FPL improvements for next year?

[Le Red]

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

That would be outstanding! Let's save the idea.

[Le Red]

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.

Your suggestion is way too complicated.
With some change of mechanics what could be done is giving the option to change any player who had less than 60min for one of the subs (respecting the order and the three defenders rule) up to a given number of hours after the last match of the gameweek, but this would also be complicated.
Maybe the best option, although it would backfire sometimes, would be to have an "AUTO-SUB SWITCH":

1. You choose to leave it "ON" or "OFF" before every deadline. "OFF" is the default setting in GW1. In the next gameweeks, it's the one you chose before.
2. The switch would make every player in your first 11 who got less than 60 minutes be subbed, respecting the bench order and the three defender rule.
3. In the event that there are more players subject to auto-sub than on the bench, the game would assign the players with the smaller "points per game" to be subbed first. In the event of a tie, the player with the lowest price would be chosen first. If the tie persists, the player who has more transfers in (total) would be chosen first.
3. Non-playing athletes will still be subbed before the ones who play less than 60 minutes.
4. Your captain can't be subbed if both he and the vice-captain got less than 60 minute. Your vice-captain can't be auto-subbed if the captain doesn't feature.

Perhaps the whole thing would get over some people's heads, but everyone would understand the basic: leave the switch on and players who got less than 60 minutes are subbed. Enough to keep the game simple, and fair to those plagued by injuries, benchings and early subs.

[icefish]

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.

Your suggestion is way too complicated.
With some change of mechanics what could be done is giving the option to change any player who had less than 60min for one of the subs (respecting the order and the three defenders rule) up to a given number of hours after the last match of the gameweek, but this would also be complicated.
Maybe the best option, although it would backfire sometimes, would be to have an "AUTO-SUB SWITCH":

1. You choose to leave it "ON" or "OFF" before every deadline. "OFF" is the default setting in GW1. In the next gameweeks, it's the one you chose before.
2. The switch would make every player in your first 11 who got less than 60 minutes be subbed, respecting the bench order and the three defender rule.
3. In the event that there are more players subject to auto-sub than on the bench, the game would assign the players with the smaller "points per game" to be subbed first. In the event of a tie, the player with the lowest price would be chosen first. If the tie persists, the player who has more transfers in (total) would be chosen first.
3. Non-playing athletes will still be subbed before the ones who play less than 60 minutes.
4. Your captain can't be subbed if both he and the vice-captain got less than 60 minute. Your vice-captain can't be auto-subbed if the captain doesn't feature.

Perhaps the whole thing would get over some people's heads, but everyone would understand the basic: leave the switch on and players who got less than 60 minutes are subbed. Enough to keep the game simple, and fair to those plagued by injuries, benchings and early subs.

Love the sentiment that his idea is too complicated. Said in peace btw, I´m drunk

Edit: In all seriousness many good ideas regarding future implementation of fpl. Looking forward to next season. ( Pretty sure FPL representatives are lurking this space).

[Le Red]

Love the sentiment that his idea is too complicated. Said in peace btw, I´m drunk

lol, I know, what I said can be quite overwhelming too, but for the user it would be quite simple, just one button, yes or no, everything else would be automatic.
I know we're having a brainstorm, but I think matmutte didn't think through his suggestion

[tomo89]

I would love to see that. Just for the carnage on here when aguero scores a first half hat trick and is then subbed off on 59 mins.

[Smurphy Paw]

I can't see it working. Sure, when someone has a serious injury it is obvious. But players also get subbed when they are just playing badly, and the point of difference is more nuanced (we're they playing badly due to injury? Were they just rubbish? Etc. Etc.)
I'm not sure I'd want to make sense of the difference, and definitely wouldn't want someone to benefit after, frankly, putting a muppet in the first 11

[mike778]

The chips/captaincy are necessary because of the underlying problem of template teams. If everyone has 3 of Aguero/Lukaky/Kane/Ighalo or whatever then you need things like captaincy to differentiate things. The reason for this is that price changes are way too slow. Once it was obvious how much of an impact Mahrez was making - really his price should have rocketted up to say 9m early on. I would dramatically increase price changes so that players raise to their natural value pretty quickly. If you did this, there would be far more variety in teams so you wouldn't need gimmicks like the chips. All in all, I would

1. As above dramatically increase price changes maybe so that everyone moves by 0.1m per day up or down. Possibly with increased protection for injuries.
2. In line with the above, increase the cost of transfer hits (which are obviously worth more in terms of team value if player prices change more)
3. Reduce to 1 wildcard which would be active for 1 day (ie once you have activated you can't keep tinekering with a week to pick up price changes)
4. Drop the other chips
5. Allow people to have as big or small a squad as they want. If you don't want a backup goalie then fine, if you want some extra cover for injuries then again fine. Would obviously need some tinkering with prices due to the potential for smaller squads.
6. In line with number 5, instead of one transfer per week, it would be 1 buy and 1 sell.
7. Allow for unlimited rollovers as suggested by others.

