FM needs an overhaul

[Smurf]

I literally give up.

I've made my point a dozen times in a dozen different ways.

Nobody here has made a clear argument or reason why any of what I've said wouldn't work or isn't a good idea.

The people arguing now don't realise the point I'm making and continually make the same flawed arguments against it.

[Johnny Ace]

Frankly I find it's much more counterintuitive and silly having to read 100 scout reports or to "filter" specific attributes than just getting our staff doing it for us behind the scenes...

Why can't they filter out all those players with 18 in one attribute and <5 in all the others?

Why do my scouts still report about 1 1/2* players? Why can't they see the 19yo inconsistent striker with putrid attributes won't ever reach the 3* potential they still see in him?

Check the scouting assignments & reports, view general info & you can order the 100's of players with your scout's star rating for the player (your scout's opinion of the player) so that all the 4 & 5 star rated players are at the top & the players you're top interested in at the bottom. Then check the top profiles & make your decision on the player. Quick, easy, simple

[Jme10]

That's a broad generalization.

I bet you Robbie Fowler still follows the Premiership and knows who Raheem Sterling is.

Wo knew about Raheem Sterling before he scored 5 goals for the reserves and the media went crazy over it? Practically 99.9% of football fans didn't and that probably includes most liverpool fans who don't look beyond the first-team. And as for your numerous Neymar references, lots of footie fans wouldn't have a clue who neymar is. Just because most people do who play FM, and maybe other footie games like Fifa. He's not a household name, he isn't playing in 1 of the top leagues in the world, he isn't one of the first names people think of if you say, 'Name a Brazilian Football International? (Like a Robinho or Kaka). The game helps us more than enoug wit player values, all the stats to do with league, euriopean and world awards. The game now even gives you 6 of the top players from every region including the world, so actually, we do know the messi's and ronaldo's in the game.

[dafuge]

No - the value is only linked to the repuatation of the club.

I filtered in my Seach the U18s

I picked about 100 players valued from 1m - 4m and got match reports.

The one's valued around 3-4m didn't receive as good scout reports as some of the players worth 1m.

I'm arguing, that if you were a manager in a league, you'd have a pretty good idea who the other youth players in your league are and if they are any good.

But if you go in and search for youth players in the league, you can only view their value, and scouting them reveals the most expensive aren't the best. But I'm arguing, you'd know who was good before scouting, without relying on their value.

Maybe my game is a bit different now because I've got to the regen-only stage, but player value is still a decent indication of ability for me. I've tried a couple of tests to show you what I see.

I've taken your example of being able to name the top players from a new country and tested in my own game. I picked South Korea, a nation I have loaded but have not managed in, but my club does have some scouting knowledge of them. My player search screen shows me a list of 466 players, who I have sorted by value and highlighted the top ten (in red). I've then scouted all of them and compared my groups of ten players (that I was able to spot myself with no effort) to the scout reports.

Here are the results (sorted by CA, then PA)

It was by no means exact, but I was able to pick out some of the 'top' players just by sorting them by value. The only big error was made was with a player who's contract was expiring and was joining another club (which I could already see).

I then tried adding a filter to view players from South Korea who were under 21.

Here are the results (sorted by PA then CA)

This was a lot more accurate, possibly because they were all based in South Korea.

I'd be interested to see how different this turns out with a game that is not regen-only, I suspect the researcher-set data would throw it out quite a bit (as it seems from your own test).

[Smurf]

It's up to you to find the "best players" for your team, you're the manager you decide. There are so many in game variables that the best player for one team isn't the best player for another, it's up to you to decide

Oh for christ sake I already know that. I'm saying you should have a fair idea who the best players are without scouting. Without searching. Without finding attributes.

A simple screen that says "Managers Scouting Knowledge" - here it lists several players key in the league you're in. You can still decide if you want to try sign them or if they are worth it.

This screen could show easily the "Best Potential Players" in your current leauge, league below or above, in the nations U21 side etc.

