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MVBrandt wrote: 1. CA missions are bad. No. Variety doesn't hurt, unless you implement variety with bad missions.
Well, if that's the case then the playtesters obviously haven't provided sufficient feedback, nor has GW enough data to improve their missions as enough tournaments do not use them...
The same top players continue to do well whether they are playing in NOVA, ITC, or ETC missions and formats around the world.
Then in that case the same skilled players would do well with CA missions as well, and there's no need for these excessive houserules!
I would argue that the "burden of proof" as it were is on the houserule creators, not GW or CA apologists to justify their ruleset. Because changing the mission pack changes the game at it's core and means that a tournament attendee isn't playing the same game as his/her local scene and that effectively creates multiple games, in the same way that changing the rules for lascannons would. It shouldn't be taken lightly and the goal should be to use the common "rulebook rules" unless they are bad enough that change is needed.
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
Data is also showing pretty clearly that the GW missions produce a more balanced environment for all factions compared to ITC.
The game is balanced with those missions and rules in mind, you can't simply change it and then blame GW if your events have crappy balance. If you want your mission packet then you must also take the burden to rebalance units and factions around it.
This year was too going first focused. Maybe the solution is eliminating random deployment types.
Whoever wins the first roll off should get the choice to either
A) Choose the deployment type and what deployment zone they will have.
B) Choose to go first or second.
If you chose A your opponent gets B and vice versa.
In some match ups option A is more important. People may start chosing to give up going first.
Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but refuse. They cling to the realm, or love, or the gods…illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is, but they’ll never know this. Not until it’s too late.
CA2019 should be the default mission set unless there is some good statistical evidence to show it's bad.
House rule mission sets create a barrier for players getting into tournaments and make it harder for GW to balance the game.
The GWGT terrain rules appear to be similar to ITC except that magic boxes count as impassable terrain. Vast improvement right there.
ITC secondaries are bad game design. They attempt to balance things by punishing certain stat lines. This may balance things out at the top tables, but it does so by taking a massive dump on lots of units that would never have seen the top tables.
I would like to see hold 1 and kill 1 eliminated as they are too easy.
Change secondary missions change it from pick 3 to to pick 2 for yourself and 2 for your opponent.
Your army must be able to give up full points on the objectives assigned to an opponent and there may be other requirements. Examples an army without titanic models can not choose titan slayer, 100 models are required for reaper, 15 units for BB, 5 HQ for head hunter, you cannot take recon/king of the hill for yourself and assign it to an opponent.
If you assign a secondary to an opponent and they also choose it then it stacks. Don’t give them an easy secondary.
That would punish imbalanced lists. Castles would be assigned recon.
Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but refuse. They cling to the realm, or love, or the gods…illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is, but they’ll never know this. Not until it’s too late.
I spent way too much time putting together what I would change. So here you go.
Summary of changes:
1. Deployments must have neutral objectives, reroll if they don’t.
2. Allow Sequential Stacking of kill secondaries to discourage spamming unit army archetypes.
3. Reaper changed to wounds and up to 2 wounds per model to give a viable secondary against a new era of 2 wound durable troops.
4. Changed mark for death to powerlevel 6 to grab a whole bunch of marine units. I know considered points but then you end up with 19 model units dodging it and that just feels gamey. I would also not mind removing mark for death altogether as I think sequential stacking of BGH will basically achieve the same thing with less paperwork.
5. Behind enemy lines changed to non-flier battlefield role and end of player turn and changed “wholly” to just “within”. After discussion this was adjusted to 2 units within enemy deployment zone.
6. Made recon more difficult and removed fliers from being able to score it.
7. Changed King of the hill to be player turn so it’s not affected by going first or second.
8. Changed last strike to include a clause if all your opponents stuff is dead you score the point to avoid forcing point farming.
9. Changed Kingslayer to be less brutal against knights.
10. Changed ground control so that it is more equally difficult depending on the mission.
11. Removed Engineers as it fostered stagnant play style.
12. Added secondary that targets stationary gunlines
13. Added secondary that targets soups and marines and weird forgeworld stuff. I only added forgeworld because it would be weird having a relic hunter objective that didn’t reward you for hunting a unit with relic keyword.
