Here are a couple ideas. Arlie please read.

[Dawgfan]

Arlie, I'm a member of Gridiron Glory (Mark Cooley's League). I do have a beef with this game. The beef is, its very hard for a team to rebuild. One of your algorymths places Team Prestige and Board Expectaions together, so when a team has a bad season, or doesn't meet the boards expectations, you get double whammied by 1. losing prestige, and 2. losing money to recruit with. In reallife, recruitment money never goes down. I don't have a problem with team prestige fluctuating, but money is crucial. I don't have the answers, but thought a different way of looking at it, could be having a way to bank money to put away for say upgrading facilities. With college football getting record amount of monies from TV revenues, corporate sponsorships, concessions, retail marketing, and alumni boosters, Congress is about to step in. Joe Biden D-Del, who is on the Board of directors of the NCAA, has stated that he wants a fairer distribution of monies to school in the division 1-A. Division 1-A school currently are subsidized, and get tax exemptions. This game you get penalized monetarily too. I think it is wrong. I know you need to have a give/take away system, but I think you get that with Prestige fluctuation. Money should never go down, and should have a way to upgrade the school, down the road. Don't make it easy, but make it possible. Also, Western Kentucky just jumped up to Division 1-A, and will compete in the Sun Belt Conference. Also, I believe all Division 1-A schools now play a 12 game schedule. I know the PAC-10 plays all schools in its conference now. This year is the first time that has happened. I've been a season ticket holder for the University of Washington for 45 years, and I've never seen their budget go down. I would just like to be able to rebuild the program to a respectable level. UW has a budget twice of what Washington State has, and yet BB, has WSU being the more profitable school, where in real life that is not true. They have had better teams in the last few years, but not historically.

[Dawgfan]

Here is some data I compiled to back this up: The have's (Excellent, High, and Above Average Teams). The Have Not's (Average, Below Average, Low, and Very Low). In 3 years here is the breakdown: There are 8 Excellent Teams (a gain of 2 in 3 years) There are 12 High Teams ( a gain of 2 in 3 years) There are 21 Above Average Teams ( a loss of 4 in 3 years). Note the 4 went up. There are 13 Average Teams ( a loss of 1 in 3 years) There are 29 Below Average Teams ( a loss of 4 in 3 years) There are 26 Low Teams ( a gain of 3 in 3 years) There are 10 Very Low Teams ( a gain of 2 in 3 years). Note the 5 went down. Once you fall from the Have's to the Have nots, its a slippery slope. You get hammered from Team Prestige loss, and sanctioned by having recruit money taken away, while the Have's get Team Prestige gains, and recruit money gains. I don't have a problem with the fluctuation of Team Prestige Points, but to be sanctioned with recruiting money being taken away, its almost impossible to rebuild. The excellent teams gained an average of 5.6 points in 3 years. The high teams gained an average of 4.5 points in 3 years. The above average teams gained an average of 2.6 points in 3 years. The average teams gained an average of 1.6 points in 3 years. The below average teams gained an average of 1.4 points in 3 years. The low teams gained an average of 1.4 points in 3 years. The very low teams gained an average of 1.8 points in 3 years. I team should be able to rebuild a program in 4 to 6 years, and that cannot be done with money being taken away from them. In simulations, the have nots, in 15 seasons have not been able to rebuild. Note, the 15 seasons is what someone has told me has happened in their research. I'm still doing research. It should be the goal of ANY team, Have or Have Not, to rebuild a program and be competitive. Your system is too slanted to the Haves. I understand where you are coming from. With TV revenues and such, you are giving an advantage the top 6 or BCS conference teams. But, in reality no school recruiting budgets have dropped in the past 25 years. In fact they have gone up 45% in the last 5 years alone. I may be wrong, but if you took away the recruiting money sanctions (that's what I call it), teams would be able to rebuild faster and be more competitive faster. You'd still have the Team Prestige points fluctuating which would favor the better schools in recruiting the top players. The have nots, have to cut all areas of the game, including coaches, to meet budget levels, while the Have's, hire better coaches, and max out there budgets. In my opinion it is not fair. If I'm wrong....please set me straight.

