With recent thoughtful discussion around measuring success in this game and an exciting explosion of new online tournament options (thanks to Zjb12 and booored), my mind is opening to some new possibilities…

What if every scenario had its own “living” tournament thread?

The way I could imagine this working…

Let’s use Passage through Mirkwood as an example (then imagine this same idea applied to every scenario). Also, let’s use Solo Play as an example, but theoretically, a separate thread could also be created for each scenario for 1 player, 2 player, 3 player, and 4 player variants.

Scenario: Passage Through Mirkwood
Deck Parameters: Open Build
Number of Players: Solo Player

Tournament Parameters:

1) This is a living tournament. You may play and post results at your own pace.

2) A valid result in this tournament consists of reporting your results from 5 back-to-back games, using the same deck for each of those 5 games.

3) The results from your 5 games will then be calibrated using the RGun and/or Hilarious Pete formula (see ongoing Measuring Success discussion referenced above) to obtain your weighted result.

4) Weighted results will then be ranked against one another, and the rankings will be updated over time as new results are posted to the thread.

5) You may play this tournament as many times as you would like (so you can try out different deck builds over time), but you can only hold one spot in the overall ranking at a time (i.e. this gives you a chance to try and best your own result while only occupying one spot in the rankings at a time).

Conversation:

This particular brand of tournament would only feature Open Build (no restrictions). That means that anyone could play any of the tournaments at any time, as long as they have the cards to do so. It also means that players can attempt old scenarios again and again as you have ideas for a new deck and as new cards are released and the card pool grows. And all of this could happen at everyone’s own pace. No time constraints. In some ways, this would be like an ultimate Quest Log that measures for Win Ratio as well as Score (valuing both when it comes to comparing the play of one deck and player against another).

Also, while all player results could be posted in a comprehensive ranking for each thread, there could be a Top Ten featured for each thread that (like all other aspects of this idea) would have the flexibility of changing over time. This could also then make room for a new version of my Top Ten Hall of Fame idea that would also continue to change over time as players make or loose rank on various scenarios (The Top Ten Hall of Fame would be weighted like how I currently factor – 10 points for a number 1 ranking in any thread, 9 points for a number 2 ranking on any thread, 8 points for a number 3 ranking on any thread, etc…).

Further, since this new kind of tournament system would be for Open Build only, that still leaves all kinds of room for people to host other “timed” tournaments that feature unique deck building parameters, questing scenarios, nightmare variants, etc…

Of course, this would require some oversight, but at this point, I’ve developed somewhat of a rhythm for such things and would be glad to do it. If I did start doing this, I would likely phase out of hosting many of the “timed” tournaments with various particular deck building restrictions myself, but it looks like others are starting to host these kinds of tournaments too, so we could all continue to both enjoy our cake and eat it - at the same time.

Okay… how does all this sound?

Consideration:

For a system like this, would 3 back-to-back games be sufficient to earn a result?

(as opposed to 5)

Could allow for a quicker turn around for those who do want to try out lots of various deck builds.

Thoughts?

Having just played 5 games in a row for another "tournament", it is a lot of work. I understand the desire to balance the luck factor and measure deck reliability by forcing multiple games, but I don't know if you'll get that many participants for 5 rounds.

The whole idea effectively sounds like an improved version of the quest log. Too bad FFG hasn't provided us yet with an official tournament format. I'm sure they could host such ideas directly via the quest log and/or in a more "official" format, but until they do, I think you should keep bringing up those ideas and keeping them alive on the forum.

I think this is a great idea... though this forum software is not up to the task. I think you should store all the info at BGG or CardGameDB. That way you can edit your original post, use nice tables and other "normal" formatting you get on every other website in the world.

I think 5 games might be to long, like it depends on how you play a single game can take 1 hour easy, so you are talking about 5 hours of gameplay... but then again, if your playing the game anyway.. what is the difference

If people do this it will end up what the quest log should have been in the 1st place.

The only thing I think is that people should use deck pools in there scoring. Tragic started a thread on BBG about it but I do not think he ever finished developing it... basically it works like this...

