If any Beta players want to add to this, I will add your comments in the original post. I will also continue to update this if any changes occur.
Benis and I are working on getting the HD 3.0 guide into an online magazine format. The Scouting Section is pretty much complete.
Here is a link to it.
Once you are on it, you can click on a page to zoom in.
Also, Varnball has created a Hoops Dynasty 3.0 Facebook Fan page, to hopefully assist in marketing the new product. Here's a link to it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/603153453192780/
HD 3.0 GUIDE
This will help existing players learn what to expect and to develop new strategies. I coached Dartmouth during the Beta for all 4 years, and was able to use 2 other IDs to coach a D3 and D2 team during the final Beta season. I spent a ton of time trying to learn the best strategies to recruit a good team. I will try to monitor this post, so if you have any specific questions, please post them and I or another coach will try to answer them. I will also add answers to this guide, so that it will be complete, and hopefully very helpful.
Also, here is the HD page about the changes:
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/help/howto30.aspx
In addition to the changes in the mechanisms for scouting and recruiting, which are pretty easy to understand, there are also a lot of "visual" changes like easier to read game action and easier to find things like world schedule. The game is more mobile friendly now as well.
The playing field is more level at Division 1. Winning players is no longer pretty much a function of who has the most money to spend. There is a lot more strategy involved.
TRANSITION SCHEDULE FROM CURRENT HD TO HD 3.0
As each world reaches the conclusion of its recruiting period, it will transition to the new version of the game within 48 hours and the season will continue. The first world to experience the upgrade will be the Wooden world. All worlds from here on out are now going through this process as they turn over. Remember when recruiting that after recruiting ends, you will not have any carry-over money, even if you fill all of your scholarships.
The following is a great explanation, courtesy of Benis:
So it looks like a few folks are still confused on how this changeover is going to work. I saw rogelio posted the schedule but I think I might know why people who weren't in Beta aren't understanding. I'll do my best..
Whatever world you are in will continue as planned. You will finish your postseason and do jobs as normal. You will then do your recruiting in 2.0 style just like today. (The following two sentences added by chapelhillne): Remember, that if you have any money left over in this final "regular" recruiting, you will not be able to carry this over into the new game. Also, conference bonus cash for post season performance is no longer a part of the game, so if part of your strategy has always been to not go after recruits that other conference mates are recruiting because of this, this incentive no longer exists.
THEN it will pause for ~48 hours. When it resumes you will be ready to do exhibitions but the it will look totally different and will be the new interface. Now you are in 3.0 HD. Refer to link to image
http://imgur.com/1qqUTpk
You will see you now have a separate scouting budget and a recruiting budget. This is based upon the number of seniors and walk ons you have at this point in time. You will now be starting your exhibitions and can now SCOUT.
http://imgur.com/CZ5b3Oc
You can also view the handy new World Schedule and will tell you when recruiting session 1 starts and ends. As well as when recruiting session 2 starts and ends.
http://imgur.com/vESpz6q
And that's it! You are now in 3.0 and you are scouting and recruiting in the new system!
TLDR:
1. Finish postseason and do jobs in current world.
2. Recruit in 2.0 style
3. Pause for 48 hours
4. Change over to 3.0
5. Do exhibitions and SCOUT in 3.0
6. Non Conf Starts
7. Conf starts and RECRUITING session 1 starts.
8. etc
SPECIAL SITUATION - RECRUITING INELIGIBLES IN THE TRANSITION YEAR: DI coaches should know when recruiting in the last HD Classic season that ineligible effort wont carryforward if they dont enroll. The cost benefit of ineligibles becomes a bit worse with that info.
MENTORS:
Here is a thread which lists coaches who went through Beta are willing to mentor you in HD 3.0
BUDGETS:
Note: Maximum of 6 PLAYER CLASS SIZE still in place.
Note: There is no longer bonus cash for post season wins by your conference.
Note: There is no carry-over for unused recruiting dollars from one year to the next.
Note: You do get scouting and recruiting dollars for any walk ons that are on your team
Note: If you release a player that you did not recruit, you get full scouting and recruiting dollars immediately.
SCOUTING BUDGET:
Division 1:
35K base + 4K per opening
Division 2:
25K base + 3K per opening
Division 3:
15K base + 2K per opening
ATTENTION POINTS BUDGET:
20 Base + 20 per opening across all divisions
RECRUITING BUDGET:
Division 1:
5K base + 3K per opening
Division 2:
3K base + 2K per opening
Division 3:
1K base + 1K per opening
You will *
NOT* get any resources if you cut a player
you recruited (if SIM recruited or by another coach you will receive resources). You only get those resources at the start of the 2nd recruit period however since that is when you can cut players.
SCOUTING:
Scouting takes place early in the season and continues all the way through both recruiting periods. This phase begins at the beginning of the season and continues until the end of recruiting.This is a big improvement over the 36 hours you have now if you had no carry over and had to wait until the budget was given to begin scouting.
You also get instant results in scouting. In other words, if you do a scouting trip, you get the player to the next level at that moment, so you do not need to wait for cycles to occur, as in the present game. The only exception is for camps. For private camps, it usually happens the next cycle. Public Camps are scheduled for a particular date, so you just have to sign up for it, and the results will be known on that date.
