Death Zone 2 Feedback thread

[CyberedElf]

But again, GW is listening. If Horatio really is as big a problem as you fear, I'm sure something will ultimately be done to resolve it. That's one of the advantages of having an active development team who are open to feedback from the community.

I haven't seen him played; so, I actually do not mind Horatio, yet. If Horatio is a problem, I will not be holding my breath to see it resolved though. I think Grak and Crumbleberry is worse and if there has been any attempt to resolve it, it got by me.
I like what your saying, but I'm too cynical to really believe it.
Saying everything is optional is both completely true true and a cop out. Somethings are obviously more optional than others.
LCs usually make house rules in broad sweeps. "All of this is in" or "all of this is out." Seldom will people take all of the new inducements and exclude just one.

[garion]

More Feedback. Just general though, this isn't specific to DZ 2, just 2016 edition -

Seasons
So in perpetual play you are forced to fire players if you can't redraft for next season. Have you considered the impact FF is having on teams?

So I will run you through an example- Chaos Dwarf team just about to end their 3rd season. They have a FF of 12 and because a less than successful season they have to fire a bunch of their players and recruit new ones. Now they have a near rookie team that is being punished for having a high FF, and extra 120TV for nothing, normally for a team this size FF would only be about 2. Which means only one thing. The team has to be retired if you want to stay competitive. Rules should NOT promote retiring teams, they should encourage the rebuild for the narrative.

A simple fix - Make FF something you cannot purchase and that does not add to TV. This makes perfect sense both from a fluff perspective (you do no pay for fans to turn up), and a balance perspective for the reasons above.

This rule is even more damaging for stunty teams who have the hardest time already. After a season is over they are stuck with an inflated FF when they best way to stay competitive is to keep their TV down, fire players that don't get doubles and so on. Then because stunty teams are generally not very successful they dont get as much money to rehire or rebuild at the end of the season, and most of their cas come from fouling which do not add to your end of season pot. So again you end up with a rookie team or close to rookie with a FF of 12 ish. That bloat is something you just cant afford. So the team gets retired and you start again, killing the narrative.

In short -FF serves no real purpose stop it adding to TV and forcing team retirement after a "season"

[Milo]

Garion, can you define how a team is "punished" by having a large FF? Is it just in regards to TV bloat and getting less in inducements?

[garion]

yes bloat. Exactly that. Also it hurts the tier 3 stunty teams worse than any of the others, especially Ogres.

So to go back a bit in LRB4 - FF had a purpose; it determined how much money you would make from a game directly. It was an overly complex system back then for working out winnings, but FF had a real purpose and making it grow was extremely valuable. I even remember having a Halfling team with a FF or 21 back then. Which was great because it meant I could afford 3 or 4 chefs every game. It was also important once your TR started getting around 2500+, as you needed to keep making money to help your team grow.

So in lrb4 there was a reason for it. Also it did not really effect TR in the same way it effects TV now, because in Lrb4 you had a number of things that artificially added to your TR. Such as SPP (not player level, just spp), so you could have 6 players on 29 spp which was adding bloat to the team even though they only had 2 skills and were only 1 TD away from getting their 3rd. Similarly when you got to legend level your players TR kept going up the more SPP you accrued, eventually legends became so bloaty you just had to fire them. My point though is that in lrb4 - FF served a purpose and its TR increase went unnoticed because of extraneous factors. Not to mention handicaps were not as TR/TV punishing then, so a bit of bloat never really mattered.

Then LRB5/CRP things were changed. Everything became more streamlined. FF no longer mattered really. It only gave you better odds of getting FAME and thus a chance of getting an extra 10k at the end of the match, as well as some rolls on the kick off table. Now personally in LRB5 and CRP I also wanted FF to stop counting towards TV as it didn't really have any real benefit any more. Similar to my 2016 ed examples above - I had 1 or 2 occasions a team were destroyed by CPOMB and I basically had a rookie team again with a FF of 12 which meant I had 2 - 4 really tricky match ups of rebuilding, unnecessarily hard really, or I could just retire the team and start again. I retired the team, because why play with a hanidcap? However this wasn't that much of a problem as this occurrence was extremely rare, only happened to me on 2 occasions in a thousand + games.

