How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

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Shteve0
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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by Shteve0 »

Smeborg wrote:Steve - I give one example of the NAF not taking an opportunity to lead. It was when they declined to have anything to do with the Khorne team. IMO they could have easily chosen to include Khorne as an official or semi-official race for rankings purposes (after some sort of orderly trial period). To my surprise they took the "do nothing" option, albeit with a lot of accompanying hot air.

All the best.
In this particular scenario I think the reasoning is that assurances were sought that the team in question would remain stable and unchanged, and that those assurances still haven't been secured.

Regardless of the ins and outs of that scenario though, it seems to me that there's absolutely no way the NAF can avoid criticism in the situation you describe. If the commitee had green-lit the new roster it would have been open to accusations of uncritically letting cyanide dictate the tabletop game's direction; if they hold off until there's a clearer picture then they're accused both of assuming they own and control the rules, and at the same that they are failing to lead.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by Smeborg »

Shteve0 wrote:
Smeborg wrote:Steve - I give one example of the NAF not taking an opportunity to lead. It was when they declined to have anything to do with the Khorne team. IMO they could have easily chosen to include Khorne as an official or semi-official race for rankings purposes (after some sort of orderly trial period). To my surprise they took the "do nothing" option, albeit with a lot of accompanying hot air.

All the best.
In this particular scenario I think the reasoning is that assurances were sought that the team in question would remain stable and unchanged, and that those assurances still haven't been secured.

Regardless of the ins and outs of that scenario though, it seems to me that there's absolutely no way the NAF can avoid criticism in the situation you describe. If the commitee had green-lit the new roster it would have been open to accusations of uncritically letting cyanide dictate the tabletop game's direction; if they hold off until there's a clearer picture then they're accused both of assuming they own and control the rules, and at the same that they are failing to lead.
Of course Cyanide will not give assurances of the team remaining stable. That is simply commercial reality, and the NAF got the reply they knew they would get.

Barring major events (GW selling BB etc.) I don't see any changes being made to the rules of the tabletop game in the future, except to align with changes already made in the online game.

All the best.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by Shteve0 »

I didn't say the NAF got a reply.

Where Cyanide are concerned, at the moment we're trying to feel our way into a relationship and ascertain what their plans are - and I for one am reluctant to see that the NAF codifies rules for tabletop that aren't in any published or available rulebook (previous roster adds notwithstanding) and could be changed on us at a future date without warning. In the interim I think the CRP (ie the last published ruleset) and the three already covered races is a reasonable resting point until the intentions of Cyanide and GW are clearer. We're in a totally new situation here - the fact is we don't have the information and short of a breakthrough in our comms with Cyanide we're in a bit of a lock until a fuller picture emerges.

I'm not entirely sure what alternative you would have us pursue.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by swilhelm73 »

harvestmouse wrote:
Honestly, I think you're a little deluded. If one of these CPOMB teams roll's good (not even exceptional) dice for half a half, there is absolutely nothing you can do. They are broken, it's as simple as that.
And yet Chaos, the CLPOMBiest team has...a below average winning percentage. The top teams being elves and hybrid teams. So someone is doing something right against CLPOMB even when the latter is rolling good...
harvestmouse wrote:I think from some of the comments you've made you're a little naive about the big lakes out there.....sorry.
LOL. I've been playing this game for 25 years. I think I might understand it pretty well.
harvestmouse wrote:However it is related to CPOMB, it's not the format.
And yet Orcs are more common then...Chaos...
harvestmouse wrote: Leagues suffer from it too. Weakening this combo (or just POMB actually) is necessary, and would happen I'm pretty sure if we had an update.
But even with CLPOMB and POMB as they are right now, agile teams already win more then bash teams. So weakening bash teams is rather...pointless.

I guess you could do something to rein in the agile teams as well to pair with nerfing damage skills - something to weaken dodging significantly? Of course then you'd be back to the eternal dwarves and orcs that annoyed people prior to the current claw. But then why make this change in the first place?

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by harvestmouse »

1. Not at high TV. It's not necessarily how much they win, it's the damage done from one source. In abundance it's a negative environment. It's also a high coin toss environment.

