those now interested schools being -1 point behind the originally committed school.




So, it COULD happen, but the school that got the original commitment would have a DISTINCT advantage throughout the processi agree. i'd think an easy way to do this would be to offer 1.5-3X per recruiting pitch if you continue to talk to a recruit, as i listed above. this gives an easy advantage to the committed school, as they should have an easier time securing the commitment, when there are only 2 schools vying for the recruit. however, the more schools involved in recruiting a kid, the harder it should be for the school to solidify his commitment (like a 6 vs 1 battle, shouldnt last more than a couple weeks between the top schools).



The behind the scenes application would be to continue to keep count of what points were accumulated by the school attempting to force the decommit and use it as a basis of how much the school forcing the decommit would be behind the originally committed school once the process renews for the fight over the prospect since it's obvious that there is an arbitrary number that is needed for the prospect to commit to a school (even an instant commit has the +5000 thing).again, referring back to my responce above, once a kid commits, (and his verbal starts at 50%), the points from all schools are added up. whatever percentage your school's points are of the toal either increases or decreases the verbal percentage. (ex: your school earns 300 points, another school earns 200 points. 500 total points, but you had 60% of em...since you had 10% more than half of the points, that recruit's verbal goes up 10% toward your school. if points are equally earned between you and another school, no change is made.)

[JeffHCross]

An alternative, and simpler, change (though along the same lines as what you guys are talking about) would be for the "Verbal - Soft" stage to last longer, and be slightly more complex than just "hit the # first!"

[baseballplyrmvp]

An alternative, and simpler, change (though along the same lines as what you guys are talking about) would be for the "Verbal - Soft" stage to last longer, and be slightly more complex than just "hit the # first!"+1

i wouldnt mind seeing the soft verbal last longer....all season long, if you get a certain kind of recruit?

[psuexv]

An alternative, and simpler, change (though along the same lines as what you guys are talking about) would be for the "Verbal - Soft" stage to last longer, and be slightly more complex than just "hit the # first!"

I think if you are going to do that you definitely need to give more time per week. If you have to talk to these kids longer or all year then class sizes will be too small. As it stands now, you are able to lock a kid up and then use that time on more people.

[JeffHCross]

I think if you are going to do that you definitely need to give more time per week.I agree that, overall, things would need to be re-examined if Soft Verbals were lengthened. However, specifically in response to "you definitely need to give more time": Not necessarily. It wouldn't make sense for a player that has a +300 pt lead to arbitrarily increase the length of his soft verbal. It should only be in cases where the player's commitment feels ... fast. Like when a guy with three -1 schools decides to commit for no apparent reason. That would increase the chance of flips and decommitments, while not increasing (too much) the necessary time expenditure.

It would also force people to reevaluate their recruiting strategies and maybe avoid the drawn out battles for every prospect they want to go after.

[keyser soze]

few things I have to add that are probably already in here but I will put here:

1 - Do away with the ATH position, its horrible and makes searching through stuff near impossible when I have 160 lb guys in my OT list
2 - Show the ratings/grades of every player at every position when being recruited. Meaning, I should be able to see how an OT would be rated at OG when recruited
3 - Make SIZE matter!!!
4 - Add some sort of ceiling/risk rating factor so some guys (hopefully the bigger frame guys) might have a higher ceiling but often times less probably of panning out or getting better
5 - Make stats and how you PLAY factor HUGELY into recruiting. Drop back gun slingers should not want to play for Navy

These are the ones off the top of my head.

[psuexv]

few things I have to add that are probably already in here but I will put here:

1 - Do away with the ATH position, its horrible and makes searching through stuff near impossible when I have 160 lb guys in my OT list


They added this with the new website release

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m521/psuexv/Capture1.jpg

[oweb26]

few things I have to add that are probably already in here but I will put here:

1 - Do away with the ATH position, its horrible and makes searching through stuff near impossible when I have 160 lb guys in my OT list
2 - Show the ratings/grades of every player at every position when being recruited. Meaning, I should be able to see how an OT would be rated at OG when recruited
3 - Make SIZE matter!!!
4 - Add some sort of ceiling/risk rating factor so some guys (hopefully the bigger frame guys) might have a higher ceiling but often times less probably of panning out or getting better
5 - Make stats and how you PLAY factor HUGELY into recruiting. Drop back gun slingers should not want to play for Navy

These are the ones off the top of my head.

I disagree with that entirely!!! Now I will say the ATH position probably needs to be overhauled in some sense because of the 160 lbs OT which comes up quite often, but overall you need the ATH position. Its for players who can play multiple positions (even though most of them can't) or as I like to say the guys that are good at a couple of positions but not great at any.

[oweb26]

Thats a neat little addition, now carry that over to the game!

[ryby6969]

The problem with the way ATH are right now is the fact that they are not really athletes at all. They are basically good at only one position. Hell, FS is actually a better example of ATH's in the game as they can typically play multiple positions. I want real athletes that could line up at 2 or more positions and have an opportunity to start.

[WarEagle]

I wonder why Pocketscout can produce a spreadsheet that allows you to sort on its position columns (for those unaware, the program not only quantifies the letter grades from the game, but also provides OVR scores for all positions) to see that a 57 OVR HB has 80/80 KA/KP and would be rated an 80 K or P, but when you perform a Find Recruits search in the game for a P it only produces punters. Pick any other position "A" and after a sort the spreadsheet will show you TONS of guys from other positions with high "A" OVRs but the game search function only includes ATH -- the 160 lb OT, LOL -- and "A".

Edit: sorry, hadn't realized that I'd not stated I was trying to ask for the game's search function to be more broad, while at the same time taking care of the 160 lb ATH coming up in an OT search issue.

[keyser soze]

The problem with the way ATH are right now is the fact that they are not really athletes at all. They are basically good at only one position. Hell, FS is actually a better example of ATH's in the game as they can typically play multiple positions. I want real athletes that could line up at 2 or more positions and have an opportunity to start.

This EXACTLY! The FS is basically the ATH in this game. The ATH are 90% WR with a few CB, RB, QB, Centers mixed in... they are just annoying. I believe all the players should come with a recommended position rating (likely where they grade out the highest) but then we should be able to see where they grade out at every other position and hence they ALL can be "ATH" in the sense that EA uses them.

[JeffHCross]

You can basically see where an OT is going to grade out right now ... it doesn't take rocket science. Unless you want to know exactly where the #3 Tackle would place in the Guard list ...and, quite frankly, I don't see that ever happening. There's a strategy to position changes -- you don't want to just give it away.

Now, I do agree that athletes shouldn't show up for position searches, but there are ways around that. Would be nice to see it as part of the menu though.

[baseballplyrmvp]

2 - Show the ratings/grades of every player at every position when being recruited. Meaning, I should be able to see how an OT would be rated at OG when recruited
tackle -> guard is generally a -1 point in OVR, but a +2 OVR changing to center
guard -> tackle is generally a -1 point in OVR, but a +2 OVR changing to center
center -> guard or tackle is generally -4 OVR

thats just what i've noticed when changing them their freshman year.

[baseballplyrmvp]

instead of every school starting at 24 or 25% interest for a recruit, they should lower that starting % to 0. this would allow some recruitments to become more of a race as his top 10/8/5/3 would be made up of who is all recruiting him. this shouldnt be applied for every recruit, as i do like it where some kids start at like 50 or 60%, but the race to sign them would take drag out their recruitments more (good thing), and allow for a more flexible/shifting top 10/8/5/3.

[psusnoop]

Maybe I just forgot but can someone tell me why online the recruiting separation of points is different then on the console?

Is this going to be changed heading into 13? If not could we make that suggestion.

[Jayrah]

instead of every school starting at 24 or 25% interest for a recruit, they should lower that starting % to 0. this would allow some recruitments to become more of a race as his top 10/8/5/3 would be made up of who is all recruiting him. this shouldnt be applied for every recruit, as i do like it where some kids start at like 50 or 60%, but the race to sign them would take drag out their recruitments more (good thing), and allow for a more flexible/shifting top 10/8/5/3.
I don't like this idea because its not realistic. Everybody has an idea of their top school choices. It makes sense that those choices are leading the race at the beginning everytime. Also it would be annoying if you put in a ton of time and never made the top ten.

