Colosseum - SEASON 4 signups - NOW CLOSED

[Ratatoskr]

Doing this.

[vehemut]

i would like to sign up

[WWII Vet]

i would like to sign up

me 2

[Ratatoskr]

Side note: could we consider unbanning Nell in the future? From what I've seen, it's not a case of "she's overpowered" so much as "Hellraider made the original rules and didn't like her." IMO having her as an option makes the choice pool more interesting on maps when one of the top tier isn't glaringly best (aka those maps where everybody picks VB).

Luck IS a skill!

[Im_Pro_You_Blow]

I'll sign up for season 4 also.

[madcowz]

In case people in season three need to tell you, I will play.

[Mcluvin]

Same for me. I'm in.

[Abroxas]

Side note: could we consider unbanning Nell in the future? From what I've seen, it's not a case of "she's overpowered" so much as "Hellraider made the original rules and didn't like her." IMO having her as an option makes the choice pool more interesting on maps when one of the top tier isn't glaringly best (aka those maps where everybody picks VB).

Luck IS a skill!

I disgaree. hellraider stated that all COs with leck-dependent fire power are banned because they are "too random". Also, her SCOp is horrible strong and allows you to bomb down tanks with mere infanteries. Banning her from tournaments (!) prevents from bitching about a loss against Nell.

[Ratatoskr]

I'm not sure this is the place to be discussing this, but here's my reasoning. Yes, Hellraider felt that Nell was "too random". That was his personal opinion and not a matter of Nell's strength. Nell is not so strong that she should be removed for balance reasons, she's considered borderline top tier at best, and that's only on larger maps where she can use her SCOP to great effect. My point is that disliking playing against Nell is a matter of individual taste, not game integrity, and that the personal taste of one previous league organizer should not be removing a CO from everyone's pool. If we decide to ban Nell, there should be solid reasons to back the decision and BENEFITS to doing so. For benefits, as far as I can tell the only one is to make some players feel better. Humor me some discussion as to why the attitude that Nell messes up the game misses a lot of AW reality.

I suspect that people's problem with Nell is, as you state, that she can "bomb down [tanks, copters, your house] with MERE infantries." It goes counter to your idea about how the game plays, and just somehow feels wrong. I get that, I play the No Powers league and still have a lot of trouble dealing with this whole bs of CO having abilities that can result in what looks like optimal play without powers resulting in you losing to a power that you walked into. That's why people, as you say, bitch about losing to Nell... because her SCOP feels somehow cheap to you. I ask, how is her SCOP any more cheap than, say, Lightning Strike? Eagle distorts the whole damn game, all of a sudden there's a "damage counter" and if you fill it up without crippling him, you basically lose. But people don't bitch about that, because they accept that it's part of the game and play around it, just like people play to minimize the damage of Nell's SCOP. Then why is Lady Luck so evil in some minds? Because it involves the random damage bonus built into the game, which we're not used to dealing with besides hoping for OHKOs.

So getting hit by a random-damage-bonus power "feels" worse than getting hit by a power that says "all units deal hp/2 bonus damage", because there's luck involved and luck is evil. That's not a gameplay fact, that's a matter of personal taste. Luck-based OHKOs are key in deciding some games, but people don't bitch about that, because it's generally accepted as part of the game. Broaden your concept of how AWBW plays to include some of the fringe cases, like Sturm, ric***ulous Grimm-Grimm games, COPs, SCOPs, towers, luck KOs that break your defenses, and, oh yeah, Nell.

And c'mon, a significant portion of Colosseum games are No Powers, it's not like you'll have to face Nell all day. If ever, she's borderline useful on some maps (unless you're Haku).

Btw, I have little personal stake in this.. if you look at my AWBW profile, you will see 0 games as Nell. I do like playing against her, largely because I think that Nell players trust Lady Luck to dig them out of holes, which makes burying them a lot easier once I minimize its damage and dash their hopes. I find she makes for interesting games, which is all I ask of any CO beyond balance.

I want to close by referencing Sirlin on banning characters (NOT the scrub article that Smack used to pull out lol):
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html
He states that the only reason to ban a character or tactic is if the game is demonstrably better (10x better, he says) without it present. Clearly it is for the broken 5, I have yet to see such a case made for Nell, especially since she is such a minor presence in the tier structure. He goes on to talk about tacit "soft bans" made not for balance, but in the interest of expanding the pool of playable characters (as we do by clipping the top tier(s) in some games).

