Narrow Tier BB - 2012

[plasmoid]

Hi Doubleskulls,
I think I've reached a point where I can no longer think clearly
Honestly, like you, I guess I'm not too fuzzed if AV9ers become relatively a little better off than before. I mean, they're still taking the brunt of the effect of claw, so they're still getting hurt. I suppose for me the main issues are to make sure that the damagelevel against AV9 doesn't dip too low (POMB), while at the same time making sure that the damagelevel against AV7 (and clawvictims) drop significantly.

For me, I figure shaving roughly one third off everything would get us some pretty good damage levels.
I took the time to look at a lot of the numbers we've been spitting out, and I pretty much have some minor issue with each set. That either means to come up with something new, or to just accept one of those issues and move on.
*I don't think the CAS-rate should drop below 10% against AV9 when POMBing.
This to my mind kills 'PO is RR on INJ & MB doesn't stack'
*I also don't think the CAS-rate should be above 20 when POMBing AV7 (or CPOMBing)
My own original PO=+1/+1 falls to this, because the CASrate against AV7 is 24 or so.
(So does pure CRP, which has it at almost 27)
*Piling On on the armor roll is tricky, because, as you say, the stats get unreliable, because sometimes piling on against AV9 isn't worth the risk. On the other hand, piling on against AV7 usually is. I don't much like MB not stacking with a PO on AV, because that compounds the situation - because piling on to roll a 10+ is bad odds. And as stated, I don't want to give AV9 too much of a helping hand. To add to the trickyness of the situation, some coaches will just pile on every time, in order to get the most out of their killstack - so they will wring every last drop of blood from the combo. It is simply very hard to figure out how strong AVrerolling is in reality.
*Then again, I'm not too crazy about any non-stacking solution, because stacking is an easy to remember rule for all skill-use.
- which is almost a shame, because 'nothing stacks' gives some pretty good numbers all round - except it has a casrate against AV7 at almost 24, and that is way too high.

I have toyed with a rewrite of Piling On, which, IMO, produces some pretty good stats. It has (to my mind) the advantages of not preventing stacking, seeing the dice before using (so there is no uncertainty about how it will affect AV9), keeping AV7 Casrate below 20, and keeping AV9 Casrate above 10. Also, while this retains Claw as a weapon to keep High AV teams in check, it reduces CPOMB to a level similar to LRB4, where, as I have shown, AV9 teams were quite viable.
The stats are:
PO: AV9 13.3/6.0 AV8 17.9/7.9 AV7 (or claw) 23.4/10.4
As this is actually weaker as a stand-alone skill than Mighty Blow, it is worth noting that I've removed the risk to go prone for no effect. You will at least get a stun, when you place yourself prone.
POMB: AV9 22.2/11.2 AV8 29.1/14.7 AV7 (or claw) 38.2/19.2
(Unfortunately, it's a complete rewrite, so I have a hard time seeing it gain acceptance in house rules like NTBB - it would have a better chance of just being ruled straight into a future edition)

Anyway, I can't help but comment on your list to Dode.

2.The benefit I'm suggesting is to Av8 and above which means teams like Humans and High Elves benefit as much as Orcs or Dwarves do.

As stated, no real problem with that.

5.It stops Claw having a greater effect the more kill skill you stack on top. Hence encouraging claw access teams to diversify their skill selection.

Hmmm... Weakening Claw might mean that it gets taken last. But 'diversify' might be wishful thinking - I think the full stack will still appeal to coaches, even when it is weaker. (Not that that is a problem, the stack is fine if it isn't overly potent)

1.Dwarves and Orcs ( ) are already getting directly penalised.

They are indeed.

3.Orcs and Dwarves don't appear to be more popular than Chaos in most long term leagues, and if anything the opposite is true. So movement away from Chaos is a good thing.

Agreed. Movement away from Chaos would be nice. And I think that the awesome bashing power that Chaos has under CRP is what has made Chaos so damn popular. Once the power of the stack is reduced, the metagame will change entirely, and I can't see why orcs and dwarfs wouldn't be back in prominence.

4.Even if it does result in more Orcs & Dwarves, more punitive spiralling expenses make it harder for them to get very high.

But these guys start with a lot of skills. And without the same fear of the stack, they can run with a pretty shallow bench. Bottom line: They don't need to go above TV200 to be good teams - unlike Chaos, which starts with no skills (and AV8 linemen). They'll be fine even though the roof comes down a bit - certainly still very playable.