14. Changed seize the initiative to modified version voted for on TO page. (At least that was my intent)
15. Made Bonuses similar difficulty to achieve across missions to match mission 6. Essentially, if you control the entire board outside of your enemies deployment zone or control center with unique blend of your own force you will score bonus.
16. Added the ability to burn enemy objectives starting round 2 to all the missions. This is to counter the improvement to “stand somewhere” secondary.
17. No scoring of gang busters against vehicles.
If you want to view and comment on the particulars. The document can be viewed here.
Hearing the ITC guys talk about balancing the secondaries really hammers the point that they are using them to balance the game on top of what GW is trying to do and looking at the results they are generating it's just not working.
I like the direction adepticon is taking with their mission design by varying objective deployment and deployment zones first and then adding some mission wrinkles vs trying to balance the game with secondaries.
I don't think that ITC will move off of what they have though. They are such a big brand now and have a material interest in maintaining their position as a large tournament circuit that is synonymous with their champion mission pack at the moment I'm not sure they cede that leadership position back to GW.
Just LVO using the ITC mission pack is enough to force it on a lot of players for several reasons. Players like being like the "pros", a fair amount of regular tournament players have dreams/goals of attending the LVO so it makes sense to be ready for it and the ITC ranking system is important to a lot of tournament players. I'm not sure how any change is made if it isn't forced onto Frontline by GW (carrot/stick approach - prize support for majors that use GW missions or GW starts their own ITC like organization) or the players (and only the top % of the top % have that kind of pull).
Just throwing this out there but players not knowing the missions and having a variety of missions that make it so skew lists are at a disadvantage goes a long way.
bananathug wrote: Hearing the ITC guys talk about balancing the secondaries really hammers the point that they are using them to balance the game on top of what GW is trying to do and looking at the results they are generating it's just not working.
And your proposals are ?
bananathug wrote: Just LVO using the ITC mission pack is enough to force it on a lot of players for several reasons. Players like being like the "pros", a fair amount of regular tournament players have dreams/goals of attending the LVO so it makes sense to be ready for it and the ITC ranking system is important to a lot of tournament players. I'm not sure how any change is made if it isn't forced onto Frontline by GW (carrot/stick approach - prize support for majors that use GW missions or GW starts their own ITC like organization) or the players (and only the top % of the top % have that kind of pull).
omgosh
Dreams/goals? Dude, there's no qualifier. Thus, Las Vegas OPEN, as opposed to the NOVA invitional. Any clown with an army and a credit card gets in. And any clown would be me.
Dreams: Like I'm an 8 yr old kid pining to be Brandon Grant?
Tickets have been available Right. Up. To. Walk. In. The hardest part is *driving* out to Vegas.
"You can bring any cheesy unit you want. If you lose. Casey taught me that." -Tim S.
"I'm gonna follow Casey; he knows where the beer's at!" -Blackmoor, BAO 2013
vercingatorix wrote: I spent way too much time putting together what I would change. So here you go.
Summary of changes:
1. Deployments must have neutral objectives, reroll if they don’t.
2. Allow Sequential Stacking of kill secondaries to discourage spamming unit army archetypes.
3. Reaper changed to wounds and up to 2 wounds per model to give a viable secondary against a new era of 2 wound durable troops.
4. Changed mark for death to powerlevel 6 to grab a whole bunch of marine units. I know considered points but then you end up with 19 model units dodging it and that just feels gamey. I would also not mind removing mark for death altogether as I think sequential stacking of BGH will basically achieve the same thing with less paperwork.
5. Behind enemy lines changed to non-flier battlefield role and end of player turn and changed “wholly” to just “within”. After discussion this was adjusted to 2 units within enemy deployment zone.
6. Made recon more difficult and removed fliers from being able to score it.
7. Changed King of the hill to be player turn so it’s not affected by going first or second.
8. Changed last strike to include a clause if all your opponents stuff is dead you score the point to avoid forcing point farming.
