Why ClawPOMB is broken

[mubo]

Subjective assessment of that fact: At late game TV (once you get to CPOMB) you start to play differently (ie: worse). Less emphasis on positioning. The 58% is so juicy that you emphasize more on getting a blitz with one of your killer pieces on "someone". It is a different, and to me, a less interesting game.

Exactly. At high TV it feels a little less like a fantasy football game, and a little more like a war game. I wouldn't apply the label "broken", but instead of thinking about positioning and pressure on the ball, I'm thinking about how to minimize/maximize the killer players on either team. Which I find less enjoyable.

[dode74]

Objective fact: The killstack gives a 58% chance of depitching.

Only if the block is successful in the first place.
But...

...Claw/MB/POn as that was designed with full knowledge of what it was supposed to do and what % were desired for player removal options since so many off the pitch player attrition factors were removed from the game at the same time.

[straume]

Yes, yes. Nothing new there. I would be more interested in opinions on how this affects gameplay (and hence the game), rather than looking at what "broken" means.

And if we are to quite the "big" names to support the argument Geggster and Galak seem to agree a slight alteration is a good idea:

I would suggest that the value and subsequent proliferation of clawpomb was not fully considered by the BBRC. BB is a very complex system and perhaps we can't be blamed for not identifying this particular problem - some don't even consider it a problem. But I wish we had foreseen this as I think it would have made the game better.

If simplicity is on the cards, I would limit piling on to POW only (roughly halving the incident of piling on use, reducing the damage and slowing the speed of SPP accumulation).

[dode74]

Hey, you're the one who was harping back to "objective". And it's not about "big names", it;'s about who has the remit: the BBRC no longer has that remit. But enough of that: we're done with attempts to say it's objectively broken, I think

Regarding the effect on gameplay, we know that the greater the net casualty count for any team the greater the chance it has to win, so it makes sense for any bash team, not just CPOMBers, to try to accrue that advantage first and foremost. POMB is 58% on any AV7 too, ofc. On AV8 POMB is ~45% iirc, which isn't massively lower (78% of the odds). Personally I think it's more a case of "that's just how bash plays" rather than anything to do with CPOMB specifically.

[RoterSternHochdahl]

VM ... I know you can be course at times but d&mn that was really well written. Seriously made me wish for a like button.

I thought the same first but this part is pure assumptions:

For oventa's league we note that it's not the league or commish that find CPOMB to be an issue, either... just oventa's own feel.

The league discussed this over seasons and took consequences eventually which are that the life cycle of teams is limited to 4 seasons with 14 matches each.

In the end we did not call the problem "ClawPoMb". We called it "balancing in High TV scheduled league play"

[plasmoid]

Hi Dode,
as you coincidentally told me very recently in another thread:

I've no doubt they implemented what they did on purpose. I question if they understood the implications.

I.e. we all knew about the 58% at the time, but even if Galak understood the full consequences of it at the time, then there were at least some on the inside who did not.

Not that it changes anything. (Since we're now bound by a definition of balance that I doubt that anyone truly agrees accurately defines balance. And nobody has the remit to change anything anyway. Yay for house rules )

Cheers
Martin

[dode74]

Martin, that was an entirely different conversation and I was talking about Cyanide at the time. I don't think you can reasonably compare the knowledge Cyanide have of the implications of rule changes to the knowledge the BBRC (or even most of us players) have of those implications.

Context matters.

[plasmoid]

It was just a well worded sentence, so I re-used it.
No other contextual implications.
But I stand by the statement that obviously not everyone who were part of that decision fully grasped the impact, even if they did understand the 58%.
Cheers
Martin

[dode74]

Unless there's evidence to support that (and we do have such evidence in Cyanide's case) then I would say we don't know either way. In such a circumstance I'm fairly content the individuals involved knew what they were doing. Or did you question their competence at the time?

[VoodooMike]

Well im a league commissioner and I and others in my league find it broken. Once you got clawpomb, is was a winning Strategy, with no real on-pitch counter.

Amazing that your league holds a significantly different opinion from all the other tabletop leagues and reports a significantly greater effect on wins than other leagues do and the online data does, and only gets brought up this late in the discussion.

