dev diary #57 | Interface Update: Recruiting

[TuscanSota]

Hey everyone,

 

TuscanSota here with a new interface update. For today's dev diary, I would like to go over the new Recruiting Features that we will have for the 2022 SimFBA College Football Season.

 

Here is a shortlist of all the changes made:

- Implemented new CFB Recruiting Dashboard Page

- Implemented new CFB Team Recruiting Board Page

- Activated recruiting buttons on both the landing page and the team page.

- Additional functionality for Admin team on managing recruiting during the season.

 

NOTE: I highly recommend using the new pages in a Desktop browser. Mobile is not ready at this time, and the pages will appear very differently than as they are shown below.

 

Now, let's go over these changes in detail.

 

Navigating to the new Pages

There are two new options available for navigation known as the 'Recruiting Overview' and the '{Team} Recruiting Board'. The Recruiting Overview page is where you will go to view ALL recruits, and add them to your individual board. The Team Recruiting Board, is your personal recruiting board.

 

 

You can also navigate to the Recruiting Overview Page from the 'Recruiting Button', here:

 

And you can navigate to your team's recruiting board also from your team page, as shown below:

 

Recruiting Overview Page

The Recruiting Overview is page which will show you all the recruits across the country that are available for recruiting in the current season. You may view a recruit's information all the way from rank; to position & archetype; their overall and potential; and their affinities. You may also filter using five different keys: Position, States, Affinities, Potential Grade, and Overall Grade.

 

 

To use any of the filters, click on any of the select dropdowns and select an option. Each of these select dropdowns are multi-select, so you can choose to filter by more than one position, and even more than one state.

 

 

 

To clear a filter, simply click the X button on the filter you want to clear. At this time, a Clear Filters which will auto-clear all five is not available.

 

To help you with recruiting for the season, there is a sidebar on the left side of the page which will give you detailed information about your team's recruiting profile. Displayed on this page will be your active affinities (outside of Close to Home), the number of points remaining to be spent, along with the amount of scholarships available, and available to offer. Details about your team's needs are listed below, based on how many seniors and graduate seniors will be leaving your program, by position. You can also quickly navigate to your team's recruiting board from here.

 

 

For each recruit, there is an information button that you can click which will show you more details in a neat format. As you may notice, there is a Recruiting Preferences section and Personality section. These two fields are only for flair and to show some character for a recruit. The two fields, unlike the affinities, have no effect on point allocation and the recruiting sync.

 

 

To add a recruit to your board, simply click the Plus(+) button for the player you want to recruit. When the Plus(+) button changes to a check, then that recruit has successfully been added to your board.

 

 

Team Recruiting Page

Next up we have the Team Recruiting Page. This is the page where you will be able to offer scholarships and add points to the recruits you've selected onto your board.

 

 

You can allocate as many points here onto your recruits as you want; however, if you go above your team's weekly points threshold, you will not be able to save. Please notice the change in the color of the button.

 

 

When your team has an affinity match with a player on your board, the text of the matching affinity will be green.

 

To add a scholarship onto a recruit, simply click on the plus button next to the player's name. The icon will then change into a graduation cap to signify that you have offered a scholarship to this player.

 

 

To revoke a scholarship from a player, click on the graduation cap. A prompt will appear asking if you want to revoke the scholarship from the player. The decision made here will be final -- If you revoke a scholarship from a recruit, you cannot offer a scholarship to that recruit ever again. So please, be careful. I will not undo this change for you should you chose to revoke a scholarship, that's why the prompt is there.

 

 

You can also choose to remove a recruit from your recruiting board. You can always re-add them back to your board at any time should you choose to.

 

 

On the sidebar, you will find details from your team's active affinities, along with your Team's current rank in recruiting and score. A count on signed players by position will be added in the near future.

 

What's Next?

With these pages now implemented, we are incredibly close to having recruiting ready for the upcoming season. All that's left is the following items:

- Recruiting Class Algorithm

- Recruiting Sync

- Team Class Rankings section

- Recruiting Test season

 

 

A few algorithms need to be worked on which will detail how we will rank recruits using the ESPN method, Rivals 247 method, and the Top25 method. These are the scores that were used last year in recruiting, and we plan on keeping it that way. Because of the nature of translating the algorithms from Excel to actual code, this may take some time. I'm hoping to get this done by the end of this week; and if not, next week.

 

Once that's done, I will need your help. These pages are ready, and I'm confident with how recruiting will work through the application, but we will need a test season to confirm that everything is working 100% as intended. You can access all recruiting pages now, there's no one stopping you. Unfortunately, Amazon Smith, Bread Boi, and Clarence Beeftank aren't going to be actual recruits for the upcoming season, but they will be available for the testing cycle. So by all means, play around with the pages; and once my job's done with the algorithms and when I get @Rocketcan to send me a test crooting class specifically for this.

 

For those that will be participating, I will grant the top three teams the option of creating their own recruit, similar to last year's reward. The only condition on this specific reward will be should you place in the top three, but had a recruit created last season, then the reward will go the next user with a top team, who didn't have a custom recruit last season.

 

I will also grant another user the option to create their own recruit for the best piece of media content revolving around their collegiate team this off-season, before the season starts.

 

The criteria on creating a recruit will be provided once the test-season is over.

 

Thank you for reading. Hope you all enjoyed this Dev Diary and look forward to the start of the season.

 

~TuscanSota

[PoopyRhinoPickle]

Looks amazing!

[joopear]

Putting all my points on Bread Boi

[BabaYaga]

Petition for Dick Richards to be an actual gen.

[awoodard]

This looks awesome!