1. The most significant distortion of college basket to HD is that there is a significant advantage for teams that run a Full Court Press (“FCP”): there simply are not enough defensive break downs.  Without doubt, to more closely mirror reality, the combination defenses (press/M2M & press/zone) should be run as the norm, and not FCP.  FCP teams should get fatigued much more quickly than they do at present as they are giving up control of the game tempo as a tradeoff for generating more turnovers.  Suggestion: FCP teams (whatever offense) should not be able to run slowdown.  Moreover, Fastbreak  & FCP teams should not even be allowed to run at normal tempo, but should always be compelled to run at up-tempo.  For teams that select FCP for the end of game situations, the end of game offense “time remaining” duration should be compelled to be identical to the defense “time remaining”, so that the tempo should be similarly limited.   
2. Player Roles Scouting Trip – This would be an additional recruiting function that would adjust the likelihood of your assistant coaches responses according to your own defined player roles.  Assume that you have defined a player role “PG” to be heavily biased towards SPD, DEF, PER, BH & PASS, then you select the “Player Roles Scouting Trip” and the likelihood that your assistant coach responds with potentials in those categories is substantially increased over ATH, REB, SB, LP, STAM.  It would have to be priced at, say, 150 - 200% of a regular scouting trip, have no increased “recruiting effort” credit over a regular trip, and would need to have a maximum likelihood of a particular category response appearing among the 4 and a minimum likelihood (to prevent coaches from putting 100% into one category of the player role to guarantee that response).
3. During the initial, 2 hour, recruiting cycle, home visits (“HV”) and campus visits (“CV”) should be prohibited.
4. W-L records against human coaches, currently available under the “Next Game” tab, should always be available under the “Stats” tab on a world-by-world basis, of course.
5. Players with initial “capped” or “low-low” stamina when recruited, often lose stamina points during the offseason, but are unable to recover to the level at which they were originally recruited.  This should be patched to prevent players that reach their maximum stamina from losing conditioning during the offseason or to make them more likely to recover to their initial rating.
6. The very first “coach call” for any recruit should provide the H.S. or JuCo team’s offense & defense, but without opinion as to the target recruit’s system IQ until the second and subsequent calls.  

You've obviously put a lot of thought into your ideas and I'm intrigued by them.

#1, Making a major change to the engine, as in #1, may be problematic. I'm not sure how long you've been playing the game but, a few years ago, FCP was VERY dominant at DII and DIII. An engine change made the defenses more balanced and I think it's about right.  I've won championships with man2man which wasn't possible before the change.

#2. You suggest prohibiting HV and CV during the first 2-hour cycle.   I sometimes make a HV early, in order to get considered by a recruit.  I check the results at 8 p.m. EST before going to bed at 10:00 p.m.   I don't want to stay up until 11:00 p.m. to find out if I'm being considered or not. 

 
 

• FB / FCP in combo = always uptempo (eliminating normal as well);
• FCP with motion/flex/triangle = either normal or uptempo, but not slowdown; and
• The halfcourt press & m2m and halfcourt press & zone "combo" defenses would be unaffected (as would m2m & zone).

Posted by fd343ny on 8/5/2012 9:00:00 AM (view original):
even easier - allow action to be entered during the 6 or 12 hours prior to the initial 2 hour cycle - the single worst feature of HD is the narrow window for the first "move"

Posted by alblack56 on 8/5/2012 8:27:00 AM (view original):
It seems, that every time the game is made more complicated, (the addition of potential, for example), we lose more seasoned coaches and attract fewer newer ones.  Or, worse, the new coaches leave after only one season. I think the complicated nuances of the game are the biggest barrier to it's growth.   As one who's mentored several new caoches, I can attest to that fact. It's darn near impossible to explain recruiting,  game planning, potential, etc. in a sitemail.  Your idea of 'Player Role Scouting Trip', while interesting,  adds another layer of complication .

Posted by rednu on 8/5/2012 1:32:00 PM (view original):
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why you're linking defensive style with offensive tempo in #1. Fastbreak can't run slowdown because, in essence, that would create a contradiction with the offensive style. 

With defense though, there's no such contradiction. There's no reason as a coach I can't tell my team to raise cain on defense with a press but, in the cases where we don't get a turnover and force a score in transition, to work the shot clock deep. The fact a team runs a press in no way disavows that they couldn't execute a patient and deliberate style of offense should they choose. 

It seems to me the issue you're trying to address is that you don't feel players are getting fatigued enough in the present engine when running the press. If that's the case, wouldn't the solution then be to tweak the rate of fatigue settings within the engine to accelerate the process?

As for the HV/CV idea, I like the pre-programming idea for first-cycle actions. For instance, Iba just rolled overnight...there's no reason I couldn't be spending today inputting first-cycle actions rather than having to carve time out of my Monday afternoon at work or a mad dash through the door and onto the computer after I get home to do it. The money's there, the rosters have updated...it's a day and a half of thumb twiddling. While the two hour window is hard for some to hit (myself included some seasons) I can't imagine anyone playing this game who couldn't find time in a 36-hour window to pre-program their actions in all but the most extreme cases. 

One sort of "think aloud" question here though (asked as much to make sure I'm not misunderstanding the way this game works) -- since consideration credit doesn't start tallying for 24 hours, is there really a need to ban HV/CV actions on that first cycle? I can't speak to the D1 element of the game, so maybe life is different up there from the D2/D3 life I know, but I don't see how my opponent dumping 10 HV's on a recruit in the first two hours prevents or limits my ability to do the same thing with equal effect in the second cycle. Assuming all other things are even, if Team A dumps 10 HV's on a recruit in the mini-cycle and Team B dumps those visits in the first full 3-hour cycle, they've accomplished the same recruiting effort, right? Or is there some nuance that I'm failing to consider here? 

Posted by rednu on 8/5/2012 3:10:00 PM (view original):
But isn't that more a perceptual/psychological advantage than a real game mechanics advantage? If I'm first on the recruit,  I get the bragging rights of 'woohoo! I'm first!' but nothing tangible from the game itself until the first 24 hours pass and I'm still the only team being considered, right? It's not originating from the game, but from fellow coaches who opt not to play chicken with me to see who wants Player X more. 

Also, isn't the "advantage" of pouncing on a kid first cycle offset by advantages received by the slower-acting coaches? After all, if I do nothing the first cycle or two, I now get to see how things have shaped up. I save money by not even making initial contact with recruits that were jumped on early by teams I can't realistically win battles against. I can eyeball states that other nearby schools may not have FSS'd and can target them. If Team A is on a recruit I want and I don't feel there to be a suitable comparable player to go after, I'm able to analyze Team A's consideration list, see how many states may have been FSS'd based on where the players considering him early are, how many other battles that coach might be in and make a more informed decision about trying for that player? The fast-acting coach gets a psychological advantage only if I choose to give it to him, whereas by acting fast, he's provided me with a very tangible benefit of information from which I can make more informed and strategic decisions. 

I guess what I'm failing to see is how things really change if HV's and CV's are abolished for first cycle. In essence, you're just pushing back the race to see who can get on a kid from the first cycle to the second cycle. The same psychological advantage of getting your name listed first on the recruit's consideration list will continue to exist because it is the people playing the game, not the game itself, that's creating that edge. 

Posted by fd343ny on 8/5/2012 9:00:00 AM (view original):
even easier - allow action to be entered during the 6 or 12 hours prior to the initial 2 hour cycle - the single worst feature of HD is the narrow window for the first "move"