Scouting

Ok, the scouting is getting rediculous. I was trying to bypass it, but now that everyone is doing it, something has to be done. So my proposal is like this

Scouting has to be atleat 3% of a team's player's salaries. Here is an example

My team's player's salary is $63,995,508. 3% of that is around $1,919,000. So, since it has to be atleast 1,919,000, but in the game, scouting could not be $1,919,000, it would have to be atleast two million, which is where it is at right now.

The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays.

Salaries up to $33,000,000=atleast one million in scouting
Up to $66,000,000=atleast two million in scouting
Up to $99,000,000=atleast three million in scouting
Up to $132,000,000=atleast four million in scouting
Up to $165,000,000=atleast five million in scouting
Up to $198,000,000=atleast six million in scouting
Up to $231,000,000=atleast seven million in scouting




Or could do it by 4%

Up to $25,000,000=atleast one million
Up to $50,000,000=atleast two million
Up to $75,000,000=atleast three million
Up to $100,000,000=atleast four million
and so on


I kind of like this one better, but either could do

Well I don't have any money in my farm system or into medical so I certainly don't want my only expenditure to be Scouting... Maybe make it a percentage of total money spent on the sum of the other two categories.

I would prefer you leave it up to the individual teams, but If you are going to enFORCE a minimum I would prefer 3%

just my opinion

This is a problem, but I dont know if there is any way to fix it.

I kept my scouting up until I saw the Admin and others were doing it. Why should I play fair if no one else is?

"The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays."

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

And I'm with BAL on this. You know what, for 2 seasons I had the 1st or 2nd highest scouting expenses and had to stay within a payroll that was shorted 10-15 mil because of it while other teams exploited the use of other teams scouting. I've been in debt for a good part of this season for no reason because I was trying to do what was right. The only way I can see to make this fair and I mentioned this to admin is everyone sets their scouting down to 0. That way everyones scouting is equal. If you read the help guide for mogul, it's not the amount of money spent on scouting but your ranking so if everyone is tied for first then we will all have better scouting.

thrower25usr wrote:

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

I'm at work so I don't have the numbers in front of me, but Cinci' for
example is paying out 4mil for scouting (and is in the top 14 or 15 if
memory serves me well). How is it advantageous for me to not
increase it more, especially since I want to decrease it? Realize that
the game actually has mechanics in place that disallows anyone in
debt to raise their budget! Unless the admins can bypass the game
programming to do this, it's a moot point.

-Cinci'

The bottom line is that everyone needs to stay fair on this. Until St. Louis brought it up - I assumed everyone was keeping their budgets realistic and fair. How many teams spent two seasons saving this money?

If you look at my case or the Card's case - you're talking a 20-25 million dollar swing in payroll availability per season from the teams that were doing this. That's incredible! I honestly think this is a major problem and made need more then this solution - what about those of us that were essentially cheated for two seasons for playing things the right way?

thrower25usr wrote:

"The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays."

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

Yes that is fair. Them having no scouting has a valid reason behind it--they have to save money to get out of debt. But for teams, sorry Mets, but you are a good example, have twenty something million in cash, and spend twenty million on farm, and medical, and are spending over one hundred million in players, they should have a good scouting.

And, for teams with low payrolls, this system is fair because it doesn't require them too spend too much in scouting, two million maxium.

defense wrote:

thrower25usr wrote:

"The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays."

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

Yes that is fair. Them having no scouting has a valid reason behind it--they have to save money to get out of debt. But for teams, sorry Mets, but you are a good example, have twenty something million in cash, and spend twenty million on farm, and medical, and are spending over one hundred million in players, they should have a good scouting.

And, for teams with low payrolls, this system is fair because it doesn't require them too spend too much in scouting, two million maxium.

So I should spend 20 million and have no cash at all right???

tunit wrote:

defense wrote:

thrower25usr wrote:

"The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays."

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

Yes that is fair. Them having no scouting has a valid reason behind it--they have to save money to get out of debt. But for teams, sorry Mets, but you are a good example, have twenty something million in cash, and spend twenty million on farm, and medical, and are spending over one hundred million in players, they should have a good scouting.

And, for teams with low payrolls, this system is fair because it doesn't require them too spend too much in scouting, two million maxium.

So I should spend 20 million and have no cash at all right???

You have $131,390,262 in player salaries. Using the 3% one

Salaries up to $33,000,000=atleast one million in scouting
Up to $66,000,000=atleast two million in scouting
Up to $99,000,000=atleast three million in scouting
Up to $132,000,000=atleast four million in scouting

You would spend four million in scouting

defense wrote:

tunit wrote:

defense wrote:

thrower25usr wrote:

"The only teams that can get by pass this rule would be teams with negative cash. So, presently, those teams would be the White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Brewers, Pirates, Rangers, and Jays."

