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How are you getting on with Scouting?


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Hi all,

 

How is everyone getting on with Scouting in FM18?  For me scouting/finding gems was my best asset in FM17, but I'm struggling with Fm18 (admittedly not had much time to play). 

I'm Ipswich and have upgraded to European packages, set my scouts some assignments but they have found only 4 players each in 2 months?  That is with no set limits.

Before I would just assign a scout to a competition and he would bring back 20+ players on a regular basis, I could then further scout the ones I liked the look of.  

Not a fan of the new system right now, I liked how I was getting that big list before, rather than just the one player type view we now get to the inbox.  Also I liked the fact that once a player had been scouted it was reported in my inbox - I didn't have to remember who I asked to be scouted then go and check after a week in the scouting center.  

 

What is everyone's thoughts, any tips and tricks you have picked up? 

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Not really a fan of it yet for the reasons you've listed above in the main. I like the scouting cards, but I don't like how they're implemented and how they disappear into the ether with one click. I also feel as though you should be able to scroll through them and click multiple options within them. There should be an 'x' at the top of each card if you want rid of it. 

The player search is annoying as is the results showing players loaned to other clubs as 'interested'. It's maybe just going to take a while to get used to, but it seems a lot less intuitive than before. The packages are a good idea, and paying for individual scout reports from a budget you have is also an excellent idea. 

One thing I really like in that section though is a screen I pretty much found by default. In the shortlist section, if you click on the position tab, you can highlight each position on a pitch and quickly see the players you have on your shortlist in each position as well as a summary of the players you already have in that position. See below...

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I think the new scouting system will be a much more realistic representation  of how real clubs scout, so that's good. However the problem I am having at the moment is that I haven't really got my head round how it all works.

Thats pretty much my only criticism of FM generally - it doesn't always do a great job of explaining to the player how things work. Which may explain why you see a lot of people complaining that something doesn't work. Most likely it does work, it's just the player doesn't know how it works.

 

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Yes, its a problem.

How do I find players in llm without using seacrh screen? Scouts find 2-3 players per month. Still they watch numerous matches, they atleast should generate reports (5-10% knowledge) from players in those matches.

And if I tell them manually to scout 1000 players, they report them all in one week. Come on SI, not like this.

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15 minutes ago, Juhuli said:

Yes, its a problem.

How do I find players in llm without using seacrh screen? Scouts find 2-3 players per month. Still they watch numerous matches, they atleast should generate reports (5-10% knowledge) from players in those matches.

And if I tell them manually to scout 1000 players, they report them all in one week. Come on SI, not like this.

The search screen has been based on your scouting knowledge for a few versions now, it's not unrealistic to use it. You could filter for the type of players you want and request scout reports on them.

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There is something I'm not sure if it working as intended or not.

I'm still in preaseason,  I have setup assignments to my scouts, to search for first team players in general, for a starter MC and started DL. So far after one month they have not reported a single player from those assignments. Are they waiting for the season to start so they can watch games or what?

On the other hand, I can select the 300 players from the known list, set them to get scout report and I get the 300 basic reports in 1 week.

Is that how we should use the new scouting?

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I'm a bit daunted by it. I'm playing in the lower half of the Conference North (I love trying to build up from a low base) but since I started scouting, even without buying any packages (I can't even afford the lowest one), just scouting a handful of English players each week with one part time scout is really creating a substantial cost, and it's not that easy to find players who could improve my poor Guiseley FC who want to come to it.
I'm not sure how I *should* be doing it. I'm obviously not interested in guides which say 'get this specific player, that specific player' because it breaks the spirit of how I like to play, and isn't viable once regens come into the game. I'm sure there's an affordable and effective, and hopefully immersive way to find the right kinds of players though. Just need to figure out what it is.

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3 hours ago, Juhuli said:

Yes, its a problem.

How do I find players in llm without using seacrh screen? Scouts find 2-3 players per month. Still they watch numerous matches, they atleast should generate reports (5-10% knowledge) from players in those matches.

