Talk Fantasy Football

What if we give up aging and rely on in-game wear and tear to get the desired attrition effect?

It is a generally acknowledged truth that a feasible solution that conforms to the requirements set by JJ (must enable very long-term leagues without enabling über-teams) is hard to achieve. Mainly because there are no sufficient amount of injuries. Increasing the amount of injuries within a single game would in turn mean turning the game into a complete bloodbath that has no tactical aspect apart from killing your opponent.

However, the following suggestion does not change the in-game mechanics at all: no increased chance of breaking AV, same amount of injuries - only a small subtle change:

The concept of Badly Hurt is changed into:

Roll on the Serious injury table for every Badly hurt player as if he was Seriously injured. The only difference is that only niggling injuries and stat decreases apply: the player does not have to miss the next game.


What effect would this have?

This increases the amount of permanent injuries (niggles and stat reductions) from 4 out of 12 injuries to 7 out of 12 injuries, which means an increase by a factor of 1.75!
Amount of niggling injuries and stat decreases are both increased by a factor of 2.5!
And the relative effect of apothecary on preventing long-term attrition is decreased because the amount of injuries that could cause a long-term effect is doubled, thus making the one-shot apothecary less effective.

Could this replace aging? Perhaps. It would require playtesting, of course. But it would seem like an appealing choice to me. Yes, you could get !censored! up more easily by a casualty-happy game, but at least your team wouldn't get worse because of off-game rolls such as aging or EXP rolls.

Anyone care to approximate whether approximately a 2.5-fold increase in NI's and stat decreases are sufficient to cover the effect now caused by aging?

Thing is that can still kick in and cripple teams early on in their career, rather than a long term kerb on super players

I don't consider super-players to be the problem, but the super-teams. It doesn't matter if a team manages to grow a star or two, as long as the team is kept otherwise in check.

When every injury can potentially make the player worse this suggestion should increase player turnover, and player turnover is what we're aiming at.

And even though beginning teams admittedly could face a few more lasting injuries due to this, they would still get their players to play in the game, so they wouldn't be completely screwed. Most people would still find these injuries more acceptable than aging results as they were suffered in-game.

Not really cause with the aging result you would have at least got another skill and still might be able to play in the game.

With this system you could aquire several niggling injuries before you even get a single skill, at least with the ageing system you have got a new skill or stat increase to offset a potential problem. Remembering that a player will not always age and yet increasing the chances that they will get an injury? not sold on the idea personally, as you said may need some play testing.

Aging was really put into the system to deal with the players that injuries do not -- specifically, the high AV players and the players who have so many skills that injuries are less likely to affect them. A system like this would continue to ignore them, but would disproportionately affect teams with lower AV. There could be arguments made that there need to be MORE injuries in Blood Bowl, but I don't think that obviates the need for some sort of system to create some attrition in the players who are less likely to be hurt.

Milo

I really dislike this argument because it baltently ignores the fact that the high AV teams progress at a slower rate than the fast low AV teams.

How many games does it take for the average wood elf team to have a 5 skill Wardancer compared to the number of games it takes for a Dwarf team to have a 5 skill Blitzer.

This argument is crap. The higher AG teams develop quicker and feel the effects of the current system faster than the ST teams!

I would say that the high AV teams are proportionally more effected by this than the low AV teams.
The high AV teams suffer less casualties. Thus they can heal a bigger part of their permanent injuries by the apothecary. With the change to BH's the amount of in-game permanent injuries they receive is increased proportionally more.

And do note that the amount of injuries is not increased. They simply cause more effects that are permanent. This causes an increased player turnover which in turn keeps the TR increase in check.

Still, Milo has a point when being concerned about the high AV players and multi-skill players. The multi-skill players will of course get a due amount of attention from their opponent (how many times have you seen Griff being hunted down when stars are used?), but the high AV (especially combined with several skills) could be a problem. Only playtesting could tell whether the increase in in permanent injuries combined with the smaller income is sufficient to negate these threats.

This could, of course, be combined with Cervidals suggestion of missing skills on a failed aging roll.

Mestari wrote: (how many times have you seen Griff being hunted down when stars are used?)

In our league Griff was hunted down about as much as Wardancers. The only difference is that now when that Wardancer goes down and he gets fouled, the fouler is more like ly to leave than he is.

Like has been said before, they took away too much "oomph!" from the game and now they want to make players retire. Seems silly to me.

Pariah: In long term leagues, there was never enough "oomph" to keep a team in check for long. Teams always increased in TR over the long run. I really like the new attempt to make leagues and teams playable over a span of years and stabilize a team's TR at about 250 (which is, I think the goal). I'm going to be very interested to see how this works in my strict LRB tabletop league. The top teams are averaging around a 200 now, but we have seen teams drop 50 points or more during a tournament.

I know that. Note I said, "took away too much oomph"

They need to put some of it back in and it would help alot. Ageing wouldn't need to be so severe!

Skummy wrote:I really like the new attempt to make leagues and teams playable over a span of years and stabilize a team's TR at about 250 (which is, I think the goal).

Hmmm ... JKL's is 200 ... I think Chet's is more around 250 ... actually I think the bigger driver from the times I've talked to them is that they really want teams over TR 250 to not stay there very long with a high point typically around 320 for a very short term ... 300 is really Jervis's idea of a high TR team. I've had a lot of folks debate this point who loved their TR 400+ teams, but really JJ always pictured TR 300 as a team of Legend type point.

Galak

And what is the average TR of teams when they make their first ageing roll with the EXP system? I know I have made mine already and my TR isn't even 150. That doesn't seem right.

Well, Pariah, changing the BH's in the way described above should add significant oomph back.

I could probably settle with that solution. I'm no fan of ageing. I think something needs to happen but I really haven't been 100% satisfied with anything so far. The current system and the EXp system both "work." They work too well really. I think they are effective but they aren't fun and they punish you for playing the game well.

That's why I'm in favor of some sort of "wear and tear" system. If the system isn't a modified version of the injuries mechanic then it needs to have some sort of positive outcomes possible.

Just a brainstorm at 2 am but what about a rule that stops players who were badly hurt or SI'd in a game from making a skill roll at the end of the match. Make them wait until they complete another game in good health? Wouldn't do much IMO but I think little tweaks are what's needed instead of heavy handed player crushing.