Improving the passing game

[harvestmouse]

I think the transition from 2nd to 3rd edition was rather well done. And the simplifying of the stats line quite good, and considering how well it works, possibly even brilliant (I mean that's not easily done).
Having more stats (like CL & TS) may allow more fine tuning, but it actually may be superfluous.

Are you serious on both accounts? The idea with all GW mid 90s stuff was to simplify things, hence losing the stats. However I found and still find 2nd ed throwing systeme easier to do than 3rd ed onward.

Also how are the stats superfluous? Sorry but that's such a BS statement. Agility should be connected to how well a player dodges, weaves and leaps. Throwing is throwing and catching is catching. High ag now means you can do all 3. Where as a 2nd edition an elf thrower would be ag4 cl2 ts0. Which is spot on what you want. A good dodger, a great thrower and an average catcher. Now all elves are great at all 3.

Don't get me wrong...the old 2nd ed throwing table wouldn't work now....even riskier than the current system. So even more running. However using a modernish throwing system with the removed stats would really benefit BB and make players more specialized. 6 stats really isn't too much.

[Christy42]

I think the transition from 2nd to 3rd edition was rather well done. And the simplifying of the stats line quite good, and considering how well it works, possibly even brilliant (I mean that's not easily done).
Having more stats (like CL & TS) may allow more fine tuning, but it actually may be superfluous.

Are you serious on both accounts? The idea with all GW mid 90s stuff was to simplify things, hence losing the stats. However I found and still find 2nd ed throwing systeme easier to do than 3rd ed onward.

Also how are the stats superfluous? Sorry but that's such a BS statement. Agility should be connected to how well a player dodges, weaves and leaps. Throwing is throwing and catching is catching. High ag now means you can do all 3. Where as a 2nd edition an elf thrower would be ag4 cl2 ts0. Which is spot on what you want. A good dodger, a great thrower and an average catcher. Now all elves are great at all 3.

Don't get me wrong...the old 2nd ed throwing table wouldn't work now....even riskier than the current system. So even more running. However using a modernish throwing system with the removed stats would really benefit BB and make players more specialized. 6 stats really isn't too much.

It is when the vast majority of players will only rarely use two of them. Even amongst those that do they will rarely use more than 1. I could easily see a ball skills stat that is used for pick up/ throwing and catching though.

Having said that I have started to agree that simply making passing more reliable won't work. You need to address the time management system first. I reckon reducing the reliability of cages would be the simplest (even if I have not come up with a brilliant solution myself). It would encourage caging teams to strike when ready and mean ag3 teams might look to passing a lot quicker if they feared for the cage.

[harvestmouse]

What? Sorry not trying to be an ass but I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

You can't use the TS stat without using the CL stat and AG is and would be used all the time. So it's not possible to use just 2.

Time management is..........time related i.e. the 4 minute clock. I have no idea what this has to do with the throwing game. Possibly you mean stalling as you are referring to caging? Or possibly with a turn based system it's better to fail to score but not give up a score with caging than risking a score and giving up a score with passing?

Meh whatever, nothing's going to change anyhow. The bottom line of my argument is that throwing and catching stats would benefit the game with very little complexity added.

[Christy42]

What? Sorry not trying to be an ass but I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

You can't use the TS stat without using the CL stat and AG is and would be used all the time. So it's not possible to use just 2.

Time management is..........time related i.e. the 4 minute clock. I have no idea what this has to do with the throwing game. Possibly you mean stalling as you are referring to caging? Or possibly with a turn based system it's better to fail to score but not give up a score with caging than risking a score and giving up a score with passing?

Meh whatever, nothing's going to change anyhow. The bottom line of my argument is that throwing and catching stats would benefit the game with very little complexity added.

As in take one extra stat and use it for both throwing and catching. So it would be a little different from the old version. If you have new stat (ns) then if you tried to dodge you would use ag. If you leaped you would use age. If you tried to pick up the ball you would use ns, if you threw it you would use ns and the same if you were catching (so discounting any skills a catcher would be as good as a thrower at throwing the ball).

Yeah by time management I meant stalling or even just the fact that a score via caging that naturally takes longer and removes more turns of the opposition having the ball.

[harvestmouse]

The problem with fiddling with turn management (e.g. safe T6-8 scores and stalling) is that it massively favours fast and agile teams. This is fact because I play such a system myself with the knowledge it does favour those teams. I cannot see a way of doing this without seriously hurting teams whose linos are sub ma6.

I definitely think the '1' added stat would be a benefit. However you could even make it a skill. The major problem would be to throwers. Why take an ma6 thrower, when an ma8 catcher has the same plus stat? Elven and skaven throwers would go bye bye and the elven rosters are in the few that actually utilise the thrower position. I played 2nd ed as an 11 year old with a short attention spam. The 2 extra stats really were not difficult or confusing at all.

In my opinion it's a red herring for complexity. Complex mechanics are what make things difficult to learn.

[JPB]

Race balancing...
@dode74 Thanks for answering. I was always wondering about that.
It never occurred to me as I consider BB teams as imbalanced by default. It's just a feature of the system really. So I never paid much heed to it. But what you describe is indeed what would happen (and does), I'm not arguing it. Thanks, and wow, that's another mess.

Also how are the stats superfluous? Sorry but that's such a BS statement.

