Thanks guys. I added kubasnacks suggestion about EEs to this. Also, I think it would be nice to add some comments about strategies that those who played Beta may have picked up on. I'll do that as well, but I would also love to keep getting input from those of you who played the Beta. The object here is to give people a sense that this is a game that is interesting and more strategic, more realistic, and not difficult to learn.

I have added some strategies that I have picked up on during my Beta experience, to help those who were not in Beta get some ideas of how they can effectively scout and recruit in the new system. It will also be of great assistance to those who may have just dabbled in the first season or two of Beta, because much has changed since then.

I will continue to add to the strategies, because I really just scratched the surface, but if anyone would like to add anything to this, I will keep checking and add your comments to the original post.

I think that many of the people who have said they are going to quit the game may not have tried Beta at all, or tried it in the early phases. Because there were so many negative comments, there may be preconceived notions, that I am hoping to dispel by this post.

As I was typing all of this, it made me realize just how cool some of the new features are, and I hope that if you are someone who has decided to quit, without giving this try for a couple of seasons, you will reconsider. If you love the game itself, I think you will be glad that you stayed, once you experience it for a while.

Thank you for this.

Chapel...here's what I had. Feel free to use what you need or if its all old stuff let me know and I can delete the post-don't want to post anything that will contradict what's been posted so far. It's all from the beginning of the Beta:
Recruiting Update Info
Part1 General season schedule:
Season #1
Games 1-26: Scouting for Season 2 players
Games 20-26 Recruiting for Season 2 players
Games 24-26 Signings for Season 2 players

Season #2
Jobs period
Rescinding of scholarships
Scouting & recruiting
Signings
Games 1-26 Scouting for Season 3 players
Games 20-26 Recruiting for Season 3 players
Games 24-26 Signings for Season 3 players

Recruitng Basics
Scouting Overview


The first step in recruiting is scouting for players. This phase begins at the beginning of the season and continues until the end of recruiting. In order to recruit a player, you must first discover him via one of the scouting options:
Assistant Coach Search, Camp, or Scouting Service. The exception is the top 100 ranked players, as they are visible to all schools from the start. You can also do a search by State or mileage like you could in the old version, but you will have to do scouting trips to get any further info.

Each team has a scouting budget for the season, based on division and number of openings for the following season. This budget is used to pay for the various scouting options.
This is separate from your recruiting budget, so you don't necessarily need to save any of it for the recruiting session, although it's probably a good idea to do so.

Recruit Ratings


Each recruit's ratings/preferences are gradually revealed though these scouting actions. There are 4 levels of information:
Level 1 is only 4 ratings: Physical, Offense, Defense, and Work Ethic.
Level 2 is a letter grade (A, B, C, D, F) for each rating.
Level 3 uses the same letter grades, but extends them to +/- to give more accurate information (e.g. A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc.).
Level 4 reveals the actual number for each rating. Also, potential for each rating will be revealed at Levels 3 and 4, with Level 3 giving you just Low, Average, High and Level 4 exposing the Very Low, Low, Average, High, Very High categories.

Each scouting action on a player increases the scouting level on that player by one level. For example, if you first discover a player in a camp, then later purchase the scouting service covering his state, he would be scouted to Level 2.
Alternatively, you could discover a player by way of assistant coach search, then do an individual scouting trip to get to Level 2. So the tools all work in combination to reveal deeper information.

Assistant Coach Search


When performing an Assistant Coach Search, you can select options (position, distance, number of recruits) to focus the trip.
Cost is based on the number of recruits specified to find. If the assistant can't find the number of recruits that you requested, you'll be charged only for the number that were found.

Recruiting Camps


There are two kinds of camps: public and private. There are 5 public camps each season scattered throughout the country, which are scheduled for early in the season.
Each of those camps draws a random pool of players based on geography (players within the area covered by the camp). Any school may choose to attend these public camps.

In addition to the public camps, each school may choose to host their own camp, with the ability to designate how many players to invite.
The pool of players at these camps is also random and based on geography (within X miles of the school's location). Cost is based on number of players in the camp.

Scouting Service


The scouting service allows a school to scout all players within a state and projected division (e.g. Alabama DII).
The cost for each purchase is based on number of players. You'll get information on every player located in the select state/division.

Individual Scouting Trip


Once a player has been discovered by one of the other scouting tools, a coach may begin to do individual scouting trips for a player.
Scouting trips are used to gain a more accurate picture of a player's talent level. The cost of these trips is based on distance, so the further the player is from your school, the higher the cost.

Recruiting Budget


Each school is allocated a recruiting budget based on division and openings for the following season. This budget will be used for home visits and campus visits.
In addition to that budget, each school is assigned a pool of attention points based on the number of openings. These points essentially represent the low level recruiting actions like letters, calls, and texts. These points may be allocated to recruits in any manner, so a coach can put all of his points on one player or spread them out to many players.

