Recruit against opponet?

[mvandor]

IMHO...

The goal is to get the red bar increasing and negative numbers accomplish that. Positive numbers don't move the red bar.

I find you have to review the recruit's most important areas, and find one where the competing school is ranked only B or lower. Then downplay that item.

If you downplay items that aren't important to the recruit, no benefit. If you downplay items of importance where the competing school is B+ or higher, you generate positive numbers which, again, don't move the red bar and work against you.

[Wet Bandit]

I find it amusing how this is the one big addition to dynasty, and no one is quite sure how it exactly works.

For what it's worth, in the dynasty video EA made, Russ says, "Your goal is to basically find out what he wants versus what they're not good at and basically lower the interest in that school which will hopefully give you an edge in signing that recruit."

So it sounds like you want to focus on the things your recruit likes, but the targetted schools aren't good at. But the fact that the competitive recruiting screen says 'downplay' really confuses that, because 'downplay' means 'to minimize the significance of' and if I'm talking to a recruit about something he likes which another school doesn't do well, I wouldn't want to minimize the significance of that at all. I'd want to maximize the significance of that. I'd want to up-play that.

[UTAllTheWay]

Yeah, I've noticed that when you try to downplay an area that the Recruit feels is important (like, say, Fan Base is Very High), and the school you are recruiting against is accomplished in that area (say, their Fan Base is A+), then the recruit usually ends up gaining interest in THAT SCHOOL.

What you want to do is downplay a pitch that the other school isn't good at. For instance, if the recruit feels Pro Potential is Most important, and the other school has a B in that area, you probably want to try to downplay it (especially if you have a higher grade).

That's what I've gotten from my experience, at least.