Blood Bowl 2 Coming September 2015

[Boggit]

Well, that's just my experience. I own the Legendary Edition myself. That one is $19.99 on Steam right now, and the Chaos Edition is 29.99. They do go on sale every so often, so while you wait for BB2 to go down in price, if either BB version gets gutted in price you might want to take a look at it. I don't think there's ANY way either the Chaos or Legendary edition is worth their current prices, but for five bucks, it might give you some entertainment, if anything because it's BB.

I had Legendary edition but upgraded to the Chaos edition in the GG sale - I paid a pittance for it, as I already had the Legendary edition.

[KyzBP]

Just give me my Dwarves and and a bleepin Deathroller and I'll see you on the pitch. 

[JasonPratt]

B_C; haven't read the other threads yet, but that first thread contained ample testimony to the game NOT cheating its dice rolls: both with a technical interview about how the RNG works, and with testimony of similar things happening in live BB games (plus some brief comments on distribution bias making it seem like the AI is cheating).

I did learn from that thread, by the way, that the urban legend that it cheats is partially based on misunderstanding what the probmodifier code in its program does: on harder AI levels the game plays more conservatively by sticking closer to calculated expected probabilities.

http://forum.bloodbowl-game.com/viewtopic.php?p=488#p488

I suspect this explains the tendency to cage up rather than to play an air game even with an airy-fairy faction.  >:D (But it may just not have a good code for how to play as the elves either.)


One comment did quickly summarize how the game DOES cheat OUTSIDE matches -- and I've seen evidence of this. "It can pull fresh players out of its ♥♥♥ immediately, gets more more money and SPP per AI-vs.AI-match than mathematically possible, gets guaranteed doubles rolls on over half its skillups, never runs out of money..."

[Nefaro]

To be fair to those complaining about one standard AI, though, I didn't play against any especially fast teams. (Skaven, yes, but they have heavies, too, and the AI mixed up fairly well on a turn-by-turn basis according to what looked to it like the best tactic under the circumstances.)

The Skaven is one example.  Another good example of the one-size-fits-all AI debacle is the Wood Elves.  The most fragile passing-est team boxes up and tries to brute force it down the field, getting all their players injured and killed in the process.  ::)

What's more, the AI has always passed less when set to the higher difficulty level AI.  So while it does a bit better job at the one thing it does (caging), it also passes even less.  I saw numerous posts, years ago, telling people to set the AI back to normal level if they ever want it to pass much.  Even then, it does so at poorly chosen times.

Instead of creating one or two extra specialty AI play styles, they adopted a modder's previous answer to make the single-player campaign more difficult in the last version... giving the AI teams a head start 'cheat' (more points at the beginning).   :-\

I've enjoyed all the iterations of PC BB, despite it's two big problems (single-player AI and the faulty net code).  I'm hoping they address both of those this time around.  I'll wait to find out, however.

[GJK]

I really dig Blood Bowl and have every iteration of it so far.  BC, you should have joined GJK's Vassal Blood Bowl League.  It was a blast...until it unexpectedly folded.
I'll probably pick this version up as well.  Cyanide may fail on most games but I thought they did a good job with Blood Bowl.

We were having fun in the league.  The commish was a great guy but obviously a *very* experienced player as he was having his way with all of us and I think that sort of took the air out of the sails a bit.  I know that it did mine.

The VASSAL module works like a charm and I'm happy to share it with anybody interested in it.  I'd post it to the VASSAL website but GW would have it pulled immediately I'm sure.  Of course there's no a.i. with the VASSAL module either but it does work *great* for Pbem so if your time is limited that could be an option for you as it literally takes 10 minutes or so to play and send a turn.  I'd also certainly entertain the thought of starting up another league from guys here if the interest were there.

[JasonPratt]

To be fair to those complaining about one standard AI, though, I didn't play against any especially fast teams. (Skaven, yes, but they have heavies, too, and the AI mixed up fairly well on a turn-by-turn basis according to what looked to it like the best tactic under the circumstances.)

The Skaven is one example.  Another good example of the one-size-fits-all AI debacle is the Wood Elves.  The most fragile passing-est team boxes up and tries to brute force it down the field, getting all their players injured and killed in the process.  ::)

Well, the Skaven didn't pass much, but they're a surprisingly heavy team, with a few blazingly fast types, so I wouldn't call it a debacle. There's no point passing compared to nimbly running the ball if there's nowhere to pass to, and I played a good enough Amazon game to keep the leakers down; or to mess with the odds of making a good catch and throw even when they had someone downfield who could catch -- and a Skaven team, especially one that isn't very experienced yet (which will be the case of any campaign for a long time), will not actually have a lot of good catchers to spare, unlike a dedicated air-game team.

What's more, the AI has always passed less when set to the higher difficulty level AI.  So while it does a bit better job at the one thing it does (caging), it also passes even less.  I saw numerous posts, years ago, telling people to set the AI back to normal level if they ever want it to pass much.  Even then, it does so at poorly chosen times.

