| Poll |
| Should Halflings only play games when they can Induce? |
| Yes-the team was designed to play with some inducements |
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34% |
[ 28 ] |
| No- They are designed to be a challenge and should select their games the same way any other team would |
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38% |
[ 31 ] |
| Halflings make great pies, just remember to remove their clothes first |
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27% |
[ 22 ] |
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| Total Votes : 81 |
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Carnis
Joined: Feb 03, 2009
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 Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 21:02 |
 
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| Purplegoo wrote: |
So far as I'm aware, the rules were written for 7-10 match long leagues. So I guess Stunties are designed to start off 'fair' (or at even TV), get smashed and then Induce to hang on in there.
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This seems to be a common misconception among FUMBBLers, that the rules were designed for some one else with some other kind of league structure in mind. I've never heard any of the BBRC claim the rules were designed for 7-10 game leagues. In fact all the testing stages of the different rules versions were done in MidgardBB over a play-by-email client with teams playing against each other in an open environment not much unlike FUMBBL.
Jervis also wrote about it in LRB5's designer's notes, that he was happy they had finally found a way to make the game work as it was intended, playable in open ended leagues where drop-out coaches would not ruin the entire league as newcomers would be able to join in by using the inducement system to settle the score while keeping the matchups fun and fair.
As for stunties being designed to start even TV and get smashed. Main designer Galak is a halfling coach and he always advocated a starting roster that relied on, you guessed it, inducing deeproot  .
Here's the recommended halfling starting roster for LRB5 from TFF (pre LRB6-nerfs, ie increasing deeproots cost to 300k).
Halfling
2 Treeman
9 Halfling
2 Rerolls
1 AC
1 CL
0FF
350K Banked - Enough to Induce Deeproot + Master Chef
Nowdays you'd probably be better off going for a puggy-based start and buying 3 more starting halfligns with 240k set up for getting the chef & puggy. |
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uzkulak
Joined: Mar 30, 2004
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 21:13 |
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[quote="Carnis"]| Purplegoo wrote: |
As for stunties being designed to start even TV and get smashed. Main designer Galak is a halfling coach and he always advocated a starting roster that relied on, you guessed it, inducing deeproot .
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Well, if that's the proven intention of the game designers it should be difficult to vote against them in the poll! But I see more people are doing so. Interesting. |
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On1
Joined: Jul 12, 2004
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 21:13 |
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Justy woke up. morning.!
They should avoid teams with tackle / block / mightyblow... because they CAN, and always play 200 TV up vs vamps. It is important to REALLY pick pick PICK! boring...
Oh.. or play in [B] with a 10-20% dif in TV randomizer. That would be both more challenging and more fun to watch. |
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freak_in_a_frock
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 21:49 |
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As was touched on, if Halflings (and to a lesser extent Gobbos) were designed to be playing with inducements for the majority of their games, when/if the box ever gets FFB would it make sense for it to register their TV as higher than it is in respect of creating fair match ups? So a TV1300 halfling team could be rated at TV1500 so that it is more likely to get those inducements it needs. |
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On1
Joined: Jul 12, 2004
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 23:12 |
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Nah.. imo it would be better to just let the flings participate on even terms, win some lose some  |
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Rijssiej
Joined: Jan 04, 2005
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 23:18 |
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I am against special rules for sucky races...if they need a star they should have added the star to the roster... |
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Carnis
Joined: Feb 03, 2009
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| Posted:
Aug 27, 2010 - 23:50 |
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Imo no need for special rules either, just allow the scheduler to schedule "unfair" matches if there's only a few coaches. The inducement system will make sure the underdog team at least *survives* the onslaught, might not win. Just get the extra wandering apoths & go into the game with 3 apoes if facing a total killer-murderer team.
As far as a box-system for CRP/LRB6 is needed I'd like it to be based on TV, not TS. TV is not ideal, but at least you would not be optimizing multiple systems simultaneously. |
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Purplegoo
Joined: Mar 23, 2006
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 08:56 |
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| Carnis wrote: | | This seems to be a common misconception among FUMBBLers, that the rules were designed for some one else with some other kind of league structure in mind. |
Simple answer to that is that I’ve seen it written several times away from here, and have had conversation where it was brought up in real life (I know; cracking evidence, eh? You know, "I've met Tom and he said," blah. No doubt NAF tournaments and small open leagues were also thought about, I'm not saying they totally disregarded other stuff). I’m not convinced it’s super relevant to the thread, mind. However; no set of rules was ever designed for large, open structures like [R] or [B]. PBEM was just one of the sources drawn upon for rules, as well as data from many small, closed local leagues. Correctly (don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing this), the sort of environment we have here wasn't considered, it's a board game played by all standards in small closed groups. That’s why we’ll see issues that the rules aren’t ready for in 6, just as we did in 4. All due respect to MBBL, but it's hardly the same animal, is it?
