A better suggestion to improve racial variety (perpetual)

[Tourach]

The funny thing is if (IF) claw is causing issues than I would expect woodies and amazon to be more popular at higher team ratings, and they would win more because they av7 anyway.

Now that is not the case from my perspective or the stats.

So PO,MB must be the issue or namely both with claw stacked. However we are not saying PO and Mb are a problem as namley the orc and dwarf sides should profit if this was the best 2 skills combo. Chaos nurlge are singled out yet the main part of the equation is available to both the more popular chaos and lower winnign ratio dwarf/orc.

I do see the point and would trial it but I can only see that PO needs to change and both claw and mb are fine.
Sorry I wish we had the vault forum logic online to see how we found the improved PO, and easy access claw for the first time as I recall BOTH were fine. I might of argues myself into thinking PO and claw in issolation are fine, yet the 3 combo is in fact causing the issue depsite not having a reason why amazon have not reset the meta-game

well as dode has commented on, the meta game in these kind of leagues is that high armor as well as bash is important, not winning %. And so we see quite some orc and dwarf teams also even though their win % isn't that great. Adding on even more teams with pomb, and these does usually have even more take-down-skills (frenzy/grab, tackle, juggernaut) than you average chaos team. Making amazon and we even less of a valid choice ( I know coach Niebling had a nice record with a fend heavy amazon team at high rating on fumbbl).

[DoubleSkulls]

Yep, the problem isn't really about game balance. The problem is people prefer lethal & tough teams in long running leagues, so these leagues get much less racial diversity. A slight toning down of the deadliness of the worse combos would seem to be in order to try and encourage diversity, hopefully without a major impact on win% for any race.

Amazons are poorer at higher TVs because spammed blodge is countered by sufficient tackle and the average stat line across the board making it hard for them to excel at anything else. Its actually one of the reasons I'd like to overhaul the team - to make it more balanced across the TV range.

[Smeborg]

Another factor to consider IMO is that once Claw, P-On and M-Blow are combined in the CRP, they lose their individual character and become a sort of standard (or even mindless) way to inflict identical damage on any opponent. I would love to see the individual character and feel of the skills restored. hence indirectly requiring more skill in coaching a killy team.

All the best.

[Tourach]

Another factor to consider IMO is that once Claw, P-On and M-Blow are combined in the CRP, they lose their individual character and become a sort of standard (or even mindless) way to inflict identical damage on any opponent. I would love to see the individual character and feel of the skills restored. hence indirectly requiring more skill in coaching a killy team.

All the best.

Quoted for truth ;D

[dode74]

I was thinking something along the lines of "MB cannot be used on a PO reroll, either on AV or injury". This would reduce the effectiveness of the combo overall while maintaining effectiveness of the 3-skill combo against high AV players. I need to do the maths, but it would seem like a small nerf.

Or is this what DS was suggesting anyway?

[DoubleSkulls]

I was suggesting stopping any of the skills combining on Av or combining on Injury. So you couldn't use Claw & Mighty Blow to break armour on a 7, but if you got an 8 you'd still be able to use Mighty Blow on the Injury.

[dode74]

Well I don't think your solution would carry out the aim (assuming the aim is to alter the survivability as per the other thread). With no claw available on RRs or with MB the high AV teams will die less, which is something we wanted to avoid, I believe.

IMO the problem with your solution is that the low AV teams (i.e. the unpopular ones) will still break AV on a 7+ with claw/MB, while the already-popular ones will only ever break AV on 8+ at best, thereby increasing their survivability and therefore popularity. By allowing claw to work with either PO or MB, but not allowing MB to work with PO, you reduce the ability to cause cas (since if MB doesn't aid your first AV roll, or your first cas roll, you can't use it for the same roll again) while maintaining the relative cas ratios between low and high AV, which is what we need to do. It's an overall nerf of casualties to everyone rather than more to the low AV teams than the high AV teams.

[swilhelm73]

I think there is a general agreement that people play agility teams less then bash teams in long term leagues, but aren't we assuming it is tied to taking CAS in this thread?

Let me propose alternatives that would also mesh with the observed data:

1) The problem isn't losing players per se, but losing many players in rapid progression so that you don't have the cash to field 11 players on a regular basis, ie "team death"
2) Agility teams are perceived to require more dice thrown to move the ball or play defense, and coaches have the idea of throwing fewer dice as a basic rule of BB even if the dice thrown have a high probability of success
3) People enjoy killing/injuring other team's players and bash teams are better at that
4) The fluff considers elves "pansies", and this is something coaches will continue you with in conversation.

