What if Cyanide did to BloodBowl what GW did to Warhammer?

[Milo]

It's all very well and good to say "more options are best!", but this isn't a single-player game. What people want isn't simply to have the rules be what they think is best, they want (and, in fact, require) other people who also want the same thing. To that end, what people really need is a set of rules that everyone can accept.

We have that now -- it's called the CRP.

We definitely do not. I enjoyed playing progression games much more under LRB 4 than I do CRP. Where I agree that many/most of the changes were for the better, the overall package (for me and others) is most certainly inferior.

I'm more than happy that we all play the same rules on the field. I just think that MM the same way for completely different environments holds everybody back. It's all good and well house ruling things here, but more than most want to play the official product.

There will never be an official product that makes everyone happy. The BBRC's marching orders were to build a product that could survive league that never reset, or leagues that reset, or tournaments, or matches between varying team values. Jervis kept us very focused on that, at least during my time on the committee. I think it's close to that, as close as it's ever been, and perhaps as close as it ever can be. But Blood Bowl is and always has been a game that is extensively house-ruled, especially in local leagues. Expecting this to change -- that we would all work from one golden source rulebook -- is, at least in my opinion, a waste of time.

[harvestmouse]

Yeah, but yeah but.....you're not listening.

I was happier under LRB 4 and I'm not alone there. The number 1 criteria for updating the rules is to improve the game, which for me they have failed. That's incredibly frustrating. It's pushed me to the point of giving up, where I can no longer relate to my piers, as they have either gone and found a new game or changed with the ruleset. So I have gone from playing around 300-400 games a year to 20-30 and after that play my own lrb4/crp/my subset rules on my own as a Billy no mates, due to the flaws with CRP.

It can be skirted over and refuted as much as you want but the game has been tailored as a tourney resurrection ruleset with progression not nearly play tested as much as it should have. And that's me choosing my words carefully.

[Milo]

Harvestmouse, I hear what you're saying. I'm particularly fond of LRB4, myself, and am still adjusting to the CRP differences. Frankly, in my leagues, I never really had a problem with the old 3.0 rules, with stackable injury modifiers, star players, special play cards and all. There was definitely a push by Jervis to rewrite the rules to accommodate leagues that played for hundreds of game -- that's where aging and so many other rules came from.

As to whether CRP/LRB6 were tested, I think it's safe to say they were tested more than any other BB ruleset, INCLUDING the official GW releases. Was that enough? I don't know and can't say. I do think that in a perfect world, the BBRC would still be around today, listening to feedback like yours, and trying to tweak the rules to address further issues. As a software developer, I can say that no application can ever be fully tested for every possible "in the real world" situation, and I suspect that's true of Blood Bowl as well -- that no matter how much in-house testing was done, we would still find some issues when exposed to an environment with millions of random dice rolls and player choices are occuring. That's not me burying my head in the sand, it's me being realistic.

But what's the solution? GW has kicked BB to the curb, Cyanide notwithstanding, and dissolved the BBRC. So we're left with the CRP as the currently standing ruleset, and it's being happily used by people all over the world. Do we revert back to LRB4? I don't think that's reasonable, we'd have at least as many people complaining about leaving CRP as we do about leaving LRB4. Could we fix the problems you see with the CRP so that you'd be as happy playing an updated CRP as you are playing LRB4? Well, we could -- but without the official GW sanction, many if not most people simply won't consider it a "real ruleset", and that just leads to the splintered rulesets that we all want to avoid.

Out of curiosity, I'd love to hear what sort of problems you have with the CRP. But I don't know that there is a solution for your problem.

[Regash]

but without the official GW sanction, many if not most people simply won't consider it a "real ruleset", and that just leads to the splintered rulesets that we all want to avoid.

This and this again.
I don' think people really have an issue with parts of the rules they don't like.
Let's be honest, whatever you do, you will never have 100 % of approvement.

