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So I was wondering about this, and I think It's actually within our ability to calculate the average game length in turns for the LVO.

The starting point is by using the max points one can get in a single match, which should be 40 (Yes I know a few people got a 41s), divide that by six, and 6.7 points per round. Using that we can calculate the minimum number of rounds required to get a score for the winner. If we make a seemingly safe assumption that most games are won at 80% of that rate, we get 5.4 points per round. So we just divide the average winning score by 5.4 and we should get the average rounds played.

The fly in the ointment is concessions, nick had 6 perfect/near perfect games, which were probably concessions.

As an aside this brings another up another huge issue, getting full points for a concessions when the average game length was 3 or 4 turns is insanity. Nick beat the next player (tony) by 98 while only winning his final match by 14. That means he walked into the finals with 85 points on tony. While this didn't matter so much for the top 6, since they won all of their matches, it seems to have mattered quite a bit to someone like Tyler Devries (10th place) who we have no idea how he would have placed without two perfect games.

Fortunately because they are outliers, we can exclude most concessions by ignoring results above 30. We will no doubt exclude a few hard fought round 5 or 6 wins, they will be in the minority, because perfect or near perfect games are supposed to be very rare. I won't have time to scrape and sort until later tonight, but in the meantime does anyone see any glaring holes in my logic, or have suggestion on how to improve it?

Here's the top 10 for farts and darts:

Average 4.6
Median 4.2

I think the figure is a little too high if the 1st place player is regularly going 7 rounds. The again there are quite a few in the 2 to 3 range and I can't see those becoming much shorter though possible with concessions or a brutal alpha.
7.6 7.2 7.4 6.7 6.9 3.7 7.4 2.8 4.6 6.5 2.2 6.5 3.3 5.4 2.6 4.1 3.5 2.0 4.8 4.1 4.4 5.0 3.7 2.4 4.3 2.4 5.0 3.5 4.6 3.9 5.2 6.9 2.4 2.6 6.9 5.6 6.7 5.9 3.1 6.1 2.2 4.4 2.6 3.3 3.5 6.5 4.1 3.3 6.1 3.7 4.1 5.7 7.0 2.4 2.8 4.3 6.3 6.5 3.7 3.9 3.1 2.4 2.6 2.8 2.4 3.9 3.9 6.5 7.4 5.7 6.9 6.7 3.9 7.4

Sorry for the delay, been much crazier than expected at work. So without further ado the average winning non-concession score was 21.4

So the minimum game length to get the average score 3.2 rounds.
The more realistic estimate is that battles at the LVO lasted an average of four rounds (3.96 to be precise), I was honestly expecting 3.5, but you go where the data leads you.

Concession scores meant the winner was basically getting 2 rounds of perfect scoring beyond the average number of rounds for the tournament, so basically a concession is worth at least a third more points than a normal victory. This creates an incentive to try to get your opponent to concede rather than fight it out.

I believe the goal should be for an average of five rounds, which means we need to increase the speed of the game by 25%. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to reduce the points by 25%, which happens to take the points to where I originally recommended they go, 1500.

As always I could be an utter moron and blown the math, so below is a link to the google sheet with the winning scores (all of them, including probable concessions). Google sheets doesn't have a averageif command but you can copy and paste it into excel and use this to get you the average so you can check my math:

=AVERAGEIF(A1:I427, "<31"

Google Sheet:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oFC6P_MyHiDCCPj_hLcH4rB2R-IvYIopfAGSwq8GpZk

Also since I was curious here is the distribution of winning scores, you see a decline in occurrences between 21 and 29, but as soon as we get into concession land (30+) the number of victories with that score shoots up.

Just as an aside note – max points in an ITC championship mission game is 42 (30 for each of the 6 turns and 12 for the secondaries).

Concessions will be easy to spot – as it results in the opponent scoring 0 points for the battle, I imagine instead, that the vast majority of 30+ point victories are instead tablings, which like conceding, grants the winner an additional 4 points per un-played turn and any remaining achievable secondary points.

Based off my experience at the LCO the week before the LVO, I’d agree that the majority of the games played would average around 3.5. Many of the tablings occurred around turn 3-4, while a lot of the games that went to time (2.5 hours per game) went 2-4 turns. Very rarely did games go to turn 5, let alone 6, and I don’t think any game ended after 1 turn.
For example, my average score for my wins (3 wins, 3 losses) was 33.66, while my average for my losses was 12.33 (I got smashed by Berserkers and Morty one game :( ). Average for the event was 23 points a game. On average I scored 8.33 points out of 12 from secondary missions alone over the 6 games.

