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.

Okay, starting a new thread for discussion of soft v. hard scoring, particularly as relates to Danny’s statistical analysis of the top ten results of the Yellow and Blue 2010 Adepticon Championship results. He and I have existing differences of opinion, and draw somewhat different conclusions from the data. I’d like to have a polite and constructive discussion, recognizing that I’ve thrown some heat his way in the past, so not putting all the blame on him for any unfriendliness. I’d also like to invite others to participate, as long as we can keep it polite and constructive.

Thanks!

Danny Internets wrote:

"Tournaments". You don't own the word. It's got an established definition, and you don't have the authority to change it. You're the latecomer to the hobby. You can try to change it, but that doesn't mean those of us in it already will go along.

This might be news to you, but the word "tournament" had an established definition before GW started mis-using it. You know, that whole being in the dictionary thing. I'm not changing the word, I'm simply reminding people what it actually means. And how is playing since 2nd edition a latecomer to a hobby? Perhaps you should climb off that high horse before you fall off and hurt yourself.

As has been pointed out to you on repeated occasions, “tournaments”, for hundreds of years, have come in many shapes and sizes, organized in many different ways, and often involving multiple different events and/or scoring criteria. Going back to the dictionary is less directly applicable than looking at how GW tournaments are and have been defined for the past 15 or more years. It’s called context. There is an established culture in the US, as in most other countries, though certainly with much range for variation.

Your attempt to apply a new label to events which do not meet your personal preference is misguided at best. It muddies the waters rather than clarifying them. If you were coming up with a new label for your own preferred type of event, I think people would be open to that. But what you’re doing instead is to try to rename the events OTHER people enjoy. That comes off as aggressive and insulting.

If you’ve been playing since 2nd edition, you’ve probably been playing longer than I have. So my labeling you as a latecomer would seem to be inaccurate. That said, I’m mystified about what seems to be your choice to play ignorant about the existing culture of 40k tournaments in the United States. Maybe you haven’t played in national events much? I only started 40k in 1999, but started going to GTs in 2001. I don’t mean to make this an e-peen measuring contest, but I don’t think your approach is very constructive, and I think you’d get more positive responses if you were more respectful toward the existing scene you’re trying to modify.

Danny Internets wrote:

If you look at the results of an actual event, the score range at the top is normally even tighter. For example, in the 2010 Adepticon Championship blue side, the top eight of us all had perfect Sports scores. On the Yellow side it’s more mixed, but the only guy who’s not within a 3pt spread is actually the overall winner, who more than made up for it in Battle points, proving my point.

OK, let's put this to the test. I created a spreadsheet to analyze the distributions of the data of the top 10 finishers for both the yellow and blue competitions. You can view the spreadsheet here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ak_2KkJADjGNdDdhWktWeUpxX1BXdUtCVThGOEFnT0E&hl=en

I added up all of the soft scores and compared them to the hard scores (battle points) and calculated the ranges, means, and standard deviations (σ) for each sample (not the most sophisticated method, but I'm not busting out mathlab for this). The standard deviations were then weighted according to ratio of possible soft score points (95) versus possible hard score points (135) in order to account for the difference (which is about 29%). Notice that your initial impression of the data that the soft scores had less overall impact on the blue set when compared to the yellow was correct. Also note how significant the soft scoring distribution was for both sets, and how it accounted for almost the same amount of deviance from the mean as battle points did in the yellow set. This completely undermines the argument that it's battle points, not soft scores, that make the difference in tight tournament finishes.

I’d like to invite some more folks with an interest in the math to join us in this discussion, as I do think it’s interesting and may bear useful fruit.

Looking at your numbers, I notice that the range of hard scores on the yellow side is 45pts, and on the blue side it’s 33. In soft scores yellow shows a 26pt range, and blue a 14pt range. So the battles range of points seems to be a bigger deal here. In terms of actual points awarded, Battles represents a larger portion of the range than all the “soft” scores put together. And when you consider that only the Sportsmanship scores are coming from your opponents, the relative difference in importance seems even more dramatic.

There’s also the interesting data point that the top ten on the yellow side are also the top ten, in exactly the same order, in battles scores. The same holds true on the blue side- the top ten finishers, if we completely ignored the soft scores, would be the same top ten finishers, in the exact same order.

Another suggestion I’d like to make for analysis of these numbers- I think you should really be figuring the Quiz (at the Championship, not the Team Tournament) as a Hard score. The Team Tournament quiz was a mix of fluff and rules questions. The one at the Championship is pure core rules knowledge. Every question is multiple choice, and every question has a clear answer in the main 40k rulebook. In my opinion its careful design does make it a valid and objective measure of the player’s knowledge of the actual game rules.

Danny Internets wrote:

As for tight results, anyone who’s actually placed high in one these things knows that it is the nature of the beast that a little luck in one place or another is what really separates the top ten. Virtually any of the top five or ten guys usually could have been the one to win it, with one slightly different table, or a slightly easier opponent in one round, or slightly luckier dice.

Poor reasoning. You can use this same argument to justify deciding the winner of the tournament by a die roll--hey, it's just the nature of the beast. The more luck, subjectivity, and overall bs involved in determining the winner the less the competition was based on skill and therefore less competitive the event was. This is the problem with soft scoring and "competitive" events.

