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skyth wrote:

Redbeard wrote: you learn to make comp-friendly lists where appropriate

If you know how it's being judged...

This is so very important. The scoring method for the subjective part of any competition must be made as apparent as possible to anyone who is going to attend BEFORE they get to the event.

For example, someone could go to a composition scored event with what they feel is a friendly and fluffy list, only to find out that the TO is grading composition by a totally different metric.

You wouldn't host a tournament and not tell players which edition of 40K you're running until they get there, would you?

It's not fair to competitors to not tell them what rules are being used for scoring before the event starts.

olympia wrote:It's the socal one only, I think, that has a second golden ticket based purely on battlepoints. Why don't you list the major upcoming U.S. GTs that are devoid of subjective scoring. In fact, why don't you list all that provide golden tickets to the las vegas GT that are devoid of subjective scoring...

Well, you've done a wonderful job disproving something I didn't say. You'll note that your quote that I responded to was about comp, not all subjective scoring.

Redbeard is also on target here. If you're a competitive player, you adapt and find a way to score well in other categories. For instance, getting your army professionally painted is a common solution for those who aren't inclined to paint or aren't skilled at it.

skipmcne wrote:Soft scoring does not reduce competitiveness. it changes the lists that are brought. Players who win at US tournaments do well at other tournaments.

If players take less competitive lists because they're afraid of getting docked in comp and sports, how the feth does that NOT reduce competitiveness?

Saldiven wrote:Hrm...some people seem to think that anything subjective cannot be competitive.

So, I guess we should do away with any of these competitions:

Gymnastics
Figure skating (pairs and individual)
Pretty much all "X-games" (Skateboarding, inline skating, free running, snow boarding, anything with a vert-ramp, half-pipe, or ramp)
Dressage
Dance (jazz, hip hop, salsa, ballroom, etc.)

I could go on.

The point is that something being scored subjectively does not inherently mean that the event in questions is no competitive.

However, if any sort of competitive event that is judged subjectively fails to notify competitors (far in advance of the event) what will be judged and how it will be scored in as much detail as possible, then the event is doomed to failure as far as being "competitive" is concerned. If nobody knows what the rules are, then how can anyone compete?

I think you're missing the point.

I'm going to take your first example: Gymnastics.

In a Gymnastics COMPETITION, the COMPETITORS are judged based on their SKILL by a panel of judges. They are NOT also judged on the quality of their uniform and how they interacted with the other competitors.

Fearspect wrote:

Redbeard wrote:
Another point - if you are really a competitive person, and you see that the tournaments include soft-scores, you go out and learn to paint better, you learn to make comp-friendly lists where appropriate, and you learn not to be a jerk while playing a game of toy soldiers.

Rather than piss and moan about how these events have soft-scores, you learn to compete in the world that has soft-scores. That's what being a competitor is about.

While I do appreciate your attempt to call out people on their competitiveness to make your point, sitting down and taking it is not the only solution.

I really believe that the amount of people sounding out against this means there is a legitimate belief amongst the gaming community that this is a real issue, and should not be dismissed by taking a moral low ground and accusing those questioning the current practice of being lesser than they are.

I am not trying to flame anyone here but if there is a belief among the community that this is a real issue then why don't some of the people who want a non soft score tournament just start running some. Then there will be tournaments for them too.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Saldiven wrote:Hrm...some people seem to think that anything subjective cannot be competitive.

So, I guess we should do away with any of these competitions:

Gymnastics
Figure skating (pairs and individual)
Pretty much all "X-games" (Skateboarding, inline skating, free running, snow boarding, anything with a vert-ramp, half-pipe, or ramp)
Dressage
Dance (jazz, hip hop, salsa, ballroom, etc.)

I could go on.

The point is that something being scored subjectively does not inherently mean that the event in questions is no competitive.

However, if any sort of competitive event that is judged subjectively fails to notify competitors (far in advance of the event) what will be judged and how it will be scored in as much detail as possible, then the event is doomed to failure as far as being "competitive" is concerned. If nobody knows what the rules are, then how can anyone compete?

I think you're missing the point.

I'm going to take your first example: Gymnastics.

In a Gymnastics COMPETITION, the COMPETITORS are judged based on their SKILL by a panel of judges. They are NOT also judged on the quality of their uniform and how they interacted with the other competitors.

