Have the scouting tools ruined FM?

[Shanksie1975]

For me personally it's all about where I draw line balancing realism and fun.

I think the in game scouts are too dumb and I already spend too much of my life playing FM so I'm never going to sit there each newgen date and fish around all the youngsters in the world hunting the gems - which in itself is unrealistic in the extreme (not that i am complaining, just pointing it out ).

[DivineOne]

I think the in game scouts are too dumb

Then maybe it's time to get new scouts. The in game scouts are just fine and have already found me some fantastic players.

[cf]

I don't use the scouting tools as such but I have edited some of the screens to display the hidden attributes so it's essentially the same thing. I still let the scouts do their work and use the hidden attributes to supplement their report, particularly when they've mentioned nothing about any of the hidden attributes.

As Shanksie1975 mentioned to, it's all about where you draw the line between realism and fun. Personally it's made the game more fun for me.

[Rb]

Mez you big cheat ,

In all seriousness though. I don't think I've ever used an incarnation of FM scout. I think part of it comes down to the style of manager you are. I prefer the lower leagues, so subsequently you need to really REALLY try and use your judgement on players in my opinion..

Having spoken to you earlier about your plight I do think its worth trying to move out of your niche B'ham game and try something a little more out of the ordinary.. Also uninstall FMRTE and scout for gawds sakes man

[Smikis]

if scouting werent broken in game, i wouldnt use them.. but since they are.. running 20 scouts.. with 18+ stats.. in almost all countries and continents.. and they find nothing.. or same over and over again.. then you open genie or another tool and wtf.. i never heard or saw of such players..

bs tbh

im personally against limiting pa.. its total nonsense.. and doesnt exist irl anyway you look at it..

not to mention that star evaluation is broken.. youth never gets more than 3.5 stars in pa.. yay my 199 pa... high in work rate ambition and profesionalism.. guy who will reach atleast 185 ca.. is rated at 3 stars..

np this guy .. is rated on 2 stars, who cares that in 2 years it will be worth 12 mln.. and be one of most promising midfieldiers.. my scout and ass man said never sign him.. OH YEH?

[The Sean]

Why not use a scouting tool that only rates the player on known abilities? These exist; I know, because I created one and it can be searched on the editors hideaway. I realize I am being shameless here; I had the same problem as others in that I wanted to be able to rate players myself without knowing the 'unknowables,' such as PA. The tool I created operates much like a scouting service. These are legitimate scouting services available to American professional and college teams for a price. I tried to model the rating system (out of 100 for each player at multiple positions) on this type of legitimate scouting service...

[Chochip]

Well, the fact is.. those who have never used a scouting tool, you would be surprised when you actually see for yourself how many players you missed out on.

I don't mean to say you should sign all of them and become a slave driver. But irl the news system is MUCH more comprehensive in reporting who is interested in who.

It is quite unrealistic to be completely unaware of the existence of a special promising youth.

This is a bit off topic, but speaking of youth, especially with the newgens, the CA/PA system is completely broken.

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1. A 16 year old newgen may have something like 80CA with 3 ambition, 5 professionalism. Yet he may a PA of 185.

Even though there is absolutely no indication in current ability or current personality that this player will become a world class player, he somehow still has the potential.

You might say, 'oh but he will fail to fulfill his potential and end up to be average.'

That's fair enough, but not good enough. He should have never got the high PA in the first place.

2. Another 16 year old kid has 120CA with also very good personality. Yet he might be given a PA of 150.

In this case, even though everything in the current situation shows that this player may well become a world class player, he will fail to do so, because somehow he will stop growing NO MATTER WHAT happens.

With the scenario 1, you may think it works fine. But in this scenario 2, it is so unrealistic that a player is completely limited by this number, even though just about every surrounding factors suggest that he will grow much more.

------

this system works for real players, because every 6 months or so they all get revised by SI to reflect their actual growth or there lack of.

But this does not work with newgen players.

At the moment, newgen players are like the lottery. It's not about which club he goes to, it's not about how hard you train them, it's not about how good he is currently, it's just about the right combination of numbers in the right place.

So in conclusion, I think there should be no such thing as PA. Various factors like age, CA, personality, current club, training facility, injury, games played in first team.. etc should all add up to determine how much a player will grow. And of course this will be always dynamic and variable, not static like the current PA number.