Scouting and recruiting budgets are separate. You can spend your entire scouting budget without having any impact on how much you have to recruit with. It is probably a good idea to save some scouting money for the recruiting session, so you can find more backup options or discover new players if you want to extend your options once recruiting starts.
Scouting trips do not have any effect on recruiting.
The scouting budget is based on division and number of openings for the following season. This budget is used to pay for the various scouting options.
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 (overall - not the top 100 at each position), as they are visible to all schools from the start. The top 100 players are automatically scouted to Level 1 (they are discovered).
To get a list of more players, you must discover players in an number of ways through scouting. There are 4 levels of scouting. Once you have scouted a player, you already know what their offense and defense are.
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 public camp, then later purchase the scouting service covering his state, he would be scouted to Level 2. If you discover him in a private camp, he already will be at level 2, so the scouting service would put him at level 3. 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.
SCOUTING COSTS:
Base price for 0 miles : $100 + 25¢ Per Mile.
Maximum - $700
SCOUTING TECHNIQUES INCLUDE:
SCOUTING SERVICE: Similar to FSS, but you can only scout one division at a time. If you are at D3, you may also want to scout D2 and D1. You can also scout international players, at the cost of a normal state. Scouting service costs $15 per player scouted in that state. So, if a state has 10 people, the cost is $150. There is no longer a $200 minimum per state, or discounts for multiple states. There is a separate screen for each division level for FSS. If you are at D3 and want to see D2 recruits, you will need to switch to the D2 screen. Otherwise you will only be scouting for D3 players. The number of players per state listed, is the number of players at that level, that are in that state.
CAMPS: You can host your own camp and invite players within a certain radius of you, and choose the number of players you want 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. It ends up working out to $60 per person. There are also 10 public camps each season scattered throughout the country, which are scheduled for early in the season. There are 2 camps per region of the country - Standard and Elite. Standard camps include a mix of D2 and D3 recruits, while Elite camps are D1 and D2. Camps enable you to discover more players, or advance the players that come by one or two levels. Each camp 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. The cost for the public camps is $25 per player that attends. Public camps are in Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas, Kansas and Ohio. Public camps advance the player by one level. A private camp gives you two levels of information.
List of which states attend different camps:
AK - Las Vegas
AL - Atlanta
AR - Atlanta
AZ - Las Vegas
CA - Las Vegas
CO - Jayhawk
CT - New York
DC - Buckeye
DE - New York
FL - Atlanta
GA - Atlanta
HI - Las Vegas
IA - Jayhawk
ID - Las Vegas
IL - Buckeye
IN - Buckeye
KS - Jayhawk
KY - Buckeye
LA - Atlanta
MA - New York
MD - New York
ME - New York
MI - Buckeye
MN - Jayhawk
MO - Jayhawk
MS - Atlanta
MT - Las Vegas
NC - Atlanta
ND - Jayhawk
NE - Jayhawk
NH - New York
NJ - New York
NM - Jayhawk
NV - Las Vegas
NY - New York
OH - Buckeye
OK - Jayhawk
OR - Las Vegas
PA - New York
RI - New York
SC - Atlanta
SD - Jayhawk
TN - Atlanta
TX - Jayhawk
UT - Las Vegas
VA - Buckeye
VT - New York
WA - Las Vegas
WI - Buckeye
WV - Buckeye
WY - Las Vegas
ASSISTANT SEARCH: You can choose your assistant out to scout up to 25 players. You can ask that he either discover new players or further scout players you have already discovered. You can't choose which players he further scouts though. You can also select the division you want him to search and the position, if you want. You can select the maximum distance and the number of players you want him to scout, up to 25. The cost is $60 per player, and you choose increments of 5. If the assistant can't find the number of recruits that you requested, you'll be charged only for the number that were found.
INDIVIDUAL SCOUTING TRIPS: 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. This is just like the old game. Scout a player and he advances to the next level so you will gain a more accurate picture of a player's talent and potential. The cost of these trips is based on distance, so the further the player is from your school, the higher the cost. the costs to recruit by distance:
Base price for 0 miles : $100
For every additional 100 miles: $25
Max of $700 for scouting
FAST WAY TO SCOUT ALL PROSPECTS TO LEVEL 4 IF YOU WANT TO FOCUS ON A RELATIVELY SMALL AREA - ABOUT 5 MINUTES
1. FSS the states within your immediate area
2. Hold a private camp, inviting the maximum number possible
3. Sending out the assistant scout to recruit people up to the next level. You can do 25 at a time. You may have send the assistant 2-3 times.
Using this method, you actually have more information than in the current game because you know the high highs and low lows.
Alternately, If you were not in a hurry, you could go to a public camp in your region before step 3 and wait for the camp to run. At that point, there would be many players already at level 4, so you could save some money on the assistant coach, and you would have discovered some new players that were outside of the area that you FSSd.
SCOUTING LEVELS / RECRUIT RATINGS
Each recruit's ratings/preferences are gradually revealed though these scouting actions. There are 4 levels of information:
Level 1: Very basic information. It gives combined letter grades for Physical (A, Spd, St, DU), Offense (LP, PE, BH, P), Defense (Reb, Def, Blk), WE, and FT. It does let you know the letter grade for WE and FT, so you can see which players have extremely low or high WE. It also gives an overall letter grade for the player.
Level 2: Gives a letter grade for each individual attribute.
