New EXP/Ageing Rule

[Snew]

In relation to the current aging system, Bash teams will age faster and Agility teams slower

I don't think this is an acceptable con. Any attrition system should affect all players equally.

The part you seemed to miss was the "in relation to". This system does affect all players equally. The old system hit scoring teams harder than the bash teams.

[GalakStarscraper]

Mmmm...

This proposal also means that it will be harder to develop players who earn SPPs at a slow rate to a Star (51 SPPs).
Now less take some examples:-
A Catcher earning 3 SPPs per game (17 games) - 89% chance of no aging (2 games)
A blitzer earning 2.5 SPPs per game (21 games) - 71% chance of no aging (6 games)
A Thrower earning 2 SPPs per game (26 games) - 53% chance of no aging (11 games)
An Elf Lino earning 1 SPP per game (51 games) - 13% chance of no aging (36 games)
A Lino earning 0.5 SPPs per game (102 games) - 0.7% chance of no aging (87 games)

What about this?

The EXP system treats all players equally. This means that you actually develop star player with this system. Yes they will most likely be catchers but then those have usually been the stars anyway. I just really don't believe that aging or wear and tear needs to worry about the number of SPPs the player has. When the MBBL3 was testing the original LRB rules, we talked about game based aging and Chet and JKL's comment was that while it was perferred that a good one could not be found. Well, in my opinion, a good one has finally been found and it is better than the one we have. As I said its my opinion.

Galak

[Mr. Sanity]

7) Links Aging with the actual age of the player.
This is the biggest problem with ageing. The current system shouldn;t be called ageing, it should be called "wear and tear". The fact that it's called ageing is unfortuante and shouldn't have been called that in the first place. In my mind my team is playing pretty much in real time, the fact that a player gets a stat decrease or whatever because of the "ageing roll" makes way more sense if you thin of it as taking abuse through playing. In fact, in our league we call ageing "SPOOTEG" which translates roughly to: "Snot Pounded out of them Every Game".

But the current ageing rules do not simulate "SPOOTEG" at all. These proposed rules more closely simulate "SPOOTEG." Under the curernt ageing rules, that lineman punching bag that sits on the LOS and rarely collects SPPs but is constantly pounded into the dirt is not ageing. Why should he age less than a Skaven GR that is only fielded on O and constantly scores in 1 turn? These proposed ageing rules more fairly distribute the risks and effects of aging to all players, weather or not they perform SPP-earning actions.

10) Actually encourages player turnover of older teams (ie 20+ games) better than the current aging rules ... ie it steps them up a little as was desired by several reviews of older teams (20+ games) under the current LRB rules.
This is true to some extent, but since we use a system at the end of our season to level off highly developed teams (which this year will be teams like mine with TRs around 250). I think that ageing does a pretty good job of making you think twice about keeping aged players though. Although I have kept 2 of mine, my star catcher with a niggler has been teetering on Asstitant Coach status recently.

So you're saying that the current ageing is insufficient so you had to add an additional mechanic to level the playing field? That sounds to me like current ageing is not performing its intended purpose. Maybe if not only your high-SPP earning players were at risk of ageing, you'd have more players that you'd be considering retiring to assistant coach positions...

Mr. Sanity

{edited BBCode}

[Anthony_TBBF]

So you're saying that the current ageing is insufficient so you had to add an additional mechanic to level the playing field?

No I didn't say that at all. we've been using those rules for years, we would have used them whether there was ageing or not. In fact this is the first time we've had both in one season.

[Anthony_TBBF]

The EXP system treats all players equally. This means that you actually develop star player with this system. Yes they will most likely be catchers but then those have usually been the stars anyway. I just really don't believe that aging or wear and tear needs to worry about the number of SPPs the player has.

OK I think you are slowly winning me over... maybe I'm not entirely convinced but I will admit there are some good ideas in there. I am a little concerned that some bad luck could mess up someone's party real quick. At least with ageing you know there are only a certain number of rolls to make.

[Anthony_TBBF]

The old system hit scoring teams harder than the bash teams.

