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I know a few years ago when the trend started to increase the rounds in a lot of major GTs, and go to a win-loss format that a lot of people thought it was a good idea at the time because it found a true winner. There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the battlepoint systems that were the vestiges of GWs tournament format that most tournaments were using because they ended up having several players undefeated and soft scores often determining who won the tournament.

With GTs getting larger and larger they have had to increase the number of rounds to get it to where only one player is undefeated. For example: if you have a tournament with 129+ players you need 8 rounds to find the one undefeated champion, and if you have 65+ you need 7 rounds, etc. This is in contrast to the 5 round GTs that we were previously accustom to.

Now this was ok (even though this is a lot of games for a weekend) back in 5th edition when you can finish your games in a somewhat timely manner, but in 6th edition this is no longer the case.

We all know that 6th edition takes a lot longer to play than 5th edition (I can get into all of the reasons why, but I think at this point it is a well known fact), so does it make any sense to have all of these games if they are not coming to their natural conclusion? If you have 8 rounds, and the games are not finishing are you truly finding the one best player, or are you finding the person who wins the dice roll to go last and can manipulate the time the best to their advantage?

To combat this there has been talk about lowering the point limits to try to get games to finish, but a hundred points here and there does not seem to have much of an impact. People like to play games in the 1750+ point range so how low do you need to lower them before you can finish in less than 2.5 hours? The other option is that you can increase the round times. There has been some pushback with this because the first problem is that some say that people will just play slower and still take longer to do everything, and you still end up with games not finishing. The other is that the day is only so long, so if you go to 3 or more hours for each round you will not be able to get all of the games in.

So my question to everyone is which is better?
#1. To have complete games at a tournament even though that means that you will have several players undefeated?
#2. To have 1 undefeated player in a tournament where most of the games do not finish?

I want games to finish, a winner in a system where games can't finish has less meaning than a winner decided by soft scores to tie-break two undefeated records. (at least to me)

I would rather have the following in this order:
1. Games finish cleanly (enough time)
2. Lower points per game (appropriate size for the time)
3. Single winner (4 games a day instead of 3)

I am 'OK' with soft scores or secondary battle points determining an overall winner. I can see others who will not accept anything but single win/loss record, and that is ok. I totally can see why that is important, but it isn't a big factor for me.

The event needs to decide what it wants to do. If it wants to do single winner, there needs to be plenty of time for games. If they want all games to finish 'naturally', then they may need to give up on single winner.

Hey Y'all

IMHO getting in a complete game is far more important that a "True" winner. It has been my experience that some folks will game ANY system we can come up with. Until we are able to have all games come to a natural end we will never really find a "True" winner.

If you win all 7 or 8 of your games, but don't get past round 3 in some of your games are you a "True" winner? I would say no you are not.

Now, the problem. How to get in a complete game. Unless you are willing to let games go on and on and on there really isn't a way to force games into a set time frame. In a recent tournament I was faced with a relatively new player who was really slow. When the 15 minute warning was sounded we had just completed the top of turn 2. That game could have gone on for 4 more hours before we achieved a natural end.

At the same time I've sat and watched experience players hold their ruler in their hands looking at the table, measuring this & that, humming & hawing while they figure out were to move their models and take up 30-45 minutes doing so for no other reason then to SLOW the game down. I know this is true as I can watch the exact same player play with lightning fast speed if they are currently loosing and want to get in more turns to turn that lose around.

I really think we as a community need to think about bringing some type of sportsmanship back into GT's. I know I'm out of the loop on this but the thumbs up or down system isn't working in my experience. Or give both players a warning if they don't complete the game and start docking them somehow for each of their next games they do not complete. Or something like that.

Again, all this is just my opinion and you are free to like it or not.

Game Hard, Laugh Often!

Doc

6th edition is too un-balanced to make a conclusion of "best player", especially in a tournament that size. There will likely be several undefeated players, and if you did it all over again the next day, it
would change. It means nothing.

I would rather have longer rounds. The games take longer because of rules and higher model counts in general. Also, all of the psychic powers for certain armies take some time to generate between
games.

I think there can be a good middle ground, but the idea that you must have only ONE undefeated player is too extreme for most venues, I think.

But on the other hand, I played in a 3-round 60-person event... and that's just no fun either, as you've just got too many players with the same record.

A 5 or at most 6-round event is about right, I think (3 games per day) for the majority of GTs.

