A better suggestion to improve racial variety (perpetual)

[DoubleSkulls]

MB is a little too good for what it does.

Mathematically each of the skills in isolation is about the same (although Claw is only better than MB against Av9, Piling On only marginally better than Mighty Blow). The issue we were trying to address was that the combination of two or three of them does exponentially more damage (individually they are about twice as good as normal hitting, a combo of two of them is about four times better, and the combo of 3 about 8 times better). Making that a more linear relationship reduces the synergy of the combo.

[DoubleSkulls]

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).

I *think* the problem I have with this approach is that you are trying to use Claw as the mechanism of levelling attrition between teams - which in itself producing an inherent bias towards team with Claw. I think we are better off looking for other mechanics to even attrition across teams without relying entirely on a single skill.

[dode74]

If all we achieve is making Av8 teams and non-Claw bash teams more popular that's still a win

Is it? Looking at the spread of teams what we actually need to do is make Khemri, Amazons, HE and PE more popular at the expense of the bash and claw teams. DE, Skaven, Lizards, WE, UD, Humans and Norse (and even Necros) are roughly where we want them. Chaos, Orc, CDs, Dwarves and Nurgle are the issue. The main things all of these have in common is no A access and LOTS of S access - ranging from all of the team (Chaos) to a minimum of 9 (Orc, CD, Dwarf, Nurgle), as well as almost universal G access (except big guys).

I agree with the points swilhelm73 makes, as well as your point about human nature. I'm not sure addressing them individually will work - I think the "human nature" thing is the big thing here. I think of it as the "reliability effect". Bash teams make slow developmental progress compared to the other teams, but they do so reliably and taking fewer losses along the way. People like that - the slow but always positive progression with few downsides or losses is what made games like WoW popular (and I did my fair share of "kill X [insert mob of your choice]" quests myself!) - and the 2-1 grind is a popular strategy with such a team. Agi teams don't have that reliability - they appeal to a more risk-taking nature which doesn't mind losing players, or perhaps doesn't think of it as a major setback, and will often play a more fun (to watch) game which finishes with an unpredictable number of TDs. Khemri, with decay, suffer from the same reliability issue: a single injury roll on their bedrock player, the TG, has a 55% chance of being something permanent (NI or worse). That makes them unreliable and therefore, according the suggestion I am making, undesirable. All of this, of course, assumes that the correlation between games played and casualty differential identified earlier is actually a by-product of the above, and that reducing the cas rates will have no effect on the desirability to play the reliable teams.
What I am suggesting is that one possible way to reduce the popularity of these teams may be to make them less reliable, and the unpopular teams can be made more reliable. This can be done in a number of ways - reductions in AG/AV for some players, increase in reroll costs, restriction of skill access (make CWs SM only, for example), making TGs AV8 with thick skull, totally changing the Amazon roster, or a multitude of other possibilities. The key will be to do so in a manner which doesn't have too much of an effect on the win%.

I *think* the problem I have with this approach is that you are trying to use Claw as the mechanism of levelling attrition between teams - which in itself producing an inherent bias towards team with Claw. I think we are better off looking for other mechanics to even attrition across teams without relying entirely on a single skill.

To be fair, that's what you guys did on the BBRC with claw, and I think it is a really good method of doing it. I agree that it causes a bias, but there are ways of limiting that bias without changing the desirable nature of the skill itself (e.g. claw also confers the skill "no hands" - fairly big nerf to Necro though). Furthermore, the bias is towards bash (orcs and dwarves), not claw (see graph linked above).