I think it balanced out in the end. So a Wood Elf team loses a catcher. No big deal, you have 10 other lineman to score with, and I'm sure it will take only a couple of games to get a replacement up to speed. A bashy team is going to hurt over losing a scorer a lot more than an agility team will.

[mrinprophet]

Wow! I think I really like this system, for what that's worth. As a relative newbie, one complaint I had was that ageing was linked to skill rolls (echoing Galak's statements). Rolling a few extra dice isn't that big of deal if it improves the game. I'd like to see the results of some playtesting. I understand the stats, but am curious about the impact on the teams (e.g. With this system, I'd be a bit more likely to start a Chaos team). Any thoughts on whether this would significantly benefit Chaos and Skaven as their lineman have access to mututations? I guess one would have to conclude that mutations were better than skills/traits for that to be true. Just my $0.02 worth.

[GalakStarscraper]

The old system hit scoring teams harder than the bash teams.

I think it balanced out in the end. So a Wood Elf team loses a catcher. No big deal, you have 10 other lineman to score with, and I'm sure it will take only a couple of games to get a replacement up to speed. A bashy team is going to hurt over losing a scorer a lot more than an agility team will.

True but whereas the current aging system starts trying to make the bashy team's scorer start hurting right away. The EXP system gives you time to develop your scoring players and their substitutes.

Let's say you have a Orc Blitzer that becomes your main scorer and let's be consertative and say he earns 2.5 SPPs per a game based on Neo's team.

So he gets: 1st skill (game 3), 2nd skill (game 7), 3rd skill (game 13), 4th skill (game 21), 5th skill (game 31)

So let's compare the 2 systems by going out to 31 games played

LRB Aging:
Game 3: 97.2% chance to not age
Game 7: 91.7% chance to not age (cumulative 89.1%)
Game 13: 83.3% chance to not age (cumulative 74.3%)
Game 21: 72.2% chance to not age (cumulative 53.6%)
Game 31: 58.3% chance to not age (cumulative 31.3%)

EXP Aging:
Game 19: 58.3% chance to not age
Game 25: 58.3% chance to not age (cumulative 34.0%)
Game 31: 58.3% chance to not age (cumulative 19.8%)

So in the first 31 games of a player's life at 2.5 SPPs per a game, the LRB
system was worse in games 3-18, 21-24 or a total of 20 of 31 games with worse odds for aging.

The EXP system was worse for game 19-20 and 25-31 for a total of 9 out of 31.

So my question here is Anthony isn't this system really making it easier to develop good scorers for bashy teams. The odds don't shift for this player in favor of the LRB aging until game 25 which is a pretty long life for most players (heck I've seen a lot of teams get retired long before that their 25th game).

If a player gets more SPPs than 2.5 per a game it makes the EXP system even better. If he gets less than the EXP becomes worse earlier. The point I'm hoping this shows though is that those bashy scorers are more targeted under LRB than EXP at least that what I pull from the numbers.

Galak

[Moonsong]

I am a little concerned that some bad luck could mess up someone's party real quick.

Let me introduce you my two beloved Lion Warriors, who, in our last league, managed to age both at the end of game 1 (yes, the first game played by rookie teams), after 3 combined TD and an MVP, and the pass blocking one, already with a niggler, aged again upon getting his second skill, at the end of game 4.

Want to talk about bad luck streaks?

Moonsong

[GalakStarscraper]

I am a little concerned that some bad luck could mess up someone's party real quick.

Let me introduce you my two beloved Lion Warriors, who, in our last league, managed to age both at the end of game 1 (yes, the first game played by rookie teams), after 3 combined TD and an MVP, and the pass blocking one, already with a niggler, aged again upon getting his second skill, at the end of game 4.

Want to talk about bad luck streaks?

Moonsong

Lou's human team has had two differnent players age in the MBBL in his first 6 games (one of the them was a Lineman whose game 6 1st skill roll was +1 ST and he got an Niggle from the aging roll). Both of these stories are impossibilites with the EXP system. Its all food for thought.

