Scouting and Player Attributes

It's unclear to me how scouts affect the information you see about players. Once you have "scouted" a player (gotten a report card), you can see all of his attributes, and you can see the scouting report. Does the scout's "judging ability" skill affect how accurate the numbers are in the attributes screen, or are those "actual" attribute values (not based on a scout's opinion)? If they are always the "actual" values, then the only purpose of scouts at all is to provide the scouting report, and give you an overall estimate of ability (current and potential).

In some other games (like Front Office Football), your scouts' abilities actually affected what you saw for any given player's attributes, which was really cool. It doesn't seem realistic that everybody in the universe would be able to know that a given player's dribbling skill is 17, for example.

Also, if scouting ability does only affect what we see in the scouting report, how does the report change with scouts of different ability? Is it possible for a bad scout to tell me he thinks a not-very-good player could be a future star, or vice versa?

If scouts only exist to: 1) discover unknown players and 2) give us an out-of-5 rating for a player, it seems like the scouting system is very unrealistic. If I have one scout that can judge potential ability at 17, and another who does it at 20, then we are pretty much guaranteed to get the same star rating for a given player, aren't we?

Very good point. I'd like to know more about this also

Don't forget the hidden 'personality' attributes such as injury proneness and professionalism. Also his skill affects accuracy re. his interest in joining you, actual transfer fee required and expected wages. But in general, I think you make valid points.

So the attributes are in fact "true" reflections of a player's skills regardless of what scout?(not good) Also...what happened to the "fog of war" option?

It's actually a little surprising that this is the case, given how realistic most of the other aspects of the game are (modeling personalities, etc.). It seems like such a simplified approach to scouting to do it this way.

It would be really cool, if in this game and also other text-based sports sims, if scouting were much more based on evaluation of performance instead of having scouts who have a pre-baked ability to "discover" a player's true attribute levels, which are in some sense fixed for that player (aside from increases/decreases as a result of development). In many sports, it's common for a player who's thought of by scouts as being worthless become a surprise star almost overnight (I'm thinking again here about sports like American football, where you can have Tony Romo-like players who aren't drafted but go on to become good starters in the league). It doesn't seem to me there's much of a boom/bust model present in FM.

In my experience, if you have a scout with 20/20 JCA/JPA, there's no point in scouting a player for multiple matches, because the scouting report and your ability to view "true" attributes tells you all you need to know about somebody.

FOW (Fog of war) is what you get if you look at a less well known player you haven't scouted

Current ability and Potential ability is a jusgement made by your scout and listed via stars in the players report. Scouting abilities will impact this. Remember PA (potential ability) is down to the player, your coaching and his game time. Many players, as in rel life, never reach their potential. When a player reaces a certain age his development will slow / stop. Players in different positions also peak at different ages. Goalkeepes are a good example of players who peak later

Poorer scouts often don't reveal all a player's attributes when they first scout them. Also, the potential ability, hidden sttribute info and wage and transfer info may be wrong with a poorer scout. If an attribute is shown then it's correct which is, I agree, a little weird if you think about it. However, I've played other games where it's done differently and you have different amounts of uncertainty about the accuracy of the attributes and it's actually pretty annoying. It's one of those areas where a little bit of non-realism helps, I think. It's still easy to get it wrong with poor scouts.

I think the real problem here might be the ease with which good scouts can be signed. I almost always end up with my allocation of scouts filled by guys with JPA and JPP >17 on fairly low wages. If you had to settle for worse scouts more often it might make the scouting a little more engaging.

Good points Mike, its not just player skills its his view of the items you mention

Scouts also have a CA and PA I think so can improve as they "age" gain experience

They get all the attributes right if they have 13+ ca/pa I think.

Better scouts require shorter time to find players when scouting, finds more suitable players (personality etc), comes with more scouting knowledge overall and are more accurate when it comes to potential ability and other details.

But don't ratings change over time as a player improves or regresses? That's where this doesn't make sense to me.

But don't ratings change over time as a player improves or regresses? That's where this doesn't make sense to me.

They do indeed which is why it's beneficial to scout the player again.

