LRB favors AG teams (Rant)

[roysorlie]

The problem is the evidence being presented is unreliable.
Firstly, the rankings are determined by tournaments, which is a different kettle of fish to league play, due to progression etc.
Secondly league progression depends upon the teams in the league.

Ok, you are saying that the evidence being presented is unreliable, because rankings determined by tournaments are based on different situations than league play.

But to my knowledge, in Tournaments, Undead and Chaos Dwarves usually end up at the top. But that is unreliable of course. So we take a look at all the different leagues out there, and it seems like Undead, and Chaos Dwarves usually lie at the top of those. But that is unreliable because of the different make up's of teams in the league?

Come on. That sounds ridicoulous.

Actually, to be frank, I should say that based on the ranking lists of different tournaments AND leagues, that the ST teams are too favoured. And that at least is deducted by viewing the overall results based on lots of tournaments, NAF rankings AND league rankings.

If you discount all the source material as irrelevant, what could you possibly base a case stating that finesse teams are too powerful on?

And a digression; Of course finesse teams don't play bash teams if they can choose someone else. Given the brand new dangers that came with the LRB; (meaning Minotaurs and Rat Ogres with PO and RSC, Pro, Tackle, Frenzy, etc) Regarded with the fact that elves are so expensive, are forced to more on field time due to nerfing hand offs, and difficulties with breaking cages AND the difficulties involved in making money, playing Bash teams suddenly become quite the hazard. (add aging into the picture and it starts to become nasty)

*rant*

[rwould]

roysorlie: The tournament environment is different. You will get certain players selecting particular teams based upon the rules being used for the tournament to maximise it. If you can work out an analysis based upon the teams used by players who consistently rank highly and how those do and that would provide far more useful information. As has been pointed out on a different discussion chaos dwarves are a far more coach specific selection. 'Bad' coaches are less likely to use them and so their score is affected by that. A better analysis of which team performs best would be which ones consistently finish in the top ten than purely on win/loss, as this would take out the mix the bad coaches. And then you have the argument of how the rules affect it......

Galak: If you look at what I have said I think the online league provides the best sample, due to its size. I put a proviso in there based upon what Grumbledook (I think) said about people refusing to play his high TR St team, but having no experience of how the league operates I don't know the common practices for sorting out opponents. I can certainly understand why people wouldn't want to play it! For the other leagues my statement relates to individuals using their league as an example. With no details of how each league operates it is an irrelevance. You can usually find 'evidence' to support an argument based upon statistics on a one-off example but you need, and that is what people are using for their examples. Would you base your argument on a few people using their own specific examples which happen to support their argument? If so it would be a flawed sample. More telling on this was the message from the member of the same group as the original poster, which does not seem to support his hypothesis.

People should be addressing the issue with explanations supporting their argument not solely reliant upon one leagues example (ie their own).

Hope it makes a bit more sense now!

Richard

[Grumbledook]

Fumbbl recently (yesterday) reached over 10,000 games since the relaunch on 3rd jan. Its just an open format so people join the chat room and ask for a match and find an opponent like that. With people having a few teams it usually means you can find a match and usually can have a choice of opponents and teams.

[ZanzerTem]

Fumbbl is TOOOOOOONS better now that they are finally addressing the load time issues.

[Joshua Dyal]

My complaint is that the solution is inelegant and takes some of the fun out of the game. Whereas before, AG teams were kept in line by casualties, (and I could agree that they were kept too much in line behind some of the crunchier teams) we have a very inelegant patch in terms of aging rules, and all the many exceptions to any ST-like skills. Surely, the solution could have been more elegant -- tone down some of the exceptions to the many ST skills, and get rid of aging should be about a wash, at least in theory.

[wesleytj]

My complaint is that the solution is inelegant and takes some of the fun out of the game. Whereas before, AG teams were kept in line by casualties, (and I could agree that they were kept too much in line behind some of the crunchier teams) we have a very inelegant patch in terms of aging rules, and all the many exceptions to any ST-like skills. Surely, the solution could have been more elegant -- tone down some of the exceptions to the many ST skills, and get rid of aging should be about a wash, at least in theory.

to me if you re-power the strength skills you have to re-power some of the agility stuff too. let people take handoffs from other players, allow more than 1 leap a turn, make DT like it was before, etc.

i don't understand why all the skills have to be weaker anyway.

[Zombie]

2 reasons:

1. Balance. They're not all weaker. Some were too good, and now they're more in line with other skills. At least one skill that was almost useless (shadowing) was brought up in power. Nowadays, you've gotta think more about what to give your players. If only now they could diving block and dodge in 2 skills each, i'd be happy.

2. Generally weaker skills means generally weaker veteran players. Players with 100+ SPPs were way too good before. Now they're good, but not completely domiating. Again, this means that you have to use your brains a little more, which is always a good thing.

