The Great Roster Cull

[Daht]

Well as this is a big "what if" thread it's cool to see ideas bounced around, nobody needs to take anything personal


To talk about a relaunch of a bbrc type committe is a whole different subject. Bouncing ideas to improve balance on teams is frankly easy. It's getting consensus that is not. It's not (just) a matter of "my idea is good, yours is stupid" but you can have 2 very good but different and conflicting ideas, and can have a good idea for a team that doesn't really *need* it and there can be quite reasonable debates as to whether it's better or worth it to go thru the process of the change.

As there are no glaringly bad issues with the current rules (IMO, I'm not crazy about every roster but I don't find any of them so objectionable that it upsets me) and so changes to an existing team would require a lot more consideration than trying something new.

The big issues would be deciding a comittee and establishing playtesting minimums. Then how to properly submit something, and a process to select teams or adjusments to playtesting.

Given this thread and the Khorne threads, I don't know if this would be terribly feasable, but it sure would make for some awesome message board reading if we ever decide to try

[DixonCider]

I don't understand why [BADLY DESIGNED] teams should be removed or changed if there IS a serious issue with them balance wise. Isn't it better to have more BALANCED choices for leagues and tournaments?

{Changes made for emphasis}

Seriously, friend, what you and ditto must consider (or not, meh, it's your choice) is that you are on a Cull thread and other people have a different "understanding"....

Anywho... if we ever have a non-constructive, opinion-to-the-contrary, poll... we'll ink in a couple of unconditional and inexplicable "no's"....

neat. As a new player I am trying to see why having 24 teams is such an issue. Teams seem fairly balanced, other than the stunties, and I am trying to learn from your encyclopedic base of knowledge.

[Lunchab1es]

Try not to learn too much from Digger. He's got some very strong opinions on rosters which may or may not be more than one standard deviation from the norm

[Digger Goreman]

It's all cool, DixonCider.... Thanks for being receptive.... Believe me, I've learned even more about others and myself from this recent khorney eruption: I would have never thought "fluff" had interfered so much with the game in the near past, nor would I ever manage to reach that state of mind where fluff is important enough to base vinegar or venom on a fiction... at the same time, while thinking demons are ridiculous on a football field and eschewing spam, at least if the team tests out to be balanced... eh, why not?

Also, much of what Daht said, while not totally agreeing, does hit near the mark..., "what is the measure of 'fair and balanced'?"

For me it is "the same, yet different".... How many ways can you make a variety of teams that have an equal shake and in a variety of viable tactical ways win? If there is a "one best way" to play/build, then the game suffers design calcification.... Admittedly this came from the boneheaded sire... but, in this day and age when Blood Bowl only belongs to the piranha parent company in name and not in deed, do so many pawns sacrifice themselves in the "queen's" name? Academic... probably.... Rhetorical... mostly.... Unanswerable... most likely....

Again, for me, you don't toss in more variables before tightening up the mess already made.... And, yes, this thread wouldn't exist if someone didn't think BB could be improved AND I wouldn't contribute as much if I didn't have reasoning behind my position....

Encyclopedic knowledge... nah.... Just going on 4 decades of seeing everything under the sun in gaming and garnishing a keen knowledge of what is and isn't a duck....

[Digger Goreman]

Try not to learn too much from Digger. He's got some very strong opinions on rosters which may or may not be more than one standard deviation from the norm

Gainsay is easy, my friend.... Reasoning and eloquence takes time and effort....

Don't presume how to teach an old armadillo how to suck eggs! Over half of the BB rosters live in the tails and away from the average....

Normal? Whatever the hell that means....

[Shteve0]

I don't understand why teams should be removed or changed if there is not a serious issue with them balance wise.

For good reasons, for bad reasons, for personal reasons, for recreation, for therapy, or just "because". I reckon every single person who plays BB has wondered about what they would do differently if given the rules reigns - how they would "fix" certain things that others don't even agree are broken.

This is not a thread for (necessarily) discussing what's broken or imbalanced - it's all about your entirely personal take on the game, what you'd drop if you were (somehow) given total control. If you're thinking it through, you're doing it wrong!

My own take is that I like to see the BB world as generic fantasy, ie independently to WHFB, which means (for example) "elves" and "undead" rather than "high elves" and "vampire counts". Next, I think the 'zon roster could do with a little more character, humans could do with a boost to make them more widely playable, Choas is lame thematically (but pact rocks), and dwarves are insanely dull to play with and against. I think Ogres and halflings should be one team - I have literally no idea why, but I'd love to see it. I want goblins and the Troll off the Orc roster, just because they have too many positionals. Note that I've not referenced balance in there at all.

I'm sure the suggestions will never be really considered, and in some cases (particularly mine), rightly so. But eh, it's good fun to imagine, isn't it?

[spubbbba]

Try not to learn too much from Digger. He's got some very strong opinions on rosters which may or may not be more than one standard deviation from the norm

I’ve heard one of the 7 signs of insanity and corruption is when you start understanding Digger’s posts perfectly.

I don’t think anyone should take this thread in the slightest bit seriously. I doubt GW will let us mere mortals loose on a lrb7 should there ever be one. They will want to do it themselves and include all the important teams like Zombie Pirates and Speahs Maahreens.

