| Poll |
| ideas for Box MM |
| tick option to pair pure Box teams with pure Box teams |
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37% |
[ 20 ] |
| GF teams can't get back to GF once they played a Box match, all their future matches will have to be played in the Box |
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1% |
[ 1 ] |
| 1 GF match allowed per 2 Box matches played by a team |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| pie |
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60% |
[ 32 ] |
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| Total Votes : 53 |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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 Posted:
Sep 06, 2026 - 22:44 |
 
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| JackassRampant wrote: | I hesitated to get into BB because it was American Football themed, and having gone to an American high school, I thought of that as a game for dummies with no self-respect. But I realized, it's not any stupider than war, or crawling around in catacombs fighting monsters for gold, so hey.
Knowing something about American Football is not all that helpful. A 15-yard completed pass that leads to getting pushed out of bounds 10 yards further downfield is a pretty good outcome in American Football, but here it's a catastrophe. Everyone is eligible unless they have the uncommon No Ball trait, the ball is always live, and if a player gets hurt you just play down menz. |
I was thinking more in terms of wanting to play the game in the first place. 
I can't help feeling that if the designers don't remember Nicky Horne & Miles Aitkin, then the rules will certainly be crap. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t04-zEpLjb4&t=6s
Also not sure what you mean by parochialism in this context. |
_________________
Official + Secret League rosters, old style skill progression, NO re-draft OR full 2016 rules. OR... 4000TV All Star Bowl - ALWAYS recruiting!
Last edited by koadah on Sep 06, 2026; edited 1 time in total |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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| Posted:
Sep 06, 2026 - 22:53 |
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| koadah wrote: | I don't think that the recent versions of the rules are designed in such a way that S2+ box would be enjoyable using them for many people.
Maybe you are just trying to push a huge boulder uphill |
About the rules' design: I still don't know which is the official Season's length.
I know it's discretional, according to Commissioner's settings, but I'd like an official GW Season's length set in stone. 8 games? 10 games?
We talk about Season 2+ but we don't even know how long a Season is supposed to last.
I can't accept "discretional length" as answer because the level up table can't, and actually doesn't, work for any Season's length, but just for a specific Season length.
Stat boosts are rare and hard enough to get and keep in an 8-game Season, while they are easier to get and keep in a 15-game Season.
Either a shorter Season and this level up table or 15-game Season but a different level up table, requiring more SPPs to get skills and stat boosts.
For example, let's assume that the level up table is supposed to work with a 10-game Season:
6 Primary/10 Secondary/14 stat boost (current level up table)
the level up table could be proportionally changed to fit a 15-game Season like this:
9 Primary/15 Secondary/21 stat boost (proportional level up table)
It would be important to have the exact GW Season's length to correlate it to the level up table and adjust it to fit a different Season's length. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Sep 06, 2026 - 23:30 |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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| Posted:
Sep 06, 2026 - 23:48 |
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They could provide a formula for the level up table. It could even be made from scratch by correlating official Season's length and level up table.
7-11 games is a range, to be more accurate the exact Season's length is needed.
Anyway, if 7-11 games were the range (for example) we could just use the average number of that range (9 games).
The problem is getting an official Season's length or range, at least. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 02:19 |
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Joost
Joined: Mar 17, 2014
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 08:58 |
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| MattDakka wrote: | They could provide a formula for the level up table. It could even be made from scratch by correlating official Season's length and level up table.
7-11 games is a range, to be more accurate the exact Season's length is needed.
Anyway, if 7-11 games were the range (for example) we could just use the average number of that range (9 games).
The problem is getting an official Season's length or range, at least. |
We have an official length at fumbbl, and it is 15. The rules state it is up to the commissioner and the fumbbl commissioner has laid it at 15. Which incidentally I think works very well too for the majority of the games played in box, usually under the BBT banner.
You clearly want it to be shorter by your earlier comments and by the fact that your examples only provide options lower than 15. But if we don't know what the "GW official" length should be, then it could be higher too, right? Maybe 20? |
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CrisisChris
Joined: Dec 11, 2023
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 09:08 |
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In the end we circle around the real issue here I guess.
Matt is trying to fix a thing that is valid:
Season 2+ blackbox games are rarely played.
And even for him - who is one of the few coaches playing in that environment - there is a thing he wants to change.
Is it worth discussing the isse and try to figure out what is the root cause of the problem? Sure. But I do not see the proposed solution really adressing the causes.
