Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

Why are you concentrating on individual racial matchups? I don't think it's ever been suggested that these should be within the bracket at all TVs, or even that if you were to look at any particular TV that the win% should be in the bracket. Only that it should be overall. Given that under 9% of games take place at 1900TV+ in FUMBBL, for example (even lower in FOL) then I'm not particularly concerned. Claw was designed to trim high TV Orcs and Dwarves, and it seems to have worked.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by Mossman »

dode74 wrote:Why are you concentrating on individual racial matchups?
It was the best way to show how broken clawpomb is.
I don't think it's ever been suggested that these should be within the bracket at all TVs, or even that if you were to look at any particular TV that the win% should be in the bracket. Only that it should be overall.
If only overall win% is supposed to be in the bracket and not win% against each other, then the developers of CRP have put up really bad design goals. Im sure most dislike how amazon work when being so powerful at low TV in every game except when they have to face dwarfs or chaos dwarfs. A rock paper scissors kind of game is not good game design.

Also the real issue here is not whether every race is within the bracket or not. Sure, it is good if they are, but it is not the main issue. The main issue is how clawpomb is affecting gameplay. Lets say dwarfs were given claw access on normal skill rolls, then chaos win percentage against dwarfs at 1900TV+ would probably drop to around 50%-55%. But would that fix the real issue? Of course not, because the real issue has never been unequal win percentages. The real issue is clawpomb itself, that clawpomb is to powerful and to game deciding without requiring any skill, effort or thought from the coach using it. A good example of bad game design.
Given that under 9% of games take place at 1900TV+ in FUMBBL, for example (even lower in FOL) then I'm not particularly concerned.
Just because few games are played at that range it doesnt mean the game shouldnt be improved at that range.

Lets say a new skill was added to the game, "superbribe", that automatically give you the win after the game on a +2 roll even if you have scored less touchdowns than your opponent. But to be able to pick that skill it is required to roll five sixes in a row when rolling for skills. Then that skill would be so uncommon that it wouldnt influence win percentage much. But the skill would still be an enormous problem for the game because it would have been extremly broken letting someone win the game automatically without any coaching skill, effort or thought at all. Just like clawpomb but much much worse! The fact that you dont have to face that skill very often is not a good argument against removing that skill from the game. Also in big tournaments like fumbbl majors or the highest divisions in big leagues you would have to face that skill often and in these environments the mere existence of such a skill would ruin the entire league, even for teams playing in lower divisions that dont have to face it because they would feel that it is pointless to even try.
Claw was designed to trim high TV Orcs and Dwarves, and it seems to have worked.
I have nothing against a skill designed to trim the high armored teams now when aging is gone, however that skill should only trim them and not affect the win percentage so much. Otherwise we just get another rock paper scissors game.

It was probably a very bad idea to let Claw be that armor trimming skill since chaos need the boost that claw gives them against every team and not just against bashing teams. The fact that claw doesnt affect elves as much as before is one of sereval reasons why elves have started to win much more on high TV levels now than they did in lrb4. But at the same time claw needs a nerf too since its currently to strong against av9 and shouldnt stack with mb on armor like it does now.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by DoubleSkulls »

Mossman wrote:
dode74 wrote:Why are you concentrating on individual racial matchups?
It was the best way to show how broken clawpomb is.
I don't think it's ever been suggested that these should be within the bracket at all TVs, or even that if you were to look at any particular TV that the win% should be in the bracket. Only that it should be overall.
If only overall win% is supposed to be in the bracket and not win% against each other, then the developers of CRP have put up really bad design goals. Im sure most dislike how amazon work when being so powerful at low TV in every game except when they have to face dwarfs or chaos dwarfs. A rock paper scissors kind of game is not good game design.
I agree. I think the game should be aiming for all the tier 1s to have .450 to .550 range overall and against each other. I'd also consider the .450 to .550 range over the lifecycle of the team. So it would be okay for a team to start at .550 and drop to .450, or vice versa, but I think being outside those bounds is a bad idea.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

That's a change in design goals though, is it not?

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

the real issue has never been unequal win percentages. The real issue is clawpomb itself, that clawpomb is to powerful and to game deciding
If it decides games then surely that would show up in the win%?

