Team Rating Gap

[Orin]

Hi,

I'm having a bit of trouble in my league. Some people with low TR (LTR) don't want to play against teams with high TR (HTR) any more.
They say that the handicap table isn't effective enough to compensate for big differences in TR (while I agree with that fact, I think they are missing the point of the Handicap Table).
They also say that HTR teams gain more from such matches than LTR teams because they can gain more SSP because of the skills they already have. I again agree with that, but point out that HTR teams need a lot more SSP to get to that next skill. Still LTR people don't want to play anymore because they believe games like that will make the difference between teams even bigger.

I think that if you willingly go up against a full-strenght team with a TR 50+ higher than you, you know what's going to happen... Still, so what?? If there is no permanent damage (deaths) all you'll loose is a FF, and you'll gain at least some SSP and some money.

HTR teams need matches to give their wounded a change to heal after a match against another HTR team. I just tell LTR people to play against beat-up HTR teams, whose effective TR is a lot lower than the TR on the sheet due to players missing the game, so they'll get more handicap then necessary.
Either people don't listen or this is still not enough. But what can I do??

I'm not sure if this is the right section for this, but I'm sure a kindly moderator will move this topic if it is.

[neverdodge]

I m the commisch of a friendly small league . After saison 2, we had 6 teams :

2 were TR 250+
1 was 190
1 was around 170-180
2 were around 160-170

So i decided to impose a "team rating cap" of not more than 190 TR to start the next season .

[martynq]

But what can I do??

Play someone with a similar TR instead of challenging someone with a lower TR? Retire some players to reduce your TR?

Martyn

[honeycomb kid]

Play wussy like. Take the loss as expected and run away. You probably wont get too many serious injuries. Also, HTR teams generally have a higher FF meaning the LTR teams will get more money.

I have played a few games in our league that I took specifically against much higher TR teams (101 + Tr diff) to take "Inspiration" on the Handicap table. I also remember winning against a totally healthy Orc Team TR 250 with my Undead TR 142 by a score of 2-0! He killed one of my ghouls, yes but it was a worthwhile win and my TR only dropped 9 pts.

That's why you play HTR teams, so you can kick their asses against all odds!

[Orin]

Play someone with a similar TR instead of challenging someone with a lower TR? Retire some players to reduce your TR?

Well, It's more of a problem for the entire league. I don;t want to "punish" players for having high TR. We have a fairly big league, 15 odd players, some with two teams, so enough to choose who you want to play against.

After some thought I tend to think I'll just say "tough luck!", but that'll not help with the cohesion of the league.

[neverdodge]

Well, It's more of a problem for the entire league. I don;t want to "punish" players for having high TR. We have a fairly big league, 15 odd players, some with two teams, so enough to choose who you want to play against.

After some thought I tend to think I'll just say "tough luck!", but that'll not help with the cohesion of the league.

I think resolving this situation really depend on the players playing in your league . As i told before, i had no problems, since we are a bunch of friends (still playing seriously) and when i told the guys i wanna balance the league, no one was against the decision (btw, i had the team with the higher tr, so i think they understood i did that for the league, and not for any other obscur reason .)

If the guys playing in your league are flexible, and play for enjoyment, you shouldn t encounter trouble . If you environnement is more competitive, it will be harder . Still i think it s more enjoyable playing in a league where everyone is in the same level, even if that mean some players will not be rewarded entirely for the good season they made.

[NightDragon]

Personally I think they have a point. The current handicap table is awful. In 3rd ed the extra re-rolls made it worth while playing higher value teams, but not now.

[Orin]

That's exactly the argument people are using NightDragon. But since I only started playing after the 3rd ed, i have no idea how that works... every handicap roll means an extra MVP or something?

Still, i think people shouldn't worry too much when playing against a beat-up HTR team, and stop complaining, unless you get no SSP and very little money, but that can happen to anyone, regardless of TR

[NightDragon]

3rd ed was great for balance IMO, but not in many others. The roll was quite simple. If your team was over 100 SPP's ahead then the other team got 3 extra MVP's in addition to the one it got already and extra cards. Yep you were queing up to play the big boys. Not now. You might as well play your own weight. There were other advantages for being less behind on a similar pro rata basis.

