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Poll
Do you agree with most of the points indicated in this thread?
yes
5%
 5%  [ 9 ]
No
66%
 66%  [ 104 ]
I don't care: i will play BB whatever be the rules
24%
 24%  [ 38 ]
I will abandon BB2020 in any case
3%
 3%  [ 6 ]
Total Votes : 157


argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post 5 Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 13:54 Reply with quote Back to top

I am thinking that with BB2020 there is still space of improvement to make this game little bit less randomic and make the coach's ability factor more important for the final score.

I list below all the part of the rules which I think must be amended in the future . I am curious to see if some other coach share my opinion

1) Kick off table: the Pitch invasion, Perfect Defence, Blitz! and Riot must be totally banned

2) METEO: the meteo is defined at the beginning of the match and does not change anymore. So both coach can decide the best startegy. Random change the weather during a match is just chaotic and introduce an unfair benefit for the coach who has to receive the ball and maybe "just for a random dice" the weather changes from rain to nice weather.

3) the calculation of the fan factor during the game : there is no dice roll. Why i should have a fan factor advantage just because I roll double 6 and my opponent double 1? If I play versus a team who has better fan factor than me it is because this team is better than me. And in any case with the bans of the kick off table of catastrophic events the fan factor will be the basis to calculate the money earned. that's all

4)6 faces die: this is the most critical weakness of this game. It is not possible that despite all the modifier a natural "6" is always a success and a natural "1" is alwys fail. A way to mitigate this is to REPLACE the 6 dice wit 8 face dices, which is also included in the game box so nothing dramatic

6-faces block dices: also here the dices can be replaced by 8-faced dices. a part POW and SKULLS a series of smooth differences changes can be introduced (for instance : POW: always stunned, Skull always stunned but no armour roll... this can be debated) The goal is to mitigate the effect of quad skull or something similar that 6 faced dices cannot grant.
In alternative the turnover mechanism can be changed (it happen after 2 negative results of the dice not only 1 as it is today)

5) Change the mechanism of the ball going out of the pitch and throw in from the public: today the ball is throw in the picth in a TOTALLY random way . Even for a fantasy game this is a non sense. Like in Rugby the most fair way to amend this nonsense is to generate a controlled throw in: the team who put the ball out f the game put the players in an imaginary LoS starting from the square where the ball exit. The receiving team do the same. The two teams put each other 3 square distance and 1 player of the receiving team try to pick up the ball.

6) Change the mechanism of the Kick off: the ball CANNOT scatter 1D6 "BACKWARDS" this is a nonsense even for a fantasy game: you kick the ball direction NORD and the ball can scatter NORD - EAST - WEAST not SOUTH!

7) the widely inaccurate pass is cancelled. It remain the "fumble" option and naturally the pass roll is 1D8 not 1D6.

8 ) reduce the number of turns per half from 8 to 7 ( the games are really too long....)

9) Players KO return in the pitch first time with 4+. Then second time with 3+ . It is a nonsense that you have 6 player out and just because lack of chanhce these playr remain out if you run three drives.

10) minimum number of playesr in the field: indipendently on how many players are KO or BH every team should start the drive with a minimum number of players (let's say 10) . maybe with Loners.


11) In general I will also review the point of killed/seriously injuried. In BB2020 there is possibiity to healt players seriously injuried. But the Apothecary is still something not very balanced. Heva a Starplayer with 3 skill killed is not something fun. Expecially if you develop. Mayb it could be increased the power of Apothecary. this is not something mandatory I would say nice to have . In general killed and stat reductin in my opinion are not useful for the game. Especually with BB2020 where in any case no any players iwll have more than 3 skills and after 30 matches and 2 redraft wilr etire

ALSO the way the BOX algorithm associate the team
Playing with more than 300TV difference should be forbidden. A match with 400TV difference is ridicolous whateve rinducement you can take. Today is possible I think with BB2020 will be not possible because the redraft.



In general the aim of the amendment rules should be to reduce the randomic factor and increase the ability of the coach not just to make more casualties and/or to have better dices.

I can understand some change are majour (like the throw in the ball or the change of 6 dices ) but if you think it make sense that a player who has to pick up the ball in 4 tackle zone has -4 penalty and should maybe roll 8+ it is crazy that with 6 it can take the ball.

