Galak's LRB7 test rules coming to FUMMBL

[koadah]

You may not like traits, and I’m very surprised you don’t but the lack of traits in this edition are the sole cause of the problems surrounding Hyperbash (CPOMB) and hyperball (the agility version ). The previous edition had RSC/Claw two doubles, this edition the killer combo should still be two doubles. The openness of skill selection is THE problem imo,

I'm with Plasmoid on this one. Just because YOU don't like it doesn't make it THE problem.

With the traits you're looking at killer teams that it is difficult for anyone to bring down. Even the proposed minor nerf to PO and buff to fouling would not deal with them.
(though right now I'm looking at an ST5 wardancer )

And yes, I prefer the current carnage to aging.

Why don’t you like igeomy, I though only noobs didn’t like it

I liked the eye in LRB4 but the current nerfed version of fouling doesn't warrant it. Even with the proposed fouling buff.

[garion]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not so arrogant I believe I have all the answers etc... I just feel that the problems alot of people complain about these days are "not really" linked to the CPOMB combo being "too powerful" as they may state but rather that it is too easy to obtain en masse and if said combo was a little harder to obtain and seen less often like claw/RSC in LRB4 there wouldn't be quite so many people making a song and dance about it.

I know your not a huge fan of traits because as plasmoid suggests - team building would then also have an element of luck involved and some teams may become run away league winners because of that and there could be little to nothing you could do to stop them etc... and I understand that, don't completely agree with it but anyway for me that was part of the fun of the game really. It was really exciting everytime you made a skill roll, now it's not so much, it was argueably less balanced, I'm not sure, but for me anyway it was more fun. I also believe that the vast majority of leagues people run out there wouldn't really be effected by a small nerf to CPOMB or traits being brought back just because it is my understanding that most leagues aren't perpetual and probably run for less than 20 games anyway hence probably don't see too much of said combo or other issues thats I believe there are in the ruleset but I may be very wrong???


About ageing etc.. yeah on the whole the carnage is probably preferable to ageing, again imo. But as said before the carnage now all comes from one place rather than every team which is what bugs me as well as a number of others I have heard express this point and if there was a new rule set I would like all the "other" races to dish it out a bit more.

With the traits you're looking at killer teams that it is difficult for anyone to bring down. Even the proposed minor nerf to PO and buff to fouling would not deal with them.
(though right now I'm looking at an ST5 wardancer )

I am a little confused by this point though , do you mean that killer teams could then run away with the league if they get too many doubles?
If so it is my belief that a buff to fouling would help mitigate this somewhat, also because they are traits the increased TV for each team that has rolled so many doubles would be alot higher, therefore hitting SE sooner and giving away more inducements so extra apos etc... could be bought.

Or if you mean without CPOMB or just POMB being so readily available it would be too hard to stop Av8 elf teams that are blodged up to the hilt etc... Then I would possibly argue the opposite, in my experience in lrb4 and this edition, Elves had a trickier time against bash teams then for a few reasons. 1-Without easy access to hyperbash, teams took more Guard and a lot more tackle, this made getting that all important 2D hit on a ball carrier a lot harder (for me anyway, people that played lrb4 more than me may have a different option) and tackle made dodging less reliable and gave the bash teams greater chances of bringing your blodgers down. 2- Tentacles was taken a bit more often in mutation teams which again made dodging about and being elfy harder. 3- No wrestle in that edition also made things trickier for elves.

On the flip side with some poor rolling for inj and cas against Elves in LRB4 it was a nightmare for bash teams because you couldn't remove them quite so easily as bash teams do now, so there was often a lot less carnage from blocking though a little more from fouling.

But with ageing gone and traits returned there would still be plenty of opportunity for teams to gain hyperbash i think, there would just be a bigger price for it.

But anyway please don't take anything I say as confrontational, rude or arrogant, this is the internet and it's easy to misconstrue meaning, I just enjoy friendly discussion to help me get through my boring days at work and I enjoy being made to think about the game as I read through threads like this, and I find it interesting how peoples opinions of the game differ so much.

