Which Less "Obvious" Attributes Affect The Quality And Performance Of Scouts?

Hello,

Just wondering which less "obvious" attributes affect the quality and performance of your scouts?

We all know that Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential have a very known impact on how good a scout may or may not be. It makes sense that Adaptability would be useful for scouts sent to find unknown gems in foreign lands.

But what about the other attributes? Do they have any impact on scouts at all, in any way?

For example, will Level Of Discipline ensure they are more professional and efficient in completing their assignments?

Will Working With Youngsters help them to unearth more emerging talents?

Will Motivating cause them to be more enthusiastic in fulfilling their duties in a timely manner?

Will Determination ensure a greater number of scout reports being generated per day of scouting?

Does Man Management help them to work better within the scouting team or cause them to be more helpful in their subsequent reporting to the manager?

Does Tactical Knowledge lead to better opposition reports?

Would Tactical Coaching enhance the level of one's Tactical Knowledge and act as an amplifier for that attribute?

Does Mental Coaching or any of the other "coaching" attributes make them more knowledgeable when scouting the associated attributes of the players they are watching? For example, does Defending Coaching make a scout better at recognising a talented central defender?

I realise some of these suggestions may be a bit of a stretch but I'm just curious as to whether or not the "non-obvious" scouting attributes have any affect on the quality or performance of the scouting team?

How do we actually find out if this is the case?

I've always been inclined to hire good "all-round" scouts with good coaching attributes as well (just in case there is some kind of unknown advantage in doing so; see above for potential reasons relating to each attribute), but I'm not sure whether this has been necessary or in any way effective.

Can anyone from SI confirm which attributes actually affect the quality and performance of the scouting team, or at least shed some light on how we should be thinking about this issue to improve the level of the scouts we hire?

Thanks in advance for any info. Always been very curious about this!

Can anyone shed any light on this or are we forever just meant to guess these things?

There's a lot of myths about what might/might not affect a scout's ability/performance in terms of attributes so why don't we get a definitive answer/explanation in the manual or from a SI rep? Why is it meant to be such a secret? Especially since we already get info about what a coach needs to achieve 5 stars in each training category. Is there a reason for the deliberate mystery surrounding scouts or even physios for that matter?

I don't think it's too much to ask for SI to clarify this...

Copied and pasted from another site but i think most agree with this......

Scout – Scouts has the task of looking for players in different parts of the world, and prepare reports about your opponents or teams that you wish to know better.

Attributes: Judging Player Ability, Judging Player Potential, Tactical Knowledge, Motivation, Determination;

Optional Attribute: Adaptability (if the scout is a foreigner)

Chief Scout – The same attributes mentioned above and Man Management.

Attributes mentioned used for the reason you state in your original post but as for the others you mention i dont think they play a part in a scouts ability/reports at all.

Can anyone shed any light on this or are we forever just meant to guess these things?

There's a lot of myths about what might/might not affect a scout's ability/performance in terms of attributes so why don't we get a definitive answer/explanation in the manual or from a SI rep? Why is it meant to be such a secret? Especially since we already get info about what a coach needs to achieve 5 stars in each training category. Is there a reason for the deliberate mystery surrounding scouts or even physios for that matter?

I don't think it's too much to ask for SI to clarify this...

No secret, it's just left to the manager to figure out what's important as they gain more experience.

I always look for scouts with high Level of Discipline and Determination. That will (in my experience) lead to quicker and more reliable reports. Adaptability is a plus as well.

But remember that scouts do improve as well. I always hire club legends with not-too-horrible skills as B/youth team managers or assistants as they will improve very quickly. Then they may become assistants or scouts depending on how they develop.

Another note - the biggest satisfaction in FM is not developing a Golden Ball winner - it is developing a world class manager who will eventually beat you.

Adaptability is very useful for scouts who work in foreign countries. Their scouting knowledge of new countries will increase quicker with high Adaptability.

Tactical Knowledge is fairly useful for scouts who work on the next opposition assignment as they'll give you better tactical advice.

Determination may make scouts work harder and produce more reports but I'm not sure about this.

Level of Discipline, Man Management and Motivating don't have any use at all for Scouts. They are about influencing players through coaching, team talks, player interaction. The scout does none of this. Same for all the coaching attributes (including Working with Youngsters).

No secret, it's just left to the manager to figure out what's important as they gain more experience.

Barside, thanks for the response but could you please shed some light onto how we are supposed to find out as we gain more managerial experience? What clues do we get?

How have you figured this out in your own saves?

