FPL improvements for next year?

[scarletjim]

Agree with Mav3rick. Like everything else it seems, the more popular something becomes the more it gets dumbed down. I would dump the new chips completely. I like the idea of unlimited transfer rollovers.

I agree with Ruth re this year's pricing structure. I'd like price changes to be implemented at the start of each new game week rather than each day but to allow multiple transfers at this point.

I agree with most of this, so:

1. Top priority, dump the chips.
2. Dump captains. I'd like to play the game in as pure a form as possible. Real managers don't get double points for their chosen players each week, why should we? Several people quit my SL last year and won't play any more because of the huge swings that happened on captains (bit childish I know, but I see their point). Also, if we really must keep captains, you have to choose one each week, otherwise you don't get a captain at all (stops lucky dead teams winning cup matches with first day of the season captains who happen to come good at cup time).
3. Unlimited rollover transfers - why not? Would should you lose it if you want to play conservatively?
4. Tougher pricing, making it more difficult to get such good squads, forcing people to cut corners, thereby have fewer 'template' sides / players.

Three others also interested me:
Icefish's idea of being allowed to sell a player without buying a replacement until you are ready
Icefish's idea of interest on money banked
Finisher1's idea of a points for money trade

Not sure how practical any of them would be from a coding or clarity of rules perspective, but interesting ideas...

[Ruth_NZ]

So you want all the teams to be weaker? Why?

Yes. Because hard decisions benefit better managers.

...and if you think defenders are underpriced then I expect you are playing 4-3-3, right?

No, I am playing 3-4-3. The way the pricing has come out, the under-performance of premium players and the appearance of so many low-cost high-performance attackers has made anything else (other than possibly 3-5-2) senseless this season.

4-4-2 (my preferred system) only makes sense if budget is tight and you want to squeeze as many high-cost attackers as possible into your team. But budget hasn't been tight and I haven't wanted Sanchez/Hazard/Sturridge/Rooney/Silva.

[MoSe]

2. Sales price and buying price history.
In years past, when you went to your 'transfer history' page, you used to be able to see what price you sold each player at and at what price you bought each player at. For some reason they got rid of that and it really annoys me! Obviously you can work it out but it can be tedious and without FPLstats, I don't think you could work it out with certainty. Just give us our prices back. Why remove useful information?

Isn't this the (same as the) "data view" tab on the transfer page?

in short? not at all!
longer? read carefully, and you'll get it

in detail?
Data View shows PP for your current XV

not enough yet?
Transfer History lists all your past transfers
TD (and I second him) wants

• SP too,
  for any Tx you made,
  for players you don't currently own anymore,
  or who you moved in/out more than once in the season

TD, you can work it out better with CTC

[MoSe]

1. The indefinite rolled transfer.
We can roll a transfer and have 2 free the following week. Why do we stop at 2? Why can't we roll it and roll it and have 3, 4 or 5 transfers? It would be good to encourage back 'dead' teams if they saw they had 8 free transfers.

I don't see a downside.

one I can think of, it would water down the WC importance

[MoSe]

- That you can sell a player to cash out on the price before you buy the replacement.
For example you could according to that rule sell KDB today but decide on his successor after the weekend.

how'd you handle incomplete XV at the deadline?

[asm_fanz]

On unlimited rollovers, perhaps the Premier League prefer a transfer system which forces players to visit the site every week if they want to remain competitive. I agree that there are no downsides from a gameplay perspective, for serious and casual players alike.

You'd still need to visit the website every week to set up your team / captain

[MoSe]

I've mentioned this before, but my idea would be a "Cash Out" chip which allows you to trade in some amount of cash ITB in exchange for points. Perhaps something like 20 points per million £, this would help reward those who play the game for points but also manage/build TV.

and in the last GW everybody switches to base price XV cashing out the extra money for huge points
jokes apart, that should be fine-tuned so that it rewards less than investing the same budget in a higher value player

the game should be still £ players pts
straight £ pts would make it like any magic game with gold mana, or 4x game with gold rush a unit/building

Finisher1's idea of a points for money trade

was it Finisher's?
I could only find the above PBM quote...

at that point, why not pts £ too?
you could not only take a hit for 1 extra transfer as it works now,
but also take a hit for the extra-budget you miss...

[gallus]

Yes. Because hard decisions benefit better managers.

