Talk Fantasy Football

One bit I've noticed unneglected in recent threads is how handicaps used to not only aid in winning the match but also helped to accelerate team growth. Personally, I think that is what helped balance many teams out in the previous edition. Yes, I knew I was supposed to lose when I was a 50 TR underdog, but I knew I was likely to be a half dozen TR closer to that opponent at match's end, as well.

None of the handicap results in this thread aid this kind of result. Should it? I'm not sure but it would be something worth looking at.

I hadn't thought about it but you are right the old handicap edition did help the the new teams catch up. Especially if they challenged a much more powerful team.

I think you are right.


(what's with me being so agreeable lately? I must be sick)

Handicaps should only help the team win the game it is playing. Any other system bloats TR.

I disagree. Accelerating growth could help do what the current handicap table fails to do, and that's give the lower TR team a fighting chance. If my TR 100 team comes into an open format with mostly 150-200 TR teams running around, I am never going to catch up to them. I will always be at a severe disadvantage in Fan Factor, skills, and rerolls because my team is going to get banged fairly severely.

thats not true a lot of tems at 150 tr still aren't that far ahead in ff some might even be less, assuming they started at 9 anyway. You might lose games but you could catch up.

The handicap table for the most part should only provide handicaps for that game. When a TR 200 team plays a TR 250, does the TR 200 team really need their growth accelerated?

Team growth can be accelerated in the winnings and ff tables and depending on how MVPs/EXPs are handled, there also. If they need to go in a handicap table, than there's a problem elsewhere.

I've thought a fair amount about this, and I'd personally vote for something similar to how 3d edition did it (I know, I know), where you have the Handicap Table to help out the lower TR team in the game, but there's a chance for an extra MVP (or two, if the TR diff is huge) for the weaker team.

Accelerating growth helps get them off the handicap table! That's an important factor IMO. The longer a coach is in need of a handicap to win the longer he in danger of being crunched.

I'd have to disagree with the idea that extra MVP's bloat TR. here's my logic:

1.) If both TR's are close (within 20 or so points) then no extra MVPs are given; thus TR advances as normal.
2.) If the TR's are vastly different, then extra MVP's help bring new teams up to the current play level of the league (making them competitive sooner, and minimizing the risk of serious or lethal damage to the team before it becomes competitive), plus the only extra MVPs go to the underdog and so the advancement of the higher rated team goes as normal.

Plus as someone said earlier, the extra MVPs help get a team off the handicap table, which in turn stops them from getting extra MVPs.

Arch

If extra MVPs are awarded then the whole league is artificially pushed up to the highest level at an accelerated rate. Just because there is one TR 250 team in an otherwise TR 100 league is this a desirable result?

Also extra MVPs cause more wasted SPPs as 5 is usually just one point from a skill so you end up with teams loaded up on SPPs waiting to pop and gain loads of extra skills.

Well it doesn't have to be done exactly how it was in 3rd edition. Just because somebody is referrencing the 3rd edition extra MVP's doesn't mean he is proposing that we just re-insert that system.
You could easily make it apply to teams only under a 150 TR and playing a game with a 50+ difference in TR.

If someone brings in a new team and plays my TR210 Orcs it will be a bloodbath (TR 190 vs a new Gobbo team saw 7 Cas even tho I went easy on him). If you give an MVP it will help make up for the beating he will recieve. Getiing 5 SPPs more, but losing 2 players will not bloat a TR. As it stands new teams have everything to lose, nothing to gain.

Bonus MVPs should be awarded only for severe mismatches, and ony 1 or 2 max. The 3rd ed table is a bit too generous for the kinder gentler LRB rules.

Munkey wrote:Also extra MVPs cause more wasted SPPs as 5 is usually just one point from a skill so you end up with teams loaded up on SPPs waiting to pop and gain loads of extra skills.

Please tell me you're joking? Are you really going to complain if you have a half dozen players on your team that are one completion, casualty, or touchdown away from a skill?

If I'm that position after two or three games, I'm usually pretty darn happy!

well certainly the bbrc guys don't see it this way right now...they've taken anything remotely permanent out of the handicapping system. All of the events are "this match only" at most. Things like "that boy's got talent" give you an extra player for the match, where the card it was based on was a permanent addition to the roster.

I for one think that's a mistake, as pariah (I think, sorry if I'm misquoting) said, it's a good thing to help bring teams up faster so they don't need the table anymore.

Additionally, I think it's to make up (somewhat) for that fact that oftentimes when you play a bigger team you get beat up more...more casualties can actually SHRINK your team and put you further and further behind. Something to think about as the handicap table is remade... maybe there should be some more permanent effects.

What if the handicap table were only used if the underdog has a TR less than a certain number, like 150 or something? Then it would be ok to include growth enhancers in it since you're targeting the teams that need them.