FBCB: Any Recruiting Tips?

[Swaggs]

After reading about Skydog and Savannah State, I decided to give FBCB another strong look. I am playing as WVU and did reasonably well in my first season, finishing fourth in the Big East with a 9-7 record and a 19-9 record overall. I was a little suprised to see that I missed out on the NCAA tournament (only three Big East teams in?). Still, I am excited by the almanac features available in the game, even though basketball is not my favorite sport.

Does anyone have some good recruiting tips?

[Balldog]

Recruiting depends a lot on your rating and your recruiting coordinator rating, I still believe your assistant coach's recruiting rating also effects this. If all three are high you are more likely to start with more interested recruits.

Generally I only recruit guys that start me out as having average interest and that are in my region, but I usually use smaller schools.

[RPI-Fan]

I still believe your assistant coach's recruiting rating also effects this. If all three are high you are more likely to start with more interested recruits.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - that is completely incorrect. The game manual says so itself (to clear it up, it refers to him as the "coaching assistant"). HR has said so himself on his own forum.

I'm working on a little recruiting guide that I should post by this afternoon.

[Balldog]

I've said it before, I'll say it again - that is completely incorrect. The game manual says so itself (to clear it up, it refers to him as the "coaching assistant"). HR has said so himself on his own forum.

I'm working on a little recruiting guide that I should post by this afternoon.

Must just be poor coincedence that I usually recruit better when I have a better recruiting coaching assistant.

I'm just going from experience. I know in the FOFC FBCB my coaching assistant had a zero for recruiting I was unable to sign anyone, this year I hired a new assistant with a high recruit rating and I have already signed 2 Top 15 prospects and another Top 100.

[RPI-Fan]

Excerpt from the FBCB manual:

Coaching Staff


The coaching staff consists of the head coach and three assistant coaches. The assistants fill the roles of recruiting coordinator, lead scout, and coaching assistant. Your team’s performance in each of these areas is a combination of the head coach’s skills and the assistants’ skills. The skills of the head coach and the assistants are weighted equally. Each assistant only affects the area that their role is responsible (the recruiting coordinator doesn’t have an impact on scouting).

[RPI-Fan]

Recruiting really varies depending on the type of school you're using. I felt like I got the best value when I was using an average team in a good conference.

I think one key thing is to remember that your scout's ability and your own scouting rating are key factors in recruiting. When you're with a low level school and/or coach, you'll realize that your scouting resources are really damaging to your recruiting efforts. That SG with A potential in Jumpers, 3's, and PerD? He turns out to be a total bum. Likewise, you won't find any players that are "steals". You'll be relying almost exclusively on the generic rankings, meaning other teams will also have a bead on your players.

Now, in general, I'm finding it's good to recruit either really close to home (home state or bordering states), or really far from home (Foreign, Hawaii, and Alaska). I haven't really studied whether or not this affects how likely a recruit is to come to your school, but just from a resources standpoint it makes sense. Playing as West Virginia, you can evaluate TWICE as many players in the first month if you stay within your region than if you go to one of the "hotbeds" (New York, Texas, California). Evaluating players is important. There are some 3-star guys ranked in the top-200 who are god awful; likewise, I've found guys ranked in the 400's and 500's who were bigtime players.

One example that comes to mind was a big man from Australia, Fred Anderson. He had fabulous inside and rebounding potential, but for some reason was ranked outside the top 200 (he was a 3-star guy). He had great highschool stats (17 PPG/9 RPG IIRC), so that wasn't a problem. For some reason he had just slipped through the cracks of the generic rankings, and my scouts were able to identify him as a good player. I got him without spending much recruiting money, and he was a 4-year starter on an ACC team.

Generally, the way I start out recruiting, is just go through my home state (or nearby states if you're in a small one) and find guys with Average interest and 3-or-better stars. This only really works for lower level schools, and is generally more effective if you scout selectively based on stats. There's very little reason to waste money and time on a 7/3/2 guy with no steals or blocks - he simply isn't going to be very good, no matter what the rankings say.