I didn't say they are superfluous, that is what you simplified it to (again). I said

Having more stats (like CL & TS) may allow more fine tuning, but it actually may be superfluous.

And then it follows up by saying why

As “AG3+Pass+Accurate+Strong Arm” already does that, i.e. that's TS:5 with re-roll (and without improving the players AG overall). So this specialising of players/AG already exists, it's just done via skills instead of stats.

but you decided to ignore that part. (EDIT: I should have said TS:+2 or +3 instead TS:5, but still...)

And your argument is that it doesn't allow to design „an Elf Thrower who can't catch the ball“.

Really? That is a sorely missing feature in the game?

And if so why not introduce a skill: “Butter-fingers: The player gets -1 when catching.” Same effect. You may say that CL:0 is more elegant. But adding it in, in addition to skills, can indeed be called superfluous.

P.S. Do you deliberately avoid reading posts to pick an argument? Because that habit starts to annoy me.

[Christy42]

The problem with fiddling with turn management (e.g. safe T6-8 scores and stalling) is that it massively favours fast and agile teams. This is fact because I play such a system myself with the knowledge it does favour those teams. I cannot see a way of doing this without seriously hurting teams whose linos are sub ma6.

I definitely think the '1' added stat would be a benefit. However you could even make it a skill. The major problem would be to throwers. Why take an ma6 thrower, when an ma8 catcher has the same plus stat? Elven and skaven throwers would go bye bye and the elven rosters are in the few that actually utilise the thrower position. I played 2nd ed as an 11 year old with a short attention spam. The 2 extra stats really were not difficult or confusing at all.

In my opinion it's a red herring for complexity. Complex mechanics are what make things difficult to learn.

Throwers would have pass skill access as well as beginning passing skills and sometimes sure hands. Many catchers would also be s2 and so if you wanted an s3 ball carrier the thrower may be your option.

It would be alright to learn it is just not overly elegant to have stats a player will never use when it can be solved with skills. Another stat is another thing to remember which gets more complicated when you have the more complicated players on the pitch (Nurgle etc.) . Generally Inwoild not be opposed to 6 stats if it really helped though.

I dislike the negaskill idea though, throwers being half decent catchers is not the end of the world. Just use skills/skill access and other stats to separate throwers and catchers.

[dode74]

Race balancing...
@dode74 Thanks for answering. I was always wondering about that.
It never occurred to me as I consider BB teams as imbalanced by default. It's just a feature of the system really. So I never paid much heed to it. But what you describe is indeed what would happen (and does), I'm not arguing it. Thanks, and wow, that's another mess.

I agree that they are unbalanced by default. Part of the issue is the environment of matchmaking and peoples' expectations within it. People want different things from where they play. Scheduled leagues are seen as a generally "balanced" environment because of roughly equal opportunity of development (games played per team), although even over long terms that becomes skewed and can be seen as a problem (you tend to get a top tier of the "winningest" teams who have to run a gauntlet of a second tier of nasty bash, who can't themselves quite get to the top tier often, to get there). Matchmaking has the issue of lack of equality in any sense other than TV, and equal TVs are not equal teams. Population sizes mean you won't often get exactly even TVs (particularly at higher TV), and unequal TVs with inducements making up the difference only increases the variance.

There is a solution to creating even matches, and it's called TVPlus (cue the pitchforks). You basically take the record of the team (wins - losses) and add 50TV for each win and subtract 50TV for each loss. You then match on that basis. We know it's better than TV alone at making more even matches, because we've tested both systems in the same environment. We even did it without telling people that they had TV matching for a season, and nobody noticed any difference. So if nobody notices TV matching being "better" (as many people claimed), and we have real data suggesting matches are more even under TVPlus, TVPlus has to be an objective improvement.
The TVPlus which has been implemented is only a partial solution, though. The full solution would make every match a 50:50 challenge. Explanation here. tl;dr is that you then award inducements based on TVPlus rather than TV, uncap the inducement numbers (so 0-n wizards), and make it a rez league. You then lose win% as a measure of ranking and use the (wins - losses) score instead. This is a step too far for some people, though, and has met with resistance. There's no real objection to it, though, outside "it's too different".

Edit: don't want to turn this into a TVPlus thread, just explain it - feel free to PM me or start a different thread for discussion if you'd like.

[harvestmouse]

throwers being half decent catchers is not the end of the world. Just use skills/skill access and other stats to separate throwers and catchers.

That's not the problem, it's the other way around. Catchers being better runners than throwers, therefore are given the ball and due to their movement bring the ball in a better position to throw it. Or skaven throwers/gutters where the gutter is better at all jobs.

ST 2 runner if it has much more movement and blodge is probably better at running the ball as well. So a combined throwing/catching stat is just going to make even more throwers obsolete in the meta.

[Moraiwe]

This is quite a bit "out-there", but one way to improve the passing game is to change the way the RR system works. Instead of RR an action, change Team RRs to the following:
After a turnover occurs, expend a RR counter. You may continue your turn (until the next turnover).

This would allow you to throw the ball, not complete the pass, expend a RR, then move your catcher to the ball and continue your turn. I would recommend not being able to throw to empty spaces if this was implemented though.

The problems with passing has never been the difficulty, but rather the poor position you will be in if it fails.

[Mystic Force]

At this point I am starting to wonder if passing is such an used tactic, that no one sets up to defend against it. Making it actually quite a viable surprise play....