Tricktickler
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
|
 Posted:
Apr 29, 2016 - 16:34 |
 
|
| DrDiscoStu wrote: | | Aging is close to the worst thing to ever happen in blood bowl. Fundamentally you should not be penalized for making your players better. You should be penalized for: getting blocked; getting fouled; failing dodges; failing GFI, etc. |
The biggest reason in LRB4 why you needed to stall the progress of your players was how TR was calculated. Every 5 SPP increased TR by one which meant two identical players could have very different costs in TR which gave away undeserved handicaps. So to avoid bloating your team with SPPs it was important after a certain point to stop giving your players more SPPs. This truly sucked but is no longer a problem since CRP uses a new TV formula.
Aging was never an equally big issue because, sure you could age, but you could also avoid aging and instead improve your player by getting a new skill.
But sure, it's true that even if we only take aging into account it was still a good strategy in LRB4 to stop the progress of your best players. Because the chance of getting a seventh skill on a player with sixth skills was not worth the risk of getting a niggle on the same player.
But in CRP niggles aren't as bad anymore. And if you add this rule to the game: "niggling injuries caused by aging reduces the TV of the player by 20" there will no longer be a reason to stop the progress of your best player just to avoid aging because getting a new skill on that player will be worth it even if you get a niggle at the same time (at least it will be good enough).
Another solution would be to give decay to the player instead of a niggling injury as wreckage suggested in the first page.
The solution that zakatan talks about two posts above is also a very good one. |
Last edited by Tricktickler on %b %29, %2016 - %18:%Apr; edited 2 times in total |
|
mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
|
| zakatan wrote: | I hated aging too back in the day, but I understood the need for it. Now I actually miss it. I'd go for a less punishing (and frustrating) way, so that instead of applying an injury on aging fail it would halt the player development, preventing them to gain any more skills.
aging -> skill cap |
This is actually the idea I'm thinking of testing/running with (which is why I'm curious about opinions on ageing)  |
_________________
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude
Mr. J's LRB7 / Forum |
|
Nextflux
Joined: Jan 22, 2008
|
| Posted:
Apr 29, 2016 - 17:15 |
|
| mister__joshua wrote: |
This is actually the idea I'm thinking of testing/running with (which is why I'm curious about opinions on ageing) |
Ok, slowing progress is the goal, everyone agrees on that, in a way it is interesting that every player has its potential.
Still, I am sceptical about making luck being more dominant on skill development. I am although open for new ideas.
But for fluff reason you should maybe call it potential (or similar) instead of aging, many races live longer than humans, especially elves and undead, it doesn't make sense calling it age.
Besides, the older you get the more skills you develop, what you loose in age is stats, MA/AG/ST.
Looking back when I was n00b, I remember spectating, and admiring legends, with 7 skills, it wasn't many healthy legends around, if you can combine the new idea, making it work like legends are very rare and at the same time not screwing coaches over by depending heavily on luck, I will change my view on this.
(guess you need to give them the opportunity to develop 7 skills too!) |
|
|
mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
|
Yeah, I planned on calling it Peaking (as a nod to the old 'Peaked' card in the Random Events Deathzone deck).
...but this isn't the point of the thread, so I'll stop subverting it further |
_________________
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - The Dude
Mr. J's LRB7 / Forum |
|
Matthueycamo
Joined: May 16, 2014
|
| Posted:
Apr 29, 2016 - 18:18 |
|
| Irgy wrote: | | DarthPhysicist wrote: | | Irgy wrote: | | This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. |
That's just not factually true. The game designers deliberately made gobos, halflings, vamps and ogres bad. There are several articles on this topic from the original designers. |
That's not a fact I missed, it's exactly what I'm referring to. What I'm insinuating is that if they could have built those teams to be competitive then they would have. But because they couldn't, they give this rubbish excuse that it's somehow a good thing.
Seriously, if you really do want to gimp yourself to make life harder, there's no shortage of other ways to do it, even without pre-gimped rosters. And even if you try your hardest to balance the rosters, some are still going to be bad, and therefore appeal to people who want to play bad rosters. It's not a real need that actually requires filling, and it's certainly not more valuable than having a larger number of competitive rosters.
