New Idea (new thread)

[wesleytj]

much simpler, cleaner, and more in line with the spirit of the game, IMO.
-Chet

Yeah, not to mention more race-balanced. I can't imagine how skeletons, zombies, black orcs, and so on are supposed to get skills in the current system.

[Acerak]

(See, this is why I'm glad I left for a few weeks!)

Umm, yeah, I think this would be a little better across all races. It's not an intended effect, but it would be a good one, IMO.

Goblins
No, I have no plans to drop their price. If you accept that a Halfling is 5236 (Skills) and 30K, then a Halfling with MA+1 would be worth 40K. Besides, they'll get injured less frequently. (Granted, they'll get stunned and KO'd more frequently as well.)

Dirty Player
I don't have any plans to increase this to +3, either. The absence of IGMEOY automatically adds a lot of value back to this skill.

Mighty Blow
TJ, I don't think you've actually ran any numbers on this, so allow me to explain what would happen if you increased Mighty Blow to +2.

First, AV breaks would go up. That's obvious. But what type of injuries would we expect?

Well, here's what we'd expect. The numbers explain the current skill (+1 OR +1) versus your proposed +2 to AV:

Code: Select all

Result     Old     New

Prone     58.3    41.7
Stunned   19.7    34.0
KO        12.0    14.6
Cas       10.0     9.6

See a problem here? Yeah, the casualty rate is just about the same. And I'd be willing to allow that the KO rate is about the same. But the Stunned rate just went through the roof. You just made the skill better by a large margin, and that's not really what's needed here.

Simply, the "business end" of the 2K1 version of MB is the AV mod. It has an effect on 13.9% of all knockdowns against AV8. The INJ mod? It comes into play on 6.9% of all similar knockdowns (i.e, it's properly "1/3 of the skill's power," not "1/2 of the skill's power"), and even then most of those results turn Stuns into KOs. Clearly, the AV mod is the more important part of the skill description, and it's been preserved in the skill as I presented it.

Now you contend that it's going to take "two skills to equal one skill." Not really. In fact, the Pro/MB combo is going to cause one fewer casualty every 100 blocks, which coincides with the one fewer casualty it would cause every 100 knockdowns compared with the same combo in the old system. You'd have to use the Eye of the Eagle card to notice the difference

Yes, an Orc Blitzer is going to be slightly less effective in this new system if he has only Mighty Blow. But he's going to be just as effective under either system if he has Pro and Mighty Blow. (Again, the difference is 1 casualty every 100 blocks.) The same applies to Black Orcs. On top of that, their team-mates can throw fouls without getting tossed half the time just because the other team doesn't kick the Orcs back.

End result? The game gets streamlined a bit, some of the flavor returns, and attrition goes up, not down. I hear what you're saying about strength teams getting the shaft, but I don't think the numbers back you up. And they'd get a sizable boost with that change you suggested, which is why I think +1 to AV is the proper starting point for any testing.

Right! Off to pack my apartment

-Chet

[Kolja_TBBF]

Pro - B (4+ trait)
DP - A (+2)
Piling On - A or C
MB - +1 too weak
Claw - A
Stunty - C for skinks but maybe drop AV by 1

All in all I liked the idea until lately. Now I have some concerns about these changes - it seems like we would get rid of a coupla rolls (like IGMEOY and Sigurds) but replace them with lots of team rerolls on AV and LOTS of Pro rolls.

Mighty blow + pro - sure these changes makes little difference for the combo but the point is you didn't NEED pro before in order to kick ass with MB (hello pro, goodbye tackle...). And it means lots of additional pro rolls. Just have MB as +2 or give up on the idea.
BTW, the chart showing stunned results going way up with MB+2, what AV value is that calculated at? AV 7, 8 or 9?

Piling on - the idea of rerolling armor (without any penalty) is wild. You are DOUBLING the chance of breaking armor for 1 skill choice. I'll take that skill for EVERYONE who can get it. BTW, as it stands in the current rules, piling on is amazing. Everyone is taking 1 or 2 per team in the TBBF (we DO have lots of AV7 teams), not just norse and big guys. It does depend on the average AV of your oppoents, however.

