That is correct, the old system did not have hard caps. Of course it sensibly had players have less capability of improving in certain skills that they were already poor at (the center with 8 ball handling wouldn't show double digit improvement no matter what you did).

Now, the new potential system should be called the "NO potential" system. I am in game ONE of my season, I have three Juniors recruited the first season of the "NO potential" system and two of them, the ***istant coach tells me, will no longer improve in EIGHT categories and the other in SEVEN categories. There are only 12 categories plus FT which you never see significant improvement anyway. So what are these players supposed to do in practice if they will NEVER improve for the next TWO FULL SEASONS in two-thirds of their skills??? For example, I have a junior guard in game one of his third season (never redshirted) who will NEVER improve in any category except athleticism, stamina, durability, and the now worthless work ethic. I have a sop****re who is already forbidden from improving in six categories. In the "NO potential" system he will not improve in half of his skills in the next THREE seasons.

It is absurd and obscene.

Quote: Originally posted by douglasdao on 4/17/2009That is correct, the old system did not have hard caps. Of course it sensibly had players have less capability of improving in certain skills that they were already poor at (the center with 8 ball handling wouldn't show double digit improvement no matter what you did).

Now, the new potential system should be called the "NO potential" system. I am in game ONE of my season, I have three Juniors recruited the first season of the "NO potential" system and two of them, the ***istant coach tells me, will no longer improve in EIGHT categories and the other in SEVEN categories. There are only 12 categories plus FT which you never see significant improvement anyway. So what are these players supposed to do in practice if they will NEVER improve for the next TWO FULL SEASONS in two-thirds of their skills??? For example, I have a junior guard in game one of his third season (never redshirted) who will NEVER improve in any category except athleticism, stamina, durability, and the now worthless work ethic. I have a sop****re who is already forbidden from improving in six categories. In the "NO potential" system he will not improve in half of his skills in the next THREE seasons.

It is absurd and obscene.

While I think the first implementation of potential was beyond terrible, I think that the "potential mach 2" WIS universe could end up with comparable results to the old regime, and be a lot less frustrating. I'm sensing that the parity will not be as extreme as all players will not reach their potential at the same time (I do remember D1 always having problems with parity before potential). I also think it might be a lot harder for some of these players to reach these "caps" with the slowdown.

Do I think potential was a necessary switch? Not at all. I do, however, think that some of the most severe problems w/ potential were fixed, and Seble, the new admin, is at least listening to our concerns.

I do like that players, due to potential, can have vastly different strengths and weaknesses. I had a big man in DII with 94 reb, 84 p***ing, but only 40 LP and 10 speed. He was a very useful role player on my team despite the extreme lack of scoring. Before potential, I felt you could coach every team to a situation where 10 guys scored between 7 and 10 points a game, which I find unrealistic for most college basketball teams.

I also believe that work ethic will not be worthless anymore due to the improvement slowdown. A guy with 10 WE might never come close to his potential, whereas a guy with 90 WE might hit it early junior year, and be an impact player his sophmore year.

DIII is not enjoyable anymore, that is correct. Maybe when the FSS cheating is actually addressed (coaches grabbing numerous DIII teams, ghost shipping them, and using recruiting information for their other aliases), DIII could improve.

Maybe allowing a few players to score above a 100 rating at something would be realistic as well. I'm sure J.J. Redick's 3P shooting would have been at least a 110 in this game. Blake Griffin's ath and reb would probably well be over 100 in D1, rather than him having 90's in both, which would make him similar to all other high-level D1 starters.

College basketball always has a few exceptional players that can be pretty dominant at their position. I really think that WIS could look into this to improve realism.

All in all, potential seemed like an attempt to fix something that was not broken at all, but i think the slowdown of potential is what's keeping me interested in the game.

^^^ i hope it is but until they generate recruits a LOT better with more appropriate starting HIGHs and AVGs and less LOWS (DIII and II) it's still a bit of a mess

bbunch - you make some good points but I don't share your optimism that WiS is fixing this problem. Everyone, including WiS knew the NO-potential system was a mess as early as January, and while I don't expect instant fixes, the weeks drag on and season after season is ruined with no word from WiS that they are doing anything.

I will disagree with you on three things.

