42 coaches online • Server time: 11:52
Forum Chat
Log in
Recent Forum Topics goto Post DOTP Season 4goto Post Skittles' Centu...goto Post Secret League Americ...
SearchSearch 
Post new topic   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.
View previous topic Log in to check your private messages View next topic
mrt1212



Joined: Feb 26, 2013

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 00:26 Reply with quote Back to top

Of all the rumors and the innuendo this is perhaps the one that piqued my interest the hardest.

Briefly, there are two cost centers with skills now - SPP and TV. Each level of new experience can be bought when the player in question banks enough SPP through gaining SPP on the field.

Skills and Characteristics (Stat Boosts) are divided into
Primary, Secondary and Characteristics. This is still familiar enough but the change is how much SPP it costs to buy.

There is Random Primary, Selected Primary OR Random Secondary, Selected Secondary, Characteristic.

First Cost: SPP by Player Advancement Level.

Breakdown:

Lvl-RP-SPoRS,SS,C

Experienced-3-6-12-18
Veteran-4-8-14-20
Emerging Star-6-10-16-24
Star-8-12-18-28
Super Star-10-14-20-32
Legend-15-30-40-50

One of the key facets of outlining the Characteristic improvements is that is also the point at which you must spend SPP on an Advancement. For instance, if you have a Wardancer get 9 SPP twice in two games holding out for a Characteristic, you would be compelled to advance them from Rookie to Experienced at the least but could go much more.

So let's work backwards from the point of the caps for each level and work out what they buy. I am not suggesting this is the SOP but merely a way to look at SPP as currency.

18 SPP buys (In order of most remaining SPP):

3 Random Primary Skills @ 13 SPP to become Emerging Star

2 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary @ 14 SPP to become Veteran

1 Selected Secondary Skill + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 16 SPP to become Veteran

1 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary Skill + 2 Random Primary Skills @ 16 SPP to become Emerging Star

1 Random Primary Skill + Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 17 SPP to become Emerging Star

1 Random Primary Skill + 1 Selected Secondary Skill @ 17 SPP to become Veteran

1 Randomly Selected Characteristic @ 18 SPP to become Experienced

I can't decide in the moment what is right or best but for others(win more now or bake a strong team for later)...There are some outcomes that wind up at the same destination but cost more. Also, for the next round of possibilities, the destination of Advancement Level matters.

If Experienced, the next cap is 20 SPP
If Veteran, the next cap is 24 SPP
If Emerging Star, the next cap is 28 SPP

There's another reason I started at the caps and this is to plant a seed about banking SPP on development players. There is nothing that compels you to take a skill until you're at the cap. So what can we do with that?

Why, we can accrue SPP on players over the course of the season and wait until the end of season OR before a tourney to decide what to do with them.

This also means you can rehire players with accrued SPPs below the cap only paying their native cost and for the amount of seasons they played, skills still unselected.

So after season X ends and after game 1 of season Y, you could go on a skill shopping binge to flesh out the team you want or bring you up to a TV you like playing in. Also, this dynamic allows a coach to smooth over gaps of players disappearing or getting too costly.

I raise this point because the methods of accruing SPP have changed slightly. Some players are hard gainers because they lack some of the foundational skills to accruing SPP - making blocks that cause CAS, Scoring TDs, Making passes, deflecting passes, intercepting passes, throwing team mates.

But some skills prime the ability to gain SPP, at least under BB2016.

Block and Tackle, kind of 'no duh', but these allow for more knockdowns against other players who are naked or have a mitigater like Dodge.

Mighty Blow, for example primes every block with added potential to break armor which has the knock on effect of resulting in more injury table rolls, which nets more SPP.

Frenzy, for example increases the chances of knockdowns on every block action by giving a second chance if the first block fails to provide a knock down.

+MA, allows for OTTDs directly but also just generally increases the chance of scoring from further out which makes defensive positioning harder to account for. It also allows for further escapability on swing plays.

+AG, well, that's changed so gratuitous passing with elves at a distance is diminished but...it still allows for some nifty dodging BS to score in diminished situations or to escape with the ball and set another player up to score if not self.

I raise this point to illustrate that some players just are not going to accrue SPP that quickly while others will be more hoggish, same as it ever was. But this doesn't mean that a hard gainer is worthless but perhaps a two season project to see where they're at before pulling the trigger on what to do with them with skills.

