Madden 12 Scouting 101 (ver. 1.0) - Broncos86's Blog

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Madden 12 Scouting 101 (ver. 1.0) Stuck

Posted on August 31, 2011 at 11:24 AM.

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Hello Maddenites!

I've gone through several scouting years (with NCAA draft class imports) and I wanted to share my approach to scouting and drafting. Scouting is a bit different this year, and while some may say it's just the same thing over and over again, that's not true.

Scouting is broken up into several stages. We have in-season scouting, the combine, pro days, and individual work outs. Each of these offer different types of stat unlocks. Here is how this matters to you.

In-Season Scouting:

Before game 1, you need to get your initial scouting in order. Unlike years past, and unlike NCAA 12, scouting is not a week-to-week thing. There are four or five times during the season that you get to designate prospects to scout. You cannot come in late and scout. If you miss the opportunity in week 1, you must wait until the next opportunity. In essence if you miss a chance to scout, you've wasted the opportunity entirely.

With that in mind, now is the time to look at your current roster and guesstimate who is going to decline/retire. Get your positions of need in order now and begin to look through the prospects. During the season, your job is to cover the field and get a general idea for kids you want to follow. You can only scout a kid once, so don't worry about when you scout them. Scouting a kid late in the season is no different than during week 1.

Your goal, during the season, is to get a feel for the prospects and get an idea of which kids you believe you'll want to follow up on. You're only going to see a handful of stats, with only one or two stats that will pertain to their position. Once you hit the off-season (no scouting during play-offs), your next task is to narrow down your prospects. When doing this, you need to keep several things in mind:

1) Draft order
2) Positional needs

If you're drafting in the lower half of the draft, don't scout top ten prospects. Unless you plan to trade up, you have no shot at these kids, and every scouting attempt is precise. You no longer have the luxury of using the "web" scouting tool, nor can you simply sort by potential. Those days are gone. You need to be on the ball with your scouting intentions. Secondly, be aware that you need to scout for the later rounds or else you'll end up drafting blind. Another strategy might be to trade up / trade down in the draft, so scout in accordance with that mindset. Either way, don't get excited and waste all your scouting efforts on first round talent. If you do, you'll have NOTHING to go on by the second round.

Combine:

The combine offers the chance to really see what a kid's physical talents are. Use this opportunity for positions that might require more physicality. Running backs, wide receivers, cornerbacks, etc. You're allowed a healthy amount of scouting, but be focused. Again, spread out your scouting, and look for those kids that you really want to know more about.

Pro Days and Individual Work outs:

Pro days unlock positional ratings. This is your chance to see if that blazing fast wide receiver can really catch the ball. Now, with pro days, there's something to keep in mind. After the pro day will be a chance to give FIVE players an individual work out. This is important to keep in mind for this reason: if you're confident you're going to give a kid an individual work out, DO NOT scout them during the pro day! Individual workouts unlock EVERY SINGLE RATING, so why waste a slot during the pro day if you're just going to unlock everything immediately afterwards? During the pro day, if you feel confident, pick out the five kids you want to give those individual workouts to, exclude them from the pro days, and then work them out afterwards.

Once you're done, it's time to execute your draft!

Please, feel free to offer suggestions, corrections, etc about this. This is version 1.0, and I wrote this while at work (so Madden isn't right in front of me). I'll also either edit this or write up a newer version as I discover more in regards to drafting.

Comments

# 1 robbiedizzle @ Aug 31

Havent done it yet as I'm waiting for the start of season rosters...but this sounds like a very good blueprint that I plan to utilize

# 2 philliesfan136 @ Aug 31

Thanks for this. It was a bit weird scouting blindly in my first 'chise and this is a good blueprint for me.

# 3 Hjkflannel @ Sep 1

i always try to scout well, only to at the end cheat the computer out of their first round pick and have the full choice. Or the dreaded reload my save and have another go; knowing all the best players cheat, i'm going to try and do it properly this year.

# 4 Damient27 @ Sep 1

plz tell me how u scouted with NCAA imports when they won't even load in the franchise please someone help me out ?

# 5 Broncos86 @ Sep 1

With the NCAA rosters, if you saved your draft class before "players leaving," then you basically have empty draft class files. You would've needed to save the draft class after the "players leaving" screen in order for your draft class to be saved properly. If you have NCAA 12 still, you'll need to re-sim the seasons. There is NOTHING you can do to the draft class files if they're not working. Bear in mind that even when one does have a working NCAA draft class, Madden is behaving oddly with them. The CPU drafts oddly, and punters/kickers will get drafted in the first round.

# 6 Damient27 @ Sep 1

thanks man i got them I hates I have to re-sim the class

# 7 Damient27 @ Sep 1

I hate that to Have re-sim the draft class but thanks for the tip

# 8 Damient27 @ Sep 1

I hate I have to re-sim the draft class but thanks for the tip it worked

# 9 ChildishAssassin @ Sep 2

Thanks SOOO much I messed up on the scouting during my first season had no Idea what I was doing but this will help me out a lot, Nice to see this from a fellow Bronco fan