FUMBBL :: Online Blood Bowl League

koadah

Joined: Mar 30, 2005

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 00:36

PurpleChest wrote:

...

Nice work! You saved us a lot of typing. Mr. Green

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happygrue

Joined: Oct 15, 2010

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 00:38

EM seems to work pretty well, though I also find it fairly annoying after getting pummeled. It makes rebuilding teams that get a real smack down take longer, especially if they have a few players over 100K.

Imagine trying to save up to replace ogres on an ogre team... and just losing money 3 times in a row after you get to 120-130. Seems eye-rollingly silly to my mind.

To a lesser extent, several other teams (or anyone playing a big guy) suffer from this. It's not the worst, but it's annoying, and I would like to see 150 or even 200 be banked safely.

The bigger issue to my mind is overdogs spending cash. Many teams regularly have cash to spend and the "use it or lose it" mentality kicks in and people just buy stuff against you on a whim. This is mildly annoying when someone gets a bribe or babe against you "for free", but sometimes they will dump a bunch of cash and really go to town on you.

I have also been curious about how seeing so many high TV teams around feels... and so far I don't mind it. I don't see it as a big problem, personally. That said, I would really like to see data on win rates and played rates pre and post the removal of PO. Did elves win rate go up, or did they just get bigger? Did chaos and nurgle start to lose more, or is their win rate roughly the same? These are things I don't know, but I feel like overall I see at least as much or MORE diversity of teams now than I did in the PO days.

So what I'm saying is that on balance, I feel the game is better than it was.

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mrt1212

Joined: Feb 26, 2013

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 01:40

happygrue wrote:

EM seems to work pretty well, though I also find it fairly annoying after getting pummeled. It makes rebuilding teams that get a real smack down take longer, especially if they have a few players over 100K.

Imagine trying to save up to replace ogres on an ogre team... and just losing money 3 times in a row after you get to 120-130. Seems eye-rollingly silly to my mind.

To a lesser extent, several other teams (or anyone playing a big guy) suffer from this. It's not the worst, but it's annoying, and I would like to see 150 or even 200 be banked safely.

The bigger issue to my mind is overdogs spending cash. Many teams regularly have cash to spend and the "use it or lose it" mentality kicks in and people just buy stuff against you on a whim. This is mildly annoying when someone gets a bribe or babe against you "for free", but sometimes they will dump a bunch of cash and really go to town on you.

I have also been curious about how seeing so many high TV teams around feels... and so far I don't mind it. I don't see it as a big problem, personally. That said, I would really like to see data on win rates and played rates pre and post the removal of PO. Did elves win rate go up, or did they just get bigger? Did chaos and nurgle start to lose more, or is their win rate roughly the same? These are things I don't know, but I feel like overall I see at least as much or MORE diversity of teams now than I did in the PO days.

So what I'm saying is that on balance, I feel the game is better than it was.

The funky thing about the rules currently is that they almost beg you to induce an Apo or Igor (I know, I know) when you can. Take the Flesh Golem and Werewolf for example. If you lost a Flesh Golem and a Werewolf in back to back games who do you replace first and how many games on average are you without a Flesh Golem and Werewolf?

When you're winning the winnings can be juiced by rerolling the winnings outcome to provide a faster rehire - it's all about whether a coach rerolls a 3 or less or 2 or less. Anything less than a 4+ and I usually reroll winnings there because I figure the odds of something better are greater than something worse than a 3 but that's all personal risk appetite.

But if being without a Werewolf and Flesh Golem simultaneously tilts your winrates down from 55% to say 35% (I'm making this up for an example) and you take 3 or more games to save up to 120k by virtue of being lower side of winnings variance while losing games...and then you lose the other Flesh Golem or Werewolf in the meantime...

It's a spiral that can get out of control on your way down. This isn't so bad for teams with 0-4 positionals or 100k or less positionals that are 0-2.

Perhaps with Necromantic teams you should save up to 100 and just hope for the best afterwards and always be near that mark. Then you can replace a Flesh Golem or Werewolf immediately depending on winnings from the game where they bite it and start saving for whoever you didn't buy and hope you make it 3-5 games without getting another Flesh Golem or Werewolf retired.

FWIW, the scenario above would have played out under spiraling expenses to some extent but the treasury of Necro teams was notorious for being fatter than other teams because bar the two Ghouls everyone has regen. Now a two positional loss for Necro looks like a 5-6 game recovery rather than a much faster one with a fatter treasury.

PurpleChest

Joined: Oct 25, 2003

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 01:57

FUMBBL Staff

happygrue wrote:

It makes rebuilding teams that get a real smack down take longer, especially if they have a few players over 100K.

Imagine trying to save up to replace ogres on an ogre team... and just losing money 3 times in a row after you get to 120-130. Seems eye-rollingly silly to my mind.

This is a very persuasive argument for a higher kick in level for loss. Possibly to the most expensive player cost. Doesnt mean all the other levels have to jump by the same amount.

