Discussion questions about Tournament rules sets

[gjnoronh]

Two questions for discussion regarding tournament rules sets.

1) What's generally a better way to handle tie breaking? Bonus points for casualties/TDs etc. or SCORE calculated tiered tie breakers (TD differential then casualty differential etc.) Background I ran an event recently where I was planning on using bonus points and realized it really didn't seem to be worth the hassle as SCORE could do the tiered tie breakers automatically for me. I also hit a large 3 game event recently where a 3-0 player scored 21 casualties under a casualty bonus point schema and had a very large lead over other 3-0 players.

Nothing is wrong with either approach but wondering if there is a consensus on what's best or maybe whats best in certain circumstances. Possibly it scales with size of the event if you have way more players then the number of rounds can produce a single undefeated then maybe one approach is better? If you like SCORE calculated driven tiered tie breakers what do you like first second third? (I like TD differential, casualty differential, and then maybe total TDs, Total Casualties or opponents total score)

2) Many events at least in my region tend to give different skills to different tiers of teams. But is there a commonly accepted way we think about how team tiering changes at higher TV events? Background I've three events and in one of them the skill package was much more liberal then the previous year, one of my players is advocating for even more liberal skill access and I'm wondering if at some point I should be rethinking tiers I'm just lifting from other events. In a zero skill event Amazons are clearly tier 1 and chaos is clearly tier 2, but in say a theoretical event with 600 points of skills Amazons have probably dropped quite a bit and chaos has gone up quite a bit.

At what TV point should TO's reconsider "standard" tiering and besides those two obvious ones are there other teams that get a boost or start dropping off? Of course this only matters if different tiers get different skill packages or other team building advantages.


Note I'm not looking for an official NAF position (and I don't necessarily think there should be one) just posting here as I thought the tournament players might disproportionately be in this section.

[RoterSternHochdahl]

Hey,
1) Neither TD, nor CAS do a very good job in deciding who was the best player at site. Added net values equal out certain disadvantages but will still favour the luckier player.
2) Tiers are designed for low value teams and change drastically at medium or high tv. There is no commonly accepted model for higher tvs - even much less than at tv1100 at which we have the most data ...and still no vanilla solution

[gjnoronh]

RoterSternHochdahl

Understood your first sentence in relation to topic one but not your second. What do you think is a good tiebreaker tool to use? I'm curious what is a good tie breaker.

As to your response to question 2 about tiering at high TV I agree which gives me pause about potentially hosting a future tournament with really liberal skill access. Law of unintended consequences - I don't think it's a bad thing if a bottom tier wins an event but would like a sense as a TO I gave them a fair chance to compete not an unfair advantage over other teams.

On the other hand at a recent tournament I went to I had the option of 200K of skills to add to my goblin team and aside from Block/Pro/guard on the trolls and mighty blow/dirty player on the secret weapons I didn't have a lot else I was excited to do with the rest of the 200K

[sann0638]

Strength of schedule (opponent score) is generally gaining momentum as the "best" tiebreaker in terms of finding the "worthiest" tournament winner, but if you want to reward high scoring or high bash, then use something else.

[gjnoronh]

I'm a little enamored by TD differential as it rewards both very good defensive teams and high flying offenses. But I suspect the super blowout 5-1 game is more likely with Skaven/Wood Elves then Dwarves. Had played with a bonus point system (60 point wins 30 point ties, 4 points per TD or casualty) for my last event but realized it was a headache to manage day of event in SCORE.

I think strength of schedule has merit am I correct in saying that SCORE's way of handling SoS is opponents total TD's or is it based on wins? (I think the drop down says 'opponents total score')

Gary

[sann0638]

Had played with a bonus point system (60 point wins 30 point ties, 4 points per TD or casualty) for my last event but realized it was a headache to manage day of event in SCORE.

This sounds exactly Score's thing. What was the problem?

I think strength of schedule has merit am I correct in saying that SCORE's way of handling SoS is opponents total TD's or is it based on wins? (I think the drop down says 'opponents total score')

It is literally the points of all your opponents added together. Tournament points, not touchdowns.

[gjnoronh]

Re bonus points -
1) created a bonus point field in SCORE but didn't see a way to create a per round field to enter the bonus points so was updating the first team page round by round and was thinking at some point I'm going to miss add (the late night on Friday and several SCORE crashes saturday didn't help my confidence/mood).
2) the rules set I borrowed had bonus points and pre determined tie breakers - which I then wondered why am I doing all this bonus point work.

Hmmm maybe strength of schedule for my next first tie breaker.

So back to the original question when is bonus points (casualty/TDs) worth including vs SoS or something else as a tie breaker. I'm excluding the obvious situations like an unusual rules set like Elf Olympics where the TO wants to encourage certain play styles. Anything SCORE can calculate automatically for me that reduces data entry seems like a win.

[Darkson]

1) created a bonus point field in SCORE but didn't see a way to create a per round field to enter the bonus points so was updating the first team page round by round and was thinking at some point I'm going to miss add (the late night on Friday and several SCORE crashes saturday didn't help my confidence/mood).

That is exactly what Score will do - I've awarded bonus points for TDs and Cas (plus later a clean sheet bonus) since my first event in 2008, all using Score.
For yours:
Add +(max(min(tf,3),0)*4)+(max(min(cf,3),0)*4) to Win, Draw and Lose under Scoring in the Tournament Settings and job done.
Actually, that's not 100% correct, as I limited mine to 3 of each, so I think you just need to add:
+(tf*4)+(cf*4)

But if that's not quite right, the Help file will point you in the right direction, and a quick question here will normally get a response from someone that knows very quickly (odd scoring system is one of the reasons I pre-programme Score as soon as I can and run some 'test' events to make sure the scoring is correct).

[gjnoronh]

Thanks for the tip Darksun I'll believe you if you say so. But I clearly wasn't going to figure that one out on my own!