[Discussion] Changing the Perfect Scouting Information for Player/Staff Attributes

[wazzaflow10]

I've always felt the core of scouting and transfer policy is easy because you have perfect information about every player's and staff member's attributes. I'd like a selectable option at startup (for people who don't want to play this way) to introduce some variation in the attributes your shown on a player/staff profile page. Nothing about the game would change under the hood with respect to the match engine. Actual player attributes would still be used so this is only affecting what we can observe.

For a player observable attributes would be anchored mainly to a scout or coach's Judging Player Attributes rating with 1 being very inaccurate and 20 being very accurate (but not perfect). Additionally player form can influence the attributes. A player getting higher ratings would gradually improve and tie into a coach or scout's opinion of the player and their level. For instance when a coach says player X is now seen as a Premier League leading player the attributes should fall within the leading Premier League CA range (Just reiterating if the player's CA is actually a championship level that does not change for the purpose of the match engine. This is not a Dynamic PA discussion). Likewise if a player has a bad spell of form their attributes will gradually decline. Training rating also should have an influence similar to form. There could be other things that influence observable attributes but these I think are the main three.

In the past the challenge I've had with this idea is it now creates a meta strategy of hoovering up scouts with high JPA. I have two separate ideas to prevent this. The first would be staff attributes are also subject to the same observable inaccuracies as player attributes. Factors that would influence a staff member's attributes would be chiefly based on reputation with secondary influence from a Director of Football's rating on staff attributes. So compiling a team of 20 JPA staff would be impossible.

The second idea would require a revamp of scouting and how scouts view jobs. It would be creating a hierarchy below chief scout ranging from continental scout, regional scout, national scout, local scout. Established high rated scouts would expect to be continental or chief scouts limiting how many you could feasibly hire. A top level club would only have 3-4 continental level scouts while a league 2 team would have none. These scouts would be reviewing players you've shortlisted, marked as top targets, or asked to directly scout after receiving a recommendation from a lower level scout. They would not be assignable directly to a scouting focus. Scouts would also expect to be promoted as they improved their abilities and will seek opportunities outside of their current team to advance to the next tier with more pay and "responsibility".

Curious if anyone has any thoughts or ideas to flesh this out more or offer alternate ways to reduce the amount of perfect information in the game to create a more dynamic/challenging world.

[Zachary Whyte]

Thank you for the suggestion, we will put this under consideration for a future FM.