I still don’t believe any team was designed to only be competitive with Inducements, I don’t think that has the ring of truth. Whilst Stunties are tier three and as such designed to lose way more than they win, in the hands of a good coach at even TV, it’s still on. If I were playing them in the box, I'd set the TV counter thingy high enough such that I could get toys if the scheduler allowed me to, and in [R] I'd simply do the maths as to what was fair as and when. |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 11:49 |
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| Purplegoo wrote: |
So far as I'm aware, the rules were written for 7-10 match long leagues. |
This is the truth of it. All the teams have been designed for League and Tourneys where over the course of the tourney all the teams should theoretically have an equal chance.
Sadly the teams arent designed for mass online gaming so they really don't stand much chance anymore when playing at an equal TV.
They have been improved in someways - it is easier to throw the flings about and the trees can re-roll anything. But they can no longer TTM long passes which completely sucks and the loss of the chef has pretty much completely ruined the team as their only real advantage over teams when playing at an equal TV TR/TS was that they could pinch all your re-rolls and even then they should never eally ever be able to beat Norse, Orcs, Dwarves, Chaos Dwarves or Amazons. Obviously there will be many cases where these team have been beaten by flings but on the whole those teams should always win.
IMO flings can only really survive in a league setting, where they will be able to induce star players as well as get the master chef prior to everygame and a few bribes, if they have all these inducements then they can compete to some extent in a league.
I'm actually really upset by the changes to the flings as they were one of my favourite races in the game. Sadly I don't think I will be able to play with them again once the new cleint is finished which is a huge shame. But there are big improvments made to the goblins roster so I will just have to use those dirty little gits instead.
But they shouldn't be given extra specicial rules just because they suck, we should just let them suck and if someone manages to do well with them then they deserve a pat on the back. |
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Lakrillo
Joined: Sep 12, 2007
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 14:32 |
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First word from the CRP:
| Quote: | | This rules pack contains a set of alternative game rules that have been developed in order to maintain a game balance in leagues that last for long periods of time (e.g. for months or years rather than weeks), and for use in tournaments where very precise play balance and exact wording of the rules are important. |
If you read the LRB6/CRP and think about what the rules does, is that it tries to fix a lot of the things which have been broken in LRB4, especially the extended time of play. Tom have said that the tournament-scene was not that much in his focus, more than wording the rulebook right so that there would be less rules-queries. The reason for this is that tournaments tend to have their own balance-systems in place anyway.
From the start, Bloodbowl was done for shorter leagues and a lot of the balance in the rosters were inherited from that. Changing of rosters are never a popular thing to do, but the most important ones was tried to be fixed in LRB5 and 6 (Norse got more living-time, Nurgle is not just a joke in the long run) Radical changes to rosters were not allowed by GW as they already had minis for the current rosters.
The stunty teams are designed to be challenging to play, and they still are. Giving them access to some cheaper inducements like the bribes for 50k and the Chef for 100k gives them a little bit more of a fighting-chance when they are underdogs, which will be the case in most closed leagues. In an open league, you can choose what opponent you play and therefor can decide for yourself if you want those inducements against a tougher opponent, or want to play an even game where you have choosen yourself to play a challenging team. |
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Purplegoo
Joined: Mar 23, 2006
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 14:51 |
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I don't have the LRB6 document that was produced before GW stuck their nose in and did the CRaP thing - but was that line original, or was it an addition from them? It looks to me like a GW raison d'être and not the original wording before they got their Norse Werewolf-esq paws on it. Doesn't seem in keeping with the document really.
Either way; throwing terms like 'broken' (if LRB 4 were broken, FUMBBL would have found it and we'd have universal agreement. We haven't; we've got some areas some people don't like) and 'balance' (BB shouldn't be balanced, that's the whole point of having tier three Stunty teams!) into a discussion touching upon rules is always a bit of a red herring. I guess this discussion should move away from what was desired when the Inducement system was cooked up in terms of how Stunty teams show exist within the fabric of the system (because a) there seems to be little agreement on the 'plan', and b) for all intents and purposes it doesn't really matter what the 'plan' was in a FUMBBL sense; long term rules are here, the authors have lost control of them now, they're in our hands), and onto the way the site and the teams therein should handle them. In that regard, you're dead right in terms of open league teams having choice. Now, more than ever, human interaction is important in game selection. |
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Carnis
Joined: Feb 03, 2009
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 14:59 |
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| Purplegoo wrote: | | I don't have the LRB6 document that was produced before GW stuck their nose in and did the CRaP thing - but was that line original, or was it an addition from them? It looks to me like a GW raison d'être and not the original wording before they got their Norse Werewolf-esq paws on it. Doesn't seem in keeping with the document really. |
This is the wording on the original LRB6 document, which is pretty much along the same lines:
| Jervis Johnson in LRB6 wrote: | | Well, after years of play-testing and heated discussion, here is the latest edition of Blood Bowl. Our understanding is that this edition will be left unchanged for sever al years to come. The main focus of this edition of the game is that league teams can be played in a Perpetual Blood Bowl League format (PBBL) without needing to reset the league for new members. Games Wor kshop has been glad to provi de the LRB free of charge to download fr om their website and this will continue for the foreseeable future. For those of you who are familiar with version 5.0 of the rules, all changes and typographical corrections from version 5.0 have been highlighted in red so they are eas y to spot. I'd like to extend many thanks to all the play-testers for their wor k and contributions over the last four years, especiall y to BBRC, who completed this projec t when I needed to attend to other projects. |
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Purplegoo
Joined: Mar 23, 2006
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| Posted:
Aug 28, 2010 - 15:10 |
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Heh - well, if Jervis says so, eh?