And the right solution to the overall issue is going to vary on what the cause, or causes actually are. So, for example, if you implement a solution that generally reduces the effectiveness of kill skills but the root cause of the current imbalance is #3, you are unlikely to change the relative team race choices while likely persuading people to like BB less.

For myself, I rarely play agility teams for reason #2. I feel I am depending on dice, not strategy, when I play an agility team. This is not to say there is no strategy involved when playing an agility team, but it just is not the same experience, at least for me.

[Smeborg]

Well I don't think your solution would carry out the aim (assuming the aim is to alter the survivability as per the other thread). With no claw available on RRs or with MB the high AV teams will die less, which is something we wanted to avoid, I believe.

IMO the problem with your solution is that the low AV teams (i.e. the unpopular ones) will still break AV on a 7+ with claw/MB, while the already-popular ones will only ever break AV on 8+ at best, thereby increasing their survivability and therefore popularity. By allowing claw to work with either PO or MB, but not allowing MB to work with PO, you reduce the ability to cause cas (since if MB doesn't aid your first AV roll, or your first cas roll, you can't use it for the same roll again) while maintaining the relative cas ratios between low and high AV, which is what we need to do. It's an overall nerf of casualties to everyone rather than more to the low AV teams than the high AV teams.

dode, in so far as I understand my own maths , I think my own suggestion (allow the skills to be combined on a player, but not to be used in combination following a knockdown) will have the following effects at higher TVs:

- Somewhat fewer CAS overall
- Skewing of Injuries away from CAS towards Stun
- Increased survival rates for AV7 players. but AV8 players survive somewhat better, and AV9 players somewhat better again.
- Provided there is plenty of Claw in a league, AV9 teams should not become dominant as seen before the current Claw rules.

Of course this will need to be confirmed or otherwise by play testing, which will take considerable time.

All the best.

[dode74]

aren't we assuming it is tied to taking CAS in this thread?

I think we may be assuming the same pattern for team distribution is being seen for the same reasons, but it's not unreasonable.

Was team distribution better (more even) under LRB 4? I ask because many of the fundamentals which you bring up in your reasons haven't changed between the editions. If we can say that there was better distribution under LRB 4 then we can say that the change may be due to some change in CRP.

Looking at a correlation on the FUMBBL data between the 21 LRB 4 races and the same races from CRP we get r=0.68, so significant. Removing the T2 and T3 teams leaves us with 0.62, so slightly less but still statistically significant. As I did before, I looked at the correlation between cas and games played, and found there was still a strong correlation.

I then looked at the percentages of each race by games played. This is a graph of the results:

I know what you're thinking, and that's not a mistake: Chaos was played more under LRB 4 than under CRP! This actually makes things more even as I've only removed 4 teams from the LRB 4 data, whereas there are 7 missing from the CRP data.
To me, the CRP distribution looks far more even. Chaos(!), Orcs and Khemri (and perhaps Dwarves) have been the obvious losers, with CD, Nurgle, Norse and Necro being the obvious winners. There are now 7 teams within 1% of a "perfect" distribution (5.26% per team) as opposed to 5 from LRB4.

So no, LRB 4 wasn't better for racial distribution - it was worse on FUMBBL than it is now.

[dode74]

dode, in so far as I understand my own maths , I think my own suggestion (allow the skills to be combined on a player, but not to be used in combination following a knockdown) will have the following effects at higher TVs:

- Somewhat fewer CAS overall

Yep.

- Skewing of Injuries away from CAS towards Stun

Yep.

- Increased survival rates for AV7 players. but AV8 players survive somewhat better, and AV9 players somewhat better again.

Yep, which is what I would call a relative nerf to the AV7 teams as I described above. The aim should be to maintain the same survival ratios (or possibly skew them more towards the AV7 players), but reduce the overall carnage.

- Provided there is plenty of Claw in a league, AV9 teams should not become dominant as seen before the current Claw rules.

Speculative.

Of course this will need to be confirmed or otherwise by play testing, which will take considerable time.

Indeed, and I prefer some solid math and theorycraft before the playtesting.

