Playoff Speculation

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StarlessSoldier
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Playoff Speculation

Post by StarlessSoldier » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:28 am

That's kind of what I was going for when I wrote the rules. I felt that giving spinners bonus points based on how much they spend on weapons, giving hammers more power for free, and making flippers powerful at low level weapon power would help even things up.

panicattacky2k
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Playoff Speculation

Post by panicattacky2k » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:43 am

I'm sure things are going to be fine when the active weapon rule sinks in. At the very least less biased towards spinners.

Fish Of Doom
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Playoff Speculation

Post by Fish Of Doom » Mon Apr 06, 2009 2:35 pm

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>panicattacky2k</dt><dd>Apr 6 2009&#44; 04:43 PM</dd></dl><div> I'm sure things are going to be fine when the active weapon rule sinks in. At the very least less biased towards spinners. [/quote]
Yeah, those spinners are out of control this season. I'm sure one will win every class.

If bots with inactive weapons win, say 3/4 of the classes this season, we may need to do some rule editing, either give them handicaps or giving active weapon bots more points.

Siphai
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Playoff Speculation

Post by Siphai » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:38 pm

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Fish Of Doom</dt><dd>Apr 6 2009&#44; 02:35 PM</dd></dl><div> <blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>panicattacky2k</dt><dd>Apr 6 2009&#44; 04:43 PM</dd></dl><div> I'm sure things are going to be fine when the active weapon rule sinks in. At the very least less biased towards spinners. [/quote]
Yeah, those spinners are out of control this season. I'm sure one will win every class.

If bots with inactive weapons win, say 3/4 of the classes this season, we may need to do some rule editing, either give them handicaps or giving active weapon bots more points. [/quote]
Yeah this seems almost as bad as season 3 of FRR, where nearly every champ was a wedge with no active weapons. The only thing that really seems to have an advantage over rammers is lifters, but that's only because they can afford to put so little weapon while maintaining a lower profile than normal rammers, so they're basically just as bad since they're still using Weapon as a dump stat.

I do like the way that the rules have moved, however. In the past, spinners would usually use torque as a massive dump stat, and if it was an FBS, usually it'd be able to not put many points into speed either. I think the original Ring Around The Rosie had something like 16 weapon and 2 armor, while shit like SHUTout had 15 weapon and 1 armor. The worst offender was Valkyrie who had something like iirc 18-19 weapon power, hardly any armor, and never knocked itself out. So, at the very least, we're seeing unrealistic spinners die off and evolve towards a more reasonable spinner. Even then, though, I strongly feel that most people who entered spinners did overkill when they toned down the weapon stat: Adrenichrome is a perfect example of this, since 10 weapon obviously isn't enough when most robots (even non-rammers) are able to carry around at least 6-7 armor.

But then that's why I like John's ruling of additional points for investing in a spinners weapon, to help when creating a dedicated spinner or hammer. It allows for a strong spinner, without going overboard, but enough stats left on the side to make sure that it doesn't knock itself out.

Another solution would be to fix external armor. Right now we have the ruling that all external armor gets an passive +2 upgrade. If I had a dime for every robot that abused this rule, I'd be rich. Untouchable, Fridge, Tank, Eurypterus, just a select few among many that have pulled that shit. Tank had like 9 armor, and then was covered in wheelguards, wedges, and plows, all of which would have something like 11 armor. As a result, and not saying that this is a bad thing, out of the 38 matches Tank has fought, he never lost by KO.

Since most stats, when divided up among the four categories, are a single digit (armor, for example, is never above 9 points) the passive +2 upgrade adds an entire 1/4 to 1/3 extra armor. That's a hell of a lot. Even a robot with only 5 armor can stand a chance against a lot of spinners. My suggestion would be simply to either get rid of it, or tone it down to something like +1.

StarlessSoldier
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Playoff Speculation

Post by StarlessSoldier » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:02 pm

Well that rule came about because spinners were dominating, so I think toning it down is best.

Fish Of Doom
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Playoff Speculation

Post by Fish Of Doom » Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:12 pm

I agree. The passive armor rule needs a serious rethinking. If you don't get rid of it, make it specific to what gets it, like ONLY hinged wedges or ONLY wheel guards, not anything that's stuck on the outside of the bot. I do take advantage of it with Underall, but I would be an advocate to flat out get rid of it. It makes it so that unless you give your bot 3 armor or less, any bot can stand up to a spinner.

Or you could just balance it out with an additonal rule like spinners and hammers get an extra 3 points, but only to put on their weapon or armor categories.

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Post by panicattacky2k » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:21 pm

I actually think the passive armor rule is fine as-is. In fact, with the option to springload wedges to make them lower at the cost of sacrificing the armor boost, things already seem more balanced. You can either get under rammers easier or take hits from spinners better. ...In fact, I believe that giving spinners the weapon boost is all we need to do to balance everything.

...let's think about it for a sec.

Let's say, Shovearound 2 vs Adrenichrome. That's a 6 armor to a 10 weapon matchup. My hinges at the front give an extra 2, making it 8 to 10...and, if you'll recall the result, Adrenichrome could barely put a dent in me.

