retired_akash

Scouting Next Opposition: the scout comes back with a very vague summary of the opposition and has not revealed any of the masked attributes.

8 - To improve realism, I would expect the scout to watch the opponent's previous game and reveal the attributes of the players. I would also expect him to display the formation and line-up that he thinks they will use against me (similar to the Assistant Manager Report). The accuracy of this line-up will depend on how good the scout is. The scout will take into account injuries, suspensions and players with high ability that are transfer listed in making his decision. He can then make a brief comment about strengths and weaknesses, giving more weight to attributes than the hidden ability value.

retired_pmetzger1

Rubbish. Scout won't have time to accurately detail the attributes of all the players.

A general outline of style and identification of the key men seems about right to me.

retired_akash

Maybe I've overdone it on this particular point. I accept the argument about revealing attributes being unrealistic - perhaps just one or two? There certainly needs to more info in the report and I maintain that some sort of line-up would not be too much work. After all, that's what he's paid to do!

retired_stelutaivan

I would have thought that if anyone who played a blinder would have some more attributes revealed.

My rant - Scout coming back with really **** players. I know im at East Stirling but it's really taking the ****. Most of the players reported wouldn't get in to most Ryman league teams, let alone Division 3 teams.

retired_jmeshew

And it doesn't seem to get better. In my current save I moved again- to Engl. championship with a big name club and my scouts are still finding those types. Non-league players for the most part, or guys languishing in Conference North reserves or some such nonsense. And this while scouting for a team with a several Mil. transfer budget, and wage scale that would pay for the entire club they find these guys at, players, staff, grounds and all

retired_princess160

I'm still on CM4, so maybe things have improved some in FM2005 (even though I don't hold my breath, given the remarks here and in GQ), but I have to say that scouting is one area where I would advise SI (if I were in a position to do so) to attempt a major overhaul.

I hire scouts with good stats and send them out. I can easily claim that about 95% of the lads suggested by the scouts are rubbish or impossible to buy.

SCs that have low speed, running and finishing, for example. I don't care how much potential they have, if someone has Finishing 1 at age 18, it will never become 10 or higher a few years later. Useless. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Those numbers by themselves don't mean anything. I have had SCs with hardly any ability over 10 who just could not stop scoring. Hidden stats are a mixed blessing/curse. But heck, how else is a guy gonna see if a potential signing is worth anything, if not going by the numbers?)

Of course, they unearth good players too, but recommending me a good player from Germany that costs over €1m is a cheap shot. I know that that monkey-like money-hungry GK of Bayern is none too shabby, scout, thank you very much. Now you explain to me how we can lure him to SC Verl, having 50k to spend with a max wage cap of 5k/week?

I end up sending my scouts out and having to take a look at every single player they suggest, because they themselves are not smart enough to filter out the rubbish. Even though that would be part of their job, IMO.

And like Marcus Cato the Elder ended his speeches with his request to destroy Carthago, I finish all my scout rants with the same request:

Please, please, please, give me an option to exclude players from being mentioned by my scouts ever again, if I deem them unworthy and am sure I will never hire them. Just a little tickbox is all I need. I get so sick of seeing that same name season after season. Abilities hopeless, 'decent potential', never played a game in his carreer, but my scouts keep finding him. I just don't want to hear about him anymore. Never. Ever. Please!!

retired_lapepe

I'm in just about the same situation as you DJ. I'm on CM 03/04, and the scouting ain't good. The options and stuff was better on the FM beta, but I assume it's still not working very well from all the complaints all over these foras (forums or foras gramatically correct btw?).

Fair enough, untill this season all my scouts very crap, ie "Very Poor". But now I'm a rich sod, so have bought(!!) some staff this season from the big boys Scouse, Arse and United. Sent them to youth search and central Europe, and they still couldn find talent if a truckload of World Cup winners fell in their lap.

Most youths they find are 20-odd years, and certainly not more talented than the rest, and play for lower league clubs. I was just recommended and AFC Wimbledon striker at 21 with hardly any stats over 10. No thank you!

Send them to anything else than youth searches and most players they find are over 30. They're not terrible, but way too old.

When searching for youths and frees, I want players under 20, that actually have a shred of talent.

Don't remember how this worked in FM, but the system should take into consideration what level your club is at, and how much money you have to spend. In FM you can set a lot of attributes they should be scouting for IIRC, but that may not work properly, and it may be a grey area for LLM. Set many attributes and it gets closer and closer to the Search Player screen.

I'm just ranting now, but scouting certainly needs a lot of work. And I hope and believe this is a big priority for SI for FM2006, along with the regen problem so many are yelling about.

The only scouting that works okay-ish is competition scouting IMO. At least they find some talent, but they also find a gazillion hits, and they don't actually report back with talented players, but you have the star system.

[/rant]