The LVO will likely be slightly different though, simply due to everything being ramped up to 11 in the majority of the cases, though I expect the games to generally fall between the 2-4 turn mark.

An average of 5 turns is a nice target to aim for, however, I would argue that by dropping the points you are less likely to make it to turn 5, as the game will probably naturally end before then in a competitive environment.

True but a natural conclusion on turn 3-4 is better than being timed out on turn 3.

Tabling an opponent that quickly happens, but I would be surprised if it's even a third of the cases north of thirty. As for 1500 leading to more tablings, I think the opposite will be true, without the greater concentrations allowed by 500 more points, it will be harder to pull off. This seems especially likely when you consider how many of the most lethal current builds are excluded by that 500 point drop. But there is only really one way to find out.

 Grimgold wrote:
Concession scores meant the winner was basically getting 2 rounds of perfect scoring beyond the average number of rounds for the tournament, so basically a concession is worth at least a third more points than a normal victory. This creates an incentive to try to get your opponent to concede rather than fight it out.

This is not entirely accurate, a win has a base value of 1000, tie of 500, loss is 0. So a concession is worth an extra 20-30 points per match, which might make a difference in determining the top 10, possibly.

Additionally, there are penalties beyond the match for conceding, specifically, you can be bounced from the tournament if you concede over the course of multiple rounds. So there is incentive to play games out fully, that is already baked into the tournament rules.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Concession scores meant the winner was basically getting 2 rounds of perfect scoring beyond the average number of rounds for the tournament, so basically a concession is worth at least a third more points than a normal victory. This creates an incentive to try to get your opponent to concede rather than fight it out.

This is not entirely accurate, a win has a base value of 1000, tie of 500, loss is 0. So a concession is worth an extra 20-30 points per match, which might make a difference in determining the top 10, possibly.

Additionally, there are penalties beyond the match for conceding, specifically, you can be bounced from the tournament if you concede over the course of multiple rounds. So there is incentive to play games out fully, that is already baked into the tournament rules.

Winning is of course most important, but outside of the top six, everyone else had at least one loss out of the first six rounds. There were 40ish people (I'll check the exact number in a few) with one loss whose placement depended upon the points they got in their matches. Winning 5 of your 6 and getting 44th because all of the other 5-1 players had a concession seems like a raw deal. It's even worse for the 3-3 crowd, there were a lot of them, so a single concession could have been the difference between getting a double digit placement, and finishing in the mid 100s. Put another way concession points are too high for the average game length.

 Grimgold wrote:
Winning is of course most important, but outside of the top six, everyone else had at least one loss out of the first six rounds. There were 40ish people (I'll check the exact number in a few) with one loss whose placement depended upon the points they got in their matches. Winning 5 of your 6 and getting 44th because all of the other 5-1 players had a concession seems like a raw deal. It's even worse for the 3-3 crowd, there were a lot of them, so a single concession could have been the difference between getting a double digit placement, and finishing in the mid 100s. Put another way concession points are too high for the average game length.

I see your point, I guess beyond getting to play on the last day I'm not wildly concerned about my placement. I was quite happy to be in the top 150 out of ~450 players, digging into the esoteric variables that led to my specific placement feels like an exercise in pedantry. I should probably look at it since I had a first turn concession on my last game which gave me 42 points.

It's actually more than just esoteria, where you place relative to the number of players involved affect the score you get for participating in the tournament. It's mathy and complicated, but there are certain cutoff points where you will get less points for finishing below. So If you fall below or above those cutoffs due to a concession the concession unfairly affected the ITC points you got. This is hugely important for the LVO because points are weighted by the number of attendees, and it being the largest tournament all year, being on one side or the other of a cutoff could be a ten point hit.

This really busts peoples balls going for best of faction, since the best Tau or necron player is much more likely to be on the bubble. A concession at the LVO vs a win on time could be the difference between the trophy or not.

Good, games should not go to turn 5. There is no point in playing out a game that was decided 2 to 3 turns ago.

 Marmatag wrote:
Good, games should not go to turn 5. There is no point in playing out a game that was decided 2 to 3 turns ago.