Usually, after targetting home-state guys, you'll have some money left-over. Then I like to hit up the foreign countries. You can usually evaluate at least one or two guys, and if you don't shoot TOO high can find some pretty effective players here. Again, it's really important here to choose which guys you'll pursue; only take guys with good stats and academically qualified. The AI is pretty smart re: academics; if someone has a 1.8 with a 680 score, the AI will avoid him like the plague. It's good to keep an eye on these guys for later months, because on the freak chance that they do qualify, you can get pretty good value from them. Remember that they won't develop as well as your other players though.

So now you've probably got a list of mostly locals, with a couple long-distance players, and you can see all their ratings. Obviously, it's time to do some more trimming down. This is where you'll have to find your own strategies - you need to figure out where your team does and doesn't need help.

One thing to make sure you look at are the athletic ratings (Quickness, Jumping, and Strength). If there is an otherwise-mediocre player with great athletic ability, he can be productive for your team. I think these guys are underrated; the AI goes after them pretty heavily (and the majority of the top-100 guys are great athletes), idicating they have a good deal of redeeming value.

My personal strategy for getting guys to sign is to go after 4-or-5 HARD in the first two months, and if the interest isn't progressing, dump them and move on to the next guy on your list (who doesn't have high prestige teams courting him). With a larger recruiting budget, you'll be able to go after closer to a dozen guys with a lot of effort - just pick a nice range of "reaches", "definite possibilities", and "safeties". Sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised to steal someone you thought was out of your range; likewise sometimes you'll get snubbed by guys you should have easily. Like real life, it's not at all cut-and-dry. You can do things to turn the odds in your favor, but can't guarantee anythign will happen.

I know this isn't very in-depth, but recruiting varies SO much depending on your circumstances that it's impossible to put together a truly comprehensive guide that covers every scenario. These tips are things that I have done and have had moderate success with; I'm sure there are better ways to go about recruiting, but there are also worse ways.

I'd more than welcome and comments/changes/additions that people have.
~rpi-fan

[chinaski]

Ive got a recruiting question. Im playing with Grambling, were up to 50 in prestige at the moment. Weve been moved 3 times and are currently in the Sun Belt. We consistantly win the conference and then take our bow in the 1st round of the NCAA.

My coaches skill is now at 70/30/100/100.

My question is, when will it be possible to go after 4-5 star players? Ive never been able to sign a player with more than 3 stars. Im now noticing that a few 4 star players have a 'Low' interest in me, but im not sure if I should waste my time trying to bump their interest. The times that ive been able to bump interest up from very low or low to average, the player always ends up declaring for the draft.

Do you guys ever have success changing the minds and signing Low or Very Low interest players?

Also, RPI; are you concretely saying the Assistant Coaches recruiting rating means nothing? I have a hard time believing this, why else would we be able to send our Assistant Coach out on player visits during recruiting?

[MikeVick7]

Also, RPI; are you concretely saying the Assistant Coaches recruiting rating means nothing? I have a hard time believing this, why else would we be able to send our Assistant Coach out on player visits during recruiting?

That's actually an interesting quandry. Or is the screen referring to the Recruiting Assistant??

[RPI-Fan]

I guess I should pull back my earlier statement a little bit - every bit of information I have in my mind tells me that the assistant has no effect on recruiting - I seem to remember HR saying this on his board, but it's possible I'm wrong. It's also possible that the wording in the manual is too vague, and so my assumption there would be wrong as well. If HR could chime in and settle this once and for all, I think we'd all be happy.:)

As for your recruiting - there's a big difference between "Low" and "Very Low". Look at it like a 0-100 scale. While some of the "Very Lows" are closer to 20, most are probably 0, and I think it takes a whole lot of effort to go from 0 to anything even near High or Very High. I suspect that some players will "stick" on 0 - even if you do a lot of recruiting, they still won't budge. Since you can't see this exact rating (definitely a good aspect of gameplay IMO), I just stay away from those guys.

With "Low", you can definitely change their minds. Granted, if ACC and SEC schools start courting these guys, you might as well drop out, because there is very little chance you sign them. But if you're one of the higher-prestige schools going after them for the first couple months of recruiting, you definitely have a good chance of signing them.

[Chief Rum]

After reading about Skydog and Savannah State, I decided to give FBCB another strong look. I am playing as WVU and did reasonably well in my first season, finishing fourth in the Big East with a 9-7 record and a 19-9 record overall. I was a little suprised to see that I missed out on the NCAA tournament (only three Big East teams in?). Still, I am excited by the almanac features available in the game, even though basketball is not my favorite sport.

