Why do we need player value?

[torehj]

I don`t understand why players should have a value (£££) in the game. Would i not be more realistic if they didn´t? I think buying and selling club still could make an agrement..

[Pingdinho]

Players have a value in the real world: e.g. http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/

Furthermore, a player is in a sense an asset owned by a club, so from a business perspective they have a value.

Also it is worth noting that player value should not be equated with the transfer fee that the player would be sold for. That's related, sure, but is a wider consideration.

[torehj]

But that would be the asking price, and I am OK with that. I still don´t see any reason to having a value decided by a "FM God".

[Pingdinho]

Asking price is not the same thing as value. Asking price is what a club would be prepared to sell a player for. Value is what they are 'worth'.

Say I have a car. That car has a value of £2000 – i.e. the book value which is determined by all sorts of objective factors. This is like a player's value (i.e. the amount displayed by FM). Say you want to buy my car, but I love my car and it is very valuable to me. I would sell it to you, but I'd want £4000 for it. That is an asking price.

I think asking price only really makes sense if there are objective values. It provides a kind of gold standard by which these things can be measured. A kind of control if you like so we know if something is over or under priced.

[Neil Brock]

Value essentially gives you an indicator of what a player in that situation is worth given the currently financial trends within the game. It takes into account a number of factors including league quality, time left on contract, player's current ability and age. It's generally a base indicator of the player's value. As said above, just because someone is valued at a certain, doesn't mean that's what their worth to the club. It's just an indicator to make the game clearer. 

[forameuss]

56 minutes ago, Pingdinho said:

Asking price is not the same thing as value. Asking price is what a club would be prepared to sell a player for. Value is what they are 'worth'.

Say I have a car. That car has a value of £2000 – i.e. the book value which is determined by all sorts of objective factors. This is like a player's value (i.e. the amount displayed by FM). Say you want to buy my car, but I love my car and it is very valuable to me. I would sell it to you, but I'd want £4000 for it. That is an asking price.

I think asking price only really makes sense if there are objective values. It provides a kind of gold standard by which these things can be measured. A kind of control if you like so we know if something is over or under priced.

But how do you measure what they're worth?  If you are prepared to sell a player for £X, and the buyers want to buy for £Y, then what's the point in having a £Z value on a player?  It's essentially arbitrary.  The game can tell me a player has a certain value, but I'm only going to let him go for what I believe he's worth.

So the OP is right, it's not really needed.  Would be interesting to see how the game was if it was something similar to CA/PA - used behind the scenes by the game (if it is) but otherwise hidden.

[Maaka]

11 minutes ago, forameuss said:

But how do you measure what they're worth?

Answer:

1 hour ago, Neil Brock said:

Value essentially gives you an indicator of what a player in that situation is worth given the currently financial trends within the game. It takes into account a number of factors including league quality, time left on contract, player's current ability and age. It's generally a base indicator of the player's value. As said above, just because someone is valued at a certain, doesn't mean that's what their worth to the club. It's just an indicator to make the game clearer. 

The "value" is a number indicating his relative value in context of the market, objectively. But as has been said, the market value doesn't necessarily correspond to the asking price, which is what the club means his value is corresponding to their needs.

[forameuss]

Fair enough, the first sentence wasn't really how I wanted to say it.  But the rest of my post still stands.  Neil said it was an indicator, I said it's essentially arbitrary and cosmetic.  I agree with the OP that it isn't really needed.

[Maaka]

5 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Fair enough, the first sentence wasn't really how I wanted to say it.  But the rest of my post still stands.  Neil said it was an indicator, I said it's essentially arbitrary and cosmetic.  I agree with the OP that it isn't really needed.

I'd agree to that the value is mostly cosmetic, as long as it doesn't represent anything related to what you'd have to pay to get the player, but it serves as an indicator which factors in a lot of things like contract length and ability etc.

What could be done is to remove "value" for all players not scouted, and just having a subjective "value" from the scout reports, in addition to what the scout believes the selling value (asking price) would be. Both could be ranged instead of fixed, and both could be narrowed with more scouting.

[Cougar2010]

I have mixed feelings but I think it causes more problems than it solves and essentially the OP is correct in that its not needed from a user perspective.

