Changes to Scouting - FM12

The bug which is being reported whereby you send a scout out and one day later he finishes his search, is this happening with everyone, and is it country/region specific??

I don't have the game but does this mean that you can't scout Nations for players anymore? This may be a stupid question.

I don't have the game but does this mean that you can't scout Nations for players anymore? This may be a stupid question.

No, you can. It's just that if you send a scout to a nation he already has full knowledge of, he will finish the assignment within a day because he already knows the players. So sending a French scout to France would be finished quickly, but sending him to Croatia, for example, would take longer.

So it's not really a bug then, that's good!

So it's not really a bug then, that's good!

Not really, I've already posted in LLM about this problem but in an attept to reach a larger audience this new scouting model will kill LLM & tbh the enjoyment of many FM players.

How many pre-loaded reports does a scout have, from the demo it's about 30 or so. Now without having absolute knowledge of every player in England how is anyone supposed to be able to find new transfer targets?

Will a scouts knowledge % reduce as the game progresses? No good if he still has 100% knowledge after 1 season let alone 10 as he'll not recognise all those newgens or players that have moved from overseas.

So is that 100% of what that particular scout will ever find in that nation or 100% of all possible players? If you were to send another scout into that nation, would other players be discovered?

I've been doing the same job for 20 years, but I'm still discovering something new every week. Can anyone ever claim to know 100% of everything in their chosen field?

I'm sorry but this system is not right, how can a scout have absolute knowledge right off the bat?

Because they're not doing the job one day. They've built a career on it. And if I asked a scout to find me some players or to scout the leauge, I'd expect them to already have done this only recently, before I joined. And to continue to keep his knowledge of the areas he's 100% in up to date.

I shouldn't have to tell a scout to go do his job. They should do this themselves. And update accordingly. If I go to a scout and say, "See anyone worthwhile lately" I hope he has his work done and has recommendations for me. Rather than waiting a week or two weeks to get a report back!

And of course, I can ask them to go scout somewhere else, say with 70% knowledge, and they will take a bit longer because they have to do more work.

I feel this is more realistic.

We're looking into this issue, but you have to realise that a scout has prior knowledge before the games start date. This is using this knowledge. If you click his reports via his profile (rather than via the assignment) he'll have a longer list of scouted players. Thanks.

I cannot send him outside England because players are unlikely to move 200 miles for a £50 pw p/t contract & based on my experience in the demo if I hire a different scout he will report on more or less the same players.

@ Eugene

I agree that a scout should a list of players that he thinks will do a job at your club, it's actually something I called for a few years back but to them have him sit in his office & tell me that he knows everything is not great & as things stand I am definitely sticking with FM11.

What do you mean Barside?

Ye but, my scout has 100% knowledge of a country, and comes back with 1 player. How is that right!?!?!?!?

Ye but, my scout has 100% knowledge of a country, and comes back with 1 player. How is that right!?!?!?!?

Your scout only thinks one player of that country is good for you. Nothing wrong with that.

@ Eugene

I agree that a scout should a list of players that he thinks will do a job at your club, it's actually something I called for a few years back but to them have him sit in his office & tell me that he knows everything is not great & as things stand I am definitely sticking with FM11.

I fail to see your point here.

I would hope the scout is working in the background. When you ask for a report he has it ready. That's just efficiency.

Is there an option to send them out for a week? Or scout a competition?

I'm confused as to how this affects LLM. It's a feature in the game that's attempting to model reality. If you sign a new scout he will come with some knowledge, which seems reasonable. Yes, in previous games you'd have to send him to scout for you but now they're just being more proactive and not sitting twiddling their thumbs if you don't specifically instruct them to do their job.

Sounds like the main issue is that a scout doesn't have anywhere near enough pre-loaded reports, and if you can't send them out around the country to get more, then they're completely useless. I find it hard to believe that any scout in a lower league only knows of 26 players that could possibly improve the squad.

Of course you can select a player individually and ask for a scout report, but 1) that would be against the LLM rules (I think) and 2) you're essentially scouting for players yourself then.

that's why i always go with regions rather than countries

one minor problem is getting the knowledge of africa, that damn continent is HUGE

also, the world roaming scout goes to areas already covered by current scouts (in that area)... is there a way to tell him to move on from there (and go to an area where he's needed)

If a scout has perfect knowledge of a certain country, will every player of this country have a scout report? Or only the 5 players he specifically reports in the news message? If not, how else can we get the scout reports the scout has in his "perfect knowledge brain"?

