The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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 Posted:
Jul 11, 2012 - 21:36 |
 
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Disclaimer: I'm going for the longest post ever. Lemme know if anyone has ever topped it. Classic Murker boring, so if you're not a fan.. see you on the pitch. |
Last edited by The_Murker on %b %11, %2012 - %21:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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| Posted:
Jul 11, 2012 - 21:40 |
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Let’s duke it out, you and me. Me and you. Monno a monno. Let’s talk about Ranked and what some of the goals could be. Well.. fun, for starters. After a bit of diplomacy. Find an opponent, offer a challenge, or accept a challenge yourself. Play a game you want to play. Your end goal is your own.
But is that just to win? That is easy enough to set-up, given a modest amount of experience and some stats indicating your opponent lacks any. Is it to build team history and fluff? If so, why? So they can ultimately win? Be a fluffy winning team? Or perhaps you just like creative writing. Exercising the imagination. Learning and playing with HTML on the team bio page. Being creative with GIMP and logo making. Maybe the goal is practising with your hobby team without your miniatures, when your mates from the club aren’t available. It’s really the ultimate division to combine all of the above without the commitment of a league.
I WANNA WIN A MAJOR. Sure. It’s where the majors are. The equivalent of Fumbbl fame and glory. Being part of its history. Here things might get a bit dodgy. To win, you’d like to have a good team. To have a good team you need to build one. To build one with the skills you want, you need to put in dozens of hours, and avoid obliteration. To let this happen naturally, while enjoying the benefits or goals mentioned above is an option, but increases the time it would take to be ready for a Major from scratch.
So if being as competitive in a major as possible is a goal, it makes sense to be a “picker.” Some one who choses matches they should win, for the extra gold, but more importantly, matches where their team has less chance of being harmed. A “Major picker” if you will. You could take it a step further and avoid winning too, I suppose, to avoid fan factor bloat. But that is illegal and defeats one major purpose of winning a Major, to be seen as a winner.
I believe there was a bit of a scandal before my time about people having “fake” matches to ensure easy games to prepare for Majors. I’m not sure how it played out, but I can easily see it happening if the desire to win was strong.
But as far as a goal for Ranked, I can understand if someone’s current ‘mission’ in the division is to build up a team in a safe fashion. Understanding this element of competition in amongst all of the fun of Ranked is kind of important to understanding part of the division’s make up.
But we may also have another form of picker.
I WANNA BE THE BEST. A “ladder picker” if you will. Again, you can ensure easier games by choosing an opponent with limited experience, a weak team build, or just a great match-up for your team. What could be the goal? Well, winning. Winning despite bad luck, (which is kinda cool) or any of winning’s numerical by products could be the end goal. This game can be such an exercise in frustration and bad dice that some people may have figured out the only real way to mitigate bad luck is to fight battles where you have an edge. Only by challenging “lesser foes” can you be reasonably assured to be a dominate force, statistically. And as long as there is a ranking system, someone will try and climb it.
It’s how other online games are set-up, and when this community gets new blood, some will take to climbing the ladder. It’s easy to see how some would look down on this “selection of easy” opposition as picking on people. Picking on new guys. Or as reaping statistical rewards you don’t deserve. Or there could be other ways of taking offense to what ‘pickers” are using the division for.
I can see where this view point comes from.
In some ways it feels wrong to me too. To climb the ladder playing only games I feel I have the advantage. But if I really think about it, the only reason I care about his climbing the ladder and getting high numbers, is because I actually care about the numbers myself. MY numbers. I have never met any of you, probably never will, and some tiny part of my being would actually have me believe that someone else really gives a rat’s arse what MY numbers are. And I just don’t think it’s so. “You would spend less time worrying about what other’s thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.” Such a wise thing to understand. And the evidence it doesn’t matter is right in front of me. I’ve learned this before.
In 1998 when I was in my early 20’s, I was enthralled with the game “Warlords III, Darklords Rising.” It was the real dawn of head to head games on the internet, and this turn based strategy game actually had people taking their turns at the same time. It was horrible, and the host had the advantage. We had to switch host every five turns for a 4 or 5 hour long game. Crazy. There were MAYBE three dozen of us playing hard-core by the time I arrived on scene, and the goal was to top Case’s Ladder and be ranked #1 on the planet. And I made it there. For a brief period. I look back 15+ years later and I think BIG WHOOP. I couldn’t find that ladder page on the internet if I tried.
I actually cared so much about my stats that I re-joined the ladder more than once, just to reset my win/loss record so I would look better on paper. “I” being an anonymous figure who knew no one. There was a forum.. we squabbled over things, but really.. the numbers were meaningless. The game was just cool. And it was challenging. And it all seems so familiar to Blood Bowl. I can see how people here will be climbing the ladder in the very same way. As if the numbers mean something. And I suppose they did to me at the time. So I understand. And will judge less.
But now I want to improve my game. So instead of getting stuck in a rutt, I want to try new things, all aspects, and challenge myself. And have fun. But the unfortunate part about Blood Bowl is that one of the only ways to notice you are improving is via winning. Winning more often at least. And when this happens, those numbers like win % and Coach Rating (CR) go up. And that can be distracting. So distracting that it can become the goal in itself. And that goal can halt your progress for a long time.