PS Koadah did I win the Junior Sprint with my Chaos Dwarves or not

[dode74]

Or if you mean without CPOMB or just POMB being so readily available it would be too hard to stop Av8 elf teams that are blodged up to the hilt etc... Then I would possibly argue the opposite, in my experience in lrb4 and this edition, Elves had a trickier time against bash teams then for a few reasons. 1-Without easy access to hyperbash, teams took more Guard and a lot more tackle, this made getting that all important 2D hit on a ball carrier a lot harder (for me anyway, people that played lrb4 more than me may have a different option) and tackle made dodging less reliable and gave the bash teams greater chances of bringing your blodgers down. 2- Tentacles was taken a bit more often in mutation teams which again made dodging about and being elfy harder. 3- No wrestle in that edition also made things trickier for elves.

See, to me that just sounds like people are choosing to skill to play against bash rather than against elves. Understandable, too: in B and MM more people play bash teams than any other, so skilling to play against your most likely opponents is sensible (I know you didn't specify B or MM, but this is an area we have data for - many more games are played by bash teams than by agi teams). I would be willing to hypothesise that a lot of new players are coming into leagues and R from MM and B, so are playing similar teams (bash), and the cycle perpetuates. I would be further willing to hypothesise that over time these new players will either leave or try different teams, changing the balance of teams played and, in turn, the relative value of each skill.

[burgun824]

I just feel that the problems alot of people complain about these days are "not really" linked to the CPOMB combo being "too powerful" as they may state but rather that it is too easy to obtain en masse and if said combo was a little harder to obtain and seen less often like claw/RSC in LRB4 there wouldn't be quite so many people making a song and dance about it.

I've been reading along for a while now and I have to agree with Garion on this. I am not a hater of CPOMB personally, but when you play against someone that has a lot of it the game becomes a little less fun. And not just CPOMB but some of the other killer combos too. Now I know this isn't as prominent in TT leagues as it probably is in online leagues, but I think traits were a better game mechanic for developing players.

I know your not a huge fan of traits because as plasmoid suggests - team building would then also have an element of luck involved and some teams may become run away league winners because of that and there could be little to nothing you could do to stop them etc... and I understand that...

I don't. I also don't agree with making the basic skills traits as was mentioned by Galak earlier in this thread. I may be missing something but I really fail to see what was wrong with skill selection in LRB4. I have often said that I prefer LRB5+ rules and I truely think that they make the game better. However, skill selection was something I didn't see a problem with in LRB4. The traits simply need to be priced so that the TV is affected properly and your spiralling expenses force coaches not to keep more then a few super players on the roster.

[cbbakke]

For me what it has really come down to is two things.
1. less fun of a game.
2. Dumbs down the tactics of playing a basher. In the past it was not easy to win with a grinder team. It took effort and some skill to wear down the other team to a point where you can win. A lot of players started with basher teams because of survivability but then as they learned the game they would move onto other teams because of the difficulty scoring with bashers.

Now it is almost the mathematical norm to remove the other team. When playing as a bashing team, I use to really have to push every turn to make it to the endzone by the end of the half. Now I can pretty much sit midfield and rape the other team for a while and then walk into the endzone with easy. The CAS are part of it, but the stuns and KOs are also a big part of it. A few KOs=huge advantage on the pitch.

[dode74]

In the past it was not easy to win with a grinder team.

It clearly still isn't - bash teams aren't dominating any of the leagues, open or private (unless the ruleset is deliberately favouring them such as the sprint leagues), they don't have the highest win% by any stretch (a hybrid team does in FOL - Undead followed by Amazons), and they don't have the highest racial Elo (again, Undead, followed by Lizards). I have a sample of ~20,000 games (including pretty much all the relevant statistics such as KOs/cas caused etc) in FOL to take the open league data from, a number which I expect to increase to about 25,000 come Sept 18th and the next server download.

[cbbakke]

I don't think it is fair to look completely at the numbers to make that judgement for a few reasons.

