Team Tiers

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:05 am

After a lot of work ... I wanted to revise my earlier post ... this is how I looked at the Tiers for the 2009 Rules Review to finalize LRB 6.0.

Tier 1: Any team not mentioned below
Tier 1.5: Slann, Chaos Pact, Underworld
Tier 2: Vampire
Tier 3: Halfling, Goblin, Ogre

Defined the Tiers like this for LEAGUE play:

Tier 1: 55% to 45% win rate (with ties counting as 1/2 wins)
Tier 1.5: 50% to 40%
Tier 2: 45% to 35%
Tier 3: 35% to 30%

This is the scale I used to decide if teams were where they should be for LRB 6.0.

Tom/Galak

Garscow · Post by **Garscow** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:19 am

GalakStarscraper wrote:This is the scale I used to decide if teams were where they should be for LRB 6.0.

Tom/Galak

Out of interest, why the desire to keep the same rankings? I can understand a need to prevent power creep, but why not allow some to get worse and others better?

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:37 pm

Garscow wrote:
GalakStarscraper wrote:This is the scale I used to decide if teams were where they should be for LRB 6.0.

Tom/Galak
Out of interest, why the desire to keep the same rankings? I can understand a need to prevent power creep, but why not allow some to get worse and others better?

Because the design of the game is such that these are the goal win % of these races as determined by design and background.

If a team is operating over or under their range it something we want to closely look at and decide if it is a problem or not or something we can live with.

Tom

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 2:12 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote:Because the design of the game is such that these are the goal win % of these races as determined by design and background.

I thought these ratios were retroactively appiled some 15 years after the initial design of (many of) the rosters?

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:33 pm

Joemanji wrote:
GalakStarscraper wrote:Because the design of the game is such that these are the goal win % of these races as determined by design and background.
I thought these ratios were retroactively appiled some 15 years after the initial design of (many of) the rosters?

I can see how you might say that ... but really ... we just finally post numbers for you all to understand on what was always a fundamental design plan for the game. While it might not have had hard numbers ... its was the overall plan.

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:29 am

GalakStarscraper wrote:
Joemanji wrote:
GalakStarscraper wrote:Because the design of the game is such that these are the goal win % of these races as determined by design and background.
I thought these ratios were retroactively appiled some 15 years after the initial design of (many of) the rosters?
I can see how you might say that ... but really ... we just finally post numbers for you all to understand on what was always a fundamental design plan for the game. While it might not have had hard numbers ... its was the overall plan.

Fair enough. So why do Humans suck so bad when they are the most successful race as per the background?

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:12 am

Hey Joe,
for the same reason orcs suck so hard?

I'm staying away from this crusade - so I'll just point out that according to those numbers they're top tier.

Cheers
Martin

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:52 pm

Martin, don't get precious about crusades please *cough* Bretonnians.

Humans are in "the top tier" yes. But they are at the very bottom of that rather large top tier that contains over 70% of all the teams in the game. So it's rather disingenous to suggest that just because they have scraped over the lower boundary everything is fine. Because Tom just said those tiers are partially based on background, in which case Humans should be waaaay higher. Even accouting for newbie coaches dragging the numbers down.

Btw, I know the BBRC claim tournaments have no relevance (even though they are a series of one off games), but the Human performances there (42.7%) is another indicator of their weakness. I don't believe the newbie factor can be as strong in tournaments. I find it hard to believe that coaches who like BB enough to dedicate a whole weekend to it don't know how to play a little bit and can't afford a team other than those in the box.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:27 pm

what about those coaches who didn't get the box set and only a cheaper single team *cough* undead *cough*

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:30 pm

Well, I merely wanted to return the favour.
And perhaps kick in a "what are the odds anything will happen?"

I get that you want them to be a top team. I wouldn't mind that either. Just saying that the way the tiers were laid out, they're in the best tier.

I do think newbies are dragging them down a bit. So if they're really at 50% isn't that good enough?

I also think anyone picking humans in a hyper-competitive tournament environment probably doesn't have the greatest meta-game insight - or isn't in it for the trophy anyway. I've played a lot of tournaments, BTW.

Ah, shrug.
Have at it.
Cheers
Martin

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:33 pm

plasmoid wrote:I also think anyone picking humans in a hyper-competitive tournament environment probably doesn't have the greatest meta-game insight - or isn't in it for the trophy anyway. I've played a lot of tournaments, BTW.

Humans just won the Chaos Cup event (3rd largest tournament in the USA) a couple weeks ago.

Galak

Pipey · Post by **Pipey** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:15 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote:Humans just won the Chaos Cup event (3rd largest tournament in the USA) a couple weeks ago.

Galak

Hardly a robust statistical argument - they won a tournament

Aside from Halflings/Gobbos the whole Tiers thing in BB game design has always looked like a post-hoc fudge. I can see no case in the BB background to make Undead and Amazons significantly more effective than Humans and Chaos, but they clearly are almost always stronger.

Ultimately, the relative balance of the teams varies in different contexts e.g.

tournament
low TV league
mid TV league
high TV league
high skill level of coaches
low skill level of coaches
etc.

The different races seem to perform differently within each of these settings.

It's never going to be fully balanced; that’s an impossibility. But in a world where some games are ruined due to imbalance, Blood Bowl doesn't do too bad. In fact it's about as good as it gets.

I think it's good that the LRB process is going to be put to rest for a good while. I don't agree with the direction the BBRC have taken with one particular roster

but I don't kid myself into thinking there could ever be complete agreement...

We could argue forever about tweaking teams to bring them up or down. Let’s just leave it for a few years and enjoy a bit of stability.

Leipziger · Post by **Leipziger** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:25 pm

Pippy wrote: It's never going to be fully balanced; that’s an impossibility. But in a world where some games are ruined due to imbalance, Blood Bowl doesn't do too bad. In fact it's about as good as it gets.

I think it's good that the LRB process is going to be put to rest for a good while. I don't agree with the direction the BBRC have taken with one particular roster but I don't kid myself into thinking there could ever be complete agreement...

We could argue forever about tweaking teams to bring them up or down. Let’s just leave it for a few years and enjoy a bit of stability.

Seconded

Post by **voyagers_uk** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:01 pm

Thirded, for what little it's worth