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Rat_Salat



Joined: Apr 22, 2011

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 04:49 Reply with quote Back to top

MattDakka wrote:
Counterstrike started as a free mod of Half-Life, but CS:GO (the current CS people play) is an e-sport and again there is some money behind it.


Fair, but that and DOTA both started life as mods... the point was that you don't need a AAA budget to achieve game balance, something I think we need to remember.

You do need a dev team though, sadly something that is missing.

The kickoff table is an unmitigated disaster, and one of the few aspects of Blood Bowl that experts often cannot overcome. Blitz and Sweltering Heat are the worst offenders, but Throw a Rock is pretty awful too.
mrt1212



Joined: Feb 26, 2013

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 04:52 Reply with quote Back to top

koadah wrote:
Rat_Salat wrote:
koadah wrote:
And where is this balanced ruleset going to come from? are you going to pull it out of your behind?

Whatever 'good' ideas you come up with a lot of people
will demand the opposite.

Go ahead. Find a ruleset that works for 24 races, over all the TV ranges, over all the TV mismatches, over progression leagues, res tournaments, ranked, Box and all.

I'd love to see it.


Balanced games exist. Starcraft is the classic example. DOTA2 is pretty amazing considering we're talking about a pool of 100 heroes. Counterstrike. Street Fighter 2.

These are also generally thought of as some of the best multiplayer games in history. Mainly, this is because of exceptional game balance combined with fun mechanics. Blood Bowl probably won't ever get there, most obviously because nobody is even trying.

Do I have all the answers? No, and I have no practical experience in game design, so I think it's safe to say I wouldn't do a very good job. That doesn't stop me from observing that there's been a piss-poor job done at balancing this particular game, which to get the thread back on topic... is why myself and many others don't play box.


I don't play DOTA or StarCraft but in terms of win/loss in the Box how good are chaos?

in terms of 'Balance' chaos 'ain't all that'.
People don't like the game play and don't like their pixels dying.

Dang! Even over 1600 they ain't all that.

That is not a 'balance' problem. If the bash doesn't work early they may destroy your team in the end. But not necessarily early enough to do better than a tie. Which is what started this thread.

I'm all for nerfs as you may have guessed. But as long as the Box is doing decent business and people whine about 'being official' who's gonna change it?


Sort by min games and the picture changes. And I think I know why - a very small amount of coaches account for a huge amount of games with one race. Brasky's WMDs, KenThis' Murder By Number, Cameron Hawkins' Hanson's Rough, Duke Tyrion's Slime Barons account for a large amount of games. Smallman's smallkosp and his impact on the pact data set lol...


Last edited by mrt1212 on May 23, 2015 - 05:04; edited 1 time in total
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:03 Reply with quote Back to top

Rat_Salat wrote:


Fair, but that and DOTA both started life as mods... the point was that you don't need a AAA budget to achieve game balance, something I think we need to remember.

You do need a dev team though, sadly something that is missing.

Yes, there must be a dev team checking win rates, analyzing game mechanics and metagame, with enough authority to impose tweaks and changes.
When a Dota 2 patch comes out even the developers can't predict exactly how the metagame will change, then, after a while, some changes are made to fix unexpected unbalances and exploits and so on, this has the additional advantage of keeping the metagame fresh, interesting and not set in stone.
Even if there is an OP hero players know that it will be nerfed, while this can't happen in BB.
A living online game as Dota 2 is never going to be as unbalanced as an unevolving one like Blood Bowl.
Perfection is of course impossible, but this should not stop a game from being more balanced than it was in the past.
koadah



Joined: Mar 30, 2005

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:06 Reply with quote Back to top

mrt1212 wrote:

Sort by min games and the picture changes. And I think I know why - a very small amount of coaches account for a huge amount of games with one race. Brasky's WMDs, KenThis' Murder By Number, Cameron Hawkins' Hanson's Rough, Duke Tyrion's Slime Barons account for a large amount of games.


And chaos are still not at the top. But hey that is a small sample as someone asked to see only recent data.

My point to Rat is that in the games that he is talking about the balancing is behind the scenes. You can balance the different formats differently and no one will be any the wiser.

I don't know these games but is 1v1 really the same as 4v4 etc? You tell me.

Are you certain that there are no special tweaks to make 1v1 a better game? And no different tweaks to improve 4v4?