Still, indicates closed leagues rather than the open stuff we'll be mainly using. Which sort of isn't what you said before?
Anyway, anyway, it's a derailment which I'll draw a line under. Back to 'Flings, and how they'll work here! |
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Carnis
Joined: Feb 03, 2009
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| Posted:
Sep 01, 2010 - 17:41 |
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| Purplegoo wrote: | Heh - well, if Jervis says so, eh?
Still, indicates closed leagues rather than the open stuff we'll be mainly using. Which sort of isn't what you said before?
Anyway, anyway, it's a derailment which I'll draw a line under. Back to 'Flings, and how they'll work here! |
IF by perpetual blood bowl league format you mean closed leagues of 5-7 games then that sort of isn't what I said before , but this could be some sort of British-english vs foreigner-english misunderstanding.
To me it reads: The current rules were planned to be played over very long periods of time (hence perpetual) with varying number of games ie. the exact opposite of short, fixed or closed leagues. |
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Elric1
Joined: Jun 02, 2004
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| Posted:
Sep 01, 2010 - 19:19 |
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Apologies in advance for what is likely beating a dead horse.
For what it's worth Purplegoo, I believe the whole basis for the big changes leading to LRB 5 was that the current rules were intended for open-ended leagues. PBBL (perpetual blood bowl league) was the original name for what became LRB 5, the successor to LRB 4. The changes in LRB 6 were much more modest by comparison.
Here's the opening line of LRB 5:
"This edition differs from the last four Living Rulebooks in that an effort was made to return to 3rd edition with the lessons learned from LRBs 1.0 through 4.0 and to redo 3rd edition so that league teams could be played in a Perpetual Blood Bowl League format (PBBL) without needing to reset the league for new members."
Open-ended multi-year leagues (i.e. perpetual) was the stated reason for inducements replacing the original handicaps, etc. One of the goals of spiraling expenses, increased injuries, and weakened apothecaries is to limit the inevitability of overpowered, uber-skilled high TR rosters in longer leagues. These had become a problem using original rules.
So, I believe halflings were meant to have inducements. Almost all of their games will be against much higher TR, as their Team Rating even in a perpetual league will stay low based on their low cost and their fragility, which usually limits skill development. I guess I disagree with your statement that you can choose to keep your halfling TR low, but "that was never the design." That was EXACTLY the design. The design was that all teams were designed to hit a certain max TR and never really get higher, due to a combination of attrition, spiraling expenses, increased injuries, etc. Halflings were simply designed to hit that max TR at a much lower point. Hence the inducements.
As to whether Jervis meant for this to be "open" or "closed" league. Jervis made that abundantly clear when he explained why Inducements were added in LRB 5 (PBBL) to replace handicaps. The following wall of text is lifted from Jervis' design notes on the last page of LRB 5:
"The single most important thing I needed to sort out with the league rules
was the problem of the ‘part-time’ coach. Anybody who has played in a
Blood Bowl league before will understand this problem. When the league
starts up you get loads of enthusiastic coaches all clamouring to take
part. After half a dozen games, however, quite a few of the coaches will
have started missing games, or have dropped out of the league
altogether, especially if their team isn’t doing very well... The way that I
tried to get round this problem was by creating an ‘open’ league format.
This places the emphasis on arranging matches and playing games
firmly on the shoulders of the coaches themselves. In this way
enthusiastic coaches can play as many games as they like, or rather, as
many games as they can find opponents to play against. Meanwhile, less
enthusiastic coaches can play fewer games, as and when they like.
This system worked well in the 3rd edition rules, with one very important
exception: teams just kept getting better and better if they played
matches, and if they played enough matches there was simply no way
for a starting team to compete against them. This was not what I had
intended to happen at all; the league rules were there to provide
continuity between games, not to allow coaches to create ‘super-teams’
that couldn’t be beaten unless an opponent had racked up enough
matches.
This problem came about because the handicapping system I’d built into
the 3rd edition rules didn’t give enough help to the underdog." |
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