I know some people will fire back and say "common sense" but I think there is a real issue here because we have different staff roles using the same attribute model and that can create confusion as to what stats apply to who in terms of job performance.

With players, I believe it's different as the difference between a defender and a forward is perhaps better compared with the difference between a tactical coach and fitness coach but both are still "playing" or "coaching". With physios and scouts, to name a couple of examples, they are doing a completely different job, but yet we only have one staff attribute model so I think this is where the confusion is created, hence my suggestion or request for a little clarification (perhaps from SI themselves?).

It's not a criticism of anyone who makes the game as I dearly love FM with all my heart, just looking for some more info here as I do think it's appropriate in this instance.

Can you understand where I'm coming from?

Agree with the above post completely.

I'm a long-term FM player and there is such a grey area over some aspects of the game.

Adaptability is very useful for scouts who work in foreign countries. Their scouting knowledge of new countries will increase quicker with high Adaptability.

Tactical Knowledge is fairly useful for scouts who work on the next opposition assignment as they'll give you better tactical advice.

Determination may make scouts work harder and produce more reports but I'm not sure about this.

Level of Discipline, Man Management and Motivating don't have any use at all for Scouts. They are about influencing players through coaching, team talks, player interaction. The scout does none of this. Same for all the coaching attributes (including Working with Youngsters).

Do we know any of this for sure or are we in a position where we need to make assumptions (which may or may not turn out to be true - we have no way of actually knowing, to my knowledge) due to lack of clarity on the issue?

The Football Manager 2016 manual states:

"When employing a scout, these two attributes are the first things you should look at."

That line suggests there are other factors to take into consideration but we don't any detail beyond that. How are we supposed to know? Is there any definitive way of finding out or is it just based solely on personal intuition?

The staff attribute model is split between "coaching" and "mental" stats, but some of the mental stats such as Level of Discipline, Motivating and Determination are known to be necessary in producing 5 star coach ratings in training. I believe this crossover leads to further confusion and ambiguity, which perhaps is something that could be improved in future versions?

In the Tactical Knowledge description from the FM 2016 manual, we get this piece of information:

"When using this knowledge they may have ideas lesser coaches haven’t become familiar with, which is an advantage."

If certain "mental" attributes have ramifications for coaching performance, can the same be said for certain "coaching" attributes having an impact on the performance of non-coaching backroom staff?

Again, just constructive criticism here and looking for a definitive explanation if anyone is able to provide one. Cheers.

No secret, it's just left to the manager to figure out what's important as they gain more experience.

Why though? Why is this game so secretive to new players? If I was a newbie I would just think bang 20 JPP 20 JPA. That's the best scout I'll have him without any thinking about it. Not what else has to go with it.

Agree with the above post completely.

I'm a long-term FM player and there is such a grey area over some aspects of the game.

Doesn't help with Si being so quiet. Been a poster here for many years but after a short break it seems this place has gone to the dogs. No response from the people who make the game, only ones who play it frequently.

Wouldn't say some, but a LOT of grey areas. Why does this work. Why doesn't this. People probably have so many questions about the game, but the lack of communication probably puts them off and stop playing the game. Shame really. Seems like all the "big" companies have this sort of customer service nowadays.

Why though? Why is this game so secretive to new players?

It's a strangely old-school philosophy that you don't really see in the video games industry any more.

Doesn't help with Si being so quiet. Been a poster here for many years but after a short break it seems this place has gone to the dogs. No response from the people who make the game, only ones who play it frequently.

Wouldn't say some, but a LOT of grey areas. Why does this work. Why doesn't this. People probably have so many questions about the game, but the lack of communication probably puts them off and stop playing the game. Shame really. Seems like all the "big" companies have this sort of customer service nowadays.

Unfortunately too many forum users took the opportunity to abuse SI staff when the posted in here, an issue that I encountered when I had an SI badge, it finally reached the point where many SI staff just view threads without comment.

Once the internet loses this absurd sense of immediate entitlement & an assumed right to abuse anyone they disagree with the world will be a much better place.

That's the thing about forums though and the Internet. No matter what forum or site you go on, there will always be abuse aimed at something or someone. Shame it happens but it does. Doesn't mean a company should stop communicating though. Have to raise above it I'm afraid.

We are getting off-topic. I also would like to know which attributes are important for scouts. I still didn't figure it out after playing for years. Barside, if you know could you maybe tell us?

I only tend to care about the nationality (for the initially knowledge) and wage requirements of my scouts tbh. If you plan ahead for each transfer window with a well-stocked shortlist you can easily find more than enough players with a small, cheap staff.