Level 3: Gives a letter grade for each individual attribute, and color codes the grades, but only in black, yellow or blue. Yellow may really be red at level 4, and blue may really be green at level 4. It also extends grades to +/- to give more accurate information (e.g. A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc.).
Level 4: This provides complete information with actual numbers instead of letter grades. It is even better than current HD because it has 5 colors.
POTENTIAL INCREASES:
Green is High High (28+ Points)
Blue is High (20-27 Points)
Black is normal (8-19 points)
Yellow is High-Low (4-7 points)
Red is Low Low. (0-3 points)
NUMERICAL EQUIVALENTS OF LETTER GRADES:
A+ = 85+
A = 80-84
A- = 74-79
B+ = 69-73
B = 64-68
B- = 58-63
C+ = 53-57
C = 48-52
C- = 42-47
D+ = 37-41
D = 32-36
D- = 26-31
F+ = 21-25
F = 16-20
F- = 0-15
ORGANIZING YOUR PLAYERS AFTER DISCOVERING THEM
Once you have done a bit of scouting, you will have a pretty large number of players in your recruit pool. The idea is to organize them so that you can easily find the players you are most interested in. You can do this by color coding them, similar to the Green (high), Yellow(medium) and Red (low) system on the recruiting page in the current game. You can either do this on the recruit pool page, or on the player profile card. You do not need to "save" after each time you do it. There are 4 colors available plus the ability to leave it unmarked. My personal system is to make my prime targets Blue, my secondary targets green, my desperation targets yellow (have not had to go to any of these yet), and my "do not recruit" players red. I leave them unmarked until I get them to the level where I can make a decision about them.
On the recruit pool page, you can filter your players by the colors, so I generally filter so I can only see my blue guys. On that page, you are also able to sort and filter in many ways, including by preference. So, you can filter by players that might prefer your offense or defense, close to home, long time coach, etc. You can also filter by signing preference, so that you can see which players may be more important to go after early. Or, you could try to build up a ton of credit on a late signing prospect.
You can also select all of your blue guys, and do an advanced search which has all of them listed on one page and shows all of their preferences, with matching preferences to you listed in green. This is an easy way to find players that match up well, which is very important in recruiting.
Early on I try to eliminate those with a very low work ethic. Anyone if the F range is going to be between 0-25, and you know this info at Level 1, so if you do not want any players under 25 WE, you can go ahead and make them red, if you use my coding system. When you get to level 3 you can narrow your list down pretty well by using the Numerical Equivalents for the letter grades, since you will know they are within a range of about 5 numbers at that point.
PREFERENCES:
Each player has preferences that he likes, so one good strategy is to find good players that match up well with your school. It will multiply your recruiting actions. Players do not have preferences for all of the categories
Preferences are the following:
Wants to Play: (Minutes and a start will put this into effect if this is a preference)
Distance: (Near Home or Far from home). Can be Very Good, Good, Neutral, bad or Vary Bad.. Mileage cutoffs are <200, 200-399, 400-599, 600-799, 800<
Success: (Wants Succes - Wants Rebuild) Based on last 4 seasons
Play Style: (Strong defense, Paint Offense, Perimeter Offense) Strong Defense based on points allowed per possession.
Offense: (If it matches your offense, Very Good, otherwise Neutral)
Defense: (If it matches your defense, Very Good, otherwise Neutral).
Conference Strength: (Strong Conference) Conf strength is based on the average prestige of your conference's teams
Coach Longvity: (Wants Long Time Coach) - 4 is the break even point. 5 would give you a small boost, but still slots into the Neutral category. 6 seasons pushes you into the good range.
Signing Preference: (see below)
Before the season begins, the player will be neutral to you on offense, defense and play style, even if they match up. That's because the preference is based on what offense and defense and play style you play during the season.
SIGNING PREFERENCES:
Players are programmed to want to sign at different times - not everyone signs right away. In fact, probably only 5% of the players sign on the first cycle after signings start, with more signing each cycle.
Whenever: Will now have about 50% chance of signing at some point in period 1 and 50% chance in period 2.
As Soon as Possible: They will definitely sign by the end of period 1, unless no team is high or very high.
By the end of period 1: Almost all will sign by the end of period 1, with odds increasing each cycle.
Late: None will sign in period 1, but almost all will sign by the end of period 2, with odds increasing each cycle.
Anyone who hasn't signed already will sign on the very final cycle, regardless of tendency.
In cases where a team is chasing a recruit from a higher division, interest level is limited to Moderate until the start of the second recruiting period in cases where it's a one-division difference, or until the final 24 hours of recruiting if it's a D3 team and a D1 recruit. This means they will not sign until that point, because you have to have them at High or Very High interest to sign. On the final recruiting cycle, if a recruit has no valid offers from teams at High or Very High, he will accept an offer from a team at a lower interest level. So he would first look for a team at Moderate, then if there were none there, he would move on to Low, then to Very Low.
RECRUITING:
RECRUITING COSTS: ONLY HVS AND CVS HAVE A COST. ATTENTION POINTS, PROMISES, AND SCHOLARSHIP OFFERS ARE FREE.
Home Visit = $200 + 30¢ Per Mile, Maximum = $1,000
Campus Visit = $400 + 50¢ Per Mile, Maximum = $1,700
RECRUITING CREDIT:
During the active recruiting periods, every 6 hours, a process will run to process recruiting actions (attention points, home visits, campus visits, guaranteed starts and playing time promises). You'll get recruiting credit at that time.
