High TV Chaos simply ruins this game

[FabWolf]

I always try to not concede but when you reach nearly 2000 tv you face just Chaos teams with 7-8 MB Claws Guard and some PO, often fouling each turn with the other guys. After 3 turns you found yourself already with 3-4 injuries and KOs with the other men trapped and being hit or fouled without any chance to play the game, with the opponent team keeping killing your men without any interest in the ball. Please fix the game at high tv, this team builds are not possible to play against, it is just unplayable. Please listen to players who want to play the game and not just forcing the opponent to concede, avoiding to lose their own players conceding themselves after the first apo used to team build with overpowered stack of strenght and mutation skills. I have many hundreds of game played, the game after some TV becomes just silly. Please find a way to fix this, these games are nonsense and not because I do not want to definitively lose my own players, they are a nonsense because they are unplayable

[skydancer]

You'll get this answer: thr problem are not chaos but the game format.

bb2 main game mode suck and they're not going to change it.

[FabWolf]

I don't think it is just the game format, the problem possibily can occur also in private leagues after a certain number of games. It is just unbalanced at high TV, with stacking bashing skills being impossible to counter if widespread in a team. They should try to balance their power or some race which has access to them for all their men. It just doesnt work. I know the usual answers, it's the only way to prevent AGI team to dominate. Probably this thing is just a consequence of giving to some races streght or AGi skills to all their players, I think that "linemen" of every race shouldnt ever have access to GA or GS, just G A S with or without M or they should rebalance some skills being too strong when combined together, Nearly 60% of KO or better is impossible to play against when you face a team with 7-8 men with this chances, who can have also all the other skills like tackle and guard, can't dodge, can't hit back and can't even foul because after very few turns I have no free and or enough men

[Dode]

Originally posted by FabWolf:

I don't think it is just the game format, the problem possibily can occur also in private leagues after a certain number of games.

It doesn't, in general. There are leagues where it has happened, but there are also leagues where Wood Elves have been an issue.

It is just unbalanced at high TV,

Balance is defined in this game as the race having a lifetime win% in the range defined for their tier. Tiers are defined here: http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopic.php?p=482918#p482918
By that definition (and it really is the only one that matters since it is the one the TT game designers used) the team is not broken.

It is an environmental thing: the only places there is an endemic problem with high TV Chaos is MM leagues. Since there is no incentive for higher TV chaos teams to play each other, since the 51SPP* rule in particular is missing, since you can play (and concede, if necessary) many games a day, and since there is no long-term incentive to win matches rather than build the team, they can concede with impunity and keep their players, building up to the silly-high TVs you see there. In leagues there is a desire to win matches, commissioners can apply the 51SPP rule, most leagues run weekly matches (increasing the real-time taken to build a team) and most leagues frown on concessions, meaning the particular criteria for the problem to show up tend not to occur.

* For those who don't know, the 51SPP rule states that if your team concedes when you are able to field 3 or more players on the next drive then any player of 51SPP or above has a 50% chance of leaving the team. This is somewhat problematic in an online environment as genuine disconnections (e.g. actual outages, BSOD, power cut) could result in losing multiple players through no fault of the coach.

[FabWolf]

Dode ok, I would be just curious to read how the tiers behave at different TV, because you can consider a game balanced because 1000 games show to you that the winning % aren't unbalanced but possibily they are very different at different TV ranges, making the game unplayable for certain teams for some TV range and/or too easy for others in the same conditions. It's ok to have races progressing differently, but a certain range of balance should be always achieved, because having a team with 40% at low TV and 80% at high TV, makes it a 50% team (being played the game mostly at mid-low TV), but also a very bad race design in gameterms of enjoyability

Well if the 51SPP could be a fix, please implement it asap, but I think that the real problem is having some skills too strong when combined togheter and/or having some teams with too easy access for all their roles to a great variety of skill categories and these combinations, as I wrote above. Refining the skill access would have almost zero consequences in terms of balance in the low TV range but it would balance enormeously the higher ranges. Also these nerfs suggested by Plasmoid could be tested http://www.plasmoids.dk/bbowl/NTBB.htm because actually there is no enjoyment at playing against some team builds at high tv. A match with 8-9 injuries or 20+ Armours breaks (on one side), as it happens some times (and it would happen more if people wouldnt concede before) I think aren't matches anyone wants to play

