DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

[Smeborg]

From the Mantic forum:

QUOTE

Up to now judwan in our games are 15-0 (9 landslides) exchanging teams between players. We'll give them another 5.
If they don't manage to lose, we'll just ban them from next league.

And I'm not saying they are unbeatable. They just ruin the game.

UNQUOTE

Correlates almost exactly with my experience of 7-0 (5 landslides). I was playing myself, these guys were playing each other, swapping teams.

[Talarius]

Such a bummer, as aesthetically, they were one of the teams that appealed to me the most. I haven't even received mine in the mail yet and they're already getting banned!

[Rolex]

Hey, that's my quote.

The problem is that in my playing group we are quite competitive.
A quick survey showed that, under the current rules, only one player would not play judwan.
Not a fun league...

[Axtklinge]

Hey, there's no reason why you can't have fun (and actually use) Jud teams...
Just make a league of their own!



Oh, but Jake has a point when he advises everyone to wait and see what's coming out of Season 3!

(Yeah, I know its probably not what he meant, but still...)

[Rolex]

We shouldn't be arsh on Jake.
We all remember the BB "Golden Rulebook".

I think one problem is the huge amount of projects being worked more or less at once.
And the second is the mass and competitiveness of playtesters.

Good, nice guys don't make good playtesters.
They are not interested in breaking the sistem and are not good at it.
Have you seen the "Dreadball Academy" videos on youtube?
I've seen the first and I think they played VERY badly.
I don't know if it was intentional but I counted several very bad decisions.
If they are an exemple of the playtesters I'm not surprised there are balance issues.

As I always say: let Italians playtest.
In being nasty, unsporting, exploiting S.O.B.s we are second to no one.

[Smeborg]

We shouldn't be arsh on Jake.
We all remember the BB "Golden Rulebook".

I think one problem is the huge amount of projects being worked more or less at once.
And the second is the mass and competitiveness of playtesters.

Good, nice guys don't make good playtesters.
They are not interested in breaking the sistem and are not good at it.
Have you seen the "Dreadball Academy" videos on youtube?
I've seen the first and I think they played VERY badly.
I don't know if it was intentional but I counted several very bad decisions.
If they are an exemple of the playtesters I'm not surprised there are balance issues.

As I always say: let Italians playtest.
In being nasty, unsporting, exploiting S.O.B.s we are second to no one.

I agree wholeheartedly, and we certainly shouldn't be harsh on Jake's arsh.

Of course all games should be tested only by nasty, unsporting, exploitative, manipulative, competitive, Italian S.O.B.s with knee-length beards. One of the main objectives of any playtest group should be to see if they can "break" the game. I too have my doubts about the playtest group and/or process, which I have expressed before.

But if all we need to do for now is drop 1 team and play with the other 7, that's not a bad outcome for a new game, is it?

All the best.

[Smeborg]

I just posted the following over on the Mantic troll farm. Probably a case of lighting the blue touchpaper and standing well back, but I mean well.

QUOTE

2 SIMPLE SUGGESTIONS TO ELIMINATE "PERPETUAL LOOPS" FROM THE GAME (LONG POST)

I have been open-minded about the following situations, but after both playing and play-testing, I am inclined to regard them as "bugs" in the rules:

SITUATION 1: You position a Striker on your opponent's no.1 Launch hex. You score a Strike with another player. The ball is relaunched, your Striker catches the ball in the Launch Zone with doubled success, uses the Free Action to Pass the ball to another Striker, who catches the ball with doubled success, and uses the Free Action to score a Strike. The ball is relaunched, your Striker catches the ball in the Launch Zone with doubled success... (and you have a perpetual loop of scoring, without the turn marker being advanced). Abilities such as 3+ Skill, A Safe Pair of Hands, Lucky/Really Lucky help with this loop, as do lots of Coaching Dice (you can start a game with 7). I set up such a loop in a test game (Judwan), but the game ended with a landslide win before I was able to "loop the loop". Judwan are the best at this loop, but both Corp. teams and Forge Fathers are not far behind. It does not take many games (perhaps 5-10) for these teams to develop Strikers with 3+ Skill and A Safe Pair of Hands.

