JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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 Posted:
Dec 16, 2025 - 18:22 |
 
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A lot of rosters left old concepts like player costing balance behind in this edition. There are a lot of no-brainer deals now.
Some teams, like Dwarfs, are not effective unless they can get 50k inducements, whether as underdogs or by scumming.
Very rarely will a purchased improvement be worth its TV compared to either rookies or stats. Skills are costed to compete with inducements.
Randoms are a reasonable option in age-matching and always wrong in TV-matching. |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 18:31 |
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I guess I need it explained in a more concrete way
What I see is:
Various players went up/down by say 5k or 10k.
Dwarves yea they have problems.
The randoming change is an increase to the validity of matching by TV. Same for Elite skills.
Inducements are basically the same, apart from Prayers are daft now.
Spending treasury for inducments is more acccessible.. but doing that will hamper a team's development and therefore decrease the validity of matching by games-played
I don't follow how all that leads to your conclusion
It all seems pretty similar to me, yet you're stating it's changed drastically |
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Garcangel
Joined: May 04, 2006
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Dec 16, 2025 - 18:40 |
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I agree with Sp00keh here. A lot of claims, and no explanations/proof. Its probably better to discuss the "problem" first (which I dont see at all tbh) than to propose a solution. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 19:13 |
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It's not players going up or down by a little bit.
Orc Big 'Uns went up 5k and got 3 skills, one of which is elite and another is "good". They also got free Pro on one, and their SPP per Cas went up 50%. When you consider their Cas rate doubled because of MB, they should skill at the rate that current Big 'Uns get to a single Casualty.
Human Catchers got +ST and +PA for 10k. Human Blitzers got Tackle and a Pro without any change in price.
Ghouls got free Regenerate.
The other features of these teams and others did not change correspondingly in any uniform way. Value just doesn't have the same implications, and the balance in this edition only makes sense if you look at it holistically. This includes format.
The game hasn't changed nearly as much as the logic behind progression and matchmaking, but those are huge aspects, no? |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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TheRedoubt
Joined: Sep 06, 2023
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Dec 16, 2025 - 19:26 |
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Orc Big'Uns are also 2 of now, along with Blitzers.
Humans lost Positional slots impacting those same spots.
Regenerating ghouls is dumb lore-wise but whatever; Shambling also lost 2 slots for them and Necro doesn't really change all that much with team value anyway even with them getting regen, in the grand scheme.
Comparing skills and costs of specific positions between editions gives a little insight but it's not actually "meaningful" unless viewed as a whole (all changes to the roster and edition). The teams you're talking about are just not able to be compared 2025 to 2020 to determine relative value of an individual player; it's not a realistic thing to even try to do, so compare 2025 to 2025 for something that actually means something.
There have always been better and worse rosters at various TVs, it's part of the design of Blood Bowl. But literally zero evidence has been provided so far that TV-matching can't happen in a meaningful way for 2025, particularly when compared to 2020. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 16, 2025 - 19:40 |
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Honestly I don't think GW designers ever cared or care for overall roster balance and, even with the age matching, rosters would still be unbalanced. Some more, some less, but there would be unbalance even in that scenario.
That said, if Dwarfs and other teams need to be played as underdogs, as per JackassRampant's thesis, I think it would be better just to give Dwarfs 50k Inducements (and to the other teams needing Inducements) rather than altering the whole TV matchmaking with age matching.
As further little observation, when you play Dwarfs in a private League you know in advance your next opponent and you can modify your roster to be the underdog, you can pick the skills to face the next opponent. It's different from blind matchmaking. The same goes for Goblins and other teams needing/relying on Inducements.
You can't expect from blind matchmaking the same thing.
About the random skills: yes, with TV matchmaking the gambling is not advantageous, but it could be an option in a private League.
Imagine if your last opponent of the Season were Amazons (so, there is no time to get more SPPs on your players), you might try a couple of random skills on your Orc Linemen hoping for Tackle.
Maybe the designers had this in mind, in that scenario randomising the skills make sense.
Something you normally don't do, but an option when you need some extra skills for the last Season game. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2025 - 21:23 |
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| TheRedoubt wrote: | Orc Big'Uns are also 2 of now, along with Blitzers.
Humans lost Positional slots impacting those same spots.
Regenerating ghouls is dumb lore-wise but whatever; Shambling also lost 2 slots for them and Necro doesn't really change all that much with team value anyway even with them getting regen, in the grand scheme.