It's just a screen that gives YOU as the MANGER the benefit of the doubt that you actually already have a fair idea who is the "best" within given paramaters of your favourite team (some players from that leauge as in if I like leeds I should know their best players and perhaps some the best players in that leauge already).

It's only a quick list of players. You still get to decide. Nobody forces your hand to buy them. You just KNOW about them. Without having to scout.

Heck your attributes could be so low that you don't even pick out the best players.

you could have medium attributes and therefore can't deduce the best players.

But the better you get and figuring out players by searching and scouting and players then the more knowledgeable you become about your league.

Now when you go to your own little private Managers Scouting screen as you get better/worse your knowledge of the areas and the leagues is affected and you don't pick up on the best players within that league anymore, or the best youth players.

This "mythical Managers Scouting" screen I'm touting would be affected your knowledge and experience within the game.

Nothing more.

No need to ask your scouts, 1 just use the player search then scout for a second opinion. The " 2 footballing knowledge" that the game gives us is what we see, the player's profiles.

1 See above.

2 But that's not what I'm proposing - and I don't find that a realistic view on how it should work. In essences it needs an overhaul. That's not a valid or accurate way of judging the best players!

If you went to 1 manage in the French League 2 in RL, you wouldn't have a clue who the best LB for you team is, yet in 2 FM a quick search, using your "footballing knowledge", can help you find him

1 I've been through this about 5 times today. If you're french, and ex international french player, and you manage in league 2 you would have a fair idea. You wouldn't need the quick search.

2 See first reply above regarding this too

[Johnny Ace]

I literally give up.

I've made my point a dozen times in a dozen different ways.

Nobody here has made a clear argument or reason why any of what I've said wouldn't work or isn't a good idea.

The people arguing now don't realise the point I'm making and continually make the same flawed arguments against it.

??

We're giving our opinions, my opinion is that FM offers us is plenty to recognise the top players & top prospects

[Smurf]

Wo knew about Raheem Sterling before he scored 5 goals for the reserves and the media went crazy over it? Practically 99.9% of football fans didn't and that probably includes most liverpool fans who don't look beyond the first-team. And as for your numerous Neymar references, lots of footie fans wouldn't have a clue who neymar is. Just because most people do who play FM, and maybe other footie games like Fifa. He's not a household name, he isn't playing in 1 of the top leagues in the world, he isn't one of the first names people think of if you say, 'Name a Brazilian Football International? (Like a Robinho or Kaka). The game helps us more than enoug wit player values, all the stats to do with league, euriopean and world awards. The game now even gives you 6 of the top players from every region including the world, so actually, we do know the messi's and ronaldo's in the game.

Eh I did hear of him before he went to Liverpool and before he scored 5 goals. I heard of him at QPR. He was tearing up the U16 league.

[Johnny Ace]

So basically Eugene, in a nutshell you just want the game to tell you who the best players are without having to do anything, that would make for a great game

I can't be bothered to go on again that the perceived best players aren't the best players for your team, the player search aids immensely with that

Maybe we just see it differently, I see the player search as our brain & all the info & attributes we have as our football knowledge

[Smurf]

??

We're giving our opinions, my opinion is that FM offers us is plenty to recognise the top players & top prospects

You're totally missing the point, and this just proves it.

[Smurf]

So basically Eugene, in a nutshell you just want the game to tell you who the best players are without having to do anything, that would make for a great game

Do you know who the best players are in football now? Did you know 10 years ago?

Will you know in 10 years time???

Yes you will. Do you employ a scout?

No.

This is the simplest idea ever:

You're a manager within the game world. You should have a broad knowledge of the best players.

I'm not talking about filtering. I'm not talking about scouting. I'm not talking about value.

I'm talking about giving YOU as the manager the benefit of the doubt that you would absolutely without a shadow of a doubt already know of at least some of the best players in the world, from your league, from your choosen nationality and perhaps surrounding or rival nations, teams etc.

