Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => League / Tournament Play => Topic started by: pixelgeek on December 09, 2012, 08:48:34 PM
-
Just wanted to start a discussion about tie breaker rules based on an earlier suggestion
as for tie breakers after time runs out, here is my idea. others are welcome.
use a point system to determine tie breakers. give points for different conditions that encourage different strategies. for example.
1 point for most remaining health (difference between life and damage)
1 point for most controlled zones (encourages creature heavy)
1 point for most remaining zone exclusive conjurations (encourages destruction of conjurations)
1 point for most equipment (encourages equip heavy melee builds and dispells)
During our event today (I'll post about it later) we discussed tie-breaker conditions and I was pointed to this post.
I thought it might be useful to take the discussion of tie-breakers out into its own topic to help focus discussion and make it easier for people to find.
I think it would be useful to have three or five (an odd number) conditions that people could use to judge games where their is no clear winner. The points above are a very good starting point but I did have a few comments.
I think that it would be easier if the conditions we just a single point and you got them for meeting the condition and also that the conditions not be tied to a specific type of build but to more general conditions
So some suggestions:
Reaping: your opponent has no creatures
Cower in fear: your opponent is still in their starting zone
Strip them bare: your opponent has no equipment remaining
Control the arena: you control more Zones by having the only creature or conjurations present
Overwhelm: you have twice as many creatures or conjurations than your opponent
There are, I think, a few issues with some of the original suggestions
Health: Remaining health is to necessarily an indication of damage done. Having a lot of equipment or using a lot of heal spells can give an opponent a low amount of damage that is really just indicative or a type of play-style or build
Equipment: this would just reward, and with the Health condition re-enforce, a specific style of build.
At comments, suggestions or changes?
-
For tournament purpose I'd been thinking about a mini-end-game.
Try to visualise, once time has run out, the arena walls move until there is only one square left and you
keep on fighting untill a mage dies.
It is just a rough idea. I don't have an answer for conjurations (deathlock for exemple).
Nor how to look at archers which will be at disadvantage.
But I favor the 'last man standing'-idea. Instead of counting points.
It is very hard to figure out a point-system that's fair for every mage.
I'll try this one next time I play the game:
After set times has elapsed each mage can choose:
1 conjuration on the field to keep
2 spells from his spellbook - after this choice spellbook is discarded.
And each mage looses half of his creatures (their choice) - regardless of level and such
The game is then played on 1 large square. (I realise the conjuration-rule is contradictory)
This should encourage players to keep the upper hand on the field.
A Beastmaster could be at advantage, but Ring of Fire will be decent answer to the little critters.
-
The rules team is thinking about allowing draws in non single elimination matches.
I would make wins 3-4 points, Draws 1 point if win is 3 and 2 points if win is 4, and loses 0 points.
Let us know if you use this and how it works out.
-
We have been doing 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss.
When time is called, the mage with the least damage gets the win.
If neither has damage, or they have the same amount of damage,
it is a tie.
-
Remember when time is called they can complete the current round.
-
Another way (that's a little more intense to do it):
1. You could just go straight mana for the secondary condition (so whoever has the least damage, and then in the case of a tie, whoever has the most mana after that).
2. The other way would be to total up the assets on the board, so you would add the remaining mana in the user's mana pools to the mana cost of any creatures, equipment, and enchantments on the board, etc. In this way you get an idea of who has the most resources on the field.
These are just ideas we've tossed around in the past.
-
Isn't it true that some card game (MTG, WoW) tournament rules allow for overtime rounds if both players have exactly the same amount of damage on them? Seems like this would make sense for MW also. During overtime, if any round ends with one player taking more damage than the other, that player loses.
If the game is still tied after overtime then you could use secondary measures like mana remaining or total level of creatures+conjurations on board.
-
A few different things are involved in those rules. At the end of a round in a MTG tourney the players get 5 extra turns split between them before the match is a tie. In single elimination events you must have a winner so if after time is called and the 5 turns are played out if the match is a tie the players play sudden death. The first person to lose any life loses and / or the first person to gain life wins.
-
Posted copied to this thread
After reading another recent thread that strayed into tie breaker territory, I thought it was worth starting a separate discussion on this.
Firstly, do people feel that 'most damage inflicted' is a suitable tie breaker?
I have a couple of problems with this. Number one is logistical - we'd have to keep a 'damage taken' count alongside tracking our actual damage and life. Not the end of the world, but something that needs to be considered.
Secondly, I'm concerned that this favours the 'balls to the wall' aggressive build, and penalises a defensive/healing strategy, or a mana denial one. Both, in my opinion, are completely viable spell books, but could struggle in an OP environment.
With me so far? :)
Now, I don't have a definite idea of what the tie breaker should be - that is what this thread is here for after all - but I'm wondering if it should be more than just one criteria (for example, total damage take minus life left before defeat, plus possibly something else). I dunno, but all I know is, right now, I'm not convinced the tie breaker has parity.
I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Marty
-
Response to post also copied to this thread.
My initial gut reaction was negative to be sure. I enjoy playing priestess and wizard the most, then beastmaster. I have never played the warlock and I won't be playing him any time soon although I'm sure I'll play him eventually.
My instincts tell me this tie breaker favors warlock and beastmaster. If I enter a tourny it will be to have fun first and win second so I would still play the mages I enjoy the most. After I read the tie breaker I felt that the books I've built so far would need to be changed considerably if I were to take them to a tournament. As a brief example I now consider damage prevention significantly more important than damage healing. I have always liked elemental cloak for its damage reducers and considered it an automatic 1 of in every book. Now I have an even higher opinion and I'm not sure if I need 2 or 3 incase the first gets destroyed. If there is a lot of equipment hate the cloak could be a nice target.
I feel confident I could adapt and have fun but I would feel extra pressure not to go to the tie breaker with warlocks and beastmaster because I don't feel I could match their damage dealing capability unless I can reduce their ability to deal damage down to my own, then it would be anyone's game again.
My final thoughts are that we haven't even tried this tie breaker at an official tournament yet and my impressions might prove to be totally wrong. I am really exited to see how Bashcon turns out.
-
This was taken from another thread (http://magewars.com/jsite/forum/league-tournament-play/2742-tourniment-rules#2766) but it does apply.
For "Must Reveals" - in the rule book it says that if you fail to reveal a "Must Reveal" card at the right time, and you try to reveal it later, the card is destroyed without effect. This seems reasonably easy to enforce IMO.
For tie breakers, IMO the fairest measure would be "Total Damage Taken by Mage". Have some kind of counter next to the board that keeps score with any effects that either cause damage or decrease maximum Life of a Mage. This would discourage abusive healing strategies such as multiple Grey Angel sacrifice on the final round of a timed event.
How can you prove when a certain card was played unless both players agreed.
Check out this example. Player A put enchant X, Reverse attack, then enchant y on a creature. At the current point in the match the creature has no damage currently on it. Player A flip Rev attack Player B calls the judge over to say he already attacked that creature before so the rev attack should not work. Player A claims clearly this creature had not been attacked because it has no damage on it. Player B says he rolled all 0s for damage before that is why it has no damage. Player A claims that it was on another creature and not the current creature in question. Who is correct?
For total damage taken how do you track that. Do you trust each player to keep a tally of the damage. It is hard enough to get people to bring the minimum items the are required to without adding on extras.
How about this your judging and you get called over to resolve a tie breaker and both players in question have already packed up the spell books and are looking over the total damage sheets and they have near perfect notes about each source of damage and where it came from. You find the issue was on turn 8 7th action it is listed as 6 points of non crit damage and the other player has 4 points of non crit damage listed. Who is correct?
[spoiler] The majority of the time as a judge you should be enforcing the rules. Not trying to guess who is lying to you.[/spoiler]
-
My first thought when I saw this, was to write up a "win the tie breaker strategy":
Warlord,
Round 1- QC 1 LOH / QC 1 Elemental Cloak
Round 2 - QC Teleport / Open Can of Whoop A** (OCWA) w/ LOH
Round 3 - QC Bear Str / (OCWA) w/ LOH
Round 4 - QC Fireball / (OCWA) w/ LOH
Round 5 - QC Bear Str / (OCWA) w/ LOH
Have extra LOH on hand (maybe order a 1/2 dozen singles from a card vendor) a couple of Heals, maybe wall of thorns / push for the coup de grâce if the win is within grasp before the 90 minutes is up or not even!. Hope for a Priestess and lots of heals on her side :)
-
We have been doing 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss...
The more I think about this, the more I believe this (without the most damage etc caveats) is the fairest way. If you hit the time limit and neither player is dead, both players score 1 point - simple as that.
Tie breakers that involve damage seem to be favouring certain builds/mages over another, not to mention adding an extra level of 'book keeping' - why not do away with them and just allow ties.
Except in the final which should be a no time limit, play until someone is beaten game.
-
We have been doing 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss...
The more I think about this, the more I believe this (without the most damage etc caveats) is the fairest way. If you hit the time limit and neither player is dead, both players score 1 point - simple as that.
Tie breakers that involve damage seem to be favouring certain builds/mages over another, not to mention adding an extra level of 'book keeping' - why not do away with them and just allow ties.
Except in the final which should be a no time limit, play until someone is beaten game.
I agree. However, if there will ever be elimination style tournaments a tie breaker will still be needed.
-
I was just wondering if the tiebreaker decided any games at the BASHCon tournament and if so, how many and who won?
-
All matches finished before the 90 minute mark. The fastest was 10min and the longest was 85 min
-
All matches finished before the 90 minute mark. The fastest was 10min and the longest was 85 min
Thanks for the reply. That doesn't surprise me. Ninety minutes seems like plenty of tine to finish a game in a tournament setting. It's easier for casual games to run longer with all the goofing and socializing that goes on.
-
All matches finished before the 90 minute mark. The fastest was 10min and the longest was 85 min
Very happy to read that, one of my main worries was slow burner and defensive decks not being able to compete/win in the 90 min window. Awesome to see that early indications show otherwise!
-
The fastest was 10min...
:blink:
Um, sorry? :ohmy:
You're gonna need to expand on this I'm afraid :) What was matched against what, and what the HELL happened to make such a short game?!?! :lol:
-
The fastest was 10min...
:blink:
Um, sorry? :ohmy:
You're gonna need to expand on this I'm afraid :) What was matched against what, and what the HELL happened to make such a short game?!?! :lol:
Two aggro decks rushed in and attacked till one person died.
-
Nice :pinch:
Will there be any sort of official tourney report or positions and standings?
Also, was there a final (2 highest scoring players) or just points winner at the end of 5 rounds?
-
4 round most points.
-
Nice :pinch:
Will there be any sort of official tourney report or positions and standings?
Also, was there a final (2 highest scoring players) or just points winner at the end of 5 rounds?
Yes, there will be an official tournament report and standings posted ASAP.
-
Nice :pinch:
Will there be any sort of official tourney report or positions and standings?
Also, was there a final (2 highest scoring players) or just points winner at the end of 5 rounds?
Yes, there will be an official tournament report and standings posted ASAP.
Cool! Look forward to having a read.
-
So a question came up yesterday as we were talking about Tournaments and most damage condition to win the tie breaker. So let’s say a Warlock casts an Idol of Pestilences round one and is never destroyed, after 13 rounds the Warlock as taken a total of 20 points of damage and the opponent the same 20 points of damage.
The opponent has only hit the Warlock for a total of 7 points of damage but in total the Warlock has inflicted 33 points of damage (13+13+7). Does he lose or win?
So the question hiding behind all of this is how do DOT's that affect everyone on the board get scored during a tourney?
-
May i offer a suggestion i heard from another game (i think Magic). have round time be 75min + 2 d 12 dice, only the Tournament organizer knows the d12 time.
once that time is up all mages get finite life instantly (imagine poision blood enchantment has been cast), and all damage done to mages form all sources from the next turn onwards is doubled (ie calculate damage normally with dice, pearcing etc, then just double that number)
-
May i offer a suggestion i heard from another game (i think Magic). have round time be 75min + 2 d 12 dice, only the Tournament organizer knows the d12 time.
once that time is up all mages get finite life instantly (imagine poision blood enchantment has been cast), and all damage done to mages form all sources from the next turn onwards is doubled (ie calculate damage normally with dice, pearcing etc, then just double that number)
A possibility could be removing spell preparation or limit it to incantations and attack spells.
(no more equipmnent, enchantment, creatures, conjurations)
Finish with what you got - and do it quick.
-
you can't limit what spells are used because that it an unfair advantage to different mages. what you are esencially saying is you can do W+X+Y+Z damage sources and people build mages around that, then we take out Y and Z making builds who used that for winning.
while doubling damage is a fair game accelerator because if you run swarm, beat down, dot or solo the advantage of double damage is the same effective increase.
until there is official word from arcane wonders I'm going to suggest to use my method for elimination matches.
