The New Game Wins Rule
X_Zealot
I just held a tournament this past weekend in Lafayette, La., and I know it
is going to sound like "sour grapes", but I wanted to talk about the Table
Wins system.
I am, of course, biased by my own experience where I had 5 victory points
and therefore would have been in second place under the old v.p. system but
I had no game wins under the new system. I, therefore, was unable to make
the finals. I didn't collude or make table deals to get my two victory
points in two rounds, but I tied one of those rounds and lost the other. My
deck was able to handle alot of pressure and also put alot of pressure
forward. I wish I could say that I was the only person at my tournament
that didn't make it to the finals because of game wins, but it also happened
to another person.
I find that it left a unpleasant taste in my mouth that people who were able
to win one table with the same amount of v.p.'s in a round that I scored
were able to make the finals with less victory points while I was excluded.
Is it just me? What does everyone else think?
Comments Welcome,
Norman S. Brown, Jr.
XZealot
Archon of the Swamp
Sten During
X_Zealot wrote:
We've just had our own first tournament with the new rules. I was
soundly beaten si it didn't matter for me personally. Anyway, I think
that the new rules are a vast improvement as we've seen too many
"Intercept combat hellmonsters" played by "I don't care, as long as
there's anything left that can be used by my predator I'm in danger".
For some, not so strange reason, they never to make anything but
exactly zero or two VP at any given table. Sure, it's fun being its
prey as I'll have at least one VP for free with only one opponent
to care about, but good for the game? I think not.
Now I HAVE to try grabbing that pesky third VP, which in my book is
a good thing - even though I'll probably find myself on the receiving
end on your described dilemma, intercept/bloat/build -deck builder
that I am.
Sten During
GreySeer
news:fVB08.21074$V55.1...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
I like the game-wins rule. A deck doesn't deserve to be in the final if it
can't win games IMO. It also resolved a lot of issues, esp with bloat and
wall decks. You have to apply forward pressure under the game wins system,
there are fewer table splitting deals, players ( in my experience ) are more
focussed on winning the current game, which I think is the way is should be.
Unfortunately the game-wins rule is not-so-good in a 4 player game. A lot of
4 player games I've played end 2-2, and it's not becasue anyone is
walling-up or not applying forward pressure. It's usually because my prey is
playing a fast deck and gets 2 VPs before I oust him. In a 5 player game, my
prey might get 3 VPs and a game win or he gets his 2 VPs, I finally oust him
and then win the end-game and end up on 3VPs.
I don't know about anyone else but I personally think that ppl in 4 player
games are still at a disadvantage. Previously becuase there are less VPs you
can get, but now because a 4 player table is harder to get a game win on. If
everyone plays the same number of 4 player games then I guess it evens out
but I dbout this is the case, I haven't looked at the seating chart enough
to know.
Joshua Duffin
"X_Zealot" <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:fVB08.21074$V55.1...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
> I find that it left a unpleasant taste in my mouth that people who were
able
> to win one table with the same amount of v.p.'s in a round that I scored
> were able to make the finals with less victory points while I was
excluded.
> Is it just me? What does everyone else think?
So far, I like the game wins rule.
Yes, it "screws" people who get some number of VPs but don't
get any game wins. But the object of the game *is* to get
the most VPs in any particular game, and someone who gets a
game win has done that better than someone without (IMO).
The "tied for first with 2 VPs" case is unfortunate, but
making game wins splittable would greatly reduce their
effectiveness in making people "play to win" (as opposed to
"play for 2 VPs").
Josh
an occasional game winner
X_Zealot
> soundly beaten si it didn't matter for me personally. Anyway, I think
> that the new rules are a vast improvement as we've seen too many
> "Intercept combat hellmonsters" played by "I don't care, as long as
> there's anything left that can be used by my predator I'm in danger".
> For some, not so strange reason, they never to make anything but
> exactly zero or two VP at any given table. Sure, it's fun being its
> prey as I'll have at least one VP for free with only one opponent
> to care about, but good for the game? I think not.
> Now I HAVE to try grabbing that pesky third VP, which in my book is
> a good thing - even though I'll probably find myself on the receiving
> end on your described dilemma, intercept/bloat/build -deck builder
> that I am.
>
First of all, most of the Intercept Combat Hellmonsters I know go forward
with Eagle Sights or Falcon's Eyes so I think they are going for three no
matter what (such as oust their prey, then try to be the last on the table)
. All decks do try to maximize V.P's at the table, at least in theory.
In fact, I think you are right about it making it more difficult for the
Intercept, Bloat, Build decks which are usually your Larger vampire decks.
So if what you say is true, then we are shifting the meta-game back to
weenies with this rule.
The funny thing is that in this tournament. The deck that won the
tournament (a weenie dominate deck no less) was my predator one round, and
he wasn't able to oust me. That fact might have made a difference in the
finals.
X_Zealot
> can't win games IMO. It also resolved a lot of issues, esp with bloat and
> wall decks. You have to apply forward pressure under the game wins system,
> there are fewer table splitting deals, players ( in my experience ) are
more
> focussed on winning the current game, which I think is the way is should
be.
It is interesting that you and Sten During both bring up the same thing.
The new rule really hurts bloat and wall decks, which often times are decks
which are based around larger vampires. Doesn't that help weenie decks?
>
> Unfortunately the game-wins rule is not-so-good in a 4 player game. A lot
of
> 4 player games I've played end 2-2, and it's not becasue anyone is
> walling-up or not applying forward pressure. It's usually because my prey
is
> playing a fast deck and gets 2 VPs before I oust him. In a 5 player game,
my
> prey might get 3 VPs and a game win or he gets his 2 VPs, I finally oust
him
> and then win the end-game and end up on 3VPs.
You know I never thought of that. Our tournament had the potential to be a
17 person tournament (one person showed up 3 minutes late and the other
bowed out so that we could have 5 person tables). That would have made it
three 4-person tables, and one 5-person table. So being seated at the five
person table would have been an advantage, therefore 2 players (17- (5*3)=2)
would have been at a signifigant disadvantage to the other 15 players. Good
point!! :)
>
> I don't know about anyone else but I personally think that ppl in 4 player
> games are still at a disadvantage. Previously becuase there are less VPs
you
> can get, but now because a 4 player table is harder to get a game win on.
If
> everyone plays the same number of 4 player games then I guess it evens
out
> but I dbout this is the case, I haven't looked at the seating chart enough
> to know.
So you would have to play in exactly multiples of 5 player tournaments to
make everything fair to all the players, if your assumption of a 4 person
table is harder to win is true.
X_Zealot
"Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote in message
news:a1v3d8$tb0o9$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "X_Zealot" <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:fVB08.21074$V55.1...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
>
> > I find that it left a unpleasant taste in my mouth that people who were
> able
> > to win one table with the same amount of v.p.'s in a round that I scored
> > were able to make the finals with less victory points while I was
> excluded.
> > Is it just me? What does everyone else think?
>
> So far, I like the game wins rule.
>
> Yes, it "screws" people who get some number of VPs but don't
> get any game wins. But the object of the game *is* to get
> the most VPs in any particular game, and someone who gets a
> game win has done that better than someone without (IMO).
You are right to say "IMO". IMO, it just meant that someone can make it to
the finals by a lucky seating position just to get one game win. Or may be
it is just sour grapes. I am having a hard time being objective here
because of my experience.
>
> The "tied for first with 2 VPs" case is unfortunate, but
> making game wins splittable would greatly reduce their
> effectiveness in making people "play to win" (as opposed to
> "play for 2 VPs").
That definantly would make it just a patch to the vp system that you could
practically ignore and therefore would be better of with doing away with it
altogether.
Robert Goudie
news:u460lc8...@news.supernews.com...
> > able to win one table with the same amount of v.p.'s in a round that I
scored
> > were able to make the finals with less victory points while I was
> > excluded. Is it just me? What does everyone else think?
I know I'll suffer personally because I've always been extremely good at getting
into the finals with steady VP accumulation and deals. However, I do prefer to
reward the players who can actually win.
> I like the game-wins rule. A deck doesn't deserve to be in the final if it
> can't win games IMO.
Right.
> It also resolved a lot of issues, esp with bloat and
> wall decks. You have to apply forward pressure under the game wins system,
> there are fewer table splitting deals, players ( in my experience ) are more
> focussed on winning the current game, which I think is the way is should be.
Right. The goal of each game used to be at odds with what you had to do to get
into the finals. Now they are in sync.
> I don't know about anyone else but I personally think that ppl in 4 player
> games are still at a disadvantage. Previously becuase there are less VPs you
> can get, but now because a 4 player table is harder to get a game win on.
Under the old system a 4 player table had less available VPs--the primary
resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if at
all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and 5-player
games.
> If
> everyone plays the same number of 4 player games then I guess it evens out
> but I dbout this is the case, I haven't looked at the seating chart enough
> to know.
The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of players at
4-player tables.
-Robert
--
Robert Goudie
Chairman, V:EKN
rob...@vtesinla.org
X_Zealot
> Under the old system a 4 player table had less available VPs--the primary
> resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if
at
> all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and
5-player
> games.
But is that true?
How would one prove that a game win is equally availible on a 4 and 5
person table (where ties provide no victory)?
In my gut I know that this can't be true.
I don't have the mathmatical skills to prove it one way or the other.
I do know that in VTES on a five person table if you oust two people and
then are ousted there is the possibility of another person winning, but on a
four person table if you oust 2 people and are ousted then you have
effectively lost since a loss and a tie are counted the same under the game
wins system. In a four person table there are several
different game ending sequences.
0/0/0/4
1/0/0/3
0/0/0/3
2/0/0/2 <-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
1/1/0/2
2/0/0/1
2/0/0/0
1/1/1/1<table loses again
0/0/0/0<table loses again
1/0/0/0<table loses again
1/1/1/0<table loses again
1/1/0/0.<table loses again
I have included those situations where the table going to time. Notice that
I haven't included the half points as they are irrelavent in the game wins
system (except for tie-breaking who goes to the finals)
Under the five system
0/0/0/0/5
1/0/0/0/4
0/0/0/0/4
2/0/0/0/3
3/1/1/0/0
0/0/0/0/3
1/0/0/0/3
0/0/0/0/2
1/1/0/0/2
1/0/0/0/2
0/0/0/0/2
2/1/0/0/2<-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
2/0/0/0/2<-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
3/1/1/0/0
2/1/1/1/0
1/1/1/1/1<table loses again
0/0/0/0<table loses again
1/0/0/0<table loses again
1/1/1/0<table loses again
1/1/0/0.<table loses again
Out of the possible outcomes, it appears to me that those sitting on a five
person table have a higher likelyhood of reaching an outcome where a table
win will occur than a table of four (this is of course holding all things
equal). If anyone has the mathmatical skill to say one way or another it
would be appreciated.
Joshua Duffin
>
> "Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote in message
> news:a1v3d8$tb0o9$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de...
> > Yes, it "screws" people who get some number of VPs but don't
> > get any game wins. But the object of the game *is* to get
> > the most VPs in any particular game, and someone who gets a
> > game win has done that better than someone without (IMO).
>
> You are right to say "IMO". IMO, it just meant that someone can make it
to
> the finals by a lucky seating position just to get one game win. Or may
be
> it is just sour grapes. I am having a hard time being objective here
> because of my experience.
But the "lucky seating position" effect has always existed
and will probably always exist. Used to be, you could
luckily get 4 or 5 VPs by getting the exact right position
on some particular table, or luckily get 2 VPs every game
because your prey was always unprepared for you. Now you
can luckily win a game by being in the right place at the
right time. Luck will always be a factor, if it's a factor
at all.
Given that every scoring system is imperfect, it seems to
me best to use one that most closely represents the goal
of actual "typical" games (ie to win).
Here's an analogy that may be helpful, though it's imperfect:
Consider baseball. If one team, in three games, goes 0-3,
and another team, in three games, goes 1-2, which team has
a better record? What if the 0-3 team lost each game by 5
runs to 4, but the 1-2 team only won its game by 1 to 0,
and lost both its other games by 5 to 0? In baseball, the
only thing that matters after the game's over is whether or
not you won; in VTES it's not quite like that since even
nonwinning VPs are used as tiebreakers, but the same basic
principle seems to apply. And it makes sense to me.
I can certainly understand your unhappiness with not making
the finals under the new system when you would have under
the old, though.
> > The "tied for first with 2 VPs" case is unfortunate, but
> > making game wins splittable would greatly reduce their
> > effectiveness in making people "play to win" (as opposed to
> > "play for 2 VPs").
>
> That definantly would make it just a patch to the vp system that you could
> practically ignore and therefore would be better of with doing away with
it
> altogether.
Right. Which is why it's a good thing we're not doing that.
:-)
Josh
archon of nothing in particular
X_Zealot
> But the "lucky seating position" effect has always existed
> and will probably always exist. Used to be, you could
> luckily get 4 or 5 VPs by getting the exact right position
> on some particular table, or luckily get 2 VPs every game
> because your prey was always unprepared for you.
But now the lucky guy who won the 4 or 5 vps goes to the finals where the
other guy doesn't. I honestly think that a deck lucking into 2vps every
round is an extremely rare occurence, and I honestly think that is
stretching it.
Now you
> can luckily win a game by being in the right place at the
> right time. Luck will always be a factor, if it's a factor
> at all.
>
> Given that every scoring system is imperfect, it seems to
> me best to use one that most closely represents the goal
> of actual "typical" games (ie to win).
The unfortuant thing about the system is that ties cause everyone at the
table to lose.
>
> Here's an analogy that may be helpful, though it's imperfect:
> Consider baseball. If one team, in three games, goes 0-3,
> and another team, in three games, goes 1-2, which team has
> a better record? What if the 0-3 team lost each game by 5
> runs to 4, but the 1-2 team only won its game by 1 to 0,
> and lost both its other games by 5 to 0? In baseball, the
> only thing that matters after the game's over is whether or
> not you won; in VTES it's not quite like that since even
> nonwinning VPs are used as tiebreakers, but the same basic
> principle seems to apply. And it makes sense to me.
An excellent analogy, except for one thing, there are no ties in baseball.
IIRC, you go to overtime to resolve ties. Therefore, a tie does not result
in both teams losing. This fact makes your analogy wrong.
> I can certainly understand your unhappiness with not making
> the finals under the new system when you would have under
> the old, though.
I can't distinguish whether it is my unhappiness with my own fate or my
unhappiness with way that the game is turning. I am unhappy about
something, and I think that it is the system that has been put into place
rather than my unfortunant experience
Robert Goudie
>
> > Under the old system a 4 player table had less available VPs--the primary
> > resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if
> > at all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and
> > 5-player games.
>
> But is that true?
> How would one prove that a game win is equally availible on a 4 and 5
> person table (where ties provide no victory)?
Easy. Each table has 1 Game Win available. Under the old system, where
everyone was trying to accumulate VPs, some tables has 5 available and some
tables had only 4.
> I don't have the mathmatical skills to prove it one way or the other.
> I do know that in VTES on a five person table if you oust two people and
> then are ousted there is the possibility of another person winning, but on a
> four person table if you oust 2 people and are ousted then you have
> effectively lost since a loss and a tie are counted the same under the game
> wins system. In a four person table there are several
> different game ending sequences.
[clip]
> Out of the possible outcomes, it appears to me that those sitting on a five
> person table have a higher likelyhood of reaching an outcome where a table
> win will occur than a table of four (this is of course holding all things
> equal). If anyone has the mathmatical skill to say one way or another it
> would be appreciated.
I'm not sure about this either but yes, it does seem possible that actually
earning the 1 available Game Win might be harder at a 4-player table. If this
turned-out to be true it would still seems less offensive to me than the old
system where, just by sitting down at a 4-player table, and even if you sweep
the table, there are fewer available VPs--the very thing you are trying to
accumulate.