I think the change to BB2020 can maybe be a chance to review the BB rules and make this game less randomic of what is today
XpherAndTheAxes



Joined: Jun 20, 2020

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 14:54 Reply with quote Back to top

but what fun is a dice game without randomness? if you want to play a game where skill is the biggest factor i can recommend playing a number of other games.
if there is a lack of variation it just allows people to optimise and min/max teams to a more consistent degree, which one could argue may replace skill in some areas.

i could site here and summarise why i disagree with each point, but i really think the fun of dice games is the randomness and the fact that there isnt always a de-facto guide that can be written down for winning every game.
argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 15:16 Reply with quote Back to top

you can reduce little bit the power of the randomness. otherwise we play slot machines. I like to think Blood Bowl as a strategic game not a hazard game like roulette.

I mean what is so horrible to ban stupid event like Blitz!, Pitch Invasion, Riot, or Perfect Defence? Or weather changes? Why the ball go out of the pitch and the fan can throw in with 6 squares in whatever direction ?
Why i have to play a game where i have 30% probability to start the drive I receive with unfair penalty? I am not asking to eliminate the dice, just to reduce the randomicity in a game full of random catatrophic event to give more weight to the ability of the coach to play well not only to the chance of the coach to roll good dices.
XpherAndTheAxes



Joined: Jun 20, 2020

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 15:34 Reply with quote Back to top

i mean the blitz kickoff received a big nerf anyways, a rowdy mob could easily occur within a fantasy environment if enough drink is involved with the fans(this could cover riots and pitch invasions), perfect defense is something you can set up to reduce the damage caused by it, and in real life if a team is suprisingly quick off the bat to get into a different set of positions it has the same effect.

as far as throwers, a thrower could easily slip up or stumble whilst throwing, not enough to fall over but enough to significantly change the direction of a throw. or he could be kicking the ball instead of throwing and mess up the kick leading to it going high and the wind sending it in any direction.

and even if you sort those problems out, not all teams are born equally, and skill can be irrelevant if you are using a strong enough team against a weaker side.

i completely agree blood bowl is a strategic game, but it is also a dice game, not just sitting at a table playing chess for a couple of hours.
argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 15:52 Reply with quote Back to top

If the game duration will be 10 minutes you can also accept these crazy things. But we speak of a game of more than 1 hour, you invest a lot of time. Normally people do not concede so if you start a game where there is a lot of bad random event it is just a pain and you have to wait the end of this pain . So the goal to reduce randomicity is just for this, to make the games more balanced and less dominated by the dices.

Then I do not say that my proposals are the best very likely there are further way to improve this. BB2020 go in this direction changing the kick off table but still I do not understand what is reason to have events like Blitz! or Perfect Defence now that you select 3 random playrs is totally useless ... i mean better to remove.

The ball out of the pitch to be honest there is no any game where the ball is returned "random" in the pitch. 6 squares! Is a lot! I can undestand 2 squares but 6 is really a lot: sometimes the ball is pushced from the side line to the Tod line exit from the pitch 3 times before going somewhere. This is not football this is slot machine
The mechanism to organize a throw in like in the Rugby match introduce a mechanism to reduce this randmicity .

Blood bowl is a dice game yes. but a dice game where a match duration can be more than 1 hour. so if you invest so much time to play in my opinion is good that the randomicity is reduced. Good for everybody

at least if you play BB just hoping to have good dices, but in this case just play Loto.
XpherAndTheAxes



Joined: Jun 20, 2020

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 16:09 Reply with quote Back to top

i just think that the game works well and if you go too far into balancing it and too far into removing the randomness then the game will become too dull and not interesting enough.

if i was playing against some min/maxed chorf team and i knew my team was not on the same tier, and was going to likely lose, not by means of playing badly, just by means that my team wasnt as optimised, or maybe had a bad couple of first games, and i knew that my team was going to get butchered by no fault of mine, but instead because there was not tiny chance of stuff working for us, then i would be not inclined to play the game.

i cannot speak for everyone, but i just believe that a dice game needs a lot of randomness or it stops feeling as fun as a *fantasy* dice game where everything is possible
Foad



Joined: Sep 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 16:30 Reply with quote Back to top

I think the largest issue in the ruleset is limiting Cheerleaders to 12.

I may as well go play AoS.