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by Mossman »

dode74 wrote:That's a change in design goals though, is it not?
The fundamental idea is a fun game. If the design goals isnt consistent with that idea, if fulfilling the design goals doesnt lead to a fun game, then the design goals is flawed and should be changed.
dode74 wrote:If it decides games then surely that would show up in the win%?
Yes like i said, 53% win percentage increased to 69%.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

Lots of people find lots of different things "fun". Claw was put in place, as I understand it, to facilitate the removal of ageing, which was generally agreed to be "not fun" as it was an off-pitch mechanic which made levelling your players less enjoyable. The idea, though, was to have an AV neutral method of attrition, and claw is a good on-pitch method. It has the further advantage of being a continuing risk - once you get your BOB to 176SPP under the old rules he was never at further risk than his AV allowed as he would only ever be at risk from being knocked down; with claw that risk increases, and so it should. I am, of course, willing to accept that claw isn't "fun", but I'd then ask you to come up with an on-pitch attrition mechanic which is AV neutral for tier 1 teams. In other words, what is your alternative?

That win% increase is looking at a small proportion of games. Perhaps those Orc and dwarf teams should readapt to CRP and try to maintain a lower and more efficient TV rather than going for the LRB4 maxim of continual growth?

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by Mossman »

dode74 wrote:Lots of people find lots of different things "fun". Claw was put in place, as I understand it, to facilitate the removal of ageing, which was generally agreed to be "not fun" as it was an off-pitch mechanic which made levelling your players less enjoyable. The idea, though, was to have an AV neutral method of attrition, and claw is a good on-pitch method. It has the further advantage of being a continuing risk - once you get your BOB to 176SPP under the old rules he was never at further risk than his AV allowed as he would only ever be at risk from being knocked down; with claw that risk increases, and so it should. I am, of course, willing to accept that claw isn't "fun", but I'd then ask you to come up with an on-pitch attrition mechanic which is AV neutral for tier 1 teams. In other words, what is your alternative?
Well, here is an alternative.

Piling On should be changed to this:
* place your player prone if you chose to use piling on
* reduce opponents armor to 8
* re-roll the armor roll once if you want

This way every team will have a counter to high armor instead of just Chaos. Finally the hybrid teams can do something against the av9 teams.

This way Piling On wont be so overpowered against av7 and av8 anymore (as it currently is in CRP) since you wont be able to re-roll injury rolls any longer.

This way Piling On will be exactly like it was in lrb4 with an added bonus against the high armored teams, which Piling On was very weak against in lrb4. Because who wanted to re-roll armor and get your player prone when there was so low chance to break it? Now the opponent's armor will be reduced to 8 as well as you can re-roll it.

This way Piling On will be good against ALL teams and not a waste against some teams like Claw currently is in CRP. Pilling On will be good against both av7 and against av9 teams this way.


Claw should be changed to this:
* +1 to armor rolls

This way instead of Claw doing +0, +1 or +2 to armor rolls depending on the opponents armor it will do +1 to ALL armor rolls. In average both versions is pretty equal in strength, but the good thing is that now Claw will work against ALL teams and not just some of them. This removes the rock paper scissors effect that the current version of Claw fuels in CRP. Because in CRP Claw is broken against av9 teams and useless against av7 teams. In lrb4 Claw affected every team and that was the best solution and it should be the same now.

Claw should also stack perfectly with Mighty Blow so a killer with Claw-MB would do either +2/+0 or +1/+1 damage. A killer with a full stack of Claw, MB and Piling On would do +3/+0 or +2/+1 damage against av9 with the possibilty to re-roll armor rolls. This is exactly as strong as clawpomb is in CRP except that you cannot re-roll injuries with Pilling On now, which of course is a needed nerf.

A possible change to this system is to also add Razor Sharp Claw that would do something like this: "treat a roll of 9 on the injury table as a casulty instead of a knockout". However if that skill is added there is a risk that the combination of Claw, MB, RSC and Piling On will become to overpowered so Im not sure if thats a good idea or not. You could also add the skill and then nerf the combination at the same time by not letting MB stack with Claw on the armor roll any longer.

