I've yet to see a rational reason why a dice roll is better than the defined midpoint between a win and a loss.

See, this is interesting, because the actual thing that should be reflected, if "defined midpoint" is actually the goal, is the "defined midpoint" between a tabling and a modified win, because the Bye gives a full win.

The "defined midpoint" of a full win would be 56.5 points, so an MoV of 156 or 157, not 150.

Consistency is important because one bye won at a SC should be equal to any another bye won at an SC. What is the purpose of having those byes be of unequal value? Is there any benefit to having multiple byes all earned in the same tier of events worth more or less then one another?

You haven't given a reason other then it be "interesting". "Interesting" isn't reason for pissing on the competitive integrity of FFGs event system, which is exactly what possibly variable value byes would be doing. You keep asking others to support thier claims, but you haven't done so despite starting the conversation. At this point you are just being intellectually dishonest with this debate.

Still no rational responses. Just "random-fear" (and personal insults directed at me, of course).

Question for you: Why is "random-fear" an unacceptable answer?

It's an incredibly good answer. Especially since we're talking about a tiebreaker. The most important thing is to be as consistent as possible.

Ok this will either get me banned or not. Your either trolling tonite or your of the school of thought that everyone is equal no matter if they put in the time to be good or not. Or you are not. But i am thinking that you might be one that thinks that despite how much one sucks they should be granted equal status as one that doesn't. But please tell me i am wrong and i will keep quiet.

We had a 2 part tournament - first one in November which awarded a 250 MoV Bye for the 2nd tournament

January tournament for 2 Gozantis (1st place + 1 random as participation prize) - the 250 MoV Bye winner didn't win either the 1st place with his "super Bye" nor did he get selected by the roll of the die for the randomized participation prize.

So in both situations it changed nothing.

I think the original poster just wants to discuss something for the sake of discussing it. There's no need to change the 150 Bye - it is an unfortunate thing to have a Bye but its one of the very few fair ways to deal with it - Uneven amounts of players will happen, even after the first round of an "even" tournament, if someone leaves then its uneven and a Bye is necessary.

Adding any random element to the amount of MoV for a Bye is ridiculous at best. I don't think there is a better way to deal with uneven amounts of players than how it currently is.

Ok this will either get me banned or not. Your either trolling tonite or your of the school of thought that everyone is equal no matter if they put in the time to be good or not. Or you are not. But i am thinking that you might be one that thinks that despite how much one sucks they should be granted equal status as one that doesn't. But please tell me i am wrong and i will keep quiet.

I genuinely don't care, in the slightest, what you think (of me, or in general). I genuinely don't care, in the slightest, whether you keep quiet. Please, and I mean this sincerely, do whatever you want to do. I can't overstate how irrelevant it is to me.

For what it's worth, I don't report people on forums. Ever. There are a good number of reasons for that, but the main one is that I'm not a huge *****.

No, it's not a good answer. It's also not exactly an "unacceptable" answer. It's just a boring answer with no basis in rationality. I'm just not interested in random-fear as a response designed to shut down what I think is an interesting idea ... whether one agrees or disagrees that it's a good idea.

I'll say it again: if consistency is really the "most important thing," then how is it that an elimination game -- a vitally important game in a tournament-level competitive game -- can be decided by a roll of a die in a -- yes, random -- test that has literally nothing to do with tactical skill in playing the game?

Well at least the agenda shows itself. So what the line of thinking is because we roll dice for attack and defense that we might as well roll dice for MoV as well? Why not just start there instead of dragging it out with a half dozen disingenuous posts?

Since MoV is, unfortunately, no longer used in pairing matches, why not have it where MoV of a players bye is the average of all thier other winning matches MoV? It would allow thier mov from the bye to accurately reflect thier skill and make it less harmful against better players who had a bye at cut time.

Here is a real world example: In the reddit league (with 207 people), everyone plays 5 games in their pod. The top 2 players get some pretty cool Team Covenant swag thanks to Scum & Villainy podcast. After 4 games, I am undefeated but for my last game we had one player in our pod drop...so I get 150 MOV for that last game. That puts me in 4th place overall, however if I was to win against an opponent and only lose 30 points or so, I could take first. I noticed Starslinger is in the same position as me, so this did effect a couple players.

No big deal (I promise I don't care...the league has been great and I'm excited for its continuation : ) but I would rather have played a game then had the bye for 150 points. In other words I see the merit in Jeff asking the question.

Since MoV is, unfortunately, no longer used in pairing matches, why not have it where MoV of a players bye is the average of all thier other winning matches MoV? It would allow thier mov from the bye to accurately reflect thier skill and make it less harmful against better players who had a bye at cut time.

That was my ignored suggestion among the very initial posts in the thread.

