Increasing Scouting Knowledge - Until Finished better than Ongoing?

[Zemahh]

I've been watching @Rashidi's latest video and he mentioned something interesting when it comes to increasing your Scouts' knowledge of nations they're not yet fully familiar with (which should increase scouting speed and the amount of reports they generate in those nations, IIRC).

Apparently, if you want your Scouts to increase their Scouting Knowledge, their assignments have to be set on Until Finished, rather than Ongoing, which many of the scouting guides out there recommend: https://youtu.be/I1bHLvS_z6s?t=563

I personally had no idea about that, in fact, I thought the Ongoing assignments would increase their knowledge faster. What's everyone's experience with this? Do we have any min-maxers that aim for maximum Scouting Knowledge they can get? How do you go about increasing it, apart from hiring the most knowledgeable Scouts you can find?

[fc.cadoni]

Ongoing = When have knowledge of X nation.
Until Finished = When don't hold knowledge of X nation.

My method is to hire origin scouters, like Greek - Ongoing Greece and so on.

Usually trying to have at least 15 scouters (different nationalities which have full bar of knowledge) to scout specific countries (those with high Game Importance, Economic Factor, FA Financial Power, Youth Rating). Loaded nations & leagues, plus full detail.

Sending a scouter with zero knowledge for X country is not worth IMHO.

[fc.cadoni]

A good guide can be found here.

[Zemahh]

So, to confirm, sending a Scout to one of the regions on Until Finished assignment will increase his knowledge of nations in that region. But sending him on Ongoing assignment of the same region will not.

Is that correct?

[fc.cadoni]

46 minutes ago, Zemahh said:

So, to confirm, sending a Scout to one of the regions on Until Finished assignment will increase his knowledge of nations in that region. But sending him on Ongoing assignment of the same region will not.

Is that correct?

From my experience, yes. Ongoing is to maintain that knowledge. 

[kingjericho]

• 'until finished' increases knowledge more than 'ongoing'
• a scout that speaks the language of the area he's scouting increases the knowledge a lot
• scouting a specific nation seems to have a better effect than scouting a region

 

[ImDaWeasel]

1 hour ago, kingjericho said:

• 'until finished' increases knowledge more than 'ongoing'
• a scout that speaks the language of the area he's scouting increases the knowledge a lot
• scouting a specific nation seems to have a better effect than scouting a region

 

I don't know why this has become a thing recently after that Zealand video. Pretty much the same scouting gameplay as there has been before, possibly a slight nerf to the regional scouting. 

Always have the ranking of:-

Competitions and teams

Nations

Regions

Which incidentally is the same order as it comes up on the drop down menu.

Obviously having a scout from the nation you want to scout is best. Having a scout that already has knowledge of the region can scout the region. Speaking the language helps with a new nation along with high adaptability, determination, discipline. 

Its just very obvious things. 

[kingjericho]

@ImDaWeasel far from obvious IMO, I always use region scouting and sometimes even entire continents. I agree the knowledge should be more if the area to scout is smaller but the differences in Z's videos were very big, making region scouting almost not worthy.

1 hour ago, ImDaWeasel said:

Obviously having a scout from the nation you want to scout is best. Having a scout that already has knowledge of the region can scout the region. Speaking the language helps with a new nation along with high adaptability, determination, discipline.

Already knowing the region helps but the knowledge doesn't increase much that's the issue. Also I always took Adaptability into account but it's also uncertain if it really is that important, looks like it's less important than knowing the language.

[Zemahh]

I no longer understand anything. 

Apparently Level of Discipline now also matters so that knowledge doesn't get lost too fast, despite the fact it's not marked as an attribute important for scouting anywhere (even the Manual only explains it for Coaches).

I've got to say, the whole scouting module needs a complete revamp. Not just adding two layers on top and calling it new, but actually reworking the whole thing from top to bottom.

[fc.cadoni]

In Pre-Game Editor, Scouter has weighting for attributes (like player position).

Determination: 2.0
JPA: 4.0
JPP: 4.0
Tactical Knowledge: 4.0
Negotiating: 1.0
JSA: 2.0

Level of Discipline has no weight for scouter, which is interesting; not even Adaptability. That translate to me that a high CA Scouter need above attributes high. Since a Scouter being Spanish going to Spain, Level of Discipline is not necessary from what I can understand; that all the "guides" that saying Determination, Level of Discipline, Motivating is counting about having 5* background staff is completely wrong.

Agree that scouting need to be more simple and not so complex; especially the "Until Finished" - "Ongoing" thing which confuse people.

Edited March 13, 2022 by fc.cadoni

[Hovis Dexter]

This is interesting. I've always set the scouts to, well, scout the country to which they've been assigned to ongoing rather than until finished. They are then in the same country at the start of the next season whereas if you set the to scout until finished will have no set assignments once the current season has finished. However, after reading through this thread and , in particular, Guide to FM's comments I'm thinking that if you set them to until finished they, effectively, come and tell you that they don't think there is anybody else in the country worth scouting and you'd be better off reassigning them somewhere else until the start of the next season when they can return to the country and start again. It would seem that if they continue after they have finished they'll just stay in country watching matches but they are unlikely to make any further recommendations.

[Rashidi]

On 13/03/2022 at 19:39, Hovis Dexter said:

This is interesting. I've always set the scouts to, well, scout the country to which they've been assigned to ongoing rather than until finished. They are then in the same country at the start of the next season whereas if you set the to scout until finished will have no set assignments once the current season has finished. However, after reading through this thread and , in particular, Guide to FM's comments I'm thinking that if you set them to until finished they, effectively, come and tell you that they don't think there is anybody else in the country worth scouting and you'd be better off reassigning them somewhere else until the start of the next season when they can return to the country and start again. It would seem that if they continue after they have finished they'll just stay in country watching matches but they are unlikely to make any further recommendations.

Precisely Scouting hasn't changed very much. Yes there seems to be some confusion over ongoing and finished. I am pretty sure Discipline does not impact the retention of said knowledge.

Here I have a scout whose starting knowledge of Argentina was zero when I initially hired him. He now has 68% of the knowledge. And for people who have been following the adventures of this particular scout you will also notice that his knowledge of the other countries hasn't dropped dramatically even though he has parked his butt in Argentina. However I do expect it to go down, not because of his low discipline but because of something else.

Knowledge needs to be "relearnt" because new players emerge. So there is ultimately a point where that % of knowledge dips to account for the new players. 

In the game some of the players refer to this time as a "reset". Ultimately, I find that the most effective way of doing this is to ask the scout to do it till he's finished if your goal is to see him gain knowledge. Personally I don't care too much for his knowledge, other than to satisfy the completionist in me.  There is another factor too, and this is your scouting budget, because ultimately your upper and lower limits for scouting are set there.  So the more important thing to do here is to make sure your scouting budget is appropriate for what you want him to do.