Season 10 Early Thread?

[lawastooshort]

I am up for it either way, RL - I don't have any objection to your giving your team in need of training training, and in any case after my hardened gangsters have mangled them they will have lost any advantage unfair or otherwise that they might have gained.

My ST2 catchers will MURDERFY your puny mummies! It will be EXPANSIVE.

[Red Lion Three]

Well, you're joking I'm sure, but the way this season has gone it, er, might happen. Though it is only fair to warn you the Plaice won two pre-season friendlies. A league game? No. But a friendly? Watch out!

[DaigaroOgami]

With all this hype who could possibly NOT want to see this happen!?!

Just do it already.

[Gandalf]

I thought it was friendlies within a season that were frowned upon, but seems people think it's only within a competition, so that's fine.

More to the point, everyone seems to have ignored the main thing I was trying to say in the post, which was, I don't really understand the logic behind not starting the cup this weekend?

[id3nt1ty]

The Cup has been created:

RTBBL Season 9: Something Something Cup

[DaigaroOgami]

Hmm.. because friendlies had already been arranged, and two of us can't make it, and the league hasn't been finished yet?

But if you're ready I guess we should start.

[Gandalf]

Hmm.. because friendlies had already been arranged, and two of us can't make it, and the league hasn't been finished yet?

Two friendlies? I can see la-RL3, and Rav vs me, which doesn't have a date. If so then you're counting Rav twice (a friendly and away), plus he's not around any Sunday so you can't really worry about his availability for the purpose of cup-scheduling.

And as for this,

But if you're ready I guess we should start.

Please PM me with what your problem with me is. You seem intent on taking insult where none is meant, which doesn't really bother me, but I'd rather this be a happy place for all to be.

[Abomination]

I'd like to offer up a minor buff going forward for stunty teams, bottom tier teams, and sub 1500-TV teams currently in last place within a season: make them exempt from the 'no friendlies in a season' rule. The TV-thing is variable, maybe 1400 is a better number.

It makes a season more impure, but it's moreso to encourage fun and playing from behind. Besides, seasons are already impure since each team only plays each other once. Anywho, just a thought.

[Raveen]

Possibly we just need a route saying that in season friendlies are fine as long as you're not taking the piss?

[lawastooshort]

Are you suggesting we all play each other home and away?

[Raveen]

Closer each day?

[lawastooshort]

What, so we'd have two matches between each team, which would be consecutive matchdays, and after the first match the team with the highest TV would have to sack a player to bring their TV closer to the TV of the lower TV team?

[Gandalf]

There's no advantage to being at home or not... whereas in RL there is, which is why teams play each other twice. I respect your opinion Abom but I have to disagree here, there's nothing purer about playing each other twice.

**************

Re: friendly rules, I think Rav's "taking the piss" mostly means playing games to get rid of injuries. Personally I think it's more in the theme of things to not play friendlies during a season too (now amended in my head to mean "league" rather than "season"). Your suggestion for teams who are lagging playing more if they want to though? Don't see a problem with that. If it makes them more competitive / increases their enjoyment then sure, if we're not here to have fun than what's the point.

I thought we had a "no friendlies " rule but we do generally lack rules and instead rely on direct democracy, which is fine, I was just invoking aforementioned democracy.

[id3nt1ty]

There's no advantage to being at home or not... whereas in RL there is, which is why teams play each other twice.

There is no such thing as home or away in Blood Bowl, but playing twice would have the advantage of off setting a game or two where you get shafted by the dice.

I'm not sure whether or not it would be a good thing to play the matches consecutively though.

Ah, we only need one rule: Don't Be A Dick.

[Abomination]

I actually did *not* suggest we play each other more than once. I merely meant it as an example of how our seasons aren't hyper-serious or anything, so we might as well relax it even more if the fun gained strongly outweighs the consistency lost.

By 'impure' and only 1 game per season per team I meant: The more games played, the more statistically valid someone's position becomes in a season. Getting first or last becomes less reliant on 'one lucky game' and teams tend to emerge as more clearly superior or inferior... in the process making cup seedings more accurate and having the chances of a strong team being seeded low or knocked out early, more unlikely. And when teams *are* even, it makes those nail-biting close games and Cup upsets even more nail-biting.

On the other hand, Blood Bowl is a very random, fickle game. So, fluky low-game season formats actually go pretty well with the core theme of the game and is for many more exciting. Another reason against a longer format is that in a shorter format there is a high turnover rate of teams so they can try everything out. Also, the best reason against it is that it's easier to commit to a few short months rather than half a year (~2 games per team) or an entire year (~4 games per team?). This last reason is not as important as everyone makes it out to be IMO since it seems most of us can find time to play a makeup game at some point during the week within ~2 weeks of the lost game. I mean hey, 1.5 hours a week *can* be a lot but if you crazy buggers can survive something like 5+ births in a single season or two and keep playing, then you can survive anything.

Anyway...... I didn't suggest it because last time the issue came up everyone was content with our format.

That said, if you guys are open to longer seasons, than you'll always have this cat's full support. Personally, I'd give it another year or two before we think about extending the seasons. If we notice low player dropout and that we maintain a strong core of players, maybe we can consider making major changes in the far-flung far off flying car future of 2018 and beyond.