-
you can't limit what spells are used because that it an unfair advantage to different mages. what you are esencially saying is you can do W+X+Y+Z damage sources and people build mages around that, then we take out Y and Z making builds who used that for winning.
while doubling damage is a fair game accelerator because if you run swarm, beat down, dot or solo the advantage of double damage is the same effective increase.
until there is official word from arcane wonders I'm going to suggest to use my method for elimination matches.
Taking away healing is the same in a way. If you had a deck that focused on kiting, some healing while doing some damage you would still be at a disadvantage vs a deck that contained 0 ways of healing and just full out damage. (mby because the spells were spent at that point.)
-
But Finite life is a condition already in the game, while restricting spells is not a current in-game condition
-
But Finite life is a condition already in the game, while restricting spells is not a current in-game condition
Thats not a good argument. Any deck relying of healing will surely have Means to get rid of finite life conditions gained the normal way.
-
there is a slight difference
even decks that rely on healing still need another form of damage to kill the other mage, and just to clarify only the mages get finite life, you can still heal your minions if you require.
picking finite health or not, the double damage option is the main thing that will accelerate the game. because only a handful of spells and attributes (vampire, regen, healing, +life) increase your health While every mage wars strategy (assume you want to win) will require you to deal damage.
perhaps to make it fair they could ignore my finite life suggestion but still take the double damage, there is no mage wars match up that would be uneven with double damage to mages.
Note: only mages get double damage and this is double damage from all sources including; idol of pestilence, creature attacks, burn, attack spells, unavoidable damage, damage barriers, the damage portion of Life drain. you should also double the amout of Life you loose including; blood reaper, tained etc.
-
Just discovered this thread. Inspired from some of the other suggestions, I would suggest:
The Gentleman Way: First option – if one is clearly in a stronger position or have played better, the other may give him/her the game. In a single/casual game players can agree to a tie. This can happen even before the time expires and is the equivalent of offering a draw in chess in chess.
Approximated calculation: The second option is trying to calculate which player is ahead. See below.
Lady Luck: If the two above fails, it is probably impossibly to say anything objective about who is ahead, therefore luck might as well decide. Each player rolls 5 dice, the highest wins. If tied, reroll.
Calculation table. For each player:
a) Add remaining life, channeling, remaining mana/2 (rounded down) and subtract any upkeep not coming from opponents spells.
b) Add the manacost of all the enchantments you control, subtract the removal cost for each negative condition on your mage and your creatures*.
c) Add the manacost of each conjuration you control, subtract any damage.
d) Add the manacost of each creature you control, subtract any damage.
e) Add the manacost of all your equipment.
Compare a-e. The winner in each category gets 1 victory point (vp). If the difference > 5, the winner gets 2 vp, if the difference > 10, the winner gets 3 vp etc.
*in this step, add 2 points for each armor token from the Priestess crown of protection and subtract 2 points for each counter below three on the Forcemasters Forcefield.
The last option should hopefully never be used, but I think it is better to have this, than obvious bias in the calculation. And yes, I know this calculation isn’t perfect.
-
I recently played in an 8-man tournament with 75-minute rounds. Of the four matches each round, about half of them resulted in draws, and each player received 1 point. I would prefer 90-minute rounds for organized play, as I think more than half of those draws would have resulted in victories for the players instead, but sometimes venue limitations exist on timing of rounds.
One possibility kicking around my brain was some sort of zone exiling as the end of a round nears. For example, in a 75-minute round, let's say after 60 minutes each player, beginning with the player who currently has initiative, gets to choose one zone that no mages occupy and destroy/exile either everything within that zone or put some type of black marker over the zone to signify that players can no longer use that zone to move through (as well as exiling or destroying everything that resides in that zone). Then at the 65-minute mark, each player again gets to choose a zone to destroy/exile from the game, and finally, one final zone destruction phase at the 70-minute mark.
I believe this would act a lot of strategic decisions as those time markers approached. If it was in a game where one player obviously has the upper hand, I think they're just going to ignore the time left on the clock and go for the win the way they have been. For an even match, or worse yet, a priestess v. priestess battle between healers, it could introduce some elements that could significantly speed up play by removing a zone with a critical spawnpoint or with a large amount of creatures "holed up" and basically just trying to prolong the game.
Just a thought, and I'd be interested to get some feedback on feasibility, alternatives, and rules tweakage.
-
I could easily see someone using the zone block you describe to do all kinds of position control. I really dislike the idea because it would completely warp the game from that point on, more than tiebreakers based on remaining health.
-
Instead of a 75-90min limit, how about a rule that limits the planning phase? After reading posts, and from teaching others how to play, this seems like the part of the game that takes the longest in a turn.
The question is how long is too short? Is 30sec too short, likely. What about 60sec, this seems reasonable for someone that is experienced and played several times, but would be rough on newer players. So that leaves 90-120sec planning, is this too much time?
The answer will be based on how skilled or experienced the players are, which then begs the thought of leagues or levels.
Solution: multiple or just more than one tournament.
At a con: solution 1 (think Yugioh tv show) where during the week days prior, everyone signs up on the first day, and based on the number of players and days in the con, everyone is given 2 chips and only those with Y number of chips may enter into the top 4-8-16, on the final day. This style would benefit from a semi honor system where the staff wouldn't have to run rounds. Downside is no one will want to play well known players, but with a wagering system of (ok, I'll play you, but I'll only put up 1 chip if you put up 2). One way to keep things fair is that all games must be played in play area, etc).
Solution 2: run 2 leagues. Where the "pro" league has better rewards/perks and sets planning stages to 60 seconds(or whichever is play tested best) and an "armature" one with longer planning stages.
Also maybe leave 30, 45, or 60 second sand timers on tables for taking turns or deciding on moves.
Otherwise there is a problem If you can't play a turtle strat against an aggro and it take 3hrs.
-
I hadn't heard of the Yu-Gi-Oh method, but I like the idea as an example of alternative tournament formats. I do think that copying the Magic: the Gathering tournament format may not be the best fit for this game.
In M:tG, an agro deck can complete in 15 minutes without much difficulty, while a control deck might take 35 min. Since a match is best of three, the control deck is trying to win the first game, and then survive the second game, while the agro deck is trying to win the first game, or win both of the second two games. (The control deck that loses the first game is in a weaker position, because it must now try to win twice in whatever time it has left. Sometimes control players will concede a hopeless but slow game 1, to try to have enough time to win games 2 and 3.)
But in Mage Wars, there's really only time for one match, and Agro really does have a much easier experience with the time limit than control does.
I don't have a solution, but I'd love to hear some more ideas.
-
I just played at the Dice Tower Con tournament this past week and this issue came up there as well. There was a great deal of heated discussions regarding running out the 75 min round timer with no clear victor and how to break draws.
What about comparing the "Spell Potential" of the two drawing players spell books against each other to determine a tie breaker. Also, do not award a full 3 points for a victory by tie breaker to the "winner" only award 2 points for draw-win and 1 point to the draw-loser. This way the "winner" gets something more than the "loser" but not the full match points because they failed to decisively defeat their opponent in the allotted round time.
"Spellbook Potential" would be the sum of the levels of spells left over in the mages spellbooks (ignoring actual spell book preparation point costs of the specific mage, only the printed values).
The one whom has more "Spellbook Potential" gets 2 points for the round and the other player who has less gets 1 point for the round.
-
I hadn't heard of the Yu-Gi-Oh method, but I like the idea as an example of alternative tournament formats. I do think that copying the Magic: the Gathering tournament format may not be the best fit for this game.
In M:tG, an agro deck can complete in 15 minutes without much difficulty, while a control deck might take 35 min. Since a match is best of three, the control deck is trying to win the first game, and then survive the second game, while the agro deck is trying to win the first game, or win both of the second two games. (The control deck that loses the first game is in a weaker position, because it must now try to win twice in whatever time it has left. Sometimes control players will concede a hopeless but slow game 1, to try to have enough time to win games 2 and 3.)
But in Mage Wars, there's really only time for one match, and Agro really does have a much easier experience with the time limit than control does.
I don't have a solution, but I'd love to hear some more ideas.
I didn't say anything about mtg formats.
The premise is to limit the planning period for spells because that cAn take a long time.
And it posits the best time limitation, I don't think you read my post; this game is nothing like magic.
-
I think any sort of time limit will make the game imbalanced for us less experienced players. Some playstyles take more thinking to use than others, and with less experienced players this might give the rush strategies more of an advantage. I think a time limit might not be the best idea. I know that time for a tournament isn't infinite, but let's not forget that Mage Wars was designed to be a relatively long game--usually over an hour for just one.
My idea is to break up tournaments a bit. Depending on the number of people who preregister for a tournament, make more than one tournament, and then have the winners either be invited to face each other in another tournament later, or just have them be the winners of their respective tournaments.
Having tournaments for multiple formats of play and having an attendance cap for each one might work better for this. Anyone left over can play against anyone they want who isn't in another tournament, and the ones with the highest win percentages get prizes (with a minimum number of games, depending on the total tournament time). However, they'd only be able to play against each of the "leftover" participants once.
So you would have to register for an event ahead of time, and then if there are any open spots still left after the event starts, then people could come and register onsite.
While this might not work if the game becomes insanely popular, I don't know if there's a better alternative, since time limits for organized play in Mage Wars would probably suck. That's part of the problem with Mage Wars being such a long game, I think.
-
I didn't say anything about mtg formats.
The premise is to limit the planning period for spells because that cAn take a long time.
And it posits the best time limitation, I don't think you read my post; this game is nothing like magic.
And I was agreeing with you? I brought up MtG because it's the second most successful card game tournament organization in the world, and pretty clearly the model for Mage Wars tournaments so far.
-
Wouldn't it make more sense to evaluate who has the stronger board position in some fashion?
If someone has a full spellbook still, but no permanents in play, and their opponent is a Warlock with a Lord of Fire with Bear Strength and Vampirism, a Necropian Vampiress with Bear Strength, a Dark Pact Slayer Blood Reaper with Vampirism, and 60 points left in their book, I'd much rather be in the Warlock's position.
-
It would be incredibly difficult to implement an objective, studious method for determining strength of board position. As well, most games do use such a method when determining board positions. Most games use a secondary numeric value when determining strength of schedule and tie breakers. An interesting method Mage Wars could use is recording who won (represented by 2n, where n is the number of rounds won), and then recording the differential damage between the winning and losing mage (represented by L-W, where L is losing players damage total, and W is the winning players damage total). These would be recorded each round as follows:
G1, I won, and the opponent took 38 damage, and I took 17. 38-17=21, so I would record 2 (27) on my score sheet.
g2, I lost, and the opponent took 19 damage, and I took 32. 32-19= 13, so I would record 2 (40) on my score sheet.
IF the game came down to a tie due to time, players would split the points, so each player would receive 1 point apiece. You would still record damage differential as normal. Note that you may have a negative total in this column, but that is okay.
If, in cutting to the top eight, two players have the same match point number (in my example two), then we would go by the higher damage differential recorded.
This is just a rough idea, but I think it most effectively implements what you folks are tackling. Cheers!
Padawan
-
I think any sort of time limit will make the game imbalanced for us less experienced players. Some playstyles take more thinking to use than others, and with less experienced players this might give the rush strategies more of an advantage. I think a time limit might not be the best idea. I know that time for a tournament isn't infinite, but let's not forget that Mage Wars was designed to be a relatively long game--usually over an hour for just one.
My idea is to break up tournaments a bit. Depending on the number of people who preregister for a tournament, make more than one tournament, and then have the winners either be invited to face each other in another tournament later, or just have them be the winners of their respective tournaments.
Having tournaments for multiple formats of play and having an attendance cap for each one might work better for this. Anyone left over can play against anyone they want who isn't in another tournament, and the ones with the highest win percentages get prizes (with a minimum number of games, depending on the total tournament time). However, they'd only be able to play against each of the "leftover" participants once.
So you would have to register for an event ahead of time, and then if there are any open spots still left after the event starts, then people could come and register onsite.
While this might not work if the game becomes insanely popular, I don't know if there's a better alternative, since time limits for organized play in Mage Wars would probably suck. That's part of the problem with Mage Wars being such a long game, I think.
That's the point, tournaments are to test for the best, if you can't do it then you aren't the best. That's why casuals of other tcgs don't play in major league level tournaments, and why cons also run armature level tournaments.
-
I didn't say anything about mtg formats.
The premise is to limit the planning period for spells because that cAn take a long time.
And it posits the best time limitation, I don't think you read my post; this game is nothing like magic.
And I was agreeing with you? I brought up MtG because it's the second most successful card game tournament organization in the world, and pretty clearly the model for Mage Wars tournaments so far.
Yea but you can't copy a tournament model of a tcg and apply it to this game. They are night and day, and the point is to speed up the slowest part of the game. Just like in magic (possibly to your pt) planning takes time, and in mtg you have maybe 7 cards likely less to make a decision from. In MW you have 25-40+ depending on where in the game you are at.
A 1min limit on planning, and on table 30 sec timer between creature actions would allow for long play game strategy games to develop. Or say f$&k it and use chess clocks. If it works in chess why not here, MW is the wizards chess LOL!