Galak

[Scott King]

The extra dice rolls issue I think is truly pointless. The only time IMO that extra rolls become a pain is when there are three million modifiers involved as well. Then you spend all your time looking at the different tables, and THIS is time consuming and annoying. As long as the dice roll is unmodified to get a result, then it's only going to take a minimum of time. "Yep, it's a one.", not "A one, plus two for blah, minus three for Blah etc..."

[Pink Horror]

Hmm, it doesn't look like you tried too hard to think up the cons, Galak. I'm still neutral to this whole idea, so maybe I can add a few. Let's see what we've got:

PROS

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1) Rookie teams get ramped up to their first skill faster than the current system making it easier for them to be competitive in the league. 

Can you be sure rookie teams will have an easier time competing? Let's say the rest of the league has been using these rules for 10 games. They've been "ramped up" and are now even tougher than they would have been with MVPs. Also, ageing has barely affected them because their players haven't been around long enough yet. Furthermore, how many games would a "rookie" team have to play before getting a couple skills out of this rule? Without other rookies to play against at first, I see no improvement here. And, if you can stick to other rookies to play against in your league, this becomes a moot point, right?

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2) Experienced teams receive significantly less SPPs than the current system (ie EXP vs MVP)

Okay, this is a solid pro.

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3) Getting a skill roll no longer has a possible penalty associated with it. 

No arguement here.

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4) You can develop an effective star player with this system and he's targeted no more of less by the system than any other player.

This seems to be a fact, but is it actually a good fact? Shouldn't the players who bear the weight of your team's success be affected more than others? The current system accomplishes that in a heavy-handed way.

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5) The average player doesn't get his first permanent aging effect until his 22nd game. For leagues that restart each season that means they don't have to house rule to remove aging rules as they will essential not apply to shorter term leagues. Aging will only target the long term teams that aging was meant to add balance to in the first place. 

How many games does it take to reach TR 250? How about 280? If ageing doesn't usually start to touch the players until 22 games, it might be coming in too late.

6) Maintains the coach's choice as to who retires and who stays (ie doesn't force retirement)

This might be a pro, but it's equally true for both systems.

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7) Links Aging with the actual age of the player.

Well, it increases the correlation between games played and ageing effects. There was a correlation before, since more SPPs usually goes along with more games. You can't say experience is the "actual age". A string of ones or sixes can easily throw that relation off.

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8) Removes the old problem of freebooters and dead players stealing your MVP. 

This problem can be removed under either system.

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9) Spreads out the SPPs. No more having one lineman with 3 MVPs and no other SPPs. This system evenly distributes the end of game points. 

No argument.

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10) Actually encourages player turnover of older teams (ie 20+ games) better than the current aging rules ... ie it steps them up a little as was desired by several reviews of older teams (20+ games) under the current LRB rules. 

No argument.

Are there any more Pros? Ooh, I've got one:

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11) Players don't magically stop ageing after the seventh skill roll.

Under the current rules, if a player somehow survives the gauntlet and gets to super-stardom, he'll never age again. Isn't that odd?

Okay, that's enough contributing to the leading side. It's time for the Cons.

CONS

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1)  16 dice rolls at the end of the game compared to 1 MVP roll

I don't like this either, but finding those stupid random player chits is pretty annoying sometimes. If you can get rid of those things completely by changing the handicap and kickoff tables I'd be thrilled.

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2)  In relation to the current aging system, Bash teams will age faster and Agility teams slower

This shouldn't be labeled as a con. Bashing teams have so many benefits that I think the game would be better off taking one away.

Now for the new ones:

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3) The coach will have no control over the ageing rate.

Think Jimmy the blitzer needs some rest? Well, forget about it, because he takes as much wear from scoring TDs as from passing out drinks. At least by benching players now you can reduce their SPP earnings.

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4) Will ageing come in too late?

