Improvement table awarding a given value of improvements.

[mattgslater]

I see where you're coming from, but MB never doubles your cas chance (10+ to 9+ is from 6/36 to 10/36), it adds 2/3 to it. Looking at skill interaction across multiple dice rolls (block then armour then injury) will always be multiplicative though, so your point is fair but I think if you start looking that deeply into it you're actually looking at a whole game (e.g. sure feet gives a GFI RR which puts you in place for a short instead of long pass with a pass RR which allows a catcher to make a catch RR etc etc)!

I think you see what I'm saying, but I still think you underestimate it.

First, MB doubles your Cas%, yes. Better, actually. It only adds 2/3 to the chance of a Cas on the injury roll, but it can be used on the AV roll, too, and the difference is always at least 1/3 of the original injury chance if AV ≥ 7. Halflings, it's a little less than double.

Watch: 1296 permutations on AV + injury dice (assuming no PO).
Vs AV9, no MB: 6 perms to break x 6 perms to Cas = 36 perms.
Vs AV9, MB: (6 perms to break w/o MB x 10 perms to Cas) + (4 perms to break w/ MB x 6 perms to Cas) = 84 perms.
Vs AV8, no MB: 10 x 6 = 60 perms.
Vs AV8, MB: (10 x 10) + (5 x 6) = 130 perms.
Vs AV7, no MB: 15 x 6 = 90 perms.
Vs AV7, MB: (15 x 10) + (6 x 6) = 186 perms.

Second, the multiplicative effect of stacked skills is bigger than it looks. Let's say you've got a 2d block against an AV8 Dodge piece. Without any skills, your chance of getting a Casualty on the block/AV/injury roll, without turning over, is 11/36 (to pow) x 10/36 (to break AV) x 6/36 (to Cas), or 660/46,656. I'll try to keep everything else in the same terms, so you can compare the skills to 660. It should only be tricky with Piling On, so I'll omit Piling on for the time being (that's a big omission, and will cause everything to jump again). I'm assuming no TRR; it wouldn't have a big effect anyway.

Unskilled: 660
Block or Tackle: 1200
Mighty Blow: 1430
Claw: 990
Block + Tackle + Mighty Blow + Claw: 5,022

So if you hit four AV8 Dodge players 2d, one each with each of those skills, 46,656 times, you'll get about 4,820 Casualties. If you hit those same guys the same number of times, with three rookies and one guy with the whole stack, it's about 7,002 Casualties. Same skill investment.

Full disclosure: I used a defender with AV>7, Dodge, and no Block, in order to provide a deep skill stack without having to work out Piling On math, which involves coaching decisions (when to use) and more permutations (6^10 = too many digits). Still, the killer stack goes 4 deep for most players, and the multiplicative effect of Piling On is at least as dramatic as any of the skills I did use. I also didn't consider the benefit of friendly Guard if/when it turns your 1d to 2d....

[dode74]

Like I said, the moment you start looking across multiple rolls then the effect becomes multiplicative. That doesn't necessarily make it too good.

Sure, MB increases the odds of a cas considerably across the two rolls, and the stack increases them a lot (especially with claw), but that's the point - increased player turnover with claw increasing that turnover in particular for higher AV players in order to even out casualties and take up the slack left by the removal of ageing. I don't want to turn this into another bash thread, but I don't for a second think that these numbers were simply thrown into the game without thinking about the consequences. As I said, yes, the stack increases the cas rate considerably, but then that is by design.

So if you hit four AV8 Dodge players 2d, one each with each of those skills, 46,656 times, you'll get about 4,820 Casualties. If you hit those same guys the same number of times, with three rookies and one guy with the whole stack, it's about 7,002 Casualties. Same skill investment.

So what? That just means that you should target the killer to prevent the casualties. If we're going to talk about investment in skill vs probability as a measure of cost or value then we're heading down a massive rabbit warren of AG4 vs AG3 just to start with.

[garion]

This is just going round and round now. Regardless of whether skills stack like cpomb is over powered or whatever - the important thing about Matgslaters post was he said it is boring.... this is irrifutable as it is opinion and it seems to me that this is becoming the wider concern more and more as time passes.

Dode see if you can get stats in the same format as we have for lrb4, they need to be the same format so we can make comparison.

I suspect we will get something like this -

all mutation players with S and G access -

MB 25%, Claw 25%, Block 25%, pilling on 15%, tackle 10%

Doubles
Jump Up 50% Dodge 50%

doubt we will get past two doubles really unless you include skills that are taken 0.something percent

non mutation blitzers (usually have block)
MB 30%, Guard 30% , PO15%% , Tackle 15%, Frenzy 10%

doubles
dodge80% Jump Up20%

And that should cover nearly every blitzer in the game, except maybe the silly slann ones.

This is what I am expecting to see and this makes for very very sad reading. Its this loss of team individuality, the lack of good doubles to take and the trend of only taking very specific skills every time that has made development mind numbingly dull to me. Why traits were removed and interesting skills were made boring I will never know.