[ATW]

Yes, they keep dossiers, but it is extremely difficult to compare lots and lots of players with notes - it's click, click, back, click, click, back and repeat again and again. This is tedious.

Anything that makes the game less tedious is a plus.

Is it just me that still plays with a notepad and pen on my main "campaign" game then!

I also scout players, when I'm "available" (in other words if my club doesn't have a match and there is a match going on at the level I'm at or the one below I'll choose a game that takes my fancy and write notes about which players stand out - suprisingly I tend to disagree with the rating a lot - but have found some useful gems that way. Also found some *****! I also use my scouts to scout them in the next match or two, then if I get a chance watch them again (even if it means planning a "closed door" game (they really should be in the game).

[milnerpoint]

its too easy to just say your french, you know french football, because thats not how it works, if your french and live in china, you wont have a great knowledge of french players you may know the biggest players, ie the internationals or the big youngsters because of media but thats it, you wont have a clue about the french second division unless you very closely keep an eye on the league, but you certainly do not have automatic knowledge of that country just because you were born there, even if your fav team is a second division team, unless you personally decide to closely follow them and the league you will be out of touch. Good example of this was an interview i read with Eion Jess a few weeks back, Aberdeen hero, ex international player, now coaching at Forrest, interview was about his health BUT he went on to talk about the dons and said although he keeps an eye on the scores he does not have a great knowledge of the players at the club or the league, only the little bits and pieces he reads down south because A, he doesnt have time to keep uptodate with everything and B the SPL outwith the old firm does not get great coverage in England.

[ATW]

Do you know who the best players are in football now? Did you know 10 years ago?

Will you know in 10 years time???

Yes you will. Do you employ a scout?

No.

This is the simplest idea ever:

You're a manager within the game world. You should have a broad knowledge of the best players.

I'm not talking about filtering. I'm not talking about scouting. I'm not talking about value.

I'm talking about giving YOU as the manager the benefit of the doubt that you would absolutely without a shadow of a doubt already know of at least some of the best players in the world, from your league, from your choosen nationality and perhaps surrounding or rival nations, teams etc.

Where are you based right now?

[Johnny Ace]

Do you know who the best players are in football now? Did you know 10 years ago?

Will you know in 10 years time???

Yes you will. Do you employ a scout?

No.

This is the simplest idea ever:

You're a manager within the game world. You should have a broad knowledge of the best players.

I'm not talking about filtering. I'm not talking about scouting. I'm not talking about value.

I'm talking about giving YOU as the manager the benefit of the doubt that you would absolutely without a shadow of a doubt already know of at least some of the best players in the world, from your league, from your choosen nationality and perhaps surrounding or rival nations, teams etc.

Er, yeah. To know that, we spend hours reading up on, watching & discussing football, we can't do that in the game

The benefit we have is a huge database of players & the ability to filter that for the best players

If I was in a coma for 10 years I wouldn't have a clue, yet if I go on a 10 season holiday in FM I'm still a few clicks away from a huge database listing the World's best players

Simple

[Johnny Ace]

You're totally missing the point, and this just proves it.

No I'm not at all

[milnerpoint]

up here in scotland no one had heard of him, except maybe the few hardcore liverpool fans, before he was plastered all over the newspapers. Im a massive dons fan, get to as many home and away games as possible and even then i would struggle to name our youth team and definately not any players from other teams youth systems, the only one player i could think of is the Ferez guy at celtic and again thats only because he has been in the news papers, so i have no real idea who is the next up and coming start up here.