On the forums it causes issues when users think it is the gospel as to how much a player should cost when more accurate information is provided by the user as part of the scout reports.

In terms of selling it means nothing to us as users as we only accept what we think a player is worth or at least try to maximise what we get for him.

Which only leaves the AI, how much do they use value in their calculations? even if they do hiding it from users would still allow them to continue to use it.

As an example I just bought a player last night.  His value was £300k with just over 6 months left on his contract, my scout estimated his transfer fee to be between £60k & £120k.  I enquired, the selling club quoted £150k + add ons, I negotiated to £80k and they accepted.  What use was the value to me as a user?

[Matshit]

1 hour ago, Pingdinho said:

Players have a value in the real world: e.g. http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/

 

That is not the players value. That is some peoples estimation of the players value. It is nothing more than estimated guesses.

[Neil Brock]

As has been said, it's essentially a rough guide mainly for the user. It's a tool to enable you to at least get a rough idea of a player's value within the game (albeit not always the asking price you can sign a player for, even the AI has to keep their cards close to their chest). By all means if you want to find a skin which removes all 'values' from the game I'd be interested to hear how you find it, but there's no plans from us to remove this. 

[Cougar2010]

6 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

As has been said, it's essentially a rough guide mainly for the user. It's a tool to enable you to at least get a rough idea of a player's value within the game (albeit not always the asking price you can sign a player for, even the AI has to keep their cards close to their chest). By all means if you want to find a skin which removes all 'values' from the game I'd be interested to hear how you find it, but there's no plans from us to remove this. 

Thats the problem though, I don't feel the value figure works well enough to even be called "a rough estimate" and that leads to issues for some users.

I understand what you are saying that it represents a value not a price but that isn't communicated to the user and it leads to misunderstanding for many users.

Experienced users pretty much ignore it while how many threads on the forum are started with the value being a factor in an issue?

 

[Neil Brock]

31 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Thats the problem though, I don't feel the value figure works well enough to even be called "a rough estimate" and that leads to issues for some users.

I understand what you are saying that it represents a value not a price but that isn't communicated to the user and it leads to misunderstanding for many users.

Experienced users pretty much ignore it while how many threads on the forum are started with the value being a factor in an issue?

 

I'm an experienced player and I don't ignore it. It always give me an indication of where the player is viewed within the football world of that save.

And generally I wouldn't say that many threads are started based on the value, more so that they don't agree with the asking price of the AI team. I think the value being listed has become part and parcel of what FM has been over the years and what it represents in game. If you think it should be re-worked or removed I'd suggest creating a thread within our feature requests forum here - https://community.sigames.com/forum/353-football-manager-feature-requests/

Thanks. 

 

[Cougar2010]

10 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

I'm an experienced player and I don't ignore it. It always give me an indication of where the player is viewed within the football world of that save.

Does it really show where the player is viewed within the save though?

I would argue not when age, contract length & wage amount plays a part in the value calculation.  All three can result in a player being undervalued compared to his actual position in the footballing world.

Just to demonstrate I've loaded a save game from 2026, randomly picked Man City and picking out an example

A) A 33yo first team DL on £1.4m a month with 8 months left on his contract, 4* rep - value £1.7m.

Man City also have a 26yo first team DM on £1.4m a month with approx 4.5 years on his contract, 4* rep - value £46m.

Younger with more time on his contract which is represented by the difference in value but their position in the footballing world is more or less equal - both established regular internationals (Spain & Greece) and starting for a top club in a top league.

[torehj]

For me the biggest problem is that the value gives away to much information:

Let´s say you look at a youth squad of a club in a country where you have no scouting knowledge. You see that most of the players have a value of £3-400, and one player has the value of £5000. You than know who is worth scouting..most of the time at least.

[withnail316]

I don't ignore it either, certainly not when selling players. It gives me a baseline as to their value, or to what I could potentially earn if I sell them. 

Example: I have a back-up striker who wants to leave the club, who is worth €2.3m. Experience tells me I am unlikely to get that for him as he barely plays, but I'd be foolish if I offered him out for €500,000. His valuation means I have a ball park figure to sell him for, which is probably for something like €1.5m-€2m.

I also have a 26 year old left winger who plays and performs each week worth €6m. I suspect I could potentially get €10m for him if I sell him at the right time, and again it is the baseline value that makes me think that is possible.