If you don’t want luck involved, your best bet to minimize it is to play Chess. That said, White v. Black is still unbalanced. And draw of opponents (depending on the tournament format) will still be influenced by luck. Even in Chess, with pairings related to established national ranking, you may get lucky and be paired against someone against whose style your style matches up favorably. The variability of tournament tables, of armies, and of player styles and ability, makes luck in draw of table, opposing army, and opposing player an unavoidable variable. You can race yachts in the ocean, but you can’t control the wind and waves.

There’s also the interesting data point that the top ten on the yellow side are also the top ten, in exactly the same order, in battles scores. The same holds true on the blue side- the top ten finishers, if we completely ignored the soft scores, would be the same top ten finishers, in the exact same order.

I hope you're just wondering if this is true, because I just looked at the AdeptiCon 2010 results pages (http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=1486 for yellow, http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=1484 for blue) and that is not true at all. If you sort by battle points it would go 1,4,3,6,2,7,8,5,14,9 in yellow, meaning someone got missed out of the top 10. On blue side it would have gone 1,2,3,5,4,6,7,8,9,12.

Someone double check me on this, but I just had their page sort by battle points only to compare to the sort for overall points.

Deceptive title. I got excited for a second there

TimmyMWD wrote:

There’s also the interesting data point that the top ten on the yellow side are also the top ten, in exactly the same order, in battles scores. The same holds true on the blue side- the top ten finishers, if we completely ignored the soft scores, would be the same top ten finishers, in the exact same order.

I hope you're just wondering if this is true, because I just looked at the AdeptiCon 2010 results pages (http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=1486 for yellow, http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=1484 for blue) and that is not true at all. If you sort by battle points it would go 1,4,3,6,2,7,8,5,14,9 in yellow, meaning someone got missed out of the top 10. On blue side it would have gone 1,2,3,5,4,6,7,8,9,12.

Someone double check me on this, but I just had their page sort by battle points only to compare to the sort for overall points.

Good catch. I was apparently on crack for a minute there. Retracted.

Rephrase: the top ten on each side are still 9/10 the top ten Battles scorers. And the winner of each event was also the highest score in Battle points. While I personally believe that “soft” scores have a place and should impact the results, I believe my previously-expressed point is upheld by these scores. That in competitive events which do have other scoring categories, Battles scores remain the most important single factor, and that they represent a wider spread/variation of points actually scored than the soft scores do, making them more important than a simplistic evaluation of total points available would show.

This might be a bit of a segway but relates to the overall discussion. Take it as you will.

I have results from a series of GTs way back when at the start of 4ed and curious figured I'd look at battle as it related to overall. Not any real scientific analysis so take it however you want. Note that each GT was scored a bit differently so that could be a factor (all had the same categories but points available and other things were different as far as I recall).

Minneapolis GT:
--Overal was won by one of the 3 players tied for top in battle
--Overall winner edged out 2nd place by 4 points (2 from comp and 2 from appearance -- sports and battle was identicle for both).

--Top 10 overall dominated by top battle.
--Order of top battle matches overall (although some ties were broken and a few folks edged out of top 10 overal via soft scores)

Baltimore GT:
--Overall was not won by player with most battle points
--Player with most battle edge out of overall by 9 points.

--Order between overall and battle was different.
--One top 10 in battle was edged out of top 10 in overall by soft scores.

Seattle GT:
--Overall was won by player with most battle points
--Battle was definitely the decider here (15 point differnece between most battle points and the next highest in battle).

--Order between overall and battle was different.
--One top 10 in battle was edged out of top 10 in overall by soft scores.

Atlanta GT
--Overal was won by one of the 2 players tied for top in battle.
--Overall winner edged out the other top battle by 7 points (4 sports, 1 comp, 3 appearance).

--Order between overall and battle was different.
--Two top 10 in battle were edged out of top 10 in overall by soft scores.

LA GT
--Overall was won by player with most battle points

--3 of the top 10 in battle edged out of top 10 overall via soft scores.
--Player with 2nd higest in battle ended up middle of pack in overall due to softscores (he was one of several with the worst comp and his other scores were in the lower percentile).

Your attempt to apply a new label to events which do not meet your personal preference is misguided at best. It muddies the waters rather than clarifying them. If you were coming up with a new label for your own preferred type of event, I think people would be open to that. But what you’re doing instead is to try to rename the events OTHER people enjoy. That comes off as aggressive and insulting.

I'm afraid you have it completely backwards. I'm using the label "hobby event" not for personal preference but for clarity. We are speaking English and it is important to use words as they are defined in English in order to facilitate communication. The word "tournament" has a specific definition that is not satisfied by these hobby events but is satisfied by other events ('Ard Boyz, for example). They are very different events that attract different types of players and award different styles of play (and thereby emphasize, and arguably promote, different gamer "values"). It is important to contrast the two, particularly when discussing the merits of one versus the other. It has nothing to do with personal preference and everything to do with clarity of speech, despite your best attempts to paint the opposite picture.

