What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

The NCAA games always had a very basic recruiting system. That system got simpler as time went on and was incredibly casual and streamlined in NCAA 14.

I don't think I need to breakdown how recruiting was done in NCAA 14. Let's just say it was very basic, not interactive at all, and actually disappointing coming from NCAA 13 at the time, and it was nothing compared to what College Hoops 2k8 had done or what NCAA Basketball had done before it met its end.

My question is, what does the community want from the recruiting side of the game?

Does the average person want that streamlined system? Do they want something more similar to what the college basketball games had done which was more interactive?

Come in and talk about what you would realistically want to see from the recruiting side of the game in the upcoming release.

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Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

I'll go ahead and reply to my own thread. I kept the main post short to hopefully make it easier to read leading to more interaction.

I much prefer a more complex system, something that is sort of a grind, but I know the average person doesn't want to spend 1 hour between games playing in the menus recruiting virtual high school athletes.

I personally hated the points system in NCAA 14 and still do to this day. It was so basic and not intimate at all. I often didn't even remember the names of my targets because all I ever did was scout them twice and then allocate my points and leave it until they committed.

There was no work involved in the process at all, really. Not like what you saw in the basketball games or in current college text sims these days.

I also always hated that the scouting gave you 100% accurate ratings and that the players' lists of top schools was so transparent. Do you think in real life Miami sees they have a 200 point lead on a recruit? I understand they were going for, I just wasn't a fan.

What I want to see from the recruiting side is something more intimate, but have options to automate any part of the process for those wanting a more streamlined experience.

For example, I want to see a player pool that has juco players, HS seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. I want to recruit kids for 4 years and see it payoff. I want to lose a kid on signing day that I had poured time into for multiple virtual years.

I want a fog of war.

I don't want scouting to be 100% accurate. I want better programs and staffs to be more accurate in their scouting, but not exact. I want lower programs and staffs to have more misses.

I don't want an omniscient list of the recruits top 10 schools. I want the recruit to tell me I'm in the top 10, but not know where exactly. I want others to straight up say I'm their top school. I even want others to tell me to stop wasting my time.

I never want to know how close the race is, not exactly. I don't want to know I'm 100 points back and that a campus visit will put me as the top school. I want a recruit to tell me, or release, their top 5 schools and see me in it and then me make a decision on whether or not I continue to pursue them if I believe I have a chance.

I want different indicators that give me hints, but don't guarantee anything. If a kid tells me I'm in the top 10, maybe that's true, but maybe they really only have 2 schools they're wanting to go to and the other 8 are backups and they never tell me. I could potentially put work into getting him and it never pan out, or they could never get an offer from their top choices and my persistence may pay off as other school cooled on them.

I want decommits.

It happens annually these days. I want to see kids open their recruiting back up for a variety of reasons. Maybe they started as a 3 star and have a great senior year and become a 4 star and now some bigger schools are knocking at the door.

Maybe their hometown school went 5-7 and the recruit wants to reevaluate his options. Maybe the HC gets fired and they open it all back up. Maybe the HC takes a new job and they want to open it all back up.

There's a variety of reasons as to why a decommit happens and I want to see that represented.

Stats. I want stats.

I want them to matter, but not be the end all. I want to see if a blue chip QB threw the ball around a lot and had success or if they're a blue chip because they look the part.

We see this every year. Some kids are dominant all HS and keep their high ranking and then perform in college. Some guys are late bloomers, develop physically and/or mentally late and have great senior seasons and jump up in the rankings. Some guys are built like NFL players at the age of 16 and dominate because of that, but never actually have the skills to succeed much at the college level.

I want that in this game. I want to see a prototypical QB that's a high 4*, but he throws for 51% in HS with only 18 TDs and 9 INTs. I want to see what system they ran. That might indicate why the stats are the way they are. The stats may show this kid needs time to develop. They may not mean anything at all other than he was meh in HS, but he may still be great in college.

Camps.

I want camps that allow us to scout kids and even play as them in drills to get a feel for them. I'd love to play a 7 on 7 game that features some of my top targets. Maybe my targets ball out, maybe they don't. Now I have decisions to make, or I don't put much weight into the camps and continue on.

Resources.

This is what separates the tiers of schools. Major programs have the money to spend to go around the country and recruit anyone they want, scout wherever they want, etc. Other schools can't afford to really leave the state.

I want to see this represented in the game. It'll make building a program up be even more rewarding. It will make jumping to a bigger program feel bigger and more rewarding.

I want to be at FIU and not have the ability to really even try to recruit nationally because I just can't afford it. I need to scout my region of the country and hope I make the right decisions. I want to not be able to even attend any campus in the offseason outside of what we either host on campus or what is nearby.

I want to be Alabama and have the ability to send my staff to every single top camp in the nation and have my coaches constantly flying in home to visit kids in Texas, Florida, California, Ohio, etc.