And if I tell them manually to scout 1000 players, they report them all in one week. Come on SI, not like this.

The answer is to use the search screen now.

You pay for a scouting package and that package provides the information in the search screen.  This is different to previous versions and its now realistic to use that information because you are paying for it via the package.

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I have always used scouts going back to when I started playing (95 edition i think). As the game developed I loved finding young players and developing them into top talent then eventually having to sell them on. I haven't started a proper save yet will have to wait till the full version is released, but iv looked at scouting and just found it a complete mess, what's all this previous assignment I couldn't care less. It's so hard to set up the assignments as well why I don't understand the people who test this game. Is it a mindset of one season get proven talent, how's about you look ten years down the line. Why have the removed the read card only, my assistant manager was the last report before I made an offer or left it now I have to either wait a match or wait a week very disappointing. Why when you go on the scouting screen are you assaulted with verious names from all over the place from your scouts agents ect. Why don't you just have the scouts lists instead you have to make a decision on this player at that time.

Sorry do love this game but sometimes is winds me right up and has done messing with the scouting it was fine the way it was keep the scouting budget that's a good idea but go back to the way it was on fm17.

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Frustrating, time-wasting, confusing, counter intuitive. For the first time since 2003 I've decided to disable attributes masking in a desperate attempt to save me some time and mental health. Hopefully SI will soon have a meeting to acknowledge/discard this feedback.

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dont understand why if i select a scouts assignments i still see every other scout. and 1 assignment forward only

i usually set scouting up at the start of a save with the season in mind, not 2 assignments. why cant i see a screen of a scouts full assignments?

havent got any further than the 1st day still, but generally not impressed with much so far. shame, i usually like the changes and new features

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Same issue here everyone is facing, not sure how the packages work. I am in Vanarama North and have the lowest package for the my league only but it only has 30 players in which half of them my scouts already know so it I am not sure its worth paying for. I think the package should show more players from the league intended. My scouts dont seem to find many players as it did in FM17. Not sure if this is due to the fact they have low stats (player ability = 12 , potential ability =12). Maybe someone with better scouts let us know if hes having the same issue.

On a side note I like it is more difficult to find players than previous versions. In FM17 it was easy to find wonderkids and great players and build a strong team. My issue with this years system is not being difficult to find players but rather how the system works. specially the package system. 

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Had the same issue as everyone. Took a few "in gam"e months to figure out how to use it properly, but it seems almost redundant if you are a lower league side, because you wont have the funds to scout anywhere, and your transfer options are extremely limited, because your scouts find nobody. Also found that if you have a decent scout in your lower league club, a club in a higher league usually poaches him before you can actually do anything constructive.

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The main issue I have found with scouting is when you request a report on a player it does not come through on a news item in your inbox like it did in 17. Instead you have to wait for it to appear in the bunch of reports ! Very annoying IMO unless anyone knows how to change this ? 

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What I've now started to do is whenever I individually scout a player, instead of him being lost in the ether with all the other recommendations etc, I'll move him into a specially created shortlist. That way, in a few days, I can check the shortlist and easily find the report on the player I was scouting. I find the 'scouted' and 'recent' tabs on the main scouting screen to be confusing as often a player you've recently scouted doesn't show in either. So, until I get fully to grips with how the thing works, I'm using my own method to separate them. 

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I absolutely love this feature but it’s not without its problems, or maybe it’s a lack of understanding on my part.

I’m playing in the lowest playable English league and I’ve got the best scouts in the league. I’ve got 2000 players known to me as a result. My problem is, playing in the lowest league, I don’t have a large scouting budget and have now run out of cash. This means I can’t even scout the players known to me unless I already did so. So I’m having to take a punt on trials and free transfers. This is probably not unrealistic I don’t know.

I could do with a bit more understanding regards the cost of scouting and it could be more intuitive. I havent even looked at scouting the better leagues or Europe. But I like what I see. I think it’s head and shoulders above what we’ve seen before. 

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I'm about 40 hours in.

In the old FM's I would scout players by the million, especially those released on 1 July and transfer listed on deadline day.

