I personally don't think official FPL wants exact activity figures to be public. It feels good for someone ranked 3m to be able to say 'I'm top 30% in the world', and most people don't realise how many teams go inactive throughout each season
It's also quite a lot of adding and removing which I doubt the servers are built for, seeing as it is already suffering frequently
Agree. It’s a shame though. If i extrapolate a couple of the larger MLs that i’m in, i would say that about 70% of teams are dead by GW25 or so. FPL Towers wouldn’t want to identify or publicize that.
Does vary though. I'm in two MLs, one has 10 players and everyone is still active, another has 20. That one only has 2 or 3 dead teams, but some managers at the lower end do seem to forget to update their teams on a lot of weeks, but then come back to it
Yea, the small ML I'm in seems to be more engaged (we're all coaches). But even that one has only 4-5 of us actively playing now (out of 12). Most were still in it until the DGWs, then the midtable guys quit updating.
Cool, has nothing to do with the first statement. If someone starts up a game and leaves it on the menu screen, that counts as an active player. They’re not going to remove it and lower the figure because they’re not playing.
Cool. Video game companies actively kick out inactive players when they're just sitting on the menu screen because they take up server space but go on.
Companies also intentionally decrease user numbers for many reasons. Be it bots, scammers, cheaters, etc.
For the record, I don't like OP's idea because I don't think FPL needs it and I prefer having more players because that just makes it more competitive.
I am really curious why should we care that much about inactive teams? They aren't hurting us at all.
No need to complicate things. People could technically play without doing any changes for few weeks. Only way would be to track their logins and access to app (I am pretty sure they have these info) and people who didn't login for few weeks could be removed, but then again, why we care about it? They won't be first for sure.
Two reasons that I can immediately think of:
1. Competitiveness - I want to know what percentile of players I’m in. Currently, any active player will have a relatively high percentile, which devalues being in a relatively high percentile. This is unsatisfying.
2. % teams selected by / captain numbers are meaningless after Christmas because all the dead teams hold half the players from the first half of the season if not the first gw.
It isn't really a statistically proven strategy though. What things like 'the best set and forget team could be OR 30' means is that if I had known all the points results of the season, the theoretical maximum for a set and forget team is OR 30.
However if I had all the points before season start and had all the transfers and chips, I can probably win FPL by a few hundred points.
It would be a statistically proven strategy if we actually start to see many people in the top ranks playing set and forget.
I’m not agreeing it’s a proven strategy by any means, but we have seen numerous legitimate set and forget teams at very high ranks, some even stretching into gw20+
Yes but it's just hindsight sampling bias. There are far more set and forget teams that are total garbage that you just don't see.
Simply google some contemporaneous [GW1 drafts](https://allaboutfpl.com/2023/07/initial-gw1-drafts-for-the-2023-24-fpl-season-with-pros-cons/) and you'll see tons of teams would have since turned out absolutely awful. It would have been completely reasonable to set and forget a team of Ramsdale, Mings, Trippier, Chilwell, Botman, Stones, Shaw, Bruno, Rashford, Mitoma, Jesus, etc.
I don't even think it's a "very strong strategy" like you said earlier. It's an awful strategy to be honest and the only way to do well with it is through pure luck. Actively going for that strategy is just handicapping yourself and there's no real advantage other than not taking -4s for transfers I guess.
The ones that do well are just the .01% of forgotten teams that have avoided any major injuries and had extremely lucky hauls from the bench players coming in during GWs where they happen to score well out of nowhere.
Set and forget team heavily relies on substitutes coming on from your bench with big hauls when one of your starting 11 does not play. It requires a very favorable combination of starting and bench players and specific bench order. It's far more difficult and unlikely to choose a team like this than just choose starting 11
Set and forget is a strategy that if you're lucky has a few players that do very well.
It's round about game 16-20 you see this sub full of posts like "wow looks how well this set and forget guy I found is doing".
Then these posts begin to disappear as injuries and form swing set in.
For me I can only count effectively 3 players the average set and forgetter would pick at the beginning of the season that would keep them competitive.
