Hard TR Caps vs Negative Winnings+Freebooted Apoths

[Grumbledook]

thought the hard tr cap was what you suggested ?

well carnage4u the easiest way to see if it would affect your league is if any of the matches have resulted in a team getting negative winnings

my skaven team have played 40 games and only got one match where the winnings is marked as 0 and a choas dwarf team at 34 games that havn't had any matches with 0 winnings

you could just look back and see what matches had 0 winnings for a team and even then not all of them would have got negatives

[BlanchPrez]

Grumble ... could you please post in the FUMBBL chat and ask folks if they could please drop over and vote in this poll as well.

I certainly don't like the way this poll is structured. The option I'm proposing isn't represented.

Isn't that what the Hard TR cap is? Or did I misunderstand your proposal?

Chris

[GalakStarscraper]

First you remove ageing.

Then you set your TR cap where you like it (the LRB would have some cap that would be fine for leagues that don't want to mess around with it)

Neo ... I think you need to expand this comment then.

I don't see anyway other way to read it other than what was put in the poll from your comment in ( ) ... means this would be the straight LRB rule ... ie a hard cap number. Yeah, leagues could house rule it otherwise, but that's not the basis to build a rule around.

Galak

[GalakStarscraper]

And yes Neo you can see it coming, but that's not going to change the fact that after a game I'll be forced to retire or remove something. There will be no option to put it off one more game. I'll go back to the example that Dark Lord and I gave. Its the last game right before the championship, I have a tough game and lose two midrange players to SI injuries and BAM! I hit your hard TR cap. I hadn't expected to get enought SPPs from this game to hit the cap so I didn't retire anyone because I wanted to wait until after the championship to restructure my team (since most leagues reset SIs between seasons). But now because I'm being FORCED to change my roster, I'm left with having to retire either one of my better players who is SI'd (which would suck) or getting rid of a rookie player which would make me down 3 players for the championship. Yeah ... that's going to make me a happy camper for sure.

Show me the roster.

I'm not sure what this accomplishes to be honest ... but fine I'll play using a roster from the MBBL2. League TR cap is set at 225 for whatever reason in this league. I came into the game with a TR of 223 thinking/hoping I'd only get enough SPPs and gold to get to TR 225 by playing to win 1-0 since the championship was the next game. But in order to win, I end up getting 3 TDs and 3 CAS, due to negative modifiers I get zero cash for the game and I had zero cash in treasury to start with. My TR has gone from TR 223 to 229. Players #11 and #15 will already be missing the championship due to the injuries they just suffered. Players #10, #13, and #14 have Niggling injuries but their skills could be important for the upcoming game.

So if I understood correctly this team would need to immediately cut the roster by 4 TR points in some way correct? I'm not sure how I do that in a way that makes me happy going into that championship game and not feeling like I got forced into something at a very bad time. Its comes down to this being all down offpitch Neo, and I don't like offpitch forced effects to do your team in for the sake of long term balance.

Code: Select all

Animal House
Race: Khemri
Coached by: The Trainer (Brian Hixon)
# PLAYER'S NAME POSITION MA ST AG AV SKILLS INJ COMP TD INT CAS MVP SPP VALUE 
1 Godzilla Mummy 3 5 1 8 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block, Tackle, Guard, AV -1         9 3 33 $110,000  
2 King Kong Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Guard, Piling On, Block, Tackle, Break Tackle         33 2 76 $110,000  
3 Mothra 2 Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block       1 3   8 $110,000  
4 Iron Giant Mummy 3 5 1 9 Mighty Blow, Regenerate, Block, Tackle         6 1 17 $110,000  
5 Lassie Thro-Ra 5 3 3 7 Sure Hands, Pass, Regenerate, Accurate, Block     2   6   18 $70,000  
6 Silver Thro-Ra 5 3 3 7 Sure Hands, Pass, Regenerate, Block, Kick     3   1 1 16 $70,000  
7 Old Yeller Blitz-Ra 6 3 2 8 Block, Regenerate, Stand Firm, Dodge     6   1   20 $90,000  
8 Rin Tin Tin Blitz-Ra 6 3 2 8 Block, Regenerate, Stand Firm, Dodge, Frenzy     5   3 2 31 $90,000  
9 Azmar Kalazar Bonz Skeleton 5 3 3 7 Regenerate, Sure Hands, Block, AG +1   6 6   1 3 40 $30,000  
10 Fetch Skeleton 7 3 3 7 Regeneration, AG +1, MA +1, Block, MA +1, Sure Hands N   22   2 3 85 $30,000  
11 Sel Fish Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regeneration, Block, Dauntless M   1   3 2 19 $30,000  
12 Ball 2 Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate               $30,000  
13 Gluttony Skeleton 5 4 2 7 Regenerate, Block, ST +1 N       2 3 19 $30,000  
14 Rawhide Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate, Block, Leader N   1   7   17 $30,000  
15 Dolgan Goldstrike Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate, Block, Tackle M       8   16 $30,000  
16 Squeeker 2 Skeleton 5 3 2 7 Regenerate               $30,000  
 Team: Animal House RE-ROLLS: 5 x $70,000 = $350,000  
 Race: Khemri FAN FACTOR: 17 x $10,000 = $170,000  
 Team Rating: 229 ASSISTANT COACHES:   x $10,000 = $0  
 Treasury: $0  CHEERLEADERS:   x $10,000 = $0  
 Coach: The Trainer (Brian Hixon) APOTHECARY:   x $50,000 =    
 TEAM WIZARD:   x $150,000 =    
 TOTAL VALUE/COST OF TEAM $1,440,000  

