A suggestion to improve racial variety in perpetual leagues

[dode74]

My suggestion doesn't actually nerf Claw per se, it nerfs the combination of the damaging skills. It's worth remembering that the CLPOMB player gets a casualty 26.7% of knockdowns at the moment (compared to about 7% chance with just claw). I haven't done the precise math on the stacking with PO yet , but on CLMB you lose 1/6 of your armour breaks, meaning the combo only gets you a cas on 11.5% of knockdowns instead of 14.35%. The reduction in impact gets even bigger with all 3, which is really the aim.

Out of curiosity, do you think this is needed anywhere outside TV-based MM leagues?

[garion]

However nerfing Claw makes Chaos a totally pointless sucky team.....

yeah claw shouldnt be nerfed cpomb should, and there are many other ways to make Chaos good. The mutations just need to be made a hell of a lot better. So they are all as good as Claw.

[Smurf]

I suppose fend reduces the effectiveness a bit.

Maybe the 'real' effectiveness is only felt in Fumbbl and other online games.

[DoubleSkulls]

Out of curiosity, do you think this is needed anywhere outside TV-based MM leagues?

Needed? No. I don't think its even needed in those leagues - if it was needed they'd have done something already or stopped playing.

Advisable? Yes. In any really long running league where teams regularly play 20,50 or a 100 games these combos are going to come up and could do with toning down. One of the reasons I like my suggestion is that it has negligible impact at lower TVs so can be adopted in leagues of any sort and only really kicks in against more developed teams. In some short term leagues it would be interesting to see how this effected team development. Its a pretty small nerf too, so I don't see it having a dramatic effect unless you've got hundreds of teams playing...

[DoubleSkulls]

However nerfing Claw makes Chaos a totally pointless sucky team.....

Sure you'd ruin "Chaos are the ultimate kill team" but so what. They are still one of the stronger teams, have universal S access and AG3 and decent speed. I've had plenty of fun with Chaos teams that weren't really built to kill.

[swilhelm73]

However nerfing Claw makes Chaos a totally pointless sucky team.....

yeah claw shouldnt be nerfed cpomb should, and there are many other ways to make Chaos good. The mutations just need to be made a hell of a lot better. So they are all as good as Claw.

The only mutations I generally take are Claw, Tents, FA, Pre Tail.

However, claw is a league maint tool, so nerfing it even only in combo with other skills will increase the avg TV of dwarf and orc teams.

[dode74]

Out of curiosity, do you think this is needed anywhere outside TV-based MM leagues?

Needed? No. I don't think its even needed in those leagues - if it was needed they'd have done something already or stopped playing.

Fair point.

Advisable? Yes. In any really long running league where teams regularly play 20,50 or a 100 games these combos are going to come up and could do with toning down.

I'm curious as to where you're getting your data. I only have OCC at the moment, which has 200+ teams and over 100 games played (average about 30 played, but over 80 with 50+), and it's showing Chaos (and bash in general) not winning too much at all. In fact, my stats show the win%s to be roughly in the brackets across the board. I guess I'm curious as to the source of the apparent need.

One of the reasons I like my suggestion is that it has negligible impact at lower TVs so can be adopted in leagues of any sort and only really kicks in against more developed teams. In some short term leagues it would be interesting to see how this effected team development. Its a pretty small nerf too, so I don't see it having a dramatic effect unless you've got hundreds of teams playing...

As I understand it, the "bash effect" would be greater on the lower AV teams than on higher AV teams with your change. My concern is that this is a relative boost to higher AV teams (because they will live longer and develop more) which they may well not need.

[DoubleSkulls]

The FUMBBL BB stats show a clear numerical bias towards bash, and Claw enabled bash in particular, and IIRC Chaos were the best non-Elf team and the most numerous.

So weakening the effectiveness of the killer combo that makes Chaos popular will, I'd expect, improve racial variety in perpetual leagues - the aim of the OP.

You may be thinking I was saying CLPOMB is a winning combo, but I don't think I've ever said that, its a just a boring one that too many people take because winning through killing is easier than winning through skill.

