I agree that it shouldn't be too easy/cheap to do. But I think having the ability to do it would be vastly preferable to the current cross-your-fingers-and-hope approach we have now.

In general I think SVs do pretty much what they're supposed to.  And in general I agree that at least at the lower levels they are much more a recruiting tool than a scouting tool.  I don't send SVs to a guy when I want to know his potentials more specifically.  I send them when I want to pull him down.  Much like AS said, I already at least think that I want the guy.  If I see a bunch of high-highs it's just gravy, and maybe I'll start out sending 4 guys 5 or 6 SVs when I think I might only have the budget to pull down 3 or 4 and go after the ones whose potentials look the best (and who don't have other schools show up on their considering lists).  But in general, I'm using SVs to get higher-division recruits to consider me.  Just on a feel basis it seems like SVs generally give me about the total value I would expect relative to their price and seem comparable with other scouting trips.  No data associated with that.  They just feel right.  I would say this.  Any other recruiting actions you do in bunches return only one e-mail.  It would be nice if scouting trips were the same way.  Send each message that the scout had found one time in one longer e-mail.  And if you wanted to guarantee that if you sent 8 or 10 SVs in a cycle that you'd get every potential back I wouldn't be opposed to that.  But not too many fewer than that.

Posted by jbasnight on 4/22/2011 1:25:00 PM (view original):
I agree that it shouldn't be too easy/cheap to do. But I think having the ability to do it would be vastly preferable to the current cross-your-fingers-and-hope approach we have now.

Like I said, an expensive uber-SV that gets you all the potential messages, without adding much recruting effort, would probably be a good idea. But that didn't seem to be what the original poster or the people I'm having this spat with seem to have in mind.

Posted by antonsirius on 4/22/2011 12:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bhansalid00 on 4/22/2011 11:14:00 AM (view original):

Posted by antonsirius on 4/21/2011 2:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kmasonbx on 4/21/2011 1:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by antonsirius on 4/21/2011 1:25:00 PM (view original):
You're taking a gamble on an international's potential anyway since you can't FSS them, so I'm not sure what the fuss is about here.

Huh? That's why he's doing scouting trips to find out his potential. And he's saying it's riduclous that you can't control what you want your assistant coach to look at, telling me how well a SG blocks shots and not telling me how his ball handling or shooting are is silly.

No, he's doing scouting trips to recruit the kid and find out his potential.

If he wants to ensure that he gets all the scouting info he wants, he can spend more money on scout trips. If he doesn't want to spend that kind of money, maybe he should stay away from internationals.

On the rare occasions I go after an international, I still do scout trips in batches of 10 precisely so I can make sure I get all the potential info I need. If you're being cheap and trying to get away with only doing 5 or so, you get no sympathy from me.

If you want to introduce a targeted scouting report that gives you every potential message, I don't think that's a terrible idea. But the cost on it should be huge and it should offer no more recruiting 'points' than doing a single normal scouting trip.

There's a whole lot of things in recruiting that are 'silly'. This is one 'silly' thing that actually has a big impact in terms of the cost/benefit equation in recruiting. Offering an inexpensive way to get all the potential info you want on a player would drastically change the way coaches approach recruiting, and not in my mind for the better.

With all due respect, I'm guessing you're only coaching D1 teams? Because at D2 / D3, it's completely unrealistic to spend thousands of dollars simply to find out one player's potential and get only medium recruiting value. That's not a matter of being "cheap", it's simply not possible. And when a D3 coach can't find out all of a player's relevant potentials within a certain number of trips - maybe 5, maybe a little higher - I don't think that's a good thing, because it dramatically reduces the ability to get good internationals or players more than a couple of hundred miles away. And, as kmasonbx pointed out, it's also completely unrealistic that a competent assistant coach can't figure out that rebounding is an important part of evaluating a center.

The fact that 5 scouting trips is a rounding error to your D1 budget doesn't change the fact that the scouting system is not as useful or realistic as it should be for everybody at D2 / D3.

Again, there's a cost/benefit ratio that you have navigate at all levels. How you handle that equation changes as you move up the ladder and your budget increases - I don't dispute that.

But at any level, if I'm spending money on SVs, I've already decided I want to sign that player. SVs are a recruiting tool first and a scouting tool second. Getting more specific potential info is a bonus, it's not the main purpose of the SV. The difference between high and high-high may help me decide if I want to battle for that player, should I have competition, but that's about it.

