Question about free agent scouting

[tdc0]

I'm having trouble understanding how to scout free agents. When I assign my scouts to Free Agents, they'll only scout a handful of players regardless of how long I set them to scout. Then at the end of it, they'll specifically scout one player for two more weeks. Is this how free agent scouting supposed to work? This is not in historical mode.

[Cole]

How long are you telling them to scout? And what are you seeing if you try to do it again, or if you tell them to scout for a shorter period of time?

[tdc0]

It doesn't seem to matter how long I tell them to scout. Here's more detail about what I'm seeing:

I start a new game, any league or team though I pick an NHL team because they have lots of scouts to start with. I set 16 scouts to Free Agent, no other options changed except the duration, which I set incrementally starting from 1 week. After 3 weeks, when I view the Scouting screen, all of my scouts will be shown as scouting one particular player (Vinny Prospal and Daniil Markov are recurring favorites).

Each scout will then scout that one player for the originally-assigned duration. Note that this is the case even for the scouts I set to 1 or 2 weeks, instead of finishing their job as I'd expect. After the jobs finish, if I set these scouts to Free Agent scouting again, they will finish the job correctly, but any job longer than 1 week will result in the scout focusing on one player again. Also, the scouts will always report they only scouted 8 players, and they tend to scout repeatedly the same sets of players.

Either I'm not understanding what Free Agent scouting is supposed to do or something here is broken.

[moore4807]

Originally Posted by tdc0

It doesn't seem to matter how long I tell them to scout. Here's more detail about what I'm seeing:

I start a new game, any league or team though I pick an NHL team because they have lots of scouts to start with. I set 16 scouts to Free Agent, no other options changed except the duration, which I set incrementally starting from 1 week. After 3 weeks, when I view the Scouting screen, all of my scouts will be shown as scouting one particular player (Vinny Prospal and Daniil Markov are recurring favorites).

Each scout will then scout that one player for the originally-assigned duration. Note that this is the case even for the scouts I set to 1 or 2 weeks, instead of finishing their job as I'd expect. After the jobs finish, if I set these scouts to Free Agent scouting again, they will finish the job correctly, but any job longer than 1 week will result in the scout focusing on one player again. Also, the scouts will always report they only scouted 8 players, and they tend to scout repeatedly the same sets of players.

Either I'm not understanding what Free Agent scouting is supposed to do or something here is broken.

This is why I'm always saying that there should be a primer as scouting is one of the most misunderstood areas of this game...

Ok If you look at my Dynasty - Florida Panthers you will see I have 15 scouts and I rank them by the actual ability ratings and the potential abilty ratings for scouting. Only one scout is Great which is generally a score of 15 or higher (1-20 is the numbering system) then most of your scouts will fall into the 14-12 area which is good, then there is average or below average.

Take your best scout and set him to scout a region in his home country (this is the top drop down) His expertise areas will appear in green and the rest will be black. (He may not have an expert area in the beginning of a game.)Then decide if you want him to look at everybody in that part of the country or are you going to pick a specific league? (found in the second drop down box)

Now we get to the meat n potatoes part... The choices are first by age, birth dates are used here, so if you don't want anybody over 30 yrs old then you have to do some math. 2013 - 30 = 1983 goes in the first box and 1995 goes (2013 - 1995 = 18)in the second box and now the scout will only scout players between 18 - 30 y/o in the region you chose.
The next choice is by position - take some time here as your scout may also be a secret weapon and have coaching skills in a position, which will also give you a coachability report along with skills (subject to ability of scout)

Now the draft eligibility is NHL only from what I've played but will expand with the next version I'm sure. If you choose this option then your scout will not scout anyone NOT draft eligilble. Nuff said.
Rights available/exclude foreign players - if I'm farming/fishing during the offseason I will look at some younger players using these controls - but largely useless IMHO for an NHL scout.

Now here is where I think your problem lies. The next lines are where you can install what "level" player you want (6.5 10.0) in both ability and potential. DON'T USE THESE UNTIL YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE SCOUTING SYSTEM AND READY! This means only use the bottom scouting for ability or potential. So if you want to know the NHL players as a league you would choose NHL under the second drop down box (hopefully with a green highlight color) and then go all the way to the bottom of the scouts box and choose "Scout for Ability" and "Scout for Quantity" and say for 8 weeks with reports every two weeks.

What the game will return is an average of 20 players abilities per report and sometimes detailed reports on 4-5 players every two weeks. REMEMBER the scouts ratings are in play here -so if you sent a scout with a 12 rating its just about 60% reliable reporting. but you really can't get 100% in real life so don't forget to look at stats and coaching reports to get a fuller picture.