Just think of how great it will feel to have a good tenure at a small school and then finally be at a school that can afford to recruit at a national level. Imagine being 4 years into a dynasty and finally being able to go to a camp and play as your QB commit before he is even on campus.

HS All Star games.

Similar to camps. Held at the end of the year. You can send your coaches to go scout whatever games you can afford and you can play as whatever team you want. Another interactive thing that brings more intimacy to the game.

There is so much EA can do to make this side of the game a game within a game. And they can make it so customizable for the user.

If you don't care about these camps, all star games, etc. you can literally have coaches go to them, but not play them, and still get a scouting report from it and even a potential recruiting bonus if you talked to a target while there.

The game needs this type of depth. Recruiting is so important in college sports and EA kind of ignored it with NCAA 14, really. For something so important it was hardly something you spent anytime doing because of how bareboned and casual it was.

This kind of depth in recruiting alone would make the mode so immersive and repayable. You wouldn't need gimmicks to keep the users engaged long term. This is a core gameplay loop that would be engaging and rewarding and would keep users hooked.

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Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

Eventually I think it would be cool to be able to hire a position coach for each position group and choose whether you wanted to hire a "recruiter," a "coach" or "balanced". If you choose the recruiter then you get a recruiting bonus when you recruit that position, but if you choose the coach you get a small ratings bump for those positions during games but no recruiting bonus. It would really show the difference in philosophies between different coaching staffs. If they wanted to get really complicated you could assign recruiting territories to each coach and get another bonus for having coaches with ties to certain regions. It would be an incentive to hire coaches with connections to your program/state just like in real life.

I'm curious to see how they implement NIL in the new game. Maybe there is a new 6-star rating system for potential NIL deals for each school like they do with the prestige meter? That's just so hard to really objectively determine. Would be a nice wrinkle to add to the recruiting pitch when you're after a prospect though.

Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

Some of these may be unattainable pie in the sky dreams, but they've been done before in other sport specific games:

1) Detailed reports on recruits, not just number and letter grades. I don't care if it's superficial or repetitive, but give text specific reports. For example, for a 3* OL, "This player was all conference and was dominant when playing against lower competition. He has a low ceiling on the next level." Or a 5* RB "He is can be a starter from day 1. He has track speed and elite agility. He rushed for 3,000 yards his senior year."

2) Unofficial visits. Allow recruits to go on unofficial visits in addition to officials. If they want, they can limit unofficials to the offseason if they want. You can have a guy who may not really be interested in your school take an unofficial visit, like it and decide to take an official to your school at a later time.

3) Early Signing Day during December and then the second Signing Day in the offseason.

4) Under Armour or US Army All-American game that's playable/watchable for the top high school recruits.

5) Nike Combine/Elite 11 Camp. This takes a page out of College Hoops 2k8 where they had the AAU Circuit. Just another way to look at recruits and add immersion.

6) The ability to start recruiting guys their Sophomore or Junior years in high school and see their recruit rankings rise and fall dynamically.

Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

Idk why, but I feel like we will get the bare basics this first year in dynasty recruiting. Hopefully they are more focused on the gameplay than additions that we all would want.

There’s a ton that I’d like to see happen and most have touched on them already. True to world recruiting is what I truly want. It’s a very dynamic and fluid state it’s in and would create a ton of interesting story lines. I want deep rivalry recruiting, too. I want rivalries to mean something.

Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

First off everyone's ideas are awesome.

- Canes, im on the same page with you. Give us more details that are unpredictable. It will always keep us on our A-Game.

- Gohogs141, my fav idea of yours is the position coaches having a pipeline connection to a specific state. I think that would be a small but awesome feature.


To take the pipeline feature a step further, I'd like to see a feature where you can build relationships with in-state high school coaches...

Let's say you're the HC for ECU and your pipeline states are limited, only Virginia and NC. Maybe your recruiting budget is small and you have to set your sights to recruit in-state for that season. First, you'll have to compete with UNC, NC State, Wake Forest and Duke for those in-state players. So to hedge that, during the season a local high school coach may contact you about one of his players that he feels could play on the next level. That player could be a hidden gem (1-3 star player) and may not be on the recruiting board or participated in the camps. By considering that player, you build a positive relationship with that coach, and he will continue to reach out throughout the years. If you're starting out with a 1-2 star school and its challenging to recruit, it may offer an opportunity to fill your board if necessary. It shouldn't necessarily make it easier for you to recruit, but be a useful tool. Think of this as being similar to EA NCAA March Madness, where during the season a booster would recommend a player to recruit from time to time.

Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

I like that idea. There are just so many possibilities. Let’s say you’re playing as NC State and you hire a DB coach who lands you several recruits, then with the coaching carousel that DB coach eventually moves on to be the head coach or DC at ECU. The players he recruited to NC State aren’t playing so they opt to enter the portal and follow their old coach to ECU with that relationship built.

This stuff may require some ridiculous coding to pull off but would be pretty awesome.

Re: What do you want from recruiting in the upcoming game?
 

Sheesh, now that's next level! lol