[Smurf]

its too easy to just say your french, you know french football, because thats not how it works, if your french and live in china, you wont have a great knowledge of french players you may know the biggest players, ie the internationals or the big youngsters because of media but thats it, you wont have a clue about the french second division unless you very closely keep an eye on the league, but you certainly do not have automatic knowledge of that country just because you were born there, even if your fav team is a second division team, unless you personally decide to closely follow them and the league you will be out of touch. Good example of this was an interview i read with Eion Jess a few weeks back, Aberdeen hero, ex international player, now coaching at Forrest, interview was about his health BUT he went on to talk about the dons and said although he keeps an eye on the scores he does not have a great knowledge of the players at the club or the league, only the little bits and pieces he reads down south because A, he doesnt have time to keep uptodate with everything and B the SPL outwith the old firm does not get great coverage in England.

So you agree that if you start off with French Nationality and manage in China you would know the better players for France. Ideally you wouldn't know too much about the under leagues, granted. But what if you were an ex-international - 30 years of age. You would know some youth starlets from France. You would.

And if you're managing in China for 5 seaons, you would build up a knowledge of the best players. You wouldn't need to filter players on based, or stats, or value.

You would have a bit of knowledge there to pick out the better players.

Where are you based right now?

In Ireland.

[SGartz]

Eugene clearly a troll.

[Smurf]

up here in scotland no one had heard of him, except maybe the few hardcore liverpool fans, before he was plastered all over the newspapers. Im a massive dons fan, get to as many home and away games as possible and even then i would struggle to name our youth team and definately not any players from other teams youth systems, the only one player i could think of is the Ferez guy at celtic and again thats only because he has been in the news papers, so i have no real idea who is the next up and coming start up here.

You're confusing you're own knowledge with what a Manager of a football team should know.

You're confusing with knowing every youth player at Dons with knowing just the key wonderkids in football in the lower/higher leagues.

You're confusing every youth player with just top performing youth players.

[StevoRobbo]

Eugene clearly a troll.

Why? Because he's saying something you dont agree with

[Smurf]

Eugene clearly a troll.

How can I troll my own thread?

I came up with the idea. I put the idea forward. People are replying. I'm replying to them.

If you have nothing to add then don't reply, I suggest.

[milnerpoint]

So you agree that if you start off with French Nationality and manage in China you would know the better players for France. Ideally you wouldn't know too much about the under leagues, granted. But what if you were an ex-international - 30 years of age. You would know some youth starlets from France. You would.

And if you're managing in China for 5 seaons, you would build up a knowledge of the best players. You wouldn't need to filter players on based, or stats, or value.

You would have a bit of knowledge there to pick out the better players.

In Ireland.

if i moved there tomorrow and i was an ex international then yes you would know, in the game you will have instant knowlage of all the top international players from your nation anyway. If i moved there 10 years ago then no, not unless i had kept a close eye on what is going on in French football, the whole time i was in China.

If you manage anywhere in this game after 5 seasons you will have a good idea of who is the best and who is not, if you dont you are not paying anywhere near enough attention to the game world. If you have a scout set up to scout the next opp then you will always have an uptodate scout report based on your last game against the team, which in turn means you already have a scout report for every player in every team you play against without you having to do anything except three/four mouse clicks, now that surely is not a hardship.

[ATW]

In Ireland.

Do you honestly think the top managers in Ireland know who the best up and coming youth players are in Scotland? Do you honestly think of the top of their head they could name the best 20 players outwith the Old Firm?

[SGartz]

Why? Because he's saying something you dont agree with

Don't you roll your eyes at me young man! I agree with Johnny Ace because he's awesome and I love him.

[milnerpoint]

You're confusing you're own knowledge with what a Manager of a football team should know.

You're confusing with knowing every youth player at Dons with knowing just the key wonderkids in football in the lower/higher leagues.

You're confusing every youth player with just top performing youth players.

well look at the example of Jess, former scottish international, manages the youth side of forrest, has no real clue about the kids playing at his home club in his own nation, so you are wrong with your idea that everyone in football has this common knowledge of their home nation.

[Smurf]

Yeh I but I bett Jess knows other youth players from other youth teams that Forrest play against. He wouldn't need a scout report to know if someone from QPR was a good player. He'd already know this.

He'd have a fair idea bout his rival teams and their players.

