Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

w1zard wrote:

Tyel wrote:
...but frankly the idea that the LVO would employ 100~ judges to watch over say 3-4 tables a round probably isn't plausible.

Why? Aren't judges mostly volunteers? There shouldn't be a financial issue with bringing on more judges, and I'm sure there are tons of people who would want to do that and be able to survive the vetting process.

How about 50 judges/tables and 200 players, and have the first tournament round be staggered.

There is plenty of ways to make it work. Part of the problem is the expectation that there should be over 700 participants in the tournament... which is frankly kind of ridiculous. Tournaments should be smaller and have entrance requirements... lower tier players should have to work their way up from lower league tournaments first.

So you have scores of knowledgeable judges willing to give up their weekend for no pay? And also be in the area you're playing, but not in the tournament?

I feel like you don't ever go to tournaments.

w1zard wrote:

Tyel wrote:
...but frankly the idea that the LVO would employ 100~ judges to watch over say 3-4 tables a round probably isn't plausible.

Why? Aren't judges mostly volunteers? There shouldn't be a financial issue with bringing on more judges, and I'm sure there are tons of people who would want to do that and be able to survive the vetting process.

How about 50 judges/tables and 200 players, and have the first tournament round be staggered.

There is plenty of ways to make it work. Part of the problem is the expectation that there should be over 700 participants in the tournament... which is frankly kind of ridiculous. Tournaments should be smaller and have entrance requirements... lower tier players should have to work their way up from lower league tournaments first.

Yeah dude, let's just get those couple hundred judges who volunteer to travel to vegas for free, stay in a hotel they pay for, all for the good of the game.

Not only that, but let's also stagger lots of entry events all over the US that people now need to be obligated to travel to, so they can gain entrance to a huge secondary or tertiary event they can they travel to again, and at this point those same judges can volunteer again and get everything squared away.

Super easy we can all do it!!!

 Cephalobeard wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Tyel wrote:
...but frankly the idea that the LVO would employ 100~ judges to watch over say 3-4 tables a round probably isn't plausible.

Why? Aren't judges mostly volunteers? There shouldn't be a financial issue with bringing on more judges, and I'm sure there are tons of people who would want to do that and be able to survive the vetting process.

How about 50 judges/tables and 200 players, and have the first tournament round be staggered.

There is plenty of ways to make it work. Part of the problem is the expectation that there should be over 700 participants in the tournament... which is frankly kind of ridiculous. Tournaments should be smaller and have entrance requirements... lower tier players should have to work their way up from lower league tournaments first.

Yeah dude, let's just get those couple hundred judges who volunteer to travel to vegas for free, stay in a hotel they pay for, all for the good of the game.

Not only that, but let's also stagger lots of entry events all over the US that people now need to be obligated to travel to, so they can gain entrance to a huge secondary or tertiary event they can they travel to again, and at this point those same judges can volunteer again and get everything squared away.

Super easy we can all do it!!!

then maybe the tournament should have less players in it. or maybe they should make it more attractive for volunteers. dont know how this would be accomplished but someone @ ITC should start factoring in an acceptable judge:player ratio when planning a tournament.

Now I understand that the more players there are, the more $€£¥ they make. but if instances of cheating are happening over and over and are now becoming more public, they should look into tightening up their own admissions requirements. maybe big tournaments should be invitational (or similar) style of entry. where you have to be specifically ranked high enuff or something like it. Or have regional qualifiers that you must participate in to be eligible for bigger stuff.

I do think that the 3 major problems with how the events are run begin & end with organizers.
1. Not enuff judges/lack of communication between them.
2. Too many entrants.
3. No lasting punishment for active cheaters.

There are not enough people playing this game to start worrying about "regional qualifiers". We want as many people as possible to turn up at a tournament because that represents a great advert for the game. Sometimes there are screw ups (looking at you London tournament in the Olympic Stadium last year) but the LVO seems to get bigger every year. This would suggest people are having a great time, regardless of a handful of cheaters.

Anyone could theoretically host some invitational round robin of the top 16 players in the world for the forums to digest - but that would be a bit rubbish.

I hate to compare this to E-sports, but here goes:

If you want to compete as SF5 Capcom cup, or EVO, you need to have enough player points to make it into pools. The way you earn player points is competing and finishing in top 8 at locals. Those locals are all reporting the finishes to the head gaming circut, so at Capcom cup they can look, and say you have enough points to compete in Pools.