For example to me there are absolutely other reasons for not playing season 2+ in blackbox that facing (partially) farmed GF teams:
1) There is absolutely no TV gap limitation
2) There is no difference if you are a freshly redrafted team with 15 games or a team with 45 games in just before your season 3 redraft.
I have the feeling that these two lead to the fact that there is only one type of team only ever playing in season 2+ box: And that is high TV minmaxed teams. If they are farmed by a large amount of games in box or GF does not really matter to me.
I don't know if these feelings are valid for others as well. But I just do not enjoy spinning with that fresh season 2 team in the box only to meet a team with a huge tv advantage.
To me that is even a problem with the increased tv gap allowed towards the end of season 1. If there are only few coaches activated it is just very likely you spin into an unfun match.
Is it worth doing it sometimes? Sure, because you can learn something from those game as well. Is it the experience I want to have in every game. No, not really.
But again: The underlying rational of this site is to allow as many games to be paired as is reasonable. So limitations need to be set very carefully.
And maybe the direction of season settings and redraft-budget are worth thinking about. Because those would be the leavers in real live as well. And after that I (not saying that I am right here) would think about the pairing rules in regards of games played / TV gap, knowing that this may contradict the 'max. games paired' principle. |
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Joost
Joined: Mar 17, 2014
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 10:15 |
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| CrisisChris wrote: | In the end we circle around the real issue here I guess.
Matt is trying to fix a thing that is valid:
Season 2+ blackbox games are rarely played.
And even for him - who is one of the few coaches playing in that environment - there is a thing he wants to change.
Is it worth discussing the isse and try to figure out what is the root cause of the problem? Sure. But I do not see the proposed solution really adressing the causes. |
I agree with this. I just don't like how the solution is being pulled under the pretense of "objectivity" towards Matt's preferred play style. And that valid arguments against that are seen as unfair or even of lower morals, when they all are simply a difference in preference.
Christer has proven to be an exceptional commissioner in trying to balance fairness and amount of games played in the strange environment that contains teams that might play hundreds of games. I'll trust whatever he decides to do (if anything) to be from good intentions at the very least.
One thing on Season 2+: making a BBT run takes 60 games in 4 months, or about one game every two days. That is quite taxing on a lot of people, so I imagine that anyone making a run (or even 2 runs) will automatically not play Season 2. The only reason I tried a bit was for an IronDwarf attempt. |
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CrisisChris
Joined: Dec 11, 2023
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 10:58 |
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| Joost wrote: | I agree with this. I just don't like how the solution is being pulled under the pretense of "objectivity" towards Matt's preferred play style. And that valid arguments against that are seen as unfair or even of lower morals, when they all are simply a difference in preference.
Christer has proven to be an exceptional commissioner in trying to balance fairness and amount of games played in the strange environment that contains teams that might play hundreds of games. I'll trust whatever he decides to do (if anything) to be from good intentions at the very least. |
I agree with both points. Christer is doing the greatest of jobs and acting with good intention to serve a very heterogenious playerbase.
And I also agree that the discussion here somehow got a bit personal (at times).
One thing I try for myself (not always sucessful) is to keep two things in mind:
1) I may have a bias, so try to read the posting with as much good intention as possible.
2) I am not a native speaker myself. Discussing with the nuance sometimes needed is hard for me. Maybe some misunderstandings are based on language barriers.
So 'Believe in the good intention' for everyone posting here. Try to undertand the rational / argument. Ask questions if something is not clear...
And I am with you Joost. I also feel like Matt has a very specific idea of how he enjoys to play this game and he tries to advocate this style as much as possible.
And to me, this too competitive, CR oriented and very developed teams environment is not that inviting. Thus I do not think about solutions as much as he does.
Trying to focus on the positive: Even if these discussions do not change anything at all most of the times, they made me think about some topics and I made up my mind about things I did not even think about before. |
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Joost
Joined: Mar 17, 2014
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 11:05 |
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Fair points, and kudos for the positivity! |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 11:42 |
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| koadah wrote: | Why do you need it? What use is it to you?
So you can wave it at Christer?
So that you can moan that it doesn't work at that value?
You could probably work out what it should be from Fumbbl data & chat better than GW could from their playtesting. |
Since Christer loves to stick as much as possible to RAW rules, I thought it was useful to know which is the official GW Season's length.
