Thinking ahead: NTBB 2013

[garion]

zons - that isn't my roster. That is double skulls, I just made it a little better as his was too weak. And if you are looking for validation from the ex BBRC for some reason then you would have it there no doubt as it is his roster. Also I do not understand why you are seeking authority, these are your house rules. Zons needs a complete overhaul. You will just go round in circles not achieving anything with that roster unless you do something big. It is too broken against some teams and too aweful against others. It is just a terrible design. I would rather see it removed from the game than allow it to stay dodge all round. The only complaints i tend to see about changing this roster come from people that abuse the use of it in the first place. People that sweetspot with them and min max with them in box or matchmaker.

1, I don't see any teams with a lot of money at high Tv in perpetual leagues tbh. You do in match maker environments. But as we are so often told that isnt what the rules were written for. The only teams i have seen with huge quantities of gold in perpetual leagues have been undead and necromantic. But they both typically stuggle in high Tv match ups anyway and I do not see how having that money is any advantage anyway as there is nothing to spend it on. Bank rules only punish teams with expensive players and causes cash dumping which is so stupid. You are trying to fix something here that isn't broken, it makes it more complicated and it doesn't actually achieve anything positive. Though I agree a Tv overhaul is required because the system sucks but I wouldn't expect that to happen in your rules and probably for good reason.

5, why not? wood elves couldn't afford the roster they have no in LRB4 dark elves used to take all linemen in lrb4 sometimes and were still great. The reason those rosters do sooo well now (journeymen aside) is because their starting rosters have imrpoved way more than most teams because FF is no longer required. 60k rr is a far better change to the team imo for balancing the roster. WDs are meant to be the best players in the game losing dodge is just far too big. It makes the players too vulnerable at low tv imo especially for their price. If you swap dodge for fend they need a 10k price drop too according to the pricing guide iirc. The other problem with no blodge WDs is when you replace them at high TV you have a player that is far far harder to skill up and get your team back on track. I'm not sure you have considered how big a nerf this is at high TV play.

60k rrs means the starting roster loses a catcher (or thrower if you went for one, though i dont know why you would) from the starting roster, which is a fairly big nerf imo, it doesn't hurt the team too much when they lose a WD either and it pushes the Teams TV up slightly with a 3rd and 4th rr. Its a far more subtle nerf but doesn't hurt the character of the team which sadly your proposed change does.

[Darkson]

The Bank is probably one of the few NTBB rule changes I agree with, got them in my rules to.

[garion]

but what does it actually achieve?

it sounds sensible in theory bowl but having used it, it doesnt achieve anything other than punishing teams with expensive positionals and forcing teams to dump cash which is just plain stupid. Why would a sports team throw their money away?

[Juriel]

Bank drops the effective TV teams are functioning at (since you cannot replace every loss at once). It feels a bit punitive, and may make one bad match spiral into further ones (lost 3 blitzers in one game, can only afford to buy 1 back right now, may take 4 games to gather enough money for the other 2).

Haven't made up my mind about it yet. I think, if the desire is to set limits on just how high TV teams are allowed to go to, there's a lot better ways.

[dode74]

The ability to stockpile large amounts of cash at mid-TV allows teams to "blast through" the soft cap for TV for a sustained period. It also allows teams to stockpile cash for things like Majors, where a team at high TV can effectively nullify a lower TV team's inducements through simply buying stacks their own. A morg+bribe+wizard (as an example) is great, but it's nowhere near as good if the opponent has the same and you can then only spend the same TV differential on something less useful.

[MattDakka]

I don't have an opinion about the bank (never tested it), but, if it looks weird to Garion (and forcing coaches to spend money is a bit weird, even if I understand the reasons behind it) what about a lower Spiralling Expenses' cap? Lower than 1800, I mean.

[Shteve0]

I've been having this conversation with Martin privately, but for what it's worth: I feel very comfortable with NTBB where it makes changes that are subtle, understated and only tweak obviously (uh oh) overpowered (uh oh again!) areas of the rules; and not at all comfortable where untested personal flavours are introduced.

That said, this is obviously a house rule set, so Martin is perfectly entitled to introduce rules as he sees fit. The question (for me) then becomes one of clarity; is this intended as a mass appeal environment, a kind of test ground for a popularly more 'stable' CRP (in which case far too many buffs and tweaks are being incorporated for my liking); or is this an absolute house rule set devised for playtesting fun new ideas as dictated by its author (in which case it's not an environment I feel I need or want to be involved in)?

I's suggest that the future of NTBB as a viable mass appeal product is in championing a small handful of well thought out tweaks that are (fairly) universally acceptable, and introduced slowly over time. If this is already the intention, I fear a little more reluctance in introducing any changes than we're currently seeing may be in order.

Personally, I feel that lonerless trolls is quite enough of a boost to goblins; that ogres have been boosted too much; that loner mummies (with MB and S only access) is the only short term nerf undead warrants (despite that not offering the long term boost they require); that a 10k increase to zon linewomen (with all positions gaining A access free); and a wardancer without block (and no other change) would do for those teams. I'd like to see a little more boldness in addressing the Orcs and Humans. And I like the change to dwarfs.