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ph0enyx13

Joined: Nov 14, 2015

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 04:50

garyt1 wrote:

The main impact of EM as it is applied is to make things even tougher for teams that are not doing well and have expensive players.
Ogre team loses an Ogre... have to save up a couple of games because EM took some of my cash... Oh no another Ogre lost in the next game or 2..staring down the barrel again. But at least not losing them as quick as in the clawpomb days!
I've also been struggling with Humans and blitzers for a while. Lose two blitzers and you have a lot of cash to save up if you haven't been lucky with EM rolls.
If you aren't losing pricey players much then you probably still have money to spend on some inducements.
All that said I don't hate EM, just a mild dislike. It stops big bank accounts being saved up, if that is an issue.

Seasons are the protection against this because it would basically allow you to rehire all your dead players for free at the end of the season

ph0enyx13

Joined: Nov 14, 2015

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 05:12

Tricktickler wrote:

koadah wrote:

Tricktickler wrote:

MattDakka wrote:

Not the death of progression Blood Bowl, players could get some skills even with Seasons, there would just be fewer super skilled players around

Players get skills in non-progression too. In a typical non-progession tournament you start with 1100 TV to buy a team and then you add 4 skills. So you basically start at 1180 TV. Then you add another 4 skills during the tournament so at the end of the tournament the team will be at 1260 TV. So you basically play in a range from 1180-1260 TV.

Seasons are similar to this. If a season is 10 games long you start with 1100 TV to re-purchase the team (plus some bonuses if you made a lot of TDs and cas). Then during the 10 game long season the team will grow up to 1200 TV or something like that depending on how much SPPs you manage to get. And then after the season it will restart at 1100 again. So you will basically play in a range from 1100 to 1200 TV (plus bonuses from TDs and cas). So the end results of both systems are very similar since you are limited to play in a certain range.

Though the commish does not have to impose a 10 game season. For R & B a season could be 20-30 games. Though as the Box Trophy is 40 games it wouldn't make sense to end a season before that.

The longer a season is the more it is like progression and if a season was infinitely long it would be exactly like progression.

But let's say a season is 40 games long in blackbox. It would mean that all teams start at 1400 TV (plus bonuses) every new season. Why skip the range 1000-1390? Though I guess you could just start an entirely new team though if you want to play that range.

Anyway, if the seasons are long they stop resemble non-progression tournaments and they instead start functioning as a kind of upper limit of how large teams can grow in progression. Personally I think aging would be a better mechanism to achieve that.

I don't think there is anything in the rules that says you have to spend all that money so if a team wants to they can start the new season at what ever TV they want under the max threshold. Teams also get to keep any treasury they had and it is 5k for each cas and touch down. So I'd expect some teams to be able to get closer to 1800ish if not hire in a 40 game season.

The problem with 40 game seasons would be that if your team was bashed to hell, you don't get to "fix" them with an entire off season rebuild until the last game.

It might be worth adding seasons, but then saying seasons have a max of 40 games, but teams can, if they wish, declare end of season whenever they want prior to 40 games and it would be basically a mulligan to a fresh team rather than having to retire your team and start a new one

Silent_Hastati

Joined: Nov 04, 2014

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 05:28

To earlier, Seasons are meant to give teams a fair "reset" at the end of each league, to both trim down the top dogs and allow the dead to rebuild their shattered team. It's soemthing that makes far, far more sense in the context of who BB is marketed towords, tabletop leagues. Leagues where getting 8-12 guys to show up once a week is about the best you can hope to do, and the huge, pyramid-esque structure leagues we all know and love from online, or dynamic challenge leagues, would never work as a balancing mechanism.

Without them, which I don't think belong in free form online BB anyway (as matchmaking/picking negates any sort of runaway issue), EM without it seems to not actually cause that much of a difference compared to SE. The main use of it is to prevent coaches from taking absurd bankrolls into the seasonal reset, (AV9 teams would do as they always did, and AV7 would delay buying replacements for expensive positional knowing a reset is coming) which would negate many of the balancing factors that were added to redrafting, like player's costs bloating as they age.

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Garion

Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 08:22

PurpleChest wrote:

happygrue wrote:

It makes rebuilding teams that get a real smack down take longer, especially if they have a few players over 100K.

Imagine trying to save up to replace ogres on an ogre team... and just losing money 3 times in a row after you get to 120-130. Seems eye-rollingly silly to my mind.

This is a very persuasive argument for a higher kick in level for loss. Possibly to the most expensive player cost. Doesnt mean all the other levels have to jump by the same amount.

Yeah it seems there is a consensus here really. Starting it at 150 is the way to go. So no player is above the cut off other than death roller.

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Garion

Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 08:29

Silent_Hastati wrote:

To earlier, Seasons are meant to give teams a fair "reset" at the end of each league, to both trim down the top dogs and allow the dead to rebuild their shattered team. (Snip)

EM without it seems to not actually cause that much of a difference compared to SE.

