Measuring Success

By juicebox, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

RGun said:

I agree without playing significantly more games the variance can still be fairly large, but I believe one of the goals when this thread started was to penalize players for having decks that are designed to score very low and finish the quest quickly when a specific draw comes up from the encounter deck/player hand, but are not designed to win consistently. The general consenus from people who have posted seems to be that it is as, if not more important, for a deck to be able to win consistently as well as score low. Without taking into account win % you don't measure that and have no incentive for people to make sure their deck can not only score well, but also win consistently. Even if the variance is still high, at least people are forced to create consistent winning decks.

Agreed.

And from the math that Memetix shared (thanks Memetix), another way to look at this is...

"Wow, 3 games in a row is a huge improvement in measuring consistency compared to 1 game in a row!" gran_risa.gif

Yes, improvement incrementally goes up from there, the more games that are played, but I also agree with the "playability" factor. My imagination says, more people will be inclined to join in the gaming system if asked to play 3 games in a row with the same deck than will join in if asked to play more than that. So, I'm curious to get feedback from participants in February tournaments to see how the feedback matches (or doesn't match) with my imagination.

On a side note, I'm curious, for those who play a lot of mulit-player, how much does this conversation even have relevance? It seems like it's a lot easier to build a fragile rabbit deck and blow through a bunch of quick losses to achieve that one lucky sensational win in solo play than it is in multiplayer (just for the sheer social dynamic of the experience alone), but I'd be curious to hear what others think about this.

Has anyone submitted something to Fantasy Flight with some requests for enhancements to their Quest Log (and receive any response)? I really like the idea of these Living Tournaments for each scenario, and think it would be relatively easy for FF to make some updates to their Quest Log to allow tracking of them via that mechanism. Perhaps they are waiting until they announce the tournament rules (although I know some people are sceptical that this will ever happen).

With all the great ideas that have come up for scoring tournaments I've pulled together something that I'd like to propose we run alongside the current RGun weighted scoring system and see how the two systems compare.

Features of the "Hero system"

  • It works if you play 1 game, or multiple games
  • It is really simple to calculate and doesn't involve tracking anything extra during the game

To calculate your score at the end of a game

  • Add up the victory points you collected in the quest
  • If you won, add 40 points and then subtract the threat of each hero you used
  • Subtract the threat of each dead hero. If you failed the quest, assume all your heroes died.

The bigger the score, the better you did. When playing multiple games, simply add up the scores for each game played. As long as everyone plays the same number of games, the totals can be used to rank players.

This scoring system is designed to promote

  • Deck consistency, bringing your heroes back alive
  • Heroic deeds. Not only did we deliver the message but we killed a Troll!
  • Variety in deck design and play styles. It shows no scoring bias towards decks that manage threat or healing, you can win just as well with a tactics deck as with a spirit/lore deck
  • Winning against the odds, you'll get a better score with lower threat heroes. You'll get an even better score if you can win with 2 heroes

Memetix said:

To calculate your score at the end of a game

  • Add up the victory points you collected in the quest
  • If you won, add 40 points and then subtract the threat of each hero you used
  • Subtract the threat of each dead hero. If you failed the quest, assume all your heroes died.

Wait, so whether you lost or won you still subtract the threat of each hero? So if you had Eleanor and she died, but you won in the end, you'd subtract her threat (7) from your final score twice for a total of 14 subtracted from your final score? Is that the idea?

This is getting to complex... I think the original ideas were the best... have a set number of games for each score say 3 or 5. Use the normal score system by FFG, then apply a formula to those scores using wins/fails/total games to get a meta score..

Here's an example of the "Hero System" scoring

If it came across as complex that was my fault, it is far easier than the current system becasue it only uses the threat values of the heroes and the Victory points.

You go on a quest with Dain, Gloin and Berevor (Starting threat 30)

First game you win, no one dies but no VPs.

Score = 40 - 10 = 10

Second game, you win again but Gloin dies however you kill the troll that finished him off.

Score = 4 VPs + (40-10) - 9 (Gloin) = 5

Third game, you lose but kill the hummerhorns and the march adder

Score = 8 VPs - 30 = -22

Overall score for 3 games is 10+5-22 = -7

Memetix said:

Here's an example of the "Hero System" scoring

If it came across as complex that was my fault, it is far easier than the current system becasue it only uses the threat values of the heroes and the Victory points.

You go on a quest with Dain, Gloin and Berevor (Starting threat 30)

First game you win, no one dies but no VPs.

Score = 40 - 30 = 10

Second game, you win again but Gloin dies however you kill the troll that finished him off.

Score = 4 VPs + (40-30) - 9 (Gloin) = 5

Third game, you lose but kill the hummerhorns and the march adder

Score = 8 VPs - 30 = -22

Overall score for 3 games is 10+5-22 = -7

I think it won´t work because most of the time the guy who starts with the lowest threat wins.