Fieras said:

Were there really so few rounds of melee? I thought there was something about points not being awarded after the cut in joust or something. Am I misremembering? I don't want to go digging through past threads…

AGoT DC Meta said:

Yeah, technically the first round of melee top 16 and the first 2 rounds of joust top 16 didn't have their points counted. Both tourneys were still effectively worth 40 points each though. Still no discrepancy.

You don't see an issue with not counting some rounds?

sWhiteboy said:

You do? It still doesn't unbalance the formats in terms of points balance.

Not counting the rounds was a mistake in my opinion. I lost in the first round of 16 for joust and the guy who beat me, Dan Strouhal made it to top 4, eventually losing to Greg. How many points did he get for winning against me in the 16 and Erick B. in the 8? Zero. Guess who got more points in the joust, Dan or me? That's right. me. I got 23 to his 20, even though he made it two rounds further than me.

That being said, i wasn't arguing that it was valid that they didn't count points. I was only saying that joust and melee had an equal number of points possible.

@Nomos You're right, just because people play doesn't mean that their victories should count.

The fact that FFG needs to drop rounds in order to "balance" the two formats is proof enough that the current system doesn't work. I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to not count the first round(s) of top 8/16, especially since the top 8 games should be more difficult than swiss rounds.

sWhiteboy said:

I agree, They could have kept all rounds and it still would have been balanced. Only real difference that melee had top 8 and joust Top 16.

But then again this a company that lets you chose to pay 0 gold when you need to pay 1.

sWhiteboy said:

Whoa whoa whoa. You are missing the point. They dropped 2 joust rounds and 1 melee round (10 points and 10 points). This was NOT done to balance points. Points went from 50/50 to 40/40. You are getting the wrong idea. That's not why they did it. It was balanced both before and after the dropped rounds.

Also, both melee and joust had top 16.

One of two scoring systems should be implemented

either

1) Maintain the existing scoring system of rewarding points per game. However, since the idea in this system is to reward people for winning games as they advance, you have to reward EVERY game played. 2011 Gencon resulted in people not being rewarded for advancing.

2) Institute a system where top 16 (or 8 or 4) receive points, and ONLY those players receive points. Swiss results are only used for advancement to single elimination and have no bearing on point scoring.

At gencon 2011, the available points for melee and joust were going to be even whether they scored the elimination rounds from 16 to 4 regardless.

~ I find the fact that I typically haven't placed well at GENCON very refreshing since I don't have to worry about the scoring

Best way to fix it is for people to stop being douches.

Won't happen. As long as someone would rather take a competitive non-team game and willfully play it in direct conflict with the spirit of the game and the tournament no rule or point fix is going to solve the problem.

Personally I say anyone found to have colluded is banned from the game for a year. Period. Now tell me how much you view this as a team sport and want to help your meta mate win a victory they did not earn in game. Are you willing to be banned from all sanctioned competitive play for an entire year?

In my younger days if I had been at the final table in melee I may very well have broken my foot off in someone's ass. I'm better at accepting things I cannot change now, Buddhism has helped a bit, but yes, about ten years ago I would probably have found out where they were staying and had a little talk about sportsmanship after the tournament. I have nothing but contempt for people who have to cheat to win.

THIS IS THE WORST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO THE GAME

HOW COULD THEY INTRODUCE MELEE TO THE GAME AND EVER THINK IT COULD BE COMPETITIVE

WHY WOULD THEY ASSUME PEOPLE PLAY TO WIN

THE GAME IS NOW BROKEN LETS ALL GO HOME

Isnt collusion and deal making the whole point of melee?

So say we all!

dcdennis said:

Absolutely, within the context of the match. Agreements that are made prior to the match, however, exist outside the match and are therefore not appropriate. Moreover, the objective behind deal-making during a match should be to advance one's own position, not to support another player's interests without concern for oneself. Ultimately, the rules should be such that nobody benefits from forsaking their chances at winning. That's not how the conflict in the books works, and that's not how a format representing the conflict in the books should work.

Penfold said:

OH MY. Looks like we have ourselves a bona fide tough guy. They say you can tell the real badasses by how they go on an internet forum and tell you about a hypothetical time in the past when they really would have effed some sh*t up. That goes double if the forum is about a card game set in a realm of fantasy and magickal creatures.

I guess it's lucky for us Penfold has decided to cage the tiger a walk a path of non-violence.

Penfold said:

I like this idea, but I'm not sure how it would work. Would you simply put the player's name on a blacklist that is distributed to all TOs?

MarthWMaster said:

This is a horrible idea. It would kill the format if not the game if you start trying to enforce something that is almost impossible to reasonably moderate.

How could you tell between someone who makes a mistake in the game that cost him the win and simultaneously helped his meta-mate win, and someone who is actually helping his metamate win? Would you automatically assume he is colluding? Would you analyze the point standings and use that as evidence in an FFG tribunal?

Impractical and ill-advised.

I encourage you to create this list of people that make deals in melee. i will then take the list, cross off 'black list' at the top, and replace it with 'people who know how to play melee'. i will then suggest that you stop whining, and learn2play

dcdennis said:

There is big difference in making deals in melee and making deals outside the melee table. First is correct to the format and the other one isn't. Unfortunately there is no way to enforce this other than trust people having sense of sportsmanship and informing of their intentions in the table (so that the melee isn't 2vs1vs1 but more of 2vs2 at that point). Atleast I would see melee format and its rules discussed more instead of leaving it to the point where it currently is.

~dont we ever dare to listen to those **** whiners! they are trying to talk about the state of the game when they should just L2P.

lol these are rules made up in your head boss. no where does it say or even suggest that you cant collude. LOL!!! BRO UR BACKSTABBING ME THE WRONG WAY!! YOU CAN ONLY BACKSTAB THIS WAY NOT THAT WAY WTF!!! YER NOT BACKSTABBING ME APPROPRIATELY!!

Ire said:

This is a rehash of the old debate. One side says outside influences are antithetical to the format, the other says it's integral. Each side is merely laying their own structure and expectations on the game. Bottom line is, it's not against the rules. In fact, the point structure actually encourages such brokered arrangements, even outside meta lines. What's to prevent someone who's "out" of the game from dicking over another player at the last round of swiss just because they don't like house Lannister? Or helping someone because they like house Stark? Or even hurting someone because last year they broke an in-game deal? Or was rude on the forums? This speaks to the argument that melee is, in and of itself, flawed as a competitive format.

If FFG wants to address this, they should change something. For example, they can create artificial "alliances" outside meta lines for the course of the entire tournament and reward players if members of their meta succeed at their table. Freakonomics FTW.

just pretend each meta is its own minor house, then the collusion fits thematically

dcdennis said:

lol these are rules made up in your head boss. no where does it say or even suggest that you cant collude. LOL!!! BRO UR BACKSTABBING ME THE WRONG WAY!! YOU CAN ONLY BACKSTAB THIS WAY NOT THAT WAY WTF!!! YER NOT BACKSTABBING ME APPROPRIATELY!!

You do realize you're trolling your own thread now, yes?

MarthWMaster said:

I think maybe it's ok as long as it's funny, and that was pretty hilarious.