Posted by jfootball88 on 4/22/2014 4:44:00 PM (view original):
D-3 may not be full but it's far from being ALL NEWBIES, they're  at least a dozen of very good coaches that you have to play in the playoffs that are Elite coaches.

I've only been at Norwich (no affiliation) for 94 seasons - just getting used to the surroundings.

Why would they do this?

Posted by chalvorson on 4/22/2014 7:34:00 PM (view original):
I will change all my players to either a Kicker or Punter before i leave in protest.

You can't they have a limited number of player moves to prevent this because someone did it 6 years ago.

On a serious note, though. While I feel for the guys with ties to the schools, the rest of this is silly to argue about. Just come to DII and everyone play together there with your veteran friends.

Posted by dublinuf on 4/23/2014 8:51:00 AM (view original):
On a serious note, though. While I feel for the guys with ties to the schools, the rest of this is silly to argue about. Just come to DII and everyone play together there with your veteran friends.

^This

Once veteran coaches are established at DII some of these new coaches at DIII will finally be able to win games, stay with it, make WIS money, then move up. When they now start playing established teams and aren't successful against experienced human coached teams they will likely quit causing a similar problem. Will WIS then force experienced coaches to move up again. And I sill haven't heard how they will be "leveling the playing field" by keeping the same engine. If talent trumps all at DIII and established coaches stay in DIII these new coaches will still lose and sill quit. People who are unwilling to learn the game, take a few losses, improve, and stick with it will not suddenly change their personality because WIS hands them a few wins. They are going to have to change the results at DIII or keep dumbing it down in a new GD 3.2 until they get what they want. This is a game with winners and losers if they want everyone to be happy just make every game end in a tie and we'll all share a National Championship every season.

Even if they force most of the good DIII coaches to move up, SIM AI teams will pound the newbs.  Reading the forums, SIM AI teams are currently beating established veterans.  Newbs will still get frustrated and quit, regardless of the interface change.  I have to imagine it's MORE frustrating to lose to a SIM than to a dominant human coach.  The game has lung cancer and WIS is treating it with a cough drop, because the cough is the noisiest symptom.

That said, who knows?  Maybe it rolls out with a ton of engine fixes.  Nothing in the recent history of the game would indicate that will happen, but it's possible.

By leveling playing field we are simply implying that by giving coaches a better feel for how to control their team, they no longer have to worry about their opponent finding some advantage that is only able to be found with advanced knowledge of the system. The engine is the same for all levels. 

If that's the case I may be one who appreciates the changes and will remain at DIII. I don't game plan a great deal now due to time constraints and often can't even look at WIS for two or three days at a time. I still find it hard to believe that simply changing the interface and making it easier to set up a team will keep new players in the game. I think they quit because they don't win the first season and bail out. If this just means they need to understand less to lose I doubt the result will be retention of new payers. Although, as my wife points out, I'm only right about 10% of the time and she admits to this only when she's in a good mood so ......

I won't move up to DII so we'll see what the new interface and changes bring next season. Hope it stays fun and challenging. If so I'll keep playing. If not I'll find other things to do like I did when 2.0 came out. Several of the friends who play in my conference will likely do the same. 

Cutting against the grain here, but I don't understand the general freak-out over this update.  (and no, I do not work for WIS)  I get why long time DIII coaches are upset.  But, everything else sounds either possibly good or not a big deal.  The change to the interface shouldn't take too long to figure out, and it doesn't sound like there will be any loss of control other than at DIII.  Also, fatigue is being fixed, which is almost guaranteed to be an improvement.    Again, I understand why some DIII coaches are complaining, but I also get the need for one division to be more for beginning players.

Now, an easy way to make this update more popular would be for Oriole to announce that in addition to  the other changes,  Sim AI coached teams will be weakened in gameplay and so less likely to defeat  vastly superior human coached teams than they have been over the last few months...

the freak out is only by DIII lifers..so if you understand that you understand it.

Posted by noah23 on 4/23/2014 12:29:00 PM (view original):
the freak out is only by DIII lifers..so if you understand that you understand it.

Sorry, but you are wrong noah.
I have played both D3 and D2 for about 10 seasons. I was staying at D3 in the one world because it was close to the town I grew up in and I now live far away.
Seeing the names of high schools that I played against and now and then seeing a player from my high school pop up was a very cool aspect to the game that I enjoyed and wanted to keep enjoying.
The freak out for me was the people that run GD have needed a few simple tweaks to the game for the entire time I have played it and they ignored
these in favor of massive changes that did not need to be made. The simple fact that the people that run GD totally ignore a large portion of their
consumer base is why I am leaving this game. Pathetic communications. Amazingly mind-numbing ignorant answers to questions sent in. On and on.
The reason they are giving is that new customers cannot compete in D3 is a joke. You are a good example--you have an outstanding winning percentage and you have only played 12 seasons. Congrats. I am another example. I started at my current D3 team 9 seasons ago mid way through my first ever season at GD. I took over a team that had the 62nd rated roster by GUESS reports. That team had its last 3 seasons' recruiting classes rated over 200 out of 228 total teams. It had a very good QB and not much else. 5 seasons later I won a NC and also won 2 out of the next 3 NC's. It is not as hard as oriole is making it out to be by the drastic change. After the first few seasons--I reached out and tried to help EVERY new coach that came into the conference I was in. Some listened and thrived--most didn't
And now because a lot of these self-entitled lazy brats didn't go out and win 10 games their very first season playing against veteran coaches--they whined and oriole listened. Kind of a microcosm of today's society where everybody gets a trophy. I won't ever spend money on a company that is run so poorly. That is my decision. If you want to keep playing--go for it--good for you--have fun---I am not going to make judgement on your decision. Please don't pass judgement on mine.

The only issue I have, without seeing the update, is that we've had numerous known flaws with the engine and two months of radio silence.  When the silence is broken, it's with a half-page post about dumbing down the interface, with a single line blurb about addressing bugs in the engine.  Other than adding fatigue (and we don't know how it's being added), we don't have any idea what, if anything, is being addressed.

I have to agree with Tooslim. Especially his last paragraph. People unwilling to put in the time to get better won't put in the time regardless of how simple the interface is.