Team Differentiation

[Speculator]

Everyone is always complaining (and rightly so) about the sameness of fanatasy football teams. The most obvious way people have suggested to alleviate this is to make all players more expensive so that everyone does not load up on all the best premiums by the middle of the year. Fair enough.

One other way might be to use some subjective reasoning when determining the price of players instead of using the "last year's average" formula. This would help mitigate the problem of everyone having player x because he is underpriced. For example, this year everyone (or many people) will have Porplyzia, presuming that Monty is right and he is rookie priced. When a player is ridulously underpriced everyone jumps on and the competition as a whole suffers. 2 other examples this year are Giles and Stephenson on the ruck bench. This will be the ruck bench for evry serious DTer/SCer in the country. Does this not reduce the enjoyment of the game? Would it not be better to determine a fairer price, let's say, $160k (in sc) so that coaches have an actual decision to make? Do they lock in the these fantastic ruck bench options to get some decent cover, or do they pocket the cash, select comeone like Derycx and use that money to bolster their midfield?. It is a ridiculous state of affairs when you have someone like Billy Longer, who is a much poorer prospect that Giles or Stephenson, but will cost $60 - $70k more. If we want team differentiation, we need subjective evaluations of each players prospects.

On a similar theme, everyone was upset when Gibbs was (likely to be) classified as a mid only. This decision should be applauded because now we see only Goddard and Deledio in every single team's backline, instead of Goddard Deledio AND Gibbs.

Thoughts?

[2]

Find me someone who had the exact same team as you last year? There will always be enough uniques to make it interesting. Barely anyone has the same midfields, let alone the whole team.

[Speculator]

Last year I played a bloke and we had 5 players out of 22 which were different. And we live on opposite ides of the country and never speak to one another. I don't think I'm in the minority when I say that teams are too similar.

[Matty411]

I have to agree Spec, but only partly. The similarity in the teams is always going to happen due to the amount of hype certain players get in the preseason and rightly so... Also by the end of the year its is obvious to make out who the best players are so everyone naturally upgrades to the same premiums.

Despite the annoying nature of lining up against someone and finding out that you only have 5 different players in the starting lineup, it is up to us to pick a little differently and go for a few uniques. It is still possible to have an awesome team that is different to the majority.

For example most people had the following by the last month of 2011 - Gibbs, God, Lids, Heppell, Swan, Pendles, GAJ, Murphy, Boyd, Cox, Buddy, Chappy, Voldt, Petrie and Fyfe. But if you took a few risks and went for unique's you could've had the following - Martin, Hanley, Thompson, Sheils, Rockliff, Christensen, McEvoy, Jacobs and the list could go on.

If you want to be unique and avoid the above happening, the trick is trying to find the best premiums with the lowest % of coach ownership. There are going to be a lot of players (Swan, GAJ, Lids, Fyfe) that all good coaches MUST have purely because if you don't have them you will not be at the top - but there is enough unique players (as '2' said) to make a good team and avoid this - it just takes a bit more research and a bit of Balls...

[Speculator]

I get your point Matty411, and I do indeed try to pick a couple of unique here and there but to undertake a “unique” strategy is likely to end in disaster (just ask Monty). I mean who in their right mind would select players from your second list of players over your first? I agree that everyone will inevitably put ablett, gaddard, swan etc in their teams, however if they gave us less cash (or made the players more expensive i.e. radically change the magic number) it would make for a much more challenging and interesting competition with more mid pricers in the game. At the moment, fantasy football teams are selected from a pool of about 60/70 players. This the biggest problem with the game IMHO.

[Matty411]

Looks like your prayers have been answered haha - the new magic number for 2012 is 4945!

This will make it plenty hard and should give us a bit more to think about...

looks like uniques might be the go in 2012 afterall...

[coolfugitiv0]

Everyone is always complaining (and rightly so) about the sameness of fanatasy football teams. The most obvious way people have suggested to alleviate this is to make all players more expensive so that everyone does not load up on all the best premiums by the middle of the year. Fair enough.

This is always going to happen..

4 players averaged 120+ last season (Pendlebury, Ablett, Cox and Swan).
15 players between 110 and 120
and 26 players between 100 and 110.

That's 45 players who averaged over 100 last year... Between over 400,000 teams.
Of course most teams will have a lot of the same players, it's common sense, there's not enough players for anything else to happen.