[Dharcness]

Without any player value, how do you know how much to bid for the player?

Let say player A has a value of $8m , thus I know I can start bidding at $4m and both clubs can start negotiate from there on.

Let say player B has no value, how much do I bid for him? Should I start at $2m?  $6m?  $10m? or $20m?

[Bigpapa42]

If the idea of "player value" didn't exist in the football world outside of FM, then it would be harder to say its legit. But assigning a market value is something that happens, and similarly, it doesn't necessarily match the actual sale value of a player.

[Welshace]

5 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

Does it really show where the player is viewed within the save though?

I would argue not when age, contract length & wage amount plays a part in the value calculation.  All three can result in a player being undervalued compared to his actual position in the footballing world.

Just to demonstrate I've loaded a save game from 2026, randomly picked Man City and picking out an example

A) A 33yo first team DL on £1.4m a month with 8 months left on his contract, 4* rep - value £1.7m.

Man City also have a 26yo first team DM on £1.4m a month with approx 4.5 years on his contract, 4* rep - value £46m.

Younger with more time on his contract which is represented by the difference in value but their position in the footballing world is more or less equal - both established regular internationals (Spain & Greece) and starting for a top club in a top league.

Strange example....  the valuation describes both players position perfectly imo .... 33, coming to the end of his contract, not going to be worth much value wise.

[Weston]

8 hours ago, Pingdinho said:

Players have a value in the real world: e.g. http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/

Furthermore, a player is in a sense an asset owned by a club, so from a business perspective they have a value.

Also it is worth noting that player value should not be equated with the transfer fee that the player would be sold for. That's related, sure, but is a wider consideration.

On this note I would actually like to see the changes of players' valuations over time. If me being some random guy can go to that website right now then surely a professional manager would be able to see something similar in the game. I can see this being very data intensive, but it could be realistically implemented at least for our own squad so we can see our own players progress through the years.

It's always exciting to see a player you signed for 1 million break a 10 million valuation after you've raised him, for example, and it's also always intriguing to see what valuation is assigned to frees you pick up. Similarly, it would be nice if we could sort current free agents by their latest valuation (as, of course, it is technically 0 at the time they are free) when trying to sift through and find the most worthwhile targets for scouting.

[Cougar2010]

15 minutes ago, Dharcness said:

Without any player value, how do you know how much to bid for the player?

Let say player A has a value of $8m , thus I know I can start bidding at $4m and both clubs can start negotiate from there on.

Let say player B has no value, how much do I bid for him? Should I start at $2m?  $6m?  $10m? or $20m?

Same as you do now, you use your scouts and they give you top & bottom estimate.

 

7 minutes ago, Welshace said:

Strange example....  the valuation describes both players position perfectly imo .... 33, coming to the end of his contract, not going to be worth much value wise.

Neil said that the value reflected a player's standing within the FM world.

That example shows that it doesn't.

[Maaka]

But it does. He might be good, but with eight months to go on his contract, he's free to negotiate with other clubs (with no transfer fee) in just two months, that means his "value" are lower than if the exact same player, in the same circumstances, had 3 years left on his contract.

[Neil Brock]

11 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Same as you do now, you use your scouts and they give you top & bottom estimate.

 

Neil said that the value reflected a player's standing within the FM world.

That example shows that it doesn't.

I think you've misconstrued what I meant there, it's their standing as in the sense of their ability, their current contract, their age etc. Not just say their reputation. 

[Ropotas]

In our days each player have a value..In older times football was more "romantic" now is a huge business so players not have value is unrealistic...

[Cougar2010]

2 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

I think you've misconstrued what I meant there, it's their standing as in the sense of their ability, their current contract, their age etc. Not just say their reputation. 

Ok, so no different than what we all know then and we are back at square one.

Back to my original reply then where in a lot of cases the value misrepresents itself to users.  For those of us that have played for years its not an issue whether you ignore it or use it as an indicator but for other users I feel its another area where SI could improve how information is displayed to the user and what it means.

