Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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 Posted:
Dec 03, 2025 - 19:35 |
 
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If you randomise a skill on a player and then fire them, then if you have age-matched opponents, then you might find you actually needed that extra player when you get to inducement time, because your opponent is out-gunning you. Now you get the extra inducement gold for the fired player, sure, but you have to buy a mercenary replacement for the player you just fired, which has a 30K tax. So if you want to consider that as your comparison, your choice is now between either getting a skill that wasn't your top choice for 20K or Loner for 30K! |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 03, 2025 - 19:47 |
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Then age-based matchmaking is silly.
Why should I be considered an overdog for skills/players I don't have? A team's performance is related to the players and skills you have, not to the team's age.
Imagine playing game #8 Elven Union with lots of MNGs vs game #4 Orcs with full positional team, with EU having the lower TV but being the older team. Orcs would get Inducements, on top of having more skills and a full team?
Anyway, I would not randomise the skill on the Orc Lineman, in the example above.
I'd rather wait to pick a good 30 TV skill such as Block.
If games, and not actual TV, are used to pair teams, then paying 30 TV for a good skill is not an issue.
It's better to pick all the skills carefully, in that scenario. |
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Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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Dec 03, 2025 - 20:07 |
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No... I'm not sure how you have got this idea?
Inducements are based on TV. Always have been, nothing's changed. No-one's suggesting it should change.
The point is that at the point in your example when you have rolled a random Sure Hands on your lineman and you are all sad because you really, really wanted Block, if you are playing the same opponent next game regardless of what you do, then your choices might well be:
1. Fire the Sure Hands lineman. Make yourself more of an underdog in your next match by dropping your TV in this way. Get extra petty cash of the lineman's cost. Hire a mercenary because your opponent outnumbers you. Now you play with your remaining team and one loner.
2. Don't fire the lineman. Don't get extra petty cash. Don't hire a mercenary. Now you play with your remaining team and a lineman with Sure Hands.
If you have TV-matching, your choice might instead be:
1. Fire the lineman. Get matched against an opponent with one less player, because you dropped your TV. Don't have any extra petty cash. Don't hire a mercenary, because you don't need to.
2. Don't fire the lineman. Get matched against an opponent with an extra player, but they have Block on their extra lineman and you have Sure Hands on your extra lineman, because they were doing this TV-spreadsheet-bowl dance to game the TV-matching process too.
In other words, there are some little things in the ruleset (like the mercenary tax) that act as useful incentives, but TV-matching breaks a lot of them. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 03, 2025 - 20:12 |
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I don't want to risk to get a bad skill on the Orc Lineman, hence I don't randomise the skill on him. I wait until I can pick Block which, with Brawlin' Brutes and MVP nomination, should not take too long. I don't see a dilemma there. |
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Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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Dec 03, 2025 - 20:27 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | | I don't want to risk to get a bad skill on the Orc Lineman, hence I don't randomise the skill on him. I wait until I can pick Block, which, with Brawlin' Brutes and MVP nomination, should not take too long. I don't see a dilemma there. |
Right, and that's great! It might be the best option in many cases. But by being careful and saving up only for the perfect options and not increasing your TV, in something that models a seasonal environment you might find that by doing so you make yourself the underdog against someone of the same team age who has been more ready to increase their TV quickly. So whatever they have done to increase their team TV, you will have to match with inducements and the extra petty cash you get.
Under TV-matching, it removes the trade-off to waiting and hoarding your SPP like Smaug. All you get for it instead is the reward of facing newer teams. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 03, 2025 - 20:34 |
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If somebody increased their TV quickly, unless they are very lucky, they won't have lots of good, efficient skills, so this extra TV should not be a problem. It could be sometimes, but not on average.
Also, by sticking only to tier S and tier 1 teams I should be fine or not too much at a disadvantage.
For example, Norse are very TV-efficient by starting with default Block, compared to a different team which randomised its skills. |
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mrt1212
Joined: Feb 26, 2013
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Dec 03, 2025 - 21:33 |
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How much can we mine winrates based on a team's season and game in season at this point? |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 03, 2025 - 21:56 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | | I don't want to risk to get a bad skill on the Orc Lineman, hence I don't randomise the skill on him. I wait until I can pick Block which, with Brawlin' Brutes and MVP nomination, should not take too long. I don't see a dilemma there. |
What you're describing is a game design failure state. You don't want one right way, you want it to be dependent on so many factors it's functionally personalized. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 04, 2025 - 00:14 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | If somebody increased their TV quickly, unless they are very lucky, they won't have lots of good, efficient skills, so this extra TV should not be a problem. It could be sometimes, but not on average.
Also, by sticking only to tier S and tier 1 teams I should be fine or not too much at a disadvantage.
For example, Norse are very TV-efficient by starting with default Block, compared to a different team which randomised its skills. |
Well, let's talk about randoms.
2d12=144 permutations. 23 for the best, 21 for the next, 19 for the next... 5 for the 3rd from worst, 3 for 2nd from worst, 1 from worst.
On that Orc lino, if you picked, you probably took Block (and a 10k TV penalty). What's at least about as good as Block on a 10k savings? Wrestle, Steady Footing, and I would submit Taunt, Fend (both because of Taunt Big 'Uns), probably Tackle, maybe some other stuff like Pro, Dauntless (only 2 Big 'Uns), Frenzy, or Kick )if you're into that sort of thing)... uncharitably, we have 6 hits, for most coaches it's probably 7.
