Long term league bash cycle

[swilhelm73]

In one of the two leagues I am in S7 is starting.

It is noticeable that there are fewer and fewer agile teams and more bash teams.

This has people calling for a league reset - which since Cyanide will be releasing a new version soon might make sense anyway.

But it seems to me that there is not an inherent problem with long running leagues that should create more bash teams.

No bash team has won this league's championship - even the TV2450 Chaos monstrosity. The winners have been Vamps, Pro Elves, and my Necro the last 4 seasons (which might be a reason for a reset alone )

So thoughts on how to deal with this sort of situation? Oddly the other league I am active in, which is ending S8 has no issue like this at all - there is a good agile/bash mix (though 3 DE teams out of 12!!!)

[spubbbba]

You could implement quotas to limit the numbers of specific races and types of teams.

So for instance the WIL on fumbbl splits teams into rock (bash), scissors (hybrid), paper (agile) and dynamite (non tier 1).

A particular race can’t make up 10% of the teams in the league and we try to limit one category dominating the number of teams.

[DixonCider]

Encourage new teams for all teams every two seasons, start a stunty reward system, lower the salary cap/increase the penalty for spiraling expenses, or just challenge the high end bash teams to try agile or stunty teams

[Coach Grievous]

I've been wondering about this myself: because I do tend to think that bash (esp. those with Claw) develops more favorably in the current rules. However, one can't dispute the raw winning power of elves and their ilk. Hmm.

Can you list the other finalists to complement your winners, so we can see better into the pool of serious contenders for the title? If there's no prevalence of bash in those either... well, it would be interesting!

[DixonCider]

just looked at the teams in the league I am currently in and realize that I am in a super bash heavy league

http://bbloc.calgarygamers.net/

[swilhelm73]

Can you list the other finalists to complement your winners, so we can see better into the pool of serious contenders for the title? If there's no prevalence of bash in those either... well, it would be interesting!

Vamps over Norse
Pro Elves over Necro
Necro over Vamps
Necro over Khemri
Necro over Orcs
Necro over Khemri

Repeat teams in bold

One interesting thing to note, of the 12 finals slots, 3 coaches have taken up 9 of them. Note that this is a league that has had 30-36 coaches for most seasons (only 24 for this season starting up).

The league has two well developed Chaos teams. I've eliminated one of them from the playoffs four straight seasons, and the other fell to Khemri in S5 and me in S6, both times in the semis. They won every game in the regular season though - a first time in our league (10 game seasons). We'd had a few undefeated teams with ties before...

[dode74]

I think your average coach can gravitate towards survivable races because they:
a) Aren't good enough to reach the top spots with any teams, and
b) Get sick of losing players when they aren't even winning.

What is needed is an incentive for them to choose other races. My league (season 15 now) last season ran articles on the lesser-played races (skaven, khemri, norse), and we saw a swing towards skaven (from 4 to 8 iirc) and khemri (from 4 to 9), with norse staying the same (7 teams). Furthermore, Juriel wrote match reports on EVERY necro match played, and they were enjoyed by the vast majority. Necro went from 15 to 17 teams. At the same time, orcs dropped from 29 to 25 and chaos from 25 to 17. We still have a lot of bash, but it's certainly not due to them winning (2 orcs and one chaos champion in 15 seasons, compared with 7 wood elf and 3 or 4 lizards).
Ours might be a transient fix, but there was certainly an effect which we will probably try to replicate at some point.

[Megr1m]

Not sure how you can consider people switching to Necro as being less bash. Almost entire team regens, and they have two claws.

[dode74]

Necro are not a bash team, they're a hybrid. Claw without MB isn't all that, and there are only 4 players with S access (making guard a premium, reducing the importance of kill-skills), two of which are a pain to level.

My point, though, is that it is possible to make other teams popular through other means.