Now I have my save open I can give more examples.  Searching my shortlist of 2012 players say for a ST who is younger than 28yo (Realistic transfers ticked) it gives me 269.  Sorted by CA these are the top five:

Player 1 - value £3.8m, scout estimate £7.5m-£10.75m

Player 2 - value £725k, scout estimate £475k-£700k

Player 3 - value £1.3m, scout estimate £1.1m-£1.6m

Player 4 - value £1.7m, scout estimate £1.7m-£4.3m

Player 5 - value £275k, scout estimate £500k-£1.2m

 

The five show a good spread we have one where the value is in the middle, one where the value is top end of estimate, one bottom end of estimate & the last two the value is significantly lower in % terms than the bottom end of the scouts estimate.

Viewing those five examples I'm not surprised some users get confused & frustrated when they are buying & selling players.  The scouts' estimates work fine but the values are confusing as to what they are or represent.

[Weston]

3 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Player 1 - value £3.8m, scout estimate £7.5m-£10.75m

Player 2 - value £725k, scout estimate £475k-£700k

Player 3 - value £1.3m, scout estimate £1.1m-£1.6m

Player 4 - value £1.7m, scout estimate £1.7m-£4.3m

Player 5 - value £275k, scout estimate £500k-£1.2m

 

The five show a good spread we have one where the value is in the middle, one where the value is top end of estimate, one bottom end of estimate & the last two the value is significantly lower in % terms than the bottom end of the scouts estimate.

Viewing those five examples I'm not surprised some users get confused & frustrated when they are buying & selling players.  The scouts' estimates work fine but the values are confusing as to what they are or represent.

Not really... I look at that and thing Player 1's club is asking for far above market value so not a good prospect, whereas Player 3 is available at an appropriate price, and Player 2 is a bit of a bargain. I use both the market value and scout prediction of sale price together to inform my deals in the transfer market and feel as if they both have their place in the game. You're allowed to want more or less than market value, and doing so doesn't invalidate the market value. If you're desperate for cash you may sell low, or if a rival is interested you may sell high. Doesn't change how good the player is.

[Neil Brock]

Basically think of the Andy Carroll situation. Realistically his value at the time he was sold from Newcastle was about £10m-£15m. That was the going rate of players of his ilk. Newcastle however, desperately did not want to sell but Liverpool desperately wanted to buy, so he went for £35m. That amount was his asking price. And that would be what the scout would have returned if he'd scouted him at that point.

The asking price and value are two different things. The scout reports the asking price (to the best of their knowledge). 

[Ropotas]

13 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

I think you've misconstrued what I meant there, it's their standing as in the sense of their ability, their current contract, their age etc. Not just say their reputation. 

Neil i want to ask you something...I had a save with Vaduz and when my players from other counties took Liechtensteins citizenship (after five years) and i call them and use them in Liechtensteins national team maches their value fell and any offers i had for them disappeared...Nationality is so important for a player value in Fm??

[torehj]

10 hours ago, Dharcness said:

Without any player value, how do you know how much to bid for the player?

Let say player A has a value of $8m , thus I know I can start bidding at $4m and both clubs can start negotiate from there on.

Let say player B has no value, how much do I bid for him? Should I start at $2m?  $6m?  $10m? or $20m?

The same way it´s done in the real world. I'dont think Mourinho uses transfermarkt.co.uk to decide a players worth when he is buying or selling. No player values would encourage players to scout more.

[warlock]

Seems to me this is all needlessly theoretical.

If Chelsea just bought a player for £30m, they're not going to sell him in the next six months for less, and would probably want much more. If he doesn't perform his value will go down; if he plays well his value might go up.

Since most players in the football world will have been transferred at least once, they must have a value (or a price) just as above. That's how markets work (and football is a market). Even academy players will have a value sooner or later because some club will ask if he's for sale at a certain price. The yes or no answer immediately establishes his value.

Those values will change over time according to - as mentioned above - age, playing ability, length of contract, how important he is to the selling and buying clubs, and more. Cougar's example from Man City seems obvious to me: a 33-year-old rated 4* now isn't going to be 4* next season or the season after. On the other hand, a 25-year-old 4* player could give you a solid four-to-five-years service. Why wouldn't he be more valuable?