But, and here's the big issue, we all have wishlists like this. So I guess I'm looking for any house ruleset I'd adopt to pursue only the clear common ground without all but the most absolutely necessary of tweaks. For me, it would be very difficult for changes here to be too conservative - the more risk, the lesser the ruleset appeals.

[TalonBay]

I think the bank rules are the one standout awful part in a bunch of changes that overall I think work quite well. Our league has adopted these changes but is specifically raising the bank value to a point where it has minimal effect.

Given that people don't even agree where they'd like blood bowl to go I doubt you'd get a set of rules changes to appeal to everyone. These have a specific aim (narrowing the gap between the teams) and include some tweaks to the rules alongside that, if you're one of the coaches who likes the range of of team strengths as it is then this would never appeal regardless of the actual changes.

[Darkson]

I think the bank rules are the one standout awful part in a bunch of changes that overall I think work quite well. Our league has adopted these changes but is specifically raising the bank value to a point where it has minimal effect.

Doesn't that just defeat the object of the Bank? What measures are you putting in place to stop high-AV teams hoarding cash?

[garion]

The ability to stockpile large amounts of cash at mid-TV allows teams to "blast through" the soft cap for TV for a sustained period. It also allows teams to stockpile cash for things like Majors, where a team at high TV can effectively nullify a lower TV team's inducements through simply buying stacks their own. A morg+bribe+wizard (as an example) is great, but it's nowhere near as good if the opponent has the same and you can then only spend the same TV differential on something less useful.

Only true in match maker and box environments I have never seen a crp only team accumulate big sums of money in league then stick in the break even zone with a cash stockpile before.

as I said, I have observed one or two undead and necro teams with quite a lit of money in perpetual leagues but they don't win anything anyway once they and their opponents are fairly consistently around a 2000 tv zone, so the cash isn't really helping them anyway.

[harroguk]

I think the bank rules are the one standout awful part in a bunch of changes that overall I think work quite well. Our league has adopted these changes but is specifically raising the bank value to a point where it has minimal effect.

Doesn't that just defeat the object of the Bank? What measures are you putting in place to stop high-AV teams hoarding cash?

We have an active bounties system that sucks Cash out of the League, whilst we cant force people to spend cash on it the currently limit (200k) means that the high TV teams cant horde indefinitely.

[garion]

I think the bank rules are the one standout awful part in a bunch of changes that overall I think work quite well. Our league has adopted these changes but is specifically raising the bank value to a point where it has minimal effect.

Doesn't that just defeat the object of the Bank? What measures are you putting in place to stop high-AV teams hoarding cash?

Cpomb or just pomb takes care of those teams. As does SE. No need to add another mechanic when the problem doesn't exist in perpetual leagues anyway.

[Darkson]

I've seen it in leagues, which is why I added back into our league, and we only play about 20 games (or less).

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
Garion first:
Zons

zons - that isn't my roster. That is double skulls, I just made it a little better as his was too weak. And if you are looking for validation from the ex BBRC for some reason then you would have it there no doubt as it is his roster.

Actually, it's not the same roster. And if I were looking for BBRC validation, I figure his version would be more likely to get it than yours. But my point stands - nobody agress where amazons need to go. So I'd rather stick closer to "the devil you know" than run with any one of a multitude of equally popular/unpopular rosters.

But really, I'm not looking for BBRC validation of the rosters at all.

Bank

1, I don't see any teams with a lot of money at high Tv in perpetual leagues tbh.

You don't? Strange.
I've got some just among my own teams in the MBBL. And that's after 20 games.
It's especially the 'hard to damage' team types that run up the cash.
And in a setting where the killstack has been nerfed, and team annihilation has become less likely, cash will be easier to accumulate.

I know you think dumping cash is stupid. But the cash has to go somewhere in a system where the cap relies on size of treasury. Since you tried it, I've made it easier to access/burn the cash.

Edit: So it's either restrict cash further (which I think would be very bad for the game), dump cash or come up with something worth buying between games, that doesn't give an abusable advantage...

Edit 2:

Cpomb or just pomb takes care of those teams. As does SE. No need to add another mechanic when the problem doesn't exist in perpetual leagues anyway.

I say the problem does exist. And that SE doesn't work if you have a cash stockpile. And that pomb/cpomb has been nerfed.

Wood Elfs
Personal preference perhaps, but I think that a super expensive team will be less enjoyable to play if it becomes even more vulnerable to cash flow problems. Be that as it may. The decision to adjust the wood elfs via the wardancer was made back in 2009, and I'm going with that. Testing, and perhaps tweaking - but not overhauling unless absolutely necessary. If I started from scratch every time somebody disliked something, I'd be doing this over and over and over...

Oh, and the wardancer doesn't start dodgeless. And I firmly belive that if someone can't score an easy TD on a rookie with AG4, dodge and leap, then they're doing something wrong.

Cheers
Martin

[dode74]

Only true in match maker and box environments I have never seen a crp only team accumulate big sums of money in league then stick in the break even zone with a cash stockpile before.

as I said, I have observed one or two undead and necro teams with quite a lit of money in perpetual leagues but they don't win anything anyway once they and their opponents are fairly consistently around a 2000 tv zone, so the cash isn't really helping them anyway.

I've seen it with both Chaos and Orcs, where both teams were able to maintain 3000TV for about 20 matches, and were able to use cash on inducements for important games.