JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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 Posted:
Nov 23, 2022 - 19:55 |
 
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I've been an ugly grind coach since the '90s, so I can't speak to that. (Scored 5 in my last game, but only because the opponent evaporated.) But yes, the game is better when there are multiple successful philosophies with multiple approaches to each. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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Nov 24, 2022 - 09:06 |
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I've really enjoyed reading the way tussock has written about how so many of us enjoy trying to get better at winning Blood Bowl games. He writes better than I, about all of the details I have learned to appreciate over the years, as I have improved. Well said, sir.
To be honest, Mnemon just writes like a young person, oddly stuck in the past, with a message that boils down to, " I play silly. I find it fun. Always have. I wish more people would play silly like me. You guys who beat me are getting dull. If more people would be silly like me, FUMBBL would be better for me, like it use to be." I'm already starting to go in a circle with my 3 line summary.
Improving at something, and eventually actually being good at something are some of the best things in life. Blood Bowl can be one of these things for some folks. Improvement. Refinement. Self-reflection.
Being silly is a thing to. Have fun with that. I'm silly sometimes too.
Also, I agree 100% with JAR's earlier comment.. I find FUMBBL and Blood Bowl the perfect thing to make a bad day worse. (Understanding that any day where you have 1 hour to spend online with a stranger, chatting and rolling dice, is a pretty good day) |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Nov 24, 2022 - 11:48 |
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| The_Murker wrote: | ...
To be honest, Mnemon just writes like a young person, oddly stuck in the past, with a message that boils down to, " I play silly. I find it fun. Always have. I wish more people would play silly like me. You guys who beat me are getting dull. If more people would be silly like me, FUMBBL would be better for me, like it use to be." I'm already starting to go in a circle with my 3 line summary. |
I'd have said "like an old guy stuck in the past." 
Say that and I'm with Mnemon all the way. 
| The_Murker wrote: |
Improving at something, and eventually actually being good at something are some of the best things in life. Blood Bowl can be one of these things for some folks. Improvement. Refinement. Self-reflection.
Being silly is a thing to. Have fun with that. I'm silly sometimes too. |
I have already improved as far as I think is worthwhile. Though, I've now regressed due to not playing.
If I cared about being really super good at a game, chess and poker would be above blood bowl.
I'm fine with people being competitive. I've run hundreds of tournaments on Fumbbl. But the rules seem to moving always towards being more serious. Softening Nuffle's influence. Apart maybe from wildly inaccurate. 
But, hey. Fumbbl does give plenty of options for silliness. Just gotta hope that there are enough silly coaches still here.
| The_Murker wrote: |
Also, I agree 100% with JAR's earlier comment.. I find FUMBBL and Blood Bowl the perfect thing to make a bad day worse. (Understanding that any day where you have 1 hour to spend online with a stranger, chatting and rolling dice, is a pretty good day) |
If it is a bad day you are probably better off beating up an AI than potentially ruining someone else's fun. Though I suppose some will enjoy winding you up to make it worse. |
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The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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Nov 24, 2022 - 12:31 |
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My final point was simply that Nuffle seems to give out more 1's on the days your mood could really use some 6's. As Nuffle should.
I agree, I wouldn't encourage anyone to play Blood Bowl if it were a bad enough day that bad dice would lead to bad behavior towards an opponent. |
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Mnemon
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Nov 24, 2022 - 12:33 |
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| The_Murker wrote: | | To be honest, Mnemon just writes like a young person, oddly stuck in the past, with a message that boils down to, " I play silly. I find it fun. Always have. I wish more people would play silly like me. You guys who beat me are getting dull. If more people would be silly like me, FUMBBL would be better for me, like it use to be." I'm already starting to go in a circle with my 3 line summary. |
That is not what I am saying.
Let it put me differently again: The more serious you take bloodbowl, the more you waste your energy and ambitions and stop doing meaningful stuff out there in real life.
This ... this is smoke and mirrors and utterly meaningless. It's better if you treat bloodbowl like that. The more kindness and mutualness and - just joy - you put into here - the more it'll recharge you for the stuff that actually matters.
Everything about this game is silly. It doesn't deserve desparetly earnest processing power and emotions. Use your brain wisely. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Nov 24, 2022 - 12:53 |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Nov 24, 2022 - 14:52 |
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Building communities between matches, and bonding over the trauma we inflict on each other.
Having a vector for my rage, so I can take my self-loathing out on someone else, and so long as I stay within certain parameters it's not only accepted but actually celebrated.
The game has this steep, functionally infinite learning curve, but no matter how much you learn or how new you are, you can win or lose any game against any coach. So it's always worth it to improve your theory, if this is your hobby, but if that's not you, that's okay: you can get pretty good without thinking too deeply, if you have a knack for one or more useful BB skills.
Sure, it's gaming and that means it's only worth so much time, there's a whole world out there and you need to get by and all that. But people sink time into their hobbies for a reason, and if you're gonna play BB as a member of the BB community it only makes sense that you'd want to get better at BB. It also makes sense that you'd want other people to get better at BB, but not in a way that makes it hard to get people into BB.
Hence this post. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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Mnemon
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Nov 24, 2022 - 16:06 |
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| Quote: | | The game has this steep, functionally infinite learning curve |
I'd question that. It's no chess, and certainly no Go.
| JackassRampant wrote: | | But people sink time into their hobbies for a reason, and if you're gonna play BB as a member of the BB community it only makes sense that you'd want to get better at BB. |
Ye - and the starting point was Mutual advantage. I am hammering the fun aspect so much as that sits on both sides of the board. That's where the mutual part happens.
