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2014-08-27 17:02:56
10 votes, rating 2
10 votes, rating 2
Lizards and Amazons need a nerf?
So Koadah posted this terrific link that allows you to sort through all kinds of statistics for FUMBBL games and you can sort it all different ways between Ranked, League and Box.
Here is the link: http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/stats2.html
I see some surprising things here. One thing is, I like playing with my Dwarf teams and finding games with them is a pain in the butt. After looking at a lot of the statistics they are not that bad compared to others. Now of course there are all kinds of factors that alter these numbers but we are going off a pretty significant number here so the results are going to be relatively close.
Most surprising: The disparity between new teams win%. Considering new teams are so easy to test this should be something that is much closer I would think. The best new teams winning records in ranked are:
Amazons 61.45
Undead 59.26
Skaven 56.32
Lizardmen 56.23
Norse 56.18
Then we have Chaos and High Elf that only win 48% of their matches. Two popular races in the Warhammer world that are crappy starting out....Nice work
Moving on to BOX new teams the disparity is worse but with a good deal less of games played...but still the results are similar. The best winning record percentages in BOX:
Lizardmen 71.49
Dwarf 65.64
Skaven 58.04
Khemri 58
Orc 57.14
Again we have Chaos with only a 42% win ratio and curiously Dark Elves are sitting at a 45% with High Elves moving up to a 50% with Pro Elves and Undead.
Casualties dished out with New teams in Ranked is not really surprising BUT everyone wants to play against Ogres...guess what? Ogres dish out the most damage of new teams.
Casualties per game in ranked with new teams:
Ogres 2.36
Undead 2.23
Chaos Pact 2.16
Dwarf 2.01
In the BOX with new teams:
Ogres 2.65
Undead 2.27
Chaos Dwarf 2.26
Dwarf 2.17
Chaos Pact 2.11
Going up in TV you see some commonalities: Elves rule the upper threshold in Ranked. Pro Elves have a 60.95 win percentage in Ranked above a 1900 TV. In the Box this changes drastically with hardly any games that high played by Elves. In the BOX above 1900 Skaven rule and Nurgle and Chaos are right on their heels with all Elves around 50%. So basically the picker environment in ranked is allowing these Elf teams to pimp their teams up..... Also in the upper TV games the amount of damage caused is ridiculous with all the Chaos teams inflicting an average of 4+ casualties per game; That is too much for teams to sustain themselves.
Dwarfs when playing above 1700 TV only have a 45.14 winning percentage and are #9 on the list for casualties inflicted at 2.97 per game. Ogres inflict more casualties at that TV and never have problems finding games.
In conclusion it is obvious to me all the complaints, (albeit I complain about some of the disparity) seems to be due to the base teams. Rather than tweak the game to make it more competitive and add parity at high TV, maybe we should start with the starting rosters. Zons, lizards, Undead and Dwarfs need a rewrite. And Elf coaches need to quit picking so badly in ranked, cripes!
Here is the link: http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/stats2.html
I see some surprising things here. One thing is, I like playing with my Dwarf teams and finding games with them is a pain in the butt. After looking at a lot of the statistics they are not that bad compared to others. Now of course there are all kinds of factors that alter these numbers but we are going off a pretty significant number here so the results are going to be relatively close.
Most surprising: The disparity between new teams win%. Considering new teams are so easy to test this should be something that is much closer I would think. The best new teams winning records in ranked are:
Amazons 61.45
Undead 59.26
Skaven 56.32
Lizardmen 56.23
Norse 56.18
Then we have Chaos and High Elf that only win 48% of their matches. Two popular races in the Warhammer world that are crappy starting out....Nice work
Moving on to BOX new teams the disparity is worse but with a good deal less of games played...but still the results are similar. The best winning record percentages in BOX:
Lizardmen 71.49
Dwarf 65.64
Skaven 58.04
Khemri 58
Orc 57.14
Again we have Chaos with only a 42% win ratio and curiously Dark Elves are sitting at a 45% with High Elves moving up to a 50% with Pro Elves and Undead.
Casualties dished out with New teams in Ranked is not really surprising BUT everyone wants to play against Ogres...guess what? Ogres dish out the most damage of new teams.
Casualties per game in ranked with new teams:
Ogres 2.36
Undead 2.23
Chaos Pact 2.16
Dwarf 2.01
In the BOX with new teams:
Ogres 2.65
Undead 2.27
Chaos Dwarf 2.26
Dwarf 2.17
Chaos Pact 2.11
Going up in TV you see some commonalities: Elves rule the upper threshold in Ranked. Pro Elves have a 60.95 win percentage in Ranked above a 1900 TV. In the Box this changes drastically with hardly any games that high played by Elves. In the BOX above 1900 Skaven rule and Nurgle and Chaos are right on their heels with all Elves around 50%. So basically the picker environment in ranked is allowing these Elf teams to pimp their teams up..... Also in the upper TV games the amount of damage caused is ridiculous with all the Chaos teams inflicting an average of 4+ casualties per game; That is too much for teams to sustain themselves.