[dode74]

I'll see what I can get. Might take a little while from Cyanide as I only usually get match results rather than team makeup. Depending on what I can get from them will also determine how easy it is to parse the way you want. They aren't known for making this stuff easy to manipulate, and I am far from adept at it (lots of trial and error).

Either way:

the important thing about Matgslaters post was he said it is boring.... this is irrifutable as it is opinion and it seems to me that this is becoming the wider concern more and more as time passes.

There are two things here:
1. It is opinion and it is irrefutable, and Matt is entitled to it. That doesn't make it right or wrong though, whether we agree with it or not. Personally I find cricket boring but lots of other people don't.
2. If the wider concern is over "fun" rather than balance then we have to determine if it is a widely held concern. The FUMBBL poll shows a majority favour editions beyond LRB4. The claw poll run on this site showed the majority thought there was no problem. While I appreciate you may find it less fun, it seems lots of people prefer the current ruleset, which suggests that they don't find it less fun.

[garion]

2. If the wider concern is over "fun" rather than balance then we have to determine if it is a widely held concern. The FUMBBL poll shows a majority favour editions beyond LRB4. The claw poll run on this site showed the majority thought there was no problem. While I appreciate you may find it less fun, it seems lots of people prefer the current ruleset, which suggests that they don't find it less fun.

Don't give me internet polls, they are nonesense. There was also a CPOMB poll on fumbbl the results showed that people did think it too powerful. There was also a poll about whether or not fumbbl should scrap CRP and use their own rules, own rules won. There was also a poll called do you miss traits, yes was the winner. So as you can see all of the polls you have mentioned have got other polls that say the exact opposite. They are meaningless people just click stuff.

Dont get me wrong some of the rules in this edition are great. I really like Journeymen and Spirraling expenses, I think both of those things have really added to the game, but other changes have just made the game really dull now.

[dode74]

That was kind of my point - polls are a terrible way of gauging these things, but your opinion (the "it seems to me" bit) on it is no arbiter of the general feeling either.

[garion]

I never said it was, but this is a thread with a number of people that all share the same concerns and are trying to think of a solution. Why you constantly feel the need to defend the rules at all costs puzzles me, still get your data, but rather than continue down the track of constantly defending this rule set, why dont we just see what people come up with and discuss their ideas?

[dode74]

Why you think I am defending the rules at all costs puzzles me - I'm not.

As I have said, lots of people are saying there is a problem (and I respect that) - what I want to know is what is the problem? I'm asking for a definition. If we can't even define the problem then what hope is there of finding a good solution? Like I said here, if there is an actual problem with the game then a more structured approach than the "tinkering" and throwing around of ideas might be more successful, and that it what I am trying to do. God knows that all the tinkering so far has produced nothing that people can agree on! The process I am trying to follow involves
1. Defining the issue.
2. Finding a way to measure it.
3. Deciding exactly what we want the end result to be and if we have actually already achieved it.
4. Looking at the mechanics which have an effect on the issue.
5. Determining which ones will lead us towards the desired end result, and then
6. Proposing a change.
We've not even got as far as a proper definition of the issue, let alone what the desired end-state is, and we're already discussing proposed changes! That makes no sense whatsoever. Hopefully (once I have done some maths) I can demonstrate this procedure soon when I write up a few things about passing that I have been mulling over.

So far as defining the issue is concerned we seem to have got two general definitions:
- The game is less fun.
- The game is less balanced.
The first is a matter of opinion, and nobody is right or wrong about it and nobody will ever manage to get an idea of what the "general feeling" is due to the untrustworthiness of the means of measuring it.
The second can be measured statistically, and I've done a fair bit of work on that and all the stats I've seen show no issue unless you overlay some sort of self-generated expectation on things (e.g. "at high TV"). This one is defined as a set of win% (as set by the BBRC), measured using many thousands of results, compared to that desired end-state as determined by the tiering system, and seems to be within (or damned close to) the desired metric.

We also have a more specific and defined issue, brought up by yourself:
Teams are less varied.
We can measure this, as I've said, and (as we have agreed) I will try to get the data together for the current state of play and also (if possible) for LRB4 as well the data you gave us for 3. That will give us a sense of how previous (presumably varied) editions' skills were chosen, enabling us to have some sort of comparison with the current ruleset. That would be stage 3 on the plan above.

Now I don't expect everyone to think or act that way, but all I'm doing is trying to come up with a logical structure to these proposed changes. Without it we're simply blowing smoke.

Even brainstorming sessions start with a sense of what it is that they are brainstorming.

[mattski]

Everything that you say is absolutely correct dode but what is being talked about is a game and ultimately for a lot of people it is going to come down to 'it feels less fun when teams are built the same way'. I don't think that there is any way round admitting that subjective feelings and opinions are responsible for pretty much every thread that you will read in new concepts or house rules.

BBowl has always seemed to me about three ways of playing the game, cages, bombs away and some kind of take it as it comes approach. With the killing power of clpomb the third approach is in real danger and uber-specialisation may well be the best (and in some cases only) way to win. And the problem is that lots of people say that they want to play for fun but feel like they have a chance of winning as well.