9. Changed Kingslayer to be less brutal against knights.
10. Changed ground control so that it is more equally difficult depending on the mission.
11. Removed Engineers as it fostered stagnant play style.
12. Added secondary that targets stationary gunlines
13. Added secondary that targets soups and marines and weird forgeworld stuff. I only added forgeworld because it would be weird having a relic hunter objective that didn’t reward you for hunting a unit with relic keyword.
14. Changed seize the initiative to modified version voted for on TO page. (At least that was my intent)
15. Made Bonuses similar difficulty to achieve across missions to match mission 6. Essentially, if you control the entire board outside of your enemies deployment zone or control center with unique blend of your own force you will score bonus.
16. Added the ability to burn enemy objectives starting round 2 to all the missions. This is to counter the improvement to “stand somewhere” secondary.
17. No scoring of gang busters against vehicles.
If you want to view and comment on the particulars. The document can be viewed here.
And if/when the Next Big Thing happens to be good at denying those secondaries in list-building? You get the same as we see now, a normal level of faction imbalance being magnified into a rage-inducing problem for the community.
I looked at the document but decided that commenting in detail on each item is to completely miss the point.
Whatever you do here you are trying to balance the game for the season ahead when you do not know what the game will be in 3 months time - it seems like a fool's errand to me. It is a fundamental flaw of the whole secondaries approach the ITC takes, you will never get away from this while you try to fiddle with little fixes. It is like putting sticking plasters on a major wound - or to be honest it is beginning to feel more like putting lipstick on a pig.
The biggest issue I have with ITC is the secondary objectives and how they are basically "Excel: The Game" that is being played before the match, during the match, and after the match.
In my humble opinion secondaries should just be universal point givers instead of the stilted pre-game play that they are now. There is also some overlap of the secondaries that could be made into a single secondary that gives max 4 points depending on qualifiers instead of being split into esoteric individual secondaries.
Finally, the secondaries tend to create a layer of an unintended meta that GW is in no way taking into accounting or even cares about. GW is not "balancing" their games with Marked for Death in mind or Butcher's Bill or Engineer. These are all extra attributes that create permutations that are never in GW's mind.
So if ITC is serioius about keeping ITC as is they kinda need to make their own point and power level system, and not rely on a studio that is playing a completely different game. Otherwise there will always be armies that tend to be favored more than the other due to how ITC is set up.
I spent way too much time putting together what I would change. So here you go.
Summary of changes:
1. Deployments must have neutral objectives, reroll if they don’t.
2. Allow Sequential Stacking of kill secondaries to discourage spamming unit army archetypes.
3. Reaper changed to wounds and up to 2 wounds per model to give a viable secondary against a new era of 2 wound durable troops.
4. Changed mark for death to powerlevel 6 to grab a whole bunch of marine units. I know considered points but then you end up with 19 model units dodging it and that just feels gamey. I would also not mind removing mark for death altogether as I think sequential stacking of BGH will basically achieve the same thing with less paperwork.
5. Behind enemy lines changed to non-flier battlefield role and end of player turn and changed “wholly” to just “within”. After discussion this was adjusted to 2 units within enemy deployment zone.
6. Made recon more difficult and removed fliers from being able to score it.
7. Changed King of the hill to be player turn so it’s not affected by going first or second.
8. Changed last strike to include a clause if all your opponents stuff is dead you score the point to avoid forcing point farming.
9. Changed Kingslayer to be less brutal against knights.
10. Changed ground control so that it is more equally difficult depending on the mission.
11. Removed Engineers as it fostered stagnant play style.
12. Added secondary that targets stationary gunlines
13. Added secondary that targets soups and marines and weird forgeworld stuff. I only added forgeworld because it would be weird having a relic hunter objective that didn’t reward you for hunting a unit with relic keyword.
14. Changed seize the initiative to modified version voted for on TO page. (At least that was my intent)
15. Made Bonuses similar difficulty to achieve across missions to match mission 6. Essentially, if you control the entire board outside of your enemies deployment zone or control center with unique blend of your own force you will score bonus.