Joshua Duffin
"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:cTG08.30630$Vz3.3...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> I'm not sure about this either but yes, it does seem possible that
actually
> earning the 1 available Game Win might be harder at a 4-player table. If
this
> turned-out to be true it would still seems less offensive to me than the
old
> system where, just by sitting down at a 4-player table, and even if you
sweep
> the table, there are fewer available VPs--the very thing you are trying to
> accumulate.
Also, keep in mind that at a four-player table, you're only
competing against three other players to get the game win,
while at a five-player table there are four other players you
must defeat. This leans toward the four-player table being
"easier". The greater chance of tying may offset this somewhat
but probably not as much as the 20% (25%? not sure offhand)
reduction in competition.
Josh
playing the percentages
Chris Berger
>
> Given that every scoring system is imperfect, it seems to
> me best to use one that most closely represents the goal
> of actual "typical" games (ie to win).
>
you gain a point. I very much disagree that the goal is to win any single
game, and I really don't understand the reasoning that went into the new
"table wins" system. The goal has never before been to "win" at your table,
but simply to oust your prey. The new rule doesn't more accurately reflect
the goal of the game, but redefines it. In a casual game, it's true that
you are interested in who "won" the game, but you are also interested in who
else had victory points. If Bob had 3 VP's and Joe had 2 VP's, sure Bob
won, but Joe came in second. Saying that Bob won and Joe lost would not
accurately represent what happened, except under the new table wins rule.
If one person has 5VP's in one game and has 0 VP in his other games, he has
a better chance of being in the finals than someone who won 2VP's in every
game but came in second each time. That may be the desired effect of the
new system, but I fail to see why.
The baseball analogy only works if you define the goal of each game to be
winning, instead of maximizing victory points. The old tournament rule (and
the style of play that prevails in most casual play) defines your goal as
maximizing VP's. The new rule defines your goal as winning a table.
Joshua Duffin
>
> But now the lucky guy who won the 4 or 5 vps goes to the finals where the
> other guy doesn't. I honestly think that a deck lucking into 2vps every
> round is an extremely rare occurence, and I honestly think that is
> stretching it.
Well, really, "lucking" into 4 or 5 VPs in a single game, or
even a game win, may also be a rare occurrence. Who's to
say? It comes down to whether any particular turn of events
was "lucky" or "skillful".
> The unfortuant thing about the system is that ties cause everyone at the
> table to lose.
Sure. That's unfortunate. But letting anyone win in case
of tie would undermine the whole "reduce table-splitting"
impetus of the new system.
[snip my baseball analogy]
> An excellent analogy, except for one thing, there are no ties in
baseball.
> IIRC, you go to overtime to resolve ties. Therefore, a tie does not
result
> in both teams losing. This fact makes your analogy wrong.
Well, I said it was imperfect. :-) If we think about hockey
instead (a game where I understand ties are not uncommon),
we could have an 0-3-0 (where wins are first, losses second,
ties third) team, an 0-2-1 team, and a 1-2-0 team. How
would we rank these teams? Clearly 1-2-0, 0-2-1, 0-3-0. But
allowing ties to count for something raises the issue of how
much they should count for. What if we had teams at 0-3-0,
0-2-1, 0-1-2, 0-0-3, and 1-2-0? Obviously more ties is better
than more losses, but is three ties better than one win? In
tournament VTES, I think we don't want it to be, because we
don't want people *trying* to tie their games. So we count
ties the same as losses and figure that the players who won
the most games did the best that day.
> I can't distinguish whether it is my unhappiness with my own fate or my
> unhappiness with way that the game is turning. I am unhappy about
> something, and I think that it is the system that has been put into place
> rather than my unfortunant experience
Maybe so. I doubt we'll see any changes at least for six months
or a year, though, so that we have enough time to evaluate the
difference over a lot of tournaments in a lot of places.
Josh
persistent (and consistent?)
X_Zealot
> > But is that true?
> > How would one prove that a game win is equally availible on a 4 and 5
> > person table (where ties provide no victory)?
>
> Easy. Each table has 1 Game Win available. Under the old system, where
> everyone was trying to accumulate VPs, some tables has 5 available and
some
> tables had only 4.
...and it was I who argued that shifting table points that occured from
people dropping in tournaments upset the balance of point distribution. I
understand this arguement well.
Well, I wouldn't want you to get offended by a simple game. :P
For the mean time, let's assume that it is true unless someone would like to
prove me wrong.
But seriously, how is the loss of the availibility of a single victory
point of which there is one availible for every player greater than the loss
of the availibily of a game win.
(For the following arguement we will hold that the tournament in 3 round + a
final rather than any other length and a tournament size that generates a
four person table let's say 14 .)
In this scenario we will show how the availibility of a single victory point
is less upsetting to the balance of the scores than the availibility of a
game win.
In a fourteen person tournament you have 2 tables of 5 and 1 table of 4. In
each round there will be 14 availible victory points and 3 availible game
wins. 4 players will be at a disadvantage in each round. Under the game
wins system, 4 player will be at a disadvatage to win 1 game point of which
there are only 3 of in this round, and under the victory points system those
four players will be at a disadvantage to win 1 victory point of which there
are 14 of in this round.
so 1 game win divided by 3 game wins = 1/3 of the total game wins is
potentially at a loss to be earned, on the other hand 1 victory point out of
14 = 1/14 of the total victory points availible which has the potential to
not be earned on a four person table vs. a five person table. So the
difference we are talking about is the difference of 33% (i.e. 1/3) to 7%
(1/14) of the potential to earn points at the table. I'll take being
shorted 7% of my money vs. being shorted 33% of my money any day.
And that is compounded by being over 3 rounds, so for the two players who
manage to avoid sitting at the four person table they have developed a much
more signifigant advantage under the game wins system than under the victory
point system.
X_Zealot
> competing against three other players to get the game win,
> while at a five-player table there are four other players you
> must defeat. This leans toward the four-player table being
> "easier". The greater chance of tying may offset this somewhat
> but probably not as much as the 20% (25%? not sure offhand)
> reduction in competition.
I believe your perception is incorrect. The combonation of predator/prey
dynamic means that you only try to ever beat one person at a time to gain a
victory point. So your fast and loose math is not correct. Also the four
person table is easier to tie and lose rather than a five person table.
This is one of the major flaws in the system.
Robert Goudie
news:n5H08.23978$Vq.218620@rwcrnsc53...
> "Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote in message
> news:a1vbsh$spnns$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > Given that every scoring system is imperfect, it seems to
> > me best to use one that most closely represents the goal
> > of actual "typical" games (ie to win).
> >
> I thought the goal was to oust your prey, and for each prey that you oust,
> you gain a point.
Yes, that is the short-term goal. Just like a short-term goal might be to
destroy all of your prey's vampire's or reduce their pool. In and of itself,
the gaining of a "point" is meaningless except as it displays progress toward
the goal of winning. Rulebook: "As Methuselahs are ousted, players earn victory
points; the winner is the player with the most victory points at the end of the
game (see Victory Points, sec. 9.1)." If VPs didn't equate to winning, then I'd
find something more interesting to do with my decks than to try and out my
preys.
> I very much disagree that the goal is to win any single
> game,
??? Winning is the goal of all games that I'm aware of. In Monopoly the goal is
to "win" and not to "build hotels" or "accumulate cash". Our old tournament
rules rewarded "building hotels" so to speak. When chasing that goal, our
players often gave the "win" to another player in exchange for the winner
allowing the loser to build a couple of hotels on the way out. I'd better stop.
:)
-Robert
X_Zealot
> even a game win, may also be a rare occurrence. Who's to
> say? It comes down to whether any particular turn of events
> was "lucky" or "skillful".
I think it occurs more often then you would think, but that can neither be
proven nor disproven so the point is moot.
> > The unfortuant thing about the system is that ties cause everyone at the
> > table to lose.
>
> Sure. That's unfortunate. But letting anyone win in case
> of tie would undermine the whole "reduce table-splitting"
> impetus of the new system.
I think it is the choice of evils myself and we have chosen, perhaps
foolishly, the devil we didn't know for the one we did.
>
> [snip my baseball analogy]
>
> > An excellent analogy, except for one thing, there are no ties in
> baseball.
> > IIRC, you go to overtime to resolve ties. Therefore, a tie does not
> result
> > in both teams losing. This fact makes your analogy wrong.
>
> Well, I said it was imperfect. :-) If we think about hockey
> instead (a game where I understand ties are not uncommon),
> we could have an 0-3-0 (where wins are first, losses second,
> ties third) team, an 0-2-1 team, and a 1-2-0 team. How
> would we rank these teams? Clearly 1-2-0, 0-2-1, 0-3-0. But
> allowing ties to count for something raises the issue of how
> much they should count for. What if we had teams at 0-3-0,
> 0-2-1, 0-1-2, 0-0-3, and 1-2-0? Obviously more ties is better
> than more losses, but is three ties better than one win? In
> tournament VTES, I think we don't want it to be, because we
> don't want people *trying* to tie their games. So we count
> ties the same as losses and figure that the players who won
> the most games did the best that day.
>
Another excellent analogy...Unfortunantly the backup system under the game
wins is not overall record but victory points. Once again your analogy is
flawed because in hockey they differenciate between ties and losses where
under the game wins system we do not.
> > I can't distinguish whether it is my unhappiness with my own fate or my
> > unhappiness with way that the game is turning. I am unhappy about
> > something, and I think that it is the system that has been put into
place
> > rather than my unfortunant experience
>
> Maybe so. I doubt we'll see any changes at least for six months
> or a year, though, so that we have enough time to evaluate the
> difference over a lot of tournaments in a lot of places.
I understand this, but it will never change unless people let it be known
what the flaws are in the new system and why it is more imperfect than the
last, at least why they think so...
Sorrow
> ties the same as losses and figure that the players who won
> the most games did the best that day.
Ok, so what happens in the unlikely event where one or two
(if any) people get game wins and the rest of the rounds result
in ties? What if, in that same situation where there are one or
two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
had game wins. But what about the others?
Sorrow
-who really doesn't like the game win rule
---
If you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on,
you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made
your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you
from the earth.
Chris Berger
> "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
> news:n5H08.23978$Vq.218620@rwcrnsc53...
>
oust,
> > you gain a point.
>
> Yes, that is the short-term goal. Just like a short-term goal might be to
> destroy all of your prey's vampire's or reduce their pool. In and of
itself,
> the gaining of a "point" is meaningless except as it displays progress
toward
> the goal of winning. Rulebook: "As Methuselahs are ousted, players earn
victory
> points; the winner is the player with the most victory points at the end
of the
> game (see Victory Points, sec. 9.1)." If VPs didn't equate to winning,
then I'd
> find something more interesting to do with my decks than to try and out my
> preys.
>
> > I very much disagree that the goal is to win any single
> > game,
>
> ??? Winning is the goal of all games that I'm aware of. In Monopoly the
goal is
> to "win" and not to "build hotels" or "accumulate cash". Our old
tournament
> rules rewarded "building hotels" so to speak. When chasing that goal, our
> players often gave the "win" to another player in exchange for the winner
> allowing the loser to build a couple of hotels on the way out. I'd better
stop.
> :)
>
Winning, in the sense of ousting your prey, *is* the stated goal of Jyhad.
The more prey you oust, the closer you are to winning a single session.
Methuselahs do not have final goals as short-term as one game. In casual
play, if I win 2 VP every game, I am seen as a better player than someone
who wins 5VP once and 0 every other game. In tournament play, this
translates to ranking. Someone who won 6VP did better than someone who won
5VP. Second place ceases to mean anything under the new rule... you might
as well have played 4 Baali and self-ousted yourself.
But my main point is not about which is correct (although you can see my
opinion), but just that the new table wins rule doesn't "more accurately
reflect the goal of the game", it actually redefines it. The goal of the
game is now different than it used to be. Many previously valid plays are
no longer good. Frex., calling an Ancilla Empowerment which will oust both
your prey and your grand prey would have been a great thing to do, even
though it gives your prey a VP. But if your prey already has 1 VP at a
4-person table, this becomes a losing play, even though it nets you 2 VP
(from being last one standing). It's not just scoring that's changed, the
whole dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck over long-term
skill.
Joshua Duffin
Now this I totally disagree with. Unless you're playing in
Andrew-world, you are always looking at all the other players
in your game while trying to win. Saying that you're only
trying to beat one person at a time is a vast oversimplification.
You're only trying to *kill* one person at a time, but it's
a foolish player who doesn't consider what's going on with the
other three (or two) players while trying to kill his prey.
Given that, for you to win a game, none of the other players
can win *does* mean that you're competing against all three
(or four) other players at a table. And competing against
fewer players *does* make it easier to win the game. Imagine
playing a two-player game of VTES - would it be easier or
harder to win the game? If you were evenly matched, you'd
win 50% of your games, right? Whereas in an "evenly matched"
four-player game, you'd expect to win 25% of the time, or in
a five-player game, 20%. So the "increased ease of game win"
at a four-player table is readily apparent. It's the "increased
chance of tying for a loss" that's harder to quantify.
Josh
quantitative analyst
Robert Goudie
> But seriously, how is the loss of the availibility of a single victory
> point of which there is one availible for every player greater than the loss
> of the availibily of a game win.
I don't equate the diminished chance (if there is one) of gaining a GW with the
unavailability of a GW. What we are saying is that the loss of availability of
1 VP is greater than the diminished chance of gaining a GW.
[clip]
> In a fourteen person tournament you have 2 tables of 5 and 1 table of 4. In
> each round there will be 14 availible victory points and 3 availible game
> wins. 4 players will be at a disadvantage in each round. Under the game
> wins system, 4 player will be at a disadvatage to win 1 game point of which
> there are only 3 of in this round, and under the victory points system those
> four players will be at a disadvantage to win 1 victory point of which there
> are 14 of in this round.
It comes down to whether or not you believe the GW disadvantage at a 4 player
table is a big disadvantage or a small one.
> so 1 game win divided by 3 game wins = 1/3 of the total game wins is
> potentially at a loss to be earned, on the other hand 1 victory point out of
> 14 = 1/14 of the total victory points availible which has the potential to
> not be earned on a four person table vs. a five person table.
Its not a question of potential when speaking of VPs at a 4 player table. There
is a 100% chance of reaching that potential and a 5th VP will not be score.
> So the
> difference we are talking about is the difference of 33% (i.e. 1/3) to 7%
> (1/14) of the potential to earn points at the table. I'll take being
> shorted 7% of my money vs. being shorted 33% of my money any day.
This math only makes sense if you equate a nebulously diminished chance of
gaining a GW with the absolute unavailability of a GW. If the 4 player tables
required 5 VP for a GW then this would be the case. :)
Mathematician, please take over! The 7% shorting is guaranteed. The 33% needs
to be multiplied by some factor representing the diminished liklihood of gaining
a game win. Finding out what the real reduced liklihood of winning a 4-player
game is what's needed. I did remember going through all of our old Archons to
look and we were all surpised by how rarely there were ties at 4 player tables.
Beyond the regular math involved, there may be odd combinations of momentum in a
small game that tends to result in sweeps more often. Who knows.
-Robert
X_Zealot
> Andrew-world, you are always looking at all the other players
> in your game while trying to win.
Nice irrelavent, yet emotionally charge comment.
Saying that you're only
> trying to beat one person at a time is a vast oversimplification.
> You're only trying to *kill* one person at a time, but it's
> a foolish player who doesn't consider what's going on with the
> other three (or two) players while trying to kill his prey.
But it is irrelavent to your own position in theory (which is where we are)
if you play against the other people at your table if it does not help you
survive killing your own prey. Please either diagram mathmatically or
logically.
>
> Given that, for you to win a game, none of the other players
> can win *does* mean that you're competing against all three
> (or four) other players at a table. And competing against
> fewer players *does* make it easier to win the game. Imagine
> playing a two-player game of VTES - would it be easier or
> harder to win the game?
