Team Power Balance Discussion

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Wed May 07, 2003 12:18 am

Toby wrote:nonsense.

Well, that was an insightful post. Would you care to elborate on why it's "nonsense"?

JasonC · Post by **JasonC** » Wed May 07, 2003 12:51 am

Well I guess it painfully obvious that the teams are not balanced.
Therefore it is the duty of someone to re write the entire game in the name of balance.
WHO WILL TAKE UP THIS CHARGE??

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed May 07, 2003 12:52 am

Come on. I am forced to make a complete fool of my self by repeating the same thing over and over again despite the fact that the only thing you need to understand is some common sense.

LRB ONLY Blood Bowl is not suited to Tournaments that are held to determine who is the best coach. PERIOD. Prove for that statement is given by Fanatic. They would not have held what is supposed to be the geratest Blood Bowl Tournament with customized rules if it wasn't for some reason and to the benefit of the event.

Talk about Bone Head beeing a Racial Characteristic on Board Game "Geeks"...

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Wed May 07, 2003 1:07 am

then why do the same coaches often do well at the events, regardless of the imposed rules?

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed May 07, 2003 1:38 am

You are talking about people who a mad enough to travel the world, sit down at some table in Paris, and play the game.

I am talking about people who go to a store, pick up a box because it has some cool artwork and reads "Fantasy" and "Football".

And on their way through the Handbook, they recognize "Ok, this Injuries and ageing Stuff is only relevant if I join a league", they continue and read how to set up a tournament with their 3 friends they managed to rekruit to try out this "cool new game" they got.

And at some time in the future, they instal the thing, log on to battle.net and are asked "chose your type of play".

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Wed May 07, 2003 1:41 am

um i was exactly that type of person, i think pretty much everyone who plays blood bowl started like that

christer · Post by **christer** » Wed May 07, 2003 1:53 am

Toby wrote:Keep in mind I'm talking about a elimination type tournament, not any kind of "Ladder Ranking" where an "ELO System" could apply.

You know.. I'm fairly convinced an elimination style tournament wouldn't work in a "professional player" kind of setting. The effect of the dice is simply too great for it to be fair. Now, you can bring up games like backgammon and say that the same would apply. However, in backgammon, you roll so many more dice and a very small percentage of them are "game winning". In addition to that, championship backgammon has the participants play several games in a row against the opponent to further eliminate the randomness caused by the dice.

In Blood Bowl, there are a number of die rolls which are pretty much decide if you will win or lose.

This is also the reason most if not all large tournaments don't use strict elimination and go with swiss style instead. That way, you can win a tournament even if you lose your first game due to dice. Although I don't have first-hand experience with it, I hear swiss is common in MtG tournaments as well...

Toby wrote:omg forget that I just said "online game".

-- Christer

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed May 07, 2003 2:09 am

Swiss = Winners Bracked and Losers Bracket, 2 Losses = Dead ? - thats cool.
Christer, I think its the skill part of BB to minimize the Luck Part. What I think should be Tournament rules would further cut off the Luck part.

I applaud this http://www.games-workshop.com/Warhammer ... ooklet.pdf

TEAM BUILDING

After every game you may pick a skill and give it to one of your players. You may not stack additional skills on players so only one new skill per player. Players may only take skills from their available skill categories. Note: you can only gain skills not traits. This system replaces the League and Star Player Points system in the Blood Bowl handbook.

CASUALTIES

All casualties that have been inflicted on your team, including death, are wiped away at the end of the game. In other words the team resets after every game. Skills accrued through the tournament will not be lost, even if the player dies. Note: Apothecaries are still useful for bringing back injured players during the game.

Sixpack595 · Post by **Sixpack595** » Wed May 07, 2003 4:17 am

They could be great tourney coaches, fair league coaches. I know plenty of guys who make great on field decisions, but dumb ones on skill selection, team selection, and finances. Most tourneys eliminate a big chunk of the game...pre and post game.

Grumbledook wrote:then why do the same coaches often do well at the events, regardless of the imposed rules?

