Running a Tournament...

[LoboStele]

Well, keeping track of VPs would be helpful for determining who gets 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Also, if somebody goes undefeated, but only has 12 VPs, whereas someone else lost 1 game but has like 16-20 VPs, wouldn't that show that the person with 1 loss is "playing the game" better than the other person? It's always a tough call on how to determine that aspect of things.

Could have separate prizes for whoever has the highest VP and who goes undefeated.

[nix]

I like the idea of tracking vp for pairings during each round, but I agree that Malifaux should play quick enough that store tournaments could use win/loss for final winner. Elimination bracketing allows a 4 round tournament to bring a group of 16 players down to 1 winner.

I added in an overall prize that includes both sportsmanship and painting, along with 3 other prize categories. Its in my players pack.

[RisingPhoenix]

Well, keeping track of VPs would be helpful for determining who gets 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Also, if somebody goes undefeated, but only has 12 VPs, whereas someone else lost 1 game but has like 16-20 VPs, wouldn't that show that the person with 1 loss is "playing the game" better than the other person? It's always a tough call on how to determine that aspect of things.

Could have separate prizes for whoever has the highest VP and who goes undefeated.

Well in general, the top seeds in a W/L record should play off in a Top 8/Top 4.

But really, with this system, Victory Points tell us very, very little. For instance, if someone has 'Seize table quarters' and another person has 'capture the treasure' then even the loser might get 4 victory points for limping back home with a treasure. Does this mean that they played better than the person who pulled Table Quarters against the person who pulled Claim Jump?

Even if we standardize the missions, schemes naturally incline towards the opponent getting more or less victory points (for instance "thwart" revolves around the opponent getting less victory points, whereas ones involving corpse counters or models living don't do anything to the opponent).

Furthermore, if you pull a very easy opponent in round 1, you could easily get 8 VPs immediately. Does this tell us anything versus two good players who played a hard fought game where one barely pulled out a 2 VP victory and completed one hidden scheme while shutting their opponent out of all but one scheme?

It's a fine tiebreaker, but like with 40k, some of the best games ever are going to end with very little on the table, and minor victories.

[gregdorf]

The more I think about the less I like the idea of using win/loss record in a malifaux tournament. If you use just the VP's earned each round then why not stick with the VP format for ranking. Then what else do you base a W/L off of? How well someone does in a strategy, or with a schemes. Maybe a flash back to the old confrontation days where you figure out the difference between the scores and the number of points killed Vs lost.

[ricottma]

So there is some good info here! Here is what I know so far....there is no painting requirements, I can't paint. We tried VP points before and it wasn't good. If I play to deny you VPs (which is something I can do with Zorida it seems) and I win on just one or two to nothing it doesn't work out to be feasible...aka people bitch to much...

I like the idea of having pre-arranged strategies...

I wanted toi do 35 SS but it might have to be 25

[RisingPhoenix]

The more I think about the less I like the idea of using win/loss record in a malifaux tournament. If you use just the VP's earned each round then why not stick with the VP format for ranking. Then what else do you base a W/L off of? How well someone does in a strategy, or with a schemes. Maybe a flash back to the old confrontation days where you figure out the difference between the scores and the number of points killed Vs lost.

W/L record seems pretty easy to find something to base it off of. Who won or lost the game. Conditions for this are in the rulebook.

HOW you win the game should be entirely up to you as a general. If you believe that you don't have the models necessary to get all 4 points on your victory condition anymore (lets say you flipped a black joker at a bad time and lost a critical model) then denying the opponent points while getting what you can should be a valid strategic choice. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' way to win a game, and denying the opponent strategic options, punishing them for drawing skilled opponents (even more than simply having to beat a skilled opponent), and removing ways they can still profit despite bad luck makes this game less.

I dislike nothing quite so much as tournaments where the TO tries to tell me what is a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way to build my army, and what is a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way to try and win the game (besides the obvious - being unsporting and cheating is always the wrong way to do anything, and removes any win a cheater ever had).

