EHM The Blue Line

I was just wondering if there was a way to have your scouts scout your whole organization, and not just individual teams or players?

Thanks

I'm renaming this thread to cover any and all scouting talk. That way it will be easier for folks to find it in the future and save from having multiple threads on the same topic. - B72

First of all, welcome to TBL!

You can just scout players or teams (or leagues, regions, etc but that's not the concern of your question).

However, you'll have a more precise look on players by scouting them many times. And the more scouts give you a report about a player, the more you have a precise look at this player.

I personnally prefer scouting the players individually rather than scouting my whole team or affiliate teams, but it's only my preference.

I don't think there is a way. That would be nice though. I usually just have my NHL and AHL team scouted a few times and then my top 10 prospects scouted a few times as well.

Ok, I'll try that. Thanks for the help and quick reply.

Yeah, Shadd and Joe have it right. There isn't a broad "scout organization" option.

I usually send have a scout watch my team and my affiliate team(s) (AHL and if I have one ECHL). My unsigned prospects usually get scouted when I'm scouting whatever country or region they're in. If they don't, I'll just send an individual scout to watch them.

TheCaptain wrote: I was just wondering, about what time of year do you guys start scouting the talent in the upcoming draft? Is it year round, or just a few months before the actual draft? Also is the draft at the same time as in real life?
Thanks

Shadd666 wrote: Draft is at the same time as in real life Thumbs up

About scouting it, i scout it all year long. I scout all the players ranked by the ISS on each of their report (except the guys i already scouted, else it would be endless) and have some scouts looking for other prospects, less known.

When it comes closer to the end of the season, you usually have more precise reports on prospects. That's when i select the guys i'm really interested in and scout them harder to have a more accurate view on them, which helps me to choose who i'll select on draft day.

TheCaptain wrote: Thanks a lot. Mr Green

bruins72 wrote: I usually hire a lot of scouts so I can really do some serious coverage. I'll usually have 2 or 3 guys just scouting the draft itself but I limit them. I tell them not to scout anyone over 19. There are a lot of European players that are a little old and still eligible for the draft. Most of them have no interest in coming over to play in the NHL, so I don't waste my time on them. I tend to find lots of great 19 year old Russians in the first draft though. Anyhow, I have those guys scouting the draft, then I have scouts assigned to each of them bigger hockey countries (Canada, USA, Russia, and so on), and then I have a couple assigned to regions. This really helps me get some good coverage on the draft.

I'll usually do this once at the beginning of the season when the first ISS reports come out and then again later in the year (at least 3-4 months before the draft). I try to make sure I assign different scouts when I send them out the second time so I get two different guys' takes on each area.

Copied over from the other scouting thread. - B72

Here's my scouting system, it maybe not the best, but I'm satisfied with.

First of all, I try to pick 4-5 cream of the crop (or simply the best I could find) scout and I assign them to the draft. Usually, I send one every month, set on intensive, starting in october/november, so the last one will finish its scouting approximately at the same time that the junior seasons.

As NHLer, I pretty like to have a lot of canadian juniors drafted, so I assign one scout to OHL, WHL and LHJMQ. That's also gibing me report with decent youngster not drafted and turning 20 soon.

Then for the Rest, one scout for each regions/country: USA, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Scandinavia.
I've just tested a new trick with my US scout, sending him scouting each NCAA league and the USNDT.

During the off season and training camp, I send a top notch scout takes care of my team and AHL affiliates.

With all the reports from my draft scouts, I send unasigned/regional scouts to observe 5 and 4 stars prospects.

Most teams get some retired players as scouts, most of them are rubbish, many time I find a "sentimental" choice among them and I kept this one for scouting next opponent.

I tend to get "local guys" simply as a matter of personnal choice, so I'll pick a swede or finn for Scandinavia, Russian or Czech for Eastern, Quebecers for Q', etc etc...

I tend to have all my scouts away on assignment throughout the entire season. I always sign as many scouts as possible (i.e. 15) to be able to scout as many different areas as possible.

I then place my scouts in three different departments/groups. First off I assign the nine scouts with the best skills in judging potential to scout the OHL, WHL, QMJHL, All five NCAA leagues and the USHL. I then assign my three scouts with European heritage (In my Rangers game those are Christer Rockstrom from Sweden, Jan Gajdosik from Slovenia, and Vladmir Lutchenko from Russia) to scout Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Russia. I then assign my three remaining scouts, who should have great skills in judging ability to scout the NHL, AHL, and ECHL.

Sometime after christmas, usually in late January or early february I recall all my scouts and sends them all, with exception for one or two who will continue scouting my opponents in the upcoming playoff, to scout the NHL Entry Draft. At this time I already have a very comprehensive list of scouted players who will be eligible for the draft but by doing this I will have a lot more to go on come D-Day...

Personally, I place rules on my scouting to try and simulate FM's 'scouting knowledge' aspect.

For example, scouts can only scout an entire region if their two judgement attributes average a 15 or higher. Otherwise, they have to stick to their native country. And if their native country is big(Russia; Canada; USA) they can only scout their native countries no matter what. All of that is to simulate the scout's knowledge being mostly in his native lands... and if he's good enough(15+ average), he should probably have sufficient knowledge in neighbouring countries(allowing him to scout his native region). And so-far, I haven't worked out any rules for draft scouting. I just allow anyone to that(which is kind of boring, so I'm trying to think of something).