[badbeat]

To add to this, have you taken into account Private vs Public schools? You can take a public school with low prestige, like South Carolina for example and compare it to a high prestige school like Miami. In real life, Miami actually has a much smaller budget for paying coaches, recruiting, etc. Their advantage is there are like 30 Class 6a high schools within 50miles of them so they dont have to spend a whole lot for recruiting. Meanwhile South Carolina pays 1.2million for spurrier. Miami lost their athletic director to Florida International University because they paid him more... FIU... they are the worst team in division 1A

[IatricSB]

[QUOTE=Dawgfan;161070]Here is some data I compiled to back this up: The excellent teams gained an average of 5.6 points in 3 years. The high teams gained an average of 4.5 points in 3 years. The above average teams gained an average of 2.6 points in 3 years. The average teams gained an average of 1.6 points in 3 years. The below average teams gained an average of 1.4 points in 3 years. The low teams gained an average of 1.4 points in 3 years. The very low teams gained an average of 1.8 points in 3 years. [/QUOTE]Your methodology is skewing the stats in opposite directions. When you say the 8 teams gained 5.6 in 3 years, you're including teams that used to be "High" teams that made big gains to get into the "Excellent" category, but should that count as gains for Excellent teams since they made part of the gain while a High rated team? Plus for the lower areas, one category may include someone that had huge losses that dropped into the lower area. Should the lower category be penalized by having a higher ranked team do so bad that they drop into the lower category? So the base you use misrepresents the data by skewing it through an unintended bias (ie - successful teams being counted in higher groups and unsuccessful being counted in lower groups). In order to represent what happens a given team, the stats should look at where the team started when comparing to where they've ended (or as the case may be, where they are currently). Using their initial season as the base, we get the following: Excellent - 6 teams - +2.0 High - 10 teams - +2.8 Above Average - 26 teams - +2.6 Average - 13 teams - +1.5 Below Average - 33 teams - +0.9 Low - 23 teams - +1.5 Very Low - 8 teams - +2.9 The results end up being that overall, the advantage is still in favor or the haves which is your point. Just not to the extent previously believed. It comes back around to board expectations. Teams that meet their board expectations saw the biggest gains while those that did not, saw the biggest losses. Biggest Gains: Penn St - Above Average to High - +10 prestige points Texas A&M - Above Average to High - +10 Pittsburgh - Above Average to Above Average - +9 4 teams with +8 (California, Clemson, Florida St, Minnesota) Notes - Of the top 7 teams, only one team had a prestige of over 70 (Florida St started at 75), the rest started at either 60 or 65. Only 1 team that started 80 or above was in the top 30 teams as ranked by gains (Oklahoma increased +6 to have the league's current high prestige at 86) Biggest Drops: South Carolina - Above Average to Average - (-10) Ole Miss - Above Average to Above Average - (-4) Michigan St - Above Average to Average - (-4) Washington - Above Average to Average - (-4) Arkansas - Average to Below Average - (-4) Notes - Of those that dropped 2 prestige points or more (11 teams), 2 were Excellent, 1 was High, 4 were Above Average, 1 was Average, 3 were Below Average, and none were low or very low. So using the Haves (Above Average, High, Excellent) and Have Nots (Average, Below Average, Low, Very Low) as the groupings, the Haves had 7 of the bottom 11 spots. As for the average gains, the Haves gained 2.57 prestige points whereas the have nots gained 1.38 (close to half the amount of haves) EDIT - As a whole, the league average prestige has gone from 49.3 to 51.1 in three years (an avg gain of 1.8). 27 of the 119 teams showed a loss in prestige, the rest stayed even or better.

[Dawgfan]

Yes, my data is skewed a little bit. Because I didn't want to write a book, an as it was I wrote too much. Looking back on my data, I cam up with this: Catagory Gains/Losses in 3 years: Excellent had 0 gains (to Elite Prestige); had 2 losses (to High Prestige) High had 5 gains (to Excellent Prestige); had 2 losses (to Above Average) Above Average had 5 gains (to High Prestige); had 2 losses (to Average) Average had 2 gains (to Above Average); had 2 losses ( to Below Average) Below Average had 1 gain (to Average); had 6 losses (to Low Average) Low Average had 2 gains ( to Below Average); and 3 losses (to Very Low) Very Low had 1 gain (to Low Average); no losses (to Very Very Low) My argument still stands. And no offense Stacey, you own USC, and you are in the Excellent catagory, and have gone up 4 points in 3 years. My point is still, once you move into the "have nots", its a slippery slope, and you're at a disadvantage, that I don't believe teams can recover as easily if you're a "haves". You can still get your Prestige points up or down. But cutting money is flat wrong, and it does not happen in real life.