The scouting system doesn't require min-maxing. It would be frustrating if it did.

I'm conducting an in-game search just now to see how many scouts have above-average (15+) levels in each attribute category.

The way I've set-up the search filters is in a way that focuses on staff whose only specialisation is as a scout, to prevent talents from other staff roles causing other attributes to be higher than what you'd expect for someone who could only fulfill scouting duties.

My filter is as follows:

- Staff Role IS "Scout"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Director of Football"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Manager"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Assistant Manager"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Head of Youth Development"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Coach"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Fitness Coach"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Goalkeeping Coach"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Head Physio"

- Staff Role IS NOT "Physio"

The search turned up 365 "Scouts" in a game where I am managing in the English League Two (first season in charge).

Doing some further analysis of those staff members, here is the number of "Scouts", within this particular search result, who have 15+ in each staff attribute:

- 126 "Scouts" had 15+ in Adaptability

- 2 "Scouts" had 15+ in Goalkeepers

- 1 "Scouts" had 15+ in Fitness

- 1 "Scouts" had 15+ in Defending

- 0 "Scouts" had 15+ in Attacking

- 0 "Scouts" had 15+ in Mental

- 2 "Scouts" had 15+ in Tactical

- 0 "Scouts" had 15+ in Technique

- 23 "Scouts" had 15+ in Determination

- 42 "Scouts" had 15+ in Judging Player Ability

- 63 "Scouts" had 15+ in Judging Player Potential

- 58 "Scouts" had 15+ in Level of Discipline

- 2 "Scouts" had 15+ in Man Management

- 3 "Scouts" had 15+ in Motivating

- 1 "Scouts" had 15+ in Physiotherapy

- 2 "Scouts" had 15+ in Tactical Knowledge

- 84 "Scouts" had 15+ in Working With Youngsters

Some of the results are a little surprising in the sense that I had thought Tactical Knowledge would be higher (for opposition scouting reports) and due to the fact that Working With Youngsters had more "Scouts" proficient in this attribute than in the more obvious areas such as Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential.

The sample size is a small one but interesting nevertheless.

Unfortunately too many forum users took the opportunity to abuse SI staff when they posted in here, an issue that I encountered when I had an SI badge, it finally reached the point where many SI staff just view threads without comment.

Once the internet loses this absurd sense of immediate entitlement & an assumed right to abuse anyone they disagree with the world will be a much better place.

I'm a big fan of SI's work over the years and have bought each version of the game for over 20 years now. It's given me a lot of my personal best memories and it's fair to say I'm well and truly addicted! My only intention is to find out more information, generate a discussion to perhaps improve the game in future and get some definitive answers that many of us are looking for and would find helpful within our own saves. I hope that's how it comes across and that it is understood and interpreted in the right way by those at SI.

If you have more info on this topic, would you be kind enough to share?

I'll be getting back to this thread once I've finished work.

I'll be getting back to this thread once I've finished work.

Thank you Barside.

Obviously I am no SI employee, however this is my understanding of which attributes can affect a scout.

JCA and JPA are the only attributes needed to determine the accuracy of scout reports on players. Multiple reports on players help to improve accuracy and additional information such as personality.

Determination helps to speed up assignment completion, whilst adaptability improves how quickly a scout settles into an unfamiliar region and begin sending decent reports.

Tactical knowledge helps with scouting your next opponent.

As far as I know, those are the only attributes that can have a tangible effect on scouts. And having said all of that, I just pick scouts with high levels of JCA and JPA and ignore everything else anyway as nothing else seems to have much effect. Although I do like to try to assign scouts from certain regions to those regions.

Adaptability, JPA and JCA are the only stats that matter, surely? Otherwise why on earth aren't they highlighted in game like the ones above. If things like Determination play a part then that sort of stuff really annoys me about FM.

I generally tend to look for scouts who also have somewhat decent tactical knowledge - I may be completely wrong but I feel that it can maybe help judge players ratings based on how effective they might be for the current tactics I'm using (though, quite how relevant that ends up being for me anyway is questionnable, as I tend to end up changing tactics and making completely new ones anyway even in just a few seasons, depending on my own preferences at the time and what players fit best in my tactics, and if I for whatever reason have a particularly strong area of the squad, I will tend to adjust tactics to focus more heavily on playing more of those players together).

I also find it very strange how SI employees don't communicate on General Discussion? Did we do something wrong?

Not to butter up SI or the mods here, but I have to disagree with the idea that SI aren't active on the forums. I'm a recent poster and 9 times out of 10 I get helpful replies, often times from the development team and/or mods.