But as long as we're all using the SAME RULES as anybody else, most of us are fine.
That is why so many people are pissed of at Cyanide for changing the rules in BB2.

[harvestmouse]

Well yes, I fully accept that it cannot be changed, and house ruling is not the way to go. My point was that when you said "We have that now -- it's called the CRP." implying that it was a ruleset we can all accept, I have to disagree. I can't accept a ruleset that plays inferior to a previous one and have reverted to an older set and play by myself. That certainly isn't progress.

As for what I dislike, there are somethings. I dislike losing the eye and I really dislike the disproportion of CAS dealing that is POMB. I don't like the new apothecary, I benefits regen teams too much. I dislike what removing aging has done, however at the time I thought it would be a good idea (play testing in a progressive environment like POMB (which was highlighted, but lets not go there) would have brought up these issues).

However my major beef is what TV has done to our environment and 'Sweet Spotting'. Teams of 11 or 12 players running around with huge stacks of cash and players fired if they have the nerve to skill and raise the TV. It's really made things artificial and unappealing. It removes a major element of playing progressive games and is generally off putting to new players who join for the fantasy rpg elements.

As I have said. I think we all should play by the same 'on pitch' rules, but match making and pricing should be custom. League, Perpetual and Resurrection would all benefit from not being handcuffed to the other 2.

[MattDakka]

Out of curiosity, I'd love to hear what sort of problems you have with the CRP. But I don't know that there is a solution for your problem.

My 2 cents:
- Clawpomb and pomb dealing too much damage on-pitch (I don't care about losing players long term, but losing too many players during a match may seriously affect its outcome and makes it boring and pointless to play).
- New Apothecary: worse than LRB4 in order to achieve the higher attrition, good for non-progression tournaments, bad for normal matches/progression leagues, the old one was better for long term.
- Fouling nerf: CRP fouling doesn't deal effectively with the PO players, and it's too random. Many teams would benefit from enhanced fouling to discourage excessive PO.
- Lack of the IGMEOY rule: this rule made fouling a bit more tactical and being spotted less random compared to the CRP fouling.
- Lack of Ageing: LRB4 Ageing was badly designed and too random, a player could age even on his/her first skill roll. I would like Ageing in CRP, but a good one, based on something like number of matches played/player's title/SPPs or something like a cumulative modifier affecting the CAS table roll. This would increase attrition to Legend players, making their retirement/death more likely than a rookie player.
- Stars and Scrubs: unlike LRB4, CRP pricing doesn't encourage an even spread of skills on players, instead the meta revolves around a few skilled players and a bunch of unskilled fodder to protect them and to soak the damage.

[Milo]

Well yes, I fully accept that it cannot be changed, and house ruling is not the way to go. My point was that when you said "We have that now -- it's called the CRP." implying that it was a ruleset we can all accept, I have to disagree. I can't accept a ruleset that plays inferior to a previous one and have reverted to an older set and play by myself. That certainly isn't progress.

Okay, I see your point, but inasmuch as the CRP is the a) most recent ruleset and b) last officially sanctioned ruleset by GW, it is the de facto standard. That's what I meant. Of course, you could stay on Windows 7 if you want, but that doesn't change that the widely-accepted Windows is now going to be Windows 10. By choosing to stay on Windows 7/LRB 4, you are marginalizing yourself to some extent, no matter how good your reasons are for doing it. Eventually, you may find yourself forced to change, but as long as you can find opponents, I wholly believe that LRB is a valid ruleset to play games under.

As for what I dislike, there are somethings. I dislike losing the eye and I really dislike the disproportion of CAS dealing that is POMB. I don't like the new apothecary, I benefits regen teams too much. I dislike what removing aging has done, however at the time I thought it would be a good idea (play testing in a progressive environment like POMB (which was highlighted, but lets not go there) would have brought up these issues).

I don't think that POMB is that much worse than it was before -- in fact, in comparison to stock BB3 rules it's dramatically weakened. But I think casualties in general are down across the board, and that makes this skillset stand out as one of the few that still produces results.