You seem to misunderstand the definition of average, no one is going to come to your table put a gun in your ribs and make you play those dreaded extra turns. Also the two hour window is still a two hour window, changing the game to be faster just allows more games to come to a natural conclusion, it doesn't make you play more or less. Also the argument that no game should go to turn five is so wrongheaded I'm not even sure you are serious or if this is a case for Poe's law.

There is of course the surface level of that argument which is boiled down to "Why play when you can't win". I suppose that some players might have a hard time with that concept, playing to have fun playing as opposed to only having fun winning. So I feel kind of weird having to explain something this obvious, but most of the rest of us enjoy playing the game, winning is nice, but having a good time is better.

Then there is the sublevel of the argument, that you are somehow playing wrong if you haven't secured victory by round 2. As if games that go down to the wire are an aberration to be avoided rather than fun games to be celebrated. Once again if winning is the only thing that matters, I suppose there is a point to that, but my goal is to have fun in a close game and not blow out my opponents in horribly lopsided battles.

Then there are the logistical problems with your suggestion, if games are only supposed to last two turns, why is a concession/tabling based on a six turn game? If games are meant to last two turns than why did the ITC implement a 20 min turn timer to try to get a minimum of three rounds?

Then there is whole aspects of strategy and tactics that are harmed by such an abrupt and artificial end to the games. Such as playing conservatively in the first few rounds, which the current game length does not allow. Or all of the tactics regarding playing from behind, keeping the margin small, picking your fights, waiting for the right time to try a reversal which are also impaired by the short game length. You seem to think this game should be a face roll, which says far more about your priorities as a player than it adds to this conversation.

 Grimgold wrote:
Tabling an opponent that quickly happens, but I would be surprised if it's even a third of the cases north of thirty. As for 1500 leading to more tablings, I think the opposite will be true, without the greater concentrations allowed by 500 more points, it will be harder to pull off. This seems especially likely when you consider how many of the most lethal current builds are excluded by that 500 point drop. But there is only really one way to find out.

I disagree. In fact, I would say 73% of the games that got 30+ points were likely the result of a tabling. (2536 games played over at the LVO)

From what I can tell, the total number of “likely” concessions were 22 (all games with a registered loss of 0 points).

From data taken from BCP, we can see 422 games had a winning score over 30+ points. Taking the 4-turn average as a base, getting 30 points in a game that goes to time requires you to max out your secondaries (12 points) and then to score at least 4 points in turns 1, 2, 3 and 4. This still only puts you on 28 points, so bonus turn points are needed from 2 of the turns. Getting to 32 points in 4 turns requires 12 secondary points and max points in turns 1-4. Now, based on the missions and having played them myself, getting the bonus mission points every turn is extremely unlikely, practically impossible vs most players. This, then implies that to get 32+ points, tablings are required. This then implies that 313 games (335 – 22 concessions) ended in tablings.

We then have to remove the games where 42 points were scored from this – as it is impossible to get the max 42 points by tabling your opponent (as turn bonus points are not awarded when calculating how many points you scored in non-played turns after a concession/tabling… unless they were accidently included…) This puts us at 309 games.

If we give the 30-32 points scored the benefit of the doubt and say they were all 4 turns and no tabling, that leaves us with 288 games where it was impossible to get to the winning points total without a tabling. This is 11.3% of all the games played at the LVO.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Concession scores meant the winner was basically getting 2 rounds of perfect scoring beyond the average number of rounds for the tournament, so basically a concession is worth at least a third more points than a normal victory. This creates an incentive to try to get your opponent to concede rather than fight it out.

This is not entirely accurate, a win has a base value of 1000, tie of 500, loss is 0. So a concession is worth an extra 20-30 points per match, which might make a difference in determining the top 10, possibly.

Additionally, there are penalties beyond the match for conceding, specifically, you can be bounced from the tournament if you concede over the course of multiple rounds. So there is incentive to play games out fully, that is already baked into the tournament rules.

Concession/tabling would award the player (on average) 2 turns of near perfect scoring, not perfect scoring. This equates to 8 points. You would then have to consider how many secondary points were left to acquire. Based on the concept of concession/tabling and picking correct secondaries, I would put this at no more than 2-3 extra points (possibly 0 points), giving the player a total of 8-11 additional points over a game that got timed at the end of turn 4.