Weekly Poll: Tiebreaker Question

[webhead817]

Currently WizKids is using the Strength of Schedule method of determining overall rankings and tie-breakers amongst players with like records in a tournament. An alternative method would use total victory points as the tiebreaker instead. Which would you prefer?

[Bladej]

Recently, at a local tournament, a few of my friends who were new players participated and one of them went 3-0 in the tournament. Another player, who is one of the best at our venue and has played for years, also went 3-0, and couldn't play a final round with the new guy due to time restraints. I'd like to note that our resident judge could not be there and a buddy of his had to take his place.The stand-in judge did not know about the strength of schedule rule.

The new guy, using the total victory points as the tiebreaker won the tournament. His reaction was "What?" and the older player starred in disbelief. Neither of them thought it was fair, but accepted the ruling as the Judge's call is "legal and final." Sure didn't seem fair to me.

Later, when we compared the strength of schedules, our resident judge discovered that the older player had a significantly more challenging set of opponents. The new guy, realizing that he had not truly won, wished to play a final fight against the older player; he was thrown about the map like a rag doll.


I can't imagine a tournament where the victory points tie-breaker would ever be a better decision over strength of schedule.

[Alyksandyr]

Strength of Schedule is BUNK.

If any of your opponents drop from the tourney, your at a disadvantage when compared to the other opponents within the tiebreaker.

[Sink74]

Originally posted by webhead817
Currently WizKids is using the Strength of Schedule method of determining overall rankings and tie-breakers amongst players with like records in a tournament.

I have never heard of any venue using strength of schedule as a tie-breaker. Until today, that is. Is this some mutant West Coast thing? I certainly don't remember reading it any of the tournament rulings.

[The FreakyTiki]

I believe Victory Points is the way to go. Here's why...

At most of the venues that I have played at, when someone loses one of thier games they "blow off" their remaining games. Whether that means they don't play with the same seriousness, or help out a younger opponent learn the game or just leave the event because they can not win the "big prize".

I know all of you have seen these actions happen at your local venues.

Just my opinion.

:)

[SuperGENE]

Strength of schedule is better. Victory points is subject to collusion and bad math.

If an opponent drops out early, he probably wasn't going to rack up that many wins anyway, making him a weak opponent.

[Ozymandas]

Ditto Strength of Sched. I'm surprised to see VPs currently has 2X as many points.

It's so easy to help out a friend, marching & pushing your doomed figures in his direction. Morality aside: once you see you're going to lose anyway, why not let a friend advance w/ 600 VPs rather than 457? Others advance w/ high VPs because they were paired against poor or young players.

Typically, if I'm playing against a newbie I'll try to give some pointers along the way. If I've got to worry about VPs I'll crush him every chance I get. I get an LE, the newbie is discouraged & this is overall very bad for the game. It doesn't encourage new players & there is no incentive for others to teach them in this format.

[Ozymandas]

Originally posted by Ozymandas
I'm surprised to see VPs currently has 2X as many points.

err, & by "points" I mean "votes".

:o

[webhead817]

Strength of Schedule has been used at the recent "big events", I'm under the understanding that it's official per WizKids for those events.

My first problem with SoS is that it's a mystery as to how it works exactly, I consider myself a student of the game, and I have no clue as to EXACTLY how SoS is calculated. As such, it's hard to figure out what other flaws their may or may not be with it. But what I really don't like is that a player has no control over how well his opponents play.

Now, on the VP side, in theory a player is rewarded for both winning and winning overwhelmingly, both things are positives, and both are something he has control over. Now, the collusion problems is certainly real, but I'm not sure it's any different than a friend throwing a game when SoS is used.

Though currently I'm in favor of VP's, I'd love to be educated on exactly how SoS works and how it accounts for things like drops.

[clixer11]

I'm in the same boat as Webhead. I would happy to vote after reading a quasi-dissertation on SoS.