Then these scouting tools will be of less importance too.

[Indi75]

Well, the fact is.. those who have never used a scouting tool, you would be surprised when you actually see for yourself how many players you missed out on.

I don't mean to say you should sign all of them and become a slave driver. But irl the news system is MUCH more comprehensive in reporting who is interested in who.

It is quite unrealistic to be completely unaware of the existence of a special promising youth.

This is a bit off topic, but speaking of youth, especially with the newgens, the CA/PA system is completely broken.

------

1. A 16 year old newgen may have something like 80CA with 3 ambition, 5 professionalism. Yet he may a PA of 185.

Even though there is absolutely no indication in current ability or current personality that this player will become a world class player, he somehow still has the potential.

You might say, 'oh but he will fail to fulfill his potential and end up to be average.'

That's fair enough, but not good enough. He should have never got the high PA in the first place.

2. Another 16 year old kid has 120CA with also very good personality. Yet he might be given a PA of 150.

In this case, even though everything in the current situation shows that this player may well become a world class player, he will fail to do so, because somehow he will stop growing NO MATTER WHAT happens.

With the scenario 1, you may think it works fine. But in this scenario 2, it is so unrealistic that a player is completely limited by this number, even though just about every surrounding factors suggest that he will grow much more.

------

this system works for real players, because every 6 months or so they all get revised by SI to reflect their actual growth or there lack of.

But this does not work with newgen players.

At the moment, newgen players are like the lottery. It's not about which club he goes to, it's not about how hard you train them, it's not about how good he is currently, it's just about the right combination of numbers in the right place.

So in conclusion, I think there should be no such thing as PA. Various factors like age, CA, personality, current club, training facility, injury, games played in first team.. etc should all add up to determine how much a player will grow. And of course this will be always dynamic and variable, not static like the current PA number.

Then these scouting tools will be of less importance too.

Well said.

I only ever get the tool out when a game is in it's final few months and I want some sillyness, but agree with many in here that it destroys the actual fun derived from achieving your successes.

What I did find was that quite often the -10 players in the FM08/09 games were lousy compared to some of the players who were about the 150 mark.

SI should be much stricter on spoilers across the forums, and frankly PA should be abolished in lieu of a better system related to the factors you mention above.

Would be even better for the community as a whole, especially bug reporting, if SI made the memory inaccesible or uneditable.

[Oypus]

I only use them to look at PA of players I've already bought. I've never been a big fan of choosing players solely based on that stat though. If a player is getting better ratings than the supposed wonderkid with 198 PA, then I'm all for the first one instead. I prefer what they're doing rather than what they're going to do.

What is the max PA again? Because there was actually one in my save with 198 PA. This was the first and only time I intend to look at the PA of another team's player, but I nearly bought him, but went for one who had better stats.

[Indi75]

200 is max, but he'll never get int he fist team if you've got a 150ish with good stats in natrual fitness, consistency, ambition, determination, etc...

I keep old save games so's I can look at my squads when a new FM is on the way, it's quite revealing to find that all this -9 and -10 shrtlist nonsense really doesn't pay off.

Some of the higher PA'd -9's turned out to be absolute toilet, compared to some of the 150-160ish -8 type players with better attributes in key areas.

[Deisler26]

I've used FMRTE on occasion. Always to edit my manager so that I have the likes and dislikes of my RL self tho', that's it.

[Dinaldo]

I personnally disagree with criticism of the in game scouts. While I do use FMRTE, and admit it with no shame, I don't use it from frustration, but to enhance my enjoyment. However, I believe that the in game scouting is very realistic. Sometimes, they miss out on the next Zidane or Pele. But other times, they find them. This happens in reality too. A major example is Thomas Vermaelan. Wenger was told specifically not to sign him. Well that scout got it wrong, but he still has the job. Because at the end of the day, everyone makes mistakes, and computerized versions of reality should be no different.

[Indi75]

Unfortunately, in keeping with society and trends, what most people want is PA displayed regardless of the fact it means little.

Scout ratings still need tweaking a little, 'cos I've seen some mingers come up as 3 stars and some belters come up the same, but on the whole my current batch of regens look outstanding.