DP at +2 (only) but not IGMEOY - I find that the current IGMEOY is pretty much useless for limiting fouls. Currently, I think you should have 3 DP on each team and foul every turn. Its worth it, no question. I just don't like fouling that much and wouldn't mind if DP was weakened severely (like the +2 to AV only!) or IGMEOY was returned to the old odds.

I will now return to lurking....

Kolja

[GalakStarscraper]

Okay Chet when you get the chance ... map out the plan that you want tested based on all the info.

Also get an article written for Blood Bowl Magazine .... this will need a lot of testing to get the approval of the masses for the October 2003 review.

Looking forward to the game plan as I'll need to program it into the PBeM program.

Galak

[Pink Horror]

* If Stunties magically take over the universe, some small penalty (e.g., KOd on a 7) is reinstated. (I believe that an AV of 6 for these players will be sufficient handicap, however.)

I don't think the problem will be stunties taking over. I believe goblins will be even worse with less armour instead of the injury penalty. Aren't goblins hard enough to win with? Do we need more than half of all knocked-down goblins getting stunned or worse?

KOs on 7s would replicate the injury penalty without the extra casualties. I don't think that's bad - I believe only the halflings deserve to be complete losers.

No, I have no plans to drop their price. If you accept that a Halfling is 5236 (Skills) and 30K, then a Halfling with MA+1 would be worth 40K. Besides, they'll get injured less frequently. (Granted, they'll get stunned and KO'd more frequently as well.)

Like it or not, Blood Bowl players are not based on a simple formula. We don't have to accept that +1 movement is always +10k.

I think players under 50k get the difference from 50k split in half. Once a player sucks, you don't deserve a big price break for making him worse. For example, AV 7 is -20k, right? Hobgoblins cost 40k instead of 30k because that difference is split in half. A stat change isn't as important for a cheap player.

Try to limit the scope of this change. It doesn't have to touch the rosters, so it shouldn't. Just change the rule for stunty and leave it at that.



Pink Horror
[/quote]

[wesleytj]

Dirty Player
I don't have any plans to increase this to +3, either. The absence of IGMEOY automatically adds a lot of value back to this skill.

OK we can let that one go perhaps.

Mighty Blow
TJ, I don't think you've actually ran any numbers on this, so allow me to explain what would happen if you increased Mighty Blow to +2.

You're right I didn't run the numbers. And what you showed did illustrate that my solution is not the right one.

However, I didn't see any numbers comparing your mighty blow (+1 to AV only) to the current one (+1 to either), or the original (+1 to both) to see the difference.

Now I'd do it myself perhaps, but the way you posted yours made it look like you had some handy dandy program to do the math for you, so I'll just defer that out of sheer laziness and lack of time. Anyway, my point is that I think it will show a steady degradation of the skill's potence.

Now you can try to muddle the issue by bringing pro into it, but to me that's not fully relevant, because that requires the addition of another skill, one that may or may not even be used for that purpose all the time (or even some of the time)

SO I'll concede that +2 to AV roll won't really work because of that big bulge in the stuns, which is kinda crazy out of line. But I also think that +1 to AV only makes Mighty Blow a nigh worthless skill. I don't think anybody ever complained much about Mighty blow being overpowered in vanilla 3rd ed BB. Why do we need to keep making it weaker?

End result? The game gets streamlined a bit, some of the flavor returns, and attrition goes up, not down. I hear what you're saying about strength teams getting the shaft, but I don't think the numbers back you up. And they'd get a sizable boost with that change you suggested, which is why I think +1 to AV is the proper starting point for any testing.

I'll think about agreeing with that when I see the rest of the numbers

Right! Off to pack my apartment

-Chet

Have fun! I just helped a friend move today, so I know the feelin!