But we don't play two player games, so all this gobbledy goop doesn't
matter.
<snip statistically irrelavent data>
In a four player game, If you are evenly matched you will each take 1 point
or 1/2 point and tie and lose.
It's the "increased
> chance of tying for a loss" that's harder to quantify.
Right, which I quantified earlier in this thread. If you want to argue
with it, then do it there.
Joshua Duffin
> you gain a point. I very much disagree that the goal is to win any single
> game, and I really don't understand the reasoning that went into the new
> "table wins" system. The goal has never before been to "win" at your
table,
> but simply to oust your prey. The new rule doesn't more accurately
reflect
> the goal of the game, but redefines it. In a casual game, it's true that
> you are interested in who "won" the game, but you are also interested in
who
> else had victory points. If Bob had 3 VP's and Joe had 2 VP's, sure Bob
> won, but Joe came in second. Saying that Bob won and Joe lost would not
> accurately represent what happened, except under the new table wins rule.
As Robert Goudie wrote, the rulebook *does* say that "the winner
is the player with the most victory points at the end of the game".
In the casual games I play, it is definitely much better to be
the winner than to come in second, even if we recognize that
second is much better than fifth (or that two VPs is better than
none).
> If one person has 5VP's in one game and has 0 VP in his other games, he
has
> a better chance of being in the finals than someone who won 2VP's in every
> game but came in second each time. That may be the desired effect of the
> new system, but I fail to see why.
Well, we can all agree that winning one game and losing two is
better than losing three, each by a wide margin. Whether it's
better than losing three but coming in second every time is a
matter of taste, I think. As such, the VEKN has chosen to try
a system that reduces the chances of problematic play (playing
to the tournament scoring system rather than the rulebook "how
to win the game" section).
> The baseball analogy only works if you define the goal of each game to be
> winning, instead of maximizing victory points. The old tournament rule
(and
> the style of play that prevails in most casual play) defines your goal as
> maximizing VP's. The new rule defines your goal as winning a table.
The old tournament rule was that who went to the final game
was determined by VPs, but even then it did not allow you
to consider your tournament standing in your actions in any
single game. This was widely overlooked, to be sure...
Josh
about out of pithy one-liners
Sorrow
> table is a big disadvantage or a small one.
Considering that it is Game Wins that actually get you into the final, I'd say that's
a pretty big disadvantage...
Sorrow
-piping in
---
I told the priest - don't count on any second coming. God got his
ass kicked the first time he came down here slumming. He had the
balls to come, the gall to die and then forgive us. No, I don't
wonder why, I wonder what he thought it would get us
X_Zealot
> > But seriously, how is the loss of the availibility of a single victory
> > point of which there is one availible for every player greater than the
loss
> > of the availibily of a game win.
>
> I don't equate the diminished chance (if there is one) of gaining a GW
with the
> unavailability of a GW. What we are saying is that the loss of
availability of
> 1 VP is greater than the diminished chance of gaining a GW.
Okay so if you sweep a four person table and a denied a victory point
because of your seating, what is the likely hood of not making the final. I
don't know exactly but I would figure that if your tournament is less than
twenty people then you should have made the finals right then and there.
There is a bell curve of normal point distribution and honestly I couldn't
tell you, but I wish some mathmatician would step in and help. But based on
my experience, which may well be different than yours, I have seen alot of
people make it to the finals on four vps.
There is the possibility, that the loss of availibility of a Game Win
because of how ties are adjudicated substancially alters the chance of
gaining a game win.
>
> [clip]
> > In a fourteen person tournament you have 2 tables of 5 and 1 table of 4.
In
> > each round there will be 14 availible victory points and 3 availible
game
> > wins. 4 players will be at a disadvantage in each round. Under the
game
> > wins system, 4 player will be at a disadvatage to win 1 game point of
which
> > there are only 3 of in this round, and under the victory points system
those
> > four players will be at a disadvantage to win 1 victory point of which
there
> > are 14 of in this round.
>
> It comes down to whether or not you believe the GW disadvantage at a 4
player
> table is a big disadvantage or a small one.
Exactly, what is the advantage/disadvantage of tieing a 4 person table vs. a
five person table and there by denying any and all the participants at that
table the game win. A game win is worth alot more than a victory point. So
you may create more puppet/puppetmaster elements than you eliminate in this
equation.
>
> > so 1 game win divided by 3 game wins = 1/3 of the total game wins is
> > potentially at a loss to be earned, on the other hand 1 victory point
out of
> > 14 = 1/14 of the total victory points availible which has the potential
to
> > not be earned on a four person table vs. a five person table.
>
> Its not a question of potential when speaking of VPs at a 4 player table.
There
> is a 100% chance of reaching that potential and a 5th VP will not be
score.
>
> > So the
> > difference we are talking about is the difference of 33% (i.e. 1/3) to
7%
> > (1/14) of the potential to earn points at the table. I'll take being
> > shorted 7% of my money vs. being shorted 33% of my money any day.
>
> This math only makes sense if you equate a nebulously diminished chance of
> gaining a GW with the absolute unavailability of a GW. If the 4 player
tables
> required 5 VP for a GW then this would be the case. :)
But if you score 4 victory points by sweeping a table what are your chances
of not making the finals? In a roughly 20 person tournament I would say you
have probably already made it.
>Who knows.
Amen, brother, but I will stick to my position that I believe that this is a
real mistake.
Robert Goudie
> VP's *do* account to winning. Each VP that you accumulate is one win.
Not true. Rulebook: "As Methuselahs are ousted, players earn victory points;
the winner is the player with the most victory points at the end of the game
(see Victory Points, sec. 9.1)."
It doesn't read, "As Methuselah's are ousted, players win.; The winner of the
overall session is the player with the most individual wins at the end of the
game."
[clip]
> Winning, in the sense of ousting your prey, *is* the stated goal of Jyhad.
No more than "building hotels" is the stated goal of Monopoly.
> The more prey you oust, the closer you are to winning a single session.
Right. They show progress toward the goal of winning.
> Methuselahs do not have final goals as short-term as one game.
Don't try role-playing a Methuselah on me now. :) According to the rulebook,
the final goal is as short-term as one game. When talking about league play, or
playing for player ratings, most games still have self-contained goals of
winning the current game. Other add-ons like leagues, etc. are artificial.
There's nothing wrong with them as long as they don't encourage players to
underperform in the individual games.
[clip]
> but just that the new table wins rule doesn't
> "more accurately reflect the goal of the game", it actually
> redefines it. The goal of the game is now different than it used to be.
Given the rulebook statement above, I'd say your defining each ousting as a
"win" is the redefinition.
> Many previously valid plays are no longer good.
OK.
> It's not just scoring that's changed, the whole
> dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck
> over long-term skill.
I don't believe that's the case.
Joshua Duffin
> > Now this I totally disagree with. Unless you're playing in
> > Andrew-world, you are always looking at all the other players
> > in your game while trying to win.
>
> Nice irrelavent, yet emotionally charge comment.
I don't think it's irrelevant - you said that "you only try
to ever beat one person at a time to gain a victory point."
This is clearly wrong. Your predator is trying to stop you
just as much as your prey is. Your cross-table "allies"
don't want you getting any VPs either - less for them, if
you do.
As for emotionally charged, you're the one who called my
math "fast and loose". :-) Note that I don't actually
take offense at that.
> > You're only trying to *kill* one person at a time, but it's
> > a foolish player who doesn't consider what's going on with the
> > other three (or two) players while trying to kill his prey.
>
> But it is irrelavent to your own position in theory (which is where we
are)
> if you play against the other people at your table if it does not help you
> survive killing your own prey. Please either diagram mathmatically or
> logically.
Not true either. You have to survive first, yes, but you do
not have to concentrate on ousting your prey to the exclusion
of cross-table considerations. If you can set up the table
so that you'll be able to oust three people in quick succession,
that's a *lot* better than just ousting one person by looking
nowhere but to the left and then getting ousted yourself because
somebody cross-table has just ousted two other people and gained
twelve pool.
I'm really surprised that you'd disagree about this unless we're
not actually talking about the same thing.
> But we don't play two player games, so all this gobbledy goop doesn't
> matter.
> <snip statistically irrelavent data>
Thought experiments aren't irrelevant, even if they're not
the same as the problem you're trying to solve. :-)
> In a four player game, If you are evenly matched you will each take 1
point
> or 1/2 point and tie and lose.
No, that's wrong too. Games like this have to have winners.
If two evenly matched runners compete, will they tie to the
hundredth of a second? Very unlikely. One of them will be
having a better day and will win.
With four evenly matched players - in *any* game that requires
a winner - each player has a 25% chance of winning the game.
With five, each player has a 20% chance to win. The term
"evenly matched" here means that the outcome of the game might
as well be determined by random chance, and in that situation
it's as if each player rolled a die and the high number won.
> It's the "increased
> > chance of tying for a loss" that's harder to quantify.
>
> Right, which I quantified earlier in this thread. If you want to argue
> with it, then do it there.
Fine. It's a pain in the ass but I'll do it anyway. :-)
Ways a four-player game can end:
0 0 0 4
0 0 4 0
0 4 0 0
4 0 0 0
0 0 1 3
0 1 0 3
1 0 0 3
0 0 3 1
0 1 3 0
1 0 3 0
0 3 0 1
0 3 1 0
1 3 0 0
3 0 0 1
3 0 1 0
3 1 0 0
0 0 2 2
0 2 0 2
2 0 0 2
0 2 2 0
2 0 2 0
2 2 0 0
0 1 1 2
1 0 1 2
1 1 0 2
0 1 2 1
1 0 2 1
1 1 2 0
0 2 1 1
1 2 1 0
1 2 0 1
2 0 1 1
2 1 0 1
2 1 1 0
1 1 1 1
That's 35 ways for a 4-player game to end. (The expression
is, for each "VP split possibility", nPx1, x2, ... where n is
the number of players and x1, x2, ... are the number of players
receiving each particular VP total. So for 4/0/0/0, it's 4P3,1
(three players get 0, one player gets 1) and the formula is
4!/(3!)(1!) = 24/6 = 4 ways to get the 4/0/0/0 split, etc etc.)
7 of them (all the 2/2/0/0 splits and the 1/1/1/1 split)
have no "game winner". So 7/35 or 20% of 4-player games will
have no game win assigned.
Ways for a 5-player game to end:
5 0 0 0 0
4 1 0 0 0
3 1 1 0 0
3 2 0 0 0
2 1 1 1 0
2 2 1 0 0
1 1 1 1 1
5P1,4 = 5
5P1,1,3 = 20
5P1,2,2 = 30
5P1,1,3 = 20
5P1,3,1 = 20
5P2,1,2 = 30
5P5 = 1
total number of ways for a 5-player game to end: 126.
ways in which there is no "game winner": 31 (all the
2/2/1/0/0 ways and the 1/1/1/1/1 way)
so, 31/126 or 24.6% of 5-player games will have no game
win assigned. This means it's actually *more* likely for
a 5-player game to reach a non-winning tie than a 4-player
game.
Of course, I might have made a mistake in the math somewhere;
anyone who knows enough probability is welcome to correct
me if so.
And then, this ignores everything we know about the game
itself (since it considers each outcome to be equally
likely) - if someone gets 2 VPs we may consider it more
likely for them to go on and get a third than to be
frustrated in their attempts to continue, but we're ignoring
that here (and it may be a controversial subject anyway).
Josh
pledged mathematician
(or something)
Robert Goudie
news:IYH08.12$Rf1...@newshog.newsread.com...
> > It comes down to whether or not you believe the GW disadvantage at a 4
player
> > table is a big disadvantage or a small one.
>
> Considering that it is Game Wins that actually get you into the final, I'd say
that's
> a pretty big disadvantage...
Again, this is only true if there exists a GW disadvantage AND if it is
significant enough to outweigh the *certain VP disadvantage at 4-player tables*
that we had before.
Your statement above could have been said verbatim about the old system where
VPs determined finalists.
Robert Sheiman
> > But the "lucky seating position" effect has always existed
> > and will probably always exist. Used to be, you could
> > luckily get 4 or 5 VPs by getting the exact right position
> > on some particular table, or luckily get 2 VPs every game
> > because your prey was always unprepared for you.
>
> But now the lucky guy who won the 4 or 5 vps goes to the finals where the
> other guy doesn't. I honestly think that a deck lucking into 2vps every
> round is an extremely rare occurence, and I honestly think that is
> stretching it.
Alright, I have to say something about the game wins. I don't know
yet, whether I like it or don't. I was lucky. I had perfect seating in
my first game at Lafayette. I was at a table of all bleed decks, and I
had the most forward motion by not clogging and it allowed me to get
four vps. I got shut out entirely the other two games, by the table
turning on me. Happens. I expected it, and I honestly went into the
tournament knowing I had one table I had to sweep or not get anything.
Now, this is unrelated to what Norm is saying, but I have to bring up,
that three of the five decks at the final table in Laf. where combat.
Two of them being intercept. One was a Tzimisce wall, the other was an
Ahrimanes...intercept bloaty thing a-ma-bob. Jeff played it. Oscar
played the other. The third was a brujah princes deck, based on
controlling table. Weenies are being turned away from, from what I can
see. I was the only weenie deck at the entire tournament, in fact,
from what I saw, at least. I was seen as the most dominating. No one
wanted to make deals to split a table, as it was counter productive to
game wins, I got shut down first...everytime. I got lucky one game to
get into the finals. IMHO, control decks are now going to be the most
popular decks in tournaments. Something that won't oust first and draw
the table's ire, but goes for a slow grind, demolishing and or ousting
cross table (vie votes/anarch revolts/anything that can be used cross
table). The guy who gets the first VP, will generally be torn to
shreds by the rest of the table, from what I can see, unless he's
powerful enough to widthstand it, or went slow enough to just appear
lucky. Control, combat/vote/anything with the ability to cross table,
is going to be the most played. It's gonna be the easiest way to get
game wins. If you kill everyone who get's one VP, then you end up with
2 VPs by ousting your final prey...you just got a game win. The game
seems to be drifting away from incredible offense early, to the slow
grind, build, control table, IMHO. This is what I saw at the
tournament, and I think the final game in no way reflected the rest of
the tournament. BTW, the fifth deck at finals was a Malk-Anti total
lockdown. Another control deck. Just something to consider...this is
how it all looked to me. And I would never play another power bleed in
a tournament again, unless it was simply to wait until your prey
weakend himself enough for you to get one bleed through and oust.
Rob
The Fanboy
> The new rule really hurts bloat and wall decks, which often times are decks
> which are based around larger vampires. Doesn't that help weenie decks?
Except that both Oscar and Jeff had variants of the Intercept Wall
design, and they both made it into the finals.
The table wins encourage a specific type of wall while discouraging
another. Eagle's Sight/Falcon's Eye walls, or walls that tap out to
move forward, and then untap endlessly during his predator's turn,
aren't hindered by the new rule.
Wall decks that play the waiting game to be the victor of the
two-player endgame are. As are any deck that plays solitare until
it's a two player game.
This IMO, is a good thing.
I was crippled in round two by a grandpredator who didn't move forward
until ten turns into the game. By that time, my weenie-potence rush
predator and my Brujah Archon/Princes prey had managed to destroy
every minion I had. I think discouraging "no pressure" tactics is
good for table balance.
With game wins, everyone must move forward, because you don't have
time for the waiting game. If you don't put pressure on your prey, it
means your prey is one VP closer to a game win. If you stop your
predator cold while doing it, it means you're that much more likely to
have a prey with 2 VPs by the endgame, and then you CAN'T get the
table win. All you've done is shut your prey out of the finals for
one more round.
> So you would have to play in exactly multiples of 5 player tournaments to
> make everything fair to all the players, if your assumption of a 4 person
> table is harder to win is true.