2. This is a new problem, we didn't have this 'exact' problem 25 years ago. I'm not doubting your experience, I'm not doubting your League. However it's a small pond with big seas out there. Social interactions make TT groups much easier to control. Damaging the group is damaging yourself. It's much easier to see. However playing against strangers or online is totally different and individuals do not look at the group or game as a whole.

3. Orcs should be more common, but are not more common at high TV. At high TV Orcs do very badly against Chaos.

4. What would be ideal is to decrease the potency of that combo and increase the potency of another way of damaging players. Fouling appears to be the obvious choice. This means that teams and results would be less 1 dimensional. And that teams could focus on different ways of removing players from the field.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by MattDakka »

swilhelm73 wrote: And yet Chaos, the CLPOMBiest team has...a below average winning percentage. The top teams being elves and hybrid teams. So someone is doing something right against CLPOMB even when the latter is rolling good...
The below average winning percentage can be due to:
1) A lot of bad coaches play clawpomb teams because they can't play complex tactics, thus clawpomb becomes the path of least resistance to win, but they can't play it well enough to win. This doesn't mean that in the hand of average or better coaches clawpomb is not a problem.
2) Since clawpomb teams are very popular mirror matches are common, and every time a mirror match happens the win rate goes to 50%.
swilhelm73 wrote: LOL. I've been playing this game for 25 years. I think I might understand it pretty well.
Have you played a lot of online high TV matchmaking?
If not, your 25 years could not help you.
First play a lot of high TV matchmaking, then talk.
swilhelm73 wrote: And yet Orcs are more common then...Chaos...
Not at high TV, Chaos and Nurgle are the most common teams there.
On Cyanide you used to play vs a lot of Dwarfs at mid-low TV, Orcs at mid TV, then a lot of Chaos and Nurgle at high TV.
swilhelm73 wrote: But even with CLPOMB and POMB as they are right now, agile teams already win more then bash teams. So weakening bash teams is rather...pointless.
Although agile teams win more than bash teams this doesn't make clawpomb a no-issue, hybrid teams suffer vs clawpomb, and even agile teams can lose, because developed clawpombers have Tackle as well.
Anyway, winning % doesn't tell the whole story, the simple fact you could spend 1 hour by playing vs a boring clawpomb spammer without enough players to move and try something is what should encourage a clawpomb nerf.
swilhelm73 wrote: I guess you could do something to rein in the agile teams as well to pair with nerfing damage skills - something to weaken dodging significantly? Of course then you'd be back to the eternal dwarves and orcs that annoyed people prior to the current claw. But then why make this change in the first place?
A smart Ageing could bring enough attrition to Orcs and Dwarfs and it would work without need of assigning the task of attrition-dealers to clawpomb teams, like in CRP.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by dode74 »

If there is a problem with cpomb it is not the potency but the variance. Some games it can have too much effect while other games it can have too little, but on average it is about right. If you're going to change it then you need to keep the probability about the same while reducing the variance. That may prove an issue if d6 are to be kept.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by MattDakka »

dode74 wrote:If there is a problem with cpomb it is not the potency but the variance. Some games it can have too much effect while other games it can have too little, but on average it is about right. If you're going to change it then you need to keep the probability about the same while reducing the variance. That may prove an issue if d6 are to be kept.
Ok but some teams have a lot of clawpombers, so even with average rolls they will deal a lot of damage.
1-2 Clawpombers can be contained, more than 2 are problematic.
A game requiring on average 1 hour to be played like BB can't be reduced to AV/Inj dice throwing only, it's dumbing down it in a detrimental manner.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by dode74 »

If 1-2 can be contained now then more can be contained with lower variance.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by plasmoid »

