Forget Dwarves, what do Norse need for balance

[Dave]

sorry but I played Norse on several ocasions now and do not agree.

A MA7 catcher will make the two turn score waay too easy
Thick skull on the blitzer would make them even better
Lower the RR cost and I think you'll see Norse win any tournament they attend.. (give them a roster of: 3RR, 1Ogre, 4Blitzers, 2Catchers, 2Throwers and a FF of 4) waay too good IMHO

I think they are all right and what is wrong with htem becoming a challenge after 7+ league games ??

[rwould]

Why is that roster way too good? You only have 12 players, no apoth (I've assumed 3 linemen?), and so if you kick in the first half the opposing player should just try to beat you up as much as he can. With reasonable luck (assuming he has enough RR's!) he should be able to get you down to 8-9 players for the second half. It is also possible to have near enough the same lineup (drop 1 FF and a Thrower becomes a lineman) in the current rules.

Where it works a bit more against me for the TRR reduction is for TR 100 competitions. That extra 20 or 30 makes a bigger difference than it does in the TR 110 environment.

Part of the problem is too many players don't know how to play (both with and against!) a rookie Norse team. That is what affects the ratings of the team in tournaments, with the number of players who really lower the rating by performing poorly with them.

I don't have much problem in scoring in two turns with the Norse (if the Thrower picks the ball up....). Don't think the MA would make that much difference there. However it could make the Catchers a bit too good on the team so overall I'd probably agree with you and not change that, thinking more on it.

Thick Skull would not make that much difference I think, as it would (of course) only affect KO's and only half the time. And even then, the player is still stunned which the opponent won't be too unhappy at. However that could do with playtesting to see.

Richard

[Dave]

agreed on the KO .. but the next turn he's pretty ready to jump up ...

[DoubleSkulls]

Basically, they have a worse winning percentage then Khemri and only slightly better then Rotters.

What the problem with that? All 3 teams are going to struggle to get games except against teams that think they can beat them.

I would agree that Norse are slightly underpowered at high TRs, and giving them cheaper RRs might be a nice tweak.

Fundamentally there isn't an issue having teams that are great at low TRs and worse at high ones. Its part of the flavour.

[swilhelm73]

What the problem with that? All 3 teams are going to struggle to get games except against teams that think they can beat them.

Huh? Well some people avoid Khemri because of the CAS factor, Rotters hardly face people dodging games, and you'd have to be an idiot to refuse to play Norse.

Again let's spell this out - most teams are good at either CAS ratio or winning. Norse are now neither. As a matter of fact, Norse are even worse in the CAS game then Zons for goodness sake!

I would agree that Norse are slightly underpowered at high TRs, and giving them cheaper RRs might be a nice tweak.

Fundamentally there isn't an issue having teams that are great at low TRs and worse at high ones. Its part of the flavour.

How so? There are already two teams inferior teams on the official list...why do we need Norse as the third?

Let's be honest here Norse where pretty much balanced until the recent BBRC. At medium to even high TR, 4 Frenzy PO JU players were a serious threat to opponents. Making a needed fix the team was unintentionally unbalanced. So we need to fix the newly introduced problem.[/quote]

Overall, the only argument put forward against fixing this problem is that Norse are a good tournament team as is.

Well fine - one of the many great things about BB, is that one can tweak a team that won't have much of an effect in a 6 game tournament but will have an effect in a mid term league or a long term open format.

[Ithilkir]

Norse are even worse in the CAS game then Zons for goodness sake!

But better than nine other teams according to Fummbl stats...

[boshka]

I dont agree that the norse are under powered.
I played them in a 32 game season was my first season and we did fine like any other team its how you play them.
I suffered less deaths and casualties with them then with my current rotter team.
I would agree maybe one more point in armor would be nice, but weather they got it or not they still are a great team.
It comes down to the same thing with every team how you play them and luck.
If you now how to use the team well and you have slept with nuffle enough you can do well with any team even norse.

[ScottyBoneman]

I dont agree that the norse are under powered.
I played them in a 32 game season was my first season and we did fine like any other team its how you play them.
I suffered less deaths and casualties with them then with my current rotter team.
I would agree maybe one more point in armor would be nice, but weather they got it or not they still are a great team.
It comes down to the same thing with every team how you play them and luck.
If you now how to use the team well and you have slept with nuffle enough you can do well with any team even norse.

Sort of agree. Don't want to get anyone's rankles up because this is not 'to' anyone in particular, but I would be far more interested in pro-Norse opinions that were saying 'they start too well, but fade too fast.'. Otherwise it sort of sounds like picking the team that likely starts the best over their 1st 5 games or so and then complaining.

[DoubleSkulls]

I would agree that Norse are slightly underpowered at high TRs, and giving them cheaper RRs might be a nice tweak.

Fundamentally there isn't an issue having teams that are great at low TRs and worse at high ones. Its part of the flavour.

How so? There are already two teams inferior teams on the official list...why do we need Norse as the third?