An analogy that I feel comfortable comparing it to would be almost everyone who learns submission wrestling at an average gym. (Fumbbl comparison in brackets) When you first learn, you can’t win. Unless you wrestle someone who is smaller than you. (you Nurgle, opponent halflings) And you get submitted by everyone else in the gym who has experience, regardless of their size. (In fumbbl new coaches lose to everyone) For some people that’s enough and they quit wrestling. It’s too hard and their egos can’t take it. They quit and take nin-jitsu instead, or anything else that doesn’t involve being bested by more experienced athletes.
And this happens most often in gyms where other wrestlers are young, and aggressive, and just want to win at all costs. (Black box) These gyms lacks coaches who want everyone to feel welcome, improve their skills, and not worry about winning, or who submits who. Only the teenagers talk about who tapped out who. (A good “coach” would be anyone who helps out in Academy division) To a lot of athletes, these initial losses are an amazing revelation, about what skill and experience can do. And everyone who sticks with submission wrestling improves, and quickly reaches a point where they can now beat the new guys.
And that in itself is an amazing feeling. To see the fruition of your training and practice. To win, when before you only lost. And some people can get stuck at this point. Winning is fun, biologically rewarding, but eventually, wrestling only beginners means you don’t improve yourself. It could actually turn you into a poisonous member of the gym. Good coaching ensures everyone progresses and evolves. Wrestling all levels of experience has its benefits and rewards. It’s not about the winning, but the improving.
But winning once in a while is a good way to measure your improvement. Which is why a healthy gym goes hard and competitive once a week, or every month. It’s why they enter tournaments. To find where you stand, and how far you’ve come. You just don’t do it every roll, every class, every session. (Like entering a major Fumbbl tournament, or preparing for one. Give it your best shot) All of these aspects are present in the FUMBBL world, including the trap of getting stuck on the love of winning. Of beating beginners because you have finally learned how to. Learned how to play well.
And I think what happens in Ranked is what would happen in a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu gym if a newish guy walked in wearing a brown belt or a black black belt, when he had been wearing a white belt just last month. This would be a guy who learned how to submit beginners, then decided to go to a kung-poo place down the street and choke everyone unconscious. That group of people who didn’t know any better then might reward him with a fung-fu black belt, which looks the same as every other type of belt. The Jits guys know he’s not a black belt, and they resent it when his is back in their gym. They resent his only wrestling beginners and him pretending he’s better than he is. And he’s not welcome in the gym, of course, because he’s unhealthy mentally and un-fun. (and easy to beat)
And such can be FUMBBL, if you let it. People finally learn the basics of the game, and realise that they can win against other people. And they like winning. It’s rewarding in some ways. The CR ladder and win/loss records for one. It’s the only REAL proof of your competence in many ways. So people get hooked on winning for a time. Fixing their stats back to even. Then pushing them higher. It’s fun! And it’s normal. It just isn’t the place you really want to get stuck. Because you can get better even better.
But as far as all of these goals go.. I understand. All of them. And I was there. And still am. Still just learning myself. Enjoying watching numbers go up. But I would also like to help out in Academy. Many of you are probably way past that winning phase. Numbers and winning mean nothing compared to a good game with a good opponent. That is a good place to be. I submit anyone else who cares about a Ranked player climbing up the ladder on the backs of Noobs might still be focusing on the numbers quite a bit themselves. Not a bad thing. Just consider that a climber might be in a different phase of his learning then you are. Or have different goals.
An a wise coach told me recently.. “Sometimes the only game offered on Gamefinder is by a 140 coach who sounds like a nice guy. So I play him.” Well said. |
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Garion
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
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| Posted:
Jul 11, 2012 - 22:21 |
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blader4411
Joined: Oct 18, 2009
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Jul 11, 2012 - 22:24 |
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Too long; didn't read  |
Last edited by blader4411 on %b %11, %2012 - %22:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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JimmyFantastic
Joined: Feb 06, 2007
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Jul 11, 2012 - 22:24 |
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Lol, more meds pls! |
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Pull down the veil - actively bad for the hobby! |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 12, 2012 - 00:00 |
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gjopie
Joined: Oct 27, 2009
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Jul 12, 2012 - 00:26 |
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Painstate + Macavity = The_Murker? |
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The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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| Posted:
Jul 12, 2012 - 00:27 |
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It's been sitting on the desk-top for a few days. The wife wanted it gone. So I pushed it here. (I love it when Christer "pushes" new things. Go Gamefinder!) |
_________________
Join the wait-list. Watch the action. Leave the Empire. Come to Bretonnia! |
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uuni
Joined: Mar 12, 2010
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Jul 12, 2012 - 00:34 |
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Well written!
/clap
Good luck & Have fun, The_Murker. |
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JigerJones
Joined: Oct 23, 2004
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Jul 12, 2012 - 05:15 |
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Got about halfway through it \o/ |
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BiBi
Joined: Jun 09, 2011
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Jul 12, 2012 - 07:53 |
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Too long, but I read it anyway ^^
Being a black box coach myself, I loved the analogy  |
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astrosimian
Joined: Nov 02, 2011
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| Posted:
Jul 12, 2012 - 08:33 |
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Good, intelligent read! I am glad that I am not in the "trap" of winning! |
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