Any measure to reduce kill rates probably does help higher AV teams a bit, but the game is very complex, so you may find a tipping point with mid-AV teams where the drop off in the lethality of bash teams makes them more viable at high TVs. Also I can't say I recollect that Dwarves or Orcs are doing that well at high TVs...

[Jimmy Fantastic]

RandomOracle's one team (the best on FUMBBL) skews the Chaos stats massively at high TV, if you strip his games out the Chaos stats are underwhelming.
Any nerf to Claw nerfs Chaos almost out of existence and Nurgle become a laughing stock.
My advice to you would be to simply remove the skill Piling On.
Sure the weaker races would gain a little by this but at least it wouldn't remove two races as viable choices.
Seriously think how Chaos/Nurgle compare to Orcs before saying they would be a good team without Claw.
Orcs and Dwarfs would run rampant if they were unable to be killed by Claw.
They dominated the higher Tvs of FUMBBL in LRB4 and that was when they had fouling and ageing holding them back.
If you nerf Claw Orcs and Dwarfs aren't going to lose players ever and the league would probably become less diverse as a result.

[dode74]

@Doubleskulls
So the logic is that nerfing a skill (and therefore certain teams) will make them less popular. This is predicated on the assumption that popularity and performance go hand-in-hand, which you have already stated you think to be a weak correlation: viewtopic.php?p=628162#p628162

[DoubleSkulls]

@Doubleskulls
So the logic is that nerfing a skill (and therefore certain teams) will make them less popular. This is predicated on the assumption that popularity and performance go hand-in-hand, which you have already stated you think to be a weak correlation: viewtopic.php?p=628162#p628162

Only for the weaker races. For successful races the correlation is quite good (the implication being making weaker races a little bit better doesn't improve popularity).

[DoubleSkulls]

RandomOracle's one team (the best on FUMBBL) skews the Chaos stats massively at high TV, if you strip his games out the Chaos stats are underwhelming.

That's playing a game I can't play. I've no idea who's successful on FUMBBL or why, so a qualitative deconstruction of the stats I can't help with.

If you did exclude RO that shouldn't you also do the same to every other race - say kick out the 5% best and worst teams on all of them? If you can get the stats I'd love to see them. It would be an interesting study for boring stats nerds like me

I can't seem to find the stats link someone put up (I know I should have bookmarked it) but IIRC Chaos were the most popular and 5th most successful, Dwarves had really plummeted at high TVs, and Orcs I thought were annoymous mid-table.

Anyway, given the very gentle nudge I'm proposing I'm surprised you think it would have such a catastrophic effect on the reigning balance.

[Smeborg]

Guys, I am in agreement with Doubleskulls many posts. The aim is to achieve racial variety in perpetual leagues, something that is not a problem in most short leagues and tournaments. I think this may be relatively easily done.

For the sake of clarity, I am starting a new post on the subject.

[dode74]

Smeborg, apologies for taking this off topic, but I think I was discussing the point of the solution: will nerfing teams make them less/more popular, or is perception more important than reality?

DS - those stats by Koadah for you:
http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/b ... stats.html

[Chris]

I have to say if stopping one combo - the ability to roll 7 or higher on armour dice with a re-roll - ends the effectiveness of Chaos and Nurgle teams they need a serious re-think. One wonders how strength teams without claw have coped... It of course does not ruin them, just makes them have to think a bit more. A non stacked combo means you can't combine claw and MB on the same role and can't use either on a re-roll. This is a step up on the previous suggestion of simply no modifers applying if you use piling on (you can of course under both ideas still use MB on injury rolls).

And simply removing piling on damages everybody but especially non mutating bash teams who seem the most hard done by honestly under the current rule set at the TV levels we are discussing.

For the stats people out there what would be the effect of bringing back a mutation that affected injury rolls? So say a +1 or +2 to injury. It is another mutation killer teams could pick, would it be better to get that or the current claw first? (I would have thought the current claw as altough its less cas it is more chance of at least stunning the opposition.)