"I do like that players, due to potential, can have vastly different strengths and weaknesses."
That was totally true prior to the NO-potential system, at least outside of DI. The reason why there was too much parity in DI was because DI recruits start too close to the maximum of 100 and too many reach into the 90s. As you point out in your post, some players should be allowed to exceed 100. But it is starting them too high that causes the problem. That's why so many people prefer DIII where there has always been vastly different strengths and weaknesses among players.

"Before potential, I felt you could coach every team to a situation where 10 guys scored between 7 and 10 points a game, which I find unrealistic for most college basketball teams." I ***ume you are exaggerating the 10 players part but if your point is that you can have a whole bunch of players with fairly equal scoring totals, of course you can if you play a system with frequent substitution. That has nothing to do with potential or lack of it.

"I also believe that work ethic will not be worthless anymore due to the improvement slowdown." First, it is not an improvement "slowdown" it is an improvement "cap." The NO-potential system says "this player will not exceed X rating in Y category EVER." That cap is often reached in their sop****re season. I can verify looking at players in my world that WE has nothing to do with it anymore. A players potential level in a category is now the only factor that determines player improvement. For many season I prized high WE players but after the first season of the NO-potential system I said screw it and sure enough the players I recruited with WEs in the teens and thirties improved just as much as recruits with WEs in the sixties and up.

Quote: Originally Posted By reinsel on 4/09/2009 Doug, I could not disagree more. While there are some crappy red-low potential recruits, they fill a role. - The inbox thing sucks, and I am sure it will get fixed soon. - I don't see any of my recruits peaking at their sop****re year....maybe you should recruit some higher potential players?- I seem to find plenty of players with high potential in ath, spd, LP, etc.- WE is back to being relevant. Recruit a 1 WE guy now and see what I mean.- Practice time strategy is still there, if you recruit someone with high potential in p***ing, BH, Def & PER, which do you improve first?Potential is not that awful. Espcially now that is has been modified. Some players don't improve. I played HS basketball, and if you put me at UNC, on the team, I am never going to shoot 40% from 3. I taken lots on lots of shots, and its not happening. This is true for a lot of D2 and D3 players. If everyone kept improving, the world would be filled with NBA level talent....but people stop improving. In my senior year of HS I could run 400m in 48 seconds. I practiced and practiced and practiced and I could barely improve to 47.8. But my freshman year I started at 59 seconds and ended at 51.5 or something. So this model of big gains early, small gains late, seems to correlate to the real world to me.

Dude, unless you have an alias you coach a mid-major DI school and have a much better selection of recruits (with potential) than DIII. Trust me, I have a high DI and a DIII and finding a DIII kid who has only 1 or 2 low potential areas and the rest average or high is a gem, and I have at least 1 sop****re who is maxed out midway through his season with 1 RS year (again, DIII, not seeing this at DI do much).

I have 1 DIII team, 3DII teams and 2DI teams, so I feel like I can give a pretty informed opinion on the matter. Potential sucks all the way around the slow down has done nothing. I am half way through a DII season in which I recruited a SG with a 64 PE rating and high potential. I just got a message that he isn't improving and should spend time elsewhere, he is now a 71 so high potential improved 7 points and has maxed out, by the way he is a 69 WE. I also have a question about how much WIS really cares about our opinions, I have followed this thread and haven't seen one comment from SEBLE or any other WIS admin. I am currently working on my own sim. game it's not an easy job so I understand the work that goes into it, but I would feel so much better about it if I could just see a post that says "Hey we may have @#%$*& up and are looking into ways to correct it" but instead I am getting "We have taken enough of your money and could care less what you have to say". Well no one has said that but that's the impression I get!

Quote: Originally Posted By bradriddell on 4/19/2009 I have 1 DIII team, 3DII teams and 2DI teams, so I feel like I can give a pretty informed opinion on the matter. Potential sucks all the way around the slow down has done nothing. I am half way through a DII season in which I recruited a SG with a 64 PE rating and high potential. I just got a message that he isn't improving and should spend time elsewhere, he is now a 71 so high potential improved 7 points and has maxed out, by the way he is a 69 WE.

High potential and only 7 points does not sound right. Are you sure about that? If this is true, you should send a ticket because there is no way that should happen.What team is this, is it under a different alias? I see 3 DII teams but I don't see a player matching your description on this alias.