I bet you if you asked him to name 1 youth player for Scotland he could name one and it would probably be their brightest talent. Of course they may not know every player.

Again, you're confusing knowing everyone with knowing at least one player that has a bright future.

[Smurf]

Do you honestly think the top managers in Ireland know who the best up and coming youth players are in Scotland? Do you honestly think of the top of their head they could name the best 20 players outwith the Old Firm?

Who said anything about knowing them all? I bet you they would know at least some. Or at least 1?

And who said anything about an Irish manager knowing players playing in Scotland? I said if you were an ex-international for France you would know at least 1 french starlet even if they played in League 2 of the French League. Try starting a game as French, ex international, age 30, take over PSG. Now - who do you know in the football world without going to the search screen?

You're 30, just retired. Handed the PSG role. Now, you want to sign the best youth player for France U21. Who is he? Why don't you know this without going to a seach screen?

Why not have a Manager Scout Screen where you have some prior knowledge of players?

Why not?

Is this really hard to wrap your brains around a manager within the game to have some prior knowledge of the footballing world and it's players??? Without using Stats, Values, and Attributes searching?

[ATW]

He'd have a fair idea bout his rival teams and their players.

I bet you if you asked him to name 1 youth player for Scotland he could name one and it would probably be their brightest talent. Of course they may not know every player.

.

No he'll know of a player that the media have talked about. So your real problem is not what Scouts do/or don't do but the lack of media reporting at under international/competitions. Do you honestly think managers pick up and notice what the media are saying about a player and buy players on that. For every youth player that is touted in Britain, a manager who is interested in him will have a Scout, or hire a Scouting Company to go look at said player.

Media reporting needs improved when it comes to youngsters but managers still don't know how good they are at crossing, finishing, heading, strength or how fast they are until they either go see them play or they send scout to watch them - unless they receive footage of said player from a third party (usually an agent/family member).

[milnerpoint]

Yeh I but I bett Jess knows other youth players from other youth teams that Forrest play against. He wouldn't need a scout report to know if someone from QPR was a good player. He'd already know this.

He'd have a fair idea bout his rival teams and their players.

I bet you if you asked him to name 1 youth player for Scotland he could name one and it would probably be their brightest talent. Of course they may not know every player.

Again, you're confusing knowing everyone with knowing at least one player that has a bright future.

so just like you will have an ingame knowledge of the players you are playing against week in week out, he wil have it in real life, again i really do fail to see the issue here.

You say a french international living in china will know a lot about french football, yet a scottish guy living just a few hundred miles away has very limited knowledge of Scottish football, it really doesnt work as you are describing.

You quickly build your ingame knowlage, and if you want you can choose to subscribe to players, make notes on them, set reminders so you know to go back to them, you can even manually write stuff down, but you have to put a bit of effort into it, i bet Fergie has notes, DVD's, and most likely stats and reports on players, he doesnt keep it all in his head, he will not know every single good kid off hand, but he uses the resources avaliable to make his life easy, we have these options in FM but on a game scale because at the end of the day thats all FM is, a game, not a replica of being Fergie.

[ATW]

Is this really hard to wrap your brains around a manager within the game to have some prior knowledge of the footballing world and it's players??? Without using Stats, Values, and Attributes searching?

Because Football Manager is Stats, Values and Attributes. Also the best Under 21 player doesn't always become the best Senior player. If they're doing well at U21 level clubs will send someone to see them, be it the manager or scout.

[MishiesML]

I have two burning questions about dafuge's screenshots.

1. How do you get all the scouting/contract info on one page?

2. How do you get the EPL badges?

Ta

[Smurf]

Well that's part of it.

[milnerpoint]

Who said anything about knowing them all? I bet you they would know at least some. Or at least 1?

And who said anything about an Irish manager knowing players playing in Scotland? I said if you were an ex-international for France you would know at least 1 french starlet even if they played in League 2 of the French League. Try starting a game as French, ex international, age 30, take over PSG. Now - who do you know in the football world without going to the search screen?