[Fool]

TR capping just isn't necessary, for two very simple reasons:

1. Realistically, some teams are better than others.
2. As long you have a good handicap table...
3. As long as you have a good ageing system...
4. It's hard to maintain a TR of 250+
5. Most leagues are sensible enough to use the two division system, one for experienced teams and one for rookies.

So TR capping isn't necessary... or do I mean it is...? I'm so confused!

I don't believe the TBB package to be viable. Here's my reasoning:

2A. Removing Aging. I've got nothing against aging and I certainly don't agree with trashing it... but... it needs to work in a more realistic manner and not based on SPPs as it is now. After all, it's patently ridiculous for one player to play only three games and gain 15+ SPPs and thus suffer the effect of ageing and yet another player to play twenty or more games and get the same result. Has time run faster for the first player? Is the second immortal? No, they've both played three games and so have both aged the same amount of time. An extreme example, I know, but it happens more often than you would think.

2B. Different Handicap Table. The current Handicap Table really bites. However, I've yet to see a decent replacement. The best option out there is to return to the old style DZ cards. Me? I'd like to see a Handicap Listing, in which you can choose your handicap benefits. Each handicap has a varying point cost (obviously the more beneficial the handicap the higher the cost) which you pay for out of the TR difference between the two teams. No rolling, nothing too powerful. As I said above, lower TR teams should get their asses kicked by higher ranked teams. It's the way sports works. If you don't want to play a higher rank team, don't play them.

2C. The Rule Change. I don't like this simply because the Niggling Injuries rules seem fine as they are (and if they ain't broke...). However, I have a few questions: why just the second half and overtime? Why not every kick-off? Why only if he's in the Reserves/KO'd box? Wouldn't it make more sense to roll every time, even if the player played in the game? After all, activity is more likely to set off an old injury than sitting on the bench.

2D. Negative Winnings. A contradictory option for me. As the rules stand, I'm in favour of allowing Negative Winnings. But I think a team should be allowed to sell things (players, coaching staff, re-rolls) to pay the debt or recuperate the money. And I think that a negative treasury should count against your FF (again, going by the real world, fans hate coaches who bankrupt their teams). However, and although it will upset game balance, higher ranked teams should earn more money than lower ranked teams, not less.

2E. Freebooting Apothecary. This is a very bad idea. With Negative Winnings, the most powerful teams aren't going to be able to get an Apothecary simply because they won’t have the ready cash. That means more Niggling Injuries (deaths would actually be beneficial but with Blood Bowl becoming less violent death on the field is much rarer than it used to be) which means the coach of a high ranked team will have to start dropping more players than he would normally, thus dropping his TR drastically (which I think was your intention). However, he still won’t have any money and he will probably have had to drop so many players that it will be very hard for him to win games. His FF will subsequently drop and money will become even more scarce. The end result is that the coach will end up with a team that's worse than a rookie team. Why bother working that hard to get nowhere? I've seen this happen with both the LRB rules and the XP system. Nobody likes it much, but freebooting the Apothecary will make it happen more often. Oh, and it punishes short-term leagues!