If a scout has perfect knowledge of a certain country, will every player of this country have a scout report? Or only the 5 players he specifically reports in the news message? If not, how else can we get the scout reports the scout has in his "perfect knowledge brain"?

This touches on an area of concern & credit to someone else for mentioning it elsewhere but even if the scout has perfect knowledge (which he can't have) I as a new manager do not so I'd like my scout to offer a more comprehensive list, also as a scout he does not decide tactics, formations or any number of day to day club issues yet because he only offers his top 20 suggestions my development of the club is directly linked to his idea of what style of football should be played in.

What happens if I join a club & decide to re-introduce the 1980's sweeper, will the scout suddenly offer up a list of players that he knows can play in the role or will I have to try & find a player in a list of recommendation based on the previous managers 4-4-2 system?

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to buy the game & risk it gathering dust but hopefully some other llama's will be in a position to offer their opinion after a weekend of FM.

hopefully some other llama's will be in a position

I find this a tad disrespectful.

However, you can ask your scout to scout for a particular position.

I do like the idea of the scout reporting back players that suit the formation you utilise though. Could be a good future feature.

I find this a tad disrespectful.

I don't see how & the certainly wasn't any intended, I'm just waiting for other people who play the game like I do to report back on how they feel the new system is working.

The demo period didn't indicate there was a drastic change & when the problem of scouts coming back after a day was reported there was no response from SI saying that the system was working as intended, in fact iirc the replies given gave the impression that this was a bug which is why I never gave it much attention.

no mention that feature is working as intended

No offence take so. Lets move on.

I can see in that link that Lucas with an SI badge said it was being looked into.

I don't know how it's misrepresenting the product? The scouting system was altered and in my view works a bit more realisticially, a few things to iron out, for sure.

This is due to the scout having 100% knowledge of the nation you've sent him to and so he doesn't need to scout further as he already has all the information he needs to report back to you. The news item doesn't explain this and that is something that we'll fix.

and

We're looking into this issue, but you have to realise that a scout has prior knowledge before the games start date. This is using this knowledge. If you click his reports via his profile (rather than via the assignment) he'll have a longer list of scouted players. Thanks.

Is that not the case for you?

No offence take so. Lets move on.

I can see in that link that Lucas with an SI badge said it was being looked into.

Why did they need to look into a feature that is working as intended? The demo was the same version so surely SI should have said as much 10 days ago, that's another discussion though.

As for Neil's post, that method yielded 26 reports on the demo, granted I'd expect a few more on the full version but as yet no-one has mentioned what this number is when starting at a 6th tier club.

Surely the idea is that the scout picks out players that he thinks are good, but also submits his knowledge of all the other players into the knowledge bank that is the player search tool? So if you want a specific type of player you filter the search to favour that, and if your scout already knew of a player that fits the role then it'll appear in the player search (presumably with report)? Not really seeing the problem, to be honest.

Why did they need to look into a feature that is working as intended? The demo was the same version so surely SI should have said as much 10 days ago, that's another discussion though.

As for Neil's post, that method yielded 26 reports on the demo, granted I'd expect a few more on the full version but as yet no-one has mentioned what this number is when starting at a 6th tier club.

This might be because quickstarts use a small database. If you did a full game using medium or larger (or even "retain all players based in England" for example) I would expect a better response, although i'll concede that is guesswork for now.

Surely the idea is that the scout picks out players that he thinks are good, but also submits his knowledge of all the other players into the knowledge bank that is the player search tool? So if you want a specific type of player you filter the search to favour that, and if your scout already knew of a player that fits the role then it'll appear in the player search (presumably with report)? Not really seeing the problem, to be honest.

The issue is using player search which strict LLM players don't use.

Surely the idea is that the scout picks out players that he thinks are good, but also submits his knowledge of all the other players into the knowledge bank that is the player search tool? So if you want a specific type of player you filter the search to favour that, and if your scout already knew of a player that fits the role then it'll appear in the player search (presumably with report)? Not really seeing the problem, to be honest.

I'd be fine with that scenario as I use the player search screen in much that way, I sort by scout rating rather than going to each individual scout report page, unfortunately players without a star rating do not have a default scout report.

Having checked one of my demo saves something is definitely not right, I have a scout set to report on players in UK & Ireland, for some reason the scout in question who has 100% knowledge of England has so far only scouted England & has come up with 38 additional player reports.

So there does appear to be a workaround but it requires the scout to head off to the nation you're based in first which leads t the question of why will he scout England when I've asked him to cover the whole region but will not do this when I ask him to only scout England.