The LRB4 and CRP differ on PO only in that CRP allows it to reroll injury instead of armor rolls. I'm not sure what the reasoning was for that -- I think just rerolling the armor was sufficient for LRB4. But otherwise, if POMB is worse now in CRP than in LRB4, it may be because other skills were weakened.

I frankly don't care for the new apothecary rule myself. And I think that had I been involved in removing aging, I would have pushed to keep it but restrict it only to additional niggling injuries. That way, you could keep the player (and his hit to your team value) but he would become increasingly more unreliable as he aged. Eventually, coaches would retire their wounded stars, but that would be their choice, whereas having a player hit by -1ST or -1AG would virtually force you to cut a beloved player loose.

However my major beef is what TV has done to our environment and 'Sweet Spotting'. Teams of 11 or 12 players running around with huge stacks of cash and players fired if they have the nerve to skill and raise the TV. It's really made things artificial and unappealing. It removes a major element of playing progressive games and is generally off putting to new players who join for the fantasy rpg elements.

As I have said. I think we all should play by the same 'on pitch' rules, but match making and pricing should be custom. League, Perpetual and Resurrection would all benefit from not being handcuffed to the other 2.

Here's how I see it:

Perpetual -- run the full CRP ruleset.
League -- if desired, remove the Petty Cash and Spiralling Expenses rules. That reduces the incentive to limit your roster, since your treasury will now always impact your team value. I think SE is unnecessary in a league environment where teams generally play a set number of games and then start over.
Resurrection -- remove the Post Match sequence entirely.

[MattDakka]

Perpetual -- run the full CRP ruleset.

The full CRP ruleset sucks for perpetual online play (paired by TV).
It's been proved ( both on FUMBBL and on Cyanide) that at high TV the meta is dominated by clawpomb teams, this affects the variety of teams you are going to play and affects the gameplay as well.
Out of curiosity, have you played perpetual CRP online for a long time?

[Milo]

My 2 cents:
- Clawpomb and pomb dealing too many damage on-pitch (I don't care about losing players long term, but losing too many players during a match may seriously affect its outcome and makes it boring and pointless to play).
- New Apothecary: worse than LRB4 in order to achieve the higher attrition, good for non-progression tournaments, bad for normal matches/progression leagues, the old one was better for long term.

Again, Blood Bowl is far less Blood than it used to be. I once had an entire High Elf team cleared off the board by a Dirty Player on the opposing team under BB3 rules. This is a delicate balancing act, because strong teams NEED to be able to reduce the other side in order to have a chance to win the game, else the skilled teams would run roughshod. I'm not saying that you can't still make tweaks to the formula, but I'm not seeing the basher teams as running away with leagues or tournaments right now. Reducing the violence level any further may completely skew the game towards the more fragile, higher agility teams.

- Fouling nerf: CRP fouling doesn't deal effectively with the PO players, and it's too random. Many teams would benefit from enhanced fouling to discourage excessive PO.
- Lack of the IGMEOY rule: this rule made fouling a bit more tactical and be spotted less random compared to the CRP fouling.

These two seem a little contradictory. The first one, you say that fouling isn't as effective as it used to be; the second, you say that the reduced risk means it's used more. I could see potentially restoring the automatic +1 to the fouling roll that the LRB4 rules used to give. Beyond that, I'd be loathe to make too many more changes. IGMEOY was a nice idea, but did require some extra tracking (though not as much as some former ref rulesets.)

Speaking of fouling, I actually really like the new Sneaky Git rule proposed by plasmoid.

- Lack of Ageing: LRB4 Ageing was badly designed and too random, a player could age even on his/her first skill roll. I would like Ageing in CRP, but a good one, based on something like number of matches played/player's title/SPPs or something like a cumulative modifier affecting the CAS table roll. This would increase attrition to Legend players, making their retirement/death more likely than a rookie player.
- Stars and Scrubs: unlike LRB4, CRP pricing doesn't encourage an even spread of skills on players, instead the meta revolves around a few skilled players and a bunch of unskilled fodder to protect them and to soak the damage.