Here is a real world example: In the reddit league (with 207 people), everyone plays 5 games in their pod. The top 2 players get some pretty cool Team Covenant swag thanks to Scum & Villainy podcast. After 4 games, I am undefeated but for my last game we had one player in our pod drop...so I get 150 MOV for that last game. That puts me in 4th place overall, however if I was to win against an opponent and only lose 30 points or so, I could take first. I noticed Starslinger is in the same position as me, so this did effect a couple players.

No big deal (I promise I don't care...the league has been great and I'm excited for its continuation : ) but I would rather have played a game then had the bye for 150 points. In other words I see the merit in Jeff asking the question.

It seems like whoever developed the Reddit tournament didn't take into account certain contingencies, such as players dropping.

Still no rational responses. Just "random-fear" (and personal insults directed at me, of course).

All responses are as rational as your suggestion for a completely random, and thus completely irrational, result to be used.

Here is a real world example: In the reddit league (with 207 people), everyone plays 5 games in their pod. The top 2 players get some pretty cool Team Covenant swag thanks to Scum & Villainy podcast. After 4 games, I am undefeated but for my last game we had one player in our pod drop...so I get 150 MOV for that last game. That puts me in 4th place overall, however if I was to win against an opponent and only lose 30 points or so, I could take first. I noticed Starslinger is in the same position as me, so this did effect a couple players.

No big deal (I promise I don't care...the league has been great and I'm excited for its continuation : ) but I would rather have played a game then had the bye for 150 points. In other words I see the merit in Jeff asking the question.

So let me get this straight. You play five games to pick some kind of 'winner' and have one the first 4 games and then the last game you are HANDED a win because of a bye which drops your 5-0 record down to 4th place. There is something seriously messed up with that and it has NOTHING to do with how many MoV points a bye will award.

Still no rational responses. Just "random-fear" (and personal insults directed at me, of course).

All responses are as rational as your suggestion for a completely random, and thus completely irrational, result to be used.

Here is a real world example: In the reddit league (with 207 people), everyone plays 5 games in their pod. The top 2 players get some pretty cool Team Covenant swag thanks to Scum & Villainy podcast. After 4 games, I am undefeated but for my last game we had one player in our pod drop...so I get 150 MOV for that last game. That puts me in 4th place overall, however if I was to win against an opponent and only lose 30 points or so, I could take first. I noticed Starslinger is in the same position as me, so this did effect a couple players.

No big deal (I promise I don't care...the league has been great and I'm excited for its continuation : ) but I would rather have played a game then had the bye for 150 points. In other words I see the merit in Jeff asking the question.

So let me get this straight. You play five games to pick some kind of 'winner' and have one the first 4 games and then the last game you are HANDED a win because of a bye which drops your 5-0 record down to 4th place. There is something seriously messed up with that and it has NOTHING to do with how many MoV points a bye will award.

4th out of the 207 total players instead of 1st out of the 207.

Scottie says this isn't relevant, but my point is that a bye for 150 points isn't always a blessing...in actual tournaments the same situation can happen (which is the point of me bringing it up!). I don't know of a better way, but I agree with Jeff that 150 is not perfect.

Tender, should players with byes all won at various SCs or Regionals have thier byes count diffently based on a die roll? That's Jeff's suggestion. Does that in anyway fix your issue? Or in anyway benefit the competitive integrity of the events? I'd say no on all counts.

I offered a solution that would have fixed your concern 4 posts in, and it certainly isn't giving byes both a random and arbitrary value as far as MoV goes.

And frankly your issue with the Reddit event should be that it was structured to end with at least 4 undefeated players. That isn't a tenable structure for an event to work under. It's that unworkable structure that makes it an unworkable example.

4th out of the 207 total players instead of 1st out of the 207.

Scottie says this isn't relevant, but my point is that a bye for 150 points isn't always a blessing...in actual tournaments the same situation can happen (which is the point of me bringing it up!). I don't know of a better way, but I agree with Jeff that 150 is not perfect.

That 150 may not be perfect but would 101 be better or would 200 be "fair" for someone flying a squadron that wins but continually bleeds points along the way? When it comes to tournament scoring there really is not a perfect solution unless you can have everyone play everyone else; of course that doesn't always work either and can come down to some type of tie breaker.

And starting with 207 people and expecting a clear leader board to emerge after 5 games is just nuts. I mean you start with 104 games (where someone is already playing the bye) and then you would normally start cutting undefeateds from there. 52 after 2 rounds, 26 after 3, 13 after the 4th round and I guess finally 6 or 7 after the 5th set of games. If you're starting with 207 and only playing 5 games you should have 6 or 7 undefeated players at the end of that time. Only handing out two prizes at that point really leaves me wondering what someone is smoking when there really is no clear winner. Another couple games are really needed to figure out who should be at the top if the stakes are that high. Now if that 207 is broken down into little groups and all matches are made within that group the results become even more absurd as the big fish in the little pond could easily coast to easy big wins while a pod filled with piranhas all devour each other. With all of these issues have a bye be a fixed 150 point MoV is a minor thing.