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Arktoris



Joined: Feb 16, 2004

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:16 Reply with quote Back to top

I think for the box we should just do away with the races and everyone gets one skaven team.

high scoring, high casualties and access to all skills.

wild animal should mean rat ogre TTM random adj player (friend or foe) and skaven teams are all allowed one skyre slave for right stuff.

that's a box I'd play in.

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Arktoris



Joined: Feb 16, 2004

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:17 Reply with quote Back to top

oh, and we all get ladder points.

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Rat_Salat



Joined: Apr 22, 2011

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:19 Reply with quote Back to top

Well that was random.
Dunenzed



Joined: Oct 28, 2011

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 05:47 Reply with quote Back to top

It would be well balanced.

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garyt1



Joined: Mar 12, 2011

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 07:28 Reply with quote Back to top

Malmir, you entered various tournaments with Colourful characters, a clawpomb Cwarf team. Ok now they are a pomb team but it makes your comments a bit bizarre, as they are somewhat criticising yourself.

if you are not using clawpomb then you can have plenty of matches with no clawpomb in the box. And many to be enjoyed.

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Malmir



Joined: May 20, 2008

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 08:10 Reply with quote Back to top

garyt1 wrote:
Malmir, you entered various tournaments with Colourful characters, a clawpomb Cwarf team. Ok now they are a pomb team but it makes your comments a bit bizarre, as they are somewhat criticising yourself.

if you are not using clawpomb then you can have plenty of matches with no clawpomb in the box. And many to be enjoyed.


I absolutely agree with you Gary. If you look at my box teams over time you will see a shift to only playing teams that can hit back. This is because I got fed up of winning a few games then having my team destroyed without at least having some chance of destroying theirs first. Remember I like to build teams for tournaments so this was pretty frustrating. I'm not trying to claim the moral high ground here. For a good while now I've played only bash teams due to these frustrations. This has led though to a lot of matches (especially at highish tv) where the team's skillset has felt more important than the coach skill. I am well aware I could play a wide variety of teams at low tr, but for me that isn't much fun. My original point was because of the builds I see a lot of pile on everything no matter what in the box whereas when I come upon those teams in ranked there tends be more tactical restraint and consideration of positioning etc too rather than relying on wiping out the oppo.
zakatan



Joined: May 17, 2008

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 08:23 Reply with quote Back to top

Games like DOTA aren't balanced either, there are always power picks and power strategies. Whats makes ever-evolving games interesting is that power picks change every second week, avoiding getting stuck in a power strategy for too long.

We can't get that. Slow team development makes power shifts difficult even if we made balance tweaks in skills every second month. Could be interesting in League as an experiment, yet the client doesn't allow to do all the balance changes we would like.

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Fingard



Joined: Oct 07, 2008

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 09:00 Reply with quote Back to top

Box is the hard mode.
Just play under 1.6k (as I usually do).
I also find cpomb vs cpomb matches are ruled by dices, but you can avoid them (or at least limit them).
I see someone saying he found legend box coaches playing poorly: I often find legend ranked coaches playing poorly.
Both divisions are exploitable, but box is harder to.
Wreckage



Joined: Aug 15, 2004

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 10:45 Reply with quote Back to top

There is a way how we could control the issue box without changing any rules.
It would require a lot of work tho.

...All we need would be something like a box rating (BR) for scheduling that is a stronger indicator of a teams strength than what TV can do.
Wreckage



Joined: Aug 15, 2004

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 10:51 Reply with quote Back to top

..If that sounds too complicated, I see an easy first step as reevaluating the TVs worth of skills.
Good skills could be rated higher and bad skills lower. This way a team with lots of bad skills wouldn't be matched against a team with lots of good skills and this would overall help to reduce min-max pressure and allow less planful approaches to the division we all just use in the end to get random matches.
bghandras



Joined: Feb 06, 2011

Post   Posted: May 23, 2015 - 10:51 Reply with quote Back to top

I would argue that rating is not skill, so it may not help. I could also argue that rating is easier to manipulate than TV. I mean if you manipulate your roster then you may seriously weaken it. If you manipulate your record, then your team is unchanged.
Plus another aspect. Lets assume your proposal is implemented. Then every win you complete makes it harder for you to win the next one. If you lose, then it makes it easier for you to win the next one. So that rating would implement a very strong NEGATIVE CORRELATION factor between rating and expected result. This is the antithesis of any serious gaming rating in my books. (As there will be hard statistical evidence that the rating is absolutely meaningless, thus loses all credibility, thus there wont be even a moral to stop manipulating it.)
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