Why I hate "fun"

[Heff]

Do the redrafting rules not help with this big-team issue?

They definitely do.

Do you think they could benefit online leagues and matchmaking leagues (suitably modified for MM)?

If there was a "Subjective season" code written. Where every team in MM resets after 12 games then I might get involved. Only problem I can see is that the min-maxing would be even more furious than it is at the moment.

Basically the game is NOT DESIGNED to be played in perpetual leagues. It is designed for you to play a round robin with your mates for a dozen or so games and then get bored and try another team.

[nazgob]

I think I disagree on that point. If the game weren't designed to run in perpetual leagues, you wouldn't be able to get a skill at 176SPP.

I think there is no wrong way to play; it's all valid.

However, what we need to ensure is clear buy in from all parties and clear messaging so that everyone knows and understands. It's a fairly key element of expectation management. If you're told you will get X but get A, it'll cause problems.

[Heff]

The problem is that the game was designed BI (Before Internet) and so by the time you had played enough games for 100 spp between 76 and 176 you would be old and grey.
Now you can do it in a month.

Sites like FUMBBL test the rules to distruction. Clawpomb for example. No problem in short leagues tournaments or tabletop. Online it broke the game.

I think that 176 was set as an impossible dream level.

[Dionysian]

Clawpomb for example. No problem in short leagues tournaments or tabletop. Online it broke the game.

BB's own version of Godwin's Law.

Your original points were valid and worthy of serious discussion. A clawpomb diversion will just derail your thread though as someone posts stats showing that it objectively isn't broken as clawpomb-kill-teams' perfomance barely rises above mediocre. Those of us who have won championships and leagues in online perpetual will mostly chime in to back up those stats with our subjective experience. The unwashed masses will rise up to complain it must be broken cos a beastman touched them in a naughty place - and then get enraged when told the answer is simply "Git Gud".

That usually continues for 10-20 pages and any valid points from earlier in the thread are forgotten.

[Darkson]

There's already a thread for Clawpomb whining, sorry, discussion, if anyone does it here a mod can just move it.

[Heff]

There's already a thread for Clawpomb whining, sorry, discussion, if anyone does it here a mod can just move it.

Yeah that was a schoolboy error

[lunchmoney]

There's already a thread for Clawpomb whining, sorry, discussion, if anyone does it here a mod can just move it.

Except the only mod around here is me* and I only mod the tourney section.


*loki pokes his head around, I'm sure.

[dode74]

If there was a "Subjective season" code written. Where every team in MM resets after 12 games then I might get involved. Only problem I can see is that the min-maxing would be even more furious than it is at the moment.

That's the sort of option I was looking at (not that it will ever happen!). 20-25 match subjective season per team followed by a redraft.

Basically the game is NOT DESIGNED to be played in perpetual leagues. It is designed for you to play a round robin with your mates for a dozen or so games and then get bored and try another team.

LRB5/6, designers' note:

• The version you are now reading is the PBBL (Perpetual Blood Bowl League) edition,

It was designed for it, just not particularly well initially. I suspect Seasons will make it much better for long-running leagues.

[Domfluff]

For what it's worth, I profoundly reject the idea that "competitive" games can't have a high degree of randomisation.

It's a correlation often made, and I think it's nonsense. Poker is a competitive game with a ridiculous amount of variance, that you have to manage over iterated hands. There are many other examples (Advanced Squad Leader, Battletech, etc.) which are far from "random", yet involve a ton of random elements.

In a competitive game, it's only required that the players have enough agency that the better ones will win more.

Now, special play cards. Ignoring the new issue of the pseudo-deckbuilding you can do now (how do you know *which* Random Events are in that deck, since they've since added more with the same backs), and whether any of them are overpowered, I think the main issue here is the hidden information.

Blood Bowl is a game with zero hidden information. It's theoretically possible to calculate every possible move, and work out the percentage chance of failure, and then to trim that information down into the ones that actually progress your boardstate in a meaningful way.

The thing that stops Blood Bowl being solvable are the dice - since you can only judge things by positioning and probability, you could (given enough time) work out the best set of moves, but you can never guarantee that they'll actually work - this means the game is about juggling those numbers and pushing things in the right direction, allowing for failure and adjusting on the fly.

If you add an element of hidden information in there, this goes out of the window. You can never be entirely in control of your board state and the risk you accept, since every move of every player has a question mark over it.

I get the point of the special play cards - they were a rules-light way to introduce a lot of the 2nd edition expansion craziness back into third edition, without overloading the players or the rulebook. I do think that they're a nice way to introduce some variance into a game series with the same two teams - playing casually, but I personally think they have no place in anything that's moderately serious.

Down with this sort of thing, etc.

[dode74]

^ Good post

[Joemanji]

^ Agreed.

[Domfluff]

Hey Joe, didn't get a chance to poke you at Cakebowl

Well done for dispatching the various Bristol folk on your way up.

[Domfluff]

On topic though - I wonder whether you would solve any and all of these problems, simply by having the cards face up?

I imagine you'd still buy them blind as inducements (presumably with the CRP prices), but held openly. That way you'd still have the "put the crazy stuff back in" that the cards were designed to do, but you'd remove the "gotcha" elements and the hidden information that pushes the known-unknowns out of the window.

They would absolutely increase the variance, and you might have to remove some of the cards who would lose their functionality when known, but I could see that working at least.

[peo2223]

It is a well made point and I support the premise as a whole. However for me cards have a place in the game as much as anything else. Cards at best will change one event by removing one player or adding a short lived advantage. The best cards have a potential for backfire (like using a bomb with goblins) and the better player will on the whole win out regardless of what cards were played.

The cards are optional. For me they add an element that can't really be planned for which makes it fun. I don't play for the mathematical chances of success. I do play to win, but also to see fun events that defy the odds like a snotling killing a minotaur. The reaction to events like these test the character of those playing .

I would rather lose laughing than win because it all went to plan.This is a game and I understand that people play for different reasons. Cards should always be considered and if used embraced, not rejected as inferior.

[Joemanji]

Yeah totally down with that Peo. Cards are fun for many, and it's only tournaments where I don't want to see them forced into use. The occasional tournament - that I can choose not to go to - is fine of course, but if they became the norm I'd be really sad.

Hey Joe, didn't get a chance to poke you at Cakebowl

Well done for dispatching the various Bristol folk on your way up.

Thanks!