The 'fog' also depends on your scouting knowledge. If you have a Brazilian assistant manager for example then your team's knowledge of Brazil will benefit from that meaning that you will see more unveiled attributes. If you have absolutely no knowledge of a nation, you will see no stats. In this case it's beneficial to scout the player twice. The second time around the scout will unveil more attributes.

I must admit though I do like the OP's suggestions. Good food for thought.

They do indeed which is why it's beneficial to scout the player again.

The 'fog' also depends on your scouting knowledge. If you have a Brazilian assistant manager for example then your team's knowledge of Brazil will benefit from that meaning that you will see more unveiled attributes. If you have absolutely no knowledge of a nation, you will see no stats. In this case it's beneficial to scout the player twice. The second time around the scout will unveil more attributes.

I must admit though I do like the OP's suggestions. Good food for thought.

yes, but the rating numbers ARE in fact actual...so why bother?

My big issue with it is in real life when you get a scout report- the scout goes and watches the games of the person- in the game its useless to get multiple reports as like many of you said- the scout report is 90% accurate. What I would like to see is if scouts attributes on Attack/ Defense etc would help them more accurately scout those stats while in areas that they are poor at they would give you a range.So if your attacking scout scouted an impressive defender all it would have for tackling for example would be 15-20 as opposed to a 18 while you defensive scout would be able to figure out the actual rating.

My big issue with it is in real life when you get a scout report- the scout goes and watches the games of the person- in the game its useless to get multiple reports as like many of you said- the scout report is 90% accurate. What I would like to see is if scouts attributes on Attack/ Defense etc would help them more accurately scout those stats while in areas that they are poor at they would give you a range.So if your attacking scout scouted an impressive defender all it would have for tackling for example would be 15-20 as opposed to a 18 while you defensive scout would be able to figure out the actual rating.

Was about to suggest something similar to this above.

Depending on how good the scouts ability, attributes are rated as inbetween numbers. IF your sscout is poor, the attributes reads as - 1-20, or if you have a average scout 6-14 or if you have a brilliant scout 9-11 (or something similar).

With this aswell, your poor scout should give a completely different view to a player then a brilliant scout, more so with regards to wages, happiness, willingness to move, asking price or even a different star ratings judging on his actually PA.

I have actually just done this as a test, got a 19/20 scout compared to a 1/3 scout. Both had similar views, apart from the:

Poor scout rated him CA 2 Stars and PA 2.5 Stars

Brilliant scout rated him CA 2 Stars and PA 3 stars.

Slight difference, but nothing to suggest there is huge gulf in class/ability

The idea I have is that attributes that are "unknown" should be "blur" in some way. Extreme attributes, such as 1-3 or 18-20, should be easily known for most scouts (and managers), as it's easy to see - if someone didn't know who van Nistelrooy was, but saw him play for the first time, you'd know he had a great finishing attribute. These should be "sharp" as it represents near-perfect knowledge. Attributes that are closer to 8-12, however, are a lot more difficult to distinguish because they are "different shades of average" - these should be "blur".

The more a scout (or manager/coach) sees a player, the less "blur" the attributes become. Good scouts just allow you to "sharpen" the attributes quicker.

Of course, the whole scouting module needs a revamp - managers and coaches need to be able to act as scouts in some capacity (although, of course, they may be rubbish at it), scouting knowledge is still rubbish and can be forgotten easily, connections outside of affiliated clubs simply don't exist, and so on.

the scout rating only affects their chance of getting the potential and current ability star rating of players correct. wish is pretty much the most important thing.

Id be more willing to give players with decent attributes but have great future potential a chances then players with above decent attributes and bad future potential.

I use the scout just to have infos on how much a player is interested on joining my team hence the money possibly involved.

Other than that I NEVER listen to scout opinions, I can formulate an opinion on players by myself seeing attributes and player history. I never fail on that.

I think its good that the scout reports now are accurate (although unrealistic) because the AI managers don't use the scout system like us. They have generated shortlists and they pretty much know the existence of most wonderkids that we have no chance of hearing of especially if they are big clubs.

To counter this AI advantage, we need some un-realism if you get what i mean. Unless SI decides to revamp both the scouting side and managers' AI.