pubstar
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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 Posted:
May 31, 2015 - 21:33 |
 
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| licker wrote: | ...if you play R or B and think there's an actual point to either, then you're pretty much nuts to begin with.  |
Thank you for your detailed explanation, and your post above it as well. The quoted line helped me understand how we're viewing Fumbbl so differently.
To me, the 'point' of R and B is to be able to play a Blood Bowl match whenever I want with teams that I built. I don't enter into a R or B match with any higher goal than that, so of course for my purposes both divisions suit me perfectly.
I understand the desire to play a match with some stakes, which is why I also enter tournaments.
I understand the desire to play a max/max team against other max/max teams, which is why I also play in L.
When coaches state that X thing is 'bad for the game', I ask myself 'what does this coach want out of Blood Bowl?' Trying to read somebody's mind is a losing proposition, but it doesn't make much sense to even have a discussion if I'm not at least trying to understand the other coach.
No matter what a coach wants out of the game, invariably there is a way to get exactly that on Fumbbl. There are more tournaments than I have time to enter. There are loads of interesting, dedicated leagues. There are two 'free play' divisions that allow quick play and team progression. I can't remember the last time I saw somebody claim that an element of Blood Bowl, Fumbbl, or the metagame was 'bad for the game' where I couldn't point to a subdivision of the site that will suit them.
I guess I'm lucky that I can find enjoyment in any division. I respect that not everybody can. But I haven't yet met a coach whose needs can't be met on Fumbbl.
So that's the core truth to my head scratching. I think I know what you want out of Blood Bowl, and I think you can get it, so I can't understand where the complaint lies. |
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Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
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| Posted:
May 31, 2015 - 21:53 |
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I greatly enjoy Box and Ranked.
All the teams I have I try to develop into teams that are capable to win majors.
Over time I have realized that this is a futile undertaking, that a team i think is capable of winning is very rare, especially in blackbox and so most of the time I just hope to get lucky.
So development is a long term goal but on a game to game basis I do not think about in anymore.
On a game to game basis I focus on winning every time and every single game.
I'm pretty sure that's the approach where you get the most out of those divisions.
When your approach to the game is to keep your TV intentionally low, you are just drifting around with no purpose or higher goal.
When your approach to the game is to only ever build the highest possible team and you neglect winning over it, you neglect what the game is actually about and miss out on the best part of it in every single game over some obscure metagoal that is far ahead in the future and ultimatively doesn't really matter either if you only obtained it by gaming the system to the max.
In my time on Fumbbl I found that people will talk everything bad you do, short of playing a dwarf team that passes or using an all snotling team.
Once an Ogre team was banned from majors for winning one.
So I think in this massive pool of hatred, envy and misstrust it is always important that you are comfortable with the way you approach the game and just make sure that you don't sell yourself to a strategy you wouldn't respect for being successful.
Because if you don't, you have already lost before you even start a game. And because of that any argument like: I don't want to play x but i have to because it's peer pressure and the like is ultimatively futile.
If you don't feel fine about the way you play the game, then it is because of the way you are playing it.
And if you do feel fine about the way you are playing and are proud of what you archieve by doing it, you are not doing it because of peer pressure but because you think it is worth something. |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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| Posted:
May 31, 2015 - 22:28 |
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I think there's a place for this meta min-max style game, but not as the main game. It's an interesting format, where you could say that teams don't have a great budget. A 'minor' league if you will. You could take it a little further I guess, so that min-maxing was the only way, and give it it's own division.
However as previously stated we are given skill slots on all players to 6, and a roster size for 16. As a perpetual game, the immediate obvious goal is to make that team as a great as possible. The fact a great team can be undone by a team half its size isn't logical and this is where Pubstar's authentic sports analogy breaks down.
To argue against Endzone's theory of what if we had min-maxing first. I'm sure some things in the game would have changed. Roster size for example. There would be no need to limit them as nobody bar fodder teams would take anywhere near 16 players. I believe though and JFs, Lickers and so many others theory on how the game should be played that people would be inquisitive.....dream even about making powerful teams. In short as soon as we see progression mechanics work, we start to dream about making that super powerfully perfect team. To handicap that is to handicap the game, which is what is happening.
The one thing that is changing about this game is the avenue of new players. It's not so much about fantasy fanatics dreaming of being the next coach of the most powerful team, role playing (in a computer progression sense). Rather competitive gamers who are looking to get the most out of the engine. There so much more to BB than the basic engine though, which makes it a real shame.
Regarding sacking an injured player being ok. Licker counted that; it all comes down to 'potential'. If the injured player had no stat increases, he's probably not worth keeping. In the case mentioned, I don't know........in a max world I'd probably keep him still...however without deductions on key stat injuries he's becoming worse by the minute.
