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Darkwolf
Last seen 10 years ago
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Dirty Player Skill- Thoughts and Opinions
An article created for the GLN, but with that in the air, I thought it would make a great blog article instead. It sort of my stance on dp taken en masse in LRB4. Not anti fouling, but anti- dp on multiple players. I have spoken with Synn and he seemed cool with this. It is a response to a response. So wihout further adieu!

Dirty Player in Bloodbowl version LRB4: The good, the bad and Synn

Once again, the greatest writer in FUMBBL graces you with his humble opinion. This post is part response to Synn’s ‘response’ to fouling and my opinion about the dirty player skill in FUMBBL

Shepherd wrote a good analogy on fouling and some time afterwards, Synn responded with his counter article and infamous slogan I found in teams bios. Shepherd’s article was relating to fouling to ‘spawn camping’. Spawn camping is not legal or cheating per se, but rather an exploit of a pre existing rule in a game to maximum effect to win.

Synn’s response has ranged from a) Shepherd has not played enough games to make a valid point and labelled as nonsense- via IRc chat b) Dirty player is not broken, it can be neutralized/negated by good team tactics or coaches. More blood on the pitch he says (the game is called BLOODbowl line of reasoning).

I will bring a bit of FUMBBL history first before I go further to put things into context. Since playing here in 2003, I have seen many trends occur, many coaches come and go and rule changes due to LRB. As I have stated before, Deathgerbil and Wuhan brought a new dimension to the game. They brought teams with multiple dp, mb, claw and rsc when possible. The goal was to win the attrition battle and score (sometimes) when no one else was left on your team and injure as many of your players as possible. They became legendary and sparked many debates over fouling. However, they did not decline challenges and mangled their own teams.

After not playing for approximately a year in 2006 (but checking the web page periodically) I noticed a new trend upon my return. More and more coaches built teams like Wuhan or Derbil and expanded on their concepts. Piling on was fixed, so a new skill was replaced. They organized, made up slogans and appear to have further fractured the elf-ballling/fouling camps even further apart.

Now, to their credit, this new breed has expanded on the original ideas and used mass dirty player teams to good success. One dp loaded khermi team has a great winning percentage (despite being a Khermi team). FUMBBL Smacks are now a haven to bring these teams in and put this strategy to use. No longer can the community choke off these teams from inactivity or force them to destroy themselves. An increase in team slots also means more slots to create and fold teams. So why is there a rise in this trend? Let is look at some points about dirty player taken in multiples.

Fouling is ‘cheating’ in the game. Fouling is one of three actions that can have a player be removed from the game without injury. The others are having a secret weapon or not biting a thrall with OFAB. Unlike the secret weapons that use different levels to eject the player based on the weapon (death-roller vs. dagger), a player spotted is ejected on the same roll regardless. Some game mechanics negate this such as ‘get the ref’, ‘bribe the ref’ or the lucky ‘argue the call’. Of course the cheating aspect is the ‘fluff’ added to the game.

Fouling with multiple dirty players is effective. Fouling with only 1 or no dp can be risky. The trade off for the foul’s potential harm has to be weighed on the potential for losing a player. Since some of my dirty players have block, kick or other skills, losing one player for one player is risky since I (try to) play even games and/or don’t have player depth. The way around this risk is to have multiple players with dirty player. It is easier to replace an ejected dirty player with another dirty player from the reserves than your opponent to replace an injured player/positional/big guy. Injured opponents cannot hurt you or score on you, but a dirty player can foul and injure as many players as the ref/dice will allow.

Synn accused Shepherd’s thoughts on fouling as playing poor tactics/positioning. Again, multiple dirty player increases the odds that a dirty player is someone near a prone opponent, possibly with assists. In a game where block, tackle, dauntless and POWS ensure that on many turns, there are many prone players (also with a chance to be injured). There is no defence to being fouled when prone and like Synn stated, “everyone is AV7 on the ground”. There are many chances in a game to be prone from blocks, failed leaps, dodges and sprints etc. Keep the eye on a multiple dirty player team as a defence? Haha, the eye does not save you from the injury roll my friend. Even if things go bad and the dirty player only stuns you and is ejected, that dirty player is safe on the bench ready for the next game. Not much deterrence there.

Fouling is effective. Let’s face it, if the skill was crap, no one would take it in multiples or at all (myself included). The skill was nerfed in LRB5 and reduced to a +1. But now as we speak LRB6 is in the works. The only reason coaches like Synn give for this rule change, was people ‘whined about it’. Again, the theme by the supporters of mass dp teams to support their behaviour is to accuse others of ‘whining’ or bad coaching, rather than an objective look at the skill.

The dirty player skill can be taken by all players without doubles, except stunty and big guys. It brings an impressive +2 to armour roll or casualty roll. When 7 or 8 is the common roll of 2d6, breaking armour with 2-4 assists can be done routinely on all players except perhaps Morg or treemen. Dirty players that break armour generate ko’s to causality’s more often than not (as discussed in a previous blog regarding odds to injure an opponent with dp than without). Even a ko can be very effective, as this player now has to roll to return to the field and cannot hurt his opponent by scoring or blocking or reducing foul assists. Again, no other skill provides +2 to causality rolls or armour rolls (or any skill roll bonus for that matter) without rolling doubles, than dirty player.

Synn argued that without dirty players, lower armour teams could not remove a nasty chaos warrior (who has to be lucky and roll doubles for skills to be a killer) or an orc blitzer. Well, I call these skills block, dodge, side step, guard, etc. If an effective elf coach needs dirty player to neutralize or limit a hard hitting player, then you might as well hang up your dice. He also argued that Shepherd’s limited number of games here on FUMBBL (in chat) made his article not valid and weak. Well, since I sold my mini’s to Shepherd I know personally he plays a lot of table top blood bowl and games played here are not an indication, good or bad on a player’s opinion. Argue the point, not the attacking the source (a common occurrence in politics).

The analogy of fouling and spawn camping does exist. Though not to the extreme as in other games, since everything here requires dice rolls. I chose not to acquire duped or hacked items in Diablo II, I choose not to do the silly draft pick/horse-trade gimmick in NHL or Madden franchise mode for ps2, I chose not to abuse dirty player in FUMBBL. But perhaps it has more to do with the dynamic of change. People fear change and do not like change, for the good or bad. What better way to support a bad or broken skill, than surround yourself with people that think the same way and attack others that do not agree?

Perhaps we need a new slogan to add to our team bios? This coach will only play other coaches that refrain from abusing or exploiting skill(s) that unbalance the game of LRB 4 Bloodbowl.
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Comments
Posted by Catastrophy on 2009-09-18 22:32:46
Interesting. I personally hate foulers, but you have inspired me to try playing an attrition team just for kicks :D