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Wed May 07, 2003 4:34 am

Toby, so you want the teams balanced.

Ok, Mr. Diabilo plays Amazons, and he complains Dwarfs are unbalanced cos they hve tackle, so out goes tackle. Meanwhile, Mr Halflife complains elfs are unbalanced becuse of AG4, so that drops to 3, and Mr Starcraft complains that BG are unfair because of Mighty Blow, so that goes. Eventually they all start playing teams of 6/3/3/8 players with no skill access.

Meanwhile, safe in their litle coccons, the tabletoppers, pbem'ers and javabowlers are happily playing LRB +/- house rule with fanatics, spel casters, really stupid trolls etc.

I know where I want to be playing. I'm not sure about you though

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed May 07, 2003 5:15 am

you do not understand a single thing I said thats for sure.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed May 07, 2003 5:21 am

Sixpack595 wrote:They could be great tourney coaches, fair league coaches. I know plenty of guys who make great on field decisions, but dumb ones on skill selection, team selection, and finances. Most tourneys eliminate a big chunk of the game...pre and post game.

Grumbledook wrote:then why do the same coaches often do well at the events, regardless of the imposed rules?

You are right. So I would welcome 2 clearly differenciated ways of play. League and Tournament. League is about the Team and Tournament is about the Coach.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Wed May 07, 2003 11:07 am

thats the way its working at the moment anyway, league uses team building and most tournaments (in europoe at least) drop it and do sone skill per game

the winers losers bracket lose 2 = dead is called double elimination

swiss style you get points (ie winning gives you more) and then all the teams are seeded in pointes order #1 plays #2, #3 plays #4 etc all the way down. This means the more games you play, you should be playing other coaches around your skill level, though you don't play the same number twice, so it 1 and 2 have played each other already, 1 will play 3 and 2 will play 4.

its also good because every coach gets to play the same number of games, no one wants to travel to a tournament to get knocked out at the beginning.

so the beatuy of swiss style is if you keep winning your games you will be playing someone else who is doing the same, so the better you do the harder it gets

Rufio of Montrose · Post by **Rufio of Montrose** » Wed May 07, 2003 11:41 am

In my opinion they are not well balanced, forget the halflings and gobbos. But I believe it doesn´t really matter since there are many factors that determine the outcome of the game. How you place your players on field, how you play, tr, skills of each team and most important if all of this is balanced: luck.The luck factor makes up for all the diferences in the teams so the game excluding half & gobbos turns out balanced. As I stated before with my CD I left two teams with only one player on the field and made only one injury

, my BC with a NI decided not to play in three consecutive games

. My high elves obtained 11 ones on the first half of the game

. The only injury made against the Druchi was from a rock thrown by the audience

. On the other hand my oponents bull cenaturs with no skill manage to dodge and pick up the ball, ogres do the same, etc. So in practice the luck makes up for the diferences. Oh, I forgot what about rolling a blitz on the kick off

. And on and on.....
So I believe the game is fairly balanced in itself.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Wed May 07, 2003 2:18 pm

Some disagree, but my opinion has been that League rules don't work in tournaments ... and most recent tournaments (CanCon and the Baltimore GT being the biggest exceptions) agree.

Gain SPPs, making skills rolls, and tracking injuries allows too much of Lady Luck/Nuffle to appear in the game. Removing these elements sets a more static playing field that is better for figuring out who is best in 4 to 6 games.

However that's not much fun in league setting. A league setting needs develop of players, needs players to get injured and killed, and more to be fun and enjoyable.

My point being simply this ... BB over the last year has worked this way without the need of "official" tournament rules as many tournament organizers have started to agree on a basic core .... (now starting TR and star player allowance are the biggest changing factors). IE ... 12 o'clock and all is well with BB leagues and tournaments.

As for the 13 teams being balanced against each other. Given that every LRB has one a tournament in the last 2 years that I've heard results from and that multiple leagues show balanced win/loss rates for the teams. ... I see no balance issues in the game for either tournaments or leagues.

Galak