Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements.

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dode74
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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by dode74 »

Darkson wrote:I do care that from my own personal experience, that team-building is more boring than it was in older versions. This idea may, or may not be on the right lines to "correct" that. Same goes for traits.
And your personal experience may be objectively correct - hopefully we will get the data to find out. I think before we decide what the correct solution is we need to first define what we want that solution to do. The concept needs to come first. Is it to make some skills more/less appealing, more/less available and/or more/less powerful? Without a concept we've got no direction really.

@ garion
That will not happen. At the moment FF punishes teams that try and do this. You cannot keep recycling players or you will end up having a team that has a 120 TV or more that is spent on nothing other than FF which would help mitigate this to a point.
That assumes they will win the games they try to do this on.
I get what you are saying but this is not something that happened in LRB4 so why would it suddenly happen now?
There are several possible reasons, all linked to appeal of certain skills now rather than their availability.

The main issue I have is that this makes such skills available to bash teams and unavailable to agi ones - there is no comeback at all for them. An all S access team will have a 1/6 chance of getting towards the combo every time they level up. A partial S access team (zons, humans) will only have that chance when one of the S access players levels (typically 4 players).
there isn't enough luck in team development at the moment this is why it is so 1 dimensional now and also why skilling up is no longer as exciting as it was previously.
I think you've leapt to a conclusion there. Team building may turn out to be one dimensional (data pending), but there is no evidence that this is due to a lack of luck in the rolls - you said yourself that many teams are turning down doubles, so that isn't necessarily the case. It's more likely that some development paths are both more desirable and more easily attainable. If you reduce one then you need to maintain the other, and in this case nerfing PO would mean a need to maintain its availability. Personally I prefer that option to reducing availability, mainly because to have one very powerful skill (the most powerful, according to you) available solely on the basis of a lucky skillup reduces the coaching ability factor from deciding game results and places more emphasis on those skillups. Very powerful skillups (stat boosts) are already very limited, but are at least available to everyone.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by Darkson »

Well, I don't care if it's in the New Concepts or House Rules forum, seeing as both pretty much mean the same now.

I want a concept that fixes the problem as I see it, which is that team-building is one-dimensional.


(There, don't need to prove anything now. :wink: )

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dode74
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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by dode74 »

Didn't ask you to :P

What I did ask is what we want the concept to do though. I know what the problem (purportedly) is with a bit more definition. What is "one-dimensional" about team builds right now?

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by mattgslater »

dode74 wrote:What I did ask is what we want the concept to do though. I know what the problem (purportedly) is with a bit more definition. What is "one-dimensional" about team builds right now?
1) Since you can only build on your stars, most teams end up with a lot of rookies. (Sorry, Hito, but the days of maintaining 4x Block/Guard BOBs are as over as the days of maintaining 4x 76SPP ones; you get 2-3 skilled BOBs at any given time, once you've hit peak. Once you get the 4th one, you know the day is coming for one of more of them.) Rookies all have the same set of improvements, you know? Young players also have short skill memory: it's only experienced players that have weird stuff.

2) You can only build on your stars because of one skill combo. If you don't take that skill combo, you have to either take a counter to that combo, or just a set of power skills. Since the combo is a blocking combo, then mostly, the counters to the combo are defensive blocking skills. The best power skills are ... wait for it ... defensive blocking skills. There are a lot of defensive blocking skills, too.

Oh, and Simon, most online coaches are TT coaches too. Yes, TV-based MM formats are hit harder than others, and magnify the impact, but the problem is a question of distribution, and is also magnified in some house leagues.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by garion »

dode74 wrote:hopefully we will get the data to find out. I think before we decide what the correct solution is we need to first define what we want that solution to do.
Yawn :zzz:

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by dode74 »

@ mattgslater
Ok, so the hypothesis is that teams are one dimensional because only the stars are built on and lots of rookies are taken in teams. We can measure that by looking at teams and seeing if that is the case compared to LRB 4 (as a baseline for "not one dimensional"). Hopefully the data I get from Cyanide will assist in that, if it ever comes.

