Scouting Ideas

Originally, I had these in the FAO Ter - UI ideas post, but I figured out that they're functionl, not UI based, so I gave them their own thread.

Let's start with a simple premise: these are not radical changes, they are simple, small items which either make use of or are very similar to existing items.

I love Dave C's "slow-reveal" and ideas like having a "head scout" and scouts in charge of specific continents and all that .. but these are smaller, incremental changes.

SCOUTING

- Newly Hired Scout: Can we have a newly hired scout start scouting the local nation (e.g., the nation the club is located in) automatically? Occasionally I will forget to give him a Scouting Assignment, and that means he sits there inactive for a month or two.

- Inactive Scout: Can an inactive scout (e.g., one with no current active assignments) send an e-mail on the first of the month, asking if we have any work for him? Maybe there would just be one e-mail, which listed all of our inactive scouts .. I can imagine a dead-broke club which can't afford to send them out on assignment!

- "Track Player" function: Can we add a new function for scouts? I'd like to designate a specific scout to keep tabs on a short-listed player, updating his scouting report every .. say .. one to two months? .. I don't really want to hear about every one of his matches (especially as an international manager!) .. but I do want to make sure that there is a recent, up-to-date Scouting Report (or National Report) on the player when I decide I want to bid for him.

I tried, as a manager managing both Club and Country, sending all my national team coaches out to watch the top forty players or so in my National Pool. My in-box got flooded, quickly, with match reports .. which wasn't really what I wanted. I just wanted an up-to-date National Report the next time I looked at the player.

In fact, maybe the "Watch 3 matches" scouting shouldn't bother giving me match reports either; just tell me at the end what the verdict was!

- Recommend By ...: I'd like to say to my scouts "Recommend a Left Back", and have them draw from their knowledge and previously compiled scouting reports. My ideal here would be

- "Recommend (position)"

- "Recommend (loanee)"

- "Recommend (transfer listed)"

- "Recommend (free transfer / unattached)"

- "Recomend (transfer target)"

- "Recommend (prospect)"

These fill different needs; for example, the first is useful when I've just sold my starting left back and need a new one .. recommend loanee might look at my club and look at players listed for loan, and find spots where the scout thinks we can improve the club by bringing somebody in on loan.

I'm thinking that this might function with a combination of the scout looking at scout reports on file, as well as all "well known" players available (e.g., transfer listed), and the players on my shortlist. It would be a short-term Scout Assignment, taking a couple of days, with the scout coming back with at least a "Get Report" level report on each player he is going to suggest.

The outcome would be an e-mail. For example, "Recommend Left Back" might come back with:

28-year-old Sheffield Wednesday player Dom Delouise is the best left back that I've scouted who is interested in a transfer.

Scout Aron Keane highly recommends John Smith, 24, of Manchester United Reserves.

Celestine Babayaro, 29, of Nigeria is the best left back who does not have a club.

Tom Goodison, 19, of Liverpool is available for loan, and would be interested in joining us.

Michael Bradley, 26, of Southampton is the best left back on the transfer list.

Chris Wright and Oliver Fredricks are both worth taking a look at as well.

Of the players listed, I think the best option is bringing Tom Goodison in on a season-long loan. We could easily afford his wages of £1k/w.

- Coaches - Automatic Reports: I'd like to have coaches automatically and silently make a Scout Report on all players which take the field opposite us. Say, if they play against us for 30 minutes or more of a match, we get a one-match Scout Report, maybe even just from the coach who would be chosen as the Default Coach for that match. Just by playing regularly in the E.P.L., eventually, we'd get to a point where our coaches were pretty familiar with all of the players in the E.P.L., from facing everybody twice a year.

However, it would get really useful for coaches who are coaching two teams, club and country, if they filed reports about applicable players who faced the other (e.g., if the club faces an Argentine player, an Argentina coach would file an automatic National Report on the player.)

- Coach Assignments: I'd like to give my coaches scouting assignments.

During the season, I think the following could all be reasonable coach assignments:

- Competition: Next Opposition seems like it could well be a coach assignment.

- Competition: our division

- Competition: Reserves in our country

- Competition: Under-18s in our country

- Competition: Continental (UEFA Cup, Champions League, for an E.P.L. team.)

- Nation: the country the club is located in.

Of course, maybe each assignment given reduces their coaching effectiveness, e.g., counts as one tick-marked item of coaching, taking a 6-star "Tactics" coach down to 4-star because he's spending part of his time scouting for us ...

However, it should really open up in the off-season:

- Competition: International (World Cup, Euro 2008, Olympics, etc)

- Competition: club competitions in nations with a different schedule

- Nation: all nations we're allowed to scout.

- Region: all regions we're allowed to scout.

These latter scouting assignments would automatically be terminated on the day that players return to the club, with a message indicating that the assignment is over and what the coach found.

- International Coaches: it would be nice if International coaches could scout by Nation, instead of just by Competition. For example, as England coach I'd want several coaches keeping tabs on England Under-19 players, who might be playing at any level in the England system, not just watching the E.P.L., the Championship, or the F.A. Cup.

- International Coaches: Coaches who are employed by both club and nation - should they automatically "scout" players of our nationality who are playing in that nation? .. in fact, maybe that becomes their "Nation" assignment immediately - the nation of their club .. but they are still available to scout specific competitions.

- Coach "Recommend Player", "Recommend Staff": Currently, we can ask our players to recommend players from their former teams .. but we can't ask coaches for recommendations. I imagine that this would work best for teams with little to no staff, who might have 1 coach and 0 scouts - that's really where I want the ability to have coaches scouting - but it could work at all levels.

