Remove the Potential Ability from FM2015!

[Dr. Hook]

I like where this is going overall. Jujigitame is correct that the current system is not nuanced enough. Hiding staff abilities doesn't mean overcomplicating the game necessarily. If it just vanished then of course it would suck; I have a real life and it's busy and while it might be fun for some to spend hours prowling through a scout's past recommendation to see if he is any good, it would be better to just have the numbers replaced by something else as Alex was suggesting. I wish I had a brilliant idea about how to do this, but nothing comes at the moment.

It needs to happen because here's what I have a problem with: as a lower, lower league manager, I can hire a scout but he is going to be a JPA/JPP of 4/4 if I am lucky. Well, of course I don't expect to hire world class, but a young, unproven talent might just be a great scout who a Premier League team would not hire because he is unknown and inexperienced. He might be a fine judge of talent. At this point in the man's career, we should not necessarily know this. When I see a 4/4 attribute set, I dump the bugger as soon as I can get better, regardless of whether he has found me any good players or not. After all, who wouldn't upgrade to the 8/8 man at the drop of a hat. I'll probably never get a really good scout hired at that level, but I should be able to find some good ones at the beginning of their careers in the game.

By the way, this goes for all staff members to some level. And of course it leads into all sorts of other wishlist topics . . .

[Dr. Hook]

What about using scouts' reputation? You can trust your scout more if his/her reputation is higher.

Did not spot this, but I was thinking along the same lines. However, given that we have some problems with reputation being too all powerful in some respects, I hesitated to bring it up. And then what about notoriety without talent? A scout could be at Man U for a few seasons and will be a known commodity in the football world, and in game would likely enjoy a national reputation. But, what if he sucked, hence he applies at your job advert because he was sacked? And then, would AI teams ever dump a staff member as long as they had a high rep? I definitely think it could play a role if in combination with something else.

[c.ronaldo7]

Only just viewed this thread and although the way scouts are at the moment doesn't really bother me, it would keep things fresh if it was tweeked a little. I'm all for it being somehow linked in with the reputation though, maybe setting values to each tier of reputation would be a good idea, e.g. Local (JPP/JPA 5-9), National (JPP/JPA 10-14), Continental (JPP/JPA 15-17), World-Class (JPP/JPA 18-20). This could be linked in to an additional description similar to that of players e.g. Promising, Competent, Consistent, Exceptional Youth Team/Tactical/First Team Scout etc.

Just my thoughts on it, as said though I personally wouldn't be overly fussed if it was left as it currently is!

[HUNT3R]

I don't have a problem with how scouts and their abilities are displayed.

When scouting a player however, even the good scouts should take a while to establish how good the player actually is. Whether they unlock an attribute range (showing 10-17 for an attribute of 14) and gradually narrowing that range until he's been scouted enough or whether the attributes shown should just be wrong in general, like showing 17 for a player who actually just has 14 for an attribute, when first scouting and again gradually getting closer to the actual value as he gets scouted more. Either way, it is scouting that needs improving, imo, not the PA system.

[samdiatmh]

I don't have a problem with how scouts and their abilities are displayed.

When scouting a player however, even the good scouts should take a while to establish how good the player actually is. Whether they unlock an attribute range (showing 10-17 for an attribute of 14) and gradually narrowing that range until he's been scouted enough or whether the attributes shown should just be wrong in general, like showing 17 for a player who actually just has 14 for an attribute, when first scouting and again gradually getting closer to the actual value as he gets scouted more. Either way, it is scouting that needs improving, imo, not the PA system.

ahhh, the cons of playing with attribute masking off

if a player isn't well known to you (hey, that 15yo newgen Brazilian?) then you'll need to scout him a few times you to be sure of his stats (and he could sign a pro-deal, sending his price from ~400k to 5m)

if you play with it off, then ALL the figures are available to you, and you can easily poach them (before they sign a pro-deal with their clubs)

I agree that it probably should be more dynamic, a scout should be able to spot some easier stats (like his technique) but some more debatable ones (like shooting, could just have a good day / taking it easy at training) need more time to figure out

and then basically a scout should give an initial report, and then revise it based on new watchings (so watching the same player over a period [hey, like RL] would give a better indicator)

eg....