If you're suggesting we should have an option that's basically purely a scouting tool, I suggested something along those lines that I think would keep the game in balance. But it should not be cheap to get the potential messages on core ratings for every player you might have interest in.

If you see that as me being callous to the budgets of DIII and DII coaches, maybe it is. But the entire system is callous to the budgets of DIII and DII coaches.

RE: "if Iif I'm spending money on SVs, I've already decided I want to sign that player"

You are clearly in the minority and IMHO (and about every other person's on here) not using your recruiting money effectively then.  I find it interesting that everybody on here finds a reasonable ground regarding the problem with scouting trips and a solution, but you.  And yet, and as your past has shown on here, you dig your heels in to support what is really an indefinsible position.  It makes me laugh.  I believe you really just like to argue.  And that's cool.  It's an internet website.  I just have other stuff to do.

I do agree with those those who think there has to be a fix to let us tell the ***'t Coach what attributes we want to see.  I even like the "3 different options - bundle package" deal idea.

The current system becomes a particular problem when scouting internationals who will "consider" you with almost no effort.  I hate spending money hand over fist just to find out the potentials of core ratings, only to find out I don't want the kid, but can't get him to stop considering me - which in turn affects how others view you for battling purposes.

My biggest issue with scouting trips, and I stated this in my original post, is not that I should get a perfect report on each attributes' potential after x number of trips, it's that I end up getting potential answers over and over again for attributes not applicable to the player while important attributes are consistently skipped over.  That's why I started this thread and asked for thoughts on how to improve it.  I feel like there are some very good suggestions.  

 

I also agree any changes should not be cheap and/or easy.  We are asking for a lot here and should have to pay for it.  I definitely like the uber-visit or being able to select from a pool of attributes on each trip.

Sorry to lump you in then, pokes.

I could also see, rather than a new recruiting option, tweaking the existing scout responses so that you are guaranteed to get one core rating in the sample. You'd probably still have to use a handful to see everything you wanted unless you got really lucky though. And someone would probably have a problem with whatever definition of 'core' they used for SF.

Seven visits so far and I still do not know if a prospect has high-high potential in rebounding. I sent a ticket in, just to see if they could get Seble to look at fixing this, since he is working on the game a little more lately. I am trying to decide between 2 players, and knowing the answer to rebounding could make the difference. This would be a great fix for the game

There's a use for player roles ... Make it so you could do a scouting trip based on the weighting in the player roles, and what potentials it might return is based on the weights, or some such.

in my opinion, the simple fix would be to program the evals so they dont repeat a category - with a few evals you are guaranteed full coverage

other changes seem more complex with other possible unintended side effects

I made a suggestion to add a recruiting option called "Request Game Tape"

This would allow the coach to select 1 attribute and return the type of response you'd get from a scouting trip it would go something like.

"Thanks for the game tape coach, after looking it over this guy can shoot the lights out and looks to have TREMONDOUS upside in that area."

It would cost equal or more than than the scouting trip but allow us as coaches a chance to pay for 1 skill. Then in turn you could spend 4-5 Game tape requests and get 4-5 skills you want to look at. The scouting trip then becomes more risk/reward, pay for 3 random or pay for 1 specific.

Posted by fd343ny on 7/20/2014 5:26:00 PM (view original):
in my opinion, the simple fix would be to program the evals so they dont repeat a category - with a few evals you are guaranteed full coverage

other changes seem more complex with other possible unintended side effects

That's simple enough, but it would be a tremendous change to the recruiting game.  At a certain point, player evaluation and recruitment is going to not mimic RL.   For recruiting based upon budget and prestige, valuable information must come at a price.  Having a guarantee that you will get the information that you want is just a bit too much of a change.  All of a sudden the market for Internationals, Puerto Rico and X'fers would be totally changed.  Just send 3 scouting trips and be guaranteed to know everything you need.   That's an unintended consequence.

Having scouting trips call back to user defined player roles to change the likely responses of any scouting trip makes a world of sense.  As far as what would appear to the end user, it would be simple.  Select Scouting Trip with a dropdown menu that shows only your defined player roles from which you could select (e.g. "PG", "3", whatever).  On the programming side, there would need to be some work to get the weighted randomization to work properly (and to avoid having a user be able to absolutely guarantee a response in any particular category), but the end user would just understand that they were instructing the Assistant Coach to look for specific traits over others.

This could perhaps be even more clarified by making the player role selection only available in a new "Head Coach" Scouting Trip.  With a modestly high price tag and, potentially, increase recruiting effect.