[Sandwich]

I would imagine Cyanide-based leagues will get a fair bit bashier in a season or two, once a quarter of each league reroll to chaos dwarves (allowing for a similar number to reroll as underworld, and half to stay the same or reroll within the existing races).

I think your average coach can gravitate towards survivable races because they:
a) Aren't good enough to reach the top spots with any teams, and
b) Get sick of losing players when they aren't even winning.

I think this is the main problem... some people want to grow a team, so want to use higher AV. Also, teams like chaos and nurgle are pretty harsh at low TVs, so people will run them for many seasons so they can actually get some reward for the 2-3 seasons they'll struggle through when starting off.

Still, if non-bashy teams are winning out most times, then where is the problem?

[Megr1m]

Necro are not a bash team, they're a hybrid.

Haha. If you say so.

As much as othermeans efforts are admirable (I loved reading those Necroteam reports), I get the feeling you are still fighting uphill. The trend with this version seems to lean towards the bash.

[dines]

Necro are not a bash team, they're a hybrid. Claw without MB isn't all that, and there are only 4 players with S access (making guard a premium, reducing the importance of kill-skills), two of which are a pain to level.

My point, though, is that it is possible to make other teams popular through other means.

After a season or two most necros should get at least one double on a wolf if not two. Have you seen Swilhelms necro team? Those wolves are scary! It may not be all out bash, more like assassins able to hit and run. If you are not cautious your key players might be in more danger than against the standard chaos team.

But think you are right, average players like to build their team if they don't have the skills to win.. and they gravitate towards bash.

[spubbbba]

At higher TV to be a bashy team you either need high strength players and a good amount of guard or some really deadly players.

Necros rely solely on the wolves getting doubles to make them killers.
Their other bash comes in the form of golems (more survivable black orcs) and wights (slow human blitzers with regen). I don’t think anyone is that scared of 0-2 of either of those. Regen can help the team avoid attrition long term but is no use in a specific drive.

The team does lend itself well to fouling, but this is such a random tactic that it often achieves very little in crp.

I’d say pretty much every version of the rules has favoured bash teams in leagues. Orcs and dwarfs were both very popular in lrb4 for instance. The simple fact is that with a bashy team even if you lose every game you can often still build the team up. Whilst with an agile team you are recycling players at a much higher rate, this gets pretty tiring and even more so if you are losing a lot.

I think a slight majority of coaches would, in a league choose to lose 4-0 but suffer no perms and gets some spp’s themselves over winning 4-0 but having their team wrecked.

[dode74]

Necro are certainly less bashy than orcs or chaos. My own team has one double on my two wolves in just over two seasons; admittedly it was 6s, but I still have no C/MB. That combo isn't even too powerful, and putting PO on wolves at a second double is risky.
Sure, there are some scary wolves out there (see Juriel's 8538 and 8448/MB pair), but any piece getting those level-ups would be scary. Kill them (and they all die eventually) and they are VERY hard to replace, unlike bashers on chaos/orc teams

Either way, the point is that, if you find your league to be too bashy, then you need to ask why and then do something about it. It will always be an uphill struggle due to the natural tendencies I've already mentioned, but without an ability to house rule as you'd prefer then you are left with other options such as resets (hate that concept, personally, and I'd not play in a league which enforced them),race caps (better option imo, but can make recruitment difficult or lead to waiting lists for certain races), or other incentives (competitions such as passing, TD scoring, or fluff stuff that I already mentioned).
I personally don't have an issue with there being "too many" of a certain type of team in a league, but understand that others do. My question would be "how much is too much?" Where is the line?

[swilhelm73]

Not sure how you can consider people switching to Necro as being less bash. Almost entire team regens, and they have two claws.

Necro are neither bash nor agile, hence hybrid.

4 S access players, 4 A access players. Average ST and AV.

Comparing the 11 player Ne roster to say Chaos:

-4 ST
-4 AV
-7 S access players

Wolves can certainly do damage, however if you play a pure bash game against Chaos (except at potentially low TV), you will lose.