I'm glad this has been taken away from me as what was happening previously was massively unrealistic. I therefore also very much like the concept it has been replaced with.

 

But there is so much I don't understand.

In player search when I sort by 'Rec' I seem to have a magnifying glass with a number and a small progress bar. Is this sorting by the recommendation of the player or the % of scouting knowledge? Given some of the iffy players in there I can't tell myself, but suspect the latter which doesn't make sense (meaning it must be the former?).

If I set scouting updates to daily and scout 100 players I get nothing for a week and then 100. This should be staggered somehow, releasing them in dribs and drabs and not 100 at once a week later.

I get the feeling (but might be wrong) some players I scout just never turn up. Is this because I've set the recommended min level to e.g. 60? But then I still get reports on some awful players.

I don't fully understand the budgets. I like the idea but wish it could be made clearer. Although, in my QOTS save I ran the club into 500k of debt despite having next to no salaried players. I forgot to look myself but, given I managed to expand scouting limits to global (but never expanded scouting packages), will this expenditure have been on scouting? The board didn't mind I was incurring huge debts btw.

I'm sure there is a great system in there but the feedback makes clear it isn't getting through to the users. I can imagine this is driving whoever created it crazy, as they must understand it in full. I'm not even saying it needs to be changed but a nice little (optional) explanation in game would be good - not just click-tips but a full 2 page essay please!

Since the last update when players without agents tout themselves to clubs they're name doesn't show as it is shown in the box above where the agent's name would be.

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Correct me if I’m wrong but once you tell a scout to scout a player you can just leave them to it. It may take a while depending on how good the scout is and what their work load is like. I find that if I check back with the player search list those numbers are always changing which means the scouts are doing their job. But along with the other scouting recommendations it does become a little counter intuitive. We could do with a short list of a short list if you know what I mean.. 

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I find the FM18 approach more realistic, but also more work.
I do react on one thing though. Why is every other scottish player a 5 star potential according to my scouts? I might just have found the good ones as I haven't had time to play much. Need to send my wife on a SPA or something so I can get some time to play ;) 

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Flash forward to october 2018. Ginger boy presenting new features video:

'In FM19 we're taking scouting to a whole new level. In an effort to mirror modern scouting in the most realistic way, you can now receive individual scouting reports as single items in your inbox. That's right! We believe you'll find this feature extremely useful, as this will save you a tremendous amount of time and clicks, and will make it much easier for you to find reports of players you specifically requested.

In next video, the new amazing vertical pitch on tactics screen during match day...'

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It's a confusing ****ing mess, TBH. I actually really liked this feature when it was announced but it's not working at all currently.

Firstly, it's extremely hard for me to wrap my head around what exactly is going on. I think I finally got it, but what I understood so far is not to my liking. Secondly I don't understand why scouts with 100% knowledge of a nation can't produce more than 2-3 reports in 2 months time. How am I supposed to find players? Player search? Thirdly, this new scouting system, makes it so checking "Disable first window transfers" is pretty much mandatory. Unless you know what players you want to buy ahead of time or are playing as a team that you've either played before or that can afford players you're pretty much screwed.

Finally, this new scouting system severely hampers my ability to play the game over and over again with the same team (or different teams, for that matter) and find new players every time. I now have to rely on the same old players in my first transfer window if I choose not to disable transfers at all.

I would be really curios if someone could enlighten me if I'm doing something wrong but, so far, this feature is a major disappointment.

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Is it not based on your scouting knowledge and number of scouts, only really done PL teams so far but was getting a lot of reports come in. Plus you get the analysts chipping in with 'so and so is top of tackling in Serie A, you might want to look at him' etc. 

 

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Thanks for all the replies.  I really am struggling with it, I'm managing Ipswich and have set the packs to European for senior & youth - yet I cannot seem to search for players outside of the UK?  I don't have any other leagues loaded, maybe that is the issue.

Weirdly I cannot assign my scouts to nations beyond the UK other than Poland?  My scouts on assignments have found 3 players each in 4 months too.

