Christer
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| MattDakka wrote: |
True, but please consider that even monoactivating a super high TV and facing way lower TV teams could be predatory as well. Not all the underdog teams are minmaxed. |
Sure, that'll happen, although it's rare to drop huge TV if you're up at the high end. You could well be paired against a high TV team and that's fine. Like I said, I don't think teams have an inherent "right" to survive long-term and it's a part of the division to build up after getting a bloodied nose. Once you hit high TV, this isn't going to be the norm though.
| MattDakka wrote: |
Nice to know it, but there are some very good coaches that, instead of "coming up with a team build that can be sustained over time" just create a strong tier 1 team, play it for 15 games or so, retire it, rinse and repeat. It could be considered a mild exploit of the scheduling system, because new teams benefit from rookie protection and don't have the same FF bloat as the older teams. |
Perhaps, but remember that a low TV minmaxed team will impact other people's experience directly, and in a way that is distinctly not fun for the opponent.
From the opponent's perspective, playing someone who's been rerolling after 15 games for the 37th time is not significantly different than someone who's playing their first team.
| MattDakka wrote: |
Last, and partly linked to the cycling team approach, not all coaches like to play at high TV, that doesn't mean they are nasty minmaxers. |
And that's fine. Just understand that the scheduler is designed to protect new teams from long-lived teams and there's no point complaining that you're getting preferentially paired against other (high TV or not) opponents.
If you insist on playing low-mid TV, recycling teams is by far better for the overall health of the division than having a minmaxed low-mid TV team. People will still point it out as minmaxing, but at least the games themselves don't *feel* unbalanced and un-fun. In a sense, you're playing on even terms that way.
| MattDakka wrote: |
Being forced to have and play some high TV teams to act as "bodyguards" for TV gaps is not very fun, because you have to play at high TV even if you don't want it. |
And this is *exactly* what people who get paired against minmaxed low to mid TV teams feel. The one big difference is that you can act differently to avoid those "not very fun" matches, whereas the people paired against minmaxed teams simply can't.
That's why I'm happy with the current formula in this sense. |
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Nelphine
Joined: Apr 01, 2011
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 Posted:
Jul 14, 2019 - 18:15 |
 
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Well, Christer just addressed all my points. So, I'm satisfied that my change would indeed be bad. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Jul 14, 2019 - 18:30 |
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| Christer wrote: |
Sure, that'll happen, although it's rare to drop huge TV if you're up at the high end. You could well be paired against a high TV team and that's fine. Like I said, I don't think teams have an inherent "right" to survive long-term and it's a part of the division to build up after getting a bloodied nose. Once you hit high TV, this isn't going to be the norm though.
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Yes, but the problem in TV gaps is not just being destroyed (which is not very likely since PO has been removed). The problem in TV gaps is the massive difference in terms of skills, stat freaks etc.
Dropping in TV after a TV gap may be positive for a team, but being stuck 1 hour in a game like underdog Slann vs super killer Nurgle (for example) is generally not how people like to spend their time, as far as I know.
| Christer wrote: |
Perhaps, but remember that a low TV minmaxed team will impact other people's experience directly, and in a way that is distinctly not fun for the opponent. |
Sure, and I didn't nor I'm endorsing minmaxed teams, I would tackle the minmaxing teams directly, rather than hoping they will stop minmaxing when they face the odd TV gap match, because the odd TV gap match doesn't happen only to the nasty minmaxing coaches, but to the poor guy who just dropped TV and decided to stick with the team rather than retiring it and going the cycling route. Also, I talked about cycling teams because you said that in the Box teams are supposed to have a build aiming to long-term.
Cycled teams, for obvious reasons, are not meant to be played for long time. |
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ph0enyx13
Joined: Nov 14, 2015
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Jul 14, 2019 - 19:44 |
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| Nelphine wrote: | Hehe, well, we all have our own opinions about the box, and about what is 'gpod' play.
I like long lived teams, and like playing against those. I don't want to enforce that on anyone.
What this suggestion was about is specifically what MattDakka posted about - good coaches recycling tier 1 teams.
