[Corsairs]

Our league has just converted to OOTP 9 and a number of owners are complaining that quite suddenly a good number of the players in their system have had their scouting ratings plummet (we are playing with scouting on). Now I know what's coming: with scouting on, it's possible that the scouting director is just misreporting the players' talent. Fair enough, and I also understand that accuracy is affected by scouting budgets and the leanings of individual scouting directors.

However, there's more to this than that. Since I'm commissioner of the league, I can see the ratings through the eyes of each scouting director. The reported ratings drops are truly appearing for everyone, not just teams with lesser scouts. Furthermore, I've run tests where I've equalized scouting budgets for each team and the lowered ratings still appear across the board. The only consistency between the two game versions lies with the SISA-OSA ratings; those remain in the ballpark of one another. I should also mention that scouting accuracy is set to "Normal" in our league.

Somewhere, somehow, there's been a fundemental change to how ratings in our league are being reported. I stress "reported" because I don't believe there's been any change whatsoever in the "true" potential of these players. It's just that the ratings being displayed have tanked across the board. It's like all the scouting directors collectively soured on every baseball player in our universe, and my tests indicate this trend never changes no matter how far we sim forward.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me provide a few thousand words for you. Here is our upcoming draft pool in both OOTP 8 and 9 as rated by a "perfect 100" scout (scouting budgets are equalized league-wide in the OOTP 9 screenshots):

OOTP8 SP: OOTP9 SP: OOTP8 LF: OOTP9 LF:

What in the world could be causing these radical differences in ratings? Here's one thought that just popped into my mind while I was typing: our universe has four foreign leagues with their own custom scouting budgets. Is it possible that the scouting budgets of those leagues is affecting the accuracy of our main league? Just thinking aloud here...

Bonus Question: A hearty, "Thank you!" to the person who can tell me how to get the OOTP background image to scale properly with my monitor's resolution in OOTP 9 like it does in OOTP 8 (see screenshots).

[JWay]

even a perfect 100 scout can get it wrong.... our online league didn't see anything like this, but we also play with scouts off. Not sure if that is the difference, maybe look at both files and try to edit players and see the differences? The scouting system did change from 8 to 9 so that'd be my guess, the programming is different, so you would see a whole new setup.

[The Wolf]

Why not try it with scouts off in both leagues and then see if there's a difference?

[Corsairs]

Yes, but getting it wrong 100 years in a row (the length of time I've simmed out to test it)? And getting it wrong on every player in the league? And every single scouting director getting it wrong? I just don't think that's very likely.

I am mindful of the differences in scouting between OOTP 8 and 9, and it's because of those differences that I delayed posting this question until now: I was willing to accept that what I was seeing in my test sims may simply be an intended change in OOTP9. However, now that the transition has happened and more eyeballs are on these ratings I'm hearing from owners who have gone through similar 8-to-9 transitions in other online leagues. They claim that they experienced nothing like this, and I'm inclined to believe them.

Basically what I'm asking is what could theoretically account for a change like this? Is there some global game setting that I may have accidentally flipped in the transition? Could it have something to do with scouting budgets in foreign leagues? I don't know what it is, but I do know this can't be chalked up to the normal fluctuations in scouting accuracy.

EDIT: I'll try your suggestion, The Wolf, and see what happens. My expectation is that the reports will be almost identical between the two versions with scouting off.

EDIT 2: Just as I expected, the ratings are practically identical between OOTP 8 and 9 with scouting turned off. This confirms that "true" potential hasn't changed. Of course that doesn't explain the enormous, eternal league-wide discrepancy in scouts' reported ratings between the two versions. I'll take any help I can get here.

[1998 Yankees]

I'll just throw this out there and see if it might actually be constructive: I believe there is a big difference in the way that a scout who favors tools versus an equally rated scout who favors ability, especially concerning the amateur draft. This is even more true of those who highly favor one way or the other. I'm speaking from experience, having gone from a highly favoring tools guy (loves a lot of draftees) to a highly favoring ability guy (hates almost everybody). I'm only suggesting that you consider this aspect of scouting, new in OOTP 9.

[Corsairs]

I agree about the difference between scouting preferences having an impact. However, the rating decreases I'm seeing are happening competely irregardless of the preferences of the scouting directors. Tools, ability... it doesn't seem to matter. They all are downgrading the players - every single last one of them. Also, it's not just the draft pool (I just used that as a handy example). It's major leaguers, minor leaguers, international players, free agnets... you name him, they've downgraded him.

So I really do have to press my case. I expected to get my fair share of, "It's just the vagaries of the scouting system," responses, but everything I'm seeing suggests it's not just that. There's something deeeper going on here, but for the life of me I can't track it down.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

There's something deeeper going on here, but for the life of me I can't track it down.

Things hidden in the vast murky deep give me heartburn, so I turn scouts off.

[Markus Heinsohn]

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.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

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.

Alright, I can accept this answer. The difference does seem a bit dramatic, but forewarned is forearmed!

Now I do have one final question just so I'm complete clear about how scouting budgets work. We have a few international leagues in our universe, each with their own custom average scouting budget that's different from the main league's scouting budget.

Would an international league having a different average scouting budget than our main league impact the quality of scouting ratings in our main league?

I ask because I was previously tripped up when I set different average salaries for each league in our universe. I wrongly thought that those average salaries were completely independent of one another. Eventually I learned that all the players in our universe are shared globally and that league's aren't truly independent. The end result is that, if one league has a value of $10M for average superstar salary and another has $7M, the league with the lower value can sign free agent superstars for much less than the league with the higher value.

I'm wondering if something similar could happen with scouting budgets. If one league has an average scouting budget of $2M an international league has an average scouting budget of $1M, would that have any effect on the accuracy of scouting reports in either league?