Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements.

[Darkson]

Was that not also the case in LRB4 though?

Yes and no.
For positionals, yeah, they could still choose the same skills (depending on access).

However, for G-only players (or A-only for Stunties) unless the rolled doubles they'd have to take "other" skills, as Traits reduced the number of options for them (only 9 Gen skills, and 7 AG skills). Add in the fact that Mutations were doubles only, so Chaos had to take "normal" skills the majority of the time.

[dode74]

So arguably the removal of traits has allowed for greater access to skills for limited access (one skillset) players. The argument appears to be that this opening up of the skill access has meant that skills which were previously not taken due to restricted access are now taken because they can be accessed too easily.

Looking at G, the traits used to be Dauntless, Frenzy, Leader and Nerves of Steel. The only one of those in the 30k list is Leader (and questionably so, for me).
Looking at A, the only trait was Jump up. That is not in the 30k list.

Looking at the 30k skills, Claw was the only one which was a trait (physical). Block, Guard, Dodge and PO were all normal skill access.

In other words, this "issue" has been the case since at least LRB4 (if not before), and this proposal doesn't appear to be addressing the problem which you are saying is the case.

[the.tok]

I think it has always been that way, kind of. Each ruleset had his "must-get" skills and less used skills.

I have the feeling that it is getting only better though, as the new sills introduced really add something, and wrestle can challenge block on some players (which is a little revolution in itself I think )

Back on topic, I like the idea, but it is really tricky.
My first impression is that of course skills are not as good depending on the player you put it on. That fact is partly reflected by skills costing more if you don't have direct access to it. That is not always true, but often enough that we always hope for doubles when we roll

So it is built in that if you are going to price skills differently, you may as well define prices for all skills depending on skill access, or race or something. Not sure if I'm being clear enough

I mean, something like instead of saying "this player has access to G and S", it would become "this player is in the GS category, and for this category, skills cost this much"

10k passblock, fend, pro and so on
20k block, guard, MB...
30k leader dodge, PO, pass, catch ... +MV, +AV
40k +Ag leader
50k +ST

You could even go as far as making much more category than there are now. It would be really cool and would make sense, as some skills are more natural to some positionnals than others. It would allow to differentiate players even more.

On the other hand, this would make quite a few charts to write, and though this is not a problem for online play, it will be a little longer to handle for tabletop. But would be fun, like a more RPG-class progression tree

Do you think it would be too complex ? Maybe for LRB8.0 ^^

[dode74]

If you want to do it then do it properly, and I think individual players having individual access and cost trees is the "proper" way as the.tok says. Thing is that it'll get very complex for pub-based games, and balancing it will be a bitch.

Given that the balance works right now, why go to all that effort?

[garion]

So arguably the removal of traits has allowed for greater access to skills for limited access (one skillset) players. The argument appears to be that this opening up of the skill access has meant that skills which were previously not taken due to restricted access are now taken because they can be accessed too easily.

Looking at G, the traits used to be Dauntless, Frenzy, Leader and Nerves of Steel. The only one of those in the 30k list is Leader (and questionably so, for me).
Looking at A, the only trait was Jump up. That is not in the 30k list.

Looking at the 30k skills, Claw was the only one which was a trait (physical). Block, Guard, Dodge and PO were all normal skill access.

In other words, this "issue" has been the case since at least LRB4 (if not before), and this proposal doesn't appear to be addressing the problem which you are saying is the case.

yes but you are missing quite a lot of important details here. Dauntless... got hit with the nerf bat, and made less interesting, less fun, and now combos with less skills, Frenzy stays the same and is now part of any good kill stack, should it really be so accessible??? I'm not sure, it feels less fluffy to me that any player in the game can now be a frenzy player. Leader should never have been moved away from trait, it is now a skill with the sole purpose of min maxing. Jump Up has also been hit with the nerf bat. Pilling On did the opposite, it went from a low tier skill to the best skill in the game. Stand Firm also got hit with a nerf bat and made more one dimensional. Claw also got hit with a nerf though it is a great change i think. NOS... yeah well we all agree that should never have been a nerf really.

