Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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 Posted:
Jun 26, 2025 - 23:35 |
 
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Changing it would basically need to be one part of a larger rebalancing I think: changing just one part of the game would skew the dynamic.
But here's a thought experiment in a world where everything else stays the same. What if you just changed one tiny rule, which is this: failing to pick up the ball from the ground is no longer a turn over. Losing the ball from your actual posession remains a turn over of course, but not failing to collect it from the floor.
So yes, a player can chase a bobbling ball around the pitch so long as they have the movement! And maybe it will bobble into the tacklezone of an ogre of course (a very organic ways of achieving that "pressure" risk of nearby players), or bobble off the pitch or into the arms of an opponent.
I'm kind of interested to play a game like that just to see what would happen! |
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moph
Joined: Sep 16, 2020
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Jun 26, 2025 - 23:57 |
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| MattDakka wrote: |
About the pick up:
the problem is when an AG 4+ player tries to pick the ball up in Pouring Rain.
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When a AG4+ player has to try to pick up the ball in pouring rain something has gone horribly wrong beforehand or you are playing Tomb Kings.
When you are playing Tomb Kings you are in for that one of 18 of your offensive drives (the 5,5% chance of pouring rain) you are probably not scoring and playing for a draw.  |
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moph
Joined: Sep 16, 2020
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Jun 27, 2025 - 00:14 |
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| Chingis wrote: | failing to pick up the ball from the ground is no longer a turn over.
...
So yes, a player can chase a bobbling ball around the pitch so long as they have the movement! ...
I'm kind of interested to play a game like that just to see what would happen! |
That's the kind of ideas we need in game design! 
Elegant and adding fun.
Adding interesting decisions, like how to screen the ball on the floor.
I would change it so that per turn only one player of the team can try to pick up the ball or the turnover occurs when the player trying to pick up the ball has no movement left or decides to end his movement without having succeeded the pick up. Just to prevent to give a saurus a couple of free tries before you pick up with a skink. |
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moph
Joined: Sep 16, 2020
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Jun 27, 2025 - 00:24 |
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| MattDakka wrote: |
I suggested to give the +1 to players with Sure Hands, as one possible rule. That would actually make Sure Hands more valuable.
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I think this would be a good way to do it, just one sentence added to the skill. No complicated extra rules. Only making it easier for players that train (invest spp) for the skill, not for everybody.
Which teams besides chaos dwarf would benefit the most from it? Black Orcs? Ogres? Would coaches train saurus as ball carriers? |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Jun 27, 2025 - 02:10 |
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| moph wrote: | | Which teams besides chaos dwarf would benefit the most from it? Black Orcs? Ogres? Would coaches train saurus as ball carriers? |
I guess teams with AG 4+ and AG 3+ players with Primary access to Sure Hands (or starting with the skill). Coaches would not train Saurus as ball carriers, of course.
Almost as good as +AG, just for adjacent pick ups.
About the idea of no turnover when failing the pick up: it's gamebreaking, way worse than adding the +1 pick up modifier.
Without turnover even clumsy players would have basically Sure Hands for free (as long as they had at least 2 MA left when adjacent to the ball).
With 4 MA left it would be like having Sure Hands x 2.
On the Ball would become better than Sure Hands. |
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EastCoast
Joined: Feb 14, 2010
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Jul 08, 2025 - 01:28 |
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| Chingis wrote: |
But here's a thought experiment in a world where everything else stays the same. What if you just changed one tiny rule, which is this: failing to pick up the ball from the ground is no longer a turn over. Losing the ball from your actual posession remains a turn over of course, but not failing to collect it from the floor.
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I quite like this idea. Having played Blitz Bowl! one of my favorite aspects is 3 actions without turn overs. I would slightly amend your suggestion, although it is not a turn over, that players action must end on a failed pick up. I think that would still give you a lot of what you are looking for without the same potential balance issues of allowing the same player multiple bites at the apple. |
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mrt1212
Joined: Feb 26, 2013
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Jul 10, 2025 - 03:13 |
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| Chingis wrote: | Changing it would basically need to be one part of a larger rebalancing I think: changing just one part of the game would skew the dynamic.
But here's a thought experiment in a world where everything else stays the same. What if you just changed one tiny rule, which is this: failing to pick up the ball from the ground is no longer a turn over. Losing the ball from your actual posession remains a turn over of course, but not failing to collect it from the floor.
So yes, a player can chase a bobbling ball around the pitch so long as they have the movement! And maybe it will bobble into the tacklezone of an ogre of course (a very organic ways of achieving that "pressure" risk of nearby players), or bobble off the pitch or into the arms of an opponent.
I'm kind of interested to play a game like that just to see what would happen! |
ST4 AG2 Ball Carrier's Bowl is a variant I suppose. Honestly, the changes to Blood Lust really show off how demented no turnovers with multiple RRs per turn in hand is. |
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The_Great_Gobbo
Joined: Aug 04, 2014
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Jul 10, 2025 - 09:47 |
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The artwork not being done by Pete Knifton |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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Jul 10, 2025 - 12:42 |
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| The_Great_Gobbo wrote: | | The artwork not being done by Pete Knifton |
hehe, funny you should say that.... some knifton style art is just round the corner... for Fumbbl anyway |
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Nightbird
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Jul 10, 2025 - 23:53 |
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| The_Great_Gobbo wrote: | | The artwork not being done by Pete Knifton |
Ohhh, good one Gobbo! Love his art! |
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"If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it's because self-knowledge is painful
& we prefer the pleasures of illusion." ~Aldous Huxley |
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Lokragen
Joined: Aug 20, 2015
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Aug 30, 2025 - 02:07 |
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I see that there are many points that converge.
