Greg Andrade

What about looking at the goals and assists statistics for non-league clubs? I'm playing in Spain right now, and I've been dumbfounded by the fact that my scout now completely fails to recommend anyone from the massive Tercera Division, which is below the playable leagues. There are over 300 clubs at that level, and I had loaded all Spanish players in the database, and many of these teams are at least half full of active players. But my scout has simply stopped recommending anyone except the occasional player from my own division.

So, do people consider it acceptable to have a look at the goal scoring stats of some of the non-league clubs and then send my scout out to evaluate those that I think are particularly good? What about just sending him to go scout all the active players from a given club?

In real life, I go to a couple of great websites with all the latest results and stats from the Spanish Tercera Division, just to learn more about the clubs that get promoted into my game and to get player pictures and that sort of thing. Then would it make sense to assume that I could do the same thing to get player information and then send my scouts to evaluate them in my saved game?

wewak

Pushing it a bit Greg, IMO. You shouldn't really be using external knowledge in your game (apologies if I read your post incorrectly).

As for signing players who are leading the assits/rating/goal scorers lists, I've got two words for you: Good Luck.

Greg Andrade

Yes, I think my posting was misunderstood. Let me clarify. I'm not using external knowledge in my game. I'm just trying to draw a comparison between the external knowledge available via the Web and the kind of information that you can access in the game.

Let's say that I want to look for the top goal scorers in the non-league ranks and then send my scouts to watch them. I don't get media items stating that so-and-so is currently leading a certain club in scoring, but I can find out this information by looking up the club in my game and then looking at its top goal scorers.

The issue is the fact that it's not a media item, which I've always understood to be an important distinction for LLM ethics. But it's information that's available through the game by simply going to the club's squad and then viewing it by goals or assists.

Now, is it a problem because I'm not strictly getting this information from a media item that is brought to my attention? Or, given that I could find the same information in real life, by simply looking up the latest Tercera Division statistics and checking each club's scorers and squads, does it seem acceptable that I look up the club's stats and players in my game and then send my scouts to evaluate them?

Also, this brings up a further question. Is it acceptable to look at the reports of transfers in a given country for the month, identify players just released from their clubs, and then send scouts to evaluate them? Or is this considered knowledge that you couldn't get so easily in real life. Again, this sort of information is readily available in real life, at least for the divisions relevant to my saved game. But I'm wondering if this fits into the LLM ethics.

Elrawkum

Greg, I'm no expert on the 'boundaries' of what's acceptable in LLM, but I'd suggest you use the oft stated adage, "if you have to ask if it's cheating, it probably is."

I'm happy just using my scouts, period, as they find me more than enough players willing to join my team, so I feel no need to look for other methods to increase my squad. I try not to worry about too much about whether I'm missing out on some overlooked wonderkid elsewhere; if they're really any good they'll come to your attention sooner or later through other avenues.

wewak

I think this is going too far. You shouldn't really be trawling through clubs' playing lists. Best to let your scouts do the searching.

The issue of transfer listed/released players has been discussed, and the consensus seems to be that even though such information is attainable in real life it is frowned upon for LLaMas to find players this way.

That is how I understand the situation but I would be interested to see what others say.

Gillmacs

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far...bit I'll stick with it.

Greg Andrade

Well, what irks me is that, at least with FM2005, I can't send my scout to watch a particular club or to scout the level below mine if I'm in the bottom playable league. It's either a region, a competition, an entire nation, or my next opposition. After you've done a number of searches over several seasons, there is not much else to do. If I could assign my scout strictly to the nonleague competition level just below mine, then I'm sure he would find more talent. There are more than 300 teams on that level, and they're all half full with active players in my database! But instead he's trying to cover too many levels of football all at once, including the divisions above me, where there is no chance for me to ever sign a player or have the money to cover the fees and wages. So I would like to have the ability to focus his search much more, but apparently my hands are tied by the LLM ethics.

wewak

The old scouting bug It's a drag.

If you've not heard of it; it's where after several seasons with one team your scouts no longer offer up names. It seems to fixed in FM2006.

TC

Dammit, now you've gone and got me interested in reading all about the Spanish Tercera division!

Greg Andrade

Plenty of information is available at Diario Futbol and Futbolme.