I think the game does a pretty good job of simulating all of those factors, plus the workings of a free market. It would be unbelievably tedious to have to scout every single transfer possibility to see if you could afford him. But there is enough uncertainty and flexibility in the game to keep it interesting; I just tried to sign Tim Sparv from FC Midtylland. He's valued at about £1.2m; my scouts estimated between £1.4m and £1.8m to sign him, but the club refused to even negotiate on offers of £2m and £2.5m, so I moved on.

[Pingdinho]

Surely, at the absolute bare minimum, a player has a value based on the value of the remainder of their current contract. I.e. the cost of buying out that contract regardless of any other factors such as age, reputation, performance, value to the selling club, value to the buying club, etc. This is kind of treating the player as a business asset, which is in a sense what they are.

Anyway, I see player value as providing a control over the whole transfer market. In any market if no one had any objective measure of the value of something, it would be chaotic. And people would get exploited. I suppose it its kind of like the book price for second-hand cars in that respect.

Practically, in terms of the game, if another club bids for my player the value gives me a quick way of appraising if that is a good deal in an objective sense (as opposed to how valuable the player is to me, subjectively). I think there is room and value for both perspectives when assessing a deal.

[Cougar2010]

37 minutes ago, warlock said:

I think the game does a pretty good job of simulating all of those factors, plus the workings of a free market. It would be unbelievably tedious to have to scout every single transfer possibility to see if you could afford him. But there is enough uncertainty and flexibility in the game to keep it interesting; I just tried to sign Tim Sparv from FC Midtylland. He's valued at about £1.2m; my scouts estimated between £1.4m and £1.8m to sign him, but the club refused to even negotiate on offers of £2m and £2.5m, so I moved on.

Thats part of the point though, you should be scouting every single player that you sign + many others.  You should not be signing players you know nothing about.

I have never signed a player that wasn't at least 70% scouted not just in FM16 but as far back as CM/FM had scouting albeit a little more limited than it is now.  Almost all of the players I sign are 100% scouted, the 70% are the odd ones where I'm short of time with the transfer window closing.

[Pingdinho]

4 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Thats part of the point though, you should be scouting every single player that you sign + many others.  You should not be signing players you know nothing about.

I think they might be saying that if you aren't a rich club, then there is no point even bothering to scout a player with a very high 'game value'. While you may argue that is part and parcel of things, and you would not be wrong, I would argue that would be a complete pain in the backside, and after all this whole thing is supposed to be fun (sometimes, at least ).

[HUNT3R]

4 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

I have never signed a player that wasn't at least 70% scouted 

I have... at a club with limited resources and I was new there. We needed players and the window was closing very soon. Turned into a bit of a lottery!

[torehj]

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

I have... at a club with limited resources and I was new there. We needed players and the window was closing very soon. Turned into a bit of a lottery!

And it should be a lottery! Now I feel I can make good signings based on the value alone, without scouting. (...sometimes)

[Cougar2010]

1 minute ago, Pingdinho said:

I think they might be saying that if you aren't a rich club, then there is no point even bothering to scout a player with a very high 'game value'. While you may argue that is part and parcel of things, and you would not be wrong, I would argue that would be a complete pain in the backside, and after all this whole thing is supposed to be fun (sometimes, at least ).

If I'm not a rich club then the player wouldn't be found on the initial search by my scouts where you are scouting competitions or countries, therefore never make my shortlist & time wouldn't be wasted scouting him further.  Even if he did make my shortlist I would filter it further before assigning players to "in depth" scouting so its unlikely further scouting time would be wasted on him.

Don't get me wrong there are players who get scouted who are out of my price range (Maybe because they've signed a new contract or something) but with value/wages being estimated early on wasted further scouting is minimised by cancelling the additional scouting when I get an update in the news messages.

[Cougar2010]

10 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I have... at a club with limited resources and I was new there. We needed players and the window was closing very soon. Turned into a bit of a lottery!

Desperate times lead to desperate measures, even then I can't remember the last time I gambled like that.

In that situation I still wouldn't be keen to sign someone with next to no scouting, I would rather throw in youth players and make do under the next window. 

[Maaka]

Which boils down to that even "value" should be disguised and "unlocked" by scouting. Of course, you'd know the "value" for Messi or Neuer et.al., but like attributes, it should be masked (maybe ranged at first, then narrowed by scouting).
But "value" should not be removed from the game altogether.

