Throweck
Joined: Feb 23, 2013
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 Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 11:06 |
 
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@wreckage - I totally agree with that. Earlier in the thread I encouraged DJ to explain his mindset but unfortunately it didn't come. In terms of protecting what is said in my thread, I don't feel like I should be responsible for what another adult chooses to write. I would take reponsibilty for anything I wrote so surely that should be reflected in other posters? That's what public forums are for. I don't think anyone has been overly mean. But if you write something controversial you expect to get called in it.
Maybe I misunderstood?  |
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Bloodfeast
Joined: Sep 02, 2009
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| Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 11:24 |
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Well, since the whole thread turned into a DJ topic 
Anyhow, is this not typical to the social trap we all have fallen into nowdays? Everyone gets offended by something that only reflects on what the opponent Think and what you do not.
We all play for specific reasons, and who am I to say that your reasons is completly wrong and should not exist, atleast not here where I play? "He killed my pixels and didnt care about the ball at all"?
Well, he is an orc and your an elf so whats the problem? An orc should be expected to stomp you into the ground, and I agree thats no fun to have a team wiped out but then again, it feels quite good when you win the match 4-0 and I presonally love to fight uphill cause the wins are sweater that way.
Maybe I am wrong and should just soak and complain or, stop being offended by someone wo rather crowdsurf my legend instead of scoring a tD but who cares, I got beer!!!!
But back to topic, I rather play with a relaxed attitude and trying to win, but with a ceratin style! I rather lose and have fun than winning and be bored  |
Last edited by Bloodfeast on %b %28, %2016 - %11:%Mar; edited 1 time in total |
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Throweck
Joined: Feb 23, 2013
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| Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 11:35 |
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I don't think people are offended by it. And this isn't a 'let's get DJ' thread either. His views are as important as anyone else's. This thread is about exploring WHY people have different mindsets and what they are.
I think when people say something controversial that goes against site rules or generaly against community aspects, people close ranks. That for me is a fumbbl mindset. Most of us want to protect our community because we value it.
Let's discuss mindsets rather than actual coaches is my point. |
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The_Carthaginian
Joined: Mar 05, 2015
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Mar 28, 2016 - 12:07 |
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I think the description for Box encourages the mindsets described. As a new player, on reading the descriptions for the different divisions, it struck me that Box is where the big boys play; the description makes it clear that if you step into the Box, you're going to get hurt, and in doing so it also makes it OK to play that way. I think it's likely that this macho approach encourages the attitudes that have been mentioned.
Now, I don't think that this is a problem, but I think it represents a missed opportunity. The great thing about Box is that you can drop in and pick up a game easily, no strings attached, but it's a shame if that only comes with the baggage of an intensely competitive environment. It would be nice if there was a more casual environment that encouraged diverse playstyles, unusual builds, and just having fun.
I think changing the description for Box would change this. I'm sure lots of players would still play very aggressively, and that's fine, but that could be diverted away to tournaments, rather than it being de rigeur for Box play. |
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Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
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Mar 28, 2016 - 12:22 |
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| The_Carthaginian wrote: |
Now, I don't think that this is a problem, but I think it represents a missed opportunity. The great thing about Box is that you can drop in and pick up a game easily, no strings attached, but it's a shame if that only comes with the baggage of an intensely competitive environment. It would be nice if there was a more casual environment that encouraged diverse playstyles, unusual builds, and just having fun. |
Sure, well. Box doesn't require a certain mindset from its coaches. No division does. The division description you find about box was I believe written by a non-boxer. People who don't play in it tend to have a little worse point of view on it, i think.
But ultimatively if you want to try to attract a certain crowd, it doesn't matter what you tell people how things should be.
It matters what you offer in incentive.
So if you want a more casual box, the real question is: What would be the right incentive to attract primarily casual gamers/ a more casual game of play. |
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Verminardo
Joined: Sep 27, 2006
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Mar 28, 2016 - 12:46 |
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Yeah we've discussed the Box description before, it's an ongoing controversy.