Balance the teams!
In ladder/championship, we end up always playing the same thing because too many teams are weak, which harms team diversity. For example, with Nobility, I had fun comparing a full Human team to a Nobility team and looking at the TV (Team Value). It came to 130 TV, I believe. How can you compete with such a huge gap? In ladder, you get hit with 6 or 7 skills in your face.In principle, most of the time, it’s a pricing issue. Too many teams cost too much for no reason, and others don’t cost enough for what they can do.
Skills:
We agree that most skills need to be buffed or merged in some way to add more tactics and strategy. Perhaps even change some skill categories, like moving “Sure Hands” to a passing skill, which is a great idea. I’d also propose moving “Nerves of Steel” and “Fumblerooskie” to the agility category. I’d also accept that we can’t have 30,000 ways to play the ball and split between half passing/half support.
Examples:
First Aid: Allows turning a “KO” into a “Stunned” once per half as long as a player with this skill is on the field.
Blessing: At the start of the match, allows granting a primary skill of your choice to a teammate. Usable only once per match.
I find it abnormal that high-TV games are unbalanced. Normally, the more skills there are, the more tactical it should be. I believe high-TV games are too violent, and bash teams have too many tools, which causes all the problems. As soon as you have too much “Mighty Blow” and “Guard,” it becomes a nightmare. Nerf “Mighty Blow” directly or indirectly (these are examples): for instance, “Mighty Blow” only applying to injuries, or indirectly with skills that cancel “Mighty Blow.” For example, “Fend” could also cancel “Mighty Blow.” “Defender” could cancel “Guard” in attack and defense, allowing agile teams to attack a cage at high TV, because in the current state, they have no tools to counter strength skills.
Also, remove everything that’s useless, like “Thick Skull” (leave it as a trait only) or “Piledriver,” and replace them with something like:
Fortress: Allows granting +1 armor to an adjacent teammate, usable once per turn.
Review the prayer table or remove it for something more “fun.”
For example:
Cheerleaders enter the field, each player gets a cheerleader (5M, 3S, 3+ AGI, 8+ AR).
Or the spectators love the show and throw coins onto the field (throw 4 coins onto the field, two in each half, as if they were a ball). The coins don’t affect the match’s physics, but they can be collected, each worth 10,000.
Remove the horrible event that forces us to ban a player.
If we nerf everything that’s violent and balance the teams, I think we won’t need redrafts anymore, and everyone will be able to face each other without issues. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Aug 30, 2025 - 11:57 |
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There was a project looking at balancing the teams. But I don't know if anyone actually played.
If you want to balance all/most of the rosters over a large range of TVs, that's probably an impossible job.
Even if you just try to make it "better", you'll have people saying "but we only really play low TV. You've made that worse to try to make higher TV better".
I suspect that GW prefer low TV to encourage people to buy more teams.
Concentrating on a smaller set of core teams may be easier for production. Push out your core teams regularly but the others in rotation when you have a promotion.
Whatever suggestion you make, some people are not going to like it. 
Tailor the rules to your league and the people that play in it. A "one size fits all" set of rules is never going to work for all the different ways that people like to play the game. |
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Summer Sprint Season. 1st Aug - 14th Sept. Open/Gamefinder play |
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Lokragen
Joined: Aug 20, 2015
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Aug 30, 2025 - 12:49 |
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The project is really pretty good; some rosters are exactly what I would have done.
We can’t be fatalistic and just watch the world collapse around us. We can already improve the teams where there’s consensus.
Yes, I understand that some people will never be satisfied (nerfing the Wardancer/4+ pass to 3/4, people said it was the end of Wood Elves... well, no, it just rebalanced them).
But we can’t just sit around doing nothing.
And we could also try to understand what’s going so wrong at high TV?
I wanted to add something about Blood Bowl 3: the redraft was a disaster. In the top 10, there are 4 Dwarfs and 4 Amazons.
This has created an even bigger gap between the good and bad teams.
Balancing the teams should be a priority, yet it’s so simple to do. |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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Aug 30, 2025 - 22:16 |
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Balancing teams isn't simple to do, it is very hard to do. And GW is terrible at balance, so they mess up even the easy parts of it.
What's going wrong at high TV is that GW doesn't want you to play at high TV. I hate this design philosophy but all I or you can really do about it is complain on forums, because we aren't in charge.
The world isn't collapsing around us (at least not in blood bowl). Despite my very negative opinion of GW's "balance," the game is still fun, and will remain fun. I can't force them to change how they balance the game. I wish we didn't have to adhere to every dumb rule (forced redraft is bad imo), but Christer has been adamant that C follow the official rules (which is fair enough to him, even if I disagree on some points), so you're kind of left to doing that in leagues if you want to do that. I'm not exactly happy about that solution, but it is what it is, and there's not much you or I could do to change it. |
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