I think a better example would be chess.

Chess is a game with an objective win condition. It would be monstrously stupid if the "top chess player" award was influenced by, say, opponents thinking castling kingside early in the game gives an unfair advantage or something. That's the kind of rule that gets created and enforced by people who suck at chess, or don't want to "relearn" to play competitively.

I'm cool with using sports or comp as a tiebreaker in a swiss system, but in the end the winner should be the person who won the most. And painting should probably be a separate category entirely.

Saldiven wrote:

skyth wrote:

Redbeard wrote: you learn to make comp-friendly lists where appropriate

If you know how it's being judged...

This is so very important. The scoring method for the subjective part of any competition must be made as apparent as possible to anyone who is going to attend BEFORE they get to the event.

For example, someone could go to a composition scored event with what they feel is a friendly and fluffy list, only to find out that the TO is grading composition by a totally different metric.

You wouldn't host a tournament and not tell players which edition of 40K you're running until they get there, would you?

It's not fair to competitors to not tell them what rules are being used for scoring before the event starts.

Excellent point. Transparency and prior knowledge are essential.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ostrakon wrote:

skipmcne wrote:Soft scoring does not reduce competitiveness. it changes the lists that are brought. Players who win at US tournaments do well at other tournaments.

If players take less competitive lists because they're afraid of getting docked in comp and sports, how the feth does that NOT reduce competitiveness?

They are still competing. It has no effect on competitiveness as everyone is equally hampered. Its the player not the game.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Saldiven wrote:Hrm...some people seem to think that anything subjective cannot be competitive.

So, I guess we should do away with any of these competitions:

Gymnastics
Figure skating (pairs and individual)
Pretty much all "X-games" (Skateboarding, inline skating, free running, snow boarding, anything with a vert-ramp, half-pipe, or ramp)
Dressage
Dance (jazz, hip hop, salsa, ballroom, etc.)

I could go on.

The point is that something being scored subjectively does not inherently mean that the event in questions is no competitive.

However, if any sort of competitive event that is judged subjectively fails to notify competitors (far in advance of the event) what will be judged and how it will be scored in as much detail as possible, then the event is doomed to failure as far as being "competitive" is concerned. If nobody knows what the rules are, then how can anyone compete?

I think you're missing the point.

I'm going to take your first example: Gymnastics.

In a Gymnastics COMPETITION, the COMPETITORS are judged based on their SKILL by a panel of judges. They are NOT also judged on the quality of their uniform and how they interacted with the other competitors.

No, Pepper, YOU are missing the point. He was making a point about how subjective scoring can still be judged with validity in a competitive event. You seem to be making one about whether subjective scoring should be included at all.

A better analogy would be tournaments as a Triathlon - a number of DIFFERENT events, the winner being the person who is good at all of them overall. What you seem to be doing is competing in the Running section, and then loudly shouting that Swimming and Cycling just aren't as important, and shouldn't be included.

To win most 40k tournaments Overall you have to be good at playing, painting, background and Not Being A Jerk. If you only care about playing, you're not going to win.

ArbitorIan wrote:A better analogy would be tournaments as a Triathlon - a number of DIFFERENT events, the winner being the person who is good at all of them overall. What you seem to be doing is competing in the Running section, and then loudly shouting that Swimming and Cycling just aren't as important, and shouldn't be included.

To win most 40k tournaments Overall you have to be good at playing, painting, background and Not Being A Jerk. If you only care about playing, you're not going to win.

I really like this analogy . Required painting for tournaments is usually the only thing that motivates me to paint, so I like it being there.

Frazzled wrote: as everyone is equally hampered.

I disagree. Most soft scores affect different armies/people differently. Look at the SoCal Slaughter checklist...You have to make appropriate use of Troops. If your codex has weak Troops you are hampered by that point a lot more than an army with good Troops. The only way everyone would be equally hampered is if everyone played the exact same army.

skyth wrote:

Frazzled wrote: as everyone is equally hampered.

I disagree. Most soft scores affect different armies/people differently. Look at the SoCal Slaughter checklist...You have to make appropriate use of Troops. If your codex has weak Troops you are hampered by that point a lot more than an army with good Troops. The only way everyone would be equally hampered is if everyone played the exact same army.

