Allow league commissioners to set an alternative ceiling on scouting budgets to create added uncertainty in the game. Do this by not allowing anybody to go over the league specific maximum on the set budget page.

I'll guess this isn't going to be a popular suggestion. There are already enough owners who complain that $20M doesn't buy enough. However, I can see why you'd do this, it would make each world more customizable, the way a Theme League is. You'd have to limit how often it changes, though. And what if a new commissioner takes over and wants to change things? You could radically alter the way a world plays out, perhaps.

I have noticed that many owners complain about scouting imperfections. I suppose if one of them were to challenge me, I would say this kind of customization would allow the WIS crew to make scouting perfect, since each league would then be allowed to choose its own level of imperfection. I don't see what's fun about the idea of perfect scouting, but to each his own.

I think it would be fun because it could be used to undermine the potential for superteams and simultaneously subvert the incentives for tanking. For those players who are good enough to have created a dynastic superteam under the present setup, it would offer these owners of estimable skill a new and hopefully entertaining challenge. What choices would you make if say your scouting might indicate that a player is MLB material, but can't definitively tell you if he's actually quite good? What do you bid on an IFA who you can see is good, but may or may not be great? An owner knows what attribute he (or she) most values when he knows his scouting can accurately convey all attributes in advance. But, now the question will be raised, which attribute can I least afford my scout to be wrong about? The whole decision making process is not categorically changed, but it becomes more subtle. Failure is easier, prolonged success still possible but harder and more rewarding than ever.

I like the question you raise about potential alterations and transitions. It's a good question. Perhaps it would be best to have any change in the setting require the approval of the owners. Or, perhaps the setting is simply declared to be permanent disallowing any future alterations.

Damag,

If you were trying your best to achieve a setting which made scouting helpful for judging the quality of a player, but a little less definitive than now, where would you put it? You would want things just uncertain enough so that people wouldn't really want to tank anymore? My guess is if you put the number in the 14-15 range that might do the trick, what would your guess be? You have more experience than I do.

Also, just for the record, I would still recommend a league use a MWR as well.

The way Scouting is currently configured, I agree with you that 14-15 $M is just accurate enough that you can't completely discount the projections. The best International Free Agent signing I've made was with a 14M budget that season. He came out early in the season, I knew my projections were likely far too high, but even so he might still be 80% of what I saw. I knew that other owners were likely waiting for a bigger fish, but he might be a big enough fish, so I went for it and signed him early. Got lucky both ways.

At one time, when WIS was under different ownership, they were looking at making a lot of world settings much more customizable, like what you're asking about.

it was much farther reaching than scouting and I was pretty excited about it, but obviously it never happened.