-
so the first game of mage wars I had that lasted 8 hours is to long for tournaments?
-
The biggest concern is total time of the event. When you are at a show or renting a hall you are limited to the time allotted by the venue. For example the Gencon finals will be a 24 person 5 round Swiss we have 6 hours to work with including deck reg.
How long should the rounds be?
-
The biggest concern is total time of the event. When you are at a show or renting a hall you are limited to the time allotted by the venue. For example the Gencon finals will be a 24 person 5 round Swiss we have 6 hours to work with including deck reg.
How long should the rounds be?
I think a 90 min model is needed per game to deal with top end, but include time limits during plans. Honestly if you condition players that: ok guys, this game can take a while and to respect a full game and not have ppl turtle the tie condition then at this level of play (the top tier, tier 1) then you have X time in planning (my suggestion is 60seconds) to get your 2 cards and be ready.
Yes, that's not casual friendly, but a tier 1 tournament isn't meant to be casual tournament.
Also that above is the stick ( of a carrot and stick methodology) let's also like in soccer, i believe, do this: wins = 4pts, ties = 1pt and losses = 0. Why? To encourage playing to win. If ties are so common make them negligible, and make wins so good that 2 wins in a 5 thing swice will get you to next day. And don't make losses super bad such that ppl will want to prevent a loss and not risk a loss to get a win. Scenario: hmm I'm almost out of time I
4 ties and in this game if I get a win I'll almost surely get to the next day, I'll be aggresive and go for that win, and so might my opponent. This will encourage ppl to play fast because they want wins so that they can advance.
Thoughts shadow?
-
Some things to think about before continuing this discussion.
Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie-breaking_in_Swiss-system_tournamentshttp://)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tie-break systems are used in chess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess) Swiss system tournaments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_system_tournament) to break ties between players who have the same total number of points after the last round. This is needed when prizes are indivisible, such as an official "champion", trophies, or qualification for another tournament. Otherwise players often share the tied spots, with cash prizes being divided equally among the tied players.
If the players are still tied after one tie-break system is used, another system is used, and so on, until the tie is broken. Most of the methods are numerical methods based on the games that have already been played or other objective factors, while some methods require additional games to be played, etc. The idea behind the methods based on the games already played is that the player that played the harder competition to achieve the same number of points should be ranked higher.
If you have not had the chance take sometime and read this
General Aspects of Tournament Systems and Tiebreakers (http://senseis.xmp.net/?GeneralAspectsOfTournamentSystemsAndTiebreakers)
listing of possible tie breakers (http://senseis.xmp.net/?TieBreaker)
-
The biggest concern is total time of the event. When you are at a show or renting a hall you are limited to the time allotted by the venue. For example the Gencon finals will be a 24 person 5 round Swiss we have 6 hours to work with including deck reg.
How long should the rounds be?
If you're truly limited to 6 hours, that does not give you even 75 minutes per round to complete a 5-round event. If you're forced to run 68-minute rounds with a 5-minute break in between rounds (for restocking spellbooks, bio breaks, etc.), that completely fills your 360 minutes.
You need an extra 35 minutes for 75-minute rounds, and exactly 1 hour more for 80-minute rounds. Other than starting event earlier (extending time to run event to more than 6 hours), forcing players to end rounds in less than 70 minutes seems like a recipe for multiple ties per round, which of course heavily favors the aggro builds.
Perhaps some sort of article or series of articles or posts on ways to speed up game play would be warranted on Mage Wars site or in these forums? (apologies if that thread already exists)
-
@rcone002 (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?action=profile;u=4293) We have 6 hours for the finals total that is with deck reg and all.
-
tl;dr: record damage done for a three round tiebreaker instead of for the whole game, and use that to break tied games.
Speaking of tiebreakers, I've given a lot of thought to an alternate tiebreaker for tournament games that go to time. I share Piousflea's and others' concerns that the current "Who did the most damage this game, total?" tiebreaker system heavily favors aggressive decks like Forcemaster and Warlock, and adds an additional level of bookkeeping to tracking damage, which slows normal play.
If a control book starts the game by taking 22 damage in the first forty minutes, but thereafter kills all the opponent's creatures, takes no damage, gains 1 health and is does 2 points of damage to the enemy each turn, it's clearly winning. And it would be very likely to win if given enough time. But it's going to have a hard time proving it with the current tiebreaker system.
At the same time, I don't want to try to judge the game-state with a points system that awards victory points based on the levels of creatures and conjurations in play and tries to compare that to life totals (because who can say, exactly, how many points something should be worth?). I also don't particularly like the, "Everyone starts losing life each turn," elimination methods that try to impose a game shortening condition on play, because winning under those circumstances is very different from winning during normal play, and can distort the metagame badly. Warmachine's experience with "Victory Point Sniping" comes to mind, where one player does a little damage, then retreats for the rest of the game, and thus wins on tiebreakers.
But really, what I want to know isn't, "Who has done the most damage?" I want to know, "Who has come closest to winning". To use a mathematical analogy, I want to know the slope of the direction the game is heading, not the sum of where the game has been. If one player has an overwhelming creature advantage, I want to give them a chance to use it and prove their strength, while at the same time giving their opponent a last opportunity to win the game on the back of the damage they've already done.
Here's what I propose:
- The final portion of every tournament game is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 90 minute tournament game, the final 15 minutes is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 60 minute game, the final 10 minutes is reserved. Prompt play during tiebreaker game rounds is strictly mandatory.
- When the expiration of normal time is announced, the current game round is finished and the final three rounds of play begin. The game will end when the third game round finishes, or when final time is called.
- The three rounds of Mage Wars Tiebreaker play proceed normally, with the exception that each player must record the damage done to his or her opponent. Each round, the player who does the most damage to the opponent's Mage (including loss of life, tainted, etc) wins the round and one of three possible tiebreaker points.
- After three tiebreaker rounds, the player with the most tiebreaker points--two out of three--is the winner.
- If, during tiebreaker rounds, one player takes damage in excess of his or her remaining life, that player loses as normal.
- If a tiebreaker round is tied because neither player did any damage, or because the players did equal amounts of damage, no point is awarded.
- If, at the end of tiebreaker rounds, the players are tied in round points awarded, the winner of the game is the player who did the most total damage summed over all three rounds
- If both players did the same amount of damage totaled over all three rounds, the game is a draw.
- If tiebreaker time expires without the completion of all three tiebreaker rounds, end the current tiebreaker round as it stands, and score it as above. The player who has done the most damage in the portion of the round that has been played scores the point. The player with the most tiebreaker points is the winner, as usual. If the points are tied, check total damage done during tiebreaker play. If that is tied, the game is a draw, as normal
My thinking is that while 50 minutes may not actually be long enough for a control book to win, it should certainly be long enough for the control book to stabilize the game and be on its way to winning... if that's what it's going to do. If the control book can limit the damage from the agro book's last desperate gasp to kill, for two out of three rounds, it probably has the game well enough in hand that it would eventually win.
The agro book, on the other hand, is given three more rounds to kill the opponent, or at least to prove 2-out-of-3 that it is still capable of putting up a a superior fight and is not controlled. If it can do that, it wins.
Of course, either book can win the game outright--by killing the opponent-- during the overtime turns, and may very well do so now that both books must concentrate on doing at least some damage immediately, and cannot win by defense alone.
I settled on three and a half rounds of overtime (finish the final round, then take three more rounds) because it is a relatively short amount of play that two skilled and motivated players will be able to finish in the time available, and because it prevents a single surprise unrepeatable nova-damage turn (e.g. Wall of Thorns + Forcepush) from deciding the game. Whatever a player does to win, they must be able to do it twice (or do it well enough to kill the other mage). 3.5 rounds is also provides a fair distribution of initiative between the players. Each player will have the benefit of initiative twice during the overtime period.
Any thoughts or improvements?
-
ringkichard I really like the model that you put forward there. The amount of damage in the last 3 rounds when players are "forced" to act does show where the momentum of the game is going.
-
I agree, this is the best tie breaker proposal out there.
-
How do you define what rounds are the last 3. Most of the time players are barely watching the clock as it is. You also have to take into account that when time is called players can finish the current round. If the Reset phase had already completed they play the full round including planning.
To me the best solution is to allow for draws in a match and then match a tie breaker the applies over the full tourney.
-
How do you define what rounds are the last 3.
The last portion of the game's allotted time would be reserved for the three tiebreaker rounds. I proposed the final 15 minutes for 90 minute games, for example. That means the TO would announce the start of the final 3 tiebreaker rounds after 75 minutes of play.
Most of the time players are barely watching the clock as it is. You also have to take into account that when time is called players can finish the current round. If the Reset phase had already completed they play the full round including planning.
My experience with Mage Wars and other timed games (chess, MtG, Warmachine) is actually somewhat contrary to this. While it's certainly possible to lose track of time, usually I'm pretty aware of time pressure and how much is remaining. That said, the TO has a stopwatch and a loud voice, and that is usually enough.
Regarding the last round of the game, the rules I proposed don't actually let players finish their final round if they go long on time. Once time is called, it's dice down. This is for TO efficiency as well as to encourage prompt play. With this system the TO knows that the round will be over in exactly the appropriate amount of time, and not 90+x minutes. It's a timekeeping measure that insures the next round starts on time and the event doesn't outlast its booking. An extra 5 minutes each round can add up to half an hour extra time to your event, and if time is expensive or fixed, this can cause serious problems for the last round.
To me the best solution is to allow for draws in a match and then match a tie breaker the applies over the full tourney.
This isn't a bad way to go except that when running a high profile tournament you really don't want more than half of the games to be draws, as would have happened at Gencon when all the Wizards went to time. Calculating tiebreakers is a less sporting method of determining a champion than winning and losing games. Perhaps a longer round time would help, but ties are generally troublesome to ranking algorithms.
-
How do you define what rounds are the last 3.
The last portion of the game's allotted time would be reserved for the three tiebreaker rounds. I proposed the final 15 minutes for 90 minute games, for example. That means the TO would announce the start of the final 3 tiebreaker rounds after 75 minutes of play.
Most of the time players are barely watching the clock as it is. You also have to take into account that when time is called players can finish the current round. If the Reset phase had already completed they play the full round including planning.
My experience with Mage Wars and other timed games (chess, MtG, Warmachine) is actually somewhat contrary to this. While it's certainly possible to lose track of time, usually I'm pretty aware of time pressure and how much is remaining. That said, the TO has a stopwatch and a loud voice, and that is usually enough.
Regarding the last round of the game, the rules I proposed don't actually let players finish their final round if they go long on time. Once time is called, it's dice down. This is for TO efficiency as well as to encourage prompt play. With this system the TO knows that the round will be over in exactly the appropriate amount of time, and not 90+x minutes. It's a timekeeping measure that insures the next round starts on time and the event doesn't outlast its booking. An extra 5 minutes each round can add up to half an hour extra time to your event, and if time is expensive or fixed, this can cause serious problems for the last round.
To me the best solution is to allow for draws in a match and then match a tie breaker the applies over the full tourney.
This isn't a bad way to go except that when running a high profile tournament you really don't want more than half of the games to be draws, as would have happened at Gencon when all the Wizards went to time. Calculating tiebreakers is a less sporting method of determining a champion than winning and losing games. Perhaps a longer round time would help, but ties are generally troublesome to ranking algorithms.
You know it is a big difference between what more experienced players do and what your average player does. I like you am always aware of time. It seems the some players tend to lose focus and forget the goal is to kill the other mage.
Myself and a few other have built control heavy books that can and have won game in 45 minutes or less. So that leads to the question if control heavy books can kill that quickly what is dragging games to the 75 minute plus range. What I have found is that a majority of the games get bogged down during planning phase. I even watched one of the most aggro heavy build seen in MW go to time in 90% of its games. When looking over the games we found that it was do to analysis paralysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis)or tanking (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tanking&defid=5305776) for far too long.
-
Some control heavy books can kill relatively quickly, but some turtle books can easily drag out a game they have little ultimate hope of winning. And while Watergate Wizard can sometimes win in an hour or less, one of its kill conditions is to run the opponent out of cards, which can take over 25 turns.
When you're a playtester, you need to play lots of games quickly, but competitive players without that burden are happy to play slower books which win anyway... eventually.
-
Ring, we play under both a 75min and 90 min clock. The only games that go longer are pure turtle builds(builds the do not attack with creatures, and use passive damage effects). The avg planning phase for my team is 1 minute. We think a planning phase is long when it take over 2 minutes.
-
Right? 25 turns at 3 minutes a turn plus a minute for planning is 100 minutes. An efficency wizard (like Watergate) that is played at tournament speed is still going to draw all its hour-long games and some of its 90 minute ones, too.
-
Right? 25 turns at 3 minutes a turn plus a minute for planning is 100 minutes. An efficency wizard (like Watergate) that is played at tournament speed is still going to draw all its hour-long games and some of its 90 minute ones, too.
That is the point it can still be in 75-90 minutes. As long as the players do not take too long planning. In fact dude and I played a 10 turn game in 15 minutes. Would have been 11 turns except I conceded. I was in a position I could not win.
