Colin
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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  Posted:
Feb 17, 2008 - 05:51 |
 
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A number of things have come to my attention in recent times, culminating in a thread on Talkbloodbowl by a frustrated newcomer.
There are a number of problems I am aware of:
a) Academy isn't getting much traffic - the benefit of it not contributing to CR has possibly been eroded by new Ranked teams (first 4 games by them or their opponent) also not counting toward CR.
b) Unranked could just as easily be called the Limbo division. It is all but dead.
c) While the User Guide does contain information on getting started, it is more in the form what you do than how best to do it.
d) The poster in the thread above chose not to post here about his problems. Added to this, I have seen other negative coments by prominent people about the hostility they get here.
Result:
Newcomers to the site, even if they are fairly experienced in tabletop play, are often not having a great experience. Unable to get a game in Academy, or ignorant of it altogether, they head straight into Ranked, where they get cherry-picked until they learn the hard way how to get fair games there (or learn to cherry-pick themselves!). Some give up and leave.
What we need is the following:
1) We need to run a questionnaire to find out:
a) Why people use the site - lack of alternatives, socialising, competition, improve their skills..etc.
b) What they find good and bad about it - getting started (their first time experience), documentation, getting help in IRC or forums, actually playing games etc.
2) Address the most serious or commonly occuring problems, whether that requires fiddling with the system/divisions, a root-and-branch attitude adjustment by some/many/most coaches towards newbs/non-regulars/everyone, a mentoring scheme etc.
I want to get the ball rolling by asking for observations, experiences and suggestions, which we can then use as a basis to survey the wider coaching population. I open the floor to you all. |
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ChrisB
Joined: Nov 28, 2003
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Feb 17, 2008 - 07:14 |
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To keep the response short.
a) I believe there is a barrier to entry at Fumbbl. People just want to go straight to Ranked making [A] difficult.
b) unranked does need to be revived, best discussions for this so far is that we implement a blackbox game allocation system.
c) Well the user guide is Wiki. if they didn't like it that could add/change it!
d) Poor posting etiquette is rife in the forums, unfriendly posts are common, but it is an open forum rather than heavily policed. I know I'd rather see it open. The posters of "pie" should know better though.
When I joined I lost most of my first games (A didn't exist then either) and accepted it will take time to learn. I would have to say many Newcomers who post and run don't seem to have the willingness to accept this and patience to grow. |
Last edited by ChrisB on %b %17, %2008 - %10:%Feb; edited 1 time in total |
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kn00b
Joined: Jan 23, 2008
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Feb 17, 2008 - 07:20 |
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Trying to find tabletop players where I am is near impossible. I started playing tabletop 10 years ago and I've never been as frustrated as I have been here - the client is awkward and most of the people on chat aren't pleasant to speak to if you aren't there for six regular hours a day. To be fair I'm an inconsiderate animal on the internet too, but the 'social' environment here is pathetic. If you speak to any given coach one-on-one most seem like nice people, but in the main chat room we're monkeys measuring bananas.
Actual gameplay is fine, except getting screwed by random number generators is much more frustrating than dice, especially when watching a completely meaningless luckmeter. The only other problem with the client is the half-implemented handicap table, making playing teams with greater TR completely unfair and unappealing. Also - LRB 5! I would really like to play up-to-date blood bowl, not halfway to LRB 4 clickbowl. Unfortunately, you can only run with the legs you've got. |
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lilljonas
Joined: Feb 07, 2008
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Feb 17, 2008 - 08:02 |
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Cherrypicking newbies. Really, I started an amazon team as my second team, and every time I used the gamefinder five dwarf coaches would jump up and challenge me. I also got into a lot of games where the opponents understated the advantage their team would have. "Easy" games are harder to find the less you know about the game, meaning that there's a huge hurdle to jump for a beginner. After 30 games I'm starting to get somewhere. That's a lot of games if you are not bullheaded.
I think a bit of restraint from coaches are what is needed, but I guess easy victories are very tempting for some.
I don't play academy because all my friend who play fumbbl play R or L, so I want to have teams that can meet them. Simple as that. |
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Purplegoo
Joined: Mar 23, 2006
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Feb 17, 2008 - 08:32 |
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I know there is an anti-FUMBBL feeling over there.
There is a chunk of me that sympathises, that thinks [A] should be better promoted, that the forum could be kinder...
But then the rest of me says it's the internet. People from behind their keyboards aren't always going to be uber considerate. In a community as large as this, there is always going to be a sizable chunk of people that are anti-social and pick, or are flippant in the forum, or whatever, and people should just develop a thicker skin. This site with it's family language attitude is far, far kinder on newbies than a lot of places I've been on this here interweb.
Learning the ropes can be hard, but we all do it. I plain sucked for 200 games, but I stuck in there and learned how to get on on site. To be honest, the TBB attitude just comes from the fact we're playing over the internet <i>at all</i> in my opinion, and we aren't rolling our own dice or hugging our minis every day.