It may have opened up more options to coaches but removing traits and making all skills vanilla except about 6 of them, has just lead to all coaches picking the exact same development paths for their players regardless of race. It is very sad.

[dode74]

- Frenzy isn't in the 30k suggestions.
- Leader was always about getting more bang for your buck - it was always about minmaxing.
- Jump Up isn't in question.
- Piling on is far from the best skill in the game. It is always better to take MB before it, and both block and dodge are better. Overstating your case damages it.

My point is that the proposal doesn't meet the requirement, even by the definitions you've given. Nobody has even defined what the requirement is, tbh.

I agree that some of the skill changes are good and some not so good. This proposal has nothing to do with the changes though - it's an issue which has always been the case.

[garion]

- Frenzy isn't in the 30k suggestions.
- Leader was always about getting more bang for your buck - it was always about minmaxing
- Jump Up isn't in question.
- Piling on is far from the best skill in the game. It is always better to take MB before it, and both block and dodge are better. Overstating your case damages it.

My point is that the proposal doesn't meet the requirement, even by the definitions you've given. Nobody has even defined what the requirement is, tbh.

I agree that some of the skill changes are good and some not so good. This proposal has nothing to do with the changes though - it's an issue which has always been the case.

Isnt the requirement obvious? I think Joemanji and darkson have both touched on it. The problem is team development is boring and one dimensional. Although LRB4 the CR measurement was possibly more flawed than TV in ways it did make team creation and development more interesting and diverse. Also Leader was less about about min maxing in the CR days, yes it was still the point in a sense but making it open to all passing players (dunno why passing, I don't like that either) detracts from their use as throwers and now all we see is leader caddies for throwers

Yes frenzy may not be in Joes list. But I disagree with a number of points in joes list. I like the idea and we have been through this in another thread.

The problem with costing Block, Dodge and Guard in the 30k pool is it makes some teams even better out the blocks.

Take Zons, Norse, Dwarves or Chaos dwarves for example, all those teams are top tier starter races, they all perform exceptionally well in short leagues, this is how most TT leagues are played. Moving those skills to the 30k catagory just gives a huge buff to some of the teams that are already best out the blocks and badly nerfs teams that are slow out the blocks... teams like vampires, Lizardmen, Chaos or Nurgle and so on.

similarly making wrestle 20k and block 30k just makes elves and slann even better, they can afford to take wrestle en masse while bash teams cannot.

Also I do think Pilling On is the best skill in the game because I am looking at all those skills as how they are used in their most effective situations. Also it is the only skill in the game that breaks one of the fundamental rules of Bloodbowl written on one of the first few pages of the rule book. which is ... ' you can never re-roll injury'

[neverworking]

I too really like the general idea of making more of the skills more likely to occur and it seems the bulk of responders agree with that. The initial proposal seems to have a lot of potential to be broken with some players picking up loads of marginal skills which may collectively be quite powerful (or a pain to track/notice/remember).

As for Dode's question of "what is really the problem" I would say if there is a fair collection of skills that almost never get taken by good players prioritizing winning and all skills impact TV equally and thus the inducement phase of games, something is obviously wrong. You could debate some skills need boosting, etc. but something isn't balanced and any in-game balance that is being achieved is being done in large part because coaches generally know which skills to disregard when making a selection. It would be far more interesting if there was more variety not just for in-game experience but also for developing your teams down different paths without disregard for competitiveness and efficiency.