I'm sure they wouldn't agree with me, I'm sure they honestly believe their own excuse, but it's still garbage.
I'm not saying I could balance the teams better myself or even that they've done a bad job, I'm just calling this rationalisation out for what it is. |
And 9/11 was the FBI. |
_________________
DLE College 7s |
|
JellyBelly
Joined: Jul 08, 2009
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 01:54 |
|
| Christer wrote: | That being said, TV as a representation of your team's actual strength is atrociously bad. Let me give a couple of examples to illustrate some issues which I'll take to extremes to illustrate the point. The core of the examples apply in reality as well, but not to the same extreme:
* +ST on a snotling (ST1 player) is worth the same as +ST on a blitzer (base ST3).
* Break tackle on a snotling increases TV, while not having any effect at all to the team's ability to win games.
* Take two identical human teams. One of the teams plays a match, ending up with a catcher getting a -MA injury followed by a +MA skill. Although these two teams are now identical (let's overlook the MNG on the catcher, or just say they played a recovery match where nothing TV altering happened), they have different TVs.
* The tackle skill contributes to TV regardless of if your opponent has dodge or not. |
I just want to respond to this point made by Christer earlier in the thread, because I think it's an interesting one.
I know these are extreme situations, but a couple of them seem to be fairly clear examples of poor teambuilding. In my opinion, it seems right that teams should be punished for poor teambuilding decisions, by not being 'worth' their TV!
To me, part of the skill aspect of the game is learning how to build a team to maximize its effectiveness. So, if you take away any advantage for building a team well and making smart skill decisions, I think that would detract from the game. Why bother making good skill choices at all, if there's no incentive and I'll get no benefit from it?
Similarly, I don't see the point of having injuries, if they don't actually provide an in-game handicap (because they've been balanced out by TV). I might as well keep my Wardancer with 2 -AVs and 3 niggles, because I'm not paying any performance penalty for him.
So, I guess I don't believe that TV should be a perfectly accurate measure of team strength in every case. Although, I think it should be a reasonably accurate measure of the strength of a team that has been built sensibly (and has no injuries). |
_________________
"Opinions are like arseholes, everybody's got them and they all stink." - The protagonist, Fallout 2
"Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!!"  |
|
Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 02:30 |
|
| JellyBelly wrote: | | I know these are extreme situations, but a couple of them seem to be fairly clear examples of poor teambuilding. In my opinion, it seems right that teams should be punished for poor teambuilding decisions, by not being 'worth' their TV! |
Hm, I'd put it probably a bit more laissez-faire. The worse 'TV' is in determining a teams strength, the narrower the development path for a team becomes. If TV would cover a lot of cases, there would be a lot of ways to develop a team well. Conversely a scenario where TV covers all cases wouldn't even be doable if the formula was very complex. The efficient team building aspect could never disappear. But from a game-development perspective balance is important to maintain diversity, so the attempt needs to be made.
From an end-user perspective a gamer should always look for ways to adapt to the rules presented to him, rather than to look for ways to adapt the rules to his needs. Because if everyone did that we would be all playing a different game.
So I think your outlook on things is a very healthy gamer perspective and a lot of people here could probably need a slice or two of that but it's not necessarily a healthy developer perspective. Mind I'm only debating this particular argument right now as I have already given my (positive) opinion on TV earlier on. |
|
|
JellyBelly
Joined: Jul 08, 2009
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 03:51 |
|
| Wreckage wrote: | | The efficient team building aspect could never disappear. |
Well, if we take a hypothetical example where TV is a perfectly accurate measure of a team's strength, and inducements 100% make up for any TV discrepancy, I don't see any incentive there for good/efficient team-building. A very badly-developed team would have an even chance against a very well-built team (assuming similar coach strengths).
| Wreckage wrote: | | Hm, I'd put it probably a bit more laissez-faire. The worse 'TV' is in determining a teams strength, the narrower the development path for a team becomes. If TV would cover a lot of cases, there would be a lot of ways to develop a team well. |
I agree this is true, if there is one way of developing a particular team that is clearly superior to all the others (i.e. cpomb spam). However, in a sense I think that part of the challenge for the game designer should be to make the game well balanced enough that it doesn't need a heavy dose of 'handicapping' compensation to make up for it. Then, there would naturally be more viable ways to play.
