Aargh
Joined: Apr 07, 2008
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Feb 14, 2009 - 14:35 |
 
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I like TS. Most notably that it doesn't count unspent cash, and that it ignores players who are mng. However, there are some other things about it that annoy me. Like how it values certain skills higher than others, and in such a way discourages taking certain skills/combinations/+stat rolls. Or how it gives a discount for not using rerolls, thus encouraging such 'odd' choices. This isn't a big problem in [R] where TR is more important than TS and TS is just an indication (a rough indication, but often better than TR) of the team's current strength, but in an environment like [B] where TS is everything and TR is an afterthought, this becomes painfully obvious and leads to the 'exploits' that are discussed so often recently.
Now, I don't think that TS is deeply flawed. I appreciate what it tries to do, and I think it does a decent enough job of it. I do however think that it's just not designed with something like [B] in mind. It's being made into option b, while it was designed to be just one factor in option a. In an environment like [B], TS proves to be too much of a shaping factor when it comes to team building. When keeping your TS (which, all things considered, is just a houserule) low becomes more important to players than building a 'good' team by traditional BB standards, I feel the division has strayed too far from the game it's supposed to imitate.
As I've indicated in the "What Would Make You Play More [B] Games?" thread, to me the TS problem is a bigger issue than all the DP-loaded Khemri teams in the world (well ok, maybe not all of them, but a good number at least  ). |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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Feb 14, 2009 - 15:08 |
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TS is intended to measure the given ability of a team for any one game. It is supposed to do so accurately. However, this is bound to have some sort of feedback into the system it was trying to measure. Unless its 100% perfect for 100% of all coaches it will affect the way people build their teams. Interesting TR and TV were both created with a similar objective and have the same problem.
For me TS should be a measure which:
- can be used to sensibly pair teams up both in [R]anked and [B]lackbox, even when some of the teams are relatively poorly built
- results in a fairly positive feedback into the system which encourages traditional teambuilding
Currently none of the measures (TR/TV/TS) achieve this. I think its far from impossible though. |
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Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 15:20 |
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| SillySod wrote: |
- results in a fairly positive feedback into the system which encourages traditional teambuilding |
This is questionable, i think. In the sense of "the question needs to be asked and thoughts must be put into answering it". |
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somertown
Joined: Aug 26, 2007
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Feb 14, 2009 - 15:38 |
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Why would you want to arrange easier matches for teams that have been "relatively poorly built"?
What is meant by traditional? Is that really code for "a team skilled the way i would skill it"? I suspect TR/TV could achieve this, without providing perverse incentives for innovators, such as coaches who decide to build a dodge-free, side-stepping bunch of darkies.
Are the two objectives mutually compatible - easier games for badly built (=non-traditional?) teams but discourage coaches from building non-traditional teams. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Feb 14, 2009 - 15:44 |
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| somertown wrote: | | What is meant by traditional? |
If a pick is a good pick under TR, it will be a roughly equally good pick under TS. |
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Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 15:50 |
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| pac wrote: | | somertown wrote: | | What is meant by traditional? |
If a pick is a good pick under TR, it will be a roughly equally good pick under TS. |
TR and TS don't measure the same thing, so no such equivalence is possible... |
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'The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.'
Robert R. Coveyou |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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Feb 14, 2009 - 16:53 |
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Notice that I didnt say poorly built teams would get easier matches, just easier matches relative to what they would get under some other systems. Basicly I dont think taking blodge, guard, and claw/RSC in large amounts should give you such a massive advantage. I think its perfectly ok to give a slight advantage for "good" teambuilding but I think that TR and TV horribly exagerate this. If someone is a noob or just wanted a team of leaping elves why punish them so horribly for it? A good system could allow such a team to flourish but not dominate. The wierd teams shouldnt be quite as good as "normal" ones but its a shame if they arent even remotely competitive.
One classic "badly built" team is a busted up elvish/ratty team... these tend not to be great and dont fare well under any of the systems. I think this is hugely undesirable - as long as they are not given an advantage it would do no harm for the system to even things up a bit.
| Eddy wrote: | | pac wrote: | | somertown wrote: | | What is meant by traditional? |
If a pick is a good pick under TR, it will be a roughly equally good pick under TS. |
TR and TS don't measure the same thing, so no such equivalence is possible... |
Actually pac is exactly right. If a team was powerful and generally desirable to have under a TR based system it should also be a desirable team in a TS based system. TR sets a good benchmark for this because it means BB vets can go straight onto the new system without having to relearn anything or attempt to game the system. It also helps make BB feel more like BB than some arbitrary stem that favours teams filled with shadowing.