However, when you kick Adreni's weapon to 12, then he can damage me pretty significantly. 12 weapon is the same as AMP's weapon, and you remember what AMP did to Shovearound 2.

Speaking of spinners....anybody else think the knockout probability is a little extreme? Even Splatterhouse, with 10 weapon, 9 armor, has a %21 chance of self-destructing. I'm thinking it that DOUBLING the weapon power and subtracting armor rather than tripling it would make things a bit more into proportion. This isn't the age of Battlebots, after all: Spinners these days are generally pretty stable, as opposed to Backlash who broke every other fight.

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Playoff Speculation

Post by StarlessSoldier » Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:31 am

Yeah but you are talking about rules that only half of the writers go by, and half of the time. What I think would be a better way to do it is to have only robots with active weapons get an armor boost. Honestly how many real rammers do you see that aren't armored all over? But look at active weapon bots... Gamma Raptor and Wedge of Doom were made of aluminum and plastic (I know it's lexan but these days it is mediocre armor at best) but they had thick titanium components where it counts. Tazbot had somewhat thin aluminum armor, but putting small shock absorbed steel armor components between the main body and any threat kept him safe. T-Minus is all aluminum but his titanium wheel guards, due to their shape and placement, even protect his front end. It just seems pointless to design realistically if you intend to have a weak chassis but strong armor in strategic places, when ALL of your armor is treated as the same stength.

For the longest time, nothing could beat a spinner except for rammers when in real life that is not the case. So that rule was to give other designs a fighting chance by allowing them to have spinner countermeasures, but just ended up being abused by rammers. Copperhead is still successful and the only thing that gets the bonus are the rebalancers on the sides and the rear spikes. Because of that I believe that dropping the armor bonus from passive weapon robots will help to balance it. Honestly look at the rammers we have, none of them resemble real RFL bots. They've got random wedges and plates and plows stuck all over them. It's like Robot Arena 2...

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Playoff Speculation

Post by Ry_Trapp0 » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:03 am

i agree, the passive armour rule needs to be dropped. if anything, i think that a passive armour decrease could be a good thing. hinged pieces are the first things to get ripped off in combat afterall, and it would actually give some robots a chance against the robots with a bunch of hinged 'tounges' all over them(yes, obviously im talking about underall, lol). i think that the underall-style robots would still be very competitive(it would take numerous hits to knock off each wedge piece after all), but it would still give other designes a chance(i think spin suicide lost to that bastard twice in FRR, lol).

Fish Of Doom
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Playoff Speculation

Post by Fish Of Doom » Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:02 pm

Underall used to the get the crap kicked out of him by spinners. In his first tournament ever, he lost to Double Dose twice.

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>panicattacky2k</dt><dd>Apr 7 2009&#44; 12:21 AM</dd></dl><div>

...let's think about it for a sec.

Let's say, Shovearound 2 vs Adrenichrome. That's a 6 armor to a 10 weapon matchup. My hinges at the front give an extra 2, making it 8 to 10...and, if you'll recall the result, Adrenichrome could barely put a dent in me.
[/quote]
You're just helping our point. A 10 power spinner should be able to put a dent a 6 armor bot.

I like John's idea of having the armor bonus only apply to bots with active weapons. I really think this should be made official for next season.

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Post by panicattacky2k » Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:16 pm

I'm 8 armor at the front, though.

you give adrenichrome the +2 weapon bonus, and everything evens out again.

...besides. You realize helping your point is my intent, right?

Fish Of Doom
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Playoff Speculation

Post by Fish Of Doom » Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:42 pm

The fact that it is 8 armor on the front is what we're trying to say is unfair.

I was thinking if we apply the +2 bonus only to bots with active weapons, we should exclude lifters/flippers. So many people will just stick a little 1 power lifter on the front of their rammer so they can get an armor bonus.

This is all theoretical anyways. When we need to change the rules before next season, we can work out the specifics of it then.

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Playoff Speculation

Post by StarlessSoldier » Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:33 pm

How about a minimum weapon power requirement? Under the current rules regarding lifters, someone could build a bot like Vlad using a low enough weapon stat to still be an armor juggernaut without bonuses, but a robot with a flipper as powerful as T-Minus or Matador would need the armor bonus to allow survivability against spinners. Same thing could apply to spinners in fact. It would be easy to put a 1 power Ankle Biter saw on and add a ridiculous amount of armor, where as a bot like Nightmare would be dead if not for additional armor in certain places.

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Post by panicattacky2k » Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:00 pm

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>The fact that it is 8 armor on the front is what we're trying to say is unfair. [/quote]

You ignored the other portion of my post, didn't you? I said the bonus weapon power would even everything out.

And it does, really: The other portion of my post explains how:

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>However, when you kick Adreni's weapon to 12, then he can damage me pretty significantly. 12 weapon is the same as AMP's weapon, and you remember what AMP did to Shovearound 2.
[/quote]

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Playoff Speculation

Post by Fish Of Doom » Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:30 pm

Wouldn't it make more sense to just take away the entire rule than to add enough bonus stats to flat out cancel it out?

And yes I read the rest of your post. I never thought you were against me.

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