1. New players are more likely to play bashers (most have agreed on that) so they are going to lower the win%.
2. A lot of bad players also stick with bashers. If they cant win atleast they can survive and do some damage.


I am not saying that the numbers are meaningless but I think they are also not the end all. My opinion in part comes from experience playing.

My winning percentage is far higher with bashing teams in this edition then non bashing teams. I have played since 3rd edition and before I would say my record overall was pretty balanced between the three man styles of teams (hybrid, basher, agility).

[garion]

In the past it was not easy to win with a grinder team.

It clearly still isn't - bash teams aren't dominating any of the leagues

You don't have Chaos Dwarves in cyanides game!

But anyway, lets not let this decend into another silly cpomb thread and stick to point that Darkson, burgun824, many many people from fumbbl and I agreed on.... the removal of trats was stupid

[dode74]

I don't think it is fair to look completely at the numbers to make that judgement for a few reasons.

Well I know it's not reasonable to look at your subjective experience to make the judgement, because it is a very small sample set and therefore cannot be assumed to be representative of the game as a whole, or of the opinions of everyone else. The one time we tried a collection of subjective experiences we got your poll, and we all know how that turned out. Apart from the numbers, can you think of an objective method to assess this issue? I can't. What we can do though is look at your objections:

1. New players are more likely to play bashers (most have agreed on that) so they are going to lower the win%.

New players are generally told to play Orcs (bash) or Undead (hybrid) in my experience (I may be wrong on that one, but that's certainly my subjective experience ). Undead have the highest win% in FOL with 61.22%. Orcs are doing average at 49.36%. It is possible to parse out those teams with fewer than, say, 30 games, to see what the win% looks like then, which would alleviate the issue of rookie players (after 30 gams you may not be good, but you aren't a rookie). In fact, we've done just that if you recall, and the top 5 teams in FUMBBL (which included CDs, neverworking ) in terms of win% were the 4 elves and the skaven...

2. A lot of bad players also stick with bashers. If they cant win atleast they can survive and do some damage.

While I agree that players play the survival game in MM, I'd like to see any data at all for your assertion that "a lot of bad players stick with bashers". I'm sure there are a lot of bash coaches out there who would be offended by that assertion. Any evidence at all?

[garion]

Sigh numbers numbers numbers. They can be made to look like anything, data is not the be all and end all of bloodbowl.

Lets look at some other figures then that would prove his point if you just want data(even though I disagree with a lot of what Cbbakke says)

BB sprint sub 180TV, 16 games sprint (win/Draw/Loss)

July/August - Chaos Dwarves 15/1/0
May/June - Dwarf 14/2/0

BB Sprint over 180TV, 16 games sprint (win/Draw/Loss)

July/August - winner - Chaos 14/2/0 (top 10 had 6 Chaos, 2 Chaos Dwarf, 1 Nurgle, 1 Undead)
May/June - winner - Chaos Dwarf 13/1/2 (top10 had 2 Chaos Dwarf, 3 Chaos, 2 Nurgle, 1 Wood Elf, 1 Lizardmen, 1Dwarf)

Top two coaches in the BB have played Chaos Pact, and Chaos to achieve their record.
Chaos Pact with a win/draw/loss record of - (105/28/18)
Chaos with a win/draw/loss record of - (152/32/19)

Major Tournaments -

Wheel of Chaos - Won by Chaos Dwarves
Crown of sands - Won by Nurgle

Also you are saying his poll backfired on him etc... but for me that is terrible wording, he has really shot himself in the foot by creating a leading poll. FYI here is another polls asking the exact same thing, just in a different way -

How much do you agree with the following statement: I would like to see the combination of Claw, Mighty Blow, and Pile On nerfed.
Agree Strongly 34% [ 76 ]
Agree Moderately 12% [ 27 ]
Agree Slightly 16% [ 36 ]
Neither Agree or Disagree 8% [ 18 ]
Disagree Slightly 5% [ 11 ]
Disagree Moderately 4% [ 10 ]
Disagree Strongly 18% [ 41 ]

There is a lot more stats and polls but you get the point. But I will spell it out, don't get too bogged down in stats hey are mostly meaningless. I know all these stats don't really give you a great idea about anything.