Player X (1st report) looks to have a good shot on him, as well as looking quite slow (pace low, shooting high) - dated July 10th

Player X (2nd report) was having a bad day in front of goal, looked pretty tired by end of game (shooting revised down, stamina low) - preseason game July 14th

Player X (3rd report) looked a lot better in front of goal today, gaining some match fitness, ran out the game well (shooting back to 1st report, stamina increased) - preseason game July 20th

Player X (4th report) another great day in training, really putting in the hard yards, really accurate in front of goal (shooting confirmed as 17, stamina increased again, strength high) - training July 22nd

Player X (5th report) really put himself about today, dealdy accurate in front of goal, really called for the ball. Laid off a few assists, a strong asset for the side (confirms shooting, teamwork high, stamina increased) - preseason game July 28th

in this example - over the course of the month, you've confirmed some key characteristics of the player, through watching training and preseason games.. confirming a high shooting stat, and a fine athletic player

you probably wouldn't have gone in for him on that first report, but he's looking like a must-sign now you've done proper research (like clubs do IRL) over the course of the month

edit: of course yeah, probably screws you over for that first window, but most sides have already done their summer spending anyway (the DB is closed Sep 1 for a reason)

also coming back to what you've said, basically you only retrieve a part of the information at a time, while eventually narrowing it down to the data

but... of course, you'd also get some whingebags that complain about how they've found a raving report of a youngster, only to sign him and realise that his stats weren't entirely accurate (didn't Liverpool arguably do this with Carroll?)

[mrdanbartlett]

Only read the 1st post.

Just wanted to say I've played a 12+ season save where I signed a huge number of players, all young and developed them. I signed some for 4m at 18 who become the worlds best, some cost me £10m, some cost me £200k, these players become basically the worlds best XI pretty much. I really don't think there is a set rule to it, so many factors, i.e where the player is, how much contract they have left, and so on.

What annoyed me more was the star system, which basically has removed 5 star potential now, I have world class players (as stated by their report) who are 3.5-4 stars, and leading prem is now around the 2 star mark.

Makes finding new players very very hard, my scouts never find anyone above 3.5 and its impossible to go on the stars now when looking for developed players - so I purely use the compare stats tool.

the best player in the game cost me £4m when he was 18 for the record.

[PhroX]

I don't have a problem with how scouts and their abilities are displayed.

When scouting a player however, even the good scouts should take a while to establish how good the player actually is. Whether they unlock an attribute range (showing 10-17 for an attribute of 14) and gradually narrowing that range until he's been scouted enough or whether the attributes shown should just be wrong in general, like showing 17 for a player who actually just has 14 for an attribute, when first scouting and again gradually getting closer to the actual value as he gets scouted more. Either way, it is scouting that needs improving, imo, not the PA system.

Yeah, I've long wished for scouting to be less precise and less accurate with regards to abilities. Even with attribute masking, with a couple of scouting trips, I know exactly how good the player is attribute wise.

[bigdunk]

Simply removing the numerical values from the profile certainly wouldn't be the right choice, whatever suggestion I put up for discussion would not only have to add something to the gameplay experience but also work for other members of staff as there would need to be consistency across all non-playing personnel in the game.

It's certainly a concept that imo is worth considering.

If I was going to replace/rework the scouts judging attributes, I would really push the scouting knowledge aspect of it and maybe even do away with the attributes altogether. As well as the knowledge of specific countries/regions that we have now, break it down further into age groups, scouting specific positions, scouting specific attributes (e.g. a scout may excel at judging technical aspects, but struggle to pick up a players mental strengths). The closer a player was to a scouts areas of expertise, the more likely he is to give an accurate opinion of the player. That would give me some interesting decisions to make as a manager - do I focus on scouting young technically-able players, do I want to pick up experienced players from the continent and so on. It would also differentiate scouts a lot more - at the moment, a JCA/JPA 20/20 scout is pretty much identical to another 20/20 scout. You'd probably have to beef up the head scout stuff as well - the focus being on building a network of scouts that the head scout manages, with the manager just setting overall targets. So if you request a scout report, the head scout would automatically assign the most suitable scout.

It could also apply to the other staff members, with coaches having specialist knowledge of coaching age groups, positions, attributes etc. Again with the intention being building up a core of coaching staff focussed on specific aims, with maybe the assistant manager actually managing the individual assignments.

[colusso2]

Some good suggestions above, I'll try to summarise so you can make it into some sort of feature request:

1. Start with removing the attributes for CA/PA (at least from view)

2. Place emphasis on reputation (great idea about how just because they are cheap and unkown doesn't mean they might not be a 20/20), somehow linked to what players they have recommened highly which have come off... e.g. Comolli at Spurs --> leading Liverpool to sign him up etc.

2b. Perhaps ex-players start off with higher reps... but reps should go down as well as up, e.g. Commolli/ Gerrard (who thinks Joe Cole is as good as Messi - hope he doesn't become a scout in future!)

3. The idea of scouts being better at certain positions or certain types of players, e.g. ex-GK being good at finding keepers. (perhaps hidden CA/PA per position or role?)

4. You should not be able to get attributes/scout reports on youth players who don't actually play.

5. Scouting should take longer, especially on youngsters.

6. The scout report should build up over time, e.g. the bit about 'consistent' - you can only tell after x amount of games, personality also after time, stars maybe quickly, especially for older players who are more known/on tv. Scouting youth tournaments will be a big deal. Same for WC's etc... where you can see the best per country (if nations are picking best players) in one place... so scouts dont have to travel and cheaper & quicker to do.

7. AI more proactive in building good scouting and coaching teams... big clubs now have 10/10 scouts!