Hard TR Caps vs Negative Winnings+Freebooted Apoths

[GalakStarscraper]

Just as a footnote ... I've seen some folks comment on that revised handicap table. when I look at the CHUBB table I see a scaled handicapping system and THAT really appeals to me. However, the CHUBB table to be honest has just too many rolls on it and too much dead weight like the present handicap table. The idea is wonderful ... just needs some KISS applied to it. So if you KISSED the CHUBB handicap table you'd get a new handicap table that looked like this (and this is what I would like to see as Step 2 in the plan:

In fact if the CHUBB rules worked like this I'd be pretty happy:

===============================================

Calculate the difference between the two team ratings. That difference is the underdog’s Handicap Points. They may spend the points on any of the following tables at the start of the match. Each table is a D6 roll and any roll of a previous rolled handicap should be rerolled on the same table.

Good Karma - 10 point table:
1 - EXTRA TRAINING: Your team has worked long and hard all week for this opponent. You may take an extra Team Re-roll to use for this match only.
2 - INTENSIVE TRAINING: One player is really psyched for this week’s match, and has been working very hard preparing for it. Pick a player on your team. He may take one extra skill to use for this match only, just as if he had rolled a New Skill result on the Star Player Table.
3 - PALMED COIN: You automatically win the coin toss to start the game.
4 - TEAM ANTHEM: Add +D6 to your Fan Factor for this game only.
5 - EGGHEAD CONVENTION: A local inventor’s guild is sponsoring a convention in the city today. Several of the attendees are big fans of your team, and are willing to assist your team in today’s match in exchange for getting to watch the game from the sidelines. With their aid, your team will automatically win any Brilliant Coaching results on the Kickoff Table.
6 - THAT BABE’S GOT TALENT! Your team visits the local tavern the night before the game. One of the exotic dancers displays her, umm, ‘talents,’ and your players leave her a generous tip. She and a few friends decide to hang out with your team for the day. You automatically win any Cheering Fans results on the Kickoff Table.

Random Events and Dirty Tricks - 25 point table
1 - MAGIC SPONGE: Your team has received a free magic sponge from the College of Wizards when they heard about this upcoming match. You may use the Magic Sponge once this game just like an Apothecary (even if your team normally doesn't have access to an apothecary).
2 - BAD HABITS: The opposing team loses D3 re-rolls for this match only.
3 - SMELLING SALTS: You make all rolls to move a player from the Knocked Out box to the Reserves box on a roll of 2 or better for this match.
4 - DUH, WHERE AM I?: One player (your choice) on the opposing team has been out all night on a bender, and isn’t really ready for the game. The Really Stupid rule that applies to Trolls applies to the player for this match only.
5 - IRON MAN: One player on your team (your choice) is determined to play hard for the whole game, no matter what the cost – in fact, he refuses to get injured! If an opposing player beats his Armour roll, he is only Stunned.
6 - BUZZING! One of your players (your choice) has gone heavy on the coffee in anticipation of today’s game. For this match only he gains the Jump Up trait and the Frenzy trait.

Desperate Measure - 50 point table
1 - APPEARANCE FEE: The player on the opposing team with the most Star Player points has decided that he needs to be paid money to take the field against ‘those bums.’ Roll 2D6 and multiply the result by 5,000. The result is the number of gold pieces the player must receive before he will take the field. If he isn’t paid, he’ll sit in the Dugout, refusing to come out until his fee is met or the game ends! The opposing coach may choose to pay the appearance any time after the start of the match if he wishes.
2 - I AM THE GREATEST! The two players with the most SPPs on the opposing team refuse to be on the pitch at the same time for this match only. Only one may be set up on the field at the start of each drive.
3 - MORLEY’S REVENGE: The opposing team’s drinks have been spiked with a powerful laxative. D3 randomly selected opposing players have drunk the spiked drink, and must roll a D6 before every kick-off. On a roll of 1-3 they are otherwise engaged and may not take part in this drive. On a roll of 4-6 they may be set up normally.
4 - DOOM and GLOOM: Due to some cunningly planted rumors and smear campaigns, the opposing team comes into the game with some serious morale issues. Roll a D6 for each re-roll the opposing team has; for each result other than 6, the opposing team loses a re-roll for the match.
5 - HEY, YOU!: You spot a talented (if crazy) fan in the stands, and he agrees to play for your team. The fan has MA6, ST4, AG3, AV7, and the Frenzy trait. The player leaves your team when the match ends. Note that you may add a 17th player to your team with this result.
6 - IN THE BAG! The opposing team is feeling cocky about their chances of winning this match. They can only field the 11 worst available players on their team, based on SPPs (in case of ties, the team with the lower TR picks which is unable to play). This restriction stops for the rest of the match as soon as your team takes the lead.