What is most important imo is when you get very experienced coaches tha have played for years saying there is "something" wrong with the rule set, no one mentions balance (which may or may not be fine, I don't care)/ But people like Miriscael, Mr Foulscumm, Random Oracle, Carnis, and many many more have expressed in different ways that the "Feel" of the game is off.

It's my opinion that this 2feeling" is down to the removal of traits, making it too easy to build teams how ever you want and reducing the "fun" in team building. It is clear that cbbakke thinks all the problems are solely down to CPOMB, you may laugh but there are many that agree with him, some coaches think the removal of ageing was the big problem. Some people hink just pilling on is the problem, other people think the Wizard is far too cheap and it makes a mockery of the tactics when you can just zap a cage for the win etc... etc...

So there are many differing opinions about why the ruleset feels a bit off. I still enjoy the game, don't get me wrong, but I preferred the fun factor in lrb4.

[plasmoid]

Hi Garion,
perhaps the Dode, Cbbakke, Garion claw-nonsense-fast which is about to erupt could get it's own thread?
I hope so.

Yup this is true, and a very valid arguement, but creating those unique players was where the fun was in team building imo,

I think rolling doubles and stats is still an advantage - and fun.
But I don't like the way 'requiring' doubles to be a power-team gives prolific players a monster advantage.
LRB5+ was all about not handing a huge advantage to the most experienced team. Hence the new handicap system.
I think you'll find that Darkson thinks it was awesome that overdogs dominated - and that they deserved to. So it makes sense he likes traits too.
As a commish, I hate it.

You may be right, but the problem with this is if you keep making skills weaker you are in danger of making all teams vanilla

Hey, I love vanilla
But you know what I'm proposing, and I'm only hard-nerfing Piling On. That's just the 1 skill.

But I really love Joemanji & Galaks combined 'trait' idea, making Guard, Leader, Block, Claw and Dodge +10K skills.
I really think it would make skill selection more interesting.
Wrestle would probably become more popular.
Then so would Juggernaut very quickly
Awesome, IMO.

Actually, when I showed Galak and Ian my NTBB rules, it originally included a combo tax. Skill nr3 and 5 were more expensive.
They both thought it was not necessary.
I think this new rule does much the same thing, while at the same time make skill selection less obvious/monotonous.

I'm really considering adding it to the NTBB rules.

Cheers
Martin

PS - maybe all your ideas will fit together like a magnificent jigsaw. Maybe there'll be ripple effects.
Either way, I've got my own NTBB jigsaw

[garion]

Hi Garion,
perhaps the Dode, Cbbakke, Garion claw-nonsense-fast which is about to erupt could get it's own thread?
I hope so.

You may be right, but the problem with this is if you keep making skills weaker you are in danger of making all teams vanilla

Hey, I love vanilla
But you know what I'm proposing, and I'm only hard-nerfing Piling On. That's just the 1 skill.

First off please don't involve me in that list. :shudders:. I specifically asked that this not become one of those threads as well in my second to last post and was trying to stop it

As for vanilla - yeah I can tell you like that, it shows in your narrow the tiers league etc... which is great fun to play in, and quite interesting to see. But it's not the way I would personally go (nor darkson I'm guessing from his comments), I enjoy the tiers too. I love the challange that comes with playing vamps etc....

As you also say Darkson likes similar things about lrb4 as I did, though I do like the inducement system on the whole, it is far better imo than handciaps even if i still think wizard is too cheap and some stars are too expensive and or pointless.

Yup I like Joemajis idea too, of putting the skills in tiers so they all have a relative cost. I think that would have a similar effect to the effect I would like traits to have though PO HAS to be in that top tier. (Also combine FA and DP again )

Don't like Galaks idea of making block, dodge, Guard, Claw and Leader traits. Games would certainly be a lot faster (lots of turn overs being the cause) but it would also make amazons, norse, dwarves and Chaos dwarves far far too good apart from when zons or Norse face dwarves and Chaos Dwarves, which means everyone would only play two races. Yawn.

