Zlefin
Joined: Apr 14, 2005
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 Posted:
Dec 15, 2025 - 17:47 |
 
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I do like the idea of a game matching option; not sure how viably it'd pan out, and it'd have issues as every system does; but it seems like on the whole it's worthwhile to have, as the system is really desigend for it; but since I don' tget to play much these days, and don't expect that to change, no need to pay much attention to my view. I do want to see how worthwhile randoms are in a league-esque environment, but I don't play actual leagues much anymore, and it's nice to have a competitive option that helps you simulate that. |
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Loon
Joined: Aug 14, 2024
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Dec 15, 2025 - 23:32 |
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| Drrek wrote: |
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.
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My wishlist has always been for a user setting for +TV matchmaking. You could customize your TV weighting to add TV for when you are optimized to take inducements. Obviously we need a limit, but having your 1000 TV goblins show up as 1200 TV for matchmaking would be amazing. |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 00:16 |
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But if everyone can choose the TV, then matching as a concept breaks down |
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Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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Dec 16, 2025 - 01:01 |
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If players want to cherry-pick the type of team they face, the gamefinder is right there! The current TV-matching scheduler doesn't allow for cherry-picking specific teams, but it does allow for (even encourages) team management decisions that change the type of team you're likely to get matched against. Allowing a blatant "TV-matching slider" controlled by the player would just put rocket boosters under this behaviour!
That's a lovely thing about the idea of age-matching: no decisions you make will ever affect which team your team faces next. That seems much more in the spirit of Blackbox to me, of throwing your team against all the whole variety of team-building trajectories you could have had, and seeing if you can prevail with the choices you actually made! |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 09:08 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | Thanks!
How age-matching would decide the teams' pairing in the Box?
May you elaborate with an example? |
Sure. You get a bunch of teams in the box, and instead of comparing ∆TV, you compare the delta in games per season, modified for rookie status. Now, a team that's s3, G13 at 1385k will match with another ~G13 team rather than another ~1385k team. Ta-da! If that other team around 13 games into its season isn't around 1385k? Inducements. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 16, 2025 - 11:45 |
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So, with age-matching it's possible that a s3 G13 1200 team will face a s3 G13 1500 team.
My problems with that are:
- Inducements often don't bridge the gap, some teams have access to good Star Players, other ones don't. Elves, for example, don't have good Star Players. On the other hand, sometimes the available Star Players are too good for their cost, and that's unbalancing too.
- playing with/vs a Wizard makes for an even more dicey game.
Generally, it's better to play without big TV gaps (i.e. lower than 150).
I would not like a Box pairing system making TV gaps more likely than now. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 13:21 |
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Yeah, but it's a new world.
1) Inducements are usually harder to bridge the gap with when the TV gap is also an experience gap. If you edit those differentials out, it's closer.
2) Wizard's just not all that anymore by comparison to a lot of the Star Players. Some stars are similar or a little pricier and do something similar and also provide a body. Exception: Wizard's still excellent on elves, but like you said, they need something.
3) Big age gaps without a TV gap are just as bad, and you know how hard it can be right after a redraft before you've rebuilt any of your fat. So it's not like TV matching is all that innocent, it's just the devil you knew (up to this point: you don't know it anymore, it just kept the name).
4) Per FUMBBL's season structure, if you're falling way behind in TV or having any other build issue, and you think it's a competitive problem, the redraft button is right there. You're never more than a few games from building back at 1350k and trying again.
5) Rebuilding happens faster than ever now, but skyrocketing is tricky. Teams might see their TV plummet for a game on some MNGs, but if you lose and rebuild a bunch of players, the bounce-back will happen faster than you're used to, between d6 MVP, +10k winnings for not stalling (which means you get that money for getting whopped), and Brawlin' Brutes and the new/improved/ubiquitous Prayers to Nuffle and all the other cheats that got thrown in. Orcs have 2 MB players who need 2 Cas to get Block. This will be the fastest building edition since 3e and its 11 SPP to get to 2 skills.
6) my central thesis: TV is a horrible way to gauge matchup fairness in the 2025 edition. It's being used as a direct currency for design. There are non-Stunty rosters that are hosed if they have to play at equal TV. (Dwarfs are the best example: they can go high or low, but the middle is doom.) That didn't exist before now. You can also swing your TV one way or the other with elite skills, and saving for stats is OP if you don't have to suffer at least a little bit for the 8 SPP you need (not to mention all the net TV gain when +AG costs the same as Dodge as a primary). There are more developmental sub-games than we had seen in any of the BBRC editions, or 2016, and they're more subtle than they were in 2020. Like, seriously, straight random would be better than TV will be going forward. It's going to be like matching teams by aggregate MA or something like that.
Inducements used to be a way to bridge the gap between teams that really shouldn't be playing each other. Now they're a resource that some rosters actively call on, and as such, they can also be shorted for perceived gain. The gameability of inducements by all parties (not just the ones taking them) is an intentional feature in this edition. Let's let it breathe. |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor.