[jaymo76]

This is just a pet peeve... BUT... I think the recruiting advisor should be included in the game versus a paid download. I have never purchased it but it would add more to the immersion. I'm not a big fan of paid DLC adfter you drop $70 for a game.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Everybody has an idea of their top school choices. It makes sense that those choices are leading the race at the beginning everytimeabsolutely true.


Also it would be annoying if you put in a ton of time and never made the top ten.this already happens. i had it in the 360 tgt od, when i was the OC at :Utah_State:. i had a 2* Juco TE from the beginning of the season, called him 30 minutes every week, and never cracked his top 10 until i dumped him in like week 11. he had all the big 10 schools listed in his top 10 so obviously he wasnt gonna get an offer from them. if this situation happened in real life, where he never received a single phone call from the big10 schools but was getting called every week by utah state, he would be listing utah state as hit top school, not rejecting them, and holding out/hoping for a scholarship offer from his dream school.

the whole "race to sign the kid" idea kinda goes in part with not being able to see how many points you're leading/trailing by, but i dont particularly care for that half. i just remember back to reading on cfb message boards that some recruits seemingly listed a new leader in their recruitment, every week (ie: Aziz Shittu, who ended up at stanford). additionally, the 5* recruits, nowadays in real life, all get 30+ offers; so the whole race idea is exactly what recruiting turns into. the recruit's top 10/8/5/3 (regardless of star rating), in the middle of the season, are all made up of who are recruiting him the hardest, not dream schools who arent talking to him at all.

[Aztec4Life]

I don't know if this has been discussed yet because I haven't finished reading this thread but something I would like to see implemented that will make the recruiting system so much better and more realistic is to have the option to recruit high school juniors. Has anyone on here played college hoops by 2k? You can recruit kids who are freshman, sophs and juniors. Now for the fresh and sophs, you are only able to contact them once at those class levels, which is just asking them for their tapes, but it increases their interest. And you can't start calling them and visiting them weekly until they are juniors. Now I don't know if the ncaa gives different recruiting rules to basketball than football, so Idk if this is realistic to have college football coaches call and visit high school juniors. So this was just a thought.

Also, on the player profiles while recruiting, it shows us their letter grade for each skill. Why can't we sort through them? Like, if I am looking for a pocket passing qb, instead of clicking on every single qb to see their throw accuracy and throw power, why can't I sort through them in descending order like you can for their bench and squant, etc.?

[JeffHCross]

Now I don't know if the ncaa gives different recruiting rules to basketball than football, so Idk if this is realistic to have college football coaches call and visit high school juniors. So this was just a thought.As far as I know the rules are largely the same. And it's been discussed numerous times over the years. But we've never come to an consensus on it. There's a sizable portion that think recruiting is boring/tedious/annoying as it is (though few of those are on our forums), so obviously that group would be against deeper recruiting. I don't remember it being in this year's Wishlist tournament, but it's been mentioned in past years.

Personally, I like the idea of doing something with underclassmen, but I wasn't a fan of how College Hoops implemented it (FYI, plenty of us here have played it :) ). I always hated that players were usually at 99% before their junior season even ended. So you had a completely different experience with your Year 1 recruits versus Year 2. I think there should be some thing that can be done with Juniors or Underclassmen (like influencing a recruit's Top 10, for example), but it shouldn't be a full-blown ability to recruit kids. Senior year for Year 2 or Year 3 recruits should be reasonably like it was for Year 1. Just to keep the balance, in my opinion.

[Razorjeff]

I'm not really in favor of getting too involved with juniors since it's unnecessary in game terms. However, it wouldn't be a bad idea to perhaps add a feature where your school could host a football camp each offseason/summer and either invite juniors to get a sneak peak at some of their skills, or simply to see who shows up. The players that show up and enjoy the camp might have a tiny edge when the initial recruiting classes are created at the start of each season.

Larger, more prestigious programs would likely allure higher profile kids to their camp, while cupcakes would happy with some 1 or 2-star athletes, and everything in between. Just like with seasonal recruiting, the kids most likely to show up would be from your pipeline states.

[baseballplyrmvp]

i'm not a fan of having juniors and underclassmen being added in at this time. recruiting isnt that hard to do that you need to plan out your team for the next 2 years. i can see a case for it being added in if you regularly play on all american/heisman recruiting difficulty, but on the lower difficulties, jr's and underclassmen shouldnt even be in the game or be given a thought.

imo, there should be several other things that should be added in before jr's and underclassmen, because as of right now, jr's and underclassmen dont bring anything to the table that would dramatically enhance recruiting. its just fluff.

[kansascitysooner]

i think that in the 5 weeks of recruiting you are able to recruit transfers as well. In real life the schools have to recruit them they are not just handed to them. Also there needs to be the posibility of 1 or 2 star recruit being really good and the possibility of a 5 star recruit not being good enough to play.

[gschwendt]

i think that in the 5 weeks of recruiting you are able to recruit transfers as well. In real life the schools have to recruit them they are not just handed to them. Also there needs to be the posibility of 1 or 2 star recruit being really good and the possibility of a 5 star recruit not being good enough to play.Actually, you are not allowed to contact players looking to transfer; only they can contact the schools. Obviously there are loopholes that teams work around but the intent is there to require the players to initiate contact.

[baseballplyrmvp]

question: should the pipeline bonus be reconfigured to how strong the pipeline is to that state (be based on the number of players you have on your roster from that state)?

if i'm playing as :USC:, i have california as my pipeline state with like 45 players on my roster from there. personally, i dont think that a new jersey pipeline or a florida pipeline should provide the same reward as that of california, when i have 10 times the amount of players from CA as that of FL or NJ.

[JBHuskers]

question: should the pipeline bonus be reconfigured to how strong the pipeline is to that state (be based on the number of players you have on your roster from that state)?

i look at it, if i'm playing as :USC:, i have california as my pipeline state with like 45 players on my roster from there. personally, i dont think that a new jersey pipeline or a florida pipeline should provide the same reward as that of california, when i have 10 times the amount of players from CA as that of FL or NJ.

It can be looked at both ways. There are some recruiters that have strong ties far away. I.E. Nebraska has had strong ties in Florida for a while. But you make a good point in terms of the video game world.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[ryby6969]

I honestly think you should get an extra bonus for in state recruits. Look how many big time recruits have signed with smaller schools just because in was in state.

[JeffHCross]

question: should the pipeline bonus be reconfigured to how strong the pipeline is to that state (be based on the number of players you have on your roster from that state)? Yes. Maybe not specifically based on players from state, but that'd be a place to start. This is what I suggested a couple years ago:

Redo Pipelines: Having 4 players on the roster from the same state doesn't establish a pipeline, at least not in real life. I guess they're trying to replicate that in real life certain coaches establish ties to areas, know the HS coaches, and are known to the parents. Sure, that's all true. But that's established over time, not by X number of players on your roster. Pipelines should be created and lost with time and successful recruiting in the states, not X. They should be gained and lost by who you play and who you beat. Ohio State shouldn't have to work to establish a pipeline to Indiana, Pennsylvania, or Michigan ... conference states should come automatically, at least at some level. And there should be varying levels of pipelines. No matter how many Florida players come to Ohio State, Jim Tressel is not going to recruit Florida at the same level that Urban Meyer will. ( That last sentence is very ironic now ... )

I didn't think it at the time, though it is kind of implied, but I think with the Coaching Carousel that pipelines should now stay with coaches rather than rosters.



I honestly think you should get an extra bonus for in state recruits. Look how many big time recruits have signed with smaller schools just because in was in state.There's more to that than just an in-state bonus though. And not every player in-state wants to stay close to home like DGB did. DGB was the type of player, as we've previously discussed on here, where being close to home was a "dealbreaker". So he would have had proximity to home as a most, except in his case it would have been more like Most+++. There's no current mechanic that replicates that, and a blanket in-state bonus simply wouldn't be the same thing.

[psuexv]

Completely agree Jeff and we had some good discussions in one of the other threads on pipelines. They definitely need to be tied to what the recruit wants. Reverse of DGB, if a kid has Close to home as least you shouldn't get pipeline bonus for him being in your home state.

Also it really should be tied to a geographic region instead of state. I'm sure kids in Northern California their proximity to home is more Oregon schools then Southern California schools.

