I was watching the Adepticon final table between Nick and Matt tonight. It was a great battle and Matt was able to pull it off despite a very troubling situation that happened. Earlier in the game Nick had periled Ahriman command point rerolled and got the spell off and imediately periled on Ahrimans next spell. He then said it wasnt worth the risk and didnt cast his third spell. By the next turn Nick was running low on ways to hurt hive tyrrants as he had lost 2 of his 3 daemon princes and his last had pulled back with 2 wounds. Then came the moment of truth. Ahriman periled again. Knowing the stakes Nick tapped his last srratagem point die. Unwilling to use his last point he said out loud dont die. Sure enough Ahriman kills him. Within a second he pulls him a starts rolling shooting dice. My friend and i stand there slack jawed as he doesnt blow him up and potentially killing his daemon prince. So i got the judges attention and let him know. What he said to me was shocking. He said he wasnt there to ensure the integrity of the game just to abitrate disputes. That daemon prince then killed the big game hunter that turn.
I had two major problems with this. While i am not saying Nick skipped blowing up Ahriman on purpose it is fair to say he knows the rule. By the judges call if he had done this on purpose and tried to push it by his opponent that was fine, because if you are not caught by your opponent it isnt illegal.
My secon issue is that it is judge calls like this that feeds the toxic tournament environment everyone has run into where an opponent has you show him every rule you use. While in early rounds there is no way judges can keep up you would think on the final table they would care if there was a huge game changing deviation from the rules.
Luckily Matt was able to pull it off or it feels it would have reinforced to see how much you can get away with in order to win.
I am not saying he did it on purpose but the rules were not followed in his favor and it had a huge impact on the game. I am sure as having played a lot of 8th he is aware of the rule but it may have just slipped his mind. It did however seem like he was aware of the impact diying from perils could have.
meleti wrote: Nick's a good guy. Let's not start an internet lynch mob here based on innuendo, okay?
I don't think that's OP's intent. The problem is more the TO's attitude and behavior, which definitely was problematic in my view.
That said, didn't something exactly like this happen at NOVA and 'he's a good guy' got trotted out then too for whoever it was. Rules are rules and if the flub made a difference a retroactive score tweak is appropriate regardless of whether it's a good guy or not.
That said, it didn't seem to matter in the game so let's focus on the TO, who should have intervened when notified.
DeviationOfWar wrote: So i got the judges attention and let him know. What he said to me was shocking. He said he wasnt there to ensure the integrity of the game just to abitrate disputes
Shameful failure by the judge, shameful failure by Adepticon for letting it happen. Why is it so hard for 40k events to have competent judges?
I can see something like that being forgotten in the heat of the moment, especially something as rare as what happens to a pyskers dying to perils, but if that was indeed the judges reaction that's a very odd stance to take. I don't think you'd hear that in any other tournament.
"Well I'm sure Shaq didn't mean to elbow that guy, so we'll just say it's an honest mistake unless the other team says something about it" would probably lead to a lynch mob in the NBA but what do I know.
I mean how often do you actually see someone die to perils these days, especially with how CP rerolls work? Perils alone is maybe a 6% chance, dying to it has to be a 1/100-1/1000 chance in itself.
Also, if this was an "honest mistake" how come he gets a break but the flesh tearers guy gets an automatic disqualification? (Aside from the whole allegedly he's done this before bit)
The Judges are only as good as the people who volunteer to do it. You get what you pay for. Which is why the Tournaments shy away from having the Judges act as Referees. Each people is expected to act as their own advocate. So in this case with things as they stand it was Matt's duty to call him on it.
Crimson Devil wrote: The Judges are only as good as the people who volunteer to do it. You get what you pay for. Which is why the Tournaments shy away from having the Judges act as Referees. Each people is expected to act as their own advocate. So in this case with things as they stand it was Matt's duty to call him on it.
It always has been joke, it will always be joke. When you try to run non-competive game in a competive way it will by definition be a joke. You do it for laughs. Not because you believe it actually is competive
Crimson Devil wrote: The Judges are only as good as the people who volunteer to do it. You get what you pay for. Which is why the Tournaments shy away from having the Judges act as Referees. Each people is expected to act as their own advocate. So in this case with things as they stand it was Matt's duty to call him on it.
Because I don't care enough about competitive 40k to sacrifice my time and effort to help it. But refusing to spend my time and effort making it better doesn't in any way change the fact that competitive 40k is a joke as long as things like this incident keep happening, and the judge and event staff should be ashamed of their incompetence.
Because I don't care enough about competitive 40k to sacrifice my time and effort to help it. But refusing to spend my time and effort making it better doesn't in any way change the fact that competitive 40k is a joke as long as things like this incident keep happening, and the judge and event staff should be ashamed of their incompetence.
Obviously that's not true. You spend a great deal of your time and effort to criticize it. And many other aspects of the game. This is something you can do to fix something, So why not take your chance to improve part of it?
Crimson Devil wrote: The Judges are only as good as the people who volunteer to do it. You get what you pay for. Which is why the Tournaments shy away from having the Judges act as Referees. Each people is expected to act as their own advocate. So in this case with things as they stand it was Matt's duty to call him on it.
That's not an excuse. Every wargames tournament I've ever been to has volunteer judges and in all of those cases the judge is empowered to correct rules mistakes that are brought to their attention. That's literally half of their job, the other half being to give impartial rulings on subjective matters where there is disagreement, such as LoS. I literally don't understand what the point of a judge is at these tournaments if this is the attitude. I can sort of understand a judge not noticing something like this - mistakes happen and that's fine - but not doing anything about it when it's brought to his attention is just bizarre. What's even more annoying is the person reporting the error did the right thing by going via a judge rather than interrupting the players, only to be met with a shrug.
tneva82 wrote: It always has been joke, it will always be joke. When you try to run non-competive game in a competive way it will by definition be a joke. You do it for laughs. Not because you believe it actually is competive
Have an exalt, tneva82 - too many people treat the "competitive" side of 40k as serious business as it is.
Though if you are going to do that, active judging for the final - at the very least, possibly all games once there has been a cut, depending on judge numbers - should be a thing.
Because I don't care enough about competitive 40k to sacrifice my time and effort to help it. But refusing to spend my time and effort making it better doesn't in any way change the fact that competitive 40k is a joke as long as things like this incident keep happening, and the judge and event staff should be ashamed of their incompetence.
Obviously that's not true. You spend a great deal of your time and effort to criticize it. And many other aspects of the game. This is something you can do to fix something, So why not take your chance to improve part of it?
Oh snap.
In any case I can see where possibly Nick forgot that they explode after. It's honestly something you might not think about often, because it happens pretty rarely (unless you peril with a Rubric).
Whether Nick forgot or he purposely cheated isn't as important, to me, as the fact that the rule was brought to the attention of a judge and the judge did nothing. I would expect more from a judge at a major event. Actually, I would expect a judge at any level of event to step in and correct the situation ASAP.
I would like to hear Adepticon's explanation of why the judge didn't either step in or get reprimanded by the TO (assuming he wasn't the TO).
tneva82 wrote:It always has been joke, it will always be joke. When you try to run non-competive game in a competive way it will by definition be a joke. You do it for laughs. Not because you believe it actually is competive
this is exactly why "competitive" 40k is hilarious. the only thing that makes 40k competitive is the players, it is most definitely not the rules, or anything else.
Man... in 15 games that I have played in 8th edition... my Librarian has blow himself up in 4 games. Maybe I have horrible luck but I never forgot to explode him
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Whether Nick forgot or he purposely cheated isn't as important, to me, as the fact that the rule was brought to the attention of a judge and the judge did nothing. I would expect more from a judge at a major event. Actually, I would expect a judge at any level of event to step in and correct the situation ASAP.
I would like to hear Adepticon's explanation of why the judge didn't either step in or get reprimanded by the TO (assuming he wasn't the TO).
There's an issue running tangential to this. We play a very social game and that comes with the quirks of social interactions.
A judge won't always be present. Nor might he or she realize there was an error. Maybe the judge even thought the spectator was mistaken.
The opponent, as well, was either ignorant of the problem or unwilling to point it out. And that dynamic extends into issues like slow play.
And all of that is why I tell my opponents, "KEEP ME HONEST". Because in the heat of the moment people forget things. They screw things up. As much as people want to hate on 40K being competitive in light of this issue...it's an incredibly complex game and made even more difficult when you're on a timer.
The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
Yes. All mistakes should get intervention regardless of who noticed it or you can't really call yourself a competitive tournament: you're beer+chips hammer (which is fine too but we're running into the problem of mismatched expectations again).
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Imagine if football referees only threw a flag if the other team complained about it... I imagine we'd have many more contact injuries than we do already.
That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Imagine if football referees only threw a flag if the other team complained about it... I imagine we'd have many more contact injuries than we do already.
Imagine if football referees threw flags if the crowd called foul. That is what people are calling for here. Now a judge could be assigned to actively judge the game but then using the football analogy the teams don’t get to call foul. 40k judges aren’t refs they are there to arbitrate disputes on rules. The game is self judged much more like high school tennis (at least near me) or ultimate frisbee in most events. Both are competitive but judged by players with higher judges just there to arbitrate disputes.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
It is no different than then a ref calling holding in football because the crowd says it happened. Also yes if one player has extra people to watch for rules mistakes and the other does not it is an unfair advantage. One players mistakes are more likely to be caught than the other players. Unless your assumption is only one player is making mistakes how is this not unfair?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The issue is consistency the game must be judged consistently. Either the judge watch and correcting all rules misplay, or not doing so. Once they only do some it becomes unfair.
I'm not certain what the Judge should have done... well other than stop making silly comments. By the time he heard about it the game state was changed.
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Imagine if football referees only threw a flag if the other team complained about it... I imagine we'd have many more contact injuries than we do already.
Imagine if football referees threw flags if the crowd called foul. That is what people are calling for here. Now a judge could be assigned to actively judge the game but then using the football analogy the teams don’t get to call foul. 40k judges aren’t refs they are there to arbitrate disputes on rules. The game is self judged much more like high school tennis (at least near me) or ultimate frisbee in most events. Both are competitive but judged by players with higher judges just there to arbitrate disputes.
It is no different than then a ref calling holding in football because the crowd says it happened. Also yes if one player has extra people to watch for rules mistakes and the other does not it is an unfair advantage. One players mistakes are more likely to be caught than the other players. Unless your assumption is only one player is making mistakes how is this not unfair?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The issue is consistency the game must be judged consistently. Either the judge watch and correcting all rules misplay, or not doing so. Once they only do some it becomes unfair.
Actually a football player can get suspensions after the game if they committed a big foul that the ref missed.
Still not called by the crowd. What you are talking about is akin to a higher judge or TO making a ruling post game. Perhaps after an appeal by one of the players. Which in the case of blatant cheating is fine. See the DQ/resignation by one of the top 16 after the determination that his list was illegal. My point is that no 3rd party should be making calls about a game, just the players and any judges, and for the most part we don’t actively judge games, because of lack of judges (so judges are not trained to do so). If you think say the final table should be actively judged that is fine. But even then no outside party should be giving info to the judge because it is inherently unfair for that to happen.
In this case tournament was not actively judged and so the judge made the right call. Especially after the fact.
The situation is the same in Magic the Gathering. I disagree with it for how things are done.
For example I was at an event once with my partner. She and her opponent were the only people left to finish, so we were all watching. She had a thing that dealt her opponent damage, if he did a certain thing automatically, and he kept doing the certain thing, but not taking the damage. I opened my mouth to start to make a comment and got taken aside by the judge.
He politely pointed out if I finished my comment I'd be disqualified from the event, and it was my partners responsibility to ensure her opponent was following the rules, not his, and not any spectators.
Needless to say, my partner lost, and her opponent went on to win the event.
I personally feel it's important for judges to enforce the rules of the game as much as to make judgement calls, otherwise this promotes a cluture of, 'Let's hope my opponent doesn't notice' which swifts into a full blown 'Let's distract my opponent so they don't notice me blantantly not following the rules of the game to their advantage.'
If I'm playing Warhammer with you, my aim and reason for being there is to give you the best damn game of warhammer possible. It's not to stare at your every move to check you're not cheating. Rules enforcement isn't supposed to be part of the skillset for playing competatively. Or we're just going to spend the game arguing like it's a YMDC Thread.
MtG has the advantage of having a ruleset that's so solid you could cut through a tank with it though. Plus, if you (generic you) have an effect that triggers that deals damage to the enemy it's your effect doing something, and thus your job to keep track of.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
You're misrepresenting what he said; he said it could lead to one player having eyes helping him form the side and the other not having them.
Coming from BJJ, I agree with him entirely. It sucks when you have twenty people shouting every mistake you make in a match and how to capitalize on it when you don't have anyone to do the same for you. I'd prefer to play against the person I'm playing against, with the ref abritrating and the spectators silent; whatever sport im playing.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Which is why those people should be talking to the judge about it rather than just blurting it out, but that was done and still nothing.
Really no difference though it would still be an advantage for one player over another. Bystanders should never impact the game in any way. If a judge is actively judging it is up to them to catch things not the crowd.
Given most judges don’t actively judge it lies on the players themselves to catch rules mistakes.
I feel like people are treating g “competitive” 40k as something much larger than it really is. Even at the highest level it is still a hobby, people treat these events like their the Olympics when the reality is they are closer to your local over 40 softball league than professional athletics.
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Imagine if football referees only threw a flag if the other team complained about it... I imagine we'd have many more contact injuries than we do already.
You'd need a change in the status quo vis a visit number of complaints to number of actual fouls.
Oh, wait, American football. Yeah. You're on point.
So if the guy is using loaded dice or an illegal list, and the judge spots it, but the opponent is too busy to notice, then the cheater should get a pass?
That's just stupid.
The judge should have stepped in and rectified the situation, with a further penalty due to the player not catching their own error first.
JohnHwangDD wrote: So if the guy is using loaded dice or an illegal list, and the judge spots it, but the opponent is too busy to notice, then the cheater should get a pass?
That's just stupid.
The judge should have stepped in and rectified the situation, with a further penalty due to the player not catching their own error first.
you'd kinda expect more than 1 judge at the final table, isn't the bold adage 4 eyes are better than one?(not 4 carnifexs)
I once played on the final table for Warmachine at Templecon. At the time this was one of the premier tournaments for Warmachine, and there was plenty of official presence. Two judges watched the entire game and intervened constantly, measuring out anything that wasn't immediately obvious (measurements are more important in Warmachine than in 40K) and reminding the players about any compulsory interactions that we might have forgotten (in Warmachine compulsory events are resolved even if the players forget about them).
I found this to be annoying, as I'd rather resolve disputes with my opponent and not have a third party stick his nose into everything. However, a high-level tournament is a different kettle of fish from a casual game, so I didn't mind it being held to a different standard. There is absolutely no question that everything was resolved according to the rules.
What is more, the preceding year I was playing in the loser's bracket of the final tournament (so, very low stakes) but my opponent was a complete dick. This was apparently known to the judges, as a judge monitored our game as closely as his duties allowed to rein in my opponent's cheating. I appreciated that as well.
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
Imagine if football referees only threw a flag if the other team complained about it... I imagine we'd have many more contact injuries than we do already.
Imagine if football referees threw flags if the crowd called foul. That is what people are calling for here. Now a judge could be assigned to actively judge the game but then using the football analogy the teams don’t get to call foul. 40k judges aren’t refs they are there to arbitrate disputes on rules. The game is self judged much more like high school tennis (at least near me) or ultimate frisbee in most events. Both are competitive but judged by players with higher judges just there to arbitrate disputes.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
It is no different than then a ref calling holding in football because the crowd says it happened. Also yes if one player has extra people to watch for rules mistakes and the other does not it is an unfair advantage. One players mistakes are more likely to be caught than the other players. Unless your assumption is only one player is making mistakes how is this not unfair?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The issue is consistency the game must be judged consistently. Either the judge watch and correcting all rules misplay, or not doing so. Once they only do some it becomes unfair.
It's completely different than a ref making a call in football because of the crowd. In football, they record the events and the refs can (and do) check the recordings. They even pause the game to do it. You're mischaracterizing the other side of this debate as well. They're not saying the ref should blindly issue a penalty based on a crowd statement, but he can go ask the players what happened. The OP makes it sound like all of his events were fairly contemporaneous so there was still plenty of time to retroactively resolve the psyker explosion and undo the harm if the players said they did not do an explosion.
But you're saying it'd make an unfair advantage for a ref to even go do that, which is crazy. It is never an unfair advantage to make sure the game is played by the rules. Maybe it creates an advantage for someone who built and plays according to the rules, but that's what we want. That's called playing the game.
And FYI, if a large segment of the crowd at a football game started chanting about a foul, you can bet your britches at least one ref would be tasked to go watch the video and report back for potential corrective action. So the analogy fails there too.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
You're misrepresenting what he said; he said it could lead to one player having eyes helping him form the side and the other not having them.
Coming from BJJ, I agree with him entirely. It sucks when you have twenty people shouting every mistake you make in a match and how to capitalize on it when you don't have anyone to do the same for you. I'd prefer to play against the person I'm playing against, with the ref abritrating and the spectators silent; whatever sport im playing.
I'm not and you're whole post is colored by an off-the-mark personal experience that is likely clouding your judgment. We're not talking about a shouting crowd. We're talking about a ref privately being notified of a rules error and then investigating it + taking necessary corrective action.
JohnHwangDD wrote: So if the guy is using loaded dice or an illegal list, and the judge spots it, but the opponent is too busy to notice, then the cheater should get a pass?
That's just stupid.
The judge should have stepped in and rectified the situation, with a further penalty due to the player not catching their own error first.
Another reason not to waste time and money to play there.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Which is why those people should be talking to the judge about it rather than just blurting it out, but that was done and still nothing.
Really no difference though it would still be an advantage for one player over another. Bystanders should never impact the game in any way. If a judge is actively judging it is up to them to catch things not the crowd.
Given most judges don’t actively judge it lies on the players themselves to catch rules mistakes.
I feel like people are treating g “competitive” 40k as something much larger than it really is. Even at the highest level it is still a hobby, people treat these events like their the Olympics when the reality is they are closer to your local over 40 softball league than professional athletics.
This is another problem you and I repeatedly butt heads over. I get it, 'competitive 40k' used to be brohammer and you're part of the good old boys club, but that's not what it is anymore. There is a large and growing group that reads "competitive event" and actually takes that at face value. TO's can't manipulate that for ticket/pass sales and then cry foul when people actually expect them to live up to it.
Say you're brohammer, say you're beer and chips hammer, say you're competitive hammer, it doesn't matter, but accurately advertise your category and own up to what you say you are.
Breng77 wrote: That is where I disagree, the players (and if the judge is actively judging the table) are the only ones who should catch and correct mistakes. Otherwise is it fair to have my buddies watch my opponent for rules mistakes and get the judge, when he doesn’t have the same. You either need an active judge and that judge is the only one make rules calls, or you have players self judge and they are the only ones making rules calls. Both of those systems get use in other competitive environments, in no environment does the crowd call the game.
The crowd isn't calling the game, the crowd is notifying the authority to call the game. HUGE difference.
And you're seriously arguing that having the ability to make sure someone follows the rules of the game (via more eyes watching) is an unfair advantage?
Yeah, that's everything wrong with some TO mindsets at the moment.
Actually it can be if the others are only watching that rules of games are followed ONLY when it benefits one player but happily turn blind eye when their side player ignores rules.
Breng77 wrote: The issue with a judge stepping in is that unless it was made clear that they would be actively judged then it is up to the players to ask for rulings. This was pointed out to the judge, but whose to say other mistakes were not. Should this get intervention just because an observer noticed it?
I very much think judges should interfere if they notice or are notified of a mistake being made.
Is there any other game where a judge will not actively interfere unless asked for?
I have very limited 'competitive' experience, but I recently (within this year) read on relevant Reddit site about Magic the Gathering Pro-Tour qualifier drama where one player had joked about giving his opponent something if he wins. We all understand that Joke is a Joke, Fantasy Card Game is a Fantasy Card Game etc. However in serious adult world this sort of offer is considered bribing suggestion, and in many countries can carry actual significant penalties in serious adult setting.
Anyway, some bystander/judge had heard the 'bribe offer' and reported it to judge, then both players were promptly questioned and later DQ'ed as the rules apparently specifically forbid bribing etc. So essentially breaking of rules happened, the breaking of rules was not brought to attention of Judges by one of the players himself and the judges acted.
Personally I'm of the opinion that Judges should act on any report, not only on challenges initiated by one the players himself. Otherwise the game will turn into this sort of Lawyer vs. Lawyer duel where cheating essentially is ALLOWED if the opponent does not notice and challenge it himself.
On another note, this Adepticon Disqualification drama:
Breaking of rules was noted on the list by someone. Following the logic of the subject judge of this thread, any Lists breaking rules Could only be challenged by the opposing player. You cannot have a rules enforcement system where in some cases 3rd party reports are noted and in others only reports by opposing player are noted. You need to have consistency on rules enforcement.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: So if the guy is using loaded dice or an illegal list, and the judge spots it, but the opponent is too busy to notice, then the cheater should get a pass?
That's just stupid.
The judge should have stepped in and rectified the situation, with a further penalty due to the player not catching their own error first.
This is good example.
So If someone gets caught having dice with no 1's but two 6's among the dice he is using but this goes unnoticed and unreported by the opponent it is allowed? Seriously the whole aspect of "competitive" game will crumble if cheating is allowed unless noticed and reported to judge by the opponent.
I must stress also that all sort of rule breaking should be equally punished. There really is no point in starting to judge how deliberate the player was. What does it matter if someone is a "good guy"? This 'good guy' mentality is also the reason why you see these affluenza rulings and outrages in media. You play the game according to rules, if you fail to follow rules there is punishment. They don't need to be super harsh, but reduction of points for every breaking of rules. Then players who can consistently follow the rules will consistently place higher than those who fail to follow the rules. It's pretty simple stuff really.
Obviously special cases like loaded dice, 2 6's in single dice and '1.2" in an 1.0" ruler' rules breaking should be more severely punished, these are examples of tampering with the playing equipment.
Also everyone should understand that all spectator sports seem to have active judge, instead of this kind of blind passive judge. Now with Warhammer in Twitch making it more of a spectator 'sport' you just cannot have only blind passive judging.
I think if the judge had witnessed it and said nothing, this would be a totally different scenario. But keep in mind, this is a report from a bystander. This is not from one of the players involved in the match, nor another judge. If this were allowed to continue, anyone who THINKS they know the game would be allowed to inject their two cents into any table they surf by. The natural progression of things would lead to judges being swamped with the good old "RAI and RAW" arguments that always crop up at game shops between competitive types instead of assisting players with questions and ensuring the event flows just a tad bit smoother than the bedlam it would be without them.
The judge could have possibly been more tactful, but he was probably swamped with hundreds of these types of events throughout the days, so we'll give him a pass for being a bit stressed.
Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the opposing player. At a "final table", there is a reasonable expectation that both of them knows the rules. If the active player forgets something that is vital to the state of the game, then the player across from him should be: "Hey, man, Ahriman just blew his brains out. What about those guys around him?"
This whole argument about loaded dice and all is just too egregious. But even in a situation like that, the judge would probably surf around to see if there is any credibility to the claim. Once he witnesses the behavior, then he would likely interject. The only way he could "witness" the referenced event was to have the game state rewind exactly to that point and everything was played out again, which is something I'm sure he was unwilling to do.
Let's not give the crowd the power to adjudicate games.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Which is why those people should be talking to the judge about it rather than just blurting it out, but that was done and still nothing.
Really no difference though it would still be an advantage for one player over another. Bystanders should never impact the game in any way. If a judge is actively judging it is up to them to catch things not the crowd.
Given most judges don’t actively judge it lies on the players themselves to catch rules mistakes.
I feel like people are treating g “competitive” 40k as something much larger than it really is. Even at the highest level it is still a hobby, people treat these events like their the Olympics when the reality is they are closer to your local over 40 softball league than professional athletics.
This is another problem you and I repeatedly butt heads over. I get it, 'competitive 40k' used to be brohammer and you're part of the good old boys club, but that's not what it is anymore. There is a large and growing group that reads "competitive event" and actually takes that at face value. TO's can't manipulate that for ticket/pass sales and then cry foul when people actually expect them to live up to it.
Say you're brohammer, say you're beer and chips hammer, say you're competitive hammer, it doesn't matter, but accurately advertise your category and own up to what you say you are.
A local softball league can be competitive that doesn’t make it the Olympics. 40k at its highest level is still a very low level of competition. It is a tiny hobbythe money involved is trivial, and even the best of the best put in minimal amounts of preparation when compared to high level competitions. Sorry it is and always will be what you call “bro-hammer” until such a point that someone starts playing 40k as their primary source of income and of GW (or some other body) decides to train and pay judges.
For what it is worth I’m part of no good old boys club. I was a slightly above average tournament player back in 5th/6th. Didn’t play at all in 7th, play only small events now. I used to run my own GT back when I was more active so I’m going off that experience. If I needed to actively judge that event never happens because I had limited staff, I was the only real judge (only 32 players), and it would have been less enjoyable for those involved. Now I would sit on contentious games, but if someone else needed a ruling I’d be off to another table. At RTTs I hosted I would even play as a ringer if needed because people getting to play is more important than active judging to 90% of players at these events. Let me put it this way the Internet crowd cares far more about these things then I’ve ever heard from people at events. Those guys care about playing the game and having fun. There are maybe 5 guys at most events that really care about winning, and even most of them still prefer relaxed games to rules lawyered games.
As for the unfair advantage I keep talking about. Picture it like this I make it to the final table with you. We both make mistakes during the game. You however have 10 friends from your club watching and telling the judge when I make a mistake, I have no one doing that for me. Explain to me how only one of us being held accountable by a 3rd party not involved in the game is fair. Either the judge(s) need to watch and only players and judges can catch rules errors (no third party involvement) or only players can do it. Any other system is patently unfair.
To the person that mentioned instant replay. That largely only happens when a team (involved party) challenges a ruling, not everything is even reviewable, only during the final 2 min of a half do things get reviewed without challenge. None of it is based on crowd reaction.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I can say this I have little to no desire to play actively judged 40k. You think the game takes a long time now, imagine it if the judge was interjecting to make sure all rules were followed at all times. “Can I check that measurement and make sure you didn’t move 6.1 inches”.
As to loaded dice that is why I believe all major events should supply dice that must be used. I have gone to events like this and it is great never needing to question an opponents dice.
On the contrary, imho a competitive game at the top tables should have the crowd with the power to adjudicate the game via bringing things up immediately to a judge. Players can miss things. Judges can miss things. Clean gameplay is a good thing if a game wants to be taken seriously as a competitive game.
So if that crowd favors one player that is ok to you? I can say for what it is worth if that were the case I’m glad I’m likely not ever to play at that level.
So it really comes down to if we think being popular because of the way the public sees you behaving is more important than constantly trying to be aware if your opponent is cheating you?
Wayniac wrote: On the contrary, imho a competitive game at the top tables should have the crowd with the power to adjudicate the game via bringing things up immediately to a judge. Players can miss things. Judges can miss things. Clean gameplay is a good thing if a game wants to be taken seriously as a competitive game.
So what? Part of competive game will be having groupies to spot opponents mistake while you hopefully can avoid having yours pointed because obviously your groupies won't notify judges when you would benefit from judge staying quiet?
I think that judges should be watching and enforcing the game rules but third parties should be ignored during the game. I'd love to see every game played by the rules with no rule mistakes but it isn't going to happen. People are distracted by their own thoughts or just the pressure of the event. Judges should intervene if they see a rule mistake so that the game goes forward as it should. However, even judges miss things or don't recognize a mistake being made 100% of the time.
After the game if a thrid party noticed a mistake then he should go to the judge and tell him what he thinks he saw. If it was an egregious violation that can be proven then the player should be penalized. For anything else the complaint should make the judges aware of the situation and they can watch out for it in the future.
