mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
|
Everyone seems to love discussing the rules of Blood Bowl, and recent threads have been filled with interesting and varied opinions on different blood bowl rules topics. I wanted to approach the 'ruleset' question a different way, and ask a series of questions to gauge opinion on a variety of matters. I'll attempt to show as little bias for my own preferences as possible. The answers will then provide a useful resource for anyone undergoing rules projects and creating house rules of their own.
Below I will ask a series of questions, and people can answer as many or as few as they like in response. Some will be quite large and general, some will be more specific. There's a bit of overlap on some questions, but I wrote them as they came to me 
So, let's begin:
1. Would Blood Bowl benefit from being less random in both team-building and on the field, or is the random nature what makes it fun?
2. Would Blood Bowl be better if inducements were worth their listed value (making games 'fairer') or is a favourable match-up the reward for building a team?
3. While it is commonly accepted that CPOMb is powerful, is the problem that it's too good, or that it's not available to everyone? Or that it's too easy to achieve? Or is there no problem?
4. Disregarding how it's achieved, do you think Blood Bowl needs lower or higher attrition levels than are currently in the game?
5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better?
6. Are Spiralling Expenses good, bad, or flawed?
7. Would the game benefit from Fan Factor being worth it's TV, or does it serve the purpose of a 'success tax'?
8. Should Star Players be priced according to their abilities, or is their over-inflated cost correct?
9. Should rosters strive to be completely balanced against each other, not at all balanced, somewhere in the middle, or some teams balanced while others are 'novelty'?
10. Would the game benefit from encouraging faster play, more TDs and higher scoring?
11. Would the game benefit from making stalling less desirable?
12. Should ageing be a thing (recently re-implemented on BB2)? As LRB4, or as Cyanide, some other way or best gone completely?
13. Should secret weapons and other 'sillyness' be encouraged, discouraged, or is the current balance about right? Should weapons be auto-banned?
14. Would Blood Bowl benefit from removing the Wizard option, increasing it's cost, decreasing it's cost, or something else?
15. Would Blood Bowl benefit from Gold being more useful/having more uses?
16. Should Kick-off table results have more of an impact on the game, less of an impact on the game, their current impact is about right, or they should be removed entirely?
...and I think that's it for now. I may think of some more later. If anyone has any more/different questions I can edit them into the OP too.
Thanks for any responses  |
_________________
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude
Mr. J's LRB7 / Forum
Last edited by mister__joshua on %b %03, %2016 - %11:%May; edited 4 times in total |
|
deyempe
Joined: Aug 14, 2013
|
 Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 15:45 |
 
|
Edited upon request:
1: 1's and 6's are riff, it has always been a thought of mine that a D8 would be a better option for the rolls such as; Dodges, Armour & Injury, GFI's, ect. By using a D8 system instead of a D6, this would ellivate some of the pain of the randomness in some cases adding a little more to the tactics side, in addition also allowing for greater diversity of player attribute/abilitys. If this system was inplace I would up the general statline to 6,4,4,9 - in the current system that would be obsered but in a D8 system it would be akin to 6,3,3,8. This is a change I would at least liek to see experimanted with.
4. I'd like to see 4 dice blocks. In a D8 system 4dice blocks would have their place; where one unit has s2 and another has s8 for instance. Other than that I see nothing wrong with the attrition.
5. I see no obvious problems with Team Value.
8. Nope inflation suits Star Players.
9. Teams/Races/Positionals should strive to be as accurate and true to their fluff as possible - balance matters little in regards of races.
10. It would be nice to have goals to kick to for Score and SPP but other than that nope.
11. Stalling is what it is. Some love some hate. Wizards, Bombs and Wardancers come to mind.
12. Im not fond of this idea. I hate the idea of protecting a star player for a lengthly time just to have him retire or die of old age.
13. Secret Weapons are about right I guess.
14. I like Wizards as they are.
16. Nope, Kick Off Events are fine imo, however I'd like to see either more variety in these or have them occur less often. |
Last edited by deyempe on %b %27, %2016 - %16:%Apr; edited 1 time in total |
|
xnoelx
Joined: Jun 05, 2012
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 15:49 |
|
I see the idea, but I think you'll struggle to get enough responses to have any real meaning. Also, I think you'll get as many differing answers as there are responders.