If you've been playing since 2nd edition, you've probably been playing longer than I have. So my labeling you as a latecomer would seem to be inaccurate. That said, I'm mystified about what seems to be your choice to play ignorant about the existing culture of 40k tournaments in the United States. Maybe you haven't played in national events much? I only started 40k in 1999, but started going to GTs in 2001. I don't mean to make this an e-peen measuring contest, but I don't think your approach is very constructive, and I think you'd get more positive responses if you were more respectful toward the existing scene you're trying to modify.

How am I playing ignorant? I'm addressing head-on the misconception of what a tournament is within the Warhammer community. Just because ignorance of the term has become commonplace does not obligate oneself to participate in that ignorance. As stated previously, I have not participated in GT's because I do not have any interest in hobby events. That's not a judgment, they're just not my thing. If GW (or another organizer) hosted a major tournament I'd make every effort to attend just like I do with 'Ard Boyz. The NOVA Open is another I'm thinking of attending, though traveling far for a single day event is somewhat off-putting.

Looking at your numbers, I notice that the range of hard scores on the yellow side is 45pts, and on the blue side it's 33. In soft scores yellow shows a 26pt range, and blue a 14pt range. So the battles range of points seems to be a bigger deal here. In terms of actual points awarded, Battles represents a larger portion of the range than all the soft scores put together. And when you consider that only the Sportsmanship scores are coming from your opponents, the relative difference in importance seems even more dramatic.

Notice that the possible hard score range is 0-135 and the possible soft score range is 0-95. A larger scale is more likely to show a larger range and higher variance. This skews the variance observed in these separate data sets and for this reason you have to weight the measures of variance in other to compare apples to apples, so to speak. This is appropriate since we are, in part, discussing how much the relative differences between hard and soft scores amongst the highest ranking participants contributes to their overall position.

In the end, we have standard deviations which are close in one case, and extremely close in the other. (If you are unfamiliar, the standard deviation is the most commonly used measurement of spread in statistics and is directly calculated from the variance of a data set.) These data show that the soft scores varied to a similar extent when compared to the hard scores across the top ten finishers of both competitions. Yes, battle points account for a larger portion of the spread, but only by a very small margin in the yellow competition. I would expect the variance to be higher if comp scoring had been in place (due to its more subjective and sometimes even random nature) or if more emphasis was placed on soft scoring, as is the case in many of the GT's this season (SoCal Slaughter, for instance, has 50% soft scoring). In any event, what we have is clear evidence that soft scores have a very significant impact on how overall rankings are determined.

Another suggestion I'd like to make for analysis of these numbers- I think you should really be figuring the Quiz (at the Championship, not the Team Tournament) as a Hard score.

If it wasn't quantified by the games played then it's not a hard score, at least by every definition of "hard score" and "soft score" that I've ever encountered. In the context of this particular discussion it makes even less sense since we're talking primarily about how the tournament contributes to the overall scoring versus everything else.

If you don't want luck involved, your best bet to minimize it is to play Chess.

Wouldn't it be more constructive to talk about how the system can be improved (which it can be) rather than simply dismiss every criticism that suggests change? Luck is built into 40k, but there's no reason to also build it into tournament structure. The more nonsense included in scoring the less application of skill matters to outcomes and the greater (and more valid) complaints about events not being competitive will be.

Mannahnin wrote:The Team Tournament quiz was a mix of fluff and rules questions. The one at the Championship is pure core rules knowledge. Every question is multiple choice, and every question has a clear answer in the main 40k rulebook. In my opinion its careful design does make it a valid and objective measure of the player’s knowledge of the actual game rules.

In my opinion the quiz is a stupid addition to any tournament, I don't go to them to take tests, I go to play and see/display painted armies. I don't think obscure knowledge about fluff sections has any bearing on the game at all. I can't stand questions that derive from universe lore in books, I don't like the warhammer books, I don;t read any of it, so why should that be a penalty to my chances at overall?

I don't think it's a hard score, I thinks it's a complete waste of time. If sports scores, and comp scores are of controversial concern then what place does a quiz have?

Danny Internets wrote:...and the greater (and more valid) complaints about events not being competitive will be.

Doesn't winterman's post above (as well as TimmyMWD's breakdown of the same thing for Adepticon) show that these events are competitive? Top 10 in battle points almost always making up the full top 10 overall (only 1 or 2 missing out at times), and the top battle score almost always winning the tournament.

Danny Internets wrote:How am I playing ignorant? I'm addressing head-on the misconception of what a tournament is within the Warhammer community. Just because ignorance of the term has become commonplace does not obligate oneself to participate in that ignorance. As stated previously, I have not participated in GT's because I do not have any interest in hobby events. That's not a judgment, they're just not my thing. If GW (or another organizer) hosted a major tournament I'd make every effort to attend just like I do with 'Ard Boyz. The NOVA Open is another I'm thinking of attending, though traveling far for a single day event is somewhat off-putting.

The problem with this definition it that is it new on the scene. 'Tournament' in the GW realm always meant the classic RTT system and included painting and eventually sportsmanship. In this new era of internet 'competitiveness' the hardcore want to reclaim the word and hold it to a new/different standard - thus the division in how people view events.