6.I'm only proposing an additional change to Claw, which is most easily available to 3 bash teams (Chaos, Chaos Dwarves & Nurgle) which makes their hitting power reduce proportionately to that already proposed for non-claw teams.

But if you nerf both Piling On and Claw, aren't you nerfing the POMB teams only once, but CPOMB teams twice?

Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Hey Dode,
very interesting Orc/Chaos stats.
Come to think of it, number of teams might be a more telling number than number of games.
I mean, I a succesful elf team might, say, get in 50, games, but due to MNGs, 15 of those will be recorded as played below TV200, even though the full team really isn't. So it looks like the team isn't a high-TV team.

Hmmm....
Cheers
Martin

[dode74]

You may be right on that one if we're looking at specific TV bands.

I think that the awesome bashing power that Chaos has under CRP is what has made Chaos so damn popular.

Chaos was more popular on FUMBBL under LRB4 than it is under CRP.

[Glamdryn]

With the addition of the bank rules and the better fouling rules, I really dont think CPOMB will be too powerful.

Its going to be a lot harder to keep your chaos team competitive at high tv.

[koadah]

You may be right on that one if we're looking at specific TV bands.

I think that the awesome bashing power that Chaos has under CRP is what has made Chaos so damn popular.

Chaos was more popular on FUMBBL under LRB4 than it is under CRP.

What do you mean more popular?

[dode74]

More games played by that race as a proportion of all games played, which is the measure we've been using so far.

viewtopic.php?p=630704#p630704

[koadah]

More games played by that race as a proportion of all games played, which is the measure we've been using so far.

viewtopic.php?p=630704#p630704

Ah, right.

But suppose they didn't have so much competition from Nurgle and Pact then.

[Chris]

This thread was a lot more interesting before it became just another ClawPOMB thread..

Ahh, but its is a holistic CMBPO thead As an aside I was trying to develop a MBPOC stormvermin to play doubleskulls dwarves, sadly I went a rolled a 12 for the second skill and couldn't pass up the strength Oh well, maybe next season!

I remain concerned on the effect on hybrid teams. Take humans - playing elves I really rely on outbashing them. To whit the ability to use str developed blitzers (and maybe the Ogre) to take out and bulk up the team (with guard, mighty blow and piling on). Without a numbers advantage (or elf disease setting in) I am just going to lose as I will have to make rolls at 3+ compared to 2+ and could very well be outpaced (depending on flavour of elf). Taking out relative coach skill I can't out handle the ball. I can't out position as easily due to the difference in dodging. What I have is better access to str.

Seperate point - I would say for the discussion Bash teams are *non claw* Dwarfs, Khemri, Norse, Ogres, Orcs and *claw bash* Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs and Nurgle. Some might include pact as claw bash but I think for them it is a developemnt choice not a given.

With Ogres in there - if you agree - you could make a case for lizards but they have different play options (run really fast ) so get to be Hybrid. Ogres have 6 blockers and some filler that lacks everything.

*I don't think the CAS-rate should drop below 10% against AV9 when POMBing.
This to my mind kills 'PO is RR on INJ & MB doesn't stack'
*I also don't think the CAS-rate should be above 20 when POMBing AV7 (or CPOMBing)
My own original PO=+1/+1 falls to this, because the CASrate against AV7 is 24 or so.
(So does pure CRP, which has it at almost 27)

Is that not a fair bit of change to the base stats relationship?
So a knockdown against AV7 has a cas chance of (15/36 break, 6/36 injury) 6.9%. A knockdown vs AV9 has a cas chance of (6/36 break, 6/36 injury) 2.8%

10/20 does keep that relationship somewhat - If you wanted to keep 10% as the AV9 number you would be looking for 24.6% at AV7.

Maybe a defining damage point should be a crowd push (cas = 16.7%)? So the question is how much more deadly should a player be than a dozens of fans in the stands?

But do we want a linear relationship like that? I think though the difference in SPP spread was not that great it is safe to say the teams that suffer most also regenerate the fastest - especially the key scorers (lets leave aside the key bashers on hybrids that don't get up to speed as fast). But that is still a big difference in absolute terms to deal with as the coach.