I already know that the level up table doesn't work with a 15-game Season by direct, personal experience, but I need an official GW rule to ask about changing it.
Official GW Season's length would help to correlate the level up table and deduce a formula to have a level up table working for 15-game Season.
I find it's a perfectly rational approach.
| CrisisChris wrote: |
For example to me there are absolutely other reasons for not playing season 2+ in blackbox that facing (partially) farmed GF teams:
1) There is absolutely no TV gap limitation
2) There is no difference if you are a freshly redrafted team with 15 games or a team with 45 games in just before your season 3 redraft.
I have the feeling that these two lead to the fact that there is only one type of team only ever playing in season 2+ box: And that is high TV minmaxed teams. If they are farmed by a large amount of games in box or GF does not really matter to me. |
I understand that there many reasons not to play in the Box with Season 2+ teams, but I was just trying to fix at least one. I don't say those reasons are not valid, but I think that trying to improve things and have fewer reasons not to play in the Box is positive.
If you want to trust me, in my experience the farmed teams come mostly from the GF. I play a lot in the Box. I don't face monster teams often, when I do it I check their match history and I see they played lots of (or all) games on GF by picking noobs and easy match-ups. Hence this thread.
| Joost wrote: |
We have an official length at fumbbl, and it is 15. The rules state it is up to the commissioner and the fumbbl commissioner has laid it at 15. Which incidentally I think works very well too for the majority of the games played in box, usually under the BBT banner. |
I got that under BBT everything is perfect, the paradise on Earth, but some people, you know, keep on playing their teams past 15 games. Is that a fault? Is expecting to play a reasonably (not perfectly) balanced Season 2+ Box match asking too much?
| Joost wrote: |
You clearly want it to be shorter by your earlier comments and by the fact that your examples only provide options lower than 15. But if we don't know what the "GW official" length should be, then it could be higher too, right? Maybe 20? |
I provided options lower than 15 because clearly 15-game Season doesn't work well. I understand that people playing teams only for Season 1 don't care/are not affected much by that, but I talk for people playing Season 2+ teams.
Anyway, GW Season could be 20 games, I asked about the official GW Season's length in order to know it.
Is that hard for GW to state it clearly with a FAQ?
I have the impression that, since most people here play in the BBT (or just Season 1 teams) the solution is: play only Season 1 teams yourself.
It's not a valid solution. It would make the Season Re-Draft rules pointless.
Either you state that BB teams must be played for 15 games only or, if there is a Season Re-Draft, it should work decently in order to avoid Season 2 teams with 5 stat boosted players.
Look, is it normal, for you, a game like this?
https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=4734042
Why that happened? Because Season Re-Draft fails big time at trimming the teams.
It's not a thing that should be ignored.
I suggested:
- pure Box teams pairing or at least with teams playing a decent mix of GF and Box games (2:1 or 1:1 ratio);
- GF teams not allowed to get back to GF once they played a Box game;
- allow a GF team to play in the Box only just after a Re-Draft (natural or early);
- shorter Season and/or lower budget (12-10 games, 1300k);
I don't think any of these ideas could not be implemented in order to improve the Season 2+ format. |
Last edited by MattDakka on Sep 07, 2026; edited 10 times in total |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 12:08 |
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| CrisisChris wrote: | ...
I don't know if these feelings are valid for others as well. But I just do not enjoy spinning with that fresh season 2 team in the box only to meet a team with a huge tv advantage.
To me that is even a problem with the increased tv gap allowed towards the end of season 1. If there are only few coaches activated it is just very likely you spin into an unfun match.
Is it worth doing it sometimes? Sure, because you can learn something from those game as well. Is it the experience I want to have in every game. No, not really. |
Are people playing Gamefinder for the first 8-10 games to get "strong enough" for the Box?
If that is the case, removing Gamefinder teams might kill S2+ Box completely. At least on some time zones.
| CrisisChris wrote: |
But again: The underlying rational of this site is to allow as many games to be paired as is reasonable. So limitations need to be set very carefully.
And maybe the direction of season settings and redraft-budget are worth thinking about. Because those would be the leavers in real live as well. And after that I (not saying that I am right here) would think about the pairing rules in regards of games played / TV gap, knowing that this may contradict the 'max. games paired' principle. |
Cutting S2+ to e.g. 10 games seems fair to me. You're starting at 1350 not 1000. Though, I'd give them all a flat 1350. I'd prefer more than 1350. 
