Tweaking the Skill System

Got some ideas for rules? Maybe a skill change or something completely different!!! Tell us here.

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dode74
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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by dode74 »

plasmoid wrote: Dode said:
Teams which start with few of the 30k skills but have relatively easy access to them (and I'm thinking of things like Vamps, Slann etc in particular) will be hurt by this, and they simply don't need to be.
I see what you're saying. But it also feels a bit like a red herring.
Those teams will be weaker no matter what. They're designed that way.
Well obviously. They're getting even weaker, though.
But a Vamp picking up Dodge (for example) gets a heck of a lot better than a vamp without Dodge. I don't think that advantage is very accurately priced at 20K.
AG4 dodge is always better than AG3 dodge. Whether it's "accurate" is based on your perception only. Based on the performance data of vamps it seems to be fine as it is.
Heck, you even say that developed Vamp teams can be quite good - maybe that's because they get to Blodge up ST4 AG4 players for cheap.
Indeed, but that's an issue with the cross-category combination rather than with the skill itself. GA access being the issue which allows the combination rather than block or dodge themselves.
I'm not sure that there is.
Well obviously, otherwise you'd have come up with them. Silly comment, that. Several methods have previously been mentioned.

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by VoodooMike »

Trumpkin wrote:I don't know if it's possible, but one potential way of gauging a skill's worth is in how often it's taken. If there were some way to collate all the times a skill has been taken versus times it's been overlooked, you might have a sort of hierarchy of the value the community places on that skill. Is block taken more than any other skill? Then it's clearly the best skill out there (from the point of view of the coaches), so could be worth a lot of TV. As virtually no one takes Shadowing, perhaps it should be worth much less. I would find it very interesting to see how people would alter their builds accordingly.
I take it you didn't really understand my #4 suggestion. All paths lead to rome, I guess...

The problem with the general validity of that method is that it's really just working to even out the distribution of skill choices - it's penalizing popularity and rewarding unpopularity in skill choices. So, you might end up with greater diversity (or might not) but that doesn't mean you've really figured out the appropriate pricing, just the maximum pricing before even the best skills are bloat.

It's still better than the three previously mentioned methods, though, in terms of having a defensible reason-based foundation.
Trumpkin wrote:I understand the skepticism that people have, but what's the problem in trying? If Martin wants to give it a go, and I'd be very willing to help (if he wants it), where's the harm? You never know, this could be the start of CRP 2.0, the iteration that finally brings equality to the races!
In terms of being a house rule it's all fine... anything is fine as a house rule. That has never been plasmoid's interest, though - he (as you do, given your CRP 2.0 reference) builds around the idea that he will solve fundamental issues and that people will want to adopt his ideas universally. For that to happen any changes need to be demonstrably and defensibly superior to what is already in place.

There is no way to demonstrate that decisions you make for a given skill's pricing are appropriate or superior, and that's the point - you literally cannot succeed at this endeavor because there's no objective method for demonstrating that you've made a right or wrong choice. There's no metric for individual skills, so if the method you use for pricing new skills cannot be logically supported beyond silly declarations like "well, it's hard to argue otherwise" then even if we see an improvement in our chosen metric (which still hasn't been specified) that improvement does not support your specific pricing choices in an objective way.

Time and time again people try to come up with a way to justify their personal "feels" on changes but at the very least there needs to be an objective method for measuring the direct, relevant effect of their "feels" based choices. There's no realistic way to do that here, even if you could get thousands of people to take part in the testing across many years (something that itself is not very realistic).

So... what's the harm? There's no harm.. hell, if your neighbor decides he wants to build a ladder to the sun there's no harm in letting him try that, too! You should probably at least try to explain to him why there's a 0% chance of success, but if he remains undaunted then hey, have at it buddy! Your understanding of why it's doomed to fail will probably colour your responses to all of his intricate planning and excited discussion of it, of course, but no skin off your ass, right?

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by Twelfman »

Thanks for the input, your points are noted.

...anyway, I'm not saying I have all the answers, and I doubt Plas was either, but I think we're just a couple of guys that enjoy sharing the enthusiasm for the slightly more 'out there' Blood Bowl skills/builds. There's nothing wrong with speculating about the kind of thing we'd maybe change if we were given the keys to the BB mansion. That's all, really.