Pipelines are hard because they carry a lot more weight in the game than in real life, IMO. Yes as JB mentioned Nebraska had a "pipeline" to Florida for awhile. However it was probably one of their coaches had strong relationships with some HS coaches down there and was able to get in with some kids and recruit them from a certain area. And like Jeff said, Nebraska recruiting those kids definitely didn't carry as much weight as Florida, Miami, etc.

[ram29jackson]

stop generating players rated in the 40s as a majority..65 should maybe be the lowest..of course the y give you ability to edit your own/all..but in a online dynasty,thats time consuming and rediculous..there really isnt enough logic in these games yet

[jaymo76]

Totally agree with you Jeff with regards to recruits being tied in with the carousel. My recruiting at Cal for example should not be lost/replaced when I move to Indiana.

[JeffHCross]

My recruiting at Cal for example should not be lost/replaced when I move to Indiana.The obvious problem is that the level of tracking required could be pretty ridiculous (unless they only tracked it for users, which would be the simplest answer). However, I think it could be done. Might not be too hard, too, depending on how it was done.

[jaymo76]

I have to admit that I am nervous for the blog re: recruiting. I really hope it doesn't become what NCAA BASKETBALL 10 was... I just didn't enjoy it. I think recruiting is a tough one for a lot of people. Where is the balance between immersion and fun? I don't mind the current system as it's straighforward and only minimally time consuming. I am worried that recruiting will become too lengthy and take away from my enjoyment of the game. Only time will tell I guess.

[JeffHCross]

I already spend more time in the game recruiting than I do playing. Now, don't get me wrong, I love it. But I'd love to see a balanced and streamlined system that could reduce that for the people who don't enjoy it as much as I do.

[Dr Death]

I already spend more time in the game recruiting than I do playing. Now, don't get me wrong, I love it. But I'd love to see a balanced and streamlined system that could reduce that for the people who don't enjoy it as much as I do.

I'm w/ you in the fact that I love recruiting. Or - I did - before this new Roulette Wheel thing took over. It's all random and that is as far from realistic as can be. And I also don't understand why there are several "levels" of recruiting? I didn't even know until last year that there were Varsity - All American - Heisman or whatever they are, levels. Shouldn't it be one level???

I know the answer is that some people don't want to take the time to build up a team - fine - let those people start out as :USC: or :Oklahoma:. But some of us want the challenge and thank God for boards like this, otherwise I wouldn't have even known there were differing levels of recruiting. That just blew my mind. It's like turning Catching to Conservative. Really??? I have to tell my WR's that catching the ball is important??? :fp:

[JeffHCross]

Shouldn't it be one level??? Not any more so than the gameplay should be. Some people want difficult recruiting, others don't. I have a feeling that letting the CPU control your recruiting results in drastically different levels of success within those difficulties as well. So maybe someone that is letting the CPU do their recruiting has to set the difficulty a little lower. And then you've got people that enjoy recruiting, but not to the level of devotion that I do. So maybe Heisman isn't for them :D

Plus you've got to consider ODs. In a OD with 12 competitive recruiters, adding a Heisman-level CPU difficulty can make it difficult to the point of frustration to recruit. Lots of different combinations.


That just blew my mind. It's like turning Catching to Conservative. Really??? I have to tell my WR's that catching the ball is important??? :fp:I choose to look at is as "Catch the ball and hold it like a newborn baby, I don't care what kind of yards you get after the catch." And, I'm sure you know, there are plenty of times where a coach needs to pull a player to the side and emphasize that.

[morsdraconis]

I think the most logical thing for them to do with Pipelines is tie them to coaches and assistant coaches (and thus, allow us to hire our own coaches instead of it being just whoever) instead of to the school itself.

I agree that schools should have pipelines based on their geographical location and their conference affiliations but it needs to be more than an 1 or 0 type setup. There needs to be shades of pipeline affiliations as well. Troy has a pipeline in Louisiana but it's not nearly as good of a pipeline as LSU's. Part of that is simulated by the schools having varying degrees of grades in other categories that the recruits are interested in, but the depth of it all could be better than what is currently happening in recruiting.

[JeffHCross]

I agree that schools should have pipelines based on their geographical location and their conference affiliations but it needs to be more than an 1 or 0 type setup.You don't say ...

And there should be varying levels of pipelines. No matter how many Florida players come to Ohio State, Jim Tressel is not going to recruit Florida at the same level that Urban Meyer will. ;) (Still laughing about the irony of that sentence)

[morsdraconis]

You don't say ...
;) (Still laughing about the irony of that sentence)

;)

Great minds think alike cause, clearly, I didn't steal your idea or anything...

;)

[baseballplyrmvp]

how about a X2 bonus when negatively recruiting against a rival?

[baseballplyrmvp]

some more tweaking has to be done with cpu generated recruit's grades. wr's should not have higher carrying grades than runningbacks. in my offline 2017 :USC: dynasty, the top 5 wr's all have, at least, a B carrying rating, while none of the top 5 runningbacks have a carrying rating above a D+.

i'd like to see he power backs have better blocking skills. i shouldnt ever see a 6'3" 240 lb runningback with D- run/pass blocking grades, yet a 5'7" 165 lb runningback get C+ pass/run blocking grades.

[baseballplyrmvp]

my recruiting wishlist. some build on each other, most are random and in no particular order.

1. removal of the in-season hard commit. the game treats hard commits the same as a signed letter of intent, and when you can get commits in week 1, you shouldnt be able to just forget about them. coaches need to call their current commits every week or risk loving them to other schools. instead, players should only be able to reach the soft commit stage. this would allow you to still be able to recruit any player you want. the soft commit stage, however, would get a meter bar type of thing, which would show how committed to your school that player is. (ex: a recruit who's listed as a 90% soft commit, wouldnt necessarily need to be called that week, whereas a a 10% soft commit would be likely to change his commitment if he went uncalled). this percentage would change weekly and would be the equivelant to securing a recruit's commitment; however some may never need to be talked to after they commit (as some recruits would be considered solid from the start)

2. ability to hire/fire coordinators if head coach.

3. coaches/coordinators need either ratings or grades for offense, defense, special teams, recruiting, scouting, and player development.

4. add juniors. cannot recrut, only scout.

5. removal of the ability to see every non measurable rating for every recruit from day one. plain an simple, if you dont scout the recruit, you shouldnt know anything about him; other than how fast, strong, and smart he is. scouting starts with the juniors and obviously can be done with seniors, but will be part of the weekly 10 hours. depending on a combinatioin of the coach's/coordinators scouting grades/ratings, the better coaching staffs unlock more of the recruit's ratings when scouting.

6. roulette wheel? meh, its ok so it can stay, but it does need some changes. the coach's choice recruiting option should be dependant upon a combination of the coaching staff's recruiting grades/ratings. a possible change-up could be the option to keep talking about the pitch instead of moving on (if i want to talk about playing time for 20 minutes, i should be able to (max of 20 minutes)). additionally, coordinators could sometimes provide hints by saying "this recruit called me and was really interested in our academics, so be sure to talk about them." talking about academics in the ensuing phone call could be a X2 bonus just for that pitch.

7. open padlock. i'd like to see some kind of visual showing which pitches were unlocked and what his interest is in them. this doesnt have to automatically pop up when you call him but should still be available somewhere.

8. pipeline strength. should be based on how many many players on your roster you have from that state.

9. more variety in recruits. as i listed in several pics on the previous pages, wr's and rb's account for way too much of the 5 and 4 star players. offensive skill positions shouldnt dominate the recruiting rankings every year. additionally, better tuning is required in the rankings. speed AND talent are what differentiate the 4* recruits from the 5* recruits. if a recruit has one but not the other, he should be a 4* player. potential also has way too much of an impact on where the recruit is rated.

10. dealbreakers. some recruits should have a dealbreaker. if you dont rank highly for a recruit's MOST important pitch, the recruit should recognize this and it should have a huge negative impact on you.

11. recruiting against rival schools should be a X1.5 or X2 bonus.

12. ability to downplay a recruit's interest in a certain pitch. this would be significantly harder for pitches that he has a high/very high/most interest in

13. bragging rights over other schools you play and recruit against.

14. recruit's style of play should be listed. did he play in a 3-4 or 4-3, pro style or air raid offense? getting recruits who play in a similar offense to yours would progress faster/possibly more. recruits from styles opposite of yours would minimally progress. also, your style of play should also affect the recruit somehow...maybe as another pitch?