One other way might be to use some subjective reasoning when determining the price of players instead of using the "last year's average" formula. This would help mitigate the problem of everyone having player x because he is underpriced. For example, this year everyone (or many people) will have Porplyzia, presuming that Monty is right and he is rookie priced. When a player is ridulously underpriced everyone jumps on and the competition as a whole suffers. 2 other examples this year are Giles and Stephenson on the ruck bench. This will be the ruck bench for evry serious DTer/SCer in the country. Does this not reduce the enjoyment of the game? Would it not be better to determine a fairer price, let's say, $160k (in sc) so that coaches have an actual decision to make? Do they lock in the these fantastic ruck bench options to get some decent cover, or do they pocket the cash, select comeone like Derycx and use that money to bolster their midfield?. It is a ridiculous state of affairs when you have someone like Billy Longer, who is a much poorer prospect that Giles or Stephenson, but will cost $60 - $70k more. If we want team differentiation, we need subjective evaluations of each players prospects.

On a similar theme, everyone was upset when Gibbs was (likely to be) classified as a mid only. This decision should be applauded because now we see only Goddard and Deledio in every single team's backline, instead of Goddard Deledio AND Gibbs.

Thoughts?

This is the whole point of uniques, as other people have said. It's a competition to win $50,000... It's not supposed to be easy. The sameness is the entire point of the game - so you have to think of different, unique players, that not many people have.

[Speculator]

I disagree, you don't need uniques to win. You need the best combination of 30. These are usually not uniques. Take a look at impromptu's team, where are the uniques that brought him success? Uniques need to be forced on coaches by scarcity of funds AND subjective pricing of players. It should not be soley formula driven. Now everyone in the comp will have McDonald, Giles and Stephenson because they are way too cheap. Everyone.

[Ziplock]

honestly, my team became more generic with the expensiveness of players. I had to cut out 3 mid pricers who would have been quite unique, but weren't worth it with the added price, and me being over the cap.

[bomberboy0618]

honestly, my team became more generic with the expensiveness of players. I had to cut out 3 mid pricers who would have been quite unique, but weren't worth it with the added price, and me being over the cap.

Same. I was set to go crazy, have uniques. Then I saw the prices, went, well I need to win, and made my team pretty generic. Hopefully I will have a look at uniques, but I dont think it will be viable.

[Ringo]

Isn't it amazing when the rubber hits the road and with increased prices our competiveness to win takes over and we end up with a sameness in teams.

Whilst the teams may basically be the same the skill is selecting the right rookies as cash cows, selecting the correct players to upgarde too and timing of trades. (Curnow, Libba good examples this year.) Other skill is do you trade injured/suspended players eg Sandi and Selwood this year or carry on bench. These I think are the skills that will separate the better players from the pack.

[coconut52]

I'm not sure how long you guys have been playing SC for but if you have been playing for longer than last year you would know that these are the normal prices they were only lowered last year because you had to pick 3 extra players and had the same salary cap

[SonsOfZeus]

agree and disagree. yeah by seasons end they might be the same but at the start they will definately not.

Last year I didnt seea midfield like mine until mid season.(started withe pendles,boyd,watson and selwood)

but by the end of the year added judd,ablett,hodge and swan.(lost watson and traded selwood round 1 after KO)
and came up against the same midfield at least once.

in reality to win overall you need the best averaging players so everyone starts upgrading to the same players. its the early season differential and lots of luck that gets you through.

[meow meow]

I haven't seen a team that looks anything like mine at this stage of the year.

[lozza63]

Spec - i hear what ur saying, and yet there is more potential for differentiation this year.
1) 8 solid ruck selections - meaning many combos of Cox, NicNat, Goldy, Leuey, McEvoy, Mummy, Jacobs and Sandy (even Kreuze too). 
2) The forward dpps adding the likes of Lewis, Robbo, Beams, Zaka and co.
3) Changing of the guard - guys like Chappy, Goodes, Boomer, Pav and Roo aging hence causing further differentiation
4) Mid price bargains aplenty - eg Lake, Brown, Didak, Hayes - old but potentially attractive.

So overall i see far more differential in the selection of the established players - granted many premiums and GWS players will be seen in every squad - yet timing of upgrades/lti's/byes will keep us all on our toes.