What that would actually achieve is everyone having the same team. You'd be forced to field all the obvious bargains and the only decision you'd have to make would be which 5.0 (because what you propose is no starting 4.5 goalkeepers) goalkeeper to have. The lower the prices, the more options you have. And more options mean less template teams and more chances to show your skill. It's easy to pick Ighalo when he's the only in-form striker you can afford. It's hard to pick him over Kane when you can have anyone you want.

[Le Red]

Just my two pence.
1. I don't think FPL got the prices wrong. In fact, I think it was the best set of initial prices since I play (it's my 9th season), but nobody could anticipate that every premium player would suck, for different reasons. Nobody could predict what Mahrez/Vardy/Ighalo would do as well, there are always cheap players who do well, but never to the point they humble the premiums.
2. Goalkeepers and defenders: for the last five years or so the J-Lo tactic lost popularity and everyone was just spending as little as possible in defence, specially keepers. Therefore, I think the price reduction in the keepers and defenders of the bigger teams was a good call. Still wish there were a couple of 4.0 defender/keeper options from the beginning though, but that ain't the end of the world.
3. Agree that the game would be more fair without the captain rule, albeit less fun to be honest. Can't see it being removed anyway.
4. Love the unlimited transfer rollover idea.
4. I don't think the second wildcard dumbs the game down. It normally takes an early wildcard to get to the pace of the season and everyone knows the hardships of the last third of the season, thus it was a good call to have two wildcards.
5. The chips have opened a dangerous precedent. So far they still have little impact in the end but if they amplify the system it can become too much of another luck factor in the game. I wish they are gone next time around, but the least I ask is that they don't add any more of them.
6. I don't get the bonus system whining. The human decision decision (PA drunkards) was an aberration, lots of lots of crazy and lazy decisions and loads of pages in the bonus moaning thread. The current system is certainly more balanced than the previous stats based ones, with bonus being distributed somewhat evenly between players of all positions. There's still some bad results and moaning, but it's a lot less than it has been once, and even then, it's a bad result given by objective criteria, and not by some twit. I say leave the bonus as it is.

[Mav3rick]

I think the pricing was alright too. I remember when the pre-season chat started that the slightly cheaper mids were a nice surprise, but everyone else seemed priced about right. 9.0 might have been realistic, but the savings went on Aguero's price hike anyway.

As Le Red said, the emergence of all three of Vardy, Ighalo and Mahrez, and then later on the base price keepers and defenders plus Alli are unusual. In fact, at the start of the season, we were actually complaining about the lack of base price and even 4.5 options especially in defence.

[Stemania]

Agree, tbh I thought at the start of the season this was the best pricing setup FPL had done - I've got no bones about that. I do think it would be interesting if they started the year without the 0.5m initial pricing increments as their new player pricing is hinting they could.

(It's worth noting also that it's only a relatively recent thing that there's been no starting GKs at 4m - a few years back at least one, often two of the promoted sides would have all GKs at 4.0m before it changed - this year we went in with on paper all the starters at 4.5m+, though luckily Speroni's injury gave us some Palace contenders. The more expensive goalkeepers have always been demonstrably overpriced, so they can't really be critisised for taking 0.5m off them. Butland has been awesome at 4.5m, but when the prices came out he was 2nd choice to Begovic - they couldn't possibly have priced him at 5m or over. They've especially much improved GK pricing for me. )


Generally speaking, I still think the chips are a bit gimmiky, but overall FPL Towers seem to be slowly but surely getting better at running the game imo. I'd be surprised if they added more chips rather than just replaced say AOA next season - like Mav says their main aim imo is accessibility to the masses and even more chips would just over-complicate and make it a bit finicky.

I get why a few people don't like the modern bonus system as it's quite mechanical not based on 'deserving', but the widespread consensus still appears to be that it's better than the subjective "3-points-for-Barry-Ferguson" system. Can't see them doing much with it - I bet they get a fraction of the angry emails they used to.

I completely agree with the rolling transfers though - I'd just remove the limit and let them rack up. I'd also like to see them remove any limits on when wildcards can be played.

How about they bring over some ideas from UFPL- say you can use a transfer to short term loan a player for a week (instead of a permanent change) and retain the sell price of the guy that temporarily is replaced. I doubt it would happen, but it would be a very good solution to the most common dilemmas for fpl managers.

[Tall Paul]

In what way has it been "dumbed down"?

Generally, changes have been to make it easier to keep up if you take your eye off the ball.