[matmutte]

Love the sentiment that his idea is too complicated. Said in peace btw, I´m drunk

lol, I know, what I said can be quite overwhelming too, but for the user it would be quite simple, just one button, yes or no, everything else would be automatic.
I know we're having a brainstorm, but I think matmutte didn't think through his suggestion

Lol i'll take your "complicated" comment as ironic as i have stricly understood nothing to your 3 page suggestion
But i would say i dont want my player being subbed because he played less than 60 minutes. for all i know and as someone has pointed out, he might have scored 20 points. What i want is to have 11 players on the pitch at all times, and not be punished because a player gets injured after 10 minutes and i cant do anything about it. Its really the same principle as when you have a no-show player, you get a sub instead. But i understand it can be technically tough to implement. Maybe you should have a chip for that.

On another note i never understood why a defender gets more than forwards and mids when he scores, but get the effing same when he assists. Assists points structure should follow the same logic as goals : say 4 for defenders, 3 for mids and 2 for forwards.

[Le Red]

Love the sentiment that his idea is too complicated. Said in peace btw, I´m drunk

lol, I know, what I said can be quite overwhelming too, but for the user it would be quite simple, just one button, yes or no, everything else would be automatic.
I know we're having a brainstorm, but I think matmutte didn't think through his suggestion

Lol i'll take your "complicated" comment as ironic as i have stricly understood nothing to your 3 page suggestion
But i would say i dont want my player being subbed because he played less than 60 minutes. for all i know and as someone has pointed out, he might have scored 20 points. What i want is to have 11 players on the pitch at all times, and not be punished because a player gets injured after 10 minutes and i cant do anything about it. Its really the same principle as when you have a no-show player, you get a sub instead. But i understand it can be technically tough to implement. Maybe you should have a chip for that.

On another note i never understood why a defender gets more than forwards and mids when he scores, but get the effing same when he assists. Assists points structure should follow the same logic as goals : say 4 for defenders, 3 for mids and 2 for forwards.

Not ironic though, it's just that two players scoring for just one team spot is just something that couldn't be done. It would mess the points and how would bonus and minutes be split? I was not having a go at you btw.
If you read what I said through, you'll see it couldn't be more simple, make a yes or no choice, the rest would be processed automatically. Otherwise, we can (and probably will) just have to take subs and injuries on the chin.

[mayweather]

The transfer carry is the one that has been needed badly. It helps both good planners and players who drift in and out. Everyone is a winner. Crazy how the change has never happened after all these years which leads me to believe it will never be implemented.

[matmutte]

Love the sentiment that his idea is too complicated. Said in peace btw, I´m drunk

lol, I know, what I said can be quite overwhelming too, but for the user it would be quite simple, just one button, yes or no, everything else would be automatic.
I know we're having a brainstorm, but I think matmutte didn't think through his suggestion

Lol i'll take your "complicated" comment as ironic as i have stricly understood nothing to your 3 page suggestion
But i would say i dont want my player being subbed because he played less than 60 minutes. for all i know and as someone has pointed out, he might have scored 20 points. What i want is to have 11 players on the pitch at all times, and not be punished because a player gets injured after 10 minutes and i cant do anything about it. Its really the same principle as when you have a no-show player, you get a sub instead. But i understand it can be technically tough to implement. Maybe you should have a chip for that.

On another note i never understood why a defender gets more than forwards and mids when he scores, but get the effing same when he assists. Assists points structure should follow the same logic as goals : say 4 for defenders, 3 for mids and 2 for forwards.

Not ironic though, it's just that two players scoring for just one team spot is just something that couldn't be done. It would mess the points and how would bonus and minutes be split? I was not having a go at you btw.
If you read what I said through, you'll see it couldn't be more simple, make a yes or no choice, the rest would be processed automatically. Otherwise, we can (and probably will) just have to take subs and injuries on the chin.

No worries mate.
I read what you wrote actually. While i understand my idea is complicated to implement, your suggestion is just not the same and is not adressing my painful grief. Like you say, it's probably not going to happen anyway.