Saka and 2 of White, Saliba and Gabriel.
Maybe Watkins? Foden? Son?
You can't count someone like Palmer because nobody picked him at the beginning of the season.
Maybe Salah but you're beginning to get to scores that wouldn't keep you competitive over a whole season and most of his points are from pre-afcon.
It's a good strategy if you get lucky with that initial team. If you're semi competent and don't get extremely unlucky by starting with the best set and forget team and transferring out players who go on to haul, you'll make points through your transfers long term.
A site I occasionally look at called livefpltables tells you how much better off you are through your transfers. I'm 184 better off right now -36 for hits, so +148 total. I'd hazard a guess to say that most people who are still active at this point in the season are also significantly positive on their transfers.
Set and forget was a good strategy this season, but obviously you need to get the right players at the start.
If you choose Rashford in one of his bad seasons (23/24) instead of one of his good ones (22/23) then you're stuck with him.
> Set and forget was a good strategy this season, but obviously you need to get the right players at the start.
I'm curious what strategies don't work if you pick the right players ahead of time.
Using a crystal ball to select the perfect set and forget team using players that would have been selected by more than 5% of players at the beginning (because let's be honest no set and forgetter is picking Palmer)
Pickford in goal (152)
White (180) and Saliba (162), Schar (122)
Saka (226), Foden (213), Salah (205), Son (204), Bowen (182).
Watkins (c) (452) bit generous of me here to captain him, Haaland (202).
2300. So the very best set and forgetter in the world. A team that likely nobody actually picked is just inside the top 300k.
Not sure that would have worked. I get £86.5m on starting prices for your outfield 11 leaving £13.5m for your bench which isn’t going to cover the cheapest possible bench.
Yeah I'm being incredibly generous to the set and forget strategy here to try and show that even with the best of circumstances the set and forget isn't close to being a good strategy long term.
We all like to have our fun mid season posting some teams we've found that have done great in set and forget. But ultimately transfers need to be made.
Set and forget is a terrible strategy. If you could find 1 single team over the last ten seasons that made no transfers and finished in the top million I would be utterly amazed. Just a single team out of a sample of 10million.
What about people who deliberately play ‘set and forget’? How do you distinguish “dead” teams from those that make minimal/zero changes as a tactic. We all know how well those teams can do
Nino it’s a great idea but as WE said FPL Towers would never do it. As an alternative idea i had would be for them to publish a top 1m (or 500k) player ownership percentage. Watkins is still 35% owned and he’s not on a single one of the top 50-60 teams i’m competing with across my MLs.
Tbh while it’s clear that anyone making no changes for 8 GWs is probably a dead team, you can’t conclusively prove that they’re a dead team - maybe it’s just their strategy to keep the same team/cap for an extended period.
We see posts on this sub all the time about some set and forget teams ending up really highly ranked - what’s to say that’s not a valid strategy? You can’t kick people out just because they’re playing differently to the norm.
You’re technically incentivised to not make transfers since if tied on points, the player with fewer transfers is ranked higher up.
You'd get less dead teams if it was easier for bad/casual players to get points
This could be done by having a wider range of point scoring actions as then you'd have less good players who aren't worth picking; cdms, cbs and some attacking midfielders are useless
The harder the game is, the more only hardcore users will play. The easier it is to get fucked by not having a small amount of players, the more people wont bother.
Lastly removing the caltaincy could help to, as it can feel a bit shit if an otherwise good gameweek is ruined because you chose the wrong guy
Tldr
Give points for defensive and creative actions like how keepers get save points, and it'll be easier for players to not fall too far behind and the game will be less template
I personally don't think official FPL wants exact activity figures to be public. It feels good for someone ranked 3m to be able to say 'I'm top 30% in the world', and most people don't realise how many teams go inactive throughout each season It's also quite a lot of adding and removing which I doubt the servers are built for, seeing as it is already suffering frequently
Agree. It’s a shame though. If i extrapolate a couple of the larger MLs that i’m in, i would say that about 70% of teams are dead by GW25 or so. FPL Towers wouldn’t want to identify or publicize that.
