Hi Coaches,
As we stand at the crossroads between Season 1 ending and Season 2 kick-off on September 21st, it's a perfect moment to share our takeaways and plans for improvement. Moreover, let's delve into what lies ahead for Season 2, including updates on some topics of great interest within our community.
Season 1 marked the initial step in the right direction. As we've previously detailed our objectives in our first Dev Point (nacon.me/BB3DevPoint1), we'll just touch on some key points here. Overall, we're quite pleased with how Season 1 unfolded and how it aligned with our intentions.
Season 1: The Official Ladder
The Official Ladder was a significant addition, distinct from BB2, with a fresh system. We're happy with its reception and its performance, which closely mirrored our expectations. It's not without its imperfections, and we made adjustments throughout the season as part of a learning process. These adjustments included increasing the SR (Skill Rating) to win or lose each match to facilitate quicker progression, reducing queue times, especially for higher division players, and refining matchmaking to ensure balanced matches. We also decided to implement a soft reset of the ladder at the start of Season 2 to avoid unbalanced matches and reduce the minimum number of matches to reach high divisions for the players that showed outstanding performances in Season 1. While future adjustments can be expected, we believe it's progressing toward a healthy state.
We acknowledge that the Official Ladder may not be everyone's preferred mode, but it has been extremely popular in Season 1 and enriches the game.
However, the Official Ladder alone cannot carry the full weight of Blood Bowl's competitive aspect. Our aim is twofold: to enhance it and to provide alternatives for players of all types, ensuring that no one feels limited in how they enjoy Blood Bowl.
Season Finals
Blood Bowl 3 deserves a tournament where the best players of the season can fight for the ultimate title. While we weren't confident enough to implement it in the first season, it has always been part of our roadmap. We're thrilled to announce that Season Finals will take place at the end of the Season 2! This adds another layer of excitement to the Official Ladder, and it will not be the only way to qualify.
While the final format of the tournament will be revealed later, we can already announce that the 28th first ranks of the ladder will provide tickets for a tournament at the end of the season.
A few other tickets will also be given through other competitions.
You can expect more information about this tournament in the following weeks. It will be the main subject for a future article.
Ladder Format Evolution:
For Season 2, we've decided to introduce a TV (Team Value) Limit. This decision followed extensive discussions, weighing pros and cons within the team and consulting with long-time players. We believe this will foster a “fairer” competition. While we understand that not everyone will be in favor, we're convinced it's worth a try. We will learn from the experience and adapt for future seasons. We may adjust the TV value or even remove the limit altogether, remaining flexible to find the right format for the majority of players based on our monitoring and your feedback – that's been our approach since the Beta and we plan to stick with it.
The New Faction:
A new season heralds a new Faction! Lizardmen received a warm welcome and adapted well to the meta, embraced by a significant portion of players. We hope for a similar reception for the upcoming Faction. You will discover it tomorrow but here's a small hint: It has been a popular team during the Blood Bowl World Cup in Alicante, for those who followed the Boardgame event…
The League Administration Tools
We've been relatively quiet on this front, but rest assured, we've been continuously working on it and it’s one of our top priorities.
Earlier this year, we conducted tests with experienced administrators who are accustomed to managing these tools. We want to ensure they meet the needs tournament administrators got before releasing it. The initial test results were not conclusive, and we listened to feedback. While it delayed our initial release plans, we prioritize quality over a premature launch. We've made substantial improvements, and we will conduct another round of testing very soon. It's challenging to provide an exact ETA at this stage, but we'll do our best to have them ready during the season.
Spectator and Replay Modes
The Spectator Mode is ready and will be available from the start of the season. However, the replay mode is still in progress and will be added through a patch later in the season.
In addition, there are numerous changes that are not highlighted in this Dev Point that we will share with you in the coming days and mainly in the Season 2 Patch Note, including bug corrections and quality of life improvements. For those among you reading these lines who didn’t play for a while, we also implemented a lot of fixes and correction during Season 1 that you might enjoy if you start the game again.
Our journey continues and we strongly believe that Season 2 is another step in the right direction. While we encountered difficulties around the launch of the game, we've been dedicated to perfecting the game and we will continue the work. With the numerous improvements, additions and corrections made on the game over the last months, we believe Blood Bowl 3 is now at a way more enjoyable state for players, but there are still many improvements and content we want to bring to the game. We are not done with it! Your passion and support give us the strength to turn things around, and we will continue the work to get you the game you have every right to expect.
In the meantime, we hope you have a fantastic time with this second season, and we thank you for sticking with us!
