Recruiting too easy in 1.5

[bspence]

I am playing as LSU with a prestige of 91. In 1.49 and earlier versions I would average 3-6 5 star players per year. Now I'm getting 15-20! I don't use the recommended pitch advice. I usually just guess the recruit's preference but I've gotten 15-20 5 star recruits for the past 3 sim seasons. Anyone else seeing this?

[Deltoidius]

15-20 per year for four years........that makes up 90% of your total scholarships and probably over 50% of the total 5-star recruits. I highly doubt this is true.

[bspence]

Actual numbers: year 1 after 1.5 - 16 of 23 total were 5 star. year 2 after 1.5 13 of 18 total were 5 star. year 3 after 1.5 - 15 of 20 total were 5 star.

[scotchtape0]

I concur... recruiting has become much easier since 1.5 was released... furthermore, recruits rarely commit before week 13 or 14. When players do commit, they all do it in a pack for instance, if I have 18 scholarships, no one will commit to any school until week 14, and then suddenly 17 commit to Texas and 1 goes elsewhere.

[bspence]

I've seen exactly what you're describing. Recruit's interest will all go up to top one and stay there until all of them commit to my school. I will rarely lose any 5 star that I offer. A lot of the fun has been taken away in recruiting. There is no need to even offer 3 stars anymore. If this isn't fixed, I'll go back to 1.49 or earlier.

[Cooleyvol]

Try it in an online league if you think its too easy.

[bspence]

If you have nothing to add why be sarcastic? This is a problem that some people are experiencing. Maybe your prestige and your team isn't good enough to experience it.

[Cooleyvol]

[QUOTE=bspence;162756]If you have nothing to add why be sarcastic? This is a problem that some people are experiencing. Maybe your prestige and your team isn't good enough to experience it.[/QUOTE] First of all, I wasnt being sarcastic. Secondly, my prestige is presently 70 in the online league that I run.

[bspence]

Sorry Cooleyvol. This is frustrating. Just happened in next year. 19 of 23 commitments are 5 star and all 19 committed in week 14. Don't know why this happens and it may seem that it would be great to have 19 5 stars but it's an unfair disadvantage and makes the game less enjoyable. Maybe it happens only when prestige reaches a certain level.

[Guest Nukester]

I just went through recruiting with a 45 prestige team. I had 21 scholarships open and filled them with 17 3-star players and 4 2-star players. I didnt even really have any 4 or 5 star players interested. Highest one was probably at about a 7 interest. Just throwing that out to look at the recruiting from a smaller prestige angle. I would think that a 91 prestige would have free pick of anyone they wanted. Are you the highest prestige team ? Whats the next lowest (or highest) and how did they do ?

[Cooleyvol]

[QUOTE=bspence;162771]Sorry Cooleyvol. This is frustrating. Just happened in next year. 19 of 23 commitments are 5 star and all 19 committed in week 14. Don't know why this happens and it may seem that it would be great to have 19 5 stars but it's an unfair disadvantage and makes the game less enjoyable. Maybe it happens only when prestige reaches a certain level.[/QUOTE] What do you really expect when the team's prestige reaches such a high number? Edit your prestige down and see how well you do if you want a challenge......or, like I said, join a league and see how you do against a bunch of humans.

[heywood63]

I think my prestige is around 90 or so and I am not having that kind of success. I get a ton of interest from the top players and the most 5 star players I have gotten is about 6-7 which happened in the recruiting stage I am curently in. I am currently playing version 1.50.

[bspence]

All valid points but again this all started with 1.5. My prestige was at 90 or above in 1.49 and I got much fewer 5 star recruits. There is a difference between 1.49 and 1.5 for high prestige teams. It is strange that only 1 other person is experiencing this because I am not running my league any differently than I did in 1.49. Maybe more people will chime in over time as their prestige numbers rise.

[scotchtape0]

bspence is correct in that recruiting was changed by v1.50... none of your other points are relevant to this fact. whether or not recruiting is working well for lower prestige schools or in multiplayer leagues doesn't change the fact that it is not working well at some other levels.