We have no established system in the 40k world for tracking locals or tournament placings. Its never even been tried. Because it's SUCH a niche hobby, there aren't enough Tournaments. Hell, for just SMASH or SF5, there are literally hundreds of locals every year. Those locals are funded primarily out of bars, or hobby centers. Just players, 1 TV, and some sticks.

If FLGs held actual accredited points tournies every year, it could create a basis for evaluating who should and shouldn't be at tournaments. Then there would be no need for traveling. Every state has at least one Warhammer store or affiliated store. Who's to say they can't old a tournament? Warhammer could send promo stuff.

Still, it comes down to judges. From what I am reading, judges as a whole in this hobby are not only under qualified, but under trained. This MIGHT also be a great place to train up judges or people who want to become judges.

Thoughts?

PS - Cheaters could be addressed and black listed at locals, thus preventing their advancement. For instance, if we start fresh, Alex Morrison gets a warning. Right off the bat for the past. Any future "mistakes" warrant a flag on his record, and forfeiture of all points for 1 year.

Aye a unified system that had a means to test and approve local judges to run tournaments at the local end could easily feedback into a national (or at least regional/state for USA) competition. That would cut down the number of entrants for a major game by making it into the top players from a selection already pre-chosen by prior games.

They can still run as many games, just have more casual tables and lower tier/daily competitions and other events.

The problem is that Warhammer has never done this partly because GW has never wanted to. Such systems require people in stable positions to run and set them up and they require initial investment and some spark to push them through and GW has never wanted to really do that way with their product.

Meanwhile I think fans sort of try to, but it only ever ends up local or gets bogged down in debate or just never gets off the ground. Then whoever is spear-heading it gets distracted with "real life" and drift away and it loses momentum.

Why do we want to make 40K into an E-sports equivalent? (whatever E-sports is...)

I do not think that 40K is meant to be played with a judge hovering over the table. I play in local 40K tournaments (four a year or so) and I certainly don't want a judge at the table. When the earth was cooling I went to a national Grand Tournament (1998 IIRC) - there were a few GW judges available to handle questions but none came up for me over five games. It was cool to have Jervis come by and ask about how the game was going, but he certainly wasn't there to judge. Its a game meant to played by like-minded people who navigate the gaming experience - somethings mistakes are made. If I meet somebody at a tourney who seems dodgy I will deal with it - perhaps simply by getting over it. I am not sure why people who were not at an event get so lathered up about second hand reports of shady happenings that have no real impact on them? Perhaps the fighting on-line is so vicious because the stakes are so low...

Why should LVO massively change the nature of the event? As it has been growing it would seem to be a successful event. I think its great that something like 700 people put aside a weekend and flew across the continent to get their 40K on. In Vegas no less!

Perhaps having live-streams of games has added a group of folks with no actual stake in the game in question but who have a window and a voice to shout their displeasure. What ever happened to what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?

Warm regards,

T2B

Give each table a GM, not a judge, return 40k to its roots.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


We have no established system in the 40k world for tracking locals or tournament placings. Its never even been tried. Because it's SUCH a niche hobby, there aren't enough Tournaments. Hell, for just SMASH or SF5, there are literally hundreds of locals every year. Those locals are funded primarily out of bars, or hobby centers. Just players, 1 TV, and some sticks.

ITC does exactly this. Locals record their tournaments all the time.

There were over 2,100 entries into BCP for Feb 18 to Feb 19 (some are dummy listings). There are surely thousands more not under ITC.

w1zard wrote:

Tyel wrote:
...but frankly the idea that the LVO would employ 100~ judges to watch over say 3-4 tables a round probably isn't plausible.

Why? Aren't judges mostly volunteers? There shouldn't be a financial issue with bringing on more judges, and I'm sure there are tons of people who would want to do that and be able to survive the vetting process.

How about 50 judges/tables and 200 players, and have the first tournament round be staggered.

There is plenty of ways to make it work. Part of the problem is the expectation that there should be over 700 participants in the tournament... which is frankly kind of ridiculous. Tournaments should be smaller and have entrance requirements... lower tier players should have to work their way up from lower league tournaments first.

Uuh it is financial issue. Where you think you are going to find toes of people willing to go on their expekse to volunteer judging some miniature tournament for free? Getting 100 paid judges wouldn't be automatic snap thing(and would be likely rather expensive. Does vegas have 100 qualified judges who wouldn't be playing themselves? If they come outside you would need to factor in travel and hotel budget...1000 might not be enough per judge...) Let alone free

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Yeah dude, let's just get those couple hundred judges who volunteer to travel to vegas for free, stay in a hotel they pay for, all for the good of the game.