For example, say a coach assigns 10 attention 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. The credit stays on that player, even if attention points are then shifted to another player in the following cycle.
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.
UNLOCKING RECRUITING ACTIONS:
Attention 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. I believe they are significantly more powerful than calls and letters were in the old game.
In the first cycle, the only thing you can do is use attention points. This is because all actions, including scholarships are locked until a certain level of interest has been achieved. The only way to unlock the recruiting actions is through Attention Points. The more Attention Points devoted to a player, the faster the other recruiting actions will be unlocked. There is a meter by each recruiting action that will tell you what percent of that action has been unlocked. The first thing that can be unlocked is a scholarship offer. Once that is unlocked, if you know you want the player, you should offer the scholarship, as this helps unlock the other actions that need to be unlocked. Better players take longer to unlock, but there is a cap.
Scholarship offers for recruits at or below your division in the final 24 hours of recruiting are unlocked.
Recruiting efforts by D3 teams have less effect than efforts by D2 teams, and much less effect than D1.
Everyone is recruitable - even a 5 star guy can go to a D- team D3 team, but that would be pretty impossible. But if you find a player that matches up well with you on preferences, you have a decent shot at them, even if they would be unrecruitable in the current game. I was able to sign a 5 star player with a C+ prestige team. Keep in mind that this was Beta, and coaches were experimenting with strategies, and there was a lower number of active coaches than in the real worlds. But this was a player that matched preferences really well with my team. I was also able to sign two 5 star players with only 3 openings with a B prestige team by finding players that matched preferences well, offering a start and minutes early on, and by using my attention points wisely.
The recruiting actions are
Scholarship
Home Visit
Campus Visit
Guaranteed Start
Guaranteed Minutes
Once you start recruiting a player, you can look and you will see that the player has differing levels of interest in your school. Before you start recruiting it will be very low, it will then move to low, then moderate, then high, then very high. However, these levels will change depending on what other schools are doing. For example, you may be of moderate interest to a player, but a more powerful school may come along and recruit that player heavily, and this will cause you to drop to low or very low.
In cases where a team is chasing a recruit from a higher division, interest level is limited to Moderate until the start of the second recruiting period in cases where it's a one-division difference, or until the final 24 hours of recruiting if it's a D3 team and a D1 recruit. In other words a D3 team cannot sign a D1 recruit until the last day of recruiting.
LONG DISTANCE RECRUITING IS MORE POSSIBLE:
You can recruit longer distances in the new beta. There are also not the artificial 200, 360 and 1440 mile barriers where prices increased in the current game. 201 miles is almost the same cost as 199 and 361 is not a big jump from 359. If you find a player across the country that wants far from home as a preference, you have a shot at him, because of the 20 HV limit and free attention points. In Beta, Stanford recruited a top player out of New York that wanted to go Far From Home as a preference.
RECRUITING BATTLES:
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 can figure out # of open scholarships by looking at their roster, and the number of players signed, so you can figure out how many attention points the other team has to use.
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 on the recruit profile page as the leader. There may be other schools at Moderate, Low or Very low. "Multiple" means that more than one team is at high or very high. However, this may mean 2 or 3 D3 schools are being highly or very highly considered by a "D1" recruit, if it is in the second recruiting period, since in the first period they are relegated to a maximum of Moderate. But you can look on that player profile and see which teams are battling for that "multiple" player.
SIM RECRUITING:
SIMS are much more intelligent in the new engine. The will switch recruits if they know they have no chance. They recruit each cycle. They can do multiple Home Visits each cycle. They are still not too difficult to beat though by a coach who is putting a lot of effort into a player, unless that coach is trying to recruit a player from a higher division. Sims also have the same distance restrictions normal teams now. So, when you see a sim team, it will most likely recruit in its general area, especially at lower divisions.
CAMPUS VISIT LIMIT:
Each player only accepts one CV from 5 schools. So, if there's a guy you want, and you think he will be fought over, you want to be one of the first five teams to offer a campus visit. Campus visits are not rejected.
HOME VISIT LIMIT:
A team can only do 20 HVs on a player - so it’s not such a big deal if you are battling a team that has 6 openings because you can compete with them on equal footing. All teams can do up to 20 home visits on the same player - there is no limit on the number of teams that can do the 20 visits. Also, a team can’t come in a the last cycle and do 150 HVs after a guy has been considering you all along.
ATTENTION POINTS:
You also have attention points that you can use on players. 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 are totally free. Every team gets 20, plus 20 per open scholarship. This is where you can sometimes beat out a more powerful team, if you use all of your AP on one guy. I think that 20 AP = 1 HV in terms of power, or it may be 60. The value of attention points depends on several things, including your school's prestige and how well your school fits the player's preferences. You can sign a player using only AP and a scholarship.
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 6 hours), the team receives recruiting credit for each recruit who has points allocated to him.
ATTENTION POINTS REDUCTIONS:
When a player signs, that teams attention points will be reduced based on the number of Opening Allocation of Attention points still available divided by the # of openings.
This means if you have 6 or less openings at the start, then you will lose 20 AP each time a recruit signs (The AP already assigned is reduced evenly among the allocated players based on their percentage of the available allocated AP).