[DoubleSkulls]

1. Casualty die disappears.
2. IGMEOY disappears. Fouls are now a straight AV roll with +/-1 per assist.
3. The "AV skills don't stack" clause disappears.
4. You can re-roll AV. Injury is out of your control (that's why you re-roll AV), so it can't be re-rolled or otherwise modified.
5. Goblins become AV6.

Skill changes will generally be kept to "No INJ mods." Here's a laundry list:

* Dirty Player: +2 to AV

* Mighty Blow: +1 to AV

* Piling On: AV re-roll (more below)

* Stunty: +1 to injury removed

-Chet

I like this

So are we going to see this written up as experimental rules and published? If so when?

Ian

[Acerak]

So are we going to see this written up as experimental rules and published? If so when?

I will write something up. Will it be published? That's up to Andy. I ran the basic idea (as posted before I left to Russia) past Andy and Jervis before I left. The basic feedback I got was, "Yeah, a lot of this clutter could go, but this needs to be written up as an experimental article and playtested a lot."

Andy has a schedule for Blood Bowl Mag #3, but I don't know the particulars. I wouldn't expect to see it for a while, however, as Issues 3 and 4 are already planned.

Cheers!

-Chet

P.S. TJ, it wasn't a program, it was just a calculator

[Toby]

I strongly suggest the casualty roll to stay. The casualty roll is a major improvement over 3rd Edition.

The problem with casualty is only the killing of players. A never ever modified die roll fixed that perfectly. Remember the 3rd edition House rule that you need a unmodified double 6 to kill a player ?

Casualties are just fine as long as players actually live long enought to be shaped unique by injuries, ageing and star player rolls.

[DoubleSkulls]

I strongly suggest the casualty roll to stay. The casualty roll is a major improvement over 3rd Edition.

The problem with casualty is only the killing of players. A never ever modified die roll fixed that perfectly. Remember the 3rd edition House rule that you need a unmodified double 6 to kill a player ?

Casualties are just fine as long as players actually live long enought to be shaped unique by injuries, ageing and star player rolls.

There are no modifiers or rerolls allowed on the injury table so you aren't changing the odds of anything happening.

Ian

[Acerak]

Yeah, with no modifiers, you no longer need the Casualty die. It's a patch put in place to keep the ratio of BH:SI:D constant at 3:2:1. It does nothing to solve the disproportionate numbers of Stuns or KOs caused by INJ mods, because as a patch it's focused only on ensuring that those mods don't result in wholesale death.

And I really like that particular feature of this proposal. A normal player has fixed rates for Stuns, KOs, and Casualties on knockdowns. If that same player takes Mighty Blow, his Stuns go up 50% across the board vs AV8. And KOs go up 50% as well. So do Casualties. It's a consistent rise across the board when measured against AV.

Cheers.

-Chet

[Trambi]

Chet,
I'm just beginning to get used with the 2k1 rules and you want to change them . I think it could be good

[Mestari]

EDIT:
My apologies for using numbees in a rather misleading way, I've tried to edit my point into a better worded form.
It's just that I wanted to stress what the difference between increases is per hundred downed opponents. 3 more compared to 5 more (per hundred)? It is a significant downgrade for MB.
/EDIT

Well, here's what we'd expect. The numbers explain the current skill (+1 OR +1) versus your proposed +2 to AV:

Added in Chet's suggestion

Code: Select all

Result   +1/+1     +2      +1    

Prone     58.3     41.7     58.3
Stunned   19.7    34.0     24.3
KO        12.0      14.6     10.4
Cas       10.0      9.6       6.9

I see a problem here, yes. Yeah, the amount of prone players in Chet's suggestion is about the same, but the amount of casualties collapses compared to the current situation. Taking away 31% of casualties caused by MB is a lot.
Without the injury modifier, the cas-KO-stun ratio remains always the same, so for a 10% casualty rate there would be a 35% stunning rate.

That is unavoidable if there are to be no injury modifiers - Chet forgets to point out that when shifting injury mods to armour and allowing AV rerolls, he also has boosted the amount of stuns to higher levels than they used to. I'm waiting for the probability analysis he promised us - increase of stuns should be visible throughout the line.