And as far as stuff like this with scouts, if you step back from it, it's a very small piece of the game. Knowing this small bit of game mechanics likely won't increase your scouting skills whatsoever. 95% of the game is fairly well explained either in-game or a quick google search. There's plenty of complex games that don't do half the job SI do of explaining things.

I'd like to thank the SI employee who got back to me on this issue within a few short hours after I contacted them.

To help others wondering the same things as I was, this summary may be of interest:

For scouting purposes alone, Judging Player Ability, Judging Player Potential and Adaptability are the only attributes that have any effect. The first 2 are self-explanatory but Adaptability helps when setting a Scout to "roam" and can determine the nation he chooses to scout and also when to quit if suitable players are not found there.

It was mentioned that some attributes assist with staff development and other things so the above is simply relevant for actual scouting only.

Hope this helps others and, once again, thank you to the SI member of staff for such a prompt and helpful response. I think it has dispelled a few myths for me at least and I'm grateful for that.

This is not the first time I have contacted SI regarding things and they have always been very helpful so I think that is great and should be acknowledged here. They are good people, care about the game and want to assist where possible.

Good stuff.

That's great to know but shouldn't that sort of detail be easily available?

Staff do have key attributes highlighted, it was introduced to FM16.

Which are the stats used to determine staff development?

Is it similar to player development where the professionalism stat impacts their development, or is it more to do with their Determination, Discipline, and/or Motivation?

Which are the stats used to determine staff development?

Is it similar to player development where the professionalism stat impacts their development, or is it more to do with their Determination, Discipline, and/or Motivation?

Trying to get more info (and will update if I do) but there is actually no Motivation stat, it is Motivating, which is a small difference but would suggest to me that it has more to do with their affect on others, i.e. players.

Yeah, that's the one I meant. I personally do not believe Discipline or Motivating to be related to staff development. I think it is more likely Professionalism (like in players) and Determination.

From what I remember reading, Determination was their desire to succeed and their drive to better themselves.

Staff do have key attributes highlighted, it was introduced to FM16.

It is a helpful start but the issue with this is that (if it works the same as highlighted attributes for players) there's always the possibility of non-highlighted attributes having an effect, so it doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. For example, on the playing side, a Central Midfielder on Defend Duty doesn't have Anticipation highlighted as key but I would have thought this to be fairly important (even if not regarded as "key") for a player in that area of the pitch, thus leaving you to think that there's more you need to look out for than the key highlighted areas.

Yeah, that's the one I meant. I personally do not believe Discipline or Motivating to be related to staff development. I think it is more likely Professionalism (like in players) and Determination.

From what I remember reading, Determination was their desire to succeed and their drive to better themselves.

I agree, and you're absolutely right about the description for Determination as outlined in the official FM16 online manual. This certainly makes sense and, as you suggest, hidden attributes such as Professionalism would be sensible ways for the game to model staff development in the background as well (as individual personality isn't necessarily something that we could see for ourselves).

If I do get further clarification on this, I'll update you with any additional info.

If a particular player attribute is not flagged as important then in ME terms it is not important, whether that's correct or not for the role is always open for debate & changes have been made in the past due to community feedback.

If a particular player attribute is not flagged as important then in ME terms it is not important, whether that's correct or not for the role is always open for debate & changes have been made in the past due to community feedback.

Using that logic would mean that Pace is therefore not important in ME terms for Central Defenders? Visually speaking, I would have thought this to be inconsistent with what I've seen in the ME myself (where it's easier to notice these things because you can actually see it unfolding in front of you in video format, if you get what I mean). Or are you talking specifically about fulfilling tactical instructions in the tactics creator, perhaps?

I get that certain tactical set-ups can hide a lack of pace but I think it has a level of importance, even if not highlighted, surely? Same with things like First Touch, which would be universal for most players?

Highlighted attributes are role specific & I should have been clearer on that. As you correctly point out there will be certain attributes that you regard as important for your tactical approach but these are your important attributes & might not be the same as what I consider important.

For Staff, I always look at Determination as the main Secondary attribute, as well as Adaptability if they are foreign. Though, for scouts I am not sure if they are so important, since I tend to dispatch the scout to the area of the world that they are familiar with (Brazilian to S America, for example).

Highlighted attributes are role specific & I should have been clearer on that. As you correctly point out there will be certain attributes that you regard as important for your tactical approach but these are your important attributes & might not be the same as what I consider important.

Fair point - thanks for clarifying Barside.

I've also managed to confirm that the Determination attribute helps with general staff development (along with hidden attributes such as Professionalism).