Also agreed with this:

nkelsch wrote:I would rather have the following in this order:
1. Games finish cleanly (enough time)
2. Lower points per game (appropriate size for the time)
3. Single winner (4 games a day instead of 3)

I believe that the majority of players want a chance to play their games to completion. Saying that you have an undisputed winner when many players are not able to finish their games is not even remotely accurate. I hear too many horror stories now, especially from the more competitive events about deliberate stalling. This can be both in-game and a product of the list construction.

I like that there is a nice variety of events and in the end, all of them should allow players to finish their games no matter what format. Once you get past the format effects then the point limit and time allowed should be easy to work out how many rounds you can fit in for your event.

Straight 40k rules - nice an simple, no soft scores - timing is entirely on the players if the staff get pairings and missions out on time
40K with soft scores - an added component, should not take more than a few minutes per player once per weekend to interact with staff
40K with house rules - FAQs add complexity by changing some rules to the local interpretation. Sometimes this is completely wrong but most times it helps remove arguments. Having a 100+ page document (Adepticon's 5E) surely makes for another time element to be factored in but the 6E ones seem to have a much smaller effect
40K with comp - I am glad to see Da Boyz went back to their roots. This should only add time in prep and not during games

My biggest pet peeve - where do you place your army for the game? Most events do not allow space for your army to be next to the game table and you lose a considerable amount of time going under the table or back in your cases to get your army deployed. Adepticon '13 for example, even though they had a huge number of players they were well staffed to turn around results but there was no room for your army and sometimes you had to wait 15-20 minutes for the last player on your table to move. Losing 20 minutes before you can even start deployment is a huge problem.

Then you have the end of time rules...

Dice down - allows the staff to get the data in and pairings for the next round out ASAP
Finish current turn/even # of turns - my preference, but if you are dealing with a very large event it may not accommodate the staff needs
Scoring for finishing games - if whether you finish your game can be an issue and it will have a Battle or Sports effect then you must allow better timing/points caps

To sum up:
-make sure the full time limit allowed is actually able to be used
-allow a reasonable point/time limit to finish games

dlight wrote:
6th edition is too un-balanced to make a conclusion of "best player", especially in a tournament that size. There will likely be several undefeated players, and if you did it all over again the next day, itwould change. It means nothing.

That is true of any game with an element of chance. You would have the basic same folks in the top 10 then.

You'll never have a satisfactory answer because of the problems you outlined in the OP. I could give players 3+ hours to finish a game, and certain players would still be on turn three when time is called. The timing out issue came up in the thread about timed turns, and how "unfair" it is to horde army players to get the same time to play as people playing lower model count armies. So what else can you do other than set a time, set a number of rounds, and determine the best outcome you can under the rules of the event?

You could set a long time and give yourself a goal of 95% completed or somesuch.

 derek wrote:
You'll never have a satisfactory answer because of the problems you outlined in the OP. I could give players 3+ hours to finish a game, and certain players would still be on turn three when time is called. The timing out issue came up in the thread about timed turns, and how "unfair" it is to horde army players to get the same time to play as people playing lower model count armies. So what else can you do other than set a time, set a number of rounds, and determine the best outcome you can under the rules of the event?

You will always have outliers who will not finish games, but you can manipulate the amount of games being completed.

This fact remains the more time you add, the more games will complete.

For an example: if you add 30 minutes to the game time and you go from 70% of the games not finishing to 30% would it not make sense to do so even though 30% are still not finishing?

I preferred the win-loss one undefeated player in 5th edition which was a much more competitive rule set.

With 6th edition being far less competitive and a much "longer" and complex game than 5th I have moved back in favor of less win-loss undefeated winner format tournaments. 6th edition is no where near as competitive tournament friendly as 5th was.

That being said I am happy to attend both types of events. I was in 5th and I am in 6th as well. The change now is I am happier at events which are not winner takes all, the reverse of my attitude 2 years ago.

It sounds like there are 3 issues: Point limit, Game Time and Number of games for a W/L winner.

Of all 3, it sounds like the issue is gamers seem intolerant or resistant to modifying the point limit below the 1750 mark and seemingly prefer 2000 so they can have spammy double force orgs. People overwhelmingly want 'toys' and they want all of them. So it sounds like reducing point values to 1500 or 1250 is just a non-starter with attendees in this day and age.

So you can't change the game to fit the time, then the time needs to change to fit the game.

More time in rounds seems to be of merit; or, more "prep" time built into pre-round (i.e., pairings released with 15-20 minutes of advance notice).