If you have more than 6 openings, then you will lose less than 20 (ex. 8 openings but 140 AP, with first signing will lose 120/8 or 15 AP leaving you with 125 AP with 7 openings still).
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. Scholarship offers will help unlock the other recruiting actions faster.
SIGNINGS:
As mentioned in the preferences section, recruits are programmed to have a signing preference. They will either sign early, by the end of period 1, whenever or late. See that section for more details.
A team must be "High" or "Very High" on a recruits list to sign, unless it is the last cycle. On the final recruiting cycle, if a recruit has no valid offers from teams at High or Very High, he will accept an offer from a team at a lower interest level. So he would first look for a team at Moderate, then if there were none there, he would move on to Low, then to Very Low.
Battles are not totally decided by which team is actually "leading" in recruiting. It is possible for a team to be behind in recruiting by up to 35% (I believe) and still end up signing the recruit. The odds are not that great, but it does happen. Occasionally a team with "High" interest will beat a team with "Very High". The odds are not favorable, but it can and does happen. The further ahead a team is, the greater the odds they will sign with that team, but there is a chance that the player will go the other way. The reasoning for this was that sometimes a recruit changes his mind at the last minute, or that some factor has caused him to not go with the school that he was expected to go to. The only way to be sure he will sign with your school, is if you are the only school at High or Very High when he signs. There were 188 signings this season in Beta where more than one team was at or above High and had an offer out. 88% signed with a Very High team. 69% signed with the leading team.
AUTO SIGNING:
Human coached teams will now auto-sign players after recruiting ends to get to 3 openings or less. So, if a team has 5 openings, they would auto-sign 2 players. The auto-sign logic at the end of recruiting will only sign guys to teams at their projected level. That means teams won't get lucky with a leftover from a higher division, and also won't get stuck with a guy from a lower division.
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.
If you offer playing time and a start at the beginning of recruiting to a player you know you want, who has "Wants to play" as a preference, then every HV and AP and CV after that point is affected by that preference, so you want to offer these early. Promises of PT and a start are very powerful. Promises will always be processed first if multiple recruiting actions are taken in the same cycle, ensuring that any boost from preferences applies to all subsequent actions in that cycle.
Even if a player is "Neutral" towards playing time as a preference there is still a boost by offering playing time. According to Seble, "There is always pretty significant credit from the promise action on its own, regardless of preference. If they have a preference for playing, there is an additional boost on every recruiting action after the promise is made."
REDSHIRTING:
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.
One nice feature in the new game is that you will know immediately if a redshirt is accepted. So, if you are setting your depth chart and decide to try and redshirt someone, you don't have to wait until the next cycle to finish setting the chart.
RESCINDING A SCHOLARSHIP OFFER TO A RECRUIT:
If you rescind a scholarship offer, you pay a huge penalty. All of your recruiting actions will pretty much disappear on that player.
INELIGIBLES:
If you recruit and sign an ineligible, and the decide to go Juco, your efforts will still have some carry over the following year on that player, just like the current game.
OTHER CHANGES FROM CURRENT GAME:
CYCLE TIMES:
Cycles are every 6 hours in recruiting The first cycle starts at 8 AM and processes at 5 PM so you have 9 hours to get your first actions in. After this, cycles run at 5 AM, 11 AM, 5 PM, 11 PM EST.
WALK-ONS
Walk-ons are a little better than in the current game. The goal is to have these players be somewhat useful in an emergency, and even occasionally worthy of a scholarship, but we don't want them to be so good that it encourages leaving open spots in recruiting.There is no penalty for walk-ons. You still get full resources. This is the same as the current game.
TRANSFERS:
Transfers/rescinded players will now contact up to 50 schools within 500 miles of their hometown. They will be automatically scouted at level 1 at that point.
TAKING OVER A NEW TEAM:
When a coach takes over a new team during the job period, recruiting credit that the new team had built up in recruits is greatly reduced. Previously, a new coach would not only have full budget allocation, they would also maintain the full value of any credit built up by the previous coach (or SimAI). So, you do have a full budget and some credit for recruiting actions taken by the previous coach. You also get immediate recruiting and scouting resources for any players that you cut, who you did not sign.
RESCINDING AN EXISTING PLAYER'S SCHOLARSHIP:
As in the current game, if you rescind a player's scholarship, and you recruited the player, you get no additional resources. However, if it is a player that was recruited by a SIM or another player, you get the full recruiting resources for that player. Another change from the current game is that in the current game, once signings start you can not rescind scholarships. In HD 3.0, you can rescind a scholarship all the way up to the end of the second cycle of recruiting.
DROP DOWNS / PULL DOWNS:
Drop downs and pull downs do not exist In HD 3.0. Every player is recruitable. Even D3 teams can go after D1 players, although they will not sign until the last day of the second cycle. D2 teams can sign D1 players at the beginning of the second cycle. The way you are prevented from signing these players before that time is that the maximum level of interest that a player above your division will show is "moderate", until the time that they are allowed to sign, and players only sign at High or Very High. Keep in mind though, that while you will not change from moderate to high/very high until the 2nd cycle (or last day of 2nd cycle) you are STILL earning credit on that recruit. And even though you are moderate, if you pump effort into the recruit, you will keep the other teams low/very low. It's not like this effort is being wasted.