The 4-player table creates an upstream nightmare. In order to get a
table win, you have to make sure that the first person to get a VP is
the second person ousted. Generally, that means help your
grandpredator get his prey, then help your prey get his prey, then
oust your prey for a 2-1-1 split -- TW for you.
The path of two VPs just become a way in to the finals.
The table win works for me on a 5-player table. It doesn't for a 4
player. I'm tryiing to build decks that will be able to win a
4-player table without upstreaming. I don't think weenie will be the
way to go (the average weenie deck cannot withstand the table mobbing
on it).
Fanboy
Joshua Duffin
> Ok, so what happens in the unlikely event where one or two
> (if any) people get game wins and the rest of the rounds result
> in ties? What if, in that same situation where there are one or
> two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
> rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
> goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
> had game wins. But what about the others?
I think you already know the answer - you go to the first
tiebreaker, which is total VPs, then the second tiebreaker,
which is tournament points, and if they're still tied, you
use some random method. Do you think there's a more satisfactory
answer in this (unlikely) case? You've already stipulated that
they're also tied on VPs, so using the old VP-scoring system
wouldn't help, right?
The "only one or two game wins got assigned" situation should
be very unlikely indeed, by the way: if you have at least
two tables and three rounds of preliminary games, the chances
of only two game wins coming out of those six games is (for
four-player tables) 0.2^4 = 0.0016 = 0.16%. For five-player
tables, it'd be (about) 0.25^4 = 0.0039 = 0.39%. The chances
get even smaller in larger tournaments.
Josh
whirling mathematician
(or something)
Robert Goudie
> > ties the same as losses and figure that the players who won
> > the most games did the best that day.
>
> Ok, so what happens in the unlikely event where one or two
> (if any) people get game wins and the rest of the rounds result
> in ties? What if, in that same situation where there are one or
> two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
> rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
> goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
> had game wins. But what about the others?
?. Maybe I'm not understanding the question since the answer is in the
tournament rules. The first tie-break is VPs. Then, tournament points.
-Robert
Johan Lundstrom
>Mathematician, please take over! The 7% shorting is guaranteed.
Let's take this on in another way. It's very easy to underestimate the
power of the reduced number of players. So, if I take a wild guess,
and say that:
A: Chance of draw at a five-player table = 15%
B: Chance of draw at a four-player game = 30%
(and I honestly don't think the difference is really this big, but
anyway,) then:
C: Your expected amount of Table Wins on a five-player game (provided
everyone has equal chances of winning) = (1 - 0.15)/5 = 0.17 = 17%
D: Your expected amount of Table Wins on a five-player game (provided
everyone has equal chances of winning) = (1 - 0.3)/5 = 0.17 = 17%
Not too bad, is it? Only if you think the difference is bigger than
this, will the 4-player table be disadvantaged. If you think the
difference is less, the 4-player table will actually have an edge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Johan Lundstrom <jo...@algonet.se>
"Nothing succeeds like excess"
X_Zealot
> Not true either. You have to survive first, yes, but you do
> not have to concentrate on ousting your prey to the exclusion
> of cross-table considerations. If you can set up the table
> so that you'll be able to oust three people in quick succession,
> that's a *lot* better than just ousting one person by looking
> nowhere but to the left and then getting ousted yourself because
> somebody cross-table has just ousted two other people and gained
> twelve pool.
Okay, and if you can do that you can win. Congrats it happens. What you
are talking about is strategy and what I am talking about is theory. Two
different things.
>
> I'm really surprised that you'd disagree about this unless we're
> not actually talking about the same thing.
Exactly
>
> > But we don't play two player games, so all this gobbledy goop doesn't
> > matter.
> > <snip statistically irrelavent data>
>
> Thought experiments aren't irrelevant, even if they're not
> the same as the problem you're trying to solve. :-)
You are talking about the interaction of 4 or 5 players, which is a hell of
alot harder to describe than the interaction of 2 players
> With four evenly matched players - in *any* game that requires
> a winner - each player has a 25% chance of winning the game.
> With five, each player has a 20% chance to win. The term
> "evenly matched" here means that the outcome of the game might
> as well be determined by random chance, and in that situation
> it's as if each player rolled a die and the high number won.
No, it used to be that way under the vp system now the table either
generates a game win or it does not. It is possible not to have a winner
now. That is the problem.
Wrong, you missed all the times it goes to time and you have incomplete
games
you missed all permutations of
0 0 0 1's
0 0 0 2's
0 0 0 3's
0 0 1 1's
0 1 1 1's
2 0 0 0's
2 0 0 1's
3 0 0 0's
>
> Ways for a 5-player game to end:
>
> 5 0 0 0 0
> 4 1 0 0 0
> 3 1 1 0 0
> 3 2 0 0 0
> 2 1 1 1 0
> 2 2 1 0 0
> 1 1 1 1 1
>
> 5P1,4 = 5
> 5P1,1,3 = 20
> 5P1,2,2 = 30
> 5P1,1,3 = 20
> 5P1,3,1 = 20
> 5P2,1,2 = 30
> 5P5 = 1
>
> total number of ways for a 5-player game to end: 126.
> ways in which there is no "game winner": 31 (all the
> 2/2/1/0/0 ways and the 1/1/1/1/1 way)
Wrong again, you missed all the ways it can go to time again.
0 0 0 0 1's
0 0 0 0 2's
0 0 0 0 3's
0 0 0 0 4's
0 0 0 1 1's
0 0 1 1 1's
0 1 1 1 1's
2 0 0 0 0's
2 0 0 0 1's
2 2 0 0 0's
2 1 1 0 0's
3 0 0 0 0's
3 1 0 0 0's
See what you have missed are all the incomplete combonations. Also you have
to remember that you must score 2 victory points to claim a game win. So
for alot of these combonations there are no winners. I apologise if I have
offended you with the "fast and loose" comment but I think I was right.
Sten During
The Fanboy wrote:
>>It is interesting that you and Sten During both bring up the same thing.
>>The new rule really hurts bloat and wall decks, which often times are decks
>>which are based around larger vampires. Doesn't that help weenie decks?
>>
>
>
>The table wins encourage a specific type of wall while discouraging
>another. Eagle's Sight/Falcon's Eye walls, or walls that tap out to
>move forward, and then untap endlessly during his predator's turn,
>aren't hindered by the new rule.
>
>Wall decks that play the waiting game to be the victor of the
>two-player endgame are. As are any deck that plays solitare until
>it's a two player game.
>
Previously, as X_zealot mentioned, I described a Wall-combatmonster type
of deck that
replaces any card giving it a forward motion with untaps and, possibly,
bounce-cards. It
might do undirected actions and even bleeds for the occasional one point
of bleed, but
the players I've seen play them usually save all or most combatcards for
handling their
predators. Actually the decks are not as horrible as the players
wielding them. Decks by
themselves are very often a nightmare for a voting predator, but they
are seldom used
as an aggressive interceptor.
*grin* I've run that race myself until I finally understood that the
game isn't about being
the last man standing, but too many players don't.
With the new rules I don't have to hear "So? I was last in two games and
made it to
the finals and you got crushed in two games and only managed to make
3VP, so who are
you to complain about my deck?".
>
>>So you would have to play in exactly multiples of 5 player tournaments to
>>make everything fair to all the players, if your assumption of a 4 person
>>table is harder to win is true.
>>
>
>The 4-player table creates an upstream nightmare. In order to get a
>table win, you have to make sure that the first person to get a VP is
>the second person ousted. Generally, that means help your
>grandpredator get his prey, then help your prey get his prey, then
>oust your prey for a 2-1-1 split -- TW for you.
>
>The path of two VPs just become a way in to the finals.
>
>The table win works for me on a 5-player table. It doesn't for a 4
>player. I'm tryiing to build decks that will be able to win a
>4-player table without upstreaming. I don't think weenie will be the
>way to go (the average weenie deck cannot withstand the table mobbing
>on it).
>
>Fanboy
>
Seated behind the (you know by now that I don't like it) wall, unless
you're running your
weenie horde, you can simply wall up yourself, influence up a few vamps,
discard cards
and state that "I'm not moving one inch forward until that wall does."
Two types of decks
will grind you down in this situation - stealth/tap and bleed, and rush.
Honestly, seated
as I describe, at least it'll take longer to get rid of you if you
refuse to move forward.
I think Fanboy described the reason very well above. With midcap/large
vampires you're
likely able to handle combat from one direction, so this kind of blatant
refusal to walk
into the wall might actually hand you the last two VP as your refusaly
will eventually force
the entire table to stall or even run upstream, and yes, I agree that
this is more likely to
work at a 4 player table than at a 5 player table because in the latter
case the prey of the
wall is less likely to care about your sulking compared to when he/she
immediately is
threatened by his/her prey getting your 100% attention as your refusal
to use up resources
forward will cost your predator more to oust and thus forcing him/her to
watch his/her back
against the predator that effectively lacks a predator.
Sten During
Joshua Duffin
[I wrote]
> > I'm really surprised that you'd disagree about this unless we're
> > not actually talking about the same thing.
>
> Exactly
OK, now I see. But your theory that only your prey matters
doesn't make any sense to me in a multiplayer game, regardless
of whether we're talking about theory or strategy.
> You are talking about the interaction of 4 or 5 players, which is a hell
of
> alot harder to describe than the interaction of 2 players
Well, that's true.
> No, it used to be that way under the vp system now the table either
> generates a game win or it does not. It is possible not to have a winner
> now. That is the problem.
You're right, I forgot in writing that that games can end
without "winners". The correct probability is, for four-player
games (that end) 25% (to win) * 80% (to not tie) = 20% to get
a "game win". For five-player games that end, 20% (to win) *
75.4% (to not tie) = 15.08% to get a "game win". IOW, if all
outcomes are equally probable, it's still easier to get a game
win at a four-player table than at a five-player table.
> > 7 of them (all the 2/2/0/0 splits and the 1/1/1/1 split)
> > have no "game winner". So 7/35 or 20% of 4-player games will
> > have no game win assigned.
>
> Wrong, you missed all the times it goes to time and you have incomplete
> games
[...]
> See what you have missed are all the incomplete combonations. Also you
have
> to remember that you must score 2 victory points to claim a game win. So
> for alot of these combonations there are no winners. I apologise if I have
> offended you with the "fast and loose" comment but I think I was right.
I left out the "going to time" possibilities because they can't
happen in a "real" game. (And I did only count winners who had
at least 2 VPs in the combinations I used.)
In a tournament, yes, a game can go to time and that gives you
a whole bunch more VP-split possibilities. Adding them into
the probability calculation matrix presupposes that each of
them is just as likely as the other ("normal") results, which
is to assume that a game is as likely to go to time as it is
to end before time is called. I don't think that's true, and
any other interpretation requires a weighting of "how likely
it is that a game will go to time" which I would rather not
do (since it's getting back to opinions rather than facts).
My analysis is accurate for any game that *ends*, which is
good enough for me. If you want to do the math yourself for
games that don't end, you're more than welcome to do so.
(btw, I'm not offended by your fast and loose comment, but
while it may have been accurate regarding my first calculations,
it's not regarding these.)
Josh
relentless calculator
X_Zealot
> everyone was trying to accumulate VPs, some tables has 5 available and
some
> tables had only 4.
Robert, you are missing the point. Under the old system all the v.p.s were
won by someone. Under the new system you have tables that aren't won
effectively meaning that the entire table lost.
X_Zealot
> I left out the "going to time" possibilities because they can't
> happen in a "real" game. (And I did only count winners who had
> at least 2 VPs in the combinations I used.)
Are you serious? We just changed the rules which creates these situations
and you are telling me that they can't happen. Oh yes they can, and they
do, and they did, and they will again
> My analysis is accurate for any game that *ends*, which is
> good enough for me. If you want to do the math yourself for
> games that don't end, you're more than welcome to do so.
This is like arguing about the circumference of the earth to someone who
believes that the earth is flat.
Hello!! Hello!! Do you see the problem yet? These games do end but without
a winner and without all victory points being accounted for. That is why
you "fast and loose" statistics don't work.
> (btw, I'm not offended by your fast and loose comment, but
> while it may have been accurate regarding my first calculations,
> it's not regarding these.)
I am not trying to offend you, but I want you to see what a awful system we
have created where whole tables don't win. If it comes down to it again
where I have two v.p.'s and the only remaining player has one, I am going to
ask him to give me the table or else nobody wins. What do you think about
that for table politics?
LSJ
> The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of players at
> 4-player tables.
Moreover, in all cases (in the optimal seating charts), no player sits at a 4-player
table more than once more than any of the other players. That's as good as it gets.
--
LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc.
Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/
X_Zealot
"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message
news:3C43633B...@white-wolf.com...
> Robert Goudie wrote:
> > The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of
players at
> > 4-player tables.
>
> Moreover, in all cases (in the optimal seating charts), no player sits at
a 4-player
> table more than once more than any of the other players. That's as good as
it gets.
I'll say it again. When I get two victory points and the last remaining
player has 1. I am going to ask him to give me the table or else nobody
wins. Isn't that fun. No collusion there is there?
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> > But seriously, how is the loss of the availibility of a single victory
>> > point of which there is one availible for every player greater than the
>loss
>> > of the availibily of a game win.
>>
>> I don't equate the diminished chance (if there is one) of gaining a GW
>with the
>> unavailability of a GW. What we are saying is that the loss of
>availability of
>> 1 VP is greater than the diminished chance of gaining a GW.
>Okay so if you sweep a four person table and a denied a victory point
>because of your seating, what is the likely hood of not making the final. I
>don't know exactly but I would figure that if your tournament is less than
>twenty people then you should have made the finals right then and there.
>There is a bell curve of normal point distribution and honestly I couldn't
>tell you, but I wish some mathmatician would step in and help. But based on
>my experience, which may well be different than yours, I have seen alot of
>people make it to the finals on four vps.
This is a modeling question -- how do you accurately model the relative
weights of a completely unavailable VP vs. a possibly unavailable Game Win?
Well, how many possible VP distributions are there at a 4 player table?
4/0/0/0*
3/1/0/0*
2/2/0/0
2/1/1/0*
1/1/1/1!
3/0/0/0*+
2/1/0/0*+
1/1/1/0+
2/0/0/0*+
1/1/0/0+
1/0/0/0+
0/0/0/0+
12 possible distributions, of which 6 (starred) award a Game Win.
Expected value of Game Win at a 4 player table is then 6/12: 50%.
'+' indicates the game has to time out to reach this distribution.
'!' indicates an extremely unlikely simultaneous 4-person ousting,
4 successful withdrawals, or some combination of successful withdrawal
and simultaneous ousting of all non-withdrawing players.
Discounting this outcome as being substantially less probable than
the other 11, we get an EV(GW) of 6/11: 55%.
Distribution for 5-player tables:
5/0/0/0/0*
4/1/0/0/0*
3/2/0/0/0*
3/1/1/0/0*
2/2/1/0/0
2/1/1/1/0*
1/1/1/1/1!
...and all the cases for the 4-player table above (except for 1/1/1/1/0, which
is impossible). 18 cases, of which 11 result in a Game Win. EV(GW) for a
five-player table is 11/18: 61%, or 65% if you discard the negligible case
of 1/1/1/1/1.
So there's a 10% higher possibility of scoring a Game Win at a 5-person
table, given the (incorrect) assumption that all players are of equal
skill and random luck (expressed in shuffling) determines the outcome.
With the hypothetical 14-player tournament, 12 players play in 2 5-player
games and 1 4-player game; 2 players play in 3 5-player games.