-
In Swiss Tournament play the Win-loss-Draw tracking is best, with a tie break system for the cut to top 8 or 16 depending on attendance. However, since the game is set in an Arena of Dueling mages you could use the L5R method that if one player does not concede defeat at the end of the round it is a double loss. Since one mage could not kill the other both were killed. Because I know my spellbook well enough to know if there is any chance of me winning or not after 10 rounds of play.
Hedge
-
In tournament play, if a loss and a draw are the same, I would never concede a drawn game just to avoid a loss for my opponent, regardless of how far behind I was. He wants to win, he has to kill me. (By the same token, I would rather lose than accept a pitty concession.)
A rule that makes concessions common opens the door wide to collusion.
-
Right? 25 turns at 3 minutes a turn plus a minute for planning is 100 minutes. An efficency wizard (like Watergate) that is played at tournament speed is still going to draw all its hour-long games and some of its 90 minute ones, too.
That is the point it can still be in 75-90 minutes. As long as the players do not take too long planning. In fact dude and I played a 10 turn game in 15 minutes. Would have been 11 turns except I conceded. I was in a position I could not win.
How do you account for so many out of time games at the finals at Gencon?
-
In tournament play, if a loss and a draw are the same, I would never concede a drawn game just to avoid a loss for my opponent, regardless of how far behind I was. He wants to win, he has to kill me. (By the same token, I would rather lose than accept a pitty concession.)
A rule that makes concessions common opens the door wide to collusion.
Then you sir, have no Honor.
Hedge
-
I didn't realize you knew me so well.
But I thought we were making arguments about tiebreakers?
-
Right? 25 turns at 3 minutes a turn plus a minute for planning is 100 minutes. An efficency wizard (like Watergate) that is played at tournament speed is still going to draw all its hour-long games and some of its 90 minute ones, too.
That is the point it can still be in 75-90 minutes. As long as the players do not take too long planning. In fact dude and I played a 10 turn game in 15 minutes. Would have been 11 turns except I conceded. I was in a position I could not win.
How do you account for so many out of time games at the finals at Gencon?
Over 87% of the games in each round ended before time. The most games we had going when time was called was 3 and 1 of those ended as I called time
-
I didn't realize you knew me so well.
But I thought we were making arguments about tiebreakers?
we are. An honorable and sportsmanlike person would concede. You said you would never concede and always take the double loss, that shows that you have poor sportsmanship and inturn possibly no honor. Perhaps I went a bit too far, but at the time it was all I could think of to match the example of conduct. sportsmanship or lack thereof is a better term. You should always play with good sportsmanship even, and especially, during tie break instances. Sportsmanship is what makes a tournament system function all the way through each match and the tie breaks. The point about conceding is the two players can choose the method that decides the match as long as both agree to the method. Since whatever method is used it is outside the course of the tournament structure and the one that the method does not grant victory to must concede the match.
It may be splitting hairs, but it is conceivable to most that when you agree to use a different method to decide the match that each of you agree to concede if you lose to the method of choice.
Hedge
-
I do not consider it dishonorable or poor sportsmanship to refuse to concede defeat. Infact, I think it would be more dishonorable to admit defeat when you could possibly have turned the game around, no matter how slim that chance may be. My only chance of winning might be my opponent screwing up, but that's still a chance I think I should have. I agree whole heartedly with Ringkichard, if my opponent wants a win, he's got to earn it and kill me. To give anything less than my all and admit defeat before actually being defeated would make me feel cheap and dirty.
-
I don't think it has anything to do with honor at all. Everybody is different. If you don't concede then don't. I hope you play with people who feel the same.
IMO conceding is simply to mitigate loss of time. If there is a fair chance for me to turn a game around then I'll go down fighting so to speak. If it's an obvious loss I'll concede to save us all the hassle of 'going through the motions'. The act of conceeding is common place in tournaments of all games. The biggest that comes to mind is Chess.
Sportmanship only comes into play when your opponent wishes to fully beat you and whether your willing to agree to that or not. Or if your willing to accept him conceeding.
-
there are very few instances in mage wars where you can turn the game around past round 10 unless it is very close. I only had one game art gencon that came down to initiative. the rest were clearly decided long before the game finished. And it will be that way most of the time. You must decide a victor when time is called, at which time someone must agree to concede. unless there is an official method that denotes the victor. currently all the proposed methods suck. Until they can find one that doesn't suck, letting the players agree on the proposed method is best. Again at that point both players agreed that one of them will concede. this method can be applied no matter the deck types used or how close the game is.
@homelessjoe while what you talk about is part of it. this is mainly when time is called and there it's no more time left to play.
Hedge
-
Conceding vs. Playing to the bitter end! Mate in 5 is mate in 5. If it is obvious that the game is over, then why waste the time of both players, time to reset and play another game. Once of my least favorite games went close to 4 hours, it was clear that I was going to win at about 2 hours. But all I could do is grind through walls and traps and finally finish the mage off. Ick!
There is no dishonor in conceding defeat when it is obvious.....
-
Maybe not when it is obvious, but even a slim chance is still a chance and I do think it would be doing myself a disservice if I were to concede when I had a chance of winning. If I haven't conceded by the time the end of the round is called, I see no reason why I would concede after time was called. Obviously I felt there was still a chance for me to win because we were still slugging it out.
I'm fine with allowing people to concede before time is called, but trying to force someone to concede after the fact does not sit well with me and I would never do it. To me, that is like having a tied Super Bowl game and the Ref tells the coaches that instead of going into over time, one of them has to concede or nobody wins the Super Bowl that year. It makes no sense and would piss a lot of people off.
-
Plus, if it's "obvious" that one player is going to lose, why not simply have a judge declare that person the loser and the other person the winner? Just tally up the points, hand out some Super Bowl rings, and call it a day.
-
Maybe not when it is obvious, but even a slim chance is still a chance and I do think it would be doing myself a disservice if I were to concede when I had a chance of winning. If I haven't conceded by the time the end of the round is called, I see no reason why I would concede after time was called. Obviously I felt there was still a chance for me to win because we were still slugging it out.
I'm fine with allowing people to concede before time is called, but trying to force someone to concede after the fact does not sit well with me and I would never do it. To me, that is like having a tied Super Bowl game and the Ref tells the coaches that instead of going into over time, one of them has to concede or nobody wins the Super Bowl that year. It makes no sense and would piss a lot of people off.
Your super bowl refrence really isn't applicable. They have a Simple and definite way to end the game if normal play time ends in a tie. WE are looking for one. Would it be better if I just didn't use the word Concede.
When time is called the players decide what method they will use to decide the Winner. they use the methed of choice and the winner is decided.
Better?
Hedge
-
I'm always against conceding, even when its in my favor. I feel a bit cheated when someone resigns. I guess I feel that there is usually always a chance. I've written about it other posts so wont bang on about it too much again, but I feel that its more like the other person says I can't be bothered trying, sure I might be able to turn it around, but I'm having such a shit time playing with you I'd rather resign and walk away....
As for me resigning, I guess its a bit of the flip of that, but also Im usually still seeing (however faint) chances of turning it around, if only they don't notice x, or see y, I could do a, b or c... and own their ass! :)
-
My reference is applicable. I realize we have yet to figure out a great solution for breaking ties, but I believe we need a standard solution. Your answer seems to be "Just let the two sides figure it out for themselves." Imagining the result that answer would have on other tournaments, I believe does present a fair correlation to how it would affect Mage Wars tournaments. So again, could you imagine the arguments and the frustration that would result if the Ref of the Super Bowl game told the two teams "You two decide who wins this tie or you both lose."
Obviously I would say I win and you would say you win. I would favor whatever method puts me in the lead, and you would favor whatever method put you in the lead. Some really ridiculous methods could be proposed.
Your solution is not a solution. It is an attempt to side step the issue and it falls on its face. In the end we do need a standardized system of breaking ties. Even a poor one is better than none at all.
-
They are too different, as there is over 100 people involved in playing the game, but Ill humor you. Right now the format for football is Sudden death equal possesion overtime. Most coaches would choose that Format anyways. The format I propose has worked for over 15 years in the second largest and longest Running CCG game. If two people cannot decide on a winner of the match then both deserve a loss.
Who cares what method is used as long as the two agree on it? The method only matter to the two players as it should. Since a poor one is better than none At all, this one should suffice since you seem to think poorly of it.
Hedge
-
And I can not fathom it ever resulting in anything other than a loss for both players in that situation. If time ran out with them both still slugging away at each other, then obviously they both felt they had a chance to win. So why would either of them give that up?
And if that's the case, then why not cut out the arguments and frustration and simply state "If you're not finished when time runs out, it's a loss for both players."
My point was that they wouldn't agree on it. One would use the method that favored themselves, and the other would use a different method to favor themselves.
-
And I can not fathom it ever resulting in anything other than a loss for both players in that situation. If time ran out with them both still slugging away at each other, then obviously they both felt they had a chance to win. So why would either of them give that up?
And if that's the case, then why not cut out the arguments and frustration and simply state "If you're not finished when time runs out, it's a loss for both players."
My point was that they wouldn't agree on it. One would use the method that favored themselves, and the other would use a different method to favor themselves.
Basically that is exactly what they are saying, However, the one that is losing has a chance to and should concede. there are double losses in l5r, but they are a rare occurance.
This tie break for MW would only be used during the Cut and Finals, because there has to be a winner. In the normal swiss rounds ties would be acceptable. the talk here is superfluous unless they fix the tournament system as a whole. I mean the format they used at Gencon Was terrible.
The way mage Wars Plays I cannot see a simple and quick tie break system that does not heavily favor one deck type or another.
Hedge
-
And I can not fathom it ever resulting in anything other than a loss for both players in that situation. If time ran out with them both still slugging away at each other, then obviously they both felt they had a chance to win. So why would either of them give that up?
And if that's the case, then why not cut out the arguments and frustration and simply state "If you're not finished when time runs out, it's a loss for both players."
My point was that they wouldn't agree on it. One would use the method that favored themselves, and the other would use a different method to favor themselves.
Basically that is exactly what they are saying, However, the one that is losing has a chance to and should concede. there are double losses in l5r, but they are a rare occurance.
This tie break for MW would only be used during the Cut and Finals, because there has to be a winner. In the normal swiss rounds ties would be acceptable. the talk here is superfluous unless they fix the tournament system as a whole. I mean the format they used at Gencon Was terrible.
The way mage Wars Plays I cannot see a simple and quick tie break system that does not heavily favor one deck type or another.
Hedge
I don't know, Kichard's plan sounded pretty fair and reasonable. I think we should try it. Even if its not the perfect solution, we won't really know until we try it, since it's a new tiebreaker system that no one has used before. Besides, it's got to be better than "whoever did the most total damage so far wins" which does heavily favor aggressive playstyles.
Also, one could argue that you don't know who wins until the very last attack die has been rolled. While this is TECHNICALLY true, it isn't practically speaking. If you're a wizard with no armor, no defenses or guards, your nullify has been seeking dispelled, you've used your actions and you have 30 damage, and you're pushed through wall of thorns (10 dice) to a fully capable steel claw grizzly on the other side, what's the chances of surviving that AND managing to mount a successful comeback?
Theoretically your opponent could roll all 17 dice without doing ANY damage. But the probability of that happening is SO small. Correct me if I calculated wrong, but I think it's about 7.7 x 10^-9. To survive the attacks at all, all but one die has to deal no damage and the die that does needs to deal less than 2 damage. The chances of this happening are about 1.5 x 10^-8.
To put that in perspective, both probabilities are more than twice as small as one in a million (1.0 x 10^-6). And if it was just the wall of thorns and no grizzly, the chances of surviving increase to about a whopping 3.4 x 10^-5. 10^-5 is one in a hundred thousand, so this probability is a LOT bigger than the other two, but it is still so infinitesimally small you might as well call it 0.
Even with such an insanely lucky roll you still have to turn things around and win. But no matter how much damage you still need to do to your opponent, they're out of LoS and the way to them is blocked by Wall of Thorns, and you still need to deal with the Grizzly first so that it doesn't successfully attack you again.
Now of course that over-the-top hypothetical situation might not be so likely in a tournament level game, but I think we all agree that there is usually a moment in the game where one player's chance of losing becomes pretty much 100%—a statistical point of no return. How much time elapses from that point to the actual end of the game can vary. However, when you've passed the statistical point of no return, there's really no reason to continue futilely struggling, especially if it would cause you to go over time.
After the statistical point of no return, you might be technically capable of turning the situation around, but it's not gonna happen. It's just not. And if Kichard's theory is accurate, then that statistical point of no return should consistently occur within three rounds after 5/6 of the total allotted game time has passed.
EDIT:
Of course, there are situations that actually do result in a draw. However, because of the way initiative works, the only ways (at least that I can think of) to have a draw in a game that doesn't require a tiebreaker is for both players to be afflicted with direct damage at the same time during the upkeep, or with a magebane activating from an attack spell.