[wesleytj]

2 reasons:
1. Balance. They're not all weaker. Some were too good, and now they're more in line with other skills. Nowadays, you've gotta think more about what to give your players. If only now they could diving block and dodge in 2 skills each, i'd be happy..

So you'd like every skill to be as worthless as diving catch? that's what you're advocating here...make every skill suck equally. then whats the point of progressing?

2. Generally weaker skills means generally weaker veteran players. Players with 100+ SPPs were way too good before. Now they're good, but not completely domiating. Again, this means that you have to use your brains a little more, which is always a good thing.

I thought that's what ageing, changing spp table, and that crap were for? Besides, I'm suggesting this be done in concert with increasing ST skills like mighty blow, so presumably it would be tough to even GET to 100spp. The challenge is to get a guy there and keep him there despite all the forces at work against him...becoming a target, aging, etc etc.

[Zombie]

So you'd like every skill to be as worthless as diving catch? that's what you're advocating here...make every skill suck equally. then whats the point of progressing?

No, diving catch should be brought up in power, along with a couple other skills.

I thought that's what ageing, changing spp table, and that crap were for? Besides, I'm suggesting this be done in concert with increasing ST skills like mighty blow, so presumably it would be tough to even GET to 100spp. The challenge is to get a guy there and keep him there despite all the forces at work against him...becoming a target, aging, etc etc.

I'd rather the challenge be on the field. If the only chalenge is getting your guy to 100+ SPPs, and the game becomes boring at that point because that guy is too dominant, that's not much of a game, is it?

[wesleytj]

So you'd like every skill to be as worthless as diving catch? that's what you're advocating here...make every skill suck equally. then whats the point of progressing?

No, diving catch should be brought up in power, along with a couple other skills..

why? why do all skills have to be equal? it's ok for some to be better than others in many situations. the idea is to have options, so that if you had this truly sneaky devious plan, maybe in that case diving catch would be just the thing for you...I don't have an example (and if I did I wouldn't share it anyway) except the general hail mary/diving catch combo (which i don't use) but you get my point.

I'd rather the challenge be on the field. If the only chalenge is getting your guy to 100+ SPPs, and the game becomes boring at that point because that guy is too dominant, that's not much of a game, is it?

Well of course there's more to it than that...it's getting the right skills, and making the best use of them. it's building up super neat players, but at the same time having a solid team around them so they function well as a unit...a well-oiled machine so to speak.

The challenge is both on the field and off of it. That's why, for example, my strategy guide deals partly with how to set up, run an offense, etc etc on the field stuff, as well as what skills to take, how to spend your winnings, etc etc off the field stuff. You gotta be good at both to be good. THAT'S what makes the game cool.

[Skummy]

I agree with Zombie here. The lack of special play cards and the adjustments made to the game have made it more of a strategy game in which positioning and team management are more important than ever. The game has reached a good balance, and I'd need to see a very good reason to change anything that might upset that balance.

[GalakStarscraper]

Wes,

You are making me agree with Zombie here .... a rare event.

I've enjoyed BB more under the LRB than I have in any time during the double digits years that I've played the game. I think the skills that got smacked down made sense and overall I like the game.

Joshua Dyal,

3rd edition used the theory of ST teams and Casualties will cause balance. Sorry, I've seen the results of several 3rd edition leagues. TR 400 teams are not fun unless you have only the most power gamer mentality. Since the new rules, I been very happy to see the TRs that teams are reaching and I'm enjoying the game a heck of a lot more.

Basically, I fully agree with Zombie's comments. The game is more fun because it more balanced and I very much like it this way.

Galak

[Joshua Dyal]

I'm not advocating going back to a 3e ruleset, by any means. For the most part, I think the LRB rules are an improvement (although I still struggle to remember what the rule is this year when in actual play.) However, I think aging sucks. It's no fun, and it's needlessly complicated. If, as Zombie says, it's to keep AG teams in check, then they've obviously gone too far in reducing ST teams clout.

I'm not disagreeing that ST teams were too powerful under 3e and had too many advantages. However, in their efforts to rectify that situation, they knocked the ST teams down to the point that they were weaker than the AG teams, and so aging had to be introduced to counter it. Now, instead of an elegant solution, we've got needless complication to the ST teams and needless complication to the AG teams to counter it.

Now, maybe Zombie isn't right and that's not the purpose of aging -- maybe the purpose of aging is simply to keep TRs down, and it's a replacement for the even worse star player fees that 4e introduced. If so, then my argument doesn't hold out. It still doesn't change the fact that aging isn't very fun, though.

[GalakStarscraper]

It still doesn't change the fact that aging isn't very fun, though.

I posted this in Martyn's new EXP questions thread, but in summary.

I agree with you that LRB skill based again is no fun and I don't like it.

I do however like the team management issues that EXP aging creates and look forward to my teams hitting the point where I need to start considering how to manage my team to keep it competitive.

Galak

[BullBear]

Again, to balance the teams from 3rd, they should have brought up the AG teams, IMO, NOT bring down the ST teams.