I have no issues what-so-ever with pure Battle events. I think they have just as much place as anything else. What I take issue with is people trying to redefine events so they have something to complain about. The current 'competitive' environment is toxic as all hell and an event like AdeptiCon is stuck in the middle. We existed long before everyone and their mother got blogspot accounts and really could care less about 'true/hardcore competition' outside the friendly realm. We are, and will continue to be, a social event first and foremost, a celebration of the hobby second and somewhere after that (not necessarily third) a friendly competition. I have explained this to people time and time again only to find them complaining that AdeptiCon is not 'competitive'. Huh?

AdeptiCon IS a hobby event. AdeptiCon IS an RTT/GT in the classic GW sense. AdeptiCon is also much, much, much, much more than 1 or 2 40K events. Does that mean we will never accommodate a more competitive environment? Not at all - although I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that is very eager to given the way in which the event is lambasted and smeared for not being what you want. Not once has someone on this side of the fence contacted us directly and offered to spearhead an event of that nature at the convention. Not once. Every single event at the convention is run by a fellow gamer, every single event has a champion and the success of those events is directly proportional to their involvement. I am 100% positive you don't want me running a hyper-competitive event and I am 100% I won't. So who will?

I truly hope an event like the NOVA Open or something like a YTHCon does well - there is a massive hole in the scene right now in regards to that type of event - just quit trying to make us be that event. We are not interested.

It depends on the context in which you're talking about competitiveness. If many competitive players look at the event, balk at the wacky scenarios and the fact that soft scores make up 41% of the scoring, and don't bother to attend then how competitive is it really (on a community level)? Sure, the people who attended competed fiercely, but is that a good measure of the quality of competitiveness? Two six-year-olds might compete as hard as they can in a foot race but can anyone with a straight face say that this contest is as competitive as the 100 meter dash in the Olympics?

Indeed, the event is competitive, but the competition isn't about deciding who plays 40k best that day, but who is the most well-rounded hobbyist (hence the term "hobby competition").

RiTides It proves that gamers that have enough time to get good at 40k and travel to events also value painting and sportsmanship.

the same people win the hard only and soft events.

it isn't like there is a seperate group of people that rock all the hard events and always loss the soft events.
the fact is most gamers prefer soft scored events over hard scored events.
When I play hard boys my only recourse when playing a tool box is to return the favor.
there are plenty of jerks in anything you do. the softscores discourage the jerks from coming out.

both are just as competitive the difference one is a triatholon which most are decided in the the foot race. the other is just a marathon.

Danny Internets wrote:

Your attempt to apply a new label to events which do not meet your personal preference is misguided at best. It muddies the waters rather than clarifying them. If you were coming up with a new label for your own preferred type of event, I think people would be open to that. But what you’re doing instead is to try to rename the events OTHER people enjoy. That comes off as aggressive and insulting.

I'm afraid you have it completely backwards. I'm using the label "hobby event" not for personal preference but for clarity.

bs. Complete unadulterated bs.

A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:

ne or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
A competition involving multiple matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament

S: (n) tournament, tourney (a sporting competition in which contestants play a series of games to decide the winner)

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tournament

Golf tournament, shooting tournament, poker tournament, monopoly tournament they are all tournaments. Some are purely objective -golf, some have judges giving points: diving, gymnastics, etc. etc. all are tournaments.

You can debate the merits of including solf scores and the methodolgy therein, but seriously, cut the crap already.
This is the historical style for these tournaments. They've been styled as tournaments since 2nd ed. Put on your big girl panties on quit trying to snow us with bs. Only you and your two best friends are buying it.

I have no issues with that at all.

AdeptiCon IS a Hobby Competition. Period. Always has, always will be.

RiTides wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:...and the greater (and more valid) complaints about events not being competitive will be.

Doesn't winterman's post above (as well as TimmyMWD's breakdown of the same thing for Adepticon) show that these events are competitive? Top 10 in battle points almost always making up the full top 10 overall (only 1 or 2 missing out at times), and the top battle score almost always winning the tournament.

Yep.

Danny Internets wrote:I'm afraid you have it completely backwards. I'm using the label "hobby event" not for personal preference but for clarity. We are speaking English and it is important to use words as they are defined in English in order to facilitate communication. The word "tournament" has a specific definition that is not satisfied by these hobby events but is satisfied by other events ('Ard Boyz, for example).

I understand the intention you have expressed, but I have to reiterate that “Tournament” is a word with a lot of different real-world meanings. And that it applies equally well to GTs with soft scores as it does to those without. I maintain that attempting to limit the use of the word “tournament” as applied to GW events in an exclusionary manner, as you are doing, is fundamentally counterproductive. It creates division rather than clarity. It communicates a sense of “us vs. them” rather than a unified hobby. And you are never going to get the level of widespread adoption you would need to actually make your chosen application of labels any clearer than the current state.

Danny Internets wrote:I'm addressing head-on the misconception of what a tournament is within the Warhammer community. Just because ignorance of the term has become commonplace does not obligate oneself to participate in that ignorance. As stated previously, I have not participated in GT's because I do not have any interest in hobby events.

So you do not participate in these events, but you wish to change the terminology applied to describe them. And you don’t see a problem inherent to this idea? You are coming from the outside and attempting to change what we call our events, based on theory and quasi-applicable real world definitions, rather than experience with the existing culture, and without the buy-in of the people who presently participate in these events. You can’t make friends or win agreement that way.