Japan has also shown signs of a soft-ban on another character in Super Turbo. I bring up this example because it lives on the threshold. It is just on the edge of what is reasonable to ban because it is "too good." Anything less than this would not be reasonable, so perhaps others can use it as a benchmark to decide what is reasonable in their games.
...
The reason is that many believe the game to have much more variety without Old Sagat. Even if he is only second best in the game by some measure, he flat out beats half the characters in the game with little effort. Half the cast can barely even fight him, let alone beat him. Other top characters in the game, good as they are, win by much more interaction and more "gameplay."
...
If someone had made these claims in the game's infancy, no sort of ban would be warranted. Further testing through tournaments would be warranted. But we now have ten years of testing. We don't have all Old Sagat vs. Old Sagat matches in tournaments, but we do know which characters can't beat him and as a result are very rarely played in America. We likewise can see that this same category of characters flourishes in Japan, where Old Sagats are rare and only played by the occasional violator of the soft ban. It seems that the added variety of viable characters might outweigh the lack of Old Sagat. Is this ban warranted then? To be honest, I am not totally convinced that it is, but it is just barely in the ballpark of reasonableness since there is a decade of data on which to base the claim.

WALL OF TEXT GOOOOOO! Apologies to anyone who read all this. My case again: banning Nell does not ADD to or IMPROVE the game, instead removing a viable and interesting CO for no more than feelings of "strangeness" within the game system, which I feel are unfounded in light of all the truly game-altering stuff that we accept and play around (Sturm lololol??). The fact that some players don't accept Nell as a normal part of the game should not be just cause to ban her. People used to feel the same way about infantry. The problem is not the unit, the tactic, or the CO, it's certain players' unfamiliarity with it. Hellraider probably just got sick of losing to Haku.

And yes, this may be much ado about nothing, but the Colosseum is currently the main competitive section of AWBW, and so carries some responsibility to uphold a reasonable standard of the game for future competitions. Bottom line: Don't do stuff without good reason.

[Ratatoskr]

ohh wowww you can tell I have nothing better to do right now besides listen to music and type random stuff

[Ultra Storm]

My point is that disliking playing against Nell is a matter of individual taste, not game integrity, and that the personal taste of one previous league organizer should not be removing a CO from everyone's pool. If we decide to ban Nell, there should be solid reasons to back the decision and BENEFITS to doing so. For benefits, as far as I can tell the only one is to make some players feel better. Humor me some discussion as to why the attitude that Nell messes up the game misses a lot of AW reality.

Then why is Lady Luck so evil in some minds? Because it involves the random damage bonus built into the game, which we're not used to dealing with besides hoping for OHKOs.

So getting hit by a random-damage-bonus power "feels" worse than getting hit by a power that says "all units deal hp/2 bonus damage", because there's luck involved and luck is evil. That's not a gameplay fact, that's a matter of personal taste. Luck-based OHKOs are key in deciding some games, but people don't bitch about that, because it's generally accepted as part of the game. Broaden your concept of how AWBW plays to include some of the fringe cases, like Sturm, ric***ulous Grimm-Grimm games, COPs, SCOPs, towers, luck KOs that break your defenses, and, oh yeah, Nell.

I think it's a very reasonable idea to aim for minimizing the effect of luck and maximizing the effect of skill, i.e. reducing the variance of the number of achieved victories in relation to skill. Of course, it's a subjective choice what you aim at with bans but usually, strategy games are played because people want to strategize, not because people want to roll dice. And if you consider maximizing the effect of skill a good thing, banning Nell undeniably supports that policy.

Now, you claim you don't mind the variance, no matter how large it is. I seriously doubt that's the truth, or are you saying you'd play just as gladly if AWBW had a luck range from -100 % to 100 % in every matchup? I don't know about you but when I play AWBW, I don't want to play Russian Roulette.

That's not a gameplay fact, that's a matter of personal taste. Luck-based OHKOs are key in deciding some games, but people don't bitch about that, because it's generally accepted as part of the game.

No, it isn't, it's just harder to get rid of. I'd prefer if the game was entirely deterministic.

[DuelStriker]

Hey everyone, sign-ups are still open if you want to play!

Sign-ups will close around Dec. 13th.

[AutumnFate]

I'd like to take a whack at it. (I want to sign up please)

[Skiplet]

I wanna sign up! I have never played in a tournament before.

[DuelStriker]

Well, it's not exactly a tournament. Read this (first post in that topic) to see what I mean.

And anyone else who hasn't read that yet, please make sure you do.