you're saying that a HWK, X-Wing, and Advanced are all worth the same assuming the final cost of each is the same.

That's.... fundamental to any scoring system. When you kill the ship then you score however many points it costs. All partial points does is make it a linear sliding scale instead of a sudden cliff.

I'm running a small tournament this weekend so I may do that. It's a very small sample size and not exactly a Regionals-level caliber event though.

But just keeping the data isn't the same thing. People would not change their lists unless it was going to make a difference in a win or loss. Only then will the answer appear. If every shot counted (no halfsies, please), it would make a difference.

...and even if it would only effect 20% of the games, does that mean only 20% of the players would make the change? Or would it be more?

Run your tournament but have sides note remaining shield/hull for ships so that someone can use that information later to see what various partial scoring systems would have done.

Part of the problem with this approach...and the approach to see exactly how many matches would it affect overall...is that it doesn't account the psychological effect it would have on the meta. Look at the Phantom nerf. Yes, it weakened them, but it's not like they are bad options now. Still, how many Phantoms do you still see in tournament play? They are almost gone and replaced by Soontir Fel. So, while they didn't get that bad, the effect on the meta was huge. You might quantify how many games would be effected, but it might have a greater impact than the actual numbers if it happens.

Changing the whole thing would have a greater impact but how could you measure the impact with no place to judge it from? You would just be changing one demon for another. Unless you are saying EVERYONE is playing to take full advantage of the current scoring system taking a look at the "what ifs" should grant insight into what changes would actual mean without actually changing the environment.

Oh, the Phantom change is an ACTUAL change to how the GAME is played and not just a reflection on how it is scored. It is IMPOSSIBLE to play a pre-change Phantom list the same way one would be played post change. It IS possible to play the exact same game under different scoring systems to see how scoring might change the outcome. It seems most PP advocates don't worry when games are completed and if you're playing to win it doesn't matter how it is scored. I believe the information from PP being applied to these complete games would say a lot more than those times it is applied to a game going to time although it could affect the actual winner/loser of those games.

I find it odd that the first tiebreaker isn't simply the combined opponents win percentage. As you reach 5 rounds or more, the numbers are likely going to be different enough that even if current MOV is left alone and just moved to second tiebreaker it won't matter often enough.

The old system used Strength of Schedule, the problem is that if someone dropped then your tiebreakers were hosed. SoS is now the 2nd tiebreaker. Calculating a percentage rather than points is an interesting idea, and would be better than straight up points, but SoS matters so infrequently now that it doesn't really matter.

It's my understanding that it was not uncommon for people to drop after the first or second round if they had been losing at some of the larger tournaments. Once they no longer had a chance to make the cut they were done for the day which would adversely affect the people who had beat them.

I find it odd that the first tiebreaker isn't simply the combined opponents win percentage. As you reach 5 rounds or more, the numbers are likely going to be different enough that even if current MOV is left alone and just moved to second tiebreaker it won't matter often enough.

The old system used Strength of Schedule, the problem is that if someone dropped then your tiebreakers were hosed. SoS is now the 2nd tiebreaker. Calculating a percentage rather than points is an interesting idea, and would be better than straight up points, but SoS matters so infrequently now that it doesn't really matter.

It only matters so infrequently because MoV is the primary method of breaking ties. Swap the two, and see how that affects the meta. Very small change that takes away the MoV tiebreakers.

It won't fix the problem of a 1 hull 60 point ship winning games based on MoV, but you could change that to % damage dealt. Add up shields + hull remaining and divide that by total starting shields + hull.

R2D2 (astromech) and IG88A get a slight boost in value, and it's likely that BBBBZ would too.

Going back to any form of SoS as the primary tiebreaker is a bad idea.

Going back to any form of SoS as the primary tiebreaker is a bad idea.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Magic, Pokemon, and Warmachine all use SoS as the primary tiebreaker.

Warmachine is closer than the TCGs, on page 11 of their Steamroller Rules it states:

"7. Final Standings Variants BASELINE – If there is no clear winner at the end of the tournament, break the tie based first on strength of schedule, then on control points, then on army points destroyed."

Further on the page - "Large Event Scoring – Players dropping out of an event can adversely affect their opponents’ strength of schedule. Large event scoring calculates a player’s strength of schedule using fractions instead of raw tournament points and makes adjustments for a player who drops out with no wins to mitigate the impact on their opponent’s rating. The top number of the fraction is the number of games the player won during the event, and the bottom number is the number of rounds in the event. For a player who drops out, the top number is the number of wins at the time of drop, or 1 if a player has no wins. The bottom number is still the total number of rounds in the event. Example: In a five-round event, Dwight’s opponents were Trevor, who went 4-1 (4/5 = 0.8); Jay, who went 3-2 (3/5 = 0.6); Scott, who dropped out with 2 wins (2/5 = 0.4); and Steve, who dropped out with 0 wins, which is adjusted to 1 win (1/5 = 0.2). Dwight’s strength of schedule is 0.8 + 0.6 + 0.4 + 0.2 = 2."