RESTRICTED = You only had the cards released at the time
RESTRICTED+ = you add the packs you had access to. Like a great score at Audin doesn’t mean much if you have the entire card pool vs a score with only the core set.

We still need to formulae witch math we want to use and if we want to play 3 or 5.

A Journey to Rgosgobel – (1x)Restricted - Meta: 255
This score tells us

• You played a set of Journey to Rgosgobel (3/5 games, witch ever you choose)
• You got a Meta Score of 255 (after applying the math)
• You used 1 Copy of Core
• You has access to Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock and A Journey to Rgosgobel

Into the Dark (2x)Restricted+HFG,CATC,RETURN – Meta: 255
This score tells us

• You played a set of Into the Dark (3/5 games, witch ever you choose)
• You got a Meta Score of 255 (after applying the math)
• You used 2 Copy of Core
• You has access to Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock, Return to Mirkwook and Khaz.

The idea is that using the RESTRICTED+ or RESTRICTED keywords you can add into the score a way for the person reading to understand what your card pool was.

A Conflict at the Carrock – (3x)Restricted+(set)SOM+Khaz = Meta: 255
(set)Shadow of Mirkwood – (2x)Restricted+Khaz = Meta: 255

What dose these 2 lines read as to you?

I think this is a good idea. I have 3 very young children so I generally only get to play in the evenings after they are all asleep so fitting multiple games into a limited time frame can be tough. The open-ended, no time limit makes it much easier to participate.

I look what you doing dudes and i see go more and more deep with this online tournaments. But i think you make it more and more complicated and i against it.

But for FFG is a good sign. Players already greedy for Torney system!!! What FFG waiting for???? We need tournaments and need it now!!!!

Glaurung said:

it is really not complicated I am fairly confident you could understand it if you try.

To Summarise

• You play 3 games. No More, No Less (1 set)
• You post the scores for each game you play grouped by sets.
• You list the card pool you had access to.

That is it.. how is that complicated?

I think this sounds like a pretty cool idea. I'm a bit confused by your "Restricted+" though. It sounds like that's just an open format - is there anything restricted about it?

RESTRICTED was just a "formatting" that Tragic was working on to write out scores that also tell the person reading it what card pool you used to get that score.

RESTRICTED = All cards available at the time of the Release of the Quest
RESTRICTED+ = The cards from the AP the Quest Came in + All other listed APs or Cycles.

The one thing is are we doing 3 or 5 games? Like 5 games is "longer" but gives you the ability to concede more often to get a good run at the quest. So while you play 5 games, you may only play 2 full games... so is it really longer.

It sounds like 3 games (played with the same deck - where each result matters) may be the way to go, but it will be good to evaluate that over the next month after seeing how Zjb12's, booord's, and some of my February tournaments go as we experiment with some of these variables. Then, maybe starting in March, I can take the steps to implement this. Between now and then we can continue to refine the idea here on this thread.

As I think about it more, I think 3 games offers enough substance to make the Win Ratio factor significant.

However, it's not too many to scare away people from playing - especially in mulitiplayer games where it will inevitably take longer to get in the 3 games with the same deck builds. Yes, 5 games would be way too many for multiplayer games - in my opinion (even spread out over as much time as you want).

And the beauty of this is that you really could spread out your games over as long as it takes - as long as it's with the same deck. For example, game one could be March 15th, game two could be March 28th, and game three could be August 1st. You'd then make a post on August 1st with the three results, and boom! - you have a meta result worthy of rank. (booored, I really like that term - meta result)

I would be glad to do the math to obtain people's meta results and keep track of the rankings. Believe it or not, I've found I enjoy that kind of thing. Also, this will make it as simple as possible for people to participate. People just post their scores for the 3 games. That's it.

And on that topic, I do think it would be good to keep things as simple as possible for participants. So, when people post their game play results, I would want to have a standard set of content they would need to post with their results and a suggested list of additional content that could be included if desired.