The group of 12 5/5/4 players will accumulate:
23% 3 Game Wins (0.65*0.65*0.55)
45% 2 Game Wins (0.65*0.55*0.35)+(0.65*0.45*0.65)+(0.35*0.55*0.65)
27% 1 Game Win (0.65*0.45*0.35)+(0.35*0.55*0.35)+(0.35*0.45*0.65)
6% 0 Game Wins (0.35*0.45*0.35)
---
101% (due to rounding)
Expected value of Game Wins for the 5/5/4 group:
(0.23*3)+(0.45*2)+(0.27*1)+(0.06*0)=1.86 Game Wins
The group of 2 5/5/5 players will accumulate:
27% 3 Game Wins (0.65*0.65*0.65)
45% 2 Game Wins 3*(0.65*0.65*0.35)
24% 1 Game Win 3*(0.65*0.35*0.35)
4% 0 Game Wins (0.35*0.35*0.35)
---
100%
Expected value of Game Wins for the 5/5/5 group:
0.81+0.9+0.24=1.95 Game Wins
So the 2 players in the 5/5/5 group have, in theory, a 0.1 Game Win advantage
over the 12 5/5/4 players. A 5/5/5 player is 5% more likely (0.1/1.95) than a
5/5/4 player to make the finals.
Let's look at the VP side of things, without the Game Wins rule in place.
For a five player table, ignoring the trivial 1/1/1/1/1 distribution, there
are 17 possible outcomes:
6 outcomes provide 5 VPs to the table (if game ends before time)
If time is called:
4 outcomes provide 4 VPs
3 outcomes provide 3 VPs
2 outcomes provide 2 VPs
1 outcome provides 1 VP
1 outcome provides 0 VPs
Assuming these are all equally likely, a given 5-player table can be expected
to provide 3.53 VPs, or 0.71 per player. Over 3 rounds, the 2 players who
played at 5-player tables only would have, on average, 2.12 VP.
For a four player table (ignoring, again, the trivial 1/1/1/1 distribution),
there are 11 possible outcomes:
4 outcomes provide 4 VPs (if play concludes before time is called)
If time is called:
3 outcomes provide 3 VPs
2 outcomes provide 2 VPs
1 outcome provides 1 VP
1 outcome provides 0 VPs
A given 4-player table can be expected to provide 2.73 VPs, 0.68 per player.
A given 5/5/4 player would then be expected to score 0.68+0.71+0.71=2.1 VP,
making for a 0.02 VP gap between groups.
People in the 5/5/5 group would be 1% likelier (0.02/2.12) to advance to the
finals, again assuming dead level skill.
So Game Wins do penalize playing at a 4-player table more than VP Ranking.
Two important points about that:
a) The penalty is tiny, whether 1% or 5%. Differences in playing skill
and luck at the table will swamp out this effect.
b) Game Wins has better rulebook support, which is to say it has some, unlike
VP Ranking.
gomi
--
Blood, guts, guns, cuts
Knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts
Sorrow
> > (if any) people get game wins and the rest of the rounds result
> > in ties? What if, in that same situation where there are one or
> > two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
> > rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
> > goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
> > had game wins. But what about the others?
> ?. Maybe I'm not understanding the question since the answer is in the
> tournament rules. The first tie-break is VPs. Then, tournament points.
Ok, you have, say, 7 players. 2 of those player have 1 Game Win.
The only game wins of the tournament. Those 5 other players each
have 5 VPs. Those 5 VPs are made of up 2 from the first round, 2
from the second round and 1 from the last round. They are all (or
almost all) going to have the same tournament points. Same number
of VPs, same number of TPs, who gets into the final round?
Sorrow
---
"Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War.
Our war is a spiritual war. Our depression is our lives."
- Tyler Durden
Sorrow
> significant enough to outweigh the *certain VP disadvantage at 4-player tables*
> that we had before.
Perhaps. Only time will tell.
> Your statement above could have been said verbatim about the old system where
> VPs determined finalists.
Except that VPs are significantly easier to get than Game Wins.
6 VPs (2 VPs per round) almost guaranteed you entry into the final in the past.
However, in that situation, you have 0 Game Wins and you are by no means
certain to get into the final. While yes, I will agree that it could be said verbatim,
the underlying context is very different.
Sorrow
---
"...but you know, evil is an exact science..."
X_Zealot
> ...and all the cases for the 4-player table above (except for 1/1/1/1/0,
which
> is impossible
Wrong, Given 5 methuselah's preying on each other seated in alphabetical
order
A-B-C-D-E
D ousts E
C ousts D
B ousts C
A withdraws
not likely but possible.
LSJ
>
> "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message
> news:3C43633B...@white-wolf.com...
> > Robert Goudie wrote:
> > > The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of
> players at
> > > 4-player tables.
> >
> > Moreover, in all cases (in the optimal seating charts), no player sits at
> a 4-player
> > table more than once more than any of the other players. That's as good as
> it gets.
>
> I'll say it again. When I get two victory points and the last remaining
> player has 1. I am going to ask him to give me the table or else nobody
> wins. Isn't that fun. No collusion there is there?
Non sequitur.
Provide a better seating chart and it will be incorporated.
X_Zealot
> X_Zealot wrote:
> >
> > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C43633B...@white-wolf.com...
> > > Robert Goudie wrote:
> > > > The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating
of
> > players at
> > > > 4-player tables.
> > >
> > > Moreover, in all cases (in the optimal seating charts), no player sits
at
> > a 4-player
> > > table more than once more than any of the other players. That's as
good as
> > it gets.
> >
> > I'll say it again. When I get two victory points and the last remaining
> > player has 1. I am going to ask him to give me the table or else nobody
> > wins. Isn't that fun. No collusion there is there?
>
> Non sequitur.
> Provide a better seating chart and it will be incorporated.
I figured that would get your attention. :)
Under the current game wins system.
Given the option on any size table from 4 to 6. If I have 2 victory points
and the last remaining player has one. I must beat that player to win the
table and that player has only one option for the table to generate a table
win. That option is lose to me. If he doesn't lose to me then he ousts me
and the table ties and we both lose. So how politcking should go is "You
have no hope of winning this table, so you might as well give me the win.
Even if you oust me we tie and we both lose. Isn't it better that at least
one of us wins." If you are my friend or my playgroup or know me yet don't
know the other people in the tournament, then the odds are pretty good that
you will roll over. How do we stop that from happening?
vermillian
> > Under the old system a 4 player table had less available VPs--the primary
> > resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if
> at
> > all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and
> 5-player
> > games.
> In a four person table there are several
> different game ending sequences.
>
> 0/0/0/4
> 1/0/0/3
> 0/0/0/3
> 2/0/0/2 <-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
> 1/1/0/2
> 2/0/0/1
> 2/0/0/0
> 1/1/1/1<table loses again
> 0/0/0/0<table loses again
> 1/0/0/0<table loses again
> 1/1/1/0<table loses again
> 1/1/0/0.<table loses again
> Under the five system
> 0/0/0/0/5
> 1/0/0/0/4
> 0/0/0/0/4
> 2/0/0/0/3
> 3/1/1/0/0
> 0/0/0/0/3
> 1/0/0/0/3
> 0/0/0/0/2
> 1/1/0/0/2
> 1/0/0/0/2
> 0/0/0/0/2
> 2/1/0/0/2<-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
> 2/0/0/0/2<-- a tie, effectively the whole table loses
> 3/1/1/0/0
> 2/1/1/1/0
> 1/1/1/1/1<table loses again
> 0/0/0/0<table loses again
> 1/0/0/0<table loses again
> 1/1/1/0<table loses again
> 1/1/0/0.<table loses again
Once again, you're forgetting the VP one gets for staying alive (oh oh
oh oh).
> Out of the possible outcomes, it appears to me that those sitting on a five
> person table have a higher likelyhood of reaching an outcome where a table
> win will occur than a table of four (this is of course holding all things
> equal). If anyone has the mathmatical skill to say one way or another it
> would be appreciated.
Well... its a simple counting procedure.
say in a 3 player game
No VP
000
One VP
100
010
001
Two VP
NA
Three VP
210
201
120
021
102
012
300
030
003
assuming that 003 and 300 can be counted as different. As there are 3
different probabilities of table sweeping (you, your prey, or your
predator), then these need to be counted as different. This is also
assuming we don't make a distintion between who ousts who.
Assuming each of these game results have an equal chance of happening,
you want to maximize the likelyhood of there being a table win.
So lets examine 4 players shall we? This could get complicated...
No VP
0000
One VP
1000
0100
0010
0001
Two VP
1100
1010
1001
0110
0101
0011
2000
0200
0020
0002
Three VP
not possible
Four VP
2100
2010
2001
1200
0210
0201
1020
0120
0021
1002
0102
0012
3100
3010
3001
1300
0310
0301
1030
0130
0031
1003
0103
0013
4000
0400
0040
0004
So for a 4 player game we can see that there are a total of 16
different possibilities for a player to get a game win, or table win.
16 out of 43 total combinations with the aforementioned assumptions in
play.
now 5 players... Where there's an asterik there's a series of numbers
who follow a pattern.
no vp
00000
one vp
10000
01000
00100
00010
00001
two vp
11000
10100
10010
10001
01100
01010
01001
00110
00101
00011
20000
02000
00200
00020
00002
three vp
11100
11010
11001
10110
10101
10011
01110
01101
01011
00111
21000
20100
20010
20001
12000
02100
02010
02001
10200
01200
00210
00201
10020
01020
00120
00021
10002
01002
00102
00012
30000
03000
00300
00030
00003
four VP
Not possible
five vp
....
At this point I quit. As you can see, its futile to even bother with
these calculatons, as they lead you very little insight into the
actual system. There ISN'T equal probability of each of these
situations happening (like how many times in a 5 player game does only
1 person get a VP, and the time is called?).
If someone would like to complete my five VP section and find out the
stats, be my guest, but I'm not in the mood to type out the numbers...
I realize I could have written a program to calculate this sort of
thing, but I would still be working on the program, and wouldn't have
the raw data to show you.
As it is, we would have to go with statistical likelyhood. That is,
for the above charts (00011, etc...) we would have to assign a
statistical number of times we've seen this result in a game. Then to
find out if a table win on a 4 player or a 5 player is easier, we
would just count the total games by the table wins, and divide by the
total amount of games ever played... but we could do that w/o the
above charts, in hind sight...
We can begin taking data like so.
4 player game
Game in which no table win: (insert number here)
Game in which table win occurs: (insert number here)
5 player game
Game in which no table win: (insert number here)
Game in which table win occurs: (insert number here)
From this data we can determine the general answer for this game.
I'll repost the previous knowledge gained in a seperate thread to see
if someone wants to start collecting data and post it online.
~SV
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> ...and all the cases for the 4-player table above (except for 1/1/1/1/0,
>which
>> is impossible
>
>Wrong, Given 5 methuselah's preying on each other seated in alphabetical
>order
>
>A-B-C-D-E
>
>D ousts E
>C ousts D
>B ousts C
>A withdraws
>
>not likely but possible.
Okay. That moves us from 18 cases to 19, of which 11 result in a Game Win.
EV(GW) for a 5player table is then 11/19, or 0.58 (0.61 if you discard
the negligible probability of the 1/1/1/1/1 case).
Re-running the calculations with the new probability gives us (see previous
article for math):
5/5/4 Group
20% 3 Game Wins
47% 2 Game Wins
26% 1 Game Win
7% 0 Game Wins
EV(GW) for the 5/5/4 Group: 0.6+0.94+0.26=1.8 (old numbers gave 1.86)
5/5/5 Group
23% 3 Game Wins
44% 2 Game Wins
28% 1 Game Win
6% 0 Game Wins
EV(GW) for the 5/5/5 Group: 0.69+0.88+0.28=1.85 (old numbers gave 1.95)
This is a .05 discrepancy; the 5/5/5 group has a (.05/1.85) 3% better chance
of making the finals than the 5/5/4 group under the Game Wins rule. If
you recall, the VP Ranking system gave the 5/5/5 group a 3% better chance.
So your nitpick (thanks for the catch) strengthens my position, which I will
now restate:
a) The penalty is tiny, whether 1% or 3%. Differences in playing skill
and luck at the table will swamp out this effect. To put it another way,
there is no practical advantage or disadvantage to be in the 5/5/4 group
versus the 5/5/5 group, no matter which system is used.
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> Easy. Each table has 1 Game Win available. Under the old system, where
>> everyone was trying to accumulate VPs, some tables has 5 available and
>some
>> tables had only 4.
>
>Robert, you are missing the point. Under the old system all the v.p.s were
>won by someone. Under the new system you have tables that aren't won
>effectively meaning that the entire table lost.
Under the old system VPs were lost when time was called. A 4 player game
where time runs out with no ousts scores (0.5VP per player * 4 players) 2
VPs -- the other 2 VPs have vanished.
X_Zealot
I actually meant that the last person had zero victory points
X_Zealot
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message
>news:3C43633B...@white-wolf.com...
>> Robert Goudie wrote:
>> > The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of
>players at
>> > 4-player tables.
>>
>> Moreover, in all cases (in the optimal seating charts), no player sits at
>a 4-player
>> table more than once more than any of the other players. That's as good as
>it gets.
>
>I'll say it again. When I get two victory points and the last remaining
>player has 1. I am going to ask him to give me the table or else nobody
>wins. Isn't that fun. No collusion there is there?
But why would anyone agree? The other player already can't win. Given that
he can't win (the best he can do is tie), he might as well make sure
no-one else wins either, because that maximises his chances in the rest of
the tournament.
I'm assuming you mean 'I have 2 VP and the other player has 0' in a 4 player
table, since then the other player can score 2VP (and the tie) by ousting you.
If you have 2VP and the other player has 1, you're at a 5-player table.
Seriously, there is NO reason for anyone to agree to such a proposal. Not
in-game, not out-of-game, no reason at all. Back in the days of VP Ranking,
for the same reason, players with no ability to score further VPs stalled
(within the rules) as much as possible -- if your position is lost, you may
as well try to disadvantage everyone else as much as possible, so there's less
of a deficit to make up in future rounds (stalling a game till time runs out
makes half the VPs still available go poof -- uncollected VPs means the player
winning at your table isn't as far ahead of you, so it's easier to catch up).
Only, with Game Wins, the incentive is to play harder to get the tie, not
stall to make VPs go poof. In this way, Game Wins encourages playing the game,
not the tourney system, and removes valid tournament reasons (though not
valid game reasons) to stall.
X_Zealot
"Gomi no Sensei" <go...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:a1vqut$t7n$1...@panix3.panix.com...
That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that 20% of the 14 members will
have 3 game wins? That is roughly 3 people. That is 3 people with 3 game
wins which is 9 game wins. 9 game wins is the total number of game wins in
the tournament with 3 tables. Then what the hell are those other numbers?
> EV(GW) for the 5/5/4 Group: 0.6+0.94+0.26=1.8 (old numbers gave 1.86)
>
> 5/5/5 Group
>
> 23% 3 Game Wins
> 44% 2 Game Wins
> 28% 1 Game Win
> 6% 0 Game Wins
That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that 23% of the 15 members will
have 3 game wins? That is roughly 3 people. That is 3 people with 3 game
wins which is 9 game wins. 9 game wins is the total number of game wins in
the tournament with 3 tables. Then what the hell are those other numbers?
Apparently, I just do not follow your math. Explain how you get these
percentages.
X_Zealot
At least you got something. Under the same situation there is no game wins.
The whole table loses.
Chris Berger
> In article <kAJ08.33893$3x5.1...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com>,
>
unlike
> VP Ranking.
>
points and VPs used to determine placing? Damn, I wish I had my first
edition Jyhad rulebook to quote from.
Gomi no Sensei
It means there is a 20% chance the 12 players who each play in two 5-player
games and one 4-player game will 3 table wins between them. There is a 47%
chance they'll have 2 table wins between them, with the third table win
lost to a tie. There is a 26% chance two table wins are lost to a tie.
There is a 7% chance all 3 table wins are lost to ties.