It's been ages since I've read any of those old BBRC emails, so I can't go into a lot of detail. I know there were a number of different suggestions for aging. I know we discussed only starting aging at the first "Star Player" mark, but giving aging to have more teeth. I think the prevailing opinion was that it was better to have more frequent but less risky aging checks.

[Milo]

Perpetual -- run the full CRP ruleset.

The full CRP ruleset sucks for perpetual online play (paired by TV).
It's been proved ( both on FUMBBL and on Cyanide) that at high TV the meta is dominated by clawpomb teams, this affects the variety of teams you are going to play and affects the gameplay as well.
Out of curiosity, have you played perpetual CRP online for a long time?

No, I admit that I haven't. My experience is mainly limited to tabletop leagues and resurrection tournaments. So I recognize that there are probably perpetual team issues which may still need to be resolved. My point was that the full CRP ruleset has rules like the spiralling expenses which were intended specifically to address long running teams which are not really necessary in the other metas -- not to suggest that the CRP couldn't still be improved in dealing with the perpetual basher teams you're mentioning.

[MattDakka]

Again, Blood Bowl is far less Blood than it used to be. I once had an entire High Elf team cleared off the board by a Dirty Player on the opposing team under BB3 rules. This is a delicate balancing act, because strong teams NEED to be able to reduce the other side in order to have a chance to win the game, else the skilled teams would run roughshod. I'm not saying that you can't still make tweaks to the formula, but I'm not seeing the basher teams as running away with leagues or tournaments right now. Reducing the violence level any further may completely skew the game towards the more fragile, higher agility teams.

Well Clawpomb does what Dirty Player did in LRB4, i.e. a no brain way of removing players, but at least in LRB4 you could get spotted if you kept on fouling, while you can pile on with impunity for a whole match most of times.
While removing some players from the pitch is fine (playing vs elves would be very hard without some depitching), removing too many players in a short time has a bad impact on a match.
Well if you played high TV Blood Bowl you would see a lot of clawpomb-exploiting teams, they are not winning a lot?
Maybe, we could say that their win rate goes to 50% every time they play a mirror match, something that happens quite often due to the reduced variety (Chaos and Nurgle are very common at high TV), anyway winning or losing, playing vs clawpomb is very boring and, although agile teams can still win vs clawpomb due to AG 4 and the ability of winning with few players, hybrid and bash teams with no access to clawpomb can't compete very well against them.

These two seem a little contradictory. The first one, you say that fouling isn't as effective as it used to be; the second, you say that the reduced risk means it's used more. I could see potentially restoring the automatic +1 to the fouling roll that the LRB4 rules used to give. Beyond that, I'd be loathe to make too many more changes. IGMEOY was a nice idea, but did require some extra tracking (though not as much as some former ref rulesets.)

No contradiction: fouling is not as effective as it used to be, it should be more effective in order to remove the pombers on the ground and make them less appealing, on the same time it should be tactical, I mean, I played vs some coaches fouling absolutely not tactically several times for no real benefit (not on key players, but on journeymen and rookie linemen) and never getting spotted, and when I fouled once a super killer I got spotted without injuring him, this would be unlikely if IGMEYO still existed.
Long story short: less no-brain fouling, more tactical fouling, otherwise the clueless fouling ("I foul just because I can") is encouraged. LRB4 fouling was excessive, while CRP fouling is too bland and random. A +1 to AV break and to injury should work fine (Dirty Player could add another +1 to injury, so normal fouling would be +1 AV and +1 inj, Dirty player would be +1 AV and +2 inj).

It's been ages since I've read any of those old BBRC emails, so I can't go into a lot of detail. I know there were a number of different suggestions for aging. I know we discussed only starting aging at the first "Star Player" mark, but giving aging to have more teeth. I think the prevailing opinion was that it was better to have more frequent but less risky aging checks.