NO NO NO. thats not fair. your giving them an advantage to being in debt. because they screwed up their payroll they shouldnt be able to be excempt from that. if i had a choice of paying money to scouting or paying better players i would easily go into debt.

Yes that is fair. Them having no scouting has a valid reason behind it--they have to save money to get out of debt. But for teams, sorry Mets, but you are a good example, have twenty something million in cash, and spend twenty million on farm, and medical, and are spending over one hundred million in players, they should have a good scouting.

And, for teams with low payrolls, this system is fair because it doesn't require them too spend too much in scouting, two million maxium.

So I should spend 20 million and have no cash at all right???

You have $131,390,262 in player salaries. Using the 3% one

Salaries up to $33,000,000=atleast one million in scouting
Up to $66,000,000=atleast two million in scouting
Up to $99,000,000=atleast three million in scouting
Up to $132,000,000=atleast four million in scouting

You would spend four million in scouting

If you'd like to split the other 16 million between the GMs that played fair - I think that'd be great too.

The vote still stands either way... we'll see how other GMs feel about all of these ideas once they get the email I sent out.

I think something needs to be done about the scouting. Either a mandatory expenditure or set everyone’s to zero. I would not have a problem with a percentage of salary. It could also be viewed as a luxury tax sort of thing to help even the field.

Call me ignorant, but if we set everyone's to $0, then shouldn't
just open up the file to Commish mode for everyone? I understand
why it's locked... but that there is a way around the scouting
issue by looking at the top spender negates the effect of
locking the file, correct? It just seems that in the league format,
scouting is broken in the game itself. If I'm off-base, let me know.

-Cinci'

I think that they should have a lock option for the game, in which every team has a password to open up its scouting("scouting" button under up/down buttons). That way, teams could still see their rosters, but not their scouting. But that is an issue to take up the the makers of the game, and not here.


But as for solution for us, I think my plan is the best

Cincy, one problem with your idea is that in commish mode you can also look at players a lot more in depth, such as peak and decline ages, etc which takes basically all the fun out of the game IMO.

I had trouble voting on this one because I'm not sure we have a solution worth voting on yet.

Frankly - I think there has been wide-spread cheating on this issue. Or certainly people abusing the system for their team's advantage. Whether that means the cheating was intentional - I, and others like St. Louis, were cheated on it.

We just going to brush this cheating to the side?

Just let everyone set their scouting to zero and it's no longer a big deal....way to dramatic calling it cheating.....even if i came in and wanted to spend 15 mil on scouting it would take some time before I had accurate scouts in the first place. Everyone should be able to see exactly what the players are worth and there won't be a problem with this.

The problem is that it's not "realistic" and the only way scouting should be put down is if it is a legitimate budget issue. To put it down and use the commish file without this actually being league policy - is cheating. There's nothing else to call it.

I played fair and had a realistic scouting department and so did others. That put us at a competitive disadvantage with other GMs. To the tune of 20 million over the course of this league. That's VERY significant.

Admin reads, and admin goes away...

I have to agree that this is somethin gthat needs to be addressed as I spend 10 million a year in scouting so I can get the most accurate stats. I don't beleive my team should pay while other teams pay nothing and get the same stats. Not sure exactly what the solution is here. Their is currently 11 teams with their scouting budget at zero. I saw at least one that probably needed it at zero I also saw to admins who had it set at zero probably just cause they can look at the file in commish mode (not gonna say who but you can look) So yeah we need at least a minimum or open up the file in comish file for all to see. Yes you can see their peaks and what not but their are already teams in this league that are able to do that before they make any trades so why should some be aloud to do that and not others

I can see where Baltimore is coming from but only to a point.
Technically, something can't be called cheating if there was
never any official rules to be broken in the first place.

I can understand that Baltimore might feel "cheated" by paying
for scouting when so few didn't, but if there was never any rule
in the first place, well... It's kinda' like clothes made in China.
Some people have a moral ethic in place that they'll only buy
products made in the U.S.A., though there is no rule in place
that says you have to do that. Here the moral ethic might be
to expect people to buy scouting... but there is/was no rule
in place that says you have to.

And then of course, every rule has to be enforced. Even if you
force people to spend money on scouting, people will still scout
players from the team with +/- 0 accuracy. That's a broken
game mechanic.

This is just an ugly situation all around with no easy answer.

-Cinci'