An S2+ BBT Might create some interest but is it worth Christer's while to build it. Would it get enough coaches? Would it take too many people away from S1?
How many people who are not playing are likely to come back?
I probably wouldn't.
It's a pig's ear.
High TV was always hard to balance. It wasn't designed for leagues like this. Seasons just makes it worse because you are forced to cut and may draw someone who hasn't cut yet.
Arguing over TV vs games played probably won't matter much as in S2+ there'll likely only be one other team in there.
GW seems to be pushing it all to lower TV.
It works better for them if the season is only 7-11 games long and everyone resets to 1000 every season.
That makes it easier for people to buy a new team every season.
Same with non-prog.
Don't expect them to put much thought into high TV or S2+. Neglecting it works fine. They even have a vested interest in sabataging it. |
_________________
Official + Secret League rosters, old style skill progression, NO re-draft OR full 2016 rules. OR... 4000TV All Star Bowl - ALWAYS recruiting! |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 15:32 |
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I play Gamefinder games because the alternative is playing only during the day, and because Box really isn't any harder, unless it's stupid. First season Box, you get the same mix of coaches that are on in gamefinder, but fewer of them and you can't try to arrange a good match. (Yes, lots of lower ranked coaches, but statistically that's most of them, and in my time zone it's almost everyone but me and a few pickers who wouldn't play their precious teams against me if you paid them.) Second season is a horror show.
Speaking of which, my Box experience has been absolutely pointless, with massive TV gaps in what feels like nearly every single game. (That one game against Matt was the fairest fight I've had, by far, but probably about half of them are justifiable if you squint and the other half leave me feeling remorseful for having even logged on: somehow I tied one lol, but mostly they're stupid cakewalks.) It's heartbreaking watching these freshly redrafted teams walk right into my Orcs, but I have no other way to build for the FUMBBL cup that doesn't get me accused of the very thing I'm trying super hard to prevent. Had that problem the other way too: redrafted my Brets, they were doing well until then, but then everyone died over like 4 games and all I had was one Grail Knight, one Squire with +AG, four rookie Squires, and five Journeymen.
This sucks, I hate it, I'm very close to giving up on the site altogether. This is the worst edition for Box the way it's designed, something must break.
And no, it doesn't matter how I got my games. My teams don't suffer bad attrition, they do inflict a bunch of Casualties. It doesn't matter where I play, ask anyone who's ever been in a league with me, I hit hard. But now, with Brawlin' Brutes, that's pretty much a free invite to load up on B/MB and then fish for stats. The only way I can prevent it is to dumb down or not get lucky. (That's why WTAW is so annoying, they got really lucky.) What do you expect anyone to do about this, apart from simply grow the damn Box? |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor.
Last edited by JackassRampant on Sep 07, 2026; edited 1 time in total |
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Joost
Joined: Mar 17, 2014
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 15:58 |
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It sounds, from what you describe, that in the case of your Orcs Gamefinder might be the more fair option. Opponents at least know what they sign up for then.
This is not a judgment in any way btw, just a response to your question. |
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JackassRampant
Joined: Feb 26, 2011
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| Posted:
Sep 07, 2026 - 16:01 |
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Yeah, well, at least it's temporary: I get 4 more games with them, then I park them for the FC, and after the FC, le deluge.
Also, @Matt, the reason that happened is not season length, nor is it the way matches are made. It's site volume. There's not enough action in s2+ teams. If we had 5x as much going on in the 2nd+ season Box, we'd have good evaluations. As-is, it's a jungle, and trying to tamp it down will just drive everyone out by making it pointless de jure, as opposed to simply non-functional.
Actually, that might be season length. If we had a 10-game first season, with 40 BBT games, there might be more incentive to keep playing your team. But that actually speaks to a higher redraft or a lower redraft but with a lower agent fee, because it wouldn't work unless you incentivized redrafting by giving people something to work for. Right now we have the incentive because 15 and 15 gets you a nice tournament squad, but since the pool is so small, everyone plays everyone, which is a horrible gauntlet at the start of your season.
Actually, a bigger redraft might help. If you redrafted at 1500k, it would be nobody's fault but yours if you didn't have a workable team that could take on stronger opposition. |
_________________
Lude enixe, obliviscatur timor.
Last edited by JackassRampant on Sep 07, 2026; edited 2 times in total |
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