How does Player Search work? Why can't I search for players even though I have 100% England knowledge?

[epicrecruit]

My manager is english, managing an english club (Vana North), and I had 3 english scouts on assignments all year long. One scanned the Vana North competition, another England. This is in addition to the Scout Next Opposition assignment.

After 1 year of scouting, it seems that Player Search is limited only to the 1000 or so players we discovered by scouting. This is the number of players that show up if I clear all search criteria.

So I can't search for "Any players whose contract is expiring" and hope to find a large list. Only the players explicitly scouted show up (the 1000). But I can click a team in the league table and interact with their players directly, even Approach To Sign.

Another simple example: if I go to Team Reports > Facts, it says that the tallest player in my league is Owar Sowumni at 201cm. I can click his name and see his contract and height. But if I go to Player Search, Clear the search, and sort by height, he's not there. It's like he doesn't exist despite being a first-team player for a rival.

Why wouldn't 3 english scouts at least be aware of the existence of players in the same league as my team after 1 year of scouting?

[FrazT]

Check the scouting filters and maybe you have set for only realistic targets to be shown?

[Zemahh]

Player Search is basically a database of all players known to YOUR club. Not all players in general, but players that either your staff, club affiliates or Scouting Packages are aware of to at least some extent.

If you want to expand your database, you need to either:

• Invest into a Scouting Package, which is basically a paid database of players (think of platforms like Wyscout or InStat in real life)
• Scout players manually, meaning scrolling through various teams and requesting Scout Reports on unrevealed players (once the Scout Report is finished, they will be added to your Player Search)

As a Vanarama North club you're unlikely to be able to afford Scouting Packages, so manual scouting is probably your best option. Either that, or having complete faith in your Scouts and only signing players they recommend. 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Zemahh

[niklas88]

If you have not unchecked the realisic or interested boxes he probably won't show up if he plays for a rival.

If you have unchecked those boxes every player you have faced during the season should show up, especially if one of your scouts have been scouting the league.. otherwise it is not working as it should

[epicrecruit]

16 hours ago, Zemahh said:

• Invest into a Scouting Package, which is basically a paid database of players (think of platforms like Wyscout or InStat in real life)
• Scout players manually, meaning scrolling through various teams and requesting Scout Reports on unrevealed players (once the Scout Report is finished, they will be added to your Player Search)

 

Oh, thank you, I hadn't seen that Scouting Package option! Even after I knew it existed I had to go look at screenshots to see where to activate it. I thought those entries at the top were read-only info.

[fivetwelvepony]

On 17/10/2020 at 23:34, Zemahh said:

Player Search is basically a database of all players known to YOUR club. Not all players in general, but players that either your staff, club affiliates or Scouting Packages are aware of to at least some extent.

If you want to expand your database, you need to either:

• Invest into a Scouting Package, which is basically a paid database of players (think of platforms like Wyscout or InStat in real life)
• Scout players manually, meaning scrolling through various teams and requesting Scout Reports on unrevealed players (once the Scout Report is finished, they will be added to your Player Search)

As a Vanarama North club you're unlikely to be able to afford Scouting Packages, so manual scouting is probably your best option. Either that, or having complete faith in your Scouts and only signing players they recommend. 

I'm a little confused now. I thought that regardless of scouting package, if your scouts had 100% knowledge of a country then you would know about all the players in a country. Is this not the case?

I would now like some clarification about scouting database, scout knowledge, and what players you can see in a search.

I have seen other bizarre behavior from the player search. There have been occasions where I have asked my scouts to look at a player that wasn't showing up in my search. They submit a report, but then that player still does not appear in the player search function. Only when I search for "scouted players" does he show up. I don't believe it is an issue of realistic target or not. So, does the player search only search my available database, which doesn't include all players I have scouted?

I have one last complaint here. I raised this in another thread, but no one had an answer. Why do the scouting reports of the opposition players disappear after a match? Why do those not remain in your available scouting reports? They include all the same information -- likely salary, likely cost, scout's overall rating, etc.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

How players appear on the player search screen changed with the introduction of the Scouting Packages.

Staff Knowledge of a country will give you some access players in that country, with a higher knowledge giving you more players.

However Scouting Packages will give you access to a lot more players and don't require you to have knowledge of that country.

As for Scouted players not appearing on the search screen, it is likely intentional for scouted players outside of your knowledge not to then appear on the search page to save on resources (otherwise the game would need to refresh the list each time you visited to add newly scouted players and remove ones who's report expired).

For opposition reports disappearing this is likely a consequence of the removal of the old instant report card option and to reflect the fact that the team report is geared towards getting an overview of the team rather than the full details of the players. (Another reason would be if the team reports lasted the same one year as the player reports there wouldn't be much point in scouting players, instead you might as well scout out each team as it would be cheaper and quicker - which runs into the age old problem of realism against frustration).

There are more details on the Scouting System in the Online Manual found here and is a good read for newer players:

 

[Zemahh]

58 minutes ago, fivetwelvepony said:

I'm a little confused now. I thought that regardless of scouting package, if your scouts had 100% knowledge of a country then you would know about all the players in a country. Is this not the case?

While Scouting Knowledge does increase the number of players as well (a new scout's knowledge is gradually added to Player Search over the course of his first 100 days at a club), Scouting Packages increase it more and reveal some of the attributes and player roles too. Scouting Knowledge, on the other hand, will increase the amount of pre-generated Scout Reports on players from those countries.

Ideally, you want both, the best Scouting Packages and good Scouting Knowledge of different countries (plus good JCA/JPA attributes, since those dictate how accurate the reports are, as well as how many player assignments can be handled at once).