Then of course you have the question of claw. Leaving that the same then massively affects AV9 once the last skill is applied. Should the affect be so stark? We definatively have 2 schools of thought - one that sees a discrepancy between bash and agility (despite - and this is a problem that prevents an easy solution - the slaughter not resulting in the bashers winning all the matches) and the other worried about the bash/claw bash division. I believe that the claw teams are winning those match ups?

Maybe a seperate question is what damage multiple the claw stack should give compared to a typical bash development (guard/MB/ then for the sake of arguement PO but I wouldn't take this on models like Dwarf blockers, they are just to slow). You are giving up guard, either through slots or the fact you are on the floor, so positioning is harder, then again you can get the 2 dice block fairly easily. What rate should you bump off the bashers to negate the guard advantage in the blocking war?

[plasmoid]

Hi Dode,

Chaos was more popular on FUMBBL under LRB4 than it is under CRP.

Yeah, I was being sloppy with the wording.
I meant claw-strength teams in high-TV play.

I tried to mess around with Koadahs(?) datawebsite for black box. Manu.something.something. And it just got confusing. Trying to find the high-TV games isn't easy. What if one team is high and the other is low. Raising the 'higher TV' just means that more games are included. Raising the 'lower TV' just cuts away a lot of games with teams that can't go that high (or often have MNGs).
Not to mention the fact that those 2 TV systems were very different.

What I originally reacted was the claim, made several places - based on stats I thought - that roughly half the games in the box involved CPOMB teams.

Does this mean that the thousand pages of whining about CPOMB in the past year have all been totally groundless?
My experience tells me they haven't been.
But what the Duck do I know

[dode74]

the claim, made several places - based on stats I thought - that roughly half the games in the box involved CPOMB teams.

Perceptual bias

Does this mean that the thousand pages of whining about CPOMB in the past year have all been totally groundless?
My experience tells me they haven't been.

Perception is important. Why is the bias there? I would argue because the effect is more noticeable. People don't like to lose players, and they lose players more often to CPOMB teams.

[Rhyoth]

-> plasmoid
I think your objective (droping CAS for AV 7 without droping CAS for AV 9 too much) is either too specific or too vague :
_ imho, it's not the only problem related to Casualties (or it may be more accurate to say it's only a part of a bigger probelm)
_ i don't think all AV 7 teams need to be helped the same way : for example, AG3-AV7 players probably need more help than AG4-AV7 ones.

For me, the main objective is to make High TV games more about Tactic and less about Killing your opponent ; limiting damages against AV 7 is only a secondary objective (and it should be addressed, at least partially with a team by team approach).

-> Dode
Be careful when you say Doubleskulls's "One roll - One skill" rule favors high armor : it's a dangerous shortcut.
First, if there is a relative "winner" with this rule, it's neither AV 9 nor AV 7 players ; it's AV 8 guys. However, when Claw is not involved, AV 7 gains the most.
Of course, before talking about wether it's a nerf or a buff, and for whom, you have to factor the increased protection AND the loss of "firepower". So, for me, the only safe statements about this rule are :
_ it's a straight nerf for Dwarves & Orcs, except against chaotic teams.
_ it's a major nerf for chaotic teams relying heavily on CPOMB (but it's a much weaker nerf for "alternative" chaotic teams)
_ it's a straight buff for Elves (and Vamps & 'flings as well)
For all other team, wether it's a nerf or a buff depends of their weakness against damaging skills and how much they rely themselves on those skills.

[koadah]

I tried to mess around with Koadahs(?) datawebsite for black box. Manu.something.something. And it just got confusing. Trying to find the high-TV games isn't easy. What if one team is high and the other is low. Raising the 'higher TV' just means that more games are included. Raising the 'lower TV' just cuts away a lot of games with teams that can't go that high (or often have MNGs).
Not to mention the fact that those 2 TV systems were very different.

It's based on the TV of the highest TV team.

Very true. It should switch to saying TR when you select LRB4.

What I originally reacted was the claim, made several places - based on stats I thought - that roughly half the games in the box involved CPOMB teams.

Maybe Dode can check the data. I've got it as 45.5% feature a chaos, nurgle, CD or pact team.
vs 22.8% in LRB4


I suppose I've been lucky.

Does this mean that the thousand pages of whining about CPOMB in the past year have all been totally groundless?
My experience tells me they haven't been.
But what the Duck do I know

Well, not totally.