Galak

[GalakStarscraper]

and for the most part self-inflicted

That's probably the most important. So you are crusing along doing really well .. but didn't save any cash ... (remember in this new system, a good coach might keep 20k back as his team gets better for a rainy day) ... and BAM ... you hit a lousy gate game with a winning roll of 1 for your TR 276 team ... assuming you had zero cash in the bank (shame on you) ... you are now 50k in debt.

This is your hard wake up call. .... if this happened to me ... what I would do is this. I'd probably retire one midrange player immediately and/or drop a reroll to get my TR back under control. Next game, my TR should hopefully be back in line ... yeah I might lose an extra player from not having an apothecary ... but apoths only save one player a game so not having one is not like you lost the ability to save 2 or more players that get nailed that game anyway.

If you choose to completely ignore that hard wake up call ... your fate will be self inflicted. One of the biggest things I pointed out to folks is that once you start making gold on your gold rolls, you'll pay off your debt at double TR killing pace. IE 50k in gold winnings paying off 50k in debt drops your TR in effect 10 points.

If you ignore the system ... yeah ... it can burn you ... in a way that's supposed to be the point really.

The most debt you could possible earn in one game is 70k. But let's be real here. Most teams hover around TR 8 to 12 ... if their opponent's do the same that means their gates are 16 to 24 dice ... at 3.5 a piece that's 56 to 84k in fans ... which mean in the norm a TR 300+ team could get a max of 50k in debt from a single game.

My point here is simple ... a good coach is probably going to have a small kitty set aside to help deal with this problem. As a result ... odds are that they'll get hit with their first negative winnings roll and pay it out of their treasury ... maybe even their first two negative winnings rolls. IE ... a normal coach will have plenty of time to make the changes to the roster that his team is showing him he needs to make.

IF he CHOOSES (and remember I love coach's having the right to choose) to not make these cuts ... than the carnage on the pitch will do it for him.

This rule will never "sneak up" on any coach to be honest ... its such a gradual system that only the most stubborn of coaches would deliver themselves into a system that might be described a spiral ... however even at that point the coach can make some roster cuts and get back in the black.

The situation you describe is what happens when I don't make any cuts at all ever .... my reply is ... yeah you run the risk of destroying your team ... but then any coach who pays no attention to his team's health should run that risk ... right?

Galak

[martynq]

I've just voted for the TBB-package... this is all provided that it is shown to work appropriately and without being annoying. Hopefully the playtesting will show this...

Martyn

[zodo]

To start, I'd like to say I've been playing in Tom's MBBL leagues for a
couple years now, and have thoroughly enjoyed them. It's amazing the amount of effort he puts forth for this game, and I applaud that effort.

I have withheld voting on this subject for a number of reasons, mainly because I don't like any of the choices.

I seem to be one of a very rare number that found little wrong with 3rd Edition Blood Bowl, and liked little tweaks like Sigurd's roll, but for the most part saw no need to change any of it.

Needless to say, the past couple years of rules changes have been harrowing.

