garion wrote:While I do understand your position here for me and many others I know we will always use the core rules. As they should represent the most balanced form of the game.
Sure we may have the odd silly league with house rules left right and centre but the vast majority of games I play have always and will always be using the core rules.
The core rules are BB2016: they talk about setting up a team, the conditions of the game ending and who wins, how to move and block players, and how to handle the ball. Everything else is some degree of optional.
Tournaments tend to hew pretty close to this, as many restrict multi-game injuries (part of the league rules in DZ1) and star player point generation, seeking a better competitive balance. On the other hand, most of them allow the full list of 21 (now 23) official team rosters, some amount of star players and inducements. Some even allow Slann. Many events attempt to balance the races by introducing tiering and additional benefits for worse teams. The NAF does a good job of publishing a well-balanced tournament ruleset for individual Tournament Organizers, but note that that itself is not the CORE rules -- it is a set of commonly accepted house rules which have become the de facto standard.
Saying that house rules are restricted to "the odd silly league" is disingenous. The "official rules" for leagues in DZ1 specifically state: "it is up to the [League] Commissioner to decide how to run their league, and they are free to change or modify any of the Blood Bowl rules as they see fit". Based on that, it is part of the official rules that a LC can make any rule "official". Take a look at the leagues and tournaments on the NAF website and you will see the majority of them have some separate rules pack that accompanies them.
garion wrote:I've made my point anyway. Hopefully somewhere down the line. Maybe another Blood Bowl release in a years times some of these stuff can be removed again, or pushed firmly in to the optional camp where PO currently lives and Referee characters etc...
I still like this edition, don't get me wrong, but this is the biggest flaw to date, along with the inducement phase that benefits the TV leader too much, sadly these two problematic rules are actually making each other worse as well.
What's done is done anyway. I hope we don't get too much more like this though. As it detracts from what is otherwise a great product, and the prettiest blood bowl book to date.
My above comments aside, please understand that all feedback provided, both here and in the various FB communities, is being read by the playtest group and we are not blind to valid points being made. (Feedback posted here is probably better since it is persistent and FB comments can easily be missed or overlooked -- but we're trying to read as much as we can.) Please keep giving us your feedback and understand that just because we don't overreact to it doesn't mean we are not considering a future response to it. Nothing we've seen so far as feedback seems to warrant an emergency errata like the issues in DZ1 did.
Take the case of Horatio:
1) At 80k, the overdog team would need to have a very high FAME, win the game, AND roll 5+ on the winnings table to make back that investment every game. At a realistic best, not counting the need to replace players, expensive mistakes or the need to save for post-season redrafting, an overdog could only hire Horatio every other game. Doing so may increase the chance of winning games, but it also means less money to spend on hiring new players and adding team re-rolls, both of which could have a more significant impact on your team's long-term success than Horatio.
2) If the overdog invests 80k of their treasury in Horatio, presumably the cost of hiring Horatio is lower for the underdog, who always has a chance to respond. If I have 80k in my inducements and my opponent hires Horatio, I'm definitely going to cancel that out, because not only does it help me in the game but it also hurts my opponent in the league, as they've poured real money into hiring him. Even if I have to add from my treasury, I'll do it.
3) While Horatio can be powerful, it's also quite possible he'll have no effect whatsoever. And if you hire him, your opponent can often adjust their tactics to make his spells less impactful.
Furthermore, if you and your leaguemates object to him, there are any number of ways you can address that:
a) Horatio may not be played in this league.
b) Horatio costs 100k in this league.
c) Horatio can only case one spell per game in this league.
d) If you hire Horatio in this league, you must play the entire game sitting on both of your hands.
e) Overdog teams who spend treasury in the inducement phase add that much additional inducement money for the underdog to spend.
So while it's possible Horatio may be an issue, I think he is not as big a problem as you worry he is, and there are any number of ways for him to be addressed in a league or tournament setting.
But again, GW is listening. If Horatio really is as big a problem as you fear, I'm sure something will ultimately be done to resolve it. That's one of the advantages of having an active development team who are open to feedback from the community.