Here’s something to stir debate.
A tech-savvy DB fan called Alex has set up this elegant online database to track and collate results of DB games worldwide.
It’s a simple, 3 step process:
- Play your game.
- Input your results.*
- Ponder over the collated data.
This is potentially really useful for me, and interesting to you. If you play a game then I’d urge you to add the data here. The more we can collect, the more useful it will be.
I’ll be coming back to this when it’s got some more results. Intriguing stuff though, and great work Alex!
*if you are playing in a league I’d suggest that your league sponsor inputs the results. This way we avoid duplicate entries for the same game which will skew the results.
Quirkworthy 
Have at it at your heart’s content! It really takes a great game to make me take out my no-so-mad-coding-skills, so hats off to you Mr. Jake.
A few things:
– The input form is mobile-friendly, for all you smartphone-carrying people out there.
– And for all you data manglers and thinkerers, there’s a CSV version of the raw database available at the following link at any given time: http://db.chezalex.net/dbdatabase.csv
– You can signal bugs and/or improvements on the following thread on the Mantic forum: http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?2698-I-think-we-need-numbers-Who-s-up-for-it
Cheers!
Hi Jake,
This has had time to collect a good few statistics now, so I’ve checked it out and in terms of win percentage for the original teams it’s looking like this:
1) Corp (Men) 67%
2) Veer-myn 48%
3) Forge Fathers 42%
4) Orx 38%
In our local league, the top three players in the league are Corp (Men), then the next three are Orx, then the final three are Dwarves.
These results all seem to indicate that the Corp (Men) team has some balance issues, and that furthermore, despite the hard hitting abilities of the Str focused teams, they will never be as good as the Skl and Spd teams.
Is this why the official rules has that odd bit where team ranking is the most important factor in a league, and not league points?
I wanted to know what your take on this was, if you agreed, and if there were plans to fix this etc?
Cheers
Thinking about what to do with the Corps. I wouldn’t touch the stats. Although think that the “everything on a 4+” experience becomes a bit boring after some plays the Corps are the perfect starter team.
I’d go for allowing only 2 Strikers and add another Jack. Haven’t tried yet but maybe it solves (some of the) the balance issues…
I think it is way to early to change things. DB is here for the long haul and this is very early doors. Of the 12 proposed teams only four have been out for more than a week, and they’ve not been out 6 months. Four aren’t even finished playtesting. Whilst it’s good to keep an ear to the ground for any major problems, I’m not seeing this as one just yet.
What seems to be happening here is that the humans are easier than the marauders to play. In fact they are the easiest of the four available teams by some way. Most people start with the two teams in the box, and most early games will be a human win as the marauders have a much steeper learning curve. The results therefore show someone who is competent with the humans (relatively easy to get to) against someone who is less competent with their team (all the others take longer to learn). You can show this by comparing the total results set to the last 100 games. The humans are getting less successful in recent games as the experience of players with the other teams increases. The humans have, in some ways, topped out of their initial gains and the others are catching up. This will continue for a while yet, though as new players will continually be joining in there will always be some of this bias in the numbers.
Logically, we will only get a real overall picture when we have all 12 teams available and they are being played by Coaches who are equally skilled at using them. I’d suggest that we need to wait till at least 6 months after the last of the 12 are out. That may sound like a long wait, but it’s not really. Blood Bowl has been going for 25 years, and I see no reason why DreadBall can’t be played for just as long. Let’s not rebalance stuff too soon because we’ll only have to change it all again when the next teams come out, and the next ones…
The plan, therefore, is to keep a watchful eye on what’s going on, but deal with this in a long term sense.
Well said sir.
I’m about to start a league game with a friend and we’re considering what teams to play. If a team’s value rather than league points matters more for the score, than perhaps the true advantage of the “Slam” focused teams is their increasing XP value over time compared to the squishier “Strike” focused teams, as it was pointed out to me recently by Jake concerning the Z’zor. In our league (to start in 2 hours), I’d like to play the Veer-myn and him the Orx, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very fair for the both of us. It’s unlikely we’ll have a third player and, in any event, that player will probably be under age 10 (dads’ lives).