[koadah]

The high end is pretty brutal

Check out those 'Roid Rage abes

http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/b ... printId=25

[dode74]

@Rhyoth

First, if there is a relative "winner" with this rule, it's neither AV 9 nor AV 7 players ; it's AV 8 guys. However, when Claw is not involved, AV 7 gains the most.

But when claw is involved (and we are discussing the stack here) then AV9 do better than AV7.

_ it's a straight nerf for Dwarves & Orcs, except against chaotic teams.
_ it's a major nerf for chaotic teams relying heavily on CPOMB (but it's a much weaker nerf for "alternative" chaotic teams)
_ it's a straight buff for Elves (and Vamps & 'flings as well)

"Straightness" is irrelevant. 100-1 is as straight a reduction as 100-99, but not the same degree. It's the degree which matters.

@ Koadah
From data taken just now,
Chaos + CD + Pact + Nurgle = 15373 + 12964 + 9716 + 10927 = 48980
Total games = 148950
Percentage = 32.88%
Include Necro (8363) and Norse (7447) to cover all the claw teams and you get 64790, or 43.5% of games.

That's not including mirrors. Include them and you get 33.8%.

[plasmoid]

Hi Dode, Koadah, Ryoth and all,
Ah, I took a second look at the site, and some things dawned on me. One should never break new ground on an empty stomach
The Box is TV-matched, right, so The TV of the 2 involved teams should be reasonably close.
So if I set the 'lower TV' to something reasonably high. I'll get 2 high-TV teams squaring off. Neat.

So, I picked 'lower TV' 190(0) for CRP, to get teams around 200 or above.
I got 3 CPOMB teams on top, Chaos (18.8%), Nurgle (13.8%) and CDs (9.8%), for a grand total of 42.4%. (I ignored Pact)
That does look fairly close to half of the games.
Or certainly an unusually large chunk of games played by the CPOMB sides.

I then looked at LRB4. It was a bit tricky deciding what to set the TV range to, because TV (or rather TR) was very different back then. Basically a rating 300 team would be, say, 250 in CRP. So, for lack of a better comparative measure, I picked a lower TV/TR a tad higher, and then tried to find one that had roughly as many games as my CRP sample.
Lower TV then became 210(0) - both with a little above 12000 results.
In that sample I got
Chaos (19.7%) and Nurgle (3.4%) = 23.1% (Back then CDs couldn't get Mutations)

So, Chaos in isolation is in fact bit more popular in LRB4.
But destroying teams with the use of MPOMB is way more popular under CRP.

[On the one hand it is unfair to 3 teams in 1 sample, and just 2 in the other. But on the other hand it isn't insignificant that there are that many coaches attracted to MPOMB in CRP. There certainly is no denying that you are far more likely to run into mutant killers in CRP than in LRB4]
So I stand by my original statement that The Power of CPOMB has a profound impact on the metagame in CRP.

It might also be worth noting that in CRP, the average cas count for both Chaos and Nurgle is a full point higher in CRP than in LRB4 (4 point something vs 3 point something) - and don't forget all the KOs that went along with those cas'.

@Rhyoth:

_ imho, it's not the only problem related to Casualties (or it may be more accurate to say it's only a part of a bigger probelm)

I'm not sure I'm getting you right, but the 10%-20% casrates I gave as rough indications would naturally be going hand in hand with matching KO+ rates (after all, having your team destroyed is bad, but so is having your team removed from the pitch, and the remaining guys outnumbered).

For me, the main objective is to make High TV games more about Tactic and less about Killing your opponent ; limiting damages against AV 7 is only a secondary objective (and it should be addressed, at least partially with a team by team approach). [snip] for example, AG3-AV7 players probably need more help than AG4-AV7 ones.

Absolutely agree. Diversity in tactics at any TV - including high-TV - is the goal. So easy killing must get toned down.
I do however think that when damage rates are so high that coaches avoid AV7 and AV8 teams, then a fix is in order.

Had I/we been designing LRB7, then a team by team approach could work.
However, I'm not. I'm creating house rules, trying to give them as wide appeal as possible.
Changing up the majority of teams in a big way - I think - will alienate too many people.

I will say though, that I agree that AG4/AV7 don't need as much help as AG3/AV7.
However, AG4/AV7 = elfs.
And just like Chaos, expensive elf teams will have some problems with the Bank and lowered SE values I'm suggesting.
Meanwhile the cheaper AG3/AV7 teams ought to be doing better in that respect.

Cheers
Martin