Death Zone 2 Feedback thread

[frogboy]

Games Workshop Advisory Group? GWAG?

[garion]

Of course it's "not necessarily" due to the influence of the dice, but it is generally the case because success determines the number of dice.

Like I say, give the option to bin at least some of your FF on team creation. Linking it to success would be interesting, and could be along the lines of "fair weather fans". Something like (and I am spitballing):

New TV at start of new season:
1000-1300TV: d3 fans (i.e. FF) will be willing to stick with the team
1310-1600TV: 2d6 fans will be willing to stick with the team
1610TV+: 4d6 fans will be willing to stick with the team
If the roll is greater than the team's FF then the FF remains as it is.

As I say, just conceptual and deliberately attempts to reduce the FF for lower TV teams while maintaining it for higher TV teams. The odds and TV brackets are purely for illustration.

A decent suggestion. A rule called "Fair Weather Fans" is a great idea. The rest could possibly be made even more straight forward i think. But its a very good starting point.

though again, is FF even needed in the game at all any more, I'm not sure. In its current form it would be cleaner just to remove it entirely really.

Frankly, if a coach in my league came to me and said, "I want to carry over my team to the next season, but the fan factor I've got now would put me at a disadvantage over a brand new team. Could I run a negative publicity campaign and reduce my fan factor after the season is over?", I would commend them for their roleplaying and approve it without a second thought.

Sure, and although fluffy and cute, this shouldn't be needed really. the rules should be robust so that house ruling on the spur of the moment isnt needed.

[Mystic Force]

I personally think that a measure of popularity of a team is an important aspect to Blood Bowl that should exist, because it is a fantasy sport, and should therefore have a popularity component as it a humorous take on real world sports.

I do not think that the current way FF works is making the most of this, once upon a time (yes here I go again....) the reason a team wanted FF was that it had a big effect on earnings. It was a trade off at the begging of a league where you could take fewer players or rerolls in the expectation of faster building through higher revenue. "short term loss for long term gain" so to speak, FF also has the bigger effect on kick off results. Therefore if you took a hit on relative value against another team because of FF (as this changed over time in how it was accounted I will leave this vague term) you might be disadvantaged in this game, but you made up for it by higher earnings potential over a series of games, a fair balance in my book.

We also had FF change influenced by scoring and casualties, which might have had a small influence on playing for a "2-1 grind" result, but gave teams incentive to play a more aggressive game, than take a conservative approach.

It seems to me that the FF decisions were part of the streamlining process reducing the number of rolls needed and tables to consult and to make the game less "random". In the process of simplification we have the marginalization of what should be an important aspect of a sport based game, namely the fans. The background "aka Fluff' is resplendent with stories about how the fans influence the game, and I think this should be represented.

However to some degree we have the bifurcation of the play, with a tight streamlined set ideal for tournament play and a more expansive narrative set for league play. Now as all those extra rules are optional, an individual LC can tailor their league, but It would generally be easier I feel if the default rules encompassed some of these things to make FF more relevant, not for tournaments but for league play.

The fact that the relative merits of one off and continuing sponsorships are contested, suggest they may have hit the sweat spot were the choice becomes context dependent. This means there is no obvious choice and one never taken option, that's a good thing.

[El_Jairo]

While risking the resurrection of this thread, which was a long read, I do have the following suggestion.

Would it be better to have three parts of the rules: Basic rules for one-off and tournament games, Default League rules and Optional Rules to spice up your one-off's or Leagues?

It seems like all FF related rules should be in the optional side but still in default league. And explain it as such: it's a TV-tax on well performing teams. I would even have them carry over FF (for free cost) and have it count for TV. That way the good teams can keep their good players but are taxed by their TV and thus giving away more inducements.

I hope GW keeps getting involved so this lovely game keeps evolving.
My main issue is that there are too many points in the new rules where it is clear that not all options are even remotely at the same power level. Sure it is good to be able to win because of your experience in Blood Bowl but this is only really punishing new players, who don't know yet what are the optimal choices.

I would like to see some more veteran coaches in the BBRC and new rules being extensively tested (we have Fumbbl and the Digital game to have access to digital data sets for testing) before any rule changes to the mandatory rules is printed.

I have the feeling that Horatio and some new star players are making inducements more worth it, so factors as FF will play a bigger role.
On the other hand of the spectrum we do have some Star Players lying around being never picked, I would like to see some minor tweaks to make them a little more viable. They are star players after all, so they should be wanted, right?
And at the same time, fix sneaky git. This can make stunties great again (pun intended). Just having it work like a KO instead of sent-off. You can say he sneaks in the wrong tunnel in the catacombs and ends up in the KO box. I would even have the Babe influence the roll to keep things simple.
You still get sent-off and suffer a turn-over, so it's basically worse in short tem but in long term you have a chance of getting this player back. It would be great if it worked also on secret weapons. Goblins would have skills to pick, yet they don't want the TV for the skills so they can induce bribes. It's a good sign that you can choose between two options, of which it isn't obvious what would be the best.