Unbelievable. We're actually at the point where people are seriously arguing that it would be unfair to correct a blatant and indisputable rules violation and resulting illegal gamestate just because there might be some hypothetical violation by the other player that isn't getting called. I thought competitive play was supposed to be about playing by the rules, not just the same old BEER AND PRETZELS 4+ ALL YOUR RULES QUESTIONS nonsense that the CAAC crowd advocates.
Sorry watched enough games to know that that mistake your opponent makes on the rules is not hypothetical it happens all the time on both sides. I don’t think I’be seen a ton of rules perfect games.
Peregrine wrote: Unbelievable. We're actually at the point where people are seriously arguing that it would be unfair to correct a blatant and indisputable rules violation and resulting illegal gamestate just because there might be some hypothetical violation by the other player that isn't getting called. I thought competitive play was supposed to be about playing by the rules, not just the same old BEER AND PRETZELS 4+ ALL YOUR RULES QUESTIONS nonsense that the CAAC crowd advocates.
Peregrine wrote: Unbelievable. We're actually at the point where people are seriously arguing that it would be unfair to correct a blatant and indisputable rules violation and resulting illegal gamestate just because there might be some hypothetical violation by the other player that isn't getting called. I thought competitive play was supposed to be about playing by the rules, not just the same old BEER AND PRETZELS 4+ ALL YOUR RULES QUESTIONS nonsense that the CAAC crowd advocates.
Hence why "competitive" 40k is a joke.
So because competitive 40k is a joke and 'amateur' we shouldn't try to do better?
F no.
The scene should keep trying to be and do better.
A local softball league can be competitive that doesn’t make it the Olympics. 40k at its highest level is still a very low level of competition. It is a tiny hobbythe money involved is trivial, and even the best of the best put in minimal amounts of preparation when compared to high level competitions. Sorry it is and always will be what you call “bro-hammer” until such a point that someone starts playing 40k as their primary source of income and of GW (or some other body) decides to train and pay judges.
"Bro-hammer" is reference to a small community of personal acquaintances and friends juxtaposing their preference on top of the community at large due to their insider status. So no, I do not think it will always be bro-hammer and I can only hope that insider influence gets washed out like a tide.
That said, your criteria is all wrong. "Competitive" is determined solely by how hard the competitors are trying. You say the top has not and never will try-hard, I vehemently disagree. There is an active class of players who ARE trying to make it more competitive, but they're being squelched by the attitude of the old club as expressed in this thread.
Not to mention, an income from it means nothing. Starcraft was at some of its most competitive in the Western Hemisphere when it was ICCUP (the equivalent of ITC). Back then, ICCUP was a fan run service based on volunteers, entry fees and donations. Blizzard had no role in it and it didn't even have an association with KESPA, which managed Starcraft in Korea. Yet the ICCUP gave us some of the best Western pro-gamers we've ever seen including Artosis, Tasteless, Day9 and Idra, most of whom were at their peak BEFORE they could play professionally.
You are now and have in the past equated 40k with where e-sports is now when it should be equated to where e-sports WAS. We're in the ICCUP days. That does not mean we can't be competitive and it does not mean GW isn't trying to boost the competitive scene (they VERY much are as evidenced by marketing moves and community articles).
For what it is worth I’m part of no good old boys club. I was a slightly above average tournament player back in 5th/6th. Didn’t play at all in 7th, play only small events now. I used to run my own GT back when I was more active so I’m going off that experience. If I needed to actively judge that event never happens because I had limited staff, I was the only real judge (only 32 players), and it would have been less enjoyable for those involved. Now I would sit on contentious games, but if someone else needed a ruling I’d be off to another table. At RTTs I hosted I would even play as a ringer if needed because people getting to play is more important than active judging to 90% of players at these events. Let me put it this way the Internet crowd cares far more about these things then I’ve ever heard from people at events. Those guys care about playing the game and having fun. There are maybe 5 guys at most events that really care about winning, and even most of them still prefer relaxed games to rules lawyered games.
You think this because you ARE part of that club. You don't have to be an exceptional player to be there, you just have to be part of the inner social circle, which you've gained access to as a TO and veterancy in the community. That's why your perception is skewed and this is what your personal experience tells you: you're not talking to a representative body.
As for the unfair advantage I keep talking about. Picture it like this I make it to the final table with you. We both make mistakes during the game. You however have 10 friends from your club watching and telling the judge when I make a mistake, I have no one doing that for me. Explain to me how only one of us being held accountable by a 3rd party not involved in the game is fair. Either the judge(s) need to watch and only players and judges can catch rules errors (no third party involvement) or only players can do it. Any other system is patently unfair.
I would love for a live judge to watch every table and every match. Until that day, there's nothing unfair about what you said. Did it give me an advantage? Yes, absolutely. Is it an unfair one? No. It is and cannot ever be unfair to have the game be played correctly in the rules. My error was missed? That's unfortunate. Hopefully it gets caught later and I suffer a points reduction or DQ to compensate, but trying to decrease the error rate of a table from 5% to 2.5% is not a bad thing.
To the person that mentioned instant replay. That largely only happens when a team (involved party) challenges a ruling, not everything is even reviewable, only during the final 2 min of a half do things get reviewed without challenge. None of it is based on crowd reaction.
The crowd doesn't challenge much simply because you can't HEAR them in those massive stadiums. If a chant got taken up by enough people, however, you can bet the judges would do a review to make sure they had their bases covered. The integrity of the game matters.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I can say this I have little to no desire to play actively judged 40k. You think the game takes a long time now, imagine it if the judge was interjecting to make sure all rules were followed at all times. “Can I check that measurement and make sure you didn’t move 6.1 inches”.
That's fine and no one has a problem with it. Competitive players say there can be different kinds of tournaments and gatherings. Just label yourself accordingly so they don't waste our time going to events billed as competitive that are not competitive when they could go to an event that actually is competitive. It only seems to be the non-competitive players, particularly insiders, who want to keep calling themselves competitive and receiving all the benefits thereof without any of the cost or effort it also entails. That's deceptive and it's wrong.
Off topic devil's advocate. Idra was the only good player out of those you named. When artosis and day9 tried to play in... what was it.. the NASL? It was some painful cringe.
ThePorcupine wrote: Off topic devil's advocate. Idra was the only good player out of those you named. When artosis and day9 tried to play in... what was it.. the NASL? It was some painful cringe.
Day9 was past his prime by that point. He was an A+/A Zerg through multiple accounts, probably one of a few people in the western hemisphere who could claim that. He also got 1st in the WCG Pan-American Championship for 2007 and then 2nd and 1st in prior WCG USA's. The dude was really, really good at SC1:Brood War. Even in SC2 he hit Grandmaster League with all 3 races individually. Artosis was a frequent finalist in the same WCG tournaments for, like, 7 years consistently. Even Tasteless, who is probably weakest of the list, made it to the WCG grand finals 4 times. They were all operating at a hyper competitive level back when the scene wasn't flooded with cash or Blizzard support.
NurglesR0T wrote: Competitive 40k is serious stuff, what do you think they are doing? Moving plastic models on a table and rolling dice?
People really need to stop treating 40k like it's an eSport and every loss results in lost revenue with their sponsors.
The game has never been, and probably never will be written with tournament play in mind that some of the people in this thread are expecting.
Neither were esports back in the day and people said the same thing. "It's just pixels/computer games, why so serious?" blah blah blah. My point was the parallel between where they used to be and where some tabletop games (like 40k) are now. Anyway, we're getting a bit esoteric from how this relates to Adepticon.
Audustum wrote: That said, your criteria is all wrong. "Competitive" is determined solely by how hard the competitors are trying.
That's definitely not how I'd define "competitive". How "hard" the players "try" isn't really relevant. The important distinction is whether the competition is actively refereed by an impartial authority, according to an undisputed set of rules. Those are key aspects of every competitive sport.
Currently, 40k definitely doesn't have an undisputed set of rules, because GW is terrible at writing and clarifying them. This can be worked around by individual events who produce their own FAQs that all their officials agree on.
Most games of 40k are also not refereed. They might be adjudicated, as in this case, but that is very much not the same thing. Trying to retroactively call misplays based on second-hand evidence does not make for a "competitive" game. A referee needs to be watching the game at all times. Heck, Blood Bowl even makes light of this principle - what the Ref doesn't see can't be punished, even if the other guy gets dragged off the field in a stretcher.
40k could be played competitively, but the cost to do so (mostly in terms of time) is too great for any major tournament to do so. Imagine having to train and coordinate 32 referees for a 64-player tournament, for example.
Kind of disappointing to hear more negative feedback from a major tournament; especially since it happened at a top/final table again. Though I guess its to be expected to some degree when there's no impartial third party to enforce/regulate the game except when explicitly asked to step in.
I mean, I hear SO many stories like this about "top level guys" at events.
Illegal lists, "forgetting" critical rules, incorrectly using strategems because the players "forgot" a word etc etc. It seems like a totally toxic nature of trying to get away with anything and everything they can at the top level, rather then actually playing by the rules and being excellent players.
I mean, if the OPs anecdote is true, then yeah, competitive 40k is a joke and any 'skill' the top finishers may have is a complete sham. I cannot simply fathom how you can legit call yourself a 'tournament' if the fething judges aren't enforcing the rules. I mean, that's just shameful. You're not a tournament, just a weird 40k variant with strange scoring systems.
A local softball league can be competitive that doesn’t make it the Olympics. 40k at its highest level is still a very low level of competition. It is a tiny hobbythe money involved is trivial, and even the best of the best put in minimal amounts of preparation when compared to high level competitions. Sorry it is and always will be what you call “bro-hammer” until such a point that someone starts playing 40k as their primary source of income and of GW (or some other body) decides to train and pay judges.
"Bro-hammer" is reference to a small community of personal acquaintances and friends juxtaposing their preference on top of the community at large due to their insider status. So no, I do not think it will always be bro-hammer and I can only hope that insider influence gets washed out like a tide.
That said, your criteria is all wrong. "Competitive" is determined solely by how hard the competitors are trying. You say the top has not and never will try-hard, I vehemently disagree. There is an active class of players who ARE trying to make it more competitive, but they're being squelched by the attitude of the old club as expressed in this thread.
Not to mention, an income from it means nothing. Starcraft was at some of its most competitive in the Western Hemisphere when it was ICCUP (the equivalent of ITC). Back then, ICCUP was a fan run service based on volunteers, entry fees and donations. Blizzard had no role in it and it didn't even have an association with KESPA, which managed Starcraft in Korea. Yet the ICCUP gave us some of the best Western pro-gamers we've ever seen including Artosis, Tasteless, Day9 and Idra, most of whom were at their peak BEFORE they could play professionally.
You are now and have in the past equated 40k with where e-sports is now when it should be equated to where e-sports WAS. We're in the ICCUP days. That does not mean we can't be competitive and it does not mean GW isn't trying to boost the competitive scene (they VERY much are as evidenced by marketing moves and community articles).
So a few things you definition of "competitive" as how hard the players are trying is nonsense. By that definition 2 kids running a race in their back yard that are trying hard to win is the same level of competition as the Olympic marathon. Sorry you are flat out wrong. But even by that definition you are wrong, no 40k player is trying as hard to win as an Olympian, a pro-gamer, a professional athlete. heck even a college or top level highschool athlete. They don't practice near as much, don't often change sleep habits, don't change their eating habits (many get drunk during "high level" competitions), pretty sure no one is "training" 8 hours a day for the sake of winning events. SO even on your own measure people are not trying has hard to win. Until significant money is involved the top will never try as hard as people in other competitions, I also think you are dreaming if you believe the esports "athletes" back in the free days were as good as they are when it is their job. As talented, sure, but no way do they get as much practice in when it is not their main job.
GW is only boosting the competitive scene to sell models. They are not going for esport level, just watch their stream and it is enough to figure that out. They don't stream top tables at many events, their own stream is mostly casual type games not top level play. They don't have their own tournament format that they are pushing. They have accepted that there is money to be made from competitive players as part of the hobby, but that is about the level they are pushing competitive play at.
For what it is worth I’m part of no good old boys club. I was a slightly above average tournament player back in 5th/6th. Didn’t play at all in 7th, play only small events now. I used to run my own GT back when I was more active so I’m going off that experience. If I needed to actively judge that event never happens because I had limited staff, I was the only real judge (only 32 players), and it would have been less enjoyable for those involved. Now I would sit on contentious games, but if someone else needed a ruling I’d be off to another table. At RTTs I hosted I would even play as a ringer if needed because people getting to play is more important than active judging to 90% of players at these events. Let me put it this way the Internet crowd cares far more about these things then I’ve ever heard from people at events. Those guys care about playing the game and having fun. There are maybe 5 guys at most events that really care about winning, and even most of them still prefer relaxed games to rules lawyered games.
You think this because you ARE part of that club. You don't have to be an exceptional player to be there, you just have to be part of the inner social circle, which you've gained access to as a TO and veterancy in the community. That's why your perception is skewed and this is what your personal experience tells you: you're not talking to a representative body.
SO any TO ever is part of the "bro-hammer" club, good to know. Is Dakka, with it's like 5 posters who really care the representitive sample I should look at? Is it the stream commenters that don't attend tournaments that I should listen to? Let me know. I'm really trying to see where this great number of people that want a different competitive community are and what they are doing about it beyond bitching online.
As for the unfair advantage I keep talking about. Picture it like this I make it to the final table with you. We both make mistakes during the game. You however have 10 friends from your club watching and telling the judge when I make a mistake, I have no one doing that for me. Explain to me how only one of us being held accountable by a 3rd party not involved in the game is fair. Either the judge(s) need to watch and only players and judges can catch rules errors (no third party involvement) or only players can do it. Any other system is patently unfair.
I would love for a live judge to watch every table and every match. Until that day, there's nothing unfair about what you said. Did it give me an advantage? Yes, absolutely. Is it an unfair one? No. It is and cannot ever be unfair to have the game be played correctly in the rules. My error was missed? That's unfortunate. Hopefully it gets caught later and I suffer a points reduction or DQ to compensate, but trying to decrease the error rate of a table from 5% to 2.5% is not a bad thing.
Sorry nope still unfair, if only one of us has outside help, that is the definition of an unfair advatage, it matters little if half of the game is played by the rules if the other half is not. I guess in your mind (using this example.) it would be ok if Nick got called on his rule, but if a tyrant had perilsed earlier and the did not explode that would be ok, because at least we elimiated 1 error in play. Oh but I guess then if Nick complains about something that cannot be retroactively fixed, his opponent should get DQ'd for that right? Or docked points. But Nick already lost because of the difference in play between the 2 of them so that doesn't help him much. Should he be given the win? Wanting to reduce errors in not a bad thing, how you do it absolutely can be.
To the person that mentioned instant replay. That largely only happens when a team (involved party) challenges a ruling, not everything is even reviewable, only during the final 2 min of a half do things get reviewed without challenge. None of it is based on crowd reaction.
The crowd doesn't challenge much simply because you can't HEAR them in those massive stadiums. If a chant got taken up by enough people, however, you can bet the judges would do a review to make sure they had their bases covered. The integrity of the game matters.
Nope, they wouldn't because it is not part of the rules, and yes frequently in games in many sports you can hear the crowd complain about a call, loud boos etc. They don't stop to check the calls do to booing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I can say this I have little to no desire to play actively judged 40k. You think the game takes a long time now, imagine it if the judge was interjecting to make sure all rules were followed at all times. “Can I check that measurement and make sure you didn’t move 6.1 inches”.
That's fine and no one has a problem with it. Competitive players say there can be different kinds of tournaments and gatherings. Just label yourself accordingly so they don't waste our time going to events billed as competitive that are not competitive when they could go to an event that actually is competitive. It only seems to be the non-competitive players, particularly insiders, who want to keep calling themselves competitive and receiving all the benefits thereof without any of the cost or effort it also entails. That's deceptive and it's wrong.
It isn't deceptive because no events exist that you would deem competitive so you should know what to expect. TO my knowledge no event exists that has active judging on every table, chess clocks, and checking of every list prior to the event. IT doesn't exist so if you go in expecting that, that is a you problem not an event problem. Especially when you yourself would describe these events as competitive, because people are "trying hard to win". There is no rule to calling yourself competitive, heck even using ITC as a brand comes with basically no strings that require anything. In fact given that all events work the same way calling the most difficult to win events the most competitive is a fair and accurate description. Just because it isn't what you want, doesn't make it deceptive at all.
TO my Knowledge "competitive" players are doing nothing about this. You want it to change, start your own CTC (competitive tournament circut) start running events, require anyone who wants to be part of it to hold to certain standards to get the stamp of approval, by your reasoning this should have a large target market of competitive players who are chomping at the bit to play in events that are clearly competitive with clear standards and rules. Before you go saying "I shouldn't have to do that to have an opinion", you are right you don't need to do it to have an opinion, you can not like the way "competitive" 40k works now all you want, refuse to attend events, and complain online all you want. But if you actually want change, you (or someone who thinks similarly) will need to do something, put your own money on the line to build something, because those who already are doing so are doing what works for them, and it is working so why would they change to jump through hoops to make a (seeming) minority happy? So unless GW does what you think is a good idea, no one is changing without someone starting the movement like NOVA did back in the day with Win loss, or FLG did by starting the ITC and putting out an FAQ. Complaining on the internet doesn't create change.
Now maybe large events will decide they don't want rules mistakes on stream and streamed tables will get a judge, who knows, they certainly are going that way with slow play on top tables.
I would love for a live judge to watch every table and every match. Until that day, there's nothing unfair about what you said. Did it give me an advantage? Yes, absolutely. Is it an unfair one? No. It is and cannot ever be unfair to have the game be played correctly in the rules. My error was missed? That's unfortunate. Hopefully it gets caught later and I suffer a points reduction or DQ to compensate, but trying to decrease the error rate of a table from 5% to 2.5% is not a bad thing.
When your "mistakes"(which even could be deliberate "oops I forgot" attempts) aren't spotted not because they were missed but because your friends DELIBERATELY are skipping them to give help to you?
Its one of the reasons I don't really see why so many like competitive 40k and view it as the bench mark for the game.
In the one sense its more pure than garage hammer and people just making up/forgetting the rules. But on the other I have seen a worrying number of games be determined by rules lawyering, or accidentally-on purpose forgetting something, or just bad sportsmanship. When you are playing to win I guess this is unavoidable, but it seems kind of disappointing.
I don't like the idea of a judge watching every game - but I really struggle with "the audience saw a guy try to cheat but they couldn't call it out because.... uh... reasons." I mean why not? This would apply to any other game too.
Tyel wrote: Its one of the reasons I don't really see why so many like competitive 40k and view it as the bench mark for the game.
In the one sense its more pure than garage hammer and people just making up/forgetting the rules. But on the other I have seen a worrying number of games be determined by rules lawyering, or accidentally-on purpose forgetting something, or just bad sportsmanship. When you are playing to win I guess this is unavoidable, but it seems kind of disappointing.
I don't like the idea of a judge watching every game - but I really struggle with "the audience saw a guy try to cheat but they couldn't call it out because.... uh... reasons." I mean why not? This would apply to any other game too.
I mean the OP did call someone out for cheating and the judge said "it's not my job to interfere", that's madness.
Yeah, I'm not sure the problem isn't the Judge's actions as much as his words.
If the judge had just said "Sorry, I can't take 3rd party spectator's word for it and I didn't see it." or something more sensible than "It's not my job to ensure the integrity of the game."
The former illustrates a cautious and careful consideration of the situation, since the only apparent witness was an audience member. The former is essentially saying "The game's integrity doesn't matter to me (and by extension, the organizer)." That's a serious admission, and an indictment of competitive 40k. If tournament organizers are explicitly instructing their judges not to ensure the integrity of the game, but merely keep rules disputes to a minimum, then all trust I had in them is broken, because they don't have to know the rules - they just have to resolve disputes, regardless of accuracy or integrity.
Rolling a damn 4+ like the rules used to say "resolves disputes" and is probably more impartial.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure the problem isn't the Judge's actions as much as his words.
If the judge had just said "Sorry, I can't take 3rd party spectator's word for it and I didn't see it." or something more sensible than "It's not my job to ensure the integrity of the game."
The former illustrates a cautious and careful consideration of the situation, since the only apparent witness was an audience member. The former is essentially saying "The game's integrity doesn't matter to me (and by extension, the organizer)." That's a serious admission, and an indictment of competitive 40k. If tournament organizers are explicitly instructing their judges not to ensure the integrity of the game, but merely keep rules disputes to a minimum, then all trust I had in them is broken, because they don't have to know the rules - they just have to resolve disputes, regardless of accuracy or integrity.
Rolling a damn 4+ like the rules used to say "resolves disputes" and is probably more impartial.
Even if it is the first one, why was the judge not watching the top table?
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure the problem isn't the Judge's actions as much as his words.
If the judge had just said "Sorry, I can't take 3rd party spectator's word for it and I didn't see it." or something more sensible than "It's not my job to ensure the integrity of the game."
The former illustrates a cautious and careful consideration of the situation, since the only apparent witness was an audience member. The former is essentially saying "The game's integrity doesn't matter to me (and by extension, the organizer)." That's a serious admission, and an indictment of competitive 40k. If tournament organizers are explicitly instructing their judges not to ensure the integrity of the game, but merely keep rules disputes to a minimum, then all trust I had in them is broken, because they don't have to know the rules - they just have to resolve disputes, regardless of accuracy or integrity.
Rolling a damn 4+ like the rules used to say "resolves disputes" and is probably more impartial.
Even if it is the first one, why was the judge not watching the top table?
Same reason referees in the super bowl miss gak. There's no evidence he wasn't watching. I'm perfectly willing to chalk it up to "human error/fallibility." It's when he admitted that it wasn't, in fact, human error, but rather tournament policy, that it gets nutty. That's less like a ref missing a call, and more like a ref seeing it, not hearing anyone complain, and ignoring it. Because he's only there to resolve disputes, after all.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure the problem isn't the Judge's actions as much as his words.
If the judge had just said "Sorry, I can't take 3rd party spectator's word for it and I didn't see it." or something more sensible than "It's not my job to ensure the integrity of the game."
The former illustrates a cautious and careful consideration of the situation, since the only apparent witness was an audience member. The former is essentially saying "The game's integrity doesn't matter to me (and by extension, the organizer)." That's a serious admission, and an indictment of competitive 40k. If tournament organizers are explicitly instructing their judges not to ensure the integrity of the game, but merely keep rules disputes to a minimum, then all trust I had in them is broken, because they don't have to know the rules - they just have to resolve disputes, regardless of accuracy or integrity.
Rolling a damn 4+ like the rules used to say "resolves disputes" and is probably more impartial.
Even if it is the first one, why was the judge not watching the top table?
Same reason referees in the super bowl miss gak. There's no evidence he wasn't watching. I'm perfectly willing to chalk it up to "human error/fallibility." It's when he admitted that it wasn't, in fact, human error, but rather tournament policy, that it gets nutty. That's less like a ref missing a call, and more like a ref seeing it, not hearing anyone complain, and ignoring it. Because he's only there to resolve disputes, after all.
Yeah, I mean like you said we don't know exactly what was said. I really hope it isn't a case of "It's not my job to make the players aware" as that's super sad for the integrity of competitive 40k.
There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
The first line of defense against improper play is going to be the player and the opponent. I’m sure if the one of the players in this case has said oops you periled, roll to see if you kill that demon prince, it would have happened.
If this is as big of deal as people are portraying it then maybe there should be a codification. If you’re a viewer and you see improper play, report it to a judge. The judge should then see if the game state has changed. If it has not, then they can enforce the action, if discussion with the players indicates that is what happened. If game state has changed, the judge should allow the play to continue without any action.
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
So competitive 40k is literally a game played without referees, much like a game in my mum's basement against my best buddy.
I.e. a joke.
EDIT: In fact, why is there a need for judges? Just put in the tournament packet: "rules disputes are resolved on a 4+" like the old rulebook. That way, you can "resolve rules disputes" without coordinating any judges at all.
Does anyone define what a Judge actually does in the Tourney packs?
I do think the whole - unless the players spot it ignore any breaches of the rules is not great, although you can go too far the other way - golf had to change its rules re people spotting stuff on TV and phoning in. Reading the thread It also looks like MTG and 40k have similar rules about what judges are there for - any other games run the same way?
I can see you don't want people interfering in a game all the time but sometimes in the heat of a game things get forgotten or missed, misremembered from previous editions. Tournament players are just as bad at the latter as casual.
One thing I despise in in at least one competitive player I know is that he has stated he will only correct a rules error in an opponent if it is to his direct advantage, even if he knows the rule is being played incorrectly. That to me is just wrong.
I take it nothing happened to the player who made the error?
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I mean, so the job of a judge is to watch a game and allow people to cheat because neither play disputes it? Sounds so stupid. Surely any rules official watch a gaming (ESPECIALLY) a top table game, there duty is to step in at any cheating at all?
Or is there this weird culture at 40k events where people just try to get away with anything and everything they can until they get called out? That's the impression I get from Dakka Dakka.
I you want to have actually competitive 40k, then every table must have its own dedicated judge to arbitrate every single game by being on top of the table 100% of the time and whistling to halt the players when he sees a misconduct. Especially if you go to table #1 in the grand final, you should have 2 people on top of the table at all times.
Unless you do that, any attempt to even consider 40k a competitive game is a joke.
I'm not disputing how hard it is to judge every table, etc etc. In fact I'm not even saying every table should have a judge (in a ideal you would but just practically it's impossible).
My bewilderment much more comes from the fact a judge was told about a error (intended or not) and his attitude was "It's not my place to get involved". Seems beyond stupid.
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
This. A thousand times this.
So many people here have unreasonable expectations of what a judge at a big tournament can do. It's ridiculous. I agree with the judges statement whole heartedly.
That said, I can see a strong argument for top tables at big events having actual referees. Especially with cash prizes on the line.
topaxygouroun i wrote: I you want to have actually competitive 40k, then every table must have its own dedicated judge to arbitrate every single game by being on top of the table 100% of the time and whistling to halt the players when he sees a misconduct. Especially if you go to table #1 in the grand final, you should have 2 people on top of the table at all times.
Unless you do that, any attempt to even consider 40k a competitive game is a joke.
This makes me laugh - why do you care so much about an element of the game you don't like?
Lance Armstrong
Barry Bonds
Sochi Olympics
Countless other doping scandals both discovered and unknown
I MUST CHEAT TO COMPETE.
You should watch the documentary on the doping scandal. I assume everyone is cheating at all times. Often very innocently though. My first time playing Death Korps I was convinced that the riders were getting 4 attacks on the charge and that they could have both a lance and a chainsword. I have yet to face him again so I have no idea if he was blowing smoke up my ass or seriously confused.
Have you memorized the warp charges of all the spells in the other books? I bet you haven't and you might have no idea if a 7 actually succeeded for an uncommon spell. And quite possibly your opponent just didn't remember it correctly.
This game has so many moving pieces and that we don't have a computer to keep it in check, which makes it even more precarious.
Lance Armstrong
Barry Bonds
Sochi Olympics
Countless other doping scandals both discovered and unknown
I MUST CHEAT TO COMPETE.
You should watch the documentary on the doping scandal. I assume everyone is cheating at all times. Often very innocently though. My first time playing Death Korps I was convinced that the riders were getting 4 attacks on the charge and that they could have both a lance and a chainsword. I have yet to face him again so I have no idea if he was blowing smoke up my ass or seriously confused.
Have you memorized the warp charges of all the spells in the other books? I bet you haven't and you might have no idea if a 7 actually succeeded for an uncommon spell. And quite possibly your opponent just didn't remember it correctly.
This game has so many moving pieces and that we don't have a computer to keep it in check, which makes it even more precarious.
If there's competition, people are cheating.
This is at the core of all disputes between "casual" and "tourney" players.
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I could be wrong, but didn't they "active judge" the final of the previous big event, after it all kicked off during the semi-finals?