Scottie, I believe wins at Store Championships and Regionals should be 200 MOV (isn't that what it is, and not what we're talking about?). Also, I never said random is better, just that 150 is far from perfect. I really like your way much more then the current, as long as software automated the process and made it free of TO error, I think that would be a great addition.

Steven, sorry for taking you off on a tangent and not explaining everything clearly...all I wanted to do was make the point of "yeah Jeff, I understand that 150 points isn't perfect". The reddit league is really "Season 0" where these first 5 games will place you in different Leagues with different tiers where players move up and down depending on how they do in previous seasons. These 5 games are not the end all, be all...rather a starting point for the first season. Scum & Villainy podcast is giving prizes for the top 2 as an added bonus (something that wasn't even offered when the the league started) so like I said before, it's no big deal that it's not perfect!

P1: As a collective, the human race is made up of rational thinkers. The conclusion of the majority is therefore a rational conclusion.

P2: The posters on this forum are human beings.

P3: Each poster has disagreed with the OP.

C1: The idea posited by the OP is not rational.

"Random fear" is only a small part of the responses that have been presented. It seems as though any response that does not agree with the OP has been labeled as "irrational" without consideration that the OP itself may have been irrational.

Listen, I'm all for sharing ideas. I'm all for some nifty developments in the game. I get where this idea came from; and I get why some might like it. But it seems to me as though plenty of people have pointed out many valid arguments, all of which have been lumped under the term of "random fear" without any explanation as to what defines that category, why these arguments might be part of that category, or even why the "random fear" argument is outweighed by the "more randomness" argument.

We're not here to be a bunch of jerks; we're not here to attack you personally, even if the Internet tends to lend itself to such things. But we will point out flaws in arguments.

That's all I've got to say, and I'm going to jump out of this thread with that. Before it explodes.

Weird idea: what about randomizing the MoV scored for a Bye? Just roll d%.

This would have been a really good idea when MoV influenced pairings within tiers, but now it's just interesting.

Thoughts, hopefully aside from the yawn-worthy "randomness is always bad, mmm-kay"?

Despite quite the wild negativity to this idea, I think it is quite a unique and well thought idea. I do agree that 150 MOV is very arbitrary. From my point of view, FFG endorsed a full win and 150 MOV to the 'bye' player - against a simple and standardised 'imaginary opponent'. What I mean by this is that the 'imaginary opponent' has ships (or half-ships) worth 25 pts each so a 50 point margin is a fair and easy estimate.

But in the empty vacuum that is X-wing list building, these standardised lists are very few (Like you were saying in the US Store champs thread, Symmetrical brobots is a great example - Your situation with your assymetrical build in the top 4 was an interesting situation!). This 150 MOV guess also doesn't account to how much the bye player has lost, so the situation gets even more complicated!

I hope that I'm making sense. But I'd suggest making two suggestions to your idea.

1.) Instead of one roll of a d100, I would take an average over 3 rolls (rounding up) - to reduce outlying randomosity. The apply your idea.

2.) Give the bye player an option to take the 150 MOV or take 1.). Sure an average would be in a neighbourhood around 50, but this will give the player to risk/conserve a few MOV points. Which could make or break the players ranking/ cut to elimination

Overall, great idea

No, it's not a good answer. It's also not exactly an "unacceptable" answer. It's just a boring answer with no basis in rationality. I'm just not interested in random-fear as a response designed to shut down what I think is an interesting idea ... whether one agrees or disagrees that it's a good idea.

I'll say it again: if consistency is really the "most important thing," then how is it that an elimination game -- a vitally important game in a tournament-level competitive game -- can be decided by a roll of a die in a -- yes, random -- test that has literally nothing to do with tactical skill in playing the game?

I should have been more specific about the scope of consistency, and if I have time later I'll address it. About the fear of randomness, I don't dislkie randomness in the dice during a game. I'll return to that later. What I do dislike is when someone's bye is worth more because they appeased the dice gods.

The difference between a random MoV in a bye and the rolls you make in the game is that you have the power to put yourself in a better position to mitigate a potentially bad roll for the dice you roll in the game. You can focus, target lock, evade, outfly them amd not get shot at, etc.

I think that part of the reason there hasn't been a surplus of thoughtful discussion here is that while it's true that 150 MoV is pretty arbitrary, it doesn't seem like there's been a strong case made for there being fruit for the discussion to bear. Yes, a change could be made, but to what end?