Going back to any form of SoS as the primary tiebreaker is a bad idea.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Magic, Pokemon, and Warmachine all use SoS as the primary tiebreaker.

I'm not really familiar with any of those games.

How often do players drop?

And what other scoring methods could you use? Points is convenient in X-wing because you build to a 100 point squad.

Going back to any form of SoS as the primary tiebreaker is a bad idea.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Even without considering the major issue of what to do with players whose opponents drop from the tournament, strength of schedule is a terrible tiebreaker (it's essentially random among players near the cut) unless you have a stable, objective, long-term assessment of the skill of every player in the tournament.

That's possible in organized chess, where the entire Swiss tournament system originated. It's possible at the higher levels of competitive Magic. It's not possible in X-wing.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Magic, Pokemon, and Warmachine all use SoS as the primary tiebreaker.

"Lots of people do it" isn't the same as "it's a good idea."

Warmachine is closer than the TCGs, on page 11 of their Steamroller Rules it states:

"7. Final Standings Variants BASELINE – If there is no clear winner at the end of the tournament, break the tie based first on strength of schedule, then on control points, then on army points destroyed."

Further on the page - "Large Event Scoring – Players dropping out of an event can adversely affect their opponents’ strength of schedule. Large event scoring calculates a player’s strength of schedule using fractions instead of raw tournament points and makes adjustments for a player who drops out with no wins to mitigate the impact on their opponent’s rating. The top number of the fraction is the number of games the player won during the event, and the bottom number is the number of rounds in the event. For a player who drops out, the top number is the number of wins at the time of drop, or 1 if a player has no wins. The bottom number is still the total number of rounds in the event. Example: In a five-round event, Dwight’s opponents were Trevor, who went 4-1 (4/5 = 0.8); Jay, who went 3-2 (3/5 = 0.6); Scott, who dropped out with 2 wins (2/5 = 0.4); and Steve, who dropped out with 0 wins, which is adjusted to 1 win (1/5 = 0.2). Dwight’s strength of schedule is 0.8 + 0.6 + 0.4 + 0.2 = 2."

That's a terrible way to implement this kind of rule.

Going back to any form of SoS as the primary tiebreaker is a bad idea.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Magic, Pokemon, and Warmachine all use SoS as the primary tiebreaker.

I'm not really familiar with any of those games.

How often do players drop?

And what other scoring methods could you use? Points is convenient in X-wing because you build to a 100 point squad.

Magic and Pokemon have a high percentage of players drop when they miss the cut for Day 2 of a large tournament or when they are out of prize range.

Warmachine I'll have to ask a buddy of mine, I have not played in years (the rulebook I referenced is 2015 though) but I would assume something similar to X-Wing.

Warmachine is another points-based squad building game. Depending on the tournament format, there are control points (king of the hill areas where having the only unit in it at the end of a game round scores a point) and the 3rd and 4th tiebreakers are essentially MoV.

There are also commanders on the field (Warcasters) and killing the opposing Warcaster is typically a win condition. It isn't easy though, and it isn't used in tiebreakers, only game wins.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Even without considering the major issue of what to do with players whose opponents drop from the tournament, strength of schedule is a terrible tiebreaker (it's essentially random among players near the cut) unless you have a stable, objective, long-term assessment of the skill of every player in the tournament.

That's possible in organized chess, where the entire Swiss tournament system originated. It's possible at the higher levels of competitive Magic. It's not possible in X-wing.

All of the games I referenced acknowledge that dropped players are an issue. It is one that they clearly have considered and decided it isn't enough of an issue to warrant changing the rules based on it. Also, I'm pretty sure "higher levels of competitive Magic" doesn't work the way you think it does. SoS in every Magic tournament is purely based on the statistics from that tournament, not compiled ratings of players.

"Lots of people do it" isn't the same as "it's a good idea."

I'd rather put faith in the organizations that run these tournaments than your word. I highly doubt these rules are arbitrary. "To be different" is a worse reason than "Lots of people do it".

That's a terrible way to implement this kind of rule.

There was literally 2 minutes between our posts, I'm sure your 2 minutes of contemplation are equally as valuable as the combined decades of tournament experience the organizations that write these rules have kappa.

SoS may work for MtG because WotC actually tracks a player's strength through the DCI. That strength is used to seed brackets and I also believe it is used to determine SoS. In X-Wing you can only look at the given tournament to figure out how 'strong' an opponent is but when WotC tracks strength long term that can easily be used instead. A good player having terrible off day may withdraw after a couple rounds giving up some points to his opponents but it's still known that he is a strong player as opposed to a weak one.