That would be an issue if the underlying lists themselves were equal. They are not. We all know there are tier 1 lists and then there are not. With equal informaiton they can bring the appropriate modified list.
The "competitive players" will bring lists and armies modified to the be the most comeptitive to whatever the conditions are. I know people who were experts at that and used to be semi decent myself.

Not what I was arguing...All I was disagreeing with was that everyone is equally hampered. If specific armies are weakened more than others, people who only have access to certain armies and/or are better with one army or another are hampered differently than other people.

Frazzled wrote:

skyth wrote:

Frazzled wrote: as everyone is equally hampered.

I disagree. Most soft scores affect different armies/people differently. Look at the SoCal Slaughter checklist...You have to make appropriate use of Troops. If your codex has weak Troops you are hampered by that point a lot more than an army with good Troops. The only way everyone would be equally hampered is if everyone played the exact same army.

That would be an issue if the underlying lists themselves were equal. They are not. We all know there are tier 1 lists and then there are not. With equal informaiton they can bring the appropriate modified list.
The "competitive players" will bring lists and armies modified to the be the most comeptitive to whatever the conditions are. I know people who were experts at that and used to be semi decent myself.

This logic is seriously flawed.

If the whole point of softscores is to penalize people who have OP armies and lists, all you're doing by implementing them is creating different constraints wherein different lists become OP. If these people are so good at adapting to the conditions then why do we need to impose additional constraints anyway?

Its great logic and it goes to the actual point of the thread. Are US tournaments less competitive?

No. At worst they are they same because competitive players can adjust. Plus we have a much larger population, and therefor larger population of players. At best its much more competitive because our winners have to be the best in a whole variety of factors, not just some mamby pamby generalship. Euro wussies.

Finally, "Americans abhore losing. We will not tolerate a loser. The very thought, is...hurtful to us. "

So resolved. US Rules! Europe Drools! (again)

A few points.

For years I played the TCG Raw Deal competitively. In this game you played as a WWE wrestler. They all had different stats and abilities. It had a diversity rule. Only the top scoring player of each wrestler advanced to the finals. As a result major tournaments would only have a few of each deck, even when one was clearely better and in fact, several major events were won with ridiculous unknown strategies that would have never have been tried if they needed to devote 1/2 their strategy to fighting one specific deck.

This also mitigated the effect of having so many more players trying to break the game balance than people trying to balance it behind the scenes.

The point: Diversity breeds better players and more interesting games. 32 people playing 4 army lists might as well be a board game or Street Fighter.

Now painting is a more complex factor. This is a hobby game. Even if you aren't using a professional painter, you can still have a decent looking army. My good friend and GW gaming cohort goes ballistic even thinking about people fielding unprimed models. He is a decent painter but I would never field his stuff because it doesn't meet my standards (I wont field table ready anything).

At the local store, there is a (really nice) guy who is totally into the net deck scene but not only doesn't he paint his stuff, but he can't even be bothered to trim flash. He sometimes has to pay people to put his stuff togther. He's probably got thousands of dollars in GW stuff, but he is worthless for making people say "I wan't to be a part of that".

The Point: The guy with unpainted stuff and a net deck list doesn't wan't to play the game, he want's to win. The average player who loves his army enough to make sure it looks nice may win less points, but he is the more fully realized member of the community. Gaming is, at the core, about the experience.

Disclosure: My expectation is that my local store will rarely if ever include painting scores and if so, I would be the only one to score above a 5 for either comp or painting. It is im my best interest to minimize the play skill gap but at the end of day, I just want to have a good time.

But if competitive players can adjust, why have softscores at all? That doesn't make any sense.

Best General should go to the best general, not the person least weighed down by butthurt opponents who think something is OP simply because it beat them.

Ostrakon wrote:But if competitive players can adjust, why have softscores at all? That doesn't make any sense.

Best General should go to the best general, not the person least weighed down by butthurt opponents who think something is OP simply because it beat them.

Thats a separate topic and not pertinent.

-To win here most tourneys require a contestant to be excellent at multiple factors, not just one. Its more complex.
-There are more players here.
-Americans hate to lose. We've been known to shoot each other about it, not just some wussy Euro punchup.

So again, we are forced to come to the only conclusion available.
USA UBER ALLES!

I guess the Astros aren't competitive because they play in a dome.

