Regarding lowered scouting ratings in OOTP 9

Message

#1 Post by **John** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:36 pm

After hearing from a few of you about the lowered scouting ratings showing up on a number of players, I decided to take the issue over to the OOTP forums. My question ended up getting addressed directly by Markus, the game's developer. Here's what he had to say:

In OOTP 8 almost all prospects were overrated by the scouts, we have changed that in OOTP 9... in fact, the whole scouting engine has been rewritten, so you cannot really compare the two anymore. In OOTP 9, when the scout favors tools, then he's more likely to overvalue the player... and if he favors ability he'll more likely underestimate the talent.

So there you go, straight from the horse's mouth. As I suspected, it's not a bug in the game at all. As it turns out, it's not even an error on my part (which I was pretty sure it was). It's simply that the way OOTP 9 displays scouts' ratings has fundamentally changed. Take special note of the point about favoring tools vs. ability and the impact that has on over/underestimating talent. I know my scout favors ability, so I'm going to have to keep in mind that ratings I see may be somewhat lower than reality.

The main function of this change in ratings is twofold. One, it will make reading the text scouting reports generated for each player important. Those reports will give you a better feel for what your Scouting Director believes a player is capable of. Two, it will place a greater level of importance on statistical analysis of a player's performance. Owners who can use a player's history of performance to generate a reasonably accurate projection of future growth will be at an advantage.

Denny · #2 Post by **Denny** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:51 am

Isn't it true that the game now stores previous scouting reports on a player, too, so you can see how the scouts' opinions of him change over time?

Tyler · #3 Post by **Tyler** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:56 am

#4 Post by **John** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:32 pm

I want to give a preemptive heads-up regarding scout ratings for the draft pool. The 2009 amateur draft pool will be unveiled during Monday night's sim. We've gotten used to seeing pages and pages of highly-rated talent in these pools under OOTP 8, so it may come as a shock to see that there will be much fewew players with potential rated above 1* in OOTP 9. The reasons for this are explained above (Markus has tweaked the way scouts report their ratings in OOTP 9).

What's important to keep in mind is that the "true" talent of all these players is exactly identical between OOTP 8 and 9. Not one amateur has become any less talented during the transition; it's just that scouts will be much more reserved in their ratings due to the new system.

So how to respond? I suggest placing more emphasis on the body of statistical work produced by players. Good players tend to produce good stats. If you see a player in the pool that's performed well but isn't getting "sexy" ratings from the scouts, take a chance on him. Remember: he's the same player he was in OOTP 8, and he obviously did pretty well over there.