My local gang of Blood Bowlers has been through a number of leagues. They would go for a while, then peter out, much to my frustration, because I really like running a team in the long term. I want to see the teams develop ad infinitum. The major stumbling block is that the players in the leagues did not have the attention span I do when it comes to maintaining their rosters and progressing through the ranks. As a result, people kept leaving, or making new teams when they got bored with the old ones, so most of the coaches had rookie teams. Meanwhile, I kept on chugging along with my team, getting better and better. My best team had a team rating of 306, and it was impossible to win a tournament, because I would always have to face some rate 107 weenie team, with a fistful of handicap cards. Those teams did get a huge bonus with the additional MVPs, and would very quickly grow in TR until they were closer to the upper tiers.

A previous league we were in tried the TR cap idea. We set the cap at TR 200, and provided a mechanism to try to maintain that cap: you could peak any of your players at the end of a season, so that they would not improve. If you wanted to retire one of them, they went to a roster of Star Players that could be bought by new teams. An interesting idea, and a neat way to make some unique new Star Players, but the league ended up stagnating, with the top team having 15 peaked players on it.

Personally, I do not see why some game mechanic is necessary to hinder a team's growth. The original handicapping system was pretty good for that. What's more, when you have those nasty, high SPP players, they tend to get inducted into the Order of the Concentric Circle. Bounties do a wonderful job of helping this particular process. (but that's just a house rule)

So after this rambling, what about my analysis of the topic at hand? TR caps? Not all that great if you are interested in the long term. People end up having to sacrifice their best players, essentially throwing away their progress so that those who are slower can catch up. In the end, everyone is eventually the same TR up at the top of the cap, barring some misfortune like I suffered in the current MBBL2 season (had two expensive players killed in two consecutive games, to the tune of about 30 TR).

Aging? In my almost, but not quite humble opinion, the single worst idea ever proposed related to Blood Bowl. Not only do you have to worry about tripping and getting hurt when the dice betray you (and they WILL betray you), as well as the other teams coming after you with their heavy hitters (and there is no such thing as impenetrable armor. Get enough goblins jumping up and down on that ogre, and eventually he'll get hurt), but you also start suffering negative effects just because you've either A) been really good at what you do, or B) have managed to survive for a few games. It's been said once already, but it bears repeating, If I wanted realism, why would I be playing a game with elves, orcs and undead?

Negative Winnings? Not that bad an idea, but I don't see how this would go toward letting a team keep playing forever. It's essentially another form of TR cap, but it's based on luck, instead of number crunching. Especially combined with the fact that FF gets maxed out by the penalty imposed (-1 for every 10 FF), this really doesn't seem to be geared toward long term play, but rather putting a max on the league, so that the slower people can catch up. If the FF penalty was taken away, and teams were allowed to keep going higher and higher with FF, then I might see it as possibly plausible. Personally, I like the FF penalty, though without it, when a smaller team meets that juggernaut, they walk away with an incredibly fat purse.

Freebooting Apothecary? This one leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Tom has said that it is better for starting teams... I counter that it may be better, but only for the first game. After that, they need to make sure that they are setting aside 10K for their Apothecary, which means that their growth is being slowed. For some teams that have expensive players, and are not that great in the early goings, like an Elf team in a Bash-heavy league (I speak from personal experience in this respect), this will be a greater hinderance than it would be for a Dwarf team, which comes with several skills already, and tougher armor which will reduce the occurrence of those injuries. I haven't seen this in play, so I can't really give any definitive opinion on this, but I don't think that it will work all that well.

Changed Handicap tables? I really don't have much opinion on this... They've been mucked around with so much that I really don't know what's going on with them. I kind of liked them they way they originally were, and didn't really see anything broken with them.

To sum up this long and rambling post (sorry for that), To have a long lasting league, with long lasting teams, you need to have players that will stick around long enough for that to occur. The trouble arises when new players show up late in the league. A seeding system to place teams of similar strengths against each other is the best way to keep the little guys from getting too horribly stomped at first. Give significant benefits to guys who have low TR when they engage in a game against someone with high TR, whether or not they win or lose, as this will help them quickly get up to the higher levels.