Therefore, Kichard's idea could be used to determine real draws as well. In order to do this, rather than merely measuring how much damage each player deals in those three rounds, one should also take note of each player's potential next-upkeep damage.
For instance, consider the following end to
a set of tiebreaker rounds.
Player 1 is afflicted with a Ghoul-Rot and is standing in a poison fog cloud, and has dealt 5 damage, and player 2 is just afflicted with a ghoul rot and has dealt seven damage. Assuming both players have the mana to pay the upkeep costs, this game results in a draw.
For direct damage that isn't certain, such as burn conditions, you would have to roll for them at the end of the tiebreaker rounds.
Then again a mage might have Regrowth belt on. it's probably just better to do the next upkeep.
-
You say double losses would be rare, but you already have 3 people who have replied that they would not want to concede. I'm not familiar with l5r, and maybe it's clearer who is going to win in that game or maybe it is harder to turn the game around, but I'm with Moonglow on Mage Wars. There is always a chance I could turn things around. If I'm still playing when time is called, it is because I still see a chance of me pulling out a win.
This tie break for MW would only be used during the Cut and Finals, because there has to be a winner.
Since a poor one is better than none At all, this one should suffice since you seem to think poorly of it.
If there has to be a winner, then what happens when the players both refuse to concede? A poor tie breaker solution would be better than none at all so that a winner can be decided, but your method is not a solution at all as it allows for disagreement and argument. There needs to be a concise standardized method for breaking ties.
Right now the format for football is Sudden death equal possession overtime. Most coaches would choose that Format anyways.
I was under the impression that overtime wasn't an option. If the two mages had the option of simply continuing the game until there was a clear winner (i.e. a dead mage) then I agree with your sentiment. Most of them would choose that option. Right now the proposal that comes closest to Sudden Death Overtime is Ringkichard's idea of three tie breaker rounds.
-
The problem with the "expected concession" rule is that its not consistent, and this causes problems in all sorts of other ways.
1. Jerks like me who think it's a bad rule and refuse to concede. In the best case, they'd do like I would and at the start of the game say, "I'm not going to concede, and I don't want you to either. We are noble opponents with glorious vendetta and I will not accept your pity. Let them know us by our trail of skulls!" But I would get tired of saying that after six rounds and it might slip my mind and then my opponent might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
2. Legitimately drawn games. If I have 6 life left and you have 9, and we both have some creatures left and an unknown number of spells left, and maybe I've got a bit more equipment... we both get a loss for no good reason.
3. Entitlement. People would feel that they were owed concessions. After all, they conceded in a similar situaton just last week! They are likely to get very excited and accuse their oponents of having no honor. This starts fights.
4. Bullying. A big socially aggressive guy sits down and plays a kid who's smart but shy and new to the game. The game runs out of time because the kid is kinda slow and the big guy is kinda bad. The big guy's ego gets involved so he now bullies the kid into conceding because the draw, "Is your fault for taking so long."
5. Changing incentives. If I know that I don't have to win, I just have to be winning when the time runs out, I can play less agresively and face an easier task than being forced to commit and finish off an opponent. I can just avoid him or her and rely on social pressure to extract the concession.
6. Collusion. If I'm playing against my best friend in the semi-finals and we draw, I then have to chose between sending my friend to the finals against our hated enemy Chad vs. we both get nothing and that jerk gets the glory. Easy choice.
Now instead imagine that I'm playing Chad in the semi-finals but since we're playing Swiss pairings Chad was paired down against me; he's 4-0, I'm 3-1. My friend is also 3-1 and wins his game quickly. I now know that I can get my friend a higher tournament position than Chad just by drawing and giving us the double loss. It is not hard for me to deliberately play for a draw, just load up on armor and kite for 10 more rounds.
(Yes, in the second example I'm the scum of the earth. One purpose of rules is to constrain scum. In real life, if I noticed this situation I would be very annoyed that the rules were so sloppy that I had to give up a legal line of play that would benefit me because of a moral concern of mine external to the game.)
I hope I've made it clearer why I'd refuse to interact with this rule.
-
you are not getting it. during swiss rounds ties are acceptable. In cut rounds they are not. In most of your example the situation would not arise or be moot, because it would not apply. But I will reply to each.
1. ties are acceptable in swiss rounds, you could also use this speech to decide on a tie break.
2. if this was during the cut you would discuss your strategy for the next few rounds and it is certain using the standard damage that you and Shadow talk about in your how to play posts that you can find out who is most likely to win. if you couldn't do that a judge would decide.
3. if during swiss you would tie, if during cut present your plans to the judge and he would decide.
4 if during swiss they would tie, neither would make the cut as the would have too many ties.
5. can and does happen with any tie break system, but much less often with this system.
6a Since you are playing against your friend, whom you have played countless time. you both are well aware of where the game is heading and what to expect from your opponent. It should be quite easy to tell who will win.
6b In the cut records no longer matter as it is single elimination. if it is still in the swiss rounds you would get a tie. being that there has to be a winner the judge would decide If it was in the cut. Also YOu are speculating on the outcome of standing based on a single round. Yes it would stand to reason that Chad could be lower, but you do not know his, yours, or your friends strength of schedule. There are many factors that go into figuring that out. yes he might be paired down, but it would depend greatly on which round your friend has his loss whether he would over take Chad. After looking at it I don't think there is anyway that your friend would pass Chad in this instance. IF you want to discuss 6b Futher please post a seperate thread.
I don't think you are giving yourself and others enough credit. I played at gencon this year and I know some of the players for years from other games and some I had only met this year. Most of the players I interacted with would have had no problem with this rule once they had seen it in action. You can speculate all you want on how it will work out, But I have actually seen it working. Is it the best, no. the best system would be to play the game to the end, but the time is not there. Is it the best for the two players involved, yes it is. as they are the ones that decide thier fate, and can have no misgivings about the method used. Since it would only be used in the cut( Single elimination) and since there has to be a winner if the players can't agree then the judge will decide. Currently with the standard rule that is what is happening now only passively, not actively.
Hedge
-
Your last reply didn't really address Ringkichard's points, Hedge. All you said was "It doesn't matter in swiss rounds, but when it does matter a Judge can decide." If we allow in your system for having a Judge decide, I would personally want to know how the judge is basing his decision. I would again want a clear, concise, standardized system for determining the winner. Without that, it would simply be the judge's opinion of who he thinks would have come out on top. That doesn't seem fair to me at all.
Let us imagine a worst case scenario, shall we. Two players playing in the finals end with a legitimately tied game. After listening to their plans, the Judge decides to give the win to Player B. Obviously unhappy with that decision, Player A uses the race card and says that he lost because the Judge was racist and didn't like African Americans.
Not only does the Judge not have a way to defend himself against this accusation, BUT IT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE TRUE! It could very easily be the fact that the judge didn't like the way the losing player looked, or smelled, or acted. Something about him could have just gotten under the Judge's skin, and the only thing the Judge has to fall back on is "Well, I think he would have won" when there is ample chance that the other player could have won as well.
Now, if instead we have a clear system for how the judge would base his decision in place, then there would be no reason to have the concession rule in effect. The person who knows he would win by Judge's decision would never concede.
-
Your last reply didn't really address Ringkichard's points, Hedge. All you said was "It doesn't matter in swiss rounds, but when it does matter a Judge can decide." If we allow in your system for having a Judge decide, I would personally want to know how the judge is basing his decision. I would again want a clear, concise, standardized system for determining the winner. Without that, it would simply be the judge's opinion of who he thinks would have come out on top. That doesn't seem fair to me at all.
Let us imagine a worst case scenario, shall we. Two players playing in the finals end with a legitimately tied game. After listening to their plans, the Judge decides to give the win to Player B. Obviously unhappy with that decision, Player A uses the race card and says that he lost because the Judge was racist and didn't like African Americans.
Not only does the Judge not have a way to defend himself against this accusation, BUT IT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE TRUE! It could very easily be the fact that the judge didn't like the way the losing player looked, or smelled, or acted. Something about him could have just gotten under the Judge's skin, and the only thing the Judge has to fall back on is "Well, I think he would have won" when there is ample chance that the other player could have won as well.
Now, if instead we have a clear system for how the judge would base his decision in place, then there would be no reason to have the concession rule in effect. The person who knows he would win by Judge's decision would never concede.
Ties in Swiss are fine, can we please stop discussing what happens during swiss rounds.
And that is the reason the two players would work toward an agreement because they do not know what the judge will take into consideration, they will decide what is fair on thier own. You guys are simply not understanding that it works. All your conjecture is unfounded. Based on Shadows reports from Gencon he would have only had to make a single descision on one game that weekend, and that is only if the two players could not decide it themselves. This is on his 87% of games finished on time.
If the judge cannot put aside personal issues they should not be a judge in the first place. Again this is only for conventions and a high level member of the rules team would be that judge in most if not all cases.
Then come up with a clear system that is simple, doesn't take more that 2 minutes to do, requires no algebraic functions or a calculator, and does not favor one deck type over another. On my next post I will post a full overview of the tournament format, I will not address any response of the things before this post. I don't think I have fully fleshed out the format. I see that outlining it from beging to end will help some of the parts that are missing or have not been questioned.
Thanks
Hedge
-
You've said a number of times that the system has been tried and tested and works, but I was failing to see how that could be based solely on your description. Thus, I looked up the tournament rules for L5R, known as their Floor Rules.
Although they do allow the players to concede as you have described, they also have an official tie breaking procedure for the elimination rounds, which you left out, called the Palmer Rule. First, they play best 2 out of 3 games. Then, if time runs out during the 2nd game, whoever won the first game is declared the overall winner. If time runs out during the 1st or the 3rd game, however, they....CONTINUE THE GAME! Their answer is to just go into overtime until one person actually loses.
This system I would be okay with in Mage Wars. If time runs out, just keep playing till one of you loses. However, I'm pretty sure that's already been established as not an option.
-
The palmer rule can be used, but it is at the TO's descretion. The only round that it has to be used in is the final round. They have tournaments of 100's players at Gencon and regional kotei. With this many players they use the X-2 method for determining the cut/elimination rounds. They usually choose at some point to use the palmer rule but it usually top 8 at most, and once they use it the rule has to continue for the rest of the rounds of cut. This was one of the things that I said had been left out. A tournament of that size and larger cuts to top 32 minimum so there will be at least two rounds that winners will have to be selected by some means between the two players or the both get a loss.
This will have to wait until tomorrow for me to continue stuff to do before getting ready for bed.
Hedge
-
I will grant you that your method is feasible, Hedge, since another game already uses that format. However, for the reasons outlined quite well by Ringkichard, and not properly addressed by either you or the material I have found on L5R, I am not a fan of the method. I would prefer the point system where wins are worth 3 points, ties are worth 1, and losses are worth 0. That is in regards to the Swiss Rounds. With either method, we still need a way to determine a winner during the elimination rounds and the Palmer Rule will not do, I'm afraid.
I have read back over the entire thread, and from all the suggestions thus far I believe some kind of derivation of Ringkichard's idea of "tie-breaker" rounds is the best.
-
The problem with the "expected concession" rule is that its not consistent, and this causes problems in all sorts of other ways.
1. Jerks like me who think it's a bad rule and refuse to concede. In the best case, they'd do like I would and at the start of the game say, "I'm not going to concede, and I don't want you to either. We are noble opponents with glorious vendetta and I will not accept your pity. Let them know us by our trail of skulls!" But I would get tired of saying that after six rounds and it might slip my mind and then my opponent might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
2. Legitimately drawn games. If I have 6 life left and you have 9, and we both have some creatures left and an unknown number of spells left, and maybe I've got a bit more equipment... we both get a loss for no good reason.
3. Entitlement. People would feel that they were owed concessions. After all, they conceded in a similar situaton just last week! They are likely to get very excited and accuse their oponents of having no honor. This starts fights.
4. Bullying. A big socially aggressive guy sits down and plays a kid who's smart but shy and new to the game. The game runs out of time because the kid is kinda slow and the big guy is kinda bad. The big guy's ego gets involved so he now bullies the kid into conceding because the draw, "Is your fault for taking so long."
5. Changing incentives. If I know that I don't have to win, I just have to be winning when the time runs out, I can play less agresively and face an easier task than being forced to commit and finish off an opponent. I can just avoid him or her and rely on social pressure to extract the concession.
6. Collusion. If I'm playing against my best friend in the semi-finals and we draw, I then have to chose between sending my friend to the finals against our hated enemy Chad vs. we both get nothing and that jerk gets the glory. Easy choice.
Now instead imagine that I'm playing Chad in the semi-finals but since we're playing Swiss pairings Chad was paired down against me; he's 4-0, I'm 3-1. My friend is also 3-1 and wins his game quickly. I now know that I can get my friend a higher tournament position than Chad just by drawing and giving us the double loss. It is not hard for me to deliberately play for a draw, just load up on armor and kite for 10 more rounds.