I think this system would solve all the current problems in CRP with pomb and clawpomb.


Also to further increase the on-pitch attrition of av9 players fouling should be improved. Because when you foul and use assists the high armor on that black orc or longbeard is removed. But there is also another much more important reason why to improve fouling and that is elves. Elves was already dominating high TV ranges in LRB4 and in CRP they have become even better for sereval reasons. One reason (out of many) why elves have become better is thanks to Claw not being as effective against them any longer. But that has already been fixed in my system since Claw was changed to affect all races. One other reason why elves have become better is because of nerfed fouling in CRP. And therefore fouling should really be made better again. Another problem is that the system I suggest makes Piling On weaker against elves since it doesnt allow you to re-roll injury rolls any longer and Piling On was the biggest disadvantage elves gained in CRP. And therefore its very important to create some form of replacement for Piling On against elves as soon as you nerf it. So thats another reason why fouling really should be improved. But I also think elves should be nerfed in other small ways like giving some starplayers Tackle and perhaps make the Chainsaw a bit better and so on.

One simple way of improving fouling is this:

* Add +1 to the armor roll when fouling unless the fouler is standing in a tackle zone.
* Also bring back Argue the Call and let it be possible to ignore ejection on a +6 roll if the foul is spotted.

These two changes would increase the effectiveness of fouling. If its not enough you could always make the argue roll +5 instead of +6.

I also have another much more complicated idea how to improve fouling which involves making DP +2/+2 again but I feel my post is getting to long for bringing up that idea now. But in any case fouling needs to be improved.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

My initial thoughts:
- You are switching the mechanic to a skill which will be ubiquitous. That reduces the value of AV. If I play as Humans and my blitzers can pile on Orcs as if we had the same armour then the Orc advantage (AV vs MA) is lost entirely.
- You are reducing the overall effect of claw on some teams but increasing it massively on others. This is a relative nerf to those teams (e.g. Norse/Amazons) with a low AV.
I'd like to see the math before forming an opinion, but those spring to mind.

As an aside, I agree that fouling needs improving, but that's a different matter.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by Mossman »

dode74 wrote:My initial thoughts:
- You are switching the mechanic to a skill which will be ubiquitous. That reduces the value of AV. If I play as Humans and my blitzers can pile on Orcs as if we had the same armour then the Orc advantage (AV vs MA) is lost entirely.
Not entirely because most blocks will probably be done without pomb. And even if you have pomb on every blitzer its probably not a good idea to use it on every block, just on those when you can afford getting prone. Often that is just the blitz action. In CRP Piling On is mostly used on the injury roll. On armor roll it is mostly used when the opponent only has av7 (which always is the case with clawpombers). But if the opponent has av8 or av9 it isnt used as often.

Humans have traditionally always been a lot worse team than orcs so if you think humans will improve much against orcs thanks to this thats a good thing!
- You are reducing the overall effect of claw on some teams but increasing it massively on others. This is a relative nerf to those teams (e.g. Norse/Amazons) with a low AV.
Actually av7 teams will become much better in this system. Because in CRP Piling On is very good against low armor. And by nerfing Piling On it is the av7 teams that will gain most by it. Av8 teams will gain less. And of course av9 teams will gain the least or perhaps even lose on it since their armor is also reduced by one.

Relatively orcs and dwarfs will become weaker against teams like norse which is a very good thing.

All the changes I have suggested will be very good for the hybrid teams.

However you might be correct that Norse and Amazons will have much more trouble against Chaos. The change to Piling On is relatively good for Norse and Amazon but the change to Claw however will be relatively good for Chaos of course. Totally Chaos will probably gain most from it. But even if the gap between av7 teams and Chaos will widen it is much more important to close the current gap between av9 teams and Chaos in CRP. Because the gap between av9 teams and Chaos is far to big at the moment and closing that gap should have the highest priority. In the system Im suggesting the gap between av7 teams and Chaos will be far from that big. I dont remember Chaos dominating Norse more than Orcs and Dwarfs did in lrb4 when Claw was affecting av7. Its the skills that is only having an effect against some races (like Claw in CRP) that is creating a rock paper scissors effect, not the other way around.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by dode74 »