Most importantly, and this is the main reason I declined to vote, Don't penalize the teams because they're successful!!! If another team is better, GREAT! Let the handicapping system take care of the different between the team ratings. Attrition will happen naturally to the best teams, because the dice hate us all. If a team is lucky enough to survive to TR 500, what's wrong with that?

The entire purpose that I've seen for all these systems, Aging, EXP system, this new proposal by Tom, is to hold back the teams that are good, so that they don't benefit from their success, and let the slower gimpier teams catch up. I don't think that's fun. When I have a good team, and I'm on top of the pack, I want to stay there. If someone rises up and knocks me off my perch, then I'll just have to fight harder to get back up there. If I'm in the middle or hind end of the pack, then I strive harder to get to the front once more.

Simply put, reward success, don't punish it.

-Zodo, CI

[noodle]

Zodo - Our league is very much like yours. However with nothing to hold the best teams back - after a while they get bored up there in their ivory towers...

Here's a breakdown of this years superleague:

TR 370 - 65 games or so
TR 295 - 54 games
TR 270 - 40 games or so
TR 240 - 40 games or so
TR 233 - 30 games or so
TR 210 - 20+ games
TR 200 - 20 ish games
TR 180 - 15 games

My point?

Well - the 370 team is an anomaly. We ALREADY use negative winnings, a form of peaking etc... However 1) The team was developed mostly under 3rd edition and 2) Its STILL very good...

Even with all the negative factors - good players with good strategies will get rewarded for success! - Higher FF - Higher winnings etc...

Analysis shows that with our league rules teams will have a tough time exceeding TR 400 after hundreds of games...


THIS IS GOOD.


We had an old 3rd edition league - we had a top team rating of 650+ - I had to increase squad size to 22 and introduce a bucket load of extra rules and options to keep it interesting.

We've done that - and THAT wasn't realistic (I know - bad word) - real teams get good, then either stay good or get worse. They don't often go off into infinity...

However my love of game character and in game effects - and team economics means I like Galak's rules, but don't like arbitrary ageing.

Still think Peaking has a role. After all not EVERYONE keeps getting better, only the few...

[Grumbledook]

I am going to have to disagree that these aren't good for long term leagues and team development.

Once a team gets itself up to a high level, the challenge then should be to stay there and bring up young fresh talent as players get on in their career and have to retire. No man plays forever, jerry rice will retire at some point ;] Teams also shouldn't keep going up and up forever.

The more skills you get in the teams the more it boils down to a point where games are won and lost on the coach who rolls double 1 the most. Thats not what i call a game. Teams at tr 250 are really good teams, like has been said the reavers are 310, when you get there thats the legend status. Teams also don't stay at the top forever, its tough at the top, a cliche but true. You are always going to have teams snapping at your heals fouling your stars. It takes a lot of money to run a very good team irl.

Running a tr250 for a long time should be a challenge, its also at a level where other teams can come and catch up which is also important in a league. The negative winnings should act as a method to spread the money in the league. The lower teams with lower ff will gain more money from playing the bigger clubs, while the bigger clubs will have to keep an eye on the purse strings as they play the teams with a smaller following.

These rules should allow you to play around tr250 and stay there game after game (with slight fluctuation), the higher you go above this the tougher it gets to stay there. If you drop below this it gets a bit easier and you can recover. Games should be more of a challenge the longer you play them or they get boring. If you bought a computer game that got easier every level you wouldn't be too happy.

As for peaking I have always been against it. The game already has its own inbuilt peaking with teh spp. I have seen many a player who never seems to gain spp as though they have already peaked. Its in built into the nature of the game no need to enforce it on anyone.

As for the nature of high ff teams not playing low ff teams in a challenge league. I only really think this will happen on a very large scale like FUMBBL, but then there are enough opponents around to be able to play against teams you would like. Besides you will soon make a name for yourself if you do start game dodging.