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stej



Joined: Jan 05, 2009

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 16:32 Reply with quote Back to top

Some of the events you are describing happen infrequently so I don't think they need much attention. As for crowd involvement, it might be fun to assign areas around the pitch to each team based on the fan factor. That way, if a player / ball goes into your area then you could influence the result more.
I would be interested to explore a d8 or d12 system for some of the core mechanics such as passing / pickups / dodges / catches. This could allow more granularity in player design and skills.
At it's core, bloodbowl somewhat needs that anything can happen / fail on a 1/6 to allow for the inherant team imbalances. You're never out of the game when rolling 666 could let you do the seemingly impossible
Zlefin



Joined: Apr 14, 2005

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 16:59 Reply with quote Back to top

If you wanted to go that way I'd recommend going all the way and play a no-randomness version of bloodbowl. Years ago I had a rough sketch of how one would work, and it's quite possible to have such a game. With some design work you could readily make one yourself that doesn't use dice at all.
BlockBadger



Joined: Jan 21, 2021

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 17:06 Reply with quote Back to top

You seen the BB54/quarters idea? Does away with weather, kickoff table, all 4 drives are 5 offence/4 defence turns, play order A,B,B,A.

Simple, balanced and fast.

https://bbtactics.com/bb54/

Roll for cheerleaders and coaches at the start of each half only, or totally remove them.

As for your takes, must is a very strong word, and I feel you miss the mark with your fixes and fail to see the real issues. I legit think you're cutting down on the story telling element of the game.
argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 17:07 Reply with quote Back to top

Zlefin wrote:
If you wanted to go that way I'd recommend going all the way and play a no-randomness version of bloodbowl. Years ago I had a rough sketch of how one would work, and it's quite possible to have such a game. With some design work you could readily make one yourself that doesn't use dice at all.


It would be interesting but I can imagine that is very hard to develop by zero. So here the idea is to propose something that with some minor change can reduce the power of randomicity. Making a total no-random version would mean to abolish the dice in this case I do not arrive to understand how this can be possible... anyway.

I would be happy if it could be possible to develop a special League with some "TESTING RULES" , a league where the administrator can customize the event with the dices. SO just for testing. Naturally my proposals is not tested and I cannot say is the best one.
argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 17:10 Reply with quote Back to top

BlockBadger wrote:
You seen the BB54/quarters idea? Does away with weather, kickoff table, all 4 drives are 5 offence/4 defence turns, play order A,B,B,A.

Simple, balanced and fast.

https://bbtactics.com/bb54/

Roll for cheerleaders and coaches at the start of each half only, or totally remove them.

As for your takes, must is a very strong word, and I feel you miss the mark with your fixes and fail to see the real issues. I legit think you're cutting down on the story telling element of the game.


ah ... this is really interesting... is there a way to play with this ruleset in FUMBBL?
BlockBadger



Joined: Jan 21, 2021

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 17:21 Reply with quote Back to top

argos_72 wrote:


ah ... this is really interesting... is there a way to play with this ruleset in FUMBBL?


No, its not even a finalised ruleset so far.
Sadly I'm new here so I don't know have fumbbl works very well, so no idea if it would be possible to set up. But like others I intent to try play testing this in real life and Table Top Sim along with my own version, "Blast Ball".

Blast ball keeps every rule the same bar the ball explodes at the end of offence turn 5 the way a bombardier bomb does (turn 6 in the rain), and very inaccurate is only on a 0 or less after mods (to make passing crit failing the same odds as in BB2016).

Keeps the time pressure on, so both teams play BB instead of having to wait 3 turns of pure blocking before getting on with the game!

Beach Ball is also worth a look, if you want an example of less lethal BB, while keeping a really cool theme!
koadah



Joined: Mar 30, 2005

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 18:13 Reply with quote Back to top

If anything, the randomness has been reduced too much already.

A large part of the game is planning for and dealing with bad luck.

Maybe you need to up your game.

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argos_72



Joined: Mar 02, 2007

Post   Posted: Mar 06, 2021 - 18:28 Reply with quote Back to top

the big point for me is the 6 faced dices which is too low.
Players with AG5 dodge 2+ indipendently if there is no or 1 tackle zone to dodge to. Several other exmples can be done.
This in my opinion is a limitation of the game. Introducing the 8-face dice in spite of the 6 face dice should be very easy. Someone can explain me why should be wrong replace the 6 face dice ith 8 face dice? I miss for sure some important reasons
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