Whether this is because of cpomb is a step further than I, for one (and possibly the only one, I accept :P ), am willing to go just yet. What we may be able to do is look at the data from Cyanide, and if that combo shows up a lot then we can reasonably say that this may be the case.

@ garion
Thank you for your useful comment :roll:

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by mattgslater »

Maybe the solution is not in changing CPOMB, or perhaps only tweaking it (see my idea about Claw needing leverage, and therefore not working if user is prone), and then buffing the Apothecary.

Apothecary: One use per game, take your pick:

A) Smelling Salts. Move any Badly Hurt or KO player to reserves, immediately after KOs are (or would be) rolled.
B) Emergency Procedures. Immediately after a Cas is suffered (after determining the roll), roll 1d6.
1: Fail. Original roll stands.
2-3: Badly Hurt.
4-6: Reserves.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by garion »

mattgslater wrote:Maybe the solution is not in changing CPOMB, or perhaps only tweaking it (see my idea about Claw needing leverage, and therefore not working if user is prone), and then buffing the Apothecary.

Apothecary: One use per game, take your pick:

A) Smelling Salts. Move any Badly Hurt or KO player to reserves, immediately after KOs are (or would be) rolled.
B) Emergency Procedures. Immediately after a Cas is suffered (after determining the roll), roll 1d6.
1: Fail. Original roll stands.
2-3: Badly Hurt.
4-6: Reserves.

I agree with the first part. As said before I think traits would solve a lot of the problems with this edition really.

Not sure you can buff the apoth again. As you know it was nerfed to help keep teams in check after ageing was removed. Also you can now get 3 apoths per team when using inducements, 3 guarenteed saves is HUGE.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by mattgslater »

The problem is that too many things were done to counteract ageing. If they all work as intended, you get overload. So tone each of them down a little bit. Maybe change that "2-3: Badly Hurt" to "2-3: MNG" instead? It's still a lot weaker than the Apos of old, because it has no tactical power: your guy comes off the pitch no matter what.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by dode74 »

The problem is that too many things were done to counteract ageing. If they all work as intended, you get overload.
Unless that was the intention in order to increase player turnover to enable PBBL.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by garion »

mattgslater wrote:The problem is that too many things were done to counteract ageing. If they all work as intended, you get overload. So tone each of them down a little bit. Maybe change that "2-3: Badly Hurt" to "2-3: MNG" instead? It's still a lot weaker than the Apos of old, because it has no tactical power: your guy comes off the pitch no matter what.
Dode is correct. I'm sure that was the intention. On top of ageing you also had LRB4 fouling which was ALOT more powerful, so something was needed to help player turn over in that respect too. Unfortunately it all seems to have landed with a couple of teams rather than being spread out evenly. This is why fouling was such a good tool, everyone could do it if they wanted to build players that way and everyone had a tool to hurt dangerous players. Now CPOMB teams are just uber powerful, POMB teams are quite powerful and the rest can only play ball unless you build elves to have MB PO as well. Elves with MB PO is something that I hate and to me feels totaly wrong same goes for ridiculous stunty teams that now take PO for all their doubles. Its just daft. If every team had a way of hurting people, namely fouling, there wouldnt be this need for completely out of character skill selection and alo this boring one dimensional team building where all teams are now much the same as eachother.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by Hitonagashi »

garion wrote:Now CPOMB teams are just uber powerful, POMB teams are quite powerful and the rest can only play ball unless you build elves to have MB PO as well.
The only teams without mb/po access on normals are elves...who are actually quite good at playing ball y'know?

One thing I will say...nerf MB/PO and you *need* to nerf inducements. Give me an elf team with 500k inducements, and I'll rip a mbpo team a new one on the scoreboard currently. If you destroy the power of the combination, then inducements are too good.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by garion »

Hitonagashi wrote:
garion wrote:Now CPOMB teams are just uber powerful, POMB teams are quite powerful and the rest can only play ball unless you build elves to have MB PO as well.
The only teams without mb/po access on normals are elves...who are actually quite good at playing ball y'know?