You'd be told that on-pitch effects are part of game. You CHOOSE to dodge even though you knew it could injury your player. Aging I didn't get to choose anything. H*ll, I could leave my Dragon Warrior on the bench with 30 SPPs for the entire game and he could still DIE from getting -1 ST from aging after getting the MVP for the game. Where was my CHOICE there?

Simply put, injuries from falling over should have less of an impact than being blocked. The chances of getting any injury should be smaller but of course this is impossible when rolling 2d6 (after all, you can’t decrease the chance of rolling 12). In our league we use a second Injury Table for falling. This might sound complicated but it’s not. The second table simply has everything else bumped up by two (i.e. 2-8 Stunned, 9-11 KO'd, 12 Casualty/1-4 Badly Hurt, 5-6 Seriously Injured). It's not totally realistic but it's better than the rules as they stand.

Ageing should be a forced longterm system. You can't avoid aging! But it should be equal for all players. Of course, this isn't realistic either because Elves and Dwarves would age slower than Humans obviously! If a player plays in a game (or is in the reserves/injury boxes or sits the game out due to injury) he should age, regardless of SPPs. (Obviously I'm assuming that the number of games played is equal, so that one game is played a week, for example, and whether you play or not a week is assumed to have passed.)

In our league we use a similar system to that which Balrog suggested. Each roster has an additional box alongside the player's number. Every time a game week passes the coach adds one to the number in that box. When you reach a certain number you check the following table for the effects.

Stage 1 (6th game for our league, which has about 12+ games per season): Gain 1 Niggling Injury.
Stage 2 (9th game): Gain second Niggling Injury.
Stage 3 (12th game): Lose a point of MA, lose one skill, gain Pro or Leader.
Stage 4 (18th game): Lose another point of MA and a point of ST or AG, whichever is higher. Also, gain third Niggling Injury.
Stage 5 (24th game): Retire.

This really works for use because it means that players can only last two seasons (sometimes less, depending on the trophy tournament at the end of the season). That seems like a really good turn-over time. It keeps everyone to the same rules but while it doesn't limit high ranking TR teams it does prevent them from remaining consistently powerful, they have ups and downs, just like real teams do. In addition, you can tailor this system to the length of your league, reducing or increasing the number of games required to reach a stage, which is great.

In my opinion, Aging has 4 major strikes against it:
1) Its an off-pitch player killer

Absolutely. And it should be. I'm pro-aging, as long as it's done well and not as the current LRB states.

2) Its a forced negative as there is no way to avoid it

As it should be. If you know of a way to avoid aging, let me know!

3) Its kills off the enjoyment of skills rolls which should be a moment of fun

Agreed. But aging across the board as I suggest won't do that.

4) Its a long term effect that effects short term teams

Yep. But again, across board aging won't.

The problem is we tried that, my league even used the rules for a season and we got a lot of coach complaints. It was called the EXP system (in fact its still used in the RABBL and LUSTRIAN online leagues). The system just could not get legs because in order for it to work it meant some pretty massive changes to things like Roster sheets. It also ramped up skill generation on lineman players which a lot of folks did not agree with as well as well as giving injury type conditions to players that may have never earned a single SPP (ie linemen). If you base it solely and only on games played, you create a situation where for instance a team after 6 games is always worse than a team at 5 games which doesn't make a lot of sense either.

With all due respect, this is BS, Galak, plain and simple. The XP system doesn't work, because it's still based on SPPs. However, if you use a half-decent idea (like games played only!) then the roster hardly needs changing. The addition of one box for each player which you just have to add a one to for each game... ooh... complicated... brain hurt... must sit down... A team with 6 games would be worse than one with 5 games, if a stage of aging is set at 6 games and that’s it. If the nearest stage is at 7, there’s no difference. Added to which, you're assuming that all players age at the same time. Not true. If you hire a rookie after game 4, he's not going to be as aged as the others on your team.

You're also assuming that the weeks don't add up and that a team with five games under its belt could play a team which has played 6 games. Not so if you apply a bit of common sense. Teams that have played 5 games can only play other teams that have played 5 games. If you don't play anyone that week, your players still age one week. (You also lose revenue and FF, but that’s another story...) Tough luck. At the danger of repeating myself, aging should affect all players across the board.