To my pretty certain knowledge, none of this has ever affected me as a player or a judge.

However, if it were to ever cost me a factory set or Dark Phoenix, this information would be extremely handy so I know where exactly to throw my Molotov cocktails...

[Wolverine_Hulk]

Total Victory Points

[Ozymandas]

I started to type out how this works & I tripped myself up so badly I'm not going to post what I wrote. It's the kind of thing that makes perfect sense when it's explained to me but not easy for me to explain. I'm going to see what I can find & paste it here.

[webhead817]

Originally posted by Ozymandas
I'm going to see what I can find & paste it here.

Fair enough, I know exactly what you mean really.

If any of the judges out there have intimate knowledge of how this works, please share! :)

[saxman0829]

strength of scheduel is a subjective measure of compairason. A good player can use a lousy team and still be a threat. a bad player can use a great team and still get kicked around. it should come down to total points

[Spy Master]

I voted for total VP's . The players in my group here may be friends but they know that the tie breaker is VP's and play accordingly, Not letting some one get an easy win, trying to totally elminate the opponents figures form the board. And as for newbies they are treated with respect and honor that they deserve. I for one have even let a new players take back a whole turn or 2 just to let them see where they made their mistakes and how to not make them again.

[Spock]

Assuming SoS for heroclix is the same as other games (I have no idea if it is or not), your SoS score is equal to the combined total of your opponent's victory points. So if you and I both have 3 wins and 1 loss, while my opponents have a total of 9 wins and yours have a total of 8 wins, then I win the tournament.

[Spock]

And yes, SOS is a terrible idea.

[Pinto975]

how can you determin the str. of sceduel if you don't know the person who is playing at your venue? I know of a lot of people who have in the past gone to a "new" venue to get the le's because it would be an easy win. even though everyone at the venue was new to the game the people who went their were not. so how do you go by the s.o.s.?

I think that it is a good idea if it can be followed. At another venue their is a guy who only plays agenst kids and he always wins. I have never seen a kid beat him. but the judge dose not say anything about it because he goes by total victory points. Most of us adults that were playing their have stoped for one reason or another. Mostly because of the atmospher. so in that case their may be one or two adults their at any one point and time.

I know that both points can be good and bad at the same time, but to be fair to the new players and kids I just have a few questions.

1) How do you determin which is the best way to go and run your event?

2) How do you determin the str. of a player that had never been at your venue?

3) how do you keep it fair if their is just large groups of kids at an event and only one or two adults?

[Bladej]

One thing, Spock, is that the strength of schedule is not determined by total time playing at that venue. If player A goes 2-1 and player B also goes 2-1, then you look at the players they beat. If player A took on people who lost every other round they played in, and one or both of player B's losing opponents had wins against someone else, then those opponents would be considered tougher players. Therefore, since player B played better players in that tournament, he'd win due to strength of schedule.

I hope that makes sense to everyone, or at least someone. :noid:

[Aeturnus]

SoS is an elitist, pompous tactic subjective depending on who's judging. VP is the way to go...

[MSU]

Originally posted by Alyksandyr
Strength of Schedule is BUNK.

If any of your opponents drop from the tourney, your at a disadvantage when compared to the other opponents within the tiebreaker.

I couldn't agree more. At the regional tournaments, if someone lost, they dropped to get into a flight, messing up the winners supposed SOS. Total victory points is the most fair way to judge it.

[darius_dax1]

Originally posted by MSU
I couldn't agree more. At the regional tournaments, if someone lost, they dropped to get into a flight, messing up the winners supposed SOS. Total victory points is the most fair way to judge it. While SOS can be somewhat scientific if you base it on w/l and total points for and against I totally agree with what MSU is saying here.

[Ozymandas]

ah, Bladej summed up SoS perfectly. Dang, I had this mixed up w/ something else & now I see my error. If only for the sake of tie-breakers, I suppose VPs is fairer. However, when dealing with large numbers this can slow things down & you can't rely on everyone to keep track. Then you have math errors, as SuperGENE mentioned, especially when kids are involved. Heck, even us big 'uns can make mistakes.