PS - there is one last thing I think TS should be which I forgot to mention. I think it should favour agile teams over bash teams (but only very slightly). I believe that this is built into TR, TV, and BB in general on a fundamental level... and its a balance thats worth preserving. |
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Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced." |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Feb 14, 2009 - 17:16 |
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| Eddy wrote: | | pac wrote: | | somertown wrote: | | What is meant by traditional? |
If a pick is a good pick under TR, it will be a roughly equally good pick under TS. |
TR and TS don't measure the same thing, so no such equivalence is possible... |
I was answering somertown's question, not talking about ... whatever you're talking about. |
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Aargh
Joined: Apr 07, 2008
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Feb 14, 2009 - 17:52 |
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| SillySod wrote: | | One classic "badly built" team is a busted up elvish/ratty team... these tend not to be great and dont fare well under any of the systems. I think this is hugely undesirable - as long as they are not given an advantage it would do no harm for the system to even things up a bit. |
While I agree that it's desirable to give busted up teams a chance to rebuild, I don't believe that "badly built" should be given any kind of special consideration. Those are two completely different things. A low-AV team can get beaten up easily, no matter how good or bad it is, by facing a bashy team and a few bad rolls. This can even happen to less fragile teams. Making a bunch of poor teambuilding decisions, whether on purpose or not, is something the player does him/herself. But that's not even really the point.
Giving people bonus TS reductions for using less than 11 players, or injured players, would help them get some easier games to rebuild the team, but I'm not sure this is desirable, because it might lead to people keeping injured players for longer than they normally would because it'd give them certain TS advantages.
In the same way, the only way to make things easier on poorly built teams is to give them easier matches, which again will lead to people selecting odd skills just to keep their TS down, get easier games, and thus win more.
Either way, you're once again meddling with the BB balance. Yes, it's true that some skils are 'better' than others. That has always been the case in Blood Bowl, and will always be the case. You can't make every skill equally useful, not from a game design perspective and not from a practical perspective. But to start meddling with that balance by deciding some skills are simply worth more TS than others, you are effectively turning the game from an online imitation of what Blood Bowl is, into an online interpretation of what you think Blood Bowl should be.
If you'd ask me, TS (as used in [B]) should simply be TR minus unused resources like cash in the bank and mng players. A minor discount for injured (niggled or -stat) players is acceptable, but since TS is so important in [B], anything more just serves to deform the default balance of the game. This doesn't necessarily make the game worse (afer all, you could say that using 0 rerolls and Leader isn't a bad thing since anyone could do it, and you'd be right from a gamist point of view), but it does make it different (to stay with the same example, noone would use the 0-reroll trick in a non-TS environment as anything but a gimmick). |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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Feb 14, 2009 - 18:30 |
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You can give some teams advantages and easier games without making them better than normal teams. The trick is to reduce the natural advantage to a sensible level but not go too far. |
_________________
Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced." |
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sk8bcn
Joined: Apr 13, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 19:23 |
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| Eddy wrote: | Of course it is speculation... If you prefer to see it this way, the question is: what should TS be?
And this question is essential to determining the future of B, for reasons obvious. |
For me, in an ideal world:
Team Strength: Mesure that gives you, at equal coaching skill and luck, the chances of your team to win.
Then in a downgraded form, I'd like TS to indicate me my chances to win.
It shouldn't favorise a game style. If a full blodge team is strong that should be reflected in the formula because it is better than a full diving catch team.