I would also like to stress that there is a clear line to be drawn between playing bash, and griefing. Playing bash is a valid style and it works well in the Box. As opposed to Ranked, you can take Piling On and Dirty Player early in team development without having to fear that no one will play your team any more. That's a feature, not a bug. I've started a Chaos Dwarf team recently (my first) and of course you get some eye rolling from people when they draw yet another Chaos Dwarf team, but you can't blame people for playing effective teams. There is a bit of a cycle there, for a time there was less Claw and more regular Dwarves, I don't really play enough to know where the cycle is right now.
So Box is on the bashy side and that's fine, people take less Tackle so Agility teams can win a lot of games but then they get destroyed, don't get too attached and practice your Zen, that's what the Box description should get accross. But it was written in a day when the scheduler worked a bit differently, and absuse was more easily possible, and you had a few really notorious min-maxed teams, mainly Zons and Pact but some others, too, that would prey on Rookie teams and coaches. Even back then the problem was exaggerated on the forums and blogs, which fed the problem at the same time, as people read that stuff and came to the conclusion that they were entering a snake pit and therefore needed to bring their own snake. I'm speaking from experience here.
The notrious min-maxing of that day sometimes, but not always, went along with actual griefing, i.e. disrespectful and antisocial behaviour aimed at hurting and disempowering another human to feel empowered yourself. The latter is not something that should be endorsed in a community, ever. But that's getting off topic so I'll stop now. This time for real. Promise. |
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ArrestedDevelopment
Joined: Sep 14, 2015
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Mar 28, 2016 - 13:01 |
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The box already promotes casual use by the presence of the scheduler.
The lack of involvement in scheduling, the complete non-interaction until actually in game - all these things that appeal to mass-game near-addicts, or those who simply cannot get a game in ranked (for whatever reasons, and there are legion), also appeal to people who simply want a plug-in, play, drop-out experience. Which incidentally, has been the most common form of online play aside from clans for quite some time, and thus is the sort of motif that younger/newer users are more likely to be already familiar with, even if they are not coming from cyanide etc.
The only things that detract from the "casual" nature are the meta (and what even is it? minmax? rinse and repeat? maxmax cpomb? bash heavy? The box meta is ill-defined and varies upon asking people) and the alleged standard of play (I say alleged, because I play in it, so the average can't be great ).
I often hear from people "people in box only want to win", but that isn't actually true. We have various meta groups (most of which look to play a set number of games per season with an alternative race to the norm), a smattering of people who want to build teams for box tourneys, those who want to play teams past a certain point and keep them going as long as possible, those who stay low tv because they aren't so much bothered about the "winning" but more about avoiding cpomb, those who simply like low tv... Hell, we've got people running weird, extremely sub-optimal builds.
And in addition to all that we've got all the big bad bashers that seem to be the first thing that enters everyone's mind when the box is mentioned. As well as the people who start off chaos/nurgle and go mb-claw as first skills on every player except one and attempt to cas dice their way through every game. They're there. But at this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if they were nearing the minority at certain times of the day. And by now, most of the guys playing these teams do not do so exclusively.
But even amongst those guys - they are not solely playing to win. A number have been asked and a number have replied the same thing - they play cpomb/regen because they'd prefer not to have to retire teams constantly. Yes, winning is good, and they like that too, but they don't see the point in playing a team for 15+ games and then retiring it.
That in itself is something that links the "hardcore bash" crowd to the "casual player". Which incidentally, is a term that is somewhat inapplicable to any user of this site, no matter their skill level, playing frequency or attitude to the game, merely actually using fumbbl to play bloodbowl suggests an interest in the game far beyond the realms of "casual", especially so if people are also donating.
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| DukeTyrion wrote: | I tend to find the Blackbox mindset is about winning the match.
