Passing revisited

[Vesticle]

OK, so the Halflings could now get a one-turn score at 46.7785632% chance.

Yes, but that doesn't include modifiers. You can use a TRR on the landing, and your big guy can get Pro with his first skill, or Pass if he's lucky. Also, on the other side, you still have to pick the ball up.

I never really understood how good TTM was until I saw it in action. Christer tied me with his goblins, because he scored in one turn, twice, and for the most part, there was nothing I could do about it. I just had to watch and hope he failed. Now, one of his attempts just succeeded on it's own, the other one resulted in not fumbling because of a bug in SkiJunkie's program, so in essence, the TTM was being used under the proposed change.

I'm not sure if it winds up being too powerful, but the annoying thing is that you can't really defend against it. If he had the same % chance to score on me with a Wood Elf team, I probably wouldn't mind so much, because at least I'd feel like I had set my players up on the field for a reason... the TZs and such do actually make a difference.

Anyway, I'm now not sure what change I think should be made, if any. I've experienced both sides first hand, and kind of think maybe some sort of middle would be best. But it's hard to do that without making the rules too complicated...

[Scott King]

It seems to me we are arguing (sorry discussing) 2 different things here. Whether range should modify fumble chance on throwing the ball, and whether it alters it on throwing Teammate.

Ignoring game mechanics for a minute, then I think that range should not increase fumble chance on either. It just doesn't make sense that you are more likely to drop the ball because you are throwing it further. But Galak has a point that taking this out of the TTM equation would unbalance the fling teams (make them the flung team I suippose).

But what if there was a modifier on the halfling being thrown landing rather than the thrower? It could be explained by saying he's in the air so long that it's harder for him to land when he finally comes down (and the further he's thrown the longer he's in the air). This would hopefully then cover both sides of the problem, and the modifier only effects the Gobbos and Flings.

Just my two cents worth...

[Thetian]

So, change the pass game mechanic to not include range mods to fumbles. Change the TTM landing modifiers to include range penalties.
That might be interesting to try. Because without the fumble penalties an fling with an AG increase is a scoring machine.


-Mike

[Mestari]

2.Galak: do you suggest that stunties would suddenly take over the universe if range wouldn't affect fumbling?
If you're simply saying that they'd get better, then I wouldn't mind.

I'm saying you are handing them a one turn scoring machine. The problem is that everyone thinks stunty teams are a joke. Marytn's Dark Elves were the only team that really put it to me and I had really bad dice that game. Give a good stunty coach which folks like Neo and I are this option and we'll clean up.

So the odds for one turn score are:
basic 41.6%
professional (catch,ag4,Pro,Pass) 53.8%.

What are the odds under the current rules, btw? (too tired to count it myself now)

A few points:
-Defense gets to set up last, so you can anticipate where the bugger's going to be thrown.
-A simple skill called kick can make it pretty hard to get the ball to the 'catch and fly' halfling in the first place. Movement 5 doesn't make things too easy here.
-The AG4+catch halfling = target.
-Having a 46-58% chance of failing ones drive miserably (probably with the ball-carrier lying in the opponents half doesn't frankly sound too overpowered to me.
-You're right that they'd get better, might sometimes even get near winning a tournament, but I'm not convinced they'd get too good.

To convince me, you might want to consider:

-if you have suitable data available, show from your halfling team:
-win/tie/loss rates, and argue how many ties or losses would've turned out as victories or ties if you didn't have to worry about range modifiers affecting fumbling.
-If that data seems convincing enough, I might turn to your side on this issue.

[Balrog]

OK, so the Halflings could now get a one-turn score at 46.7785632% chance.

Yes, but that doesn't include modifiers. You can use a TRR on the landing, and your big guy can get Pro with his first skill, or Pass if he's lucky. Also, on the other side, you still have to pick the ball up.

Actually it does include the use of a team RR, and even Pro I believe, although you really need to verify with Galak.

-Dave

[Marcus]

Galak: have you considered allowing passblock of TTM? Just call the landing zone the "reciever" and have people surround the little buggers as they come plummetting to earth.