(Yes, in the second example I'm the scum of the earth. One purpose of rules is to constrain scum. In real life, if I noticed this situation I would be very annoyed that the rules were so sloppy that I had to give up a legal line of play that would benefit me because of a moral concern of mine external to the game.)
I hope I've made it clearer why I'd refuse to interact with this rule.
1:
I agree, unless you my friend or you are going to give me the win we both lose
2:
I agree, unless you my friend or you are going to give me the win we both lose
3:
Unless you my friend or you are going to give me the win we both lose. Please fight or this then you get a DQ and I get the win.
4:
Bullying. In my over 20 years of tourney games this does not happen much.
"Is your fault for taking so long."
This happens more than people like to admit some people are just slow. One of the people who used to play MTG at a shop I play at was 8th worst in the world. Each time she played we knew at least 70% the rounds were going to time. Playing against her is a pain.
5.
Changing incentives. This is just like playing to the draw in MTG. Lets look at the rule first.
117. Determining a Match Winner In Swiss rounds, the player with the most game wins is the winner of the match. If both players have equal game wins, the match is a draw.
Now back to how playing to a draw works. I win game 1 in a best 2 out of 3 match. I now can win game 2 or draw game 2 and I win the match. In most cases it is easier to play to a draw result rather than try to win due to the fact I can use the clock to my advantage. If the other player does not kill me fast enough I win the match.
6. Collusion.
What is Collusion: Collusion is manipulating the course of an event by doing things like throwing games for a friend so that they will place better. It can go hand in hand with bribery because usually there is some sort of monetary kick-back or reward for doing so.
Bribery usually involves manipulating someone you don't know well by offering an incentive to concede to you or to not play for some reason. "I'll give you ten bucks if you let me win." Here is just a part of what WotC has to say about Collusion and the Appearance of Impropriety (http://www.wizards.com/dci/judge/main.asp?x=articles/jc20010802a) also take a look at this Collusion in Tournament Magic (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=2828) back from 2003. In many tourney formats it is very gray as to what is an is not allowed.
-
Yeah, Magic was an excellent example of what a bad concession rule can do to your game: Last I knew, (5 years ago, maybe it's better now) I was allowed to negotiate prize splits with my opponents, and I was also allowed to concede. I was even allowed to concede to someone with whom I've negotiated a prize split. But I was not allowed to *explicitly* make a exchange of my concession for a prize split, because that (and that alone) would be bribery, and unsportsmanlike.
Of course once you were on the gravy train you know how the system worked and if you're a professional card player, you've got no difficulty sending or receiving subtle signals. So the reality was that people got bought off all the time.
Very much not af fan.
Concession for anything but time saving, or atonement for accidental errors in sportsmanship, is morally fraught.
re: bullying. I've seen it. Gamers can be awesome, but we can also be awful. Famously, the DCI bans tournament Magic players for assault, and I remember at least one semi-pro who is probably still out of the game for hitting someone in the head.
-
Hi all,
I have been following this thread hoping that a determination for tiebreakers would have been made and Arcane Wonders would have put its stamp of approval on it by now. Over the years, I have run hundreds of tournaments via the swiss system using various companies' versions of tie breakers. My conclusion is that tiebreakers in most card games will typically be a disadvantage to a particular deck type.
Having also played in many tournament environments, I tend to agree with Ringkichard in regards to concession. I don't believe its good for the game in a tournament environment. While I understand that some people may think his unwillingness to concede is unsportsmanlike, I would have to say that most tournaments don't bring out sportsmanlike qualities in players. Each player has a different motivation for playing in a tournament. Its not always about prizes or having your hand raised and declared to be the "best" player of the day.
For this game, I have only run swiss pairings with strength of schedule as a 1st tiebreaker(and a coin flip or d6 roll as a 2nd). Its not perfect but it works.
With the year closing out and a new convention season around the corner, I would hope that AW will soon decide on a clear method to use for tiebreakers so there is consistency in tournaments from place to place.
-
Yeah, Magic was an excellent example of what a bad concession rule can do to your game: Last I knew, (5 years ago, maybe it's better now) I was allowed to negotiate prize splits with my opponents, and I was also allowed to concede. I was even allowed to concede to someone with whom I've negotiated a prize split. But I was not allowed to *explicitly* make a exchange of my concession for a prize split, because that (and that alone) would be bribery, and unsportsmanlike.
Of course once you were on the gravy train you know how the system worked and if you're a professional card player, you've got no difficulty sending or receiving subtle signals. So the reality was that people got bought off all the time.
Very much not af fan.
Concession for anything but time saving, or atonement for accidental errors in sportsmanship, is morally fraught.
re: bullying. I've seen it. Gamers can be awesome, but we can also be awful. Famously, the DCI bans tournament Magic players for assault, and I remember at least one semi-pro who is probably still out of the game for hitting someone in the head.
Bullying is a rarity but yes is does happen
-
Hi all,
I have been following this thread hoping that a determination for tiebreakers would have been made and Arcane Wonders would have put its stamp of approval on it by now. Over the years, I have run hundreds of tournaments via the swiss system using various companies' versions of tie breakers. My conclusion is that tiebreakers in most card games will typically be a disadvantage to a particular deck type.
Having also played in many tournament environments, I tend to agree with Ringkichard in regards to concession. I don't believe its good for the game in a tournament environment. While I understand that some people may think his unwillingness to concede is unsportsmanlike, I would have to say that most tournaments don't bring out sportsmanlike qualities in players. Each player has a different motivation for playing in a tournament. Its not always about prizes or having your hand raised and declared to be the "best" player of the day.
For this game, I have only run swiss pairings with strength of schedule as a 1st tiebreaker(and a coin flip or d6 roll as a 2nd). Its not perfect but it works.
With the year closing out and a new convention season around the corner, I would hope that AW will soon decide on a clear method to use for tiebreakers so there is consistency in tournaments from place to place.
@Speed
You have to allow for concession. When playing I may have to go in the middle of a game for any number of reasons. I play in events even when I am on call for work. I have been doing it for years. When I get a call it is $50 - $150/hr so if I know the call is going to be longer than 2 minute I leave the match and give the other player the win. Another example is one of the guys I play card with is a certified rescue diver, he has gotten calls at 11:15 pm during an event to drive downtown and get a tow motor out of the lake. It becomes hard to find a balance between what is inviting to new players but still closes as many loophole as possible when making rules
-
EDIT --- This is a response to a proposed tiebreaker by Zuberi that has gone missing in the time it took me to reply.
Come back!
--
Interesting!
Definitely simpler to explain, and maybe simpler to play. Probably feels less intrusive, too. When I tried the three round method I was very aware that I was in overtime and had to score the round, which was a weakness because it was a distortion of how Mage Wars is usually played.
The reason I capped the game at three rounds, and scored each round separately, is that I wanted to somewhat limit the power of spike damage to sway the total outcome. Getting pushed through a Wall of Thorns or hit with double Hurl Boulder doesn't actually mean you are losing the game, it's just spike damage. In my system you would lose the round, but maybe not the match if you could win the other two rounds because your opponent's spike was unsustainable. It's a bit like the difference between median and mean, if you follow my meaning. Your any-round system takes the mean value, and three-round takes the median.
Still, the any-round method is simpler to explain and probably comes to the same outcome in 95% of cases. And when they disagree it's debatable which outcome is genuinely preferable. It also has the advantage of avoiding the situation where I take the first round and you take the second round and then time is called and it's a draw.
I like it and will think on it!
-
I was a bit nervous about my proposal, Ringkichard, and having 2nd thoughts. I hoped I deleted it before anyone had seen it while I debated whether or not I truly wanted to post it. Luckily, I had saved it to Notepad while I debated with myself, so here it is again just as you saw it:
I've been thinking about things, and I would like to post a suggestion of my own for tie-breaking. Firstly, Ringkichards idea of using tie-breaking rounds seems to me to be the best suggestion thus far. At it's core, it is still basing things off of damage dealt. The key difference being when you start tracking the damage. It is at the end of the game, "crunch time", when damage potential should be at its highest and best indicates who is running the show. To simplify Ringkichard's system, I have eliminated the number of rounds requirement.
The last 10 minutes of play shall be considered "overtime". A judge will announce the beginning of overtime, at which point players will finish playing their current round. If there is no winner at the end of that round, they shall begin tracking total damage dealt to the opposing mage for the remainder of the game.
At the end of overtime, they again finish the round they're in. If there is still no winner, then whomever dealt the most total damage to their opponent during overtime is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most life remaining is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most cards in play (Creatures, Conjurations, Equipment, and Enchantments are all counted) is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most mana remaining is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever would have had initiative in the next round is declared the winner.
-
I was a bit nervous about my proposal, Ringkichard, and having 2nd thoughts. I hoped I deleted it before anyone had seen it while I debated whether or not I truly wanted to post it. Luckily, I had saved it to Notepad while I debated with myself, so here it is again just as you saw it:
I've been thinking about things, and I would like to post a suggestion of my own for tie-breaking. Firstly, Ringkichards idea of using tie-breaking rounds seems to me to be the best suggestion thus far. At it's core, it is still basing things off of damage dealt. The key difference being when you start tracking the damage. It is at the end of the game, "crunch time", when damage potential should be at its highest and best indicates who is running the show. To simplify Ringkichard's system, I have eliminated the number of rounds requirement.
The last 10 minutes of play shall be considered "overtime". A judge will announce the beginning of overtime, at which point players will finish playing their current round. If there is no winner at the end of that round, they shall begin tracking total damage dealt to the opposing mage for the remainder of the game.
At the end of overtime, they again finish the round they're in. If there is still no winner, then whomever dealt the most total damage to their opponent during overtime is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most life remaining is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most cards in play (Creatures, Conjurations, Equipment, and Enchantments are all counted) is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever had the most mana remaining is declared the winner. If they are still tied, then whomever would have had initiative in the next round is declared the winner.
There are two things I don't like about Zuberi's edits.
First is the resources counting at the end. Zuberi, have you read the article on resources by Deckbuilder? The game is so complex that it would be pretty much impossible to break ties based on number of resources other than damage and things about to turn into damage. If you want to calculate and predict the sequences of conversions of resources in order to figure out who would win, you would also need to figure out what decisions each player was going to make. Anyone want to build a portable super advanced MRI machine just for scanning the brains of mage wars players?
Otherwise I'm pretty sure it would be nearly impossible to predict the outcome of a game from so many resources more than one conversion away from damage.
Aside from having upkeep direct damage effects in play or a creature about to attack a mage for the win when time is called, we simply don't have the brain power to consistently and successfully determine who would win based on counting ALL the resources in play, although some people could make a good guess.
Not to mention the second thing I don't like; I think Zuberi's edits underestimate the influence spike damage could have for players new to organized play who WILL play slower than more experienced players. In Zuberi's version of your tiebreaker plan, a spike towards the end of overtime could make a much bigger difference to the outcome then one at the beginning. If you cap it at about 4.08333... rounds (remainder of current round, 3 more rounds and upkeep of a 4th round), a damage spike at the beginning of overtime is far more likely to be equal in significance to a damage spike towards the end (or any damage spike during overtime, for that matter).
I made some edits to my last post on this thread addressing the question of how to determine a "real" draw in MW; I proposed to include the upkeep of a 4th round as part of Kichard's tiebreaker plan, so that it could be determined if both players' Mages would die at the same time or not as a result of direct damage.
-
I'm not sure where your first argument is coming from, Imaginator. I never suggested that we try to figure out who would have won or the value of resources. All of my criteria for breaking ties is very easily calculated and purely looks at the state of the game when it ended.
Criteria
1) Total Damage Dealt during Overtime: Whoever has the higher number for damage dealt, wins. Very simple.
2) Most Life Remaining: Take your Total Life and subtract your Current Damage. Whoever has the higher result wins.
3) Most Number of Cards in Play: I think this is the one where you thought I was calculating resources. Nope. Just simply counting cards. I know some cards are more powerful than others, but I admit that is too difficult to quantify at the table. So, we simplify things. Whoever has the most cards in play, wins. I have 12 cards in play, you have 9, I win. It wouldn't matter if 4 of my cards were Decoys.
4) Most Mana Remaining: Again, just looking at where things were at when the game ended. Whoever has the higher amount of Mana left in their Mana Supply wins.
5) Whoever would start the next round with Initiative: This is admittedly little more than a coin toss should everything else be equal. A very unlikely scenario, but one to be planned for just in case.
None of these actually predict who would have won. Neither does counting up the number of tie-breaker round victories from Ringkichard's original proposal. Instead, they are more of an indicator for who was the stronger player at the end. You look at each criteria in sequence starting with the first, and you stop looking as soon as one of them is unequal and determines a winner. They are currently listed in an order that I believe ranks them from most to least significant. I shall gladly admit that the further down the list, the less accurate and significant my criteria are, but I believe we need to use as many options at our disposal as possible as well as that these options need to be simple and easy to quantify.