Hi Swilhelm,
I don't know the absolute truth here, but I'd like to add some nuances at least:
And yet Chaos, the CLPOMBiest team has...a below average winning percentage.
Well, at low Team Value, where they haven't developed their CPOMB (or indeed any other basic skills) they do suck pretty bad. So if you do the math on lifetime performance, you're not gonna get very good results.
And if you isolate their high TV performance, then Nurgle and Chaos (and the mirror matches) can really drive performance down. For example in the old box at TV1800+ 35% of the games played were played by Chaos or Nurgle.
But even with CLPOMB and POMB as they are right now, agile teams already win more then bash teams. So weakening bash teams is rather...pointless.
Perhaps. Unless you want to do something for the teams that aren't elfs.
Another possibility is that in this meta, skill selection is largely about survival, because otherwize your team will get torn apart. Now, elfs were all about survival skills anyway. But more importantly, if everyone else pick lots of survival skills, then they will not be picking the kind of skills that make life harsh for elfs. Like back in the day where there was room for Tackle - or Diving Tackle on bold doubles.
Maybe if the meta (i.e. CPOMB) changes, then elf hunting skills can come back in style.
I guess you could do something to rein in the agile teams as well to pair with nerfing damage skills - something to weaken dodging significantly? Of course then you'd be back to the eternal dwarves and orcs that annoyed people prior to the current claw. But then why make this change in the first place?
Why? To help the teams that are neither CPOMB nor Elven.
I must admit that if I had control of the CRP+ as well as a large online League at my fingertips just to see what happens, I'd be very interested in seeing how a nerf to Claw, Piling On and Dodge would pan out.
But I don't.

Cheers
Martin

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by plasmoid »

I don't know if there is any way to track that, but I've been wondering about those elven performance stats.

In a League you are "forced" to finish your Schedule. If your elf team gets train wrecked in game 2 out of 10, then you have a lot of hard games ahead.
In a TV-matched online "League", you can just ditch your wrecked team, conserving the high win percentage before the losses come in.

Cheers
Martin

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by dode74 »

plasmoid wrote:I don't know if there is any way to track that, but I've been wondering about those elven performance stats.

In a League you are "forced" to finish your Schedule. If your elf team gets train wrecked in game 2 out of 10, then you have a lot of hard games ahead.
In a TV-matched online "League", you can just ditch your wrecked team, conserving the high win percentage before the losses come in.

Cheers
Martin
Occ data chart:
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Elves seem to do just fine even when forced to finish the season.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by MattDakka »

dode74 wrote:If 1-2 can be contained now then more can be contained with lower variance.
Yes, I was talking about the current clawpomb, with average rolls 3 or more clawpombers hurt.

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by crimsonsun »

CPOMB is far easier to deal with effectively than Elves that don't roll 1's and Ma10 Sprinting Ag4/5 leapers though obviously that's very meta dependant because these things only become important when winning is the aim/goal constantly. Which is where I feel your fix should be, the damage dealing abilities of teams really cannot afford to be penalised any further while retaining the name Blood Bowl, sure it would be Elf bowl or just EA Sports instead.

Ageing is simply not a solution because its Massively going to favour Elves who are already winning as many if not more long term ongoing leagues than bash or hybrid sides though I wouldn't say its imbalanced at all the results are fairly even for the types of teams winning. If I use the example expected to be a option in Cyanides BB2 then a player can have a maximum of 96 games before they must retire. Now 96 games is plenty to level up a Elven positional, or a Gutter Runner, Blitzer, Vampire, Wolf or other active positional player type but 96 games for a Skeleton, Zombie, Lineman , Black Orc, Big Guy, or Tomb Guardian is not that long at all. These players have a real difficult time getting SPP on the board any ways so to have them leave though no in game mechanic or system that you can in any way alter or effect once they've actually achieved a Star or higher level of ability is plain spiteful, let alone thematically questionable (elves, UNDEAD, Dwarfs, times not even a dimension in the realms of chaos).

I also don't understand why Agility coaches complain about CPOMB because outside of a single player type to have that combo along with Block and Jump up (which is needed to deal repeated casualties each turn as is said happens) is 5/6 possible skill choices meaning some hard choices need to be made by the killer while Elves or teams with Fodder players, can screen against them all day long Wrestle, Dodge Fend in your face, even better add some side step.. Also every CPOMB piece is one less Guard, one Less Tackle, one less Prehensile Tail, one less Disturbing Presence, less Stand Firm, Less Tackle Zones, even less leaping, long legged,blodge, ag5, passblockers. POMB Juggs, Tackle Blitzers are trouble for Elves of course but these come normally on the teams that have the prime targets of CPOMB so while they are great at hunting Agility, they are also being hunted in response. However personally if I see a chaos/Nurgle/Chaos Dwarf team with CPOMB on its warriors or more than a pair of beasts I know that they are going to need those handful (2-4) of blitzes I cannot protect against to remove my blockers from the game or I will dominate them.. CPOMB is great and has the 2nd best injury ratio we can achieve in Blood Bowl, however the best ratio is sending those isolated due to too many PO players, key supporting members of said team into the loving embrace of the crowd.