Another problem with the VP method is it can affect style of play. If I get paired off with a couple of turtleheads early on I'm not going to be accumulating a lot of VP. I can rush in if I'm worried about VPs but that kind of wrecklessness can turn what would have been a victory for me into a loss.

I think if the SoS method could just be tweaked to account for drop-outs it would be superior. I'm thinking of something dealing with percentages that might work out. If I come up with something I'll post it here.

[XStreme]

I've never been to a tournament but I would think a game should just decide the winner...if you can't do the game well why? Whoever's fault it is should be the person that doesn't win....

Total Victory Points and Strength of Schedule both have major flaws and don't take in account various things.

Tournaments never decide the best player though.....it always has some luck and extraneous factors that come in to play.

[XStreme]

I've never been to a tournament but I would think a game should just decide the winner...if you can't do the game well why? Whoever's fault it is should be the person that doesn't win....

Total Victory Points and Strength of Schedule both have major flaws and don't take in account various things.

Tournaments never decide the best player though.....it always has some luck and extraneous factors that come in to play.

[tbone_foley]

Ok, I'm a huge College Football fan and if you ask any sports fan what the most flawed ranking system in sports is, they'll say the BCS. It's completely objective, and rankings are mostly calculated by strength of schedule. Every sports writer and every fan wants to see a playoff between the real #1 and #2. That's how heroclix should be settled. If two people are 3-0, they should play to see who is the best that day.

Of course the guy with the most points has some sort of time constraint and has to go home, but why should the guy how played a couple of stallers his first two rounds be penalized. Until we start throwing chess clocks on the table to time turns it should be the best man (or woman) wins. Stalling has become a way to common strategy in this game and it should be addressed.

[webhead817]

Originally posted by XStreme
Tournaments never decide the best player though.....it always has some luck and extraneous factors that come in to play.

Well, in theory, a tourney decides the best player and team of the day. The tiebreaker method is needed in cases like yesterday, where there are many people with like records that need to be ranked versus one another.

[MSU]

As Webhead said, the top 16 was 12 players who went 3-0 and then LOTS of players who went 2-1. How do you decide out of the 2-1 people who fit the final 4 slots? I went 3-0 but when I looked at my SOS ranking, I had negative numbers for the people who dropped out of the tournament after they had lost. SOS really can only be decided AFTER the tournament is over. For instance, Webhead played me in the last round of the sealed. I won, and went on to finish in second place. That means Webhead lost to the 2nd place person...shouldn't that mean that Webhead should move up in the rankings since he lost to someone who played really good all day long and didn't lose to someone who lost all day long (there...I am tooting my own horn, but you all can see where I am going with this).

SOS just has too many flaws. You cannot argue with numbers...they make more sense to people.

[webhead817]

MSU illustrates my situation well, it's a good example.

Have no doubt, I don't have any sour grapes, if I really wanted to make the top 16, I should have won that last game. ;) But the point is, at least yesterday, SoS seemed VERY arbitrary. Both of the people I won against dropped. What does that do to SoS? Who knows for sure, but I'm guessing it's not good.

[MSU]

Originally posted by webhead817
MSU illustrates my situation well, it's a good example.

Have no doubt, I don't have any sour grapes, if I really wanted to make the top 16, I should have won that last game. ;) But the point is, at least yesterday, SoS seemed VERY arbitrary. Both of the people I won against dropped. What does that do to SoS? Who knows for sure, but I'm guessing it's not good.

Since my two first matches dropped (before match 3) I looked at the ranking sheet and saw that I had negative numbers attached to my name under round 1 and 2. I can only assume since the first player (who dropped after she lost to me) went 0-3 and the second guy went 1-2 (who dropped after losing to me), that means tht my SOS was lower and has nothing to do with my competition. I see that type of system as flawed.