I'm thinking the basic info would need to be (this example is for Solo Play; multiplayer would format a bit differently):

Heroes:

Game 1 Result: (Final Score or "L" for Loss)

Final Threat Level -
Thread Cost of Each Dead Hero -
Damage Tokens on Remaining Heroes -
Victory Points Earned -
Number of Rounds Completed -

Game 2 Result: (Final Score or "L" for Loss)

Final Threat Level -
Thread Cost of Each Dead Hero -
Damage Tokens on Remaining Heroes -
Victory Points Earned -
Number of Rounds Completed -

Game 3 Result: (Final Score or "L" for Loss)

Final Threat Level -
Thread Cost of Each Dead Hero -
Damage Tokens on Remaining Heroes -
Victory Points Earned -
Number of Rounds Completed -

Optional Additional Information could include things like:

- specific card pool utilized (something like what booored is suggesting but not mandatory)
- additional narrative to tell the story of play or tell highlights
- other ideas?

As for the idea of locating this on another (external) site, I'd be curious to hear a variety of feedback about that. I think booored brings up some very good points about the limitations of the current FFG forum software. However, I have some personal biases against spreading things out. I don't know that I'd want to have to navigate multiple sites to be able to track with what is going on. That's when it starts to feel like work for me, and I'd want to keep this feeling as playful as possible. Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

PS: @ SICK_Boy - Agreed. This really would be just an improved version of the Quest Log. If at some point FFG upgraded theirs to a very satisfactory level, I suppose none of this will be needed. In the mean time, I am thinking it could be all kinds of fun. Also, I just wanted to say that I skimmed your tournament report on Zjb12's post, and - awesome job! I didn't read it in detail because I'm still operating under the delusion that I'll have time to play the tournament myself this weekend (though I picked up some extra work and likely won''t have the chance this time). Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge your great report. Good stuff!

Living tournaments make obvious sense now someone has come up with it. A sure sign of a good idea. Nice work.

I'm sure over time the system chosen to measure success of a deck will be refined. Of course, if we submit the raw data and not just the final score, then if (or when) the system changes, we can update the scores on the fly. By "raw data" I mean providing the following for each game won

• Complete turns taken
• Hero death/damage
• Final Threat
• Victory Points

It looks like we'll be starting with the weighted average scoring system and choosing the number of games to play will very much define what sort of decks and play styles do well.

If you run a 3 game tournament then the only way a person losing 1 game can beat someone losing 0 games is to have their scores 2/3 of those of the other player on average, i.e. 33% better

If you play 5 games then the ratio becomes 4/5 or 20% better.

I suspect that in a 3 game format, you'll need to win all 3 games. Since the scoring system promotes fast, risk taking decks then it would still be dominated by decks that take risks and make the most of luck. It is still possible to get lucky 3 games in a row.

In a 5 game format I think the odds flatten out somewhat. It is harder to get 5 lucky games in a row, but a risk taking deck could still win 4 out of 5 and be 20% better in its scoring and therefore beat someone with 5 wins out of 5. However the "slow and steady" decks that prioritise consistency would at least have a chance.

Even though it will take longer to play, my vote is for 5 games as it will allow more types of decks to compete successfully.

Memetix said:

5 for both Solo and Multi Player games? Or 5 for solo and 3 for multi?

Also, thanks for the feedback.

juicebox said:

I dunno, we meet once a week for example to play a 3 player match.. and that is like 1-2 hours a game... so in a month we have played 4 quests... .. .

Okay, so that's at least 2 votes for a 5 game set.

Keep 'em coming...

Just to clarify, for solo play, I'd go for 5. For 2-player I'd go with 4 or 5 simply. Why less for 2 player games? Because you see more encounter cards and are therefore less likely to get a really lucky (or unlucky) run.

If you want votes, I'd vote for 3 games both in solo and multiplayer.

I'd vote for 3 games as well. I agree posting your deck should be optional, but definitely would be interesting for people who do very well to post. I'd also leave them unrestricted for a couple of reasons:

Leaving them unrestricted and seeing the cards in the decks with the "best" scores for each AP would start to provide data to shed light on some interesting questions/debates. For example, is there a set of critical cards you need in your deck for a best score across any scenario and are some cards too powerful (e.g. does ziggy feature in every single deck that posts a best score for each scenario?). For some scenarios are there specific card(s) that are generally not considered critical, but are to post a best score for a specific quest (e.g. LoI for Rhosgobel). Do the top 10 scores for a specific scenario all feature almost identical decks, or are there several equally effective deck builds to use?