Nonetheless (and bearing in mind that I come from a long background in various GW games, which is rooted almost entirely in enjoying the fluff, not any interest in gaming as a whole, or the mechanical aspects. You'll see a few of my responses go straight back to 3rd ed and DZ.):
1. The randomness is fine. Without it, games between coaches of different skill levels would be even more of a foregone conclusion than they already can be.
2. Some inducements could be better priced. Some are OK as is.
3. No. It's fine as is. Commonly accepted isn't universally accepted.
4. Higher. The addition of a cas roll after AV/injury rolls was the worst change ever made to BB.
5. It's good enough.
6. No opinion, I just don't care about them.
7. As 6.
8. Most should be a little cheaper. A couple are already underpriced. And you should be able to roster them.
9. Not at all.
10. No.
11. No.
12. No. But see 4. Attrition should be higher, but on-pitch.
13. Encouraged. Stunty Leeg has a much better approach than CRP.
14. Reintroduce the zap spell (turning players into frogs).
15. Meh. See 6.
16. Fine as is. |
_________________
 Nerf Ball 2014 |
|
mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
|
Cheers for the responses so far. A couple of points:
- If you have no opinion, just miss it out rather than the No Comment-ing, otherwise the posts get really long (I might do a bit of back-editing)
- If the single word answers could get a little bit of explanation, or just a reference to the question that would help, as otherwise I'll have to keep scrolling up and down to see what question you're answering 
@xnoelx: Yeah, I know there won't be enough responses to mean much, but each individual's thought are good to have.
Ta! |
_________________
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude
Mr. J's LRB7 / Forum |
|
Tripleskull
Joined: Oct 12, 2003
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:03 |
|
1) I little but less random might be a good thing but not to much.
2) The Inducements should aim at balancing out the games without flipping the balance between an overdog and an underdog. This balance is hard since the benefit of various inducements are different to each race and team.
3) The problem is partly that it is to good but mainly that it is way to skill-independent. ( I would like it if you could edit your question to reflect this)
4) I would probably like to see some attrition combined with a change to spiraling expenses. to avoid a situation where buying new players becomes impossible.
5) TV could be implemented better but is generally not to bad.
6) I consider Spiraling expenses flawed but I do not play to much on high tv.
7) hmm, might be fine a a succes tax.
8 ) Most stars are a bit to expensive but it is hard to imagine a perfect pricing and to expensive is better than to cheap.
9) Completely balanced apart from some explicit exceptions.
10) No
11) Yes, more focus on defense in stead of clock management would be great.
12) How is it implemented in BB2? I have not heard a good way rules proposal for aging but it might be possible.
13) Some new sillyness could be ok. Not to much.
14) The price should not be decreased. Maybe increased.
15) nah
16) Less! Fix that blitz. Make it 1 or maybe d3 players are allowed to move.
If this is to be useful it might be worth generalizing the questions and ordering them in some form to reflect the overall goal of the rules and/or maybe quantify them in an automatic survey. |
Last edited by Tripleskull on %b %27, %2016 - %16:%Apr; edited 1 time in total |
|
mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
|
Question 3 edited.
I tried to generalizing the questions. What would you recommend? They are supposed to be independent of any rules goal, so the answers reflect a variety of opinions. |
_________________
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude
Mr. J's LRB7 / Forum |
|
Shraaaag
Joined: Feb 15, 2004
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:17 |
|
1. luck vs. skill. I think Blood Bowl usually have a good balance. I'm sure I can name some features that are too chancebased and some that could use more chance, but overall it's fine.
2) No, I don't think Blood Bowl needs to be fair. I often enjoy being the underdog.
3) The combo is too good. Making it available to everyone would just make it more boring.
4) In general it seems to be okay. I'm sure some teams could use more attrition and some could use less.
5) It's a flawed mechanic. It's simplified due to being a tabletop game. If you could use computing power, you probably would find a fairer way to calculate team strength.
6) Flawed
7) The whole fan factor mechanic should be revisited, make it more interesting.
 Inflated cost is fine
9) I prefer the tier system for Blood Bowl, rather than an allround balancing, or rock-paper-scissor
10) Yes
11) Could be fixed by making scoring more desirable
12) I see aging more as an optional rule for leagues (allthough I feel it was too random as it used to be).
13) Encouraged
14) I would either keep the cost as is and make the effect at most stun players, or make it more expensive.
15) Never in a perpetual league.
16) They are fine |
_________________
 |
|
Cyrus-Havoc
Joined: Sep 15, 2006
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:21 |
|
My thoughts.
1) Random is a key feature that make it the game it is.
