retired_jordanlamb1234

What does anyone else think of the scouting in FM'08?

While I think there has been some impovements to scouting over previous versions, I'm still left feeling a bit frustrated about the innacuracy and lack of useful information given by reports.

Given the way that scouting works, I use my scouts for two purposes:

1/ To uncover missing player stats.
2/ To increase my knowledge of other leagues and scoutable players.

I should mention at this point that I'm strongly against using anything like FM scout or the data editor to discover things like PA. Even asking on forums for good players feels like cheating somehow.

This is what I'd ideally want my scouts to do:

1/ Give some indication of non-visible stats (adaptability, one-on-ones, etc etc), particularly those relevant to thte players position. This is already done to some extent, ie injury proneness, big match rating etc.

2/ Offer a more accurate indication of potential ability. Even highly rated scouts seem to report that all players over about 21 "are unlikely to improve in the future" which very often turns out to be completely false. I mean, I have no way of knowing if a player has good potential, I can look at his stats and performance for his previous club* but I can't actually watch him play and observe his attitude and demeanor. So I need my scouts to check him out and give me an idea of how good he might end up in the future.

[*Incidentally this is also flawed due to the fact that reputation determines results and hence performances when matches are played on low detail]

There's also a number of annoying bugs relating to scouting. This makes me think that the improvements that SI have tried to make in this area were a bit rushed and in the end it was left half finished. If anyone from SI is reading this I'd suggest that you work on this aspect of the game in time for 2009 as for those of us who don't cheat it's really rather important.