NAF response to possible BB2 rule changes

[harvestmouse]

No need, the results are pretty obvious. A survey on the internet will return a result weighted towards those who play BB on the internet. Just as if you took the poll in the room when 1000 coaches get together for the World Cup later this year, it would be weighted towards those who don't.

Are the views necessarily opposed though?

This is an extremely difficult issue, many think it's clear cut that the NAF need to make a stand point, however I really don't see it that way.

The NAF could take the bull by the horns and decide on the future of BB. However any time with a click of their fingers GW could eradicate all of that. Also it's pretty clear Cyanide wouldn't follow any NAF rulings. They're on their own path. So should we follow them? The problems there are 1. They have commercial interests. 2. They have no idea what they're doing. 3. It's quite likely one day they're just say bye bye and leave us on a path without a future.

If the NAF decided to take a rule making stance. Having an official ruleset (that being CRP) whatever Cyanide are doing and a NAF progressive set cannot be good for the hobby. it's confusing.

So the only role I can see a new BBRC (which I'm not opposed to) doing is regulating the crazy funkness coming out of Cyanide. Yes to this, no to that. Which right now, looks likely to be yaying or naying parts of a fanbase ruleset that we've known about for a fair while, but had no inclination of making official.

I think we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Both paths are going to be damaging. And it's the same issue on TT or online (outside of Cyanide of course).

[MattDakka]

Just to remind some guys...
The rules of Chess have never been altered in centuries and it's still one of the most played games in the world.

Chess is way more balanced than Blood Bowl (because it's a simpler game, a mirror match without skills, stats and dice rolls).

To change the rules just to have them changed makes no sense.

I agree, but online games, especially the competitive ones, are frequently patched to reduce the blatant unbalances. If the rules are changed in the attempt to improve the game experience and the competitiveness I think it's a positive change.

There are, right now, 24 official teams to be played.

And some of them are very strong at low TV, others are very strong at high TV, some others suck for design.
This doesn't make the game as enjoyable as it could be with more balanced teams, because people tend to avoid the weak teams. Goblins, Halflings, Ogres, Vampires are funny, but on FUMBBL most coaches play tier 1 teams, this is the reality.

You can't find anything to meet your needs?
Than you're doing something wrong, pal!

You should play vs some clawpomb teams, get battered for 1 hour, then tell us how your game experience was.

And all the changes in all the rulebooks never really touched the actual gameplay.
So all the changes were basically just clarifications or fluff.

Actually no, the journeymen rule, the new apothecary, the fouling rule, the different calculation of TV and skills changed a lot the gameplay, not to mention the introduction of the dreaded clawpomb stack.
While in LRB4 the strategy was to spread around quite evenly your SPPs on your players, CRP is the era of teams with few Legends and many cheap Rookies.

[Darkson]

*yawn* with the clawpomb. Matt, see if you go a week without mentioning in any of your posts.

[Chris]

While in LRB4 the strategy was to spread around quite evenly your SPPs on your players, CRP is the era of teams with few Legends and many cheap Rookies.

In low TV matched games, yes. Not in long term leagues though.

[spubbbba]

While in LRB4 the strategy was to spread around quite evenly your SPPs on your players, CRP is the era of teams with few Legends and many cheap Rookies.

In low TV matched games, yes. Not in long term leagues though.

Exactly, the league experience is very different from TV based matchmaking. Crp was designed with tabletop leagues in mind so it is understandable that it is not ideal for online environments where you can play thousands of games have multiple teams and games are basically pointless.

Claw POMB is also far less of an issue as you can't pick your games or min-max and recycle until you get the right skills.

[sann0638]

A wise man recently wrote: "The only stupid idea is trying to use one ruleset for all formats."

Got me thinking...

[MattDakka]

While in LRB4 the strategy was to spread around quite evenly your SPPs on your players, CRP is the era of teams with few Legends and many cheap Rookies.

In low TV matched games, yes. Not in long term leagues though.

Exactly, the league experience is very different from TV based matchmaking. Crp was designed with tabletop leagues in mind so it is understandable that it is not ideal for online environments where you can play thousands of games have multiple teams and games are basically pointless.

Claw POMB is also far less of an issue as you can't pick your games or min-max and recycle until you get the right skills.

I play Khemri in league, and if I can I keep my TV slim there too, because having 2 skilled skeletons could give a Wizard to my opponent, the same goes for rerolls, I took Leader to save 50 TV and reduce further the TV.
CRP made TV management way more important than in LRB4.

[Joemanji]

A wise man recently wrote: "The only stupid idea is trying to use one ruleset for all formats."

Got me thinking...