Dwarfs when playing above 1700 TV only have a 45.14 winning percentage and are #9 on the list for casualties inflicted at 2.97 per game. Ogres inflict more casualties at that TV and never have problems finding games.
In conclusion it is obvious to me all the complaints, (albeit I complain about some of the disparity) seems to be due to the base teams. Rather than tweak the game to make it more competitive and add parity at high TV, maybe we should start with the starting rosters. Zons, lizards, Undead and Dwarfs need a rewrite. And Elf coaches need to quit picking so badly in ranked, cripes!
Comments
Posted by Wreckage on 2014-08-27 17:41:05
There is hardly something new about anything you say.
The game is designed in a way that different teams excell at different levels and in different environments.
A problem in the sense of the way the rules were designed rather exists with teams that excell or fail on all levels.
Just cleaning up the rookie teams wouldn't really fix it. You'd have to clean up the rookie level and then proceed to every other level.
The outcome would be much more similar teams and a necessity to completely overhaul all the races.
Considering what aversion people have about small changes I just don't see it ever happening. Honestly, some people claim FUMBBL would have house rules, but all I see are natural limitations of the online environment.
The game is designed in a way that different teams excell at different levels and in different environments.
A problem in the sense of the way the rules were designed rather exists with teams that excell or fail on all levels.
Just cleaning up the rookie teams wouldn't really fix it. You'd have to clean up the rookie level and then proceed to every other level.
The outcome would be much more similar teams and a necessity to completely overhaul all the races.
Considering what aversion people have about small changes I just don't see it ever happening. Honestly, some people claim FUMBBL would have house rules, but all I see are natural limitations of the online environment.
Posted by NerdBird on 2014-08-27 17:53:34
Being relatively new to FUMBBL, this is all sort of "new" to me. Playing TT in our group and some tournaments we always felt and saw small sample sizes of this but with this much clear data, I don't see any reason not to tweak the teams/rules/skills. I think it is only the next step in progression of a game to work on balance. I think BloodBowl is unique with all this data to be able to make the game better through data. The fact that the game is inert and not progressing is a little sad.... Someone should buy the rights to the game so we can forge on into the future! :-P
Posted by harvestmouse on 2014-08-27 17:59:30
It's not worth talking about nerfs to rosters, until we get a ruleset that accommodates perpetual leagues proficiently. Otherwise you're just painting over house splitting cracks with polyfiller.
Zons probably do need a makeover though. The cookie cutter av 7 teams are immensely interesting at some TVs, but not at low TV; especially that one.
Lizards are a supremely brilliant concept. TV is the problem here, not them.
Zons probably do need a makeover though. The cookie cutter av 7 teams are immensely interesting at some TVs, but not at low TV; especially that one.
Lizards are a supremely brilliant concept. TV is the problem here, not them.
Posted by Garion on 2014-08-27 18:01:13
lrb4 fouling kept lizardmen in check at low tv. In this edition I would agree they are pretty broken from rookie to 1600Tv. But then so much is wrong with this edition, we might as well just enjoy this unbalanced game for what it is.
Posted by Garion on 2014-08-27 18:01:28
oh and yeah, zons need a total revamp.
Posted by mrt1212 on 2014-08-27 18:11:46
I would argue that some of these winning percentages are unduly influenced by key players who excel with the team. Cameronhawkins for example owns about 1/6th of Lizardmen games in the Box. If you could weight these winning percentages by individual coach and the amount of games they played it might be a better indication of strength.
For this I am including mirror matches because I am not going to hunt and peck through CameronHawkins games to see which ones were mirror matches and those which aren't.
Without Cam's 233-69-74 (71%), the Lizards go from 981-352-701 to 748-283-627 - it drops from 56.9% to 53.6%, something I don't think is that far out of line with the strengths of the team.
If you do the same thing with Underworld and look and at Cam it's even more striking: 121-56-71 (60.1%) out of 343-154-376 (48.1%) and if you remove his games it's becomes 222-98-305 (43.4%)
Now, unless Koadah comes along and tells me that those stat's aren't dynamic and are a snapshot from another time and era everything I've pointed out is complete hokum, but I would like someone with a more statistical background to speak to how the skill and dedication of one coach can affect the aggregate winning percentages of races and whether it's really that important or not.
Also, if it were possible, it'd be nice to have stats from Cyanide and NAF to get different sets of coaches to reflect the different skill population.
The final question is, where do you get a preconceived notion of what winning percentages should be? This reflects my prior statement of different sources of data - what if Lizards were 44% on Cyanide and 48% in NAF?
For this I am including mirror matches because I am not going to hunt and peck through CameronHawkins games to see which ones were mirror matches and those which aren't.
Without Cam's 233-69-74 (71%), the Lizards go from 981-352-701 to 748-283-627 - it drops from 56.9% to 53.6%, something I don't think is that far out of line with the strengths of the team.