23 Block
21 Wrestle
64 or 75 another top 6 or 7
36 or 25 stuff you might not want
Not bad.... |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 04, 2025 - 18:09 |
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Like, the median outcome will be the 72.5th permutation, right? 23+21+19+17 = 80. So you're more than 50% likely to get one of your top 4 picks.
50/50 too scary? Do you like 5 picks? That's 95/144, just under 2/3. 6 would be exactly 3/4. So if you're matching by TV, it's almost always a bad idea, but if you're matching by age within season, well, it's a thing to think about. Things to think about are generally more fun than almost-always-bad ideas, and matching by age within season is generally more akin to what the designers clearly and explicitly intended. This was less true in the days of LRB6 or 2016, and we could safely ignore it in 2020 because they didn't have their act together yet. But now they do.
I came up with a smoother fix, though. Box scheduler uses games in season, +5 if this isn't your first season, unless you kept nobody and redrafted at 1M or less. If this is your first season, your first 5 games count double. Or your first season counts double if we go with MattDakka's idea to move to a 10-game season. (fwiw, I think he's right, but I don't want to hitch my idea to it, because they're separate issues.) |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 06, 2025 - 18:35 |
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| Chingis wrote: | | The point is that at the point in your example when you have rolled a random Sure Hands on your lineman and you are all sad because you really, really wanted Block.... |
I've been thinking about this, and actually, this is a good example of how the new thinking comes in stages.
This argument is basically correct. There is, however, one little omission.
Sure Hands on a rookie Orc team Lineman is, at best, a snake-eyes level failure state. If you'd rather have Strip Ball and you don't have a Kicker yet, it's actually worse. In practice, it's probably better if you'd just fire and start over, because there might be company for it, but there's no chance it's a high chance.
What skills would you fire a rookie Orc Lineman for, in an age-matching format?
To me, the priority on the roll 2d12 and pick goes like this: Block @ 30k is still the best, but at 20k, Wrestle, Fend, Steady Footing, Tackle, and Taunt are all fine consolation prizes. Tackle is better on this guy than it used to be, because MB is primary now, and he'll get there fast with Brawlin' Bruisers. Fend and Taunt are better on Orcs because you already get some Taunt and more control tends to snowball. Steady Footing and Wrestle, I don't think are hard to argue, right?
That leaves us with Dauntless, Pro, Kick, Frenzy, Sure Hands, and Strip Ball. Sure Hands is my last pick on that list, but Strip Ball kinda sucks too on Orcs. Some coaches don't love Frenzy or Kick, or maybe you already have one. Dauntless actually makes sense now that Big 'Uns are 0-2, but it's not amazing even at the best of times (now "if you have Horns" is an exception, but not applicable), and Pro is always just kinda okay on a player like this, so let's say you like two of those. Me, I say Dauntless and Frenzy. Maybe only one.
You've got seven or eight skills, meaning five or four you don't like. Five squared is 25, four squared is 16, so even if you hate everything on the second list but one skill, you're 119/144 to get something a good sight better than yet another Sure Hands. But only 23 of that 119 are going to be Block. So you're 96/144, or 2/3 exactly, to get something kinda respectable, but not your first choice.
That is what's at stake. If we match by TV, the difference between 30k Block and 20k for a third Taunt or a Steady Footing or a Tackle or something like that is noticeable. It's not huge, it's not gamebreaking, but it's there. If we match by age, the difference between that and 20k in extra inducements is ... well, how far to the wrong side of what you wanted were you?
The first one is a clear but marginal gain for toughing it out. There aren't really any great alternatives where randoming is better, unless it's the exact last game of the season and you'd take the player back if only..., but it's not so much worse that you'd have to be insane to do it. It's a lark, like taking a slightly-off build that still kinda works.
The second one is a huge question mark. If you random, there are X^2 chances out of N^2 that you'll roll one of X bad skills from N available skills. That's usually not a high likelihood if X doesn't approach N, but it will happen, and now money actually matters if you're playing this way because you'll be overdogging all the time and you want those sweet sweet Prayers. (Remember, Baby's First Casualty is a random skill.)
It's a system. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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Zelmor
Joined: Sep 29, 2022
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Dec 14, 2025 - 13:20 |
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There are progression leagues on Fumbbl that does what Chingis wants, which is the tabletop league experience. Black Box is fine as it is. Stunties are disadvantaged, oh well. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Dec 14, 2025 - 14:37 |
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Zelmor
Joined: Sep 29, 2022
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Dec 14, 2025 - 17:09 |
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It's end of the year with a new edition just out the gates. It makes sense if some days are slow. I know some people who stopped playing online entirely because they don't want to keep two rulesets in their heads.
But to stay on the point, I get what Chingis wants, but it is already available: round robin league formats. So join a few of those and have a great time! They just don't allow for the convenience of having a game whenever you find the time for it. We should accept that Black Box is a certain kind of competition for a certain kind of coach type. It cannot be everything for everyone all at once. |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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Dec 14, 2025 - 17:12 |
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Scheduling based on age would cut down a lot on 'Zon/Norse cheese. Yes they still would be the best teams at rookie TV, but you wouldn't be able to play game 7-15 norse/'zon teams against rookies anymore. Personally, I prefer this version of scheduling.
Scheduling based on TV lowers the amount of inducements, but I'm not sure that's even a good thing. There are teams (stunties) created with the idea that you'll have inducements. And in general, I'd say the design of the game intends for you to play against teams of the same age, that's a big part of why redraft is a thing in the first place.
Honestly, I think a combo of the two might be best. Schedule first based on age, then based on best tv match within that age range. Of course I play late night NA box mostly, and its a miracle if there are 4 people in a draw there, so it won't much affect me either way. |
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