Danny Internets wrote:Notice that the possible hard score range is 0-135 and the possible soft score range is 0-95. A larger scale is more likely to show a larger range and higher variance. This skews the variance observed in these separate data sets and for this reason you have to weight the measures of variance in other to compare apples to apples, so to speak. This is appropriate since we are, in part, discussing how much the relative differences between hard and soft scores amongst the highest ranking participants contributes to their overall position.

Okay. And the actual range of scores, as I’ve previously stated, shows more accurately the relative importance. So with Battle, in the Blue event, we have a range of actual scores for the entire event from 1 to 128. An 128pt range. In the other scores taken as a whole, the lowest actual total awarded is 43, and the highest is 87. So that’s an actual range of 44pts. Battle shows a variation almost three times that of the non-battle scores.

Danny Internets wrote:

Another suggestion I'd like to make for analysis of these numbers- I think you should really be figuring the Quiz (at the Championship, not the Team Tournament) as a Hard score.

If it wasn't quantified by the games played then it's not a hard score, at least by every definition of "hard score" and "soft score" that I've ever encountered. In the context of this particular discussion it makes even less sense since we're talking primarily about how the tournament contributes to the overall scoring versus everything else.

I disagree with both of your premises. First, given that you don’t attend these events, your personal experience of what constitutes a “hard” vs a “soft” score is not convincing evidence. Quizzes like the one in the Adepticon Championship are not a widespread feature of GW tournaments to the best of my knowledge, and deserve consideration on their own merits, independent of the judge’s prior lack of experience with them. Second, a quiz on the core game rulebook rules (not codices, not supplements) seems to me an eminently objective measure of a player’s knowledge of the game. And possibly a more objective measure of their skill at the game than their Battles score.

Danny Internets wrote:Wouldn't it be more constructive to talk about how the system can be improved (which it can be) rather than simply dismiss every criticism that suggests change?

This is why I’m talking to you. I think you are an intelligent person capable of making constructive suggestions and participating usefully in the tournament scene. I’m not going to dismiss all of your criticisms, but I’d like to address the ones which seem to me to be based on misconceptions, inexperience, and flawed reasoning, so we can get them out of the way, and hopefully not have such heated disagreements.

I am a competitive gamer. I am not the best in the world, but I’m no slouch. I have demonstrated some little success both in soft-scored and non soft-scored events. Speaking from experience, both can be and usually are competitive. And the events with soft scores usually better represent the hobby and better ensure an enjoyable experience for as many participants as possible.

Danny Internets wrote:

If you don't want luck involved, your best bet to minimize it is to play Chess.

Luck is built into 40k, but there's no reason to also build it into tournament structure. The more nonsense included in scoring the less application of skill matters to outcomes and the greater (and more valid) complaints about events not being competitive will be.

Luck is an unavoidable factor, though I agree that efforts to reduce its impact can be good ideas. Your choice to apply the word “nonsense” to describe some categories of scoring is provocative and unproductive, and prompts me to ask how you ever expect to get a respectful audience if you denigrate preferences other than your own?

I don't get the angst. People should run events as they see fit.

There's a significant hobby portion to the NOVA Open as well ... we're just trying to emphasize the separate but equal nature of "competitive" vs. "soft." That doesn't mean some of the guys who go 4-0 and win top commander awards won't also be in competition for soft awards.

I covered my experience of the Adepticon 1850 40k championships at http://whiskey40k.com in a recent post there ... I think the problem is not that Battle Points are not winning events, but that events do not pare down to clear winners. There were numerous successful "clear win" undefeated finishers at the 1850 championships who never go to play off against each other, so it leaves the event subject to interpretation and question regarding pairings, difficult challenges, etc. All Adepticon needs to do is consider not calling them "Championships" or making sure they clearly brand it as a hobby-level, fun event - which it WAS! I greatly enjoyed it.

Danny Internets - for what it's worth, the 8 people (across fantasy/40k) who go undefeated in 4 rounds will get a marginal 2nd day to their event, so travel out here and have at it

Danny Internets wrote:It depends on the context in which you're talking about competitiveness. If many competitive players look at the event, balk at the wacky scenarios and the fact that soft scores make up 41% of the scoring, and don't bother to attend then how competitive is it really (on a community level)? Sure, the people who attended competed fiercely, but is that a good measure of the quality of competitiveness? Two six-year-olds might compete as hard as they can in a foot race but can anyone with a straight face say that this contest is as competitive as the 100 meter dash in the Olympics?

Indeed, the event is competitive, but the competition isn't about deciding who plays 40k best that day, but who is the most well-rounded hobbyist (hence the term "hobby competition").

it has been shown that the people with the most battle points win!!!!!!! you continue to ignore this. the people on the top of soft tourneys are the same that on top of hard tourneys. there is no mystery pool of uber gamers that can beat anyone but choice not to go to events because they hate soft scores.

Augustus wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:The Team Tournament quiz was a mix of fluff and rules questions. The one at the Championship is pure core rules knowledge. Every question is multiple choice, and every question has a clear answer in the main 40k rulebook. In my opinion its careful design does make it a valid and objective measure of the player’s knowledge of the actual game rules.