16. Added the ability to burn enemy objectives starting round 2 to all the missions. This is to counter the improvement to “stand somewhere” secondary.
17. No scoring of gang busters against vehicles.
If you want to view and comment on the particulars. The document can be viewed here.
It's an interesting attempt to fix some of the problems of the current rules, particularly in relation to some of the easier secondaries. But I think it fails to address that the secondaries themselves are a significant part of the problem so it feels like it's just papering over the cracks and setting things up for a different type of meta list to find a way to maximise its advantages under the new rules. It also feels symptomatic of the core issue a lot of people have with the ITC rules, especially those who don't play them week-in week-out. Namely, it seems to assume the basic premise of the ITC rules is not the problem, but just the specific execution, while a lot of people are now coming round to the possibility that the core principles of primaries and secondaries set out in the ITC fashion are the core problem. There's a reluctance among a lot of ITC veterans to address those core problems, IMO, to the point where it's just assumed the ITC approach is the best, if only it can be tweaked effectively enough.
I wonder how many people with a strong opinion on this topic have actually played both rule sets recently.
Unless I'm imagining things, until the last CA, objectives could be placed on the top floor of a building under "stock" GW missions (or is this still the case?!). Which obviously leads to problems for say, a Knight list (that is now unable to score any objectives).
Unfortunately, GW release updates to their rulesets relatively slowly and they are unable to adapt on the fly to changing metas (because they want to charge for the updates in books that require printing). ITC on the other hand, can be much more reactive and flexible to emerging metas - their rules updates are free and easily accessible.
On which ruleset is 'better' - this is entirely subjective. It's like asking if you prefer beef or lamb. The rulesets are different, they offer different challenges to overcome and have different strengths and weaknesses. In MY experience the ITC ruleset is far more consistent and leads to much more consistent results (between the same lists, for example) but this can become boring. Comparatively CA missions offer greater flexibility but also less consistency. I like both, for what it's worth.
On whether GW should (or should not) balance around ITC - they absolutely should. Disregarding which particular ruleset you prefer, there are a LOT of people that play ITC missions (like it or not). GW would be foolish to ostracise these players by not balancing around the ruleset that is very popular. Now I'm going to say this next bit in big, bold letters to make it really clear; THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT GW SHOULD NOT OR CANNOT BALANCE AROUND THEIR OWN MISSIONS. I feel like this should be obvious but people seem to miss it all the time. GW should, ideally, balance around both ITC and their own mission set, understanding that one gives insight into a particular type of play while the other gives a different insight. Both can be useful. Both can exist at the same time and help make the game MORE balanced, as a whole.
This leads me to my conclusion - both ITC and GW missions are legitimate. Both deserve to influence balance. Both should continue to exist. I like to play different ways, personally. It keeps the game fresh and exciting for longer.
For the reasons above I don't think the ITC needs to integrate CA missions into it's own nor do I think this would lead to "better balance" (however that is defined).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/07 19:32:09
MVBrandt wrote: 1. CA missions are bad. No. Variety doesn't hurt, unless you implement variety with bad missions.
Well, if that's the case then the playtesters obviously haven't provided sufficient feedback, nor has GW enough data to improve their missions as enough tournaments do not use them...
The same top players continue to do well whether they are playing in NOVA, ITC, or ETC missions and formats around the world.
Then in that case the same skilled players would do well with CA missions as well, and there's no need for these excessive houserules!
We don't put out top quality missions to do favors for top players. You may not understand what motivates us to put on tournaments / conventions. It's very much *not* for people who want to win them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/07 21:07:54
GW can barely balance to their missions, it's crazy to ask them to balance to another set of missions that they have little to no creative control over. Additionally champions missions are designed to add another layer of balance to GW which came off the rails once GW significantly changed the meta.
GW should work to get a balanced set of official GW missions to which they balance.