Then based on those rules, I just send my scouts out. If I have a large team of scouts, like I do with the Flyers, then I permanently assign scouts to where they can scout. If I have a small team of scouts, then I usually send him/them on short trips to wherever they can scout.

For example, my current Flyers network is this:

Brown - Canada
Chapman - USA
Slansky(Czech) - Central Europe
Sinisalo(Finnish) - Scandinavia
Zimin - Russia
Hammarström - Sweden(not good enough to go abroad)
Then I have a bunch of left-overs who I don't know what to do with yet.

And then with my small team Finnish careers, I tend to have just one or two scouts from Finland, and I just stick to scouting Finland. Kind of like how FM's small teams don't allow much, or any, scouting outside of the native country(I've been playing as Bromley in the Conference North/South and have only been allowed to scout England).

Overall, I'd say these rules add a nice challenge, and thus a lot of fun, to playing. Though, I don't have a book written on this, so some tings come and go and get altered on-the-fly. The above are just the main rules I follow.

I can never remember. Which is a higher (better calibre) league, a "A" or "AAA"?

The more As, the higher it is.

Thanks

Hi guys. One question about scouting:
When my scout finishes his search and gives me final report, then I assign him to scout certain team, I always get warning telling me that f.e. "The scout search Scout 13 has not been saved. Assign scout Steve Konowalchuk to watch a club?". How do I save a scout search? This message appears only when assigning a scout to team or next opposition (team again). When assigning a scout to shortlist, league, draft of country, I am not prompted. What's the reason of this message and what should I do? Save the search report? How?
Many thanks!

To mcqwak,

At work, so I can't confirm this, but I believe to save a scout's search results you need to be at the screen showing the scout's list of players he found; click the 'search' button at the top-right of the screen; then there should be some kind of 'save search' option in that drop-down menu.

Basically, that warning is there because once you send a scout on a new assignment, his previous search results get replaced with his new search. The actual reports on each player will remain, but you'd no longer have that convenient little list with all the players he reported on. So, it helps to save people from losing those result lists.

Thanks, B. Stinson.
But on the screen that you mentioned is only menu Search-> Import, Export, Delete, Clear. Should I export every search result? And import it when I want to view it? Thats weird Why doesn't the game remember all the searches?

The list itself is not important. Scout will report on players attributes, which you can see, when you look at their profiles, and he will also make a scout report of the players, also available in each player's profile. The list is only there to show which players were scouted on his scouting trip. I personally never save those lists, just on with the next scouting target, I say, forget about the list.

I mainly act like Tasku and never save the lists. However, the "export" option is the save option you're looking for I don't know why they called it "export" though, as the export/import works the exact same way as a save/load...

OK, save/load is better for undestanding.
Thanks guys.

Is the "Scouted Only" filter broken or am I mis understanding it? I typically scout by team for the NHL, AHL and the 3 big Canadian juniors leagues. However, if I go to "player search" and select the "Scouted Only" filter with very few exceptions, everyone is filtered out. I have a hunch I'm doing something wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated as if I can get this to work, it will make Draft scouting MUCH easier!

Just trying it now and it appears broken, to me.

I used 'scouted only' with no other filters, and everyone disappears. And there is a player in my non-filtered list who has a scout report, so he has to be scouted and should show up.

On top of that, when I use the 'not scouted' filter everyone comes back, including the player who has a report.

It's not "broken", it just doesn't work the way most of us would expect it to work. I remember trying to use this filter when the game first came out (I can't remember if it was in earlier versions too) and had the same results as you. The official response I got on the SI forums was that it didn't filter based on players you had scouted already (like you'd expect). Instead, it showed only players currently being scouted or something like that. Essentially, it's useless. I would love it if it just showed players you had scouting reports on. That way in the second half of my draft, my Asst GM and Head Scout would suggest guys to draft and I could actually read a scouting report on them.

Scouted only is used for the players that are personnally scouted. For example, if you asked your scouts to observe a particular player (from his personnal page), and their scouting mission isn't done yet, then he'll appear on the "scouted only" list.

It roughly helps to know how many players are left to be scouted if you like to scout them personnally. It has no impact if you use stuff your scouts to scout entire teams or draft, etc. I usually scout the draft, and then send scout to observe more closely the players i'm interested in. Those ones will appear with the "scouted only" feature (until they are effectively scouted, of course).

I hope my explanation is clear enough...

Shadd & Bruins: Your explainations are what I was figuring, but insofar as I rarely scout individuals I couldn't test the theory. Another mildly misnamed filter is "Draft Status". Initially I thought this would show players that were available for the upcoming draft. Intead it only shows players who have been drafted by either NHL or Canadian Junior teams. If you pick "None" it will only show you players who have never been drafted by any team. The filtering system in 2007 is much improved over 2005, but could still use some tweaking (unlikely now ) Thanks for the info.

Another question regarding scouts (or other staff for that matter). Do "Part-Time" contracts have any effect on how a scout works? I know you can assign them the same as full-timers but do they report more slowly or give less complete reports?

"Draft Status" should be usefull if you're doing your draft scouting by leagues (ie one scout for the OHL, another one for the WHL, and so on). Then you can filter the result by "no NHL rights" in order to not receive infos you don't care about.

However, i agree that the filtering system could have been improved a bit more. However, it was already highly improved from the 05 version.

As for the part-time job, i don't really know I guess they're doing less job (obviously), but i don't know in which proportion...

Does anyone know how long a scouting report lasts? After a while, a player that you scouted will have the "scouting report" option greyed out again.