I tried to do this quick to get you a response and there is much more I could cover - but try this and tell us how it works for you. We can go from there.

just my $.02

[moore4807]

Now here are some pix from my Dynasty. Notice how I have Frank Mahavolich set up to scout the NHL. He is an average scout (60%-70% accuracy) which is good enough for most NHL player reports.

Then I added all 15 scouts to show where I assigned them as how its generally where they are from and in leagues they are expert (green) in. This screen doesn't show the green colored leagues.

The third pix is of Jason Halkett - a scout I just hired and he is AWESOME if I want to scout the potential of a goalie or defensemen. But look to the left and he has a BAD reputation... So something is wrong and I will have to watch his reports carefully to find out why he has a bad ranking.

[tdc0]

Cheers moore4807, I appreciate your findings on scouting. One thing I'm hung up on is how Free Agent scouting is supposed to work, and if you explained that in your post I must have missed it. I am confused about what purpose the Free Agents checkbox serves. It doesn't seem to act in what I consider a useful manner. If it has a purpose and is acting as intended, I need some explanation of what it's good for and why I'm misunderstanding it.

EDIT: I should elaborate on what I expect Free Agents scouting to do. Based on my experience playing the EHM series and plain intuition I'd expect Free Agents scouting to do the following:

- last for the exact duration that I specify, regardless of whether or not it's the first time I assigned that particular scout to Free Agents
- scout a number of free agents proportional to the scouting duration. Currently, the reports indicate they only scout 8 free agents regardless of the duration
- don't get fixated on one particular free agent
- don't need to provide super detailed reports - they're free agents, thus not playing regularly and a scout in that scenario would probably be relying on video and research

[moore4807]

Originally Posted by tdc0

EDIT: I should elaborate on what I expect Free Agents scouting to do. Based on my experience playing the EHM series and plain intuition I'd expect Free Agents scouting to do the following:

- last for the exact duration that I specify, regardless of whether or not it's the first time I assigned that particular scout to Free Agents *IF the scout does not find anyone who is not already scouted he will report back with No player available (or some such nonsense) and return to the not committed scouting status*

- scout a number of free agents proportional to the scouting duration. *Choose Quantity over Quality in the bottom of the scout assigment, I've seen as many as 40 players scouted per week under these parameters*
Currently, the reports indicate they only scout 8 free agents regardless of the duration *Again it seems you selected "Quality" over "Quantity" when you assigned your scout*

- don't get fixated on one particular free agent *Good luck with that... It is one of the areas being worked on by Sebastian and company, but until then the workaround is be position specific and age specific AFTER you get the "Quantity" FA's scouted. You will find it rarely happens then.*

- don't need to provide super detailed reports - they're free agents, thus not playing regularly and a scout in that scenario would probably be relying on video and research * This is not a completely true statement, it greatly matters WHEN you are doing your scouting - off season is a whole different bird than in season and you will waste a ton of time doing make up work if you don't keep a scout regularly scouting the FA ranks during the off season. *

Here is an example - for illustrative purposes only.

Now I have Garrett Doyle currently doing my Free Agent scouting, but I have a free scout (No current assignment) in Ryan Stewart who I then placed on Free Agent scouting (NHL since that's the league I'm playing) and you can see that I gave him specific orders on who I wanted scouted from the free agent pool.
Now being realistic there are virtually NO free agents under 25 years old worth any value in the real free agent market, I chose age restricted (25 y/o to 30 y/o), Position restricted (Goalies) who have a skill rating of 6.5 or better, and told the scout to scout for Ability and Quantity with a time frame of 16 weeks and 4 week reporting intervals. Now will it take Ryan Stewart 16 weeks to accomplish this task? NO... But as a example Ryan stewart would look at the available goalies and then after doing his evaluation he might go back and do in depth scouting on these goalies since he has so much time left to complete his task.
Now if I changed the parameters and removed the goalie parameter then it would be likely that the full sixteen weeks would be needed to look at everybody who is a NHL free agent with those other parameters. As I remove the restrictions the pool dynamically opens and if you chose to have the scout look for "Ability" and "Quality" over "Quantity", then his focus on a couple players per week is a natural occurrence as there may not be many players to choose from.

Another point is what time of the year is the search happening? in the preseason and off season the scouts will have more time and will give you a more prepared report as the players are showcasing themselves and if its in season then the players might be playing overseas or restricted contracts that do not allow for NHL escape clauses. I started out making offers for all these FA players and learned through burnt tailfeathers that the player wasn't available to me til the next season even though he was listed as a free agent! This was a problem in EHM too but this game has a clearer read and its easier to find out what contract they have in the Contract page.

Hopefully I answered the FA question you had - it all essentially boils down to what parameters you choose your scout to do. The game is very literal and will do exactly what you tell it... even if its not quite what you mean!