2) Inducements need to cost above value otherwise it becomes another reason to min-max. That said I would like to see a use for the 40k I seem to be left with.
3) Neither, it's just not fun for the other guy.
4) Tricky, think it is about right but if CPOMB goes something else needs to take it's place. but more important it must be in game not a post game effect.
5) There is always a need for a TV mechanic, it could be better but without exhaustive testing you could easily end up with something worse.
6) Spiralling expenses are a minor thing in the overall game, I would happily do without them entirely but would at least raise the limit that they start at.
7) Fan factor is OK it's simple & again not worth trying to change.
Star Players should be over priced as are other inducements. Though I would like to see them used more perhaps making the Wizard more expensive might encourage that.
9) Rosters do not need to be balanced. Like with the random element it is just more fun being unbalanced. It could be tinkered with but again lot of work for little reward.
10) Faster play is a good theory but you might have to change some of the base mechanics to make it work. An example from my table top group was getting rid of Fumbles (not Fumbbl!) but this was like the offside rule in football. You get goal hangers which means the defender keeps players back instead of attacking while the attacker keeps the ball way back. You end up with 0-0 results or lucky last turn long bombs.
11) Stalling is a boring tactic but a valid one I can't see a reasonable way to stop it.
12) Absolutely not, ageing is the very epitome of a fun spoiling mechanic. This was the best change to the rules & probably the one thing that would end my participation if it were reintroduced.
13) Secret weapons were much better with the LRB4 ejection roll than now. I quite like the method of sending them to the KO box & rolling 4+ to get them back which is a very simple solution.
14) The wizard seems too cheap proved by the amount of times he is used. I would keep the option but make him more expensive.
15) Gold is too plentiful for some races while often insufficient for others. If you can come up with something I would be interested.
16) Kick of table is better than it was in LRB4. Could be tinkered with but I am happy with it.
I must have a lot of spare time today!
Hope the thread stays on track as this is a more interesting way to look at the rules. |
_________________
Not Undead but perhaps the oldest living coach! |
|
Matthueycamo
Joined: May 16, 2014
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:25 |
|
Trying to keep my answers simple so easy to analyse
1)No
2)No it would not be better
3)Slightly too good for it being not available to everyone. But fluff wise everybody getting it is horrible so a little nerf is fine.
4)Neither
5)Probably the best that is ever going to be come up with, lets not AoS Blood Bowl.
6)Totally pointless and a little bad.
7)Current FF is fine.
8)Current cost is fine, they usually offer things not or rarely seen on the race in question.
9)No, they should unbalanced roughly in several groups of similar teams. Complete balance is the enemy of Blood Bowl. Always should be fluffy,
#bringbackcoolpositionnamesdumpgenericterms2016
10)No. You can have 1-0 games and 5-4 games under current rules. Both can be equally fun for different reasons.
11)No, it might benefit from training camps to improve how people play against it though.
12)No, best without ageing. FUMBBL would be a poorer place without the debogs of this world.
13)The rules are about right but giving every race some kind of secret weapon could be fun. People should be as silly as they want to be with the current rules but we don't want to take away from stuny.
14) Possibly a cost increase to 200-250.
15) Possibly player equipment but the whole system would need to be reworked for that otherwise it would just benefit certain rosters and make others too weak relative to where they are now.
16) Don't see anything wrong with them currently balance wise, though a longer table with more results might be fun.
As an addition the idea about kicking could be fun if implemented well. |
_________________
DLE College 7s |
|
Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:28 |
|
I wonder... There are many things where I am in full agreement with some people about problems and in full disagreement about their solutions. But whatever, lets have a little fun with this.
1. Randomness is structurally the base for a level of complexity that can't be archived in a purely move based strategy game. Because the level of complexity is so high it can be incomprehensible at times. This incomprehensibility may lead people to believe dice based games aren't plannable. However, not every random mechanic contributes to the complexity of the game in the same way. Some mechanics overshadow others. That a beginner can beat a pro IS desireable and part of the fun but it should hinge on more than the outcome of a single dice roll after one hour of play.
There should be always a feeling that you worked yourself to the goal.
2. If inducements were worth as much as skills that would be obviously bad, because it would remove the incentive to build a team, one of the major aspects of the game. And basically THE meta aspect besides winning is to have to watch out for your long term perspective.