Leaving them unrestricted also makes it interesting to see how scores on older quests improve once new cards are available...would make playing the older quests again interesting to see if you can beat the current top score by leveraging some new cards.

As stated in earlier post, it is too bad the quest log doesn't have a "quest" centric view rather than just "player" centric views. I don't think it would be too much work for FF to update it so you could select a quest and see the top scores for that quest, as well as add an optional picklist that lets players select the cards they used (or even better let players store decks in their profile that they can attach to completed quests).

So, on one hand we have the argument for Sets of 5. The idea here seems to err on the side of longer sets hoping for a more "thorough" and balanced scoring outcome, worrying that a set of 3 games could still be too luck based.

On the other hand we have the argument for Sets of 3. The idea here seems to be that 3 games is more playable and would still provide the balanced scoring outcome hoped for, trusting that 3 is enough to mitigate any crazy luck (good and or bad) factor.

There is also the question of whether to keep it uniform for solo and mulitplayer or to offer a 5 and 3 Set standard, respectively.

Are there other aspects to consider?

My plan going forward will be to offer a few different week-long solo player tournaments in February that utilize the 5 Set rule and the 3 Set rule, looking for some data and player experiences to help shape the plans for the Living Tournament system. These February tournaments will still be juicebox Tournaments and count toward the Top Ten Hall of Fame and all that good jazz. I hope to get some good turnout and feedback through that process. (Also, I'm keen on following Zjb12 and booored's tournaments to see what is learned through those experiences with playing sets of games.)

Enjoying sharing this creative process with you all.

juicebox said:

Sets of 4 plays ?

I think in all tournament plays too, the person should have to play the hand dealt, or it's mulligan replacement. With a little math and cunning card thought, many of us can calculate the lowest scores possible if all the cards line up in our favor. But want I want to know, is how do you fare against this scenario over the course of 3-5 games with these parameters, these Heros, and this deck. Therefore, I would be tempted to say, but it's not up to me, once you start a tournament with a deck and set of Heros, you cannot change mid-tournament. ESP. In what Juicebox is proposing, that would let a player compete clearer against his own decks.

Zjb12 said:

Yes.

leptokurt said:

Hmmm... maybe in February I can run three week-long tournaments. One with 3 game sets, one with 4 game sets, and one with 5 game sets.

Then we could compare and contrast play experiences.

juicebox said:

And for the true endurance freaks, a best of 21 set! ;-)

juicebox said:

What if you got a bunch of people to play 5 times, but you scored them as three separate tournaments. So you calculated the winner based on only the first 3 sets, then the first 4, then all 5. That way everyone is only playing 5 games, but you can see how the scores would have been different if you had stopped at 3 or 4.

I must say that my preference in for 3 games though; in part because family life makes it hard to play 5 games in a row and in part because I'm a Pippin player and would get bored trying the same deck over and over again.

By the way, I like the idea of this living tournament because I really want to participate in these types of things, but I never have enough time to compete in the weekend tournaments.

Budgernaut said:

I like that idea, except I think that people might approach their deck build differently depending on the number of games in the set. Actually, that's kind of the heart of the matter, isn't it? Is there a particular advantage that will be capitalized on that changes depending on the number of games in a set? I think the hope is to encourage deck building that mutually strives for the lowest score and highest win ratio possible.

That said, personally - I'm with you about 3 games for many of the same reasons (gaming/life balance, Pippin tendencies, etc...), however, I'm hoping to arrive at a good enough sense of what provides the most balance before launching this new framework, so I'm open to more games if required to hold that balance.

And thanks for sharing your enthusiasm for the idea in general. I think the open-ended nature of a Living Tournament system could have pretty massive appeal. (And that's part of why I want to do some due diligance on the front end - to get it as close to "right" as possible from the front end.)