It can be done, it just needs spelling out that this will happen (and to what degree, which will depend on available staffing - top X is more likely than every table).
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I mean, so the job of a judge is to watch a game and allow people to cheat because neither play disputes it? Sounds so stupid. Surely any rules official watch a gaming (ESPECIALLY) a top table game, there duty is to step in at any cheating at all?
Or is there this weird culture at 40k events where people just try to get away with anything and everything they can until they get called out? That's the impression I get from Dakka Dakka.
No it is not his job to watch the in thgame first place (he can though) it is to be present if a rules disagreement comes up to resolve the issue, or potentially hand down punishment if a found infraction is bad enough. That is the whole point. He isn’t a ref, he isn’t there to make rulings unless asked to do so. It would be wonderful to HQ e refs on every table but it is so unrealistic that it could possibly happen. The game is now and essentially will always be self judged, the best any tournament is likely to do is are f the streamed games, and maybe the top table. And even then it won’t be close to perfect.
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I mean, so the job of a judge is to watch a game and allow people to cheat because neither play disputes it? Sounds so stupid. Surely any rules official watch a gaming (ESPECIALLY) a top table game, there duty is to step in at any cheating at all?
Or is there this weird culture at 40k events where people just try to get away with anything and everything they can until they get called out? That's the impression I get from Dakka Dakka.
No it is not his job to watch the in thgame first place (he can though) it is to be present if a rules disagreement comes up to resolve the issue, or potentially hand down punishment if a found infraction is bad enough. That is the whole point. He isn’t a ref, he isn’t there to make rulings unless asked to do so. It would be wonderful to HQ e refs on every table but it is so unrealistic that it could possibly happen. The game is now and essentially will always be self judged, the best any tournament is likely to do is are f the streamed games, and maybe the top table. And even then it won’t be close to perfect.
So your point is that a 40k 'tourney' is actually a deceptive name for casual 40k games with houseruled scoring, right?
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I could be wrong, but didn't they "active judge" the final of the previous big event, after it all kicked off during the semi-finals?
It can be done, it just needs spelling out that this will happen (and to what degree, which will depend on available staffing - top X is more likely than every table).
The did for time not rules errors to my knowledge, and yes you can do it on one table to a decent effect. But that needs to be made clear and still would not involve the crowd point out errors. The issue with active judging is then the event assumes all responsibility for any errors that occur. This is the same reason why list checking is iffy. It sets the idea that if the ref doesn’t call it, everything is fine. Now that may not matter and I’m not against judging the top table if an event wants to do that, just don’t expect it beyond maybe 2 tables, it simply is not possible.
Breng77 wrote: There seems to be some confusion here about the difference between a judge and a ref. Th job of a judge is to resolve rules disputes, that is it. A referee (who watches the game closely and ensures the rules are followed) is what most people here are calling for. There is a difference between the two. In 40k right now we have judges if for no other reason that we lack the means to have refs. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
I mean, so the job of a judge is to watch a game and allow people to cheat because neither play disputes it? Sounds so stupid. Surely any rules official watch a gaming (ESPECIALLY) a top table game, there duty is to step in at any cheating at all?
Or is there this weird culture at 40k events where people just try to get away with anything and everything they can until they get called out? That's the impression I get from Dakka Dakka.
No it is not his job to watch the in thgame first place (he can though) it is to be present if a rules disagreement comes up to resolve the issue, or potentially hand down punishment if a found infraction is bad enough. That is the whole point. He isn’t a ref, he isn’t there to make rulings unless asked to do so. It would be wonderful to HQ e refs on every table but it is so unrealistic that it could possibly happen. The game is now and essentially will always be self judged, the best any tournament is likely to do is are f the streamed games, and maybe the top table. And even then it won’t be close to perfect.
So your point is that a 40k 'tourney' is actually a deceptive name for casual 40k games with houseruled scoring, right?
No my point is a tournament has nothing to do with the presence of officials at any level. I used to play competitive ultimate frisbee, those tournaments were all self officiated by the teams on the field. Having a referee does not define something as a tournament. It is simply an option that one might choose to use or not.
AaronWilson wrote: I'm not disputing how hard it is to judge every table, etc
Sure, but it's not hard to judge the FINAL table.
Sure it is, you can easily station a judge at the table, but let’s not pretend having every rule in 40k committed to memory and noticing the error is anything but difficult.
Breng77 wrote: Sure it is, you can easily station a judge at the table, but let’s not pretend having every rule in 40k committed to memory and noticing the error is anything but difficult.
But that's not what he said.
He didn't say "Good point, audience, but you're an audience and I made the call. My bad, human error & all that." He said it's literally not his job. So they're not even trying to adjudicate the rules correctly at the top table.
EDIT: It's like the difference between someone being unknowledgeable but willing to learn and wilful ignorance.
No it is the difference between the judge know his role as a judge and not. As a judge his role is not to interfere to ensure correct play, it is to resolve rules disputes.
If he was a ref you would have a point but he isn’t he made the right call.
Breng77 wrote: No it is the difference between the judge know his role as a judge and not. As a judge his role is not to interfere to ensure correct play, it is to resolve rules disputes.
If he was a ref you would have a point but he isn’t he made the right call.
Why do tournaments have judges? Dice are more impartial and can easily give a binary "you're right, Player A" or "you're right Player B" answer.
Because dice are able to be gamed. I don’t like a rule, I’ll disagree with it, then we dice off 50-50 it goes in my favor. Judge actually reads said rule, and any references and makes a ruling. I mean why do courts have judges, coinflips are more impartial right?
Breng77 wrote: Because dice are able to be gamed. I don’t like a rule, I’ll disagree with it, then we dice off 50-50 it goes in my favor. Judge actually reads said rule, and any references and makes a ruling. I mean why do courts have judges, coinflips are more impartial right?
Yeah but this judge (unlike legal judges) outright stated the integrity of the game is irrelevant. So why do so much extra work, if you literally don't care what the rule says since integrity is not your job? Resolving disputes is a whole different skill set from knowing and understanding the rules.
A person whose sole purpose is to resolve disputes is required to have about as much knowledge of the rules as any given d6 is. Because they're not actually there to enforce the rules at all.
So, if one player is obviously slowing play down the judge has to wait until the other player complains before warning the first player? Even if the judge is sitting right there and is watching the delay he won't say anything per Adepticon. That's nuts. Maybe the second player just assumes that the judge will step in because he's a judge and shouldn't allow rule breaking to occur.
That's the point of the whole chess clock controversy. With the clock you don't have to have a judge intervene at all. At least that's was my take from the ITC stance. Judges can't watch all the tables so we'll make it easier on them by removing one of their responsibilities.
All this tells me that if I go to an event I should ask whether the judges will be active or passive.
That is simply untrue, and just because the judge did not make a ruling he was not asked to make does not make him a bad judge. Legal judges don’t make rulings they aren’t asked for either. Again judge not ref. He is resolving a dispute, in doing so he is expected to use the rules. That doesn’t require him to know all the rules. Being a ref would require him to know all the rules.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: So, if one player is obviously slowing play down the judge has to wait until the other player complains before warning the first player? Even if the judge is sitting right there and is watching the delay he won't say anything per Adepticon. That's nuts. Maybe the second player just assumes that the judge will step in because he's a judge and shouldn't allow rule breaking to occur.
That's the point of the whole chess clock controversy. With the clock you don't have to have a judge intervene at all. At least that's was my take from the ITC stance. Judges can't watch all the tables so we'll make it easier on them by removing one of their responsibilities.
All this tells me that if I go to an event I should ask whether the judges will be active or passive.
The point of the clock controversy is that it's often hard to see slow play. Clocks put a number on it.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: So, if one player is obviously slowing play down the judge has to wait until the other player complains before warning the first player? Even if the judge is sitting right there and is watching the delay he won't say anything per Adepticon. That's nuts. Maybe the second player just assumes that the judge will step in because he's a judge and shouldn't allow rule breaking to occur.
That's the point of the whole chess clock controversy. With the clock you don't have to have a judge intervene at all. At least that's was my take from the ITC stance. Judges can't watch all the tables so we'll make it easier on them by removing one of their responsibilities.
All this tells me that if I go to an event I should ask whether the judges will be active or passive.
Slow playing is not against the rules, unless stated, and with all the tables judges rarely pay attention to it unless notified. No event will be actively judged, events don’t have enough staff for that.
Breng77 wrote: That is simply untrue, and just because the judge did not make a ruling he was not asked to make does not make him a bad judge. Legal judges don’t make rulings they aren’t asked for either. Again judge not ref. He is resolving a dispute, in doing so he is expected to use the rules. That doesn’t require him to know all the rules. Being a ref would require him to know all the rules.
I guess a better question would be should 40k have refs instead of judges?
i know that originally 40k had a bit of a DM. should "competitive" warming have a ref to sit there and carefully watch the game? at least for the top tables.
If the idea is that you want all games to have as few mistakes as possible then yes it should. That said it is an unrealistic expectation beyond maybe the top table or 2 as staffing is far too light and very few people would be qualified to be refs. For example I have a decent knowledge of the game, but not every faction all their rules, stratagems etc, so while I am comfortable in the role of judge, I would not be as a ref because I’m sure there are things I would miss.
Breng77 wrote: That is simply untrue, and just because the judge did not make a ruling he was not asked to make does not make him a bad judge. Legal judges don’t make rulings they aren’t asked for either. Again judge not ref. He is resolving a dispute, in doing so he is expected to use the rules. That doesn’t require him to know all the rules. Being a ref would require him to know all the rules.
You are missing my point. I'm not talking about him being told by a 3rd party to do something. I'm talking about him saying rules integrity is not important.
If the integrity of the rules is unimportant, surely the content of the rules is unimportant, and therefore, a dice is as equally capable of dispute resolution.
You can't say "the rules are important" and then say "but the judges aren't required to enforce them."
Sure you can, the law is important but judges don’t go out and enforce it. You are missing the point where the judge said it is not his job to correct gameplay errors, even those that break rules. It is his job to arbitrate rules disagreements, using said rules.
What you want -judge sees someone misplay a rule, he must stop the game and fix it. If he doesn’t do this in your opinion the rules don’t matter.
What I want from a judge- to only partake in a game if asked, and when doing so resolve issues using the rules of the game.
What you are saying is akin to “well if the judge didn’t apprehend the robber at the bank he doesn’t care about the law.” That simply isn’t his job. You may not like that job, or think he should have a different job, but his job is not as a ref/rules enforcer. It is as a rules arbiter.
Breng77 wrote: Sure you can, the law is important but judges don’t go out and enforce it. You are missing the point where the judge said it is not his job to correct gameplay errors, even those that break rules. It is his job to arbitrate rules disagreements, using said rules.
What you want -judge sees someone misplay a rule, he must stop the game and fix it. If he doesn’t do this in your opinion the rules don’t matter.
What I want from a judge- to only partake in a game if asked, and when doing so resolve issues using the rules of the game.
What you are saying is akin to “well if the judge didn’t apprehend the robber at the bank he doesn’t care about the law.” That simply isn’t his job. You may not like that job, or think he should have a different job, but his job is not as a ref/rules enforcer. It is as a rules arbiter.
Except he didn't say he was a rules arbiter. He said he was there to resolve disputes. Dispute resolution has nothing to do with making the right call, or even knowing the rules. I could sit two Frostgrave players having a rules dispute and say "look, Fred here is right, and Bob, if you don't like it, you get to go suck ice until you cool off." I have no idea how to play Frostgrave.
That's dispute resolution. Not the same thing as arbitration.
He said his job was to resolve disputes and that the "integrity of the game didn't matter." This tells me that he's perfectly willing to sacrifice the integrity of the game (i.e. following the rules) on the altar of solving (or not having in the first place) a dispute!
I guess it is too much to ask players to know the core rules (this wasn't a detachment or codex specific rule violation) before going to a high-level event where such behavior COULD have manifested, whether intentional or not.
Nope, let's just assign baby-sitters to every table to make sure everyone gets fair and equal treatment.
I mean, not that knowing the rule-set is the best defense against this kind of play. Or asking questions when out-of-place things happen during a game.
Nope, more baby-sitters.
Maybe they'll be nice and help me move my 200 models during my movement phase, too.
Helps conserve time so I can beat that chess clock.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I guess it is too much to ask players to know the core rules (this wasn't a detachment or codex specific rule violation) before going to a high-level event where such behavior COULD have manifested, whether intentional or not.
Nope, let's just assign baby-sitters to every table to make sure everyone gets fair and equal treatment.
I mean, not that knowing the rule-set is the best defense against this kind of play. Or asking questions when out-of-place things happen during a game.
Nope, more baby-sitters.
Maybe they'll be nice and help me move my 200 models during my movement phase, too.
Helps conserve time so I can beat that chess clock.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
"Git gud" is rarely an ingredient you want to include in your recipe to attract casual players.
Breng77 wrote: Sure you can, the law is important but judges don’t go out and enforce it. You are missing the point where the judge said it is not his job to correct gameplay errors, even those that break rules. It is his job to arbitrate rules disagreements, using said rules.
What you want -judge sees someone misplay a rule, he must stop the game and fix it. If he doesn’t do this in your opinion the rules don’t matter.
What I want from a judge- to only partake in a game if asked, and when doing so resolve issues using the rules of the game.
What you are saying is akin to “well if the judge didn’t apprehend the robber at the bank he doesn’t care about the law.” That simply isn’t his job. You may not like that job, or think he should have a different job, but his job is not as a ref/rules enforcer. It is as a rules arbiter.
Except he didn't say he was a rules arbiter. He said he was there to resolve disputes. Dispute resolution has nothing to do with making the right call, or even knowing the rules. I could sit two Frostgrave players having a rules dispute and say "look, Fred here is right, and Bob, if you don't like it, you get to go suck ice until you cool off." I have no idea how to play Frostgrave.
That's dispute resolution. Not the same thing as arbitration.
He said his job was to resolve disputes and that the "integrity of the game didn't matter." This tells me that he's perfectly willing to sacrifice the integrity of the game (i.e. following the rules) on the altar of solving (or not having in the first place) a dispute!
i
That is you reading a lot into an account of what was said, and the term “resolve disputes.” That could just as well mean using the rules as not. And not being there to ensure the integrity of the game could just as much be a comment on not being an active ref as anything involving the actual dispute resolution.
That is you reading a lot into an account of what was said, and the term “resolve disputes.” That could just as well mean using the rules as not. And not being there to ensure the integrity of the game could just as much be a comment on not being an active ref as anything involving the actual dispute resolution.
This is me taking what he said at face value. If he didn't mean what he said, he should've been more careful. "Dispute resolution" is a completely different ball-game (lol) from "rules arbitration" and requires an entirely different skill set and level of rules-knowledge. And he could have just said "It's not my place to enforce the rules, merely arbitrate them.", instead of outright admitting that the integrity of the rules isn't important.
"Git gud" is rarely an ingredient you want to include in your recipe to attract casual players.
Casual players are the top table of Adepticon? Right...
You realize this was a 200+ player tournament and not a GW advertising pitch, right? While having people notice the game is advertising, the intended function was not to cater to newbies on the street, at least on the tabletop.
In this case, and a regional+ level event, "git gud" is actually an intended ingredient, it is why the gud players have prestige in their circle (the gaming environment).
I mean, the extension of the judge at every table is that I could let my 7 year-old who can barely read loose on adepticon, and it is fine because there is a ref there to play rails for him.
And I mean... it is entirely possible that the "offended" player in this scenario saw it and totally went along with the misplay because it precisely benefited him in that specific context. Maybe he intentionally missed calling it out on purpose.
Maybe the player who forgot to perils actually got cheated because the other guy scored 3 more VPs due to the "blunder". These are things that are considered at that level of play, and that even a judge/ref cannot account for.
Staying out of it and letting the social contract between the players play out naturally is the best method. If they miss something... shame on them. If the ref misses something? Shame on the ref, shame on the TOs, shame on the brand! If you get cheated due to a rules fabrication... then by all means: git gud, bet you won't forget that rule next time.
That is you reading a lot into an account of what was said, and the term “resolve disputes.” That could just as well mean using the rules as not. And not being there to ensure the integrity of the game could just as much be a comment on not being an active ref as anything involving the actual dispute resolution.
This is me taking what he said at face value. If he didn't mean what he said, he should've been more careful. "Dispute resolution" is a completely different ball-game (lol) from "rules arbitration" and requires an entirely different skill set and level of rules-knowledge. And he could have just said "It's not my place to enforce the rules, merely arbitrate them.", instead of outright admitting that the integrity of the rules isn't important.
So the second hand quote is enough for you to go on for that determination. Further these people aren’t professionals, it is a much more reasonable expectation that he (or the OP) misspoke, rather than making your leap to “the rules don’t matter might as well D6 it.” I mean are you trying to apply RAW level scrutiny to a quote from a volunteer at a convention posted on dakka? Seems like a stretch to me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Heck it isn’t even a quote in the OP. And even in that no -quote the word arbitrate is mentioned. Based on context it seems very clear that the idea is that he is ther to arbitrate rules disputes, and no to referee the game. Which is exactly his job.
We should all remember that mistakes / errors / omissions are a natural part of 40k, just as important as WS and BS. The best players I know are far from perfect.
The fact 2 experienced players on the final table were allowed to play on despite a mistake, IMHO, is absolutely the correct call. Doesn't matter if people are being called judges or refs, interfering in a contest between two people for a championship is bad form.
So a few things you definition of "competitive" as how hard the players are trying is nonsense. By that definition 2 kids running a race in their back yard that are trying hard to win is the same level of competition as the Olympic marathon. Sorry you are flat out wrong.
Really, I'm not:
"Strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same". All that matters is how hard they're trying and there are people who are beginning to take those steps of "try-hard" for 40k. That's why you're encountering this resistance and backlash.
But even by that definition you are wrong, no 40k player is trying as hard to win as an Olympian, a pro-gamer, a professional athlete. heck even a college or top level highschool athlete. They don't practice near as much, don't often change sleep habits, don't change their eating habits (many get drunk during "high level" competitions), pretty sure no one is "training" 8 hours a day for the sake of winning events. SO even on your own measure people are not trying has hard to win. Until significant money is involved the top will never try as hard as people in other competitions, I also think you are dreaming if you believe the esports "athletes" back in the free days were as good as they are when it is their job. As talented, sure, but no way do they get as much practice in when it is not their main job.
I can't speak for every 40k tournament attendee out there and neither can you. To make a broad statement of "no one is" or "everyone is" or even "most are" or "most aren't" would be purely speculative on either of our parts. All we can say conclusively is there are some who are and are increasing their changes and there are some who aren't. The goal should be to let each player go to types of events that fit into what they're striving for, which we can't do when you mislabel stuff.
And for record, e-sports didn't need money to get involved to reach that point. They got there while holding down day jobs and losing money to attend major tournaments. They were just as talented. 40k will get there too if the old buddy club doesn't smash the nascent scene in a tantrum.
GW is only boosting the competitive scene to sell models.
So the exact reason Blizzard, Valve, Riot, et al do it: to sell a product. Got ya. Same motivation.
They are not going for esport level, just watch their stream and it is enough to figure that out. They don't stream top tables at many events, their own stream is mostly casual type games not top level play.
Yeah, they're stream looks just like the beginning days of e-sports. Like I said, you keep falsely equating where e-sports are NOW when you should be looking at where e-sports WERE.
They don't have their own tournament format that they are pushing.
Except, you know, the Heats and Grand Tournament, right?
They have accepted that there is money to be made from competitive players as part of the hobby, but that is about the level they are pushing competitive play at.
Right, so same as every other content provider.
SO any TO ever is part of the "bro-hammer" club, good to know. Is Dakka, with it's like 5 posters who really care the representitive sample I should look at? Is it the stream commenters that don't attend tournaments that I should listen to? Let me know. I'm really trying to see where this great number of people that want a different competitive community are and what they are doing about it beyond bitching online.
Nonsense. I didn't say EVERY TO is. I said YOU were and I've based that on how major organizers treat you on this forum and your own posting history. It's pretty apparent.
Sorry nope still unfair, if only one of us has outside help, that is the definition of an unfair advatage, it matters little if half of the game is played by the rules if the other half is not. I guess in your mind (using this example.) it would be ok if Nick got called on his rule, but if a tyrant had perilsed earlier and the did not explode that would be ok, because at least we elimiated 1 error in play. Oh but I guess then if Nick complains about something that cannot be retroactively fixed, his opponent should get DQ'd for that right? Or docked points. But Nick already lost because of the difference in play between the 2 of them so that doesn't help him much. Should he be given the win? Wanting to reduce errors in not a bad thing, how you do it absolutely can be.
Penalties need to be proportionate to the behavior. You're jumping off a hyperbolic bridge of results because you don't like the premise. You do know one of the literal definitions of unfair is: "not following the rules of a game or sport". It's not unfair to prevent definitional unfairness. It's not outside help when the crowd notifies a TO: it's compliance.
Nope, they wouldn't because it is not part of the rules, and yes frequently in games in many sports you can hear the crowd complain about a call, loud boos etc. They don't stop to check the calls do to booing.
You're still getting lost and confused. The crowd complaining about a call means a call was made. We're talking about waaaaay before that. Boos are nonspecific and targeted towards results: they aren't specifically notifying an authority of a rule violation. So yes, if the crowd started chanting "encroachment" you can bet the refs would look around to see if anyone was encroaching.
It isn't deceptive because no events exist that you would deem competitive so you should know what to expect.
I'm sorry, what? Picture Timmy. Timmy is brand new to the hobby and just bought and painted his army. He wants to jump into a competitive league and begin playing competitively (expecting to get stomped, but hopefully grow). How on EARTH is Timmy supposed to know that when ITC/NOVA say "competitive" they don't ACTUALLY mean competitive? This is your insider bias showing again: you assume we've all been here forever and know the unwritten rules. Players haven't. Get your perspective out of your insular group if you really want to understand.
TO my knowledge no event exists that has active judging on every table, chess clocks, and checking of every list prior to the event. IT doesn't exist so if you go in expecting that, that is a you problem not an event problem.
Now you're just off the deep end. Nobody said any one of those was specifically a deal breaker nor that they are all required.
Especially when you yourself would describe these events as competitive, because people are "trying hard to win".
And the point is to give competitive people a competitive venue. A laissez-faire attitude or judges who don't feel like the integrity of the game matters are not places where you CAN really try because the facility itself is smothering it all as a dampener.
There is no rule to calling yourself competitive,
Except, you know, what the word means.
heck even using ITC as a brand comes with basically no strings that require anything. In fact given that all events work the same way calling the most difficult to win events the most competitive is a fair and accurate description. Just because it isn't what you want, doesn't make it deceptive at all.
We'll snip here because you're regurgitating and thus my answers would be to.
TO my Knowledge "competitive" players are doing nothing about this. You want it to change, start your own CTC (competitive tournament circut) start running events, require anyone who wants to be part of it to hold to certain standards to get the stamp of approval, by your reasoning this should have a large target market of competitive players who are chomping at the bit to play in events that are clearly competitive with clear standards and rules.
And some people probably will, eventually, maybe. The maybe being because you're making a burnout cycle now with deception. Competitive players hear about competitive tournaments, try them out, realize they're not competitive after repeated attempts, burnout and say screw it. This wouldn't happen if we weren't deceiving them.
I also never said there was a large market. There is a market. It's a market that will grow if not killed first (and one GW certainly wants to grow).
Before you go saying "I shouldn't have to do that to have an opinion",
And I wasn't going to. We're going to snip here because you're just off tilting at a windmill as opposed to engaging anything said by an actual poster at this point.
Complaining on the internet doesn't create change.
Though I WILL laugh at this because ICCUP and Team Liquid (which was more than just a team) created and did more through "complaining on the internet" then any actual, physical, organizer ever did for Western gamers.
I chastise because they want other people to step up and make things what they want, instead of actually doing something.
They will, like I said, this is much like infant e-sports. That took almost 2 decades to get moving. For now, major organizations should stop preying on people with deceptive labeling.
I would love for a live judge to watch every table and every match. Until that day, there's nothing unfair about what you said. Did it give me an advantage? Yes, absolutely. Is it an unfair one? No. It is and cannot ever be unfair to have the game be played correctly in the rules. My error was missed? That's unfortunate. Hopefully it gets caught later and I suffer a points reduction or DQ to compensate, but trying to decrease the error rate of a table from 5% to 2.5% is not a bad thing.
When your "mistakes"(which even could be deliberate "oops I forgot" attempts) aren't spotted not because they were missed but because your friends DELIBERATELY are skipping them to give help to you?
That's not fair by any definition of word.
Having people deliberately ignore your oversights is a brand new consideration you just introduced in this post for the purposes of making a bash. Breng's argument is that simply by virtue of having more eyes, regardless of intent, there is an unfair advantage.
Say it with me: it is never unfair to have players playing by the rules of the game.
Breng77 wrote: No it is the difference between the judge know his role as a judge and not. As a judge his role is not to interfere to ensure correct play, it is to resolve rules disputes.
Does anything in the Adepticon rules pack (which I've not looked at) back that up?
Judge isn't a term just used by your definition, btw - here's a quote from the FFG-produced Imperial Assault Tournament Rules document:
JUDGE
An event may have any number of judges, including none. A judge is well-versed in the game’s rules and regulations. A judge’s responsibilities include assisting players to resolve disputes and answering questions regarding the game’s rules. When a judge is not actively performing judge duties, he or she is a spectator and should communicate this change in status clearly.
When a judge is observing a game or an issue is brought to his or her attention, the judge should inform players when they are not following the game rules. Players have an initial opportunity to resolve any situation among themselves, but any player may alternatively ask the judge to make a ruling. At a player’s request, a marshal can review a judge ruling and provide a final determination.
Important sentence is in bold.
The same, from experience, is true at Magic events - I've helped run events for 1-300 people, and the judges there will issue warnings to players based on things they've seen as they've walked past tables and observed games in progress.
Judge - you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Say it with me “all along I have been talking about one player being held to a different standard because the other side has more eyes.” Just because you ignored the implications doesn’t mean it wasn’t part of the discussion.
You are still wrong about people being misled about anything. If they are it is willful. No event has claimed to have active judging, if your first tournament attendance is adepticon or LVO or NOVA, you are very unique having not done any local events to prepare, even then you have expectations about things that have never been said by anyone ever. Are these events competitive, absolutely even by your own definition of competitive. Also the idea that someone who knows about any of these events has no idea what they might be like and is willing to spend hundreds of dollars to attend seems a stretch to me.
As to the “I don’t know every tournament player and cannot speak for them. You’re right it is an assumption founded on the fact that to play this game you need money (far more than most esports to get started), which means you have a job, which mean you likely don’t have 8+ hour per day of preparation. Now I don’t know you but give. You cast knowledge of esports i’m guessing that is the arena you come to as far as competition, mine was national level cross country, trust me I put in no where near the amount of time into this as I did that. I couldn’t I have too many other commitments as do most others. I don’t have 30-35 hours every week to train 40k. Maybe someone does, but even what I hear top players maybe get 2-3 games in a week on average. So sure there might be a few outliers but I can assure the norm is not 30 hours of practice per week.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I guess my biggest issue is that you seem to be inventing this group of budding 40m as a Esport crowd that I just don’t see in any of my interactions with any part of the community outside of dakka. I don’t see those people running events. I don’t see them attending events, just trying to drag those events down. You say they don’t care as long as those events don’t say the magic words “competitive” or tournament. When these events are both these things just not the way you want them to be. No big TOs are squashing anyone or preventing them from running events. You seem to believe they are because they won’t run things your way, while being “competitive” events.
Until I see someone run an event “your” way successfully I’ll hold on to my belief that it is not feasible to do so on any large scale.
