balance...

[jammydodger]

hail...
i'm on a roll (and probably should be stopped). the point i wanted to make is on the 'problem' of balance. i'm new to both tbb and bb, but it doesn't take long to see that certain teams are broken, at least not if you read more than about 3 posts. i was wondering
a) if any team has ever not be broken?
b) how much of this 'broken cry' is just sour grapes,
c) if any one knows which way teams should be move (e.g. remove tackle from dwarves, then amazon won't be underpowered against anyone, only overpowered against everyone!),
d) which team is the comparision? if you put goblins as an average team then everyone seems over-powered, so how do you know which teams are actual broken?
e) the fummbl (is that right?) results that galak (i think) put up suggest that almost all teams are within the 45-55% wins (except halflings, goblins and ogres), which seems fairly good to me, is this untrue in the loses?
this may seem like some self-confident, high-horse noob speaking the same ol' stuff, but i did put it in the newbies area, so i claim asylum...

steve

[SolomonKane]

Well, I think the reason some people decide teams are 'broken' is because some races are very good at countering that particular person's style of play, OR they just don't have any idea how to stop a particular style of play.

In my time playing on FUMBBL, I have discovered that there are still a lot of little quirks hidden amongst the races that people don't generally discover and/or discuss and frankly, you'll only find them through experience. To give an example, I play a Lizardman team. Many people say you should take Break Tackle for the Saurii due to their lousy AG. However, I've found that by not trying to just overwhelm my opponents with strength but rather making more use of my high overall MA, I haven't needed Break Tackle at all. Stand Firm has been much more useful (moving through a crowd on a 6). Many players are afraid to tie up the Saurii because they're too busy trying not to get their armor broken.

Now, I'll admit, maybe I haven't played the most skilled opponents - I'm typing this without having reviewed my past opponents and results.

[MadLordAnarchy]

You may notice a lot of threads here complaining about one team or another. Balance is what the PBBL stuff is all about as its really the key to getting a league working over the long term. I believe that single-race teams are a structure that don't find balance in the long-term and coaches don't stick with teams for more than a couple of years. I reconstructed the rules to my own ends with the sole aim of achieving balance and went a long way from standard to get it working. You may want to plough through the PBBL stuff to see if it meets any of your balance needs.

[Dave]

first: welcome!

both other replieants (sp / is it a word in any case) are pretty much right.

Some teams just look overpowered in certain people's hands. Play Longshot with woodelves and you're in for a nightmare. Play Tim and his CD's and you'll have a hell of a time, play Geggster with skaven and he'll run rings around you.

Currently most teams are pretty much good enough as it gets. Some teams are better in low TR ranges (norse/amazon) other excell at high TR (any elf, chaos) while others perform OK everywhere (humies, orcs) or in tournaments (undead)

The most important thing to remember is that if a player looks unbeatable you'll have to find the key to what his tactic is. Find that and you've got a chance at winning.

The second most important thing is to play a team that you like to play / like the challange of, as that will usually help a lot.

[jammydodger]

hail...
its not me that thinks the teams are unbalanced, all in all it seems fine to me. i just think that people are offering alot of disrespect to the people who made the game, without any real points to make except: x is better at playing with team y than i am with my team. alot of coaches just seem to be complaining because they've lost, not that there is any serious problem with the teams, because inevitably some (usually galak) comes up with fairly solid proof their wrong (at least so it seems to me).
steve

[Ravage]

when you first start playing, all of the teams seem EXTREMELY well balanced.

After you've played for a bit, you begin to realize that some teams come with certain things that make them MUCH better at one thing or another - and in some cases it may even seem that they are TOO good in one department or another. Here, many people cry foul. AG4 makes for "stupid elf plays". Lizards have 6 ST4 players and may have a Kroxigor as well. Humans dont have AG4 or AV9 or ST4, and are a "bad" team

Eventually you come to realize that sure, *maybe* some teams could use a little tweaking. The rule book isn't perfect. The Amazon roster, to bring up recent debates, is extremely powerful with an all-dodge roster at lower TR's - there are proposals for a change to them, but they've come too late to make it into the next rulebook. But the point simply being that when an issue is acknowledged as an actual problem, steps will be taken to amend the fact. But for the most part... a lizardman team with 6 ST4 players and MA8 stunty/dodge players is not broken. A team with 4 mummies is not broken. A team with all AG4 along with some really good skills out of the box is not broken. It takes a moderate coach to exploit a team's strengths... but it takes a BETTER coach to exploit the same team's weknesses. Unfortunately, if you sit on the sidelines and watch conversations long enough you'll realize that some (not all) people making comments probably are still stuck in the second stage of playing the game (when everything looks "broken") instead of ever graduating to the realization that the teams are for the most part just fine the way they are.

[Disco]

I agree with 95% of what Ravage said, and said very well, I would add that even once coaches master the game etc, some teams late game do have an advantage, maybe slight, over others. For the most part the teams are balanced, although I see no reason not to continue to debate the merits of each team in the hope of further refining this great game.

[slup]

Even if a race is more powerful than another coaching skill is more important.
That is why you see the same coaches in the top of a league season after season despite the race they chhose.