This in itself does introduce a kinda self inflicted divisional tier system with the larger teams playing the larger teams and leaving the lower ones to fight it out to catch up, but still leaves it open for the smaller teams to try and giant kill the better ones.

Besides those teams will still be affected by the negative winnings its not like you will get massive crowds every game. You can have poor gate rolls and the gates under the current rules aren't massive. I will see if I can get hold of some hard data on this.

[Janzki]

Voted for the TBB package. Really like to see if it works. Keep posting Galak

-Janzki

[farung]

my 2 cents : http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... eam_id=208

I want a team too look like that, thats the whole point of the game, oh and one more thing; too much balancing is generally not a good thing, It just keeps us from fighting harder to win.

[martynq]

my 2 cents : http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... eam_id=208

I want a team too look like that, thats the whole point of the game, oh and one more thing; too much balancing is generally not a good thing, It just keeps us from fighting harder to win.

I'd prefer far less niggles, but I'm terribly impressed with that win ratio... 80% is very very good, IMO.

Martyn

[Grumbledook]

i assure you if you talk to evo about that team he will tell you if handicaps were in play on fumbbl he would have sorted that team out ages ago instead of hoarding money and keeping loads of niggled players

as already stated a lot of people ignore the niggles

it also makes a mockery of the reikland reavers tr 310 to have teams like that and i disagree thats the whole point of the game

if you look at the huge tr differences he has played against without any handicaps in place you will see his win ratio isn't at all impressive, specially as i beat him ;]

[Jugular]

OK im still here I've kept reading cause I think there are some great ideas being discussed and if this is where BB is going I want to have my say. I'd still really like people to address my idea on reimbursing the reitrement of players (as mentioned by one poster the cash is just as easily related to recouping salary cost). I also believe that aging should be left in with some tweaks as mentioned by some previous posters. I believe that if nigglers were changed to apply at each half as well they would be made strong enough that by reducing the effect of aging (i.e. no aging on first skill and -1 to all subsequent thresholds) it would still provide a supa playa reducer which the current TBB package doesn't address (super orc players for example are let off by the TBB Package). I feel that aging should be left in partly in answer to the fact that "not every player can reach the same level" and therefore add an inherent peaking.
I'm not holding out for many more No's to post a well considered attack on the TBB package as I just think that anyone who's against it is working on gut feeling. I encourage such people to vote yes and lets try platesting so that gut feeling can be consolidated into some hard data examples or hopefully dissipate As someone posted early on maybe the BBRC should consider more closely after playtesting. After the last RR there were a few sore points implemented that many people felt had not been well enough playtested and others (ogre team) that had been thoroughly playtested. This could a be a reason why some people may be unwilling to try playtesting these rules for fear of implied endorsement for rules change.

[Grumbledook]

well all super players will eventually get dealt with

as they get super and the longer they stay on the team they tend to pick up more and more spp and then obviously take up more TR

the higher the tr the harder it will be to keep hiring an apothcary, give away more handicaps and also the money will be coming in slower

to compensate this with the tr the coach may well drop some of the middle ranged players

if they keep doing this the team will be one star and a lot of poor average players, in a match take out the star and you have a weak team to beat, or when the star does die then the rest of the team will be a lot weaker than it was when they were there and they have to go about redeveloping the team

the other case of course is to retire the star player and then bring in fresh talent to build up and replace him, you can see this happening in real life sports all the time

[neoliminal]

Galak. You said that this team was an example of a situation where you felt a choice would be forced on you. That you, as a coach, wouldn't be able to make an interesting choice. What I want to do is test that theory.