Not only that, but let's also stagger lots of entry events all over the US that people now need to be obligated to travel to, so they can gain entrance to a huge secondary or tertiary event they can they travel to again, and at this point those same judges can volunteer again and get everything squared away.

Super easy we can all do it!!!

IMO The only realistic solution to the issue involves there needing to be more judges, less players, or a combination of the two. Are you seriously trying to make the argument that a 40k tournament is fundamentally un-policable?

tneva82 wrote:
Getting 100 paid judges wouldn't be automatic snap thing(and would be likely rather expensive. Does vegas have 100 qualified judges who wouldn't be playing themselves? If they come outside you would need to factor in travel and hotel budget...1000 might not be enough per judge...) Let alone free

I'm sure that if the people running these tournaments got together and were willing to dig into their profit margins a bit, they could make it work. Paying for an adequate amount of judges and referees is the purview of any real sport or sporting league.

Do either of you have any better ideas at how to combat cheating besides catching an odd player who may not have even been intentionally cheating and mounting his head on a pike as a warning to the others?

w1zard wrote:

I'm sure that if the people running these tournaments got together and were willing to dig into their profit margins a bit, they could make it work. Paying for an adequate amount of judges and referees is the purview of any real sport or sporting league.

Do either of you have any better ideas at how to combat cheating besides catching an odd player who may not have even been intentionally cheating and mounting his head on a pike as a warning to the others?

Okay let's say 100 judges. Let's pay them 200 for 3 day work(rather underpaid especially if days take longer than 8 hours which 40k is almost certain). 2 hotel nights. Not sure how expensive it's at Vegas but here it would easily be another 200. Then travel fees. Let's say you are lucky and get it for say 60(so def no need for airplanes). That's 36k. Think there was like 600 players in the tournament? So add up 60 per player to the price. Weren't the tickets like 60-80 to begin with? Cutting that sum from existing ticket is pipe dream. Remember terrain fees, rent etc. And frankly I very much doubt 360 per judge is actually anywhere near enough(also add in taxes etc)

And 40k IS NOT A SPORT! It's a bloody hobby and small one at that. There's no real money involved. The LVO ticket prices are already high relatively speaking but low compared to actual sport. There's no commercials in it. Hell the game itself is 100% unsuitable as sport.

Don't think of it as sport. That way madness lie. It's not sport. Expecting it to work like sport isn't going to feasible. Or at least if you do prepare to pay like 500 for the tickets.

You are looking at this from entirely wrong base assumption. No wonder you are so off.

And 40k IS NOT A SPORT!

Anything can be made in to a sport. If players are paid, it automaticly becomes a professional sport. The only metric is how professional something is, and normaly this is proportional to the money.

Karol wrote:

And 40k IS NOT A SPORT!

Anything can be made in to a sport. If players are paid, it automaticly becomes a professional sport. The only metric is how professional something is, and normaly this is proportional to the money.

Consider this:
The French Fencing Federation just recognized Lightsaber Dueling as an official Sport.
https://www.chron.com/sports/article/In-France-the-Force-is-strong-with-lightsaber-13625037.php

tneva82 wrote:
Don't think of it as sport. That way madness lie. It's not sport. Expecting it to work like sport isn't going to feasible. Or at least if you do prepare to pay like 500 for the tickets.

I mean if 40k isn't meant to be taken that seriously, then maybe there shouldn't be national tournaments or official leagues? Only local tournaments.

If you are going to have a national tournament, you have to do it right... that means adequate amounts of judges, adequate tables, adequate food and facilities. If any one of those cannot be done then the tournament shouldn't even be taking place because it's not feasible.

If the ticket prices need to be 500$ in order to get a decent amount of judges then maybe the ticket prices need to be 500$.

Karol wrote:

And 40k IS NOT A SPORT!

Anything can be made in to a sport. If players are paid, it automaticly becomes a professional sport. The only metric is how professional something is, and normaly this is proportional to the money.

This is incorrect. However the definition of sport is probably different for different continents/countries. For a sport to class as a sport in the UK, and I'm paraphrasing here it has to involve a form of physical activity that can help to improve physical fitness as well as aid mental wellbeing, amongst some other criteria.