Attention Points


Attention points are essentially a tool to replace low-level actions such as phone calls, letters, and texts. These points may be allocated to recruits in any manner, so a coach can put all of his points on one player or spread them out to many players.
The coach may reassign points at any time. So he may take 5 points away from Player A and put them on Player B to start building interest with that player.
Reassigning points doesn't affect any interest that's already accumulated, but will affect interest going forward.
When each recruiting cycle runs (every 3 hours), the team receives recruiting credit for each recruit who has points allocated to him.
The value of attention points depends on several things, including your school's prestige and how well your school fits the player's preferences.

Recruiting Visits


Once you've built up a certain amount of recruiting credit for a recruit, home visits and campus visits become available. The cost of these is based on the distance between the recruit and the school.
These actions have a much higher value than the attention points. A recruit may only visit a particular school's campus one time, and may only go on 5 total campus visits.

Recruiting Promises


Many players want to get on the court right away. Once you've built up a certain amount of recruiting credit for a recruit, you can promise a starting spot or minutes.
These options are free and valuable, but must be honored if the recruit signs, or he will react negatively and possibly transfer.

Informing of Redshirt


When a player redshirts, that means he sits out an entire season and doesn't lose a year of eligibility. However, he still practices and improves during that season.
This is useful for a coach when the player isn't likely to play much right away.

A coach may want to inform the recruit that he will be redshirted. This will generally have negative value, but will ensure that the recruit will accept a redshirt if signed, without losing work ethic.
You can change your mind about this later, but then the recruit will expect to NOT be redshirted.

Recruiting Credit


During the active recruiting periods, every 3 hours, a process will run to process attention points. You'll get recruiting credit for the allocated attention points at that time.
For example, say a coach assigns 10 points to Player A and 20 points to Player B. When each cycle runs, those points are counted toward building interest for the recruit in that school. The more points assigned to a player, the more credit that school gets.
For home visits, campus visits, and promises, you get immediate credit when you perform those actions, so you don't have to wait until the next cycle runs to receive it.
For each recruiting action that generates credit, the amount of credit is modified by the school's prestige as well as how your school matches up with the recruit's preferences.

Scholarships


To be able to officially sign a player, you must offer him a scholarship.
A scholarship may be offered at any time for free, but it's important to know that it may be accepted at any time after the start of the signing period, so a coach should only offer one if he's sure he wants to sign that player.
There is no additional recruiting credit gained from a scholarship offer.

Awesome p6453. I will add everything you have written that is not already in there. Very much appreciated!

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 10:31:00 AM (view original):
Awesome p6453. I will add everything you have written that is not already in there. Very much appreciated!

I was thinking that a combo of both would be a good start...your info is on point and would have been a great start for Coaches. Glad I could post something to help.

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 9:08:00 AM (view original):
I have added some strategies that I have picked up on during my Beta experience, to help those who were not in Beta get some ideas of how they can effectively scout and recruit in the new system. It will also be of great assistance to those who may have just dabbled in the first season or two of Beta, because much has changed since then.

I will continue to add to the strategies, because I really just scratched the surface, but if anyone would like to add anything to this, I will keep checking and add your comments to the original post.

I think that many of the people who have said they are going to quit the game may not have tried Beta at all, or tried it in the early phases. Because there were so many negative comments, there may be preconceived notions, that I am hoping to dispel by this post.

As I was typing all of this, it made me realize just how cool some of the new features are, and I hope that if you are someone who has decided to quit, without giving this try for a couple of seasons, you will reconsider. If you love the game itself, I think you will be glad that you stayed, once you experience it for a while.

chapel, thanks for doing this thread! i've only skimmed and need to go back, but it looks like a fantastic resource for folks.

i am curious though, what are the 2-3 coolest features in your opinion?

I have updated this thread again. Gotta get to work on my "real" job now - LOL. I would also like to go into some detail about some of the screens that you see, but it may be difficult to comprehend until it is released and people can see what is being referenced.

If anyone has any data to add to the original post, I will keep checking back occasionally and update the thread.

Also, if anyone who was active in Beta would like to volunteer as a mentor, I would like to start a Mentor List on this thread too.

chapel, this is tremendous. I've been loudly anti-3.0, but this is an incredibly valuable resource for the community. thank you.

One of the fundamental background changes is this: Remember how you approached battles in the current HD? You check on the considering list...click on the team battling...count how many open scholarships it has...click on the recruiting tab...count how many players are considering...check whether there are any battles...figure out how the conference fared in the NT to figure out bonus cash...try to figure out whether there was rollover...all that...gone.

After the update...that information is hidden. You might be able to brute force your way through the TOP 100 recruits and see whether an opponent is in battles, but, as far as I can tell at this point, you won't know how much it cost the school to get to "very high" or "high" or whatever. You should be able to figure out # of open scholarships, but that might actually change with EE or rescissions entering cycle 2.

One item addressed is that recruits may be considering 10 schools, but if one is out front by enough, only that one will be identified. Still, "multiple" may mean 2 or 3 D3 schools are being considered by a "D1" recruit. Hard to know how that will play after release.

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/11/2016 11:27:00 AM (view original):

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 9:08:00 AM (view original):
I have added some strategies that I have picked up on during my Beta experience, to help those who were not in Beta get some ideas of how they can effectively scout and recruit in the new system. It will also be of great assistance to those who may have just dabbled in the first season or two of Beta, because much has changed since then.