The plus points in this system's favor are:

1. No randomness—every player on every team suffers the same.

2. No effort—the bookkeeping is easy, easier in fact than keeping track of a player's SPPs.

3. Flexibility—you can tailor it to suit the length of your league.

4. Not tied to SPPs—so heavily armoured superstars will be just as effected as middling players who have aged but not got SPPs. In addition, you run less risk of losing your crafted star player than under the current system. Or should that be equal risk?

If anyone's interested, our league uses these three other major house rules:

1. Apothecaries cost different amounts for each team... and Undead/Necro/Vamp teams still need them to use the regenerate skill. But the Head Coach counts as a second Apothecary. The same is true for Halflings, who’s Head Coach/Chef’s food is so great that it resuscitates players!

2. We have a different SPP award system. Throwing the ball: 0 SPPs for a Quick/Short Pass. 1 SPP for a Long Pass or a Short/Quick Pass while in 2+ TZs. 2 SPPs for a Long Bomb/Hail Mary or a Long Pass while in 2+ TZs/ 3 SPPs for a Long Bomb/Hail Mary while in 2+ TZs. Catching the ball: 1 SPP if catching the ball while in 2+ TZs. Casualties: 1 SPP for Fouling or Blocking/Blitzing a lower ST player or for any injury caused by a secret weapon. 2 SPPs for Blocking/Blitzing an equal ST player (whether with assists or not, it is the Blocking player’s ST that counts). 3 SPPs for Blocking/Blitzing a player with greater ST.

3. Point System Handicap Table. We took the Handicap table as it stands and gave each handicap a points cost. We added some of our own too! Each game the weakest team has a number of points to spend on this table equal to the difference between his TR and his opponent's TR.

Soapyfrog wrote:
Ageing IS an "on-pitch effect". You can only age if you play and gain skills on the pitch.

Actually this isn't true. I could have a player never take the pitch even once and age. How was that an onpitch effect was this?

Something everyone seems to be forgetting is that teams have to train between matches (even players who are injured). A player might not get to play in a game but you can guarantee he’s been working with the rest of the squad during the week. Or you could lose a re-roll... Of course, any real-life coach will tell you that 50% of injuries occur during training. And according to the fluff, training sessions in the Blood Bowl world are extremely dangerous...

In summary, I'm in favor of the game being fair and realistic, not balanced. I'm against the current dumbing-down of the game.

[Grumbledook]

the fact is with game based aging is that players get better at different rates

any elf can get a skill rather easilly if you try, however using a chaos dwarf/longbeard/blackorc it can take ages to get a skill, you have got hung up on the word 'aging' and the reason it was introduced in the first place

aging was bought in to tackle the super dupa players, doing it based on games you can get players who have played 30 games and have no spp, by doing this you are making things less fun than the current system and you aren't tackling the problem

if you are going to change the way its linked it should be done off the TR, forget realism thats not the driving factor in achieving the goal


I also don't think you have looked at the negative winnings rule enough and have a knee jerk reaction to it.

you state its hard to maintain a team of tr 250+, well i got news for you there are a lot of teams on FUMBBL who haven't had a problem maintaining a level of over 350 let alone 250

negative winnings won't have the dramatic effect that you seem to think it will have, the rules are trying to achieve situation where you get to a point where its beneficial for the team to retire the star players and bring up fresh new players keeping a rotation going

i believe your league rules are looking to do the opposite and encourage the keeping of elite players rather than a more balenced spp spread across the whole team

you have put you are in favour of the game being fair but not balanced, how can it be fair if it isn't balanced, also making rules that break the balanced in order to make things realistic is something that should never happen

i think you need to take a close look at the negative winnings and freebooted apothcary rules, but in all honesty i think your approach to the game is vastly different and thats the crux right there

[mikeyc222]

wow fool, your system is quite possibly the worst sytem i have ever seen. i'll let someone with a LOT more patience than me explain why as i'm sure they will.

[mikeyc222]

BTW, i would like to add that ANYONE who talks about realism in a game with elves, dwarves, and ratmen...do i really NEED to finish this sentence?

[GalakStarscraper]

Grumble said it all for me with his last post.

Galak

[Joemanji]

Fool, for the one millioneth time:

- Ageing is poorly named. It doesn't just represent the linear ageing process. As you noted, how could it? Elves live for 2000 years, Skaven for only 5. It represents wear and tear on the body of a professional sportsman in a violent game, plus a myriad of personality traits etc....