To get the expected value of game wins for the group, you multiply
the percentage of the number of wins by the number of wins:
20% (0.20) times 3 is 0.6
47% (0.47) times 2 is 0.94
26% (0.26) times 1 is 0.26
7% (0.07) times 0 is 0
Add all these together, and the average expected amount of table wins
for the group of 12 players who played at two 5-player tables and one
4-player table is 1.8 Table Wins. For the group, not per player. I was
comparing the two groups (one group of 12 players who play at two 5-player
tables and one 4-player table, and another group of 2 players who play at
three 5-player tables, per your original 14-person tournament) to see if
one would do better than the other, assuming perfectly equal skill, making
luck the sole determinant of victory.
>> EV(GW) for the 5/5/4 Group: 0.6+0.94+0.26=1.8 (old numbers gave 1.86)
>>
>> 5/5/5 Group
>>
>> 23% 3 Game Wins
>> 44% 2 Game Wins
>> 28% 1 Game Win
>> 6% 0 Game Wins
>
>That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that 23% of the 15 members will
>have 3 game wins? That is roughly 3 people. That is 3 people with 3 game
>wins which is 9 game wins. 9 game wins is the total number of game wins in
>the tournament with 3 tables. Then what the hell are those other numbers?
>
>Apparently, I just do not follow your math. Explain how you get these
>percentages.
Please re-read the original article, which contained the derivation of these
numbers. I'll do my best to clear up any specific points as you point them
out.
X_Zealot
> he can't win (the best he can do is tie), he might as well make sure
> no-one else wins either, because that maximises his chances in the rest of
> the tournament.
Only in the first two rounds, In the third round he is just playing
spoilier if he can't make it into the finals
>
> I'm assuming you mean 'I have 2 VP and the other player has 0' in a 4
player
> table, since then the other player can score 2VP (and the tie) by ousting
you.
> If you have 2VP and the other player has 1, you're at a 5-player table.
>
> Seriously, there is NO reason for anyone to agree to such a proposal. Not
> in-game, not out-of-game, no reason at all. Back in the days of VP
Ranking,
> for the same reason, players with no ability to score further VPs stalled
> (within the rules) as much as possible -- if your position is lost, you
may
> as well try to disadvantage everyone else as much as possible, so there's
less
> of a deficit to make up in future rounds (stalling a game till time runs
out
> makes half the VPs still available go poof -- uncollected VPs means the
player
> winning at your table isn't as far ahead of you, so it's easier to catch
up).
There are plenty of reasons why this will happen and it is going to happen.
You might even just see intentionally poor play to throw a game win rather
than tying for the round. I am certain of it.
I will bet you money there will be all sort of politicking to get people to
roll or mutually withdraw. I actually think that the mutual withdrawl rule
will be heavily abused in this situation.
>
> Only, with Game Wins, the incentive is to play harder to get the tie, not
> stall to make VPs go poof. In this way, Game Wins encourages playing the
game,
> not the tourney system, and removes valid tournament reasons (though not
> valid game reasons) to stall.
Not if you have a puppet or MoMo, as Derek likes to put it, on the table.
It amazes me, but I am willing to bet that the Mutual Withdrawl rule will be
heavily used to facilitate these deals.
Gomi no Sensei
I prefer to think of it as 'nobody at the table won'. And people scoring VPs
do, of course, 'get something' -- VPs are the primary tiebreaker if number
of Game Wins are equal, and since, apparently, Game Wins are so gosh-darn hard
to come by, VP ranking ought to come into play fairly often.
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> But why would anyone agree? The other player already can't win. Given that
>> he can't win (the best he can do is tie), he might as well make sure
>> no-one else wins either, because that maximises his chances in the rest of
>> the tournament.
>
>Only in the first two rounds, In the third round he is just playing
>spoilier if he can't make it into the finals
Just the same as with VP ranking -- a player can be in a position where he
cannot get enough VPs in the last game to make it to the finals, and thereby
play spoiler. If I understand you correctly, he may as well throw the game
to give someone else a free VP, since he can't make it to the finals anyway?
>There are plenty of reasons why this will happen and it is going to happen.
>You might even just see intentionally poor play to throw a game win rather
>than tying for the round. I am certain of it.
I can think of no valid in-game reason. I can't even think of a valid
tournament-level reason. Please expand on why you think, in a 2/0 4player
table, the 0 player could be induced to throw the game rather than go for
the 2/2 tie.
>I will bet you money there will be all sort of politicking to get people to
>roll or mutually withdraw. I actually think that the mutual withdrawl rule
>will be heavily abused in this situation.
I guess time will show if you are correct. I am willing to bet $10 american
it will not, within the next 24 months, prove to be a problem (it='abuse of
the mutual withdrawal rule to artificially induce Game Wins rather than ties').
I'm willing to concede that _any_ change of the tournament scoring system
such that it goes back to using VP other than Game Wins as primary ranking
system would be prima facie proof of your position, for purposes of settling
the bet.
>> Only, with Game Wins, the incentive is to play harder to get the tie, not
>> stall to make VPs go poof. In this way, Game Wins encourages playing the
>game,
>> not the tourney system, and removes valid tournament reasons (though not
>> valid game reasons) to stall.
>
>Not if you have a puppet or MoMo, as Derek likes to put it, on the table.
An easily manipulated player is an aberration, and not one you can guarantee
will be present. A player who has agreed to be easily manipulated beforehand,
of course, is colluding.
>It amazes me, but I am willing to bet that the Mutual Withdrawl rule will be
>heavily used to facilitate these deals.
$10 sounds good to me. Do we have a bet?
gomi
still waiting to collect his $5 from someone else on an unrelated bet
X_Zealot
wins.
> >The whole table loses.
>
> I prefer to think of it as 'nobody at the table won'. And people scoring
VPs
> do, of course, 'get something' -- VPs are the primary tiebreaker if number
> of Game Wins are equal, and since, apparently, Game Wins are so gosh-darn
hard
> to come by, VP ranking ought to come into play fairly often.
Apparently you did manage to do well in sarcasm at school, but not in
psychology.
Why would you or I play in a tournament where there is the possibility of
no-one winning in a given round, especially given the fact that someone
could play spoiler to do it?
I don't get it.
XZ
Gomi no Sensei
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >At least you got something. Under the same situation there is no game
>wins.
>> >The whole table loses.
>>
>> I prefer to think of it as 'nobody at the table won'. And people scoring
>VPs
>> do, of course, 'get something' -- VPs are the primary tiebreaker if number
>> of Game Wins are equal, and since, apparently, Game Wins are so gosh-darn
>hard
>> to come by, VP ranking ought to come into play fairly often.
>Apparently you did manage to do well in sarcasm at school, but not in
>psychology.
Not my field. Ask the wife.
As for sarcasm, well, sarcasm is where one finds it. Did I misstate your
position that Game Wins are hard to come by?
>Why would you or I play in a tournament where there is the possibility of
>no-one winning in a given round, especially given the fact that someone
>could play spoiler to do it?
Um, for the prizes and ego-satisfaction of winning the tournament? There is
zero chance of no-one winning the tournament (barring force majeure). The
possibility of no-one winning in a given round has always existed, and is
irrelevant to the outcome of the tournament as a whole.
More to the point, every game of Jyhad/V:tES you or I have _ever_ played
has had just the same risk (of not having a clear winner). It hasn't
hampered my enjoyment any. The risk of a Game Win going uncollected is
just the same as the risk of a VP going uncollected -- it could happen,
it won't mean someone won't win the tournament, it doesn't make the game
any less fun, it doesn't even mean my chances of winning the tournament are
necessarily worse.
If I can't win a Game Win at my table, the _only_ way I can make my position
worse is by letting someone else get even further ahead of me by rolling
over and letting them get a cheap Game Win.
Chris Berger
"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:GbI08.30882$Vz3.3...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
> news:_EH08.18155$Tq.168677@rwcrnsc54...
>
> > Winning, in the sense of ousting your prey, *is* the stated goal of
Jyhad.
>
> No more than "building hotels" is the stated goal of Monopoly.
>
Bad analogy. The person who builds the most hotels does not win a game of
Monopoly. Further, I don't think it's been established that in a Monopoly
"tournament" the second place player gets nothing. Maybe in a monopoly
tournament, you advance based on how much total money you accumulated (would
probably be most likely, since monopoly games take an eternity to end and
would probably have a time limit).
> > The more prey you oust, the closer you are to winning a single session.
>
> Right. They show progress toward the goal of winning.
>
Your goal in each game is to get as many VP's as possible. Once your
predator has 3VP's, you can still get some VP's and finish second. In a
tournament, under the new rule, those 2VP's will not help you come in
"second" in the rankings for who goes to the finals. Instead, you are just
a loser with more tie-breaker points.
>
> > but just that the new table wins rule doesn't
> > "more accurately reflect the goal of the game", it actually
> > redefines it. The goal of the game is now different than it used to be.
>
> Given the rulebook statement above, I'd say your defining each ousting as
a
> "win" is the redefinition.
>
Let me put this another way. Your goal is to gain as many VP's as possible
to win. When constructing a tournament from these rules, it is equally
valid to expand it in either way. Either try to get as many VP's as
possible throughout rounds in order to "win" the preliminary rounds of the
tourney, or else divide the tournament into mini-roulettes. Until now,
tournament rules required you to accumulate VP's, and did not invalidate
individual performances in a round. The new rule is a kludge fix to a silly
problem which wouldn't exist if collusion were disallowed. As it is, it
simply makes collusion less desirable, as you don't win from getting 2 VP.
On the other hand, it punished people who play legitimately and end up with
a "pretty good" showing. Decks which are steady have the same chance of
making the finals as a deck which is erratic.
> > It's not just scoring that's changed, the whole
> > dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck
> > over long-term skill.
>
> I don't believe that's the case.
>
Explain why. I'm in the process of doing some probability calculations to
illustrate *my* point, but they are taking a long time, so I'll post them
later. Essentially, take a deck which relies on an unlikely card or combo.
The player with that deck will be unlikely to win if he doesn't get that
card or combo out early. If that player has a 33% chance of drawing their
combo and will almost always get 3 VP when it happens and 0 VP when it
doesn't, then they are more likely to get into the final than a person with
6 VP and no table wins.
More generally, table wins emphasize that you play well in one round. You
must win a table in one round. In all other rounds, your play makes no
difference. VP rankings emphasize good play throughout a tournament.
Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3 VP
*can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
James Coupe
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> writes:
>If I have 2 victory points
>and the last remaining player has one. I must beat that player to win the
>table and that player has only one option for the table to generate a table
>win. That option is lose to me. If he doesn't lose to me then he ousts me
>and the table ties and we both lose.
That player may view it as easier to get into the final if both of you
lose (one less person with a game win to interfere with his other
rounds).
Since he would be maximising his VPs at the same time, it would be
perfectly legal play, too.
--
James Coupe You remind me of the babe. What babe?
PGP 0x5D623D5D The babe with the power. What power?
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Power of voodoo. Who do?
13D7E668C3695D623D5D You do. Do what? Remind me of the babe.
James Coupe
X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> writes:
>> ...and all the cases for the 4-player table above (except for 1/1/1/1/0,
>which
>> is impossible
>
>Wrong, Given 5 methuselah's preying on each other seated in alphabetical
>order
>
>A-B-C-D-E
>
>D ousts E
>C ousts D
>B ousts C
>A withdraws
>
>not likely but possible.
In this instance, D gets 1 victory point for ousting E. C gets one
victory point for ousting D. B gets one victory point for ousting C.
There are two players left: A and B.
A withdraws, taking the VP for his ousting with him.
B gets an additional victory point for being the last player in, which
is not denied by withdrawal.
James Coupe
writes:
>> ?. Maybe I'm not understanding the question since the answer is in the
>> tournament rules. The first tie-break is VPs. Then, tournament points.
>
>Ok, you have, say, 7 players.
Then you are not holding a sanctioned event and can do whatever you
choose.
Gomi no Sensei
Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>On the other hand, it punished people who play legitimately and end up with
>a "pretty good" showing.
...but don't win.
>Decks which are steady have the same chance of
>making the finals as a deck which is erratic.
...as long as they both win an equal proportion of the time. I'm not
seeing a problem here.
>Explain why. I'm in the process of doing some probability calculations to
>illustrate *my* point, but they are taking a long time, so I'll post them
>later. Essentially, take a deck which relies on an unlikely card or combo.
>The player with that deck will be unlikely to win if he doesn't get that
>card or combo out early. If that player has a 33% chance of drawing their
>combo and will almost always get 3 VP when it happens and 0 VP when it
>doesn't, then they are more likely to get into the final than a person with
>6 VP and no table wins.
Yep. I'm sorry, I'm genuinely not trying to be flip here, but that seems
okay to me. Three almost-wins oughtn't to beat out one win.
>More generally, table wins emphasize that you play well in one round. You
>must win a table in one round. In all other rounds, your play makes no
>difference.
This implies that one table win gets you into the finals, which seems
a rather dicey assumption.
>VP rankings emphasize good play throughout a tournament.
Game wins emphasize better play, in that it actually rewards winning games,
something the VP ranking system never did -- it was possible to make the
finals without winning a single game.
>Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3 VP
>*can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
Right. If you get a game win. Which is kind of the point of the game.
Andrew S. Davidson
>Weenies are being turned away from, from what I can see.
And that's a good thing, right?
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>> What if, in that same situation where there are one or
>> two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
>> rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
>> goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
>> had game wins. But what about the others?
>
>I think you already know the answer - you go to the first
>tiebreaker, which is total VPs, then the second tiebreaker,
>which is tournament points, and if they're still tied, you
>use some random method. Do you think there's a more satisfactory
>answer in this (unlikely) case?
A tie of this sort is not unlikely - it seems quite likely. It's like
the ties you get when a cut is made in a Swiss pairs ranking to
determine entry into the next stage. It's common there to use the
total record of each player's opponents as a tie-break (i.e. the
better your opponents, the better your ranking).
Another option is to put all the players into the final. The game is
not designed for a fixed number of players - it easily can cope with
2-7. I'd expect a larger final to be more free-flowing as it's
harder for a single player to control a larger table and so there'd be
more emphasis on gaining local superiority which should result in a
fast aggressive game.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>VP's *do* account to winning. Each VP that you accumulate is one win.
>Winning, in the sense of ousting your prey, *is* the stated goal of Jyhad.
>The more prey you oust, the closer you are to winning a single session.
>Methuselahs do not have final goals as short-term as one game. In casual
>play, if I win 2 VP every game, I am seen as a better player than someone
>who wins 5VP once and 0 every other game. In tournament play, this
>translates to ranking. Someone who won 6VP did better than someone who won
>5VP. Second place ceases to mean anything under the new rule... you might
>as well have played 4 Baali and self-ousted yourself.
This is a respectable point-of-view. Garfield's intent was to
encourage aggressive play so that the game wouldn't stagnate - that's
why the game focusses more on ousting other players than on being the
last man standing.
But note that the previous tournament system didn't completely follow
your favoured paradigm either. If you feel that VPs are more
important than game wins then you wouldn't have a final - you'd just
play a number of rounds and the player with the most VPs at the end of
the event would be the tournament winner. Under the old format, the
tournament winner was the player who won a particular game, not the
player with the most VP.
>Frex., calling an Ancilla Empowerment which will oust both
>your prey and your grand prey would have been a great thing to do, even
>though it gives your prey a VP. But if your prey already has 1 VP at a
>4-person table, this becomes a losing play, even though it nets you 2 VP
>(from being last one standing). It's not just scoring that's changed, the
>whole dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck over long-term
>skill.
The problem here is that you don't get a game winner in this case.
You could split the win as half each but that risks a return to
table-split collusion. Better would be to have a tie-break. If a
game splits 2-2, then the game win should either go to the last player
standing (because he survived) or to the player who scored two ousts
(because he was the most aggressive). It'd be in the spirit of the
game to give preference to the latter.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>Now this I totally disagree with. Unless you're playing in
>Andrew-world, you are always looking at all the other players
>in your game while trying to win.