I would be more inclined to start by seeing what changes, if any, occurred by altering the base costs of some skills but not necessarily awarding any extra skills in its place. Its probably unrealistic to think that alone would result in major changes in early skill choices or competitive balance, but I imagine some skills would get more love at the 2nd and 3rd slot. Any game balance issues that came up would only be impacted marginally since its only impacting TV differences slightly. If that wasn't enough, then I'd pursue more a more radical measure, but still not something quite that extreme. Probably more along the lines of making a doubles roll allow a player to either take a doubles choice OR 2 normal skills that add up to 30k in value. This would keep the number of skills on players down as well as keep the interesting debate on what to take on a double in play.

As for the skills on the list leader seems over priced to me. The whole point of that skill is to skip a true skill slot for the TV efficiency of a pretty reliable RR; bumping the price seems to undo its real function. There also appear to be a few more 10k skills on the list than I would think belong, but I think the right way to approach the final list would be to look at the frequency skills are actually taken by teams that are at least semi-successful. I see extra arms and strong arm fairly often, so its hard for me to think they really need to have a price break based on simple observance given the stated/implied problem of lack of skill variety in the game.

[dode74]

Isnt the requirement obvious? I think Joemanji and darkson have both touched on it. The problem is team development is boring and one dimensional.

It wasn't obvious, no. Between your and neverworking's statement it seems to be that some skills are taken more often than others because they are viewed as "better" than the others (either alone, such as block, or in combos such as clawpomb) and you and the OP are saying this is not fun.

Why wasn't team building one-dimensional in LRB4 then?

[garion]

Firstly as I said before skills and other aspects of the game weren't so vanilla.

These skills have all been made more boring so they could do away with traits which is a real shame -

Multi-Block
Dauntless
Stand Firm
Jump Up
Tentacles (minor nerf i know)
Horns (minor buff, but makes the skill less interesting and tactical)
Very Long Legs
Foul Appearance
Distrubring Presence
Claw (nerf, but a well thought out one, still shouldn't be so easily accessesible though)

Stand firm in particular was often taken over dodge by players that could. this would never happen now, players that got a trait would have unique development options open to them and also would allow them to stack skill combos they normally might not. Now doubles are always Dodge, or Guard and St teams often just ignore them in favour of kill stack, a double should never ever be ignored.

Skill combos like Dauntless, Horns, Multiblock. Stand Firm and Break Tackle was a beautiful thing on Big Guys, and so on....

There was also the fact that SPP based costing development didn't punish different skill choices quite like CRP does through the inducement system. Yes there was still a problem with some of the skills getting completely ignored in lrb4, but there were far fewer in my experience.

Teams were also built in more interesting ways. Now there is too heavy a reliance for bash teams on 4 legends and the rest of the team do not get past a skill or two. Teams used to develop in a more even way because of spp costing, because DP actually worked and also because of the threat of ageing.

I'm not saying lrb4 was faultless, far from it, but it was a far more interesting and there were far more colourful players than this edition.

There are other issues too but I'm not going to go any further into it here.

Joemanji is trying to think of a way to make skill selection more diverse. I think it's a great idea.... It just needs some work. Not meaning to sound rude but I really don't understand what your objection is to this discussion?

As for the idea. yeah I like it I would probably put cost them like below but personally I think maybe the best solution is bring back traits as re-costing just opens up new avenues for min maxing some teams like zons for example to a horrible extreme.

10k list
Pass
Accurate
Fend
Sneaky Git
Very Long Legs
Kick Off Return
Pass Block
Sprint
Diving Catch
Sure Feet
Dump off
Safe Throw

20k list
Block,
Dodge,
Wrestle,
Tackle,
MB,
Kick,
Dirty Player,
Catch
Tentacles
Prehensile Tail
Two Heads
Extra Arms
Big Hand
Side Step
Nerves of Steel
Shadowing
Stand Firm
Multi Block
Horns
Dauntless
Sure Hands
Strong Arm
Jump Up
Leader

30k list
+Ma
+Av
Claw
Diving Tackle
Leap
Guard
Pilling On

40k list
+Ag

50k
+St

[dode74]

Not meaning to sound rude but I really don't understand what your objection is to this discussion?