Dreams/goals of going to LVO is more of a lot of people talk about going to LVO and attend ITC tournaments with a goal of ending up at the LVO but due to real life getting in the way. I'd say a fair percentage of regular ITC players don't get to attend every year. But that means way more people are vested in the mission pack that is going to be used at LVO than just the people that attend. Thousands of players are potential LVO participants and those players want to use the mission pack that will be used at LVO (in my experience). This mass of tournament players makes moving away from what frontline is using at the biggest and best 40k tournament in the world (states?) very difficult and isn't something that should be overlooked.
GW has shown a penchant for shaking up the meta and if frontline is unwilling to change their mission packets several times a year we end up with their additional layer of "balance" further distorting GW made problems (see LVO/marine meta). If frontline moved away from using secondaries to balance the game and more towards using them to provide static mission parameters that allowed all models/armies to perform without at bias towards any construction (no attempt to balance through secondaries) I think the game in general would get to a better place.
More objective based scoring. Less x points for killing y units. Give points for killing in CqC. Using a heavy weapon. Using rapid fire weapons. Capping an objective with characters, elites, heavies. More about scoring points vs denying points would be a good design philosophy. Denying points should be a game play phenomena not a list building step (target priority, when and what to engage, capping objectives vs denying targets). Having mission based tertiary points like burning objective down or controlling objectives in your opponents zone.
There is too much building a list to deny secondaries and not enough building a list to score them.
MVBrandt wrote: 1. CA missions are bad. No. Variety doesn't hurt, unless you implement variety with bad missions.
Well, if that's the case then the playtesters obviously haven't provided sufficient feedback, nor has GW enough data to improve their missions as enough tournaments do not use them...
The same top players continue to do well whether they are playing in NOVA, ITC, or ETC missions and formats around the world.
Then in that case the same skilled players would do well with CA missions as well, and there's no need for these excessive houserules!
We don't put out top quality missions to do favors for top players. You may not understand what motivates us to put on tournaments / conventions. It's very much *not* for people who want to win them.
You haven't explained your reasoning behind why the new CA19 scenarios are bad, despite numerous requests to do so. Care to engage, rather than make sweeping statements?
Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.
Kanluwen wrote: This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.
Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...
tneva82 wrote: You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something...
MVBrandt wrote: 1. CA missions are bad. No. Variety doesn't hurt, unless you implement variety with bad missions.
Well, if that's the case then the playtesters obviously haven't provided sufficient feedback, nor has GW enough data to improve their missions as enough tournaments do not use them...
The same top players continue to do well whether they are playing in NOVA, ITC, or ETC missions and formats around the world.
Then in that case the same skilled players would do well with CA missions as well, and there's no need for these excessive houserules!
We don't put out top quality missions to do favors for top players. You may not understand what motivates us to put on tournaments / conventions. It's very much *not* for people who want to win them.
You haven't explained your reasoning behind why the new CA19 scenarios are bad, despite numerous requests to do so. Care to engage, rather than make sweeping statements?
Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
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An Actual Englishman wrote: I wonder how many people with a strong opinion on this topic have actually played both rule sets recently.
Unless I'm imagining things, until the last CA, objectives could be placed on the top floor of a building under "stock" GW missions (or is this still the case?!). Which obviously leads to problems for say, a Knight list (that is now unable to score any objectives).
Unfortunately, GW release updates to their rulesets relatively slowly and they are unable to adapt on the fly to changing metas (because they want to charge for the updates in books that require printing). ITC on the other hand, can be much more reactive and flexible to emerging metas - their rules updates are free and easily accessible.
On which ruleset is 'better' - this is entirely subjective. It's like asking if you prefer beef or lamb. The rulesets are different, they offer different challenges to overcome and have different strengths and weaknesses. In MY experience the ITC ruleset is far more consistent and leads to much more consistent results (between the same lists, for example) but this can become boring. Comparatively CA missions offer greater flexibility but also less consistency. I like both, for what it's worth.
On whether GW should (or should not) balance around ITC - they absolutely should. Disregarding which particular ruleset you prefer, there are a LOT of people that play ITC missions (like it or not). GW would be foolish to ostracise these players by not balancing around the ruleset that is very popular. Now I'm going to say this next bit in big, bold letters to make it really clear; THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT GW SHOULD NOT OR CANNOT BALANCE AROUND THEIR OWN MISSIONS. I feel like this should be obvious but people seem to miss it all the time. GW should, ideally, balance around both ITC and their own mission set, understanding that one gives insight into a particular type of play while the other gives a different insight. Both can be useful. Both can exist at the same time and help make the game MORE balanced, as a whole.
