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Well, if the soft scores really range between 8-10, why not just let them score a 1,2, or 3 instead. Gives the same point range so has the same effect on the overall scores.

I think it's overly cumbersome, but then again, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Anything that takes that long to explain would confuse me, probably leading to incorrect scoring on my part.

My favorite style of scoring is the old ranking system. I understand that it has been thrown out according to Stelek, but that seems to give a good range of scores. Ranking also gives each player the same number of soft score points to spend so the people who say, "I always give my opponent max points." end up giving the same amount of points as the people who score their opponents fairly.

Every system has its problems. The difficulty is in determining what aspect of the tournament you want to concentrate on and designing a scoring system to reflect that.

Making a fair system for a small 20-30 person tournament when you know over half of the attendees is quite a bit different from designing a scoring system for a 140 person tournament. What works for one may not work for the other. It's a matter of scale and it certainly doesn't invalidate any of the positive characteristics of the other system.

That said, I don't like the proposed scoring system, and won't until I try it and see how it works. Conceptually, I just can't wrap my slimy, yet normally agile, mind around it.

BeefyG wrote:In regards to JohnWangs "EPIC FAIL" comment:
I'm not sure what you are critising here but it obviously doesn't fall into the constructive critisism category either. His idea just needs some simplification. If you got your cookie (Able to score people freely on sports, painting and comp/theme whatever) would you be happy?

Right up to the "EPIC FAIL" rating, I was trying to give criticism, however Stelek simply ignored it. He simply refused to address the issue. And keep in mind that this is after Stelek derailed his own thread by calling someone an asshat.

And to be honest, I don't see any "simplification" that could save it, because it is conceptually flawed. He is trying to build a castle upon quicksand, so it is no wonder that parts fall into the muck.

I could care less whether we score freely, or guided by a series of checkboxes. The important thing is that the system is fair to an honest scorer. And his system doesn't do that.

His system grossly distorts scoring by forcing strict graders like myself to give unnatural scores to so-so players like Stelek where they may not be warranted. Players who would score low (e.g. 4/5/7) are forced to give a high score where they wouldn't.

His system also screws things up by ignoring high scores for those lenient graders who would score uniformly high (e.g. 9/8/10), because the other high scores don't gain any credit.

Meanwhile, players can still chipmunk with something like a (0/0/8), so that problem isn't solved. A chipmunker like Kallibrand only takes away a maximum of 22 points instead of 30. But normally, Kallibrand would have chipmunked by giving a total of around 6 points (e.g. 1/3/2), so the net change is only +2. Either way, that player is out of the running.

So based on this, we see that:
- confuses strict graders / so-so players (e.g Stelek)
- discounts lenient graders / great players
- supports chipmunks (e.g. Kallibrand)

If this was supposed to stop asshats like Kallibrand from chipmunking, it failed. And it now means that strict graders like me give Stelek wierd scores. And great players get screwed, too?

I see no redeeming feature in his system. It is overly complicated and counter-intuitive.


The correct solution is to have chipmunking / collusion detection in the program that flags and/or discards and/or mitigates anomalous reports.

Good thing JohnHwangDD realises irony and sarcasm. Guess personal insults is the way to go when you know the point is right but dont understand the rest. If I really were serious about chipmunking, would I like a system like this?

You want a system thats fair to the honest scorer but the thing you preach is exactly the opposite. The honest guys gets screwed by those who abuses, how can that be a good thing?

Also, chipmunking/collusion detection only works if the pepole you are trying to "catch" are nimbwitz that you could spot a mile away(if they have half a brain the dont push the limits over what they can motivate).

Kallbrand wrote:Good thing JohnHwangDD realises irony and sarcasm.

Indeed.

Guess personal insults is the way to go when you know the point is right but dont understand the rest.

I.e. "asshat" Stelek.

If I really were serious about chipmunking, would I like a system like this?

Probably. Stelek's 8/0/0 thing works pretty well.