Edit: wow, that came across harsher than I meant on rereading. Sorry if I offended anyone. This is too much negative emotion from a different game spilling in. What is related is that I think that VPs do really encourage stomping new players - which isn't great for anyone.

Edited September 10, 2010 by RisingPhoenix

[RisingPhoenix]

So there is some good info here! Here is what I know so far....there is no painting requirements, I can't paint. We tried VP points before and it wasn't good. If I play to deny you VPs (which is something I can do with Zorida it seems) and I win on just one or two to nothing it doesn't work out to be feasible...aka people bitch to much...

In parallel, I suggest that you have a 'best themed Crew' (35 SS Crew of at least 5 models) and 'best Master' painting competition with some form of prize.

It doesn't have to be a fortune in models, a $5-10 bubble pack for best Crew and best Master would probably make people happy, but painting is a part of this hobby too, and while I've always been an advocate that painting shouldn't influence your record (in the same way that your general skills don't make your painting better) it's a very important thing to recognize. In a real sense, great painting does as much to sell this hobby to new players as watching current players play games.

Also great painting is just awesome!

[gregdorf]

Edit: wow, that came across harsher than I meant on rereading. Sorry if I offended anyone. This is too much negative emotion from a different game spilling in. What is related is that I think that VPs do really encourage stomping new players - which isn't great for anyone.

No big deal to me, you are just a name on the message board for all I care. The point I was making but was lost, is if your are going to ignore VP scoring each round how are you going to figure out who won a game. If both players earn 4VP, one just through schemes and the other through strategy. Which of those two players won the.

If you are concerned about a good player being paired with a bad player, well that happens. That is why you play more then one round and you match players based on their scoring each round. The key to running a successful tournament is making sure that everything is fair, and for that to happen everything needs to be clear from the start how things work. If you want to run a tournament on a W/L system without using VP conditions, fine but you better make it understood how those win are achieved.

If you are feeling too much negative emotion then maybe you should rethink things. I was finding this an interesting topic, and having a guideline on how people like to see tournaments ran is helpful to anyone. As a side note I played in a few tournaments at Gen Con, one was horrible and one was turned out good, but started out bad. The one that started bad was the book one Mali tourney, What was bad was the person I played. He did not fully understand the rules and argued and whined about my force. I think he also penciled whipped his final score in the end, but that ended hurting him because he ended playing people with far nastier lists then I had. This is the one thing all TO should be concerned with, if a little bit of control can prevent this type of behavior then I am all for it.

[deadboy]

No big deal to me, you are just a name on the message board for all I care. The point I was making but was lost, is if your are going to ignore VP scoring each round how are you going to figure out who won a game. If both players earn 4VP, one just through schemes and the other through strategy. Which of those two players won the.

Then it's a draw.

I think there MIGHT be a misunderstanding here. Victory points aren't IGNORED per se. They just don't determine who wins the tourney. There are two ways to score the tourney.

1) Take overall victory points scored in each game. Highest=Winner.

2) Determine who wins a game by the normal method. Then give each player X points depending on the result. Generally something 4 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss. Then add up those points to determine overall winner.

[RisingPhoenix]

No big deal to me, you are just a name on the message board for all I care. The point I was making but was lost, is if your are going to ignore VP scoring each round how are you going to figure out who won a game. If both players earn 4VP, one just through schemes and the other through strategy. Which of those two players won the.

If it really comes down to that, a draw is a fine alternative. Swiss systems typically have wins at '3 points' draws at '1 point' and losses at '0 points' for determining standing.

Tiebreakers are also possible For instance, you could do "If both Masters scored the same VP, whoever earned the most VP from strategies is the winner" or something like that.

I honestly haven't seen a draw with this game system. They're possible, but seem very unlikely in practice, especially if both players share victory conditions.