[hancockjr]

I'm against the transfer carry - anyone who uses few to begin with it becomes just like TFF etc - a set number each year (although you can "buy" more). I don't even like the "new" rule of rolling one over.

Overall there should be the following aims:

1) Increase the skill without too much complexity (don't want to put off casuals)
2) Encourage different teams
3) Keep FPL different to other games

For this they need:

- Quicker price rises, and make them hard/impossible to accurately predict
- Tighter budgets
- One wildcard only

I do like the idea of transfer out before transfer in but you shoudl get a random player if you don't transfer in; it shoudl stay a 15 man game (or else no-one would have subs assuming the pricing is right.

Regarding chips, I actually like (more skill, more differentiation, FPL specific) them but would make one key change: In a double gameweek you only get the chip benefit for the first fixture. That way they would be used throughout the season rather than saved for wildcards.

I've always thought you should be able to "buy" an overdraft for a week at £0.1m = 1point. e.g. If you are £0.2m short for your transfer one week you can do it at a 2 point cost. You pay another 2 pts next week if you remain "overdrawn" (though you'd expect to raise the money from your next transfer).

From a personal point of view I'd also have no price rises on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, as it's not fair to expect people to know what they want to do at that point.

[MadasHell]

Just a thought - why do price changes need to be based on NTIs? Other competitions set a starting or anchor price, and then price changes are determined based on performance (eg using 3 week rolling average score).

I can't believe they'd ever make such a fundamental change, but it would certainly change the transfer dynamics.

[Triggy]

Just a thought - why do price changes need to be based on NTIs? Other competitions set a starting or anchor price, and then price changes are determined based on performance (eg using 3 week rolling average score).

I can't believe they'd ever make such a fundamental change, but it would certainly change the transfer dynamics.

When I ran a fantasy Formula 1 competition and website for a few years, I based all price changes on actual performance. Price changed by 10% of the difference between their current price and the price predicted by their latest result alone (basing it on more than the last gameweek means that people will still be able to predict bandwagons so is sub-optimal). The price rise happened immediately in the update following a result and transfers of players in or out before the update would not be allowed until after the update. This means that you can't see that Aguero has scored a hattrick and transfer him in (or out) until after his price has been updated to reflect his performance.

Using 5% as an example for FPL, If for instance Aguero scored 17 points in a week and was priced £13.4 then the 17 points may translate to a predicted cost of £34.0m (I'm only approximating here to demonstrate the logic). The difference in price is £20.6m and therefore his price would rise by 10% of this (£1.0m). If he scored 2 points instead (predicted cost of £4.0m) then his price would fall by £0.5m. Obviously the amounts to rise or fall could vary (and the percentage change for a single FPL per week could be different). Non-playing players could have an automatic (small) drop, etc. and I have no doubt the details would be fine tuned but the principle would still hold. I don't honestly know if this is a better system and even more of the price change amounts could be lost as a sell on fee if deemed appropriate but because there isn't a good way to predict price changes, you presumably wouldn't see anywhere near the same bandwagoning (you would only see it for good players rather than people hopping on to catch price rises).

[Stemania]

Using 5% as an example for FPL, If for instance Aguero scored 17 points in a week and was priced £13.4 then the 17 points may translate to a predicted cost of £34.0m (I'm only approximating here to demonstrate the logic). The difference in price is £20.6m and therefore his price would rise by 10% of this (£1.0m). If he scored 2 points instead (predicted cost of £4.0m) then his price would fall by £0.5m. Obviously the amounts to rise or fall could vary (and the percentage change for a single FPL per week could be different). Non-playing players could have an automatic (small) drop, etc. and I have no doubt the details would be fine tuned but the principle would still hold. I don't honestly know if this is a better system and even more of the price change amounts could be lost as a sell on fee if deemed appropriate but because there isn't a good way to predict price changes, you presumably wouldn't see anywhere near the same bandwagoning (you would only see it for good players rather than people hopping on to catch price rises).

Isn't the problem there that as the season goes on all players's prices would roughly approach exactly what their price 'should be' (assuming the points to price approximation is accurate), meaning that eventually most active PL players will pretty much offer the same 'value' - ''about right''? So as the season went further and further on it would matter less and less who a manager picked so long as they spent all their money - everyone's 11 would have roughly the same points potential and scores would even more heavily come down to luck. Finishing high would appear to be extremely dependent on making money early doors too.