You're 30, just retired. Handed the PSG role. Now, you want to sign the best youth player for France U21. Who is he? Why don't you know this without going to a seach screen?

Why not have a Manager Scout Screen where you have some prior knowledge of players?

Why not?

Is this really hard to wrap your brains around a manager within the game to have some prior knowledge of the footballing world and it's players??? Without using Stats, Values, and Attributes searching?

your making the assumption that everyone knows who the top kids coming through are if you are from that nation, take your example, you dont say if the player has played in france or china, if he has played in france then yes, if he has played in china for the past 1o years then no he wont have an automatic knowledge of the league.

[dafuge]

I have two burning questions about dafuge's screenshots.

1. How do you get all the scouting/contract info on one page?

2. How do you get the EPL badges?

Ta

1. By creating custom views by right clicking at the heading and 'insert column'.

2. Google. Seriously though, we can't give out links here so you will need to look elsewhere, maybe somewhere like sortitoutsi.

[Smurf]

so just like you will have an ingame knowledge of the players you are playing against week in week out, he wil have it in real life, again i really do fail to see the issue here.

You say a french international living in china will know a lot about french football, yet a scottish guy living just a few hundred miles away has very limited knowledge of Scottish football, it really doesnt work as you are describing.

You quickly build your ingame knowlage, and if you want you can choose to subscribe to players, make notes on them, set reminders so you know to go back to them, you can even manually write stuff down, but you have to put a bit of effort into it, i bet Fergie has notes, DVD's, and most likely stats and reports on players, he doesnt keep it all in his head, he will not know every single good kid off hand, but he uses the resources avaliable to make his life easy, we have these options in FM but on a game scale because at the end of the day thats all FM is, a game, not a replica of being Fergie.

That's not the point at all.

[MishiesML]

Fantastico!

[Staf9]

to resolve it all SI should just create an option in the Shortlist part of the game so a manager can create a random shortlist of player he has a knowledge of due to his Ex international status or his favourite team. it may not list the 10 best players in the world but it will have a list of players the manager MAY be aware of.

[Jme10]

Eugene Tyson, for the last time. Fm gives you the means to access whatever your after. Many people have told you various ways of accessing the inofrmation you require. As for well known players, i'll repeat. You can look at the overviews of regions and countries to see the top players.

[Smurf]

your making the assumption that everyone knows who the top kids coming through are if you are from that nation, take your example, you dont say if the player has played in france or china, if he has played in france then yes, if he has played in china for the past 1o years then no he wont have an automatic knowledge of the league.

I'm not making any assumptions.

I asked you a question. Please answer.

[Smurf]

Eugene Tyson, for the last time. Fm gives you the means to access whatever your after. Many people have told you various ways of accessing the inofrmation you require. As for well known players, i'll repeat. You can look at the overviews of regions and countries to see the top players.

I know it does.

Banging my head against a wall here.

I'm saying you could have a Manger Scouting Knowledge, based on you, not your scouts. You have knowledge of the football world.

Even if you scout players after player after player. Do this for 15 seasons.

Now change club.

Where's the scout reports. You've just scouted, watched, filtered, sorted by value all the players in the game for the last 15 years.

Now you're at a new club. What do you instantly know?

Now you have to go back to your searches. Back to filtering, back to scouting. Back to sorting by value.

But you already did all this only 1 day ago. You had this knowledge just before you got on a plane to fly to your new club.

Now you don't.

So you don't have any ingame knowledge or your own scout reports. You just don't have it.

[SiN8]

Not sure why so many people disagree with Eugene here as he's got a perfectly good point. I find the FM scouting system to be awful and needing an overhaul for several years now.

-If a scout leaves, you lose all of his reports. That makes no sense. Do RL scouts demand back all their reports? In FM, I'm forced to shortlist every high potential player since my scouts can get poached at any time. Makes the game really slow when you've got hundreds of shortlisted players.