This leads me to my conclusion - both ITC and GW missions are legitimate. Both deserve to influence balance. Both should continue to exist. I like to play different ways, personally. It keeps the game fresh and exciting for longer.
For the reasons above I don't think the ITC needs to integrate CA missions into it's own nor do I think this would lead to "better balance" (however that is defined).
Fair points and well written, but what about when ITC missions and CA missiosn directly conflict on the balance front? I've not got a direct example off the top of my head but you could end up one day in a scenario where GW missions favour one particular unit or combo but they're never taken in ITC due to enabling too many secondaries. That would put them in a situation where they choose one mission set, but that mission set should definitely be their own first and foremost.
Eihnlazer wrote: Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
I get the theory behind that but I'm not sure it works that way in reality. Plenty of other game systems use a straight-forward W/L/D ranking for tournaments with some sort of VP system as a tie breaker and they seem to work out OK. I'd also argue a larger spread of scores doesn't necessarily lead to more accuracy in determining relative quality. It could lead to situations where early games which are essentially drawn at random have a much greater effect on outcomes than they should as one lucky early draw can see you get a blow-out against a complete novice while other players may get much closer games against more closely matched opponents. It also pre-supposes the final score difference is indicative of the closeness of the game, which isn't always the case either. I think there are too many variables involved in determining the final score difference to hang your hopes on that as a good method for determining how well players did relative to each other.
On whether GW should (or should not) balance around ITC - they absolutely should. Disregarding which particular ruleset you prefer, there are a LOT of people that play ITC missions (like it or not). GW would be foolish to ostracise these players by not balancing around the ruleset that is very popular. Now I'm going to say this next bit in big, bold letters to make it really clear; THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT GW SHOULD NOT OR CANNOT BALANCE AROUND THEIR OWN MISSIONS. I feel like this should be obvious but people seem to miss it all the time. GW should, ideally, balance around both ITC and their own mission set, understanding that one gives insight into a particular type of play while the other gives a different insight. Both can be useful. Both can exist at the same time and help make the game MORE balanced, as a whole.
Under no circumstances should GW be changing points or datasheets for units which are considered a liability in ITC because of the ITC missions. That way lies madness.Absolutely no way should GW try to balance for the ITC missions - which have inherent significant impacts on the internal balance of most codexes.
By all means GW should look at what is currently ridiculous in ITC missions and ask themselves if they are generally ridiculous in which case it may merit a fix. The key difference is that they should only be using observations from ITC to alert them to possible things to address - rather than directly addressing balance in ITC which may well be partly or wholly a result of the ITC missions.
Eihnlazer wrote: Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
I get the theory behind that but I'm not sure it works that way in reality. Plenty of other game systems use a straight-forward W/L/D ranking for tournaments with some sort of VP system as a tie breaker and they seem to work out OK. I'd also argue a larger spread of scores doesn't necessarily lead to more accuracy in determining relative quality. It could lead to situations where early games which are essentially drawn at random have a much greater effect on outcomes than they should as one lucky early draw can see you get a blow-out against a complete novice while other players may get much closer games against more closely matched opponents. It also pre-supposes the final score difference is indicative of the closeness of the game, which isn't always the case either. I think there are too many variables involved in determining the final score difference to hang your hopes on that as a good method for determining how well players did relative to each other.
Not to mention point farming. Unless I am mistaken there is no limit to how many ITC events you can attend in that season, meaning guys can play at two events per weekend sometimes. So you can basically smash seals in the early rounds in multiple tournaments without even winning it and accrue a higher total then a guy that attends less events of the same caliber but wins the entire thing.
