The Problem with Scouting - A Lack of Courtesy

There have been a couple threads complaining about scouting and some problems with it (mainly centered around a few owners not playing the confirmed players) but I think there's a problem that no one else has mentioned yet. That problem is a Lack of Common Courtesy among some players.

All it takes is looking at who keeps signing up for the scouting games. The same people seem to be in every game. Now, I understand that players want to scout, and they want to scout with multiple teams to increase their odds of being bid on (I'm specifically talking about the NHL, because those are the ones I've been watching, but it may apply in the AHL scouting games too). But there's a balance between a healthy desire to get scouted and simply being a jerk to the rest of the community.

If you've already scouted with a certain team multiple times (say, 3 or 4 games with them over the course of two or three nights) and they put up another scouting lobby, don't sign up for it. You've already been scouted. They've already seen you play enough. Let someone else get in there and scout. Now maybe that player would say "Well, I didn't play well then, and want to try again." That makes sense. So sign up one more time. But when your name is in every single scouting game that team ever puts up, you're crossing a line. You're not cleaning up your past scouting mistakes, you're just being a jerk. Go scout with someone else.

Owners sometimes put up multiple posts in a row (say for 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00) all on the same day. That's so they can see different people. I'm not going to call out specific players, but I've seen certain players sign up for each and every one of those games. Their names are literally in every game. And most of the time their names are listed as confirmed. That's not trying to get your name out there, that's being an asshole. Let someone else scout. It wasn't a huge deal when multiple teams had scouting at the same time, but recently it's been single teams posting for a single time. So if you want to scout, you've got to pile into a single lobby and either hope someone doesn't show up, or you need to have LG's scouting system up on your phone or tablet, refreshing it every five minutes, so you can be the first confirmed in the scouting game.

Players need to stop being jerks about scouting. Scout a lot, get your name out there, all that's fine. But signing up for every single scouting game (or almost every single game), with every single team, all the time, isn't getting your name out there. You're like that kid in school who raises his hand to answer every single question the teacher asks. No one likes you doing that. Just stop.

It doesn't help scouting problems that the season got bumped up two weeks - now there's even less time to scout, and with the scout-whores signing up for all the slots, a lot of people aren't going to get scouted at all, and a lot more players won't get their fair share of scouting. Since it's unlikely the players who cause this problem will spontaneously develop Common Courtesy, next season perhaps someone (maybe Tris, since he does a lot of awesome programming stuff already with the site) can set a limit to how many games each player can sign up in a confirmed spot. If the name of a lobby in the LG Pickup game section has the word "Scouting" in it, then you can only sign up for a certain number of "Scouting" games each season. You could even make 3 categories for each level of the league, and have different limits for each (eg. signing up for AHL scouting games depletes your AHL tickets, but not your NHL or CHL tickets). Obviously owners could get around this by not putting "Scouting" or just misspelling "Scouting" on purpose, but for the owners who actually want to see different people play, they wouldn't do that. And the scout-whores we have now wouldn't be able to sign up for every single game. You could have unlimited games with your name yellow, but only so many with it green.

Let's be honest here - if there's already a green name in the box, most players aren't going to put their names in yellow. The only way to be fair about it is to give everyone the same number of chances to be confirmed to scout, and let them pick how best to use them. That's something for next season. As for this season it's probably too late to fix the problem, but it's not too late to call out the players themselves who sign up for 5 games in a row on the same night, then do the same thing the next night, and the next night, and the next night.

Don't be a scout-whore. Show some Common Courtesy.

 

Preach!! Lol

 

*Cough Voracek cough*

 

Why is this a problem? Doesn't management get to decide who plays and who doesn't out of everyone that signs up for a certain game?

 

I've never been in a game where the managers told someone who wasn't confirmed not to play, but one of the problems remains the same even if the owner or GM wants to switch up the roster in the lobby - a lot of people won't bother showing up unless they're confirmed to play, which they can't be with the same people taking all the confirmed spots game after game.

 

Huh? The owner or GM is the one deciding who's confirmed and falling that, has the final say as to who's playing. No one's "taking" the confirmed spots.