In my opinion the quiz is a stupid addition to any tournament, I don't go to them to take tests, I go to play and see/display painted armies. I don't think obscure knowledge about fluff sections has any bearing on the game at all. I can't stand questions that derive from universe lore in books, I don't like the warhammer books, I don;t read any of it, so why should that be a penalty to my chances at overall?

I don't think it's a hard score, I thinks it's a complete waste of time. If sports scores, and comp scores are of controversial concern then what place does a quiz have?

Hey Augustus, did you not read the section you quoted? Where I specifically stated that the Team Tournament was a mix of fluff and rules, and described how the Championship quiz was utterly different?

So, two different things-

Championship quiz: Pure core book rules. I think straight core book rules knowledge is a desirable quality in any gamer, and I think it’s fun and appropriate to test and reward it.

Team Tournament: Mix of fluff and obscure rules, particularly less-used units from different armies. I can respect that you don’t like quizzes. I’m not a big fan of GW fiction either, and only mildly enjoy fluff quizzes. But I don’t mind the fluff quiz in the Team Tournament. If we’re given extra points for having matching t-shirts or dice, for having a banner or a team song, and for matching our armies to a Black Library book story, then I don’t think the TT quiz is out of place. It’s all for fun.

A tournament is just a competition with rules. What the rules are and how they're scored is not what is important.

If painting bothers you so much, try considering it the first round of the tournament, the painting competition. So it's subjective, whatever. They judge showmanship in some games/sports.

If comp bothers you so much, consider it handicapping, or difficulty scoring, such as in a pro-am golf tournament or things like figure skating or freestyle skiing aerials.

If sportsmanship bothers you so much...well, that one is harder, mainly because of chipmunking. Making gentlemanly behavior a requirement of the tournament doesn't invalidate it as a tournament, it's just part of the scoring. Measuring it poorly doesn't even invalidate it, it just changes the game you're playing (not just the miniatures, but your opponents attitude, your chipmunking methods, whatever).

No matter how much you hate all of these different aspects, it doesn't make it not a tournament, it's just a tournament with rules and scoring you don't like.

The big problem for most people is that unlike figure skating or aerials there is a way to run a Warhammer tournament that is completely objective...my grey plastic army against yours in a no holds barred deathmatch, winner is declared master strategist of the hobby game. And that is fine, they run it every year as the 'Ard Boyz. The rest may be unnecessary for a tournament, but it doesn't make it not a tournament.

Also - it is very important to know that we do listen to our attendees. I put a survey in the this year's Team Tournament packet with a number of question regarding that particular event, the convention and the general state of 40K. Out of 436 players we got 416 back and as a result of those surveys we will be making some changes to various events. There already has been a considerable amount of excellent discussion in regards to cleaning up some events, making events easier to manage and even adding a tablespoon or two of 'competitiveness' back into the mix. None of this is stone yet, but some ideas we have been looking at/considering based on feedback and discussions are:

1. Moving the Championships to Friday night. Make it a 4-round qualifier where the top players (12, 24, not sure) go on to play in a 3-round event on Sunday. Gladiator moves to Sunday and continues to be a goofy, over-the-top event like it was always intended to be.
2. Dropping Forge World/IA from the Team Tournament.
3. Providing dice to all attendees.
4. Removing the 0/3 comp score from the Team Tournament (something I advocated last year - but it slipped through the cracks).
5. Moving to a majority strikes method for Sportsmanship. That is, results sheets will only have two sportsmanship options. Sort of a flag/reward system. If a particular player receives a majority of negative marks, that is 3 in a 4 round event, then they would receive a penalty to their overall score. Rewards would not be worth any point towards overall, but would instead solely determine Best Sportsman.

Those all sound pretty good. I particularly like 1 & 2!

5 is pretty solid too, though I like the idea of a small points bump for favorite opponent votes. You just need to include it as a mandatory field on the final results sheet.

Matthias wrote:
1. Moving the Championships to Friday night. Make it a 4-round qualifier where the top players (12, 24, not sure) go on to play in a 3-round event on Sunday. Gladiator moves to Sunday and continues to be a goofy, over-the-top event like it was always intended to be.
2. Dropping Forge World/IA from the Team Tournament.
3. Providing dice to all attendees.
4. Removing the 0/3 comp score from the Team Tournament (something I advocated last year - but it slipped through the cracks).
5. Moving to a majority strikes method for Sportsmanship. That is, results sheets will only have two sportsmanship options. Sort of a flag/reward system. If a particular player receives a majority of negative marks, that is 3 in a 4 round event, then they would receive a penalty to their overall score. Rewards would not be worth any point towards overall, but would instead solely determine Best Sportsman.

Wow those all sound great to me. Well done! Looking forward to next year!

To clarify: there would be 3 options technically for #5. You can simply opt to call the game average and not reward or flag your opponent.

One idea was to award a small number of points for a perfect set of rewards - 4 checks in a 4 round tournament. Something like 10-20 points max. I think that has merit.

It stops any single individual from chipmunking a game. In essence 75% of your opponents would have to work together to dock you points. The reality of that happening...