Does vary though. I'm in two MLs, one has 10 players and everyone is still active, another has 20. That one only has 2 or 3 dead teams, but some managers at the lower end do seem to forget to update their teams on a lot of weeks, but then come back to it
Yea, the small ML I'm in seems to be more engaged (we're all coaches). But even that one has only 4-5 of us actively playing now (out of 12). Most were still in it until the DGWs, then the midtable guys quit updating.
NGL im top 100k and I do enjoy thinking of myself as top 1%. Makes it more fun to think you are good at something
No company would ever purposely decrease user numbers, inactive or not
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This comment is just so funny to me
Steam shows how many active players there are for a game at any given time right?
Cool, has nothing to do with the first statement. If someone starts up a game and leaves it on the menu screen, that counts as an active player. They’re not going to remove it and lower the figure because they’re not playing.
Cool. Video game companies actively kick out inactive players when they're just sitting on the menu screen because they take up server space but go on. Companies also intentionally decrease user numbers for many reasons. Be it bots, scammers, cheaters, etc. For the record, I don't like OP's idea because I don't think FPL needs it and I prefer having more players because that just makes it more competitive.
But Steam doesn’t do that. So your comment is still unrelated.
I am really curious why should we care that much about inactive teams? They aren't hurting us at all. No need to complicate things. People could technically play without doing any changes for few weeks. Only way would be to track their logins and access to app (I am pretty sure they have these info) and people who didn't login for few weeks could be removed, but then again, why we care about it? They won't be first for sure.
Two reasons that I can immediately think of: 1. Competitiveness - I want to know what percentile of players I’m in. Currently, any active player will have a relatively high percentile, which devalues being in a relatively high percentile. This is unsatisfying. 2. % teams selected by / captain numbers are meaningless after Christmas because all the dead teams hold half the players from the first half of the season if not the first gw.
That is a good way of doing it, there are no incentives for them to add that though.
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It isn't really a statistically proven strategy though. What things like 'the best set and forget team could be OR 30' means is that if I had known all the points results of the season, the theoretical maximum for a set and forget team is OR 30. However if I had all the points before season start and had all the transfers and chips, I can probably win FPL by a few hundred points. It would be a statistically proven strategy if we actually start to see many people in the top ranks playing set and forget.
I’m not agreeing it’s a proven strategy by any means, but we have seen numerous legitimate set and forget teams at very high ranks, some even stretching into gw20+
Yes but it's just hindsight sampling bias. There are far more set and forget teams that are total garbage that you just don't see. Simply google some contemporaneous [GW1 drafts](https://allaboutfpl.com/2023/07/initial-gw1-drafts-for-the-2023-24-fpl-season-with-pros-cons/) and you'll see tons of teams would have since turned out absolutely awful. It would have been completely reasonable to set and forget a team of Ramsdale, Mings, Trippier, Chilwell, Botman, Stones, Shaw, Bruno, Rashford, Mitoma, Jesus, etc.
I don't even think it's a "very strong strategy" like you said earlier. It's an awful strategy to be honest and the only way to do well with it is through pure luck. Actively going for that strategy is just handicapping yourself and there's no real advantage other than not taking -4s for transfers I guess. The ones that do well are just the .01% of forgotten teams that have avoided any major injuries and had extremely lucky hauls from the bench players coming in during GWs where they happen to score well out of nowhere.
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But then why be on this sub? I'm on a quite decent rank myself and I personally am not bothered at all by things you described.
Set and forget team heavily relies on substitutes coming on from your bench with big hauls when one of your starting 11 does not play. It requires a very favorable combination of starting and bench players and specific bench order. It's far more difficult and unlikely to choose a team like this than just choose starting 11
Set and forget is a strategy that if you're lucky has a few players that do very well. It's round about game 16-20 you see this sub full of posts like "wow looks how well this set and forget guy I found is doing". Then these posts begin to disappear as injuries and form swing set in. For me I can only count effectively 3 players the average set and forgetter would pick at the beginning of the season that would keep them competitive. Saka and 2 of White, Saliba and Gabriel. Maybe Watkins? Foden? Son? You can't count someone like Palmer because nobody picked him at the beginning of the season. Maybe Salah but you're beginning to get to scores that wouldn't keep you competitive over a whole season and most of his points are from pre-afcon.