Christer already provided us with some data that shows that inducements are very powerful on high TV:
The inherent nature of inducements the way they work now is that they are very diverse. This allows a coach who makes use of them to react to an opponent threat very flexibily and get a lot of value out of it. Depending on the teams composition the inducements will already be better than what the opponent has. In a way CRP has set this way a natural barrier to what level of careless team building you shouldn't go below (the level at which inducements are better than what you have). I think BBRCs approach to the issue wasn't unwise and inducements seem overall border between being too strong and just alright. Allowing cards obviously made them quite a bit stronger. Of course this all doesn't apply when you don't know how to make use of them.
3. The problem is that it's too good. You shouldn't go from an average of 2% cas chance to something like 40% (I have blinded the exact odds out of my mind, apologies if I'm exaggerating). Would it be available to everyone it would be still somewhat of a fix. Claw looked at it in itself would be a great skill to make available to everyone, just because it is a counter skill. So it is an answer to a particular problem which allows basically the coach to decide how much attention he wants to put on the problem. Just that 2/3 of the races can't make use of that fix.
Either way even if it was available, there are nuances to making things available. In BB some things will never be as readily available to some teams as to others. So not sure what we are talking about. Overall balance obviously needs to be maintained too. Fixes can't be looked at in a vacuum. That's what the BBRC failed to do right.
4. Attrition levels are fine up to around 1900 TV and then go a little crazy. It's I guess probably more of a matter of taste than an actual problem but I guess me and most people would probably enjoy to be able to develop their teams a little higher to a point where you really feel the spiralling expenses hitting you. I think SE were also one of the major concerns early on and are still often with newer coaches since they fail to grasp that they only hit at a TV were the game essentially isn't supposed to be played anymore.
Obviously SE is not an issue for the aforementioned reason: The game isn't balanced well for very high TV (neither would it be possible to balance 24 races on any given TV) and teams are supposed to collapse down from there.
5. TV is better than TR. It's not perfect, some values are off and the static values it applies can't properly account for all complexity. To accurately determine a teams strength sometimes a much more flexible mechanic would be necessary. In the context of a computer game that is certainly possible, TS was calculated in a fairly complex manner and was rather disrespectful towards the thought of transparency.
In terms of a board game and beginner, user and maintenance friendlyness I think it's a big improvement but will never be perfect. Can't be perfect.
Something that I would consider a fair compromise is to keep TV and to assign TV to skills individually.
Also in general I wouldn't mind if TV cost wouldn't always end with a 0 and would be something like 3 or 7 or 5 or 4 sometimes in the single digit. Obviously that would help fine tuning some things.
6. See point 4. There are allright in the way the game is now. If we were to aim to make play at higher TV attractive greater amount of changes would need to be considered to make it all work out. Money is obviously a flawed mechanic right now in the sense that it is mostly completely irrelevant. But then you can't really do something useful with it anyways other than replacing your rookies.
7. The Fanfactor as a tax for being successful I love. And I wholeheartedly enjoy the benefit of getting fame almost every game. Having all these little random events just tilt this little bit in my favor. I think this great idea absoltuely needs to stay. It's not too strong, it's not too weak. It's perfect.
8. No idea. I wonder.
9. Balance should be the goal. It doesn't have to be perfect and you don't have to think it's only good when it's perfect. But you try to make it perfect and you fail and the difference that is left: That is the fair difference in competitiveness.
And while you generate balance you obviously do it in a way that the race outshines some way of play you can't have with any other race. Only then the race doesn't give off a vibe of being a second tier race. And in my opinion BB is great at accomplishing that. Other than humans there is virtually not a single race in the game that isn't the best at something. Gobbos have secret weapons, Flings TTM and the chef.
In this sense it probably would make sense to see with some races like those two that they are rather a little bit worse instead of a little bit better than everyone else  Just for tradition or whatever with you old conservative folks.
10. It certainly wouldn't hurt, not that that is a problem. The idea is good, balancing is hard when you think of races like Dwarves and such. Always keep in mind that there already was a long balancing effort that got us here. Don't take these things lightly. There is a lot of thought in the way the game works right now.
11. Stalling already doesn't work that well anymore. So no, perhaps yes, yes sure, no thanks, dunno, doesn't matter. Just taste. Keep in mind that a half would be over within minutes or even seconds if it was a real game and everyone moved at the same time. Do it differently if you like, the game would still be fun. My personal favorite in this regard is to make Defense always start on a Blitz! (which then would be predictable and not be a surprise so not quite that strong as it is now). And I think that would fix this problem or taste or whatever you call it entirely. Just whatever you do in this regard, make sure it's a good fix and not a bad fix.