SUMMARY:
D1 teams- Can sign any recruit during either session.
D2 teams- Can sign D2 and D3 recruits during either session. Can only sign D1 recruits in 2nd session.
D3 teams- Can sign D3 recruits during either session. Can only sign D2 recruits during 2nd session. Can only sign D1 recruits during last 24 hours of 2nd session.
POACHING/EBAY STYLE SNIPING:
In the current HD, probably my biggest frustration was finding a player early in recruiting, having them consider only me at 8 PM on the first day, then going through all of recruiting, only to have an A+ prestige team come in at the signing cycle and do 150 home visits. In HD 3.0, this is not possible because of two things. First, there is a 20 home visit limit per player. Secondly, you have to unlock actions, so a team will have to put effort into a player to unlock home visits and campus visits. You will see that team on the player profile, so you can at least be prepared and know that another team is coming. But with the 20 HV limit, if you have been investing a lot of Attention Points in that player, someone who is coming in late will have a difficult time catching you.
Early on in Beta, there was no limit on home visits, and actions processed right away, and you did not have to unlock actions. So, right before signing started, there would be a mad dash to click as many home visits as possible, and you could see your team knock everyone else off in real time. Because of the 20 HV limit, and non-instantaneous actions, and having to unlock actions, the biggest possible "snipe" would be to wait until the last cycle before signings to do the 20 home visits. But again, if you are a coach and are leading on a player, you will at least see the other teams that can compete with you, and if you want the guy enough, it's in your best interest to do the 20 HVs on him, if you feel there may be a last minute rival.
POSSIBLE STRATEGIES:
I mostly played D1 at Dartmouth, but in the last Beta season, I added a D2 team (Seattle) and a D3 Team (Nebraska Wesleyan) to see what the differences were and to develop recruiting strategies. I feel like I have a great handle on D1, and a decent handle on D2 and D3.
D1 STRATEGIES:
At D1 there are so many possible strategies. Do you go after just guys who will sign early? Do you go after a player on the other side of the country that wants to play far from home? Do you focus on a player that will sign late, and try to build up a huge amount of effort on them? Do you offer playing time and a start right away, so that your subsequent efforts are more effective? Do you focus on players who tend to match up with your team well in terms of their preferences, enabling your recruiting to be more potent than a higher prestige team?
SCOUTING STRATEGIES:
The scouting budget is large, and I never had any issues with running out of money, although I did not do a lot of long distance scouting. My scouting strategy at Dartmouth, in New Hampshire was to have a complete list of players in the northeast, including Pennsylvania, and Canada. So, I used FSS for those states as my fist step. This gives you a complete list of all players. I hosted a camp for 200 players, which drew 166 players of which 33 were new discoveries from outside the area I had already scouted. The other 133 players advanced the level of their scouting. I need to look this up, but I think a hosted camp advances players by 2 levels. I did a couple of Assistant Coach searches as well, but I personally don't use that feature mush - however some coaches really like to use it, so there must be a good reason for that. I did not use the regional camp because the first season of Beta I used it and found that a lot of the players it generated were way below what I wanted. However, this has been tweaked since Beta ended, and I can see myself using the regional camp. At this point I had a lot of players at Level 2 and Level 3. At these levels there are grades for attributes. I knew I didn't want any players that were an F in defense, work ethic or athleticism, and I also knew I didn't want a PG that was a D or F in BH or P. So, I was able to eliminate them off my list. My next step was to finish scouting players that looked good based on the grade levels up to level 4, where I could see the actual numbers and potential (including High-high and low-low.)
Once you have a list of players scouted to Level 3 or 4 (I prefer Level 4) you want to look at when players are likely to sign. If there is a guy that you want badly that will sign "early, "end of period 1" or "whenever", you want to be sure you unlock them quickly, and offer a scholarship. Offering the scholarship will help you unlock other things. If after offering the scholarship the player is still not unlocked, you want to decide if the player is good enough to promise a start or playing time to. This is especially important in "wants to play" is one of his preferences. The reason it's Important to decide about offering playing time or a start early is that once they are offered, and home visits, campus visits, or attention points used used after that time have more power than they do without the promises. So, you will get more recruiting credit. You also want to be one of the five teams that the player will accept a campus visit from, because they only accept 5 of them, so if it's a guy you really want, you want to be one of those 5 teams.
If it is a guy that will sign late, and you really want him, you still want to unlock them fairly early so you can get the promises (if desired) and a Campus Visit in (since only 5 teams can do campus visits). The idea is to keep building up credit with attention points, because it it is a good player, there will be multiple teams that will do 20 home visits (which is the maximum). The hope is that when the second cycle comes around, you will have amassed so much credit that other, more powerful teams that come calling will not be able to overtake you. At the very least, you want to unlock the player, because some guys sign the first cycle of the second period.
EE STRATEGY (Courtesy of kubasnack):
I coached a team that had 3 potential EE's thought none left. You can scout as many players as you can afford and during recruiting, especially 1st session, bring interest level up for those recruits who won't be signing until second session through attention points so that you get on their list if you think you might have extra openings during the second recruiting session. This way, if a guy leaves, you already have a good recruit considering you. Of course, just like in real life, if you have 3-5 EE's, you will probably be dealing with a rebuilding year. It will be very hard to keep reloading.