Despite thoughts to the contrary, there really isn't a community bent one way or another. Formats in all the major tournaments are varied, and contain parallel tracks, to try and give every player their "type" of event sort of at the same time. Keep giving TO's the benefit of the doubt - we listen to all the noise coming in. I.E., at NOVA next year you'll see adjustments to address round time and see more games finish ON time.

As far as targeting a % of completed rounds, it's probably not a smart errand to pursue. At NOVA, the vast majority of players listed "finished game naturally" when given the choice, yet lots of loud folks on the internets have already come up with 5,000 reasons why those answers were lies, or made out of fear, or inaccurate, etc. They may HAVE been ... but the point is, you won't be able to ever satisfy everyone that objective statistics are in fact objective or properly accumulated (and they may not have been), so it's not wise to base your success metrics upon whether or not you hit an objective % of games completed.

Best thing you can do from a TO perspective is go "did most people have a fantastic time? are most people returning?" If the answer is an overwhelming yes, you're doing things right. Right or wrong, you can't ever rest on laurels, and every event you run provides key information for what to do better next time. For us (As an example), it's fixing our alternate terrain layout, and finding ways to give players more time to complete their games ... and to complete them comfortably.

I think longer time rounds are needed. Will it solve the problem? Not totally, but some alleviation will happen. It seems more and more tournaments would rather have that 1 undefeated player and have a high attendance than have a shorter tournament, maybe not as many people, but have all of the intangibles that go along with it. The intangibles being a stricter run tournament with other things that matter (Paint and Sportsmanship) rather than who won the most games.

A good friend of mine use to attend a lot of the old GW sponsered GTs around the country. He ALWAYS talks about the "good ol' days of 40k" and GTs and how tournaments nowadays don't compare with what was. He always said that GTs had far more stricter rules on paint, Sportsmanship, and other army related things. The tournaments of old were about more than just who won the most games. Nowadays, the strict-ness of GTs is almost non-existent. Most TO's of big GTs want the attendance number and the way an army looks is irrelevant and doesn't matter so long as you are good at the game. I used to dismiss this claim and thought he was just a bitter player with how the game is now. (He is not a big fan of 6th Ed.)

However, after reading the "horror stories" of NOVA, Adepticon, and other GTs, I think his thoughts might have some merit. Tournaments it seems have become lax with army restrictions (not Comp) and pretty much just want a winner based on games won. This used to not be the case. To the TO's who read this, if you can answer some questions and a small explanation of how you answered that would help.

1. Why does paint not matter towards an overall score to help determine a winner? At the GTs I have been to, all the paint "requirement" is is 3 colors and based and is essentially a check box of sort. You do receive a score, but with a win/loss format, paint means nothing.

2. Now at every single GT I have been to, I have seen grey models, grey armies, and yet these people were still allowed to play. What's the use of this "requirement" if it isn't a requirement at all? (2 parter i guess!)

3. To go with Blackmoor and his rumblings, why do we need only 1 undefeated person at a tournament? Why can't we have multiples?

4. Why can't soft scores carry the day and declare a winner of the undefeated based on paint and Sportsmanship? They used to... Paint and Sportsmanship have no bearing on the overall winner. Why?

5. If you were to see 5 or so models that were grey at a tournament on a table, would you, as a TO, ask the player to remove them? Or would you just shrug and say, "oh its just 5 models, not a big deal."

Now I know some peopel will probably get on here and say that paint does matter and so does sportsmanship. But the Overall Winners of tournaments are those people that are only undefeated. Melted Crayons could painted their army, and the Winner could be a total D*ck, and they would still win Overall. I think Paint should have more bearing and Sportsmanship should have more bearing on the Overall Winner.

Am I saying that someone with the Best Painted army should win a tournament with 3 losses? No, I am saying to reduce then umber of games and make it ok for not having 1 or more undefeated players. Make their ability to Paint and be a good Sportsman matter for them to win Overall Winner, not just how many games have you won the last two days.

Sorry i derailed a little bit, but I had a lot of thoughts and decided to put all of them down in the thread.

I think you're not entirely up to speed on some of the way these events are scored.

1. NOVA determines Best Overall and gives its by-far largest prize / biggest award to a placing based on 50% appearance score. Aka one of the largest paint contributions to overall anywhere. AdeptiCon does something similar with its Best Overall.

2. When someone spends thousands of dollars to fly out to a GT, and hasn't finished painting all his models, it's very difficult from a TO point of view to do more than gently shame him. You certainly aren't going to find many people staying in the TO game who thank someone for spending their hard earned vacation and dollars by telling them they can just turn around and go home / not play. YES, it's disrespectful to the entire field, and frankly embarrassing, to show up with unpainted models. But people will do it, b/c their inability to finish coincides with a window of time in which they cannot cancel airline tickets and obtain GT refunds.