Comparing skills and costs of specific positions between editions gives a little insight but it's not actually "meaningful" unless viewed as a whole (all changes to the roster and edition). The teams you're talking about are just not able to be compared 2025 to 2020 to determine relative value of an individual player; it's not a realistic thing to even try to do, so compare 2025. |
I think you're missing the point. I wasn't saying balance has gone out the window, but that the central approach to balance has finally been more or less fully decoupled from Tom Anders' vision. But they left enough elements intact to mislead the knowledgeable.
Like, seriously, these rules, intentionally or not, are doing one of my favorite tricks: flip the script and not let on. If you look at all the elements holistically and try to find a faultline, it's there, but I don't have any way to describe it holistically: all I can do is point at a sea of little changes that look inconsequential if atomized, and can't be considered as a whole until you ditch your existing frame of reference. |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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JohnDaker
Joined: Aug 01, 2014
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Dec 16, 2025 - 22:17 |
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Coming back from before seasons & re-draft (LRB6?) I was actually surprised that Box matchmaking was not changed to be be based on that mechanism.
What is the point of having seasons and redraft if you are not using that for matchmaking?
Just limiting TV? (maybe that is the reason, I was not there when/if there was a discussion about it)
Whereas, if you are using the number of matches within the season as the main parameter for matchmaking then each match is similar to a "real" league game, where both teams are at a similar point of their season. (which is not the same as being of similar TV) |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Dec 17, 2025 - 00:01 |
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@JohnDaker currently box is primarily TV-matched yes, but also season1 teams (first 15 games) don't match with teams in season2+
There's also a cap on the TV-difference, I think its 350k
And teams under 1000k are matched as if they were at 1000k, this is so if u get a bunch of MNGs then u can still get an opponent, and helps stunties too
All of the above seems functional to me
I don't see convincing argument for why some other system around games-played is going to produce better matchups
I also don't see why 2025 has caused any significant change in this either |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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Dec 17, 2025 - 00:13 |
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Not like I haven't been laying it out, repeatedly, in numerous posts. There are a ton of little changes that all work in one direction, and will play into each other in an exponential way. I can't really show you percentages or anything, and I'm not sure how they will combine, but ... well, I'm not even predicting a train wreck, just a suboptimal experience, if we try to control TV differentials much more than the format provided by the rules indicates. I'm all for modifying that for rookie protection, because I have no reason to believe that won't be an improvement.
It's hard to grasp, I get it: we're used to things being one way, the superficial characteristics are sending "plus ça change" signals, and the devil is in the exponential quality of the changes, which is both hard to quantify à priori, and subject to a hole in the human reasoning process (people aren't good at picking up compounding factors).
It's possible that I'm overblowing it: my whole thesis is that the devil is hiding in the fuzz, so it's not a proper subject for certainty. That said, I can show (and have shown) several reasons why I don't think it's minor. To me, the most significant one is the random skill structure: in league play as written, "full price, roll twice" randoms make a lot of sense if you're willing to trade a little bloat for rapid development, but there are counter-arguments... you know: gaming. But in TV-matching, there's literally no point, and not only are randoms always wrong (and therefore our agency is reduced), but skills overall are usually wrong, and development becomes boring.
Dwarfs are the other big tell, but if you game out the progression system, you may come to a similar conclusion to me: ∆TV in this edition will go flying off wildly if you let it, and if you try to control it, it will truncate hard. I can make arguments going both ways as to how this will impact competitiveness, but only one way when it comes to fun: rookie and stat bowl does not sound like a good time to me, and it seems incredibly random, seeing who can get ST5 or AG1+ on the right player first. (I'm sure they did this on purpose, because it encourages the purchase of Star Player models and Big Guys in the hands of coaches who wouldn't normally roster them. Could that be wrong? Yes, but they're probably not Mr. Magoo.)
But even if it turns out I am overstating the case, I thought the mission was to provide as faithful an experience as we reasonably can. Sure, I'll stipulate Matt's concern that unlike a scheduled league, a B team can't game their opponent, but that's kinda unavoidable. TV vs age, that's not unavoidable, and age is a lot closer to RAW. (Also, that comes up in scheduled leagues too, like between series and before postseason games. It's just not every game in most scheduled leagues.) |
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Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor. |
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Chingis
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
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Dec 17, 2025 - 01:09 |
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| Sp00keh wrote: | | I don't see convincing argument for why some other system around games-played is going to produce better matchups. |
I think you may have missed the point a bit (I completely agree with John by the way. I think that on balance redraft is better to have than not, but you take away 80% of the the benefit you could have had from it by implementing redraft but continuing to run matchmaking as if you're still in "eternal league" format, where the eternal is the issue, not the league bit!). I think sometimes there is a tendancy for people to be stuck in "equally strong teams facing each other is our goal here" mindset, and then trying to analyse everything from that starting point.