SITUATION 2: The ball is launched, your opponent's Rush is due to begin. You use a "SuperJack" to Run Interference, moving onto the ball in the Launch Zone. He picks up the ball with doubled success, and uses the Free Action to either (i) pass to a Striker who catches with doubled success and uses the Free Action to score a Strike, or (ii) the Jack himself scores a 2-point Strike (using Slide and Dashes). The ball is re-launched, you use a "SuperJack" to Run Interference, moving onto the ball in the Launch Zone... (and you have a perpetual loop of scoring without the turn marker being advanced). My best effort to date was 4 consecutive (looped) 2-point Strikes in a test game. A "SuperJack" is one who has all or most of the following abilities: 3+ Skill, 3+ Speed, Slide, Stretch. Lucky/Really Lucky help too, as of course does Run Interference (although RI is not strictly necessary, you can use cards). As with Situation 1, lots of Cards and Coaching Dice are a big help. While it will take a while for "SuperJacks" to be developed, it requires only 4-5 skill advances.

SITUATION 3: Your opponent scores, and the ball is re-launched. One of your players is stranded on your no. 1 launch hex, where he is obliged to catch and drop the ball. The ball scatters, your Rush ends (you have failed a catch), so it is now your opponent's turn. Your opponent scores, the ball is re-launched, your stranded player is obliged to catch and drop the ball... (and you have a quasi-perpetual loop where your opponent scores in his turn, and you lose each of your turns). The Judwan are past masters at this loop, as all their players start with the ability Misdirect, plus a related racial ability giving +1 to Feints. But other players can create the loop with a bit of skill and luck (or by acquiring the ability Misdirect themselves). You may create the unfortunate loop yourself by failing to pick up the ball in the launch zone while facing the wrong way.

Now I don't mind some of these situations occurring once in a while, there is a certain low cunning and *******ry involved, which is not unattractive. But when creating a perpetual loop becomes easy and common, and the game revolves around it (which it will as teams develop), I suggest it is tedious, and a tweak to the rules is therefore desirable. I propose the following modest changes, with the aim of doing as little violence to the rules as possible, and in the spirit of the game:

SMEBORG'S FIRST RULE: Following a recent directive from Digby, the Referees are hyper-vigilant about perceived interference in the Launch Zone. The following constitute a Foul ("Launch Interference"):

(a) Catching a re-launched ball in a Launch Hex with one of your players immediately after your team has scored a Strike. Failing such a catch does not constitute a Foul.

(b) A Jack using Run Interference to pick up the ball in a Launch Hex (note that there are 10 such hexes [Edit: sorry, 9], and it does not matter how the ball got there). Failing to pick up the ball in this way does not constitute a Foul.

SMEBORG'S SECOND RULE: A failed catch only causes a Rush to end if the catcher was the target of a pass by a team-mate during his team's Rush. All other rules relating to ending a Rush remain unchanged.

NOTES: The first rule has the advantage (IMO) that these plays will not be eliminated from the game, they will just be made a lot more difficult to loop (and you risk losing your best players to the dugout). It makes moving the Referee more interesting (IMO), as well as adding spice to the cards "Are you Blind?" and "I'm Watching You!". You can still achieve a perpetual loop by moving the Referee and playing the card "Are you Blind?" If you manage all that, kudos to you.

The second rule eliminates the loop and has the advantage (IMO) that your Rush cannot end after you make a successful Steal or Slam on the opposing ball carrier (but that's just my opinion, I know the designer does not share it).

I may well introduce these rules into our little league. In your replies, please try to keep on topic, and to be clear, I suggest you specify whether you are talking about situation 1, situation 2(i), situation 2(ii), situation 3, rule 1(a), rule 1(b), rule 2, or the matter of opinion at the end.

All the best.

UNQUOTE

[Chris]

Seen an interesting opinion from some players that Juds should have been designed as an all Jack team, combined with shifting some of the modifiers around.

At this point I think for Dreadball to significantly improve (beyond a few tweaks proposed by people) there will have to be a fair bit of tinkering post season three, starting with looking at who gets which bonuses and rebalancing teams from that point.

[spubbbba]

I'm just worried that the nature of the Kickstarter funding campaign encourages short-term-ism. Jake is required to produce cool themed teams to bring in the pledges, and then is under pressure to produce rules for them against the delivery promises. If your original idea turns out to be less than workable under further testing, you can't quietly drop it cause you're committed to delivering 500 units at the end of the month! Cheaper to bluff your way through it, say if the community isn't smart enough to find a tactic to can fix it for us we may come back to it at some undefined later date (as long as the pledges keep coming in for future seasons). "Oh, and have we mentioned how pretty the scenery is for Deadzone?"