15. schools should develop position identities. if you consistantly produce top talent at a certain position, you should have more players at that position interested in you.

16. ability to recruit a player for a position other than he's listed. i should be able to tell athletes what position i want them at. if i recruit a slow safety, i should be able to tell him i plan on switching him to linebacker. this could affect the recruit's interest in you both positively and negatively. some recruits might be against switching positions, and it'd be a one time offer. once you make the offer to recruit him at another position, you cant rescind the offer.

bunch of ideas, i know.

[JeffHCross]

Great list, MVP. I particularly like #4, and agree with you that it shouldn't be a full-blown junior recruitment. I'd love to see a way to influence Junior's Top 10 though, so you can find your way onto a recruit's list before the season begins.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Great list, MVP. I particularly like #4, and agree with you that it shouldn't be a full-blown junior recruitment. I'd love to see a way to influence Junior's Top 10 though, so you can find your way onto a recruit's list before the season begins.thanks jeff. and ya, i agree on that but i couldnt come up with anything other than outright recruiting him. maybe invitations to jr camps? maybe a promise for a scholarship offer? :dunno:

[JeffHCross]

It could be as simple as you get 5 juniors per week that you can say "we're interested". The more times you pick a certain player, the higher you could move up. Don't make it a 1:1 or else people will just spam the top 5 players. Just make it influence the Top 10, not determine it. Obviously, if the guy's Junior-year #1 team doesn't show interest, they'll move down, etc, etc.

I'm not necessarily meaning to make this a suggestion, just saying that I'd love to influence top 10 lists (if Juniors were added), while also a) Not making it a huge time sink; and b) keeping it simple. Those two points are crucial to me if Juniors/Underclassmen were to be added. The 2k method was too much of a time sink and too cumbersome.

Plus, I hated, hated that you'd get to the end of Year 1, and every recruit would be maxed out in Interest by the top team, while at the beginning of Year 1, the top guys were only at 30 or whatever. There's no logic in having Year 2 recruiting be so drastically different from Year 1.

[baseballplyrmvp]

hmmm....interesting idea. i dont think it should be limited at 5, but that was probably a random number you threw out. and thinking about it further, requesting game film could be that first step in getting him interested in your school if he isnt already, and also start the actual scouting process. maybe periodically thoughout the year, you can request more game film, which could further his interest in your school, as well as provide "updated" ratings that were scouted?

ya, that could work....

[JeffHCross]

I'm hesitant to agree with the game film for two reasons. 1) That was a major part of 2k's recruiting, so I don't like even the perception that EA might be 'copying'; 2) I struggle to believe that coaches actually request game film on recruits. Seems like every recruit, even :1star:'s have services now to spam out their game film to prospective schools. Plus, like I said in my post (and yes, 5 was a random number, though I'd prefer it small, like 5-10), I would want Juniors to be as simple as possible and not add a time-sink to recruiting. One of my major pet-peeves in CH2k was having to take the time to go to each recruit and request game film, and you had to remember to do it every week, or else I'd be behind my competitors. I don't like busy work, especially in gaming.

That said, I think we're both headed down the right path ... the particulars are difficult.

[baseballplyrmvp]

i never played ch2k so i have no clue as how they did it or the frustrations involved.

i dont know if one of us is getting caught up on another's idea, whether is just my own perception or yours with college hoops, but you wouldnt be abe to recruit juniors. so all you'd have to do every week, would be to have your coordinators unlock ratings (future idea comes to mind). maybe the highlight film/game film comes as an option that pops up every 3-5 weeks. idk....but imo, the people who do their homework should be the most successful. i dont think you would have to save some alotment of time every week; i think you could still get a fairly good idea of the recruit, even if you started scouting him in week 8 (as most likely the first half of the season, you'd be recruiting the seniors like mad).

i think that big pet peeve of yours wouldnt really transfer over, since you're not actually recruiting the junior, and all you're really doing is fighting for a spot in his top 10. obviously the goal would be to get to his #1 top school, but it wouldnt be a hugely bad thing if you started his senior year as his #6 school.

its good that we're bouncing ideas off of each other. hopefully someone from ea is reading this and goes, "(snaps fingers) these guys are on to something." lol

[JeffHCross]

i dont think you would have to save some alotment of time every weekRight. I'm talking about real time, not in-game. The way CH2k worked, you ended up spending almost (or more) time scouting and "recruiting" (though, similarly, you weren't really recruiting them) on Juniors and other underclassmen as you did on Seniors. So that's why my emphasis is on simple and short.

You're right that game film wouldn't be every week. In fact, I think it was a one-time only thing. But there were some things that were every week, even for juniors. It just got to be tedious.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Right. I'm talking about real time, not in-game.oh, i was talking about in-game time. in order to do anything with the junior, it would have to be a part of your weekly 10 hours. idk.

[baseballplyrmvp]

been a while since i did a recruiting table, but here's another breakdown of the recruiting figures. from my offline :USC: dynasty in the year 2018.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8100/table2018.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/528/table2018.jpg/)



some things to note:

out of the top 20 recruits, only 3 would have been anything besides a wr/hb

at one point, there were 8 straight 5* receivers

there were only balanced and possession type 5* receivers. no 5* speed receivers.

only the state of texas produced more than 2 5* players and had more 5*'s than california, florida, and ohio combined. (TX 7, CA 2, FL 2, OH 2)

pennsylvania, georgia, louisiana, and mississippi were the only other states producing 2 5* players.

[beartide06]

^^^ This is an issue I noticed quite a bit. In my dynasties, online and offline, I noticed an extremely unrealistic amount of 5 star skill position guys on offense. I guess this was to make some of the 5 stars seem like busts. Either way, 16 or so 5 star WR's is something you would never see in real life.

[morsdraconis]

According to the breakdown by Scout, there have been several seasons since 2002 that there have been 8+ :5star: WRs available to be recruited. Granted, some of those players were junior college players, but, still, there was even a year when there where 12 :5star: WRs were available to be recruited in 2008 (http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=4&pid=16&yr=2008) so it does happen but it definitely seems to happen to often in the game compared to real life (7 years from 2002 to 2012 where there were 8+ :5star: WRs available and out of those 7 years, 4 of them had 10+ :5star: WRs).

The main problem is the amount of :5star: players that don't fail to live up to their hype. Hopefully that's fixed with this year's changes to recruiting and the dynamic grades.

[cdj]

The guys at TSO have posted their ideas for improving recruit weight in the franchise (http://traditionsportsonline.com/ncaa-13-recruiting-database).

http://traditionsportsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/recruitbreak.jpg

[beartide06]

According to the breakdown by Scout, there have been several seasons since 2002 that there have been 8+ :5star: WRs available to be recruited. Granted, some of those players were junior college players, but, still, there was even a year when there where 12 :5star: WRs were available to be recruited in 2008 (http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=4&pid=16&yr=2008) so it does happen but it definitely seems to happen to often in the game compared to real life (7 years from 2002 to 2012 where there were 8+ :5star: WRs available and out of those 7 years, 4 of them had 10+ :5star: WRs).

The main problem is the amount of :5star: players that don't fail to live up to their hype. Hopefully that's fixed with this year's changes to recruiting and the dynamic grades.

While you make a good point, the websites around the internet vary to great extent when it comes to recruiting. Usually, I feel like scout overrates a lot of players. I am not biased either way, but according to rivals, from 2002-2012, the most 5 star WR's in one class was SIX. Those 6 5 star WR's came in 2008 with WR's such as Julio Jones and AJ Green. So, that is a HUGE difference from the 8-12 that are on scout. Even then, 16 5 star WR's is a bit overboard.

Another thing I'd like to point out is the fact that I do not think I have ever seen one 5 star JUCO on the game. All of your JUCO players are 3 stars and below, usually. However, I do agree with you that it happens far too often in the game. I also agree with you that most of those 5 star guys do not live up to their star rating. Most of the guys should be bumped down to 4 stars or even 3 stars. I know they have had hidden potentials in previous years, but 16 5 stars is still quite a bit too much.