-When you take over a new club, you start off with a blank view of the world again. A RL manager would have just taken all of his scouting reports along with him. In FM, the only way to retain knowledge is to manually add notes to each player. Sorry, but that's not much fun to do in a game.

-Again, if you're at a new club, why don't the existing scouts share their reports which they've been gathering for last couple of years. It shouldn't take 3 weeks to send them out again for a completely new scouting trip. In one of the above examples, Mourinho at a 3rd division Chinese club can just ask any existing coach/scout for a complete report of the league and have it by the end of the day.

-Scouting stars are subjective to your club's reputation. When the club gains reputation (who knows when?), your scouts start giving out less stars for the same player. However, older reports are still based off the previous star rating. So I can't even sort players by scouting stars. SI, just make it an global objective rating please!

In general, I suggest everyone check out Out of the Park baseball sim. Their scouting system is miles better than FM's. In summary, every player has the attributes and ratings available, but accuracy is dependent on how much of your budget you're investing in scouting.

[Johnny Ace]

I'm saying you could have a Manger Scouting Knowledge, based on you, not your scouts. You have knowledge of the football world..

As earlier said, we are managers & not scouts

Even if you scout players after player after player. Do this for 15 seasons.

Now change club.

Where's the scout reports. You've just scouted, watched, filtered, sorted by value all the players in the game for the last 15 years.

Now you're at a new club. What do you instantly know?

Now you have to go back to your searches. Back to filtering, back to scouting. Back to sorting by value.

But you already did all this only 1 day ago. You had this knowledge just before you got on a plane to fly to your new club.

Now you don't.

So you don't have any ingame knowledge or your own scout reports. You just don't have it.

As I said earlier & suggested to you, you can write a note for any player & add them to your shortlist (shortlists roll over from job to job right?). Maybe being able to rate a player manually out of 5 stars wouldn't be such a big problem to add to the game

For the 4th or 5th time, our in game FM World knowledge comes in the form of player profiles, we don't move countries & all of a sudden forget their attributes, histories etc, finding them is a matter of a quick search away in the database (our FM World brain or dossier)

[Johnny Ace]

Some good points there SiN8, scouting reports do seem to "disappear" when you move job or a scout leaves. Scouting reports would be retained by the club

[dafuge]

I could have sworn that my old scout reports were still visible when I moved clubs, I remember thinking it was odd at the time as I thought they were always wiped. Not sure about sacking scouts though, I can't say I've noticed losing loads of reports when sacking my scouts and hiring new ones.

[Smurf]

Johnny - that's not what I'm talking about.

________________________

Here's an example:

Where's the list of players that have been in the top 3 world player of the year for the last 5 years. Yes you can find out this information so go ahead do that.

Now scout the 15 players (right click on each player - now come the four (4) sub menus: Scouting>Get Scout Report>From (top scout>) You will do this 15 times accessing 4 sub menus each time 60 menus in total to get scout reports.

____________________________

What I'm proposing is that these players are listed in an quickly manageable list.

Not just the World Player of the year. But Young player of the year, Champions League Top goal scorers, Top assists in Champions League, in the euro cup too. In the world cup, in the youth world cups.

Just consolididating data from various competitions into one easily manageable screen that touts the best players.

You've already got all this information in the game. Yes you can access it. But it's seriously tedious.

I'm just proposing that the game could have the ability to consolidate the information you can gather from the game already into a handy list of players.

Making it quicker to find the top players without doing a finger dance to get the information you want.

It's all aimed at making the game quicker at accessing who the best players are in the world of football.

Surely most managers would at least know this.