[djed]

Playing in the league my friend Neverdodge told about in the above posts, i can tell u as a good witness that his idea was really cool....

The best teams keep their star players but lose some substitutes and some money...

I think that with this method, the balance is very well kept...

The second solution we used, was playing a small cup, excluding the two 250+ TR teams... So the teams with an average TR played some more games, it was an another way to balance both teams of the league....

But the main goal must be kept: playing with good friends and sharing a lot of fun!

[neoliminal]

This is the primary problem facing the BB community right now. I have my opinions as to how to solve it, but I would very much like to hear other people's viewpoints.

[Blammaham]

I favor a system whereby the high team rating team plays down to the level of the low team rating team.

By the way I feel that the coaches of low team rating teams have a point, it becomes dicouraging to play your first 10 games before yopu have a realistic chance to compete at a fun level. Nobody wants to be slobberknocked for 16 turns.

Games seem to be the most fun for me if they are played between team that are around 50 points different. I commisioned a leauge where the coach of the higher team rating had to adjust his team rating by removing re rolls and players to the level of his/ her opponent so that the teams ratings were within 51 pionts of each other. 51 points works well with the handicap table, and the handicap table works fairly well at that level.

As said before any leauge worth its salt MUST have some sort of ballancing system.S.

[Rupert]

In chess there is a well functioning rating-system that makes it interesting for high- and low rated players to play against each other. If a high rated players plays against a low rated player the high rated player will be expected to win. Hence, if the high rated player wins he will gain very little while if the low rated player wins he will gain a lot.

Example1: every time Kasparov (the player with highest rating in the world) plays in a tournament he is expected to win – and even if he does win he may still loose rating if he dont winn by a large margin!

Example2: If a player with a rating of 2000 playes in a tournament against players who have higher rating on average than him (say the average rating among his opponents is 2200) then he is not expected to make more than say 2,5 points out possible 7 points.

There is a formulae for the above and the system have proven its woth – maybe we can have calculated expectations on every match in BB?

The expected score system could be converted to BB. The winnings (money, mvps, FF) could be distributed depended on the expected result. If a team with tr 200 plays against a team with tr 100, and the winnings are 70.000, +/- 1 FF and 10 spp, then the distribution of the winnings would depend, the size of the victory of the higher rated team (for instance the high rated teaqm should make 10 or more spp than the low rated team).

Others with better english-skills and knowledge of the chess-rating-system may be able to explain this better

[Orin]

I favor a system whereby the high team rating team plays down to the level of the low team rating team.

By the way I feel that the coaches of low team rating teams have a point, it becomes dicouraging to play your first 10 games before yopu have a realistic chance to compete at a fun level. Nobody wants to be slobberknocked for 16 turns.

Games seem to be the most fun for me if they are played between team that are around 50 points different. I commisioned a leauge where the coach of the higher team rating had to adjust his team rating by removing re rolls and players to the level of his/ her opponent so that the teams ratings were within 51 pionts of each other. 51 points works well with the handicap table, and the handicap table works fairly well at that level.

As said before any leauge worth its salt MUST have some sort of balancing system.S.

I agree that there must be some sort of balance, but I dislike the idea of "punishing" a HTR team for having a high TR. Why would you bother to earn extra SSP when you know you can't use them anyway. I don't like changing the set-up of a team for every match you play.

When I play against a team with a very low TR, I try to keep the damage to that team to a minimun. I only make the necessary blocks to score a TD, sometimes I don't even use my Blitz action, and fouling is out of the question. This way the other team will suffer marginal damage. I don't take pride in wiping an weaker opponent off the pitch.

The problem in our league is that it is very loosely organized, and there are different kind of players. A few just want as much chaos as possible, (Goblins), others are more serious about the game. The latter tend to play a lot more matches and this increases the difference in TR a lot.

[NightDragon]

Slobberknocked!! A great word.
I think LTR teams should be advantaged. I still don't see what was wrong with 3rd ed rules here, and this despite Galak explaining it to me on numerous occasions!!