Last edited by JackassRampant on Dec 16, 2025; edited 1 time in total |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 16, 2025 - 13:50 |
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| JackassRampant wrote: |
1) Inducements are usually harder to bridge the gap with when the TV gap is also an experience gap. If you edit those differentials out, it's closer. |
I honestly don't understand this point. Experience in terms of skills and development? Coaches' experience? Both things? For sure a step forward could be making Seasons shorter than 15 games. The longer a Season is, the bigger the teams' age difference can be. With 10-game Season the max teams' age difference is reduced by 5 games.
| JackassRampant wrote: |
2) Wizard's just not all that anymore by comparison to a lot of the Star Players. Some stars are similar or a little pricier and do something similar and also provide a body. Exception: Wizard's still excellent on elves, but like you said, they need something. |
Maybe it's me, but I often hire a Wizard whenever I can. Wizard generally is my first choice with a 150+ TV gap. I chat with other coaches and there is a general consensus that the Wizard is a strong, effective and underpriced Inducement. It's an Inducement having an impact on games with his mere presence (both in offensive and defensive drives). Some Star Players are too good, other ones weak, some are not that good on their own but they are very good on some teams. Some Star Players have OP special skills.
Star Players may add extra unbalance potential to games or they are not effective enough to be hired.
| JackassRampant wrote: |
3) Big age gaps without a TV gap are just as bad, and you know how hard it can be right after a redraft before you've rebuilt any of your fat. So it's not like TV matching is all that innocent, it's just the devil you knew (up to this point: you don't know it anymore, it just kept the name). |
I try to activate more than 1 team. That means that yes, a freshly redrafted team of mine could face a 14-game team with a big TV gap, but activating more teams helps. If somebody monoactivates a team a big TV gap could happen. Age gap is not generally an issue, stat freaks might be an issue. Taxing them in the scheduler pairing might be better.
My problem is generally with Season 2 teams vs my Season 3+ teams or vs Season 3+ teams which dodged the full effect the redraft due to keeping legacy players who avoided to pay the agent fees of all their played games.
| JackassRampant wrote: |
4) Per FUMBBL's season structure, if you're falling way behind in TV or having any other build issue, and you think it's a competitive problem, the redraft button is right there. You're never more than a few games from building back at 1350k and trying again. |
Oh yes, I did that sometimes, but it's not always viable. If you redraft too early or mid-Season you will probably be unable to keep the few developed players you have. At that stage you are better off retiring the team and starting a new one rather than making an early redraft.
| JackassRampant wrote: |
5) my central thesis: TV is a horrible way to gauge matchup fairness in the 2025 edition.. |
I have to play the 2025 edition to have an opinion on this.
TV is not a perfect way, but it's a way. There could be more refined ways, such as a scheduling formula tax on stat freaks and/or players with more than 2 skills. One of the problems of the game, in my opinion, is the tendency to have unevenly spread out skills on the players. One stat freak ball carrier and a supporting crew. That's a core issue. |
Last edited by MattDakka on Dec 16, 2025; edited 1 time in total |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 13:57 |
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Okay, I think the disconnect is that you're looking at your experience, and I'm trying to tell you that things are not the same as we have experienced: a trap has been set on the trail ahead. Rather than running into the trap and not noticing until people just stop playing Blackbox (because that's how it will manifest), can we look ahead a little and circumvent it?
The game is changing in this specific way: TV-matching is no longer a valid plan. The designers have very unsubtly instructed us with their design to go to age-matching instead. We might do something else, but a TV-driven mentality will kill the game cold going forward.
I firmly believe this to have been an intentional wrench thrown at our community. Can we please dodge it? |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 16, 2025 - 13:59 |
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I don't think that GW game designers are that subtle, honestly.
About the lower number of games played: I think that with Season Re-Draft many coaches lost interest in playing, without the long-term building possibility. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 14:21 |
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Yeah, that hit we rook was bad. There's another punch coming when TV-matched one-offs become unfun.
GW's design looks a lot smarter when you take a more Machiavellian perspective. The bumbling is, uh, "stochastically intentional," let's say. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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ThierryM
Joined: Mar 27, 2015
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 Posted:
Dec 16, 2025 - 14:49 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | | I think that with Season Re-Draft many coaches lost interest in playing, without the long-term building possibility. |
It's not often that I am on the same line as you on a subject, so I needed to say that I concur with your statement.
Some rosters are slow learners, especially if you want to develop some team lore with twists on the lineup you draft (personnal experience here, see my full skeletons team as an example).
I hope that the new Brawlin' Brutes rule will help some rosters to rack up a bit more xp in the 15 games' time lapse. I mostly think of those with almost no basic / usefull starting skills like Nurgle as an example.
Let's wait and see how Season 3 will affect E-penises ! |
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Breeder of Bony Legends !
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Dec 16, 2025 - 16:17 |
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Loon
Joined: Aug 14, 2024
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| Posted:
Dec 16, 2025 - 16:22 |
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| Sp00keh wrote: | | But if everyone can choose the TV, then matching as a concept breaks down |
You wouldn’t be able to “choose your TV”. You wouldn’t be able to downweight, only upweight. And it wouldn’t override the current TV gap rails. How often are people complaining that they are being matched against lower TV opponents? Other than stunties, how many teams would benefit from upweighting their matchmaker TV? |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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| Posted:
Dec 16, 2025 - 17:21 |
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| JackassRampant wrote: | | The game is changing in this specific way: TV-matching is no longer a valid plan. The designers have very unsubtly instructed us with their design to go to age-matching instead. |
Can you explain this?
I asked on page 1, and said: "If anything, [TV matching] got more accurate because there's no longer the 10k randoms, and elite skills got more expensive"
I still don't see any real, specific reason for this claim
What I mean is, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I don't feel there's been much evidence here |
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