12. No. But if aging was introduced as some sort of balancer, it should work in a way that it doesn't affect what happens on the pitch in itself but rather works towards a fast detoriation of the player in terms of the off pitch game.
My favorite in this context is to make niggles work like decay. Decay only kicks in when your player is already in the cas box. At this point he is quicker to suffer more injuries.
It's a way of saying: Your player is still fine right now but from now on every time he gets hurt, the chance is greater that he is really gonna be hurt in the course of a campaign. If it was that sort of aging I think it would be fair.
13. Secret weapons are awesome and fun.
14. Dunno.
15. Perhaps we should just get rid of gold. Or we leave it like it is. I don't think it would be good to make it that much harder to obtain. Being unable to replace rookies or not being able to play with reserve players doesn't really contribute anything constructive to the game.
I had suggested a very high banking rule limit like 500k or even a million would seem fair. But the proponents of a banking rule argue that is pointless. I disagree, I think it's just about balanced but whatever. Might aswell play without it. 4 Million in on my pact team and more coming .
16. I wouldn't mind if the kick off tables had more events. Obviously some events are a little bit too strong so if there was ever a complete overhaul of the rules that would be something that needed to be adressed. But hey, no drama, right?
17. Oh no 17th point.
That's it then. Submit. |
|
|
Tripleskull
Joined: Oct 12, 2003
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 16:57 |
|
| mister__joshua wrote: | Question 3 edited.
I tried to generalizing the questions. What would you recommend? They are supposed to be independent of any rules goal, so the answers reflect a variety of opinions. |
I should have taken some time to think this through. My point is that your questions is a mixture of general and some very specific questions.
Maybe generalizing is not what is needed.
Maybe the questions should be split up in to questions about the overall aim of the rules luck luck vs skill balance, Fluff vs mechanics etc.
And on the other hand specific problems like CLPOMB, Blitz etc.
My point is there is much work to be done to mine something out of a tread like this. So maybe the starting point should be to identify common/differing goals and problematic rules. |
|
|
Christer
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
|
In order to keep this from being a crazy wall of text, I'll respond with my thoughts on one particular point which is something I've spent a fair amount of time over the years thinking about:
| mister__joshua wrote: | | 5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better? |
In my opinion, TV is about as good of a mechanic as you can get with the constraint that it needs to be reasonable to calculate it by hand. Sure, some tweaks could be made to improve it (changing values of skills, etc), but the core mechanic is fine for tabletop.
That being said, TV as a representation of your team's actual strength is atrociously bad. Let me give a couple of examples to illustrate some issues which I'll take to extremes to illustrate the point. The core of the examples apply in reality as well, but not to the same extreme:
* +ST on a snotling (ST1 player) is worth the same as +ST on a blitzer (base ST3).
* Break tackle on a snotling increases TV, while not having any effect at all to the team's ability to win games.
* Take two identical human teams. One of the teams plays a match, ending up with a catcher getting a -MA injury followed by a +MA skill. Although these two teams are now identical (let's overlook the MNG on the catcher, or just say they played a recovery match where nothing TV altering happened), they have different TVs.
* The tackle skill contributes to TV regardless of if your opponent has dodge or not.
I could go on, but you get the drift here. In addition to these skill problems, the way skill distribution doesn't affect TV overall is significant. A team with 16 players and one skill on each player is much worse off than the same team with the same 16 skills placed more thoughtfully on players to add synergies. For example, an all lineman team with 8 linemen with block and 8 with dodge compared to the same team with 8 blodge players and 8 rookies. It's pretty obvious which team *should* have a higher TV.
With a better TV calculation formula, the "problem" of cpomb could be dealt with simply by increasing the TV of the team significantly based on the synergistic effects of these skills.
The old TS formula dealt with some of these issues by introducing a "cumulative" factor that made successive skills on the same player, and added an extra amount of cost to players with specific highly synergistic skill combinations (Block+Dodge, RSC+Claw, etc). It wasn't perfect by any means, but I still believe that it was better than TR and I think a modified version for the current ruleset would vastly outperform TV.
