Quote:
Originally Posted by Guzzernaut
Further to my last post, there is one thing I am unsure about. I wonder, if I tell a scout to scout players with 4+ potential, and after multiple assignments, he comes back telling me that he has found no interesting players, does that mean he has officially fully scouted all the players with a TRUE 4+ rating.
To put it another way, because he is part of the AI, is he programmed to know all of the true 4+ players and shows me who they are by giving me A+ scouting? Or, does he scout everyone whose listed as 4+stars, and just tells me if those players actually are 4+, or better or worse. If there was a player with 1 star with E level scouting, but was truly 4 stars, would he find him, or do I need a scout whose looking at 1 star players to uncover that.
Not sure if that makes sense.
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I think I understand what you're getting at. Despite what a player's true skills and abilities are rated, there is variability on how a scout assesses that. So, say a scout goes out an finds a 4D player. Player gets scouted a little more and you ultimately find out he's a 3.5A prospect. Your scout was off by a little bit. This is the inherent risk of scouting.
I don't believe that if you were scouting for a 4 star prospect (just an example) that you would uncover a hidden gem that's currently rated a 1E with a true value of 4A. That would, to me, defeat the purpose of scouting because if you're setting search criteria and getting results outside those parameters, then what good are your directions to your scouts? Furthermore, why even scout the player further? Who cares if you can get a more thorough scouting report if you ultimately know that regardless of the 1E, this guy is guaranteed to have a 4 star potential?
This is why my strategy is to pick areas that I heavily scout like Nordic Europe, for example. When the season starts I'll put my scouts searching for the potential ratings for all draft eligible players for 16 weeks. With 3 scouts, I can get a good feel for most of the guys that are available. I'll shortlist some to take a further look at....after that first 16 weeks, THEN I start setting stricter scouting criteria to filter out the crap (am I really ever going to entertain drafting a 2.5-3b player?). This usually takes me up to a month before the draft.
Good ideas in this thread, though. I am entering the 2021-22 season with the Wild in one franchise and am currently at the draft. Probably my worst scouting year so far, but hopefully I can improve. My best haul was a Swedish center playing in the SHL. I scouted him at 4.5a/4.5a and he evidently wasn't even on anyone else's draft board. That's where scouting becomes really rewarding.