You want a system thats fair to the honest scorer but the thing you preach is exactly the opposite. The honest guys gets screwed by those who abuses, how can that be a good thing?

Explain.

Also, chipmunking/collusion detection only works if the pepole you are trying to "catch" are nimbwitz that you could spot a mile away(if they have half a brain the dont push the limits over what they can motivate).

If chipmunking or collusion can't be detected, then it probably isn't chipmunking or collusion. In other words, if the worst chipmunking ends up looking like strict grading, and the most collusion looks like lenient grading, then the net effect is only +/-3 points from the true score. You'd have that much variation from an inexperienced scorer anyways. That's a far cry from the 20-odd point swing that Stelek's system allows.

WTF is 'Chipmunking?'

Why can't a system be worked out where the highest and lowest scores are thrown out? Say in your 5 games you get soemthing like

8/7/6
4/2/5
9/10/8
6/6/7
2/7/10

and then just drop the highest and lowest score in each category and average the remaining three?

From the context people are using it in, it seems that "chipmunking" is deliberately underscoring your opponents on their soft scores in order to improve your own ranking.

Well, you are one of the guys who cries for more comp score.. I have seen your kind a 100 times and no matter what anyone writes it will be impossible to tell you anything else.

First off, the mini score here is 1 not 0, so I guess you are fighting the system without even readin how it works. (I call collusion)

Secondly, if you get a 8 as worst for the battlescore total and a judgescore for the painting minimum the 8/0/0 will mean very little(you will loose out on one price for beeing chipmunked really). So no, this system doesnt work very well for chipmunking and that would be clear if you read it before arguing.

You want a free scoring system, of course that allows for the more devious players to screw the honest guy. I dont know how to explain it since it is as plain as that. The bigger the score you can get from softscores the bigger the opportunity to chipmunk is.

Last and not least, you seem to think chipmunking/collustion is so easy to detect, why is it such a big problem? Depending on how many softpoints that you can score there is more or less possibilities. And you know what? Those who wanna cheat usally have no problems lying either, so they can make up whatever story they want about why they score as they do. Anything from pepole moving their models to far, to not beeing there on time or not knowing the rules.. you name it. Also, the "smarter" guys just dont act like an idiot and give everyone 0s, they just do it when it matters more and even then its not 0 or 1.. but just as much as they can get away with. The same way but the other way for collusion, not straight 10s but as good as you can get away with for just the 1 game that matters. So with Steleks system, the net diffrence for getting screwed this way 1 time would be 2 points in the battlepoint section.. not so much I would say.

Chipmunking means you will underscore someone to take them out of the run for 1st place. Revenge or giving your mate a better chance to win beeing the most common reasons.

Kallbrand wrote:Last and not least, you seem to think chipmunking/collustion is so easy to detect, why is it such a big problem?

Probably because the guys writing the scoring programs aren't that smart to think about incorporating it into the system.

Chipmunking and collusion *is* easy to detect when you have multiple scores from multiple independent sources.

All you need to do is run some statistics against the scores.

Let's look at Scruffy's scores for his 5 games:
8 / 7 / 6 - Andy (21)
4 / 2 / 5 - Chip (11)
9 / 10 / 8 - Bud (27)
6 / 6 / 7 - Dave (19)
2 / 7 / 10 - Eric (19)

If you run statistics you get the following:
5.8 / 6.4 / 7.2 average (19.4)
2.9 / 2.9 / 1.9 standard deviation (5.7)

Adding or subracting the standard deviation from the average gives us the range of variation for his scores, Scruffy's scores should be in the following ranges:
2.9 / 3.5 / 5.3 minimum (13.7)
8.7 / 9.3 / 9.1 maximum (25.1)

So when we look at the scores, Andy and Dave are completely in range for all of their scores. Clearly, they're not doing anything unusual. Eric's 2 and 10 are both out of range, but on net, they cancel themselves out, so his scores are odd, but not problematic. Chip and Bud, however are unusual. Chip has 2 scores out of range, and they're both low, so we would consider him to be a chipmunker. Bud also has 2 scores out of range, and they're both high, so we would consider him to be in collusion buddy-buddy with Scruffy. More importantly, their totals are outside the range, whereas Eric's total is still average, for a total of three strikes against them.