PS - maybe all your ideas will fit together like a magnificent jigsaw. Maybe there'll be ripple effects.
Either way, I've got my own NTBB jigsaw

That's what I'm hoping will come from the discussion too.

[plasmoid]

Hi again Garion

I specifically asked that this not become one of those threads as well in my second to last post and was trying to stop it

I know . But you know what they say about good intentions
The stuff you posted is guaranteed to trigger an obsessive-compulsive post from either one, which is no doubt going to be refuted be the other one. And so it goes...
No insult meant to you!

As for vanilla - yeah I can tell you like that, it shows in your narrow the tiers league etc...

Heh, you didn't take it literally enough. I also love chocolate fudge swirl
Seriously though, I'm not trying to make things vanilla. I'm trying to make them interesting.
At the same time, I'm trying to steer clear of the outlandish, which, even when it is awesome, is a turnoff for a lot of people.
You should see how much I messed with the rosters when I ran my own league.

So NTBB is me showing massive restraint for political reasons, so to speak.
I'm shooting for paletable as well as great fun

But it's not the way I would personally go (nor darkson I'm guessing from his comments), I enjoy the tiers too.

Just for the record, I'm narrowing the tiers, not eliminating them. 3rd troll does not let gobbos compete full tilt, for instance.
That being said, I'd have thought you didn't like the tiers. I've seen posts from you bemoaning that in CRP there are too few truly competitive teams. At least I think I have

Yup I like Joemajis idea too

I prefer it to real restricted traits. Best of both worlds, IMO.
That being said, I probably shouldn't add it to NTBB - I think the ripple effects would be massive...
But it would certainly be interesting. Really interesting.
I don't think the big block starters (dwarf, CDs, norse) would have that much of an advantage, because wrestle would become a lot more popular - and wrestle trumps block.
Hmmmm....
Oh, and I'm keeping PiOn out of the +10K category, because I'm nerfing it already

Cheers
Martin

[garion]

But it's not the way I would personally go (nor darkson I'm guessing from his comments), I enjoy the tiers too.

Just for the record, I'm narrowing the tiers, not eliminating them. 3rd troll does not let gobbos compete full tilt, for instance.
That being said, I'd have thought you didn't like the tiers. I've seen posts from you bemoaning that in CRP there are too few truly competitive teams. At least I think I have

Yeah I probably said something along those lines. But that was more of a CPOMD discussion thing about playing at a high TV in perpetual leagues and how the combo has made some races unplayable. In your short leagues like most people play those teams don't see this problem. Teams like vamps that take a long time and find it hard to build an effective team and once they do for it to be destroyed completely in one game is very demoralising, while this isnt such a problem for say elves who can re-build in no time and win games in the process. But anyway lets not go down the cpomb route again But yeah i really like the tiers on the whole, i think the idea is a good one, and I like how different teams perform at different levels, it keeps it interesting.

I don't think the big block starters (dwarf, CDs, norse) would have that much of an advantage, because wrestle would become a lot more popular - and wrestle trumps block.

I just mean if the block dodge etc... were true traits ie. Galaks idea, i think joes idea would still work fine.

Yes teams could take wrestle but then what about teams like High Elves who only start with 2 blocks no dodge, they just couldnt function well at all. Or Lizardmen, who would function like a starter team for far too long, what skills would they take if not block, wrestle would suck on them, anyway I can think of a million reasons why I would not like block and dodge to become traits but there isn't the time. It would just change the game far too much.

Oh, and I'm keeping PiOn out of the +10K category, because I'm nerfing it already

fair enough, if the nerf is sufficient then it obviously shouldn't be a +10k skill. In my mind that wasnt changing because of the price increase :S

[Chris]

Having wrestle as the choice over block if that were restricted would stuff slow non block players very effectively - so instead plenty of re-rolls and turnovers...

I do like the de-facto skill choices carrying an overhead of 10k.

Would make decisions around secondary players like linemen more interesting.

There would of course be a long discussion about what those de-facto choices were and I accept they vary for certain races.