In 2016 edition because of off-field attrition in seasons and how the weaker teams invariably have less cash to re-build, rehire it is leaving teams very weak with added bloat from FF making this more common.

I think the real question in a post LRB4 world is why does FF add to TV? What value does it actually bring to the table?

The only answer I can think of is it is there to artificially give experienced teams a small handicap. But is this really needed? I personally don't think so.

If you guys still really want FF to add to TV for whatever reason, then another option would be allow FF dumping at the end of a season. You could even automate it somewhat and have a ruling such as - "if your TV drops below 1250 (just an example, I'd need to think about this number more if it were to become a rule) then your fans desert the team and lose interest. your FF decreases by 1d6."

Something like that. Though to me that is a rule, for rules sake. Personally I would just do away with it adding to your TV entirely as I don't think it actually does anything worthwhile since LRB4.

[JT-Y]

I kinda hate to do this, but:

Free Fan Factor
Instead of allowing teams to purchase Fan Factor when they are created, they may have Fan Factor be free. All teams under this rule would start with a Fan Factor of 5 for no cost. Fan Factor never adds to a team’s value and changes in Fan Factor from Post-game rolls do not affect team value.

Page 29 of DZ1, but again present in all the LRB's before it.

[garion]

hehe, yes I know you can house rule it out if you want. But for me that sentence should be reversed. We are discussing core rules here, not the optional ones. Which are clearly separated through out the book.

In core rules it should be free for the reasons I posted above. and then it should read - "however as an optional rule- if you want to give the teams that win most often a small handicap then adding FF to TV can help achieve this.

For all my feedback now please assume I am aware that you can use optional rules to change whatever you want, but that I am just referring to improving the core game. As I have stated many times over. I play the official rules to the letter, and they should be the best version of the game in terms of balance.

[Dr. Von Richten]

I has some questions:

How does end-of-seaon/refrafting affect Sponsorships and Stadiums?

Do your (ongoing and mayor) sponsorships go away at the end of the season, or do the stay active until you cancel them?

Does your stadium residence get cancelled at the end of a season? Do you lose an owned stadium an the end of a season?

[JT-Y]

For all my feedback now please assume I am aware that you can use optional rules to change whatever you want, but that I am just referring to improving the core game.

Well, no. Because you are arguing that GW should make the options you want to use core rules because you would prefer it that way. That's not feedback, that's you saying what you want. Which is fine BTW, please carry on, but I'm not going to stop pointing out that you can just choose which optional rules you use or don't for the sake of clarity for other readers.

You already have what you want, you just want it...differently.

None of this is core rules anyway, from this paragraph onward, it's all optional rules. All of it.

EXTRA RULES
All of the following extra rules are optional. This means that both coaches must agree which extra rules (if any) they are going to use before the match starts. However, they are all highly recommended and you’ll find that using them provides an even more exciting and interesting game without slowing down the mayhem and destruction much at all! Give ’em a try!

[JT-Y]

I has some questions:

How does end-of-seaon/refrafting affect Sponsorships and Stadiums?

Do your (ongoing and mayor) sponsorships go away at the end of the season, or do the stay active until you cancel them?

Does your stadium residence get cancelled at the end of a season? Do you lose an owned stadium an the end of a season?

There is no reason Sponsorships should stop unless you decide to stop them.

Likewise, you are a resident in a stadium until you choose to leave or get kicked out (it's totally possible that you could get booted out in the post game sequence after your last game of the season though, if you have a mare), and you own a stadium until you decide to sell it (though I'd be tempted to penalise a player who has outstanding payments at seasons end because, well, because I'm like that).

[straume]

@garion

I agree that FF in generall is a little bit bloaty. And I also agree in your general point: "The only answer I can think of is it is there to artificially give experienced teams a small handicap"

I would add: Experienced teams and succesful coaches. Teams that keep losing will also drop in FF, giving them a very small advantage over succesful teams (ie: better coaches) with higher FF. Howeer, I don`t think the tax-bloat on performing well is a bad thing. If you have a goblin team at FF12 for instance that well performing coach imo deserves the very mild "penalty" that the core rules apply.