I've read the thread, in its entirety. Here's all I have to contribute: 1) The judge was correct in his response to the spectator. 2) The judge, if he spoke bluntly, might have given a more politic response. I am often rather blunt myself. 3) The judge's response in no way indicates a disregard for the rules, or the game. 4) Changing the approach to adjudication for top tables, after the cut to the top 16, invites a different set of problems. 5) A discussion of whether 40K should have referees rather than judges (as I understand those terms), and whether it is in any way feasible to implement could be instructive. Point of reference for that potential discussion: The AdeptiCon 40K championships was sold out at 256, with a wait list of ~48, and ran at ~250 after drops, pulling players off the waitlist, and taking walk-ins. Also, judges are not paid.
@Breng77: Thank you for your efforts in this thread. You spent much more time, and many more words on this topic than I would have, or that I will. Cheers.
Breng77 wrote: Say it with me “all along I have been talking about one player being held to a different standard because the other side has more eyes.” Just because you ignored the implications doesn’t mean it wasn’t part of the discussion.
I didn't ignore it. I elaborated on how ridiculous the position of saying making people adhere to the rules is a bad thing and then provided a definition to show that your are, effectively, saying that curing definitional unfairness is itself unfair.
You are still wrong about people being misled about anything. If they are it is willful. No event has claimed to have active judging, if your first tournament attendance is adepticon or LVO or NOVA, you are very unique having not done any local events to prepare, even then you have expectations about things that have never been said by anyone ever. Are these events competitive, absolutely even by your own definition of competitive. Also the idea that someone who knows about any of these events has no idea what they might be like and is willing to spend hundreds of dollars to attend seems a stretch to me.
This is all just your narrow perspective coloring your judgment. It's not willful when you look at the pushing and hyping at a superficial level. And yeah, people do.
I will say you're crossing thought streams too. Active judging, as you call it, is one component some people have expressed support for, but it is not the be all-end-all and was not specifically cited as a make-or-break object newbies were looking for.
As to the “I don’t know every tournament player and cannot speak for them. You’re right it is an assumption founded on the fact that to play this game you need money (far more than most esports to get started), which means you have a job, which mean you likely don’t have 8+ hour per day of preparation.
Yeah but MtG needs money for the big leagues too, I'd say more than 40k even if you want to do it at that tier, so just because 40k is has a cost attached has little bearing on this.
Now I don’t know you but give. You cast knowledge of esports i’m guessing that is the arena you come to as far as competition, mine was national level cross country, trust me I put in no where near the amount of time into this as I did that.
Yes and no. E-sports was something I did to relieve stress in graduate education. I started out as a champion fencer/swordsman and a martial artist. Anyway, tangent aside:
I couldn’t I have too many other commitments as do most others. I don’t have 30-35 hours every week to train 40k. Maybe someone does, but even what I hear top players maybe get 2-3 games in a week on average. So sure there might be a few outliers but I can assure the norm is not 30 hours of practice per week.
The norm ain't that in anything. Most gamers don't dedicate 30 hours a week. Not for Starcraft, LoL, Overwatch, whatever. Same goes for MtG. Even most pro-gamers don't do that (much as you hear stories about team houses) unless you count streaming time, but it's pretty well know streaming is garbage practice. They do that for money.
Most of the original e-sports legends worked other careers and practiced in their spare time back in the day. Different people need to practice different amounts. You can't just write in an arbitrary time limit and say it's the cut-off.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I guess my biggest issue is that you seem to be inventing this group of budding 40m as a Esport crowd that I just don’t see in any of my interactions with any part of the community outside of dakka. I don’t see those people running events. I don’t see them attending events, just trying to drag those events down. You say they don’t care as long as those events don’t say the magic words “competitive” or tournament. When these events are both these things just not the way you want them to be. No big TOs are squashing anyone or preventing them from running events. You seem to believe they are because they won’t run things your way, while being “competitive” events.
I'm not inventing them, I'm noting similarities between where this community is now and where another community on a similar path was 20 years ago. You don't see it because, as I've said, you're part of an insular group that will be highly resistant to change simply by virtue of inertia and the fact that your roots are deep. You'd have to step outside of it. The evidence, of course, is there in GW's behavior from streaming to marketing to balancing and the blogosphere's marketing in promoting the 'best players' and 'top lists'. GW certainly has better marketing data on the community than even both of us combined to boot.
My counter to your statement would be that these people aren't hosting events right now because: 1. They're (relatively) new to the hobby and still getting their sea legs. 2. They don't think they need to because of these deceptive labelings. As time goes on, they'll grow into #1 and start doing their own for #2 UNLESS they get totally burnt out or driven out by naysayers.
And if you can't see them getting squashed you've really got to take a step back and open your eyes. In three of the last four tournament scandals the response was some form of "he's a good guy so ignore it" or "you're crazy for thinking tournaments would do something shocking like enforce the rules". That's going to kill competitive spirit. You need only look in this very thread for further proof. How many comments are there equivalent to "lol competitive 40k", "40k can't be competitive" and/or "why would people waste their time with competitive toy soldiers". Dakka is actually one of the more pro-competition forums and yet I'd say close to half of the vocal userbase is what I would classify as 'militant-casual', that is, a casual player who demands all other play adhere to their preferred style. It's worse on other forums. That is poison to a community.
E-Sports faced much of this same ridicule and derision ("sports require sweat!" was a popular one). In 20 years, they finally made it, when the first wave started entering their 30's. 40k will probably take at least as long if not longer for an organic growth to do the same thing. GW can speed it up if they engage as hard as Riot, Valve or Wizards did.
Finally, you throw out 'my way' a lot in your statements, but that's punching at straw. While I've said I think it'd be great to have a judge cover every table, I haven't really articulated a 'my way' for you to attack. I'm just noting what I see as a natural historical parallel and, trying at least, to explain to people like you why you repeatedly step into controversy and backlash after every tournament. Perhaps it's futile, but here I am trying regardless. Your problem always has, from the very start, been one of mismatched perceptions.
Until I see someone run an event “your” way successfully I’ll hold on to my belief that it is not feasible to do so on any large scale.
That's...fine and I really doubt the vast majority of people in this thread care. This thread is largely about broad ideas and preferences with our tangential discussion of community character makeup. I certainly wasn't engaging your personal beliefs on feasibility in the slightest.
Breng77 wrote: Say it with me “all along I have been talking about one player being held to a different standard because the other side has more eyes.” Just because you ignored the implications doesn’t mean it wasn’t part of the discussion.
I didn't ignore it. I elaborated on how ridiculous the position of saying making people adhere to the rules is a bad thing and then provided a definition to show that your are, effectively, saying that curing definitional unfairness is itself unfair.
Uneven curing of definitional unfairness is by definition unfair. Look at it this way, if a ref only called legitimate fouls on one side of a game, is that fair or unfair? Crowds may or may not be impartial and thus even if point out legitimate rules issues cannot be counted on to do so evenly. If not done evenly the practice is the definition of unfair. You seem to think that less rules played incorrectly is somehow more fair, when that simply isn't the case. It is only the case when reducing the errors is applied impartially by a ref, not potentially skewed to one side. The crowd has no place in adjudicating fair play in a game.
You are still wrong about people being misled about anything. If they are it is willful. No event has claimed to have active judging, if your first tournament attendance is adepticon or LVO or NOVA, you are very unique having not done any local events to prepare, even then you have expectations about things that have never been said by anyone ever. Are these events competitive, absolutely even by your own definition of competitive. Also the idea that someone who knows about any of these events has no idea what they might be like and is willing to spend hundreds of dollars to attend seems a stretch to me.
This is all just your narrow perspective coloring your judgment. It's not willful when you look at the pushing and hyping at a superficial level. And yeah, people do.
I will say you're crossing thought streams too. Active judging, as you call it, is one component some people have expressed support for, but it is not the be all-end-all and was not specifically cited as a make-or-break object newbies were looking for.
The thing you and others have expressed support for is requiring games to never have errors, and if errors are caught they must always be punished severely so they don't happen again. The problem is that they will happen again, or will only decrease because players will stop attending events because of harsh punishment for making them, or because refs have been assigned to every table to prevent them from happening. I know which one I think is more likely to happen.
As to the “I don’t know every tournament player and cannot speak for them. You’re right it is an assumption founded on the fact that to play this game you need money (far more than most esports to get started), which means you have a job, which mean you likely don’t have 8+ hour per day of preparation.
Yeah but MtG needs money for the big leagues too, I'd say more than 40k even if you want to do it at that tier, so just because 40k is has a cost attached has little bearing on this.
fair enough, I will state that magic requires quite a bit less money to chase the meta than I would say 40k does, and or at least less effort in time (you can play what 5-10 games of magic easily in the time it takes for one 40k game for practice, you don't need to paint your cards etc (or pay someone else to do so).
Now I don’t know you but give. You cast knowledge of esports i’m guessing that is the arena you come to as far as competition, mine was national level cross country, trust me I put in no where near the amount of time into this as I did that.
Yes and no. E-sports was something I did to relieve stress in graduate education. I started out as a champion fencer/swordsman and a martial artist. Anyway, tangent aside:
I couldn’t I have too many other commitments as do most others. I don’t have 30-35 hours every week to train 40k. Maybe someone does, but even what I hear top players maybe get 2-3 games in a week on average. So sure there might be a few outliers but I can assure the norm is not 30 hours of practice per week.
The norm ain't that in anything. Most gamers don't dedicate 30 hours a week. Not for Starcraft, LoL, Overwatch, whatever. Same goes for MtG. Even most pro-gamers don't do that (much as you hear stories about team houses) unless you count streaming time, but it's pretty well know streaming is garbage practice. They do that for money.
Most of the original e-sports legends worked other careers and practiced in their spare time back in the day. Different people need to practice different amounts. You can't just write in an arbitrary time limit and say it's the cut-off.
sure I can if I am comparing the type of commitment people make to a hobby, I'd be surprised if most 40k players play more than 5 hours a week, with top guys maybe hitting 10-15 if they go to local tournaments. I would wager most pro-gamers play quite a bit more than that in an average week. I could be wrong, but seems likely.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I guess my biggest issue is that you seem to be inventing this group of budding 40m as a Esport crowd that I just don’t see in any of my interactions with any part of the community outside of dakka. I don’t see those people running events. I don’t see them attending events, just trying to drag those events down. You say they don’t care as long as those events don’t say the magic words “competitive” or tournament. When these events are both these things just not the way you want them to be. No big TOs are squashing anyone or preventing them from running events. You seem to believe they are because they won’t run things your way, while being “competitive” events.
I'm not inventing them, I'm noting similarities between where this community is now and where another community on a similar path was 20 years ago. You don't see it because, as I've said, you're part of an insular group that will be highly resistant to change simply by virtue of inertia and the fact that your roots are deep. You'd have to step outside of it. The evidence, of course, is there in GW's behavior from streaming to marketing to balancing and the blogosphere's marketing in promoting the 'best players' and 'top lists'. GW certainly has better marketing data on the community than even both of us combined to boot.
My counter to your statement would be that these people aren't hosting events right now because: 1. They're (relatively) new to the hobby and still getting their sea legs. 2. They don't think they need to because of these deceptive labelings. As time goes on, they'll grow into #1 and start doing their own for #2 UNLESS they get totally burnt out or driven out by naysayers.
And if you can't see them getting squashed you've really got to take a step back and open your eyes. In three of the last four tournament scandals the response was some form of "he's a good guy so ignore it" or "you're crazy for thinking tournaments would do something shocking like enforce the rules". That's going to kill competitive spirit. You need only look in this very thread for further proof. How many comments are there equivalent to "lol competitive 40k", "40k can't be competitive" and/or "why would people waste their time with competitive toy soldiers". Dakka is actually one of the more pro-competition forums and yet I'd say close to half of the vocal userbase is what I would classify as 'militant-casual', that is, a casual player who demands all other play adhere to their preferred style. It's worse on other forums. That is poison to a community.
E-Sports faced much of this same ridicule and derision ("sports require sweat!" was a popular one). In 20 years, they finally made it, when the first wave started entering their 30's. 40k will probably take at least as long if not longer for an organic growth to do the same thing. GW can speed it up if they engage as hard as Riot, Valve or Wizards did.
Finally, you throw out 'my way' a lot in your statements, but that's punching at straw. While I've said I think it'd be great to have a judge cover every table, I haven't really articulated a 'my way' for you to attack. I'm just noting what I see as a natural historical parallel and, trying at least, to explain to people like you why you repeatedly step into controversy and backlash after every tournament. Perhaps it's futile, but here I am trying regardless. Your problem always has, from the very start, been one of mismatched perceptions.
So judging by your join date you are pretty new to the scene. This insular group that you harp on so much did exactly what I am saying I see no one from this "esport" group doing, seeing something they want to change and doing it. I'm not sure when you joined but I assume that maybe it was after GW basically tried to squash (far more actively than anything you cite) the competitive scene. They were the ones that harped on 40k not being competitive, stopped running events, supporting local event, made terrible missions, never faq'd anything etc. So people that wanted a "competitive" scene stepped up, created events from nothing and grew them into the majors/GTs of today. Marketing of top players in the blogsphere isn't new it has been happening for a long time, nothing about it has changed, except some of the names.
You talk about resistance to change for older gamers, none I know are resistant to change, they are resistant to being made to be the ones to make those changes. People like you come on after events and rail on these events when mistakes happen, and they don't respond the way you want them to, you accuse them of deception, and tear down the tons of work they do, because you want something else. Well guess what, they don't owe you anything, you want something else build it. You talk about relatively new to the scene? How new, a month?, 6 months? 2 years? I started running tournaments at my local shop maybe 2 years into my competitive gaming history, I knew plenty of people who did it earlier than me. So what is stopping these people from doing it? Someone already runs the events? The community at their store doesn't want to change? Maybe. Most of what I hear from people is "I shouldn't have to do it, it should just be that way." maybe that is not how you feel, but it is a common excuse. "I want to play I don't want to run events, so someone who is already doing it needs to change their ways."
Does that seem reasonable to you? To put all the impetus on people that already fought and built something to risk their event to change things for a crowd that may or may not attend?
As to you inventing this esport crowd and my view being skewed by my insular group. I'm not even talking about top players, or anything, I rarely talk to or see what you define as the brohammer group, I don't have time to go to big events these days. Do I know some top players as acquaintances, Sure I do. But I don't play with them basically ever, I rarely talk to them. So my not seeing these esports people outside dakka is mostly small stores and tournaments. My local area has lots of new players, none of them complain about how the store runs events, and these events don't even have a judge at all. 85% or more are super casual, don't even play tournaments, will never go to NOVA or Adepticon, don't watch 40k streams of events etc. The last 15% might go to one of these events, but most will just play local events. So when you say that half the vocal user base is "militant-causual", you are probably right, but that is an under representation of the casual/militant casual crowd IME, not an over representation. That isn't to say 40k could not evolve into an esport, but to be fair that is a lot harder to pull off without a ton of money than it was for video games, you are selling to a smaller audience with a harder to watch product.
Has streaming helped get people visualizing the game. Sure but that has been a thing on and off since 5th ed. It isn't new, it is just better quality now. Who started it? Those same "insular" old hats you think are "destroying the competitive spirit"
As for my mismatched perceptions, maybe, but you are guilty of that as well when it comes to tournaments, your perception is that most people that attend them are super serious about winning, and feel cheated when someone makes a mistake on the top tables. My assertion is that 90+% don't care what happens on the top tables, they are there for fun.
I think the only way for "esport" 40k to happen won't be through convention tournaments, it will need to be through teams and leagues, where there are fewer games happening at any one time, allowing for reffing, streaming of all top players, and tighter standards. OR maybe at an invite only event with fewer games to judge. Big events will never be able to pull it off, it is too hard to get it right, and DQing someone on the top table for a mistake on a regular basis will do more to kill the following than anything. Honestly other than the big following, I think 40k is one of the worse minis games for streaming and watching.
Until I see someone run an event “your” way successfully I’ll hold on to my belief that it is not feasible to do so on any large scale.
That's...fine and I really doubt the vast majority of people in this thread care. This thread is largely about broad ideas and preferences with our tangential discussion of community character makeup. I certainly wasn't engaging your personal beliefs on feasibility in the slightest.
They only matter insofar as people keep expecting judges to be something they are not intended to be and a large reason they aren't is because it isn't feasible for them to be that.
techsoldaten wrote: We should all remember that mistakes / errors / omissions are a natural part of 40k, just as important as WS and BS.
Then so-called "competitive" 40k is a joke. Your statement speaks for itself.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DCannon4Life wrote: 3) The judge's response in no way indicates a disregard for the rules, or the game.
It absolutely does. The judge openly said "I am aware that the rules have been violated and an illegal game state has been generated, giving a considerable advantage to one player, but it is not my job to do something about it". How can you possibly say that this position is anything but disregard for the rules?
Breng77 wrote: No it is the difference between the judge know his role as a judge and not. As a judge his role is not to interfere to ensure correct play, it is to resolve rules disputes.
Does anything in the Adepticon rules pack (which I've not looked at) back that up?
Judge isn't a term just used by your definition, btw - here's a quote from the FFG-produced Imperial Assault Tournament Rules document:
JUDGE
An event may have any number of judges, including none. A judge is well-versed in the game’s rules and regulations. A judge’s responsibilities include assisting players to resolve disputes and answering questions regarding the game’s rules. When a judge is not actively performing judge duties, he or she is a spectator and should communicate this change in status clearly.
When a judge is observing a game or an issue is brought to his or her attention, the judge should inform players when they are not following the game rules. Players have an initial opportunity to resolve any situation among themselves, but any player may alternatively ask the judge to make a ruling. At a player’s request, a marshal can review a judge ruling and provide a final determination.
Important sentence is in bold.
The same, from experience, is true at Magic events - I've helped run events for 1-300 people, and the judges there will issue warnings to players based on things they've seen as they've walked past tables and observed games in progress.
Judge - you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
No the only thing in the packet I see is the their rulings are final.
However, in the Conduct policy for adepticon under cheating it states that
"Players are expected to have a solid grasp of the rules and are responsible for challenging their opponent(s) when those
rules are broken. If the players cannot come to a resolution, then the matter must be brought to the attention of a Floor
Judge DURING the game. At that point the Floor Judge(s) will weigh the evidence and take appropriate action (which might
result in anything from a warning to expulsion). Please remember, this is a complex game and honest mistakes are often
made. Every attempt to resolve the issue should be made prior to calling over a Floor Judge (see Rules Disputes above).
Claiming your opponent is cheating to simply influence the outcome of the game is cheating in and of itself."
Which seems pretty clear that catching "cheating" is on the players and no one else.
there is also this which isn't 100% relevant but
"Observing Games: As some of the larger tournaments enter the final rounds, it is often tempting to seek out and watch
the ‘top tables’. Simply observing a game in progress is fine, but observers should NEVER interject their own commentary,
rules interpretations or tactical advice to either player involved in the game."
So potentially even a judge would be subject to this.
No but the rules from the con are fairly clear. It was the players fault to see this, to bring it to the other players attention, to attempt to fix the situation, then summon a judge to deal with the issue.
Might not be the best path, but it is what adepticon has in place.
If you don't like it, run your own con with different rules.
It's nice to have someone to arbitrate rules disputes for casual pick-up games with strangers! What a nightmare it would be if I came in expecting fair competitive venue!
Honestly, the arguments against having fairly judged games is ridiculous.
A) It's too hard!
Well, tough gak, don't run a tournament if you can't spare the resources to ensure that its a fair playing field.
B) But what if one of the players has a bunch of friends?
That is the most non-sequitur argument I've seen in a while. Put up a red line or enforce silence or something, if you think a competitive 40k game can be disrupted because one of the players has friends that came to watch him play.
quentra wrote: It's nice to have someone to arbitrate rules disputes for casual pick-up games with strangers! What a nightmare it would be if I came in expecting fair competitive venue!
Honestly, the arguments against having fairly judged games is ridiculous.
A) It's too hard!
Well, tough gak, don't run a tournament if you can't spare the resources to ensure that its a fair playing field.
B) But what if one of the players has a bunch of friends?
That is the most non-sequitur argument I've seen in a while. Put up a red line or enforce silence or something, if you think a competitive 40k game can be disrupted because one of the players has friends that came to watch him play.
a.) So no tournaments above maybe 30 players will exist. Got it.
B.) That is an argument against why the crowd should not have input into judging a game (right or wrong), not an argument against having a judge ref a game.
techsoldaten wrote: We should all remember that mistakes / errors / omissions are a natural part of 40k, just as important as WS and BS.
Then so-called "competitive" 40k is a joke. Your statement speaks for itself.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DCannon4Life wrote: 3) The judge's response in no way indicates a disregard for the rules, or the game.
It absolutely does. The judge openly said "I am aware that the rules have been violated and an illegal game state has been generated, giving a considerable advantage to one player, but it is not my job to do something about it". How can you possibly say that this position is anything but disregard for the rules?
Because given the rules acting on that without a player asking is beyond the scope of the judges job. Again, you don't have to interfere in a game to regard the rules.
Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
And honestly, I don't know why you can't just introduce a rule (like golf) if you're so worried about outside intereference. If I came to one your tournaments, I'd be more worried about being cheated by my opponent than whether or not they had a friend yelling 'DOUBLE MEASURE THE CHARGE RANGE!'
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
I think people and organizations should attempt to improve in all things. If Adepticon can improve its competitive spirit by upgrading its judges to referees (or even just making them care about the game's integrity) then that's an improvement, no?
Or I guess it's too hard so they shouldn't even try.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
Yeah that's still organizing 18 people as opposed to over 200. And certainly DnD is a different animal where cooperative storytelling is the core of the event so mediation is expected and welcome. And regarding my defending cheating - that's an assumption on your part, I'm not going to address it because its the position you've chosen from an emotional point of view rather than a logical one. Ultimately I'm not even weighing in on the specific occurrence at Adepticon, the judge handled the situation poorly no matter how you look at it, his language was poor and open to misinterpretation. I'm simply weighing in on how absolutely ludicrous it is that it be suggested that there not be events larger than 30 people.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
I think people and organizations should attempt to improve in all things. If Adepticon can improve its competitive spirit by upgrading its judges to referees (or even just making them care about the game's integrity) then that's an improvement, no?
Or I guess it's too hard so they shouldn't even try.
Or you could not make emotional assumptions about my point of view and instead understand I was addressing a specific point made by a poster.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
As long as nobody pays people to judge, there is no other option. It's already hard enough to find people that are a) knowledgeable enough to be a judge and b) don't want to play themselves at an event that lasts several days and usually takes along trip to get to.
Even big Warhammer tournaments do not really create any revenue, if you want more professional judges entry fees will need to be raised or GW needs to do like Wizards and start handing out free models to judges who do it for a living and not just as hobby. And as soon as there is money involved things get even uglier, I wouldn't like this direction at all.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
As long as nobody pays people to judge, there is no other option. It's already hard enough to find people that are a) knowledgeable enough to be a judge and b) don't want to play themselves at an event that lasts several days and usually takes along trip to get to.
Even big Warhammer tournaments do not really create any revenue, if you want more professional judges entry fees will need to be raised or GW needs to do like Wizards and start handing out free models to judges who do it for a living and not just as hobby. And as soon as there is money involved things get even uglier, I wouldn't like this direction at all.
But that quite clearly isn't a tournament. It's one thing to run big Warhammer events, but calling it a 'tournament' (much less making balancing decisions based on those results) just smacks of false advertising to me. You can't even hope to generate any legitimate competitive or otherwise data because the premise of the event (fair play) is not there.
I'm not arguing that running big Warhammer events isn't hard or shouldn't happen, but that it is wrong to call it those events a tournament (the word implies fair play and an even playing field).
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
And honestly, I don't know why you can't just introduce a rule (like golf) if you're so worried about outside intereference. If I came to one your tournaments, I'd be more worried about being cheated by my opponent than whether or not they had a friend yelling 'DOUBLE MEASURE THE CHARGE RANGE!'
A judged game does not a tournament make. Not sure what makes people think it does. A tournament is simply an event where players advance based on results to determine a winner. Now if you don't want to play in an event without a ref, I don't know what to tell you. As for the later you are missing the point where people said the crowd should be catching rules mistakes and that it makes the game more fair.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
As long as nobody pays people to judge, there is no other option. It's already hard enough to find people that are a) knowledgeable enough to be a judge and b) don't want to play themselves at an event that lasts several days and usually takes along trip to get to.
Even big Warhammer tournaments do not really create any revenue, if you want more professional judges entry fees will need to be raised or GW needs to do like Wizards and start handing out free models to judges who do it for a living and not just as hobby. And as soon as there is money involved things get even uglier, I wouldn't like this direction at all.
But that quite clearly isn't a tournament. It's one thing to run big Warhammer events, but calling it a 'tournament' (much less making balancing decisions based on those results) just smacks of false advertising to me. You can't even hope to generate any legitimate competitive or otherwise data because the premise of the event (fair play) is not there.
I'm not arguing that running big Warhammer events isn't hard or shouldn't happen, but that it is wrong to call it those events a tournament (the word implies fair play and an even playing field).
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
As long as nobody pays people to judge, there is no other option. It's already hard enough to find people that are a) knowledgeable enough to be a judge and b) don't want to play themselves at an event that lasts several days and usually takes along trip to get to.
Even big Warhammer tournaments do not really create any revenue, if you want more professional judges entry fees will need to be raised or GW needs to do like Wizards and start handing out free models to judges who do it for a living and not just as hobby. And as soon as there is money involved things get even uglier, I wouldn't like this direction at all.
But that quite clearly isn't a tournament. It's one thing to run big Warhammer events, but calling it a 'tournament' (much less making balancing decisions based on those results) just smacks of false advertising to me. You can't even hope to generate any legitimate competitive or otherwise data because the premise of the event (fair play) is not there.
I'm not arguing that running big Warhammer events isn't hard or shouldn't happen, but that it is wrong to call it those events a tournament (the word implies fair play and an even playing field).
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
Correct, you've injected your own bias into the definition. A 40k tournament cannot generate fair and unbiased results because players of varying skills use armies of varying power levels in variable scenarios (which are often specific to the given event and reflect the biases of the organizer). Furthermore no organized sporting event ever generates fair and unbiased results by your definition because mistakes happen at that level as well.
Assuming mistakes make the game unfair or biased is a faulty assumption. Guess every tournament ever in basically every sport is not a tournament then because there have been bad ref calls/non calls, that effect the outcome.
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
Correct, you've injected your own bias into the definition. A 40k tournament cannot generate fair and unbiased results because players of varying skills use armies of varying power levels in variable scenarios (which are often specific to the given event and reflect the biases of the organizer).
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
yeah, none of that experience is relevant to whether you could effectively judge (and not miss a single mistake) on more than 1 table at a time in 40k. At which point even 30 players takes 15 people to ref each table. Good luck finding that many people that want to spend a day watching games for free, who are experts at all rules in the game.
I think you would be lucky to find 1 person who knows the game well enough to be effective given all the rules. They need to know the base rules, chapter approved, all faqs, all codices and indices and have them all committed to memory. OR the game needs a much longer playtime because that judge will need to question and see every single rule as it is played if he doesn't know it. Afterall, we cannot allow mistakes to happen.
You know why you wouldn't need to worry about being cheated, most people don't cheat, and if you suspect you are being cheated, call the judge and he will look into it.
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
Correct, you've injected your own bias into the definition. A 40k tournament cannot generate fair and unbiased results because players of varying skills use armies of varying power levels in variable scenarios (which are often specific to the given event and reflect the biases of the organizer).
I...I'm not sure what to say to that. Bravo!
I mean clearly you were aware that various events already had various scenarios that favored certain types of armies or certain specific builds, and I hope you were aware that the various books GW produce aren't all on a level playing field. Understanding those 2 facts should alone give you the insight that any given tournament is going to create inherently biased results. Even higher levels of competition such as professional sports still have mistakes and errors with paid judges and staff.
The issue is not that people make mistakes. The issue is that they don't try in the first place. As I've mentioned earlier, mistakes are acceptable. I recognize they happen and forgive them. In my opinion, however, that's no excuse to not even try. It's like answering 0 questions on a math test because there was one you knew you couldn't get right.
No one is asking the tournament judges not to make mistakes or errors. (Or if they are, that's dumb.) What they really want is for them to give it even a modicum of effort.