[lowguppy]

Strength of schedule is a bad way of doing tie breakers because it is entirely out of the player's control. Its a roll of the dice in the first round if you get paired up with someone that's gonna go 3 and 1 or 0 and 4. After that the parings get more equitable, so the difference between two 4 and 0s would mostly be the first opponant, and that's just not cool.

Victory points are just that, a measure of strength of victory. Not seeing a better alternative, I'll go with this for now. I don't see collusion as a big problem, as a player hoping for a top 4 or top 8 spot would want to keep his points for an outside chance at having the most VPs for a and-1 player.

I've actually been in tournaments where raw victory points were the primary way of determining victory, regardless of record, which I find kind of ridiculous.

[gdamrosch]

Someone pointed out that people who dropped out are probably not very good anyway and thus would have a poor SOS. I'm really not sure that's accurate.

The problem is that most venues have a built in incentive for people to drop out. People who drop out can often go purchase another three boosters and play in a side event. I think that this is a good thing since it promotes sales and gives people who had bad luck a chance for a fresh start.

But the downside to this is that more people will drop out than might normally happen. If someone's choice is to continue playing in an event they have slim to no chance of winning or starting fresh with another chance to get some of this plastic crack we call heroclix, a lot of people will take the second chance to pull that KC Green Lantern. That doesn't mean they're bad players and it certainly doesn't mean they're as bad as their SOS would indicate. This makes for a flawed system.

Total points is also flawed, but at least it's flawed in a way that players have more control over. I have no way to ensure that I get paired up against people who will play the whole way through, but I'm always going to have a chance to rack up points if I play well enough.

[Gacy's Clown]

I'm getting ready to go to bed and just noticed like four threads talking about SOS. I don't even know what the #### it is, so I'll check out all this jive tomorrow...:sleep:

[Captain_Comet]

I'm so glad SOS hasn't come to haunt me just yet. VP is certainly the way to go. I try to evenly match my players as it is.

[Impulse-ive]

SoS Has killed me a few times i played a tournement where i was 2-1 going into the last round. against a guy who was 3-0 (including a bye) I beat him and still took second because the bye was considered better than beating as guy who was 1-3 at the end. Tell me that is fair???

[Gacy's Clown]

Apparently our group has missed this whole SoS thing. When did this all start?

[Artie Deco]

In a perfect world, either method would be fine.

The main defect of SoS seems to be players dropping out or taking dives. There's not much you can do to fix that.

The main defect of VP seems to be players who "turtle". There is a fix for that. Change how VPs are calculated. If it were up to me, I'd count VP as the number of points left in your team, period.

[Marshal Law]

Originally posted by Pinto975
At another venue their is a guy who only plays agenst kids and he always wins. I have never seen a kid beat him. but the judge dose not say anything about it because he goes by total victory points. Most of us adults that were playing their have stoped for one reason or another.

I'm assuming the adult playing only kids is due to there only being other kids present, and not by active opponent chosing. In this case the best solution is to host at least 1 "juniors" event a month at that venue. The next best solution is to get some of you adults back into the mix - if the adult player base has dried up, you're basically telling the lone remaining adult to take a hike or play a sub-par game. If you want more adults to play, you need to put *your* posterior into that chair. Otherwise telling the remaining adult to take a walk shafts the adult player, downplays the possible competence of the kids playing, and eventually leads to the venue dying completely when the kids inevitably hitch their wagon to the next gaming fad.