That's some other Andrew's world. If you're trying to win and there
can only be one winner then, of course, you are competing with every
player in the game, not just your neighbours. Even if you are just
concerned to maximise your VPs rather than to win the same applies -
you don't want anyone but yourself to take VPs because the game is
zero-sum - every VP taken by another player is a VP which you can no
longer gain.
Andrew
jeroen rombouts
> > Given the option on any size table from 4 to 6. If I have 2 victory
> points
> > and the last remaining player has one. I must beat that player to win
the
> > table and that player has only one option for the table to generate a
> table
> > win. That option is lose to me. If he doesn't lose to me then he ousts
> me
> > and the table ties and we both lose. So how politcking should go is
"You
> > have no hope of winning this table, so you might as well give me the
win.
> > Even if you oust me we tie and we both lose. Isn't it better that at
> least
> > one of us wins." If you are my friend or my playgroup or know me yet
> don't
> > know the other people in the tournament, then the odds are pretty good
> that
> > you will roll over. How do we stop that from happening?
>
> I actually meant that the last person had zero victory points
It seems to me me you keep ignoring one thing: if no GW is earned in a
game, the total number of GW in the tourney is lowered too. For a small
tourney, it is more beneficial for your opponent to keep the total number of
GWs low and get as much VPs as possible, along the way.
ex: small tourney, 14 players (5/5/4), 3 rounds. (note that I'm not a
mathematician, so take s/t for granted)
Say, the 4 player table NEVER gets a GW, and 2 times the 5 player table
ends without a GW. If - in this scenario - someone manages to acumulate 2 GW
(or even 3), there are going to be (1-2) people without GWs in the final.
By this logic, your opponent has to keep trying to oust you. He can't win a
GW, so it's in his best interest to keep you from gaining one.
BTW, why do keep on saying that everybody lost? I would call it 'nobody
wins'
Jeroen
James Coupe
In that weenies were a somewhat over-emphasised deck style, this isn't
all bad. It provides a more dynamic and creative metagame, based partly
on the new strengths and variability of items across the whole spectrum,
from weenie to fattie, huge spread of vampires to single clan decks.
It puts everyone on a much more level playing field.
Robert Goudie
> > > Jyhad.
> >
> > No more than "building hotels" is the stated goal of Monopoly.
> >
> Bad analogy. The person who builds the most hotels does not win a game of
> Monopoly.
True. But I'll bet that the person who wins is most likely the person who built
the most hotels. Both are just steps along the path to victory.
[clip]
> > > but just that the new table wins rule doesn't
> > > "more accurately reflect the goal of the game", it actually
> > > redefines it. The goal of the game is now different than it used to be.
> >
> > Given the rulebook statement above, I'd say your defining each ousting as
> > a "win" is the redefinition.
[ clip]
> Until now, tournament rules required you to accumulate VP's, and did
> not invalidate individual performances in a round.
> The new rule is a kludge fix to a silly
> problem which wouldn't exist if collusion were disallowed.
As you know, collusion is always disallowed. The real problem is that it was
always in your favor to accumulate VPs even if it mean completely giving-up on
trying to win. Instead of a kludge, this is the first time things have been
properly aligned.
> > > It's not just scoring that's changed, the whole
> > > dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck
> > > over long-term skill.
> >
> > I don't believe that's the case.
> >
> Explain why.
> Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3 VP
> *can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
So, you think a player is better who can get 1 VP in each round where the new
rules reward the player who can actually come up with a win in one of those
three rounds. You attribute the win to luck and the 1 VP per round as skill. I
understand what you are saying but I just don't agree.
-Robert
Chris Berger
> In article <q2L08.24699$Vq.225177@rwcrnsc53>,
> Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
> >Explain why. I'm in the process of doing some probability calculations
to
> >illustrate *my* point, but they are taking a long time, so I'll post them
> >later. Essentially, take a deck which relies on an unlikely card or
combo.
> >The player with that deck will be unlikely to win if he doesn't get that
> >card or combo out early. If that player has a 33% chance of drawing
their
> >combo and will almost always get 3 VP when it happens and 0 VP when it
> >doesn't, then they are more likely to get into the final than a person
with
> >6 VP and no table wins.
>
> Yep. I'm sorry, I'm genuinely not trying to be flip here, but that seems
> okay to me. Three almost-wins oughtn't to beat out one win.
>
apparently that it's a good thing. I don't know how to respond to that.
> >VP rankings emphasize good play throughout a tournament.
>
> Game wins emphasize better play, in that it actually rewards winning
games,
> something the VP ranking system never did -- it was possible to make the
> finals without winning a single game.
>
The best player doesn't necessarily win at a table, in general. The winner
is determined in large part by luck. I've always been slightly upset
because preliminaries didn't give *enough* of a chance to gain VP's, as many
of the Gen Con tourneys ended up being only 2 rounds, which meant those with
3.5 to 7 VP's were generally in the final. Now, you only have 3 points that
you can win. This would be okay in a 2 player game, but only one person at
a table of 5 can pick up any points? And sometimes no points are given at
all??? That's ridiculous. Having more points to use to determine placing
minimizes the effectiveness of luck. Going from about 15 possible points to
3 is a step in the wrong direction.
> >Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3 VP
> >*can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
>
> Right. If you get a game win. Which is kind of the point of the game.
>
A "game win" is only the point of the game because of the new system.
Previously, getting as many VP's as possible was the point of the game. If
this allowed you to win a game, all the more power to you. In the final,
which is the only place where you can truly win, you have to have a "game
win". Prior to that, I think strong play should outweigh luck is giving you
a chance at the final
Chris Berger
> "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
> news:q2L08.24699$Vq.225177@rwcrnsc53...
> > "Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > > "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
> > >
> > > > Winning, in the sense of ousting your prey, *is* the stated goal of
> > > > Jyhad.
> > >
> > > No more than "building hotels" is the stated goal of Monopoly.
> > >
> > Bad analogy. The person who builds the most hotels does not win a game
of
> > Monopoly.
>
> True. But I'll bet that the person who wins is most likely the person who
built
> the most hotels. Both are just steps along the path to victory.
>
damage will win the game of Jyhad, and that might be similar to your thing
with hotels. I may "bet" that the person who wins a game of Jyhad is the
one who has the most VP's. And I'd be right, but the winner is *defined* as
the person who has the most VP's. Your number of VP's is an unbiased
indicator of your performance in a round, as stated by the rule that the
player with the most VP's win. Having 2 VP's in a game is an indicator of
your performance in that round, whether or not you won the game. The person
with 3 VP's has *already* done better in the round than you have, because he
has more VP's. If you do better than him next round, gaining another 2 VP's
while he gains 0, you are still considered worse than him in the standings,
since he has a point and you don't.
The person who wins the game has the advantage of having more VP's to carry
into the next round. Why do we have to virtually guarantee that person a
place in the finals, even if he lays down and dies the next 3 rounds?
> > Until now, tournament rules required you to accumulate VP's, and did
> > not invalidate individual performances in a round.
> > The new rule is a kludge fix to a silly
> > problem which wouldn't exist if collusion were disallowed.
>
> As you know, collusion is always disallowed. The real problem is that it
was
> always in your favor to accumulate VPs even if it mean completely
giving-up on
> trying to win. Instead of a kludge, this is the first time things have
been
> properly aligned.
>
Accumulating VP's is the opposite of giving-up on trying to win. Ousting
yourself along with another methuselah, if it maximizes your VP's is simply
a decision you have to make as to your chances of gaining any *additional*
VP's. The only problem I ever saw from the original rules was people
agreeing to split a table, which is obviously collusion.
> > > I don't believe that's the case.
> > >
> > Explain why.
>
> > Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3
VP
> > *can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
>
> So, you think a player is better who can get 1 VP in each round where the
new
> rules reward the player who can actually come up with a win in one of
those
> three rounds. You attribute the win to luck and the 1 VP per round as
skill. I
> understand what you are saying but I just don't agree.
>
No, a player who can get 1 VP in each round will not make the finals in any
but the strangest of circumstances. If that person makes it into the
finals, then likely there aren't 5 people with table wins anyway, so neither
system would make a difference. It takes a good deal of skill to average
2VP's per game, but the difference between 2VP's and 3VP's in a single game
is very often a question of luck - seating position, competition at the
table, actions of other players, and the luck of the draw.
Gomi no Sensei
Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>"Gomi no Sensei" <go...@panix.com> wrote in message
>news:a1vv56$efu$1...@panix3.panix.com...
>> >combo and will almost always get 3 VP when it happens and 0 VP when it
>> >doesn't, then they are more likely to get into the final than a person
>with
>> >6 VP and no table wins.
>> Yep. I'm sorry, I'm genuinely not trying to be flip here, but that seems
>> okay to me. Three almost-wins oughtn't to beat out one win.
>Well then, you are agreeing that luck is more important than skill, and
>apparently that it's a good thing. I don't know how to respond to that.
I'm not sure how you got there from what I said. If the 2VP per game deck
can't win a table, clearly the skill is insufficient.
Why is the deck which wins one game in 3 'luck based' rather than 'skill
based'? Many strategies rely on a strong start -- one of my favorite
decks gets out OBF princes and pumps out 3rd Tradition weenies at an
alarming rate. It falls down miserably to early rush or dedicated
intercept in the first few turns. Is it 'lucky' every time it wins? Is
play skill (not my strong suit, I'll be the firs to admit) irrelevant to
its record?
Mr. 1-in-3 has made a deliberate design decision to make a deck which is
strong under a defined set of circumstances and is resigned to having those
circumstances not align all the time, while Mr. 2VP has made a deliberate
design decision to make a weaker deck which performs more predictably.
Every Big Risk deck trades sweeps for catastrophe -- that's just how
they work. Even the most solid, plodding, predictable deck will have hot
runs, topdecking exactly what it needs, and find itself stuck in the
horrible doldrums of handjam at other times.
>The best player doesn't necessarily win at a table, in general. The winner
>is determined in large part by luck.
I don't believe I agree with this assertion. Yes, decks can be utterly
hosed by a tragic seating position, but play skill more often triumphs
over position than the converse, in my experience.
>I've always been slightly upset
>because preliminaries didn't give *enough* of a chance to gain VP's, as many
>of the Gen Con tourneys ended up being only 2 rounds, which meant those with
>3.5 to 7 VP's were generally in the final. Now, you only have 3 points that
>you can win. This would be okay in a 2 player game, but only one person at
>a table of 5 can pick up any points? And sometimes no points are given at
>all??? That's ridiculous. Having more points to use to determine placing
>minimizes the effectiveness of luck. Going from about 15 possible points to
>3 is a step in the wrong direction.
It's not like VPs are suddenly worthless, you know. If you like, consider
it _increased_ granularity, not _decreased_, since there are now 4
tiers of VP ranking (in a 3-round tournament): 3 Game Wins (breakdown by
VP), 2 Game Wins (breakdown by VP), 1 Game Win (breakdown by VP), and 0
Game Wins (breakdown by VP).
I could argue that someone who gets 2 vp a game, yet never wins a game,
is the real beneficiary of luck if he gets into a final.
>> Right. If you get a game win. Which is kind of the point of the game.
>A "game win" is only the point of the game because of the new system.
I'm pretty sure it's been the point of the game since Jyhad.
>Previously, getting as many VP's as possible was the point of the game.
Only insofar as getting the most VPs made you the winner.
>Prior to that, I think strong play should outweigh luck is giving you
>a chance at the final
I think we both agree on that; we do seem to be seeing things differently
as to what the role of luck is and was, however.
Sorrow
> >heavily used to facilitate these deals.
> $10 sounds good to me. Do we have a bet?
Gomi, before you go in on that bet, you should know that it came up
on saturday in 2 seperate rounds I was in. And in one of them, it gave
me the game win...
Sorrow
---
"Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War.
Our war is a spiritual war. Our depression is our lives."
- Tyler Durden
Gomi no Sensei
>> >It amazes me, but I am willing to bet that the Mutual Withdrawl rule will be
>> >heavily used to facilitate these deals.
>> $10 sounds good to me. Do we have a bet?
>
>Gomi, before you go in on that bet, you should know that it came up
>on saturday in 2 seperate rounds I was in. And in one of them, it gave
>me the game win...
Fascinating. You're saying someone at the table was able to talk someone
else into doing something so utterly against their best interests? I'd
love details on that.
gomi
Sorrow
> else into doing something so utterly against their best interests? I'd love
> details on that.
No, I did not say that. I'm just saying that mutual withdrawal was brought up
in 2 seperate rounds as an alternative to what was going to inevitably occur.
And it wasn't against their best interests. In the round that saw me get the game
win, it also gave VPs where they wouldn't have otherwise been gained. So
while they didn't get the GW, they did get VPs that could have gone towards
the tie breaker.
Not really what was imagined when the GW rule was instituted. I can easily
see this happening again. And again.
Sorrow
---
"I'll be watching the news. If anything is vandalized or explodes
or catches on fire, 'X' is going to equal me kicking your ass!"
- Red Forman
Xian
[snip]
> It's not like VPs are suddenly worthless, you know. If you like, consider
> it _increased_ granularity, not _decreased_, since there are now 4
> tiers of VP ranking (in a 3-round tournament): 3 Game Wins (breakdown by
> VP), 2 Game Wins (breakdown by VP), 1 Game Win (breakdown by VP), and 0
> Game Wins (breakdown by VP).
As far as I have seen in the last few tournaments I've been to (pre 2002,
but tracked GWs just to see), VP vs. GW has resulted in the same outcomes.
In other words, from what I've seen (and from the tournament reports that
have tracked the same), it appears that the tournaments where someone with a
GW, but fewer VPs gets into the finals at someone else's expense are in the
minority.
Until you get into tournaments with more than 15 people or so, it appears
that the final round is going to mostly be:
maybe one guy with 2 GW.
three or four people with 1 GW and change
rounded out by the people with 0 GW and the highest VP
Larger tournaments, under the old rules, you'd expect to have to sweep a lot
anyway, in order to get into the finals. Now, I'm guessing for bigger
tournaments, 2 GW is going to be required to get into the finals, and the
4th or 5th place people will be something like 1GW, 7 or so VPs.
Although I'm still a little nervous about it, I think that I have to agree
with the concept that we should be rewarding winning the individual games,
not the cumulative performance...otherwise, we might as well just end
without a final round, and give the person with the most VP after 3 rounds
the prize.
As a side note, it's more like a "tournament" (compare to whatever sport you
will) if you are required to win as many games as possible to qualify for
the finals, and then you must win the final as well to get top honors.
Xian
....salem christ....
>
> Under the current game wins system.
> Given the option on any size table from 4 to 6. If I have 2 victory points
> and the last remaining player has one. I must beat that player to win the
> table and that player has only one option for the table to generate a table
> win. That option is lose to me. If he doesn't lose to me then he ousts me
> and the table ties and we both lose. So how politcking should go is "You
> have no hope of winning this table, so you might as well give me the win.
> Even if you oust me we tie and we both lose. Isn't it better that at least
> one of us wins." If you are my friend or my playgroup or know me yet don't
> know the other people in the tournament, then the odds are pretty good that
> you will roll over. How do we stop that from happening?
i would never roll over for someone in that situation, regardless of how
well i knew them. for starters, if i can't win the game, i have to
maximise vps, so rolling over would be illegal. and i wouldn't want to
anyway. why would i give someone else one more game win than me (making
it harder for me to get to the finals) _and_ give them a 2vp advantage
over me that they otherwise wouldn't get, so that if we're later tied on
game wins he'd more likely beat me on the vp tiebreaker!? that's just silly.
salem.
....salem christ....
> As it is, we would have to go with statistical likelyhood. That is,
> for the above charts (00011, etc...) we would have to assign a
> statistical number of times we've seen this result in a game. Then to
> find out if a table win on a 4 player or a 5 player is easier, we
> would just count the total games by the table wins, and divide by the
> total amount of games ever played... but we could do that w/o the
> above charts, in hind sight...