(Caveat: If semantics is an issue, we could have them take this effort while also upgrading their name to "referee")
Unit1126PLL wrote: The issue is not that people make mistakes. The issue is that they don't try in the first place. As I've mentioned earlier, mistakes are acceptable. I recognize they happen and forgive them. In my opinion, however, that's no excuse to not even try. It's like answering 0 questions on a math test because there was one you knew you couldn't get right.
No one is asking the tournament judges not to make mistakes or errors. (Or if they are, that's dumb.) What they really want is for them to give it even a modicum of effort.
(Caveat: If semantics is an issue, we could have them take this effort while also upgrading their name to "referee")
Sure and the judge in question made an error in how he addressed the situation, of that there is no doubt. If he wasn't comfortable interjecting he should have made it clear that because he didn't see the misplay he didn't want to stop the game as opposed to using the language regarding the integrity of the game. As it stands however what he did was indefensible because he neither made clear why he chose not to intervene nor did he intervene. I have no issue with a judge not intervening on something he did not see, but he needs to be clear that that is his standard of judgement.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The issue is not that people make mistakes. The issue is that they don't try in the first place. As I've mentioned earlier, mistakes are acceptable. I recognize they happen and forgive them. In my opinion, however, that's no excuse to not even try. It's like answering 0 questions on a math test because there was one you knew you couldn't get right.
No one is asking the tournament judges not to make mistakes or errors. (Or if they are, that's dumb.) What they really want is for them to give it even a modicum of effort.
(Caveat: If semantics is an issue, we could have them take this effort while also upgrading their name to "referee")
Sure and the judge in question made an error in how he addressed the situation, of that there is no doubt. If he wasn't comfortable interjecting he should have made it clear that because he didn't see the misplay he didn't want to stop the game as opposed to using the language regarding the integrity of the game. As it stands however what he did was indefensible because he neither made clear why he chose not to intervene nor did he intervene. I have no issue with a judge not intervening on something he did not see, but he needs to be clear that that is his standard of judgement.
Yes, there's that in this specific situation. But other people also seem to claim that it is never the role of the judge to intervene, even if he/she sees something, unless it is brought to his/her attention by one of the players.
This, I have a fundamental disagreement with. I never expect the judges to catch everything, but if simply seeing something amiss meant the judges intervene, then anyone intending to intentionally cheat may not do so when judges are nearby. It's the same reason police cars sit where they can easily be seen: not to actually get people, but to make traffic in general slow down for fear of being gotten.
The issue is that excepting maybe the top table(or so)it is not possible to referee a 40k tournament. There is not enough manpower. Now maybe events will start reffing top tables, or streamed tables to "hide" the mistakes that happen throughout, it just means fewer judges available to everyone else. So it comes down to the players to catch rules mistakes, and involve judges as needed, and will be that way for the majority of us at any event we attend. So the questions are: is do we care more if the top tables are mistake free vs any other table? and/or do we want judges to interject if they see rules errors as they happen to be observing a game?
I think that the top table judge could happen at larger events, maybe even the top 4 tables on an event like LVO to ensure the winning player makes few to no mistakes once in the final bracket.
I think the passer by correction of rules needs to be handled with care. What if the players played a rule one way, that they both agreed on earlier in the game in favor of one player. Then a judge happens by, and sees the error, and corrects the current happening in favor of the other player? Is this fair or should the players have played it as previously agreed, because it is fair to treat both players the same way? I would be fine with the judge point out the correct rule in that case, but leaving having the players resolve it as previously agreed. That way they don't make mistakes going forward, but also don't apply the rules to only one party.
Breng77 wrote: The issue is that excepting maybe the top table(or so)it is not possible to referee a 40k tournament. There is not enough manpower. Now maybe events will start reffing top tables, or streamed tables to "hide" the mistakes that happen throughout, it just means fewer judges available to everyone else. So it comes down to the players to catch rules mistakes, and involve judges as needed, and will be that way for the majority of us at any event we attend. So the questions are: is do we care more if the top tables are mistake free vs any other table? and/or do we want judges to interject if they see rules errors as they happen to be observing a game?
I think that the top table judge could happen at larger events, maybe even the top 4 tables on an event like LVO to ensure the winning player makes few to no mistakes once in the final bracket.
I think the passer by correction of rules needs to be handled with care. What if the players played a rule one way, that they both agreed on earlier in the game in favor of one player. Then a judge happens by, and sees the error, and corrects the current happening in favor of the other player? Is this fair or should the players have played it as previously agreed, because it is fair to treat both players the same way? I would be fine with the judge point out the correct rule in that case, but leaving having the players resolve it as previously agreed. That way they don't make mistakes going forward, but also don't apply the rules to only one party.
Presumably, you'd want everyone at the tournament playing by the same rules. If I somehow got my opponent to agree to play my Keeper of Secrets as Zarakynel, The Bringer of Torments, because we thought it would be cool, that doesn't make it okay that I suddenly have 400 more points in my list than I did in other games.
If two players agree to play the game a certain way, but that way is not by the rules, then it's not really a tournament. It'd be like if two teams in a basketball tournament decided to allow "traveling" during their game.
I actually don't really care if all players in an event play by the exact same rules because that is not what actually happens. I think it is all close but say for instance 2 players both thought that deepstrike was more than 8" away (bad example but just for the sake of argument). They play players 1s turn deepstriking 8" away, and when player 2 starts deepstriking the judge comes over and sees it, and says no it is 9" away. What do you do? Disqualify player 1? Restart the game? Allow player 1 to have the advantage because it already happen, but force player 2 to play it right? Let player 2 finish his current deepstrikes and ask that they play correctly going forward, and note to yourself to keep tabs on those players in the next round?
My opinion as a judge would be the 3rd.
Or to use a "real world" example. IN Alex Vs Tony, if Tony had allowed Alex to move his other models, should a judge stop Alex and end his movement phase? Those are the rules after all.
I would say no, I would say that if Alex disputed Tony the judge should back him up by saying those are the rules, he should not force Tony to not allow Alex to move his models.
The basket ball example only holds up if one of 2 things are true
1.) There is a no ref involved in that tournament.
2.) There are refs in 40k.
Otherwise there is no situation in which one team has been allowed to travel for their possession and then the other team is forced to dribble.
For what it is worth though, I would not care about those teams agreeing not to dribble in a tourney with no ref. They still need to beat other teams that might force them to dribble and not agree.
As for your opponent letting you play 400 points up, that is on them, why does it matter to anyone else? I suppose on the top table it could matter because it might be like throwing the game, but no rules exist to prevent someone from throwing a game now. I could make it to the top table of adepticon and shake my opponents hand and concede.
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
Correct, you've injected your own bias into the definition. A 40k tournament cannot generate fair and unbiased results because players of varying skills use armies of varying power levels in variable scenarios (which are often specific to the given event and reflect the biases of the organizer).
I...I'm not sure what to say to that. Bravo!
The proper response is "of course it can, variables just mean it's harder for us to independently VERIFY if the result is fair and unbiased, that doesn't mean it ISN'T".
And people think judged games are more tournamenty because it adds a layer of seriousness over the whole affair. Judges occasionally making bad calls (as Breng points out in a strawman) doesn't change that. Two guys boxing each other with only their left hands and after putting their hands in pillows obviously aren't trying as hard as Foreman and Ali were.
Uneven curing of definitional unfairness is by definition unfair.
I get what you mean but it's not unfair by definition, you're a tad crossed there.
Look at it this way, if a ref only called legitimate fouls on one side of a game, is that fair or unfair?
Bad example. We're not saying the judge should take the audience at its word, but he should at least go ask the players and then make an informed call.
Crowds may or may not be impartial and thus even if point out legitimate rules issues cannot be counted on to do so evenly.
Sure, but that doesn't absolve a judge of the duty to look into it.
If not done evenly the practice is the definition of unfair.
It's unfair if the judge treats it differently depending on the player, not if the crowd does.
You seem to think that less rules played incorrectly is somehow more fair, when that simply isn't the case.
Of course it is. Are there occasionally imbalances in the rules? Sure, but that's for balancing to figure out later. Mistakes in the rules are always unfair when left uncaught.
It is only the case when reducing the errors is applied impartially by a ref, not potentially skewed to one side. The crowd has no place in adjudicating fair play in a game.
See above responses. Snip!
The thing you and others have expressed support for is requiring games to never have errors, and if errors are caught they must always be punished severely so they don't happen again.
Well, no, you're crossing posters. I specifically said punishment needs to be proportional and reducing errors is good. I never spoke of requirements, just doing our best.
The problem is that they will happen again, or will only decrease because players will stop attending events because of harsh punishment for making them, or because refs have been assigned to every table to prevent them from happening. I know which one I think is more likely to happen.
This is a nice trip down speculation and narrowed perspective lane but I'm not sure it's of any merit. Arguments along this line just turn into na-uh/ya-huh.
fair enough, I will state that magic requires quite a bit less money to chase the meta than I would say 40k does, and or at least less effort in time (you can play what 5-10 games of magic easily in the time it takes for one 40k game for practice, you don't need to paint your cards etc (or pay someone else to do so).
When I at least tried to make a tournament ready deck (though I didn't go anywhere), it was about $20 per card. Average deck has 60 cards. Every 3 months or so 1/3 of your deck, ish, becomes illegal for tournament play. It adds up.
sure I can if I am comparing the type of commitment people make to a hobby, I'd be surprised if most 40k players play more than 5 hours a week, with top guys maybe hitting 10-15 if they go to local tournaments. I would wager most pro-gamers play quite a bit more than that in an average week. I could be wrong, but seems likely.
They're also different games with different inputs. 40k is a LOT more about list building than playing, for example.
So judging by your join date you are pretty new to the scene.
Yes and no. Newer to 40k. Started in Fantasy like 15 years ago.
This insular group that you harp on so much did exactly what I am saying I see no one from this "esport" group doing, seeing something they want to change and doing it.
See my previous post. They'll get there if they aren't squashed first.
I'm not sure when you joined but I assume that maybe it was after GW basically tried to squash (far more actively than anything you cite) the competitive scene. They were the ones that harped on 40k not being competitive, stopped running events, supporting local event, made terrible missions, never faq'd anything etc. So people that wanted a "competitive" scene stepped up, created events from nothing and grew them into the majors/GTs of today.
I'm aware. That was a different time and different management though. Apples to oranges. Blizzard originally tried to stop all competition too. They even contemplated suing KESPA to shut down the juggernaut e-sports scene in South Korea. They were vehemently against it. Companies change.
Marketing of top players in the blogsphere isn't new it has been happening for a long time, nothing about it has changed, except some of the names.
And the frequency. It's one of many factors I listed.
You talk about resistance to change for older gamers, none I know are resistant to change, they are resistant to being made to be the ones to make those changes. People like you come on after events and rail on these events when mistakes happen, and they don't respond the way you want them to, you accuse them of deception, and tear down the tons of work they do, because you want something else.
You're projecting, hard. They're asking these groups to live up to their own words and advertisement. They're asking these people to be honest. That's never too much to ask of anyone and the knee-jerk reaction from them is a self-defense response so they don't have to acknowledge they were pretending to be something they're not (intentionally or no). I've seen actual commercial companies get buried in lawsuits for the same thing. The response isn't "well go build your own pizza place" it's to correct the marketing of your pizza.
Well guess what, they don't owe you anything, you want something else build it. You talk about relatively new to the scene? How new, a month?, 6 months? 2 years? I started running tournaments at my local shop maybe 2 years into my competitive gaming history, I knew plenty of people who did it earlier than me. So what is stopping these people from doing it? Someone already runs the events? The community at their store doesn't want to change? Maybe.
They owe everyone honesty. That's a fundamental truism everywhere.
Most of what I hear from people is "I shouldn't have to do it, it should just be that way." maybe that is not how you feel, but it is a common excuse. "I want to play I don't want to run events, so someone who is already doing it needs to change their ways."
That's nice, not my position not relevant. Based on your posts in this thread though, you're likely confusing what they're saying. They're not asking the current big TO's to change, they're asking them to be honest.
Does that seem reasonable to you? To put all the impetus on people that already fought and built something to risk their event to change things for a crowd that may or may not attend?
Does it seem reasonable to be honest? Yes. Yes it does.
As to you inventing this esport crowd and my view being skewed by my insular group. I'm not even talking about top players, or anything, I rarely talk to or see what you define as the brohammer group, I don't have time to go to big events these days. Do I know some top players as acquaintances, Sure I do. But I don't play with them basically ever, I rarely talk to them. So my not seeing these esports people outside dakka is mostly small stores and tournaments.
That's great, but the connection isn't lost cause it's old.
My local area has lots of new players, none of them complain about how the store runs events, and these events don't even have a judge at all. 85% or more are super casual, don't even play tournaments, will never go to NOVA or Adepticon, don't watch 40k streams of events etc. The last 15% might go to one of these events, but most will just play local events.
And both the advertisement and expectations of your local events are radically different than the big leagues. Hence why I say the problem is one of expectations and advertisement.
So when you say that half the vocal user base is "militant-causual", you are probably right, but that is an under representation of the casual/militant casual crowd IME, not an over representation.
I'm only talking about forum users. None of us have anywhere near enough data to speak to non-forum users. You'd need a random sampling of every region and demographic with about 2,000-3,500 responses for that.
That isn't to say 40k could not evolve into an esport, but to be fair that is a lot harder to pull off without a ton of money than it was for video games, you are selling to a smaller audience with a harder to watch product.
And yet GW will try. Alea iacta est.
Has streaming helped get people visualizing the game. Sure but that has been a thing on and off since 5th ed. It isn't new, it is just better quality now. Who started it? Those same "insular" old hats you think are "destroying the competitive spirit"
Because they're trying to be competitive venues, but only when it's convenient or easy for them. They're not willing to actually make the jump all the way. Hence the deception.
As for my mismatched perceptions, maybe, but you are guilty of that as well when it comes to tournaments, your perception is that most people that attend them are super serious about winning, and feel cheated when someone makes a mistake on the top tables. My assertion is that 90+% don't care what happens on the top tables, they are there for fun.
That is not my perception at all. My perception is that there is a group of players, of some unknown number, that GW is trying to grow, that are seeking serious competition. They are running into an old guard that was only faux-competitive and clashes are ensuing.
I think the only way for "esport" 40k to happen won't be through convention tournaments, it will need to be through teams and leagues, where there are fewer games happening at any one time, allowing for reffing, streaming of all top players, and tighter standards. OR maybe at an invite only event with fewer games to judge. Big events will never be able to pull it off, it is too hard to get it right, and DQing someone on the top table for a mistake on a regular basis will do more to kill the following than anything. Honestly other than the big following, I think 40k is one of the worse minis games for streaming and watching.
And that's a great trip down opinion lane again. As the scene grows, they'll have the resources to do it at larger events just fine. It just takes time, patience and honesty.
They only matter insofar as people keep expecting judges to be something they are not intended to be and a large reason they aren't is because it isn't feasible for them to be that.
This is your subjective definition of judge against someone else's subjective definition. They are called judges. Judges are:
a person who decides the results of a competition or watches for infractions of the rules.
So they need to watch for infractions. That's active, not passive.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
The way I'd handle that situation if I were the judge is:
"Both of you are stupid, play by the rules. Restart the game. If you go beyond round time, game over, and you both lose. Whoever proposed you outright break the rules of the game you're at a competitive tournament to play should be ashamed of himself. This isn't your mother's basement. Have some respect for your fellow competitors."
In Alex vs Tony, I'd've never let the game get to that point. Alex's "deep strikers first" movement phase was a direct reaction to Tony's slowplaying. The slowplaying should have been stopped long before it began affecting the opponent's behavior.
As for your reply to my basketball example:
1) Right, this is how things are now.
2) There should be refs in 40k. If there's not enough to staff every table (and I recognize this problem), there still should be some attempt at trying.
And yes, they "might" have to play other teams that force them to dribble. Or they might not. Or they might play against a team which agrees to count layups as 5 points, or a team that agrees to play soccer instead. At what point does it stop being a "Basketball" tournament if you're not playing by the rules of basketball?
Marmatag wrote: If judges start stopping games for misplays you'll get even less turns than you do now. Every game is loaded with misplays.
It should only be stopped if it would unfairly advantage one player to change the ruling midgame. That's not true of every misplay (my reply was a direct response to the "if both opponents play this way" example).
Furthermore... yes, what you say is true. Which is why competitive 40k is a joke. I've heard other people say "casuals shouldn't participate in tournaments", especially in the "chess-clocks" thread. So presumably, if you can't keep your rules straight, then you shouldn't be at a tournament.
Marmatag wrote: If judges start stopping games for misplays you'll get even less turns than you do now. Every game is loaded with misplays.
It should only be stopped if it would unfairly advantage one player to change the ruling midgame. That's not true of every misplay (my reply was a direct response to the "if both opponents play this way" example).
Furthermore... yes, what you say is true. Which is why competitive 40k is a joke. I've heard other people say "casuals shouldn't participate in tournaments", especially in the "chess-clocks" thread. So presumably, if you can't keep your rules straight, then you shouldn't be at a tournament.
I agree with much of what is said here.
I recently had someone lambaste me after a win because of how much time i spent involving judges. Of course, I only call the judges over major things that will impact the game, and also, I was correct in every single instance.
I find myself moving more and more away from competitive 40k. I'm stuck in that middle zone, where i'm solid enough at list building and wargames to where i can compete in and win tournaments, but also really despise the attitude that comes along with competitive 40k players by in large. In a general sense, there's always at least one negative experience or "that guy" at every event. I'm sick of it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The way I'd handle that situation if I were the judge is:
"Both of you are stupid, play by the rules. Restart the game. If you go beyond round time, game over, and you both lose. Whoever proposed you outright break the rules of the game you're at a competitive tournament to play should be ashamed of himself. This isn't your mother's basement. Have some respect for your fellow competitors."
In Alex vs Tony, I'd've never let the game get to that point. Alex's "deep strikers first" movement phase was a direct reaction to Tony's slowplaying. The slowplaying should have been stopped long before it began affecting the opponent's behavior.
As for your reply to my basketball example:
1) Right, this is how things are now.
2) There should be refs in 40k. If there's not enough to staff every table (and I recognize this problem), there still should be some attempt at trying.
And yes, they "might" have to play other teams that force them to dribble. Or they might not. Or they might play against a team which agrees to count layups as 5 points, or a team that agrees to play soccer instead. At what point does it stop being a "Basketball" tournament if you're not playing by the rules of basketball?
So 2 players playing a rule wrong is disrespectful now? And stupid? I said it was a bad example, but plenty of rules mistakes could be made that effect both players (earlier in 8th I saw players not shooting a character because another model was closer and out of LOS, which at the time did not matter for targeting. They both played the rule this way and thought it was right, all game. I noticed it on the final turn on the stream, and it cost one player the game. If I were the judge when they were talking over the last turn, have said. "No you can totally shoot that guy?" Even though earlier in the game it was played otherwise, that is the judge deciding the game for the players. Neither of whom questioned the rule. Or should I DQ both of them because they in no way could replay the whole game. That idea of a penalty borders on ridiculous. I would mention it to them after the game that they had played the rule wrong and I would expect them to play it differently going forward.
As for Alex v Tony, what if we took slowplay out of that question. But the same mistake happen, should the judge allow players to allow for "take backs" or should they enforce what most people considered poor sportsmanship?
No but the rules from the con are fairly clear. It was the players fault to see this, to bring it to the other players attention, to attempt to fix the situation, then summon a judge to deal with the issue.
Might not be the best path, but it is what adepticon has in place.
If you don't like it, run your own con with different rules.
So what’s the purpose of the judge? It’s a head scratcher.
Breng77 wrote: So 2 players playing a rule wrong is disrespectful now? And stupid? I said it was a bad example, but plenty of rules mistakes could be made that effect both players (earlier in 8th I saw players not shooting a character because another model was closer and out of LOS, which at the time did not matter for targeting. They both played the rule this way and thought it was right, all game. I noticed it on the final turn on the stream, and it cost one player the game. If I were the judge when they were talking over the last turn, have said. "No you can totally shoot that guy?" Even though earlier in the game it was played otherwise, that is the judge deciding the game for the players. Neither of whom questioned the rule. Or should I DQ both of them because they in no way could replay the whole game. That idea of a penalty borders on ridiculous. I would mention it to them after the game that they had played the rule wrong and I would expect them to play it differently going forward.
As for Alex v Tony, what if we took slowplay out of that question. But the same mistake happen, should the judge allow players to allow for "take backs" or should they enforce what most people considered poor sportsmanship.
It's as disrespectful and stupid as determining the victor of a basketball game by letting the teams play soccer instead, if they both agreed. If I was a player on one of the other teams, and was under the impression I had to play actual basketball to win the tournament, I'd be incensed that "because the players agreed" they could simply just allow traveling for their game, or play soccer, or expand the play area to the size of a football field, or whatever other dumb rules change they agreed on.
And if you took the slowplay out of the discussion, I think Alex wouldn't deploy his deep-strikers first. Tony wasn't wrong because he followed the rules, he was wrong because he was responsible for the problem in the first place. He essentially "gotcha'd" his opponent into making a mistake, by slowplaying (which is against the rules). So it's a moot point to say "what if the slowplay was gone."
If the slowplay was gone, Alex is a good enough player to know not to deploy his deep-strikers first. If he had a lapse of judgement and did so anyways, Tony wouldn't be wrong to call him on it.
EDIT: Hell, if me and my opponent agree, could we play our game at 4,000 points instead? After all, we agreed, and if neither of us brings it to a judge, it's not his place to step in, right? How about if we both agree to change our lists for that one game? Or both agree to play a mission from Chapter Approved instead of the tournament rulebook? A judge couldn't say "wtf are you doing? Stop that!" because he can't interfere unless there is a dispute?
Next time, I'm scouring all the missions available to see which ones give the most points, and playing those. "Max 21 points for the objectives for this mission? Man, my opponent and I agreed to play <Chapter Approved mission> at 4000 points each instead and he got 56 points, I got 48. We agreed, so there was no rules disputes, so you judges can't step in. Oh, what are you gonna do, make us restart the game?"
The initial post was a bit hard to follow - was it the Psyker had a peril of the warp happen and the player rather than give the model its mortal wounds just quietly moved on?
The_Real_Chris wrote: The initial post was a bit hard to follow - was it the Psyker had a peril of the warp happen and the player rather than give the model its mortal wounds just quietly moved on?
What happened is that a psyker died from a perils, which normally results in them exploding and inflicting d3 mortal wounds on nearby units. A "nearby unit" was a 2-wound-remaining Daemon Prince (which is one of the most powerful models in the Chaos arsenal at the moment). 66% of the time, that d3 mortal wounds from Ahriman detonating nearby would have killed the Daemon Prince, significantly altering the gamestate. This "explosion" after perils was either missed or deliberately and tacitly passed over, probably the former.
But they are tournaments - by definition as a matter of fact. Per websters a tournament is a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize. Regardless of if you think they're fair or not they meet the criteria of a tournament.
Ah, I suppose I'm at fault for assuming that tournaments in 40k should generate fair and unbiased results.
Correct, you've injected your own bias into the definition. A 40k tournament cannot generate fair and unbiased results because players of varying skills use armies of varying power levels in variable scenarios (which are often specific to the given event and reflect the biases of the organizer).
I...I'm not sure what to say to that. Bravo!
The proper response is "of course it can, variables just mean it's harder for us to independently VERIFY if the result is fair and unbiased, that doesn't mean it ISN'T".
And people think judged games are more tournamenty because it adds a layer of seriousness over the whole affair. Judges occasionally making bad calls (as Breng points out in a strawman) doesn't change that. Two guys boxing each other with only their left hands and after putting their hands in pillows obviously aren't trying as hard as Foreman and Ali were.
Uneven curing of definitional unfairness is by definition unfair.
I get what you mean but it's not unfair by definition, you're a tad crossed there.
Look at it this way, if a ref only called legitimate fouls on one side of a game, is that fair or unfair?
Bad example. We're not saying the judge should take the audience at its word, but he should at least go ask the players and then make an informed call.
Crowds may or may not be impartial and thus even if point out legitimate rules issues cannot be counted on to do so evenly.
Sure, but that doesn't absolve a judge of the duty to look into it.
If not done evenly the practice is the definition of unfair.
It's unfair if the judge treats it differently depending on the player, not if the crowd does.
You seem to think that less rules played incorrectly is somehow more fair, when that simply isn't the case.
Of course it is. Are there occasionally imbalances in the rules? Sure, but that's for balancing to figure out later. Mistakes in the rules are always unfair when left uncaught.
It is only the case when reducing the errors is applied impartially by a ref, not potentially skewed to one side. The crowd has no place in adjudicating fair play in a game.
See above responses. Snip!
The thing you and others have expressed support for is requiring games to never have errors, and if errors are caught they must always be punished severely so they don't happen again.
Well, no, you're crossing posters. I specifically said punishment needs to be proportional and reducing errors is good. I never spoke of requirements, just doing our best.
The problem is that they will happen again, or will only decrease because players will stop attending events because of harsh punishment for making them, or because refs have been assigned to every table to prevent them from happening. I know which one I think is more likely to happen.
This is a nice trip down speculation and narrowed perspective lane but I'm not sure it's of any merit. Arguments along this line just turn into na-uh/ya-huh.
fair enough, I will state that magic requires quite a bit less money to chase the meta than I would say 40k does, and or at least less effort in time (you can play what 5-10 games of magic easily in the time it takes for one 40k game for practice, you don't need to paint your cards etc (or pay someone else to do so).
When I at least tried to make a tournament ready deck (though I didn't go anywhere), it was about $20 per card. Average deck has 60 cards. Every 3 months or so 1/3 of your deck, ish, becomes illegal for tournament play. It adds up.
sure I can if I am comparing the type of commitment people make to a hobby, I'd be surprised if most 40k players play more than 5 hours a week, with top guys maybe hitting 10-15 if they go to local tournaments. I would wager most pro-gamers play quite a bit more than that in an average week. I could be wrong, but seems likely.
They're also different games with different inputs. 40k is a LOT more about list building than playing, for example.
So judging by your join date you are pretty new to the scene.
Yes and no. Newer to 40k. Started in Fantasy like 15 years ago.
This insular group that you harp on so much did exactly what I am saying I see no one from this "esport" group doing, seeing something they want to change and doing it.
See my previous post. They'll get there if they aren't squashed first.
I'm not sure when you joined but I assume that maybe it was after GW basically tried to squash (far more actively than anything you cite) the competitive scene. They were the ones that harped on 40k not being competitive, stopped running events, supporting local event, made terrible missions, never faq'd anything etc. So people that wanted a "competitive" scene stepped up, created events from nothing and grew them into the majors/GTs of today.
I'm aware. That was a different time and different management though. Apples to oranges. Blizzard originally tried to stop all competition too. They even contemplated suing KESPA to shut down the juggernaut e-sports scene in South Korea. They were vehemently against it. Companies change.
Marketing of top players in the blogsphere isn't new it has been happening for a long time, nothing about it has changed, except some of the names.
And the frequency. It's one of many factors I listed.
You talk about resistance to change for older gamers, none I know are resistant to change, they are resistant to being made to be the ones to make those changes. People like you come on after events and rail on these events when mistakes happen, and they don't respond the way you want them to, you accuse them of deception, and tear down the tons of work they do, because you want something else.
You're projecting, hard. They're asking these groups to live up to their own words and advertisement. They're asking these people to be honest. That's never too much to ask of anyone and the knee-jerk reaction from them is a self-defense response so they don't have to acknowledge they were pretending to be something they're not (intentionally or no). I've seen actual commercial companies get buried in lawsuits for the same thing. The response isn't "well go build your own pizza place" it's to correct the marketing of your pizza.
Well guess what, they don't owe you anything, you want something else build it. You talk about relatively new to the scene? How new, a month?, 6 months? 2 years? I started running tournaments at my local shop maybe 2 years into my competitive gaming history, I knew plenty of people who did it earlier than me. So what is stopping these people from doing it? Someone already runs the events? The community at their store doesn't want to change? Maybe.