Vice captains, the winter wildcard, the flag systems, the second half of the season wildcard, the reduction in premium keeper prices, its all ways to keep more casual players interested (or at least not punished) for as long as possible.

The chips are a bit different because they can be used to a planners advantage, but they have a dual nature in that they artificially inflate the rank of casuals who blow them early, thus keeping them interested for longer.

I don't think adding things like vice captains, extra wildcards etc can be called dumbing the game down. Dumbing it down suggests that you're taking away any skill/strategy elements, whereas I'd argue that adding things like that increases those elements.

The more decisions players have to make, the more opportunities good players have to make better decisions than poor players.

Taken to the extreme, the ultimate way to dumb down the game would be to make players pick a team at the start of the season and that's it.

[Stemania]

Perhaps 'dumb down' is the wrong phrase, but it seems fairly self evident that FPLs biggest interest is in attracting the most number of players possible and keeping them as long as possible rather than making changes that might improve the game experience for a select few serious players. For that they need a reasonably involved game with enough features to make it interesting to the mass casual market (weekly transfers, captains, wildcards, price changes chips etc) but not so many as to be so complicated it confuses or puts generic players off.

[gallus]

Perhaps 'dumb down' is the wrong phrase, but it seems fairly self evident that FPLs biggest interest is in attracting the most number of players possible and keeping them as long as possible rather than making changes that might improve the game experience for a select few serious players.

What?? They want to attract as many players as possible? The bustards!

[Finisher1]

Perhaps 'dumb down' is the wrong phrase, but it seems fairly self evident that FPLs biggest interest is in attracting the most number of players possible and keeping them as long as possible rather than making changes that might improve the game experience for a select few serious players.

What?? They want to attract as many players as possible? The bustards!

How dare they! I should be the only FPL manager in the world!

[gallus]

Perhaps 'dumb down' is the wrong phrase, but it seems fairly self evident that FPLs biggest interest is in attracting the most number of players possible and keeping them as long as possible rather than making changes that might improve the game experience for a select few serious players.

What?? They want to attract as many players as possible? The bustards!

How dare they! I should be the only FPL manager in the world!

They should only improve the game for 200 crazy people who post on FISO and FFS every day instead of making the game fun for everyone!

[tommyk7]

One thing I find frusrating is not being able to see your team's lineup and opponents for future gameweeks. The "Pick Team" page is only viewable for the upcoming week, and then once the first match starts you can see your prospective lineup for the next week only. There is a "Fixtures" page that expands for all future weeks, but sorry - not good enough.

In every single U.S.-run fantasy game you can click on a "gameweek" view MONTHS away to see who the opponents would be with your current lineup. I use it all the time. In FPL I have to use the "macro" view of the Fixtures page or click on a player's page and see his specific future fixtures - very cumbersome when planning out a starting XI 2-3 weeks away.

[icefish]

- That you can sell a player to cash out on the price before you buy the replacement.
For example you could according to that rule sell KDB today but decide on his successor after the weekend.

how'd you handle incomplete XV at the deadline?

Just a question of implentation. For example if the squad is incomplete it could result in reversal of the transfer and points deduction. Or an algorithm could choose a random player within the rules of the games instead of the sold player.

[asm_fanz]

One thing I find frusrating is not being able to see your team's lineup and opponents for future gameweeks. The "Pick Team" page is only viewable for the upcoming week, and then once the first match starts you can see your prospective lineup for the next week only. There is a "Fixtures" page that expands for all future weeks, but sorry - not good enough.

In every single U.S.-run fantasy game you can click on a "gameweek" view MONTHS away to see who the opponents would be with your current lineup. I use it all the time. In FPL I have to use the "macro" view of the Fixtures page or click on a player's page and see his specific future fixtures - very cumbersome when planning out a starting XI 2-3 weeks away.

You might find this handy
http://fplanalyzer.com/

[Notned]

Don't really have many gripes in general, but would like to see the gimmicky chips gone next season. I like the idea of one wildcard for each half of the season, but really think we can do without TC, Bench Boost and AOA. I also concur that indefinite rolling transfers would be nice.

[Le Red]

Perhaps 'dumb down' is the wrong phrase, but it seems fairly self evident that FPLs biggest interest is in attracting the most number of players possible and keeping them as long as possible rather than making changes that might improve the game experience for a select few serious players. For that they need a reasonably involved game with enough features to make it interesting to the mass casual market (weekly transfers, captains, wildcards, price changes chips etc) but not so many as to be so complicated it confuses or puts generic players off.