A flaw in league play is that better coaches will enhance their advantage over not as goood players through team development (better skill picks, better bloat-management, getting more spp and more chances for that Block mummy or one +AG player or whatever). FF works the other way, penalizing the good player just a little bit. I don`t that is a bad thing.

[Milo]

yes bloat. Exactly that. Also it hurts the tier 3 stunty teams worse than any of the others, especially Ogres.

So to go back a bit in LRB4 - FF had a purpose; it determined how much money you would make from a game directly. It was an overly complex system back then for working out winnings, but FF had a real purpose and making it grow was extremely valuable.

With Death Zone 2, Fan Factor once again has an advantage for teams who are seeking sponsorships and residency in stadiums. Sponsorships can bring you extra gold and additional benefits, so that helps balance out the TV bloat of FF (above and beyond in-game benefits.)

[garion]

@ JT-Y -
Seriously... If you insist on such pedantry any time a suggestion for improving the game is put forward, well its really not reflecting very well on your self or the current BBRC imo. To constantly just bat feedback away with ... "this is customisable"; makes a mockery of the rules.

So lets take your quote -

EXTRA RULES
All of the following extra rules are optional. This means that both coaches must agree which extra rules (if any) they are going to use before the match starts. However, they are all highly recommended and you’ll find that using them provides an even more exciting and interesting game without slowing down the mayhem and destruction much at all! Give ’em a try!

This quote precedes all player costing, kick off table, star players, the weather, going for it, handing off the ball. All the player skills. So please stop with the cop out replies. We all use all everything in the aforementioned list as part of the core rules.

After the rule book we have DZ 1 - after the team rosters which in your opinion are option rules apparently, we have in block letters along the top of the page -NEW OFFICIAL RULES, on this page there are a number of quotes I could pull from this page if I was so inclined, that point at the things from rule book 1 Extra Rules section that have to be followed to use these NEW OFFICIAL RULES.

Then after this section another clear delineation for OPTIONAL LEAGUE RULES and it clearly states - free fan factor is one of these OPTIONAL rules. Thus not a core rule.

Lets take a look at the new book again DZ2 it clearly separates "NEW OPTIONAL RULES" from the rest of the rules. There is a very clear and deliberate delineation here. Then after the "NEW OPTIONAL RULES" it says "NEW RULES" where it has more core inducement rules.

This delineation is true throughout each LRB and 2016 edition. There are the core rules, which i would describe as the recommended way to play the core game and standard leagues.

As you can see above there is a clear separation of the optional rules.

So now that I have got that out of the way I will continue to discuss the rules with the people making reasonable and rationale replies.

@garion

I agree that FF in generall is a little bit bloaty. And I also agree in your general point: "The only answer I can think of is it is there to artificially give experienced teams a small handicap"

I would add: Experienced teams and succesful coaches. Teams that keep losing will also drop in FF, giving them a very small advantage over successful teams (ie: better coaches) with higher FF. However, I don`t think the tax-bloat on performing well is a bad thing. If you have a goblin team at FF12 for instance that well performing coach imo deserves the very mild "penalty" that the core rules apply.

A flaw in league play is that better coaches will enhance their advantage over not as good players through team development (better skill picks, better bloat-management, getting more spp and more chances for that Block mummy or one +AG player or whatever). FF works the other way, penalizing the good player just a little bit. I don`t that is a bad thing.

Yes this is a valid point Straume, as you show above I raised this my self as one possible benefit. 'Cumulative player level costing' is the answer here, wherein the higher the level your players get to the more skills cost that way you get the success tax and you don't get the negative effects of FF when your team is destroyed.

It did not really bother me much in CRP as this was pretty rare I only had to retire 2 teams in a thousand+ games because of fan factor bloat. But this is still bad. Any rule that promotes team retirement rather than carrying on is a bad thing. There is no need for it to work this way. Now in the current core rules for league play you have to redraft. This is how the new BBRC have chosen to make attrition more even between all teams after PO was removed. The problem with redrafting is it punishes the weaker teams, and weaker coaches. If you lose all the time, score less, cause less cas you get less money. Its even worse still for stunty teams who are having to rehire players constantly on account of them being so squishy. So you get to the end of the season and have to sack your better players leaving you with a pretty weak squad, and not only that you lumbered with FF cost which often means you are better off retiring your battered team and picking a new one to avoid the pointless bloat.