Galak, I'm having trouble with something. You mentioned that in your league TRs are still rising, despite ageing, after 12 games. How will this help? If 12 games is all it takes to get too strong, and this Ageing doesn't come in until game 20 or so, why would the change be worth making?
I'd be trying to change the rules to work earlier.

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5) There's some balance issues.

Most teams have a bunch of linemen that don't start with any skills. Player pricing is based on the starting characteristics, not the characteristics after one skill. If, suddenly, we hand out skills to almost every player on the team after a few games, we severely endanger this balance. Should it be even easier to get blodging linewomen and guarding longbeards? What would the undead team be like if skeletons and zombies could easily get those first skills? How much worse off would goblins, with their terrible skill selection, be in comparison?

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6) The Kludge Factor

Here's why this rule seems like a Kludge: after awhile, only 1s and 6s will matter, and the actual number written in the experience column won't mean much. That isn't right. At first, a player can't age at all, and then he reaches a point at which he'll see the affects of age at the same rate the rest of his career. That doesn't seem right either. Ignoring all 2s through 5s, and rolling d6s with no modifiers ever, are not the Blood Bowl ways. Even a GFI can fail on a 2 sometimes.




Pink Horror

[Darkson]

Has anyone actually counted (not exactly, I'm not that anal, just roughly) how many dice are actually rolled by each coach (seperately and combined) in a "typical game", including both pre- and post- match? Would rolling an extra 16D6 (max) make much difference?

i never really noticed but I would guess it's at least 250 between them (yes, I probably over estimated earlier - so sue me ).

[Dangerous Dave]

OK some further comments on this. In the Pros section Galak listed that it was good to get rid of the Lineman with 3 MVPs and 1 cas. Sure I can see that. However the converse is also true. Developing any form of lineman - particularly those with either no skills or 2 AG and especially both (eg skeletons, zombies) will be very tough. This means that a number of teams will suffer from one sided skill development. This is a change and will definitely alter the medium term strength of teams - eg Khemri / Undead with no Dirty Player lino, Saurus will develop slowly. Perhaps the change is not great but it will shift power more to teams with players who can score more SPPs (here I am ignoring the EXP points since these go away for experienced teams). EG (of course this is only an example - its here to demonstrate my point!):-

A Dwarf team scores 3 cas and 1 TD = 9 SPPs

An Elf team scores 1 cas, 3 TDs, 3 comps = 13 SPPs

So we have a difference of 4 SPPs. However, with an MVP, the SPPs scored would be:-

Dwarf 14 SPPs
Elf 18 SPPs

The difference is still 4 but total SPPs earned are much closer. To earn 100 SPPs will take the following number of games:-

Current Dwarf 7
EXP Dwarf 11
Current Elf 5.5
EXP Elf 7.5

It will now take the Dwarf team 4 games longer (57%) to develop the same number of SPPs - the Elf team 2 games longer (36%).

Of course the fact that most players earn 1 or 2 SPPs easily in their first couple of games means that the initial devlopment will be quicker for all teams. My point is that teams that score more SPPs will develop more quickly under the proposed EXP system.

Now some comments on other posts:-

Galak said

In MANY ways its bringing back the old bonus MVPs from 3rd edition that rookies received. A 12 player rookie team will get 10 SPPs from their 1st game with the EXP system. While an Experience 12 player teams that played over 15 games will only get 2 SPPs.

Yeah but 2 rookie teams playing each other will also get 10 SPPs. At the moment, a high TR team should always score more points in game than a low TR team. This is because the high TR team has all the skills to score and all the skills to stop the opponent (eg Block, Tackle, Pass Block etc). OK there will be the odd exception when some good Handicap Rolls mean that the high TR team's Stars don't show. So all this does is it increases SPPs earned for each team early on. Sure it helps rookies catch up in a developed league but is it right to help them develop as a team more quickly?

Neo said

If your TR continues to climb, it's not enough ageing.

Anthony replied

I don't think TRs are continuing to climb, I haven't made it past 238 after hitting 200 around 12 games ago. Most of the teams in my league (witha few exceptions of teams that didn't fully develop under the new rules) are experiencing the same cap.

