Team Creation:
So if you start off by buying a lot of Fan Factor like in previous editions, then you will find other teams you face on the pitch are going to have an advantage in players/skills/rerolls over you. You may get more winnings from the FAME, but they are more likely to win the game, their Fan Factor will likely go up while there is a good chance yours will probably drop.
Previously it was imperative for both teams to have a high Fan Factor to get a high gate, to get the most winnings. Now this isn’t the case there is little incentive to spend money on getting a high starting Fan Factor (especially as it will easily go up anyway). This means you don’t have to worry about teams turning you down for having a low Fan Factor, which in turn will make more players start with less (or indeed none which is my preference).
It is useful to have a higher Fan Factor than your opponent though. The bonuses to the kick off are useful, for crowd causing injuries, or either gaining a reroll, or denying an extra one to your opponent. During team creation though, you are better off starting with none or a low amount. As stated previously the extra money can get you either more players, better players, or more rerolls. If you win your Fan Factor will go up early on more often than not Losing would be more likely if the other team has the advantage on the pitch of less Fan Factor, which may mean your Fan Factor drops wasting the investment.
Developed Teams:
Beyond winning games which guarantees your Fan Factor to at least stay the same, there is little you can do to increase your Fan Factor. Early on, or after a bad streak you may be able to increase your Fan Factor after some drawn games though. This will mean most teams will have a fairly average spread of Fan Factor, with the teams on a winning streak having it slightly higher and those on a losing streak likely to have it lower. It will be fairly rare for a team to drop too low and even if they then draw some games it will start creeping back up again.
Due to the way Fan Factor now goes up and down and the fact it doesn’t have much of a bearing on winnings any more, both combine to make the early purchase of Fan Factor somewhat wasteful compared to the front loading of players and rerolls.
Exceptions:
There are perhaps a couple of teams it may be worth spending some money on Fan Factor initially. They would be the Stunty teams of Halfling and Goblins. The logic behind this is that their players are fairly cheap anyway and can start with a full roster and plenty of rerolls. If they then spend some money towards Fan Factor they can win all the kick off rolls and the denial of rerolls to the other team or crowd caused injuries can really help them out. Also as their players are cheap the one or two that they would forgo by spending money on Fan Factor they can easily make that money back after a few games from all the FAME rolls they are likely to win.
Summary:
Pretty simple to sum all this up, the rules have changed so now it isn’t worth starting any team with any Fan Factor. Previously you would only do this for very short leagues or tournaments.
I pretty much see it the same way. For 1 off games I will usually have only a few points of fan factor for any left over cash not spendable any where else (10-20K). For Leagues I generally start with zero and save the cash.
Fan Factor in BB is a joke since LRB5.0.
In our local League, my mate and I have made FF count with a House Rule.
For more info, see http://www.fenris.bloodbowlleague.com under Miscellaneous called Fan Factor and Winnings Table.
I was also apprehensive of the changes to Fan Factor but having played a full season using the new rules the changes are actually really good. You get far more variety in starting line ups under the new rules. You don’t get coaches refusing games in open systems because your team has a low fan factor. There is also less reason to retire or restart a team if your fan factor drops too low. Of course the rules are written to allow leagues to house rule as they see fit, though I really encourage coaches to give the changes a go. Some things aren’t as great under LRB5, such as losing the referee roll, but this is a change for the better imo.
The necessity for starting off with a high FF is indeed no more present, though after having started some teams in leagues with FF0, I have begun squeezing in at least a couple of points of FF in my teams… Despite the points in this article being quite true in regard to FF, one point that I generally experience is that once team rating goes up due to gaining skills or stat increases, you tend to face progressed teams (who generally have been in leagues for far longer) with a much higher FF.
Then again, for tournaments I never bother to take FF and instead try to max out on cheerleaders/ assistant coaches with any left-over cash.
A fair point, depending on the type of environment you are playing in and how your matches are determined can affect starting team strategy.
I have found that starting with 0 FF is risky, because even if the opponent has 0 FF too, either one might get FAME +2, which is makes them more likely to benefit from the Kick-off results Throw a Rock and Pitch Invasion. Especially in Pitch Invasion, FAME +2 leaves, statistically speaking, on the average, *half* of the opposing team stunned. I’ve had the pleasure of being the kicker with FAME +2 in that situation and robbing the ball and making a 2-turn touchdown from their receive was rather enjoyable. I’m sure someone can come up with one of those handy probability tables which show on columns the FF of one team, on rows the FF of the other team, and in the cells at the intersections the probability of getting FAME 0, +1 and +2.
That is just poor luck though, first one team needs to get +2 FAME, then you need to roll those events on the kick off table which are some of the less likely ones to come up. They also need to happen at the start of a meaningful drive, they could also come up on the odd last turn of a drive where they won’t have any affect on the match.
In every other game for most teams you are generally better off spending the money on better players or more rerolls, as statistically they will be more useful more often. That isn’t to say that you can’t start a team off well and get a lot of Fan Factor as that is what every team used to do under the older rules. The first few points of Fan Factor are easy to get as well now if you start with a low amount.
I created several of my early teams in the Cyanide game with a full 9 Fan Factor (because I hadn’t realized that it had changed since earlier editions), and I can tell you, while watching half the other team get stunned from a pitch invasion is awesome, I don’t think it makes up for the lack of Blitzers and key positionals those early teams have suffered.
Buy the key players, and let the Fan Factor earn itself.
My local Gaming Club (Bristol Vanguard) have decided to give everyone 5FF for free at the start, we found no-one was buying any and it works well, it has been in force for about a year now and no-one has found a down side to it, we all get the full 1,000K on our teams and our FF is at that point that it usually takes 5-6 games to get to, it just a nice starting point for everyone.
While I can see starting with 5FF might look appealing to some players, having everyone start with it for free has no effect on the game at all. You may as well start at the 0FF.
That isn’t true, it minimises the odds that someone will get +2 FAME for the match compared to starting with zero. It is harder to double the score if you add five to each. For example if one coach rolls 4 and the other rolls 9, if they both have zero Fan Factor then the second coach will get +2 FAME. If you add five to both this becomes 9 against 14, so this time the second coach only gets +1 FAME for the match.
is there any way to see the Roll for FAME at the start of the game in the PC game? and also, the roll for the Income at the end of the match?
I assume as of LRB6 you can’t buy fan factor anyway?
You can only buy it when you create your team which has been the case since 3rd edition in 1994. It’s just not as important as it once was with regards to determining your team’s income so you can spend more money on players or rerolls which was the original intention.