That is a concern, GW have got a lot of flack from dropping specialist games but they supported them for quite a long time and have kept the models on sale fro about 15 years.

I don’t know how long a smaller company like Mantic would be able to support a product if it proves to be less profitable than their other stuff.
Dreadball will likely have the same issues profit wise as Bloodbowl does. The statistic and skill variance is quite small so you can only do so much with teams, unless you either have a lot of them very similar or bring in new rules.
If you just keep to a set number of teams then what else can you add to the game that people will want to buy, and more importantly buy from you?
They will likely find that your average Warpath or Kings of War player buys more models for 1 army than a Dreadball player needs to field all the teams.

[Axtklinge]

I would imagine that as long as they have their initial investment paid for (I don't have that much info on how it works, but presume that 'kickstarter' would cover for that), then even if the cash flow in, is slow from that moment on (like a few hundred boxes per year?), it would be plain profit.
Then from time to time they could release expansions (or new teams), drawing more attention to the game, possibly getting new players, not only selling the mentioned (new) goodies, but also the old starter box again.


Rules wise, I agree with all said above.
The pressure to have it all out on 'pledge' time lines, may turn out to be a strong reason for having mechanics and teams less tested.
Still, if I'm not mistaken first edition of BB dates from 1986 (27 years ago), and we keep having rules changes and teams tweaked, so I'd presume that with time and proper feedback from the community, things may eventually improve.

[MattDakka]

Still, if I'm not mistaken first edition of BB dates from 1986 (27 years ago), and we keep having rules changes and teams tweaked

Which rules changes and teams tweaked?
Currently we are stuck with CRP.

[Axtklinge]

Which rules changes and teams tweaked?
Currently we are stuck with CRP.

Yes...
Well, not really. CRP it's actually LRB 6.0, and and such there have been quite a few (LRB's) before, with plenty of play testing, rules changing, positionals taken and others added, etc.
And it's not a "done deal", because coaches are always trying out to improve whatever problems they find (we even have a section for that in this forum).

(Sorry for digressing from the thread theme...)

[Darkson Designs]

We have started our second season in our league with humans winning the first season. Season one for us we only had 4 coaches 3 of which were KS backers. With Season two we now have 7 coaches. Our LGS has been very supportive of our league and been very happy that we are bringing sales to the shop.

I am using the Judwans for this season and just had my first game with them today. They are nasty at what they do Steal the ball and throwing. The game ended in a landslide by the 9th rush. We will see how they do the rest of the season.

If you want to talk about banning a team or MVP lets talk about Number 88!!!!!! Man I hate playing verses him. That MVP is down right cheeze.

[Dzerards]

Wasn't Number 88 nerfed in the season 2 rule book?

As for Judwan, I think it is indicative that the current way to beat them is to form a cage of prone players around your ball carrier, wait until over time then emerge and score the winner.

[Dzerards]

First round of our local club's 24 team league has just finished. There will be an other 4 rounds. Humans dominate the top of the table with Veer-Myn in second and the sole Judwan team a lowly 4th! None of the 5 Forge Father teams manage to win their first game.

I've played 7 games now, 1 loss with Forge Fathers and 6 wins with Veer-myn, the last four by landslides. My initial feelings are it is definitely a Strikers game. Bash teams have a hard time for a number of reasons, the main one being it is nearly impossible for them to control the tempo of the game. The 2-1 grind is the classic BB example of tempo control, allowing a Bash team to play to its strengths. But in DB, with only 6 players, reduced tackle zones (threat hexs) and the opponent able to attempt multiple slam and steal actions, it is very difficult to retain possession of the ball for multiple turns. Also the benefits of removing opposing players are not that great, so it usually takes up to 3-4 actions to set up a slam likely to remove a player (moving up assists, manoeuvring around to the rear arc, etc) and only one action by the opponent to move a replacement on from the subs bench. Also with the ability to take multiple actions with the same piece teams don't see significantly reduced capability until they are down to 2-3 players!

That said most of the people playing, myself included, find it very enjoyable. Many have noted how simple the rules are, and that ease of learning plus the low costs to entry have surely contributed to how many have joined the league. Though that simplicity comes at the expense of tactical subtlety. If BB is chess, then DB is a fun checkers.