New feature testing in the beta leagues in their upcoming drafts - player obfuscation. Basically, the player cards will look like this for all rookies:



The player's -max- is somewhere within the blue bars. The width of the bars is random for each player, so some players will have larger width than others.

Each team can scout 2 players (note the 'Scout Player' button). When you scout a player, the width of the bars is reduced. When a player is scouted, all teams in the league receive the benefit - so feel free to try to talk other users into scouting players once your 2 scouting uses are over. Here's this player after being scouted:



Here's another player with a much smaller error range:



and after being scouted:



What's the goal of this? To push good players down further in the draft.

So, what are my questions?

1) Does it work? Not only are there any bugs, but does it actually improve the draft experience, or does it make it worse?
2) Is 2 players per team too few?
3) Any other thoughts or comments?

This would be part of the 0.4.3 engine. Beta-87 will be the first league to see this, then it will be in MFN-1. It won't be in the other leagues for a while, obviously.

Images are broken, JDB.

EDIT: Nevermind... Work firewall.

2 time s 32 is 64....out of 7 times 32.....? Only 28 percent of the draft could be scouted?. .....and how does volatility effect the post scouted player? It seems the ranges are half as small after the scout, when compared to the old style .

Can I have some more examples . ...or I can't wait to see real draft. Cause with over 2/3 of the players not going to be scouted could possibly make it a **** shoot, not that it is a bad thing at all . Especially with speed and acceleration being so variable for the highly volatile . How about 40 times? 20 yard shuttle ? Bench? Anyways I love it!

So when we see something like 71/85, Does that mean they currently have a 71 in that stat with a max of 85?

I like the looks of this.

I'm definitely with ray when asking how Volatility will reflect in this.

Also, if a player booms / busts, will there be a chance for the 'max' to go above / below the max / min?

The obfuscated players will show the range of their max, so 71/85 (it will actually show it as 71-85) means that the projected max is between those two numbers. What you currently see as the 'current' rating is not displayed until after the draft.

Volatility continues to be separate and has no bearing on what you see. If a player booms or busts, he can easily move out of the range displayed.

I've struggled to decide the number of players to scout, and 2 does feel small. I don't want it to be where you're able to scout every player that ends up getting drafted, but I suppose I could even let you scout 7 players and some of those players will get skipped because they came in low after being scouted. Maybe 5 would be a better number?


This isn't a replacement for combine numbers, which I do still want to add.

By removing Current Numbers though don't you eliminate the idea of taking a "plug and play starter" over a "developmental" player? If I need to draft a immediate starter I am at an even bigger disadvantage now then I was.

Looking at Pat Chapman card, I see that his min. in Courage is lower than before the scouting. Do players possibly have minimums lower than on their initial card ?