If you are concerned about a good player being paired with a bad player, well that happens. That is why you play more then one round and you match players based on their scoring each round. The key to running a successful tournament is making sure that everything is fair, and for that to happen everything needs to be clear from the start how things work. If you want to run a tournament on a W/L system without using VP conditions, fine but you better make it understood how those win are achieved.

I'm not concerned about a good player being paired with a bad player. I am concerned with good players being awarded above and beyond the easy victory already associated with being paired with a truly bad player.

If you are feeling too much negative emotion then maybe you should rethink things. I was finding this an interesting topic, and having a guideline on how people like to see tournaments ran is helpful to anyone. As a side note I played in a few tournaments at Gen Con, one was horrible and one was turned out good, but started out bad. The one that started bad was the book one Mali tourney, What was bad was the person I played. He did not fully understand the rules and argued and whined about my force. I think he also penciled whipped his final score in the end, but that ended hurting him because he ended playing people with far nastier lists then I had. This is the one thing all TO should be concerned with, if a little bit of control can prevent this type of behavior then I am all for it.

The negative emotion isn't from Malifaux. It's from a different miniatures game called Warhammer 40k. If you knew how the garbage tournament system with that game ran, you'd probably understand how some subjects here stab a little close to home for me. Seriously (this is all true) TOs will alter player standings based on how much they like the player's army, other players will alter player standing based on how much they like or dislike the player, and the final results contain all of these silly scores in them as well as actual performance.

I agree bad behavior definitely needs to be punished. TOs need to realize that they have the power to warn players about their behavior, and if push comes to shove, eject them from the tournament for bad sportsmenship. No, that probably shouldn't happen without a talking to or two (except in truly beyond the pale cases) but people need to realize if they're having a bad day, grin and bear it, or at least don't make other people's days suck too.

[gregdorf]

My only complaint with a W/L setting here is there is already a nice VP scoring method and why make more work for the TO when it is not needed. I also find that a VP scoring system is more forgiving of a bad first round then a W/L system.

I understand your feeling about GW tournament system. their games are usually unbalanced so it is usually up to the TO running the event to attempt to control the power gaming. This is where you get painting scores, army comp, and sportsmanship effecting the rankings in a tournament. I am fine with a TO giving awards for those type of things, but it should not effect the outcome of the event. It is my experiences with bad tournaments *cough* GW mostly *cough* that have been the reason I have made my arguments.

[nilus]

VP points are awarded for Strategies and Schemes only. Personally I find VP is the best way to award victory because it give a much more measurable sense of victory. Someone might score 8 VP and win when someone else might score 4. The guy with 8 obviously played a better game. Also he may have just beat his opponent by 1. So he would have 7 VP. Doesn't seem fair to give him 0 for the loss when he scored 3 more VP then the guy who got 4 and won.

Plus in a 3 round tourney win/loss can end with a lot of ties. VPs make that less of a problem.

I do agree with you about painting and sportsmanship. I am all for awarding them but it must be kept a separate thing from determine the game winners.

[Zethal]

My only complaint with a W/L setting here is there is already a nice VP scoring method and why make more work for the TO when it is not needed. I also find that a VP scoring system is more forgiving of a bad first round then a W/L system.

It requires less work of the TO. You only have to input wins/ties/losses rather then VPs. At the most it is the same amount of work. You are now just finding excuses to back your feeling of how things should be rather then looking at this objectively.

Scoring based on VPs in any system almost never ends up benefitting the better and certainly not the nicer players.

VP points are awarded for Strategies and Schemes only. Personally I find VP is the best way to award victory because it give a much more measurable sense of victory.

Except that it isn't at all. Mostly what measuring by VPs is measure who is a truly horrid player.

If two of the best players face each other early in the tourny and the game ends 2 to 1; these players could very easily be out of the tournament for not fault besides that both players probably played a phenomenal game. While a mediocre player thrashing a new/bad player for 8 VPs is not a better player for drawing a worse opponent. The amount of VPs gained almost entirely measures how bad your opponent is, while winning or losing is generally much more determined upon your own abilities.