Okay, so lets get to TV costs and that's changed.

Random Primary @10K TV
Chosen Primary @20K TV
Random Secondary @20K TV
Chosen Secondary @40K TV

Characteristics:
+AV @10k TV ((1to13+16)/16))
+MA or +PA @ 20k ((1to13+16)/16)) or ((8to14+16)/16))
+AG @ 40k TV ((14to16)/16)
+ST @ 80K TV (15to16)/16)

Let's run through the prior SPP illustration of what 18 SPP buys you with costs throw in (In order of TV Cost):

3 Random Primary Skills @ 13 SPP & 30K TV to become Emerging Star

2 Selected Primary Skills or Random Secondary @ 14 SPP & 40k to become Veteran

1 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary + 2 Random Primary Skills @ 16 SPP & 40k to become Emerging Star

1 Random Primary Skill + 1 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 17 SPP & 40k to become Emerging Star

1 Selected Secondary Skill + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 16 SPP & 50K to become Veteran

1 Random Primary Skill + 1 Selected Secondary Skill @ 17 SPP & 50k to become Veteran

1 Randomly Selected Characteristic @ 18 SPP & 'It Depends' to become Experienced

One neat thing about BB2020 is you will carry the cost of how you skill your players, creating a yoke on how many 'studs' one can carry season over season once a player is a few seasons out of the gate. I love it because it creates a layer of agenct choice that affects agent choices later on.

Again I can't determine for others how they want to go about it but working this into a 'planning for the future' mode and depending on when you hit the cap and depending on Native skills...randomness might be kind of nifty.

How nifty depends on two things: Native skills and Primary and Secondary access. There has been discussion of how the randomization works and I for one am glad that GW went for congruent quantities of skills in each category of Movement, Strength, Agility, Passing, Mutations. The skill categories are divided in two with a d6 then divided into sixths after that.

If a player has a Native skill they can't roll it if selecting randomly. Which shrinks down the available choices from randomization.

Looking at the various skill categories, I'll focus on General, Agility and Strength since these are the bread and butter of most team's access. Passing is...well...too unknown to me on the value of certain skills and Mutations...relatively less of a consideration although Mutations are super cool.

This is my determination of skill utility and everyone has their own. I am way more generous in how I see skill utility because I will try and find ways to make weirdos work. So here is my breakdown, to my own taste of the 3 big skill categories for most ST3, AG3+ players.

General:

Need: Block, Wrestle, Tackle, Frenzy
Want: Kick, Dirty Player, Fend, Dauntless, Strip Ball, Sure Hands (highly dependent on player and team)
If I Must: Pro, Shadowing
No:

Agility:

Need: Dodge, Sidestep
Want: Diving Tackle,Sprint, Sure Feet, Jump Up
IIM: Catch, Defensive, Safe Pair of Hands, Sneaky Git, Leap
No: Diving Catch

Strength:

Need: Guard
Want: Mighty Blow, Juggernaut, Grab, Stand Firm
IIM: Brawler, Arm Bar, Pile Driver, Break Tackle (This one is highly dependent on the player in question, highly)
No: Multiple Block, Strong Arm, Thick Skull

Let's take a team like Dorfs where they likely have the most Native skills. If one selects Random Primary skill, they get the choice of General or Strength.

For the Blocker - General has 10 possibilities, Strength 11
For the Runner - General has 11 possibilities, Strength 11
For the Blitzer - General has 11 Possibilities, Strength 11
For the Slayer - General has 9 possibilities, Strength 11
For the Deathroller - Strength has 8 possibilities

Let's also take Woodelves

For the Lino - General has 12 possibilities, Agility 12
For the Thrower - General has 12 possibilities, Agility 12
For the Catcher - General has 12 possibilities, Agility 10
For the Wardancer - General has 11 possibilities, Agility 10
For the Treeman - Strength has 8 possibilities

I lay this out to illustrate that conscious choice to Select skills earlier can lead to less desirable skills later on through randomization. If you select Guard as Dorfs, if you dip back into the Strength category, it is likely better to Select again because the odds of getting an IIM or No is increased with Randomization.

