Partial Card Scoring Devalues Heroes

[EternalThanos86]

The Background:

• Saw this comment in Rÿchean's signature
• Searched about partial card scoring (only found the "official" table)

The Question:

What are the biggest arguments for or against partial card scoring in tournaments? Specifically, why does it devalue unique heroes more than squads (common or unique) and common heroes?

Discuss.

[Codeman]

As you know at the Tree Town Open we choose to Keep It Simple and count points same as the Heroscape rule book. As long as your hero has one life left he is good as if he had full life. Doing it this way may add some to strategy and how you want to attack your opponent... however as long as you know how the tourney scores ... I think either method of scoring works .... but I always favor keeping it simple and it also matchs the rule book.

[Johnnylama]

Originally Posted by EternalThanos86

Specifically, why does it devalue unique heroes more than squads (common or unique) and common heroes?

Discuss.

Against: Tournaments are already squad heavy, and partial scoring hurts a hero heavy army even more.

Example: One hit on Nilfheim costs about 30 points, roughly the cost of losing three Deathreavers. Each Deathreaver can only be killed one at a time, yet Nilfheim could potentially take multiple hits from the same attack. One bad defense roll with Nilfheim could cost you not only 30, but 60, 90 or more points, yet one bad defense roll with a Deathreaver will only cost you 10 no matter what.

Yet, from an offensive standpoint, Nilfheim does not lose any firepower by taking those hits, while a squad potentially could. If a game ends and your Nilfheim is hurt but not killed, he could have potentially done a lot more damage to your opponent if the game were to have continued. You do not get credit for this. If you are left with Nilfheim with one life and your opponent has four Deathreavers, your opponent wins. I think I would take Nilfheim with one life against four Deathreavers in a fight.

At least this is my limited understanding. Others with more experience will certainly have more intelligent things to say than I do I bet!

[Harlax]

Originally Posted by Codeman

...count points same as the Heroscape rule book.

...and it also matchs the rule book.

Two pretty good reasons right there.

[jschild]

Why not simply mix and match the two.

Heroes get full card scoring, because a hero with only one life left or with all his life can still deal as much damage as he could otherwise.

However, use partial card scoring for squads, because a squad 2/3rd's gone is pretty much useless.

This balances out the reality of the usefulness of the heroes even when injured vs. the helplessness of a squad with only one figure.

[Agent Minivann]

It could also be argued that Krug with 1 life left is more valuable than Krug at full health.

[pixlepix]

Originally Posted by Johnnylama

Against: Tournaments are already squad heavy, and partial scoring hurts a hero heavy army even more.

Example: One hit on Nilfheim costs about 30 points, roughly the cost of losing three Deathreavers. Each Deathreaver can only be killed one at a time, yet Nilfheim could potentially take multiple hits from the same attack. One bad defense roll with Nilfheim could cost you not only 30, but 60, 90 or more points, yet one bad defense roll with a Deathreaver will only cost you 10 no matter what.

Yet, from an offensive standpoint, Nilfheim does not lose any firepower by taking those hits, while a squad potentially could. If a game ends and your Nilfheim is hurt but not killed, he could have potentially done a lot more damage to your opponent if the game were to have continued. You do not get credit for this. If you are left with Nilfheim with one life and your opponent has four Deathreavers, your opponent wins. I think I would take Nilfheim with one life against four Deathreavers in a fight.

At least this is my limited understanding. Others with more experience will certainly have more intelligent things to say than I do I bet!

However, that is a baisic flaw with heros in general, and is not made more severe by partial scoring.

[Sarpedon]

Greetings, everyone.

I think that partial scoring for squads, but not for (the health of) heroes, is just the way to go. This is one of the few things aside from bonding that may motivate people to draft heroes. Squads have so many advantages already that, even with this rule, they're still way ahead of heroes regarding competitive tournament play.

[nyys]

In the Northeast we always go with partial scoring (I've never played the full card, nor am I interested in it). Partial scoring, IMO, gives a much more true result.

Look at is this way. With full card scoring, at the end of a game someone with a full squad of Romans remaining (50 points) loses to an opponent who has one Krav remaining (100 points). Something not right about that. With Partial scoring the win goes to the the Roman team (50 points remains as opposed to the Krav's 33).

Considering HeroScape was designed with 8 year olds in mind, the full card was definitely the way to go, simple surely equals better in the that case.

[ollie]

I've had this discussion a bunch of times. Nothing new in this post, but I'll add it here again.

The first question to answer is what you are trying to do with the scoring method. Some of you seem to think its job is to influence the metagame. That's not what I think---scoring is a method for declaring a winner of an unfinished game and, as such, the method that most reliably picks the player that would go on to win if the game was played to completion is better. (Here is where the full-card scorers disagree with me: they argue that the time limit is the end of the game and the goal of the game is to have the most points, by whatever method is agreed on in advance, when time is called.)

So the second question is which method does that. Of the three relatively simple ones (whole card, fractional, fractional squads and whole card heroes) I argue that fractional wins comfortably. It's not perfect, but 25pts is a much better estimate for a one-life Carr than 100 and 40pts is a better estimate for a single Nakita than 120. (Note: I'm not saying these estimates are perfect, or even especially good, just that they significantly improve on the whole card method if you accept my philosophy in relation to the first question.)

This is probably the one topic where my title makes literal sense.

[SuperflyTNT]

There is no "partial score" for almost scoring a touchdown.

The fact is that Craig Van Ness came up with the Full Card Scoring, and he designed the game; This is the canon of Heroscape. Gencon has always used Full Card Scoring. All of the HS playtesters use Full Card Scoring when playtesting these squads and heroes.

The simple fact is that every figure ever made was playtested using FCS. By arbitrarily changing it and dumbing the game down because some people can't accept the fact that the game is what it is and was designed as such, you are literally breaking the game. If figures were playtested with the FCS and you change it, you're totally changing the nature of the figures and unbalancing the game, simple as that.

[ollie]

Oh yes, I forgot the other argument full-card scorers make: it's in the rules and/or the designers are perfect and we should never vary that at all except when we vary it all the time because the game is designed to be varied.

(Also note that time limits are most certainly not in the rules and I think that makes a big difference: I'd be perfectly happy with full-card scoring and a round limit. With a round limit the end of the game is defined in game terms not external ones. I'm actually happy with full card anyway and think it's up to the tournament director. We've had one full card event in the northeast that I went to.)

Edit: Oh, and the almost-scoring-a-touchdown analogy doesn't work either. If you had to stop a game of football early and had to award a win you'd presumbaly give it to the team most likely to go on to win and this would be the team with the most points. Almost scoring a touchdown is like almost inflicting a wound in Heroscape: you came close but no benefit accrued.