The beauty of injury modifiers, as I now see it, is that they allow an increased casualty rate without increasing the stunning rate to too high proportions.

I again stress the fact: the new rules:

-YES - attrition goes up - for the normal players, when they use TRR's.
-BUT - experienced strength teams cannot increase their casualty rates to the level where it was previously by taking strength skills.

* If Orc, Chaos, and Dwarf teams are somehow no longer competitive, MB becomes +2 to AV. (Note, however, that while this would reproduce the old casualty rate, it would also increase the AV breaks in the game, thus making these teams better than they are now.)

They are perhaps slightly more competitive at first as they are in a better position to use TRR's to damage the opposition, but there are not too many TRR's around, are there? And the fact remains that these teams can no longer expect much from gaining new skills.

WHY?
MB:
[edit]When a player picks up MB, his cas-rate goes from 4.6% to 6.9% instead of going all the way up to about 10% per downed opponent.
And this is a significant decrease. [/edit]
With MB=+2 the increase would remain about the same as it used to. Yes, it would cause more stuns, but that's the natural result of no-inj-mods.

PO:
[edit]When a player picks up POm his cas-rate goes from 4.6% to 7,9% instead of going all the way up to about 12%
The 7,9% rate is now achievable also with a TRR, so PO would practically become the equivalent of dodge in breaking armour. [/edit]

They could use Pro to compensate?
Pro increases the cas-rate half that PO does. Naturally it helps out in blocks.

Prove me wrong when I say that even though attrition might go up somewhat thanks to AV rerolling, experienced strength teams would suffer as their skills are no longer as effective as they used to be.

This could be repaired to some extent by giving MB=+2. Which would make MB slightly better skill than what it is now, but I don't think that would be a problem. Why would it be?

[Pink Horror]

Oh no! Don't use numbers like that!

Taking away 31% of the casualties caused by MB is a lot.

Okay, that was correct. When you're taking about adding, subtracting, increasing, decreasing, etc. with percents, the percent is the amount of the number that changes.

But, the following, please don't do the following...

WHY?
MB:
MB gives an cas-rate increase of 2.3% instead of the 5.4% it used to - and this is a significant decrease. With MB=+2 the increase would remain about the same as it used to. Yes, it would cause more stuns, but that's the natural result of no-inj-mods.

PO:
PO gives an cas-rate increase of 3.3% (now achievable also with a TRR)
instead of the 7.4% increase it used to!!!

Don't use the word "increase" and a percent like that! That's not how it's done, my comrade. Let me give an example:

3rd Edition, Good-Ol'-Days MB: +150% Casualties
BBRC, Weaker MB: +110% Casualties
No Injury Mod, +1 MB: +50% Casualties
Difference Between BBRC & No Injury Mod: -55% of an Increase
Difference Between 3rd Ed. & No Injury Mod: -66% of an Increase

I know how Chet likes to use, instead of the mathematical standard of percent increase, his own little standard which is how many times the change will have an effect per block. I think that's a completely misleading way to represent things, because while a couple times out of a hundred blocks might not seem like a lot, you'll be sure to notice the change if you ran two test leagues simultaneously over a decent course of time. When one league is getting an increase that is 120% better than the other, that's sure to show up in the stats pretty quickly. Put another way, X games a round * X games a season = a whole ton of blocks. Even minor changes become easy to notice. Percent Increase puts this long term effect in simple terms. Just make sure you use it right.



Pink Horror

[wesleytj]

I know what PH is saying, but I nonetheless want to thank Teemu (Mestari) for bringing out the rest of the numbers. Even if his summary may have been somewhat misleading, the point is still made very clearly that mighty blow at +1 to AV only is very weak, and given the whole story I'd reccommend either the +2 to AV (which is very close to the cas rate provided by +1/+1), or scrapping Chet's whole idea and keeping the +1/+1, which if you'll recall is ALREADY weakened from the original MB, a skill that NO ONE (or almost no one I should say, there are always a few) had a problem with in it's original state to begin with!