Most coaches that take M Blow / Claw do it because it is a fast way of skilling up their players, especially Nurgle Warriors / Chaos Warriors. It can be a risky strategy, but many of these players will make their blocks after the key actions of the turn have already been taken. |
This is contradictory in a fashion:
Taking mb/claw first increases your chances of winning if you are able to cas the other team off the pitch - ie. it is extremely dice dependent. If you do it on every single player bar the ballcarrier and continue to do so all the way up to 1500+ TV, you are not building a team optimally, you are front-loading and relying completely on your dice, your superior ST (both natural and on blitz) and in nurgle's case, on regen should you have to kick first. Nurgle especially if starting with the beast will be struggling for rerolls during all this.
To "win the match" you would want to reduce potentially bad dice rolls. In this case, these teams are not. You are hoping that by tipping the scales with casualties the 20% failure on a 2d block and 33% failure on a 1d will be largely countered.
If you skill every single warrior and beastman/pestigor (barring the ballcarrier) in your team in such a manner, you cannot "make your blocks after the key actions".
I know you know all this.
The point I'm making here is that you've just explained why people would do such a thing - it increases likely spp. But it does so in a manner that increases block failure - especially with teams that most of the box just puts in mass contact at low-mid tv. Thus, it is not geared towards short-term gain, but long-term growth.
In such a case, how can this mentality be purely "winning the match"? |
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Last edited by ArrestedDevelopment on %b %28, %2016 - %14:%Mar; edited 3 times in total |
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ArthurWynne
Joined: Sep 23, 2015
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Mar 28, 2016 - 13:09 |
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| The_Carthaginian wrote: | The great thing about Box is that you can drop in and pick up a game easily, no strings attached, but it's a shame if that only comes with the baggage of an intensely competitive environment. It would be nice if there was a more casual environment that encouraged diverse playstyles, unusual builds, and just having fun.
I think changing the description for Box would change this. I'm sure lots of players would still play very aggressively, and that's fine, but that could be diverted away to tournaments, rather than it being de rigeur for Box play. |
I disagree -which illustrates if nothing else that people want different things from the Box. I think the great thing about Box is that it's an explicitly competitive random matchmaking environment, and thus encourages coaches to bring their A-game.
Of course, being competitive and encouraging bash are two different things, and in terms of team diversity I agree there is space for improvement. But it's really not a big deal - the Box is actually fairly diverse from what I've found, the perceived dominance of bash at high TV is an artifact of the TV-based matchmaking. The heavily armored teams are simply the majority of the ones that manage to stay at high TV for stretches of several games once they get there, lower-armored teams seesaw a lot more. And since the draw attempts to match teams by TV as closely as possible, that means as a high-TV team you will face a steady diet of bash and only irregularly encounter a non-bash team. The balance of the metagame is such that this would be the tendency regardless of the makeup of the Box, because the tendency is self-reinforcing -in league and tournament environments, where the same factors are still in play to some extent, a high-TV team will often face lower-TV opposition and agile teams tend to rise in TV faster than their bashy counterparts. Even then a high-TV team occasionally gets a "shave" and needs to rebuild. But when every game is against an equal opponent, mostly a bashy one, it becomes that much more difficult to keep your team intact even if you keep winning all your games. Therefore, it would take a distinct majority of non-bash teams in the box as a whole, across all TV ranges, for the high-TV environment to be able to be as diverse as the low/mid TV environments currently are.
Disclaimer: I have a grand total of 32 games in the Box, split across 3 teams, so this is mostly Theorybowl -but what I've read and what I've heard seems to bear it out. |
Last edited by ArthurWynne on %b %28, %2016 - %13:%Mar; edited 1 time in total |
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The_Carthaginian
Joined: Mar 05, 2015
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| Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 13:13 |
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| Wreckage wrote: |
So if you want a more casual box, the real question is: What would be the right incentive to attract primarily casual gamers/ a more casual game of play. |
Any incentive would need to be easily implemented and automated. And not vulnerable to exploitation.