[baseballplyrmvp]

The guys at TSO have posted their ideas for improving recruit weight in the franchise (http://traditionsportsonline.com/ncaa-13-recruiting-database).

http://traditionsportsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/recruitbreak.jpg

i dont want to sound critical, because its good that the community is coming up with stuff thats closer to real life than what is currently reflected in the game.......but since weight isnt a part of the game, why take the time to change anything related to it?

if we were told that a momentum was going to start playing a far larger role in all aspects of gameplay in future games of the series, i'd be fine with them making changes to reflect weight more accurately. but since weight hardly matters at all, this idea shouldnt be any higher on the list of priorities than the typical sock, facemask, other equipment additions that make it into the game. i know thats a gameplay vs art team argument, but weight, currently, doesnt have any affect on the game. its really only there for asthetic reasons.

[JeffHCross]

i dont want to sound critical, because its good that the community is coming up with stuff thats closer to real life than what is currently reflected in the game.......but since weight isnt a part of the game, why take the time to change anything related to it? When community members put in the grunt work effort (as seems to be the case here), it's a lot easier to make a quick change (and this should have been a relatively quick change).

[baseballplyrmvp]

should there be a slightly larger reward for successfully swaying a pitch? either flat point total or percentage based depending on swaying from what to what?

[baseballplyrmvp]

i know its too late for 13, but just throwin an idea out there......

for the recruiting pitches, what if they switched it from letter grades, in which there are only 8 currently, to ranking everyone on a 1-10 system? maybe even having it include decimals (like :USC:'s Pro Potential rating could be like a 9.9 whereas :Eastern_Michigan:'s would be like a 1.1)?

this would help separate schools even more, as there are now 100 or so "grades" instead of only 8. it could work exactly as to how the current system works; the only difference would be that there are more levels available to be graded at.

anyone else agree?

[SmoothPancakes]

i know its too late for 13, but just throwin an idea out there......

for the recruiting pitches, what if they switched it from letter grades, in which there are only 8 currently, to ranking everyone on a 1-10 system? maybe even having it include decimals (like :USC:'s Pro Potential rating could be like a 9.9 whereas :Eastern_Michigan:'s would be like a 1.1)?

this would help separate schools even more, as there are now 100 or so "grades" instead of only 8. it could work exactly as to how the current system works; the only difference would be that there are more levels available to be graded at.

anyone else agree?

It would be interesting it so. I'd be interested in seeing a potential change like that.

[WolverineJay]

I'm not against any changes to the current recruiting system especially if it helps seperate the big boys from the rest of the pack. However it still would have to allow for those one or two program changers to come to my small school at the start of a Dynasty. I think returning control over the phone call back to the User will be the best part for me since I hated the slot machine with a passion. I think with the new recruiting pitches and the fact that most pitches are dynamic will only help add life to recruiting, plus having to scout prospects in 13' will make a difference. I believe all these changes will make recruiting in the game a significant upgrade over the last couple years.

[JeffHCross]

this would help separate schools even more, as there are now 100 or so "grades" instead of only 8. it could work exactly as to how the current system works; the only difference would be that there are more levels available to be graded at.They'd have to change how the point values work, but that could certainly be done. One concern IMO would be how complicated it would appear to a casual player.

[SmoothPancakes]

They'd have to change how the point values work, but that could certainly be done. One concern IMO would be how complicated it would appear to a casual player.

Now that you mention it, that would be a potential issue. I didn't think about that last night, and with the game becoming more and more in-depth, various controls, etc, it's getting to the point of almost impossible for a brand new player to the series to pick up a controller and play it, it could eventually reach the point that some of the more casual, maybe buy every other year or couples years, players will start to become a bit alienated with some massive changes or additions that aren't really well explained.

Since manuals no longer exist in game cases these days (I remember the old PS1 days when I bought the Final Fantasy games, those things came with manuals in them as large as 60-70 pages), it's up to the company to put an in-depth and well explaining tutorial in the game, which some companies seem to completely ignore or just put the basics in, but leave the users to fend for themselves regarding the in-depth stuff.

[baseballplyrmvp]

They'd have to change how the point values work, but that could certainly be done. One concern IMO would be how complicated it would appear to a casual player.hell, i could do that myself. lol.......with help from all of you guys.

[JeffHCross]

hell, i could do that myself. lol.......with help from all of you guys.Well, yeah. That was less for the effort, and more for "I don't know how long that would take". I don't know enough about how the current system is coded to know how it would have to change.

[souljahbill]

I was actually thinking earlier about doing away with the 100 pt scale for ratings and just doing 1-10.

A+=10
A=9
B+=8
B=7
C+=6
C=5
D+=4
D=3
F+=2
F=1

[morsdraconis]

I think the floating scale is far more interesting. I want a scale that changes based on the skill sets of the player and the system that they are playing in. It would grow the game to something VERY close to realism because you'd have kids underperforming because they are in a system that isn't conducive to their skill sets resulting in them leaving for the NFL early or transferring to another school that's a better fit for them.

There are so many things that they could do with the rating system to increase the depth of this game 10 fold, but they're far too worried about the lowest common denominator of players of the game instead of going after the customer base that would make the game a series that could last for a long time instead of slowly dying like it seems like it is and would have already if they weren't using so many aspects of Madden's technology.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I think the floating scale is far more interesting. I want a scale that changes based on the skill sets of the player and the system that they are playing in. It would grow the game to something VERY close to realism because you'd have kids underperforming because they are in a system that isn't conducive to their skill sets resulting in them leaving for the NFL early or transferring to another school that's a better fit for them.

There are so many things that they could do with the rating system to increase the depth of this game 10 fold, but they're far too worried about the lowest common denominator of players of the game instead of going after the customer base that would make the game a series that could last for a long time instead of slowly dying like it seems like it is and would have already if they weren't using so many aspects of Madden's technology.what do you mean by a floating scale, exactly?

[morsdraconis]

what do you mean by a floating scale, exactly?

They'd have a floating scale for their attributes. Say a recruit would have anywhere from 86 to 95 in something depending on several factors, but, most of all, the system in which they were playing compared to what their skill set suggested.

QBs that aren't good at pro style passing concepts (because of lack of arm strength and truly great medium to long range accuracy) would struggle in an offense that was pro style but would excel in an offense that was more West Coast or Air Raid oriented because they'd be playing more to their strengths by using routes that made more sense as well as having WRs that were better at getting open, and, therefore, less accurate passes would still give positive results.

[JeffHCross]

Head Coach 09 allowed you to customize your "philosophy" for each position (i.e. Field General QB vs Rocket Arm QB vs Scrambler), and each philosophy had a different way of calculating OVR. Is that what you're thinking along the lines of, mors, or were you actually meaning to influence the attributes themselves? Of course, HC 09 had that too, because every staff (and their skills) influenced how players developed; but that's a much deeper addition to be made.


they're far too worried about the lowest common denominator of players of the game instead of going after the customer base that would make the game a series that could last for a long timeA small, but consistent, hardcore playerbase is not enough to sustain a series, not any more (at least not on consoles). And with licensed games, that's doubly true. I'd argue that it's impossible to chase the "lowest common denominator" when everybody knows the casual player is largely overwhelmed by the entire sports genre. Plus, pleasing everyone, even within your hardcore audience, is impossible. GamesRadar (http://www.gamesradar.com/box-score-top-7-themes-last-years-sports-game-season/) actually makes both arguments for me :)

[baseballplyrmvp]

Head Coach 09 allowed you to customize your "philosophy" for each position (i.e. Field General QB vs Rocket Arm QB vs Scrambler), and each philosophy had a different way of calculating OVR. Is that what you're thinking along the lines of, mors, or were you actually meaning to influence the attributes themselves? Of course, HC 09 had that too, because every staff (and their skills) influenced how players developed; but that's a much deeper addition to be made.

A small, but consistent, hardcore playerbase is not enough to sustain a series, not any more (at least not on consoles). And with licensed games, that's doubly true. I'd argue that it's impossible to chase the "lowest common denominator" when everybody knows the casual player is largely overwhelmed by the entire sports genre. Plus, pleasing everyone, even within your hardcore audience, is impossible. GamesRadar (http://www.gamesradar.com/box-score-top-7-themes-last-years-sports-game-season/) actually makes both arguments for me :)they should just release multiple videos showing the different difficulties. it can be the exact same plays called, but it'd give everyone a chance to see the game in action on the difficulty that they play on. they need to give us (especially the major community sites) something other than varsity footage, where practically none of the hardcore gamers of the series play on.

on the head coach thing, i'd like to see a system where it listed the recruit's high school offense, and then depending on how similar of an offense you run, his progression in your system would be affected as such.

