awesome job juicebox

Reager said:

Thanks Reager!

And an update…

While the competition is most fierce in the Solo Player arena, jjeagle (and gaming companion) has slowly but surely set the bar in the 2 Player category…

and it shows! Congrats jjeagle on amassing enough to take the lead!

Argh, if I only had friends too!

Congrats jjeagle!

Thanks - but I don't think we (me + brother) have set the bar particularly high. I don't expect our scores to stand as and when more people enter the 2-player field.

Question for juicebox: would you accept results from one person playing two decks ("two-handed")? I get the impression from the forums that a lot of people play this way, but no-one seems to have posted scores.

Finally, thanks to juicebox for all his work in setting up the living tournaments - I've been playing TLOTR since it came out, but the living tournament has really reinvigorated my interest in the game.

Yeah this could prove to become a problem. I think I will never be able to play a lot of 2 player games and I guess I´ll never play with 3 or 4 players. I got only my brother and a friend that play the game at the moment and they both have only time once a month ( if we get lucky).

Actually I think I never played with more than one of them at the same time.

Maybe split the leader board in the different player categories. So one for solo play and one for 2player and so on….

Or split it and make an additional world ranking as it is at the moment.

muemakan said:

Makes sense to me - more work for juicebox though…

jjeagle said:

Yeah, I don´t know how he finds time to do anything else than editing these threads………

jjeagle said:

I don't know why, but always thought that the ranking was only for solo, and there were others for 2P, 3P and 4P.

And yes, great, but vast work this what juicebox is making here. Thanks pal.

That question was bound to come up at some point. I know I intended to ask it myself once I finish posting results for all scenarios in solo (still have to do Return to Mirkwood and Watcher in the Water).

I think the tournament format should support a single-player playing multi-handed. Obviously, it's slightly different from having 2 different players because you know what all players have in their hands and can thus make better strategies, but the difference on the final result isn't so drastic that one could be deemed to be much advantaged over the other.

Also, allowing this could lead to more multiplayer results being posted and, hopefuly, some insight into deckbuilding in a multiplayer environment.

Anyway, as usual, this is Juicebox's call.

Hi Everybody…

Great discussion. I think there are many valid ways to take this, but here's how I think about it currently (with room to grow):

I see the World Rankings as they are now as intended to be comprehensive, including all of your adventures in all the standard play formats (Solo, 2, 3, & 4 Player). I think this favors those who are able to dabble in multiple ways of playing the game. I realize that's frustrating for those of us who only/primarily play Solo (myself included), but from a design perspective, I like that it forces a bias toward encouraging playing multiplayer with multiple people (since the game design is intended for all those various expressions of play). Given the realities around my limited time (as some of you have generously noted), I'll plan on continuing with things as they are for now, but I'll share the following thoughts as well…

If I had unlimited time, i do think it would be cool to have the overall World Rankings (as they are now) and then 4 separate sub-rankings (one each for Solo, 2, 3, & 4 Player results). From a stats perspective, this would be fun. From a "spreading the glory around" perspective, this would also be fun.

In terms of allowing 1 person to play 2 hands, I have a bias against this, as I do see it as an entirely different play experience than playing with 2 actual people. That said, if I had even more than unlimited time, for curiosities sake, I do think it would also be cool to create a 5th sub-ranking for Solo Double Fisting (or whatever you want to call it). That would create a nice space for analyzing multiple deck strategies to a degree similar to how fruitful that kind of analyzing has been from all of our Solo Player action.

Now, I was planning to wait until I could announce more of a concrete timeline, but I may as well spill a few beans right now…

Since before this Living Tournament idea hatched here on the FFG forums, I've been having some conversation with Darksbane over at CardGameDB about the idea in general, and basically, he is very interested in the possibility of hosting the tournaments there on his site and setting it up to auto recalculate the scenario specific rankings and the World Rankings instantly as new results are entered by players like you and me. It could be set up to be very user friendly, clean, and quick. Plus that would save me lots of time with making updates (and computers never go on vacation). Nothing is finalized, but if this ends up working out, I could imagine over time adding these other types of features as well (additional sub-rankings). I mean, why not? Now, Darksbane is working with limited time as well, and he's got all kinds of projects going, so I don't have a timeline for this, but it is a possibility. If the transition is made, please rest assured, I will do my best to help make it as smooth as possible and make sure than none of the data and results from current play gets lost in the shuffle.