Just checked this theory, sent scout to look for players in England & he returned the following day with 1 report.

Asked him to scout UK & Ireland (England assignment not removed), scout heads off to Scotland so I cancelled the assignment.

Asked him to scout UK & Ireland (England assignment removed), scout heads off to scout England & 1 month later has produced 23 reports.

I understand scouts have knowledge and only report "new players", therefore where is this knowledge available ? Is a scout paid for the new players he sees or for his knowledge ? I guess he is primarily paid for his knowledge which should be easily available and then for the players he adds to his knowledge...

Definitely not working right, I managed to replicate the scenario of getting a scout to cover England as part of a regional assignment, posted in the bugs forum & plenty of files for the dev team to look at to work out what is going on.

Scouting has two parts in FM:

The scout reports (only players recommended by the scout)

The player search (all player listed that are in the region where there is scouting knowledge)

Player search is a comprehensive list of players that are known by your scouts but not scouted individually. Player search is part of the scouting module and not a tool to avoid scouting.

I think that scouting knowledge should at least decrease month after month, which would bring new results, when scouting a nation or region again. That's something the coders should look into it.

Ok I have my own thoughts and question about this.

When I knew that player search was banned in LLM I always assumed they meant typing into the search box. Those players in the other list, aren't they within the scouting network of the club, known by staff and other players (and a dynamic list)? I mean wouldn't any football staff within England know of Wayne Rooney without having to especially scout him?

On the other hand I would have to understand fully how this new system works. So he recommends some players and then won't look again claiming he won't find any. His knowledge would of course have to degrade to ensure that he wold find new players when they became available or do the just suddenly appear on the list.

I have no problem with the scout recommending some players but I would want reports for others as well. meaning he knows them but wouldn't recommend them.

The players search screen is an unused tool in LLM because we are yet to be convinced that such a resource exists outside of FM, where else can you find a list of 50,000 players from around the globe & with that have details of their position, value etc without scouting.

The problem with this new system, assuming it is how things are going to be is how do you identify potential transfer targets? I accept that there will be players that as the game progresses you will gain knowledge of, you'd be an idiot if you ignored the various media events telling you about player x or player y, but the simple task of getting information on players in your own country has been made very difficult from an LLM perspective.

As you rightly point out in your final paragraph if we are to accept that a scout has total player knowledge for any given nation then he should be able to immediately provide a report on a list of players based on the managers brief, if I ask for a midfielder with high work rate & great vision the scout should go to his office/laptop & pull up a list of players with reasons why he thinks they fit the bill. The problem I have is that if the scout has this absolute knowledge under the present system yet he is not sharing it with me so I'm stuck.

Unfortunately there are a couple of problems that will directly impact on LLM as they have a greater impact on long term saves (an average LLM save would be around 20 seasons, I've hit 60 in the past & 100 season saves have been done), thankfully I trust that the team at SI will realise there are problems & will correct them in a future patch.

I was under the impression that player search was fine in LLM, as long as you then scouted players before signing them.

I was under the impression that player search was fine in LLM, as long as you then scouted players before signing them.

I have always thought the knowledge would be better used in a more league specific way.

For example, everybody knows a decent amount about the major leagues. However I would expect Sir Alex Ferguson to not have a clue about players in the conference.

So for a scout, he could be used to scout the youth leagues and has a good knowledge of the youth leagues in the UK but very little about League 2.

Or a scout who comes from a conference team to a championship one could recommend young players from that league (or any other he has scouted) that could play in the championship.

For managers it could also be used. I am a Mansfield town fan and in the summer Ronnie Moore applied for the managers job. However during the interview he was asked what he thought of a few of the players. When asked about Louis Briscoe (right winger who made the BSP team of the year, and our top goalscorer) he said he was a good full back. He's not well known for protecting his full back.

I feel this would be a good thing to implement. Make it more realistic.

Player search is a basic scouting list, it's not what is was in CM or early FM releases. You can't see players outside your scouting knowledge (just the well-known), it's what your scouts are offering to have a look at and probably to scout individually. It's basically how a scouting network does work. They gather information about players in a region, scout some of them individually and offer you a list of other potentially interesting players. It's up to you to give orders to scout them deeper or to completely ignore it. But when you do it, you ignore the knowledge and work of your scouts.

Kubi, you're missing the point, the player search as portrayed in FM does not exist outside FM & as you well know will not be used be even the less zealous llama's to pick & choose players.