While I have been thinking about playing around with a new TS formula for the current ruleset, I have so many other things I'd rather do before approaching that particular can of worms
| Wreckage wrote: | | TS was calculated in a fairly complex manner and was rather disrespectful towards the thought of transparency. |
I agree on the part about TS being complex and it certainly wouldn't be suitable for the tabletop. I don't quite follow the second part of that sentence though. I read it as you saying it was calculated using a hidden formula, which categorically isn't true (Ref. https://fumbbl.com/help/Strength ). I may misunderstand what you were trying to convey though |
|
|
Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 17:27 |
|
| Christer wrote: |
| Wreckage wrote: | | TS was calculated in a fairly complex manner and was rather disrespectful towards the thought of transparency. |
I agree on the part about TS being complex and it certainly wouldn't be suitable for the tabletop. I don't quite follow the second part of that sentence though. I read it as you saying it was calculated using a hidden formula, which categorically isn't true (Ref. https://fumbbl.com/help/Strength ). I may misunderstand what you were trying to convey though |
Apologies. I didn't mean to sound unappreciative of it. I was just trying to underline its purpose as a formula that was designed to be used by a computer and not by a human. And tried to think myself into one of those million people out there who hate math and how they would be able to handle trying to apply the TS formula by themselves. I didn't really expect you to respond and pick up on the semantics. |
|
|
kummo
Joined: Mar 29, 2016
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 17:50 |
|
Hi, new player here.
| Quote: | | 1. Would Blood Bowl benefit from being less random in both team-building and on the field, or is the random nature what makes it fun? |
In Blood Bowl i like the tactical part the most. I also like how i can develop my players and plan how to build them. But i think that this randomness is necessary (because it feels rewarding and i believe that most of the comedy and fun comes from surprises.. if i knew everything and nothing would come as a surprise then i wouldn't laugh.. might have fun because of tactical aspect but i think that BB would be more like chess and less like tactical sports game).
If there were no double skulls (or 4 skulls if rerolled first ones), no failed GFI's, no 1-die pows, no doubleroll-on-foul-bans, no doubles-skill-options.. i believe that it wouldn't be BB anymore.
If anything would have to be changed on this aspect, then only the minimum tops.
| Quote: | | 2. Would Blood Bowl be better if inducements were worth their listed value (making games 'fairer') or is a favourable match-up the reward for building a team? |
I agree with many on long-term-rewarding aspect. I think that inducements serve well as "handicaps" for weaker team. It isn't suppose to fully even the changes but it is suppose to bring the gap closer.
| Quote: | | 3. While it is commonly accepted that CPOMb is is powerful, is the problem that it's too good, or that it's not available to everyone? Or that it's too easy to achieve? |
(I haven't played against CPOMB nor have had it myself so i'll focus only on odds).
So without any skill casualty is about 2-3% change.
With CPOMB it's close to 10% per block.
I believe that they need to make some sort of counter.. kinda like how they countered block with wrestle (well, block is still most used skill but it made variation and choice to try to counter opponents block-spam).
If CPOMB was nerfed.. which skill would it be that get's lowered down? or would they all be? I believe that some kind of counter would keep most players happier than removing/weakening some skill. Maybe add new skill or make old skill more useful against it (maybe thick skull changed to "thick skin"?)
| Quote: | | 4. Disregarding how it's achieved, do you think Blood Bowl needs lower or higher attrition levels than are currently in the game? |
Maybe later levels. Could this fix it: You could buy player with 1 or 2 skills (normal rolls) with higher price (these prices had to be custom made for each skills.. maybe even each skill/race or even skill/positional).
| Quote: | | 5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better? |
Flawed that could be implemented better. I think that biggest problem is that people tend to focus on 11 players and keeping TV as low as possible (i know, they have weak points by doing this.. but i think that this kind of strategic play isn't as sportmanlike as it would be..).
Don't know how to fix it tho. Maybe have discounts on players past 11 (like 12th player is half a as valuable on TV than he would be).. but there are problems too.. it doesn't remove this tactical TV-aspect but changes it a bit.
Good question would be: do people like to tend to keep only 11 players and pick skills by calculating TV value divided by usefulness of skill?