Since this is the most open I've been about this possibility, I'd be glad to hear feedback about the idea.

Again, thanks all for playing. This really is fun times.

juicebox

juicebox said:

That is are really good news, juicebox. It would be great

Two comments:

1) With automated updates on CGDB (if/when that happens) how easy would it be to alter scores? There have been many times when people post scores and stories and others comment on how the scores should be different or the game invalid. I also wonder if the new system would still require posts, or if it would be more akin to the quest tracker, i.e. everyone enters it in a form and then it gets stored somewhere. I feel like whatever the new system, it needs to keep a way of discussing your adventures for others to read and comment. That sort of community interaction is one of the most appealing aspects of your tournaments, Juicebox. We have such a great community here.

2) Double Decking: I've played a few games solo with two decks. I have a lot of fun doing that, but I feel that the advantage inherent in knowing both hands is immense. I'd like to see some play testing on this, but I suspect average scores will be quite different than in two player games. The best way to test this would be to have pairs who play together play multiple games with a couple scenarios, and then each play the same number of games with the double deck method and see if the double deck scores tend to be higher than the two-player scores.

Whatever you do, just don't call it double-fisting… too many weird images are conjured by these words

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm lookin' at you Robert McMutton, Budgernaut, and SiCK_Boy. Keep it coming. And anyone else is welcome to share thoughts too. It's really helpful to hear what aspects of this system people find valuable. That way, if there is a transition at some point, we can work to incorporate as much of what is valuable as possible while developing improvements in other areas.

Also, there's a slight update to the Leader Board.

Budgernaut said:

I agree with this point.

Budgernaut said:

I've played quite a lot solo and two-player (i.e. with two actual people), but I haven't tried double-decking. In principle you must be right in terms of the information advantage gained when double-decking. I do feel, speaking for myself of course, that I play much more accurately when playing with a partner (compared to solo), since there is much more emphasis on thinking decisions through carefully together, and less temptation to rush through and maybe make mistakes than in solo. It's also much easier for two players to be on top of all rules issues and effects of cards on the table.

A related point, although slightly off topic, is that the rules as printed leave a significant grey area regarding "table talk" in multi-player. By the rules, players can do anything but name or directly quote from cards that other people can't see. Strictly speaking, this does leave it open to refer to cards elliptically or by euphemism (eg "I am going to play a cost 5 neutral ally this turn", or, pushing it further "I have Mithrandir [=Gandalf] in hand"). This may sound like a minor point but the approach adopted has major implications for the ability of 2+ players to work effectively together. Does anyone else have a view on this?

Thanks jjeagle. Appreciate your thoughts. My nutshelled thought on the table-talk issue, for what it's worth, is this…

What FFG has left grey remains grey here in the Living Tournaments. And if/when FFG seeks to bring clarity… then we can follow suit.

Also, a few updates…

(B)u(m)p[date].

Which turns out to be "too short" on its own.

Don't look now, but someone just cracked 200!!

Nice work jjeagle!!

And one more for tonight…

Hi Everybody… making an update.

Also, there seems to be a bug of some kind with the following threads:

Passage Through Mirkwood (Solo Player Living Tournament)

The Hunt for Gollum (Solo Player Living Tournament)

I've sent in reports to the Moderators. Hopefully, they can fix the current threads.

I will give them some time to heal the threads, but if they don't have enough Athelas soon enough, I may need to make new ones.

Here's holding out hope. Go Moderators, Go!

For now, if you play either of those scenarios, keep your scores written somewhere, and save them to post when the threads are healthy again.

juicebox

ps: I'll be adding the threads for The Long Dark quite soon.

Thanks to the ADMINS for fixing the issues with the mentioned threads!

(They must have an unlimited supply of Athelas.)

Well… it's time to make some updates.

And sorry for the delay on The Long Dark.

They will be posted soon(ish).

Some updates and a mention that I really will be adding the new scenario LT threads soon.

Probably in the next 48 hours.

Updates, and updates.