More frequent but less risky is bad because could lead to retirement of expensive players getting their first skill.
Retiring an Elf Blitzer or a Chaos Warrior when he gets his first or second skill due to Ageing is very bad, especially in LRB4 because there was no Journeymen rule.
Something like an ageing check starting at 31 SPPs might be nice, but at the first skill? No, it would be bad, some players start with few or no core skills and the first 1-2 skills are essential.

[Darkson]

About 10 years to late to be worrying about issues between LRB4 and CRP. ( ).
Has it really been that long?

[harvestmouse]

Yeah, but not for us FUMBBL players. We were stuck in an lrb4 void for a while. Speaking of which, I'd think you'd find it interesting Milo to see some of the bulls**t that's happening on that site and Cyanide. By that I mean the min-maxing and the CPOMBing. It's massively disheartening, but something you should observe. The min-maxing is now controlled a little better at the loss of some other factors, however there are a lot of teams that are treading water so that they can play at their best weight, and winning a ridiculous amount of games.

It's not that CPOMB is that bad, it's no worse than RSC/Claw. It's how much of it there is, and how uncontrolled skilling has become. For RSC/Claw that would be 2 doubles, CPOMB is 3 normal rolls. Coaches are now pretty much free to choose who they skill up with the removal of aging and the use of smaller rosters. In fact left to their own devices you'd see (and I am sure you do see) teams of 5 skilled players, a leader caddy and then 5 Journey Men. Stash the cash for a long period of time and then buy everything in one big go for a major occasion, a tournament maybe...

CRP in the perpetual world has removed a lot of the skill or tactics. POMBing has become the one trick for removing cas, and fouling doesn't really get that much of a look in now. It's simply not cost effective on some rosters to even try it, unless you get into one of the big stars of the team. So with small rosters and 1 dimensional match attrition (ok not exactly 1 dimensional, but you get the point) a lot of matches are over by half time and a lot are decided by the coin toss. That isn't right.

I'm pretty sure that 3rd ed or some of the earlier lrbs also wouldn't hold up that well now either, but lrb 4 did, albeit with obvious issues that definitely needed. Those issues looked to be easy fixes though, compared to the larger ones we were given. What I'm trying to say is............ I think we could have had an almost perfect game with lrb 4.5 + tailored match making. I'm pretty sure of that.

I think me and Matt are pretty much saying the same thing on all the current problems that progression faces in a highly competitive and skilled arena.

[koadah]

The Fumbbl Black Box is just another league. It could be house ruled just like any other league.

I would like CPOMB to be nerfed as Mouse well knows.
I think that the game would be better for it even if some kind of ageing had to be brought back. (Please not until fourth skill)

I house rule my leagues. It looks as though Cyanide will house rule theirs. I am disappointed that Fumbbl does not house rule the Box. I would if was the Boss.

But Fumbbl Black Box isn't the whole of blood bowl. If horrible things happen there that is down to Fumbbl to sort out.

If they had had a client capable of producing Black Box data for the BBRC maybe we would have a better game now.
But they didn't have one and they won't test any potential 'fixes' in the Box either.

If you don't like the Box then don't play it. There is still a whole lot of blood bowl going on out there.

Sometimes Mouse you talk as if what happens n the Box is a calamity for blood bowl. It isn't. It is not even a calamity for the Box. The Box still lives and people figure out how to eke some fun out of it. Though IMO it could be better.

@Milo: Here's one I saw earlier this evening.
https://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match&id=3713652

[MattDakka]

If you don't like the Box then don't play it. There is still a whole lot of blood bowl going on out there.

It's the only viable online matchmaking league since Cyanide is flawed and lacks a lot of teams.

The Box still lives and people figure out how to eke some fun out of it. .

Yes, basically the top coaches play only at low TV to avoid clawpomb, while the clawpomb lovers thrive at high TV.
I had to fire some skilled skeletons of my Khemri team to trim the TV, this is ridiculous.