A Closer Look
Damage Done (only counting the damage during the last 10 minutes) is obviously the best criteria of the list. It measures your ability to continue applying pressure and laying down the hurt. It is vulnerable to spike damage, as was the round wins measured by Ringkichard. Comparing the two is very much like comparing Mean to Median as he said. Which is better is debatable, but my way is simpler which is the whole reason I cut out the round wins. Not because it was bad, I very much like the idea and it's exclusion was part of the reason I was hesitant to post my idea. If people want them to be included, we can certainly put them back in, but they essentially measure the same thing so I believe they are redundant and needlessly complicate the system.
Life Remaining then measure's ones ability to sustain all the hurt coming your way. If you are both dishing out equal amounts of pain, which person has the most cushion to absorb that pain has the clear advantage.
Most Cards in Play is probably the most controversial of the criteria. At it's heart it is about board presence. If you both are dishing out the same and can take the same amount of damage, then who has the greatest presence on the board is probably a decent indicator of who is in the stronger position. Board Presence or Board Control is a very difficult thing to accurately measure though, so I opted again for the simplest method I could think of.
Mana Remaining is the only criteria I have listed that gives a nod to the future state of the game, as it is essentially measuring your potential to change the game by bringing out cards. It is again a very simple thing to look at and calculate though, even if it is not the most accurate way of determining a player's potential.
Who would next have Initiative is the final straw. Initiative does have an impact on game play and I've found generally favors the person who has it. Thus, the next person with that teeny tiny little advantage edges out their opponent. As unlikely as it is for the tie to ever reach this point, it would not continue past here. A winner would be declared.
Spike Damage
I'm not sure I understand how a spike at the end of overtime would be more significant than a spike at the beginning. I would appreciate you illustrating that point for me. Overtime would be the time to bring out the big guns, but I believe 10 minutes is enough time for damage to average out and us get the idea of who could maintain the bigger onslaught.
-
A damage spike at the end of the ten minutes is more valuable because your opponent either doesn't have or has less time to react unless they predicted the damage spike. In order to predict a damage spike late in the tiebreaker I think you would probably have to be watching the clock in relation to your opponent's behavior. However, a damage spike of the same size at the start of the tiebreaker gives a lot more time to break even again. If the tiebreaker is divided into rounds in the way that Kichard described, then a single damage spike won't win the tiebreaker on its own, since each successful spike can only earn a max of one tiebreaker point. I think damage spikes tend to cost more resources in the short term then playing normally would. Therefore mages will probably be less likely to spend their ten minutes building up to an anticlimactic finisher that normally wouldn't win the game, and will try to get ahead the way the normally would if the game weren't about to be cut off.
Now that I think about it, there could be exceptions:
Say player 1 deals 3 damage in both the first tiebreaker round and second, while player 2 deals 0 in both. Then on the third round, player 2 deals 7 damage.
And now I think perhaps they should use both the total damage dealt during the tiebreaker and the 2/3 pts system. Technically mode and range represent this better for an individual game, but regardless, different stats are sometimes more reliable to use than others depending on the circumstance. I would say that both should be used, then figure out which tiebreaker measurement has the most approximate reliability based on the damage potential of objects that are in play, and focus on that one.
For example:
Player 1 deals 3 damage in both the first tiebreaker round and second, while player 2 deals 0 in both. Then on the third round, Player 2 deals 7 damage. Player 1 has taken 7 during the tiebreaker and player 2 has taken 6. However, player 2 is walled in with 2 iron golems, and player 1 has destroyed the wall of thorns he was just pushed through and put on a hidden nullify. There is no object on the field that can get player 2 out of that situation (like teleport-Thoughtspore or Huginn or divine intervention).
In this situation, the mode (Kichard's original plan) is more reliable.
The idea is that the arena configuration--the present state of the game at the single moment in time where the tiebreaker ends, provides great insight into who has the advantage/disadvantage, and how stable that advantage/disadvantage is. You can approximate that advantage/disadvantage by looking at the total combined mage-damage potentials of objects in the arena controlled by each player. (This takes position into account, since if the mage isn't in range of an object's attack then that object's mage-damage potential is 0.) for cards like Poison Gas cloud, their mage-damage potential is only applied to a mage that is in range of its damage effect, regardless of who controls it. In the case of poison gas cloud, that range is 0-0.
You can approximate the stability of the advantage/disadvantage by looking at the objects most likely to be able to change the situation and make their own controller's total mage-damage potential greater than their opponent's, in a shorter period of time and using fewer resources. The more different cards and actions that a strategy to reverse the state of the game is, the less likely it is to happen before the player who already has the advantage can pull out a win.
It's just a theory of course, but I think it could have a lot of merit. I'm not sure if the amount of focus it has on current total mage-damage potential and possible ways it can change for future total mage damage potential (that stability I described) underestimates the influence complexities of the social interactions and mental processes of the players can have on the state of the game. But if they were even enough to get that far in the tiebreaker process in the first place that their "mode" and "range" disagreed, then it's possible that their strategic intellects in regards to Mage Wars are relatively close to each other too. How relative that is, however is up for debate.
So that's what I think we should do when the "mode" and "range" disagree, in order to evaluate which one is more likely to predict who would win if the game continued to the end. Even though it can't perfectly predict who would win, technically speaking no tiebreaker can do that in this game because of dice rolls. However, it looks like we can get EXTREMELY close.
So to recap.
When deciding which tiebreaker more accurately evaluates the outcome of a game, ask these two questions:
1. Which mage is in more immediate danger of receiving the most damage?
2. What are the easiest/most likely/least resource-consuming ways the answer to the question above can be reversed?
What do you think?
-
I haven't looked at all the resources provided by Shad0w on how tie breakers work and are designed. I've never run or participated in a tournament at all to be honest. So, with the disclosure that I am a simple commoner addressing the Senate, I hope you'll excuse my simple ways.
The way I see it, we have 3 different approaches for determining the tie-break.
1) Looking at what all has happened in the game thus far.
2) Taking a snap shot of the state of the game and examining that.
3) Trying to predict where the game was going.
All three approaches have merit. If we apply them to a foot race with both a finish line and a time limit, we could imagine the following scenarios should time be called before anyone crossed the finish line:
1) Awarding the win to whomever performed the best. This could be judged by number of people passed or amount of time spent in first place.
2) Awarding the win to whomever was closest to the finish line when time was called.
3) Awarding the win to whomever was most likely to cross the finish line first. To calculate this, you'd need to figure out each runner's position and calculate their average speed they could be expected to maintain.
I believe this to be a pretty good analogy as Mage Wars is at it's core a Damage Race. So, we first need to decide which one of these approaches we wish to use for Mage Wars, and THEN work out the specifics. They all have Pros and Cons.
Approach One: Looking at what all has happened in the game thus far.
Pros:
1) Awards good performance.
Cons:
1) Requires additional Record Keeping.
2) Player's behavior will change to meet the standards. They shall perform whatever actions are most rewarded.
Approach Two: Examining a snapshot of the state of the game.
Pros:
1) Simple and Easy to measure/quantify
Cons:
1) Does not accurately measure overall performance or chances of eventual success.
Example
Ringkichard's Tie-Breaker Rounds or my Overtime suggestions. Both focus on the end state of the game.
Approach Three: Trying to predict where the game was going.
Pros:
1) Provides the fairest measure of who was most likely to win by the conventional method.
Cons:
1) Most difficult to quantify with any certainty or accuracy.
Example
Several people have discussed a desire for this approach but I can't think of any specific proposals that fall into this category at this time.
Discussion
I believe that Approach #1 would always favor certain spellbook builds too greatly to be a good method of use. It skews the nature of the game. Meanwhile, I believe Approach #3 is too difficult to quantify and measure. I do not believe a fair method could be created that could also be done quickly by hand without subjectivity.
Thus, I am a fan of Approach #2 and believe that's where we should focus our efforts. Into judging which mage is in the best position at the end of the game. Which one is strongest.
-
I haven't looked at all the resources provided by Shad0w on how tie breakers work and are designed. I've never run or participated in a tournament at all to be honest. So, with the disclosure that I am a simple commoner addressing the Senate, I hope you'll excuse my simple ways.
The way I see it, we have 3 different approaches for determining the tie-break.
1) Looking at what all has happened in the game thus far.
2) Taking a snap shot of the state of the game and examining that.
3) Trying to predict where the game was going.
All three approaches have merit. If we apply them to a foot race with both a finish line and a time limit, we could imagine the following scenarios should time be called before anyone crossed the finish line:
1) Awarding the win to whomever performed the best. This could be judged by number of people passed or amount of time spent in first place.
2) Awarding the win to whomever was closest to the finish line when time was called.
3) Awarding the win to whomever was most likely to cross the finish line first. To calculate this, you'd need to figure out each runner's position and calculate their average speed they could be expected to maintain.
I believe this to be a pretty good analogy as Mage Wars is at it's core a Damage Race. So, we first need to decide which one of these approaches we wish to use for Mage Wars, and THEN work out the specifics. They all have Pros and Cons.
Approach One: Looking at what all has happened in the game thus far.
Pros:
1) Awards good performance.
Cons:
1) Requires additional Record Keeping.
2) Player's behavior will change to meet the standards. They shall perform whatever actions are most rewarded.
Approach Two: Examining a snapshot of the state of the game.
Pros:
1) Simple and Easy to measure/quantify
Cons:
1) Does not accurately measure overall performance or chances of eventual success.
Example
Ringkichard's Tie-Breaker Rounds or my Overtime suggestions. Both focus on the end state of the game.
Approach Three: Trying to predict where the game was going.
Pros:
1) Provides the fairest measure of who was most likely to win by the conventional method.
Cons:
1) Most difficult to quantify with any certainty or accuracy.
Example
Several people have discussed a desire for this approach but I can't think of any specific proposals that fall into this category at this time.
Discussion
I believe that Approach #1 would always favor certain spellbook builds too greatly to be a good method of use. It skews the nature of the game. Meanwhile, I believe Approach #3 is too difficult to quantify and measure. I do not believe a fair method could be created that could also be done quickly by hand without subjectivity.
Thus, I am a fan of Approach #2 and believe that's where we should focus our efforts. Into judging which mage is in the best position at the end of the game. Which one is strongest.
Using the statistics analogy again, whether its best to use mean, median, mode or range to most accurately draw conclusions from a set of data varies.
I think this same logic applies to different tiebreakers. It will probably be fairer and more accurate if a combination of all three of them were used. Personally I like both Kichard's tiebreaker (approach 2) ) and yours, Zuberi (approach 2), and I like mine too (approaches 2 and 3). I think that if your two tiebreakers disagree, mine can break the tie between those tiebreakers. Then if the players are still tied after the third tiebreaker then the game ends in a draw.
-
@Speed
You have to allow for concession. When playing I may have to go in the middle of a game for any number of reasons. I play in events even when I am on call for work. I have been doing it for years. When I get a call it is $50 - $150/hr so if I know the call is going to be longer than 2 minute I leave the match and give the other player the win. Another example is one of the guys I play card with is a certified rescue diver, he has gotten calls at 11:15 pm during an event to drive downtown and get a tow motor out of the lake. It becomes hard to find a balance between what is inviting to new players but still closes as many loophole as possible when making rules
@Shad0w I understand that people are in a tournament and life happens. There is no practical way for me as a tournament Judge to prevent a person from leaving or conceding a game. I think it would be best to minimize the possibility of coercion or collusion. Given the examples you made, I would have no problems awarding the win the the player that didn't have to leave. Depending on the size of the player pool, its likely that player would be at a disadvantage as s/he would now have a win but a weaker tiebreaker. So while I agree there has to be a way to address that life will occasionally interfere in a tournament, it shouldn't be used as a way to position yourself or the other player in the finals.
Out of curiosity what are your thoughts on this: I had a player in one of my tournaments get a phone call from his brother. His brother was locked out of the house. Given where he lived, it would take him about 40 minutes to get there and back. The match he was playing had only been going for 20 mins out of a 60 min round. He asked me if he could forfeit the match and come back. This was round 2 of a 5 round tournament. I said sure. He started to sweep his cards and his opponent stopped him and asked if I could instead play the rest of the round out as he didn't want to end up with a weaker tiebreaker (card differential). I decided that if I played out the rest of the round, this was not a forfeit. So I gave the choice of a forfeit win or a playing it out and standing by the results. Player A left to help his brother and Player B played me. I somehow managed to win the match(which led to some grumbling by Player B). Player A came back as he said more or less(it made the tournament round start about 5 mins late) and the tournament finished without any other issues.
-
I do not think you should have agreed to play for him. Would you have also agreed to let me and a friend tag team throughout the tournament so that we didn't have to both pay the entrance fee (if there was one)? What if that player had gone on to win the tournament? I don't think you would have had a lot of happy players on your hand if one of his wins he wasn't even there for. Seems really unfair to me. Plus, weren't you supposed to be acting as a Judge? Who was covering your spot while you sat down to a game?
Allowing him to leave and come back was okay though, in my opinion.
-
@Speed this has happened in other games when a player has to leave. before the match has been decided (no matter the reason) the other player gets the win. You can play out the match for fun but that is it. Even if the player filling in wins the player that left does not get credit for it. Now on the subject of leaving and coming back I have no issue with it as long as you can get seated and ready before the 10 minutes after round start.