For the past few months one of the venues I go to has, sadly, lost most of its regular players except for a couple of kids. If it was an issue of a bunch of kids, I'd drop as well - but sometimes its just 2 players including myself. So its "play the adult, or don't play" if I don't show. Unfortunately I tend to school them, even when I don't want to - all I can do is point out my vulnerabilities during the game and mention their options (without going too far, to the point where I play the game for them - a sure way to kill their interest), and hope their game improves. Playing sub-par teams doesn't help - I do that already, and end up facing kids who play efficient Thor / Supes / Amazo / Iron Man teams in about as inefficient a manner as possible (proof that making a team is easier than playing it). On the other hand, I don't keep LE's I already have - so I've declined an LE in about 2 out of every 3 events I'm in (vs adults or kids). Kids would rather win than lose, but if they know they'll probably get the LEs anyway they'll be a lot happier.

how do you keep it fair if their is just large groups of kids at an event and only one or two adults?

This isn't hard, if the issue is one of team efficiency. Schedule some "team swap" events, where you end up playing your opponent's team. To keep this from degenerating into a "bring garbage" event, make the team assignment random or make the final round play your own team - that way you end up eventually eating your own dog food.

When the kids build uber teams and still lose, things get trickier. Handicap methods can be used. Have the routinely winning player build at a 20% point total handicap. Or make the events points only (no win / loss), and possibly handicap players a point percentage based on their winning streak (reset the percentage after any loss). The trick is getting the handicapped players to buy into this, and getting the kids to accept it - I'd be perfectly happy accepting such a system (since I don't hog LEs anyway). But many players want their prize regardless of who gets repeatedly boot stomped to provide it - and more importantly, kids are smart enough to recognize when they're being handed an unfair win.

The other method is the tried and true "cold" scenarios - make the game something other than the standard beat down, but don't give advance notice of the scenario. This one is less viable, as I've found young players have a harder time grasping non-standard victory conditions - they're likely to keep playing beat down games while their opponent goes for the goal.

[Marshal Law]

Originally posted by lowguppy
I've actually been in tournaments where raw victory points were the primary way of determining victory, regardless of record, which I find kind of ridiculous.

If you award points for KOs only (no friendlies), this actually works very well. It awards aggression, as you can no longer turtle and count on a cheap medic assassinate for the win. It actually makes a "close second" player a factor to worry about - a player who goes 1-2 but managed to almost win both lost games will have (and deserve) a higher record than someone who danced around at 3-0 and KOed almost nothing. And it instantly solves the "who wins the match in the case of ties" problem - the only "win record" is the final point tally of the tournament, no more "my build is 3 points less, I win for avoiding combat until time ran out" garbage.

Of course the system has problems. The usual math errors, the same "my opponent turtled" problem that plagues the other systems, etc. But knocking the "victory on points only" idea strikes me as the complaint of someone who hasn't actually given it the chance it deserves.

[Marshal Law]

Originally posted by Artie Deco
The main defect of VP seems to be players who "turtle". There is a fix for that. Change how VPs are calculated. If it were up to me, I'd count VP as the number of points left in your team, period.

I don't get it. The turtle player, by default, gets the maximum point score possible because they avoided combat and thus have as many points left in their team as is possible. Meanwhile the players that engage in a slug-fest only get points for their survivors, which will certainly be fewer than the turtle player. Sounds to me like a formula for encouraging turtles.

[First Lensman]

I vote for a tiebreaking game between the two each using the same exact team.

[mohenjo]

I've never even heard the term "strength of schedule", and I'm not quite sure what it means. Can someone please describe it and how it works?

[gdamrosch]

Originally posted by First Lensman
I vote for a tiebreaking game between the two each using the same exact team.

Unfortunately this isn't very practical for several reasons. In larger games you'll have a dozen or more people who have a 2-1 record and they can't all play eachother. But more importantly, nobody has 50 minutes to sit around for a tiebreaker round. Even the smaller venues often have time limits; where I play they start at 5pm and the store closes at 8pm. There's just no time to play tiebreaker rounds. And if you're not in the tiebreaker category, do you want to sit there for an hour watching other people play?

This might be the most fair solution, but unfortunately it's not practical.

[JayThor]

IMO, Strength of schedule is too subjective, while points are points.