MtG also has the big advantage over X-Wing in that each round is actually a best of three series. Besides, what else would MtG have to base tie breakers off of beyond SoS? What I'd like to see determine the 'winner' in tie breaks is actually a comparison of who you lost to instead of just who you played.

SoS may work for MtG because WotC actually tracks a player's strength through the DCI. That strength is used to seed brackets and I also believe it is used to determine SoS. In X-Wing you can only look at the given tournament to figure out how 'strong' an opponent is but when WotC tracks strength long term that can easily be used instead. A good player having terrible off day may withdraw after a couple rounds giving up some points to his opponents but it's still known that he is a strong player as opposed to a weak one.

MtG also has the big advantage over X-Wing in that each round is actually a best of three series. Besides, what else would MtG have to base tie breakers off of beyond SoS? What I'd like to see determine the 'winner' in tie breaks is actually a comparison of who you lost to instead of just who you played.

DCI rating isn't used to determine SoS in a tournament. The first tiebreaker is Opponent's Match Win %, followed by Opponent's Game Win %. I think the 3rd and 4th tiebreakers are just once removed from that, but I don't know because it doesn't ever seem to go that far.

DCI isn't used to seed brackets either (at least at a Grand Prix, which is the highest level I played and frequented by pros).

The initial best of three is a solid point, but again the first tiebreaker is Match Win %, which is ultimately the same as Match Win % in X-Wing.

However, this is also why I went more in-depth with Warmachine. It is a great game with a points-based-army-building core and rolls dice to determine combat. Even though MoV could be used in their system, it is the third tiebreaker while SoS is the first.

I wonder how the math would look if the system only took into account the people you lost to as opposed to "normal" percentage-based SoS. I can't really agree or disagree with right now.

I'm not suggesting that SoS is absolutely the best way out there, I'm just making the case that it might be better than the current system.

Just for in formation, in the Ontario Regionals 2015 I used before for data 7 players dropped out of the 53 players and the 2015 Regionals 1 of the 46 players dropped.

I think the SoS system is better then MOV however if the goal is to lessen the impact of Large base Fatty Turrets this will also have almost no impact.

Intruder Missile

Attack 3 Range 2-3

Attack (Target Lock): Discard this card to perform this attack

If this attack hits, the defender suffers hits equal to half rounded down of it's remaining Hull and Shields. Then Cancel All dice results.

5 points

Wow, that really fixes the problem. You've created a 5-point ordnance card with which it is impossible to kill a ship even with an infinite number of reloads.

@Micanthropyre: I'm on my phone, so I apologize for not including quotes--they're too difficult to trim.

I don't play this card often because it generally makes me look like a jerk, but I'm a Ph.D. candidate in the field of evaluation. A lot of my studies have focused on statistics and psychometrics, which (broadly) means measuring things about people.

Tournaments consist of an iterated set of pairwise comparisons between elements--that is, people. That means tournaments are closely related to something called the law of comparative judgment, which has been around since the 1920s. It's been studied quite a bit because the mathematics of it are fundamental to a lot of other kinds of tests as well.

So outside of someone whose field of study is economics and game theory, I'm the closest thing around here to a genuine pointy-headed, ivory-tower expert on tournaments. ( Inside of a game theorist, of course, it's too dark to study anything.) I seriously considered doing my dissertation on tournaments in sports and games as evaluation methods, before allowing myself (perhaps unwisely) to be persuaded that my work wouldn't be sufficiently publishable.

The short gap between your post and mine isn't because I haven't thought about the problem or because I'm dismissing it out of hand. I know it's a bad idea to handle drops in Swiss that way the same way a physicist knows two particles with opposite charges repel one another: it's a well-established property of a system I've thought about a lot.

Games that use Swiss pairing with strength of schedule as a tiebreaker (in the absence of those stable, objective estimates of skill I talked about earlier) are doing a very bad thing to their players in the name of convenience. It's open to explanation, but--and I'm genuinely sorry for coming across as high-handed--it's not open for debate.

Intruder Missile

Attack 3 Range 2-3

Attack (Target Lock): Discard this card to perform this attack

If this attack hits, the defender suffers hits equal to half rounded down of it's remaining Hull and Shields. Then Cancel All dice results.

5 points

Wow, that really fixes the problem. You've created a 5-point ordnance card with which it is impossible to kill a ship even with an infinite number of reloads.

This is why i think it is Powerful and balanced at the same time. Hitting the first shot on a YT-1300 or Decimator would yield a devastating blow. Dealing out 6-8 hits in a single strike could be enough of a deterrent to sway the meta without damaging it. The more Fat Turrets in the Meta the better the missile gets and it's next to worthless vs lower hit point ships.