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Otherwise A] Who decides on the best? and B] for how much professionalism do you need to aim to be "part of the community" and C] it's also a figures collecting, and painting hobby. Good chance some of those that like that more than the rest don't really care that much about getting better at the game as much as someone else. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Nov 24, 2022 - 16:30 |
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The basic theory of this game is not very advanced, there's room for ordinary people to make a mark. People have been theorizing about Chess and Go for centuries. Also, new editions of Chess and Go aren't really a thing, so the metagame only changes as perspectives change. What's more, they're basically symmetrical, bar one side going first, while in Blood Bowl there are a gajillion possible scenarios. On top of that, there are a whole lot of disparate skills in this game, from spatial reasoning and pattern recognition, to multiplying fractions and working with powers of small primes, to painting and modeling and graphic design, to community development and management.
Fun matters, but we all find it differently. However, since a lot of us enjoy good play and enjoy winning or at least being competitive, it only stands to reason that "getting better" is a popular way for coaches to have fun. If it were just a few coaches who wanted to get better, that would be one thing, but no, it's a hefty majority, at least on some level. So the community is going to get better because that's what people want to do, and because the community is getting better, if you want to be competitive like most of us do, you have to get better too.
This does lead to the concern that if we're all improving, it's getting harder and harder for new coaches to get in, unless they either have one of the several knacks that make for a good coach, or a good community designed around bringing up new coaches. There are ways we can address this, and one of them is to get better by developing philosophical understandings that are easy to impart to a new coach.
With this stone, here are the birds I'm trying to kill:
a) appeal to plus-sum gamers, as this game has lots of plus-sum elements and that kind of thinking is getting popular;
b) improve the conversation around metagaming for fun and (in-game) profit;
c) push a style that doesn't lend itself to 8-turn stalls and 2-point grinds.
Oh, and better doesn't mean boring. I mean, sometimes it does, but there are loads of amazing coaches who don't have any trouble finding games. The 2-1 grind, well, it'll always have a place as a strategy, but aiming doggedly for it is an indicator that you've reached a certain level of proficiency, and it's time to learn something new. |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Nov 24, 2022 - 18:56 |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Nov 24, 2022 - 19:08 |
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1) it's all play for fun, including being competitive.
2) I'm trying to appeal to a crowd that I think would dig this game but not if they can't see their way to the game they want to play. I'm not dealing with a motivated novice, but someone with an agenda.
3) winning more is definitely not the only goal when it comes to improving. |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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uzkulak
Joined: Mar 30, 2004
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Nov 25, 2022 - 14:06 |
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Its an interesting question given the huge popularity of collaborative games in modern times where everyone wins together.
But ultimately I think BB is just an old fashioned human v human game with a winner and a loser. Moreover its a win more game where the loser will frequently suffer more long term damage both in game and longer term. ie, there is a significant "satisfaction deficit" for the losing player. You need to find alternative means of enjoyment if you lose more than you win otherwise you are likely to give up on the game in preference of a collaborative experience. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Nov 25, 2022 - 15:02 |
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In general I agree. But it is a progression game, and it's played in leagues. It's very possible to lose and still come out looking good, so at least in theory it should be possible to design a winning strategy around mutual benefit, even though within a given game it's a win/lose outcome. The question is, how do you game around feeding your league?
Seems to me that the optimal roster for this is Underworld: take Riotous Rookies at every opportunity and screen aggressively with the little guys, while playing a very aggressive, ball-oriented game with the rest of the team: no stalling, just try to turn it over on defense. If you can take away once and score every offensive drive, you should win handily.
Certainly, Stunty linos are a major asset to this style of play: only 1 in 4 Casualties inflicted on a Stunty lead to any kind of metagame implications, and only 1 in 10 require you to buy a new Snotling, while for, say, a Skaven Lineman, it's 5 in 8 and 1 in 4, respectively. Also Riotous Rookies means you can do things you wouldn't otherwise have done, like Snot-marking the other team's hitter, with no consequence beyond the drive at hand. You may also focus on Tackle and Horns for your Blitzer, more oriented around zone management than player removal.
Is there a better way to approach this? Is there anything I'm not seeing? |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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ArthurWynne
Joined: Sep 23, 2015
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Nov 25, 2022 - 15:44 |
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A good game produces fun gameplay when it's played by players whose priority is to win with ruthless efficiency - that is the standard for quality game design in competitive games.
Blood Bowl's rules are certainly not perfect by this standard, but they are very good in my opinion, markedly better than any other GW game. And if you don't think effective playing to win produces an enjoyable game experience, you should work to change the rules, not criticize players for developing more effective ways to win.
And of course I'm talking about behavior within the game here - nothing about being a ruthless grinder on the pitch prevents you from being friendly and personable with the other coaches as you play, and I think we all want the BB community to be a positive social environment. But that's unrelated to how competitive the games are. |
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Mnemon
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Nov 25, 2022 - 20:03 |
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| ArthurWynne wrote: | | But that's unrelated to how competitive the games are. |
I think / feel that assumption is a mistake. Some people's personality is ruthlessly competitive - one of the many reasons why I think a public CR is a mistake. Those people can live out their power need in a community that becomes ever more about competitivieness and efficency. And they will sell their vision as the one true truth. I feel FUMBBL - and the Bloodbowl rules in general - are drifting that way. |
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