D2 STRATEGIES:
I found that the Scouting Budget for D2 was large enough to scout D2 and D1 players from a larger area than I currently scout in the current game. Being in Washington, I FSSd D2 and D1 players from not only the Pacific Northwest, but also the Mountain West. I also scouted Canada. My strategy was to look at all of the D2 players and see if I could find any I liked, but to focus on D1 players, since that's what I do in the current game. I was eventually able to land the #37 SG and #44 SF. I was able to sign them using only Attention Points and a scholarship. Word of caution though - I don't think this would be likely in HD 3.0 in a "real" world. Since D1 players cannot sign until the start of the second period, I wanted to unlock as many of them as possible to the point of being able to offer a scholarship. I had a lot of them at Level 3 and 4, so I knew which D1 players I wanted to target, and I think I unlocked about 12 of them for my 6 openings. Over the first recruiting period, about 3 of them ended up having a D1 team come calling, so I gave up on them. The players I ended up signing were all from Washington, Oregon and California, although I do feel that one could do long distance recruiting in D2 fairly effectively. But I didn't have to.
t seems to take 50 to 200 attention points to unlock a scholarship for a D1 player. I looked at 18 players, and the average was 97 points.
D3 STRATEGIES:
At D3, your budget is much more limited for scouting and recruiting. So, it is best to stay closer to home, although Long Distance recruiting is possible if you want to rely only on Attention Points, since they have no cost. If you are going after D1 players, they take a long time to unlock. D2 players also take a while but not as long.
My strategy at D3 was to use FSS for D1, D2 and D3 for all of the states that were within the area I would normally recruit in the current game. This enabled me to discover all of the players at all levels in the immediate area. I spent about $1950 doing that. I also hosted a camp of 200 players for $10,000. In the camp I was focusing on D1 and D2 players because one of my goals was to see how easy it was to recruit up. The camp discovered 125 more players getting them to Level 2. It also advanced the other 75 players to level 3, at which point I could make some decent decisions, at least about players I could eliminate. The camp took a significant part of my budget, but my thinking was that if I discovered a bunch of D1 players, I'd be willing to sign pretty much any of them, so I wanted to have a lot of names on my list.
It was very possible to sign players above your level in Beta, but keep in mind if a higher level team comes calling, it is difficult to compete against them. There were also not as many human coaches active in Beta, so I suspect that some of these coaches would move to other players faster than sims would, as they are smarter and know when they are probably beaten. In addition, in the current game one never had to worry about SIMS jumping on a recruit, but in HD 3.0, sims change their recruiting strategy and will move to new prospects if they sense that they will not get their primary targets.
If you are going to try to go after players above your level, it is a good idea to unlock as many as possible during the first recruiting period, using attention points, because many of them will have upper level players on them before they would be in a position to sign with you. It is not a good idea to spend any of your home visits or campus visits until the time that they can actually sign, because you may invest that money, and have them sign with a higher level team before you even have a shot to sign them.
Another strategy is to early on just put a couple of attention points on a ton of D1 or D2 players, then focus on primary targets. This gets you to "Moderate" which is as high as you can go. It may keep other humans and sims away from them longer, although it is unlikely to deter a D1 or D2 level human. As the higher level teams begin to slowly move in on your targets, you can take them off your primary list, and move them to a backup list in case they do not sign. You still want to have as many D1 and D2 players ready to offer scholarships to as possible for the point when they can sign. It seems to take 150 to 350 attention points to unlock a scholarship for a D1 player. I was able to unlock a D2 player with under 33 points.
TIMETABLE:
SUMMARY:
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
Post Season
SEASON #2
Renewal Period
Jobs Change period
Rescinding of scholarships starts
Second session of recruiting (2 days)
New Coach Signups (1.5 days)
Exhibition games and Scouting start again.
(SCHEDULE FROM LAST BETA SEASON) - This would be a 2 a day world.
| Wednesday |
7/13 |
12:00 AM |
Season starts |
| |
|
3:00 AM |
New coach signups start |
| Thursday |
7/14 |
4:00 PM |
New coach signups end |
| |
|
6:00 PM |
Exhibition game scheduling starts |
| |
|
6:00 PM |
Non-conference game scheduling starts |
| |
|
6:00 PM |
Recruit scouting starts |
| Friday |
7/15 |
2:00 PM |
Exhibition games start |
| Saturday |
7/16 |
1:00 PM |
Exhibition game scheduling ends |
| |
|
2:00 PM |
Exhibition games end |
| |
|
11:59 PM |
Player position change deadline |
| Sunday |
7/17 |
2:00 AM |
Non-conference games start |
| Thursday |
7/21 |
2:00 PM |
Non-conference games end |
| Friday |
7/22 |
2:00 AM |
Conference games start |
| Monday |
7/25 |
8:00 AM |
Recruiting period 1 starts |
| |
|
5:00 PM |
Recruiting period 1 Attention Points processing starts |
| Thursday |
7/28 |
5:00 PM |
Recruit signings start |
| Saturday |
7/30 |
2:00 PM |
Conference games end |
| |
|
11:00 PM |
Recruiting period 1 ends |
| Sunday |
7/31 |
2:00 AM |
Conference tournament starts |
| Monday |
8/1 |
2:00 PM |
Conference tournament ends |
| |
|
11:59 PM |
Non-conference game scheduling ends |
| Tuesday |
8/2 |
2:00 AM |
Postseason tournaments start |
| Friday |
8/5 |
2:00 AM |
Postseason tournaments end |
| |
|
11:59 PM |
Deadline to renew teams |
| |
|
11:59 PM |
Player redshirt deadline |
| Saturday |
8/6 |
3:00 AM |
Job applications start |
| Sunday |
8/7 |
2:00 AM |
Job acceptances start |
| Monday |
8/8 |
11:59 PM |
Job change period ends |
| Tuesday |
8/9 |
2:00 AM |
Player rescind scholarship start |
| |
|
8:00 AM |
Recruiting period 2 starts |
| |
|
5:00 PM |
Recruiting period 2 Attention Points processing starts |
| Wednesday |
8/10 |
8:05 PM |
Now |
| Thursday |
8/11 |
10:59 PM |
Player rescind scholarship end |
| |
|
11:00 PM |
Recruiting period 2 ends |
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Q: I have been in the process of debating whether to bail on this game. I have had the opportunity to look at the 'scouting' process, but am very concerned about the recruiting portion.