Off-Topic: They now have a roof that opens and closes. Unless it's raining or a hurricane, the roof is open until about 9:00 or 9:30 PM. Then, they shut it. Not 100% sure why.

kronk wrote:

I guess the Astros aren't competitive because they play in a dome.

Off-Topic: They now have a roof that opens and closes. Unless it's raining or a hurricane, the roof is open until about 9:00 or 9:30 PM. Then, they shut it. Not 100% sure why.

To Keep out the bats.

kronk wrote:

I guess the Astros aren't competitive because they play in a dome.

Off-Topic: They now have a roof that opens and closes. Unless it's raining or a hurricane, the roof is open until about 9:00 or 9:30 PM. Then, they shut it. Not 100% sure why.

Mosquitoes?

Frazzled: Just don't mess with us or we will canoe over and burn down your White House again.

Fearspect wrote:Frazzled: Just don't mess with us or we will canoe over and burn down your White House again.

Canadia flag. You're Amurikan too.

Regardless, I am a Texan. Our Capital Building is bigger than the White house and made of stone. Its also protected by the Texas rangers, UT football team, and the central Texas service unit of Girl Scouts, and Central Texas Wienerdog rescue. YOU DON'T FETH WITH TEXAS GIRL SCOUTS & WIENER DOGS!!!!

Look here's one now. Don't let the cuteness fool you. See the coiled spring that is the wiener, ready to launch from the girl scout commando?

Ostrakon wrote:But if competitive players can adjust, why have softscores at all? That doesn't make any sense.

Best General should go to the best general, not the person least weighed down by butthurt opponents who think something is OP simply because it beat them.

Adding such things as Comp scores forces players to adjust their lists.

Making a player adjust their list while still being competitive forces them to demonstrate adaptability.

A good player can win with more than one single list.

I believe that tournament rules that force players to demonstrate the ability to win with a variety of different lists does a better job of proving who is the best player than tournament rules which allow a player to bring the exact same list over and over again.

@Frazzled:

Oh my, is that a one-eyed wiener dog? He's already got battle scars; you know he's tough....

wtf -- did a coyote eat one of that dog's eyes?

olympia wrote:wtf -- did a coyote eat one of that dog's eyes?

He's a vet sergeant from the Emperor's Hotdogs.

translation-rescue dog. That center specializes in dogs that have had really hard lives. They had one that was deaf. if you signed "good dog" it would go goofy (silently). TBone the Terror and Rodney the Shanker came from there.

Saldiven wrote:
Adding such things as Comp scores forces players to adjust their lists.

Making a player adjust their list while still being competitive forces them to demonstrate adaptability.

Or requires them to have more money/time (To have more options availabel for an army painted up). Also, unless it's a checklist comp (WPS style, not SoCal Slaughter style) it doesn't rate thier adapatbility/skill but rather thier ability to guess right and be lucky.

I believe that tournament rules that force players to demonstrate the ability to win with a variety of different lists does a better job of proving who is the best player than tournament rules which allow a player to bring the exact same list over and over again.

Devil is in the details. If it's a subjective grading of composition involved in the scoring, it doesn't prove anything.

skyth wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Adding such things as Comp scores forces players to adjust their lists.

Making a player adjust their list while still being competitive forces them to demonstrate adaptability.

Or requires them to have more money/time (To have more options availabel for an army painted up). Also, unless it's a checklist comp (WPS style, not SoCal Slaughter style) it doesn't rate thier adapatbility/skill but rather thier ability to guess right and be lucky.

I believe that tournament rules that force players to demonstrate the ability to win with a variety of different lists does a better job of proving who is the best player than tournament rules which allow a player to bring the exact same list over and over again.

Devil is in the details. If it's a subjective grading of composition involved in the scoring, it doesn't prove anything.

I've already put forth my opinion that any subjective scoring that is not made abundantly clear to competitors far in advance of the tournament date are absolutely worthless; in that I agree with you.

As to the second part of your post, it shows up in the battle points. If a player can show in multiple tournaments with a variety of different lists that he/she can wrack up a slew of battle points, that player is demonstrating a better grasp of the game and how it's played than someone who can only do the same thing with a single army list.

Edit: Hey, just noticed....after almost four years here, I finally passed post count 1000.

Took you long enough