Scouting & Drafting

[alexob18]

Just like real life.

Also, I'd like to see more of a sheltered draft - where you can't see atributes what so ever, just by what your scouts have to say. Or 5 general ratings like

Power -60
Skating - 84
Offensive - 66
Defensive - 92
Mental - 67

or something like that.

Just so it's more of a crapshoot like the real draft.

After you sign them, you can see their stats and determine whether or not you want to continue their development.

It's something that would be weird to modify but I don't like being able to see almost exactly what my player looks like.

[ArtVandelay]

Just like real life.

Also, I'd like to see more of a sheltered draft - where you can't see atributes what so ever, just by what your scouts have to say. Or 5 general ratings like

Power -60
Skating - 84
Offensive - 66
Defensive - 92
Mental - 67

or something like that.

Just so it's more of a crapshoot like the real draft.

After you sign them, you can see their stats and determine whether or not you want to continue their development.

It's something that would be weird to modify but I don't like being able to see almost exactly what my player looks like.

I like the idea but I think that's too general. Shooting, Passing/Playmaking, Skating, Physical Play, Defensive Skill, Intelligence/Hockey Sense, and some estimations of Coachability and NHL-readiness would be my picks.

[ArtVandelay]

Just like real life.

Also, I'd like to see more of a sheltered draft - where you can't see atributes what so ever, just by what your scouts have to say. Or 5 general ratings like

Power -60
Skating - 84
Offensive - 66
Defensive - 92
Mental - 67

or something like that.

Just so it's more of a crapshoot like the real draft.

After you sign them, you can see their stats and determine whether or not you want to continue their development.

It's something that would be weird to modify but I don't like being able to see almost exactly what my player looks like.

I like the idea but I think that's too general. Shooting, Passing/Playmaking, Skating, Physical Play, Defensive Skill, Intelligence/Hockey Sense, and some estimations of Coachability and NHL-readiness would be my picks.

Also, I wonder how important it is to distinguish between players whose attributes are, for example, 60 vs. 62. It's close enough on draft day (and maybe in day-to-day player evaluation) to say they're both "60" or just "6". Scouts are not likely rating on scales of 1-100. I think EHM isn't too bad in this regard with the 1-20 thing but I've always felt you could probably go down to 1-10 and allow some randomness to play a factor in how effective they are from game to game in each skill/attribute. Or you could have all attributes set to 1-100 and hidden with the users only able to access "opinions" on the ratings from scouts, coaches, media, etc and keeping those to 1-10.

[rottamies]

How about implementing a grading system to the undrafted prospects? Something freeware-EHMish with the letter grades (A, A-, B, B- and so on). These could then change into numbers with rigorous scouting, say for example if one of your scouts scouts the whl on the whole, and you see a player that interests you, you can send another scout get a more detailed report of the player. That detailed report vould change some of the letter graded attributes on the players screen to a more specific range of numbers based on the scouts attributes.

For example:
I send a one of my staff out to scout the whl. He roams around for a while, scouting this game and that. While browsing through his report, i find a d-man that seems to fit my drafting needs. On the players screen i can see his attributes graded with letters (checking: A-, strength: B, passing: B- etc.). I send a second scout to get me a more comrehensive report on the player and he watches a couple of the players games. The scout is more adept at the defensive aspects of the game, so when he returns with his detailed report, i can see that the players checking attripute has a range of 15-19, strength is somewhere in the area of 13-16 and the passing attribute range given by the scout is 10-17. The range of the numbers would be tighter or wider depending on the scouts attributes. Even the letter grades in the first place could be inaccurate, depending on the whl-scouts attributes and of course the players own performance in the games he had been seen playing.

This would give me the possibility to send out two scouts and by the process of elimination i could calculate a somewhat accurate scouting report myself (or possibly the game would feature a summary of scouting reports on the player by the scouts), yet it would not be an exact report on the players abilities. On the later rounds of course the details on the players would be even less accurate, since the players would have been scouted far less.

A bit hard to explain my idea, but hopefully you can get a hang of it.

[dabo]

I'm with you. In my opinion, there could be a "Longevity" attribute that determines, for each player, their professional lifespan. Or at least how long their skills will last.

That could work, I will consider that.

How about implementing a grading system to the undrafted prospects? Something freeware-EHMish with the letter grades (A, A-, B, B- and so on). These could then change into numbers with rigorous scouting, say for example if one of your scouts scouts the whl on the whole, and you see a player that interests you, you can send another scout get a more detailed report of the player. That detailed report vould change some of the letter graded attributes on the players screen to a more specific range of numbers based on the scouts attributes.

I have been thinking of this and I agree. I was thinking of having a quick scouting option where the report returns letter grades and a more thorough scouting option with actual numbers. Like this:

A -> 20-17
B -> 16-13
C -> 12-9
D -> 8-5
F -> 4-1

Then depending on the skill of the scout an actual B could turn into an A or C on the report.

I meant if you have a rough idea about how many and what leagues you will include!
I'll be willing to work with KHL

Any leagues that are added will be in. But we have to be realistic too.

[bruins72]

I love the scouting system that rottamies was describing and it sounds like dabo is thinking of doing something along those line. I'm also interested in papegojbro's method of randomizing the player's development pattern. These two things would really be a great thing to see in dabo's game.

[Panfork]

I like what I've heard on the scouting system, and I'm very glad I was heard about the player development issues EHM has.

Keep up the good work, Dabo.

[laskey 16]

I think there should be some kind of draft combine, where players are tested like they are in real life. In my pipe dream prospect interviews would take place too, but that'd be tough to implement. Maybe the 'Russian' factor could play a part... teams now are less willing to risk drafting non-exceptional Russian players it seems, due to the KHL. Also at the draft there should be more wheeling and dealing - in EHM most draft day trades were around pick-for-pick deals... maybe older players could be ditched for picks at this point more often, or something.