If you do the same thing with Underworld and look and at Cam it's even more striking: 121-56-71 (60.1%) out of 343-154-376 (48.1%) and if you remove his games it's becomes 222-98-305 (43.4%)
Now, unless Koadah comes along and tells me that those stat's aren't dynamic and are a snapshot from another time and era everything I've pointed out is complete hokum, but I would like someone with a more statistical background to speak to how the skill and dedication of one coach can affect the aggregate winning percentages of races and whether it's really that important or not.
Also, if it were possible, it'd be nice to have stats from Cyanide and NAF to get different sets of coaches to reflect the different skill population.
The final question is, where do you get a preconceived notion of what winning percentages should be? This reflects my prior statement of different sources of data - what if Lizards were 44% on Cyanide and 48% in NAF?
Posted by Chainsaw on 2014-08-27 18:14:25
NerdBird, read your PMs dammit!
Posted by NerdBird on 2014-08-27 18:58:46
Cyanide would hardly be a good source since you can just drop games willy-nilly without consequence. Also, Cyanide is more video game than based off the TT game so you get a lot of BAD players there(I would surmise)that are going to skew the results.
The NAF would be good for starting rosters, but I still think FUMBBL probably has many more games than they do....
The NAF would be good for starting rosters, but I still think FUMBBL probably has many more games than they do....
Posted by anisdrin on 2014-08-27 19:23:09
Lizards are my favorite team. I agree with harvestmouse that they are a brilliant concept.
They are average at start, at 1000 TV.
Very good <1500 TV
Really bad as TV raises over 1700.
Also you need to know how to play them and against them. Many people, specially rookie coaches doesn't know how to play against lizards.
Also there are a good base of experienced coaches that play a lot with lizards so they raise the wining %.
Amazons are simply overpowered until you get enough tackle on the pitch, and amazon coaches totally refuse to play dwarfs.
They are average at start, at 1000 TV.
Very good <1500 TV
Really bad as TV raises over 1700.
Also you need to know how to play them and against them. Many people, specially rookie coaches doesn't know how to play against lizards.
Also there are a good base of experienced coaches that play a lot with lizards so they raise the wining %.
Amazons are simply overpowered until you get enough tackle on the pitch, and amazon coaches totally refuse to play dwarfs.
Posted by PaddyMick on 2014-08-27 20:10:42
GOOOOOO OGRRRRRES!!!!
Most cas-in-est team eva
Most cas-in-est team eva
Posted by mrt1212 on 2014-08-27 20:12:13
It's not really about whether the details of Cyanide are correct, it's more of the thought process involved in coming to the conclusion that things need changing or something is askew - I really do think that the environment of FUMBBL is unique in that it gets the most diehard players to play as often as they can muster, not bound by scheduling conflicts or geography or crashing/rage quits.
Right now we have one data set we're operating from though - one that has many many many more participants than other iterations of the game, but one where one person can have 25% of all games played as a race in the 2nd most popular division. I'm not saying it's a small sample size issue, rather, I'm saying the dynamics at play on FUMBBL might really skew anything you can make a reasonable conclusion from.
If anything, I'd look at that chart and say "What makes Lizards have such a good winning %?" and work back from there, than saying "Lizards have too good of a winning %" and then giving prescriptive ideas on how to remedy that.
Even though this game has a lot of luck, skill shines through.
Right now we have one data set we're operating from though - one that has many many many more participants than other iterations of the game, but one where one person can have 25% of all games played as a race in the 2nd most popular division. I'm not saying it's a small sample size issue, rather, I'm saying the dynamics at play on FUMBBL might really skew anything you can make a reasonable conclusion from.
If anything, I'd look at that chart and say "What makes Lizards have such a good winning %?" and work back from there, than saying "Lizards have too good of a winning %" and then giving prescriptive ideas on how to remedy that.
Even though this game has a lot of luck, skill shines through.
Posted by xnoelx on 2014-08-27 20:25:04
The assumption that everyone wants balance between all teams at all TVs is also flawed. One of the appeals of the game is the diversity available.
Good coach playing in a league of rookies? Make him take goblins. Entering a TT tournament and you really want to win? Take Undead. Entering the same tourney and you really want the most Cas award? Take Ogres.
Also: don't underestimate how attached some of us are to the fluff. Flings just aren't supposed to be very good.
Good coach playing in a league of rookies? Make him take goblins. Entering a TT tournament and you really want to win? Take Undead. Entering the same tourney and you really want the most Cas award? Take Ogres.
Also: don't underestimate how attached some of us are to the fluff. Flings just aren't supposed to be very good.
Posted by The_Provocateur on 2014-08-27 20:40:45
I'd also like to point out certain teams draw certain types of coaches. Lizards are relatively uncommon (and picked up by some pretty good coaches). Whilst there are swarms of chaos. Zons need to be revamped or die in a fire though.
Posted by mrt1212 on 2014-08-28 00:20:51
Also consider what will happen when Brasky hits 1000 games with One Thousand and One Dances with Death. It's entirely possible he'l have over a third of Box WE games to his name...
Posted by the_Sage on 2014-09-09 09:28:09
just new teams, eh? Meh. chaos and high elves are long-term teams, yes.
Dark elves are often advised to starting coaches.
Dark elves are often advised to starting coaches.