most blocks will probably be done without pomb
But a FAR higher proportion of blocks overall will be with POMB than are currently with CPOMB, reducing the importance of AV.
Humans have traditionally always been a lot worse team than orcs so if you think humans will improve much against orcs thanks to this thats a good thing!
There is a difference between "making more effective" (which I agree needs to be done) and "completely negating the advantage".
Actually av7 teams will become much better in this system. Because in CRP Piling On is very good against low armor. And by nerfing Piling On it is the av7 teams that will gain most by it. Av8 teams will gain less. And of course av9 teams will gain the least or perhaps even lose on it since their armor is also reduced by one.
I'm talking about claw, not PO, but the combined effect of having both together will also be a nerf to AV7 teams.
even if the gap between av7 teams and Chaos will widen it is much more important to close the current gap between av9 teams and Chaos in CRP. Because the gap between av9 teams and Chaos is far to big at the moment and closing that gap should have the highest priority.
That's an assumption on your part. It's also an assumption that it should be done by changing completely the attrition mechanics. The teams which take the fewest casualties overall at the moment are Orcs and Dwarves, and you want to reduce this even further.
I dont remember Chaos dominating Norse more than Orcs and Dwarfs did in lrb4 when Claw was affecting av7.
Chaos were better than Dwarves vs Norse at high TV, but not as good as Orcs.

Like I said, though, I'd like to see the numbers first.

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by DoubleSkulls »

dode74 wrote:That's a change in design goals though, is it not?
As I'd say at work, its a clarification ;)

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

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God, I'm so pleased the rules are locked for the forseeable future and the BBRC disbanded!

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

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Darkson wrote:God, I'm so pleased the rules are locked for the forseeable future and the BBRC disbanded!
yea they didn't do sh*t anyway :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Claw - any armour roll of 8 or more

Post by Mossman »

dode74 wrote:But a FAR higher proportion of blocks overall will be with POMB than are currently with CPOMB, reducing the importance of AV.
Even if more blocks will be with POMB than currently with CPOMB, are you sure more armor points will be reduced totally with POMB than currently with CPOMB? I dont think so. First of all the current version of CPOMB reduces av9 by two points and av8 by one point while this version of POMB only reduces av9 by one point and av8 by 0 points. Secondly with current version of CPOMB armor is reduced on EVERY block. With this version of POMB however armor is only reduced those time that you actually chose to use Piling On and your player goes prone. And it isnt as tempting to use Piling On on av8 as it is on av7 either.

An armor increase will also on many occasions force the opponent to go prone which he wouldnt have needed to if it werent for the armor increase. For those occasions even though the AV was "wasted" it at least forced the opponent to go prone with his player, so in the end it wasnt a waste after all. For example: lets say a human linemen have picked an AV increase so that he now has av9. He is then blitzed by an orc blitzer with pilling on who rolls 9 on the armor roll. Without the armor increase on the human lineman the orc blitzer would have broken the armor without having to go prone, but now, thanks to the armor increase, he has to go prone to break it. The armor increase wasnt a waste in that case.

I dont think the importance of AV would be reduced relatively to now. I think it would have been increased. Perhaps on elves the value of av9 and av10 would be decreased because they take very little hits every game and the opponent would make sure to always blitz their av9 and av10 players with a pomber. But on other matchups however, with much more blocks, a large amount of these blocks will be made without pomb and on these matchups Im sure the value of AV would increase relatively to now.
There is a difference between "making more effective" (which I agree needs to be done) and "completely negating the advantage".
Well, I dont agree that their advantage will be completely negated.
I'm talking about claw, not PO, but the combined effect of having both together will also be a nerf to AV7 teams.
Yes, a nerf against Chaos by removing the special bonus of not being affected by Claw and a general boost against every other team. Definitiately worth it.

There is nothing that says that av7 teams need a special bonus against Chaos, and only against Chaos, that not any other team need. What makes av7 teams so special that they need such a bonus? I agree Norse is weak but what they need is general improvements so they get better against every team, not relying on special bonuses only against a few teams.

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