- Ageing must, must, must, MUST be linked to SPPs. How many times do I have to explain this? Ageing = TR capping device. TR is measured in SPP. In order to effect TR, ageing must be linked directly to SPPs. Must. Ageing is designed statistically to do this. So if you are using ageing, it must be linked to SPPs.

[Anthony_TBBF]

Why are we even discussing this? What is the point of creating a rule that only happens to a handful of leagues? If your league is having problems with teams running away in TR, get the Commish to make a house rule. There is no reason to clutter the BB rule book with something like this.

[pfooti]

Wow, this thread has grown out of control while I have been unable to log in to TBB. Teach me to use the icicle style. I had to go and create a new account just so I could read the dang posts.

I voted TBB-style. The current aging rules aren't necessarily fatally broken, but they are definitely frustrating (sez the chaos coach who had two beastmen age on their first skill).

Those who argue that the current aging caps aren't controlling the FUMBBL teams are ignoring the point that FUMBBL games don't use any handicap table. I agree that the current handicap table isn't all that great (in fact, my F2F league uses a replacement one that we are much happier with), but adding a good HT to the mix might be sufficient to control runaway TR.

Speaking as a coach who has had far too many SIs and deaths in game one for a new team, a 10k freebooted 'poth would help me out heaps in the short term.

Making nigglers count every half makes the game bloodier. SIs are suddenly a much bigger deal.

I kind of like Chet's idea to (essentially) replace nigglers with Bonehead. Similar net effect, just rolled every turn.

If you look at negative winnings more as perks to keep on the big stars, and think of your team in the larger Old World, then releasing a star to free agency in order to recoup salary paid to the star makes perfect sense.

If we were to go with a hard TR cap, I think adding a mechanic to the rule that allowed for some flexibility in meeting the cap should be allowed. Example: the TR in the cap is calculated based on players who are going to play in the next game (who aren't on MNG from a SI). Or, you can "borrow" N points for a game or two, but then must go back to Cap - N*term, where term is how long you borrowed the cap. Either of these methods would sidestep the championship game scenario that Galak (I think) mentioned.

Finally, it seems that the three (as I read it) possibilites we are looking at, LRB, BBRC, TBB, will all accomplish the final goal of TR capping and keeping runaway star teams under control, but the TBB system will do it more subtly and without guaranteed results. I could bring a 500 point team to my league championship, provided I got lucky and my players didn't get killed getting there. A hard cap will guarantee that this will never happen.

[Joemanji]

Finally, it seems that the three (as I read it) possibilites we are looking at, LRB, BBRC, TBB, will all accomplish the final goal of TR capping and keeping runaway star teams under control, but the TBB system will do it more subtly and without guaranteed results. I could bring a 500 point team to my league championship, provided I got lucky and my players didn't get killed getting there.

I can guarantee that with the TBB system, if a team gets to TR 500, half of that rating will be it's negative treasury! Which means no apothecaries, ever again. Which means that if a player dies, the team will never be able to afford to replace him. The team will end up with 5 or 6 players and a TR of ~250. Every coach will have retired the team long before this, or taken steps to avoid getting in this position. Guaranteed...

[GalakStarscraper]

Why are we even discussing this? What is the point of creating a rule that only happens to a handful of leagues?

My answer to this Anthony would simply be this:

JJ wanted the game to be playable forever using the official LRB rules if a league wanted to never reset.

When he formed the BBRC he gave them that as their primary mission.

The current rules don't accomplish this goal ... (the 30 highest TR teams in FUMBBL are all 300+). So since this is what JJ wants from the game ... shouldn't we find a system that works.

So I've got about a 50/50 split on this poll. For all the folks that voted no ... I guess I should have said. If because the current system doesn't appear to be working (which it isn't), what should be done?

I work with the other folks here to design a long term package that left short term leagues alone as much as I could. However from the feedback here ... I'm not sure I see the holes from the nos. If nothing else at least I can see that hard caps aren't on anyone's list of things to consider.

Galak

[GalakStarscraper]

Believe it or not ... I really wish I could talk to each person who said leave it all alone. If any of you want to PM me, I'd really love to have a chance to understand what your issue was since so few folks posted their reasons on the thread.

Galak