It still gives the players a voice and allows us to know what tables need an extra set of eyes as the tournament goes on.

Danny Internets wrote:It depends on the context in which you're talking about competitiveness. If many competitive players look at the event, balk at the wacky scenarios and the fact that soft scores make up 41% of the scoring, and don't bother to attend then how competitive is it really (on a community level)? Sure, the people who attended competed fiercely, but is that a good measure of the quality of competitiveness? Two six-year-olds might compete as hard as they can in a foot race but can anyone with a straight face say that this contest is as competitive as the 100 meter dash in the Olympics?

The only Measure of Quality of competitiveness is the level of competition between the attendees. If you had your two six-year-olds competing in the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, OR Usain Bolt competing against his neighbor's six year old daughter you would have a more persuasive argument for a Non-contest, and thus a non-competitive entry or event.

You are attempting to use the level of competition at an event to make assertions about a community that the event does not represent. This is skewed. Your analysis of the spread of impact of soft scores versus battle points was also skewed, as you only looked at the top 10 finishers, rather than a random sample from the group. It is fair to consider that the top 10 finishers were all competing with a similar understanding of the event they were attempting to win. If you looked at the entire population (via a non-biased sample) you might be able to make better assertions regarding both the spread of "soft" scores and their impact upon the event.

Matthias wrote:Also - it is very important to know that we do listen to our attendees. I put a survey in the this year's Team Tournament packet with a number of question regarding that particular event, the convention and the general state of 40K. Out of 436 players we got 416 back and as a result of those surveys we will be making some changes to various events. There already has been a considerable amount of excellent discussion in regards to cleaning up some events, making events easier to manage and even adding a tablespoon or two of 'competitiveness' back into the mix. None of this is stone yet, but some ideas we have been looking at/considering based on feedback and discussions are:

1. Moving the Championships to Friday night. Make it a 4-round qualifier where the top players (12, 24, not sure) go on to play in a 3-round event on Sunday. Gladiator moves to Sunday and continues to be a goofy, over-the-top event like it was always intended to be.
2. Dropping Forge World/IA from the Team Tournament.
3. Providing dice to all attendees.
4. Removing the 0/3 comp score from the Team Tournament (something I advocated last year - but it slipped through the cracks).
5. Moving to a majority strikes method for Sportsmanship. That is, results sheets will only have two sportsmanship options. Sort of a flag/reward system. If a particular player receives a majority of negative marks, that is 3 in a 4 round event, then they would receive a penalty to their overall score. Rewards would not be worth any point towards overall, but would instead solely determine Best Sportsman.

Those sound excellent. plus I might actualy be able to attend next year. Hurray!

Buttercup wrote:It depends on the context in which you're talking about competitiveness. If many competitive players look at the event, balk at the wacky scenarios and the fact that soft scores make up 41% of the scoring, and don't bother to attend then how competitive is it really (on a community level)? Sure, the people who attended competed fiercely, but is that a good measure of the quality of competitiveness? Two six-year-olds might compete as hard as they can in a foot race but can anyone with a straight face say that this contest is as competitive as the 100 meter dash in the Olympics?

Indeed, the event is competitive, but the competition isn't about deciding who plays 40k best that day, but who is the most well-rounded hobbyist (hence the term "hobby competition").

Buttercup, you still haven't shown us this massive group of competitive players not showing up to events because of the soft scores. Adepticon sold out a 240 person 40k event with all the soft scores you so despise and there were over 400 players in the Team Tournament.

So c'mon, show us this legion of disaffected competitive gamers. Otherwise, you are talking out of your rear-end and spamming tournament threads with nonsense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Matthias wrote:Also - it is very important to know that we do listen to our attendees. I put a survey in the this year's Team Tournament packet with a number of question regarding that particular event, the convention and the general state of 40K. Out of 436 players we got 416 back and as a result of those surveys we will be making some changes to various events. There already has been a considerable amount of excellent discussion in regards to cleaning up some events, making events easier to manage and even adding a tablespoon or two of 'competitiveness' back into the mix. None of this is stone yet, but some ideas we have been looking at/considering based on feedback and discussions are:

1. Moving the Championships to Friday night. Make it a 4-round qualifier where the top players (12, 24, not sure) go on to play in a 3-round event on Sunday. Gladiator moves to Sunday and continues to be a goofy, over-the-top event like it was always intended to be.
2. Dropping Forge World/IA from the Team Tournament.
3. Providing dice to all attendees.
4. Removing the 0/3 comp score from the Team Tournament (something I advocated last year - but it slipped through the cracks).
5. Moving to a majority strikes method for Sportsmanship. That is, results sheets will only have two sportsmanship options. Sort of a flag/reward system. If a particular player receives a majority of negative marks, that is 3 in a 4 round event, then they would receive a penalty to their overall score. Rewards would not be worth any point towards overall, but would instead solely determine Best Sportsman.

All of these are cool but I'm torn on #3 (especially #2, damn Hades Breaching Drills!!). I really don't think this is a big deal and I'd rather not pay more to have more dice that I really don't need.