On the demo the player search function for the English quick start generates over 10,000 players when managing a conference regional club, are you trying to tell me that such a number is to be taken as a realistic representation of the players myself & my single scout have knowledge of? If for the sake of the discussion we accept that this is the case (as a rookie 6th tier manager with a crappy scout I do not) how do I decide which of those 10,000 odd players to scout? Do I just highlight 1000 at random & ask for a report or do I narrow them down by attribute, age, appearances or value? The former is to random & with a limited budget is rather unwise & the latter options, particularly sorting by attributes would be non-starters for this llama.

The true answer is that this is something the scout should do behind the scenes, with his base knowledge I should be able to ask him to scour the length & breadth of England to report back with more concise details of potential signings.

Thankfully LLM does evolve with the game, we've gone from SYB/SWYCT to having board restrictions on scouting ranges & then back to self imposed scouting rules when the game started to allow what we felt were unrealistic scouting ranges (Scottish 3rd division teams scouting Baltic countries for instance), once we know exactly where SI stand on this new system we can take a step back to discuss the situation & come up with a new method of scouting within the gameworld if indeed there is one that we can adopt.

I always use the main filter "unrealistic targets", which does shorten the list to a very few players. I think that is not far from a realistic point of view. If you don't use that filter you will probably find a lot more players that would sign a contract, but with the filter used, you got only the ones your AM regards as realistic targets. In reality if there is just one scout he will work together with your Assistant Manager, before he is offering you a list of potentially interested and interesting players. That's what the player search is in my opinion - if you use the realistic target filter.

It can be still improved, but it is not anymore the way to easily find good players as there is a strong connection to the overall scouting knowledge within your club.

I'm sorry but no!

Scouts (in real life) recommend players who are better than what you already have or will become better than what you have. What kind of scout comes up just 30 players, ALL of whom he says are worse than what you already have and will never get better than what you already have???

One that needs firing perhaps?

OK, assume you're my assistant manager.

Here's a list of 10,000 players, I'd like you to highlight which one's would be interested in joining us & I'd like that list in the next 5 minutes.

OK, assume you're my assistant manager.

Here's a list of 10,000 players, I'd like you to highlight which one's would be interested in joining us & I'd like that list in the next 5 minutes.

I will look for another job.

But yes, that's how it works in reality, probably not 10'000, but there is a information overflow and it's not anymore how you can get information, it's about how you can filter the important things out.

Just one example. This was probably someone's full-time job 10 years ago:

http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2011/01/19/2312686/2010-11-end-of-season-bosman-list-all-the-players-available

So in real life you can filter a list of names to realistic targets in 5 minutes? - obviously you don't have a nice excel workbook that has a pre-filled column of yes/no to filter because all you have are names.

LLM is about being as realistic as the game allows & using player search even with unrealistic targets removed is not realistic. Once I have a list of initial scout reports I will then filter, off the bat I will remove players below a given star rating as I have to trust my scout, I then sub sort by position for the area of the team I need to improve, once I have that list I will then ask my scout(s) to provide more detailed reports by watching the players for a few more games.

The problem is to now get this list I will have to use an unrealistic list (IMO) to create the initial target pool, we are not only pushing the limits of realism but also the time required to generate the initial pool will see me getting sacked before I even get to the second stage of filtering or if I'm lucky a promotion which could mean that my original list is meaningless as my requirements have now changed.

Edit: Nice list, what about players lower down the league pyramid?

So in real life you can filter a list of names to realistic targets in 5 minutes?

If you have 1000 facebook friends, I bet you could filter out 25 in 5 minutes you would like to invite to a special event.

I think the main problem is that realism has it's own face in every country and even division. So even with the LLM guidelines you will always just have realism as a companion, but not as the reality.

I think we shall agree to disagree on this one, obviously you have your idea of what LLM is (How's LOLA doing btw?) & I have mine.

I think we shall agree to disagree on this one, obviously you have your idea of what LLM is (How's LOLA doing btw?) & I have mine.

Don't forget that I live in a small country. We have just a view hundred football players that are playing semi-pro or pro. I think every manager in Switzerland has a player search, as we do not talk about 10'000 players in the overall. That's why I think such guidelines should be not strict, but based on realistic measures. To know most of the players in England is not the same as to know most of the players in Austria or Belgium.

And for the other question: I don't need any guidelines in my life, I did always found my own.

I dont mind the reports coming back 1 day later, this helps during the transfer windows, instead of waiting for a fair bit of time, it maximises your opportunity to buy the players