I think it takes bit away from gameplay itself because people don't pick best skills - they pick best skills by value. It feels fun to say this (because we are talking about fantasy football here) but it just isn't realistic.
| Quote: | | 6. Are Spiralling Expenses good, bad, or flawed? |
Flawed maybe? I think i kinda answered on solutions to this on previous answers (question 4 for example).
| Quote: | | 7. Would the game benefit from Fan Factor being worth it's TV, or does it serve the purpose of a 'success tax'? |
Kinda double-edged sword as it tends to reward during and after games but is also calculated on TV. I would like to maybe test it with the removal of tv-calculations. I wouldn't just remove it.. i'd like to see how much it actually would affect (i could do calculations but i couldn't see how it affects on opponents choices).
| Quote: | | 8. Should Star Players be priced according to their abilities, or is their over-inflated cost correct? |
I believe that they are corrected (but i haven't played at high tv, so i don't have much experience if they are useful at high-tv or not.. so other coaches can correct on this one).
| Quote: | | 9. Should rosters strive to be completely balanced against each other, not at all balanced, somewhere in the middle, or some teams balanced while others are 'novelty'? |
I like the idea that some races just are weaker than others. It would be so hard to make all balanced too.. but other than difficulty-factor.. i just think it adds so much to this game - variety of skills, variety of stat-differences, fluff reflected to stats and skills (and playstyles).
Maybe some changes to some races would be nice but not because someone want's all to be balanced. (That someone could make private league with modified/custom races to do that if he/she wants balanced rosters).
| Quote: | | 10. Would the game benefit from encouraging faster play, more TDs and higher scoring? |
This is hard. Let's say for Dwarfs.. how could they compete with Elves if they can't stall and defend. All slow teams would be in a disadvantage. I know stalling is kinda boring but
a) it's an actual tactic real football (and even soccer, kinda) teams use (the "kneeling" tactic on american football.. in soccer they tend to pass more and move less.. also they don't do risky crosses at lategame if they are leading and holding the ball).
b) it really would hurt the gameplay on some races
| Quote: | | 11. Would the game benefit from making stalling less desirable? |
same as above
| Quote: | | 12. Should ageing be a thing (recently re-implemented on BB2)? As LRB4, or as Cyanide, some other way or best gone completely? |
I think that some tournaments would like to take this as a custom rule but if it was for everybody..hmm.. personally i don't like it.
Maybe if it fixes expense spiral (but i think ageing alone can't do it.. i think it needs something else too).
| Quote: | | 13. Should secret weapons and other 'sillyness' be encouraged, discouraged, or is the current balance about right? Should weapons be auto-banned? |
I think it's mostly just right. No big fixes are needed.
| Quote: | | 14. Would Blood Bowl benefit from removing the Wizard option, increasing it's cost, decreasing it's cost, or something else? |
At low TV i believe the price is right. Dunno if it needs some tv-index-fix.
| Quote: | | 15. Would Blood Bowl benefit from Gold being more useful/having more uses? |
Blood Bowl 2 (Cyanide) had great idea to mod your home-stadium. Maybe that kind of thing would be alright. Free brides, no letting crowd on field to ko players.. the stadiums made sense (at least a bit).. dunno if it can be implemented just like that but in some way that might be a good idea.
Maybe some new deck? Or wider decks? Other than that i believe it's quite alright.
| Quote: | | 16. Should Kick-off table results have more of an impact on the game, less of an impact on the game, their current impact is about right, or they should be removed entirely? |
This is a part of games randomness. Some small fixes atop.. it's mostly alright (as frustrating it sometimes can be.. if it's ridiculous for the other one - it's mostly rewarding for the the other). |
|
|
ArrestedDevelopment
Joined: Sep 14, 2015
|
| Posted:
Apr 27, 2016 - 18:57 |
|
1. Hmm. No. Randomness is what actually produces enjoyment. I know there's going to be a lot of people who'd completely disagree with that statement, and we've all been on the end of dice that have rendered a match distinctly unenjoyable, but to me if skill rolls were more predictable and basic actions had zero hazard, this game would be rendered into a very beige model of progress quest. The current modus operandi can be a very frustrating skinner box at times - but our brains are rewarded by the randomness when it goes in our favour, and that's what keeps us coming back (that +AG frog/elf or the 6,6,6 finish to steal a game) etc. This is a form of inherent liberation. Consistency is mostly appreciated by most people when it is coming as a form of rule/punishment or debasement. (Btw, the chess factor comes in here - chess does actually have random factors, but if you don't take the time to really understand the game it doesn't become apparent easily).
2. Inducements are an interesting issue. They *can* level the playing field somewhat - and I've actually a few league games played that you could probably use as evidence of TV++ working . However I also don't think it's fair at all to punish people for not being miserly with the TV cost of the skills the pick - as Christer as stated above, TV is terrible as an inherent evaluation of how strong a team is - and this works at all ends of the scale: from poor skill selection, to picking stats as the first skill on several players. I view this as more of a problem with using as-is TV for match-making so won't go too much into it here, but your view on the efficacy of TV is going to shade how you view inducements "closing the gap".