Guard was a bad skill to take after dp I think. Dodge for me would have been better I think. Funnily I had a guard/dodge skellie back in lrb 4 on an undead team, and I really found him useful. |
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pubstar
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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| Posted:
May 31, 2015 - 22:46 |
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| harvestmouse wrote: | | The fact a great team can be undone by a team half its size isn't logical and this is where Pubstar's authentic sports analogy breaks down. |
I get that TV doesn't equal player salary in how it's applied (though in the fluff, yes it does). But the analogy is fine by your criteria. Last year the best team in Major League Baseball's American League spent less than half what the Yankees spent. They built a really efficient roster, and were a better team. It's a nitpick, I know, but I so rarely have a good reason to talk about baseball in a Blood Bowl context and it really tickles me. |
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JimmyFantastic
Joined: Feb 06, 2007
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| Posted:
May 31, 2015 - 23:24 |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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Jun 01, 2015 - 00:07 |
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JF: No I mean statistically (and I think you knew that) will beat the better team most of the time. We have dice, this will always give us David and Goliath type results. In essence what I am suggesting is that David is the big cheese now, and Goliath is literally a no hopper.
Well Pubstar, it all comes down to nuance. There are no black and white lines, however at some point white is no longer white. You could put your baseball analogy down to team synergy and skill picks. A well built team is a necessity.
For me, I don't think it's viable to take this environment away now. It would be too unpopular. If it were up to me though; I'd combine ranked and box, give them the option to pick matches or use the scheduler.
Then make a second division, exactly the same; scheduler/pick but with a different match up/handicap formula. One based on win % or ff, but took into account teams that too loses. The key though for a division like this is to give them something to aim for. A factionish formula, rather than just tread water.
I think the one thing we have seen is that both picking and scheduling are viable for winning Majors. I can't really see a reason to keep them apart anymore, it's diversive. Saying that I think I'm suggesting an even more diversive system. TV vs FF forum war. |
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pubstar
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 00:34 |
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| harvestmouse wrote: | For me, I don't think it's viable to take this environment away now. It would be too unpopular. If it were up to me though; I'd combine ranked and box, give them the option to pick matches or use the scheduler.
Then make a second division, exactly the same; scheduler/pick but with a different match up/handicap formula. One based on win % or ff, but took into account teams that too loses. The key though for a division like this is to give them something to aim for. A factionish formula, rather than just tread water. |
This would be really cool. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the community well enough to say if it would be accepted or not, but I would be into it. R and B do the same thing for me, in slightly different ways: a game of Blood Bowl in the next 5 minutes whenever I want it.
The division you're proposing would do something totally different. A ladder where you were matched on win% would encourage the type of play Wreckage prescribes, where you just want to win THIS match, period. |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 00:43 |
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I think to keep it fresh, each months winner would be put into a 'champions pot' who battle it out for champion of champions every 3 or 6 months. Each champion may not compete in the normal division whilst in the champs pot (keeping winners fresh) and stays in the champion pot for 1 cycle year.
Each months winner could be determined by ff or win % or vice versa on count back followed by TW. |
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pubstar
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 00:46 |
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| harvestmouse wrote: | I think to keep it fresh, each months winner would be put into a 'champions pot' who battle it out for champion of champions every 3 or 6 months. Each champion may not compete in the normal division whilst in the champs pot (keeping winners fresh) and stays in the champion pot for 1 cycle year.
Each months winner could be determined by ff or win % or vice versa on count back followed by TW. |
You would need sub-divisions, each with their own champions pot. If only the top 8 coaches each month get stakes, it's not going to compel a guy like me who loses 60% of the time. If you broke it into quartiles though, I would love to battle for a shot at the Goblin Cup or whatever the crap tier would be called. Keep the quartiles secret somehow, so you don't have players near the cutoff losing intentionally. |
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licker
Joined: Jul 10, 2009
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 00:50 |
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| pubstar wrote: | | harvestmouse wrote: | | The fact a great team can be undone by a team half its size isn't logical and this is where Pubstar's authentic sports analogy breaks down. |
I get that TV doesn't equal player salary in how it's applied (though in the fluff, yes it does). But the analogy is fine by your criteria. Last year the best team in Major League Baseball's American League spent less than half what the Yankees spent. They built a really efficient roster, and were a better team. It's a nitpick, I know, but I so rarely have a good reason to talk about baseball in a Blood Bowl context and it really tickles me. |
The Orioles spent less than half the Yankees? (Actually the Angels had a marginally better record, but the Orioles had the superior statistics).
Let's not confuse a lucky winning streak with the 'best' team over the course of the season please.
Let's also not confuse what 'built an efficient roster' actually means either  If there were some kind of draft or farm system for blood bowl you could (maybe) make a better analogy.