3. You can have multiple undefeateds and then determine the winner off other methods if you desire. My only problem is with those who heap insult and derision upon events that DO determine a solo undefeated for their Best General, instead of basing it upon how much they crushed a random assortment of opponents (or whatever). Again, Best Overall at almost every event I'M personally aware of is still based heavily on soft scores, nation/world-wide.

4. They still do. And sportsmanship matters; more than 1 negative score at NOVA (for example, since it's the best one I can give) can D/Q you from winning anything.

5. As a TO, you can see my answer to #2. I would talk to the guy about it, ask him why he showed up with grey models, but I'm (and I think most TO's are) unlikely to tell someone who spent thousands to be there "Tough gak, remove 'em!" Call me a softie if you wish. I try not to be harshly judgmental of the reasons and whys behind what other people do (though I don't always succeed at this).

The overall winners of tournaments are NOT only those who are undefeated. You're basing your judgments and opinions on patently false information.

I attended a local tournament, and would have gotten first place, but got 2nd because the other player had a fully painted army HE DID NOT PAINT.

How can a TO enforce painting scores; they realistically can't. Any player with deep pockets can just pay to have his army painted and claim he did it.

A fully painted army you did not personally paint should generate 0 points on painting. But the dillema is this is virtually impossible to enforce.

I have talked to a few TOs I know that have been having trouble with round times. People playing slow hasn't just been a 6th ED problem, it has always been here. There will always be people who move their models as slow as molasses.

An interesting thing I brought up to my friends and TOs I knwo is, what if you instituted a minimum game length, say 3 turns. If you don't get through 3 full game turns, the game is a draw?

I know this will hurt some armies that have terrific match ups. This could result in even more deliberate slow play by people who couldn't possibly win a game because either they are playing the hardest counter to their list or most of their stuff died Turns 1 and 2 and the only way they can win is by Drawing. Some people would consider a Draw a Win against some armies they face. But, with a minimum length of time instituted, it would give incentive to both players who want to compete and who want to win, to play faster and to get turns in so a draw does not occur.

Thoughts?

I hate incomplete games, and their prevalence at tournaments is the main reason that I don't go to more events. I would be extremely enthusiastic about chess clocks or any other method of strict time control.

SCP Yeeman wrote:
I have talked to a few TOs I know that have been having trouble with round times. People playing slow hasn't just been a 6th ED problem, it has always been here. There will always be people who move their models as slow as molasses.

An interesting thing I brought up to my friends and TOs I knwo is, what if you instituted a minimum game length, say 3 turns. If you don't get through 3 full game turns, the game is a draw?

I know this will hurt some armies that have terrific match ups. This could result in even more deliberate slow play by people who couldn't possibly win a game because either they are playing the hardest counter to their list or most of their stuff died Turns 1 and 2 and the only way they can win is by Drawing. Some people would consider a Draw a Win against some armies they face. But, with a minimum length of time instituted, it would give incentive to both players who want to compete and who want to win, to play faster and to get turns in so a draw does not occur.

Thoughts?

You could also / alternately easily DQ people from MOST award categories if they don't finish games on time. In something like NOVA format, you wouldn't be able to do this with bracketing / best general, but you could do it for best overall, battle master, bracket champs, bracket ren men, painting scores, etc., etc., easily enough. There are a lot of things to ponder. But generally speaking, you want to avoid rules that put power in an opponent's hand to "Screw" you or encourage potentially unsportsmanlike behavior.

MVBrandt wrote:
More time in rounds seems to be of merit; or, more "prep" time built into pre-round (i.e., pairings released with 15-20 minutes of advance notice).

This makes a lot of sense, good to see the feedback getting taken into account

RE: OP:

I prefer none of the above. I want a single winner determined entirely by win/loss record, and I want a solid majority of rounds to finish on time (the only exception being the worst of the slow players who will never finish within any practical deadline). Instead of choosing between the two I would rather play at a lower point level. If that means 500 point games are the only way to have a tournament run properly, then that's just how it is.

MVBrandt wrote:
2. When someone spends thousands of dollars to fly out to a GT, and hasn't finished painting all his models, it's very difficult from a TO point of view to do more than gently shame him. You certainly aren't going to find many people staying in the TO game who thank someone for spending their hard earned vacation and dollars by telling them they can just turn around and go home / not play. YES, it's disrespectful to the entire field, and frankly embarrassing, to show up with unpainted models. But people will do it, b/c their inability to finish coincides with a window of time in which they cannot cancel airline tickets and obtain GT refunds.