This is one reason why the NAF should be in no hurry to adopt Cyanide rules. The CRP was deliberately design for a TT game, with JJ wanting dice rolls removed to speed up play etc. Cyanide have much more freedom to add in extra stuff if they wanted, and that would work well for a computer game as all the 'dice rolls' are hidden in the back end. If Cyanide do take the rules somewhere different, then I hope they do it in a way that works for their customer base of people who play >99% of their games on the computer. But the clear implication of this is that the NAF would be stupid to follow the lead of a company who will, if they have any sense, make chances to suit the game based upon commercial interest and with consideration of a different format.

[Geggster]

As a member of the final BBRC and also a member of the NAF committee, I would say this:

The final version of the LRB (now referred to as the CRP) was meant to be a long-term rules solution. Jervis was very much of the mind that static rules helps the entire community and prevents confusion. One can always argue that a small problem should perhaps be fixed, but gradual, occasional changes can be counter-productive to the overall health of the community.

For the record, I happen to think that the CRP is pretty well-balanced, certainly at low-TV (for small leagues and tourneys), but I do think there are issues for the long-term and perpetual leagues that the final BBRC didn't get to resolve.

There are several ways that the rules will change in the future.

1) GW (or one of their licencees, someone like Fantasy Flight) release a new boxed version. It would likely be a slimmed down version of the game at best (or maybe totally revamped) as it would only have rules for the things in the box (so, for example, probably no mutations). If it was GW, it would probably be a splash release like SpaceHulk was - and come with no further support. If it was FF, it might be supported ongoing with extra teams and rules. Either way, one would assume that Cyanide, FUMBBL, tourneys and leagues would need to personally adjudicate whether to adopt this shiny new future. I very much doubt we are going to see this anytime soon, but it would surely trump any rules created by any bodies in the meantime. Furthermore, do we really think that the possibly simplified game would fix the relatively small issues that the game might need? Who within the Design Team at GW (or via licence) is known to play sufficiently to be that well-versed? Rules design seems to have gone very much back in-house, particularly at GW>

2) GW provide an updated CRP on their website. I see this as even more unlikely than option 1 as it requires effort from them without any hope for revenue. Whilst unlikely to happen, it's even more unlikely to have external help (I know Jervis socially and he's told me as such). So again won't necessarily be what we want to hear about rules development.

3) Cyanide are deemed rules arbiters due to being the only faction moving the rules on and under licence. As I understand it, no slann (GW were very clear about that and that will not change), no Pact (?), but instead Khorne for the previous edition (which some loved for new rules, new challenges, new modelling opps, but some hated for fluff or play style reasons). The new edition has Bretonnians and 7 others (no Khorne?), some races having tiny rule changes from what we know. These rules could be adopted by the non-Cyanide community as they are released, but that causes problems over several iterations of the BB release. It would probably be best for a panel of folks to sit down (or more likely interchat) and agree when/if new rules are announced by Cyanide, how/when they get adopted by the remainder of the BB fraternity (I've used fraternity there deliberately, as we all play the same game, yet there does seem some funny ideas about people playing on different mediums).

Which leads me to 4) - having a panel of folks to talk about these things. The NAF committee has discussed this a few times and whether it's new teams or more critically core rule changes via a committee, the same issues are raised. Schism and more importantly, mandate and scope. Sure, we'd quickly have schism as we'd have AV8 human catchers on Cyanide and perhaps AV7 elsewhere. I'm sure people could be grown up enough to remember the differences for the various mediums but I don't know that it's that healthy.

However mandate and scope are bigger issues. I'm sure Cyanide would plough on regardless of what some committee said (and so they should, being a commercial enterprise that has paid money for the licence). Leagues already do exactly what they want and will continue to do so although I'm very interested to know that the new LD has to say about rules committee and how that is cascaded down to leagues that want NAF support. FUMBBL? I play it, but I don't begin to know the process that would need to be seen for the site hosts to adopt new rules. Active involvement? A new game or CRP? (not happening, see above). Or community acceptance that Cyanide had "fixed" the long term problems? (when was the last time more than four people agreed on the internet?)

Leaving us with tourneys. I really don't see many issues with the rules at low TV, which is where the entire gamut of tourney BB is played. I don't see the merit of a BBRC solely for tourney play - and if you just wanted new races (however they were created), then you could just ask the NAF committee to accept that a couple more teams were now tourney-official. It doesn't need to be a big BBRC.

A BBRC does sound great in practice - being a total BB nerd, I'd quite like a few new teams to learn and/or model and a fix to some of the long-term issues I've encountered when I FUMBBL, but I wonder how in practice it would work and what level of community harmony there would be.

