Ha!  Let's see how you feel about it when Baton Rouge comes calling in the WGM!  :-)

Seriously though, yes, I have been thinking about this and wanting to revisit the discussion.  Hoping to get a workable plan soon on recruiting updates (like some start of season seed RPs) and have been thinking more on that recently.  More this week, thanks for raising it JH.

My thought: select only one position group to +1 from [OH, MB, RS&S, L]. Would add a bit of strategy too. (I'm under no impression the L will ever be used since you get only one player instead of two, but it should probably be included as an emergency tactical option.)

I like the idea of introducing staff like we have in MSWLU. There could be an Assistant Coach that allows you to boost one of the positions like John mentioned. OR... instead of boosting a specific position, maybe it boosts a specific stat across the board, like +1 SRV.

I would agree with John and Rob to limit the across the board improvement, and maybe have it grant a +1 bonus to two relevant stats per player, but randomized, so it isn't necessarily always the same stat per game? That's probably a much more difficult coding issue, but I think it more accurately represents the intangible factor we are trying to go for, basically the adreniline and boost you get from playing in front of your own crowd. That factor is not quantifiable, but under the current system, both the home coach and away coach know exactly what they are up against. Some sort of randomness would require coaches to think twice about whether to play a B-stringer at home, not knowing what stats will be boosted.

Thanks for the ideas guys.  I've been mulling this over quite a bit.

I've sat through a few VERY COMPETITIVE high school matches that both Josh and Max have played in where the seats are packed.

I've also watched some matches (mostly women's college) where the stands are packed.

The attributes that I think get impacted the most are likely these two:

1) Away team serve - lot of talking from the stands to throw off the server

2) Away team serve receive - players feel some pressure

For the home team, I think the aspects that they excel at are likely attacking and especially blocking.  Some players (like middles) aren't set all that often, but when they get a block (or the setter gets one) it is pretty exciting.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all that yet, but I think these are key.  

This area is tricky because I think we need a solution that includes:

1) Handling home court

2) Allowing coaches to choose offensive and defensive assistant coaching per session (to offset the other team's home court)

3) Perhaps Great Performance Points usage.  Its a great feature in the soccer game.  Say we hand out 10 per each ability (6).  And you can use up to 3 a match.  That starts to offset home court.  Like if I use +1 GPP for attacking and +1 for Serving when I have a big road league/cup match.  

4) Do we need a path to seniors becoming assistants or punt that idea and let all teams have the same for #2 above.  

What if we just started small, put aside every other idea and said:

a) All teams get 10-10-10-10-10-10 GPPs for SRV-RCV-BLK-ATK-DEF-SET

b) I can use up to 3 per match.  Nor more than 1 point per category.  So I could put +1 on SRV and +1 on DEF and +1 on BLK.  

c) When I use it, it improves all players 1 point for that ability.  Example: +1 SRV means a server with a 10 in that ability serves at an 11.

d) Keep home court as-is and I can only use these points as an away team or on a neutral court.  

60 total GPP, up to 3 per match, so we'd have to play in 20+ away/neutral matches to use them all.  Last season, my team had 36 total matches.  7 were home conference matches, and 4 were home non-conf, so that leaves 25 matches. I don't recall if we had a home cup match anywhere in there.  If we ignored the 4 non-conference games for competitive purposes, that would leave 21 matches.  We could have written off one league match as a loss anyway (like at Quincy or St. Charles) and spent the max of 3 in every other away/neutral match.

Is that what we're shooting for?  Seems a bit much to call it Great Performance Points if you can max it out in every away and neutral match.  If we're just aiming to level the floor a little against the home court advantage, makes sense.  And does add some tactical strategy to the neutral court games where both teams will be throwing out the +3.  Which points do you save "just in case" you end up in the final, or do you exhaust the RCV & ATK & SET to just make it there?

I think I like the tactical strategy aspect the most here. If we're just trying to offset the home advantage, then that probably says the home advantage is too powerful. BUT... if in doing so, we introduce tactics and strategy into the game that can really make things less predictable and more flavorful, I think that's a great idea. 

I like the GPP idea, and the limit to 3 in a match.  Maybe drop them to 6 each instead of 10?  Or 4 or 5 each, and limit to 2-per-match instead of 3?  That way you could only use a point or two in half the road matches, and teams would have to decide which ones, and how fast they wanted to exhaust them.
For example, at 5 for each of the 6 stat areas, that would be 30 total points.  At a 2-per match limit, that would be 15 away/neutral matches.  While that's the majority of matches, it would still push managers to choose which ones for which matches.  Attack or defend?
If keeping at 3-per-match use, you could burn them in the Neutral tourney games, and have nothing left for league or tourney away matches.  That's a viable option, and again managerial preference would make a big difference in lineup strengths and match results - that's a very good thing.

I like the GPP idea, but I agree with Kevin that it should be lower than 10 per ability (5-6 sounds right to me) and restricting to a max of 2 per match.