I will also add that inducements are racially imbalanced by design, and that while I also note Wreckage's salient point about Christer's table in the past about high TV and inducements, I'd also point out that that table was presented with far too many factors (matchups, teams, inducements taken, skills on teams, CR) missing for us to draw any conclusion from it whatsoever. (I do not mean this as a slight against Christer whatsoever incidentally, presenting all of the data necessary to answer that question is not his duty, and it was kind of him to offer even what he did at the time).
I will add that I absolutely abhor in tournament and league play in Blood bowl "both teams buy a wizard". I understand and don't fault the logic of it, I just don't like it
3. My views on CPOMB are restricted to box where I think the issue lies more with TV as evaluation, as in any TV-based match-making system. Endlessly facing CPOMB at high tv does render a level of tedium to games, but I also would eg. find endlessly facing wood elves at low tv completely boring too.
4. The current level of attrition is probably okay if it were achieved by a widespread mechanic. Fact of the matter is there's not supposed to be a dozen plus 2200k+ teams running around in any long-term environment. I think the tilting of attrition in one direction has resulted in the current status quo (either having cpomb and being successful or simply being lucky enough not to see much of it can see a team grow to levels not really intended). I'd agree with xnoelx if we brought back old 2nd/3rd ed rolls for deaths etc it'd be cool.
5. It's a mechanic. How it's being used is at question and I think using it as the sole evaluation of squad strength to then base a matchup upon has actually broken the game somewhat, however, we always need to remember that while I'm sure this could be fine tuned indefinitely for computer based players, someone somwhere (and there's lots of them) is going to have to add this up for a tabletop game.
6. Flawed. It just doesn't really do what it was supposed to do, and while it serves as an irritation do much else.
7. I disagree with it serving its purpose as a "success tax" on the basis that it possible to rack up random fan factor from draws.
8. Depends on the star player really doesn't it? That's too blanket a question. For some the issue of a loner + no apo makes them an absolute no go certainly, but others are already extremely valuable if used wisely (eg. Boomer).
9. No to balance in the sense of equal ability to do all things. Blood bowl is actually quite balanced in the old d&d sense. The only problem with the current conditions I have is that they have digressed pretty far from the old fluff 
10. Not bothered by the TDs and Scoring bit. In terms of tabletop, 4min a turn is fine. Online you had better be chatting. I will admit freely that taking 3min 55s to move all your players but one and then moving the last one "at your leisure" into a perfect position every single turn in utter silence, may, indeed, win you the game, but you have just inflicted psychological torture upon me. In terms of the "flow of the game", I don't think there's an issue really.
11. Not every stall is the same. There's a difference between planning an 8-turn offensive drive regardless of what the defence shows you and sitting 4 men in the corner while fouling what's left of your opponent's team. The latter might seem like hyperbole, but it happens on a not completely irregular basis in the box (I should note this isn't always out of spite, you might need to to reduce the chances of a one turn reply).
12. The problem with old aging is it was far, far too regular an occurrence. Maybe if it was introduced on the later skill rolls only. I actually wanted to see a roll on the legend skill only for straight up retirement - a sort of "I've made my name, I'm done" decision.
13. Secret weapons are great. They're a leveller (both for otherwise poor teams, and for inducement strategy) that is in inherently unreliable and totally in the spirit of the game.
14. Not sure. The wizard can appear undercosted at times, but at others sometimes it's only his price that makes him worth considering (ie. teams who don't really have a solid ball recovery option, but might take him just as a last ditch defence or threat of it). I don't think you should be able to petty one though.
15. The issue with gold is that it works in some ways, curtailing team longevity, but that also it is quite easy to circumvent that via other means (JM use at later junctions, hoarding gold early). I actually don't see the point in gold for the most part in terms of team building as things stand. I'm not really sure what to do with it - I've posted random musings on having separate treasuries before and the like, but the problem is that league play, pickup games and semi-random match-making all have different purposes for it.
16. Some of the kick off events are a bit beyond the pale, and others favour some teams more than others. I think there's one thing we can all agree on though - Sweltering heat can go to... |
_________________
Last edited by ArrestedDevelopment on %b %27, %2016 - %21:%Apr; edited 1 time in total |
|
|
|
| |
Gnomes are trash
Search
