Suggestion/Ideas for next years game

[ECHood]

- Expanded awards to mirror awards given out by conferences/NCAA in real life. Conference awards come out BEFORE conference tournament games start and are based on conference-only stats.

- Conference-only stats as a view in player profiles and statistics pages.

- Let the top recruits choose "going pro" as an option among the schools they are choosing. They would play for the G-League or something. Would still be eligible for the draft on 6/26. Expand the draft email notification to include foreign players that aren't in the college game. Could have a lot more fun with this. Hint - many of us college hoops nerds are draft nerds too. Add some mock drafts, don't just rank draft picks by pure ratings, etc.

- Remove fog of war for your own players once the season starts (updating ratings on Nov. 1 or thereabouts based on final assessment of Scouting coach after practices have run).

- Commissioner/Sandbox mode option to edit the postseason tournament fields with restrictions if necessary.

- Update NET rankings daily instead of weekly.

- A robust schedule editor in commissioner mode - editing home and away as well as opponents for all schools as user deems necessary. Sandbox mode feature.

- Allow the play-in game at-large teams to be on the 13 seed line to avoid at-large single teams being seeded lower than play-in teams. This happens more often as time goes on and small schools become overpowered. A sign the game is broken, see next point...

- Small schools turning into Gonzagas happens an awful lot as time goes on to the point where low-major and mid-major schools are overpowered in prestige compared to high majors. Limit prestige increases. Don't decrease prestige so easily for high major schools with huge enrollments, Division I football and large arenas, not to mention history. Let high majors host more non-conference games than not, and reverse it for smaller schools. Knock prestige back for smaller schools when their coach gets hired somewhere else and they have to start over. And finally...

- Gotta fix the walk-on thing. As time goes by in a sim, walk-ons start taking over the game, starting (often more than one) on high major teams over scholarship players, playing WAY too much. Take the walk-on thing out of the game entirely for AI. All walk-ons should be half star at best. Do recruited scholarship players need to be stronger in the game? Perhaps. They should always play over walk-ons unless there's been a catastrophic injury bug hitting a team.

I like to play long sims over multiple decades and the walk-on thing really ruins the game. Knowing AI is starting and giving huge minutes to walk-ons at hundreds of schools breaks the game in my mind. Why have walk-ons be a thing at all?

[Orsalak]

I've noticed a few issues I would like to see cleaned up if possible:

1) Foul or kicked ball by defense should reset the shot clock to 20 if it's under 20, not 30. Here is the rule: "Shot clock resets to 20 seconds when at 19 seconds or less, or no reset when it displays 20 seconds or more. There are two infractions which apply to this reset: a personal foul committed by the defense in the offense's frontcourt before the bonus is in effect or when the defense intentionally kicks or fists the ball."

2) When a tech is called, the opposing coach gets to decide which of his players shots the technical FTs. In CB23, the game picks the person and auto-shoots the first free throw before you can react.

3) If a player is seriously injured from a foul, they shouldn't be forced to shoot the FT. By rule, if they have to come out of the game, the opposing coach gets to decide who shoots the FTs. Multiple times I have had someone with a season ending injury reduced to 0 endurance but forced to shoot the FTs before they can be removed. "Mark, you have a compound fracture and you are done for the year, but hey, you have to shoot these free throws before you go!" I think you should force the removal of the player, like you do when they get their 5th foul.

4) At the beginning of the year, if you cut players you can backfill them with a transfer UNLESS they are a senior. Seems like a bug.

[SkyHawk09]

The ability to do multi-year scheduling. Playing as a mid major or a team in a lower conference, if you do. or have high enough prestige it’s hard to get ranked teams to play you on the road. It would be nice to be able to schedule a home and home series with an upper prestige program.

This would be great. With the choice to use the budget on facility upgrades, there's a lot you could do with scheduling.

If you're a small school, do you agree to a 2-for-1 with the nearby Power 6 school to sell tickets to your fans, knowing you might have a lesser team in a couple years? Do you play a home-and-home against a school on your level that you can beat, or take $100,000 from the power conference school that you can put back into your program right away in exchange for a 20-point loss? If you're a bigger school, do you take a TV game against a top-tier opponent, or build your team's confidence by buying a lesser opponent to come play you at home?

[afwapo]

I just got this version for $10 on the Holiday sale... Previously I had the 2021 version but didn't play 2022. I played 7 seasons as a coach for a small/low prestige university (Omaha Mavericks) and did okay in my 2021 game. Just nearing the end of my 2nd season in a restart with Omaha in the 2023 version. In the 2023 game I've mostly just simmed games rather than coaching them in the 2d option.