Eihnlazer wrote: Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
I get the theory behind that but I'm not sure it works that way in reality. Plenty of other game systems use a straight-forward W/L/D ranking for tournaments with some sort of VP system as a tie breaker and they seem to work out OK. I'd also argue a larger spread of scores doesn't necessarily lead to more accuracy in determining relative quality. It could lead to situations where early games which are essentially drawn at random have a much greater effect on outcomes than they should as one lucky early draw can see you get a blow-out against a complete novice while other players may get much closer games against more closely matched opponents. It also pre-supposes the final score difference is indicative of the closeness of the game, which isn't always the case either. I think there are too many variables involved in determining the final score difference to hang your hopes on that as a good method for determining how well players did relative to each other.
Not to mention point farming. Unless I am mistaken there is no limit to how many ITC events you can attend in that season, meaning guys can play at two events per weekend sometimes. So you can basically smash seals in the early rounds in multiple tournaments without even winning it and accrue a higher total then a guy that attends less events of the same caliber but wins the entire thing.
You are mistaken. You can attend all the events you want, but only the Top 4 or 5 will count towards your score and seal clubbing in small events gets you nothing since the points available are limited based on event size.
OK thanks I wasn't positive and someone explained it to me who didn't know what they were talking about. However, they don't take a weighted average then? Because otherwise there is clear advantages in getting more bites at the apple, that is a smart way to drive up attendance though.
That last part is interesting though, if other events are obviously capable of awarding ITC points with CA missions, then I don't see how that can be used as reasoning as to why they can't make it work themselves. They are obviously entitled to run custom missions all they want anyway, but I am sure they could make the scoring work with CA missions if they wanted to.
Eihnlazer wrote: Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
I get the theory behind that but I'm not sure it works that way in reality. Plenty of other game systems use a straight-forward W/L/D ranking for tournaments with some sort of VP system as a tie breaker and they seem to work out OK. I'd also argue a larger spread of scores doesn't necessarily lead to more accuracy in determining relative quality.
Care to site some?
And 'quality' ? Yeesh, Slipspace.
Slipspace wrote: It could lead to situations where early games which are essentially drawn at random have a much greater effect on outcomes than they should as one lucky early draw can see you get a blow-out against a complete novice while other players may get much closer games against more closely matched opponents. It also pre-supposes the final score difference is indicative of the closeness of the game, which isn't always the case either. I think there are too many variables involved in determining the final score difference to hang your hopes on that as a good method for determining how well players did relative to each other.
Apps like BCP & the ITC mission app report scores, the ITC one, exactly. Or do you mean something else?
Um, this almost reads like, "Having a high score does *not* determine who wins a tourney." Am I reading that wrong?
I'd really like to see/read the ITC naysayers run a CA19 event, or GW card/EW mission event, take some pix, publish them here, brag and point, "Lookie here! You ITC brainwashed! It can be done." Instead of speculation and opinion.
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Eihnlazer wrote: Obviously I don't represent FLG but from my understanding on why the CA missions aren't good for a competitive league is that the scoring metric is too random.
ITC is based off of 42 point max games. You usually score in the 18-33ish point range.
CA missions have scores ranging from 6-26 on average.
For overreaching leagues like the ITC championship, a higher average score is better as it represents an escalating goal towards a final.
The lower your average points are, the more likely you are to get tie's, which you don't want a lot of in a year-long league.
If you were to use CA missions (which are lower scoring) you would have to have an invitational tournament at the end of the year to find a real winner, which by default is a less exciting tournament, as you have more chance of repeat champions at invitationals, and you by definition, have less people attending.
This. good post, sir.
Unless I miss calculated, EW missons 1-3, 5, 6 can score a max of 33, mission 4 can go into the 50s, if circumstances grew absurd. I remember 6e & 7e RTTs where 33 was the max score (even won two myself), but as GTs can climb well passed the 250 attendee mark, the points spread ought to be bigger, to cut the need to look into VPs and such, which the apps are getting better at crunching anyway, but having that high, consistent through out all the missions, 42 points makes it pretty clear who wins.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/02/11 04:58:25
"You can bring any cheesy unit you want. If you lose. Casey taught me that." -Tim S.
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AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
Eldar- 4436 pts