My manual player search results seem VERY small, I have 6 scouts and un-ticked the interested in transfer box so I should see alot more.

As others of said I keep 'losing' players I've asked my scouts to track as I need to try and remember their name/go in and find them from recently scouted players.  Just seems a mess, its actually making me want to go back to FM17. 

I defo think a detailed guide from either someone from SI or someone who has mastered it would be very useful.  

Before I just used to scout every league, every u19 league and set the min potential to 3.5/4 star, then look at the overview of those reports before sending the scouts to fully scout a few potential targets.  

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The most glaring omission to me is a "Interested" and "want to sell" tick option for the automatic assignments.

Currently I'm Sampdoria and my Chief Scout has come up with inane reports like half of Porto's squad, a handful of top-level prospects from Belgium and Spain. Or other Serie A player who cost an arm and a leg.
They'd ALL be great signings, too bad they are too expensive, the clubs don't want to sell them (to me), and the players aren't even interested in a move.

So, alongside mediocre Serie B players, I get reports for names that, under the old Search mode, I wouldn't have seen, as the AssMan was filtering out Unrealistic Transfers.

Considering the news item where you have to assess 20 scout reports is an absolute chore to go through, I'd appreciate at least not to get 50% pointless recommendations.

I never though I'd ever say that, buy I do miss the old scout summary with the same 2 or 3 names, month after month.

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1 hour ago, mrdanbartlett said:

Thanks for all the replies.  I really am struggling with it, I'm managing Ipswich and have set the packs to European for senior & youth - yet I cannot seem to search for players outside of the UK?  I don't have any other leagues loaded, maybe that is the issue.

Weirdly I cannot assign my scouts to nations beyond the UK other than Poland?  My scouts on assignments have found 3 players each in 4 months too.

My manual player search results seem VERY small, I have 6 scouts and un-ticked the interested in transfer box so I should see alot more.

As others of said I keep 'losing' players I've asked my scouts to track as I need to try and remember their name/go in and find them from recently scouted players.  Just seems a mess, its actually making me want to go back to FM17. 

I defo think a detailed guide from either someone from SI or someone who has mastered it would be very useful.  

Before I just used to scout every league, every u19 league and set the min potential to 3.5/4 star, then look at the overview of those reports before sending the scouts to fully scout a few potential targets.  

In terms of where you can scout you are limited by the board in the same way you've always been.  It looks like the board are limiting you to UK & Poland which is fairly reasonable for a Championship club (The Poland bit may be a bug as I've seen it listed a few times in the bugs forum).

That leads to the question why have you gone for a European package when the board won't allow you to scout Europe??

As a follow up question can you afford a European scouting package??  Is there any money left in your scouting budget??

If the answer is you've run out of money in the scouting budget that might explain why you have only a small number of players in the search.

Without any other leagues loaded you are also going to get far less players in the non playable leagues, especially in the first season before any youth intakes have been processed.

 

EDIT

One other thing you might want to consider is scouting knowledge, especially on your scouts.  If they are all English with knowledge of just England thats again going to limit any players known from other countries.

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1 hour ago, RBKalle said:

The most glaring omission to me is a "Interested" and "want to sell" tick option for the automatic assignments.

Currently I'm Sampdoria and my Chief Scout has come up with inane reports like half of Porto's squad, a handful of top-level prospects from Belgium and Spain. Or other Serie A player who cost an arm and a leg.
They'd ALL be great signings, too bad they are too expensive, the clubs don't want to sell them (to me), and the players aren't even interested in a move.

So, alongside mediocre Serie B players, I get reports for names that, under the old Search mode, I wouldn't have seen, as the AssMan was filtering out Unrealistic Transfers.

Considering the news item where you have to assess 20 scout reports is an absolute chore to go through, I'd appreciate at least not to get 50% pointless recommendations.

I never though I'd ever say that, buy I do miss the old scout summary with the same 2 or 3 names, month after month.

Go into Scouting Focus at the top. Select General then on the right is a series of drop downs. 