A: I would definitely give it 2-3 seasons tho se what you think. Some of the questions really remain to be seen, because it is impossible to replicate a real world in Beta. There are more human teams in the real worlds, and more active owners, and something more at stake than Beta. I'll give you my opinions though, but like I said, if you like the game it is worth giving it a try for a few seasons. You may be really glad you did. I personally like it better for a lot of reasons.
Q: Are they still using the system for recruit generation and seeding that now exists in the current system, and if not, what would be the difference(s)?
A: I believe that this is the same. But, a big difference will be that there will be a ton more battles for top prospects than there are now. You can go all in on a prospect with 20 HVs and a CV. So you can do this on a few players. If they match up well with preferences, you can beat stronger teams. You can also recruit at longer distances, so it would not be too unusual for UCLA to be able to beat Syracuse for a recruit in New York. So, I think the distribution of the recruits will be a lot different in 3.0
Q: Are high baseline schools still in play?
A: High baselines are still in play but I am not sure if their power has changed. Sable was asked about it and he said Prestige is more important than a lot of people on the forum in beta were thinking. However, to me, it did not seem as tough for a lower prestige school to beat an elite program, if the conditions were right with preferences. If I am a B+ and match up much better than an A+, I am going to battle for him and hope I can out recruit them. Promises are very important too. But it is still an advantage to get a high baseline school if you can.
Q: How will the new system impact prestige?
A: I think you will see some mid majors be able to become fairly elite. They may not get to A+, but I could see some at A- because they will be able to land 5 star players, in my opinion.
Q: Assuming scouting was done properly, what is the actual level of randomness is involved with a player signing with a team not actually in the lead?
A: I believe that if it is pretty lopsided - as in high vs very high, it is only about a 10% chance they sign with the high. I believe the figure is if it is a 55% to 45% lead, the leading team wins 73% of the time.
Q: Roughly, how far away can a D-I team 'effectively' recruit in the new system?
A: A D1 team with 4 or more openings, in my opinion, could actually look for players over 800 miles away that like Far From Home as a preference. 800 miles is the cutoff to be "Very Good". You can afford to do 20 HVs and a CV if you have to, and you can also use 100 "FREE" Attention Point per cycle, with 4 scholarships. I believe that is close to the equivalent of 2 HVs per cycle. I can't remember if it is 20 or 60 AP = 1 HV. But either way, if you are doing 100 AP each cycle, you can pull way ahead, and if you match up on everything else, but have the Far From Home advantage, you can recruit across country. The reason I say 4 openings is because it will still be expensive, you'd want fairly close players, for the other 3 players you'd go after. But you can sign some players with just attention points and a scholarship, so if that happens, you should have no financial worries.
Q: At Oregon State, where could you recruit from?
A: At Oregon State, you should be able to recruit the entire Northwest, and Mountain States, and maybe Southwest and be competitive
Q: How will Hawaii be in the new game?
A: In terms of Hawaii, the problem I have had so far in "regular" HD is that when I took over, the first year, there was a 5 Star guy on the island that would not talk to me because of my C+ prestige, so I could not get him. I think Hawaii may benefit most of any school from this system because they can pretty easily win the local guys, and they can look for a player in the states that is Far from Home as a preference, and matches up well with the other preferences, and they can do the 20 HVs and CV and AP, and have a good shot.
-----Original Message-----
From: george633
To: chapelhillne
Sent: 9/10/2016 4:35:00 PM
Subject: 3.0
1. Are they still using the system for recruit generation and seeding that now exists in the current system, and if not, what would be the difference(s)?
2. Are high baseline schools still in play?
3. How will the new system impact prestige?
4. Assuming scouting was done properly, what is the actual level of randomness is involved with a player signing with a team not actually in the lead?
5. Roughly, how far away can a D-I team 'effectively' recruit in the new system?
Frankly, guys do not understand the current system. There were many times that a C+ team could beat an A+ team; if the conditions were right. It is my feeling that a C+ Hawaii team should be able to fight off an A+ team coming to the island. Yes, you might have to spend a good portion of your budget to do it, but HI would be recruiting at a 5, or 6 X advantage while losing a lot less than this due to prestige.
Am I missing something here? Yes, the major issue with HI is the seeding.