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Dode is like the terminator of BB forums. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

[Dode]

I would be just curious to read how the tiers behave at different TV

Two issues with that:
1. The balance is not based around "at a TV". Some teams are designed to be bad at one TV while good at others. To get 24 teams which are equally good at all TVs is not really possible: it limits the diversity you can have.
2. The data we have, which runs to hundreds of thousands of games, is subject to randomness: the dice have an effect on the results. That means that even when you aggregate the results there is a margin of error which means the true mean (i.e. not affected by randomness, for want of a better phrase) of the race is (to a predetermined probability, usually 95%) somewhere in the band from the bottom to the top of that margin. Since that band is determined at least in part by sample size, splitting down into TV bands increases the size of the band, making for even more uncertainty. In particular there is limited data for very high TV play, which means the bands are very wide indeed.

because having a team with 40% at low TV and 80% at high TV, makes it a 50% team (being played the game mostly at mid-low TV), but also a very bad race design in gameterms of enjoyability

It's the intent. That you don't enjoy it doesn't make it bad design, merely that you don't enjoy it. Again, though, the issue is the environment: it forces you to play at TVs rather than at your own race's best spot. That doesn't happen in leagues.

I think that the real problem is having some skills too strong when combined togheter and/or having some teams with too easy access for all their roles to a great variety of skill categories and these combinations, as I wrote above.

Define "too strong". Thing is, even at high TV Chaos doesn't win that many games, certainly not enough to put it out of the Tier banding. So if the race is still Tier 1 even at high TV then it can't be too strong.

Personally I think many of Plasmoid's suggestions are misguided and horrible, and they are entirely untested (so we have no idea if they actually work) but I would not be averse to making them (and other changes) optionally available in private (MM or otherwise) leagues.

[FabWolf]

Originally posted by Dode:

Two issues with that:
1. The balance is not based around "at a TV". Some teams are designed to be bad at one TV while good at others. To get 24 teams which are equally good at all TVs is not really possible: it limits the diversity you can have.

I suspected it, as I wrote I think that it's ok to have the teams progressing differently but there always should be a match worth to be played between two teams at the same TV, which it means (apart maybe the "funny" races which aren't meant to be truly competitive and the fun about playing them is in other game aspects, but they are not even in this game) the player should be happy to play that game and have reasonable chances to win

It's the intent. That you don't enjoy it doesn't make it bad design, merely that you don't enjoy it. Again, though, the issue is the environment: it forces you to play at TVs rather than at your own race's best spot. That doesn't happen in leagues.

The intent is having players frustrated and not happy to play against teams of the same TV which they have minimal chances to beat and only through luck and not ability and that can only destroy their teams? Who enjoys this design apart those who have just fun in destroying other teams using team builds impossible to play against and made specifically to win trying to force conceding? It is so funny that even these players usually concede when they are at risk of losing one of their players, so most of them implicitely agree it is not funny and they just put themselves on the side which ruins others game to have more chances to have theirs not ruined. The game should always be somewhat competitive at any range (or after a certain TV you are just intended to be a toy for some Chaos player?), it is just silly to play a match you can win just with a tremendous amount of luck and if you do you wont get enough money to buy replacements for the players you have lost and that, instead usually you just find yourself taking blocks and injuries encircled by alot of players with any sort of skill to disallow you to play and injure your players with more than 50% chance to achieve at least a ko

Define "too strong". Thing is, even at high TV Chaos doesn't win that many games, certainly not enough to put it out of the Tier banding. So if the race is still Tier 1 even at high TV then it can't be too strong.

Where I can find these data? I mean win% per race at different tv ranges? As I said I am curious, because I think that some race are really unbalanced at high ranges (and not the funny tier 3 races). Too strong is almost 60% Ko or better for 7-8 players with guard of a team with four STR4 and one STR5, just look at any popular chaos team build in the 2000+ TV range, they are almost unplayable to play against apart other Chaos, because making a casualty is a spiralling mechanism which makes easier to make other casualties and the game often becomes a nonsense after few turns

[Dode]

there always should be a match worth to be played between two teams at the same TV