[x42bn6]

As I said earlier & suggested to you, you can write a note for any player & add them to your shortlist (shortlists roll over from job to job right?). Maybe being able to rate a player manually out of 5 stars wouldn't be such a big problem to add to the game

For the 4th or 5th time, our in game FM World knowledge comes in the form of player profiles, we don't move countries & all of a sudden forget their attributes, histories etc, finding them is a matter of a quick search away in the database (our FM World brain or dossier)

It's not really your brain, though, as what appears on Player search depends on the scouting knowledge of your (new) club, and that these disappear if you move clubs and have attribute masking on.

The issue with notes is that you need to make notes on every player you see, when in reality several players would immediately get lots of news reports anyway, renewing your knowledge.

Because we should be able to very quickly (i.e. not even need to analyse his attributes) put a vague guess on a player's overall ability, it really does imply that we need to have a "guess" column in player search. This way it removes the tediousness of having to use notes. People may also use notes for other reasons, such as former players or how to defend against this player. I do not believe the Notes feature is a useful attribute as a result - it's possible, but very "hacky", and does not match real-life.

[Smurf]

Some good points there SiN8, scouting reports do seem to "disappear" when you move job or a scout leaves. Scouting reports would be retained by the club

I've made that point a dozen times.

[Smurf]

Not sure why so many people disagree with Eugene here as he's got a perfectly good point. I find the FM scouting system to be awful and needing an overhaul for several years now.

-If a scout leaves, you lose all of his reports. That makes no sense. Do RL scouts demand back all their reports? In FM, I'm forced to shortlist every high potential player since my scouts can get poached at any time. Makes the game really slow when you've got hundreds of shortlisted players.

-When you take over a new club, you start off with a blank view of the world again. A RL manager would have just taken all of his scouting reports along with him. In FM, the only way to retain knowledge is to manually add notes to each player. Sorry, but that's not much fun to do in a game.

-Again, if you're at a new club, why don't the existing scouts share their reports which they've been gathering for last couple of years. It shouldn't take 3 weeks to send them out again for a completely new scouting trip. In one of the above examples, Mourinho at a 3rd division Chinese club can just ask any existing coach/scout for a complete report of the league and have it by the end of the day.

-Scouting stars are subjective to your club's reputation. When the club gains reputation (who knows when?), your scouts start giving out less stars for the same player. However, older reports are still based off the previous star rating. So I can't even sort players by scouting stars. SI, just make it an global objective rating please!

In general, I suggest everyone check out Out of the Park baseball sim. Their scouting system is miles better than FM's. In summary, every player has the attributes and ratings available, but accuracy is dependent on how much of your budget you're investing in scouting.

Thank you!

I cannot thank you enough.

Finally some sense. It's like a weight lifted off my brain.

[Johnny Ace]

Johnny - that's not what I'm talking about.

________________________

Here's an example:

Where's the list of players that have been in the top 3 world player of the year for the last 5 years. Yes you can find out this information so go ahead do that.

Now scout the 15 players (right click on each player - now come the four (4) sub menus: Scouting>Get Scout Report>From (top scout>) You will do this 15 times accessing 4 sub menus each time 60 menus in total to get scout reports.

____________________________

What I'm proposing is that these players are listed in an quickly manageable list.

Not just the World Player of the year. But Young player of the year, Champions League Top goal scorers, Top assists in Champions League, in the euro cup too. In the world cup, in the youth world cups.

Just consolididating data from various competitions into one easily manageable screen that touts the best players.

You've already got all this information in the game. Yes you can access it. But it's seriously tedious.

I'm just proposing that the game could have the ability to consolidate the information you can gather from the game already into a handy list of players.

Making it quicker to find the top players without doing a finger dance to get the information you want.

It's all aimed at making the game quicker at accessing who the best players are in the world of football.

Surely most managers would at least know this.

Right!!!! With ya there. Streamlining our access to the vast amount of info we have available. What does the book marking function do, can it do that for you? Never used it before

[dafuge]

I've made that point a dozen times.

Could someone try testing this in their game? I'm sure that my scout reports have been retained but I might be remembering things incorrectly.

Try getting a scout report on a player that has not been scouted, then release the scout. Is the report still there a day later?