Perhaps a voting system? After your game you vote to say how much you enjoyed playing your opponent, and if you have a high score from people you've played then you then tend to get matched with other high scorers? People might get salty and downvote people who beat them, but you could engineer a large degree of flexibility in the system to prevent this from stopping people from getting games entirely; hopefully over time the legit votes would drown out the salty votes. Votes from high-ranked players could also carry more weight, but that might have unintended consequences.
I don't really know what else you can offer people as an incentive to play well. Another option is nerfing CPOMB, and the impression I get is that the playerbase is against that.
Perhaps there could be a casual box, run alongside the original Blackbox. Could you incentivise people to play in the one that is appropriate to their style (as opposed to where they will win most)? I assume that what goes in Blackbox is also what goes in the most competitive tournaments, so maybe restricting tournament access (and accordingly, tournament prizes) to Blackbox would work?
| Verminardo wrote: | | I would also like to stress that there is a clear line to be drawn between playing bash, and griefing. |
Would anyone care if someone was griefing if they didn't have CPOMB to do it with? I don't mean to turn this into a discussion about CPOMB, which I'm aware has been discussed ad inifinitum, but I feel that that is what makes the difference between someone causing distress, and someone just running their mouth off and being rude. |
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bghandras
Joined: Feb 06, 2011
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| Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 13:20 |
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"Would anyone care if someone was griefing if they didn't have CPOMB to do it with?"
Absolutely! Cpomb my destroy my team only. Bad sportmanship destroys the fun. |
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The_Carthaginian
Joined: Mar 05, 2015
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| Posted:
Mar 28, 2016 - 13:41 |
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| ArthurWynne wrote: |
I disagree -which illustrates if nothing else that people want different things from the Box. I think the great thing about Box is that it's an explicitly competitive random matchmaking environment, and thus encourages coaches to bring their A-game. |
Oh, I absolutely didn't mean to suggest that competitive box should be abolished, or that there's anything wrong with that - just that there should be a casual space too. Different people want to two (or more) different things from it, as you say. |
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ArthurWynne
Joined: Sep 23, 2015
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Mar 28, 2016 - 13:57 |
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| The_Carthaginian wrote: |
Oh, I absolutely didn't mean to suggest that competitive box should be abolished, or that there's anything wrong with that - just that there should be a casual space too. Different people want to two (or more) different things from it, as you say. |
I certainly don't disagree with that -a more casual Box (Toybox?) would be a great thing to have. But unfortunately I don't think the player base is large enough to support it, or that it could avoid being ruined by griefers without generating a lot more work for the admins. |
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thoralf
Joined: Mar 06, 2008
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Mar 28, 2016 - 19:05 |
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| Wreckage wrote: | | I do have an issue with it when somebody plays for bash and doesn't pick up the ball. |
It's more than unsportsmanlike: it may be against the site's rules, unless I misunderstand them. |
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ArthurWynne
Joined: Sep 23, 2015
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Mar 28, 2016 - 19:55 |
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Actually, as I understand it that's not the case. The competitiveness-stipulations in the rules are there to prohibit match fixing, cheating and agreements between coaches, not to limit what play-styles are allowed (and a good thing too because while most of us agree that some things are over the line, trying to police "playing competitively" would be an adjudicating nightmare.) |
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Verminardo
Joined: Sep 27, 2006
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Mar 28, 2016 - 20:06 |
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Griefers are going to find a way to ruin your day, CPOMB or no CPOMB. In LRB4 it was Dp spam Khemri or whatever. BUT! We were only derailed because of that little bit of wannabe griefer trolling. The actual point is there are very few griefers on Fumbbl, compared to any other online PvP game. In general coaches in the Box tend to be sportsmanlike and fun. The preconception that people are only nice in Ranked because they need to be nice to get games, whereas in the Box everybody turns into a sociopath, is widely incorrect. |
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