[Triggy]

Using 5% as an example for FPL, If for instance Aguero scored 17 points in a week and was priced £13.4 then the 17 points may translate to a predicted cost of £34.0m (I'm only approximating here to demonstrate the logic). The difference in price is £20.6m and therefore his price would rise by 10% of this (£1.0m). If he scored 2 points instead (predicted cost of £4.0m) then his price would fall by £0.5m. Obviously the amounts to rise or fall could vary (and the percentage change for a single FPL per week could be different). Non-playing players could have an automatic (small) drop, etc. and I have no doubt the details would be fine tuned but the principle would still hold. I don't honestly know if this is a better system and even more of the price change amounts could be lost as a sell on fee if deemed appropriate but because there isn't a good way to predict price changes, you presumably wouldn't see anywhere near the same bandwagoning (you would only see it for good players rather than people hopping on to catch price rises).

Isn't the problem there that as the season goes on all players's prices would roughly approach exactly what their price 'should be' (assuming the points to price approximation is accurate), meaning that eventually most active PL players will pretty much offer the same 'value' - ''about right''? So as the season went further and further on it would matter less and less who a manager picked so long as they spent all their money - everyone's 11 would have roughly the same points potential and scores would even more heavily come down to luck. Finishing high would appear to be extremely dependent on making money early doors too.

It depends on what you want out of the pricing - if you want prices to catch up with "what they should be" quickly then this method would work well and once every player is in the right ball park then you would have a lot of flexibility about choices. You would have to reduce the amount of profit (maybe to zero) that you can make out of players though to keep it from being a lottery of getting the right players early.

If you want the game to have slow or zero price rises then the current model is pretty good actually as price rises happen but slowly enough to allow people to follow bandwagons (for good or for bad) if they want to.

[Le Red]

Personally I like the price rise/drop system. It works in a way that it's enough to make it an important part of the game, but not so important that makes playing the market a top priority.
Changing it to make prices rise/fall too quickly would pretty much oblige players to buy and sell the same players in order to keep up and later on everyone would be rich and could buy anyone. It's a terrible idea.
The only change I'd like to see is somebody's suggestion to make prices fall 0.1 per week when players have too few owners, like less than 1%.
Also, they have to stop reseting NTIs everytime they yellow flag a player, specially since their policy this season is to yellow flag any guy who's caught on camera scratching his ankle.

[Sutter Kane]

Re talk of being able to carry transfers indefinitely, why not have a chip? When you play it, you can carry over indefinitely until you use a transfer (Or some/all your built up transfers. That would make it very powerful obviously). I think this may be a strategic play for when you have a really strong squad (that's not injury prone) but also has a luck element in there but it's not as extreme as just carrying over indefinite transfers as a general rule which I feel could lead to problems. (unless you maybe limit it to 3/4 which is another idea)

Also why not have an option to swap TV for points but only before the season starts. This would have to be thought through carefully by FPL though. ('moron ) I really like the idea of deciding whether it would be worth it and the ensuing discussion on here!!

[JD007]

I think they should introduce a new chip. It should be called Destructo. Its effect would be to eliminate one player of your choice from the game. I'd then use it instantly on my girlfriends team, who after 2 years of FPL coaching is giving me a kicking this year. Although I'd add, at no point did I ever recommend her to select players based on their profile pics ... come ON...

Thank you.

Oh, and yes, I would of course be sleeping on the sofa after that ... but the contented smile on my face would be for other reasons entirely.

[Curmudgeon]

I think that the idea about swapping cash for points is generally infeasible and would change the focus of the game.

Nevertheless, it might be interesting if it was brought into the accounting at the end of the season, much like the frisson of excitement which can be obtained from playing all your tiles in Scrabble and discovering that you have won because your opponent is left with a Q. (I know, I am sad . . . ) which would introduce a "Final Game Week" tactical scenario by which teams vying with each other would be able to sell off their players in whom they had accumulated profits (in exchange for cheaper players who they hoped would come good on the final day of the season) to release cash to gain extra points. Withholding playing your Wild Card until final games would then potentially be beneficial, although you might lose ground in previous GameWeeks.

More radically, If FPL wanted to encourage continuity, then instead of the cash in, they could allow participants to roll over their teams (decision to be made before the final GameWeek) with the caveat that any players who were not available at the start of the following season would be replaced by a cash amount equal to the price of the lowest possible formation replacement.

If I have a few glasses of wine over the weekend I might make more, increasingly radical suggestions . . .

[Robin Write]

That when your benched defender scores a brace you automatically get the points.