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by VoodooMike »

Trumpkin wrote:...anyway, I'm not saying I have all the answers, and I doubt Plas was either, but I think we're just a couple of guys that enjoy sharing the enthusiasm for the slightly more 'out there' Blood Bowl skills/builds. There's nothing wrong with speculating about the kind of thing we'd maybe change if we were given the keys to the BB mansion. That's all, really.
...and that's cool. Like I said, anything is a legitimate house rule. You can give all the halflings claw if you want. I've been around long enough to know that plasmoid isn't about personal houserules, he always has his sights set on changing the world... and I don't object to that sort of ambition - I consider it an admirable quality so long as it's combined with the willingness to do the necessary work, both with your head and your hands.

This sort of idea, with skill repricing based on just... gut feelings.. is a total non-starter in terms of changing the world because there's simply no way to test it beyond "feeling it out".. and if you're just going to do that then you might as well not bother "testing" it, you already feel its good from the get go, right? If "feels" was enough of a metric the whole world would be using NTBB; I hear the testers all "feel" its better... nevermind that people who don't like an altered ruleset tend to stop using it rather than staying part of the testing group, and thus, you're guaranteed that the final group of testers likes whatever you had them testing.

Now... would it be awesome if TV were a proper measure of mechanical strength? It'd be fabulous! In order to even start down that path, though, you need to have a realistic, objective, defensible method laid out that basically anyone could understand and agree to, regarding how you would perform changes and how you would measure the effects, etc. It's nowhere near as fun as "hey guys, I have a cool idea!" but it's what makes the world go 'round.

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by Khar-peth »

nice idea plasmoid, it would definitely alter the balance of the game : some rosters would get stronger/weaker, but if it creates more diversity in skills, Im all for it

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by voyagers_uk »

I have to agree with VM, the desire to see and use is laudable but to bring change you need to measure carefully what you intend to do versus the balance of what is. Without knowing if the what is even balanced correctly how can you know anything.

I also felt a sense of here we go again whilst reading Martins opening post and his response to the first reply. I applaud your desire for improvement Martin, just feel that you need to have clearer measurement before you run off and reinvent the perfect whee

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by plasmoid »

Hi all, especially Mike,

Mike said:
In terms of being a house rule it's all fine... anything is fine as a house rule. That has never been plasmoid's interest, though - he (as you do, given your CRP 2.0 reference) builds around the idea that he will solve fundamental issues and that people will want to adopt his ideas universally.
You keep saying that like it's true. It really isn't.
Sure, it would be strange of me (or anyone) to kick around house rules that have no intent behind them, so yes, I do want to fix stuff. Or at least make stuff better.
But I don't try to get my rules adopted universally.
I set up a site for my rules because I'm quite happy with them, so I wanted to make them available.
But PCRP+ and NTBB has always been niche house rules, intended for people who subjectively share some of my concerns about the game. Like the PCRP+ CPOMB tweak being for those who subjectively feel that CPOMB makes the game less enjoyable for them.
Everyone else should by all means stick with the official rules.
And if I'm lying, and secretly plotting to take over the BB world, then I still don't think anyone has anything to be afraid of. I doubt even 1% of the BB community plays NTBB.

The rules presented in this thread are not NTBB. And they're still very much in a brainstorming state.
I did not post them here to alter the game in one fell swoop, but to get ínput from others.

I get that I don't have a metric. Then again, I'm not looking for proof yet. Perhaps not ever.
So perhaps I should have said I might "try" these rules rather than I might "test" them. (Heck, did I say either of those?)
Certainly I won't be embarking on a mission to get truckloads of games played.
But one metric for seeing if these price tweaks does anything would be to see if any of the less popular skills get taken more, or the popular skills get taken less, say, within the first 2 skill picks for each player in short term play.
I'd need data for that, naturally. Both pre and post house rule. Which isn't going to happen as I have Little time in my life to collect it the slow way, and no computer skills to make it go any faster.

I could then have started by establishing which skills get taken a lot, and which skills get taken never or hardly ever.
For the table presented in the first post, I relied on my own experience for that.
I was then hoping that others would offer up theirs. A few people have.
I don't think "gut feeling" and "experience" are quite the same thing, but the memory of said "experience" is certainly subjective.
I also get that your method #4 could track skill popularity. Great. But it is not Work that I'm going to be able to do. Since your method does not measure each skills actual power, but rather what power coaches 'think' they have, then asking others that exact question is at least a small step of the way.
That the skills I put at 30K belong there is based in memory of selections I do myself and see others make, but also on the fact that these are the skills employed in minmax tactics, which is a way of trying to exploit a loophole in the TV system. Guard is the obvious exception here.
The 30K skills are also based on my experience prepping for the Lucca World Cup. Res tournament and League play is not the same thing, but it is worth noting that the Lucca App still Works, and contains some 900 rosters to peruse. And I dare say there will be a heavy slant towards a handful of skills.