[Dawgfan]

Adding to my data, I'll say this: NCAA gets 900 million in TV Revenues, which is distributed to the 6 BCS conferences equally. The lower tiers do not get this money, I think they divide up around 25 million. The difference in gains in the upper tier is in stadium capacities. Ohio State 105,000 fans; Michigan 103,000 fans, Notre Dame 102,000, USC 90,000 fans. In my case, Washington has 72,500. Washington State has 42,000. Yet they have bigger budget than me. Historically Washington has twice the recruiting budget that WSU has. Washington, I believe is the 12 largest stadium in the NCAA. I don't care if this game wants to give cash bonus to the upper tier teams, just don't take money away from a program. I think you'd have teams rebuilding faster.

[Dawgfan]

I'd like to add, if you look at the EADA Report, Washington ranks 17th in budget P and L's, USC ranks 18th in P and L's. These are facts, and this game has Washington State above Washington, where WSU ranks 48th. It's not right.

[IatricSB]

[QUOTE=Dawgfan;161129]Yes, my data is skewed a little bit. Because I didn't want to write a book, an as it was I wrote too much.[/QUOTE]This makes no sense. Starting from a flawed point doesn't affect how much you write. [QUOTE=Dawgfan;161129]And no offense Stacey, you own USC, and you are in the Excellent catagory, and have gone up 4 points in 3 years.[/QUOTE]I would hope so given the number of hours I spend on this game. And yet even given all those hours, other teams rated the same and lower than mine put up better numbers. At +4, I'm tied with ten other teams for 24th best improvement. [QUOTE=Dawgfan;161129]My point is still, once you move into the "have nots", its a slippery slope, and you're at a disadvantage, that I don't believe teams can recover as easily if you're a "haves".[/QUOTE]And the evidence I provided supports that belief, just not to the extent you originally portrayed it. The one thing that still stands is the simple statement that can be applied to every team. Did you meet board expectations? If you do, prestige will go up. If not, it will go down. With success comes higher expectations and with failure, expectations become less. As for your team at -4, you've said that you've never met board expectations in those three years, so prestige has gone down.

[Dawgfan]

I have said I don't mind gaining or losing Prestige points. I do mind losing recruiting money. And being a lower catagory, Average, in a tier 1 school, and not meeting board expectations, my recruiting budget gets slashed every year. This is not right. I know I have to meet expectations to gain money, and this is the flaw in the game. Recruiting money doesn't get reduced if you have a poor year in real life. In this game, you lose, you get your recruiting money slashed, hench you have to make budget cuts, all the way down to firing coaches, and hiring cheaper coaches. You can't rebuild while slashing your budget.

[IatricSB]

[QUOTE=Dawgfan;161142]I have said I don't mind gaining or losing Prestige points. I do mind losing recruiting money. And being a lower catagory, Average, in a tier 1 school, and not meeting board expectations, my recruiting budget gets slashed every year. This is not right. I know I have to meet expectations to gain money, and this is the flaw in the game. Recruiting money doesn't get reduced if you have a poor year in real life. In this game, you lose, you get your recruiting money slashed, hench you have to make budget cuts, all the way down to firing coaches, and hiring cheaper coaches. You can't rebuild while slashing your budget.[/QUOTE]My post was only about prestige to show it's not as bad as suggested, though still the same trend you've demonstrated. I'm not arguing the money part. Though as suggested in another thread, your team's coaching staff costs more money than many of the teams (whose budgets are 600K to 800K more than your budget) have paid. So way too high a percentage of your teams budget is wrapped up there. It would be interesting to see a chart of what percentage of each teams budget is spent on coaching in our league. I think in our online league it's been shown you don't need great coaches to win, but rather great players. So spending more on recruiting rather than coaches when building up your team may be a viable alternative. Get coaches strong in development of players if you can afford them and do your own gameplans manually. Just a thought as a way for you to maybe turn things around.

[gambler1650]