[DoubleSkulls]

I think you may have moved on to trying to increase diversity across all TVs, where I was still focussed on higher TV games. Racial diversity gets more extreme as the TV increases. Looking at the all TVs there are only 6 teams who have less than half the average number of games played, only 1 of which is tier 1 (Elf). Games at 1500 and over that is up to 9, including 3 tier 1s (Amazons, High Elf, Elf), over TV2000 and its up to 10 including Amazon, Elf, High Elf, Lizardmen and Skaven. If you actually restrict the stats to up to 1500 what I'm seeing is that only 4 teams have less than half the average number of games - and that's the tier 3s and vampires. So I'd argue that the lower TVs there isn't much problem with diversity, and what there is is largely a reflection of the anticipation of what's to come. If we look at how many races are involved at the top end then to get to 50% of the total games played you need 8 races at all TVs. 6 at 1500 and 4 over 2000.

That brings me back to focussing on the diversity question of high TVs, where getting more Av8 teams involved would be a better place than we are today. Perhaps not the whole answer, but certainly a better one. The other aspect is that I'm aware there are lots of tipping points within BB where even relatively small changes can bring about dramatic shifts. Its very hard to predict where these are and that makes

Making agile teams less vulnerable to attrition will probably increase their popularity more. The problem being doing this without impacting the attrition levels on the tougher teams. Fundamentally the attrition mechanic is dependent on Av and lethality of teams, and this seems to drive popularity, so changing the attrition mechanic so its less Av dependent would seem an obvious answer. Claw was one answer to this, and with hindsight I think it does a job, but I think we need to look at other ones because at the moment we've got a hammer and are treating all the problems like nails.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Looking at the spread of teams what we actually need to do is make Khemri, Amazons, HE and PE more popular at the expense of the bash and claw teams. DE, Skaven, Lizards, WE, UD, Humans and Norse (and even Necros) are roughly where we want them. Chaos, Orc, CDs, Dwarves and Nurgle are the issue. .

But why? What is wrong with the 3 dominant teams being c-pomb?
No matter what you do to try to balance the game as much as possible there will always be the one or 2 that are percieved or are the best and will be used constantly.
For example take the xbox game madden. It rates players out of 100. Let's follow real life and say 3 Quarterbacks are rated 99. It really wouldn't matter what the ratings of the other players were in regards to diversity.
If for example there are 24 good quarterbacks and they are quite well balanced all within 2 points of each other, the three 99 rated ones will see the vast majority of the play even though they are only slightly better than all the 98 and 97 rated ones.
So seeing as we have to have a certain lack of diversity, and seems we have more diversity now than ever before, what exactly is the problem???

[plasmoid]

Hi guys,
a few quick points:

@Megr1m
[Puts on the Captain Picard face]: The line must be drawn here!
Seriously, MB has had one nerf in its history, I don't think it needs another. Finesse teams can do fine against teams with just mighty blow. IMO.

@Swilhelm:
I think there is truth to what you're saying. Certainly #1. I think extremely low winnings are a problem. A string of 10K and 20K games can really put an already losing team in the hole. Strictly as a house rule, I've been thinking about something like:
When rolling for winnings, there are no positive modifiers - instead you get extra dice, and you get to pick the single highest die. So, the max would be 60K.
I was thinking: 2 for a loss, 3 for a tie, 4 for a win, +1 (die) pr. point of fame.
Capping it at 60K would (I think) also make spiralling expenses slightly more effective.
...just thinking out loud.
For fun

Either way
@Dode/Doubleskulls
I'm thinking the current situation more than anything is a metagame-effect of a single flaw:
MB+PiOn is too good against AV7 teams. The stats are certainly impressive.
That makes AV7 teams hard to play in medium and long leagues.
It also gives any team with S-access an advantage against AV7 players.
As the environment becomes more bashy this way, Chaos (claw+S) teams rise to the forefront, because they can apply the combo against anyone - and also because in pure bash against pure bash, claw wins out.
As a result, the pool of viable teams gets reduced again.

So, IMO, we need a fix that makes the combo weaker against AV7.
For the record, I don't think claw + mighty blow in itself is crazy strong. Strong, sure, but not wildly so.

