Football Manager TV: Scouting

[Liquid Cool]

12 hours ago, Jason the Yank said:

I'd also like a "league average" somewhere to be able to make comparisons.

OK, this MC in my squad averages 3.7 interceptions. How does that compare to the league average? Is he better than or worse than average? If there's a way to find that, I've never been able to do so.

Yeah. It suprises me that SI are putting this much focus on the data analyst part of the game, but not taking care of simple statistical issues like these. 

[The Enforcer]

This is promising.

I have, however, identified a concern for Lower League Managers. This is that most bottom division clubs have no transfer budget and rely on free transfers. In order to discover free transfers, you would have to at least pay for the 'Level 4' current nation scouting package.

The cheapest 'Level 2' package revealing players in your division is not going to be very helpful as these clubs rarely sell their best players to a rival and loan players suitable as first team regulars tend to come from higher division teams. You might be able to get access to appropriate loan signings from 'Level 3' but it also looks like players from unplayable non-league divisions, another main source of signings  source will only be discovered from 'Level 4'. 

Are bottom division clubs going to be able to afford the nation package?

[The Enforcer]

On 10 October 2017 at 22:11, tmpusr said:

Not sure I understand what you mean. The knowledge of the player is the box #1 in attached image. Box #2 shows how good the player is compared to the rest of my squad (in his position). The question I ask is whether box #3 is the scout's estimation of the player's CA (or PA), or something else.

Ideally box 3 should be the scout's opinion on how closely the player matches your specified search criteria, taking into account ability, potential, important attributes for the desired position and role and all of the pros and cons revealed in the scout's report. This would be consistent with the statement in the video that the % in box 3 would change as the % in box 1 increases.

[MBarbaric]

24 minutes ago, The Enforcer said:

This is promising.

I have, however, identified a concern for Lower League Managers. This is that most bottom division clubs have no transfer budget and rely on free transfers. In order to discover free transfers, you would have to at least pay for the 'Level 4' current nation scouting package.

The cheapest 'Level 2' package revealing players in your division is not going to be very helpful as these clubs rarely sell their best players to a rival and loan players suitable as first team regulars tend to come from higher division teams. You might be able to get access to appropriate loan signings from 'Level 3' but it also looks like players from unplayable non-league divisions, another main source of signings  source will only be discovered from 'Level 4'. 

Are bottom division clubs going to be able to afford the nation package?

I think you wouldn't need any scouting package fr lower leagues. Most of players that had played in the league you should already know to some extent. I guess you will have to rely much more on trials with new scouting system. 

[enigmatic]

The challenge is that it's usually the players who have been released from bottom tier clubs that are most likely to be of interest for a zero budget, relatively low reputation bottom tier club. You wouldn't expect many of these players' attributes to show up but you would expect their names to show up in search when you're looking at possible trial candidates. Same goes for players in different regional leagues at the same level or nearby players at the step below. If you can't find out these available players exist without buying a scouting package or manually scouting the club it's probably not a step forward in terms of realism

I'm a little more confident the new scouting system doesn't do ridiculously restrictive stuff like stopping you from scouting youth players from nearby professional clubs 

[The Enforcer]

18 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

I think you wouldn't need any scouting package fr lower leagues. Most of players that had played in the league you should already know to some extent. I guess you will have to rely much more on trials with new scouting system. 

'Level 1' with no paid for package relies on players being known by your staff. Hopefully this is all staff and not just scouts and will reveal any players your staff have worked with previously. This is likely to be limited to former players of your current club and players who were at other clubs at the same time as your staff. It would therefore be more effective if your staff are more experienced and have a 'busy' recent history.

[kandersson]

I was wondering if nation knowledge of individual staff members will still be relevant in FM18? e.g. if I have scouts from Brazil or Argentina do I get that knowledge even if I don't have that scouting package?

[The Enforcer]

14 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

The challenge is that it's usually the players who have been released from bottom tier clubs that are most likely to be of interest for a zero budget, relatively low reputation bottom tier club. You wouldn't expect many of these players' attributes to show up but you would expect their names to show up in search when you're looking at possible trial candidates. Same goes for players in different regional leagues at the same level or nearby players at the step below. If you can't find out these available players exist without buying a scouting package or manually scouting the club it's probably not a step forward in terms of realism

I'm a little more confident the new scouting system doesn't do ridiculously restrictive stuff like stopping you from scouting youth players from nearby professional clubs 

Exactly - it's the lack of free agents showing up in searches that I am concerned about. I am happy to wait the maximum period for information to be gradually revealed by scouting or on coach reports when taken on trial.