My thoughts on suggestions (as someone who has played a LOT of hours on sports sim games between this and OOTP baseball) -- FIX the BACK button. This has been disabled from at least the 2021 version and still in 2023. Why? Fixing this button would add a HUGE degree of quality of life in navigating this game. I know it seems like a small thing -- which is sort of my point. It seems like this should be a relatively small fix in order to make a world of difference for the player. I shouldn't have to list out all the ways this would simplify navigation... but I use "back" all the time in other sim games and would use it all the time here, too.

Another suggestion for "quality of life" -- in the team scouting reports, make the side-by-side comparisons of players be clickable links to their player page. This, paired with the aforementioned "back" button would be HUGE in helping a person see how your players match up with their upcoming opponent.

For those who play the 2d games -- it would be nice to have a sort of "built-in" court editor. I realize it is probably a lot of work for someone to made all the courts for so many real-life teams... but it would be awesome to have the game do some really basic color matching, rather than using the default Wolverine Studios court. It would be cool if it would look at the team's primary/secondary colors and just insert those colors on the court, and put the Location/Team Name on opposite ends of the court. If it could even take the logo and tilt it down in center-court that would be amazing, but I'd settle for the colors and names with a generic basketball in the center (or just a colored circle). This just adds to the level of immersion when playing out games.

As far as any major features to add, I can't come up with any other than maybe improving the graphic quality of the 2d games.. But I was also satisfied with the overhead version so obviously it isn't why top concern. I've really enjoyed playing this off and on over the past few years.

[afwapo]

Just playing a 2d game out manually and am remembering some other thoughts on the experience:

1) Need a better way of tracking where the ball is.
2) SOUND EFFECTS need to be used more often to help follow the action. There are many shots that have no sound attached to them. Every missed shot should have some sort of sound -- a clang of the rim or bouncing in and out, etc. Airballs can have a crowd taunt, or something. Every made basket needs the sound of the hoop/net/swish.
3) The substitution page needs to be constantly refreshing the stamina just like on the bottom of the screen.
4) I also don't love the layout of the screen. I think the play-by-play should be more prominent in the center between the lineup --- and the scoreboard needs to be moved to the side. I liked the old version better where the screen would flash up an alert rather than having the entire scoreboard area be filled with the rebound/point/steal info when a play happens. I like the scoreboard showing the stats of the game. I feel like the previous versions were easier to follow the action.

[afwapo]

Just playing a 2d game out manually and am remembering some other thoughts on the experience:

1) Need a better way of tracking where the ball is.
2) SOUND EFFECTS need to be used more often to help follow the action. There are many shots that have no sound attached to them. Every missed shot should have some sort of sound -- a clang of the rim or bouncing in and out, etc. Airballs can have a crowd taunt, or something. Every made basket needs the sound of the hoop/net/swish.
3) The substitution page needs to be constantly refreshing the stamina just like on the bottom of the screen.
4) I also don't love the layout of the screen. I think the play-by-play should be more prominent in the center between the lineup --- and the scoreboard needs to be moved to the side. I liked the old version better where the screen would flash up an alert rather than having the entire scoreboard area be filled with the rebound/point/steal info when a play happens. I like the scoreboard showing the stats of the game. I feel like the previous versions were easier to follow the action.

[jjhyt7]

I want to be able to print out (or export) things like recruit lists and box scores and stat reports). The only way to do it now is a very cumbersome and impractacle snip-it utility which I HATE. For example, Football Manager lets you highlight lines of data and save it as an HTML and then import to either excel or word.

I agree. I would like the ability to export as a csv file so I can create my own stat graphs and charts using Google Sheets.

[mickey415]

A court editor would be awesome, I totally agree with you. I would love to create some classic historical courts even if it's just color scheme, title, and insert center court graphic. Wish I had the talent or if someone could explain how to edit the basic court template 2D or 3D, I am good with computers but editing graphics can be tough.

"it would be nice to have a sort of "built-in" court editor"

[jlemmen43]

A court editor would be awesome, I totally agree with you. I would love to create some classic historical courts even if it's just color scheme, title, and insert center court graphic. Wish I had the talent or if someone could explain how to edit the basic court template 2D or 3D, I am good with computers but editing graphics can be tough.

"it would be nice to have a sort of "built-in" court editor"

I created courts for all my fictional colleges, using the Court Template...but I could not figure out how to get the sideline Team name Text to work properly. Because of the tilt, it's a little more advanced, so I feel your pain.

[adamj95]

Looks like first access for CB23 started on February 28th. Hopefully not too much longer before first access starts for CB24! Can’t wait to hear about potential updates and changes to the game.