So what exactly is the point of having a rule that requires painted models?

MVBrandt wrote:
ou could also / alternately easily DQ people from MOST award categories if they don't finish games on time. In something like NOVA format, you wouldn't be able to do this with bracketing / best general, but you could do it for best overall, battle master, bracket champs, bracket ren men, painting scores, etc., etc., easily enough. There are a lot of things to ponder. But generally speaking, you want to avoid rules that put power in an opponent's hand to "Screw" you or encourage potentially unsportsmanlike behavior.

IMO give the loser a bonus for finishing on time. So, say, 10 points for a win, 5 points for a draw, 2 points for a loss that finished, 0 points for a loss that didn't finish. That way the loser still has an incentive to try to finish the game instead of stalling out of spite, and the winner is a lot less likely to be in a spiteful mood and try to screw over their opponent.

 Blackmoor wrote:

 derek wrote:
You'll never have a satisfactory answer because of the problems you outlined in the OP. I could give players 3+ hours to finish a game, and certain players would still be on turn three when time is called. The timing out issue came up in the thread about timed turns, and how "unfair" it is to horde army players to get the same time to play as people playing lower model count armies. So what else can you do other than set a time, set a number of rounds, and determine the best outcome you can under the rules of the event?

You will always have outliers who will not finish games, but you can manipulate the amount of games being completed.

This fact remains the more time you add, the more games will complete.

For an example: if you add 30 minutes to the game time and you go from 70% of the games not finishing to 30% would it not make sense to do so even though 30% are still not finishing?

I should also point out that I haven't played a game of 40k since 6th edition released and don't plan to. I do however help organize a local convention's 40k tournament every fall, mostly on the admin side of it, so this discussion does intrigue me. This year we're going two and a half hours, with 15 mins set up time after pairings are posted. This is at 1850 points. I'll come back to the topic after the weekend with my direct observations on how many games timed out, etc. Speaking only from past observation, I'd say that less than 20% of games last year (which was played under 6th edition rules) timed out. Those that did were the same usual suspects that always time out, because of their army choice and refusal to adjust to playing under a time limit.

Still, I'm not opposed at all to adding more round time on average to large events (even if it may not seem like it), but I would also want to still have the winner as the sole undefeated player at larger events like NOVA.

Put me down for 'Smaller points levels.'

Me too for smaller points battles.

- I'd like to complete all my games
- I like appearance and sportsmanship included in the winning score - and I like that sports can be a surety against slow playing
- I like three games a day and 'fun gaming' in the evening.
- I'm happy to play at 1500 - the gameplay loses nothing, the games are quicker, and it's easier to collect/build/paint the army.

@MVBrandt

Mike if someone showed up to NOVA and had grey models, can they win prizes? What if Spag showed up and had a squad of Dire Avengers that weren't painted? Would he still have won the Invitational? (Pretty sure he took it)

More simply, are people with an army that is not meeting the requirement exempt from prize support?

nkelsch wrote:
It sounds like there are 3 issues: Point limit, Game Time and Number of games for a W/L winner.

Of all 3, it sounds like the issue is gamers seem intolerant or resistant to modifying the point limit below the 1750 mark and seemingly prefer 2000 so they can have spammy double force orgs. People overwhelmingly want 'toys' and they want all of them. So it sounds like reducing point values to 1500 or 1250 is just a non-starter with attendees in this day and age.

So you can't change the game to fit the time, then the time needs to change to fit the game.

It doesn't seem that way from this thread - everyone who has mentioned it seems quite happy to lower the points. Time for another poll!!!

2.5 hour 1.5k games sounds great to me, preferably with chess clocks too!

Aftermath. wrote:
.

How can a TO enforce painting scores; they realistically can't. Any player with deep pockets can just pay to have his army painted and claim he did it.

Any player with deep pockets can buy 4 rip tides and buy a win!!!!
I would rather play and lose tournament place to a pretty pro painted army then ugly models that barely meet the 3 color min. Up your painting game. My painting sucks. I need to spend more time doing it. I embarrassed myself having Redbeard on my team and his models are glorious.

I want to finish my games so three 2.5 hour games a day is ideal. Set point level so most games finish.

 Kingsley wrote:
2.5 hour 1.5k games sounds great to me, preferably with chess clocks too!

How would you reconcile the chess clock inclusion with the shared turn dynamic of the game?