limiting stat increases

[#crunch]

I would like to make a case for limiting or abolishing stat increases. The reason for this is that IMO, they are unbalancing. In extreme cases with double increases, such as a St4 Gutter Runner, single players become extremely dominant. Games involving such players tend to be very one-sided affairs. The whole thing is dependent on whether the mutant (no offense to Chaos - that's where mutants belong!) stays on the pitch or not. In some cases (e.g., an AG4 skink, or an AG5/leap WE catcher), the whole concept of setting up a defense becomes superfluous. As soon as that player has the ball and is within TD range, a TD is practically assured, independent of how the defense players are positioned.

I also think that stat increases are redundant in a way - there are skills that allow you to do the same things, just not quite as easily. Wanna move faster? Get sure feet and sprint. Need more hitting power? Get dauntless and guard. If you can have the same or better with a stat increase, skills are devalued.

My third argument is that, considering how severely they affect game balance, stat increases are extremely luck-dependent. Unless you get something stupid like an AG increase on a Khemri Mummy, stat increases are usually a lot better than double rolls. Some teams get 6 stat increases in 10 games, and those teams are going to be a lot stronger than a team with no stat increases in 10 games, at a roughly equal TR. This devalues coaching skill.

What I'd like to see is either
- capping stat increases at +1 per stat
OR (preferably)
- abolishing stat increases altogether

Limiting player development to skills/traits forces coaches to concentrate on playing their team as a whole, which would increase the tactical complexity of The Game. Limiting stat increases would also go a long way towards getting rid of the other (IMHO) unbalancing element in BB: One-turners.

[Strider_fr]

Limiting stat increases would also go a long way towards getting rid of the other (IMHO) unbalancing element in BB: One-turners.

One-turners will be dealt with in 3 ways :
- no stat (including MA) will be allowed to exceed 10 ;
- 10 on an improvement roll will be a choice between MA+1 and AV+1 ;
- Very Long Legs will no longer give MA+1.

This will make 1-turns less frequent, though not impossible.

[Rawne11]

- capping stat increases at +1 per stat

thats a good idea

[Kyrie001]

If stats become capped, what remains to be improved? Only tons of skills?

I prefer a 6 4 4 8 Block, Tackle, Lineman instead of a block, dodge, tackle, strip ball, shadowing one. (I cannot remember 4 of more skills on a player )

Will you remember every skill on every player? or you'll be half an hour to decide the lineup. Would you be smart enough to remember that "Willy Billy" has shadowing or tackle or any other skill when that elf dodges out your TZ?


And a final question, Why an AG6 Wardancer falls down as easy as an AG4?

[#crunch]

One-turners will be dealt with in 3 ways :
- no stat (including MA) will be allowed to exceed 10 ;
- 10 on an improvement roll will be a choice between MA+1 and AV+1 ;
- Very Long Legs will no longer give MA+1.

This will make 1-turns less frequent, though not impossible.

That's good. But don't you think that capping stat increases makes a (helluva) lot more sense than capping stats?

If a Gutter Runner, the fastest creature in BB, is limited to MA10, why should MA10 be attainable to a Dwarf Runner, too? And with the same extreme dice (4 tens), a wood elf catcher would also set his cruise control to MA10 - but hey, he can be as resilient as a treeman! I'm not saying this is likely to happen often, but with 60k+ coaches on FUMBBL you're bound to see most of the absurd things that can happen at least once or twice.

Limiting increases to +1 would have a pretty similar effect (no stat above 10, with the exception of treeman armor) while better maintaining racial peculiarities. And no AG6 throwers, too.

[narkotic]

I know where #crunch is coming from (after all he's in my league ) and on this issue we share opinion. I'm not even glancing at 1TScorer here, you can get them by other ways.

What I see is that almost every AG/ST increase disturbs the balance that is meant to exist between the various races/teams.

Every AG3 Bull Centaur, ST4 War Dancer, AG4 Orc Blitzer etc is something that bugs me. It is not a coincidence that you either have teams either with ST4 or AG4 or easy Block/Dodge access. And having AG5 or even AG6 players, allows them to do things that nomally aren't doable (or riskable) bc of the AG table.

But I doubt that this opinion is popular among BB players because it's obviously part of "star building". Even I had a AG6 Gutter Runner and ST4/AG4 Hobgoblins in my team at some point, they were fantastic to play with but I always had a feeling that this was "wrong" in terms of game balance.

[Joemanji]

Stat increases are heavily luck dependent, and can seriously unbalance a team. A big reason for this is the way TR is calculated under the LRB ... a ST up player is worth the same as a player with a normal skill.

PBBL goes some way to compensating more for this. A ST up player's value rises by 50K, compared to 20K for a normal skill. This means that teams who get a few lucky Improvement rolls are going to be dragged down in other ways (for example spiralling expenses).

Nothing worse than losing to a snotty nosed kid with a ST4 wardancer though!

[MattShepherd]

I think the +2 cap on anything is fine, really. +ST players are freaks, and double +ST players should be so wildly, radically, crazily rare that you only see them on FUMBBL, where there are so many teams that eventually EVERYTHING is probable (and at which point every rule can be "broken") or once or twice in your RL games... at which point every team in the game gangfouls until the little blighter is dead.

[duff]

and double +ST players should be so wildly, radically, crazily rare that you only see them on FUMBBL

Our legue has 2 of the buggers with only 13 teams in regular use (only 8 coaches)
A beastman with a carrer as a ball holder who's hard to blitze and my human blitzer with frenzy and sideswipe.

We also have 2 double agility upgrades.

[Darkson]

PBBL goes some way to compensating more for this. A ST up player's value rises by 50K, compared to 20K for a normal skill. This means that teams who get a few lucky Improvement rolls are going to be dragged down in other ways (for example spiralling expenses).

A good PBBL rule, one we're using in our LRB 4 league.

[Duke Jan]

The remedy to such increases is a boot with long sharp rusty spikes.

[Darkson]

We've found that works to.

[Duke Jan]

Changing dirty player to +1/+1 is such a bad idea if you consider stats increases, war dancers, gutter runners etc...

[Gorbad]

Our legue has 2 of the buggers with only 13 teams in regular use (only 8 coaches)
A beastman with a carrer as a ball holder who's hard to blitze and my human blitzer with frenzy and sideswipe.

We also have 2 double agility upgrades.

Unfortunately I agree on limiting stat upgrades to 1, as my wood Elf team has two ST5 guys, one blodge lino and one Wardancer with AG5 as well (face to face league, no online games) and I do agree that that's just wrong... I will happily abuse it though

[David Bergkvist]

Not allowing stat increases would make the game more boring and less varied in long leages. I think it's better to address the problems that arise from stat increases than to remove them.

If stat increases cause unsolveable problem in shorter leagues, how about disallowing them on the first few improvement rolls? I e, a player needs, say, 51 SPPs before he can get stat increases. Then you could also remove the IMO clunky rule that you are only allowed +2 in a stat (because there are only three improvement rolls at 51+ SPPs and up anyways).