- Personal Scouting: It was fun sending my manager to watch matches a couple times, esp. with the international recommendation of matches I might want to watch, but it doesn't feel like it has any particular game effect other than the line in commentary.

I'd like to have it impact in several ways:

- Counts as a single "Match Scouted" by an individual of my JCA/JPA .. maybe even with a "Scout Report" filed with my name on the header? .. for all players who get 30 minutes or more.

(Either we set our personal JCA/JPA by 'experience' level chosen on start .. or maybe they have the ability to "shift", e.g., I improve over time, especially if I'm a young manager ..or maybe my Assistant comes with me, and provides a match report.)

- Counts as "Increased Pressure" for players on my Short List (if I'm from a bigger club or their favourite club) and for players in my National Pool (if I'm an international manager), impacting their performance.

- Likely to lead to a media question about whether or not I was happy with what I saw. For club players, speculation about a purchase .. for international players, speculation about inclusion in the next squad, maybe even a "Manager Promise" of inclusion. It could even upset current members of my squad who think that their place is coming under threat..

I like your thinking,especially the part of requesting players in certain position,available for loan etc.Always wanted something like that.

Also I'd like the option of scouting a club.Obviously you couldn't send a scout to training sessions,but to specific First team,Rserve and U18/20 matches

excellent ideas here too, i like them all. Well done!

awesome ideas, i like the idea of having a scout scouting their local nation automatically.

love the ideas im hoping this lot is in fm09!

Wrote thsi a while back, but thought it a wothwhile contribution that might keep the discussion going.

I'd prefer to have a system in which the scout, when watching a match, reports upon a best player on the day (easy to do via match rating) plus a few other players (2-3) that caught his eye. He would then submit his report and you chould choose for him to continue or disregard his scouting of those players in the future, thus:

Scouting Options

<UL TYPE=SQUARE>

<LI>Provide detailed report

<LI>Keep a close eye

<LI>Put on the backburner

<LI>Disregard

Provide a detailed report: The scout chooses to attend matches in which that player is appearing and submits a fully detailed report as soon as possible (2-3 weeks)

Keep a close eye: The scout keeps an eye on the player's performance levels and focuses on him if attending a match in which he is playing. However, he doesn't deliberately attend these matches. A detailed report takes a 3-6 months

Put on the backburner: The scout notes his performance levels and slowly builds up a picture of the player. A detailed report takes 6-12 months.

Disregard: The scout never reports on him again

Each scout can manage roughly thirty assignments at any one time:

Detailed report: Two players

Keep a close eye: Eight players

Put on the backburner: Twenty players

In addition to this, he continues to provide first glance recommendations of new players. It then becomes up to the manager to manage the scout's long and short-term targets.

For this to work, we probably need a greater 'fog of war', which includes PPMs, height, weight, footedness, etc. An early report on a totally unknown player would focus totally on the scout's interpretation of the match report plus an estimation of six key stats for the position. These stats could be customised by the manager, i.e. DC (Jumping, Heading, Tackling, Passing, Positioning, Stength), MR (Dribbling, Pace, Crossing, Flair, Passing, Stamina) etc.

Scout Report

John Smith is a 19-year old, tall (6'4"), both-footed defender. He is good in the air, winning more than 90% of his headers. He is also strong in the tackle, winning every challenge he attempted. However, his distribution looked suspect (52% pass completion) and his positioning might do with some improvement (made two minor mistakes). He also got booked and was lucky not to be sent off for dissent (argues with officials). Match Rating: 7.2

Attributes

Jumping (14-18)

Heading (12-16)

Tackling (14-18)

Passing (6-10)

Positioning (8-12)

Strength (14-20)

The margin for error could be dependant on the scout's ability, thus:

Judging Ability: 20 (all attributes within a two point scope)

Judging Ability: 14 (all attributes within a four point scope: as above)

Judging Ability: 8 (all attributes within a six point scope)

Judging Ability: 2 (all attributes within an eight point scope)

These settings would provide easy gradients between the scouts, so, for example, a scout with JP 17 would reveal 3 attributes within a two point scope and three within a four point scope.

Obviously, for a player already with the requisite stats already unfogged, these reports would be more exact.

Ok while I agree scouting needs improvement, I have to say that as a long term manager in the game I have hardly ever bothered with it to find new talented 15-17 yr old players, simply because the Training Module isn't as good as it can get.

While the training module has managed to improve somewhat, there is yet to be any tool in the module that allows us to compare the same player year on year with himself. I would like to compare Player A from one season to the next to see which attributes have improved. And I want to see them at a glance.

There should be better feedback from the training module that suggests whether the training programme has helped him to become better positionally.

Any improvements to the scouting module needs to be complemented with enhancements to the training module.

Fair enough. I would like to reiterate my second line: these are not radical changes; I'm not talking about rewriting the entire system, just building on what's there.

That said, wwfan's post is similar to some of what I'm looking for: give me a detailed report on this player; keep tabs on him so that you always have a fairly recent (~2 months) report on him; look at him every now and then.

Rashidi1, I completely agree with one point of yours - there's no good reason that old FM Coach Excel spreadsheet isn't in the game .. at least for the user-managed teams.

Its really the tool we need to judge how the player is developing based on what we can see for ourselves.

The attribute progression graph is nice and pretty and all, but it doesn't really do what I want it to do: give me a sense of if this player is improving steadily over 24 to 36 months, or if he's plateaued..

can i get that spreadsheet from anywhere?

Its top of the page if you google

"FM Coach" Excel

.. but I don't think its been updated for FM'08; I haven't used it in quite a while.