They owe everyone honesty. That's a fundamental truism everywhere.
Most of what I hear from people is "I shouldn't have to do it, it should just be that way." maybe that is not how you feel, but it is a common excuse. "I want to play I don't want to run events, so someone who is already doing it needs to change their ways."
That's nice, not my position not relevant. Based on your posts in this thread though, you're likely confusing what they're saying. They're not asking the current big TO's to change, they're asking them to be honest.
Does that seem reasonable to you? To put all the impetus on people that already fought and built something to risk their event to change things for a crowd that may or may not attend?
Does it seem reasonable to be honest? Yes. Yes it does.
As to you inventing this esport crowd and my view being skewed by my insular group. I'm not even talking about top players, or anything, I rarely talk to or see what you define as the brohammer group, I don't have time to go to big events these days. Do I know some top players as acquaintances, Sure I do. But I don't play with them basically ever, I rarely talk to them. So my not seeing these esports people outside dakka is mostly small stores and tournaments.
That's great, but the connection isn't lost cause it's old.
My local area has lots of new players, none of them complain about how the store runs events, and these events don't even have a judge at all. 85% or more are super casual, don't even play tournaments, will never go to NOVA or Adepticon, don't watch 40k streams of events etc. The last 15% might go to one of these events, but most will just play local events.
And both the advertisement and expectations of your local events are radically different than the big leagues. Hence why I say the problem is one of expectations and advertisement.
So when you say that half the vocal user base is "militant-causual", you are probably right, but that is an under representation of the casual/militant casual crowd IME, not an over representation.
I'm only talking about forum users. None of us have anywhere near enough data to speak to non-forum users. You'd need a random sampling of every region and demographic with about 2,000-3,500 responses for that.
That isn't to say 40k could not evolve into an esport, but to be fair that is a lot harder to pull off without a ton of money than it was for video games, you are selling to a smaller audience with a harder to watch product.
And yet GW will try. Alea iacta est.
Has streaming helped get people visualizing the game. Sure but that has been a thing on and off since 5th ed. It isn't new, it is just better quality now. Who started it? Those same "insular" old hats you think are "destroying the competitive spirit"
Because they're trying to be competitive venues, but only when it's convenient or easy for them. They're not willing to actually make the jump all the way. Hence the deception.
As for my mismatched perceptions, maybe, but you are guilty of that as well when it comes to tournaments, your perception is that most people that attend them are super serious about winning, and feel cheated when someone makes a mistake on the top tables. My assertion is that 90+% don't care what happens on the top tables, they are there for fun.
That is not my perception at all. My perception is that there is a group of players, of some unknown number, that GW is trying to grow, that are seeking serious competition. They are running into an old guard that was only faux-competitive and clashes are ensuing.
I think the only way for "esport" 40k to happen won't be through convention tournaments, it will need to be through teams and leagues, where there are fewer games happening at any one time, allowing for reffing, streaming of all top players, and tighter standards. OR maybe at an invite only event with fewer games to judge. Big events will never be able to pull it off, it is too hard to get it right, and DQing someone on the top table for a mistake on a regular basis will do more to kill the following than anything. Honestly other than the big following, I think 40k is one of the worse minis games for streaming and watching.
And that's a great trip down opinion lane again. As the scene grows, they'll have the resources to do it at larger events just fine. It just takes time, patience and honesty.
They only matter insofar as people keep expecting judges to be something they are not intended to be and a large reason they aren't is because it isn't feasible for them to be that.
This is your subjective definition of judge against someone else's subjective definition. They are called judges. Judges are:
a person who decides the results of a competition or watches for infractions of the rules.
So they need to watch for infractions. That's active, not passive.
quentra wrote: Yeah Breng, no tournaments above 30 players should exist, or they shouldn't advertise themselves as tournaments. Calling an unjudged casual game a tournament is just downright deceptive.
Yes because throwing the baby out with the bath water is clearly the best decision. My favorite part of all these threads is watching people who've never organized a 10 man event, much less a a larger scale 200+ player event talk about what tournaments should do and if they can't then they just quit trying all together.
My favorite part of this thread is where people defend cheating because they can't figure out a better way to host events, and claim that a better way cannot in principle exist. I've hosted DnD games at cons, hearthstone tournaments at bars...Granted, never a wargame, but I'd love to see you DM 3 tables of 6 people each simultaneously of 3.5ed DnD. I have some idea of what it takes to organize something, and what my limits are.
@Audustum, I'm still failing to see where players are being mislead by anyone. Please tell me? Where is it stated that something was a certain way and it wasn't. Or is that just because you don't like how things get ruled? The adepticon policy I posted pretty clearly covers the judge was in the right in this circumstance, that was a policy it took me 5 min to find on the website, no false promise. OR are we back to you defining competition, or the use of the word tournament? Neither of which imply anything about anything regarding how rules will be followed.
So please show me where in their own words and advertising where the major events have lied to people.
I already posted some adepticon policy, here is what their site claims about the 40k championship
"Experience AdeptiCon's twist on an old classic. Prepare your 2000-point armies for some action-packed gaming against some of the fiercest competitors in the world!"
What in there is false? That you don't agree that the competitors are fierce because they make mistakes?
Lets look at the NOVA
"The NOVA Open’s 40KGT is an eight (8) round tournament. After Round four (4), your record will be effectively reset, and you will be seeded in a bracket of 15 other players closest to you in win-loss record. Bracket seeds are determined by the total points you score in Rounds 1-4. Once the event is bracketed, you will play exclusively within your bracket until the completion of the eighth round. All players are expected to complete all eight rounds, unless they indicate withdrawal on their Round 6 scorecard to participate in alternate Sunday activities."
Seems true to me. In fact they play up the rebracketting letting people know about playing against players on their level. Speaks more to the middle of the pack than the top.
What about the invite
"The NOVA Invitational is just that, an invitational tournament aimed at bringing together some of the most dynamic, talented, and interesting players in the 40K tournament scene for an intense, challenging test of skill to kick off the many varied 40K events happening throughout the NOVA Open weekend. If you're interested in seeking an invitation, or know someone you think is ideal for it, . Be aware the process of handing out invitations can be a painstaking one, requiring the organizers to confirm each invitee's attendance prior to sending out second and third round invitations for this limited-spot event. By Invitation Only: Two Days; 32 Top Players"
So this claims top players, and test of skill. But you cannot get in unless invited so no one going to this can possibly be mislead about what it is. But this is an event where I could see them trying to put judges on every table as it is a limited number of tables. Certainly in the later rounds.
looking through the posts in the Dakka thread I also see nothing misleading about anything.
How about the ITC
"The ITC (Independent Tournament Circuit) is a coalition of tabletop gaming tournaments that have joined together to increase their mutual resources, exposure to the community and the prestige of their events. These events run through a season which runs one year, beginning and ending in February. The player that does the best overall through the year will be the Circuit Champion. "
Nothing about uber strict competition in there.
So where is this deception happening? Is it that sites like this one follow them and look at the results as the biggest deal in the world? Is it players talking them up as great events? What is it exactly that says, they are deceiving people in their marketing?
Sorry I cannot think of a single thing I have heard or read that seems deceiving to me.
Maybe it is the expectations of the players that are off, because they don't know what to expect. Could this turn them off? I guess, the same way that an uber competitive tournament could turn of plenty of new players dipping their toes in the water.
I do think tournaments are slowly adopting policies where they view issues (currently chess clocks or points reductions seem to be en vogue). If GW makes a matched play app at some point that will solve list issues by and large. Many events are locking in on paint standards. Maybe this or similar will lead to a reff on the top tables on the last day, who knows. But I think it is unfair to classify tournaments as deceptive, just because you don't agree with how they are run.
The issue, Breng, is even in the use of the word "tournament." If I am going to the Grand Tournament at the NOVA Open, I am expecting a different experience than if I am going to the Glowpocalypse event at NOVA Open.
Tournaments generally try to find out who the best attending player (or team) is at the game in question. They are not trying to find out who the most charismatic player is, which is what it turns into if you allow people to just wantonly break the rules, so long as they can manipulate/convince their opponent to agree.
I've had Maelstrom games from Chapter approved rack up thirty to forty points in a game, even if I've lost. The advantage in battle points this provides to a player is incredible, and that means it's in both player's best interest to mutually agree to play that mission instead of the tournament's prescribed one. By your logic, even if a judge caught them playing wrong, he couldn't step in unless one of those two selfsame players brought the issue up to the judge. So you end up with a loss that gives like 30 battle points, while the players who didn't manage to convince their opponents to change missions could score at most 21, or whatever. (IIRC 21 is like the max for an ITC mission).
The_Real_Chris wrote: The initial post was a bit hard to follow - was it the Psyker had a peril of the warp happen and the player rather than give the model its mortal wounds just quietly moved on?
A psyker suffered perils, got mortal wounds and died from that. Which should cause an explosion doing mortal wounds around him.
This last part, the explosion, was skipped. And potentially had a significant impart on the game because a Daemon Prince on low wounds was standing next to the Psyker.
Breng77 wrote: So 2 players playing a rule wrong is disrespectful now? And stupid? I said it was a bad example, but plenty of rules mistakes could be made that effect both players (earlier in 8th I saw players not shooting a character because another model was closer and out of LOS, which at the time did not matter for targeting. They both played the rule this way and thought it was right, all game. I noticed it on the final turn on the stream, and it cost one player the game. If I were the judge when they were talking over the last turn, have said. "No you can totally shoot that guy?" Even though earlier in the game it was played otherwise, that is the judge deciding the game for the players. Neither of whom questioned the rule. Or should I DQ both of them because they in no way could replay the whole game. That idea of a penalty borders on ridiculous. I would mention it to them after the game that they had played the rule wrong and I would expect them to play it differently going forward.
As for Alex v Tony, what if we took slowplay out of that question. But the same mistake happen, should the judge allow players to allow for "take backs" or should they enforce what most people considered poor sportsmanship.
It's as disrespectful and stupid as determining the victor of a basketball game by letting the teams play soccer instead, if they both agreed. If I was a player on one of the other teams, and was under the impression I had to play actual basketball to win the tournament, I'd be incensed that "because the players agreed" they could simply just allow traveling for their game, or play soccer, or expand the play area to the size of a football field, or whatever other dumb rules change they agreed on.
And if you took the slowplay out of the discussion, I think Alex wouldn't deploy his deep-strikers first. Tony wasn't wrong because he followed the rules, he was wrong because he was responsible for the problem in the first place. He essentially "gotcha'd" his opponent into making a mistake, by slowplaying (which is against the rules). So it's a moot point to say "what if the slowplay was gone."
If the slowplay was gone, Alex is a good enough player to know not to deploy his deep-strikers first. If he had a lapse of judgement and did so anyways, Tony wouldn't be wrong to call him on it.
EDIT:
Hell, if me and my opponent agree, could we play our game at 4,000 points instead? After all, we agreed, and if neither of us brings it to a judge, it's not his place to step in, right? How about if we both agree to change our lists for that one game? Or both agree to play a mission from Chapter Approved instead of the tournament rulebook? A judge couldn't say "wtf are you doing? Stop that!" because he can't interfere unless there is a dispute?
Next time, I'm scouring all the missions available to see which ones give the most points, and playing those. "Max 21 points for the objectives for this mission? Man, my opponent and I agreed to play <Chapter Approved mission> at 4000 points each instead and he got 56 points, I got 48. We agreed, so there was no rules disputes, so you judges can't step in. Oh, what are you gonna do, make us restart the game?"
Yup just keep with the ridiculous examples that people will never agree to, instead of the ones I provide and not answer the question.
In the Alex v Tony example removing slow play is a good exercise because, Tony played by the rules by stopping Alex. But my question is what if Tony had allowed Alex the take back, and slow play was not involved. Should a judge step in and say "nope, no take backs." You essentially end up with a situation where right now plenty of people will allow opponents to do forgotten things, but strict rules say nope, cannot do that. Say I have deepstrikes, and say I'm moving to my psychic phase, then go no wait I have these deepstrikers I want to place. My opponent is ok with it, should a judge say "nope you said psychic phase too late."
You also skipped over my character rules example, what should a judge do in that example? Decide on the last turn of the game to essentially award one player the victory despite different rules being used all along?
If you have a ref at the table, in theory the rule is never played wrong to begin with, which is why I said the basket ball analogy falls short. There is also a difference between 2 players willfully breaking the rules, and not knowing, or misplaying the rules. My character rule is an example of that. Both players got the rule wrong, all game, that happens all the time.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unit1126PLL wrote: The issue, Breng, is even in the use of the word "tournament." If I am going to the Grand Tournament at the NOVA Open, I am expecting a different experience than if I am going to the Glowpocalypse event at NOVA Open.
Tournaments generally try to find out who the best attending player (or team) is at the game in question. They are not trying to find out who the most charismatic player is, which is what it turns into if you allow people to just wantonly break the rules, so long as they can manipulate/convince their opponent to agree.
I've had Maelstrom games from Chapter approved rack up thirty to forty points in a game, even if I've lost. The advantage in battle points this provides to a player is incredible, and that means it's in both player's best interest to mutually agree to play that mission instead of the tournament's prescribed one. By your logic, even if a judge caught them playing wrong, he couldn't step in unless one of those two selfsame players brought the issue up to the judge. So you end up with a loss that gives like 30 battle points, while the players who didn't manage to convince their opponents to change missions could score at most 21, or whatever. (IIRC 21 is like the max for an ITC mission).
And you do get a different experience, just not one where you have a ref at every table. As for best player, is rules knowledge not part of player skill? If I know the rules well, I'm not likely to let my opponent make mistakes.
I basically guarantee you could play whatever mission you wanted at a big GT and no one would notice, unless your scores were way out of wack. If a mission maxes out at 21 points, and you report more, they will tell you your scores are wrong, and have you redo them, regardless of what mission you played. What keeps people honest on the mission is the other player. At NOVA changing to Maelstrom is largely not in your best interest due to the win loss format, so unless you expect to win (despite building for NOVA missions), why change. Most people aren't going to do stupid things like this. They are going to get a simple rule wrong, because a ton of players are just bad at the rules, or simply forget them. I feel like you believe a ton of people are purposefully breaking rules in the hopes of not getting caught. I find that to be highly unlikely
Breng77 wrote: Yup just keep with the ridiculous examples that people will never agree to, instead of the ones I provide and not answer the question. In the Alex v Tony example removing slow play is a good exercise because, Tony played by the rules by stopping Alex. But my question is what if Tony had allowed Alex the take back, and slow play was not involved. Should a judge step in and say "nope, no take backs." You essentially end up with a situation where right now plenty of people will allow opponents to do forgotten things, but strict rules say nope, cannot do that. Say I have deepstrikes, and say I'm moving to my psychic phase, then go no wait I have these deepstrikers I want to place. My opponent is ok with it, should a judge say "nope you said psychic phase too late."
You also skipped over my character rules example, what should a judge do in that example? Decide on the last turn of the game to essentially award one player the victory despite different rules being used all along?
If you have a ref at the table, in theory the rule is never played wrong to begin with, which is why I said the basket ball analogy falls short. There is also a difference between 2 players willfully breaking the rules, and not knowing, or misplaying the rules. My character rule is an example of that. Both players got the rule wrong, all game, that happens all the time.
In the Alex v Tony example, removing slow play obviates the example. If you remove slow play, Alex doesn't make the mistake. If he does make the mistake, and Tony allowed him to take it back, the judge should absolutely stop him, because it's against the rules. So yes, you end up with a situation where casual, fast & loose play gets eliminated in favor of tight, knowledgeable tournament play. And this is a good thing. A judge should absolutely stop you from using your deep strikers if you're trying to do so when you're already in the psychic phase. Tournament games are not mother's basement games. It's time to put on the man pants.
And what do you mean? What a person chooses to shoot at is not a rules issue. If they are mistaken about the rules, they should learn them. But the judge shouldn't step in in this case, because no rules are actually being violated (and judges enforce rules). This is similar to not knowing a Leman Russ has a heavy bolter on it. Not firing said heavy bolter is not against the rules, and so the judge need not force the player to fire it.
In the "chess clocks" thread, it was told to me that Casual players need to learn the rules and "get good." So, perhaps it's time for tournament players to get serious too, and stop misplaying/not knowing rules. Things like whether or not you can shoot at characters in a given situation is absolutely a knowable quantity, and there is no excuse for a top-tier, best-on-a-continent (or in-a-country) player to not know it.
Breng77 wrote: They are going to get a simple rule wrong, because a ton of players are just bad at the rules, or simply forget them.
Just to parrot the "chess-clocks" thread: Tournament-level players should learn to play the game they're competing in.
I find myself moving more and more away from competitive 40k. I'm stuck in that middle zone, where i'm solid enough at list building and wargames to where i can compete in and win tournaments, but also really despise the attitude that comes along with competitive 40k players by in large. In a general sense, there's always at least one negative experience or "that guy" at every event. I'm sick of it.
Haha. That was me in like, 3rd Ed. I've been a happier gamer ever since.
Breng77 wrote: Yup just keep with the ridiculous examples that people will never agree to, instead of the ones I provide and not answer the question.
In the Alex v Tony example removing slow play is a good exercise because, Tony played by the rules by stopping Alex. But my question is what if Tony had allowed Alex the take back, and slow play was not involved. Should a judge step in and say "nope, no take backs." You essentially end up with a situation where right now plenty of people will allow opponents to do forgotten things, but strict rules say nope, cannot do that. Say I have deepstrikes, and say I'm moving to my psychic phase, then go no wait I have these deepstrikers I want to place. My opponent is ok with it, should a judge say "nope you said psychic phase too late."
You also skipped over my character rules example, what should a judge do in that example? Decide on the last turn of the game to essentially award one player the victory despite different rules being used all along?
If you have a ref at the table, in theory the rule is never played wrong to begin with, which is why I said the basket ball analogy falls short. There is also a difference between 2 players willfully breaking the rules, and not knowing, or misplaying the rules. My character rule is an example of that. Both players got the rule wrong, all game, that happens all the time.
In the Alex v Tony example, removing slow play obviates the example. If you remove slow play, Alex doesn't make the mistake. If he does make the mistake, and Tony allowed him to take it back, the judge should absolutely stop him, because it's against the rules. So yes, you end up with a situation where casual, fast & loose play gets eliminated in favor of tight, knowledgeable tournament play. And this is a good thing. A judge should absolutely stop you from using your deep strikers if you're trying to do so when you're already in the psychic phase. Tournament games are not mother's basement games. It's time to put on the man pants.
And what do you mean? What a person chooses to shoot at is not a rules issue. If they are mistaken about the rules, they should learn them. But the judge shouldn't step in in this case, because no rules are actually being violated (and judges enforce rules). This is similar to not knowing a Leman Russ has a heavy bolter on it. Not firing said heavy bolter is not against the rules, and so the judge need not force the player to fire it.
In the "chess clocks" thread, it was told to me that Casual players need to learn the rules and "get good." So, perhaps it's time for tournament players to get serious too, and stop misplaying/not knowing rules. Things like whether or not you can shoot at characters in a given situation is absolutely a knowable quantity, and there is no excuse for a top-tier, best-on-a-continent (or in-a-country) player to not know it.
Yes but what about everyone else? As has been said many times (and maybe this is the disconnect) most people that go to events aren't and never will be a top-tier guy. So your suggestion is make the event less fun for everyone else, because god forbid they make a mistake. So that the top-guy gets his rules right. I really do get the feeling that may of the people who say "how dare people make mistakes that should not stand." make plenty of their own mistakes. We'll also need to agree to disagree on whether a judge preventing players from being nice to each other is a good thing. Not everyone is an expert, nor will they be. The tournaments you and other seem to want will only cater to the best of the best, everyone else be damned. Sorry but what you describe sounds far less attractive, and were that the way say NOVA was, I would take a pass on going. Lots of people want to play in a GT, most of them don't want super strict games where a judge is hovering over them causing them stress.
For what it is worth, adding chess clocks will make errors more common (at least at first) as people will not stop to think as much as they do now.
Breng77 wrote: They are going to get a simple rule wrong, because a ton of players are just bad at the rules, or simply forget them.
Just to parrot the "chess-clocks" thread:
Tournament-level players should learn to play the game they're competing in.
Learning and remembering are not the same thing when you account for time pressure, fatigue, etc. Point of fact, neither player on this table remembered Arhiman was supposed to blow up. Why not it is a base rule, not even a character specific rule.
Breng77 wrote: Yes but what about everyone else? As has been said many times (and maybe this is the disconnect) most people that go to events aren't and never will be a top-tier guy. So your suggestion is make the event less fun for everyone else, because god forbid they make a mistake. So that the top-guy gets his rules right. I really do get the feeling that may of the people who say "how dare people make mistakes that should not stand." make plenty of their own mistakes. We'll also need to agree to disagree on whether a judge preventing players from being nice to each other is a good thing. Not everyone is an expert, nor will they be. The tournaments you and other seem to want will only cater to the best of the best, everyone else be damned. Sorry but what you describe sounds far less attractive, and were that the way say NOVA was, I would take a pass on going. Lots of people want to play in a GT, most of them don't want super strict games where a judge is hovering over them causing them stress.
What about the everyone else? I am the everyone else. I'm not a top tier player. I went 4-4 at nova and made plenty of awful rules mistakes, I'm sure. I recognize that everyone makes mistakes. What I am asking for is that you go "I understand you made a mistake, but it's important that the game be fair, so we are going to address your mistake rather than allow you to continue to make it." And yes, it makes it less attractive, that's the point of my posts. 40k is not a competitive game, so the whole idea of a tournament is silly. But if you truly want to have a tournament, as some people do, then have a tournament. Don't go halfsies and say "its a tournament" and then give the trophy to someone who outright broke the rules on more than one occasion. That's just embarrassing for real competition.
I'm glad you've gotten to the point where you admit that actually making 40k competitive is a joke, though. That's where Marmatag and I stand, if I may speak for him.
Breng77 wrote: Learning and remembering are not the same thing when you account for time pressure, fatigue, etc. Point of fact, neither player on this table remembered Arhiman was supposed to blow up. Why not it is a base rule, not even a character specific rule.
If time pressure and fatigue are problems, they can be compensated for. Dropping the games to 1000 points should reduce both time and fatigue quite nicely. If that's what it takes to make competitive 40k anything other than a hilarious oxymoron, then perhaps it needs doing.
The proper response is "of course it can, variables just mean it's harder for us to independently VERIFY if the result is fair and unbiased, that doesn't mean it ISN'T".
The same argument can be held to if games have judges at them or don't - it makes it harder to independently VERIFY if the result was fair and unbiased but that doesn't mean it ISN'T. Just because there isn't a judge at every table doesn't mean the events results are either unfair or biased, anymore so than the bias introduced by the players, lists, external game balance, and tournament rules packet.
Breng77 wrote: Yes but what about everyone else? As has been said many times (and maybe this is the disconnect) most people that go to events aren't and never will be a top-tier guy. So your suggestion is make the event less fun for everyone else, because god forbid they make a mistake. So that the top-guy gets his rules right. I really do get the feeling that may of the people who say "how dare people make mistakes that should not stand." make plenty of their own mistakes. We'll also need to agree to disagree on whether a judge preventing players from being nice to each other is a good thing. Not everyone is an expert, nor will they be. The tournaments you and other seem to want will only cater to the best of the best, everyone else be damned. Sorry but what you describe sounds far less attractive, and were that the way say NOVA was, I would take a pass on going. Lots of people want to play in a GT, most of them don't want super strict games where a judge is hovering over them causing them stress.
What about the everyone else? I am the everyone else. I'm not a top tier player. I went 4-4 at nova and made plenty of awful rules mistakes, I'm sure. I recognize that everyone makes mistakes. What I am asking for is that you go "I understand you made a mistake, but it's important that the game be fair, so we are going to address your mistake rather than allow you to continue to make it."
And yes, it makes it less attractive, that's the point of my posts. 40k is not a competitive game, so the whole idea of a tournament is silly. But if you truly want to have a tournament, as some people do, then have a tournament. Don't go halfsies and say "its a tournament" and then give the trophy to someone who outright broke the rules on more than one occasion. That's just embarrassing for real competition.
I'm glad you've gotten to the point where you admit that actually making 40k competitive is a joke, though. That's where Marmatag and I stand, if I may speak for him.
Breng77 wrote: Learning and remembering are not the same thing when you account for time pressure, fatigue, etc. Point of fact, neither player on this table remembered Arhiman was supposed to blow up. Why not it is a base rule, not even a character specific rule.
If time pressure and fatigue are problems, they can be compensated for. Dropping the games to 1000 points should reduce both time and fatigue quite nicely. If that's what it takes to make competitive 40k anything other than a hilarious oxymoron, then perhaps it needs doing.
I don't agree that it is a joke, I just agree that it is not high level competition. You can play competitive pickup sticks if you want to, it only seem to be internet pundits that seem to care who the winner is. Me I just like going to events playing tough games against different opponents. I have no problem with tournaments as they stand simply because I don't care about the results beyond my own (did I play well, did I have fun)
Breng77 wrote: I don't agree that it is a joke, I just agree that it is not high level competition. You can play competitive pickup sticks if you want to, it only seem to be internet pundits that seem to care who the winner is. Me I just like going to events playing tough games against different opponents. I have no problem with tournaments as they stand simply because I don't care about the results beyond my own (did I play well, did I have fun)
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
EDIT: Just look at the heartache Marmatag is probably experiencing over the tension about Flyrants. Will Flyrants be nerfed? Is that why GW delayed the FAQ due to Adepticon's results? If that is why, then is it right to do so? Were Adepticon's missions aligned with how Warhammer is casually played? Did the Flyrant players make any mistakes at all? Did their opponents not know the rules?
Breng77 wrote: I don't agree that it is a joke, I just agree that it is not high level competition. You can play competitive pickup sticks if you want to, it only seem to be internet pundits that seem to care who the winner is. Me I just like going to events playing tough games against different opponents. I have no problem with tournaments as they stand simply because I don't care about the results beyond my own (did I play well, did I have fun)
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
Then shouldn't casual players organize themselves in a way to present the balance issues they see in their games in a coherent and cohesive way to Games Workshop? If you don't want them using tournaments for balance then you need to provide an alternate data point for them to use because without it then tournaments are the only visible source of many games being played at one time where data can be garnered.
Breng77 wrote: I don't agree that it is a joke, I just agree that it is not high level competition. You can play competitive pickup sticks if you want to, it only seem to be internet pundits that seem to care who the winner is. Me I just like going to events playing tough games against different opponents. I have no problem with tournaments as they stand simply because I don't care about the results beyond my own (did I play well, did I have fun)
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
Then shouldn't casual players organize themselves in a way to present the balance issues they see in their games in a coherent and cohesive way to Games Workshop? If you don't want them using tournaments for balance then you need to provide an alternate data point for them to use because without it then tournaments are the only visible source of many games being played at one time where data can be garnered.
No?
I don't actually have a problem with GW using tournament data for balance. I do have a problem with players at tournaments playing flippantly, with disregard for the rules of both the tournament and the game. That's what cocks up the data. A tournament, as in a real, cutthroat, competitive event where everyone is playing their hearts out and following the real rules of Warhammer 40k, is a fantastic place to gather data. It's just becoming increasingly apparent that "tournaments" aren't actually that.
I have no issue with that because I don't want to face top tournament lists at the local shop. I'm hoping flyrants will get the Tau commander treatment
Unit1126PLL wrote: No?
I don't actually have a problem with GW using tournament data for balance. I do have a problem with players at tournaments playing flippantly, with disregard for the rules of both the tournament and the game. That's what cocks up the data. A tournament, as in a real, cutthroat, competitive event where everyone is playing their hearts out and following the real rules of Warhammer 40k, is a fantastic place to gather data. It's just becoming increasingly apparent that "tournaments" aren't actually that.