This also raises the question of cross skill category skill synergies and how to go about them -

Blodge
Blodge+Guard
Blodge+SideStep Or Standfirm
Frenzy+Juggernaut
Mighty Blow+Tackle
Wrestle+Tackle

These are the most fundamental couplings to BB and still would be IMHO. I would purposefully build players with these skills.

Now for some of the more bespoke where the sheer amount of skills and cost might be tough to come by and hold onto:

Blodge+Sidestep+Diving Tackle - If you're gonna build such a player for a DE Blitzer how would you approach it? The player costs 60k @ 26 SPP if you Select to build them that way.

3 Random Primary Skills @ 13 SPP = .07% Chance

2 Selected Primary Skills or Random Secondary @ 14 SPP = DNQ

1 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary + 2 Random Primary Skills @ 16 SPP = .75% Chance

1 Random Primary Skill + 1 Selected Primary Skill or Random Secondary + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 17 SPP = .75% Chance

1 Selected Secondary Skill + 1 Random Primary Skill @ 16 SPP = DNQ

1 Random Primary Skill + 1 Selected Secondary Skill @ 17 SPP = DNQ

1 Randomly Selected Characteristic @ 18 SPP = DNQ

As you can see, each time you introduce a Randomness you get further away from actually landing a specific player by factors! My feeling is, if you have a specific player in mind to build, you are still going to do it and then weigh the costs to keep season over season. In general, I can't really grasp purposefully going with more than one random skill without there being some Native skill exclusion from the Random results.

I also realize that the question of when to advance players is kind of crucial to the goal one has -

If it's having the best team at the moment for the TV, selecting skills as soon as you can purchase them might be the way to go. If you're playing with a tourney in mind, having a bit in the bank to select skills right before the tourney could be in play. If you have a long term approach for a sustained team across seasons, letting players accrue SPP across seasons without taking skills until you absolutely have to might the ticket.

For me, I am kind of intrigued about selecting one or two 'project players' who bank SPP and then take nothing but random selections and rolling with the outcomes if good, or kicking the player into the bin if they are too weird at the end of season, even for me. I don't know if one or two is enough though to have any chance at finding some SPP and TV Cost savings. Like, it feels like I'd need to have 5-6 lightning rods out there for lightning to strike rather than 2 which means linos. Positional players get some benefit in paring down random selections with their Native skills but those aren't evenly distributed among teams and being stuck with a bogus positional if 0-2 for an entire season is brutal.

The crucial question of when to do massive random skill selections seems like something I'd do on Game 1 or 2 of 'next season' rather than at the end of the current season. Yes, if lightning strikes on a player, you get a discount to carry them into next season, but the ~.08-.0007 chance of lightning striking for 10k in savings per skill...I don't know if that's when I would want to carry the costs.

I'd much rather carry the cost of the choice during a season. If lightning strikes, you get about a season of play and can defer the decision to keep to the end or let Nuffle sort them out in the course. If you choose after the end of season, you're locked in to carrying that player at the expense of retaining another, potentially. The net present team is worse, potentially, but you're reaping TV savings in every match you play.

Until we play quite a few seasons I don't know what the meta is gonna be but at first blush, Random selection is tantalizing but is going to need careful consideration on the particulars of goal and potential. I'm kinda spitballing how I wanna pursue it but curious how others are sizing up what they'll do, if they've thought about it.


Last edited by mrt1212 on Aug 15, 2020 - 09:46; edited 5 times in total
Kondor



Joined: Apr 04, 2008

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 06:54 Reply with quote Back to top

There is another thing to remember and that is MVP will only be worth 4SPP and it will be randomized over your team again. Hence, it will make it trickier to skill specific players.

To contrast that, if you take a random skill it will only cost you 3 SPP for the first skill and 4 for the second.

As such, I think I will run an experiment with some teams who come with a good number of skills out of the box. (Dwarfs, Norse, Amazons, Orcs) I may also try with goblins, flings, and underworld since their linemen are so cheap.

Each game the MVP will be enough to skill a player so I will take the chance on a random one. If the skill sucks, so what, I will replace the player and try again. All I am out is the MVP from one game. Shoot, it may be fun to go all random skills on a mostly lineman team. you can get a legend at half the current SPP. Plus, taking random skills will cut their TV if I remember correctly.