Edit: | Colin wrote: | | Newcomers to the site, even if they are fairly experienced in tabletop play, are often not having a great experience. |
I'm sorry - but in the majority of cases - I don't buy that. To be quite frank with you, the majority of FUMBBL whinging comes from people that lose quite a few games when they start and can't handle the competitve nature of the main division, because they were quite good on TT and can't learn they must improve. If it were that crappy for newbies, we wouldn't all be here!  |
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Synn
Joined: Dec 13, 2004
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Feb 17, 2008 - 08:51 |
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It helps when you have played in an online format first. I played in the OLBBL a long time ago and so the impersonal nature of FUMBBL never got to me. Mind you, I also did this weird thing called "talking" and managed to make these things called "friends".
Strange stuff eh?
__Synn |
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Mates
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
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Feb 17, 2008 - 09:21 |
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I was noob when I started playing here, and now, after 200 games I'm still a noob. But I love this site. I have never noticed anything unfriendly in general (ok there are some unpleasant coaches but to hell with them, I won't let them spoil my fun). I always have a good laugher when reading chatting in main channel on irc. I played many coaches that were really nice and I enjoyed playing them and will play them anytime. And they were there even when I was starting, when I wasn't posting to forum, when I was a newb. And I never had problem with User guide, I always found everything I needed 
So, I think Purplegoo said it the best: If newb comes here and is frustrated for not being able to win every game and hasn't patience to get used to system of ranked, I think it's his fault, not fault of this site. I learned how to find games and have fun here. We all did. |
_________________
Life sucks and then you die. |
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Fenrirsfollower
Joined: Dec 14, 2005
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Feb 17, 2008 - 10:06 |
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Most people that find their way to fumbbl is either guided by friend or familly, so the need for A division isn't really there.
when i started i had a friend show me the game, we made a bunch of U teams (now league) and played each other till i got the general idea.
sure A division is a good idea, but it should be used for what it's there for, to teach new players and for new players to learn the game, skills and tactics. i hear some old coaches use A to play and get to the statistic page becauses it's easier.
but really this game is Trial and Error. you make a new team in League, you play that team till it's done in, you make a new team different race and pound that for awhile and so on. Once you've found a race that suits you, you then go to Ranked or head for Academy to learn the finess of your chosen race.
and Unranked die when back to back games were removed from the division.. now all the action is in League. |
_________________
The dead aren't so bad once you get to know them-
To Be Norse!
Undead you say.. hmm well better skeletons then orcs.. faster to break bones- |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Feb 17, 2008 - 10:36 |
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Looking at the TalkBloodBowl thread Colin linked:
| grampyseer wrote: | | 1)My luck on FUMBBL is inexplicably bad: My luck rating is catastrophically low, and I'm blowing virtually every clutch play. (I know the indicator doesn't mean jack, but in my last game I blitzed a blodging GR with a blitzer 4 times, using all re rolls...finally knocking him down on the 4th shot (8th dice attempt really)...this has been typical for about the last 3 weeks. |
- how much can anyone really do (to improve the coach in question's experience) in these kind of cases? That Blodgers are hard to knock down is not news …
I agree that there are probably more things we could all do to make the site better for newcomers; but at the same time we have to recognise that not everyone who comes here is going to stay - and it would be unreasonable of us to expect that all those who don't will leave saying, 'FUMBBL is a wonderful place: it's just not for me.'
Looking at the bottom line, the number of matches being played has been stable over the last 30 months, and if anything may be increasing slightly. This implies that, at the least, enough new coaches are arriving - and staying - to compensate for long-time coaches departing. |
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all-grain
Joined: Feb 12, 2008
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Feb 17, 2008 - 10:52 |
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I think a significant part of what can make newcomes to Fumbbl, such as myself, frustrated with Fumbbl has less to do with the site itself and the people on it than it has to do with the inherent difference between playing real-life and online.
The group I used to play Blood Bowl with played a couple of different board- and tabletop games in addition to Blood Bowl. Compared to the other games, Blood Bowl took only a little time setting up and playing, and has a more fun oddball setting, and I think these things contributes to a lot of tabletop players considering Blood Bowl as casual game. It's not that Blood Bowl doesn't have tactical depths, but the ease of setting up a game, the funny setting and the easy to learn (if hard to master) rules all contribute to Blood Bowl being that non-serious game you play inbetween other games.
The discussions about T16 fouling, stalling and whatever else frustrates both newcomers and veterans for different reasons. I think those issues pretty much boils down to people having different expectations of the game. I'm not sure that casual- and hardcore players are the right terms, but basically there are two groups, I think, who gets in each others hair. I don't doubt that an online enviroment, especially if there is ranked play, encourages the hardcore style of play where the board game encourages a more casual play. Besides making special leauges and tournaments that caters to the casual players so they don't have to adopt to ranked play, I don't think there is much to do about it. |
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xen7ric
Joined: Jan 13, 2005
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Feb 17, 2008 - 10:59 |
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I think the site is generally good, the problem is that the forums have largely become an extension of chat/community rather than a source for advice and support. The fix for that could be the creation of a 'New to FUMBBL' forum topic where posters are requested to only post if they want to actually help (a long way from 75% of posts in the rest of the forum).