[Arlie Rahn]

There was a change in 1.50+ that cooled down the number of offers allowed by both the AI and the user. I think this was unfairly penalizing the top teams as numerous players had more competition than they should (and why you would sometimes see teams with negative scholarhips left). So, I could see someone with a 70+ prestige noticing better recruit signings now. But, there's also a problem with frame of reference. A site like rivals has currently around 19 5-star guys. In a given season of Bowl Bound, you may have 70 5-star guys. So, if you look at the top 100 (instead of stars), you would see a team like USC got 15 guys last season. Texas got 12, Florida got 10, Michigan got 9, ND got 8, Oklahoma got 7 ... If you look at combined 5 and 4-star recruits from recruiting sites (which would be 5 and about half 4s in BBCF), you have instances where teams like USC got 19 of 25 recruits, Florida got 22 of 27, FSU got 21 of 30, Texas got 18 of 25, ND got 16 of 25 .... I think that between the email on recruit pitch and the rollback of AI offers because of some issues, it has become a little easier to get top 100 guys for the top programs. But, I would state that an LSU team with a 91 prestige should have gotten much more than 3 or 4 top 100 guys (like in 1.49) to begin with. If you want a challenge in recruiting, you are probably not going to find it in the 75+ range in prestige. So, while recruiting may seem easier for the top programs now than it was before, it is much more realistic. All that said, I will keep an eye on this over the holidays and will certainly look at revisiting it if it is a major issue. But, I don't see enough to warrant a rushed fix where a problem may not even exist.

[bspence]

Thanks for the info Arlie. The 3 or 4 top-notch recruits in 1.49 and lower were a low average. Some years were higher but very few were lower. My prestige was originally the default value in the program and rose over a period of 12 years of simming from good results in those years. While I applaud your efforts to improve the game, I much prefer the recruiting logic present in 1.49 and before, which allows the user to build prestige without signing every 5 star that shows interest, virtually assuring oneself of a top rating each year.

[Guest Nukester]

What is the next highest prestige and how did they do recruitwise ?

[Arlie Rahn]

I think if you start with a program like USC, Texas or LSU, you are going to have pretty much your pick of recruits interested in your school. If you are smart and go after the players that start out with a 10 interest in you, you could end up with 8-12 5-star guys in a 20+ player recruit class. But, the challenge with this level of a program is not getting good recruits (like it would be for a Northwestern), it's dealing with the extremely small margin of error and staying on top. If you want to deal with difficulty in recruiting, I would recommend a mid-tier program or lower rated major conference team in a smaller recruiting state (Duke, Iowa State, Wash State, ...). Plus, don't forget, if you end up getting too much talent in one area, there's a good chance some will transfer before you can use them. So, if you view the challenges as they are designed (USC - make numerous champ games, Oregon - make a string of BCS games, Illinois - become a perinial top 25 team, UCONN - make a bowl each season, ...), any team can be challenging. But if your goal is to have a challenge in recruiting top talent to LSU or (on the other end) making numerous BCS games as Louisiana-Lafayette, chances are you will be a little frustrated/disappointed.

[Dave Hansen]

Given Arlie's comments regarding high prestige schools...a couple of house rules could be employed to make recruiting a little more challenging with v1.51: * No in-season home game recruiting invites. * Ignore recruit E Mail preferences during the recruiting season. I concur with Arlie...with a lot of good talent and depth on the roster, there's the additional challenge of keeping everyone happy. I routinely lose 2/3 FR/SO per year to transfers. Coupled with 1/2 guys turning pro each year means 3-5 non-seniors leaving the program yearly. FWIW...I went back and reviewed how many of the top 100 recruits went to USC, LSU, TEX, MICH, MIA over the first two seasons I played pre-1.5. Of the total of 200, these 5 schools only successfully recruited 34 guys or 17%.