So Chipmunk and collusion detection is pretty easy!

Now Kallbrand would object that Chip and Bud wouldn't be so blatant. If they wanted to "sneak" their scores below the radar, they would have had to rate something like this:
4 / 6 / 6 - Chip (+5)
8 / 7 / 8 - Bud (-4)
In this case, the scoring differential is much smaller compred to the average total, so the impact of playing either of those opponents is much smaller. Also, note that the adjustments pretty much offset each other - the penalty of playing Chip is equal to the bonus of playing Bud.

In the mean time, the question is what to do with the scores. In the case of chipmunking, I would suppose that it's easy enough have Scruffy simply receive agerage scores where he would have been chipmunked, and penalize the chipmunker with the scores that he gave. Similarly for collusion, one might give Scuffy might receive the upper variation score where he would have been inflated, and lower Bud down to lower variation score.


But yeah, it's just as easy to do like Scruffy suggests and pull the high and low results.

I agree that throwing out the top and lowest scores from each category, and then averaging the rest is the most fair thing to do.

However...

Why not just have:
1) Best General
2) Best Painted
3) Best Theme/Unity

where we do away with Best Overall and tally it such that the scores in one category do not affect the scores in the other categories? That way, we can do away with Sportsmanship altogether, as it seems like people abuse it anyway. Then, we could all behave like how we truly want to and not treat these tournaments as political events.

Or would that simply mean that NO ONE would have fun?

Perhaps GW should just make online versions of these games where no one can cheat and no gamer ever has to meet another face to face.

The point is that gamers can meet face to face and play together.

Nurglitch wrote:The point is that gamers can meet face to face and play together.

Oh, sorry. That last point was facetious and not meant to be taken seriously.

This debate is like religion. Sure both sides say the same thing over and over - but no one's opinion changes. The people that 'need' them to win will never want them to go away and the people that are 'prevented' from winning by them being there never want to use them.

BeefyG wrote:
Again to reiterate comments to Centurion99's post:
I don't think steleks idea is impotent. Filling the fuel tanks with water isn't a fair metaphor for his whole system, as it simply places less emphasis on one factor. The three point spread solves one of the above problems in an environment that you have admitted is arbitrary and hence open to abuse.

It's perhaps a bit extreme, but the point was that his system doesn't address the core problem that he claims to address: chipmunking (where the heck did that term come from). All it does is sort of patch over chipmunking for the overall, by effectively greatly reducing the importance of soft scores in the overall award, while also (essentially) encouraging it for soft score awards.


Essentially, what's needed isn't a straitjacket...its greater education, and essentially, maturity.

Bingo - but that doesn't happen. Plain and simple you put your 'fate' in the hands of someone you just pummeled and made pack up his toy soldiers early. Not everyone is emotionally equipped to be 'fair' in that situation.

Neither solution is really good. But I hate forcing behavior more than I hate getting chipmunked.

I think you can get a much better result simply by making sportsmanship/theme/paint judging open, as opposed to secret.

Certainly it will. It will not allow for passive aggressive behavior and will force people to be accountable for their marks. It still doesn't mean the system isn't exploitable - it just means that only the real super a-holes will take the most advantage of it because they won't be 'afraid' to zero someone out.

You are still influencing behavior by removing the anonymity.

If you're looking for a lesser of an evil you really should be favoring the people who actually win the game instead of the person who lost it.

blood angel: Nothing forces anyone to "pummel" anyone. If the point is to have an enjoyable game, then trying to grand the opponent down with a fast massacre isn't sporting. Recall that there's another human being on the other side of the board, so perhaps it's better to play a bit less aggressively so both players can have some fun.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If the point is to have an enjoyable game, then trying to grind the opponent down with a fast massacre isn't sporting. Recall that there's another human being on the other side of the board, so perhaps it's better to play a bit less aggressively so both players can have some fun.