[bruins72]

Interesting. The scouting combine could be used to more accurately reveal physical attributes. The player interviews could be used to more accurately reveal mental attributes and player personalities. These could be VERY useful! I really like this idea, especially if regular scouting only reveals limited details.

[axwel3221]

This may by far exceed EHM in all parts, since everything is based on players thoughts and is panning out nicely.

The scouting system looks too great, I love this project.

[laskey 16]

Interesting. The scouting combine could be used to more accurately reveal physical attributes. The player interviews could be used to more accurately reveal mental attributes and player personalities. These could be VERY useful! I really like this idea, especially if regular scouting only reveals limited details.

Exactly what I was thinking, you could have a preset list of questions to choose from that would reveal mental attributes. And also you could ask the player who he models his game on in the NHL, and from that work out who he is similar to, at least in style if not quality. I don't know if it's possible but I think even with perfect scouting, some attributes shouldn't be totally visible. Say if a player at the combine wins the bench press contest, obviously that's a clue they are strong... drafting should perhaps be more cryptic, and on the player's profile it should say 'Strength - 80 to 95' or something like that, something vague. I'm not suggesting random attributes, like EHM's negative potentials, just make the draft more of a crapshoot. Some attributes should be certain, but some like strength... it takes time for players to bulk up so maybe it should be vague on their profile at age 18/19. Just ideas, don't know if they are realistic!

[philou21]

I like those ideas! By hiding attributes, it would be more difficult to draft and maybe taking more time scouting to really make your choices on a particular player. Instead of something like...."Hell yeah the #1 overall is a goddamn beast I need to trade for him!" Minutes later......dumb trade, you got the first overall, you draft him and you got a super team of 22-23 years old players in 4-5 years.


Just to say, it would be more random and harder to draft. We would make more mistakes ( sometimes not ) but this is more realistic to me.

[B. Stinson]

I think it would also be nice to have "scouting knowledge" like Football Manager has.

Each scout has varying degrees of knowledge of certain countries, and the better he knows a country, the more effective he'll be scouting that country.

[laskey 16]

I think it would also be nice to have "scouting knowledge" like Football Manager has.

Each scout has varying degrees of knowledge of certain countries, and the better he knows a country, the more effective he'll be scouting that country.

good idea, or in hockey's case countries and provinces/states. You could have scouts who specialise in certain leagues and have more contacts in those leagues/areas... i wonder if maybe scouts could provide you information like "my contact recommended player X to me and i checked him out, here's a report". and if a scout is a specialist in that region, he would have more contacts and therefore you'd get more of these messages, and he'd scout more players, unearth more hidden gems.

Also I don't know if it's of importance but in the NHL teams have two divisions of their scouting staff - 'Pro Scouts', who scout the NHL, AHL and European professional leagues and 'Amateur scouts' who deal more in the draft and junior players... in EHM there was no difference, I wonder if in this game there could be? Pro scouts would be more adept at scouting older players, already grown, whereas amateur scouts could gauge potential and player growth better. Just a thought.

[RomaGoth]

Also I don't know if it's of importance but in the NHL teams have two divisions of their scouting staff - 'Pro Scouts', who scout the NHL, AHL and European professional leagues and 'Amateur scouts' who deal more in the draft and junior players... in EHM there was no difference, I wonder if in this game there could be? Pro scouts would be more adept at scouting older players, already grown, whereas amateur scouts could gauge potential and player growth better. Just a thought.

I separate my scouts with this method, and the ones who are higher in player ability are my pro scouts, while the ones who are higher in potential ability are my amateur scouts. It isn't perfect, but it makes it more realistic for me at least. I like your idea though, it would make my job as GM much, much easier.

[laskey 16]

I do the same haha. I just think there should be a more noticeable difference between different types of scouts. Also it would be nice it we could hire more advisers... not just an Assistant GM, but Directors of Scouting, Capologists, things like that although again I don't know how easy it would be to put in. Coaches too... in real life there are Video Coaches, Skating Coaches, it might be cool if that could come into it.

[philou21]

Mmmm well good idea, but in EHM Video Coaches isn't nessecary.

[laskey 16]

I agree, it's not a good example, but skating and conditioning coaches could be useful. Maybe video coaches could affect players' tactical attributes, like positioning? I don't know.

[philou21]

Just say a tactical coach instead. But for the rest, I agree it could be useful.

[laskey 16]

Just say a tactical coach instead. But for the rest, I agree it could be useful.

That works

[B. Stinson]

Very good suggestions. However, we don't want to go too wild with different staff roles. The more types we have, the more people we'll need in the database to keep each of those roles sufficiently populated - and that means bigger databases, and slower simming.

[philou21]

Very good suggestions. However, we don't want to go too wild with different staff roles. The more types we have, the more people we'll need in the database to keep each of those roles sufficiently populated - and that means bigger databases, and slower simming.

That's something that annoying me when we are talking about adding so much diffrent "class" of staffs.

[laskey 16]

Ah ok, I didn't realise.

[ArtVandelay]

Very good suggestions. However, we don't want to go too wild with different staff roles. The more types we have, the more people we'll need in the database to keep each of those roles sufficiently populated - and that means bigger databases, and slower simming.

Along those lines, something to think about is how OOTP (Out of the Park Baseball) handles scouting. In that, you hire a scouting director and then set a scouting budget. The quality of your scouting reports is based on the director's skill and the amount of money you spend.

So you are able to get routine scouting reports on the next opponent as well as on upcoming drafts without having to continually assign and re-assign guys. I kind of like it.

[bruins72]

I haven't played OOTP but that's (using a scouting director and budget) is an interesting way of doing it.