Anyway, just some thought.
neilwat



Joined: Aug 01, 2009

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 08:30
FUMBBL Staff
Reply with quote Back to top

My thinking was the same as Kondor, I would like to choose a team where I thought that random skills might be ok and go full random on every skill and see what happens.

I could see that some teams like UW might be able to do well with a few players being designed with chosen skills and the rest going random. UW always feel like a team where you have a few key players but a low TV as a whole so this tactic might work for them.
PaddyMick



Joined: Jan 03, 2012

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 08:53 Reply with quote Back to top

Nice work thanks, it's helped me to get my head around it.
Malmir



Joined: May 20, 2008

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 09:04 Reply with quote Back to top

A good read and useful too - thanks.
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 13:46 Reply with quote Back to top

About taking a Random skill then firing the player: if it's important to have gold for the redraft, maybe taking a Random skill on a relatively expensive player such as a Dwarf Blocker then firing and buying a new one if the skill is not good could make waste some gold which could be useful later.
With current ruleset cycling players is quite doable with some races, but I wonder with the new rules. Will saving as much as possible gold be important or not?
uzkulak



Joined: Mar 30, 2004

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 14:06 Reply with quote Back to top

Random just doesn't feel smart, especially for second and third skills. There are too many bad skill combinations out there. Its not 1 skill that makes a player good or bad, its the combination of multiple skills that is important. So, fair enough - take the first skill randomly but then I think most people would want to build specifically from there.

A wrestle/tackle/dauntless lineman probably should be worth more than a sure hands/shadowing/strip ball lineman?
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 14:09 Reply with quote Back to top

As an aside, I would have loved random Mutation skills.
Chaos teams should be based upon rolling random Mutations, then adjusting the team gameplay.
That would truly represent the chaotic nature of the team.


Last edited by MattDakka on Aug 15, 2020 - 14:10; edited 1 time in total
Verminardo



Joined: Sep 27, 2006

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 14:09 Reply with quote Back to top

Yeah I think it's not going to be a magic trick but you could cycle a few players until you get a good first random skill, then stack some SPP on them and park them fro redrafting in some later season, that's probably the extent of it. Still more than I will have the time and nerve for, all my skills will be chosen skills. It's gonna be interesting to see how the availability to have all the doubles you want, however at 40k instead of 30k, changes the meta.
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 14:12 Reply with quote Back to top

Also, not all players can afford to take Random skills.
Some players starting with good core skills can afford to risk the random more than players lacking core skills.
Grod



Joined: Sep 30, 2003

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 14:54 Reply with quote Back to top

Would you think 2 random skills is worth 1 chosen skill? Thats the basic equation.

_________________
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

Oscar Wilde
Verminardo



Joined: Sep 27, 2006

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 15:05 Reply with quote Back to top

Grod wrote:
Would you think 2 random skills is worth 1 chosen skill? Thats the basic equation.


I think the answer to this is: No, d'uh. So random skills are basically only for n00bs and 2nd Edition nostalgics who don't much care about competitive play. And, to some small extent, for people willing to game the system to get the "right" random skills.
Traul



Joined: Jun 09, 2013

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 19:14 Reply with quote Back to top

To reduce variance, increase the sample size. Random skills make little sense for key players that need a particular outcome but they are probably good enough for getting the spread of first [G] skills you want from your linos. You can pick skills to specialize them later, but early on it does not matter which one of the clones gets to be the Kick one.
Heroic_Tackle



Joined: Nov 05, 2006

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 21:11 Reply with quote Back to top

Imagine going full random. Some league will do this, could be hilarious.
mrt1212



Joined: Feb 26, 2013

Post   Posted: Aug 15, 2020 - 21:36 Reply with quote Back to top

Verminardo wrote:
Grod wrote:
Would you think 2 random skills is worth 1 chosen skill? Thats the basic equation.


I think the answer to this is: No, d'uh. So random skills are basically only for n00bs and 2nd Edition nostalgics who don't much care about competitive play. And, to some small extent, for people willing to game the system to get the "right" random skills.


*Urge to spite increases*

"I'll show you competitive play with my legion of sneaky git pro elf linemen!"
Display posts from previous:     
 Jump to:   
All times are GMT + 1 Hour
Post new topic   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.
View previous topic Log in to check your private messages View next topic