Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

They may have used the unlock feature to get back in after they had been locked out. Also I like how things like that happen in the game and makes things more unpredictable as they are in real life.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

I highly disagree Plus it takes less time this year

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

For me, I'd say '14 recruiting is slightly more difficult than before.

After season 4, I'm back to the exact same recruiting house rules that I had in '13, and I just got the 2nd ranked class, whereas in '13 those same house rules resulted in #1 class consistently. But that's from my perspective, as I inherited a powerhouse team in Alabama and all I just have to do is maintain what was passed on to me. Maybe it's more difficult this year for lower star programs(?)

I do like the new points allocation system better in '14 though. It's more fun. I have caught myself getting excited when I have a bye week and I get to recruit twice in a row before playing again.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

Well at least the issue with the points is solved... on PS3 the numbers are wrong, and show 250/500/1,000. At some point the game must have been giving that many and was scaled back.









As for the point totals, since the game doesn't deal with percentages compared to totals, just looking at your increase in percentages isn't a good indicator.

Not to mention Locksmith 3 can bring in as many as 1,800 points with an unlock.

In a close battle, with 2+ teams crossing over the 50% interest for a visit, no early visit will put a 4* or higher recruit out of reach after a campus visit, not even a perfect visit.

But if 1 team is far ahead to begin with, gets to the 50% interest before another team, gets a quick perfect visit before another team hits 50%, then you have the potential for a locked out recruit who commits. But that is something that took a few weeks to build up to, because you need a lead ahead of time to gain that kind momentum.

With later visits, a team can make up ground, since later visits incrementally get more points AND a potential for more complimentary visits. A MLB alone can have 8 complimentary visits in 1 trip (2 DE, 2 OLB, 2 CB, FS & SS), for 400 points. An early visit is unlikely to get all those players interested right away.... but a later visit will. So just getting an early visit, with a good trip score, isn't going to lock in a recruit.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

I'm amazed at how many differences there are between 360 and PS3 this year.....

They can't use locksmith if you sign the recruit first.

If you're emphatic about "no early visit will put a 4* recruit out of reach after a campus visit" then I'll have to chalk that up to another difference between 360 and PS3. In year 3 of my Michigan dynasty (by which time I had RT3) all of the circled recruits were signed after early visits before they could visit anyone else. For a lot of them there were other high prestige schools spending weekly points on them too.


If you plan your visit such that the recruit is about 65%+ locked, then it's very, very likely to sign him with that visit if you have RT3 and he'll never visit anyone else.

You don't need much of a lead though. You only need about 200-300 points of a lead to be pretty much guaranteed of signing him with a RT3 visit (at least with Michigan on 360). There are even some recruits (the ones that lock around 1300) that you can sign immediately without a lead.

Just to reiterate, it has for me, more than a few times.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

I agree with jello. I always try to schedule my visits early so I can hopefully get the recruit to commit before he even goes on his other visits. It works for me a lot, and sometimes the CPU does it to me. As an experiment, one year of my dynasty I scheduled all my recruits I had leads on to visit on the last week of the season, and I watched as other schools took their visits and caught up to me. I lost 3 recruits to other teams because they committed before it came time for my visit. Scheduling early is really the way to go in my opinion.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

My strategy is as follows, and it's worked wonders:

In the beginning, when you don't have insta-commit, divide up all points evenly. As players start to lock you out/sign with others, take the points you were using on them, and divide them up evenly among the remaining players. When the CPU adds new players to your recruiting list, just ignore them for now. Try to get as many high caliber, blue chip prospects as you can. Like others have suggested, schedule visits early to try to lock up players before the CPU can.

Once you have insta-commit, add all the 4-5 star recruits you want (that are interested in your team, preferably with a 1st degree of interest). Offer scholarships to all the players on your board that have you as their top school. At worst, I've gotten at least 3 recruits off the bat, with a maximum of 8. Usually, it's between 3-5, but that's still a decent amount to not have to work with throughout the season, nor do you have to spend points on them. Once this is done, I follow the strategy I listed in the above paragraph.

I've never had a recruiting class outside of the top 10; save for the one time I did a dynasty with Old Dominion, but even then, I think I was still in the top 30, and for that school, it's impressive.

Re: Recruiting Tips (NCAA 14)
 

but will fill my board to 35 to pull in the bonus points and essentially line up and filter my next targets as I see who isn't being pursued