[HUNT3R]

6 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Desperate times lead to desperate measures, even then I can't remember the last time I gambled like that.

In that situation I still wouldn't be keen to sign someone with next to no scouting, I would rather throw in youth players and make do under the next window. 

I must say though, I didn't sign players totally blind. Was looking for a midfield playmaker, for instance. I knew his attribute for passing was 11-17 and could see a few other attribute ranges, but had no idea about Decision making or Vision. I had to make decisions based on the little info I had about the players. 

I had roles/positions in mind for the specific players and based my gamble on the attributes I could see and whether even the lower range would be 'okay' for me. If I couldn't see enough important attributes for what I needed, I'd try and move on to someone else.

--

Back to the topic, value definitely never entered into the equation. I base transfer decisions based on almost everything else.

I do use Value to give me an idea of how much to sell a player for though. Even then, it can also depend on how much a replacement (if I need one) would cost.

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

 

I do use Value to give me an idea of how much to sell a player for though. Even then, it can also depend on how much a replacement (if I need one) would cost.

Same, it's basically roughly the realistic value you could ask for if you wanted to get rid of a player for yourself, but there wasn't any demand specifically as such. You know, the way that market operates, a truly market value is as high (or as low) as the price somebody is prepared to pay, and "modern" football tends to have obscenely sums going changing all kinds of pockets, but that's a different can of worms. Oh, and it is or used to be a sneaky way of finding value in up and coming Bosmans. Filtered transfers by contracts running out, sorted players by their value and take a look at those who actually were valued something, you were bound to find some decent stuff there. ;-)

As the opposite to the Andy Carroll scenario, there is the case of then Bayern's Luca Toni. Van Gaal tried to offload him, but there was zero demand in parts caused by his high wage demands too. Despite Transfermarkt et all listing his value quite highly still then for a player his age, Bayern eventually loaned him out to Roma and after that had to let him go for nothing at all: http://www.transfermarkt.com/luca-toni/profil/spieler/5980 I think FM 2016 saw an overhaul in the values though. Prior for a while the average value was a lot lower to what sites such as Transfermarkt speculate the value of a player to be. The values listed there are fairly optimistic in a lot of cases, and would only apply if there was actually demand for a player either way.

[Weston]

While, for the aforementioned reasons, I am in favor of having player values and think they can be done well, it must be said that sometimes the game does seem to get them wrong.

For example, when a young Simone Zaza pulled my Sassuolo side into Champions League qualification by a single goal in the dying minutes of the season's last match (we were tied on points so that +1 goal differential made the difference) and tied the all-time single season Serie A goalscoring record in the process, his value turned out to be... the second lowest of all my outfield players? Obviously I would've ignored that number had I involved him in any transfer dealings, but it was still strange to see.

Now, as someone mentioned above, player values are usually tied to their transfer fees - if you sign someone for 10 million their value changes to reflect that. So my theory is that the game engine simply struggles to come up with updated numbers for players who have never been transferred since the save started. If you notice, the two lowest values in my starting lineup (excluding Jefferson who was a free and was also super old) were the only two players who I started the save with, Vrsaljko and Zaza (despite them being two of my best performers) - all others were signed for something around the value you see. In real life we can sometimes struggle to pin a value on a player who hasn't been transferred in recent years as well, but surely not to this extent. 

[alanschu14]

On 9/28/2016 at 14:42, Cougar2010 said:

Same as you do now, you use your scouts and they give you top & bottom estimate.

 

Neil said that the value reflected a player's standing within the FM world.

That example shows that it doesn't.

The player's youth is most definitely a factor in their value.  I'd rather a player that is young and even with growth potential even if they are currently "just as skilled" as a 33 year old.  It's why I'll spend $25m on a 19 year old from Dortmund but only $3m on a 30 year old when I got promoted to EPL.

 

On 9/29/2016 at 06:35, Maaka said:

Which boils down to that even "value" should be disguised and "unlocked" by scouting. Of course, you'd know the "value" for Messi or Neuer et.al., but like attributes, it should be masked (maybe ranged at first, then narrowed by scouting).
But "value" should not be removed from the game altogether.

I agree that, especially for lower end, lower publicity teams, that this information should be something determined by a scout.  For a big team I could see it being easier to find.