Have the template players made the game boring?

[gooberman]

I am finding that lately, with so many template players now, the game for me has become a bit uninteresting. I am close to top 4k rank so I don't want to take any undue risks. This however means that my team is very similar to most of the teams in the top 10k.

Mane and Ozil are the only players in my team who could be classed as differentials and I'm finding that they are really the only players I am interested in and hoping for points from. I don't feel that points from anyone else in my team is going to make much difference to my rank because they are so highly owned.

I blame Kane for this. His ridiculous low price has enabled everyone to have all the big hitters in their team. Could do with an injury to him or Aguero to spice the game up a bit.

[Douglas Reynholm]

No, what's made the game boring is the players that advise everyone to go template and have the same teams as everyone else taking all original thought/risk out of it.

I vomit every time I read Sammy's thread and wonder why some people bother to play the game.

[gooberman]

No, what's made the game boring is the players that advise everyone to go template and have the same teams as everyone else taking all original thought/risk out of it.

I vomit every time I read Sammy's thread and wonder why some people bother to play the game.

Bit extreme!

[Douglas Reynholm]

But true, this place never used to be like FFS but it seems this year that most have lost the ability to think for themselves while adopting the lemming mentality.

[Carlos Kickaball]

there is still variety in teams, good low ownership players, and enough faith lost in some of the popular players to make them doing well make a difference.

I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or delighted, when I saw that my starting team for this and last week, contains 8 out of 11 of FFS's scout picks, and I plan to bring in another next week.

[gooberman]

there is still variety in teams, good low ownership players, and enough faith lost in some of the popular players to make them doing well make a difference.

I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or delighted, when I saw that my starting team for this and last week, contains 8 out of 11 of FFS's scout picks, and I plan to bring in another next week.

Where is your FPL team link?

[asm_fanz]

I vomit every time I read Sammy's thread and wonder why some people bother to play the game.

Maybe you should stop reading it then

[GingerMonkey]

At least you seem to be rising in the rankings though, gooberman. My rank has barely changed for 15 gameweeks and I've grown extremely bored of it. Any improvements I've made have been offset by my team lacking the obvious template options, so it's disheartening to stray from it.

I blame the extra wildcard, personally. It forces everyone into easily dismantling their team for a set schedule. Of course everyone is going to end up with similar teams then. No wildcard at all would be my preference, never mind a free one AND an (essentially) enforced one.

Kane also hasn't helped due to his enabling-price. Premium defences, except Chelsea's, have also failed in the majority of cases and it all becomes a bit obvious when Hazard, Silva and Aguero are the only attacking options worth considering from the top two teams. Southampton started off defending well and have continued, so there's no reason why people would be considering alternatives there either (I must admit I'm bored of reading the suggestion of Alderweireld in nearly every defensive discussion recently). Add an Arsenal attacker or two (or Austin, if you gambled) and fill the other 2 or 3 places with lower priced players whose points potential won't really affect your ranking, and I guess that'll be the same for the vast majority of the top 10k teams, hence my total lack of progress.

I also have 8 from the FFS team and the only reason it isn't 9 is because I was missing the extra 0.1 for Mane and went for Sigurdsson instead. For this week, I'm only really interested in 3 players: Sigurdsson and Austin because I have them in my team, and Giroud because a lot of others do while I don't. If both of my choices do well, I expect to see a mighty rise of about 500 places. If they both fail AND Giroud does well, make that a 1,500 drop.

We should start a dedicated whinging thread!

[Archy]

Of the template players I'd say only Hazard and Kane are undroppable. There's no need to have the rest of your team the same as everyone else if you don't want to.

[Mav3rick]

But true, this place never used to be like FFS but it seems this year that most have lost the ability to think for themselves while adopting the lemming mentality.

The difficulty at the moment is in finding the alternatives. I jumped on Walcott believing he would be one (and still may be) and I feel similarly about Ramsey but outside of that it's difficult to mix it up too much. I think Gooberman is probably right with regards to Kane (although he is absolutely essential to pick). Having one of the three (usually expensive) striker slots occupied by a player who scores very well and cost less than 5.0 is a bit ridiculous and has freed up an awful lot of cash.

I guess the situation is made more severe at the moment because the fixtures and doubles/missed gameweeks are funelling everyone into the same small set of players.

[Stemania]

It's the same every season and we almost always have a thread of a similar title at least once a year. Seems a good time to requote:

You're talking to the wrong man if you want to extol the virtues of differentials and attack the concept of template teams. People have the value of both the wrong way around imo.