And while I agree that you probably do clean up with Halflings I would also submit you're a rather good coach. Most good coaches can rack up an impressive win record with pretty much any team. Especially if the opponent doesn't know how to play against your style. Given Halflings have a rather unique style it could take a while for people to get into the swing of your games.

Marcus

[voyagers_uk]

The guys in my league wanted me to play Halflings as a way of kicking my ass.

after two games, one loss in O/T and one win they are now not so sure. I would like to see the range fumble mods removed but to balance it you would have to find a way to increase halfling deaths.

[Marcus]

Dirty Player

[voyagers_uk]

what? are you saying that when playing against a halfling team each member of the opposition automatically gets DP

that's positively evil

It might just work

[GalakStarscraper]

"Professional" one turn score of 53.8% for a Halfing team is assuming the following:

One team re-roll
Joe Halfling picking up the ball and handing it off to AG 4 Catch Halfling.
Treeman with Pass throwing to Long Bomb range.

Oh and Mestari ... what the heck are you talking about here:

Defense gets to set up last, so you can anticipate where the bugger's going to be thrown.

Defense sets up first. So you have no way of setting up to anticipate where the bugger is going.

Kickoff square yeah that you can choose ... but if I get ball in hand the odds of this all working just shot through the roof.

Marcus, I'll admit that I'm a decent (not great) coach. If you look on the PBeM league forum, MBBL Round 6 thread, you'll see my record with a rookie Halfling team in Season 1 of the MBBL:
viewtopic.php?t=1637&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Galak[/quote]

[Balrog]

And while I agree that you probably do clean up with Halflings I would also submit you're a rather good coach. Most good coaches can rack up an impressive win record with pretty much any team. Especially if the opponent doesn't know how to play against your style. Given Halflings have a rather unique style it could take a while for people to get into the swing of your games.

OK, I don't want to knock Galak here, but his record in the MBBL with Halflings is 0 wins, 5 losses. Score: 5 TDs for, 12 against. Now, suppose he had access to the proposed passing rule; would his record be much better? Maybe. Would it put his team in the top of the league? No.

So, even with an excellent coach the halflings are still very inferior to the other teams. If this rule change gives them a bit of a boost, so what?

-Dave

[GalakStarscraper]

1-5 .... Dave ... 1-5.

Of the 5 losses:

1 didn't go to OT due to a failed GFI to the end zone
2 others didn't go due to a failed TTM.

The MBBL will GLADLY add this as an experimental rule IF you can get any member of the BBRC to request that it be tested.

In fact, I've already added the whole idea to the BBRC hot topics page on my web site. And I've already officially announced that I'll be adding it into the PBeM tool as a league option.

Programmed so that:
FA and TZ count for modified 1 fumbles.
Very Sunny and Range does not.

Galak

[Deathwing]

OK, I don't want to knock Galak here, but his record in the MBBL with Halflings is 0 wins, 5 losses. Score: 5 TDs for, 12 against. Now, suppose he had access to the proposed passing rule; would his record be much better? Maybe. Would it put his team in the top of the league? No.

So, even with an excellent coach the halflings are still very inferior to the other teams. If this rule change gives them a bit of a boost, so what?

-Dave

Slightly out of date there Dave. They finished 1-5:
1-2 Lizardmen
1-2 Orc
1-2 Chaos Dwarf
1-2 Goblin
1-4 Dark Elf
2-1 Norse

5 games out of 6 with just one score in it.

[GalakStarscraper]

My point being Dave that I shouldn't be able to win with Halflings. If you look at my record for the MBBL .... other than Martyn's DEs every team I faced had difficulties winning.

This would be adding one more tool to the arsenal. I'm just under the opinion that Halflings and Gobbos shouldn't get much of a leg up. If Halflings can consistently win 50% of their games in leagues ... that's probably too many in my opinion.

Galak

[Balrog]

And my point, Tom, is that it wouldn't make you win half your games, not even close to that number. Your statistics aside, you believe that the stunty teams would benefit too greatly from this rule; my answer to you is that I play halflings in my tabletop league with this rule and they do not dominate (and we allow Treemen to use rerolls too).

Now, it is entirely probable that I am far from the best halfling coach. But I do consider myself a decent BB player, and as much as I try to win with halflings I have yet to manage such a feat, although my first 3 matches were all ties (so, so close).

-Dave