There's nothing wrong with signing up for multiple games because you don't know which one the owner's gonna want you in. If someone's in a whole bunch of games, it's because the management wants that person in those games.

 

I've heard more whining about scouting than I ever imagined in the last week or so. I suppose there needs to be something to complain about.

 

I initially scouted for alot of games, but that was mainly because I am still a mostly unheard of Goalie and wanted to give a bunch of others a fair chance at seeing me and how i play.

Now that I've scouted for quite a few people, and alot of owners know who I am, I typically try not to scout much anymore but if I am scouting and confirmed, I would gladly step down for another player if a manager/owner wanted someone else to play in my spot. The issue alot of times, is managers not really wanting to care who is confirmed and who isn't, although I notice the good managers keep track of players, and do change it around to who they want to see scout which is great

 

Whoever signs up first gets confirmed. Owners/GMs can change that around if they want (as I understand it), but I've never been in a lobby when they've booted a confirmed guy for an unconfirmed guy, I've never heard of any that send PMs telling the alternate that they're now confirmed, and I also haven't ever seen an unconfirmed yellow on my list switched to a green before game time. If you're listed as an alternate you have to show up to all the times just as if you were confirmed, but with almost no chance of getting to play the first game, and little chance to play the second unless someone leaves. And there usually isn't a third game before the lobby breaks up. A lot of people have other things to do, and while they don't mind setting aside time during their real life to scout, it's unreasonable to expect them to attend all the scouting games when they're almost certainly not going to get to play.

Perhaps some owners switch around their confirmed and unconfirmed lists, but if that's what happens I don't know why the same people are listed as confirmed in so many games, usually one right after another with the same team.

 

ive had yellow people unconfirmed played over the confirmed guy who doesn't show, we dont have to baby everyone and change them to confirmed if they're playing already, if you're complaining about people wanting to play alot i suggest you hurry up and grab you spot, ive had alot of people fill in and no show, just because they dont get "confirmed" doesn't mean they didnt play and if you dont want to sit around if you're not confirmed you dont have to, you cant come around telling people they cant sign up for scouting games, the more you get seen the better your chances are.

 

In point of fact, I specifically said about 6 times in my original post that I'm not at all saying people shouldn't scout. I'm not sure how you got that argument from my post. I'm saying no one should be a dick and sign up for everything all the time. But, you seem to be saying that a lot of time the green names don't show up, so the yellows who happen to show up will get to play, and I agree that happens, and that's not how it should be. No one should have to sit around waiting for dickheads who sign up and get confirmed to no-show. If you grab one of those green spots, then you should bloody well show up. And if you don't, there should be some consequences - such as losing an opportunity to scout - which would be very effectively handled by giving everyone a set number of scouting vouchers.

 

Well, lately, the few NHL games I have scouted ended up being with guys that will obviously be in the NHL (vet VHL NHLer) who were totally fucking around all game long. LBing, taking penalty on purpose, trying to do hail mary all game long, etc. I am done with scouting.

 

I purposely unconfirm players that I know (unless they have changed positions for this season) because it's not really scouting if u let people u already know play. (most of the time)

 

Why don't we cry about it some more?

 

All of this reading nah I'm good.

 

idk how some owners take it but 5 after the time set if you're not in my lobby your spot is taken, i dont wait around, i handle my scouting like the time you get, it would be nice to punish people but its more work on, the owners and the people running the league.

 

Sorry about that. Some people are just assholes, I actually stacked one line-up to see if the people on my team could cope defensively against the forward line of FSU, OvenMitts, and Cat Sandwiches, instead got to see them cope with random flip dumps, lbs, and jump dekes.

 

He is in every game.

 

so many words so many tears

 

Is it just me, or have ~15 NHL teams not run scouting at all? There are 1,300 people trying to be in the big show, and only 3-5 NHL teams scouting an hour or two each day. No wonder it's a feeding frenzy when those games pop up in the Pick-Up window. Boston has been diligent, as well as a couple other NHL teams, but most have been... lazy? I guess they already know their entire rosters already.

Don't blame players for trying to get noticed, blame the owners that don't seem to be running scout games at all.