It's also nice that R and B fit you. I won't argue that they are bad, or 'should' be anything other than what they are, which is what the community has made them. My point is simply that since so many different coaches play them for different reasons they are ultimately pointless. Yes, other than just for 'playing'. Which again is completely fine for those who just want to play. Or, for those who can play. See, there's also a set of coaches and or time zones where just getting a game is impossible short of intentionally playing weaker teams or accepting many bad matchups.
So go to box you say. Sadly in my time zone Box just doesn't happen enough to be worth waiting around to see if 4 coaches will ever activate. But that of course is entirely my problem, not yours or anyone elses, there is no fix for it either, other than allowing draws of 2 or 3 to happen. But it also highlights my 'issue' with what B really is, because it didn't used to be this bad, I used to get B games within a couple activations easily, yet the division was plagued by high end cpomb spam, and low end min/max garbage. It wasn't interesting, and myself and many other coaches just bailed on it, and have not returned in any kind of significant numbers.
But that is tangential to the underlying notion that CRP is driving BB (and FUMBBL) to a more extreme end, where building bigger and (perhaps) interesting teams is simply not happening. Good or bad is an individual point of view. But I'm closer to HM on it being ultimately bad for BB in general than I am to accepting it. I didn't always think that way, but now I see BB as more of 'just another game', where power gameing and min/maxing have taken over the mind set of a majority of coaches. I'm guilty of it too though, but I'm also sick of it.
I can play L, where either the leagues have rules to keep some of this stuff at bay, or where that mind set hasn't overrun everything yet. So you can continue to wonder why I complain if you like. I don't really think I'm complaining, I'm not asking for anything to change, I'm just stating what I see as objectively as I can. Again, it's not about good/bad or right/wrong, it's just about what is. And what is, is this move towards a game which is far more about crunching numbers than it is about crunching gobblins.
In part this is why I'm moved more of my time to CCGs. A bit too different in mechanics to make a complete comparison to BB, but they are offering me far more interesting variety and choices than what BB has right now. It also helps that the games are much shorter Frankly, spending 60-90 minutes dicing or getting diced in what feels like over 50% of my matches (like I said, I'm part of the cpomb problem too) has really gone past what I can tolerate.
But that's another rant for another day |
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Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 00:54 |
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Well, one thing is for sure.
You can only have either tournaments or success based scheduling.
The two objectives would be directly contradicting and both mixed together a source of desaster.
Or to pick up on the championship thing: One possible solution would be maybe to make success a tournament qualification standard.
Like.. 3 majors.. the 64 highest ranked teams are allowed to qualify.
Of course in the end a success based system like that would be only really fun for people who do have actual success.
Otherwise you just end up again grinding from game to game with no real goal or objective. |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 01:03 |
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Why do you thinking mixing say ranked and box would be a disaster?
I also feel that Majors do not appeal to the majority of coaches on the site. More so the hardcore not the fringers that don't really have that much to say. |
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pubstar
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 01:08 |
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| licker wrote: | | The Orioles spent less than half the Yankees? (Actually the Angels had a marginally better record, but the Orioles had the superior statistics). |
I was referring to the Royals, the AL Pennant winners. It's a tiny bit of a cheat, since their place in the World Series was a combination of long-term success and short-term luck in the playoffs, but it was tangential to the main point anyway. If you want a more concrete example from baseball, the A's are perfect. One of the best win% over the last decade, and never spent anywhere near what their peers spent. |
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DOTP!
3DB Highlander!
Fill the Box Grid! |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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| Posted:
Jun 01, 2015 - 01:11 |
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| pubstar wrote: | | harvestmouse wrote: | I think to keep it fresh, each months winner would be put into a 'champions pot' who battle it out for champion of champions every 3 or 6 months. Each champion may not compete in the normal division whilst in the champs pot (keeping winners fresh) and stays in the champion pot for 1 cycle year.
Each months winner could be determined by ff or win % or vice versa on count back followed by TW. |
You would need sub-divisions, each with their own champions pot. If only the top 8 coaches each month get stakes, it's not going to compel a guy like me who loses 60% of the time. If you broke it into quartiles though, I would love to battle for a shot at the Goblin Cup or whatever the crap tier would be called. Keep the quartiles secret somehow, so you don't have players near the cutoff losing intentionally. |
Well one thing modern gaming has shown us is that cleverly marketed pointless incentives are a real......incentive.
Divisions would be illusionary. Incentives could be awards, badges, even a finishing position with each race. So next month you try to beat your position with that race, that could be really addictive. There are many ways to entice the punters.
Marketing the idea and how the incentives of course are important (though I've probably damned the concept). |
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dudesweet101
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
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Jun 01, 2015 - 01:29 |
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nearly all of my +st happens to a thrower, who then just becomes a QB bam specialist, damn Nuffles' whiskers-he's a skaven right?
Keep the skelly! (but don't foul-simples) |
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