Breng77 wrote: I have no issue with that because I don't want to face top tournament lists at the local shop. I'm hoping flyrants will get the Tau commander treatment
As I have constantly been beaten over the head with: "What's good balance for competitive players is also good balance for casual players."
So what you play at your local shop is directly impacted by what people are playing at tournaments. If their balance change to address Flyrants comes in the nature of "Supreme Command Detachments are no longer valid for matched play." then casual lists will definitely start feeling the effects. Taking a Lord of War with faction rules, for example, becomes a problem for Imperial Guard. Bringing an Inquisitorial Conclave is no longer possible without a Vanguard Detachment and forcing a player to spam Elites. The ripple effects of an FAQ can be felt far and wide, and can even require a second FAQ to fix the effects of the first. (I.E. the old Deathguard "Sure you can use a stratagem on a unit from another codex OH WAIT NO feth YOU CAN'T DEEPSTRIKE MORTARION AND MAGNUS STOP" problem)
Unit1126PLL wrote: No? I don't actually have a problem with GW using tournament data for balance. I do have a problem with players at tournaments playing flippantly, with disregard for the rules of both the tournament and the game. That's what cocks up the data. A tournament, as in a real, cutthroat, competitive event where everyone is playing their hearts out and following the real rules of Warhammer 40k, is a fantastic place to gather data. It's just becoming increasingly apparent that "tournaments" aren't actually that.
Unit1126PLL wrote: No?
I don't actually have a problem with GW using tournament data for balance. I do have a problem with players at tournaments playing flippantly, with disregard for the rules of both the tournament and the game. That's what cocks up the data. A tournament, as in a real, cutthroat, competitive event where everyone is playing their hearts out and following the real rules of Warhammer 40k, is a fantastic place to gather data. It's just becoming increasingly apparent that "tournaments" aren't actually that.
So what are they?
A joke.
That's not an actual answer - if they are not a real cutthroat competitive environment what are. Define what they are in non rhetorical terms.
Not anymore so than games from my FLGS or buddy's basement or whatever are, with whatever house-rules we're using.
So basically GW can use the tournament scene to get a decent gauge of what's going on people's basements and FLGSs and use that data to make game alterations?
Farseer_V2 wrote: So basically GW can use the tournament scene to get a decent gauge of what's going on people's basements and FLGSs and use that data to make game alterations?
Yes! They can. But according to most of the "competitive" players, they shouldn't, because using casual play to balance games is awful, and the game should be instead balanced by what's best for the cutthroat competition. Or haven't you been reading my posts?
Farseer_V2 wrote: So basically GW can use the tournament scene to get a decent gauge of what's going on people's basements and FLGSs and use that data to make game alterations?
Yes! They can.
But according to most of the "competitive" players, they shouldn't, because using casual play to balance games is awful, and the game should be instead balanced by what's best for the cutthroat competition. Or haven't you been reading my posts?
I've literally read you state that they shouldn't use tournaments to balance the game because they're a joke. And then we managed to get from there to GW using organized gaming conventions to balance the game is OK.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So basically GW can use the tournament scene to get a decent gauge of what's going on people's basements and FLGSs and use that data to make game alterations?
Yes! They can.
But according to most of the "competitive" players, Or haven't you been reading my posts?
I've literally read you state that they shouldn't use tournaments to balance the game because they're a joke. And then we managed to get from there to GW using organized gaming conventions to balance the game is OK.
I didn't say it was okay. In fact, I said the opposite. Here, let me help you by quoting myself:
Unit1126PLL wrote: they shouldn't, because using casual play to balance games is awful, and the game should be instead balanced by what's best for the cutthroat competition.
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
Pretty indicative to me.
Indicative of what, exactly? All I said was "GW is using tournaments to balance the game." in so many words.
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
Pretty indicative to me.
Indicative of what, exactly? All I said was "GW is using tournaments to balance the game." in so many words.
Indicative that you think that that's a bad thing. You used the word 'unfortunately' to describe that it is happening.
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
Pretty indicative to me.
Indicative of what, exactly? All I said was "GW is using tournaments to balance the game." in so many words.
Indicative that you think that that's a bad thing. You used the word 'unfortunately' to describe that it is happening.
It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
As a casual, somewhat interested in going to similar events and having ran small scale tournaments myself I have to wonder:
Why is the blame here being put at the TO's or judge's feet for bad play?
How can truly competitive games like Warmachine function at large scale events (and they do) without the need for a referee for matches?
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
Well, as I would hope my posting in this thread indicates, GW's not the one that should change; rather, the not-a-tournaments should shape up and start being what they pretend to be.
Breng77 wrote: I have no issue with that because I don't want to face top tournament lists at the local shop. I'm hoping flyrants will get the Tau commander treatment
As I have constantly been beaten over the head with:
"What's good balance for competitive players is also good balance for casual players."
So what you play at your local shop is directly impacted by what people are playing at tournaments. If their balance change to address Flyrants comes in the nature of "Supreme Command Detachments are no longer valid for matched play." then casual lists will definitely start feeling the effects. Taking a Lord of War with faction rules, for example, becomes a problem for Imperial Guard. Bringing an Inquisitorial Conclave is no longer possible without a Vanguard Detachment and forcing a player to spam Elites. The ripple effects of an FAQ can be felt far and wide, and can even require a second FAQ to fix the effects of the first. (I.E. the old Deathguard "Sure you can use a stratagem on a unit from another codex OH WAIT NO feth YOU CAN'T DEEPSTRIKE MORTARION AND MAGNUS STOP" problem)
That is why I prefer to see unit limits not elimination of detachments limits.
I mean personally I would like to see all characters be 0-1 per detachment, non-troops/dedicated transports be 0-2 or 3 per detachement.
Breng77 wrote: I have no issue with that because I don't want to face top tournament lists at the local shop. I'm hoping flyrants will get the Tau commander treatment
As I have constantly been beaten over the head with:
"What's good balance for competitive players is also good balance for casual players."
So what you play at your local shop is directly impacted by what people are playing at tournaments. If their balance change to address Flyrants comes in the nature of "Supreme Command Detachments are no longer valid for matched play." then casual lists will definitely start feeling the effects. Taking a Lord of War with faction rules, for example, becomes a problem for Imperial Guard. Bringing an Inquisitorial Conclave is no longer possible without a Vanguard Detachment and forcing a player to spam Elites. The ripple effects of an FAQ can be felt far and wide, and can even require a second FAQ to fix the effects of the first. (I.E. the old Deathguard "Sure you can use a stratagem on a unit from another codex OH WAIT NO feth YOU CAN'T DEEPSTRIKE MORTARION AND MAGNUS STOP" problem)
That is why I prefer to see unit limits not elimination of detachments limits.
I mean personally I would like to see all characters be 0-1 per detachment, non-troops/dedicated transports be 0-2 or 3 per detachement.
We can talk all day about what it should/shouldn't be, but the fact of the matter is that GW is using uncompetitive events to make competitive balancing decisions, perhaps in the mistaken belief that these self-styled "tournaments" are somehow competitive, despite not even requiring players to follow the rules of the game they're playing (provided both opponents agree of course).
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
Well, as I would hope my posting in this thread indicates, GW's not the one that should change; rather, the not-a-tournaments should shape up and start being what they pretend to be.
So effectively you don't want them to make any balancing passes until there is a tournament that meets your standard? Also so that I understand fully - we cannot know that 7 Flying Hive Tyrants is unreasonable because there are no competitive events correct? Additionally we could not know that Malefic Lords were undercosted for the same reason?
You are reaching there, those tournaments across the whole of the field are still more competitive than most other 40k gaming that takes place, so given the number of results it is a fair place to identify problem areas in the game. For instance if several flyrant spam lists make it to the top in a number of events, it is fair to say that flyrants are a balance issue. By your argument no balancing should take place, which seems a worse proposition as it is what we used to have.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
Well, as I would hope my posting in this thread indicates, GW's not the one that should change; rather, the not-a-tournaments should shape up and start being what they pretend to be.
So effectively you don't want them to make any balancing passes until there is a tournament that meets your standard?
Do you want to know what I "want" to happen or what I think should happen? Because what I want to happen will make very many people unhappy, and so I am willing to set it aside in recognition of other people's wants & needs.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Do you want to know what I "want" to happen or what I think should happen? Because what I want to happen will make very many people unhappy, and so I am willing to set it aside in recognition of other people's wants & needs.
Go ahead and say what you want to happen. I'm excited at this point to continue to follow this circular logic pattern.
Breng77 wrote: You are reaching there, those tournaments across the whole of the field are still more competitive than most other 40k gaming that takes place, so given the number of results it is a fair place to identify problem areas in the game. For instance if several flyrant spam lists make it to the top in a number of events, it is fair to say that flyrants are a balance issue. By your argument no balancing should take place, which seems a worse proposition as it is what we used to have.
I'm going to wait for Farseer's answer before I answer your question, as I think I'll have the same reply to both this and his posts.
From my perspective participating in the team tournament, the Adepticon judges were pretty worthless. I have two anecdotes and my only interactions with the judges.
1. The table next to ours was having an assault related rules issue. They couldn't agree and called a judge. He came over and they spent a few minutes and went through the scenario and he stared blankly at them, then laughed and goes, that's not really my strong suit, let me go grab another judge. He left. At this point, our table paused, and told them how we thought it should be played. The team about to lose out said we'll wait for the judge. Works for me. We went back to playing. A few minutes later, Judge A comes back with Judge B. They explain everything to B. He replies with, Hmmm.. I'm not really sure. Let me go ask someone. He leaves. A few minutes later Judge C strolls up. They explain everything to him. He says oh yea, blah blah, and reaffirms what we told them 10 minutes earlier. They continue their game.
Is having uninformed judges for the sake of having extra bodies on the floor worth it, or would fewer, better judges be more effective? It's kind of like you're being carjacked and you call 911 and they send a mall cop. My car is already in pieces at a chop shop and I'm bleeding out in the street, but thanks for that tip about hosiery at Sears.
2. This one actually happened at our table. We (both teams) took nearly 30 minutes to setup terrain and deploy both armies before top of 1. It was terribly slow and everyone was just goofing around and not paying attention so I didn't think anything of it. No ill will as of yet. Game starts. We have an amazing first turn and wipe out half their army. They are not happy. They fight back. Turn 1 ends. We're now 90 minutes deep into the clock. At this point they have one of their team mates go grab a judge claiming we're slow playing them. Judge comes over with a chip thinking we're the turds sand bagging and he's defending the complainers. He said since we're slowplaying, (not even asking for facts, just assuming it's our fault) he'll be watching the rest of the game to make sure it moves along and we finish all turns. He then says, starting now each team gets 15 minutes per half to play for the remainder of the turns and pulls out his phone and starts a clock. it's now turn 2, we still have a full army, they have 50%. We burn through our 15 minutes and have to stop mid assault phase. We leave locked units unable to make their attacks. Our opponents with way less models now play and easily finish all of their shots and attacks. We lose out a bit due to the nature of assaults and swinging first. We didn't get to swing back with all of our units because they went through their charges and not everything else was activated before their 15 was up. Next turn. Same scenario. At this point in time, there's absolutely no danger in us losing the game. But, the judge says, OK, we're switching to 7 minute halves. They're down to 30%, we're still at 80%. The only real goal left is to kill their warlord. At this point, it is my fault for not telling my partner to stop shooting so I can swing. I'll own that, but again, locked in assault and no swings. Turn 4 comes up. This time I flat out tell my partner to stop at the 2 minute warning so I can switch to assault. We did so, killed a bunch of stuff. Time's up. Our opponents interject, But we didn't get to fight with all of our stuff! The judge is like, "Oh. Ok. Finish all your assaults." So they spend 5 minutes finishing their assaults. Then he starts their 7 minute time. Then he leaves for the bathroom and comes back 12 minutes later. We end up playing another turn, never kill the warlord, and the judge stops the game with about 15 minutes left on the clock.
Now, I understand we had equal time per turns, but that's not the same as equal time per game. If this we're chess clock style, which someday soon it probably will be, we could have used more of our share of our remaining time in turns 3 or 4, instead of 7 minutes, and probably tabled them before turn 5. But since we were arbitrarily and unfairly limited, because they were upset, it was a giant cluster .
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
Well, as I would hope my posting in this thread indicates, GW's not the one that should change; rather, the not-a-tournaments should shape up and start being what they pretend to be.
So effectively you don't want them to make any balancing passes until there is a tournament that meets your standard?
Do you want to know what I "want" to happen or what I think should happen? Because what I want to happen will make very many people unhappy, and so I am willing to set it aside in recognition of other people's wants & needs.
Go ahead and say what you want to happen. I'm excited at this point to continue to follow this circular logic pattern.
What I want to happen is for GW to make a game that reflects the lore and the fluff as they see it, and isn't terribly concerned with balance. Emphasize the narrative, write it more in the style of an RPG than a wargame, and mention that while there is a winner and a loser of the game, it is ultimately more about the narrative than competition. It'd be neat for codexes to turn into fluff-bibles, for "matched play" to fade away in favor of "recommendations to help make a compelling narrative" and so on. Take the game away from "balanced for competition we swear (not really)" to "this is a narrative storytelling game targeted at people who find the lore compelling, but want to be involved in grand battles rather than D&D style adventures."
deviantduck wrote: From my perspective participating in the team tournament, the Adepticon judges were pretty worthless. I have two anecdotes and my only interactions with the judges.
1. The table next to ours was having an assault related rules issue. They couldn't agree and called a judge. He came over and they spent a few minutes and went through the scenario and he stared blankly at them, then laughed and goes, that's not really my strong suit, let me go grab another judge. He left. At this point, our table paused, and told them how we thought it should be played. The team about to lose out said we'll wait for the judge. Works for me. We went back to playing. A few minutes later, Judge A comes back with Judge B. They explain everything to B. He replies with, Hmmm.. I'm not really sure. Let me go ask someone. He leaves. A few minutes later Judge C strolls up. They explain everything to him. He says oh yea, blah blah, and reaffirms what we told them 10 minutes earlier. They continue their game.
Is having uninformed judges for the sake of having extra bodies on the floor worth it, or would fewer, better judges be more effective? It's kind of like you're being carjacked and you call 911 and they send a mall cop. My car is already in pieces at a chop shop and I'm bleeding out in the street, but thanks for that tip about hosiery at Sears.
2. This one actually happened at our table. We (both teams) took nearly 30 minutes to setup terrain and deploy both armies before top of 1. It was terribly slow and everyone was just goofing around and not paying attention so I didn't think anything of it. No ill will as of yet. Game starts. We have an amazing first turn and wipe out half their army. They are not happy. They fight back. Turn 1 ends. We're now 90 minutes deep into the clock. At this point they have one of their team mates go grab a judge claiming we're slow playing them. Judge comes over with a chip thinking we're the turds sand bagging and he's defending the complainers. He said since we're slowplaying, (not even asking for facts, just assuming it's our fault) he'll be watching the rest of the game to make sure it moves along and we finish all turns. He then says, starting now each team gets 15 minutes per half to play for the remainder of the turns and pulls out his phone and starts a clock. it's now turn 2, we still have a full army, they have 50%. We burn through our 15 minutes and have to stop mid assault phase. We leave locked units unable to make their attacks. Our opponents with way less models now play and easily finish all of their shots and attacks. We lose out a bit due to the nature of assaults and swinging first. We didn't get to swing back with all of our units because they went through their charges and not everything else was activated before their 15 was up. Next turn. Same scenario. At this point in time, there's absolutely no danger in us losing the game. But, the judge says, OK, we're switching to 7 minute halves. They're down to 30%, we're still at 80%. The only real goal left is to kill their warlord. At this point, it is my fault for not telling my partner to stop shooting so I can swing. I'll own that, but again, locked in assault and no swings. Turn 4 comes up. This time I flat out tell my partner to stop at the 2 minute warning so I can switch to assault. We did so, killed a bunch of stuff. Time's up. Our opponents interject, But we didn't get to fight with all of our stuff! The judge is like, "Oh. Ok. Finish all your assaults." So they spend 5 minutes finishing their assaults. Then he starts their 7 minute time. Then he leaves for the bathroom and comes back 12 minutes later. We end up playing another turn, never kill the warlord, and the judge stops the game with about 15 minutes left on the clock.
Now, I understand we had equal time per turns, but that's not the same as equal time per game. If this we're chess clock style, which someday soon it probably will be, we could have used more of our share of our remaining time in turns 3 or 4, instead of 7 minutes, and probably tabled them before turn 5. But since we were arbitrarily and unfairly limited, because they were upset, it was a giant cluster .
Anyone have any of their own to share?
And this is why direct reffing would be a nightmare, there aren't enough good judges.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's unfortunate that they're using "organized gaming conventions" to balance the game, yes. Because they should be using tournaments, though real competitive ones don't exist, unfortunately. Forgive the terminology screwup; it's what happens when a not-a-tournament calls itself a tournament.
What tournaments could they possibly use given that none exist?
Well, as I would hope my posting in this thread indicates, GW's not the one that should change; rather, the not-a-tournaments should shape up and start being what they pretend to be.
So effectively you don't want them to make any balancing passes until there is a tournament that meets your standard?
Do you want to know what I "want" to happen or what I think should happen? Because what I want to happen will make very many people unhappy, and so I am willing to set it aside in recognition of other people's wants & needs.
Go ahead and say what you want to happen. I'm excited at this point to continue to follow this circular logic pattern.
What I want to happen is for GW to make a game that reflects the lore and the fluff as they see it, and isn't terribly concerned with balance. Emphasize the narrative, write it more in the style of an RPG than a wargame, and mention that while there is a winner and a loser of the game, it is ultimately more about the narrative than competition. It'd be neat for codexes to turn into fluff-bibles, for "matched play" to fade away in favor of "recommendations to help make a compelling narrative" and so on. Take the game away from "balanced for competition we swear (not really)" to "this is a narrative storytelling game targeted at people who find the lore compelling, but want to be involved in grand battles rather than D&D style adventures."
Sort of like how historical wargaming is.
I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
What I want to happen is for GW to make a game that reflects the lore and the fluff as they see it, and isn't terribly concerned with balance. Emphasize the narrative, write it more in the style of an RPG than a wargame, and mention that while there is a winner and a loser of the game, it is ultimately more about the narrative than competition. It'd be neat for codexes to turn into fluff-bibles, for "matched play" to fade away in favor of "recommendations to help make a compelling narrative" and so on. Take the game away from "balanced for competition we swear (not really)" to "this is a narrative storytelling game targeted at people who find the lore compelling, but want to be involved in grand battles rather than D&D style adventures."
Sort of like how historical wargaming is.
That's all well and good but we know that won't happen (there's just less money in it). So back to balancing and the sources at hand - you don't think GW should make a balancing pass until there is a 'tournament' that meets your standard? And we obviously cannot know that 7 Flying Hive Tyrants or that Malefic Lords are too much because there is no tournament to get that information from.
EDIT: Also just played matched or Narrative play, they made game types specifically for this. If you choose to play Matched Play when it doesn't align with your interests how can you be upset?
Breng77 wrote: And this is why direct reffing would be a nightmare, there aren't enough good judges.
And we're back to "why 40k isn't a competitive game" for 100, Trebek.
not really, competition and reffing are 2 different things. I don't get why they must be linked. If I play in a shop I am competing against my opponent, no ref, no judge. As I stated there are different levels of competition in this world, and 40k is on the low end (all miniatures gaming is really on the low end).
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
Yeah I mean clearly we at this point can assume that seven flying hive tyrants is healthy for the game because no true tournament has shown us how disruptive it is.
What I want to happen is for GW to make a game that reflects the lore and the fluff as they see it, and isn't terribly concerned with balance. Emphasize the narrative, write it more in the style of an RPG than a wargame, and mention that while there is a winner and a loser of the game, it is ultimately more about the narrative than competition. It'd be neat for codexes to turn into fluff-bibles, for "matched play" to fade away in favor of "recommendations to help make a compelling narrative" and so on. Take the game away from "balanced for competition we swear (not really)" to "this is a narrative storytelling game targeted at people who find the lore compelling, but want to be involved in grand battles rather than D&D style adventures."
Sort of like how historical wargaming is.
That's all well and good but we know that won't happen (there's just less money in it). So back to balancing and the sources at hand - you don't think GW should make a balancing pass until there is a 'tournament' that meets your standard? And we obviously cannot know that 7 Flying Hive Tyrants or that Malefic Lords are too much because there is no tournament to get that information from.
EDIT: Also just played matched or Narrative play, they made game types specifically for this. If you choose to play Matched Play when it doesn't align with your interests how can you be upset?
I think GW should continue to use tournament data for balancing, but I also think the tournaments should recognize that this is occurring and shape up. Fair?
And I don't get what you mean with your edit. I don't "choose to play Matched Play" as if I weighed the two and just picked it with a coinflip or something. I play Matched Play because that's all literally anyone ever plays, because they're after balance.
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
Yeah I mean clearly we at this point can assume that seven flying hive tyrants is healthy for the game because no true tournament has shown us how disruptive it is.
I don't know what you're saying, really. Are you trying to claim that GW's use of flawed, house-ruled events that by their own admission do not use enforce the 40k rules as written, to adjust the 40k rules as written, cannot be improved?
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think GW should continue to use tournament data for balancing, but I also think the tournaments should recognize that this is occurring and shape up. Fair?
And I don't get what you mean with your edit. I don't "choose to play Matched Play" as if I weighed the two and just picked it with a coinflip or something. I play Matched Play because that's all literally anyone ever plays, because they're after balance.
But you've stated several times that there is no true tournament so they cannot use them for balancing purposes - they would be using a 'joke' for balancing efforts. Ultimately I have no problems stating 'jokes' should get better, I'm an advocate of always getting better in everything you do. And regarding what you play - this is harsh - but do a better job selling your vision. If you honestly believe that narrative play is the best way to enjoy the game then sell that vision to other players and build a play group from it.
EDIT: Furthermore what I'm saying is that since those Flying Hive Tyrants did well in a 'joke' we don't actually know that they're not fine for the game if people just played with the actual rules.
What I want to happen is for GW to make a game that reflects the lore and the fluff as they see it, and isn't terribly concerned with balance. Emphasize the narrative, write it more in the style of an RPG than a wargame, and mention that while there is a winner and a loser of the game, it is ultimately more about the narrative than competition. It'd be neat for codexes to turn into fluff-bibles, for "matched play" to fade away in favor of "recommendations to help make a compelling narrative" and so on. Take the game away from "balanced for competition we swear (not really)" to "this is a narrative storytelling game targeted at people who find the lore compelling, but want to be involved in grand battles rather than D&D style adventures."
Sort of like how historical wargaming is.
That's all well and good but we know that won't happen (there's just less money in it). So back to balancing and the sources at hand - you don't think GW should make a balancing pass until there is a 'tournament' that meets your standard? And we obviously cannot know that 7 Flying Hive Tyrants or that Malefic Lords are too much because there is no tournament to get that information from.
EDIT: Also just played matched or Narrative play, they made game types specifically for this. If you choose to play Matched Play when it doesn't align with your interests how can you be upset?
I think GW should continue to use tournament data for balancing, but I also think the tournaments should recognize that this is occurring and shape up. Fair?
And I don't get what you mean with your edit. I don't "choose to play Matched Play" as if I weighed the two and just picked it with a coinflip or something.
I play Matched Play because that's all literally anyone ever plays, because they're after balance.
Because quite often when someone suggests a narrative game it' is always a recreation of Pickett's Charge. Where they get all of the terrain and I'm standing out in a field getting shot to death. Yea story games.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think GW should continue to use tournament data for balancing, but I also think the tournaments should recognize that this is occurring and shape up. Fair?
And I don't get what you mean with your edit. I don't "choose to play Matched Play" as if I weighed the two and just picked it with a coinflip or something. I play Matched Play because that's all literally anyone ever plays, because they're after balance.
But you've stated several times that there is no true tournament so they cannot use them for balancing purposes - they would be using a 'joke' for balancing efforts. Ultimately I have no problems stating 'jokes' should get better, I'm an advocate of always getting better in everything you do. And regarding what you play - this is harsh - but do a better job selling your vision. If you honestly believe that narrative play is the best way to enjoy the game then sell that vision to other players and build a play group from it.
EDIT: Furthermore what I'm saying is that since those Flying Hive Tyrants did well in a 'joke' we don't actually know that they're not fine for the game if people just played with the actual rules.
I do sell my vision, and my local group is running a narrative campaign that's going fairly well... but they're using matched play. Why? Just 'cause. It's just become the standard, and that's just how it is. If the game were actually balanced with matched play, that wouldn't even be a problem, because I'll still enjoy it.
And what I was seeking to prove with the whole "joke" thing was that they shouldn't be taken seriously in their current iteration for balancing adjustments. However, recognizing the lack of other data sources, the only remaining option is that they stop being "jokes" and improve. This requires admitting there is a problem that needs looking at, which has happened with the [time limits] issue but not with the [sloppy play and unenforced rules even at the highest level] issue. All I am arguing against in this thread is the idea that "everything is fine, nothing can be done, let's just throw up our hands and accept jokes and mediocrity."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crimson Devil wrote: Because quite often when someone suggests a narrative game it' is always a recreation of Pickett's Charge. Where they get all of the terrain and I'm standing out in a field getting shot to death. Yea story games.
Sounds like you didn't cooperate enough on the story you wanted to tell with your opponent... but here you go, Farseer. Someone who thinks matched play is automatically less of a pickett's charge than narrative play, just because it has matched on the tin. I've seen plenty of hopeless games in tournaments as well, which is exactly where they're not supposed to happen (apparently? I don't really want to get into a discussion about what balance exactly is here. I actually think hopeless situations should be allowed to exist in the game-state from the very start, but I'm weird and eccentric).
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
DO you really believe that what is current doesn't help? That Dark Reapers are only good because people are "cheating", or Flyrants are good only because people don't play the game right?
I'd say what we have is more than competitive enough to help the game improve. What people here are calling for is play in which we know no errors in play have occurred, that is not a necessity for balancing unless the assumption is that everyone is making the same mistakes with the units that are deemed too powerful.
Really though until GW releases a tournament format with prescribed tables, there can never be true balance for competition because mission and table matter.
Breng77 wrote: I don't agree that it is a joke, I just agree that it is not high level competition. You can play competitive pickup sticks if you want to, it only seem to be internet pundits that seem to care who the winner is. Me I just like going to events playing tough games against different opponents. I have no problem with tournaments as they stand simply because I don't care about the results beyond my own (did I play well, did I have fun)
This is how I used to think about tournaments. But unfortunately, GW is balancing the game around them now. This means that the results actually matter, because sweeping changes to the hobby everyone plays will be made based on the input of just a very few people. If those very few people aren't careful about how they play, then this entire process is flawed. Tournaments can no longer be considered "just a fun time". Results from them directly impact the entire hobby.
EDIT: Just look at the heartache Marmatag is probably experiencing over the tension about Flyrants. Will Flyrants be nerfed? Is that why GW delayed the FAQ due to Adepticon's results? If that is why, then is it right to do so? Were Adepticon's missions aligned with how Warhammer is casually played? Did the Flyrant players make any mistakes at all? Did their opponents not know the rules?
My issue with this is that GW is letting tournaments dictate design. And while I get the reason behind that (tournament players are most likely to reveal what is too good/bad) is it really something we want to have them repeatedly chase tournament players around? We know that the tournament players will just move onto the next spammable/OP thing when Flyrants/Dark Reapers/Poxwalkers/whatever gets inevitably adjusted. Also, worse still it seems like GW does not really understand WHY something is too good and spammed, just that it is being spammed and needs to be nerfed to prevent spamming it.