Warhammer is not a sport lads and ladies, it never will be. That does not mean that if there is super growth in future we may not end up with professional players, but they won't be sports people, they will be professional tabletop wargamers.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

Karol wrote:

And 40k IS NOT A SPORT!

Anything can be made in to a sport. If players are paid, it automaticly becomes a professional sport. The only metric is how professional something is, and normaly this is proportional to the money.

This is incorrect. However the definition of sport is probably different for different continents/countries. For a sport to class as a sport in the UK, and I'm paraphrasing here it has to involve a form of physical activity that can help to improve physical fitness as well as aid mental wellbeing, amongst some other criteria.

Warhammer is not a sport lads and ladies, it never will be. That does not mean that if there is super growth in future we may not end up with professional players, but they won't be sports people, they will be professional tabletop wargamers.

The reason things like this are classified under sports, is that there are already laws that deal with sports. It saves a lot of time and money than having to deal with them as a separate thing, when in most cases they would use the same words with the change being gaming.

In the end, to get good at it you do what most people at a professional level for a sport would do. Why not a sport in one sense, they are in others and the word fits quite well.
You can call them what ever you want, But it may all be covered under sport in the future out of necessity.

The problem is the rules. Tighter, better game rules remove the need for so many judges. X-Wing and MtG both have tournaments with over 200 players on a fairly regular basis and neither of those systems requires a huge number of judges. In fact, MtG mandates 6 judges for a 200+ player tournament. Why? Because the rules are much tighter, which makes all these little half-cheating strategies much less likely and blatant, outright cheating very, very difficult. As far as X-Wing in concerned, there are far, far fewer controversies in that game than in 40k and I don't know why with any certainty, but I think it partly comes down to the community itself but also the rules being much harder to abuse.

I don't think 40k is fundamentally un-policable but I suspect at the numbers the LVO attracts it's practically un-policable. You just aren't going to get the required number of judges to attend to achieve anything like the player:judge ratio you need to properly enforce the rules fairly across all tables. I think there are only two ways to change this. Either you need to crack down very hard on people found to be cheating in order to deter those who might want to risk it, which runs the risk of false positives. Or you reduce your numbers to a more manageable level, which I don't think is going to happen because the whoile point of most of these events seems to be to be as big as possible.

Sports and esports that have official standings have fixed rules, always. Football will always be football, no matter how many seasons pass. FIFA 19 will play like FIFA 18 will play like FIFA 2000. Magic can change editions, but blue will always be blue and do blue things. Chess will... yeah.

Then in comes 40k, a game whose publisher changes the rules three times per year, the sense of balance is nonexistent, has zero playtesting before publishing and has such a huge margin for error or cheating it's not even funny. When a tenth of an inch on a table with no inch markings is enough to change the outcome of a whole game, it's impossible to have a sport out of it. It's like playing chess, having your white bishop barely touch a black square and now suddenly it's a black bishop.

Slipspace wrote:
The problem is the rules. Tighter, better game rules remove the need for so many judges. X-Wing and MtG both have tournaments with over 200 players on a fairly regular basis and neither of those systems requires a huge number of judges. In fact, MtG mandates 6 judges for a 200+ player tournament. Why? Because the rules are much tighter, which makes all these little half-cheating strategies much less likely and blatant, outright cheating very, very difficult. As far as X-Wing in concerned, there are far, far fewer controversies in that game than in 40k and I don't know why with any certainty, but I think it partly comes down to the community itself but also the rules being much harder to abuse.

I don't think 40k is fundamentally un-policable but I suspect at the numbers the LVO attracts it's practically un-policable. You just aren't going to get the required number of judges to attend to achieve anything like the player:judge ratio you need to properly enforce the rules fairly across all tables. I think there are only two ways to change this. Either you need to crack down very hard on people found to be cheating in order to deter those who might want to risk it, which runs the risk of false positives. Or you reduce your numbers to a more manageable level, which I don't think is going to happen because the whoile point of most of these events seems to be to be as big as possible.

+9001 to all of this.

Either you have a judge at every table full time AND each judge has an expert working knowledge of the armies he/ she is judging, OR you comp the bloaty-ass rules so heavily that it becomes a derivative of 40k rather than the game itself. Competetive Warhams can't work any other way in the current climate.

Slipspace wrote:
The problem is the rules. Tighter, better game rules remove the need for so many judges. X-Wing and MtG both have tournaments with over 200 players on a fairly regular basis and neither of those systems requires a huge number of judges. In fact, MtG mandates 6 judges for a 200+ player tournament. Why? Because the rules are much tighter, which makes all these little half-cheating strategies much less likely and blatant, outright cheating very, very difficult.