PS. My comment on a Warpath thread about grenades being worthless against zombies was a poorly stated joke. After all, Warparth has to have zombies, because everything does (especially things like Twilight, UK’s got Talent and Grey’s Anatomy). 🙂
I’m all for people deciding their own parameters for leagues based on what they find most fair or fun. Like most things with leagues, there are arguments for both sides of the decision to use value and some folk prefer wins/losses. I’ve played in both types of leagues and all work sometimes and not others. Still looking for the perfect campaign system. Only been 30 years 😉
My best advice is to go with whatever works for you and don’t worry overmuch about what it says in the rules.
God of Battles doesn’t have zombies 🙂
I’m all with you, Jake. I was just thinking loud where changes could be made. Didn’t plan to make them immediately.
On the other hand… I hope I can setup a league here as soon as DB is released in germany. And it’s a bit sad to already know that, since we’re all newbies to the game, the Corps will most probably be on the top position of the list.
(Looks like I have to practise with the Rats in the meantime to proove me wrong;-)
The German language Kick-Off version should be released in a few weeks, which will mean that there are more opponents about for you to play against.
Keep practicing with them rats 🙂
Went through that game today, Veer-myn vs Orx. It ended with a 3 points victory for the Veer-myn, though the Orx were quite close to bring the score to 0/0 at the very last round (sorry for the imprecise terminology – we play while speaking French). One of my Veer-myn Strikers was killed and another made 1 XP (gaining the “Roll” talent…). The winnings paid for replacing the dead Striker with a third Guard, using the Rolat mini. The Orx, for their part, had no durable casualty and the 3 Guards made 4 XP in total. One is now a Keeper, another Can’t Feel a Thing (with 1 unspent XP) and the last is now Steady. Though they lost, beating them next time will be hell. My Veer-myn Guards were in the infirmary most of the game and never managed to wound severely the Orx (even with 2 stomps and lots of back slams). At one time I did wish I had some Jacks instead of having my Strikers running around by the end of the game with no Guards to escort them, preventing them from giving the Orxs XP with easy kills… Strangely, I did win, but my roster is now worth less than my opponent. A fun twist! We had great fun, and it took us 3 hours since this was our first game.
And Goblin jacks aren’t that bad after all! 🙂
Sounds like a fine time Erick, even in French 😉
Even moreso in French… 🙂
🙂
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It appears that the results tracker is closed pending clarification as to the fiture of DBo.
Anybody know what the question pending clarification is?…
By DBo you mean ordinary, arena-based DreadBall, right? The future is that there are 3 more season books on the way, plus very likely more things like Azure Forest. I’ve no idea what this clarification might be.
Yep, their site message says…”NOTICE: THE RESULT TRACKER IS NOT ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL THE FUTURE OF DREADBALL ORIGINAL IS CLARIFIED.”
On a different note, but since you replied here quickly 🙂
“https://quirkworthy.com/2012/11/29/ive-been-a-bit-naughty/”
This thread from a good while ago caught my attention (mostly because we also consider jacks to be a bit weak…
Did you finish your thoughts on the matter at all?..
The balance of players/teams/armies is never really finished (in any game) as it relies on more important factors than just the points cost. It’s an ongoing thing. Currently I’m considering putting up some experimental rules to see how they go.
It would be great to see some of your thoughts.
Personally, I think that jacks do have a place as it stands but they are, like you said previously, missing just a bit of something.
My only other mention would be putting the boot in (attacking downed players) – we feel barring monkey business (with their upsettingly poor 5+ strength!) it’s almost never worth putting the boot in, it’s just not a powerful enough attack. Again though I would really appreciate knowing what you think.
Thanks
The website appears to be down, so we can’t input scores.
Unrelated, but there’s currently a discussion of what we’d like to see in DB 2.0 in the Facebook group. Someone suggested I post what I had in mind here, I guess because it was so different. Here’s what I wrote:
I know this won’t be popular, but I’d like to see this, and ALL Mantic games except possibly KoW, go to D8 or D10. Deadzone already does it, and the level of incremental adjustment it provides is just huge. I’ve come to hate D6 as being too inflexible.
Also, I think all of the team boxes should include a stat sheet. Simple, easy fix to rules being everywhere. You can put it in front of you while you play.
Finally, some flexibility in base stats would be nice. What we have now, while simple, doesn’t make a lot of sense in many cases. Why is an Orx as easy to bring down as a Sphyr guard? Those sort of things make static armor, etc, stats for all teams a problem.