@Milo - Stadium Rules are clearly marked as Optional Rules, so while you do not a good point and there are clear benefits there, it further supports my belief that FF costing should be part of the Optional Rules list and in the Core Rules should noted as free.

[Milo]

@garion:

I think I agree with you that the rules should be better categorized into core/optional. It would be helpful for starting coaches to do so. Unfortunately, books are already printed, and categorizing rules in a supplementary appendix or later DZ would be kludgy and ineffective. If, the next time a rulebook is printed, I'm in any position to make the recommendation that this be cleaned up, I'll certainly advocate for it.

That said, Blood Bowl is played in a variety of different ways, and there isn't a single "right" way to play it. Balance is really in the eye of the beholder, and there are simply too many variables in Blood Bowl to ever achieve true, 100% balance (especially with Nuffle's touch.) That's why the BB2016 rules (as well as older versions, as JT-Y has pointed out) are careful to say that the final arbiter of any rule is the League Commissioner or Tournament Organizer, or -- in one-off games -- whatever the two coaches agree on (and if they can't agree, dice-off.)

Consider that the average local or pub league probably has seasons that last 10-12 games. Fumbbl has teams that last hundreds of games. Tournaments generally only have between 3-6 games. Some leagues reset at the end of each season, others keep the same teams, and another group may mix both new and returning teams. Some leagues are played for the fun of the games with little emphasis on competitive balance; others eschew any sort of random buggery and aim for strict strategic play on the pitch. (I have indeed seen some leagues where the weather table and kickoff tables have been modified to make them less impactful.)

Back when I was on the BBRC (and please note that the current playtest and review group is NOT the BBRC and does not have the mandate that the BBRC does), Jervis' overriding goal was to try to ensure that the game was fun and as balanced as it could be at all levels. Great strides have been made since the early days of the BBRC to where we are now. The game is leaner and tighter than it was before, with fewer dice rolls needed, and TV is a much more focused way to weight teams and determine inducements to balance an indificual match than TR was. I know all about the bloat of having stars who have gained more star player points than skills.

I'll take your thoughts about FF applying to TV under advisement and I'll think about your position when reviewing future rules. But as I mentioned earlier, the Blood Bowl rules are NEVER going to be one-size-fits-all. For every person like yourself who thinks FF shouldn't impact TV, I guarantee you that there will be one other (potentially like @straume) who disagrees with you. Ultimately, all of the optional rules presented (including the league format, star player points, injuries, etc.) are just a set of suggestions. We try to make sure that those suggestions are, in themselves, balanced and fun and designed to build a healthy league environment, but this isn't chess. Even games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Cataan have tons of different ways to play them. Which way is the right way? That's really up to the people playing it.

I think that's really what JT-Y keeps calling your attention to. The rules already have two suggested ways to play the game vis a vis Fan Factor: either to have it purchasable and a part of team value, or to have it be free and be outside the team value. You're asking the BB2016 game to plant a flag in the sand for one of those two options, but we are already providing both of them, clearly mentioned in the rulebooks, and I don't think there is an appetite to make a change between the two of those right now. The default is to add it to TV -- but the writers recognize that many people don't want to do that, and they provide an alternative set of rules for people who don't.

You could just as easily say that a team can reduce their Fan Factor at any time, at their discretion. After all, you can fire or retire any other part of your team at will, and it's easy to imagine ways in which a team could alienate some of their fan base if they wanted to. (Or even if they didn't -- just look at the NFL and all the dumb things teams and athletes do to hurt their own reputations.) That would be consistent with other parts of team development, and would prevent FF bloat from ever forcing a team to retire. (Although frankly, I can't imagine ever retiring a team because of FF bloat -- I think you and I play the game very differently, which is further evidence that it's impossible to find a single over-reaching ruleset that will be 100% acceptable to everyone. I've never min-maxed a team to the point of trying to maximize inducements.)

[garion]

I think the books are pretty well organised in to core and optional, there is no confusion on my side, as my previous post shows things are separated well. The only part that is questionable really is the bit in the Extra Rules section where it says everything is optional now, then goes on to give the rules for the absolute most basic stuff, all player costing, kick off table, star players, the weather, going for it, handing off the ball, injuries. Which should be part of the Core Rules really. Then if you want later on provide ways you can adjust these things in an optional section. But that's just splitting hairs really as this is pretty much what we have in reality.