[TIMB0B]

Great list, MVP. I particularly like #4, and agree with you that it shouldn't be a full-blown junior recruitment. I'd love to see a way to influence Junior's Top 10 though, so you can find your way onto a recruit's list before the season begins.

I posted the following in the wishlist forum...

It addresses the "junior" recruiting, at least before the next season begins.

I'd like for there to be an option of "in-depth recruiting." I say option because some people think there's too much already. So, this is how I'd break the recruiting modes down...

A) - The CPU recruits for you like old school College Football USA 96. At the end of the season, the CPU randomly selects commits based on how your team performed and their prestige in the given year.

B) - The standard user-controlled 5 week post-season recruiting only, which was introduced in NCAA Football 98 (I believe).

C) - The existing setup: In-season recruiting + 5 week post-season recruiting.

D) - In-season recruiting + 5 week post-season recruiting + off-season recruiting.

In real life, there are 4 types of recruiting periods set by the NCAA: Quiet, Evaluation, Contact, and Dead periods. For the purposes of this post, I'll only be using the Quiet and Evaluation periods as it pertains to off-season recruiting.

Quiet Period = Coaches are allowed to call recruits (and offer scholarships). Recruits can visit coaches, but can only do so at the coaches' respective colleges (i.e. unofficial visit).

Evaluation Period = Assistant Coaches are permitted to visit recruits off-campus (as well as make calls and scholarship offers).

The real off-season recruiting calendar set by the NCAA is as follows...

1st week of February (the day after Signing Day) - April 14th = Quiet Period
April 15th - May 31st = Evaluation Period
June 1st - July 31st = Quiet Period

Here's what I'm suggesting with the "D" mode (off-season) recruiting...

Off-season Tasks

1st week of February
- Signing Day
- Next season's Top 100 Recruits 'Watch' List released
- Recruiting: Notification of any prospects that will attend your school's Junior Day Event
- Recruiting: Select Prospects for Recruit Board
(Advance to next period)

February (day after NSD) - April 14th (Quiet Period)
- Spring Position Changes (including early enrollees)
- Spring Depth Chart (Divvy up reps to each position group by percentage points totaling 100%)
- Recruiting: Notification of any prospects that will attend your school's Spring Game
- Recruiting: Calls / Scholarship Offers permitted
- Spring Game (option to play or sim)
(Advance to next period)

April 15th - May 31st (Evaluation Period)
- Training Results (including early enrollees)
- Recruiting: Notification of any prospects that will attend your school's Summer Football Camp
- Recruiting: Calls / Scholarship Offers; Off-Campus Coach Visits permitted (this period only)
(Advance to next period)

June 1st - July 31st (Quiet Period)
- Official Top 100 Recruits List released
- Recruiting: Calls / Scholarship Offers
- Summer Position Changes (including non-early enrollees who have now arrived on campus as well as walk-ons)
(Advance to next period)

August (Pre-season Tasks)
- Pre-season Depth Chart
- Redshirts
- Cut Players
- Schedule Changes
- Recruiting: Calls / Scholarship Offers; Official Visits now permitted (beginning of Contact Period)
- Begin Season
(Advance to regular season)

NOTES:

Junior Day, Spring Game, and Summer Camps are all unofficial visits i.e. prospects randomly attend based on interest level and/or location. The spring game DOES NOT determine off-season training. Practice does. And practice is simulated by setting the rep percentage of your players in spring depth chart.

Spring depth chart is essentially spring practice. Each specific position group in your offense/defense scheme (based on playbooks) has a cumulative total of 100% reps. Example of a pro-form offense's position groups: QB, RB, FB, TE, SE, FL, LT, LG, C, RG, RT. Each one of those groups totals to 100% reps.

Then, you divvy up that 100% within each position group. Say you have 3 QBs. You give your starter 50% reps, back-up 30%, and 3rd string 20%.
1 - QB = 50%
2 - QB = 30%
3 - QB = 20%

And you do this for each position...
1 - RB = 40%
2 - RB = 30%
3 - RB = 20%
4 - RB = 10%

The amount of reps, coupled with a player's potential (which is hidden), will determine the offseason training results. It's also a risk/reward scenario. You could give one player all 100% of the reps at his position, leaving the others with 0%, where your reward is maximum progression for that player depending on his potential rating, however you risk injury. Conversely, if a player gets a small percentage of reps, you risk that player transferring or minimal to no training results. This would also play a huge role for CPU A.I. when they oversign too many players at one position, like having 5 QBs on a roster. The 4th and/or 5th string QBs would be getting screwed in the rep department and may transfer.

The game should have a default percentage already set up, then you could manipulate it from there.

This would give you some control over the development of your players. But just as coaching in real life, there are risk/rewards to these decisions. Hidden potential ratings, though, are the key in keeping offseason progression from being cheesed.


The current off-season tasks as of NCAA 2012 features 5 advancements (Signing Day / Position Changes / Training Results / Cut Players / Pre-season Tasks). The example I have given of an in-depth off-season recruiting also has 5 advancements. However, there are now 4 additional recruiting opportunities, a Spring Game, and 2 opportunities for Position Changes (Spring and Summer).

[TIMB0B]

Also, was there any word on them adding a JUCO search filter? It's a tedious process looking for only a handful of JUCOs among thousands of freshmen.

[JeffHCross]

I posted the following in the wishlist forum...

It addresses the "junior" recruiting, at least before the next season begins.Biggest problem I see there is that you'd have to be generating new recruits while the current recruits are still in the database (AFAIK). That could be problematic from a technical standpoint. I do like the design though.

[TIMB0B]

Biggest problem I see there is that you'd have to be generating new recruits while the current recruits are still in the database (AFAIK). That could be problematic from a technical standpoint. I do like the design though.

After all the recruits from the previous season have signed??? If NSD and the recruit database for next season create that problem, then NSD will have to stand on its own "advancement period" again. Just take that first period, and split it into two.

National Signing Day
(Advance to next period)

Off-season Tasks

Day after NSD
- Next season's Top 100 Recruits 'Watch' List released
- Recruiting: Notification of any prospects that will attend your school's Junior Day Event
- Recruiting: Select Prospects for Recruit Board
(Advance to next period)

February - April 15th (Quiet Period)
- Spring Position Changes (including early enrollees)
- Spring Depth Chart (Divvy up reps to each position group by percentage points totaling 100%)
- Recruiting: Notification of any prospects that will attend your school's Spring Game
- Recruiting: Calls / Scholarship Offers permitted
- Spring Game (option to play or sim)
(Advance to next period)

...and so on.

[JeffHCross]

After all the recruits from the previous season have signed???They're still treated separately as recruits, AFAIK, on NSD. You're right though, that beyond that point they should be gone from the database.

[TIMB0B]

They're still treated separately as recruits, AFAIK, on NSD. You're right though, that beyond that point they should be gone from the database.So, to avoid any problems, they'll just have to keep NSD in its own stage. It would be one more advancement period, but with the new additions to the off-season, I don't think people would gripe too much about an extra 60 seconds of loading/saving to the next period.

Btw, this thread is awesome. I joined this site last night and read all of it. The "dealbreaker" suggestion would be huge among others. And I like the idea of having coach recruiting ratings, etc.

[illwill10]

I hope the progression of ratings are improved this year.
There have been alot of players with high(90+) positional ratings, where you cant tell the star players apart from regular players. With WRs able to create space on route cuts, I dont want to see almost every(good) team with 1-2 WRs with 90+ RR.

[JeffHCross]

So, to avoid any problems, they'll just have to keep NSD in its own stage. It would be one more advancement period, but with the new additions to the off-season, I don't think people would gripe too much about an extra 60 seconds of loading/saving to the next period.But with Online Dynasty, it has the potential to be much more than an extra 60 seconds. Though I would think it should be able to be combined into another item, rather than a separate stage that's by itself.

Of course, I'd argue that a lot of the offseason could probably be reduced, but I have to imagine there are technical reasons they're not.

Glad you enjoy the thread; hope you find the rest of the site to be just as interesting!