Joe's idea to introduce more variety to team builds is a noble one and something that I can sympathise with when I see the direction that teams are going to in the nuclear wastelands of blackbox in Fummbl. Defining it is indeed the problem because for many there is no problem and for those who there is one can only use words like 'fun' and 'boring' and 'seems'. I can't help but wonder if so many of these issues are looking at the wrong end of the telescope and it is limiting kill stacks that would help rather than adding layer after layer of complexity to the problem.

[dode74]

Everything that you say is absolutely correct dode but what is being talked about is a game and ultimately for a lot of people it is going to come down to 'it feels less fun when teams are built the same way'. I don't think that there is any way round admitting that subjective feelings and opinions are responsible for pretty much every thread that you will read in new concepts or house rules.

I have no issue with that whatsoever, but those feelings are largely based on a preference rather than anything concrete at all. We can't say if more people are finding it less fun because we don't trust the methods of measuring that (those measures include how vocal someone is on a forum as well as polls), so while I have no issue whatsoever with house rules for people who don't like the current set, suggesting that things need to change for everyone (i.e. a rule change) seems somewhat selfish in that context.

BBowl has always seemed to me about three ways of playing the game, cages, bombs away and some kind of take it as it comes approach. With the killing power of clpomb the third approach is in real danger and uber-specialisation may well be the best (and in some cases only) way to win. And the problem is that lots of people say that they want to play for fun but feel like they have a chance of winning as well.

If CPOMB is such an issue then show that it's winning games more than it should. As I've said before, all the stats I've seen show the balance is fine unless you overlay some sort of self-generated expectation on things. Better not to discuss that here though - this one is about team variation, I think

Joe's idea to introduce more variety to team builds is a noble one and something that I can sympathise with when I see the direction that teams are going to in the nuclear wastelands of blackbox in Fummbl. Defining it is indeed the problem because for many there is no problem and for those who there is one can only use words like 'fun' and 'boring' and 'seems'. I can't help but wonder if so many of these issues are looking at the wrong end of the telescope and it is limiting kill stacks that would help rather than adding layer after layer of complexity to the problem.

This approach risks conflating problems in TV-based MM such as FUMBBL and Cyanide open leagues with real rules problems which might show up in the environment for which the game was designed: leagues. That's one of the reasons I asked if the problem being discussed here was apparent in leagues as well - I really don't think TV-based MM is a good initial measure of anything, and if there is a problem in TV-based MM and not in leagues then the need is not for an overall rules change but for a house rule for the TV-based MM league. Several house rules for TV-based MM CPOMB issues have already been suggested by both Galak/Doubleskulls and by plasmoid, for example.

[mattski]

I seem to recall that a few leagues have said that there isn't a problem with clpomb dominating but again how many leagues play the same number of games that Fummbl or Cyanide can generate? And as to Clpomb being the ultimate kill stack well it is still early (ish) days in terms of numbers though with the Fumbbl Cup in full swing that will be interesting but if nothing else the dominance (even if it is more perceived than actual) is there in terms of skill selection. And even if the teams don't win it is the long term damage that they do to other teams which may well not show up. Maybe we would need to see what the stats of teams are who play 'killer' teams both in that game and the next one.

But yes, you are correct in that the rules were to be designed with table-top leagues in mind (though a real breakdown of just who plays where would be interesting if quite impossible to actually get) and it seems that there is more resistance to building a team with 'I will kill yours' when your opponent can ram the block dice up your nose. It would seem that reality still trumps the internet over certain things.

[mattgslater]

My long reply somehow didn't load right, but yeah, what Mattski said.

[Darkson]

I have no issue with that whatsoever, but those feelings are largely based on a preference rather than anything concrete at all. We can't say if more people are finding it less fun because we don't trust the methods of measuring that

The only measure that's important to me, is mine, and I find it "less fun" than LRB4.
I'm guessing Joe feels the same way, else he wouldn't have started this thread.

There, case closed, so now that it's proved to be an issue for at least 1 person (me!), either come up with some sensible suggestion on how to improve what I see is an issue, or butt out of what is a house rule thread.
If these were suggestions on how to make LRB7 better, then your analythical method might be the right way to go, but it's not, it's how to make my game experience better, so I don't feel the need to right a 1000 word essay on the potential issues, and methods of data capture etc. etc. etc.

[dode74]

Mattski - OCC has had 11 seasons and we have several teams with over 100 games. On average there have been 20-30 divisions of 10 teams each.

Darkson

butt out of what is a house rule thread.

There is my confusion then. You see, I thought that a house rules thread would go in the dedicated and blatantly obvious house rules forum. Perhaps if this had been mooted as a house rule from the start then I would have been less confused

As a house rule I think it's fine. Do what makes you happy

[mattgslater]

I'm not saying "butt out". However, on things like "fun", saying "it's all subjective" is a terrible cop-out, a way to absolve oneself of any game design error, no matter how grievous. Most BB coaches love the way BB celebrates the act of taking multiple approaches to the same objective, and therefore in BB rewarding uniformity of play or development is bad design.

The question should only be, "do the new rules reduce the number of viable team designs?" If yes, it's pointless to argue whether this is a good thing or a bad thing in some objective sense: from the perspective of the game designers, it's all bad.