Galak answered

They are in the MBBL2. I got several teams getting ready to pass TR 250 who are no where near close to losing members from aging.

I agree with Anthony - I don't see TRs continually climbing. I don't think that the MBBL2 can be used as a base since there are a lot of house rules (personal apoths, levels of apoths etc) which all help to keep players around and beef up TRs. Sure there are additional damage skills too but who knows where this all balances out.


Overall I think that the system does have merit. However, I feel that the impact may be greater than some realise - sure teams will age less but free scoring teams will develop more quickly. This could shift the power balance.


Dave

[GalakStarscraper]

Can you be sure rookie teams will have an easier time competing? Let's say the rest of the league has been using these rules for 10 games.

I have to admit that there are some things that need tested to see what the effect is... this is one of those. I'm not sure what the difference is here, but I'm interested in finding out.

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4) You can develop an effective star player with this system and he's targeted no more of less by the system than any other player.

This seems to be a fact, but is it actually a good fact? Shouldn't the players who bear the weight of your team's success be affected more than others? The current system accomplishes that in a heavy-handed way.

This is just my opinion, I think it is. Personally I like to see teams able to develop some real star players. Eventually they'll get hit, but you have a chance to enjoy them for a while. That's fun BB to me.

How many games does it take to reach TR 250? How about 280? If ageing doesn't usually start to touch the players until 22 games, it might be coming in too late.

See personally to me the winning table and FF changes handle most of the balance effects. To me the aging rules should be there to enforce turnover for long term teams. The current table does not too early and not enough. The EXP system at 16 games really starts effecting one player a game if you have have a fairly full roster. Most leagues I've seen that reset from season to season don't play over 16 to 20 games so I'm very happy with this point. as being when aging kicks in (ie 16 games). I really like the delayed effect of the system ... yah you might go over TR 300 for a few games but if you don't start doing some player management you'll start losing ability pretty quickly.

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11) Players don't magically stop ageing after the seventh skill roll.

Under the current rules, if a player somehow survives the gauntlet and gets to super-stardom, he'll never age again. Isn't that odd?

Good one PH.

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3) The coach will have no control over the ageing rate.

Think Jimmy the blitzer needs some rest? Well, forget about it, because he takes as much wear from scoring TDs as from passing out drinks. At least by benching players now you can reduce their SPP earnings.

While I agree with this point. I've never seen a coach bench a player to not have him age or get SPPs.

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4) Will ageing come in too late?

Galak, I'm having trouble with something. You mentioned that in your league TRs are still rising, despite ageing, after 12 games. How will this help? If 12 games is all it takes to get too strong, and this Ageing doesn't come in until game 20 or so, why would the change be worth making?
I'd be trying to change the rules to work earlier.

See I personally don't want aging to be there at 12 games. Its just I know from seeing you is failing and who isn't that the current aging doesn't have enough impact even when the team starts reaching game 20 ... I can see that from what I'm seeing with the league. With the EXP system I know there time is coming ... the players are going to start to turnover at a rate of one permanent effect a game after about game 15 or 16. That's soon enough for me as long as I know it that the turnover is coming. See with the current aging, I just don't think the aging is ever coming or at least not at rate that I find encouraging the turnover in the players I'd like to see.

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5) There's some balance issues.

Most teams have a bunch of linemen that don't start with any skills. Player pricing is based on the starting characteristics, not the characteristics after one skill. If, suddenly, we hand out skills to almost every player on the team after a few games, we severely endanger this balance.

I guess I don't see this. All players gain the benefit at the same rate. Yes at 15 games they'll on average have 1 skill. Let's be honest here PH .. if the MVP system only gave MVP to players who didn't have one yet until all players had 1, the current system would be basically the same. Its just spreading out the unequal effect of the current MVP system.

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6) The Kludge Factor

On this we'll agree to disagree ... I don't see the Kludge factor even after you described it. The rule follows the 1 n' 6 rule... I don't think it HAS to have other modifiers beyond that to change this.

Galak