I think we are more or less at the time where we need to split Matched Play from Tournament Play. Many changes that are made to adjust tournaments are being applied in broad strokes to all matched play (which has now become synonymous with "using points" despite that not technically being the case) so have farther reaching effects than helping tournament balance (which never happens anyways as they just move on to the next OP thing and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum)
The bigger issue seems to be that the choice of missions has a huge impact on the meta. ITC Champions missions favor Eldar, but GW's Heat used Chapter Approved missions (maybe modified?) and there were no Eldar in the top 8 despite them being what, 5 out of 8 at LVO? Adepticon used its own missions (or non-Champions ITC missions, I can't remember) and it was Flyrant spam. There's no real balanced mission here, ITC Champions for all its claims of being balanced for tournament play, really discourages certain builds and encourages others which do not happen with other mission types, and vice versa. So the "meta" is determined not only by what is cheap/good so that it can be spammed, but what each tournament decides to use for missions. If Adepticon used ITC Champinos missions, would we see Flyrants dominating?
And what I was seeking to prove with the whole "joke" thing was that they shouldn't be taken seriously in their current iteration for balancing adjustments. However, recognizing the lack of other data sources, the only remaining option is that they stop being "jokes" and improve. This requires admitting there is a problem that needs looking at, which has happened with the [time limits] issue but not with the [sloppy play and unenforced rules even at the highest level] issues. All I am arguing against in this thread is the idea that "everything is fine, nothing can be done, let's just throw up our hands and accept jokes and mediocrity."
You seem to be arguing that GW shouldn't use existing tournaments as data source to make balance changes to the game. if you'll go back through, I've never objected to the fact that tournaments should get better or defended the Adepticon judge. What I have taken issue with is this false narrative that somehow there is no true tournament as such there is no valid data to be garnered from the events that we have now. You've repeatedly gone with the 'they're not tournaments' you've stated that they're a 'joke' and that GW shouldn't use them because balancing from them is invalid. I don't think its terribly hard to see where one might draw a concern from that line of thinking. Ultimately I am glad GW is using events as a place to gather balancing data because at least they're gathering data, they're using real world observed behaviors and trying to make changes from them. I'd rather we encourage that that denigrate the people who are putting on these events ceaselessly. Could they be better? Absolutely. Has anyone presented any real methods for making them better? No not really, because the only suggestions I've seen is have a judge at every table which unfortunately isn't feasible. This is a volunteer refereeing gig, its hard to find 200 people who want to work for free.
BroodSpawn wrote: As a casual, somewhat interested in going to similar events and having ran small scale tournaments myself I have to wonder:
Why is the blame here being put at the TO's or judge's feet for bad play?
How can truly competitive games like Warmachine function at large scale events (and they do) without the need for a referee for matches?
Funny enough the few times I have watched PP stream a major WM tournament on twitch there was a table judge to ensure that rules were followed correctly.
I think we are more or less at the time where we need to split Matched Play from Tournament Play. Many changes that are made to adjust tournaments are being applied in broad strokes to all matched play (which has now become synonymous with "using points" despite that not technically being the case) so have farther reaching effects than helping tournament balance (which never happens anyways as they just move on to the next OP thing and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum)
Nah, people just need to do a better job of setting their expectations with their opponents. Making this split isn't going to stop big fish in a small pond kind of guys from trying to be bullies in that environment.
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
DO you really believe that what is current doesn't help? That Dark Reapers are only good because people are "cheating", or Flyrants are good only because people don't play the game right?
I'd say what we have is more than competitive enough to help the game improve. What people here are calling for is play in which we know no errors in play have occurred, that is not a necessity for balancing unless the assumption is that everyone is making the same mistakes with the units that are deemed too powerful.
Really though until GW releases a tournament format with prescribed tables, there can never be true balance for competition because mission and table matter.
I think it's helpful, actually. But I think it has some significant flaws as well, and as the game gets rid of more and more egregious balancing failures, fine-tuning the game is going to be impossible while people aren't playing it correctly.
And what I was seeking to prove with the whole "joke" thing was that they shouldn't be taken seriously in their current iteration for balancing adjustments. However, recognizing the lack of other data sources, the only remaining option is that they stop being "jokes" and improve. This requires admitting there is a problem that needs looking at, which has happened with the [time limits] issue but not with the [sloppy play and unenforced rules even at the highest level] issues. All I am arguing against in this thread is the idea that "everything is fine, nothing can be done, let's just throw up our hands and accept jokes and mediocrity."
You seem to be arguing that GW shouldn't use existing tournaments as data source to make balance changes to the game. if you'll go back through, I've never objected to the fact that tournaments should get better or defended the Adepticon judge. What I have taken issue with is this false narrative that somehow there is no true tournament as such there is no valid data to be garnered from the events that we have now. You've repeatedly gone with the 'they're not tournaments' you've stated that they're a 'joke' and that GW shouldn't use them because balancing from them is invalid. I don't think its terribly hard to see where one might draw a concern from that line of thinking. Ultimately I am glad GW is using events as a place to gather balancing data because at least they're gathering data, they're using real world observed behaviors and trying to make changes from them. I'd rather we encourage that that denigrate the people who are putting on these events ceaselessly. Could they be better? Absolutely. Has anyone presented any real methods for making them better? No not really, because the only suggestions I've seen is have a judge at every table which unfortunately isn't feasible. This is a volunteer refereeing gig, its hard to find 200 people who want to work for free.
I know you haven't, but others have. Many others have objected to perfectly valid solutions, including mine: Let judges intervene in games where they're made aware of a rules violation, either through direct observation or information, if only to ask the players if a rule has been forgotten or violated, instead of hamstringing judges to being only able to make calls based on when one of the actual participants complains. EDIT: It's worth mentioning that GW's twitch streamers will do this. They'll send their "table man" to the table to ask what happened if a situation that appears incompatible with the rules is obvious.
This could sort out the slow-playing issue as well, as Tony's slowplaying against Alex is blatantly obvious: you don't need a "chess-clock" to verify information that's stored in a digital medium and can be reviewed fairly trivially and was witnessed by thousands (hundreds, probably, actually).
Breng77 wrote: I feel like right now they are trying to do both, but the community is stuck on using matched play for everything. They have narative rules, power level, etc. But unless you play in your house with buddies, people always opt for matched play.
And the reason the community is stuck like that is because competitive play is supposedly "more balanced" and players want balance. But, as we can see from this thread, "competitive play" is a lie. At least, play competitive enough that it actually helps the game improve.
DO you really believe that what is current doesn't help? That Dark Reapers are only good because people are "cheating", or Flyrants are good only because people don't play the game right?
I'd say what we have is more than competitive enough to help the game improve. What people here are calling for is play in which we know no errors in play have occurred, that is not a necessity for balancing unless the assumption is that everyone is making the same mistakes with the units that are deemed too powerful.
Really though until GW releases a tournament format with prescribed tables, there can never be true balance for competition because mission and table matter.
I think it's helpful, actually. But I think it has some significant flaws as well, and as the game gets rid of more and more egregious balancing failures, fine-tuning the game is going to be impossible while people aren't playing it correctly.
I don't think fine tuning can happen until there is a standard tournament format and terrain layout/expectation. Compared to that some people making mistakes is small potatos
Breng77 wrote: I don't think fine tuning can happen until there is a standard tournament format and terrain layout/expectation. Compared to that some people making mistakes is small potatos
I agree with this premise as well... but it has to start with the organizers and judges. They'll have to see past the "fast&loose hammer" and start taking the actual play of the game seriously, including tournament format standards, terrain expectations and layouts, and rules enforcement, all in one nice package.
Breng77 wrote: I don't think fine tuning can happen until there is a standard tournament format and terrain layout/expectation. Compared to that some people making mistakes is small potatos
I agree with this premise as well... but it has to start with the organizers and judges. They'll have to see past the "fast&loose hammer" and start taking the actual play of the game seriously, including tournament format standards, terrain expectations and layouts, and rules enforcement, all in one nice package.
Without being too antagonistic - I take you'll be taking up this mantle too? In that I mean you'll be organizing events with this in mind? I'd personally love to have more judges at my event but I just can't find them, I hope some other folks will be able to provide some insight on getting the required amount of judges and the like.
Breng77 wrote: I don't think fine tuning can happen until there is a standard tournament format and terrain layout/expectation. Compared to that some people making mistakes is small potatos
I agree with this premise as well... but it has to start with the organizers and judges. They'll have to see past the "fast&loose hammer" and start taking the actual play of the game seriously, including tournament format standards, terrain expectations and layouts, and rules enforcement, all in one nice package.
Without being too antagonistic - I take you'll be taking up this mantle too?
Yes! I am already helping with the terrain builds for NOVA as best I can, as well as throwing my three-superheavy list into mission testing when invited (which is rare), since it can be a good skew/stress-test thing. I'm also (ironically, considering my level of the involvement with the game) endeavoring to help a buddy of mine who's involved with the AOS narrative stuff at NOVA.
NOVA is one of the better terrained events honestly, many other events have way more issues with terrain. As for missions I really feel like that is on GW to standardize, without their leadership their will always be differences. ITC missions are pretty common in the US, but basically never get played overseas.
Breng77 wrote: NOVA is one of the better terrained events honestly, many other events have way more issues with terrain. As for missions I really feel like that is on GW to standardize, without their leadership their will always be differences. ITC missions are pretty common in the US, but basically never get played overseas.
NOVA and LVO both have good terrain levels. I do think GW has done a pretty good job with the CA scenarios all things considered. I do wish they'd publish their own tournament packet though.
Breng77 wrote:NOVA is one of the better terrained events honestly, many other events have way more issues with terrain. As for missions I really feel like that is on GW to standardize, without their leadership their will always be differences. ITC missions are pretty common in the US, but basically never get played overseas.
Farseer_V2 wrote:
Breng77 wrote: NOVA is one of the better terrained events honestly, many other events have way more issues with terrain. As for missions I really feel like that is on GW to standardize, without their leadership their will always be differences. ITC missions are pretty common in the US, but basically never get played overseas.
NOVA and LVO both have good terrain levels. I do think GW has done a pretty good job with the CA scenarios all things considered. I do wish they'd publish their own tournament packet though.
GW does run their own tournaments. Any deviation from that standard is inexplicable, really. Or at least I can't conceive of why. Back in the day, it used to be because GW made no effort to balance the game, so the TOs had to, but now, there's just no reason not to use the standard rules. I think Matched Play is intended to be the "tournament rules" for 40k. The only glaring omissions are time limits and terrain setups.
Breng77 wrote: NOVA is one of the better terrained events honestly, many other events have way more issues with terrain. As for missions I really feel like that is on GW to standardize, without their leadership their will always be differences. ITC missions are pretty common in the US, but basically never get played overseas.
That is not true ITC is steadily growing in popularity overseas.
Unit1126PLL wrote: GW does run their own tournaments. Any deviation from that standard is inexplicable, really. Or at least I can't conceive of why. Back in the day, it used to be because GW made no effort to balance the game, so the TOs had to, but now, there's just no reason not to use the standard rules. I think Matched Play is intended to be the "tournament rules" for 40k. The only glaring omissions are time limits and terrain setups.
I'd argue that pre CA their scenarios weren't amazing and didn't often work well for any type of tournament or swiss style play, especially with missions like the relic. That said I think you can use the CA stuff to make a pretty solid rules set.
Unit1126PLL wrote: GW does run their own tournaments. Any deviation from that standard is inexplicable, really. Or at least I can't conceive of why. Back in the day, it used to be because GW made no effort to balance the game, so the TOs had to, but now, there's just no reason not to use the standard rules. I think Matched Play is intended to be the "tournament rules" for 40k. The only glaring omissions are time limits and terrain setups.
I'd argue that pre CA their scenarios weren't amazing and didn't often work well for any type of tournament or swiss style play, especially with missions like the relic. That said I think you can use the CA stuff to make a pretty solid rules set.
Right. I mean the idea is that it's evolving, so provided we stick with that idea and don't wander off into loony land (we = GW and the community) then the game will continue to improve, with the Chapter Approved missions being the first iteration of improvement on the original missions.
Unit1126PLL wrote: GW does run their own tournaments. Any deviation from that standard is inexplicable, really. Or at least I can't conceive of why. Back in the day, it used to be because GW made no effort to balance the game, so the TOs had to, but now, there's just no reason not to use the standard rules. I think Matched Play is intended to be the "tournament rules" for 40k. The only glaring omissions are time limits and terrain setups.
I'd argue that pre CA their scenarios weren't amazing and didn't often work well for any type of tournament or swiss style play, especially with missions like the relic. That said I think you can use the CA stuff to make a pretty solid rules set.
Right. I mean the idea is that it's evolving, so provided we stick with that idea and don't wander off into loony land (we = GW and the community) then the game will continue to improve, with the Chapter Approved missions being the first iteration of improvement on the original missions.
I think what would help a ton would be if GW released a 'tournament packet' with their 'best practices' so to speak. It being an official document I think could help it take off.
Primark G wrote: I am sure if they do it will say something in regards to cheating and how to handle these types of situations (not how to not handle it).
GW is even more - oblivious is the wrong word - but optimistic about their player base than major organizers. They tend to really give people the benefit of the doubt and effectively hope for the best from everyone.
Primark G wrote: I’m sure itc going to clocks is at least partly due to pressure from GW after the LVO fiasco. They are a completely different company now.
I don't know that I agree - I think that change is being made because there was immense community pressure around how bad the issue was at the LVO. GW is a different company in many regards but how they view their event participants isn't something they've changed. I had the great fortune of playing at GT1 at Warhammer World and they definitely have a more laid back approach to the thing than you might imagine.
It was still done in their house strictly by their rules. I just don't think GW is as actively interested in policing the base from a behavior stand point as you do. I think they for the most part just want people to buy things and have fun. They are working more with the competitive organizers and things like that for sure. But I'd be willing to put up hard cash they're not even remotely involved in the decision to move to chess clocks because that's nearly antithetical to the way they think about and approach the game.
deviantduck wrote: From my perspective participating in the team tournament, the Adepticon judges were pretty worthless. I have two anecdotes and my only interactions with the judges.
1. The table next to ours was having an assault related rules issue. They couldn't agree and called a judge. He came over and they spent a few minutes and went through the scenario and he stared blankly at them, then laughed and goes, that's not really my strong suit, let me go grab another judge. He left. At this point, our table paused, and told them how we thought it should be played. The team about to lose out said we'll wait for the judge. Works for me. We went back to playing. A few minutes later, Judge A comes back with Judge B. They explain everything to B. He replies with, Hmmm.. I'm not really sure. Let me go ask someone. He leaves. A few minutes later Judge C strolls up. They explain everything to him. He says oh yea, blah blah, and reaffirms what we told them 10 minutes earlier. They continue their game.
Is having uninformed judges for the sake of having extra bodies on the floor worth it, or would fewer, better judges be more effective? It's kind of like you're being carjacked and you call 911 and they send a mall cop. My car is already in pieces at a chop shop and I'm bleeding out in the street, but thanks for that tip about hosiery at Sears.
2. This one actually happened at our table. We (both teams) took nearly 30 minutes to setup terrain and deploy both armies before top of 1. It was terribly slow and everyone was just goofing around and not paying attention so I didn't think anything of it. No ill will as of yet. Game starts. We have an amazing first turn and wipe out half their army. They are not happy. They fight back. Turn 1 ends. We're now 90 minutes deep into the clock. At this point they have one of their team mates go grab a judge claiming we're slow playing them. Judge comes over with a chip thinking we're the turds sand bagging and he's defending the complainers. He said since we're slowplaying, (not even asking for facts, just assuming it's our fault) he'll be watching the rest of the game to make sure it moves along and we finish all turns. He then says, starting now each team gets 15 minutes per half to play for the remainder of the turns and pulls out his phone and starts a clock. it's now turn 2, we still have a full army, they have 50%. We burn through our 15 minutes and have to stop mid assault phase. We leave locked units unable to make their attacks. Our opponents with way less models now play and easily finish all of their shots and attacks. We lose out a bit due to the nature of assaults and swinging first. We didn't get to swing back with all of our units because they went through their charges and not everything else was activated before their 15 was up. Next turn. Same scenario. At this point in time, there's absolutely no danger in us losing the game. But, the judge says, OK, we're switching to 7 minute halves. They're down to 30%, we're still at 80%. The only real goal left is to kill their warlord. At this point, it is my fault for not telling my partner to stop shooting so I can swing. I'll own that, but again, locked in assault and no swings. Turn 4 comes up. This time I flat out tell my partner to stop at the 2 minute warning so I can switch to assault. We did so, killed a bunch of stuff. Time's up. Our opponents interject, But we didn't get to fight with all of our stuff! The judge is like, "Oh. Ok. Finish all your assaults." So they spend 5 minutes finishing their assaults. Then he starts their 7 minute time. Then he leaves for the bathroom and comes back 12 minutes later. We end up playing another turn, never kill the warlord, and the judge stops the game with about 15 minutes left on the clock.
Now, I understand we had equal time per turns, but that's not the same as equal time per game. If this we're chess clock style, which someday soon it probably will be, we could have used more of our share of our remaining time in turns 3 or 4, instead of 7 minutes, and probably tabled them before turn 5. But since we were arbitrarily and unfairly limited, because they were upset, it was a giant cluster .
Anyone have any of their own to share?
As a former core judge for Adepticon for many years, the Team Tournament was the hardest part to have experienced and knowledgeable judges for. Its the premier event for the entire Con and most everyone (during my time) was playing in it.
Crimson Devil wrote: Because quite often when someone suggests a narrative game it' is always a recreation of Pickett's Charge. Where they get all of the terrain and I'm standing out in a field getting shot to death. Yea story games.
Sounds like you didn't cooperate enough on the story you wanted to tell with your opponent... but here you go, Farseer. Someone who thinks matched play is automatically less of a pickett's charge than narrative play, just because it has matched on the tin. I've seen plenty of hopeless games in tournaments as well, which is exactly where they're not supposed to happen (apparently? I don't really want to get into a discussion about what balance exactly is here. I actually think hopeless situations should be allowed to exist in the game-state from the very start, but I'm weird and eccentric).
The issue is the pitch is always me at the disadvantage, never them.
deviantduck wrote: From my perspective participating in the team tournament, the Adepticon judges were pretty worthless. I have two anecdotes and my only interactions with the judges.
1. The table next to ours was having an assault related rules issue. They couldn't agree and called a judge. He came over and they spent a few minutes and went through the scenario and he stared blankly at them, then laughed and goes, that's not really my strong suit, let me go grab another judge. He left. At this point, our table paused, and told them how we thought it should be played. The team about to lose out said we'll wait for the judge. Works for me. We went back to playing. A few minutes later, Judge A comes back with Judge B. They explain everything to B. He replies with, Hmmm.. I'm not really sure. Let me go ask someone. He leaves. A few minutes later Judge C strolls up. They explain everything to him. He says oh yea, blah blah, and reaffirms what we told them 10 minutes earlier. They continue their game.
Is having uninformed judges for the sake of having extra bodies on the floor worth it, or would fewer, better judges be more effective? It's kind of like you're being carjacked and you call 911 and they send a mall cop. My car is already in pieces at a chop shop and I'm bleeding out in the street, but thanks for that tip about hosiery at Sears.
2. This one actually happened at our table. We (both teams) took nearly 30 minutes to setup terrain and deploy both armies before top of 1. It was terribly slow and everyone was just goofing around and not paying attention so I didn't think anything of it. No ill will as of yet. Game starts. We have an amazing first turn and wipe out half their army. They are not happy. They fight back. Turn 1 ends. We're now 90 minutes deep into the clock. At this point they have one of their team mates go grab a judge claiming we're slow playing them. Judge comes over with a chip thinking we're the turds sand bagging and he's defending the complainers. He said since we're slowplaying, (not even asking for facts, just assuming it's our fault) he'll be watching the rest of the game to make sure it moves along and we finish all turns. He then says, starting now each team gets 15 minutes per half to play for the remainder of the turns and pulls out his phone and starts a clock. it's now turn 2, we still have a full army, they have 50%. We burn through our 15 minutes and have to stop mid assault phase. We leave locked units unable to make their attacks. Our opponents with way less models now play and easily finish all of their shots and attacks. We lose out a bit due to the nature of assaults and swinging first. We didn't get to swing back with all of our units because they went through their charges and not everything else was activated before their 15 was up. Next turn. Same scenario. At this point in time, there's absolutely no danger in us losing the game. But, the judge says, OK, we're switching to 7 minute halves. They're down to 30%, we're still at 80%. The only real goal left is to kill their warlord. At this point, it is my fault for not telling my partner to stop shooting so I can swing. I'll own that, but again, locked in assault and no swings. Turn 4 comes up. This time I flat out tell my partner to stop at the 2 minute warning so I can switch to assault. We did so, killed a bunch of stuff. Time's up. Our opponents interject, But we didn't get to fight with all of our stuff! The judge is like, "Oh. Ok. Finish all your assaults." So they spend 5 minutes finishing their assaults. Then he starts their 7 minute time. Then he leaves for the bathroom and comes back 12 minutes later. We end up playing another turn, never kill the warlord, and the judge stops the game with about 15 minutes left on the clock.
Now, I understand we had equal time per turns, but that's not the same as equal time per game. If this we're chess clock style, which someday soon it probably will be, we could have used more of our share of our remaining time in turns 3 or 4, instead of 7 minutes, and probably tabled them before turn 5. But since we were arbitrarily and unfairly limited, because they were upset, it was a giant cluster .
Anyone have any of their own to share?
As a former core judge for Adepticon for many years, the Team Tournament was the hardest part to have experienced and knowledgeable judges for. Its the premier event for the entire Con and most everyone (during my time) was playing in it.
Most "Judges" are painfully unaware of actual rules. They are simply volunteers (or paid staff) making sure that they assist in generating as much revenue as possible. I have seen very few that continuously stay up to date on discussion forums, reading every codex, ever FAQ, post convention issues and scenarios, etc.
I'm overseas.
I've never met anyone whose even suggested using ITC rules. The amount of times the words 'ITC' is mentioned on this forum, or if I put up a list for comment everyone commenting does so assuming it's for ITC missions is baffling to an English person.
While I'm sure someone somewhere is playing ITC, I'd hesitate before calling it 'Popular' for sure. The format for the London GT seems much more sensible and true to the core game, the combined missions they're running work really well and simply.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I'm overseas.
I've never met anyone whose even suggested using ITC rules. The amount of times the words 'ITC' is mentioned on this forum, or if I put up a list for comment everyone commenting does so assuming it's for ITC missions is baffling to an English person.
While I'm sure someone somewhere is playing ITC, I'd hesitate before calling it 'Popular' for sure. The format for the London GT seems much more sensible and true to the core game, the combined missions they're running work really well and simply.
I'm domestic. Which I am sure means overseas from your perspective.
The ratio of ITC mentions on Dakka to actual players is inversely proportional to it's actual popularity. The joke at my FLGS is it stands for Idiots Taking Crack, it's taken a little too seriously by some people.
I enjoy the idea of experimenting with different systems and finding ones you might enjoy better. But the Internet has a way of distorting the actual failings of any system, and looking to ITC or any other system to solve them is like counting on Orks to win in a shooting match.
quickfuze wrote: Most "Judges" are painfully unaware of actual rules. They are simply volunteers (or paid staff) making sure that they assist in generating as much revenue as possible. I have seen very few that continuously stay up to date on discussion forums, reading every codex, ever FAQ, post convention issues and scenarios, etc.
In relation to my comment on the TT, that is what made it so hard. The small group of us who actually did read every book and codex, play armies from every codex for the experience, constantly go through various forums for questions/issues both common and obscure, were almost all playing in the TT.
For the TT specifically, that left about two individuals with that level of knowledge actively acting solely in a judging role. The other five or so of us were participants in that event and not able to assist during game play.
Again, though, this was years ago. I don't want anyone to take my commentary as current info.
The purpose of the ITC is to give players a common ground rules for playing a tournament. They are completely voluntary, but because they exist at all. It's considered oppression by casuals unable to take control of their own damn hobby.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I'm overseas.
I've never met anyone whose even suggested using ITC rules. The amount of times the words 'ITC' is mentioned on this forum, or if I put up a list for comment everyone commenting does so assuming it's for ITC missions is baffling to an English person.
While I'm sure someone somewhere is playing ITC, I'd hesitate before calling it 'Popular' for sure. The format for the London GT seems much more sensible and true to the core game, the combined missions they're running work really well and simply.
The ratio of ITC mentions on Dakka to actual players is inversely proportional to it's actual popularity. The joke at my FLGS is it stands for Idiots Taking Crack, it's taken a little too seriously by some people.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I'm overseas.
I've never met anyone whose even suggested using ITC rules. The amount of times the words 'ITC' is mentioned on this forum, or if I put up a list for comment everyone commenting does so assuming it's for ITC missions is baffling to an English person.
While I'm sure someone somewhere is playing ITC, I'd hesitate before calling it 'Popular' for sure. The format for the London GT seems much more sensible and true to the core game, the combined missions they're running work really well and simply.
I'm domestic. Which I am sure means overseas from your perspective.
The ratio of ITC mentions on Dakka to actual players is inversely proportional to it's actual popularity. The joke at my FLGS is it stands for Idiots Taking Crack, it's taken a little too seriously by some people.
I enjoy the idea of experimenting with different systems and finding ones you might enjoy better. But the Internet has a way of distorting the actual failings of any system, and looking to ITC or any other system to solve them is like counting on Orks to win in a shooting match.
I don't understand this mentality much. ITC gets the name recognition it does because it's the biggest tournament circuit in North America. That's about it.
As for 'experimenting with different systems' all the ITC really is since 8th dropped is a scoreboard and a book of optional mission types. All of their rulings are suggestions, not laws. Less than half of all ITC ranked tournaments use actual ITC missions. People use Nova missions, or renegade open missions, adepticon missions, custom missions, maelstrom, etc all the time. People even do their own FAQs and list construction rules. I'm sure someone out there is running ITC ranked events with 7th ed rules.
Crimson Devil wrote: The purpose of the ITC is to give players a common ground rules for playing a tournament. They are completely voluntary, but because they exist at all. It's considered oppression by casuals unable to take control of their own damn hobby.
naw its purpose is to run a ranked league. They don't care what rules events use.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I'm overseas.
I've never met anyone whose even suggested using ITC rules. The amount of times the words 'ITC' is mentioned on this forum, or if I put up a list for comment everyone commenting does so assuming it's for ITC missions is baffling to an English person.
While I'm sure someone somewhere is playing ITC, I'd hesitate before calling it 'Popular' for sure. The format for the London GT seems much more sensible and true to the core game, the combined missions they're running work really well and simply.
I'm domestic. Which I am sure means overseas from your perspective.
The ratio of ITC mentions on Dakka to actual players is inversely proportional to it's actual popularity. The joke at my FLGS is it stands for Idiots Taking Crack, it's taken a little too seriously by some people.
I enjoy the idea of experimenting with different systems and finding ones you might enjoy better. But the Internet has a way of distorting the actual failings of any system, and looking to ITC or any other system to solve them is like counting on Orks to win in a shooting match.
I don't understand this mentality much. ITC gets the name recognition it does because it's the biggest tournament circuit in North America. That's about it.
As for 'experimenting with different systems' all the ITC really is since 8th dropped is a scoreboard and a book of optional mission types. All of their rulings are suggestions, not laws. Less than half of all ITC ranked tournaments use actual ITC missions. People use Nova missions, or renegade open missions, adepticon missions, custom missions, maelstrom, etc all the time. People even do their own FAQs and list construction rules. I'm sure someone out there is running ITC ranked events with 7th ed rules.
TBH, I don't understand it much either. Tournaments don't appeal to me, and going beyond the core rules is something I've never understood. Feels like trading one set of benefits / drawbacks for another, but I don't begrudge anyone for wanting to do so.
There is a certain set of people who talk about ITC missions as though anything else is inferior. I think people are concerned more about that attitude more than the ITC format itself.
Let's be clear tho: ITC is a scoring system, it affects who wins and loses in a game. It's not just kill points / objectives / special conditions, there's a whole raft of other factors that come into play. I don't think about it as 40k, I think about it as ITC (which doesn't excite me all that much.)
ludicrous it is that it be suggested that there not be events larger than 30 people. 