Someone might score 8 VP and win when someone else might score 4. The guy with 8 obviously played a better game. Also he may have just beat his opponent by 1. So he would have 7 VP. Doesn't seem fair to give him 0 for the loss when he scored 3 more VP then the guy who got 4 and won.

Thats not true at all. I don't have data to back my argument because I've not done a proper study. All I have is years of anecdotal experience in competitive games. But I can tell you with great certainly that the primary the amount a player wins by are generally determined by the skill of your opponent and available models (so money invested) rather then personal skill.

Not to mention it really creates a unfun atmosphere for all but the most competitive. You have good strategiests going for the throat destroying weaker players while they kind of just sit back and watch. While if you base it on wins and losses you start to experience strong players loosening up once they have secured their victory and loosing players start to do very fun and risky things for cool effects rather then run their couple models away and never fight just to avoid giving up another VP or two.

Plus in a 3 round tourney win/loss can end with a lot of ties. VPs make that less of a problem.

Using VPs as tie breakers is an option, and I'd hope that you are having a couple finals games rather then just doing 3 rounds of swiss and expecting to find a clear victor.

[nilus]

You do realize when we say VPs we mean from Strategies and Schemes and not VPs like most games do it...IE From wiping out model.

[Zethal]

of course...

Generally regardless of how victory is achieved close battles happen when skill levels are close and high level games are more likely to create close games then two newbies hoping their actions lead to good results. Large differences in points happen most often when there is a great difference between skill levels. Punishing good players for playing against other good players is exactly the opposite kind of system you want to create.

Edited September 10, 2010 by Zethal

[nilus]

I think we just have to agree to disagree. I really like that Victory points determine wins in most Malifaux Tourneys(including most likely official ones when those rules are officially published). It keeps the focus on completing your Strategy and Schemes as best you can instead of just wiping out your opponent and making sure you score at least one more point then them.

[RisingPhoenix]

I think we just have to agree to disagree. I really like that Victory points determine wins in most Malifaux Tourneys(including most likely official ones when those rules are officially published). It keeps the focus on completing your Strategy and Schemes as best you can instead of just wiping out your opponent and making sure you score at least one more point then them.

I'm not saying we can't agree to disagree, but I think you're simply flat wrong on how competitive games will play out. Hidden schemes mean that if your goal is to 'score one more point than the opponent' you're going to be sadly disappointed when you lose due to schemes being completed that you didn't predict.

If your opponent chose to reveal both schemes and go for the glory, and you were able to devise a way to completely shut him out as a result, then that was his bad choice, and his loss.

On the other hand, by revealing both, and you keeping both of yours hidden, he made even one of his worth as much as both of yours.

Another damaging effect of VP play, btw, is that it completely removes most/all of the incentives to keep schemes hidden, which removes a strategic dimension of the game.

I sincerely hope that the official tournaments do NOT encourage VP play. GW tournaments have only recently started dragging themselves out of the quagmire they created when they did exactly that (by, surprise, surprise, switching to W/L records). Meanwhile there is STILL a deep divide inbetween two types of tournament players, mostly as a result of the baby seal clubbing that VP encourages.

[gregdorf]

Ok, how is running a tournament in a W/L going to change anything regarding Schemes being hidden or announced. If you are still basing a win on the player that earned the most VPs collected between a Strategies and Schemes then most players are going to announce.

[LoboStele]

In the Malifaux League we are doing right now, we are doing a Campaign-based idea, where the different factions are fighting over control of areas in Malifaux. When you fight a game in a given location, the winner of the game 'takes control' of that location and gains certain points/bonuses for that control. We have ruled that the player with the most VPs wins the game. BUT, if it's a tie, then the player with the most Strategy points wins. For instance, some Strategies can offer you ways to get either 2 or 4 VPs, depending on how much of the strategy you complete. So, Player A might only get 2 VPs for his Strategy but he gets 4 VPs from completing 2 announced Schemes. Player B gets 4 VPs from his Strategy, but only 2 VPs from his Schemes. So, both players have 6 VPs, but Player B fully completed his Strategy, which is the key component. So Player B would win.