WotC is constantly nerfing and straight up banning any card combos that they deem "OP". Before I stopped playing, I had 4 decks that became completely unplayable due to their frequently updated ban list. (current list here - https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/banned-restricted)
This is how they keep their judge requirements so low, if a card or combo starts showing up a lot in the top games, they restrict or ban it. Some players go out of their way to find the "Broken Combos". And people can cheat at MtG much easier than most would believe, Sideboard abuse, card counting, and deck stacking are major problems in their tournies.

40k likely has a bunch of those same types, but GW is less likely to drop a banhammer on those broken combos, as we have already seen.

To be fair, all the people mentioning MTG as a standard, they have rampant cheating, card counting, set decks, and frequent banned players. Just look up MTG cheating on youtube where they video record the cheating for evidence.

As I see it, there are only two options if anyone wants to actually confront this.

1. More judges of better quality
or
2. Tighter rules that prevent ambiguity.

Both are outside the realm of feasibility GW doesn't want to give up the cash cow that is rules bloat, and they don't want to pay for judges that don't bring a return.

I don't see how this could be fixed..

Ok, but from what we are being told here, you can't even put w40k cheaters in US on youtube, because they may just not allow themselfs to be filmed, enhancing the chance of not being caught.

Option 2 isn't really feasible.

The English language is superb for writing rules, laws and contracts, as it's a very direct language. Yet we still have cases thrown out or lost on mere technicalities in actual courts.

If someone is determined to Rules Lawyer or provided shonky interpretations of rules, they'll find a way. And that's not unique to situations where there's something at stake - even something as ephemeral as bragging rights for a victory.

MTG does often ban cards. But that's again just a mercenary step. They want people buying boxes of boosters to find those cards - either to use, or for their secondary market value. It's all money for WOTC pockets. And when they ban them, something else becomes the Filthy Combo. Rinse and repeat, repeat and rinse. Especially rinse the pockets of the players.

Of course, MTG has the bigger problem of cash prizes actually worth a damn, something I feel corrupts games entirely.

Any language has interpretation issues, however I think its perfectly possible to have a complex game where more rules are clearly written; the language standardized and the overall structure neatly set out to defeat most ambiguous interpretations. Coupled to a fast FAQ/Errata turn around


GW can do a lot better than they already are that is without a doubt.

You think castellans or IG or Inari were left unchanged not because they sell really well? At the same time I doubt WotC care a lot about stuff that sell, neither does GW. They killed a whole game, they themselfs broke by bad rules and horrible army construction mechanisms.

Am not sure that english isn't a very direct language. On page 2 people explained to me they can't use someones name to avoid social and court problems. Ton of languages like serbian for example, where no one has problems with being super direct about what they think.

I always thought, Warma/hordes had a good and competitive system (Mk II including the Steamroller things)...
But, honestly, I don't think, it's possible to put the 40k ruleset in such a tight frame. It's a much bigger rule complex, with all the factions, sub-factions and allie shenanigans...

I really do think the underlying problem is ITC/FLG wanting to turn 40k into a sports-like thing with world championships, large monetary prizes and "celebrity recognition". That's the first problem. Anything which goes that route becomes incredibly toxic because you get people who aren't invested in the game just want to be the next e-celebrity and get paid to "play games all day".

Karol wrote:
Ok, but from what we are being told here, you can't even put w40k cheaters in US on youtube, because they may just not allow themselfs to be filmed, enhancing the chance of not being caught.

You think "cheaters" should be publically and internarionally named and shamed? Get a grip folks it's a nothing tournament for a nothing hobby. The worst that should happen is a bit of local mockery for being sad enough to do that. Definitely not worth the potential repercussions when you invokethe crazed wrath of nerd culture.

Dai wrote:

Karol wrote:
Ok, but from what we are being told here, you can't even put w40k cheaters in US on youtube, because they may just not allow themselfs to be filmed, enhancing the chance of not being caught.

You think "cheaters" should be publically and internarionally named and shamed? Get a grip folks it's a nothing tournament for a nothing hobby. The worst that should happen is a bit of local mockery for being sad enough to do that. Definitely not worth the potential repercussions when you invokethe crazed wrath of nerd culture.

Why are you posting then? If it's not important to you, then don't complain about how it shouldn't be important to others.