I also noticed one point made here that no team in the real world has its recruiting budget slashed. That might be true, but what's probably important is that upper tier programs probably get more money pumped into their budget each season than smaller programs. ie: Indiana: In real life, they get an increase of $50,000 after a good season. USC: In real life they get an increase of $150,000 after a good season. (Note the above numbers are completely made up, just to illustrate a concept). In other words, if BBCF changed its financial model to fit what Dawgfan says is reality (no team losing money in its budget) then upper ranked teams will still get more money each season than a lower ranked team will. My guess is the reason the game's coded the way it is, is so that 'inflation' doesn't have to be taken into account. ie, increasing possible $ values in the Budget screen just because every team increases their budget each season, increasing average coach salary (which my guess is why most teams in real life raise their budgets), etc. Where we have some problems is that when you drop in budget, coaches' usually have to be cut. But from a reality standpoint, that fits too. I don't see a budgetary issue in this game with regards to building a program. The one thing the game DOESN'T take into account though is an 'unknown' coordinator being a genius (every team knows every coach's rating), or being a recruiting genius. My opinion is, that there should be new coaches available, and their ratings should be 'fuzzy' (ie, not precisely determined). Strong programs would likely go with proven commodities, while a lower rated program would take a chance on a guy who's willing to take a lot less, but could be almost as good (or could be one of the worst in the league). Still, the way to lift a program in BBCF is pretty similar to real life. Recruit better. Outcoach your opponents. Win games. This is the tack I'm taking with Indiana in the same league. Recruiting began just when I jumped in, and I didn't do as good a job as I'd have liked, but I'm already developing a plan for next season. Most of my budget went into recruiting, specifically a couple of position groups and a couple of areas. I plan to develop my own gameplans. Could fail horribly. But my belief is that for a lower rated program to win, you probably have to rely on your coordinators as little as possible. Let's put it this way: Indiana vs Michigan: I somehow manage to land two great coordinators. Well, Michigan's going to have two great coordinators every year most likely. They certainly have better talent. Who's gonna win? I'd rather pay my coordinators a lot less, put as much as I can into recruiting and make my own gameplans. I scheduled one team slightly better in non-conference play due to 'fun reasons' (Indiana vs Kentucky just seems right.... plus there was an agreement already in place from the last coach), one team that the game seems to consider to be worse than Indiana, and two computer controlled teams that are significantly worse. Yup, I'm a believer in the Kansas State method of building a program. If the game let you schedule 1AA teams, I'd schedule one. You want to get more of a budget? You've gotta win games. Now, all this assumes that Dawgfan wants a game that's close to real life. One needs to remember that BBCF is primarily a single player game, and thus an experience close to RL means that it should be HARD for a lower prestige team to become a power in college football. Let's look back over the seasons.. How many teams fit that mold? Kansas State comes to mind... And they don't seem to have been able to sustain it. Virginia Tech, definitely. Northwestern made noises a few seasons back but have fallen under the radar. Rutgers is the current 'darling', but whether they'll stay where they are or fall back to the middle of the pack is anyone's guess (I'll guess the latter). Boise State, Lousiville are both examples. In reality, the teams that rise from the lower echelons of college football to become powers are very few and far between. Usually what happens is the stars all align in one very special season, fans and pundits alike talk about how the team has turned a corner and will be a fixture for years to come in the Top 25, and then they fade away. To become a true fixture the team has to have a plan, and outrecruit and outcoach the opposing teams. It's possible to do all of this in BBCF. The players that have the 'talent' to do this, and can put more time into the game to do so (ie, as always, those with less of a life will do the best in a computer game! kidding!), will likely be the ones to succeed. Seems pretty real to me.

[Meat]

Point is this is a GAME...and there needs to be a way to model the monitary aspect of the GAME over many many seasons. Without creating a time consuming, accurate inflation model which would need to include inflating all costs in the game the design decision was made to tie money to performance. You dont think that, even with those 70,000 + capacity stadiums, if your team sucks for a few years people stop comming to games? Attendance revenue goes down, concession revenue goes down, Apparael revenue goes down, Maintenance costs stay the same? Rather than model all of those things seperately plus inflation it is obvious the design decision was made to roll it all (all those things plus more) into tieing it into board expectations. Live with it...figure it out in the GAME world and get it done. If you spent half as much time figuring out how to make the GAME mechanics work for you in game as you apperently do comparing the GAME model to real life I am 100% sure you would learn how to be a success in the GAME. Very nice research and well thought out post, but your post comes across a whiney...I think mostly because it is all tied to your favorite team Washington and their/your singular struggle to advance in GAME as opposed to what is happening in real life. The GAME is a jump off point from real life and then takes a life of its own...thats whats fun about it...if it accurately followed/predicted realife we would all be rich in many different ways.

[IatricSB]

Agreed. There's been a lot of chat on this board and another about how the elite teams get favored treatment (though going by the prestige we have in GG, no team has reached elite status yet). I was running a solo league... I found it funny that my team went undefeated and won the national championship using playoffs so they were perfect for the year. They got perfect grades, exceeded their board expectations and yet I had to smile when my budget was cut. I <3 this game!