I do agree with a lot of what you say. I know there is no "right" way to play the game. That is all fine with me. All I am trying to get across is the flaws (as i see them) with the "core rules" as these are the rules that will be used most often, even if one group changes one thing and another group changes another small thing, the main rules at the centre of it will be the most frequently used across most groups and they should be the most solid.

I am also not asking for 100% balance. As I have said before, I enjoy the tier system in blood bowl, I also like luck factors outside of the game it self, such as skill rolls and some luck, dicey things are fine as long as they don't go over the top fanatics etc.. are a good example of a dicey player that are fun and not imbalanced in anyway. I am also all for optional rules such as the stadium rules, famous referees etc... it can be fun every now and again to play a complete dicey version of the game. However the core rules are where the greatest balance lies and where the rules are most competitive. Ultimately it is the complexity and depth of Blood Bowl that has kept the game so playable for 30 years, go to far down the dicey path and the game will die.

________________

Where I am in complete disagreement with you is I believe the core rules can and should be a one size fits all rule set. It absolutely can and should appeal to the person playing for fun and getting drunk while they play and also appeal to the competitive gamer, who enjoys winning. Once you have got an extremely good rule set then you can add as much fluffy stuff around it as you like for optional rules. Stick random mutations in an optional rule section, weapons for players, assassins, heck stick custard pies in for flings if you really want, as long as they stay in the "optional" section. Then this stuff does not effect those people that want to leave the dafter stuff out the game. While the core games remains solid and the most competitive.

Just for example - you said you would never retire a team because of FF bloat, but that is no reason that the rules should encourage team retirement for those people that are more competitive than you and more TV conscious. To you the person that is just playing for laughs this rule change would make no difference at all. To me having a team 120 TV higher than it should be is a huge handicap when you are already in the dog house after having a team destroyed. Sorry I just don't see the fun there. For the people that want the "winners handicap" that FF provides, there are plenty of other ways to achieve this without encouraging team retirement. Lets say a new group plays through a couple of seasons with standard rules and then find them selves in this exact predicament, I don't think it would go down well if they then started asking for rules to be adjusted mid season.

Similarly you said that you would not min max for inducements, and that's fine, but really that just means the cost of such things have little bearing on you. So it really doesn't matter exactly how much stuff costs to the "non competitive". Then for the competitive gamer ensuring that these things are costed appropriately is very important. The new wizard is a good example really if he only had 1 shot he would be costed appropriately. But it also doesn't appear to have been considered how this new wizard can be gamed by TV leaders. There is no reason the new rules couldn't have provided a wizard that was more balanced, taking all things in to account.

In short - I think there can be a near perfect core rule set that would suit all. With a bunch of adjustable things and optional extras for the less hardcore. It is achievable and what should be being aimed for.

Anyway. I will continue feeding back any flaws as I see them. They will all be referring to the core rule set. As this is what effects me most.

[bound for glory]

Another thing that is sadly missing from DZ 2 - Secret Weapon rolls are still missing from the game. Sure we get Finka instead for goblins but this is still a very sad omission for me.

Oh yea, I thought I was missing something. Wasn't there a roll involved to see if they get sent off? How do they work in BB2016? Secret weapons go on the pitch and are then just removed after a drive or half?

In LRB4 there was a roll to determine whether or not a secret weapon was sent off. In LRB5 and CRP this was removed for a rule in which they are auto sent off.

I was just hopeful they would revert to the superior rule of rolling SW roll to see if they were sent it. It was IMO a far superior rule. Many many people still use it this day because of how limiting straight sending off is for a number of reasons.

Just another missed opportunity to improve the game here imo.

Our league plays the old style "Penalty roll".

This will be our first league "season" with the new game, and we did'nt even have to vote on it. Mean to say, the penalty roll adds to the wacky-ness that makes Blood Bowl well, Blood Bowl. Here's a guy with a chainsaw, and the Ref may or may not house the nutter what has it. Thats Blood Bowl.

If you are playing tourney's, I guess go by the rules as written. But why were the penalty rolls taken out of the game to begin with?