[TIMB0B]

Though I would think it should be able to be combined into another item, rather than a separate stage that's by itself.
Isn't it currently a separate stage by itself already? And which stage would you combine it with? Keeping in mind the complications of the previous season's recruit database and the next season's overlapping.

[JeffHCross]

Ignore that, I misunderstood what you were saying.

[psuexv]

i know its too late for 13, but just throwin an idea out there......

for the recruiting pitches, what if they switched it from letter grades, in which there are only 8 currently, to ranking everyone on a 1-10 system? maybe even having it include decimals (like :USC:'s Pro Potential rating could be like a 9.9 whereas :Eastern_Michigan:'s would be like a 1.1)?

this would help separate schools even more, as there are now 100 or so "grades" instead of only 8. it could work exactly as to how the current system works; the only difference would be that there are more levels available to be graded at.

anyone else agree?

I completely agree. This has always been one of my ideas as it really adds so much more depth than the letter grades that lump too many people together. One big example that I laugh about is Academic Prestige. You have a school like Stanford or Northwestern that is an A+ and you also have so many other schools that are A+ as well but nowhere near the level of those schools.

I'd actually like to see a scale of -100 to 100, for recruits as well. Basically same concept MVP just going whole numbers instead of decimals. With this system though you could hit all different aspects of a recruits interest. 100 would obviously be to top end, 0 would be indifferent and -100 would be they didn't want topic. For example, Early playing time. If a recruit wants to play right away it's a high number. If he could care less it's around 0, but if he didn't want to play early it would be on the lower end of the scale(I know having negative numbers gives it a negative connotation but I think it could work). If I had plenty of depth at QB my grade could be say -80 and I was targeting a QB that had Early PT as -75, we would match up and I could actually pitch it to him to get positive recruiting points.

[JeffHCross]

I completely agree. This has always been one of my ideas as it really adds so much more depth than the letter grades that lump too many people together. One big example that I laugh about is Academic Prestige. You have a school like Stanford or Northwestern that is an A+ and you also have so many other schools that are A+ as well but nowhere near the level of those schools.I didn't think there were too many "A+" schools in the game. "A", yes, but not A+. Plus, you have to consider two things: 1) It's based on the US News & World Report rankings, which does put a fair amount of schools up in Northwestern/Stanford territory, though I agree that they're probably not really up there. 2) We're also talking from the perspective of college football players. There are very, very, very few football players that would care to distinguish between Duke/Northwestern/Stanford and Ohio State/Penn State/Michigan on academics. Some, yes, but few.

[psuexv]

I think there are more A+ than you realize.

And I completely agree that most recruits aren't looking for that high caliber school, but it would be nice to show that distinction. And academic prestige was just an example.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I think there are more A+ than you realize.

And I completely agree that most recruits aren't looking for that high caliber school, but it would be nice to show that distinction. And academic prestige was just an example.academic prestige is also bottomed out at a C grade. so all 120 schools are ranked in only 6 letter grades. this doesnt even come close to allowing any kind of distinction.

if they dont move toward a number system in the future, and decide to keep it as a letter grade, they need to add - grades. i've been toying around with a new numbers grid based on a 1-10 ratings scale with .25 increments.....but its been hard coming up with an acceptable range for each increment.

[JeffHCross]

I think there are more A+ than you realize. Maybe. I think Ohio State was an A+ in one edition, which I still can't understand (not for undergraduate ... graduate is much better for us)


academic prestige is also bottomed out at a C grade. so all 120 schools are ranked in only 6 letter grades. this doesnt even come close to allowing any kind of distinction. That is also true, though I can understand why they wouldn't want to label "academic prestige" as a "D-", lol.

[baseballplyrmvp]

tim, some great stuff....

however, i dont think recruiting should be that in-depth. i'm a recruiting nut. i mostly follow :USC:'s recruiting on a daily basis, and while the stuff you listed is accurate in practically every way, i think it'd be overwhelming, even for me. i'm guessing that we share the same opinion that the effort you put into recruiting should equal how much success you have in the game with it. but in this case, i think with that much involvement, it'd turn a lot of people off (especially someone new to the series and the casual gamer).

great concept though, at what it should be, based off of real life recruiting.

[SmoothPancakes]

I think the big thing for me would be the time it would take to implement it. They already spent basically this entire past development cycle on recruiting and scouting, touching nothing else in dynasty. At that rate, it would be NCAA 15 or 16 before EA should even consider something like this. There are a ton of other things in Dynasty mode that need to be worked on, no way in hell should recruiting dominate 95%+ of the dynasty mode changes and upgrades in two consecutive development cycles.

[steelerfan]

As I said in the other thread, nice work, TIMBOB.

I like your ideas, welcome to the site. :up:

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

[SmoothPancakes]

As I said in the other thread, nice work, TIMBOB.

I like your ideas, welcome to the site. :up:

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah, they are great ideas and a heck of a ton of work put into them. Depending on how they were implemented and put in with an on/off switch and not all forced on everyone (recruiting 25 people already takes me practically an hour from week to week in season, I don't need recruiting to get even longer and longer, especially with the addition of scouting as well), I'd like to see them added, it'd just be a year or two before I'd want EA to consider it, as there are multiple areas in dynasty (coaching carousel and custom conferences being two of the biggest) that very much need changes and additions made to them next development cycle. Recruiting has been worked on and reworked this year, almost exclusively as far as dynasty mode changes are concerned, that's enough for now. Time to focus on other sections of dynasty in NCAA 14.

[TIMB0B]

tim, some great stuff....

however, i dont think recruiting should be that in-depth. i'm a recruiting nut. i mostly follow :USC:'s recruiting on a daily basis, and while the stuff you listed is accurate in practically every way, i think it'd be overwhelming, even for me. i'm guessing that we share the same opinion that the effort you put into recruiting should equal how much success you have in the game with it. but in this case, i think with that much involvement, it'd turn a lot of people off (especially someone new to the series and the casual gamer).

great concept though, at what it should be, based off of real life recruiting.
Yeah, and as I wrote at the beginning of the post, some people think there's already too much involved with recruiting, that's why I'd like to see different modes to select for how in-depth you want recruiting: A) CPU only, B) 5-week postseason, C) In-season + 5-week postseason, or D) In-season + 5-week postseason + off-season. Mode C is the current set-up. The idea behind Mode D is that it's actually embedded within the current off-season tasks we have now, but with additional features. In case you were confused, the junior day and summer camp are just notifications of prospect interest. And you can sim the spring game. Also, the spring practice/training is all simmed as well, but you're given the opportunity to control the development of your players by divvy up the reps each player will get during that simulation. All in all, it's 4 additional "weeks" to recruit on top of the normal off-season.

We know that people are clamoring for the spring game to come back. I could do without the additional recruiting periods, but I really want the spring depth chart idea at the very least, so I can control some aspect of training results.

[TIMB0B]

I think the big thing for me would be the time it would take to implement it. They already spent basically this entire past development cycle on recruiting and scouting, touching nothing else in dynasty. At that rate, it would be NCAA 15 or 16 before EA should even consider something like this. There are a ton of other things in Dynasty mode that need to be worked on, no way in hell should recruiting dominate 95%+ of the dynasty mode changes and upgrades in two consecutive development cycles.That's what I wondered. I don't know the work involved to get something like this done, but I didn't think it was that much added to begin with. Scouting is something they've never done before IIRC, so maybe that's why it took a while.

[TIMB0B]

(recruiting 25 people already takes me practically an hour from week to week in season, I don't need recruiting to get even longer and longer, especially with the addition of scouting as well)

Perhaps the off-season recruiting could be limited to just scouting players, therefore you won't have to do both during the season. It would give you the opportunity to truly target the guys you really want when recruiting begins in the season.

[psusnoop]

Yeah, they are great ideas and a heck of a ton of work put into them. Depending on how they were implemented and put in with an on/off switch and not all forced on everyone (recruiting 25 people already takes me practically an hour from week to week in season, I don't need recruiting to get even longer and longer, especially with the addition of scouting as well), I'd like to see them added, it'd just be a year or two before I'd want EA to consider it, as there are multiple areas in dynasty (coaching carousel and custom conferences being two of the biggest) that very much need changes and additions made to them next development cycle. Recruiting has been worked on and reworked this year, almost exclusively as far as dynasty mode changes are concerned, that's enough for now. Time to focus on other sections of dynasty in NCAA 14.