Template team? There is no such thing, it's a myth. You don't have the same team, with the same team value and the same money ITB as probably anyone else in the world.
But in any case, a 'template team' (such as it is) is simply the team that common consensus seems to agree is the best team currently available. The template team was different 2 weeks ago and will be different again in 2 more weeks.
Rather than trying to avoid a template team, you should try and always have the template team, as it's the generally accepted best team. So have the template and try and keep up with the template as it evolves. If you do, you will certainly climb the ranks.

Pfffffft, differentials? A differential is simply an unpopular player. The single biggest reason players are unpopular is coz they are bad fantasy football picks.
The reason Baines is a differential among the top 10K is coz most of them think he's a bad pick.
Picking a player on the basis that currently the most successful players consider him a bad pick doesn't appear to be a recipe for success to me.

[gooberman]

Kane is an FPL phenomenon. I've never known a player that cheap in the game to consistently score this level of points. As a consequence he is owned by every serious player in the game (100% ownership in top 1k) meaning that the only way he can boost your rank is by captaining him.

I have Mane but in a strange kind of way, I don't really want him to get too many points. If he went berserk this week and got 16pts then that is basically the end of him as a differential. A 9pt score from him is still a good score but not that high as to make him stand out and make everyone want to grab him.

[Douglas Reynholm]

But true, this place never used to be like FFS but it seems this year that most have lost the ability to think for themselves while adopting the lemming mentality.

The difficulty at the moment is in finding the alternatives. I jumped on Walcott believing he would be one (and still may be) and I feel similarly about Ramsey but outside of that it's difficult to mix it up too much. I think Gooberman is probably right with regards to Kane (although he is absolutely essential to pick). Having one of the three (usually expensive) striker slots occupied by a player who scores very well and cost less than 5.0 is a bit ridiculous and has freed up an awful lot of cash.

I guess the situation is made more severe at the moment because the fixtures and doubles/missed gameweeks are funelling everyone into the same small set of players.

There has been instances all season where players that have been frowned upon for not being template/safe, have done well and became template (for some) as a result, Austin, Silva, Yaya Touré, Kane, Sanchez are just names that jump out that were dismissed for not being worth it or risky but had great spells and changed opinions/ownership, only this week we've seen it with Ramsey, being proactive has its risks but it makes the game exciting, transferring in players in the same weeks as everyone else because it's the general consensus is mind numbingly dull.

Highlight of the season for me so far has been Austin's hatrick against West Brom, those that had Kane against Chelsea would feel the same as did those that had Silva on his first spell, the buzz from those moments is far greater then when everyone has Player A doing well for everyone at the same week.

[mike778]

Should just have more price adjustments ..

at the end of each week, players transferred in more than out get a price hike of 0.1 to 0.5 depending on the scale and vice versa for those sold. Players would hit the equilibrium much quicker and no 'templates'

[The Catman]

Kane is an FPL phenomenon. I've never known a player that cheap in the game to consistently score this level of points. As a consequence he is owned by every serious player in the game (100% ownership in top 1k) meaning that the only way he can boost your rank is by captaining him.

I have Mane but in a strange kind of way, I don't really want him to get too many points. If he went berserk this week and got 16pts then that is basically the end of him as a differential. A 9pt score from him is still a good score but not that high as to make him stand out and make everyone want to grab him.

JayRod before his injury was Kane-esque.....but not as highly owned.

[Razzler]

Template players end up template players cause of their consistency.

You bring in someone else and they hit big points chances are they either don't show the same consistency next few games or they look great and everyone else jumps on board

Amount of times I looked at player lists and just been underwhelmed at alternatives. Often they tend to be short-term options around this time (close to DGWs)

Picking a performing captain is huge though, at this time of the season, for me

[DrBunker]

I blame the extra wildcard, personally. It forces everyone into easily dismantling their team for a set schedule. Of course everyone is going to end up with similar teams then. No wildcard at all would be my preference, never mind a free one AND an (essentially) enforced one.

Absolutely this imo. Every season has seen ppl bemoan having similar players but the two WCs have made this much more likely and have removed a lot of the skill from the game.

[Mo Bot]

Want to avoid having a template team? Pick different players.

The template team is generally made up of players that have done well, not necessarily ones that will do well in the future. Kane, Aguero, Hazard, Silva etc. have performed so well it doesn't make sense not to have them so the only variety is in defence.

