Simple PNP Tourney System 1st page updated INPUT!

[Grungebob]

Originally Posted by damja

How so? If by marginal victories you mean point differential I would challenge you to go through the tournament results using a 3-2-1 system and see how much of a difference it would actually make. Since the tournament was set up to make the cut for the top 8 out of 40, there would be little change unless some of the people in the top 8 won most of their matches on points.

The point differential system used would seem to harm people much more for a loss. You could get a +500 for having 1 Krav, 1 Deathreaver, 1 Kozuke, a 1 life Raelin, and a 1 life Q9 left on the board when you kill your opponents last figure. Is that really a +500 match? Wouldn't it be much harder for the person who lost to make a comeback than someone who won by points?

I guess it boils down to this: what are we trying to encourage? If we want victories that are decicive and agressive 3-2-1 is the way to go. If we don't care and encourage armies that are built to win by points then what we already have in place is the way to go.

My biggest problem is that I saw some matches end where the person who was in control of the match in terms of location and figures left lost because of points. In fact, one of my wins was just that. Had the match been allowed to finish I likely would have lost. Had a different point differential system been used, I think I would have lost as well. I'll take the win, but I know it deserves a Barry Bonds*.

This system would cause a person who is 4-1 but won only on VP clock outs, to potentially not make the top eight because his wins are not valued as high as a dicisive win. We don't want to devalue strategic play so harshly, what we want to do is prevent rewarding slow methodic vp based wins that run the clock out.

[Rÿchean]

Originally Posted by Velenne

Two players bring 500-point armies to the table and player 1 eliminates all of player 2's units in less than 50 minutes. In round 2, player 3 only eliminates 400 points of player 2's units but still wins on point differential.

Whose win is better? Player 1 or Player 3? Obviously, player 1's win demonstrates a stronger army, better strategy, luckier dice rolling, all of the things that come into play in a win because he was able to win more decisively than player 3. If player 3 only won because he hid a Nakita agent behind the wall in his start zone, or because Charos clung to one life and he pulled back instead of pressing an advantage, that to me demonstrates "gaming" the rules, not playing to win.

What if player 3 just happened to be playing Blast/Glads and it simply took the game longer to be played. That player is being penalized for having played Blast/Glads not for "gaming" the rules. Restrictions will equal the devaluing of units that take longer to play. PERIOD. If the point that I am making can not be realized than I suggest a player sit down and play 3xBlast3xGlads versus a 3xrat army a few times. That was basically the game that Lonewolf and I played in the semifinals. Neither Lonewolf nor I were doing anything but trying to play a game. There was no tactic performed to delay the game. It just took a freaking long time to play it.

Originally Posted by Velenne

The spirit of the game is two armies who are out to eliminate each other. Simply not fighting because you can win on points is not something that should be rewarded. Allowing a win on points to be worth the same as winning all-out allows for turtling and I'm against that.

And I am against a system that makes the use of high maitenance units discouraged simply to make sure the game ends out right. There are going to be devalued units in this 3-2-1 format. PD does seem to be the better of the two. It devalues the same units but not as much.

Originally Posted by Grungebob

Unfortunately, there are a few players who are strongly involved in the growing Heroscape tourney scene, who play for marginal wins.

I disagree; I do not believe anyone is playing for a point win as part of their strategy heading into a tournament. I believe any player that sits down would love to wipe all of his opponent's figures of the board if they can do so.

Originally Posted by Grungebob

Do we alienate these folks to create a system that is fast smooth and discourages stalling? I think so!!!

I guess alienating people is better than devaluing units...I guess. And again with the "stalling" word. Stalling - to try to put off action through delay tactics. This word is continually being used as if it is a given fact that players stalled in the GenCon tourney; as if they purposely took their time. I played many of the people that are being shed in this light; two of them were last year's first and second place finishers. Their game timed out AND tied. I assure that neither of them were purposely avoiding action by using delay tactics. Some players take longer to play; some players played armies that take longer to play. Repeatedly saying that these players "stalled" there way to victory is not accurate and approaching the realm of offensive.

PD is better than 3-2-1; The modifications to PDF would help. I agree that no negatives scores should be tallied just a zero. That would dissuade the monkey business of protecting points in a loss. Skipping PD in the first round would also help.

The first tournament I ever played in the eventual winner timed out in several of his games. He was applauded for being shrewd and cunning for managing his way to victory. Somewhere along the way the strategy of protecting your points on the board has become taboo and vilianized.

[markwars]

Originally Posted by Grungebob

My sentiments exactly. That is why I like PD so much. We can fix the problem of unequal pairings on round one by simply not starting PD til round two. PD does not accomodate those that play for marginal victories, but it doesn't punish them either. Unfortunately, there are a few players who are strongly involved in the growing Heroscape tourney scene, who play for marginal wins.. Do we alienate these folks to create a system that is fast smooth and discourages stalling? I think so!!! They are good players and should be able to adapt.

I agree with you two. And that's all I'm saying for now because this thread is giving me tired head.

[Grungebob]

Well, there is the fact that we must change. Not only DCI hard or impossible to come by, it is also not OURS!! We are in need of establishing a system that is easy and relatively fair that doesn't punish any one type of play too harshly, nor reward any type of play too generously. It needs to reflect Heroscape's approachability and simplicity (it needs to be useable by the target market) Claiming that those concerned about stalling are at fault is not true at all. Players who consitently ate up the clock were complained about because they were doing so in most of their games. It is not an invalid complaint at all and is discussed in almost all competitive circles. The use of the term stalling is for simplicity.