Unfortunately Admins would actually have to police that forum and delete any spam.
Guess I should add a disclaimer. I love the forums as they are, they rarely drop into personal attacks and are friendlier than much of the web, it's just I can see that to an outsider they are probably pretty baffling, one place to escape the madness may help...
As for Academy, it's a good idea that lacks community support, there are a couple of things I would change -
1) Active recruitment of experienced coaches who are willing to spend some time there,
2) Those coaches need marking as such in Academy chat so that new players can ask them for a game knowing that they will get help and advice.
3) I'd change it to a non-development league, experienced coaches who are willing to help don't want to retire academy teams after 3 games because everyone else is playing 100TR teams.
At the moment I think it's more a case that new coaches play other new coaches, learn little, get bored and join Ranked. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Feb 17, 2008 - 11:08 |
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1. User Guide as a wiki. Great. Random people put loads of terrific information in it. I've been here nearly three years and I've almost no idea how to find anything in there.
An improved getting started including avoiding getting cherrypicked and unfair matchups would help.
2. [A] is agreat idea but any coach with any sense will be be able to pick similar noob vs noob matchups in [R] but much quicker. Coaches need to know that they need feel no shame in turning down a match they don't like.
3. The poster of the thread started with a moan about the RNG. A sure route to ridicule
4. There are blood bowl noobs and there are fumbbl noobs. I was a blood bowl noob after only having played a couple of TT games many years ago. I didn't expect anything but getting slaughtered in my early games. Some coaches already think that they are kick-ass TT coaches and expect to be kick-ass Fumbbl coaches immediatly. Getting beaten by low ranked Fumbblers is a bit too much for some of them
5. It seems to me that Fumbbl is actually quite sucessful.  A lot of people stick around even with all the fouling, stalling, cherry picking etc. Many people think that playing to win IS fun. Maybe we could turn [U] into a no fouling/no stalling/no cherrypicking division. Anyone caught doing those things in [U] could be banned from [U].
Don't know if that would be enough to get people to play in [U] in the first place though.
6. "a root-and-branch attitude adjustment by some/many/most coaches towards newbs/non-regulars/everyone"? It's a big community. On any given day there are going to be a number of grumpy coaches
I'll bet that many people's attitudes to the game have adjusted. From fouling/stalling/crowd pushing are bad, bad, bad. To it's all part of the game.
From 'THe RNG is total crap' to 'I'm not as total crap as I used to be'.
Fumbbl is no worse that many other forum I've been on. Yes we should be nice to noobs. But if someone says something really silly they're going to be toast |
_________________
O[L]C 2016 Swiss! - April ---- All Star Bowl - Teams of Stars - 2 more teams needed |
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CaienCamelle
Joined: Jan 13, 2008
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Feb 17, 2008 - 11:15 |
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Threads like this one really don't help.
When I was very very new - i.e. first game or two - people were very welcoming. Indeed, my first game was almost exactly the opposite of cherrypicking: a longstanding player who offered me a game with a team he was keeping deliberately weak.
Since then, I've noticed more and more of a 'mock-the-newbie' attitude, where an innocent question or action by a new player is a prompt for everyone to laugh at them. This happens on these forums and in IRC.
Re the divisions. I started in Ranked, for the simple reason that's where the games were. I haven't touched Academy or Unranked. I've not heard any reasons to use Academy - what would I have learned there beyond "stand people up at the start of the turn?"
I think if the Academy actually had some structured training to get people up to at least the level of a weak R player, that might help.
Another point: Those magic healing potions which everyone else got really grated on my mind. They sent a signal that people who had been around a while were a lot more valuable than new players. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Feb 17, 2008 - 11:20 |
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| CaienCamelle wrote: | | Another point: Those magic healing potions which everyone else got really grated on my mind. They sent a signal that people who had been around a while were a lot more valuable than new players. |
You only needed to have arrived two weeks earlier to get one.  |
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CaienCamelle
Joined: Jan 13, 2008
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Feb 17, 2008 - 11:22 |
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| koadah wrote: |
Fumbbl is no worse that many other forum I've been on. Yes we should be nice to noobs. But if someone says something really silly they're going to be toast |
It's a shame you said that, because on the whole you're very noob-welcoming - the 145 Club is a very good idea.
However, the whole internet does not have a 'let's laugh when the newbie does something silly' attitude. FUMMBL does.
In the other online communities I'm involved with, established users take care of new users, and if they do something really, really stupid (the equivalent of complaining about the RNG ) they put the newbie straight in a factual and mature manner. |
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