The attempt to find a clear winner is one of the reasons BoLSCon is 7 rounds instead of the generally accepted 5 rounds. 7 rounds gives us a theoretical true winner from 128 competitors, unlike the true winner for 32 competitors given in 5 rounds. Because the system isn't binary, we could theoretically end up with a player with 7 low wins placing behind a player with 2 narrow losses and 5 high wins, (or even 4 and 3), but that is not what we saw last year. Our overall was 6-1, and beat the player that he lost to on the final table (who then finished 3rd in battle points).

Our top 2 finishers also had the most battle points; our third in battle points finished 6th overall, because his army was essentially just primed (which would have kept him from competing in just about any other tourney).

The range in sportsmanship points for the top 50% of the field was less than the value of a single secondary objective in one round. The top 10 finishers had a total variation of 6 points - 2/3 of a tertiary objective.

The range in painting, throwing out the primed and unpainted scores (who again, could not have even participated anywhere else) is less than HALF a single tertiary objective over the top 50% of the field.

The quiz scores had almost no variation, with almost every participant scoring 11 or 12.

@Matthias - those sound great - another idea for sports is to have people rank their opponents 1-5 also and give a bonus based on that. Seemed to work well at a tourney in CO recently as I understand it.

As a general comment - a tournament is what the tournament organizers want it to be. Some people keep wanting to force all 40K tournaments to be what they want - and are trying to political reference it down our throats. Not everyone wants that. Wish the spewage would stop that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Nothing is wrong with having both type of events. NOTHING

In regards to Adepticon as a whole - VERY well run tournament - Jobz a Gud Un!

In response to Winterman's post, in order for this argument to hold water it requires some cherry-picking of tournaments. I'd very much like to see the full sets of results for those tournaments in order to do a more in-depth analysis, since several of these examples don't provide numbers, just claims that they were "dominated" by high BP scorers and so on.

I spent a few minutes doing my own research and found several recent tournaments from the indy GT circuit that show people winning hobby events by virtue of their soft scores rather than their battle points:

Broadside Bash 2010 (53% soft scoring)
1st place had 4th highest battle points

Mechanicon 2009 (59% soft scoring)
1st place had 4th highest battle points
5th place had 2nd highest battle points
8th place had 3rd highest battle points

Gottacon 2010
1st place had 3rd highest battle points

Toywiz Conflict GT
8th place had 2nd highest battle points

You can debate the merits of including solf scores and the methodolgy therein, but seriously, cut the crap already.

No need to get all emotional, Frazzled, this is just a simple discussion. If you'd read the definition you provided you'd notice that a tournament is a SERIES of competitions. Series as in completed SERIALLY. It should be obvious that this refers to the games that are played serially. Painting, comp, and so on all exist outside of this series and thus function in addition to the tournament. When the winner of the "tournament" is decided in part (and even in majority) by non-tournament scoring then you no longer have a tournament, but a new kind of event. Hence, the term "hobby competition." Nothing wrong with that, it's just not a tournament. It's a tournament + other stuff. The winner of the tournament is not necessarily the winner of the hobby competition, as in the examples provided above.

I maintain that attempting to limit the use of the word “tournament” as applied to GW events in an exclusionary manner, as you are doing, is fundamentally counterproductive. It creates division rather than clarity. It communicates a sense of “us vs. them” rather than a unified hobby.

In order to illustrate differences you must use contrast. Contrast, by definition, creates division. I understand that you take offense at this, but there's really no reason to. There is no value judgment attached to the term. I'm sorry you don't like it, but I find it the most precise way of differentiating between the two types of events and will continue to use it. Even Matthias agrees that it is an accurate description of these events, and Adepticon is closer to a true tournament than many others.

So you do not participate in these events, but you wish to change the terminology applied to describe them. And you don’t see a problem inherent to this idea? You are coming from the outside and attempting to change what we call our events, based on theory and quasi-applicable real world definitions, rather than experience with the existing culture, and without the buy-in of the people who presently participate in these events. You can’t make friends or win agreement that way.

I don't really care if you adopt a more accurate (in terms of English) terminology for your hobby competitions. I have no interest in winning any Dakka popularity contests. I'm simply here to present a reasoned argument for a more precise way of describing our "tournament" scene. Perhaps by realizing that we don't really have much in the way of tournaments that might encourage people to push for a more diverse event scene that respects a wider variety of play-styles rather than catering exclusively to the well-rounded hobbyist.

I disagree with both of your premises. First, given that you don’t attend these events, your personal experience of what constitutes a “hard” vs a “soft” score is not convincing evidence.

Quit grasping as straws. I don't have to get wet to know it's raining. I used to play in a lot of RTTs back when they still existed and they featured analogous scoring with painting, sportsmanship, comp, and even quizzes. I'm no stranger to the event, and even if I was it wouldn't prevent me from analyzing the results and understanding the scoring system.

Ozymandias wrote:All of these are cool but I'm torn on #3 (especially #2, damn Hades Breaching Drills!!). I really don't think this is a big deal and I'd rather not pay more to have more dice that I really don't need.

Of all those that is one we are the fence the most about. *If* we can work out a good deal with a vendor, we might consider this. I don't think dice cheating is that much of an issue given our conduct policy - we would be approaching it from the coolness/swag factor first - if we can work that out then we can roll it into the general tournament changes. Like I said, nothing in stone...