There is.
As I said, these Chaos teams are only really found, certainly in any sort of numbers, in the MM environment. The environment facilitates the creation of these teams which aren't endemic anywhere else. The lack of a long term goal other than teambuilding, the ability to teambuild with impunity due to no penalty for conceding, and the ability to play many, many matches over a very short space of time mean that what is, in any other environment, a nigh-unobtainable build is actually very easy to achieve.
As for the intent, no team is actually 40-80 in the rates you mention. Even at high TV the sample size and the mean create a band which overlaps the 45-55% band for tier 1, meaning we can't say they are actually outside it to a high degree of confidence. The site which has this data is down at the moment, but it's usually here: http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/stats2.html
That site only has raw means. In case you don't know about margins of error there is a simple to use calculator here: http://www.comres.co.uk/our-work/margin-of-error-calculator/
Put a couple of million in the "population" box (since the population of actual potential games is practically infinite) and the number of matches in "sample" and it'll give you an idea of the margin of error to apply to the win%.

Too strong is 60% Ko or better

"Too strong" should be a performance metric, which is defined by the game designer, not an arbitrary selection of a mechanism using post-hoc calculations. You've basically decided that it's too strong, looked at the numbers, and then claimed that those numbers define too strong: the logic is backwards.
Bseides, it's wrong. The 60%+ is actually ~58% for KO or better with CPOMB, and that totally ignores the fact that you have to get a block in the first place. 2d vs Block is ~55%, and 2d vs Blodge is ~30%. That makes the actual odds of KO or better on any one block ~32% and ~.17% respectively.

just look at any popular chaos team build in the 2000 TV range, they are almost unplayable to play against apart other Chaos,

Actually most elven teams have a >50% win% vs Chaos at higher TV, largely because the Chaos teams you mention skill up to play vs bash and not vs agi teams. Sure, the elves lose some players, but they are winning matches. Isn't that the point?

[FabWolf]

Originally posted by Dode:

There is.
As I said, these Chaos teams are only really found, certainly in any sort of numbers, in the MM environment. The environment facilitates the creation of these teams which aren't endemic anywhere else. The lack of a long term goal other than teambuilding, the ability to teambuild with impunity due to no penalty for conceding, and the ability to play many, many matches over a very short space of time mean that what is, in any other environment, a nigh-unobtainable build is actually very easy to achieve.
As for the intent, no team is actually 40-80 in the rates you mention. Even at high TV the sample size and the mean create a band which overlaps the 45-55% band for tier 1, meaning we can't say they are actually outside it to a high degree of confidence. The site which has this data is down at the moment, but it's usually here: http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/stats2.html
That site only has raw means. In case you don't know about margins of error there is a simple to use calculator here: http://www.comres.co.uk/our-work/margin-of-error-calculator/
Put a couple of million in the "population" box (since the population of actual potential games is practically infinite) and the number of matches in "sample" and it'll give you an idea of the margin of error to apply to the win%.

No other site? I would like to see pairings of races at tv ranges. That is balance, not one race always winning against another and always losing against another one, and I would like to see how it goes after the 2000 TV, because the games in my experience becomes all bash vs all dodge, which is very stupid. Are you sure they are 45 55 vs any other race in the game?

"Too strong" should be a performance metric, which is defined by the game designer, not an arbitrary selection of a mechanism using post-hoc calculations. You've basically decided that it's too strong, looked at the numbers, and then claimed that those numbers define too strong: the logic is backwards.
Bseides, it's wrong. The 60%+ is actually ~58% for KO or better with CPOMB, and that totally ignores the fact that you have to get a block in the first place. 2d vs Block is ~55%, and 2d vs Blodge is ~30%. That makes the actual odds of KO or better on any one block ~32% and ~.17% respectively.

Well of course it's my definition of too strong, you asked me. The skills you have to take before don't make any difference because we are talking about high TV teams, other high TV teams don't have any mean to counter incredible effective bashing skills apart dodging or hitting back, but not all teams have access to dodging and/or bashing skills for all their players. So this generates the problem I was talking about regarding access to skill categories for all the players, it shifts the game toward extremes of bashing and dodging, with the difference that dodging can be countered by some skills like tackling and doesn't take your players out of the game, for bashing there are a bunch of skills (dodge but not for everyone and fend but just against PO and following but both become almost useless when encircled in low numbers), the only real chance to counter an all-members bashing team is having everyone with dodge to try to be hit once per turn (but you need another all member dodge team, which means Elves) or having high STR and/or AV (but it requires to have another bashing team or a stat level up for the others but is useless against claws)

Actually most elven teams have a >50% win% vs Chaos at higher TV, largely because the Chaos teams you mention skill up to play vs bash and not vs agi teams. Sure, the elves lose some players, but they are winning matches. Isn't that the point?

