Scouts returning 0 reports since more than two years, is this normal?

[pantelas2002 4]

Hey all, old FM player here,  started playing FM 2018 a while ago with my favourite Cadbury Athletic (activated 10th tier of English football). I am now in Southern League Premier Division, year 2020, and the thing that puzzles me most is the revamped scouting system.

I have in total 10 scouts (I know, unrealistic, tell that to the board not me!!!) and I have them scouting for First Team Players, Ongoing, nothing else is selected. 3 of those found just 4 players in total, whilst the others have been scouting for 2 years or more, and found 0 players!!! I'm no newbie in FM, so I don't get what I'm doing wrong. I have also bought the England package.

 

The thing is, I have great players which most of the time I identify asking my Director of Football to suggest me players, in the transfers tab. But he only suggests 3 players at a time, and for specific positions. Why aren't those players found by my scouts though??? 

[hluraven 13]

It seems to work better in the higher levels, but I had the same as you in non-league. In the Conference (so playable in vanilla not mods), 3 scouts set to scout the Conference found 0 players. In the league I was in, they only had to turn up to home games to find them!

[arsenalthebest 51]

I’ve had the same issue playing as Arsenal when trying to scout under 21/18 competitions

Edited March 21, 2018 by arsenalthebest

[grkmori 11]

On FM18 you wont receive long individual reports on your inbox anymore and the system is a little different. Try going to Scouting > Players Search... and check some players, there should be some players scouted.

Or you are using too many filters on the scout or the search... or maybe you dont have anyone assigned to manage the scout schedules or to update you with the reports (Staff > Responsibilities > Overall > Scouting).

Can also be a problem that you are not assigning enough budget or the region is not enough. Check your Scouting > Scouting Centre top infos and check the Scouting Responsibility / Scouting Focus / Scouting Budget. Also on Scouting > Players, check your Packeges. I feel it is much more reliable to search filter players myself than trust my scout assignments.

Edited March 23, 2018 by grkmori

[hluraven 13]

Or, none of those things. In the scouting centre, not inbox, with no filters whatsoever, and either chief scout or manager setting responsibilities. And with the right package.

At lower levels, scouts often return with 0 reports, even for the league the club is in. It's actually realistic given that most non-league teams don't have scouts, but it is stupid when they are such a major feature of FM.

[Spurs08 642]

I've given up and resorted to setting up player search filters (eg Transfer interest is at least unsure, contract is expiring this summer, position is whatever) and ordering reports on all the players returned in the results.

[pantelas2002 4]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback, a quick update, in my fourth year, playing in Vanarama National League North, scouts still finding 0 recommendations.

This is the specific issue i'm having, it's not that i can't find talent, it's that I only find talent manually using my DoF's suggested recommendations or when players/agents propose themselves. People saying that it's realistic to have 0 reports, well the game allows me to have 10 scouts in this low level, so this is not about realism. I always play LLM, and this is the only version where scouts seem to be useless. Even when I find a gem using the two methods I stated, i offer a trial and the coach - not the scout - is the one who reports whether the player is any good.

U can see in the image attached that my scouts are assigned correctly... SURELY they should identify potential targets, since my DoF always suggests potential targets with excellent current abiity!