Obviously, this is still somewhat VP based, but at least puts more emphasis on the Strategy, which then works out nicely with the idea of using a SS to re-flip Strategy if you want to.

[nilus]

I'm not saying we can't agree to disagree, but I think you're simply flat wrong on how competitive games will play out.

I am just speaking from experience. I have personally ran 4 Malifaux tournaments myself and played in 4 more and they have all used this approach. They all seemed to have went well and for the most part people were happy with how they went. They also used this approach at Gencon as well.

But again its just my thoughts on it. If you want to run a tourney using W/L then I am sure no one will object. Malifaux is still maturing so there is a lot of room to kinda do your own thing and see how it plays out. At this point what really matters is that people are out there running demos and tournaments promoting the game.

[RisingPhoenix]

Ok, how is running a tournament in a W/L going to change anything regarding Schemes being hidden or announced. If you are still basing a win on the player that earned the most VPs collected between a Strategies and Schemes then most players are going to announce.

The announce/don't announce has always been a strategic choice. It's far, far easier to complete many schemes if you don't announce. Announcing a single scheme and hiding one gives you the potential for 7 points, of which you frequently only need to score 5 or so to handle an opponent.

I mean what, you don't think that it's harder to complete a scheme when it's announced? You have to devote many more resources to it, whereas without the announce, you can often just covertly accomplish it.

But if you're penalized in the tournament structure, no one is going to do it.

[RisingPhoenix]

I am just speaking from experience. I have personally ran 4 Malifaux tournaments myself and played in 4 more and they have all used this approach. They all seemed to have went well and for the most part people were happy with how they went. They also used this approach at Gencon as well.

But again its just my thoughts on it. If you want to run a tourney using W/L then I am sure no one will object. Malifaux is still maturing so there is a lot of room to kinda do your own thing and see how it plays out. At this point what really matters is that people are out there running demos and tournaments promoting the game.

With respect, I'm sure your tournaments were excellent. But running 4 tournaments without W/L records gives you exactly zero authority on how tournaments WITH W/L records will play out.

Now if you told me that you ran 1-2 of those, and the most successful gamers just focused on tabling their opponent, rather than getting VP, that would be interesting.

[nilus]

With respect, I'm sure your tournaments were excellent. But running 4 tournaments without W/L records gives you exactly zero authority on how tournaments WITH W/L records will play out.

With all due respect back to you, How many Malifaux tourney have you ran? How many have you played in? I am not being jerky I am just wondering. Because by your logic above if I have zero authority to speak for one method I have not used then someone who has not tried either has zero authority to speak to either. Malifaux plays a lot different then a lot of other games(especially 40K which you keep referencing). Especially competitively.

Like I said, if you are running your own thing feel free to do it how you wish. But in the grand scheme of things the VP system is probably what most Malifaux Tourneys will use.

[RisingPhoenix]

Your last post was a blatant try to move the subject of the conversation from the logic behind W/L versus VP to "well I've run lots of tournies and they're VP, so we should all use VP because that's the best method moving forward and what everyone will use."

The logic remains sound whether or not tournies have been run. If Malifaux tournies are run with VP as the primary focus, the game will lose something in the future, and I don't want to see that happen.

I don't believe VP will be the wave of the future moving forward. I do believe its a holdover from other game systems, that will be eliminated once people realize Malifaux is its own game that doesn't need to play by others rules (for one, it plays a LOT faster).

All of your veiled insults and claims of inexperience aside, logic is logic.

I think I'm rather done here. I don't feel the need to defend myself to petty forum trolls who rest on their laurels and snipe others while recounting their glorious deeds. This really is why I try not to use forums in the first place. They're SUPPOSED to be for discussion, but there's always the people who feel threatened by discussion, so try to shut it down and prevent it from continuing or evolving.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

The tone of this thread is degrading quickly.

Let's keep things civil, please.