I think it's a bit harsh on them. Naturally, they will always be interested in attracting more players and keep the game simple for the casuals, but a lot of the recent changes also benefit hardcore players, or at least have the potential to do so. I don't think they are ruining the serious aspects of the game in benefit of the masses. I think that while most changes have helped casuals, it's fair to assume the great majority of players finishing in the top 1% will be experienced players.
Take the chips as an example. So far it has helped the casuals to boost their ranks, but after we use them in a more effective way (hopefully) it will mean that the serious players will actually benefit more from it, therefore it's too rash to say they've dumbed the game down.
The problem I have with all those options is not a players vs masses issue, it's a player vs player. When you compare your performance with other serious players, captaincy is already a big luck factor during the season. Now they've added even more options, I fear the top 1.000 is only achievable by making excellent use of the TC and BB chips.

[Mav3rick]

Maybe my use of the term "dumb down" was too flippant, but it's the additional safety nets that I find annoying and unnecessary. As I said before, the chips are not an advantage to casuals, they just inflate their ranks early on, until we hopefully get to use them "properly" (where "properly" just means that on average you'll get it right, but does not mean you will beat any specific player due to the variance involved).

[murf]

Chips = nowt to do with football = gimmick = dumbing down

[WHATEVER]

They should get rid of all the stupid chits, wildcards, captains and vice captains, and not limit transfer carry over.

They should also have more granularity in their starting prices instead of lumping everyone into £0.5M brackets.

[V1.0]

More double gameweeks!

I know it's not FPL's fault, but when I first started playing about nine years ago there was a midweek GW2 immediately after the first weekend of the season. Also, because the 3rd and 4th placed teams from the last season were playing Champions League qualifiers there were four teams missing from that GW2. It made your initial selection decisions more interesting (especially your bench) and meant that a double gameweek could come as early as October. Great fun!

I'd also just classify defensive midfielders as defenders and give them the four points for a clean sheet. It's working with Dier this year and has done with a few similar players in the past.

I'd also side with The Dazzler (unusually!) on the old bonus point system, if only because it made waiting for them to be released a genuinely interesting/exciting as you didn't know what to expect.

[V1.0]

p.s. I'd also have players with a very low ownership (less than 0.5% ?) to automatically drop £0.1M each week to make them more attractive and encourage more variations in peoples teams.

[Le Red]

p.s. I'd also have players with a very low ownership (less than 0.5% ?) to automatically drop £0.1M each week to make them more attractive and encourage more variations in peoples teams.

This is actually a very good suggestion.

[Smurphy Paw]

p.s. I'd also have players with a very low ownership (less than 0.5% ?) to automatically drop £0.1M each week to make them more attractive and encourage more variations in peoples teams.

This is actually a very good suggestion.

Over the last two years player prices have dropped at a more aggressive rate than was previously the case. It reduces the need to accumulate team value, and has also led to a degree of moaning on the forum from some.

[Smurphy Paw]

One thing I find frusrating is not being able to see your team's lineup and opponents for future gameweeks. The "Pick Team" page is only viewable for the upcoming week, and then once the first match starts you can see your prospective lineup for the next week only. There is a "Fixtures" page that expands for all future weeks, but sorry - not good enough.

In every single U.S.-run fantasy game you can click on a "gameweek" view MONTHS away to see who the opponents would be with your current lineup. I use it all the time. In FPL I have to use the "macro" view of the Fixtures page or click on a player's page and see his specific future fixtures - very cumbersome when planning out a starting XI 2-3 weeks away.

This would be a welcome addition and not difficult to implement. Good suggestion

[matmutte]

Something should be done to solve this ridiculous 1-pointers you get when your player gets an injury during the game. In real life, your get him out and put one of your subs on, you still have 11 players on the field. But in FPL your subs are apparently too comfortable on their bench or they left their shoes at home.
Say your player gets injured at 30th minute. You should get his points up to this minute, and then you should get the points scored by the first player on your bench after that point, i.e the points scored by this player from 30th minute to to end of his game.
I'm sure there is a way to get something worked out, it's just so annoying when it happens because its plainly just bad luck and nothing to do with your skill.

Cannot agree more on the accumulation of transfers if you don't use them, plus a great idea to get interest on your money in the bank. That would bring different strategies into play.