Code: Select all

Animal House
Race: Khemri
Coached by: The Trainer (Brian Hixon)
# PLAYER'S NAME POSITION MA ST AG AV SKILLS INJ COMP TD INT CAS MVP SPP VALUE 
1 Godzilla Mummy 3 5 1 8 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block, Tackle, Guard, AV -1         9 3 33 $110,000  
2 King Kong Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Guard, Piling On, Block, Tackle, Break Tackle         33 2 76 $110,000  
3 Mothra 2 Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block       1 3   8 $110,000  
4 Iron Giant Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block, Tackle         6 1 17 $110,000  
5 Lassie Thro-Ra 5 3 3 7 Sure Hands, Pass, Regenerate, Accurate, Block     2   6   18 $70,000  
6 Silver Thro-Ra 5 3 3 7 Sure Hands, Pass, Regenerate, Block, Kick     3   1 1 16 $70,000  
7 Old Yeller Blitz-Ra 6 3 2 8 Block, Regenerate, Stand Firm, Dodge     6   1   20 $90,000  
8 Rin Tin Tin Blitz-Ra 6 3 2 8 Block, Regenerate, Stand Firm, Dodge, Frenzy     5   3 2 31 $90,000  
9 Azmar Kalazar Bonz Skeleton 5 3 3 7 Regenerate, Sure Hands, Block, AG +1   6 6   1 3 40 $30,000  
10 Fetch Skeleton 7 3 3 7 Regeneration, AG +1, MA +1, Block, MA +1, Sure Hands N   22   2 3 85 $30,000  
11 Sel Fish Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regeneration, Block, Dauntless M   1   3 2 19 $30,000  
12 Ball 2 Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate               $30,000  
13 Gluttony Skeleton 5 4 2 7 Regenerate, Block, ST +1 N       2 3 19 $30,000  
14 Rawhide Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate, Block, Leader N   1   7   17 $30,000  
15 Dolgan Goldstrike Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate, Block, Tackle M       8   16 $30,000  
16 Squeeker 2 Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate               $30,000  
 Team: Animal House RE-ROLLS: 5 x $70,000 = $350,000  
 Race: Khemri FAN FACTOR: 17 x $10,000 = $170,000  
 Team Rating: 229 ASSISTANT COACHES:   x $10,000 = $0  
 Treasury: $0  CHEERLEADERS:   x $10,000 = $0  
 Coach: The Trainer (Brian Hixon) APOTHECARY:   x $50,000 =    
 TEAM WIZARD:   x $150,000 =    
 TOTAL VALUE/COST OF TEAM $1,440,000  

Make a choice. Get rid of 4 or more TR.

[GalakStarscraper]

Grumble hit my goal with the package in his last post.

There are a lot of folks who think it fun to develop a great player. Griff came for somewhere didn't he????

I'm one of those people that really enjoy developing my team. I wanted a flexible system that allowed coaches to develop super stars if that was really what they wanted. BUT ... like Grumble said ... if you develop such players it will be at the cost of other areas of your team.

Now ... take a look at the simple scaled handicap table I posted. 50% of the Desperate Measure target the super stars of a team. And 1 of the 6 Random Events does as well. That means that means at a handicap of 75 points, I have a 67% chance of nailing your stars.

IE ... this is why I call it I say its a package. The better handicap table takes the place of aging in some ways by adding problems for stars playing against weaker teams. If two teams of like TR play, let them bring out their best players and bash heads.

Looking at just negative winnings and saying ... "it doesn't handle stars" ... or to quote:

it would still provide a supa playa reducer which the current TBB package doesn't address (super orc players for example are let off by the TBB Package)

Forgets the other stuff in the package. Freebooted apothecaries means that super orc doesn't have an apothecary to save him from a hard hit. A better handicap table means that if he's playing weaker teams he probably won't take the field at all ... (negative winnings can = team debt which when you + Appearance Fee = best player (ie super Orc) misses game).

Its a package for a reason. Each step is there to cover the holes from the other steps.

Galak

[Grumbledook]

yer neoliminal that sucks though having to just get rid of 4 tr in order to be able to play a match, where is the fun in that

its the same sort of rule that would push players out just like saying you have to play with painted minis or some such thing

no one wants to be forced to do things, a system that the coach can ignore and fight against it while still playing is a much better thing no?