For me, the fundamental questions are: what should be the purpose of TV and how do you incentivise good team building whilst also ensuring that most games are reasonably fair? To what extent should TV be used to 'compensate' for imbalances that exist in the game? What should it be used to compensate for, and what shouldn't it?
I certainly don't think TV should be used to compensate for injuries. Otherwise, what is the point of them? |
_________________
"Opinions are like arseholes, everybody's got them and they all stink." - The protagonist, Fallout 2
"Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!!" |
|
ArrestedDevelopment
Joined: Sep 14, 2015
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 04:10 |
|
Jellybelly: a simple issue off the top of my head is that the very basis of "team-building" is actually stymied by rating teams by TV if you play in a pick-up environment (especially a blind one). What do I mean by that? There's numerous examples of positionals or even races as a whole where picking, as an example, dodge on a double is not an immediate benefit, but long-term is an undeniable asset. Then there is the issue of stats - not all stats are equally viable immediately to all races or all positionals. In fact, I'd think most people would agree that while stats are great, it's better in a TV-based match-making environment to roll a suitable +stat on an already developed player than it is to roll +anything on a rookie. Why? Because that +stat isn't immediately as useful as a skill would be in a lot of cases.
This is less of an issue in a league where you know who your opponents are and will be, so you can simply team-build based on that. But I would hesitate to call any relatively young team that is "bloaty" or "inefficient" (ie. did not skip most non-singles and play as lean as possible) poorly built in a match-making environment, even though you could make a fair argument that they are. And it's these teams that get crushed. |
_________________
 |
|
harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 05:14 |
|
The problem with injuries is how the coaches are treating them. Generally better coaches get an injured player and auto retire them, because they can build a better player. This isn't TV reliant.
Interestingly the 2 less important stats MA/AV to get an upgrade are the easiest to work out with a downgrade. That is to say any player that loses MA or AV is significantly weaker. Where as a downgrade of ST or AG isn't necessarily the case. So I think you could offer a reduction in TV for AV/MA and it'd be fairly reliable compensator. However AG/ST are too difficult to touch. If most injuries are auto retire, there isn't much point in having perms. You may as well replace perms with death. The game would benefit in having less players with perms retired; for variety if nothing else.
For me the problem with TV is playing golf with one club. You've chosen a club that can do an all round job, but it isn't ideal. If you have other clubs in the bag, why handicap yourself? It's necessary to have TV (or something of it's ilk and for working out a team's value TV does the job) but it shouldn't be used for as much as it is being used for. Ok ok ok there's the old argument by the rules you can handicap how you wish, but if there's a guide you're going to follow that guide.
We have various different gaming formats. However if BB gaming environments were a triangle we would have 3 points. Resurrection, perpetual game finding and long term league. Right now they all use the same formula (TV) to make teams, Value teams, work out winnings, match make (in some cases) and most importantly handicap.
All 3 environments would benefit greatly by not being handcuffed to the other 2 (any other environment falls somewhere between 2 or the 3 of them). So why use TV for so much in all the environments? Each environment needs its own special considerations. That fundamentally is the problem with TV. |
|
|
DrDiscoStu
Joined: Feb 20, 2006
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 06:33 |
|
| harvestmouse wrote: | | DrDiscoStu wrote: | | Harvest Mouse, pure curiosity here, genuinely curious as to your thoughts. Would you mind elaborating as to why forcing a coach to spread the SPP's around is extremely positive? |
Ask Tomay that one. It's a little artificial I grant you. However, right now you tend to have teams made up of 2 tiers. Stars/Fodder. It just seems natural even if you don't intend it. However if you spread the SPP around you have a more balanced team. Stars, up coming stars, potential stars, fodder.