The whole point is not to try and match equally strong teams, because that's not how League Play is supposed to work! Opponents are supposed to have had the same opportunities, not to be the same strength. There are a lot of team management decisions you can make where one side of the equation is having a slightly stronger team but that has a trade-off (e.g. getting a random skill, versus the other option of having a slightly weaker team but saving the SPP to pick a skill later in the season). If you don't allow that choice to strengthen your team to matter (because you just change the match-up if someone picks it), then you have taken all of these cool team progression tools and opportunities and real player choices in the League Play rules and sawn the legs out from under them by nullifying one side of the equation.
(I completely agree with you that there's nothing special about the 2025 rules in principle, although if JackassRampant wants to make the argument that the principle now weighs more heavily in the way the way the actual rules interact, that's a valid argiment to try and make. I'm not sold one way or the other on that, I just think in principle it's a very weird choice to have all the team management run on the basis that it's League Play and then run the matchmaker on the principle that it isn't. You don't get the best of any world and you don't end up allowing any play format in the book to work as intended.) |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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Dec 17, 2025 - 01:15 |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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Dec 17, 2025 - 03:36 |
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I believe the TV cap goes away after a certain team age. |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Dec 17, 2025 - 10:57 |
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| Chingis wrote: | | The whole point is not to try and match equally strong teams, because that's not how League Play is supposed to work! Opponents are supposed to have had the same opportunities, not to be the same strength. |
Ok yes we are misaligned on this, totally
To me, [C] is not a league. It just isn't, and it doesn't need the same structure as one
In an actual league, lets say you're my next opponent and we're both 1500k
But in my current game I get bashed badly and now am down to 1100k, so that our game will be 1100k vs 1500k. And when we play, I have a miserable game and lose. You have a dull game and win
Sometimes that happens in scheduled leagues, and yea it can be rough but you have to grind through it because you're committed to the season and so on
[C] has no such commitment. or fixed scheduled list of opponents
So why does [C] need to create these matchups?
What is the purpose of the box matchmaker? To me, it's to create pairings that lead to fun games (I nearly said 'balanced', but you know what I mean)
If we play 1100k vs 1500k and I get bashed even more, it could put the team into a nasty downward spiral, which would drive coaches away. People quit leagues all the time because of this exact reason.
Why do we want this?
Why is it better than facing an opponent that's around 1100k for the next game?
The only reason I've seen above is basically, "because league"
But [C] isn't a league. You don't have a fixed set of upcoming opponents. They're flexible. It's more like a ladder
If you want to play 1100k vs 1500k matches because of the same number of games, you can attempt to do that in Gamefinder. Have fun. We don't need to change Blackbox to be like that, it won't be better
| Quote: | | If you don't allow that choice to strengthen your team to matter (because you just change the match-up if someone picks it), then you have taken all of these cool team progression tools and opportunities and real player choices in the League Play rules and sawn the legs out from under them by nullifying one side of the equation. |
Ok this is a bit more involved than my flippant "because league" summary, fair enough
The example I'm considering is a 2020 orc team thinking if they should buy the Troll or not.
In [C] I'd keep my TV down and avoid it.
In League after a certain point I'd go "yea why not". (Well, actually I'd look at my future opponents and work out what the TV gap is going to be and then decide)
I don't see that there's loads of metagame analysis that we suddenly benefit from, here, that out-weighs the negative of the unbalanced matchups though.
The team development choices become 'different' yes, but not definitely 'better' |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Dec 17, 2025 - 11:56 |
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There is no point arguing over whether [C] is a "league", is "perpetual", "eternal" or whatever. Those words mean different things to different people and there are many different kinds of "league".
| Chingis wrote: |
The whole point is not to try and match equally strong teams, because that's not how League Play is supposed to work! Opponents are supposed to have had the same opportunities, not to be the same strength. |
Then, I think that you are trying to kill the division.
People play for different reasons. If you keep excluding people for not playing the "right" way, you'll eventually get fewer matches. Some people will then stop trying and you get fewer still. Death spiral.
Many people do not play this like the kind of league where you commit to play the season and try to complete it even if only to avoid letting down the other coaches.
In [C], many will take it on a game by game basis. So they will want matches to be fairly even (probably a bit in their favour  ).
If you are not even trying to do that, then you will lose more people.
It may or may not be a league. But it's not "that" kind of league. Some people will play to the 15 game "season". Many people won't. |
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