Cheers
Martin

[MKL]

(...)
@Dode/Doubleskulls
I'm thinking the current situation more than anything is a metagame-effect of a single flaw:
MB+PiOn is too good against AV7 teams. The stats are certainly impressive.
That makes AV7 teams hard to play in medium and long leagues.
It also gives any team with S-access an advantage against AV7 players.
As the environment becomes more bashy this way, Chaos (claw+S) teams rise to the forefront, because they can apply the combo against anyone - and also because in pure bash against pure bash, claw wins out.
As a result, the pool of viable teams gets reduced again.

So, IMO, we need a fix that makes the combo weaker against AV7.
For the record, I don't think claw + mighty blow in itself is crazy strong. Strong, sure, but not wildly so.

Cheers
Martin

Sorry Plasmoid, I don't understand fully your position.
Do you think Dode74's proposal can address the problem or not?

Making non-bash teams more attractive on a long league is an issue for me, too, and
Dode74 arguments persuaded me (leaving claw as is, and making po and mb non stackable on the same roll).

Or do you think is the Claw vs non-Claw teams the problem?

[Dr. Von Richten]

I have not followed all the discussion on this, but it seems to me that if there is a problem, it is the Piling On skill. It can effectively double the chance of a K.O/Injury, which is more than either Claw or Mighty Blow can achieve.

So how about this: Mighty Blow is reduced to a +1 to Armour Rolls only, while PO will give a +1 to Injury rolls only (if you go prone).

[dode74]

@ Doubleskulls - the only difference between the distributions is that in LRB 4 you got a high TV spike of Orcs and Khemri which you no longer get; instead, you get a high TV spike of Nurgle.

@ Plasmoid - I agree. Hence my proposal of not letting MB and PO stack but leaving the rest as it is (i.e. claw + MB or claw + PO is fine).

[Chris]

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).

I *think* the problem I have with this approach is that you are trying to use Claw as the mechanism of levelling attrition between teams - which in itself producing an inherent bias towards team with Claw. I think we are better off looking for other mechanics to even attrition across teams without relying entirely on a single skill.

Well i think we would all like different things from this. I would like to see the 'killer' combo made a bit more fun. Currently it is line up and see if you get above average luck to wipe out the opposition. And the annoying thing is there is only one counter. Another claw combo team. Orcs, Dwarves, Khemri - the teams without claw are the biggest losers. The few survivors from the elves can try and score, humans and other hybrids are stuffed anyway at high tv's and the other bash teams are worse off than them as they lack the speed or occassional players with better agility. There isn't really much you can do when you receive other than hope you don't see 4 players taken off the pitch - and the odds of that happening are not far fetched.

We also shouldn't confuse diversity with effectiveness. As has been pointed out by many people the reasons for taking teams aren't just 'to win'. Nerf bash teams and their performance verses agility teams will get even worse. Currently the only option they have at the moment is to try and kill them all. There seems to be a broad division of 4 types of teams. Claw bash who get to kill everyone. Bash who get to kill Hybrid and agility teams and lose out to claw bash teams. Agility who get an excellent chance of winning if not bashed to death. And hybrid teams who have a chance against agility, chance against bash and are probably the worse off if facing several claw bash teams as for many of them replacing key skilled players is an issue. Performance seems to diverge more and more as teams go on, with agility often pulling ahead of hybrids and claw bash pulling ahead of bash.

If everyone wanted to play the same 4 teams I would be fine with that as long as all teams had the chance to play well at 20, 30, 50 and 100 games into their life. Is the issue here teams development over matches or their performance for a given tv?

[DoubleSkulls]

@ Doubleskulls - the only difference between the distributions is that in LRB 4 you got a high TV spike of Orcs and Khemri which you no longer get; instead, you get a high TV spike of Nurgle.

@ Plasmoid - I agree. Hence my proposal of not letting MB and PO stack but leaving the rest as it is (i.e. claw + MB or claw + PO is fine).

I think the way the damage skills all have a multiplicative effect rather than an additive effect is a problem, and should be toned down. I think doing so will improve the balance between Claw access teams and other bashy teams, and may well help the AV8 teams be preferred.