Edited October 14, 2017 by The Enforcer

[The Enforcer]

16 minutes ago, kandersson said:

I was wondering if nation knowledge of individual staff members will still be relevant in FM18? e.g. if I have scouts from Brazil or Argentina do I get that knowledge even if I don't have that scouting package?

That's where Level 1 scouting should give you a crop of Brazilian and Argentinian players.

[MBarbaric]

44 minutes ago, The Enforcer said:

Hopefully this is all staff and not just scouts and will reveal any players your staff have worked with previously.

 

43 minutes ago, kandersson said:

I was wondering if nation knowledge of individual staff members will still be relevant in FM18? e.g. if I have scouts from Brazil or Argentina do I get that knowledge even if I don't have that scouting package?

Packages are ordered from external agencies and they come on top of whatever knowledge you already have in the club. At least that makes sense to me  

[Jason the Yank]

13 hours ago, Liquid Cool said:

Yeah. It suprises me that SI are putting this much focus on the data analyst part of the game, but not taking care of simple statistical issues like these. 

I thought it might just be me, since I'm used to "league average" and "replacement level" players in the context of US sports.

 

[thnigelfc]

Glad scouting has been changed.

Was wondering in the change if you could send your scouts to individual clubs and leave them there for say 6 months?

That way keeping an eye on their youngsters coming through and nicking them, when you think they are at the standard your looking for.

Edited October 17, 2017 by thnigelfc

[gunner86]

On 10/14/2017 at 22:30, The Enforcer said:

'Level 1' with no paid for package relies on players being known by your staff. Hopefully this is all staff and not just scouts and will reveal any players your staff have worked with previously. This is likely to be limited to former players of your current club and players who were at other clubs at the same time as your staff. It would therefore be more effective if your staff are more experienced and have a 'busy' recent history.

I'd imagine there's more to it than just former players they've worked with. Surely anyone they've played against they'd have knowledge of as well.

I'd imagine for LLM, it's going to be very much a case of as you were when it comes to scouting

[itay.bing]

On 10/14/2017 at 23:42, The Enforcer said:

This is promising.

I have, however, identified a concern for Lower League Managers. This is that most bottom division clubs have no transfer budget and rely on free transfers. In order to discover free transfers, you would have to at least pay for the 'Level 4' current nation scouting package.

The cheapest 'Level 2' package revealing players in your division is not going to be very helpful as these clubs rarely sell their best players to a rival and loan players suitable as first team regulars tend to come from higher division teams. You might be able to get access to appropriate loan signings from 'Level 3' but it also looks like players from unplayable non-league divisions, another main source of signings  source will only be discovered from 'Level 4'. 

Are bottom division clubs going to be able to afford the nation package?

that's fantastic.real life manager at those levels have next to none scouting knowledge, which is based on trails,player\staff recommendations (which in the game are useless) and your own knowledge,gained through watching games (either you manage or watch).other than that, it's a guess based on the player former performance in former levels. with that being said, if you can't see players you saw playing without the adequate "data package", hence you "don't know they exist", in the search engine, this is indeed a downgrade to realism.  

[gunner86]

32 minutes ago, itay.bing said:

that's fantastic.real life manager at those levels have next to none scouting knowledge, which is based on trails,player\staff recommendations (which in the game are useless) and your own knowledge,gained through watching games (either you manage or watch).other than that, it's a guess based on the player former performance in former levels. with that being said, if you can't see players you saw playing without the adequate "data package", hence you "don't know they exist", in the search engine, this is indeed a downgrade to realism.  

If you don't have a data package, then you shouldn't be able to find anyone in the player search. You'd still be able to go find people by looking at squad lists etc.

[itay.bing]

40 minutes ago, gunner86 said:

If you don't have a data package, then you shouldn't be able to find anyone in the player search. You'd still be able to go find people by looking at squad lists etc.

might be annoying looking for players,especially free agents.your'e going to have to shortlist any player that might be released or remember their names and constantly checking up on them. i know that's how it should be,but the five minutes that it takes you to think:"hey, that guy who got released from man u u21,what about him?" can be three fm weeks, in which he signs for a different team.