Whether it's actually a problem that needs to be fixed, is for wiser heads than mine to decide. But for all coaches who start up a tier 2 or 3 team in box, and then get pasted by tier 1 teams from a coach who's played that same race many times as a rookie, I do think it would be an improvement. |
Some people like to play fresh teams though. Sometimes it is fun to go "how can I build this team different than last one" or "I wonder if this time I can beat my old starting record" without the baggage of fan factor or injured players |
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JellyBelly
Joined: Jul 08, 2009
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Jul 14, 2019 - 20:02 |
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| ArrestedDevelopment wrote: | We've known the box doesn't work very well during NA hours for years. It's nothing new. Indeed if you go read threads from 2014/2015 you'll find people saying it wasn't even good in 2009/2010 during NA hours... the problem is the player base simply isn't there during the NA hours, and actually remains stagnant because even though there ARE now different coaches activating in it, the numbers remain the same because plenty of the NA coaches who post in these very threads over the years simply don't play in it themselves. Or did previously and now don't.
When it wasn't smallman there were other coaches blamed for the lack of activations during NA hours - high tv killer nurgle/chaos. I shouldn't need to name names, and I won't as the site rules prevent me from doing so.
The fact of the matter is, the NA box player pool is low, it's been low for years, most of the coaches during these hours play R/L, and despite everybody knowing that increased population/activation would increase the quality of games/matchmaking for everyone, the coaches who are online during this time continually come up with reasons not to activate. |
Sure, I agree this has been a known problem for a long time and the number of players on the site has been declining over many years. But, how many things have been tried over that time period, specifically to try to make the Box system work better for lower numbers of players?
I mean all of this as 'constructive feedback', btw. I know how much Christer already does for the site and I don't mean to criticize. But, I'm a realist by nature, and the point I'm trying to make is that the only thing that could conceivably improve the off-peak Blackbox situation is a system change. If there aren't any bright ideas that would actually work and/or Christer wouldn't have time to try them anyway, then the problem just can't be fixed.
Expecting more players to magically show up one day (against trend), or appealing to the better nature of the griefer is going to get us absolutely nowhere. Those haven't worked for the past 8-10 years. |
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JellyBelly
Joined: Jul 08, 2009
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Jul 14, 2019 - 20:13 |
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| ArrestedDevelopment wrote: | Game one he activates his newly made dwarfs in a 4-man draw, in which two new coaches to the site have their 1 game old teams, and a box veteran has monoactivated his 2.5m tv nurgle.
Under your system, some poor git who decided to dip his finger in box once more is now playing a 2.4m TV difference match with a rookie team.
What on earth is enjoyable about that? |
Under the current system, there would be no games. Part of the issue with Box in a low-player number environment is that people can't afford to be too choosey about what sort of game they play. It begs questions like:
"Would you rather play a game down 1000 TV, or have no game?"
"Would you rather play against the griefer with his min/maxed team for the third time in a row, or have no game?"
I'm not advocating taking away the 15-game protection, but there is clearly a fundamental trade-off in a low player environment between ease of getting a game and quality of those games. You really can't have both, so where is the 'right' trade off?
One idea to reduce the likelihood of big TV mismatches could be force players that have teams over a range of TVs to activate more of them. E.g. say that, if possible, players have to activate at least one team in each of three TV categories: <1300, 1300-1700, >1700. But then, would those players rather have a matchup that isn't their first choice, or no game? |
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Christer
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| JellyBelly wrote: | | the only thing that could conceivably improve the off-peak Blackbox situation is a system change. |
That's categorically untrue.
It takes 4-5 people willing to make an effort instead of just complaining and saying "it doesn't work". I've said this many times in the past:
Find a group of nice people in the US time zone who are prepared to show up at 8pm central (or whatever) to activate in the box. Do it once per day or once per week.. Make a meta group for it if you want and have people get points for consecutive days of participation or whatever gamification things you want and have energy for. Get people involved and invested in actually showing up regularly.
If people see that there's a reliable time for a pairing, they'll likely make the time to show up.
This is a direct constructive idea that I truly believe would work if a few core people simply step up and make it happen.
It's honestly very tiring to read complaints about how this is a huge issue and "the system needs to be fixed". I've seen zero ideas that I believe would actually change things in this respect (hourly pairings, remove the rookie protection, etc etc). Mind you, there have been good ideas (allow stunties/any team to pair as if they were higher TV, making sub 1000k teams count as 1000k), but these won't actually change the problem with lack of coaches.
So I challenge someone to actually make an effort into showing up at some specific time to get things running and see how it goes. Prove me wrong.