Does anyone have some good recruiting tips?

I think you should PM this to SkyDog.

CR

[Swaggs]

He would probably appreciate that. Despite what he says, I think he likes to know what is going on in my mind. :)

[BishopMVP]

Some people might consider it borderline unethical, but may foreign/Alaska/Hawaii players go fairly unrecruited, so if you put like 6-7 midrange targets (outside the Top 100, but still 3* with good stats) on your call list, by September/October you should be #1 on the list of a couple, and as long as no big school comes in you can get prospects that would be out of your range locally.

[rjolley]

Some people might consider it borderline unethical, but may foreign/Alaska/Hawaii players go fairly unrecruited, so if you put like 6-7 midrange targets (outside the Top 100, but still 3* with good stats) on your call list, by September/October you should be #1 on the list of a couple, and as long as no big school comes in you can get prospects that would be out of your range locally. That's the path quite a few schools are starting to take, especially with the influx of foreign talent in the NBA over the past few years. I like to use that path early in a career. I've found that I'm able to bring in pretty good 3* players to little Lehigh and have brought the program to the top of the Patriot league in a very short time.

[BishopMVP]

I like to use that path early in a career. I've found that I'm able to bring in pretty good 3* players to little Lehigh and have brought the program to the top of the Patriot league in a very short time.
I use it often too when I'm starting at a small school, but it seems too easy to go to the top of a weak conference using that route. I'm thinking of starting a dynasty at Army or Navy where I can't recruit foreigners to see what it's like.

[Groundhog]

Recruiting foreign guys now is a lot harder than it was back when the game was first released (where I signed the #5 ranked player in the country, a SF from Australia, with Colgate in my second season), but it's still probably a little easy. I tend to try not to recruit foreign at all, unless it's like March and the only unsigned 3-star PG left hails from the Czech Republic... :)

[Wolfpack]

Here's another recruiting scenario:

I have two centers, one 7'0" and the other 7'5" (3* each), that I am generally leading for right now. The 7-footer is generally the better all-around player and has good ratings for what I want in a center, while the 7-5 center is a bit more raw, but has good upsides in center-valuable categories. I have considered getting both and putting the 7-0 center at power forward since he's got good strength ratings. Would a 7-5 center who still needs to develop some be effective at a low-level conference like the Southland? After all, the adage is "you can't teach height". (Plus, I think it'd be a hoot to have my own "twin towers" setup.)

[RPI-Fan]

There is definitely a "height-factor" in the game, meaning the taller guy will <i>generally</i> get a "bonus" for rebounding and inside game. If he has good potential, I'd definitely go for him - that'd be an awfully tough frontline to matchup with.

[Wolfpack]

His overall potential isn't great (1.67 on a 4.0 GPA scale converting letter grades). However, the potentials for things I want in a center (off/def rebounding, post defense, blocked shots) is much higher (2.25).

The other guy is 2.25 overall but is only 2.0 in center categories.

As for their current levels, the 7-5 is the slightly better scorer, though the 7-0 can shoot better at anything beyond a few feet, both need help handling, rebounding, and defending, and quickness, but the 7-5 guy needs to run some windsprints as his stamina is poor (I factor stamina into consideration when I consider position-specific abilities, so this hurts him a bit). They're both strong as oxes, though (79 and 88).

[Swaggs]

Thanks to all who replied.

One thing I have learned since posting this (provided others are interested in this topic) is that players with interests rated "low" can be drastically swayed in those first two months if you show you are very interested in them.

[TargetPractice6]

Another recruiting question:

What happens if you recruit somebody that isn't academically qualified? The #1 SF has "Very High" interested in my school, but he isn't qualified. Should I stay away from him or try to recruit him?

[BishopMVP]

You can go after him, even offer a scholarship, but he won't/can't commit to any school until he qualifies. I think February is when recruits have to qualify by, or they go to CC's.

[TargetPractice6]

What exactly do they have to do to be qualified?

[BishopMVP]

Meet the minimum academic qualifications (sliding scale of GPA/SAT scores.) Their GPA stays static throughtout the year, so they must improve their SAT score enough to qualify. I don't know what the exact numbers are or if they are the same as the NCAA.

[rjolley]

HR posted the minimum requirements here : http://www.fbbgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3980