Ok I am calling out the part about filling in. I was online playing a FPS and doing some work for a clan. One of the people I know asks if I can sit in on a game on one of my other accounts. I said no problem I do not have anything to do for about 90minutes. I noticed it was a password locked room. I entered and they were in the game but it had not started. So I was sitting around talking and the game started a few minutes later. about halfway into the game I wanted to check the scores and I noticed it was almost all clan people. By this point I was up 37 to 0. I ended the match at 65 and 1 when I asked in a private chat I found out it was a official match for the tourney we were playing in. Now if this was to get reported myself and the team I played on all get suspended. This gave them a huge advantage (if I would have known I would have not played) I was if the top 3 in a few weapon classes and top 150 overall in the world. When a player fills in it could unbalance the results.
-
When I thought about the match, I only considered playing because I thought it was fair for all involved and would not unbalance the results. I had given the choice for a match win via forfeit. I took in consideration that I had no knowledge of the deck or strategy I was playing and that I would definitely not be playing it optimally(but I play to win-everyone that was there knows that). Essentially I was just taking the game where the other guy left off. It seemed like a fair trade/gamble for Player B or he would have just opted for the forfeit win.
@Zuberi No one complained. Another player(who is also a Judge/TD) would make rulings on my game if any had come up. Multitasking was very common during tournament days. If I was running more than one tournament, I would definitely not have agreed to play(On some days I would be judging 2 to 3 simultaneous events).
@Shad0w Point taken. Had this been a qualifier or a regionals I would not have played.
In regards to some of the tiebreakers that are being discussed, I like the damage dealt during overtime scenario but do not like the extra book keeping.
-
I thought about a very easy and simple way to "tie break" a game.
Mage Wars, is "all" about killing the opponement mage. No matter what happens in a game, it ends with the death of someone.
But what make it not easy is that there are way to remove damage (heal) and increase your maximum life. It would be unfair to limit outcome of a match only on damage dealt due to this two factor.
But the game still resolve around damage. So the easy way to end a game would be after X amout of time (I think tournament is 90 minutes, am I right?), you start the end game. The arena is colapsing (or whatever fit the lore) and everything inside the arena start to take unavoidable damage during the Upkeep. First round, 1 normal + 1 critical (to factor in armor/resilient). Second round, 2 normal + 2 critical, thirs round, 3 normal + 3 critical, etc.
It is easy, quick and do not favor much any kind of build.
-
Except what happens to the audience if the arena is collapsing like that? And the arena still needs to be rebuilt for the next fight.
And if one mage surrenders, does that mean instant death, or just that he loses the match?
I think generally no matter what you do there's going to be a tiny amount of uncertainty about the outcome of an unfinished match until the last possibly point of damage is dealt, since attacks are through dice rolls. The only way to be certain is if they're taking upkeep damage that they have no way to prevent, remove, or stop receiving. Like say, Ghoul Rot and no dispels, purifies, or purge magic. But even then, unless that damage would kill them during their very next upkeep, you don't know absolutely for certain if they might be able to turn it around and kill the enemy mage before the Ghoul Rot takes them out.
Therefore, the best tiebreakers should be an extremely accurate approximation that predicts who would have won if the game continued. Some of the ideas already presented here look like they would do a pretty good job of that all things considered. Also, don't forget that since Mage Wars tournaments are in swiss format, the only ties that will need to be broken will be between the top participants, like first place, second place, etc., so that prizes can be awarded without tearing them in half. A win would be +1 to your tournament score, a loss would be -1, and a draw would be 0.
That being said, I think I can combine RingKichard's plan and aspects of Zuberi's and my own plans into a procedure for breaking ties when it is necessary to do so that is slightly more accurate. The idea is that the fairest tiebreaker is the one that most accurately predicts who would have won if the game hadn't gone to time, and that you can use the current game state at the end of the tiebreaker to predict where it would have gone with a high accuracy.
To review Ringkichard's original plan:
1. The final portion of every tournament game is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 90 minute tournament game, the final 15 minutes is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 60 minute game, the final 10 minutes is reserved. Prompt play during tiebreaker game rounds is strictly mandatory.
2. When the expiration of normal time is announced, the current game round is finished and the final three rounds of play begin. The game will end when the third game round finishes, or when final time is called.
3. The three rounds of Mage Wars Tiebreaker play proceed normally, with the exception that each player must record the damage done to his or her opponent. Each round, the player who does the most damage to the opponent's Mage (including loss of life, tainted, etc) wins the round and one of three possible tiebreaker points.
4. After three tiebreaker rounds, the player with the most tiebreaker points--two out of three--is the winner.
5. If, during tiebreaker rounds, one player takes damage in excess of his or her remaining life, that player loses as normal.
6. If a tiebreaker round is tied because neither player did any damage, or because the players did equal amounts of damage, no point is awarded.
7. If, at the end of tiebreaker rounds, the players are tied in round points awarded, the winner of the game is the player who did the most total damage summed over all three rounds
8. If both players did the same amount of damage totaled over all three rounds, the game is a draw.
9. If tiebreaker time expires without the completion of all three tiebreaker rounds, end the current tiebreaker round as it stands, and score it as above. The player who has done the most damage in the portion of the round that has been played scores the point. The player with the most tiebreaker points is the winner, as usual. If the points are tied, check total damage done during tiebreaker play. If that is tied, the game is a draw, as normal.
My addendum: If the game still ends in a tie after this process, follow this procedure for measuring and comparing average mage damage potential.
Here's how it goes...
1. Check your mage-damage potential (the total attack dice that could be rolled against you during the next rounds' action phases. So if a creature has a full action attack and you are in range of it, or if they have a quick action attack that will only take one move action to put in range, then the dice of that creature's attack count as part of your mage-damage potential. If you are within range of a conjuration's attack, that attack's dice is added to your mage-damage potential. If you are in a zone bordered by a wall with the passage attacks trait, your opponent must reveal any force wave, force push, or jet stream they have planned or spellbound. Check if you are in range of these spells and whether they can affect you. If they can, add the number of dice from the passage attacks to your mage-damage potential.
2. Find the difference between your life stat and your mage-damage potential.
3. Repeat the process for your opponent. Find the difference between their life stat and their mage-damage potential.
4. If the difference between your life and your mage-damage potential is greater than the difference between your opponent's life and your opponent's mage-damage potential, then you win. If your opponent's is greater than yours, then you lose. If it is still a draw, the player with initiative wins. If after that it is still a draw, the player with the most mana wins. After that, give it up; it's a draw whether you like it or not.
For this measurement we use average potential damage as the unit. So we'll assume the average potential damage to be 1 damage per die when the enemy mage has no armor, and then each point of armor reduces the average potential damage by .5 (to take into account critical bypassing armor and normal being blocked by it). If the enemy mage has incorporeal, the average potential damage is reduced by half.
-
The collapsing arena was just a suggestion... Use your imagination ;)
Could be some sort of magic aura that surround the inside of the arena.
-
It's not just a matter of using my imagination. In terms of gameplay, such a rule would make for VERY cheesy endings. In terms of story, it begs the question of why anyone would have the incentive to cast such a spell over the arena in the first place. The crowd would hate it since it makes for extremely cheesy anticlimactic endings. Not to mention this question: How do you explain why the officials in charge of the Mage Wars institution would legislate that such a spell be cast in all arena matches to keep them short when there are other more exciting ways to shorten matches? And it doesn't break ties, just shortens the game. If the arena wide damage bubble affects both mages equally, then theoretically if they have the same amount of damage and don't manage to damage each other in time, then they will die at exactly the same time.
Perhaps there are other things I'm not considering that could make your idea mechanically effective and thematically plausible, but I can't think of any right now. I won't say for certain that your idea has no merit, since the last time I did that on this forum I was struck by inspiration and came up with a way the idea could work. I do think that there might be a way to implement this sort of mechanic into a really good alternate format. In fact, I was just inspired and will go post in alternative play now.
-
I used to play in SFB tourneys. In that game, if neither player had lost when time was called, the winner was determined by an experienced, impartial judge. The judge looked at the situation and declared a winner.
In MW, the judge would check out the mage boards, the position of the mages and spells on the board, the spells remaining in each spellbook, and asks each player privately how he plans to finish the game... then the judge just decides.
Why not just do that?
-
The impartiality would be questioned. Even if the judge has no connection to the actual players, he may favor one mage type over another or one strategy over another, or any number of other concerns players could come up with to whine and moan about being treated unfairly. I'm not familiar with any type of tournament format really, but the idea of someone else telling me I would have lost when I personally think I could have won does not sit well with me. And if I'm admitting that I would have lost then the need for what you suggest disappears. Thus, it can't do anything but cause hard feeling from players like me.
I would prefer a hard and fast rule that can be easily seen and calculated by everyone rather than depending on someone else's OPINION which may differ from mine. I want to see that I lost per the rules, not just because someone thinks I should.
-
I used to play in SFB tourneys. In that game, if neither player had lost when time was called, the winner was determined by an experienced, impartial judge. The judge looked at the situation and declared a winner.
In MW, the judge would check out the mage boards, the position of the mages and spells on the board, the spells remaining in each spellbook, and asks each player privately how he plans to finish the game... then the judge just decides.
Why not just do that?
This sounds similar to a boxing match except that a panel of judges score each round. If there were guidelines established and published so both players and judges understand the factors that are taken into account, this would work. However, it is labor intensive and difficult to use in small tournaments.
-
I used to play in SFB tourneys. In that game, if neither player had lost when time was called, the winner was determined by an experienced, impartial judge. The judge looked at the situation and declared a winner.
In MW, the judge would check out the mage boards, the position of the mages and spells on the board, the spells remaining in each spellbook, and asks each player privately how he plans to finish the game... then the judge just decides.
Why not just do that?
This sounds similar to a boxing match except that a panel of judges score each round. If there were guidelines established and published so both players and judges understand the factors that are taken into account, this would work. However, it is labor intensive and difficult to use in small tournaments.
We would not have enough judges to put one at every table
-
I'm not saying one per table... whoever is running the tournament or someone else designated who isn't playing. How many ties do you have to break in a round, after all?
How about this... let a tie be a tie... 5-2-0 points for win-tie-lose. Or give no points for ties, and just count numbers of won games.
I hate having to worry about what happens at the end... and it seems that the books I play always have me playing well into the time limits. Maybe it's the player, and I'm just playing... wrong. Maybe I should just stop playing tournaments and just play for fun instead. To be honest, that's why I go to tournaments... experience and fun... I never expect to win anything.
How about offering non-tournament play more often at cons? Have a designated place for people to sign up and play pick-up games.
-
Still waiting to hear format for Origins and Gencon
-
How about offering non-tournament play more often at cons? Have a designated place for people to sign up and play pick-up games.
This is common at boardgame conventions. It is often called open-gaming and I have played pick-up games of Mage Wars. It is a great way to find new gamers who already play or want to learn.
-
I would love more room for open gaming but space has always been an issue. :(
-
What about this? Have a time limit for the entire event but not for individual matches. Have a time limit on the planning phase of three minutes. Don't count unfinished games.
Then at the end whoever's won the most games is the champion.
This way, the rules don't favor faster builds, only faster planners. I think this is acceptable because someone who takes more than a few minutes to plan usually doesn't know their own spellbook that well or is a newer player.
Otherwise they probably are sleep deprived or have ADHD. Sleep deprivation can usually be prevented by going to bed on time or taking sleeping pills/melatonin etc.
And ADHD is actually helpful to someone who really loves mage wars once they've gotten a hang of all the multitasking in the game. And they'd have to love it to be competing in tournaments.
There might be other examples of people who take more than a few minutes to plan but are neither new nor lack knowledge/experience of their own spellbook. However I can't think of any more off the top of my head.
-
Any more thoughts on this after another year has passed? People are still complaining about long game spellbooks not being viable because of time limit.
I think the idea posted above might have some merit. A 3 or 4 minute time limit in the planning phase instead of a hard time limit for each and every whole game might go a long way towards ensuring that longer game spellbooks are still competitive without running out of time for a tournament. This might make for more games that end more naturally.
Also, no one ever surrenders in official organized play even when their loss has become pretty much inevitable if they were to keep playing to the natural end, but because of the time limit, players keep playing a lost game in order to reach a "draw" that clearly isn't really a draw.
-
MW is about getting the other mage down to 0 life while still having some life left.
Which means it's about doing damage and preventing being damaged,
thus : if neither has died when time is called find out who is closest to winning/losing at that point.
Each player adds up his "damage dealt" + "life left".
Highest total wins.
If tied .... a tie :)
Simple to keep track of and a correct representation of the situation imo.
-
Hmm...
Mage Wars is about killing your opponent. If you use a time limit, time is up and nobody is dead (even if close) there can simply be no winner. Tie. Besides both knowing the hurry no decision was made.
For the simplicity and matching mainidea I would say the one who is closest to being dead loses for being so deadish.