Mind you, if this is people who have a reputation of minmaxing or consistently playing killer teams, this will be quite a bit of a challenge...  |
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Nelphine
Joined: Apr 01, 2011
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Jul 14, 2019 - 20:55 |
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Christer, I hear your suggestion, but without being sure that predatory minmaxers wouldn't be able to identify that time slot (which would defeat the purpose), and without keeping my actual opponents unknown to me ahead of the box schedule, I wouldn't risk joining such a group. |
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Christer
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Oh where do I begin to reply to that?
"I won't play in a random draw format because there's a chance I'll draw someone who plays differently than me".
"I want to be sure player X isn't part of the draw, but I don't want to know who I'm playing".
"The system needs to change to suit MY style of play".
Ok then. Maybe the blackbox format isn't for you. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Jul 14, 2019 - 21:27 |
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The Black Box format is for me, the things I don't like are the possibility of great TV gaps and waiting 15 minutes just not to find a game sometimes.
Considering that the alternative is playing in Ranked, where you are forced to pick/get picked, then Box is for sure better, not perfect, but better.
I help a lot the Box to arrange fair matches, because I activate many teams (1 per race max) from different TV levels, but not everybody does that, and this may create sometimes the issues mentioned. |
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Throweck
Joined: Feb 23, 2013
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Jul 14, 2019 - 21:40 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | The Black Box format is for me, the things I don't like are the possibility of great TV gaps and waiting 15 minutes just not to find a game sometimes.
Considering that the alternative is playing in Ranked, where you are forced to pick/get picked, then Box is for sure better, not perfect, but better.
I help a lot the Box to arrange fair matches, because I activate many teams (1 per race max) from different TV levels, but not everybody does that, and this may create sometimes the issues mentioned. |
Paragraph 1 - It doesn't sound like B is for you but R is as that would fix those issues.
Paragraph 2 - Oh, perhaps not. Who is 'forcing' you? You can pick the tv gap and level of opponent by their CR. Now, this should be fine with you as you value CR above most other indicaters of ability. |
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Nelphine
Joined: Apr 01, 2011
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| Posted:
Jul 14, 2019 - 21:42 |
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And for me, it's very particular play styles. I'm happy that you Christer are open to all coaching styles - but the coaches who caused us to allow massive tv differences in the first place still want games, and still aren't an enjoyable experience to play against. I might play against them anyway through random box play, and i will continue to play box - but I'm not going to openly say 'this is when I'm playing and there's enough people at this time to be guaranteed a gane' in a blatant advertisement to those very same coaches about when to join the box themselves. I'm willing to risk that I might play them occasionally. I'm not willing to say 'im playing at this time, I already know people avoid you, so you're already looking out for times in off-peak when you can play, so here's a good time for you to play that will likely result in you playing me'. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jul 14, 2019 - 22:10 |
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| Nelphine wrote: | | And for me, it's very particular play styles. I'm happy that you Christer are open to all coaching styles - but the coaches who caused us to allow massive tv differences in the first place still want games, and still aren't an enjoyable experience to play against. I might play against them anyway through random box play, and i will continue to play box - but I'm not going to openly say 'this is when I'm playing and there's enough people at this time to be guaranteed a gane' in a blatant advertisement to those very same coaches about when to join the box themselves. I'm willing to risk that I might play them occasionally. I'm not willing to say 'im playing at this time, I already know people avoid you, so you're already looking out for times in off-peak when you can play, so here's a good time for you to play that will likely result in you playing me'. |
Approximately how many times have you been drawn against Smallman?
If we are not talking about Smallman, does the naming & shaming policy allow you to tell us who you are talking about? |
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Nelphine
Joined: Apr 01, 2011
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Jul 14, 2019 - 22:14 |
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To be fair, I'm basing this on the clawpomb era. There may not even be such a group of coaches I would want to avoid left today - but, my reasoning is that if I feel this way, then other coaches may feel this way. So Christer's challenge may not fall on receptive ears. I'm 'new' enough (this time around) that I'm probably not the right person to start this group right now anyway, so I'm just throwing thoughts out there. |
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Jim_Fear
Joined: May 02, 2014
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Jul 14, 2019 - 22:17 |
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You are all so lame. If Box and Ranked are such issues, go find a League to play in. Better yet, go form a League. It can be called "No Smallmen Allowed League", or "MattDakka Smells Like Soup League", or "Thank You Christer for All of Your Hard Work, Giving Us a Place to Play Blood Bowl for Free League." That way you'll never have to play against any of the opponents you wish to avoid.
Want to build a team for one of the official tournaments, you say? Suck in up and play in one of the previously mentioned environments. |
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