How about the other teams? The best you can get is being an elf team and winning the game and losing half squad?

[koadah]

Originally posted by Jimmy Fantastic:

Dode is like the terminator of BB forums. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

+1

Give it up FabWolf. You are wasting your time.

[Dode]

No other site? I would like to see pairings of races at tv ranges.

http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/racevsrace.html when koadah fixes it ;)

That is balance, not one race always winning against another and always losing against another one,

So Rock Paper Scissors is unbalanced, yes?

and I would like to see how it goes after the 2000 TV, because the games in my experience becomes all bash vs all dodge,

They do, but you've rather missed the point: >2000TV is not the "normal" range for the game to be played. The soft cap on TV from SE is about 2100.

Are you sure they are 45 55 vs any other race in the game?

That is not the metric: lifetime win percentage is.

It's ok to not like it.

Well of course it's my definition of too strong, you asked me.

And since it is yours I am free to disagree with it, which I do. I've even given reasons why, including the fact that it's a (badly) reverse-engineered definition based on a preconception of something you've already decided you don't like.

other high TV teams don't have any mean to counter incredible effective bashing skills

Yeah, they do. For every Chaos player with claw an orc or dorf should have guard, for example. That was part of my point in stating the odds vs block or blodge players: the other skills reduce the odds of pitch removal.
Then there's the fact that there are a LOT of teams missing, particularly the regen teams, which themselves counter "excessive" bashing quite nicely by simply having the players come back.

So yes, there are counters, but that is not to change the basic fact: the part of the game you are complaining about is only really an issue in MM. The issue, again, is the environment rather than the skills themselves.
That said, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument that the variance is too high: some matches the CPOMB dice are on fire and take you apart, while others it does little or nothing and the Chaos team gets roundly beaten. Perception bias and the fact that the effects can be long-lasting (and people are loss-averse) means we're far more likely to remember the latter than the former, and we do.

How about the other teams? The most you can get is being an elf team and winning the game and losing half squad?

Without the data to hand I'm not willing to say, but the fact is that if you're concerned about losing players then I think you're going to find BB very frustrating.

Best solution I can give you is to join a private league. MM is problematic, and we know it. The half-hearted attempt (i.e. it wasn't fully implemented) at implementing TVPlus hasn't resolved the issue regardless of whether you think full TVPlus with a res environment would help.

[FabWolf]

Originally posted by Dode:

So Rock Paper Scissors is unbalanced, yes?

Who are the rock paper and scissors? These are all 50%, I have doubts it is rock paper and scissors, and losing players have effects in a league too because good players are those who are often killed earlier and you can't replace a luck levelled up player with another getting spp, while if you have the killer team you can keep your luckily levelled up best players and moreover inducements dont compensate adequately beyond a certain difference of TV

]They do, but you've rather missed the point: >2000TV is not the "normal" range for the game to be played. The soft cap on TV from SE is about 2100.

I didn't, it's just the topic. But the problem is simply progressive in his develepment in the long term playing

Are you sure they are 45 55 vs any other race in the game?

That is not the metric: lifetime win percentage is.

It's ok to not like it.

There should be reasonable competition between two teams of the same TV. If not, evidently, it has no sense trying to keep a league in the same TV range or making the MM system to find pairings of similar TV

And since it is yours I am free to disagree with it, which I do. I've even given reasons why, including the fact that it's a (badly) reverse-engineered definition based on a preconception of something you've already decided you don't like.

Still waiting for the win % per pairing of races in different TV ranges. Lets see if its my preconception or a fact that some teams aren't competitive at all against others at high TV

Yeah, they do. For every Chaos player with claw an orc or dorf should have guard, for example. That was part of my point in stating the odds vs block or blodge players: the other skills reduce the odds of pitch removal.
Then there's the fact that there are a LOT of teams missing, particularly the regen teams, which themselves counter "excessive" bashing quite nicely by simply having the players come back.