I don't believe Norse are an "inferior team". Chaos start off relatively weak and get progressively stronger. Both Norse and Dwarves start out very strongly, but suffer in the longer run as S3 bashing teams.

So if you are playing long term (like a lot of FUMBBL coaches) then that becomes a significant issue. However the majority of BB teams do not keep going that long and Norse are probably balanced overall on ~15 games.

[Fairbane]

Sorry to resurrect this dead duck, but as a newbie Norse player searching the forums, I thought that this made interesting reading and was worth commenting on.

I have no idea whether the Norse really become weaker as the game progresses. It seems to me that Norse are generally going to do well against agility teams and badly against strength teams. However, I'm going to "presume" that there *is* a problem to be fixed, because I think there are points worth making about some of the suggestions put forward.

It occurs to me that long-term balance is difficult to judge because for the Norse, getting doubles on the linemen can be hugely helpful. If you can get linemen with Guard (not so good on Norse Blitzers) and/or Pro that's a huge help. Perhaps those Norse teams that have done well long-term have been lucky with getting some good skills on the linemen.

Firstly, changes to the ways that skills work aren't on the cards, because they'll just go throwing the balance of other teams out as well. If you're going to fix a problem with Norse, it has to be in the roster.

There's two options that were suggested briefly that I think are worth exploring.

Firstly, allowing the Norse access to physical traits. It makes sense with the fluff (although I prefer the idea of Norse as "flat" humans you could alwys argue that just living in the proximity of chaos can sometimes warp them). Claw or RSC on a Norse Blitzer is quite a scary proposition and might help them stay up in the Bashing league.

Second giving Dauntless as a starting skill to Catchers (and maybe an extra 10K in cost as well). People look at Norse as a strength team but it seems to me that there's another play style which is underused, and might be more useful as a long term style. A norse catcher with ST3, block, dodge and sidestep is going to be very hard to stop, except with a high ST blocker. So don't use them as sprint-scorers: pass the ball forward and have your catcher block and tackle on his way to the end-line! Dauntless would massively help this style of play as it would then require a concerted effort to stop the Catcher, instead of a single lucky block with a strength model.

[duff]

I like the idia of Dauntless on the catchers. Both frenzy and dauntless are kinds of insanity, so the Norse having both works!

[IronAge_Man]

I think we can summarise why the Norse start well and fade fast:
They all have Block, and they all have av7, respectively. If you wanted to change the balance so that they aren't as strong to start with, but fare better later, then take away the Block and give them av8. This probably makes most sense on the linemen.

I think it's good to look at how the other av7 teams manage in the long term: Skaven cope by being quick, scoring fast and having mutations; Amazons all have Dodge; Wood and Pro Elves have Ag4 and great positionals; so, what do Norse have that makes them special? My answer would have to be their Blitzers - however, whether they are good enough as they are now is questionable - nerfing PO hurt them a lot - before, Norse survived by hurting the opposition as much as they got hurt themselves, now they have no answer to, say, Orcs. The suggestion of increasing access to Dauntless has some merit, as the prevalence of very strong players dominating games is a little too great, atm e.g. Khemri.

Alternatively, Norse would benefit from the introduction of some version of the Toughness skill.

[Snew]

They all have Block, and they all have av7, respectively. If you wanted to change the balance so that they aren't as strong to start with, but fare better latter, then take away the Block and give them av8. This probably makes most sense on the linemen.

That would make them slow Humans with stronger but fewer catchers. I'm not so sure that would justify having two different teams.

[IronAge_Man]

Agreed, it takes away some of the flavour of Norse.

I think another reason for this problem is the weakness of General skills. The only really good one for a Lineman is Block, after that, there's not much that really improves them. So we end up with a matchup like this:

Norse Lineman 50k (6SPPs) 6 3 3 7 Block, Tackle
Orc Lineman 50k (6SPPs) 5 3 3 9 Block

Which is better?

The real difference here is the Orc's 2 points Av advantage.

Perhaps we need some more survival skills. Atm, the obvious second skill for a Norse Lineman is Tackle - we need something else that is useful against the muscle teams. In General skills, there is nothing else that helps at all; the weakness of the Norse roster only shows up when up against the likes of Chaos or Orc, especially at higher TR - they can't bash them, they can't out-run them, they lack Guard against them etc. Otherwise, they're fine - lots of Tackle/Shadowing/Pass Block handles the Elves etc. As I write this, I'm beginning to think the linemen do need Strength skill access, an idea I had dismissed before. My head hurts....

[Underdog]

I just dont like dauntless being on the catchers. Are they catchers or troll slayers? On the blitzers or even the linemen though, sure.

In fact Id quite like to see (and this is pretty drastic) the whole team getting Dauntless instead of block as a starting skill.

this represents how no Norseman ever thinks an opponant is harder than them and shows how they will 'play-up' to bashy teams. Fits the fluff Perfectly in my opinion. This change would probably make the Norse less powerful but give them much more growth pottential.

In the poll I voted for 'strienght access on linemen' as Dauntless on all players instead of block wasnt an option...