I will continue to add to the strategies, because I really just scratched the surface, but if anyone would like to add anything to this, I will keep checking and add your comments to the original post.

I think that many of the people who have said they are going to quit the game may not have tried Beta at all, or tried it in the early phases. Because there were so many negative comments, there may be preconceived notions, that I am hoping to dispel by this post.

As I was typing all of this, it made me realize just how cool some of the new features are, and I hope that if you are someone who has decided to quit, without giving this try for a couple of seasons, you will reconsider. If you love the game itself, I think you will be glad that you stayed, once you experience it for a while.

chapel, thanks for doing this thread! i've only skimmed and need to go back, but it looks like a fantastic resource for folks.

i am curious though, what are the 2-3 coolest features in your opinion?

Sorry gil - missed this one.

For one, I like the camps and the different ways to scout players.

I love the added time that I have to scout, so I don't have to do it in 36 hours. I now have 11 days.

One thing I like maybe most, is that poaching is not possible in this game. You can still move in late on a recruit, but gone are the days where I would have a guy consider me from 8 PM on the first day until 5 PM on signing day, only to have an A+ team come in with 200 home visits in the last cycle. Here, you can tell ahead of time that you will have competition.

I also like that almost every recruit has multiple teams after them. Coaches are not afraid to compete for recruits.

I like that if you have 3 openings, you still have just about as good a shot at a recruit as if you have 6 openings.

I love the fact that you can scout internationals without having sent your scout to Russia to look at a PG and have him come back 10 times telling you the guy sucks at rebounding but never mentioning ball handling. I like the fact that if you recruit at 201 miles, it's not 25% more expensive than if it is 199 miles.

I like Attention points a lot - if you screw up, you can still find good players with just AP.

There are still some tweaks I'd like to see, but I really do like the update a lot.

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 2:34:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/11/2016 11:27:00 AM (view original):

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 9:08:00 AM (view original):
I have added some strategies that I have picked up on during my Beta experience, to help those who were not in Beta get some ideas of how they can effectively scout and recruit in the new system. It will also be of great assistance to those who may have just dabbled in the first season or two of Beta, because much has changed since then.

I will continue to add to the strategies, because I really just scratched the surface, but if anyone would like to add anything to this, I will keep checking and add your comments to the original post.

I think that many of the people who have said they are going to quit the game may not have tried Beta at all, or tried it in the early phases. Because there were so many negative comments, there may be preconceived notions, that I am hoping to dispel by this post.

As I was typing all of this, it made me realize just how cool some of the new features are, and I hope that if you are someone who has decided to quit, without giving this try for a couple of seasons, you will reconsider. If you love the game itself, I think you will be glad that you stayed, once you experience it for a while.

chapel, thanks for doing this thread! i've only skimmed and need to go back, but it looks like a fantastic resource for folks.

i am curious though, what are the 2-3 coolest features in your opinion?

Sorry gil - missed this one.

For one, I like the camps and the different ways to scout players.

I love the added time that I have to scout, so I don't have to do it in 36 hours. I now have 11 days.

One thing I like maybe most, is that poaching is not possible in this game. You can still move in late on a recruit, but gone are the days where I would have a guy consider me from 8 PM on the first day until 5 PM on signing day, only to have an A+ team come in with 200 home visits in the last cycle. Here, you can tell ahead of time that you will have competition.

I also like that almost every recruit has multiple teams after them. Coaches are not afraid to compete for recruits.

I like that if you have 3 openings, you still have just about as good a shot at a recruit as if you have 6 openings.

I love the fact that you can scout internationals without having sent your scout to Russia to look at a PG and have him come back 10 times telling you the guy sucks at rebounding but never mentioning ball handling. I like the fact that if you recruit at 201 miles, it's not 25% more expensive than if it is 199 miles.

I like Attention points a lot - if you screw up, you can still find good players with just AP.

There are still some tweaks I'd like to see, but I really do like the update a lot.

LOL "poaching."

IRL if I'm coaching Dartmouth and I'm recruiting a kid, and late in recruiting an A+ program offers the kid, we all know what can should and does happen.

And then, on the other hand, there's Spudball...

Yeah, but does a school visit the kid 200 times in one day. It's still possible to come into the picture "near" the end and win the player, but it takes a few cycles. Rogelio - thanks for the input. I added a section for recruiting battles, and put what you said in there. I tweaked it a little bit.

Yeh screw poachers they are no talent scum, definitely the biggest problem as well as cheating superclass coaches. I enjoy having so many elite level talent recruits available, and not all recruits live up to hype just like the #55 ranked PF with 15 defense so I like that part too

Posted by chapelhillne on 8/11/2016 2:44:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, but does a school visit the kid 200 times in one day. It's still possible to come into the picture "near" the end and win the player, but it takes a few cycles. Rogelio - thanks for the input. I added a section for recruiting battles, and put what you said in there. I tweaked it a little bit.

Recruiting tools have always been proxies for the vast array of options available to coaches in real life. A+ programs have massive resources that can have immediate impact.

New recruiting is designed to punish successful programs and take away options. Fun.