[Seagullfan]

As its only a game and to be enjoyed I used Genie in FM08 as a fun experiment to find a BSQ team with the most money to spend ( Stevenage ) and build a team of potential superstars from the ca/pa. It made for interesting fun as the biggest problem was convincing them to join such a lowly club.

However I did find I had to resist the temptation to use it on other saves but now I am on FM10 I dont have the latest Genie and will not be downloading it.

I sometimes think people forget that it is supposed to be a game to have fun with and whilst others call it cheating it doesn't really matter as long as the user is enjoying the experience or challenge they have set themselves

[TOUGHGUY]

It is certainly... interesting to see the sometimes large differences in what the scouts tell you and what is actually true. Someone mentioned it before – a player with a massive CA/PA gap being reported as not going to improve in the future. I'd also love to find out the exact criteria that both the game engine and the third party tools use when evaluating a player, e.g. a player with a 85 % potential rating (or whatever FMRTE calls it) not being rated at all by the ingame scouts, things like that.

[dafuge]

It is certainly... interesting to see the sometimes large differences in what the scouts tell you and what is actually true. Someone mentioned it before – a player with a massive CA/PA gap being reported as not going to improve in the future. I'd also love to find out the exact criteria that both the game engine and the third party tools use when evaluating a player, e.g. a player with a 85 % potential rating (or whatever FMRTE calls it) not being rated at all by the ingame scouts, things like that.

I'm quite glad to hear there are discrepancies between actual scout reports and raw CA/PA data, it means that taking risks on players can pay off sometimes. I think if the scout reports were always 100% accurate then the game would become very predictable and stale.

[mr.rooney]

I sympathise with the OP, the temptation is always there when you use third party editors. In previous editions, I used to use third-party editors to heal injuries before key games, but now I don't use them as although there are non-cheating uses I would just be tempted to cheat all the time. I wouldn't say that they have ruined FM, and I think it is down to each individual to decide their stance on them.

[CoachCasa]

I don't think it's ruined it all. It just depends on how you feel about it. If I were a manager in real life then there would be other ways for me to find players than I have in the game here. I can't call up a buddy in this game to inquire about a player, like I could in real life. Also, if you have no scouting tools in the game and hide all of the attributes, it's going to be very hard to find players. Looking at the results of games here is not like going to a game in real life and watching a player play. Is having the attributes of players available cheating? I mean in real life I might know a player is fast or can score goals, but I may not be able to put a quantifiable number on it to compare to other players to figure out who I want to sign. My brother is a college coach and occasionally asks me to go watch teams play when he can't get into town. I sit and watch and make notes, but it's my observations based on that one game on that day. I obviously can't do this in the game, so I think having other tools instead to use is fair. I will also admit that I don't trust the AI in the game. How do I ever know that the playing field is level? I do very well in every edition of the game, but I think that's mostly from experience in knowing what kind of things work and what doesn't.

On another note, all of this talk about PA, is somewhat speculative. There are no guarantees that any player will ever reach their potential. PA is only telling us what a player is capable of in a perfect scenario. Granted I would rather have players with high PA's on my team, but I don't know how my tactics, or team environment, or league that I play in, ability of my club to pay for quality players, or any number of other factors will effect the outcome of a players career. Plus, often I don't play the game enough to go through a players entire career from 16 to retirement. I usually play 4-6 seasons and then find myself starting over, or a new edition of the game comes out and I switch to that. I hate playing big name clubs in top leagues-I haven't done that in years. So by the time I get promoted up the ladder to the top league, I start to get bored and want to start over building a club.

One other thing about PA. I have had high PA players and didn't like them or they didn't fit what I was trying to do. I also have had lower PA (-5 to -7 or 70 to 140) players become stars. As an example right now, my club playing in Italy Serie C2/C is way in front by 15 points midway through the season. I have one striker with 23 goals in 20 games and is leading the league. His PA is 87, and his CA is 78-not earth shattering numbers, but he has great attributes (is deadly on the finish (19), Is great in the air (18 heading and 15 jumping), Is great with the ball at his feet (17 dribbling, 13 first touch), has great balance, decision making, and positioning). My other starting striker has scored 6 goals in 19 games and his PA is 140 and his CA is 80. His attributes are not nearly impressive as my first striker. So go figure! I still use my own judgement over scouts or pure numbers.