[DixonCider]

It's all cool, DixonCider.... Thanks for being receptive.... Believe me, I've learned even more about others and myself from this recent khorney eruption: I would have never thought "fluff" had interfered so much with the game in the near past, nor would I ever manage to reach that state of mind where fluff is important enough to base vinegar or venom on a fiction... at the same time, while thinking demons are ridiculous on a football field and eschewing spam, at least if the team tests out to be balanced... eh, why not?

Also, much of what Daht said, while not totally agreeing, does hit near the mark..., "what is the measure of 'fair and balanced'?"

For me it is "the same, yet different".... How many ways can you make a variety of teams that have an equal shake and in a variety of viable tactical ways win? If there is a "one best way" to play/build, then the game suffers design calcification.... Admittedly this came from the boneheaded sire... but, in this day and age when Blood Bowl only belongs to the piranha parent company in name and not in deed, do so many pawns sacrifice themselves in the "queen's" name? Academic... probably.... Rhetorical... mostly.... Unanswerable... most likely....

Again, for me, you don't toss in more variables before tightening up the mess already made.... And, yes, this thread wouldn't exist if someone didn't think BB could be improved AND I wouldn't contribute as much if I didn't have reasoning behind my position....

Encyclopedic knowledge... nah.... Just going on 4 decades of seeing everything under the sun in gaming and garnishing a keen knowledge of what is and isn't a duck....

so how does "fluff" fit into blood bowl? my gaming background has always been card games and heroclix and our league doesn't seem to focus too much on it. In fact I think my skaven team for tourneys/next season may have the most fluff on it, and that was taking a skaven city and using the names of the council of 13 to name my players.

[Colin]

For me it is "the same, yet different".... How many ways can you make a variety of teams that have an equal shake and in a variety of viable tactical ways win?

Digger hit the nail on the head right there. The biggest problem with 3ed rules (and I consider all that followed as variants on 3ed, so we are at 3.6) is that they had to follow all other GW games and go from 2d6 to 1d6 for results and a lower range for stats (1-6 instead of 1-8) as well as fewer stats (elimination of TS and CL, combining MV and SP). Simplification of rules can be fine such as using the block dice to combine all actions and results that were all seperate rolls into one roll, but oversimplification isn't. One of the problems with the current rosters is that when they simplified the rules with the lower range and fewer stats, they tried to convert the 2ed rosters to fit instead of coming up with totally new rosters that would work with the new system (GW just being lazy). So there isn't much variation in stats, the problem was how to make the rosters different enough to give a different feel or playing style. They solved this by giving certain positions starting skills (2ed had no starting skills on rosters); blitzers got block (they used to just have higher ST), catchers start with catch and/or dodge (because no CL), throwers got pass (instead of TS). The biggest mess was to give all elves AG 4 to make up for taking away TS and CL, then had to make them much more expensive to try to make up for the superhuman AG.
If they stuck with just the 12 core rosters, this may have been ok and managable, but new rosters kept getting added until the number was basically doubled. Of course you couldn't get that many to have a different feel or play style is you stuck with the basic starting skills of block, dodge, catch, pass, etc., so then we get rosters with different starting skills just to make them different (Amazon and original Norse were the worst kind with no variation in stats and mass block or dodge). Of course the only reason GW made so many teams was to sell more minis (the only reason there is no official Slann roster, as there are no GW minis for them).
I thought at the start of the Vault (PBBL) process that the problems might have been addressed (as JJ said he wanted to start from scratch, but actually he just wanted to get inducements accepted) but we just got a different version of 3ed rules. Fixing rosters had to do with giving positions different starting skills, which remains the only way anyone thinks about when they want to introduce a new roster. Anyway, there's no way that that process would be opened up again or that the main problems would be fixed anyway, so we are stuck with a basically flawed game and tweaking the starting skills won't really change that IMO. But I've gone on too long again so I'll stop here.

[Colin]

Wow, that post was a real thread killer.

[Warpstone]

Wow, that post was a real thread killer.

LOL. Colin, I don't think enough people are familiar with Cool or Throwing Skill since 2nd ed rulebook wasn't as widely read.

If you'd like to know more about the removed complexity, both attributes are defined on page 15: http://bloodbowlhispano.files.wordpress ... 2nd-ed.pdf

[Darkson]

They solved this by giving certain positions starting skills (2ed had no starting skills on rosters);

Not correct, though admittedly not to the level we have now. Intercept for Elves and Leap for Slann for example.

[Darkson]

In fact, given that Dislike and Animosity were both skills in 2nd edition, you could probably argue there were more starting skills then.

[Colin]

Technically those were "racial" traits common to all players of a certain race, not a skill for a certain position and I was speaking in general terms. I'm sure you knew what I was getting at (simplification of stat lines made it pretty much manditory to give starting skills to position players to make them close to what they were in 2ed, such as blitzers going from ST4 [out of 8] in 2ed to ST3 plus Block in 3ed), but whatever.

Everyone can get back to discussing whatever "new" roster concept they want. Why not have a 6 3 3 8 roster all with Stand Firm. That's different than any other roster out there.....Meh.

[Darkson]

Mighty Blow on Norse Beserker wasn't a "racial trait".

That said, and I've said it before, I agree that, at the very least, AG should be split between "movement" and "ball handling".