6 - Let's talk about scouting.
And not just because it's the only way I have to interact with the league in a meaningful way before the draft actually happens. please scout me
The act of scouting a player (or, really, a user) in the ISFL occupies a rather unique place in the massive array of moving parts that make up a simulation sports league. Amidst a vast ocean of pieces and people that do a lot of work to abstract away the actual physical playing of the sport in question (and a whole bunch of other things too), the scouting process is special in that it is entirely un-simulated. It is perhaps matched only by parts of the seasonal awards ceremony (where some of the awards, as I understand, are based on forum activity or something to that effect).
What does that mean? Well, in real life, scouting involves trying to measure all the various physical and mental attributes of a given prospect, to see what those players are capable of and how much they're capable of contributing to whatever team it is that's actually doing the scouting. The NFL Draft Combine is essentially one giant scout meet, where measurements such as vertical and broad jumps, 40 yard dash speed, or bench press reps allow scouts to measure draftees' agility, speed, or strength. Mental stats are harder to measure (though the Wonderlic does exist), but game film from college careers, supplemented by interviews, can allow experienced scouts and coaches to assess prospects' football knowledge and game-day performance.
Of course, we live in sim land, where all those pesky, hard to measure attributes are actually just numbers written down somewhere, and we can go look at those instead of doing a lot of sim work or trying to objectively figure out how good that guy that I made up in my head is at catching a football. Which means, in turn, that if you wanted to simulate scouting as done in real life, you would just camp my update page for a while and pull combine stats and the like from some sim work somewhere. Of course, as anyone who's actually made a player on this forum will tell you, that's not how it works. (Minor disclaimer: apparently there used to be someone with sim access and too much time on their hands who did actually get combine stats for players as a fun side project).
Instead, scouting players in the ISFL looks a lot different than in the NFL, and at the same time it works far more like NFL scouting than anything else in sim land does. See, real scouting does measure a lot of physical skills and traits, but those aren't really the main focus. Instead, scouts are looking for three things: 1) Current Ability, 2) Growth Potential, and 3) Fit. In other words, you want to know how good your prospect is, how good they can get, and how well they mesh with the rest of your team and your coaching/gming/playing strategy. ISFL scouting works along very similar principles. Current Ability is best measured by TPE, so GMs do actually look at update pages (admittedly, TPE is far more relevant in the ISFL draft than in the DSFL draft, where everyone starts at 50 and has very little time to break out). Growth Potential is perhaps harder to measure (just like in real life!), but it's no great secret that GMs, when they interview prospects, are trying their best to figure out how active that user is going to end up being in the near future, since activity leads to TPE gains and player growth. Fit, too, is a big part of those interviews; each team has a culture, and GMs tend to prefer finding users that fit their culture. Positional fit is also a thing they care about, though with the accessibility of position changes it's not as much of a big deal as it is in real life.
And not just because it's the only way I have to interact with the league in a meaningful way before the draft actually happens. please scout me
The act of scouting a player (or, really, a user) in the ISFL occupies a rather unique place in the massive array of moving parts that make up a simulation sports league. Amidst a vast ocean of pieces and people that do a lot of work to abstract away the actual physical playing of the sport in question (and a whole bunch of other things too), the scouting process is special in that it is entirely un-simulated. It is perhaps matched only by parts of the seasonal awards ceremony (where some of the awards, as I understand, are based on forum activity or something to that effect).
What does that mean? Well, in real life, scouting involves trying to measure all the various physical and mental attributes of a given prospect, to see what those players are capable of and how much they're capable of contributing to whatever team it is that's actually doing the scouting. The NFL Draft Combine is essentially one giant scout meet, where measurements such as vertical and broad jumps, 40 yard dash speed, or bench press reps allow scouts to measure draftees' agility, speed, or strength. Mental stats are harder to measure (though the Wonderlic does exist), but game film from college careers, supplemented by interviews, can allow experienced scouts and coaches to assess prospects' football knowledge and game-day performance.
Of course, we live in sim land, where all those pesky, hard to measure attributes are actually just numbers written down somewhere, and we can go look at those instead of doing a lot of sim work or trying to objectively figure out how good that guy that I made up in my head is at catching a football. Which means, in turn, that if you wanted to simulate scouting as done in real life, you would just camp my update page for a while and pull combine stats and the like from some sim work somewhere. Of course, as anyone who's actually made a player on this forum will tell you, that's not how it works. (Minor disclaimer: apparently there used to be someone with sim access and too much time on their hands who did actually get combine stats for players as a fun side project).
Instead, scouting players in the ISFL looks a lot different than in the NFL, and at the same time it works far more like NFL scouting than anything else in sim land does. See, real scouting does measure a lot of physical skills and traits, but those aren't really the main focus. Instead, scouts are looking for three things: 1) Current Ability, 2) Growth Potential, and 3) Fit. In other words, you want to know how good your prospect is, how good they can get, and how well they mesh with the rest of your team and your coaching/gming/playing strategy. ISFL scouting works along very similar principles. Current Ability is best measured by TPE, so GMs do actually look at update pages (admittedly, TPE is far more relevant in the ISFL draft than in the DSFL draft, where everyone starts at 50 and has very little time to break out). Growth Potential is perhaps harder to measure (just like in real life!), but it's no great secret that GMs, when they interview prospects, are trying their best to figure out how active that user is going to end up being in the near future, since activity leads to TPE gains and player growth. Fit, too, is a big part of those interviews; each team has a culture, and GMs tend to prefer finding users that fit their culture. Positional fit is also a thing they care about, though with the accessibility of position changes it's not as much of a big deal as it is in real life.