Funnily enough I played FM 2012 (the latest version I own) the other day for the first time in years - enjoyed it immensely. Got Aaron McLean banging them in for fun!
And Josh King, which is a bit of a coincidence. Although the ****er then got injured. Accurate? Obviously!
It's not bollocks, and a lot of clubs now rely on it for some of their scouting. Obviously playing at easier difficulties or whatever can mean some players do better than they would in real life, but wasn't Maclean prolific before he came to us? I've never played it, mind.
Answer the question I asked Sterling. I've asked you it before. How do they maintain consistency between scouts? Another.(s) Do they send 28 scouts to a game? One for each player? How many times does a player get scouted? Who scouts the kids? What criteria is used to progress scores as the game advances? Does one scout scout every player for the game? The scoring stats are flawed, inaccurate, guessed & bollocks.
The scouts, which aren't pretend, are hand picked by SI, they've built up a pretty big network, one so big it's used by a fair few European clubs. Not as a marker for talent, but to check for contract details (length etc), player histories and things they can't usually get straight away without spending money to scout these players. So, for example, if the club had heard through another scout about some young lad in Honduras, they might boot up the database (not the game, you can do that separately) and check out the details before sending a scout to watch them. Every single player in the world, from every country, is on that game; even the British ones go right down to the Humber Premier League with details on every single player. If you don't look at the game or want to play it, it's worth booting up the editor for the database, which gives you access to every player in the world and an interesting look at how the game works behind the scenes. By the scoring system, do you mean the stats on the screen? If so, they're controlled and manipulated by many factors within the game; they are by no means nailed on, but they aren't 'bollocks'; they're only representative right at the start before the plerson playing has any influence on the game, because as soon as you add a manager the players start to react and the stats start to change. I mean you could manage Barcelona, have Messi and not play him and his stats would go down. I think on one of my saves while I was at uni Rooney ended up at Newcastle for £8m. So you do get some weird things happening, but that's part of the fun. I agree, pulling names out of a hat because you've seen them on a game is nonsense, it's something I wouldn't do. Watch obscure football games in Korea at 2am, absolutely. But quote FM as gospel, never.
Why do you need to progress scores? We're on about their base scores. If you're fascinated by a system that has developed over years and years and professional organisations rely on I'm sure there's a lot of information out there. It's not that hard to coordinate between different scouts by having base metrics and having one in every 20 players or whatever scouted by multiple scouts to audit their scores.
Sterling has a much better idea clearly, I just know that the scouts are real and the system has ended up being quite useful to real clubs.
That doesn't answer the question. We all watch the same game in a Saturday, all have a good understanding of the game yet still can't agree who's shut & who isn't. There is no way of maintaining consistency of such a large network of players. The majority are made up.
1. The same way clubs do between their own scouts, they have people watch the same team for a season to build up a good knowledge. 2. Usually a person is assigned to a club to watch them, kids and all. The clubs provide information on the players (which SI pay for), such as height, weight, contract details (length, but not salary, the club have to give a ball park figure). There might be more than one person assigned to a club, but not one for each player. 3. The criteria is based on the same decision that a club would use to sign a young player for the future, namely, do they have the right attributes to succeed in the game, how far are they off the first team, have they played any football in the first team etc. Essentially, the players are scouted the exact same way a football club would, using the exact same methods. The scoring stats (whatever they are) aren't flawed, or bollocks, or inaccurate. They're based on the same system clubs use to scout players. Which if you think is bollocks, then perhaps you can suggest an alternative to the current method used?
But flawed, inaccurate, bollocks but most importantly used by people on here as a marker to their knowledge of certain players.