One thing I will say...nerf MB/PO and you *need* to nerf inducements. Give me an elf team with 500k inducements, and I'll rip a clawmbpo team a new one on the scoreboard currently. If you destroy the power of the combination, then inducements are too good.
I was also talking about the hybrid teams as well really. The versatile teams dont get too much joy out of it either really. Like Lizardmen for example, though still a great team, I find it very very hard to Pile On with their Sauriii because one St4 player down can leave big holes in your team. Same story for Khemri. Also Slann can't really take advantage of the skill so well, because their blitzers are insanely priced and generally function better with blodge guard and SS. Humans are another team that can have it, though their low Av alround makes it very tough for them to keep their killers alive for long. Undead while great at a low TV dont have a great answer to teams that can CPOMB en masse or out guard them en masse at a high TV, they really miss fouling big time.

Yeah Elves are good at playing ball. But I would like to be able to hurt people with them too, obviously not as reliably as a bash team, but with good positioning and out blocking a team and causing more cas as a result - as was the way in lrb4. Now this is far harder to achieve because everyone is pilling On all the time, and the best way for them to fight back is get pilling on. Which is just dumb imo and again reinforces the problem that I have with these rules - linear skill selection and that all teams have become too similar now.

I agree with you about the inducements though, the main cuplrit for me is the wizard really. This is why I would prefer the old lightning back that can only be used on the side lines, instead of used anywhere. In lrb4 the spell that could be used anywhere was a 4+ to hit (zap) now it is a 2+. But also if you nerf the CPOMB teams by nerfing PO then I suspect these teams would actually start faring a little better against elves by taking more tackle, tentacles etc... and less focus on bash stack to deal with dwarves or orcs etc... This is certainly what I would prefer to see, again more in line with lrb4, so we would have more of an even contest between all the bash teams and for the hyper bash teams to have more chance than they currently do against elves.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by dode74 »

I'm not sure I agree with your summary regarding the hybrids, garion. Khemri have Blitz-Ras to take PO, there are 6 Saurii as well as the Krox (surely one or two of them going down isn't debilitating?), and if Slann and Human players choose to not use MB/PO on at least one player then it's clearly not that powerful! If a hybrid team is trying to outbash a bash team then the problem is that the coach isn't playing to his strengths which, in that case, would be the A access players.
That said, I still think that better fouling would be a good thing.

As for hurting people with elves, it happens because doubles happen - it just doesn't happen as regularly as it does for teams with organic S access. One of my DE blitzers (7448 Blodge MB Tackle SS) got 13 cas in 9 games last season, 5 of which were in one game. He got the most violent award for the division.

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Re: Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements

Post by garion »

I'm not saying hybrid teams cant hurt people, for me hybrid teams are usually the toughest ones for elves to face. But CPOMB teams typically wipe the floor with these teams more often than not. The problem is the CPOMB combo has led to soo much focus around that one style of play that the hybrid teams have to build first and foremost to defend against that combo. Hence Lizardmen teams with 6 Blodge Saurus, it's boring, it doesn't fit their team fluff very well. For me it is a loss of individuality. Hito asked a few posts back how I would have built them differently with 7 doubles. In lrb4 I would have went 1 frenzy and stand firm, 2 Stand Firm, 2 Dodge, and another frenzy. Which is far more interesting and more in keeping with what a lizardman team should be. But now in CRP I would have done exactly the same as hito all blodge, this seems to be true of most teams now.

And yes you gave an example of a killer dark elf. We can all do that but I am talking generally, when playing against dark elves more so than the other elves in lrb4 - they could completely dominate the bash vs teams like Chaos Dwarves, through good positioning, just a couple of guard players, and their ability to be flexible in blocking wars eg..dodging guard players in to the right place to start block chains etc... This just doesn't seem to happen anymore, because the focus in more on the defensive now and based more on attrition. For me the whole positional side of the game has far decreased in importance over lrb4, which was my favourite part. CRP has probably benfited my play style more than anything but I still prefered lrb4s higher focus on positioning rather than on attrition and hyper ball.

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