As I see it, only two byes matter - the first round, and the second. After that, it's going to someone with two or more losses, and I don't think that two losses will ever make the cut if you're using FFG's recommended number of rounds and cut size (I haven't verified this, though). I think that for those two byes, average MoV is less likely to skew for/against the player with the bye than the flat 150.

For the later round byes, I think that your point about there being some cases where taking 150 is the better choice (and some cases not) is actually a point *against* the idea.

- Gaining or losing an advantage from something that isn't "play a game of x-wing" seems to run somewhat counter to the point of tournaments

- It's probably not clear what the best choice is until after scores are reported for the round, and some fairly specific calculations are done to determine if 150 is enough to make a cutoff in a few rounds (which sounds unpleasant to me)

- Players at the bottom are probably not going to have the strategic wherewithal to make the correct choice a lot of the time

I do think the bye system right now is not a good one.

A bye in a first round when you haven't been able to play yet should give you the perfect score, i suppose it works like this right now. However a bye in the later rounds means you currently have the worst score from the tournament.

I cannot understand why a bye gives you benefits over played games. For example i played in a 4 rounds tournament in which i won, won, won and lost last round i finished third while the second player also scored 3 wins and lost first round, in the second round he got the bye scoring him better mov than me while having an easier schedule because i faced winner players all the rounds.

I do not think your roll a dice solution is a good one not even giving the choice of doing it to a player since right now i think that 50 mov is better than it should be.

May be the solution someone suggested to calculate the mean of the games is better.

Y'all understand that 150 MoV is exactly as arbitrary as a die roll, right?

No it really isn't. 150 MoV is in fact winning a match by a fair but not commanding margin. It would be about avg so it's not in fact arbitrary, it's a score that gives you a decent chance to make the cut while not giving you a huge advantage.

So if it's a "disservice to the player" -- I don't even know what that means -- then there really shouldn't be a problem with allowing a player to choose: randomize or take 150, right? (You're not, you know, anti-freedom, are you!?)

There are already huge decisions made arbitrarily in the rules: I nearly was eliminated from my Store Championship yesterday by the roll of a single red die for initiative. 150 MoV is, itself, an arbitrary number. Random pairings can place a list against its hard counter. And so on.

As far as I can tell, the reaction here is "random-fear," rather than any rational response. That's very common, and thus understandable ... but I'm an optimist, and kinda hoping for more.

It's true that there's no longer a really strong reason to do this -- more astute readers might notice I stipulated that in the OP -- but one thing it would do is let a player make the evaluation. "Does 150 MoV hurt me -- in which case I'll randomize to try to mitigate the damage -- or does 150 MoV help me -- in which case I'll take it."

Sounds like most of y'all think 150 MoV would be a help to you, not a drawback. I honestly don't know where'd I'd come down on it.

(I am bemused by the claim that a 100-0 tabling of an opponent is always "hard fought" and "deserved." That's sometimes true, of course, but (at least as often) a 100-0 victory represents an utter mismatch of some sort. A 12-point win is much more likely to represent a "hard fought" game.)

Yes, there's randomness in the tournament structure by nature via pairings and the game itself, but this is one element that doesn't have to be, and has no business being, random.

I've yet to see a rational reason why a dice roll is better than the defined midpoint between a win and a loss.

See, this is interesting, because the actual thing that should be reflected, if "defined midpoint" is actually the goal, is the "defined midpoint" between a tabling and a modified win, because the Bye gives a full win.

The "defined midpoint" of a full win would be 56.5 points, so an MoV of 156 or 157, not 150.

Regardless, 150 is only an arbitrary number if the people that decided on didn't have a reason for picking that specific number. As long as they did the number isn't an arbitrary number, even if we are unable to divine their reason for chosing it. Chances are they didn't feel that it was fair to grant perfect MoV to the recepient of a bye but still wanted a bye to award enough MoV that a bye doesn't really hurt someone's chance to make the cut if it comes down to MoV. 150 represents a game where the winner destroyed all enemy ships and have had his points destroyed while doing so.

Regardless, 150 is only an arbitrary number if the people that l decided on didn't have a reason for picking that specific number. As long as they did the number isn't an arbitrary number, even if we are unable to divine their reason for chosing it.

Thank you, because it seems so many people don't actually understand what the word Arbitrary actually means.

Per Merriam-Webster Arbitary is defined as

:not planned or chosen for a particular reason not based on reason or evidence

: done without concern for what is fair or right

And neither of those actually apply to the MoV from a bye, in fact they picked that number for a specific reason. Namely that it neither punishes nor truly rewards someone with a standard bye. You get a fairly avg MoV and a win, which is the only fair thing to do.