No they don't, at high TV most of those Chaos players with Claw have Guard too, they are almost identical with Chaos having Claws they don't have with the other bashing teams having general skills, stand firm and 1 or 2 guards more

Without the data to hand I'm not willing to say, but the fact is that if you're concerned about losing players then I think you're going to find BB very frustrating.

Best solution I can give you is to join a private league. MM is problematic, and we know it. The half-hearted attempt (i.e. it wasn't fully implemented) at implementing TVPlus hasn't resolved the issue regardless of whether you think full TVPlus with a res environment would help.

I have already written that the problem is not losing players, when facing a team full of bashing skills and guard and in particular Chaos with also claws the game in unplayable. They can also be all KOs, no injury or death, the game is unplayable the same

[export]

Originally posted by FabWolf:

Who are the rock paper and scissors? These are all 50%, I have doubts it is rock paper and scissors,

Dwarves are good vs Elves. Chaos are good vs Dwarves. Elves are good vs Chaos

and losing players have effects in a league too because good players are those who are often killed earlier and you can't replace a luck levelled up player with another getting spp, while if you have the killer team you can keep your luckily levelled up best players.

So either players that leveled up are often killed earlier or they don't it cannot be both ways. Please decide.

They can also be all KOs, no injury or death, the game is unplayable the same

How is the game unplayable just because you have fewer players on the field and if you don't like haveing fewer players on the field why don't you invest in a substitute bench?

[Dode]

Who are the rock paper and scissors?

Your claim was that balance is "not one race always winning against another and always losing against another ", whereas RPS is precisely that.

if you have the killer team you can keep your luckily levelled up best players and moreover inducements dont compensate adequately beyond a certain difference of TV

So your concern is keeping players alive rather than winning matches? Well, that's not the point of the game, sadly, although I do understand choosing that imperative in MM, where there is no incentive to choose any other goal than teambuilding.

the problem is simply progressive in his develepment in the long term playing

Could you explain what you mean here please? There are leagues with many hundreds of matchdays played where this has not been an issue.

There should be reasonable competition between two teams of the same TV. If not, evidently, it has no sense trying to keep a league in the same TV range or making the MM system to find pairings of similar TV

I'll start by saying that the first sentence is purely your own assumption. It's not an unreasonable one, though, and it holds at low TV. Thing is, TV is not a particularly good assessment of the mechanical strength of a team, particularly with respect to another team. That's one reason why people minmax and why certain builds are popular: you get more bang for your buck from certain things. One example would be taking an agi skill on an otherwise-unskilled player: do you take Dodge or, say, Catch? The former is useful in many, many situations, from being blocked to getting through TZs. The latter is useful in far fewer situations. Therefore Dodge is a more "universally useful" skill and probably a better pick. So a wood elf lineman with Dodge is the same cost as one with Catch but they are not mechanically equivalent.
Which is where we come to matching by TV. On the face of it there is little sense in doing so, but actually part of TV-efficiency is picking the right skills: team management. So a TV-efficient team managed by someone with good team management skills is at an advantage over an inefficient team managed by someone choosing skills at random: his chances of winning the match are higher from the outset. If that's something you think is a good idea then TV-matching isn't a bad start point. There are other, some would say better (others worse), systems, of course, but the basics is this: TV is not a particularly good predictor of match outcome, but matching using it (possibly as well as something else) allows teambuilding skills to come into play.

No they don't, at high TV most of those Chaos players with Claw have Guard too, they are almost identical with Chaos having Claws they don't have with the other bashing teams having general skills, stand firm and 1 or 2 guards more

Actually they do. They can only be at about the same TV as you, which means your starting skills (at least 4 block with Orcs, lots more with Dorfs) allow you to take more base skills, plus all those spent on Claw. Or you can spend it on a deeper bench, better allowing you to deal with pitch removal.

when facing a team full of bashing skills and guard and in particular Chaos with also claws the game in unplayable. They can also be all KOs, no injury or death, the game is unplayable the same

Again, it's far from unplayable particularly if you have a bench. There's a lot of variance in the skills, which leads to the matches you recall which are unplayable, but it also leads to matches where the Chaos team is doing nothing in terms of causing cas: I know my own league team has suffered from that plenty this season. You recall the former but not the latter.

[export]

Also ocassionally this happens
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/489018861241126771/16B806150A9C75D51CD44C2AEA8EF2F2ECD31C64/

and then that coach can fire all of his players and start from scratch.