Anyway rant over, suggestion for a direction of a fix, make winning something coaches should actively be seeking in all competitive (obviously handicapped sides and comedy comps can play for there own motivations) gaming environments. Now I'm not sure the way to achieve this but it would be its very nature sort out any lopsided meta created by matched TV unscheduled match making style games.

Thanks for reading
crimsonsun

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Re: How to fix claws, MiB, PO within the rules:

Post by MattDakka »

crimsonsun wrote:CPOMB is far easier to deal with effectively than Elves that don't roll 1's and Ma10 Sprinting Ag4/5 leapers though obviously that's very meta dependant because these things only become important when winning is the aim/goal constantly. Which is where I feel your fix should be, the damage dealing abilities of teams really cannot afford to be penalised any further while retaining the name Blood Bowl, sure it would be Elf bowl or just EA Sports instead.
Blood Bowl has more than just Elves and Clawpombers.
High TV Clawpomb screws hybrid and bash, also, if the poor clawpomb spammers don't build a couple of tacklepombers it not agile teams' fault, but just theirs. When Tackle is present Elves suddenly lose their powerful Dodge advantage.
crimsonsun wrote:Ageing is simply not a solution because its Massively going to favour Elves who are already winning as many if not more long term ongoing leagues than bash or hybrid sides though I wouldn't say its imbalanced at all the results are fairly even for the types of teams winning. If I use the example expected to be a option in Cyanides BB2 then a player can have a maximum of 96 games before they must retire. Now 96 games is plenty to level up a Elven positional, or a Gutter Runner, Blitzer, Vampire, Wolf or other active positional player type but 96 games for a Skeleton, Zombie, Lineman , Black Orc, Big Guy, or Tomb Guardian is not that long at all. These players have a real difficult time getting SPP on the board any ways so to have them leave though no in game mechanic or system that you can in any way alter or effect once they've actually achieved a Star or higher level of ability is plain spiteful, let alone thematically questionable (elves, UNDEAD, Dwarfs, times not even a dimension in the realms of chaos).
Ageing has not to be based necessarily on matches played, it could be based on SPPs for example, this way only the fast gaining SPPs player (generally ball carriers, catchers, one turners and killers) would be affected, leaving the slow gaining SPPs free to slowly gain their SPPs.
crimsonsun wrote:I also don't understand why Agility coaches complain about CPOMB because outside of a single player type to have that combo along with Block and Jump up (which is needed to deal repeated casualties each turn as is said happens) is 5/6 possible skill choices meaning some hard choices need to be made by the killer while Elves or teams with Fodder players, can screen against them all day long Wrestle, Dodge Fend in your face, even better add some side step..
While in the Ranked cherrypicker division you can build Wrestle, Dodge, Fend in Black Box the story is totally different, it's unlikely you can build a lot of Elf Fend players, given the lack of core skills and the rate of attrition the linelves suffer, generally you manage to build 5-6 players with 2-3 skills each, the rest of the team is made by fodder linelves with no skills, and some with 1 or 2; 3 skills linelves are a rare sight and they bloat the TV, so even if you could build them, it would not be efficient to do because they don't have the same potential of positional players.
crimsonsun wrote:Also every CPOMB piece is one less Guard, one Less Tackle, one less Prehensile Tail, one less Disturbing Presence, less Stand Firm, Less Tackle Zones, even less leaping, long legged,blodge, ag5, passblockers.
Are you serious? Do you really build such players vs elves?! You don't even mentioned Tentacles, the best mutation to pin down agile players. Anyway I have to inform you that clawpombers pick Tackle as well, only the dumbest Black Box clawpomb coaches skip it. Some coaches simply develop 1-2 Block, Mighty Blow, Piling On Tacklers or Block, Mighty Blow, Tacklers, not so hard or impossible since are all normal rolls.

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