I don't have an objection to the discussion at all, and am certainly not trying to come across as if I do.

What I am trying to do is determine what the need for the change is at all, what the dissatisfaction criteria are, whether the proposed solution meets those criteria and if not what other possibilities there are or, if they do, then whether there would be other unintended consequences. All this throwing around of ideas is great, and sometimes a nugget of a really good concept comes out of them, but if there is an actual problem with the game then a more structured approach might be more successful, and that it what I am trying to do. "Tinkering" is fine, and so is an organised approach - together they might actually yield something useful.

Your own criticisms of LRB5/CRP are well documented, and personally I think that you want a slightly different game to the one we have, and I don't think Joemanji's thread is the place for that discussion.

The "problem" seems to be that team building is less fun and more "cookie cutter". Presumably this means compared to LRB 4, which is why I brought it up. First we need to measure to see if that is actually the case, or if it is merely perceived to be the case thanks to TV-based MM on Cyanide and . To do that I would look at team builds across various leagues (NOT matchmaking) to see if there has actually been a dramatic shift in which skills are taken. With that data we can actually see which skills have been affected, how they were changed, and what adjustments might be tested to bring that previous variation back. I don't have the data to do that though, and am loathe to go much further without it as we're pretty much guessing and basing all the ideas on (biased) perception.
Having said that, if we accept that the problem as defined is the situation then we can look at Joemanji's proposal and see if (and how) it changes things. To do that we can compare different skill selection criteria and capabilities from LRB4 and CRP to see how his proposal is likely to adjust these. The skills he's proposing be 30k, for example, are generally very useful, but I can't help wonder if certain selections are there because of other perceived issues with the game (PO and claw), although he says not (and I accept that). Personally I don't think the proposed solution will address the problem as stated (block and dodge will still be first skills on most teams), and will have other effects which you yourself brought up (a need to recost many teams at the very least). I'd like the data before proposing any sort of solution or even criteria for deciding if a skill has been over-buffed or over-nerfed.

[Darkson]

Well, I know from my own experience I'd (have to) take Pass Block on Norse linos once I'd taken the decent skills (tackle for one).
Now, with Frenzy being a noraml skill, I've never taken PB for them.

[dode74]

By "had to" that presumably meant you had no choice, meaning that ever other Norse Lino who had got as far as yours had with the same (non-doubles?) skill rolls must, by definition, have been exactly the same build. Is that not a reduction in variation by force rather than choice?

[Darkson]

B Is that not a reduction in variation by force rather than choice?

Well, yes (along with other sub-optimal builds), but at least those skills got taken, hence the suggestion, which would be by choice, not by force.

Would I give PB at 10K to every player? Of course not, but I'd consider it for 1 or 2 if it didn't mean compromising the team.

[dode74]

Well, yes (along with other sub-optimal builds), but at least those skills got taken, hence the suggestion, which would be by choice, not by force.

Forced to take them is surely more indicative of a sub-optimal skill rather than a better method of defining who gets which skill? Furthermore, such a mechanic would contextualise any data gathered on previous skill selection because it wouldn't all be about coach choices - sometimes it's about lack of coach choices.

Would I give PB at 10K to every player? Of course not, but I'd consider it for 1 or 2 if it didn't mean compromising the team.

Jumping the gun a touch here
We've not even got as far as establishing what the real issue is, let alone a solution. It may well be that some skills are sub-optimal, and it may be that they are sub-optimal on some players (pass block is a good example - it can be great on an AG4 or 5 safety, or one with VLL, but not so good on an AG3 one) and while those players previously had limited skill access due to traits they now have better options (frenzy on your Norse lineman). IF we accept that some skills are sub-optimal then we have to define which skills they are. Given that the two lists so far given don't agree I suggest that his is quite the task. Perhaps looking at the overlaps would be best - at least they are points of agreement.