There are certainly other areas in this series that need attention that is for sure but this recruiting breakdown is an interesting one nonetheless. With some saying it's already to much and others saying they would like more, what TimBob broke down in is certainly interesting and thus far certainly appeals to both sides. The flexibility to appease both sides in the debate is intriguing to me.

[psuexv]

There are certainly other areas in this series that need attention that is for sure but this recruiting breakdown is an interesting one nonetheless. With some saying it's already to much and others saying they would like more, what TimBob broke down in is certainly interesting and thus far certainly appeals to both sides. The flexibility to appease both sides in the debate is intriguing to me.

I guess I'm failing to see how TimBobs breakdown adds too much depth to recruiting. Basically it is just adding 4 calls to the offseason. Where it adds depth is to the existing roster, training, setting depth charts, etc. Which are great ideas and I think would improve those areas greatly.

I do definitely like the idea of having multiple levels/difficulties of recruiting but I don't think they need to be completely different experiences. Instead of having the A,B,C,D plans, you have one plan but utilize the current systems that are in place now with the CPU Assist(just maybe add more depth to that) I think right now the CPU will help add recruits to your board, offer schollies and schedule visits(not completely positive on the list) So for the casual gamer that doesn't want to go through all of the steps of recruiting the basically set their strategy to have the CPU do it for them. The big issue is the CPU sucks at recruiting and doesn't really fill your roster correctly - This should be the starting point.

[psusnoop]

I guess I'm failing to see how TimBobs breakdown adds too much depth to recruiting. Basically it is just adding 4 calls to the offseason. Where it adds depth is to the existing roster, training, setting depth charts, etc. Which are great ideas and I think would improve those areas greatly.

It would add more depth to recruiting then there is currently. Maybe this isn't something that should be set in stone per say but it certainly could be something we as a community could try and build off of to pass on to EA.

TimBob mentioned Junior Day Events and adding prospects in February, scouting I'm sure could be tied into that as well. You also get an early release of a Top 100 watch list in February. Then after NSD you have the quiet period and Spring practices starting. Here you can invite recruits to attend your spring game and offer Scholarships. Then after that in June/July you get the official release of the Top 100 (which should fluctuate a little after summer camps). Even these minor things will add another layer to the experience of recruiting.

[psuexv]

It would add more depth to recruiting then there is currently. Maybe this isn't something that should be set in stone per say but it certainly could be something we as a community could try and build off of to pass on to EA.

TimBob mentioned Junior Day Events and adding prospects in February, scouting I'm sure could be tied into that as well. You also get an early release of a Top 100 watch list in February. Then after NSD you have the quiet period and Spring practices starting. Here you can invite recruits to attend your spring game and offer Scholarships. Then after that in June/July you get the official release of the Top 100 (which should fluctuate a little after summer camps). Even these minor things will add another layer to the experience of recruiting.

I'm not disagreeing that it adds another layer, I was questioning why some were saying that it adds TOO much depth as it's essentially 4 offseason calls.

[psusnoop]

I'm not disagreeing that it adds another layer, I was questioning why some were saying that it adds TOO much depth as it's essentially 4 offseason calls.

Oh ok, I thought you were meaning that the other way. My bad.

Yeah anything to add some depth to recruiting right now would be a plus if done correctly. It must be fluid though and not lag from screen to screen.

[baseballplyrmvp]

one thing i'd like to see, would be in really tight recruiting battles, where the kid is a soft verbal to one school, but has several others listed at -1, the leading school should have to do something special in order to get him to commit. whether this is building a 100 point lead, getting him to visit, finally getting the scholarship offer, or have a monster phone call, idk.....but simply having a 250 point phone call should not be enough to separate that school and get the kid to pull the trigger.

maybe they should tweak it so that patient recruits (ones that dont immediately commit), will only commit once they have both a scholarship offer and campus visit. they could still get to the soft commit stage, but they wont pull the trigger and hard commit without having both the scholly and the visit (maybe even just a scholly offer)?

[TIMB0B]

one thing i'd like to see, would be in really tight recruiting battles, where the kid is a soft verbal to one school, but has several others listed at -1, the leading school should have to do something special in order to get him to commit. whether this is building a 100 point lead, getting him to visit, finally getting the scholarship offer, or have a monster phone call, idk.....but simply having a 250 point phone call should not be enough to separate that school and get the kid to pull the trigger.

maybe they should tweak it so that patient recruits (ones that dont immediately commit), will only commit once they have both a scholarship offer and campus visit. they could still get to the soft commit stage, but they wont pull the trigger and hard commit without having both the scholly and the visit (maybe even just a scholly offer)?
I agree.

I think that these "new" recruits that currently appear in the post-season without any offers (which is unrealistic considering they're 4 and 5-star prospects) should actually be recruits that were once verballed, but have re-opened up their recruiting.

[JeffHCross]

but simply having a 250 point phone call should not be enough to separate that school and get the kid to pull the trigger.Likewise, it's frustrating that (at least on the old recruiting system): 1) If you are #2 and -1 on a player, if you don't have a visit upcoming, you probably won't jump the #1 team (unless you're a superhuman recruiting school like Texas). 2) If you're a smaller school and you're #1 on a player, it feels like there is nothing you can do to stop a Powerhouse #2 from overtaking you.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Likewise, it's frustrating that (at least on the old recruiting system): 1) If you are #2 and -1 on a player, if you don't have a visit upcoming, you probably won't jump the #1 team (unless you're a superhuman recruiting school like Texas). 2) If you're a smaller school and you're #1 on a player, it feels like there is nothing you can do to stop a Powerhouse #2 from overtaking you.

at the very least, a recruit should never commit to a school when there are other schools less than 10 points behind the "leader". the only exception, would be at the end of week 5 recruiting, where he's forced to pick a school.

I'd always like to see more recruiting features implemented. i'd love it to be able to recruit players at a position other than what they're listed (recruit a te for a fullback spot, olb to a mlb, o-line for another o-line spot, etc). that could make recruiting battles for athletes even more fun, as you're calling some recruit to be a receiver, your rival is calling him to be a runningback, and a third guy is calling him to be a safety.....

another recruiting pitch could be "on the field importance." wide receivers considering georgia tech are gonna be told that the receivers are not a feature to their offense. on the flip side, wr's considering SMU are gonna be told that they're gonna have a chance to catch 100 passes next year. this pitch could be user set for each position, but also have a factor in whether or not the kid transfers.

[JeffHCross]

at the very least, a recruit should never commit to a school when there are other schools less than 10 points behind the "leader". the only exception, would be at the end of week 5 recruiting, where he's forced to pick a school. Yep. That's exactly what happened to me though. I was #2 on a QB at -1 (along with practically the entire rest of Division I), and we were behind a CPU school that somehow was ahead of me (I believe it was because they had a later visit). They didn't even have a scholarship offer in, yet he ended up picking them, despite the fact that I was getting huge numbers on calls.

Granted, there are a lot of separate issues in what I just described. But recruiting (on the old system, at least) seemed too scripted. Not scripted like the game was running a specific way and out of your control, but ... you could probably take a recruiting snapshot on Week 5 and generally predict who is going to win all of the recruiting battles for the top guys. That shouldn't be, and that's my main contention there.

[ram29jackson]

I would like a few fast, white cornerbacks to recruit :D

[baseballplyrmvp]

Yep. That's exactly what happened to me though. I was #2 on a QB at -1 (along with practically the entire rest of Division I), and we were behind a CPU school that somehow was ahead of me (I believe it was because they had a later visit). They didn't even have a scholarship offer in, yet he ended up picking them, despite the fact that I was getting huge numbers on calls.

Granted, there are a lot of separate issues in what I just described. But recruiting (on the old system, at least) seemed too scripted. Not scripted like the game was running a specific way and out of your control, but ... you could probably take a recruiting snapshot on Week 5 and generally predict who is going to win all of the recruiting battles for the top guys. That shouldn't be, and that's my main contention there.

end of week 5 meaning end of week 5 of offseason recruiting. i'm sure you knew what i was talking about, but someone else might not have picked up on it.

[TIMB0B]

Just revisiting an old thread. I've been on an NCAA binge lately. I was just thinking about how recruiting has become simplified with the point allocation system, that the off-season (year round) recruiting wish I came up with should be quite feasible now and not overly exhaustive.