This tends to make for larger rosters and play that leans on better coaching rather than better team management.
Do you feel that roster balance is better now than in LRB4 (disregarding attrition due to the lack of journeymen)?
Now, I need to get back to the cycling Shane Sutton/Emma Pooley debate where I'm really putting my neck on the line. |
Yeah well I feel what you (and others) are saying. I know the most successful blackbox side generally rocks an ag4 beastmen to run the ball and one CLAWPOMB monstrosity, and keeps their TR around 160. I see most elven ranked sides applying the so-called "rule of five".
I feel there are three major factors to this, 2 major and 1 minor. The minor factor is the aging. Yes it is true that adding aging would make this problem a bit better. But (for the reasons I have mentioned) I think this is a baby-with-the-bathwater solution.
The major issues here is
1) How blackbox/ranked works, i.e. the constant matching of TV
2) How TV is calculated
These days I am nearly a 100% league player. We do not suffer from this issue. It is true that the winner tends to have a stat boosted player, but they also need a supporting cast. Even in conferences (down from premier) you don't see trying to win it with a side like you mentioned. Okay I have seen one, but the point is that it is very rare.
So back to the point. If we are tinkering with the rules and have identified all the SPP's going to one-three players as being an issue, then I think it is a better idea to focus on either: how the match up works, or how the TV is calculated.
(Having taking forever you write this, I now see you have responded with the idea of using different ways of calculating TV with the different format. Great idea.) |
_________________
Check out my fishing and camping blog.
The Black Pearl Bounty-Board.
GUARD CONQUERS ALL! |
|
harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 06:43 |
|
Ahhhh they are 2 different issues.
An aging mechanic isn't going to do much to TV. What it would do is (if it worked) hopefully spread the SPP around, so instead of having a 2 tier roster (stars and fodder) you'd have a cycle of players. Players starting, coming through, becoming stars, being the bloaty legends and retiring. That's what an aging mechanic would hopefully achieve. The problem is Aging as a concept is a negative factor......nobody is going to enjoy having aging. So making it work and making the punters accept it, isn't easy.
TV problems are different......Obviously an Aging mechanic would have some effect on TV, but that wouldn't be the aim of having aging.
For big leagues like SWL I think handicapping could be so simple. (Let's say 50k) For each place a team is lower than you in a league, they get 50K of handicaps. So 8th would get 350k when playing 1st (I'm just going with the 50k figure there, could easily be 75k or 100k). You could have a TV factor in there, for example comparing the teams FF to the average of the division, but not as the main handicapping demoninator.
That's just an example of how handicapping could be fairer in League. I'm sure somebody could come up with something as good or better maybe. |
|
|
DrDiscoStu
Joined: Feb 20, 2006
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 07:50 |
|
|
pythrr
Joined: Mar 07, 2006
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 08:12 |
|
people who dislike randomness are mentally deficient and don't understand this game. it's not chess. if you dislike the forces of chaos and the warpstone, go home and play lego.
in fact, we should have MORE randomness. random skills selections, for example, would be a HUGE improvement!
yours in CHAOS. |
_________________
 |
|
zakatan
Joined: May 17, 2008
|
| Posted:
Apr 30, 2016 - 11:05 |
|
| JellyBelly wrote: | | Wreckage wrote: | | The efficient team building aspect could never disappear. |
Well, if we take a hypothetical example where TV is a perfectly accurate measure of a team's strength, and inducements 100% make up for any TV discrepancy, I don't see any incentive there for good/efficient team-building. A very badly-developed team would have an even chance against a very well-built team (assuming similar coach strengths). |
Is this a bad thing? I guess "well-built" team would have a whole different meaning, and it would open the game to new strategies instead of every competitive coach going for the same build because it is the optimal.
And any way you work TV, a full pass-block team will perform poorly I guess. |
_________________
 |
|
|
|
| |
FUMBBL HAIKU'S
Search