Here's my issue:
Under your proposed rules (no two skills used together):
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my BOB (for example). You use claw for 5/12 (so 8+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 2/12 (10+ required).
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my Wardancer (for example). You use MB for 7/12 (so 7+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 5/12 (8+ required).
Under the CURRENT rules:
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my BOB (for example). You use claw and MB for 7/12 (so 7+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 7/12 (7+ required).
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my Wardancer (for example). You use MB for 7/12 (so 7+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 7/12 (7+ required).
Under MY proposal (PO cannot use MB, but claw can combine with either one):
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my BOB (for example). You use claw and MB for 7/12 (so 7+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 5/12 (8+ required).
Your CPOMB player hits and pows my Wardancer (for example). You use MB for 7/12 (so 7+ is required) but DON'T break AV. Do you pile on? Your odds if you do are now 5/12 (8+ required).

Under your proposal the odds for the BOB are far better than the odds for the WD - many people wouldn't bother using PO with only a 2/12 chance to break AV, but might take a punt on 5/12 if the situation is right. Under the current rules the odds for both are the same, but high. Under my proposal the odds for the WD are the same as the odds for the BOB, but are also the same as the odds for the WD under your proposal. I think it's REALLY important that the relative survivability of the different AVs stays the same for the full combo - that is, after all, the point of claw: to be an AV-neutral attrition mechanic.

For casualty rolls our two mechanics would be identical, as only MB and PO come into play.

[swilhelm73]

So no, LRB 4 wasn't better for racial distribution - it was worse on FUMBBL than it is now.

I pulled up LRB 4.0. Looking at the races getting more play with CRP: CDw, Nurgle, and Norse all got significant changes over the two revisions, and Necromantic a smaller, but important one.

Looking at the teams played less in CRP, Khemri got nerfed. And Chaos and Orc are two of the premier kill teams.

At least in FUMBBL then there appears to be a significant move away from bash with the change to CRP but that still leaves a smaller bias to bash. So I would take this as strong evidence of a much more fundamental issue then the changes to claw or PO.

[Megr1m]

There is some good discussion here, but has anyone considered a nerf or change to Mighty Blow? We talk a great deal regarding various permutations on the combination of the big three in ClawPOMB, but it seems to me, that while both Piling-On and Claw do have their downsides, MB is a little too good for what it does.

Just as a theoretical excercise - how about, changing Mighty Blow into "Reckless Blow": same effect as MB, but reciprocal to the player with the skill. So you get to hit harder, but at the same time anyone who hits you back gets the benefit as well. This makes fouls (especially with DP) much more nasty against players who go prone, and gives precision hitting teams who do not normally have access to MB a bit more bite.

[Smeborg]

Thanks, dode, for yet another very interesting post.

[DoubleSkulls]

Well I don't think your solution would carry out the aim (assuming the aim is to alter the survivability as per the other thread).

Actually I think my assumption is that teams will take the killer skill combos less, generally increasing the survivability of all teams. I already acknowledged that one of the risk is that we end up just making Dwarves & Orcs more popular, and don't increase diversity at all. If all we achieve is making Av8 teams and non-Claw bash teams more popular that's still a win - maybe not a huge one, but I'm wary of too big a step.

swilhelm73 makes a set of excellent points too. I actually suspect there is just a natural 5th reason for the imbalance (perhaps its just a variation on swilhelm73's #1), which is about human behaviour rather than decisions. People start playing teams. Sometimes the team gets hammered in a game. Many coaches at that point abandon the team and start a new one. This is much more likely to happen to fragile teams. I don't think there is much we can do about #2 & #4. #3 is sort of addressed by toning down the lethality of other teams, which may make causing cas harder, but also reduce the efficacy of it as a game winning strategy (its not as good a strategy as playing better than your opponent, but it is a strategy!).

#1 I think we can address, but so long as permanent damage to the team is tied to the volume of casualties received then it will continue to be the case that fragile teams are less popular than tougher teams. A solution may be just to flatten the occurrence of permanent damage. This could be something as simple as saying only the first two serious injury or death results count, after that all casualties are badly hurt (that is a really in-elegant rule, but sort of gets the point across). That makes it much harder to destroy teams in a game, making recovery a bit easier. Another idea may be to allow Av7 teams to have more than one apothecary, perhaps allowing the toughest teams only 1, middling teams 2 and squishy teams 3. Alternatively they could just get bonuses to the apoth roll, for example they may be allowed to always reroll the D8 for serious injuries (quite weak) or even reduce the apoth's reroll by 1 (so the apoth is 1-4 BH, 5 MNG, 6 SI). A possible issue there is the in-game effect of having more players returning to reserves, and it appears we don't need Elves to actually be any better win%.

Ideas like making the casualty roll D86 instead of D68 don't really help with this problem because they just reduce attrition across the board, and we'd be trying to target it on specific