Age . Experienced, peak, young

Player Style. Intelligent. Physical, Leader, Creative, Technical

Goalkeeper style. Aggressive, distributor, shot stopper

Availablitiy. All, now, typically.

 

I'm currently scouting for Young, Intelligent and Typically available.

 

Love the new system. Yes it's harder to find good young players compared to the old one. That's the whole point of it I'd guess. Its as important for your scouts to have a broad range of knowledge as it is to have JPA JPP now.

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6 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

That leads to the question why have you gone for a European package when the board won't allow you to scout Europe??

As a follow up question can you afford a European scouting package??  Is there any money left in your scouting budget??

If the answer is you've run out of money in the scouting budget that might explain why you have only a small number of players in the search.

Without any other leagues loaded you are also going to get far less players in the non playable leagues, especially in the first season before any youth intakes have been processed.

1) If that is the case it is not well designed, surely the packages should be greyed out until you get board approval?

2) Well given I've not spent anything on transfers I wanted to put my money into scouting, I don't think its unrealistic that Ipswich would be able to send their scouts to Europe.  Given we lose £300k-500k+ a month an extra 50-100k makes little difference. I've trimed the wage spend a little already and we are challenging at the top end of the table.

3) How do I tell if I've run out of money in the scouting budget, again this is far from clear in FM18.

4) I'll add the other leagues from next season. 

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I think scouting needs a lot of work. I dont really understand packages. Im managing Chippenham and have no package set, but i can still set up an assignment in the Premier League. All the packages do is add more players to the search screen. The search screen is apparently players yor staff know about. So i pay £850pcm for the next package, and suddenly my staff remember that they now know abot more players. Except they know absolutely nothing abot these players beacuse with attribute masking enabled the knowledge level of 99% of these players is 0% in LLM. At the begging of the game i set up a filter to find a player with at least 1 in finishing. The serch returned 1 player that is interested that my staff apparently KNOW about. This is out of over 700 known players. Ive seen lower league scouting bills coming in at 100k a year or more. Someone worked out that scouting an individual player costs about £550. i dont know where to start. the costs seem crazy

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2 minutes ago, mrdanbartlett said:

1) If that is the case it is not well designed, surely the packages should be greyed out until you get board approval?

Can't say I disagree with that, maybe something to suggest in the features or bugs forum.  That said you are allowed to scout Poland currently so maybe Europe should be available to you, just not that useful atm.

 

2 minutes ago, mrdanbartlett said:

2) Well given I've not spent anything on transfers I wanted to put my money into scouting, I don't think its unrealistic that Ipswich would be able to send their scouts to Europe.  Given we lose £300k-500k+ a month an extra 50-100k makes little difference. I've trimed the wage spend a little already and we are challenging at the top end of the table.

Yes but none of that matters directly.

What does matter is the "Scouting Budget" which is shown on the scouting section.  The cost of each package is deducted from that budget each month along with any independant players you've scouted from outside your scouting range (You get a popup with the cost each time).  If the scouting budget has ran out of money you can't pay for the package you selected.  I haven't seen what then happens but I suspect it will limit the players you can see in the player search.

 

2 minutes ago, mrdanbartlett said:

3) How do I tell if I've run out of money in the scouting budget, again this is far from clear in FM18.

See last reply above, the scouting budget is shown on the main scouting screen - somewhere approx top centre/right.

 

 

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There's definitely something which can be easily misread about the combination of scouting range, scouting packages and other scouting costs.

Players can rack up huge costs despite not having packages etc, and the whole thing needs to be made clearer by SI, as they have acknowledged in the bug thread.

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Just now, Per Annum said:

There's definitely something which can be easily misread about the combination of scouting range, scouting packages and other scouting costs.

Players can rack up huge costs despite not having packages etc, and the whole thing needs to be made clearer by SI, as they have acknowledged in the bug thread.

Even though I have no qualms believing it's already as clear as day to some people.