Where's the excitement in clean sheets? Well, for example, if you picked a non-template Skrtel instead of a generic Chelsea/Southampton defender for the winter WC then you'd be about 20 points better off. If you pick a United defender a month ago you'd be called crazy but 3 clean sheets later and you'd have green arrows.

[Stemania]

There has been instances all season where players that have been frowned upon for not being template.

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in what 'template players' are. There isn't just some unchanging list of 11 players that people are told to stubbornly stick to. There are just players that have very good reasons for ownership a given short gameweek spell - if these reasons are strong enough, they naturally become the consensus, or 'template'.

The 'template players' for the next few weeks will almost certainly include Costa, Southampton & WBA defenders and possibly the odd DGW31 player. All of these players have very good reasons to be owned in the next few weeks. Will you be advising against people transferring in those players because they are 'template'? Which alternatives to those players will you be advising as being better than these players as picks in these positions?

Also, I don't think I've ever seen someone say "don't buy that player, his ownership isn't high enough'' or "don't buy that player, too many people are saying he's a good idea''. People advise other people not to buy players because of the reasons that make them questionable picks. The reasons that make them questionable picks, if strong enough and widely enough held, will coincide with the reasons why a player soon becomes well owned or 'template'.

[Douglas Reynholm]

I don't (or rarely unless asked) advise players on who to bring in like I'm some sort of Fantasy God, I look at my rank, see that I'm not (or know my place rather) and focus on my own team/battles and discuss my motives/thinking rather than give out advice and tell people who they should be picking.

[Stemania]

I don't (or rarely unless asked) advise players on who to bring in like I'm some sort of Fantasy God, I look at my rank, see that I'm not (or know my place rather) and focus on my own team/battles and discuss my motives/thinking rather than give out advice and tell people who they should be picking.

So why do you fundamentally visit the forum, just to brag and posture about how well you are/are not doing?

The whole point of FISO is to give advice to help to new/inexperienced players of fpl and to discuss with the experienced players what the best ways forward are/what the best advice to give to these players are. It's not just some boys club.

[Sutter Kane]

I blame the extra wildcard, personally. It forces everyone into easily dismantling their team for a set schedule. Of course everyone is going to end up with similar teams then. No wildcard at all would be my preference, never mind a free one AND an (essentially) enforced one.

Absolutely this imo. Every season has seen ppl bemoan having similar players but the two WCs have made this much more likely and have removed a lot of the skill from the game.

+2. No wildcard at all would make the game much better but probably less popular for a sustained period of the season which is why it/they were brought in partially under the guise of snow/weather affecting fixtures.

[Douglas Reynholm]

To discuss football/fantasy football, have a bit of a laugh at times, thought that was obvious, I'm not one for the 'God Complex' that some seem to have thrust upon themselves.

[Robin Write]

That again. Classic. When was the last time you laughed Marc?

[Douglas Reynholm]

I'm laughing now Robin, here's some proof

[Mav3rick]

For those looking at the template issue, you should have a read of Spiderm4tt's "game within a game within a game" theory in his interview thread:

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Without wanting to put words into his mouth, IMO it's pretty much the same idea as the moving template thing - in that your goal as a good player is to identify who the next template picks would be (i.e. the ones with current low ownership who are likely to score well, get attention and thus become the new template) and migrate from current template to future template without taking hits and reacting after the event.

[Robin Write]

I'm laughing now Robin, here's some proof

If this were Facebook I would "Like" that.

[Mo Bot]

Where is your FPL team link?

Where is everyone's FPL link? I can't even see my own.

[DrBunker]

Without wanting to put words into his mouth, IMO it's pretty much the same idea as the moving template thing - in that your goal as a good player is to identify who the next template picks would be (i.e. the ones with current low ownership who are likely to score well, get attention and thus become the new template) and migrate from current template to future template without taking hits and reacting after the event.

It's no different in fund or portfolio management; you want to own the stocks/funds that most ppl have so you don't fall behind but in order to do well and outperform your peers you need to know/predict a) when a holding that was a 'must have' is not likely to continue to perform and b) when a less popular holding looks like it might start to produce returns. In both FPL and investment management the logic behind the moves will be a combination of cost, predicted performance, past, current and predicted conditions and relative risk (i.e. how much value is there in picking a currently unpopular holding if you're already ahead of your peers).

[Mav3rick]

It's no different in fund or portfolio management;

If I could only get a cheap index tracker for Arsenal's midfield - I'd much prefer that to actively managing individual midfield selections