Improvement suggestion: Scouting and own player reports

I think an area that needs to be majorly updated is scouting and also the own player reports page.

Scouting

- This should be improved so that the level of accuracy and amount of information presented by the scout will differ depending on their attributes. I guess it could be a bit similar to the coaching quality scale for training. Right now there is not much difference between a mid level scout and a high level scout in terms of scouting a single player.

Own player report

- I really can't believe that this 'reports' page of the own players can sometimes show less information than the scouted report of players from other club. After months and years of being together at the same club surely should show more comprehensive information about their personality, consistency etc. It is a bit frustrating that after 5 years of getting to know a player the only thing you know about their personality is 'resolute'. And even those one word personality is not possible to understand without some complicated personality chart.

What do you guys think?

Own player report

- I really can't believe that this 'reports' page of the own players can sometimes show less information than the scouted report of players from other club. After months and years of being together at the same club surely should show more comprehensive information about their personality, consistency etc. It is a bit frustrating that after 5 years of getting to know a player the only thing you know about their personality is 'resolute'. And even those one word personality is not possible to understand without some complicated personality chart.

This is related to the type of coach you ask for a report.

Defending coaches give full information on defenders & DMs but only minimal on attacking players.

Attacking coaches give the opposite

GK Coaches give full info on GKs

General coaches give somewhere inbetween minimal & full on all players

Fitness coaches give fairly full info on all players

I guess this reflects the fact they know more about the players they are training each day.

but even then the information given does not at all reflect the knowledge they would have irl at a club imo.

To be honest, if you've had a player on your books for five years, you ought to know what sort of player he is without having to have the game spoon feed you the information. I know which guys start cracking under pressure, have poor temperaments, play inconsistently etc. without needing a coach report. You just have to pay attention. I know some use the notes systems to track their players as well. That said, they player reports could do with a bit of beefing up in some areas, especially when talking about the youths and reserves. I'd expect the managers and coaches to provide some more feedback about those players along the lines of what you want.

To be honest, if you've had a player on your books for five years, you ought to know what sort of player he is without having to have the game spoon feed you the information. I know which guys start cracking under pressure, have poor temperaments, play inconsistently etc. without needing a coach report. You just have to pay attention. I know some use the notes systems to track their players as well. That said, they player reports could do with a bit of beefing up in some areas, especially when talking about the youths and reserves. I'd expect the managers and coaches to provide some more feedback about those players along the lines of what you want.

The information you see on the screen is supposed to be representative of your virtual knowledge. So there is no problem with "spoon-feeding" the information. I shouldn't need to take and maintain multiple tedious notes about many players in the game in order to know something that is obvious - the game should show it, full-stop.

You don't need to dig through notes to know that Clichy is terrible under pressure, for example - you just "know". Seeing "spineless" under his personality isn't spoon-feeding - it's absolutely what is expected.

Something i've thought would be a good addition is the better the scout, the more information you got. For example if you have a world class scout, they should be able to say that the player would be best deployed as an advanced forward, or an equivalent, instead of just saying striker. Would give a bigger incentive to get the best backroom staff around.

The information you see on the screen is supposed to be representative of your virtual knowledge. So there is no problem with "spoon-feeding" the information. I shouldn't need to take and maintain multiple tedious notes about many players in the game in order to know something that is obvious - the game should show it, full-stop.

You don't need to dig through notes to know that Clichy is terrible under pressure, for example - you just "know". Seeing "spineless" under his personality isn't spoon-feeding - it's absolutely what is expected.

You do realise that some of us don't like being "spoon fed" information and actually enjoy working it out for ourselves.

You do realise that some of us don't like being "spoon fed" information and actually enjoy working it out for ourselves.

You do realise that some of us DO like being "spoon fed" information and actually DON'T enjoy working it out for ourselves. We want choices.

You do realise that some of us don't like being "spoon fed" information and actually enjoy working it out for ourselves.

You do realise that we can have the best of both worlds, where new players have little known about their personalities*, but familiar or famous players should have pretty much all of it known?

It is realistic to know the personalities of players you are familiar with - it is realistic to be shown this, since you simply don't need to research it.

* I'd argue attributes that are extreme, such as close to 3 or close to 18, should be immediately-available as it is obvious, but anything closer to 10-11 should take longer to figure out, regardless of the player's fame or familiarity

The information you see on the screen is supposed to be representative of your virtual knowledge. So there is no problem with "spoon-feeding" the information. I shouldn't need to take and maintain multiple tedious notes about many players in the game in order to know something that is obvious - the game should show it, full-stop.

You don't need to dig through notes to know that Clichy is terrible under pressure, for example - you just "know". Seeing "spineless" under his personality isn't spoon-feeding - it's absolutely what is expected.

Fair enough, though I am with Cougar in not wanting to be given so much- I can see the point, but the problem for me is that you can sign a player, and all of a sudden there is "spineless" in his personality trait. (Bad example- would any of us sign a spineless player?) Now you know not to play such a player in a critical match. But you wouldn't know this realistically until you've coached him for a while and watched him deal with pressure situations. Same goes for a scout, unless you multiple scout a player several times with a quality scout, how would you really know his deeper personality?

On the idea of virtual knowledge, again, fair point: maybe a solution would be a gradual revelation of personality over several months? Not sure how this would look in game terms?

Fair enough, though I am with Cougar in not wanting to be given so much- I can see the point, but the problem for me is that you can sign a player, and all of a sudden there is "spineless" in his personality trait. (Bad example- would any of us sign a spineless player?) Now you know not to play such a player in a critical match. But you wouldn't know this realistically until you've coached him for a while and watched him deal with pressure situations. Same goes for a scout, unless you multiple scout a player several times with a quality scout, how would you really know his deeper personality?

You don't need to scout some players - we, as fans, with little-or-no access to scouts, know Clichy is terrible under pressure, as is a lot of the Arsenal squad. We know the likes of Del Piero are extremely professional and loyal, but their personality description will only show one of these. There is an argument for unknown players or players with relatively obscure backgrounds (i.e. several leagues below your scouts' usual searching areas), but I don't think there is much for extreme personalities of popular players. You simply "know" these without actually scouting - we, as fans know these!

On the idea of virtual knowledge, again, fair point: maybe a solution would be a gradual revelation of personality over several months? Not sure how this would look in game terms?

You still need to have more than one personality trait in the description. That is the crux of one of my many ideas. I want to know that Rooney is ambitious, determined, fairly-professional, temperamental, controversial and fairly unsporting, something we all know. I'd like a player who is a regen who is roughly equivalent to Rooney to have roughly the same personality traits. Not just "determined", which the game might assign.

You still need to have more than one personality trait in the description. That is the crux of one of my many ideas. I want to know that Rooney is ambitious, determined, fairly-professional, temperamental, controversial and fairly unsporting, something we all know. I'd like a player who is a regen who is roughly equivalent to Rooney to have roughly the same personality traits. Not just "determined", which the game might assign.

This. Yep I agree, and I like it a lot. Regardless of the mechanics of how it gets revealed, whether for high rep visible players like Rooney or Messi we know this as football followers and see it right off, or it gets revealed as we develop a young player, we need to see a better personality descriptions.