That's because it's calculating the odds and playing more conservatively with the odds on higher levels: and a passing game intrinsically has more odds in its calculation. Even if the odds are good (as for an elven team, or for certain Skaven builds, or for certain long-term Chaos builds for that matter), a bunch of good odds that all have to go right may still be riskier than a few good odds.

The problem there is that no one taught the computer that what seems like better short odds can be much worse when you're playing as a physically weak race: it couldn't factor how likely a ground game is to be busted with weak players instead of strong ones.

No doubt this would be compounded by an inexperienced air team, which hampers its ability to put together strings of probability rolls.


This is all compounded (I realized this morning) by certain design issues which the computer game is completely faithful to, and which haunt the board game, too: the game naturally punishes a team who falls into a deficit of players on the field (which is why one legitimate strategy is to wound or kill the other team's crew), and a few bad rolls early in the game can thus cripple a team for the rest of the game. Or even, because the scores tend to be low, bring about a loss late game -- but the scores tending to be low, also affects the importance any burst of good or bad luck by proportion. BB2 isn't going to change any of that, and probably shouldn't, because it's one of the things human players really like: most games come down to the wire because any advantage can be negated by a few good or bad rolls in a string. A player struggling along with a crippled team is more likely to lose (and so it's annoying that a string of bad rolls, or good ones for the other team, can cause this quickly out of nowhere), but it only takes a string of favorable rolls to suddenly even the field, too, or to punch past the stronger field for epic David/Goliath situations.

[vyshka]

Has anyone played blood bowl here (FUMBBL)? It looks like it uses some java client to play.

[son_of_montfort]

Yeah, I very much enjoyed the original BB, despite the problems that Nefaro pointed out. I'm hoping that limiting the number of teams from 23 down to a fairly "disappointing" 8 will mean they will personalize each AI a bit more.

I put disappointing in quotes, because I actually did not care for most of the teams in the latest BB (Chaos). That many teams just made it far too hard for a person coming in from the cold (me) to learn the nuances of each team. I like a more focused approach. That being said, I would have much rather they offered the Undead as a bonus DLC team than the Wood Elves.

[GJK]

Has anyone played blood bowl here (FUMBBL)? It looks like it uses some java client to play.

FUMBBL is a great way to play if you want to join a league.  There's lots of players and league options.  I never could find if it has a way for you to just play a one-off game with a buddy or if you have to join and play in a league.  It confused me to the point that I just made the VASSAL module for it.  Regardless, neither have an a.i.  Oh, and you can't pbem FUMBBL, which was actually the biggest reason for making a VASSAL module for it (BB is *very* pbem friendly with its turn structure the way that it is).

[KyzBP]

Has anyone played blood bowl here (FUMBBL)? It looks like it uses some java client to play.

FUMBBL is a great way to play if you want to join a league.  There's lots of players and league options.  I never could find if it has a way for you to just play a one-off game with a buddy or if you have to join and play in a league.  It confused me to the point that I just made the VASSAL module for it.  Regardless, neither have an a.i.  Oh, and you can't pbem FUMBBL, which was actually the biggest reason for making a VASSAL module for it (BB is *very* pbem friendly with its turn structure the way that it is).

I tried FUMBBL as well.  I can't put my finger on it but there was just something I didn't like.  It may have been the animations.  On the other hand I really enjoyed the VASSAL module.  Once you got the hang of it, it was pretty smooth and a lot of fun.

[GJK]

I tried FUMBBL as well.  I can't put my finger on it but there was just something I didn't like.  It may have been the animations.  On the other hand I really enjoyed the VASSAL module.  Once you got the hang of it, it was pretty smooth and a lot of fun.

I think that we need to start up a pbem game!  What do you say?  :)

[KyzBP]

I tried FUMBBL as well.  I can't put my finger on it but there was just something I didn't like.  It may have been the animations.  On the other hand I really enjoyed the VASSAL module.  Once you got the hang of it, it was pretty smooth and a lot of fun.

I think that we need to start up a pbem game!  What do you say?  :)

I would really like to however, the WitP:AE game plus AAR I have going with Undercovergeek right now has sucked up all my spare time.  Once I get a better routine going I'll PM you.  It really was a lot of fun.

[Grim.Reaper]

This is probably a dumb question.....but with BB2 being available now for beta, was "thinking" of possibly picking it up.....I will only play single player mode and understand the AI might be questionable.  But can someone tell me how the single player portion works?  I have read about a campaign mode for single player, but not sure I really want something like that.  Maybe I was thinking about this wrong, but I was hoping single player mode was something like me picking a single team and then being able to play in a league against  bunch of AI teams...I have no desire to really play out a story...just want to play a bunch of league games.....is that possible?

[undercovergeek]

Rps has done a good piece on it and they mention a football manager style league with players ageing and retiring and you been able to customise the aspects of the league

[Grim.Reaper]

Thanks...now just read that, seems like it will have what I want...now just debating to pick up now or later:)