However I now think the real mechanism to increasing diversity in long leagues is actually going to be something to level attrition across teams. I don't believe that mechanism lies in tweak to any of the damage causing skills (or defensive skills for that matter). I think we need to look an mechanisms to help squishy teams lose players less (and not just giving them Av bumps!). I'm not sure money is the real issue here, but the "bad game" where you lose several skilled players and have to rebuild from a long way down.

[swilhelm73]

As a very simple solution to PO, racial diversity and the advantage in winnings agile teams have, what about improving fouling? As a rough idea either add +1 to the armor or injury roll for any non-stunty/twitchy fouler, I don't think which matters much in the practice.

Consider:

PO: the easiest counter is fouling. The greater the risk of getting injured via foul, the less the chance of piling on in the first place.

Racial diversity: It increases the ability of ALL teams to injure opponents and slightly decrease the value of the standard Orc/DW mark, get knocked down, stand up, wait until opponent fails a block role, repeat.

Agile team winning advantage: Presuming that the rough risk of being thrown out is the same, it favors teams with cheap lineman so it will slightly buff Undead, Necro, Khemri, and slightly weaken DE/HE/WE/DW (70k)and to a lesser extent Chaos, ProE, Lz (60k) BUT it doesn't detract from the advantage in killing that every non-stunty fouler would get.

Also, if we do maintain the current risks of the fouler being thrown out, I think this is something that is more valuable at higher TV. Fouling an 80k Blitzer with your 50k Lineman is not the same decision as fouling a 180k blitzer with your 50k lineman.

So, if we just say add +1 to the armor or injury role for a foul by a non-stunty/twitchy it will slightly level killing ability, advance primarily hybrid teams win% at the expense of elves, and give a fair counter to PO.

This is a minor tweak, but arguably hits most of the points that I think lead to the racial imbalance...

[Harry Buddha Palm]

Why not just get rid of Piling On altogether? Most people agree that it's the problem skill. Why not just nip it right in the bud and get rid of it instead of trying to come up with these complicated fixes?

[dode74]

However I now think the real mechanism to increasing diversity in long leagues is actually going to be something to level attrition across teams.

You may be right, but it may well also be the case that we are setting the bounds too tight. We won't get equality until all the teams are 0-16 6338 GASM 50k, so it's probably worthwhile saying what we're after - what is the level of diversity we would like?

I'm not sure money is the real issue here, but the "bad game" where you lose several skilled players and have to rebuild from a long way down.

Quite possibly, and adjustment of MVP allocation might be a good way to help people out of that hole.

Consider:

PO: the easiest counter is fouling. The greater the risk of getting injured via foul, the less the chance of piling on in the first place.

Not that I am against buffing fouling (I am all for it, in fact) but I think this is overly simplistic. If you ask players who regularly PO, they only really use it when they can protect the PO player effectively from fouling.

[swilhelm73]

Not that I am against buffing fouling (I am all for it, in fact) but I think this is overly simplistic. If you ask players who regularly PO, they only really use it when they can protect the PO player effectively from fouling.

Isn't that a matter of degrees though? If you truly only use PO when the piler is 100% protected you won't use it very often. Increasing the payoff for a foul will make it more worth going after even a partially protected fouler.

Consider your standard PO/etc Beastman. With AV8 you need 2 assists generally for the foul to be worth it - so you'll need the player in the open. And +1 to the armor role as the way fouling works and all you need is to clear one side for a worthwhile foul with just the one assist...

Oh, and as a general axiom, isn't a simple rule change FAR more likely to ever become official then a more complex one?

Why not just get rid of Piling On altogether? Most people agree that it's the problem skill. Why not just nip it right in the bud and get rid of it instead of trying to come up with these complicated fixes?

Get rid of PO and you help teams with no or limited ST access - exacerbating the agility team win advantage- without addressing most of the reasons players may be choosing bashy teams.