That's how I perceive it. And I think that it is how it is meant to be. |
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sk8bcn
Joined: Apr 13, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 19:30 |
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That's what Chister wrote:
| Quote: | | The purpose of TS is to fill that gap by providing a quick reference to give you an idea of how strong a team will be next game. |
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Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 21:12 |
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| SillySod wrote: | | Actually pac is exactly right. If a team was powerful and generally desirable to have under a TR based system it should also be a desirable team in a TS based system. |
I disagree... The things are different, they're not from the same perspective. The most obvious difference is that TR counts the SPP while TS/TV counts the skills. There's also the MNGs. In short, they are from a completely different perspective.
| Quote: | | TR sets a good benchmark for this because it means BB vets can go straight onto the new system without having to relearn anything or attempt to game the system. It also helps make BB feel more like BB than some arbitrary stem that favours teams filled with shadowing. |
That's why we need a "sweet point" where TS is "exactly balanced". But vets from BB who come to FUMBBL often find themselves having to adapt anyway. They fire coaches, they sack nigglers, etc. The goal is to have the "best" possible environment, not to make it easy for BB vets...
| pac wrote: | | I was answering somertown's question, not talking about ... whatever you're talking about. |
Nice to see your friendly self is back.
@Aargh
We share the same analysis, that introducing any "cost" system means you're necessarily meddling with the balance as a whole.
| sk8bcn wrote: | For me, in an ideal world:
Team Strength: Mesure that gives you, at equal coaching skill and luck, the chances of your team to win. |
The problem is that, if you measure, then you need to value different skills differently. Which means in turn that there will most likely always be a skill that is either under- or over-priced by the system. Which means that you can "game" the system by using this.
| sk8bcn wrote: | | It shouldn't favorise a game style. If a full blodge team is strong that should be reflected in the formula because it is better than a full diving catch team. |
By making "block + dodge" on a human lino cost more (or even the same) than "Pass Block + Diving Catch", you ARE upsetting the balance. Because unless you find the perfect values (and i'm not even sure they exist), you will give an unfair advantage to one combo or the other. |
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PainState
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
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Feb 14, 2009 - 21:26 |
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| Eddy wrote: | Of course it is speculation... If you prefer to see it this way, the question is: what should TS be?
And this question is essential to determining the future of B, for reasons obvious. |
When it comes to [B] I think the obvious answer is the easiest one. IT IS WHAT IT IS!. In ranked play you just have to deal with the concept of pickers. In league play the concept of the possibility that your next game you might have no chance because you are playing down 89 TS because you are missing 6 players.
IF TS is changed then to what? That what will by a system that can be metagamed and thus back to square #1.
IMO TS is only around to ensure that completly ridiculous matches do not happen in ranked play. And we know that would happen if TS was completly eliminated. Or as in another thread it was pointed out. TS is a "house" rule used on Fumbbl.
Now if we ran it trully to the LRB4 rules TR would be the only restrictor, giving up handis and such (which I beleive is a good restrictor, because it is not fair!) BUT its a system and thus can be exploited and thus bring us back to square #1 and we start over.
SO in the end TS discussion is nice and lets us explore our Fumbbl universe but in the end is totally futile and by searching for answers we realize the answers will only bring up more questions until we finally all agree that it will never be solved. We can either just live with it and move on OR create a cult of Blood Bowl worshippers that start up their own Fumbbl sight with their "View" of what is proper blood bowl. And then even the cultist realize that the problems did not go away just created some new ones and everyone "flames" their new threads and eventually they all just throw up their arms in disgust and come back to Fumbbl.
So in the end TS is perfectly fine the way it is. |
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Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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Feb 14, 2009 - 21:41 |
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| PainState wrote: | | IF TS is changed then to what? That what will by a system that can be metagamed and thus back to square #1. |
That's why the question must be thought of in termes of the concept underlying TS. It's not the formula itself that's important, which is why i think TV and TS are equivalent, because both are systems in which skills have a cost against which to balance the efficiency of the skill.
| Quote: | | IMO TS is only around to ensure that completly ridiculous matches do not happen in ranked play. And we know that would happen if TS was completly eliminated. Or as in another thread it was pointed out. TS is a "house" rule used on Fumbbl. |
The problem is that TS is more than what you say. It's currently the main parameter in the matching of teams in the [B] division.
| Quote: | | SO in the end TS discussion is nice and lets us explore our Fumbbl universe but in the end is totally futile and by searching for answers we realize the answers will only bring up more questions until we finally all agree that it will never be solved. |
This is one opinion. Incidentally, i'm starting to share this feeling. But saying it's the only opinion is a bit pretentious.
| Quote: |
So in the end TS is perfectly fine the way it is. |
Again, it's fine for what it does in [R]. It's not fine for a number of reasons for what it's used for in [B]. |
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'The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.'
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