[sann0638]

Cyanide have much more freedom to add in extra stuff if they wanted, and that would work well for a computer game as all the 'dice rolls' are hidden in the back end.

Really good point. Pitch invasion and sweltering heat on tabletop are a pain in the backside.

[VoodooMike]

Is it time for a Great Big Blood Bowl Survey (TM) of some sort, I wonder?

You'd better start collecting the squirrel dandruff right away - remember that the magic hogwarts spell that converts descriptive statistics into inferential statistics requires it (and in no small amount).

No need, the results are pretty obvious. A survey on the internet will return a result weighted towards those who play BB on the internet. Just as if you took the poll in the room when 1000 coaches get together for the World Cup later this year, it would be weighted towards those who don't.

Yeah, no need at all when we can just have you pull the numbers out of your ass like you did the 99% figure above. As someone else stated, there has been no online consensus, even in this thread, which suggests that there isn't some massive online bias. There are certainly plenty of valid objections to the use of a survey's results as an objective and representative measure of the overall playerbase's views but that isn't one of them.

To change the rules just to have them changed makes no sense.

It wouldn't, but then again nobody is suggesting changing the rules just to have them changed. Most of the time the suggested rule changes are to address an identified weakness in the existing game. I'm not even convinced that roster additions really count as "rules changes" in the first place.

And all the changes in all the rulebooks never really touched the actual gameplay.
So all the changes were basically just clarifications or fluff.

Really? You feel that the difference between the first edition of BB and CRP is just "clarification" and that the rules of the game haven't changed sufficiently to be called changes... just fluff?

A wise man recently wrote: "The only stupid idea is trying to use one ruleset for all formats."

Only a badly designed game requires a different set of rules for different formats. A game's base rules should work just fine in any format, with the format/external environment being what changes the feel of things.

[Darkson]

This doesn't make the game as enjoyable for me as it could be with more balanced teams, because people tend to avoid the weak teams.

Corrected that for you. You are not everyone. I know quite a few players that won't play anything but tier 3 teams because they enjoy the challenge.

Goblins, Halflings, Ogres, Vampires are funny, but on FUMBBL most coaches play tier 1 teams, this is the reality.

Whoopee doo for Fumbbl. So now we should change the rules just because Fumbbl is full of fun-hating powergamers*?



* Deliberately exaggerated description

[sann0638]

Would you be interesting in helping with design/analysis, mike?

[VoodooMike]

I know quite a few players that won't play anything but tier 3 teams because they enjoy the challenge.

If there's one thing (and probably only one) that Dark Lord said that had merit it was that Blood Bowl was created as a "beer and pretzels" game - one that was not meant to be taken seriously by the players. In that context, permanent attrition and lower tier teams make perfect sense in that nobody was meant to get emotionally invested in their teams - they were meant for a laugh.

The problem is that almost nobody plays BB as a casual "beer and pretzels" game anymore.. you'll see it happening in very casual leagues comprised of buddies, but those represent a small minority among the play environments. Instead, the game is treated as a competitive game both in tournaments and online play. For-a-laugh games don't have tournaments. You won't find many 52-pickup tournaments, or Go-Fish tournaments.

If you want a challenge you can play any team, including tier 1, and create a challenge based on your selection of players and skills. There's really no reason to create rosters that are incapable of playing on par with other rosters because of that.

Whoopee doo for Fumbbl. So now we should change the rules just because Fumbbl is full of fun-hating powergamers*?

It isn't just FUMBBL. The numbers we've seen from them, certainly, but also from FOL, OCC, even the somewhat sketchy tournament numbers seem to indicate that the popularity of long-term teams plummets as you go down in tier. It's a waste of versatility and variety, and it's an unnecessary waste when those rosters could be changed to allow them all to be tier 1 teams, but also give room for people who want a challenge to create that challenge for themselves.

Would you be interesting in helping with design/analysis, mike?

I guess so. If it's something that will actually be treated as justification for doing something or nothing then I'd very much like it to actually be as valid as possible.

Above and beyond the simple criticism of statistical methods, surveys have a long laundry list of additional problems (self-selection, biased design and social expectancy just for starters) that make their results dubious. If you're looking for a clear mandate from players, you may not get what you're looking for - and I worry that people will not understand that, the same way most haven't understood that descriptives alone don't imply anything.

[Darkson]

you'll see it happening in very casual leagues comprised of buddies, but those represent a small minority among the play environments. Instead, the game is treated as a competitive game both in tournaments and online play.

So you're saying they get taken in the format the game is designed for, and not taken in formats the game isn't designed for? I'm ok with that.