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

There was no tactic performed to delay the game. It just took a freaking long time to play it.

Then hurry up. Why should another player suffer because of your army choice coupled with an inability to expeditiously conduct a turn (devils advocate hat on here) Don't hate me and don't get mad, let's just hash it out.... I'm asking the tough questions here.

[lonewolf]

Originally Posted by funrun

I know a few of them did, but this is a mostly irrelevant question in our case because the win-loss records of the top 8 were different records than #9 and 10. Points did not decide the top 8 people, only their rank amongst themselves.

The relevant question to ask is how many people en total got +500 W on the first game? I posted a few pages back that there were at least 3, more like 5 IRCC.

I got a +500 pt win in the first match......but it was against Skynight....who finished in the top 8. Certainly he is no noob!

[damja]

I do like the idea of waiting until the third round to start calculating (or keeping track of) point differential.

Or here's another idea. I don't know if anyone is a bowler, but teams can earn bonus points for big wins, but a win is still a win.

Point differential can be used as such. You get 0 points for a differential less than 150 points, .01 points for a differential 150-299 points .02 points for a differential 300-449, and .03 for a differential 450+ (these numbers are just thrown out there, but using some basic statistics and assuming a normal distribution of PD exists they could be correleated with standard deviations and z-scores).

Player A, Player B, and Player C are all 4-1.

Player A has +250, +400, +75, and +110 for his wins. He would earn .03 bonus points (.01) + (.02) + (0) + (0).

Player B has +100, +200, +90, and +130. He would earn .01 bonus points for his +200 win and nothing else.

Player C has +500, +350, +40, and +130. He would earn .05 bonus points (.03) + (.02) + (0) + (0) and be ranked ahead of the other two.

If there happened to be a tie in bonus points you could look at head to head records or strength of schedule.

Just popping out another idea.

[Rÿchean]

Originally Posted by Grungebob

Then hurry up. Why should another player suffer because of your army choice coupled with an inability to expeditiously conduct a turn (devils advocate hat on here) Don't hate me and don't get mad, let's just hash it out.... I'm asking the tough questions here.

Even If Lonewolf and I did "hurry up" we still have the game mechanics of moving 8 figures, attacking with 1, rats scatter, attack 2, rats scatter, attack 3, rats scatter, attack 4, rats scatter.

In one activation, there was the possibility of up to 16 figures to move and 4 attacks/defense to roll. That is one turn marker. That simply takes time. And when that is Lonewolf's entire army and I have 3 sets of rats trying to keep that army at bay, the first round or two was nothing but that over and over again. We can "hurry" all we want but we didn't design those highly effective units to work that way. That is the reality of those units. I am not mad or offended but I do suggest that in many ways we are putting the player at fault when, at least in that game for sure, it was the combination of units being played against each other.

[lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

Even If Lonewolf and I did "hurry up" we still have the game mechanics of moving 8 figures, attacking with 1, rats scatter, attack 2, rats scatter, attack 3, rats scatter, attack 4, rats scatter.

In one activation, there was the possibility of up to 16 figures to move and 4 attacks/defense to roll. That is one turn marker. That simply takes time. And when that is Lonewolf's entire army and I have 3 sets of rats trying to keep that army at bay, the first round or two was nothing but that over and over again. We can "hurry" all we want but we didn't design those highly effective units to work that way. That is the reality of those units. I am not mad or offended but I do suggest that in many ways we are putting the player at fault when, at least in that game for sure, it was the combination of units being played against each other.

Obvious guy says "Add 30 minutes to day 2 games!" Then there will be no accusations of stalling or the like!!!!

We can have othe events going on at the same time in other parts of the room. Maybe some of those kids/newbie events? The second day only uses 4 maps at a time, so there certainly wouldn't be space issues, right!

[TOG]

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

...I do suggest that in many ways we are putting the player at fault when, at least in that game for sure, it was the combination of units being played against each other.

Perhaps the player is at fault in army selection. Maybe they didn't consider that they needed to win within 50 minutes. Sure this would limit army choices, just as different maps limit choices, but the alternative would be longer round times.

You surely wouldn't take ground units to and air battle or melee units to a range war. Nor should you take slow units to a drag race.

[lonewolf]

Originally Posted by TOG

Perhaps the player is at fault in army selection. Maybe they didn't consider that they needed to win within 50 minutes. Sure this would limit army choices, just as different maps limit choices, but the alternative would be longer round times.

You surely wouldn't take ground units to and air battle or melee units to a range war. Nor should you take slow units to a drag race.

Do we really want the Championship to be about selecting units that can finish a game in 50 minutes? I think that would be a bad paradigm shift.

[TOG]

Originally Posted by lonewolf

I think that would be a bad paradigm shift.

How is playing to win worse than playing not to lose?

[Revdyer]

Originally Posted by lonewolf

Obvious guy says "Add 30 minutes to day 2 games!" Then there will be no accusations of stalling or the like!!!!

I think this is spot on. I know that in our finals match, we both would have loved another 30 minutes of playing time...even an additional 20 minutes would have been more satisfying.

In fact, I think not using PD on the very first round; not using negatives, but 0 for loss PDs, and adding 20 or 30 minutes to the day two matches would just about solve all the gripes for the championship tournament.