[Arlie Rahn]

Guys, I've gotten a bunch of emails on this with varying results. Irconically, the top complaint was that recruiting was getting more difficult once people reached the 90-prestige status with a Auburn, Oklahoma or Texas-level program. What people were saying is that after getting their prestige up to the 90 range over a few seasons, they were seeing their accepted scholarships for top kids drop from 12-14/18 to around 7-9/18. I ran some additional testing last night after a few of these emails and found the following: Once a top team gets "stocked" at a position, it becomes very tough to get top tier recruits at that spot. When I started my test with USC, I had a 4.5 senior QB and no better than a 3.5 potential underclassmen. In my first class, I got a 5.0-potential QB and a 3.5 potential QB. But, a couple seasons later, none of the 3 top 20 QBs I went after would commit because my redshirt sophomore QB was 4.0/5.0. I noticed this on the OL, RB and DL as well. I ended up getting some nice kids in the secondary and WR, but I lost out on more talented recruits at other spots because of my depth. Then, the following season, I had my 2nd RB transfer out with one of my receivers. After that, I was able to get a 4-star potential RB in recruiting. So, I think people will find a real interesting situation in leagues as they go on. I am noticing one of the following: 1. Stay on top of transfers from a PT standpoint and try to keep underclassmen happy - but I tend to lose one extra game a year and struggle with getting top talent at certain positions after a few recruiting classes because no one leaves on transfers. I do, though, end up with stronger depth (at the expense of needing to play that "lesser talented" depth over stars some games to keep them happy). 2. Let kids transfer at will and maybe win an extra game during the season. I end up also getting slightly better recruiting classes but my depth starts to be more inconsistent. Instead of having a 4.0/4.5 backup at RB, I end up with a 2.5/4.5 backup. Injuries/suspensions tend to be devasting at times because I am looking at going from a 5.0/5.0 kid to a 3.0/4.5 backup in some cases. Plus, I end up developing a ton of players for lesser programs ;) 3. Go after mostly JC kids so I can to minimize the transfer chance and keep quality depth. The problem here is that guys often just stay for one season and then go pro leaving your program with little consistency. Also, you never know where great JC kids will show up and there may be seasons where the top JC kids are out of region and prefer another top school. Overall, I think this game may actually be more challenging over time with top prestige teams from a standpoint of winning. The AI is now much better at recruiting top talent when it runs top teams (Texas had 14 5-star kids in an AI season I just ran). So, this really hurts your margin of error that may have been greater in 1.48. Now, I'll have teams that I think can't lose and end up getting beaten by an even stronger AI Texas or Michigan team in a BCS game. Also, teams like Oklahoma and Auburn are a little tougher when compared to the USC, Texas, LSU crowd because their home state is less fruitful. When you start getting a "stacked" roster, you can still get some top instate kids with high hometown ratings at USC or Texas. But, if the instate pool in Oklahoma or Alabama is not strong that year, you end up competing with the Floridas' and Texas' for kids out of state in spots you may already have a 4.5 potential star underclassmen. So, I'd recommend that people try a 5-6 season career with the new version and then see how it goes. When you start out, there may be careers where you are low in underclassmen talent (thereby making your first few recruiting classes very good). But, after that, you'll notice a bunch of challenges in keep those kids happy with PT and getting future kids to come when you have a couple similarly talented kids on your roster already.

[Miral]

[quote=Arlie Rahn;163061] Also, teams like Oklahoma and Auburn are a little tougher when compared to the USC, Texas, LSU crowd because their home state is less fruitful. When you start getting a "stacked" roster, you can still get some top instate kids with high hometown ratings at USC or Texas. But, if the instate pool in Oklahoma or Alabama is not strong that year, you end up competing with the Floridas' and Texas' for kids out of state in spots you may already have a 4.5 potential star underclassmen. [/quote] Which is an excuse I'm ready and willing to use if my Sooners fall short in Gridiron Glory. :D For those who've had the "problem" of too many good recruits, let me ask if you've done thing to adjust the league or the team's prestige. As a goof I put my team up at 99 prestige and everyone else below 50 and had the pickings all to myself (25 5 star players, almost all the top 25 rated players). If there is no other team near your prestige you will have a field day cleaning up.