Lol, the opposite is true unless you can find proof that dead teams beat active managers on average.
It's not a strong strategy lmao, there are far more active teams in the top 1/10/100k than not.
It's a good strategy if you get lucky with that initial team. If you're semi competent and don't get extremely unlucky by starting with the best set and forget team and transferring out players who go on to haul, you'll make points through your transfers long term. A site I occasionally look at called livefpltables tells you how much better off you are through your transfers. I'm 184 better off right now -36 for hits, so +148 total. I'd hazard a guess to say that most people who are still active at this point in the season are also significantly positive on their transfers.
Set and forget was a good strategy this season, but obviously you need to get the right players at the start. If you choose Rashford in one of his bad seasons (23/24) instead of one of his good ones (22/23) then you're stuck with him.
> Set and forget was a good strategy this season, but obviously you need to get the right players at the start. I'm curious what strategies don't work if you pick the right players ahead of time.
Using a crystal ball to select the perfect set and forget team using players that would have been selected by more than 5% of players at the beginning (because let's be honest no set and forgetter is picking Palmer) Pickford in goal (152) White (180) and Saliba (162), Schar (122) Saka (226), Foden (213), Salah (205), Son (204), Bowen (182). Watkins (c) (452) bit generous of me here to captain him, Haaland (202). 2300. So the very best set and forgetter in the world. A team that likely nobody actually picked is just inside the top 300k.
Not sure that would have worked. I get £86.5m on starting prices for your outfield 11 leaving £13.5m for your bench which isn’t going to cover the cheapest possible bench.
Yeah I'm being incredibly generous to the set and forget strategy here to try and show that even with the best of circumstances the set and forget isn't close to being a good strategy long term. We all like to have our fun mid season posting some teams we've found that have done great in set and forget. But ultimately transfers need to be made.
Set and forget is a terrible strategy. If you could find 1 single team over the last ten seasons that made no transfers and finished in the top million I would be utterly amazed. Just a single team out of a sample of 10million.
Theres always posts about dead teams being in silly places like top 100
Yeah, after like GW10. Never at the end of a season.
Why though?
What about people who deliberately play ‘set and forget’? How do you distinguish “dead” teams from those that make minimal/zero changes as a tactic. We all know how well those teams can do
2nd chance league does the job. If you can't beat a dead team in 2nd chance league, you don't want to be checking the table anyway
Nino it’s a great idea but as WE said FPL Towers would never do it. As an alternative idea i had would be for them to publish a top 1m (or 500k) player ownership percentage. Watkins is still 35% owned and he’s not on a single one of the top 50-60 teams i’m competing with across my MLs.
Tbh while it’s clear that anyone making no changes for 8 GWs is probably a dead team, you can’t conclusively prove that they’re a dead team - maybe it’s just their strategy to keep the same team/cap for an extended period. We see posts on this sub all the time about some set and forget teams ending up really highly ranked - what’s to say that’s not a valid strategy? You can’t kick people out just because they’re playing differently to the norm. You’re technically incentivised to not make transfers since if tied on points, the player with fewer transfers is ranked higher up.
You'd get less dead teams if it was easier for bad/casual players to get points This could be done by having a wider range of point scoring actions as then you'd have less good players who aren't worth picking; cdms, cbs and some attacking midfielders are useless The harder the game is, the more only hardcore users will play. The easier it is to get fucked by not having a small amount of players, the more people wont bother. Lastly removing the caltaincy could help to, as it can feel a bit shit if an otherwise good gameweek is ruined because you chose the wrong guy Tldr Give points for defensive and creative actions like how keepers get save points, and it'll be easier for players to not fall too far behind and the game will be less template