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Definitely, scouting needs revamp. Scouts return 4-5 reports after 4 months on assignment. They should return thousands reports but with inaccurate information, because of their not very best attributes.

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4 minutes ago, rimisark said:

Definitely, scouting needs revamp. Scouts return 4-5 reports after 4 months on assignment. They should return thousands reports but with inaccurate information, because of their not very best attributes.

Exactly, more emphasis should be on the actual scout, i.e how good his knowledge is - I'm sure if you hired any of us we could easily reel off 100+ players we know are good just from being football fans.  So a scout should know football very well, and will know the leagues he is experienced in very well from a basic point of view.

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Just now, mrdanbartlett said:

Exactly, more emphasis should be on the actual scout, i.e how good his knowledge is - I'm sure if you hired any of us we could easily reel off 100+ players we know are good just from being football fans.  So a scout should know football very well, and will know the leagues he is experienced in very well from a basic point of view.

Its not that simple though.

You might know 100s of good players but how many of them could improve the team that hired you? how many could that team afford (Both fee & wages)? how many would be interested in moving? how many match all the settings in the scouting assignment?

Scouting is certainly more difficult on 18 as it probably should be but so far I've only tried it at really low levels.

If I get time tonight I'll maybe try it at a higher level and perhaps add examples to this thread.

 

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8 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Its not that simple though.

You might know 100s of good players but how many of them could improve the team that hired you? how many could that team afford (Both fee & wages)? how many would be interested in moving? how many match all the settings in the scouting assignment?

Scouting is certainly more difficult on 18 as it probably should be but so far I've only tried it at really low levels.

If I get time tonight I'll maybe try it at a higher level and perhaps add examples to this thread.

But I'm un-ticking the interested in boxes and still v few players are appearing.  I will try and have a further look tonight to make sure I've not missed something, and also check the budget.

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38 minutes ago, Per Annum said:

There's definitely something which can be easily misread about the combination of scouting range, scouting packages and other scouting costs.

Players can rack up huge costs despite not having packages etc, and the whole thing needs to be made clearer by SI, as they have acknowledged in the bug thread.

Huge costs? How? Can you elaborate or show me a thread where I can find more information about this

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25 minutes ago, mrdanbartlett said:

£500-850 per report = so if a lower league club scouts 100+ players that is huge costs for them.  See the video I posted for a cost breakdown.

I know what you mean. Its a lot of money. Do you know if you have to pay to scout a player that shows up in the package you own. If you do, your basicaly paying £850pcm (vanarama package) just to have access to potentially scout them. Then the £500-850 per player.

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31 minutes ago, mrdanbartlett said:

£500-850 per report = so if a lower league club scouts 100+ players that is huge costs for them.  See the video I posted for a cost breakdown. 

Thanks. I like the level of realism there, but as mentioned earlier, the cost should be made clearer

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2 minutes ago, corn_onthecurb said:

Thanks. I like the level of realism there, but as mentioned earlier, the cost should be made clearer

I dont think thats realistic. You could be managing FC United and want a report on a Salford City player. Its 5 miles away and you potentially playing £500 plus

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26 minutes ago, corn_onthecurb said:

They really need to bring back the ability to assign a scout to a region and a competition at the same time. No idea why they took this out

Because a person can't be in two places at once and you can't scout players without watching matches.

Scouting a region/country is now basically "scout all competitions within that region/country"

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22 minutes ago, wicksyFM said:

I dont think thats realistic. You could be managing FC United and want a report on a Salford City player. Its 5 miles away and you potentially playing £500 plus

I've seen this in other industries and it is realistic, at least in terms of how its implemented, not sure on the cost.

Basically you are paying a set sum per player to a 3rd party whether the player is 5 miles away or 605 miles away.  The 3rd party works out their costs on an overall basis, includes a profit margin and then splits the costs equally so no one club or player is at an advantage/disadvantage.

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I'm not even trying to scout in lower league after seeing just how much it costs for even small local operations. I'm just inviting EVERY player who approaches me to sign up for a trial. It'll probably be unfeasible a division or two higher though if I get up there.

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