You get that the inserted bracket was my doing, as in the sentence would be more clear with that insert. As in I play in tabletop leagues where people find clawpomb overpowered/broken. And not a comment what Oventa has experienced.

You quoted his post and inserted a word but it had nothing to do with him or his experiences? Sounds like a load of poop to me, but hey, we can add rational expression to the list of things you suck at along with basic logic if that's what it comes down to.

Subjective assessment of that fact: At late game TV (once you get to CPOMB) you start to play differently (ie: worse). Less emphasis on positioning. The 58% is so juicy that you emphasize more on getting a blitz with one of your killer pieces on "someone". It is a different, and to me, a less interesting game.

So don't play a CPOMB team if it isn't interesting to you. Bash teams are called bash teams because they bash... improving your ability to bash improves your overall ability to win games. How much it improves your ability to win games depends heavily on what sort of teams you're going to be facing.. if you're playing against non-stop elves you probably won't see much improvement. If you're playing against non-stop dwarfs you'll see a huge improvement.

Is this a problem? Well, for many TT-leagues CPOMB seldom enters play at all. For Fumbbl-BlackBox? Probably, but who cares? That is a special environment. For perpetual online leagues, such as OCC? Perhaps a little bit.

It's a problem for environments like BlackBox, and the people who care are the ones who abandon those environments in favour of challenge leagues where they can specifically avoid it. It's unlikely to be a major issue in environments like OCC because teams that are only good at bashing and not winning will end up in the lower tiers of play owing to the fact that they're pretty crap at winning - people who don't care about winning and just want to bash are going to gravitate away from things like OCC in favour of places like B.. faster and more opportunity to do what they're trying to do.

Exactly. At high TV it feels a little less like a fantasy football game, and a little more like a war game. I wouldn't apply the label "broken", but instead of thinking about positioning and pressure on the ball, I'm thinking about how to minimize/maximize the killer players on either team. Which I find less enjoyable.

Again, this assumes you're facing it often. I also dispute the idea that it isn't about positioning... if you're worried about player removal then positioning is everything. Personally, I find Dwarf teams far less enjoyable, even at low TV levels... they're like playing against bricks... but I do understand that the point of having a wide variety of rosters is that you have to change your strategy game to game as you face different races with different strengths.

I would be more interested in opinions on how this affects gameplay (and hence the game), rather than looking at what "broken" means.

Maybe you should start a different thread, then. Take a look at the title of this one.

...but this part is pure assumptions:

If you're bleeding out the side of your head and haven't sought medical attention the rational assumption is one of two things: either you haven't noticed the problem, or you've decided it is not a problem. If you've noticed a problem, and think it's a problem, and opt not to act on that problem, you are clearly a moron of the first order. Contrary to popular belief, I don't automatically assume people are morons.. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Thank you for correcting me.

[plasmoid]

I'm at the very least referencing Geggsters quote above.

[plasmoid]

PS - I wouldn't say it is about competence.
I think it can be quite hard to estimate the ripple effect of a rules change before it has been thoroughly playtested. While there was playtesting done during the PBBL process, it was small scale TT testing.
Cheers
Martin

[VoodooMike]

I think it can be quite hard to estimate the ripple effect of a rules change before it has been thoroughly playtested. While there was playtesting done during the PBBL process, it was small scale TT testing.

...and where is the large scale effect, exactly? Surf the thread asking tabletop league players about their experiences with the skills... I'm not seeing much of a ripple there.

[Vanguard]

Good news guys. From Warhammer Fest today (courtesy of Recalcitrant Daze) comes this update:

Official confirmation that the current ruleset, complete with ClawPOMB, is not broken.

[VoodooMike]

Official confirmation that the current ruleset, complete with ClawPOMB, is not broken.

Well, to be fair to the CPOMB suffragettes, it probably just means the new guys responsible for the set didn't spend much time considering rules changes, and probably didn't want to muck about with things when there was a licensed PC version using the old ruleset.

It does mean they won't officially be changing CPOMB any time soon, though, and that new players will be playing under the rules we know.