I'm not sure you are right here. Personally I think EM is more successful than SE ever was. Because EM stops teams accruing large sums of money making the rebuild a little trickier. What I think you are confusing SEs effect with is the much much higher level of attrition in CRP. Piling on, & cpomb made building teams tv to great heights almost impossible. The problem right now is on pitch attrition is the lowest it has ever been in any blood bowl rules set. Which is why it seems so easy to build 3000tv teams.

Should the Piling on optional rule in 2016 edition be brought back? Or do people think the 40 game season idea works? Or are big teams just a total non issue.... these are the questions

Personally I don't like the way seasons drops old players. It kills stunty teams. Probably hurts them more than any other as they rely so heavily on very old star players trees or legend flings/gobos etc...

So for me if big teams are an issue (which they may not be) piling on 2016 edition is probably the only answer. Along with tweaking the EM start to 150,000. If christer is on board with the optional rules section of the new edition that is. Which he probably isn't. As fumbbl always uses the core rules.

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koadah

Joined: Mar 30, 2005

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 10:19

Garion wrote:

So for me if big teams are an issue (which they may not be) piling on 2016 edition is probably the only answer. Along with tweaking the EM start to 150,000. If christer is on board with the optional rules section of the new edition that is. Which he probably isn't. As fumbbl always uses the core rules.

Trying to use PO as a balancing mechanism is a terrible idea IMO.

If you want to cap teams, do it directly rather than in a random hit and hope manner.

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Tricktickler

Joined: Jul 10, 2004

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 12:33

koadah wrote:

Trying to use PO as a balancing mechanism is a terrible idea IMO.

If you want to cap teams, do it directly rather than in a random hit and hope manner.

He don't want to cap teams I think. He just wants to make them harder to grow big IF to big teams are a problem.

Caps suck since it would cause people to stop playing their team once they hit the cap. With aging or pilling on on the other hand (I don't like pilling on) there would still be a reason to play your team, just harder and riskier to try and grow it.

That said, if there was a major tournament that had a cap at let's say, 1400 TV, I think that would be a good idea. I would definitely participate.

Tricktickler

Joined: Jul 10, 2004

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 12:35

Btw, there is absolutely no reason to use the Seasons nonsense in ranked and blackbox.

If you don't like high TV teams in ranked - don't play them.

If you don't like high TV teams in tournaments - chose one with a cap (there are lots of minors).

If you don't like high TV teams in blackbox; then changing the blackbox matchmaking formula is the answer, not forcing teams to stay low through Seasons.

If you just want to make it harder to build a big team in general, then Seasons is a very, very bad solution.

Last edited by Tricktickler on %b %27, %2018 - %15:%Jul; edited 1 time in total

Garion

Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 13:28

Tricktickler wrote:

koadah wrote:

Trying to use PO as a balancing mechanism is a terrible idea IMO.

If you want to cap teams, do it directly rather than in a random hit and hope manner.

He don't want to cap teams I think. He just wants to make them harder to grow big IF to big teams are a problem.

Caps suck since it would cause people to stop playing their team once they hit the cap. With aging or pilling on on the other hand (I don't like pilling on) there would still be a reason to play your team, just harder and riskier to try and grow it.

Indeed. capping is not the goal.

Remember this comes with a BIG - if there is actually a problem anyway... (specifically with teams growing and staying at 3000TV)

The solutions to this issue (if it is one ) that the rules provide are the optional Piling On rule to increase on the pitch attrition, and/or using the drafting rules which to me have no place in an open division, and punish the weakest teams more than anything else.

But again. This is only if people actually think there is something wrong with huge tv teams.

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ArrestedDevelopment

Joined: Sep 14, 2015

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 13:48

Tricktickler wrote:

Btw, there is absolutely no reason to use the Seasons nonsense in ranked and blackbox.

If you don't like high TV teams in ranked - don't play them.

If you don't like high TV teams in tournaments - chose one with a cap (there are lots of minors).

If you don't like high TV teams in blackbox; then changing the blackbox matchmaking formula is the answer, not forcing teams to stay low through Seasons.

Pretty much this.

I don't mind the high teams in general btw. We may well end up with a meta where some people rinse/repeat to stay playing low TV, and some people build huge teams and play mostly each other... but this is actually no different from CRP - it's just that in CRP the teams were 250-500tv lower, and the big ones were 90% cpomb.

I really don't think the big teams are a problem.

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ArrestedDevelopment

Joined: Sep 14, 2015

Posted: Jul 27, 2018 - 13:51

And this is not like lrb4 where simply having a huge team was auto-win because handicaps were crap, and you could just buy your own wizard.

Inducements may only take the underdog to a 30% shot in some cases, but therein, coaching skill and random factors can tilt a game completely. There is *still* an element of danger in being 2.5m+ TV and simply being there because you maxxed out numbers and grabbed 5 rerolls. We've a lot of teams on fumbbl that are now 2.4m+ TV.... very few of them are scary because most of them are just guys buying all their linos and building up RR as if they were playing an lrb4 team, these are not "CRP-lean" at high tv.

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