I'd prefer to have a system in which the scout, when watching a match, reports upon a best player on the day (easy to do via match rating) plus a few other players (2-3) that caught his eye. He would then submit his report and you chould choose for him to continue or disregard his scouting of those players in the future, thus:

Scouting Options
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Provide detailed report
<LI>Keep a close eye
<LI>Put on the backburner
<LI>Disregard
</UL>
Provide a detailed report: The scout chooses to attend matches in which that player is appearing and submits a fully detailed report as soon as possible (2-3 weeks)

Keep a close eye: The scout keeps an eye on the player's performance levels and focuses on him if attending a match in which he is playing. However, he doesn't deliberately attend these matches. A detailed report takes a 3-6 months

Put on the backburner: The scout notes his performance levels and slowly builds up a picture of the player. A detailed report takes 6-12 months.

Disregard: The scout never reports on him again


Each scout can manage roughly thirty assignments at any one time:

Detailed report: Two players
Keep a close eye: Eight players
Put on the backburner: Twenty players

In addition to this, he continues to provide first glance recommendations of new players. It then becomes up to the manager to manage the scout's long and short-term targets.


For this to work, we probably need a greater 'fog of war', which includes PPMs, height, weight, footedness, etc. An early report on a totally unknown player would focus totally on the scout's interpretation of the match report plus an estimation of six key stats for the position. These stats could be customised by the manager, i.e. DC (Jumping, Heading, Tackling, Passing, Positioning, Stength), MR (Dribbling, Pace, Crossing, Flair, Passing, Stamina) etc.


Scout Report

John Smith is a 19-year old, tall (6'4"), both-footed defender. He is good in the air, winning more than 90% of his headers. He is also strong in the tackle, winning every challenge he attempted. However, his distribution looked suspect (52% pass completion) and his positioning might do with some improvement (made two minor mistakes). He also got booked and was lucky not to be sent off for dissent (argues with officials). Match Rating: 7.2

Attributes

Jumping (14-18)
Heading (12-16)
Tackling (14-18)
Passing (6-10)
Positioning (8-12)
Strength (14-20)


The margin for error could be dependant on the scout's ability, thus:

Judging Ability: 20 (all attributes within a two point scope)
Judging Ability: 14 (all attributes within a four point scope: as above)
Judging Ability: 8 (all attributes within a six point scope)
Judging Ability: 2 (all attributes within an eight point scope)

These settings would provide easy gradients between the scouts, so, for example, a scout with JP 17 would reveal 3 attributes within a two point scope and three within a four point scope.

Obviously, for a player already with the requisite stats already unfogged, these reports would be more exact.

Thoughts?

Not a bad idea-Certainly one worth looking into.

However, I would think that these would be a bit complicated to put inside the game.

Yup, sounds well-thought-out and viable as always wwfan. The assman always gives a report of the best player in your reserve fixtures, so the seeds are there.

Maybe you can't comment on this, but as part of the testing team for FML, and presumably knowing something (or at least being in a position to make a decent intelligent guess) of which features might be in FM09, are your thoughts ones that actually get the ear of the developers? If so, are you only welcome to comment on tactics, or any areas?

I'm a terrible tester when it comes to anything outside of the engine. The FML engine is superb and will be the starting point for the development of the FM09 engine. That much I do know

As for any other feature...??

I'm betting the real truth was in that spooky line that followed .....


Anyone on a train to Wycombe, keep you eye out for a file or Cd that's been left behind. No, not the Al-Qaeda one, the IMPORTANT info

They should fix the whole comparing players relatively to your players crap. Its a completely nonintuitive way of doing it. Use an absolute scale for gods sake.

Its also annoying if the player with best potential in the world only gets rated as a good buy, just because you already have a good team. And of course some crappy defensive winger will be rated highly just because you dont have any in the team.

My scout doesn't rate anyone highly if they're a sweeper or something even though I haven't got any in my squad.

I agree with the first point though.

This is what I hate the most about the scouting module, I think in one of the earlier versions I would sent my scouts out and every now and again they would return after every game with a report of a player that they would have seen during a game, but now we don't have that option.

So, anything that improves the scouting module like this is always going to get a :thup: from em.

I'm betting the real truth was in that spooky line that followed .....


Anyone on a train to Wycombe, keep you eye out for a file or Cd that's been left behind. No, not the Al-Qaeda one, the IMPORTANT info </BLOCKQUOTE>

Even if I did have any extra knowledge I am not telling you about, which I don't, I live further away from Wycombe than you do, and that's saying something

I feel the "fog of war" should be a lot more restrictive. Also, if a scout watches a game and notices a player he otherwise hadn't come across performing well, he could quite easily misrepresent the players ability.

For example, he sees a defender whose an absolute beast. He wins every header and every tackle, and the opposition striker barely gets a look in. He appears to be half a yard quicker than the man he's marking, and seems to cut out most forward passes. As a result, the scout is very impressed, and suggests that the player is a good signing. From what he's seen, the player appears to have very high stats in key attributes (Heading, Jumping, Positioning, Tackling, Marking and Anticipation) and thus the scout gives high ratings.

After further scouting, it becomes apparent that the defender was either having the game of his life, or the standard of the opposition striker was very poor. It turns out that what appeared to be good anticipation on the defender's part, was in fact poor positioning, and in subsequent games he was exposed quite a lot. Similarly, whilst good in the tackle, he actually struggled aerially against more powerful strikers. After a few matches, his attributes start to take shape more accurately.

Similarly, this "fog" should react to games played against you, and anything televised. Players playing in these games gain a lot more exposure, and dependant on their performances, the whole footballing world would be able to make some sort of assessment on the players strengths or weaknesses.

Furthermore, I am of the opinion that scout reports should canvas more than just performances. If a scout is asked to gleam some information about a player, I'd also like to know about his committment to training, as well as any perceived improvements/decline in ability.

I appreciate that this is awfully unlikely, as it would require a more intuitive database, but I can dream nonetheless.