First, I would like to clarify that JohnHwangDD is someone I think I would enjoy playing 40K with. I like to play for fun more than for the win. Good times is more important than winning or losing. This would be like us playing golf for fun between friends and betting drinks on the outcome.

However, I have to disagree with the quoted statement, with regards to a tournament setting. The purpose of a tournament is to kick @$$ and take names. Period. You think Tiger Woods lets up if he's ahead by 5 strokes? Hell no. And I would fully expect my opponent in a tournament to play his best and not insult me by pulling punches if he is winning by too much. If I get massacred, then I probably deserved it and he deserves to gain from my mistakes. And I hope he realizes that if I outplay him the only conclusion is that he was not the better player for that specific game (but perhaps he will learn and beat me next time). Sorry to say, but tournament settings take competition to a higher level, and that's how it should be. And the only Sportsmanship I would expect from my opponent is full knowledge of the rules and that he has the integrity to not cheat or stall for time.

I don't see why kicking ass and taking names should be somehow exclusive with playing a fun game, particularly in a tournament. You don't need to pull your punches to have a good time; just not be a dick about it whether you win or loose.

Nurglitch wrote:I don't see why kicking ass and taking names should be somehow exclusive with playing a fun game, particularly in a tournament. You don't need to pull your punches to have a good time; just not be a dick about it whether you win or loose.

Agreed.

Indeed. Its not whether I win or lose that indicates I'm playing THAT GUY. Its whether or not he has all the indicia of an A hole I'd never associate with outside of the tournament, who's behavior is so poor it just ruins the experience.

IME the majority of players at tournaments score honestly, with something of a bias towards slightly inflating the softs. I’ve given massacres and been massacred with the winner getting high Sports and Comp scores. I handed out two or three massacres at the Boston GT where I took a Sportsmanship prize (thanks to all max Sports marks and two votes for favorite opponent). The system certainly CAN work.

But I agree that it’s worth exploring better and easier systems, and ones which incorporate some detection mechanism to recognize collusion and chipmunking. I agree that educating the players and the judges as to how the scoring works and is SUPPOSED to work makes a substantial difference. There are a whole lot of areas in this game, by its nature, where shady behavior and cheating is possible. While we should work hard to minimize their impact, we do need to bear in mind that some shannigans will always occur. You can’t remove them completely.

The main function of Sports scoring has always been to make clear that civil and friendly behavior are important components of the hobby. That consideration for your opponent and his experience is a core value. Any system that mitigates this, or makes it possible for a player to act badly without consequence, is IMO going in the wrong direction. This is not like the old Pro circuit for Magic: The Gathering. We don’t need trash talk (except between friends) and attempts to psych out the opponent by offering to arm wrestle for first turn. Those kind of competitors have all kinds of other sports and hobbies they can enjoy.

"...attempts to psych out the opponent by offering to arm wrestle for first turn."

LOL I'll have to try this one

Guys used to do that on the Magic circuit.

For one example, Shawn "Hammer" Regnier used to be well known for his trash talking and efforts to deliberately demoralize his opponents. He was a perfectly nice guy in real life (he owned a comic & card shop in my town), but that behavior was tolerated in the tournaments, which became tacit acceptance and encouragement. Nowadays they have a very strict, point by point set of tournament bylaws and rules.

Interesting resource for anyone interested in emulating Magic’s pro-tour:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/suspended

http://www.wizards.com/dci/downloads/DCI_PG_080301.doc

http://www.wizards.com/dci/downloads/DCI_UTR_1Jun07_EN.doc

Based on most of the Magic Players I've seen, I'd arm wrestle any of them.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I wouldn't unless they took a shower first and maybe some antibiotics.

Good point... I'll bring my anti-bacterial hand lotion.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Well, if Shawn's still in Manchester I'd be happen to arrange the match.

Too bad I'm over here, (safe) on the West Coast.

Seriously, that guy plays with Magic cards??

Ozymandias, King of Kings