Make it only hull and you still have a good thing going. But 8 or 6 dmg ordnance? Even only it breaks decimator in half.

Ok so i thought about this a lot, and decided to go back to first principles here. We are simulating war here. Victory normally has to criteria for being declared, casualties and control of space. So here are my thoughts on possible alternatives

1 - If we cant declare a winner by counting up the deaths maybe the tie breaker for a game that goes to time should be the player with a ship closest to the center of the play area wins. No hiding in corners will be useful now you would have to fight to control the center. Although this might still benefit fat ships.

2 - Half points for half hit points, its simple.

3 - Make the round time random so people cant be sure to run out the clock.

4 - Make it so that a victory at time is worth less than a victory before time.

5 - Make it so that a player is penalised for having more than a certain number of games to full time.

Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages, for example swarms suffer from any time penalty. As for need if we make the game boring it suffers, if the rules do not make for interesting games then the rules need to change, this is why we have the shot clock in basketball and offside in football (soccer)

4 - Make it so that a victory at time is worth less than a victory before time.

Now that is an interesting idea.

If the point margin at the end of time is greater then 12 it's a modified win if it's less then 12 it's a draw.

Osoroshii made some great observations of two of the recent Regional tournaments. The issue of MOV deciding games was really only an issue in less than 10% of the games. So, this problem is probably not as big a problem as it may feel like it is.

I've said it before in other discussions about this, doing simple math on a large scale for a larger sized group of people is not easy. One person can be counted on to be able to do the calculations correctly. 30+ people cannot be counted on to do the math correctly. Especially when all of those people have multiple distractions and the emotional responses to winning and losing going through their heads. Calculators may help, but that doesn't mean people won't fat finger the data entry into the calculator.

Currently, people are making mistakes with the scoring using just Subtraction and Addition. Incorporating Division, Rounding, and Multiplication into the mix is asking for problems. Human beings don't excel at this.

I'm not even sure this is as big a problem as advertised. Yes, turrets can protect points. But, turrets are incredibly inefficient. 60 points for a ship that makes 1 attack/round is not a great trade off. 60 points can be 3-4 ships that will usually be 2-4 attacks per round. That is a much more efficient use of points. So, the turret has exchanged attack efficiency to protect it's points. In other words, it will take awhile for it's points to be taken off the board, but it will take a while for the turret to take points off the board too.

60 minute rounds were a big problem. 75 minute rounds will go a long way to give players enough time to kill large tanky turrets.

I too think that the issue may be blown into larger proportion. I have found that in general, Fat ships win outright and lose outright in %85 or more of their games. This is only personal, anecdotal evidence, and has generally been observed in tournament settings.

This, taken with the general observation that human beings who have a problem and shout the loudest usually do not represent the majority of people, makes me believe that the issue has potentially been misjudged to be a problem with the scoring, rather than a general meta swing towards fat, large base, turreted ships. I don't think the problem is with scoring (though I know MJ has made calculations that point to Point Fortresses gaining power in an MOV system as it stands).

I really like this idea personally.

Full win before time = 5 points

Incomplete win at time (more than 12 points up) = 4 points

Modified Win at time (Less than 12 points up) = 3 points

Draw = 2.5 points

Modified Loss at time (Less than 12 points down = 2 points

Incomplete Loss at time (more than 12 points down) = 1 point

Full Loss before time = 0 points

I think this, with the current MOV calculations, changes things only slightly in terms of overall results, and reduces the potential for math mistakes. What's most interesting is every match actually hands out exactly 5 points, which are essentially divided between the 2 players equally depending on the win condition. 5 for full win + 0 for full loss = 5. 4 for Incomplete win at time + 1 for Incomplete loss at time = 5. 3 for Modified win + 2 for Modified loss = 5. 2.5 for a draw + 2.5 for a draw = 5.

I would like to see the scoring as above applied to tournaments in which a fat turret won at time with partial damage early in the tourney, and then see what the outcome might be.

Jacob

jkokura, I would just use caution when awarding points to the players in a losing situation. I only say this as if I were 15min left in a match and only one ship I would do everything possible to hold on and get that point. This means you'll see an overall increase of matches going to time just to get some points.

jkokura, I would just use caution when awarding points to the players in a losing situation. I only say this as if I were 15min left in a match and only one ship I would do everything possible to hold on and get that point. This means you'll see an overall increase of matches going to time just to get some points.

Hmmm... it's a possibility yes, but I believe this would normalize. I don't know about you, but I think most people default to trying to survive in any case, and usually the best survival tactic is a good offence.

I think the MOV motivation from the 'winner' in that frame is still the entire annihilation of your opponent. If you only get 4 points and a less than optimal MOV score, there's a lot of motivation to clear your opponent. Perhaps that would outweigh the potential negative of the 'run away' pilot.

Jacob