Lets take a look at the scouting methods and tactics in NHL 18. Did two drafts in this video so I hope you enjoy that. Definitely let me know your methods below and maybe we can find something that works every time!
Scouting ranking is determined before you start the pre-season. Any year it can change from A to B...etc. Same way the game generates the draft class. September 13th(?) -> Game generates the schedule, draft class, scouting effectiveness, and draft lottery ranking (ex. team finishing 14th will always get the 1st overall pick that year). The actual draft class may be generated slightly earlier (September 10th (?)). You'll notice the game will take a bit longer to load on those days. At the end of the season (The day it announces the Cup winner or the new cap) you can save, quit, reload to make players gain different height/weights as well as influence their stat progression.
Extension yes/no, player salary expectations, and year lengths are all generated the first day of the re-sign period. If you were to save, quit, and reload multiple times you can force the game in to letting players walk to free agency that may have otherwise re-signed. For example: Year 1 John Tavares can sometimes sign an extension during the year or not. If he doesn't he sometimes signs during the re-sign period or decides to walk. If he keeps signing on day one or two then you can just reload multiple times and eventually the player will walk. Its cheating, but shows the game does have a random element to it, and there is a slim chance of certain things occurring.
I just had a draft with a string of Medium Elite goalies throughout the draft. Then with literally the last pick in the draft I sorted by potential and it showed me an undrafted 'High Elite' potential so I picked him and he turned out to be a Medium Franchise goalie. imgur.com/a/Z25u1 Although he is 19 and looks more like an athletic goalie, so he realistically won't be too good I think. Still crazy to get a franchise player with the last pick. Also should note that I didn't scout the draft at all.
If you want to scout properly then keep it mind it takes almost an 1 hour but you can indeed get 3+ medium elites with 1 or 2 med elite goalies. PINNING players is really important and scouting from 3-5 weeks is important. The WHL, OHL, and SHL seem to be the scouting places. But like I said it can be high reward but REALLY TEDIOUS, I only did it for 2 years before saying fuck it.
I don't know if this was the case in other 2k NHL games, but I think NHL 2k5 was one of the best franchise mode experiences of any NHL game I ever played. You could hire coaches, scouting was more immersive, and it was the first time that the AHL was represented. It would be cool if EA added coaches and scouts to make the experience a little more dynamic. Good coaches get more out of players and develop them better and not all scouting departments are created equal.
Mickey Moorhead it was like that for old gen. I remember when on draft day and trade deadline you had phones to make trades and had to earn more phones. They were the good ol’ days
Joel Dawson In 2k5 during scouting you would actually go to each region and pick guys to scout, play games with players from the region, do individual workouts, among other things. It was pretty detailed. If I can find a good ROM, I'd love to go back and experience it.
Joel Dawson Yeah it's probably a bit too niche and if you weren't someone that is into total simulation then it could probably get tedious. I would appreciate scouting being at least a little more interactive and dynamic, and maybe you give the option to just sim all of it.
Mickey Moorhead yeah i don’t like how they took a big step back from old gen to realise they need to bring that stuff back in. Just little details to make the game mode much better and more versatile with the way you play it
You're always thinking of new takes on the way game modes work, when i really think of it, seeing your channel grow so fast, you having the same recording method as i do, has inspired me to put out the unpolished turds i call videos
Russian forwards, Swedish/Danish defenders and WHL forwards and QMJHL defenders are my go to guys. Low elite russians are gold and the firts round is almost only from WHL.
Thank you so much I did the same thing and holy shit I got a 80 overall low elite in the 5th round Jesus then 76 and kept getting crazy picks thank you
ive found that the draft system is wierd, like in the late rounds if you look through the low and medium accuracy ahl potential players that have been scouted alot (4-9 times), you can find a ton of draft steals.
have you noticed that there are far fewer high potential drafted goalies? I've done multiple franchise modes and I've noticed 5 or fewer medium elite or higher potential goalies in each of these franchise modes.
i noticed theres a wierd gap in goalie skills for a few years, med elite goalies dont show up until about the 3rd year, and take ~3 years to develop into high rated goalies. from about year 3 to year 5, there are quite a few teams playing low level goalies as starters (70-79). Always great to get a med elite goalie in the draft as you can usually get them late first or early second round and their value is sky high
I find that if a plater is medium top nine forward he could go 2 up or down. (Go to top 6/elite, or bot 6/ahl top 6) low top nine means he can go up or down 3 and high top nine means he would go up or down 1. That's what I found anyway
So its better to scout for.1 week.each and every time ?? I usual do 3 week foward on each in north america and other i do like a 1 week in some place in europe and i always end up with a lot of elite steal with 4 and after rounds . Take a lot a time for them to make it in the nhl but at least they grown by 14 ov per year . And i sort the draft lost by time scout to know at least that my staff scouted lot of time to.get a lot of info. Thank for the video.
There was a Franchise defencemen that went 1st in my Franchise mode with the Golden Knights in the second season. The Senators ended up drafting him but I thought it was pretty cool since they traded away Erik Karlsson for Boston's 1st round (which ended up being the 3rd overall pick - Elite Center they drafted) and Pastarnak. You can check it out here in my video if you want ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Cvpi1JCYGFk.html
Anyone had a low elite player taken in the later rounds ever actually turn into a player? Seems like they consistently max out at around the AHL level for me.
Brick Keane thanks, thought I was doing something wrong like not playing them enough or too much as they developed but I guess the low elites in 18 are just like the low top-9s were in 17.
If you really want all the draft success you can get, you can save the game on a new file, go through the draft and see what all the players you want, write down the name and position and then just reload the old file and replay the draft
yea but in real life you can do things like scout the people you are specifically interested in. or you can watch a TV and learn about prospects without hoping a CPU scout will look at them enough. its probably MORE realistic to look at the results after the draft, because the potential ratings are not guaranteed to develop
I swear I did that today, and I took pics to remember their names high elites etc in the late rounds. When I did it again I couldn’t find any of their names they were all gone anyone know why?
The scouting thing is a completely random pile of ass. Was playing a franchise mode earlier today and saw a guy come up in the draft who was scouted 20 times for some reason and had a high top 6 potential. I took him as he seemed like a solid pick and of course he dropped to medium bottom 6. The stupid thing is I've seen other players who get scouted maybe once or twice have an exact in their potential which means they will be what the draft says. I also had a franchise mode where I only had 4 picks as I traded my higher ones away to get rental players and three of the four picks were low or medium elites and the final one was a low top 6. At this point in the franchise mode I had just sent out the scout to a random place for 6 weeks as I was in the "win now" mode and didn't give a shit about scouting. It's completely random and pretty bad in general, EA needs to take a page out of MLB the show's book and let you scout players individually so you can actually know more about them instead of sending a scout to a general area and having him scout a guy 10 times whose an exact bottom 6 which is trash and then leaving a medium top 6 guy unscouted and when you pick him he turns out to be a medium bottom 6.