The second thing you bring up, Mike, is me trying to make the TV-system "perfect", by measuring just mechanical strength.
I prefer that too. What you, and many others can't wrap your head around is that there is presently no way to do that... and, in fact, that is not what you're doing with your suggestion, either.
I'm not saying that I can isolate coaching skill from mechanical strength.
I'm saying that I prefer a system that does not actively factor in coaching skill. I'd rather ignore it.
And I'm not saying that I can measure mechanical strength perfectly. At all. I'm saying I want to measure it better.
And that the perfect don't have to stand in the way of the possible.
This is where I think sound thinking can be applied.

I'm also saying that even TV+ would benefit from an improvement of TV, seeing as how it takes time for TV+ to kick in. I don't just mean the rule discussed here, but any sound change to TV would also benefit TV+

For example, more precise TV was a focus of the PBBL rules.
I think you'll agree that TV isn't completely arbitrary.
Id rather be a 50 point overdog, than a 20, a 20 than a 0, and rather a 0 than a 20 point underdog. (with no inducements in play)
But the system obviously isn't precise (which is why it is good that there are no inducements at less than 50K).
One of the Things that was done was to make players not present for the game not contribute TV.
Another was to not let unused treasury Count towards your TV.
And yet another was to make the apoth weaker, so as to not be able to put your TV200 player back on the field for a mere 50K.
These all make perfect sense, as far as I can tell. Even with no testing.

In a similar vein, I hope that you agree that it is uncontroversial that all 50(?) skills cannot all be equally useful. This is supported by the (lack of) variety in skill selection. And it follows that varied skill values would make TV ever so slightly more precise. That would be what I was aiming for with these rules.

Cheers
Martin

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by VoodooMike »

plasmoid wrote:You keep saying that like it's true. It really isn't.
Sure, it would be strange of me (or anyone) to kick around house rules that have no intent behind them, so yes, I do want to fix stuff. Or at least make stuff better.
But I don't try to get my rules adopted universally.
It's the same thing. How hard you push your ideas isn't the relevant part - it's that you keep presenting your "fixes" for things and you obviously intend for other people to use them. You're not saying "hey, these are the house rules we use in my local TT league".
plasmoid wrote:For the table presented in the first post, I relied on my own experience for that.
"I relied on my own experience" is the same thing as saying it's pure opinion.. which is fine, but it'll always result in someone (me, for example) pointing out that it's subjective fluff, which is again fine unless you want people other than you to adopt the ideas. Maybe they will anyway, but anyone who asks "why should I?" will get no answer.
plasmoid wrote:I'm saying that I prefer a system that does not actively factor in coaching skill. I'd rather ignore it.
And I'm not saying that I can measure mechanical strength perfectly. At all. I'm saying I want to measure it better.
Good luck with that. Until you can isolate one or the other it's nigh impossible to measure direct effect on either. You want to measure mechanical strength better... how will you know if you have, if you can't isolate mechanical strength from coaching skill? You'll be comparing the old unisolatable measure with the new unisolatable measure.

This is why I say you're going to be down to asking people how it "feels" instead, and at that point you don't need to test it... you already "feel" its good as is.

There's a whole lot of "I'd rather" but not a whole lot of how you'd make it happen given all the confounds.

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by Khar-peth »

bit of necromancy here but I loved this idea of tiered-skills and Im thinking of introducing it to my league.
Did you playtest it plasmoid or did it stay all-theory ?

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by nazgob »

I will say that testing at Elflympics saw some really weird rosters :D

Pass block everywhere.

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by Khar-peth »

nazgob wrote:I will say that testing at Elflympics saw some really weird rosters :D

Pass block everywhere.

so... a good thing ?

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Re: Tweaking the Skill System

Post by plasmoid »

Hi Khar-peth,
nope, haven't tried it out. All theory.
If you do try it out, then I hope you have fun with it and write here how it went :D
Cheers
Martin

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