>
> We can begin taking data like so.
>
> 4 player game
> Game in which no table win: (insert number here)
> Game in which table win occurs: (insert number here)
>
> 5 player game
> Game in which no table win: (insert number here)
> Game in which table win occurs: (insert number here)
>
> From this data we can determine the general answer for this game.
except that that data would have been created when players were, for the
most part, playing to maximise vps, and not game wins, and so would only
be an approximation to an approximation....
salem
....salem christ....
> In article <kAJ08.33893$3x5.1...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com>,
> X_Zealot <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> >> ...and all the cases for the 4-player table above (except for 1/1/1/1/0,
> >which
> >> is impossible
> >
> >Wrong, Given 5 methuselah's preying on each other seated in alphabetical
> >order
> >
> >A-B-C-D-E
> >
> >D ousts E
> >C ousts D
> >B ousts C
> >A withdraws
> >
> >not likely but possible.
>
> Okay. That moves us from 18 cases to 19, of which 11 result in a Game Win.
> EV(GW) for a 5player table is then 11/19, or 0.58 (0.61 if you discard
> the negligible probability of the 1/1/1/1/1 case).
erm, no it doesn't. B gets an additional vp for being last in, giving her
2 vps total.
O:)
salem.
Chris Berger
>
> I'm in the process of doing some probability calculations to
> illustrate *my* point, but they are taking a long time, so I'll post them
> later.
>
this thread is already too long and boring, and c) it appears that even if I
prove my theory (that an erratic deck fares better than a good deck under
the new system), that it will not succeed in changing anyone's minds about
the tourney format. I am convinced that this is a silly way to go about
things, as I was when I first heard about it months ago (only at that time I
hadn't realized how big a potential effect it could have), and I can only
hope that there will be some major tournament travesty which will convince
more people of this, so we can get back to playing tournaments the way they
were meant to be played. ;) (Speaking of which - I'm not imagining things
again, am I? the Jyhad rulebook *did* indeed describe the tournament VP
system, didn't it? Maybe it'll be like the "new" agg damage rules that were
changed from the way the rulebook described, and then changed back when the
new way was determined to be wrong.) And maybe it will provide the impetus
to *fix* the problem of VP-sharing rather than avoiding it and hurting a lot
of honest players in the process.
Robert Goudie
news:u479aud...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Fascinating. You're saying someone at the table was able to talk someone
> > else into doing something so utterly against their best interests? I'd love
> > details on that.
>
> No, I did not say that. I'm just saying that mutual withdrawal was brought up
> in 2 seperate rounds as an alternative to what was going to inevitably occur.
> And it wasn't against their best interests. In the round that saw me get the
game
> win, it also gave VPs where they wouldn't have otherwise been gained. So
> while they didn't get the GW, they did get VPs that could have gone towards
> the tie breaker.
> Not really what was imagined when the GW rule was instituted. I can easily
> see this happening again. And again.
1. Even if this does happen it is less likely to happen now vs. the old way.
Under the old system the player above who made the losing deal would gain much
by doing so. He gained little, if nothing in the scenario above.
--
Robert Goudie
Chairman, V:EKN
rob...@vtesinla.org
GreySeer
news:f99d61c5.02011...@posting.google.com...
> > It is interesting that you and Sten During both bring up the same thing.
> > The new rule really hurts bloat and wall decks, which often times are
decks
> > which are based around larger vampires. Doesn't that help weenie decks?
>
> Except that both Oscar and Jeff had variants of the Intercept Wall
> design, and they both made it into the finals.
>
> The table wins encourage a specific type of wall while discouraging
> another. Eagle's Sight/Falcon's Eye walls, or walls that tap out to
> move forward, and then untap endlessly during his predator's turn,
> aren't hindered by the new rule.
>
> Wall decks that play the waiting game to be the victor of the
> two-player endgame are. As are any deck that plays solitare until
> it's a two player game.
>
> This IMO, is a good thing.
Very true. I've had to adjust some decks of mine to give them more forward
motion and they work just fine. It just means that I've had to sacrifice
some walling or bloating to go forward.
> I was crippled in round two by a grandpredator who didn't move forward
> until ten turns into the game. By that time, my weenie-potence rush
> predator and my Brujah Archon/Princes prey had managed to destroy
> every minion I had. I think discouraging "no pressure" tactics is
> good for table balance.
The game winds rule has very-much helped this scenario. The
no-forward-pressure-till-much-later decks really suffer in the new
environment. In fact I had to strike a deal with my predator once so I could
get the 3rd VP I needed to avoid a 2-2-1 scenario and not get a table win.
> With game wins, everyone must move forward, because you don't have
> time for the waiting game. If you don't put pressure on your prey, it
> means your prey is one VP closer to a game win. If you stop your
> predator cold while doing it, it means you're that much more likely to
> have a prey with 2 VPs by the endgame, and then you CAN'T get the
> table win. All you've done is shut your prey out of the finals for
> one more round.
>
> > So you would have to play in exactly multiples of 5 player tournaments
to
> > make everything fair to all the players, if your assumption of a 4
person
> > table is harder to win is true.
>
> The 4-player table creates an upstream nightmare. In order to get a
> table win, you have to make sure that the first person to get a VP is
> the second person ousted. Generally, that means help your
> grandpredator get his prey, then help your prey get his prey, then
> oust your prey for a 2-1-1 split -- TW for you.
>
> The path of two VPs just become a way in to the finals.
>
> The table win works for me on a 5-player table. It doesn't for a 4
> player. I'm tryiing to build decks that will be able to win a
> 4-player table without upstreaming. I don't think weenie will be the
> way to go (the average weenie deck cannot withstand the table mobbing
> on it).
One thing I find in 4 player is that it can be really hard to know what to
do to avoid a 2-2 split.
Robert Goudie
> Your number of VP's is an unbiased
> indicator of your performance in a round, as stated by the rule that the
> player with the most VP's win. Having 2 VP's in a game is an indicator of
> your performance in that round, whether or not you won the game.
Agreed. It is an indicator of your performance. However, its not the only
indicator and its not the primary indicator. I first want to know if player X
won the game or not. Then I want to know who came in second, third, etc.
> The person
> with 3 VP's has *already* done better in the round than you have, because he
> has more VP's.
We're just going in circles restating our positions. I'd say the 3 VP person
has *already* done better because he's won a game.
> If you do better than him next round, gaining another 2 VP's
> while he gains 0, you are still considered worse than him in the standings,
> since he has a point and you don't.
Right. Because, one round later you've still been unable to match his one win.
You are, however, leading in the secondary indicator of performanc, VPs.
[clip]
> Accumulating VP's is the opposite of giving-up on trying to win.
As you've seen in many reports over the years, players who play the game of
tournaments oftentimes don't care about winning. They gladly relenquish any
possibility of winning because the old system rewarded them for doing so.
> Ousting
> yourself along with another methuselah, if it maximizes your VP's is simply
> a decision you have to make as to your chances of gaining any *additional*
> VP's. The only problem I ever saw from the original rules was people
> agreeing to split a table, which is obviously collusion.
People rarely make table-splitting deals for 2nd place in home games. The
entire table-splitting approach was created by a flawed tournament system that
rewarded players who pursued it. Rather than make a kludge ruling to prohibit
table-splitting (but still leaving the reward for doing so dangling in front of
everyone) it seems better to me to remove the reward created artificially by the
old system.
GreySeer
> resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if
at
> all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and
5-player
> games.
I agree it's better. You were probably even more worse off under the old
system. Doesn't mean that it's not an issue.
> > If
> > everyone plays the same number of 4 player games then I guess it evens
out
> > but I dbout this is the case, I haven't looked at the seating chart
enough
> > to know.
>
> The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of
players at
> 4-player tables.
I figured as much, I should really look at it more, sometmes I wonder how
optimal it really is when I play some ppl twice and others not at all.
GreySeer
> > or a year, though, so that we have enough time to evaluate the
> > difference over a lot of tournaments in a lot of places.
>
> I understand this, but it will never change unless people let it be known
> what the flaws are in the new system and why it is more imperfect than the
> last, at least why they think so...
I think you're missing the point here. I dbout very much if many people
think that the old system is better, certainly not me. The point is that you
seem to be at a disadvantage by being at a 4 player table rather than a 5
player table.
Robert Goudie
news:u47ksnk...@news.supernews.com...
> > Under the old system a 4 player table had less available VPs--the primary
> > resource that was tracked for a finals appearance. The new system is, if
> > at all, less biased since Game Wins are equally as available in 4 and
> > 5-player games.
>
> I agree it's better. You were probably even more worse off under the old
> system. Doesn't mean that it's not an issue.
Judging by the statistics gomi showed us today, it isn't an issue. I'm curious
to see whether or not there are any additional arguments about GW availability
but that portion of the debate seems to have died down now.
> > The optimal seating chart does attemp to minimize repeated seating of
> > players at 4-player tables.
>
> I figured as much, I should really look at it more, sometmes I wonder how
> optimal it really is when I play some ppl twice and others not at all.
When players leave mid-tournament things get completely screwed-up. Maybe that
was what was going on. ?
-Robert
Andrew S. Davidson
>Umm... which rulebook? The one which removed the rule about tournament
>points and VPs used to determine placing? Damn, I wish I had my first
>edition Jyhad rulebook to quote from.
You won't find anything about tournament points in there. Besides the
statement, "The winner of the game is the person with the most victory
points." the rulebook concerns itself more with ante. Now that's
something I'd like to see used again. I might start playing Magic
again now that there's the interesting 5-color tournament format in
which ante is standard and few cards are banned. That's the game as
it was meant to be - not the ugly, crippled thing that the DCI made of
it.
Andrew
GreySeer
> the ties you get when a cut is made in a Swiss pairs ranking to
> determine entry into the next stage. It's common there to use the
> total record of each player's opponents as a tie-break (i.e. the
> better your opponents, the better your ranking).
From my observations it is highly unlikely. I've only seen 2 ppl tie on
tourney points for 5th and 6th once in about 10 tourneys.
> Another option is to put all the players into the final. The game is
> not designed for a fixed number of players - it easily can cope with
> 2-7. I'd expect a larger final to be more free-flowing as it's
> harder for a single player to control a larger table and so there'd be
> more emphasis on gaining local superiority which should result in a
> fast aggressive game.
Larger finals are the last thing we need. Large games tend to take an awful
long time and many run well over time with 5 players as it is.
GreySeer
> > > Ok, so what happens in the unlikely event where one or two
> > > (if any) people get game wins and the rest of the rounds result
> > > in ties? What if, in that same situation where there are one or
> > > two game wins, 5 or more other people are tied where the
> > > rounds they tied in tied at 2-2-1? How do you resolve who
> > > goes into the finals at that point? Clearly the one or two that
> > > had game wins. But what about the others?
> > tournament rules. The first tie-break is VPs. Then, tournament points.
>
> Ok, you have, say, 7 players. 2 of those player have 1 Game Win.
> The only game wins of the tournament. Those 5 other players each
> have 5 VPs. Those 5 VPs are made of up 2 from the first round, 2
> from the second round and 1 from the last round. They are all (or
> almost all) going to have the same tournament points. Same number
> of VPs, same number of TPs, who gets into the final round?
Then you'd be in the same position as if you were playing the old system so
I don't see how it's relevant. Aside from some random method I can't see how
you could do anything else that would be considered fair.
Jukka Lindstrom
system and two quite usual outcomes:
4 player game:
2-1-1-0 (GW)
2-2-0-0
or in 5 player game:
2-1-1-1-0 (GW)
2-2-1-0-0
Do you think the player in the first games gaining 2 VPs played so
much better than the two players in the second game gaining the same
amount so that he'd be rewarded with a GW? In the old system it didn't
much matter which of the previous outcomes was achieved (since you
tried to accumulate VPs), but now it does and it matters quite a lot.
It seems to me that you now much more better of playing some kind of
table deals to prevent others from gaining VP's (ie. ganging up) or
making a wall deck with eagle's sights. This might not be fun for
those players getting spanked.
- Jukka
The Googler
> Alright, I have to say something about the game wins. I don't know
> yet, whether I like it or don't. I was lucky. I had perfect seating in
> my first game at Lafayette. I was at a table of all bleed decks, and I
> had the most forward motion by not clogging and it allowed me to get
> four vps. I got shut out entirely the other two games, by the table
> turning on me. Happens. I expected it, and I honestly went into the
> tournament knowing I had one table I had to sweep or not get anything.
So you don't know how you feel about the table win rule? How would you
have done without it?
> Now, this is unrelated to what Norm is saying, but I have to bring up,
> that three of the five decks at the final table in Laf.
>...where combat.
Are you referring to a location for combat, or do homonyms confuse
you?
> Two of them being intercept. One was a Tzimisce wall, the other was an
> Ahrimanes
>...intercept bloaty thing a-ma-bob.
Sounds like a broken toilette.
> Jeff played it.
Sounds more like he played you to keep this Oscar scared early. How
else would a Tzimisce deck not block its prey's build?
> Oscar played the other. The third was a brujah princes deck, based on
> controlling table. Weenies are being turned away from, from what I can
> see. I was the only weenie deck at the entire tournament, in fact,
> from what I saw, at least.
> I was seen as the most dominating.
No doubt, playing mono-dominate and being the only deck even using
dominate in the finals. Nice observation there. You must where socks
on yore feet.
> No one
> wanted to make deals to split a table, as it was counter productive to
> game wins,
Since there is only one table win per game. Indeed, even one sock per
foot!
> ...I got shut down first...everytime. I got lucky one game to
> get into the finals.
So even though you were shut down first everytime (your word), you
still managed to get in the finals? Were these consolation finals or
something? Like the "wall of shame" at your US championships?
> IMHO, control decks are now going to be the most popular decks in
> tournaments.
So control decks will get all the pretty girls and asked to all the
dances.
> Something that won't oust first and draw
> the table's ire, but goes for a slow grind, demolishing and or ousting
> cross table (vie votes/anarch revolts/anything that can be used cross
> table). The guy who gets the first VP, will generally be torn to
> shreds by the rest of the table, from what I can see, unless he's
> powerful enough to widthstand it, or went slow enough to just appear
> lucky. Control, combat/vote/anything with the ability to cross table,
> is going to be the most played. It's gonna be the easiest way to get
> game wins.
Sounds like the hardest way to get table wins. Instead of trying to
control 1 player, you are trying to control 4? Maybe Derek Ray can
teach you a lesson in mathematics. Or perhaps grammar.
> ...If you kill everyone who get's one VP, then you end up with
> 2 VPs by ousting your final prey...you just got a game win.
So in a 5 player round, the deck you described must eliminate 4
players to earn 2 VPs? Wouldn't it be easier to eliminate 3? Wouldn't
it be better for your rating to earn 3VPs?
> The game seems to be drifting away from incredible offense early, to the slow
> grind, build, control table, IMHO. This is what I saw at the
> tournament, and I think the final game in no way reflected the rest of
> the tournament. BTW, the fifth deck at finals was a Malk-Anti total
> lockdown. Another control deck. Just something to consider...this is
> how it all looked to me.
> ...And I would never play another power bleed in a tournament again, unless it was simply to wait until your prey weakend himself enough for you to get one bleed through and oust.
And where where the deflectors? Your Tzimisce prey must have been too
concerned with removing minions through combat to realize how easy it
is for them to Telepathic Misdirect/My Enemy's Enemy bleeds not caring
about Perfect Clarity. I guess the beginning of your post is true. You
were lucky. Especially since looking at the attendance list I noticed
the best players there didn't even make the finals. They must have
colluded to spend the time better eating ground-up glass than playing
you.
> Rob
Rob, you've been Googled.
GreySeer
Jyhad.
Winning the game is the goal of Jyhad. Ousting your prey is only the means
through which you win the game.
> > > The more prey you oust, the closer you are to winning a single
session.
> >
> > Right. They show progress toward the goal of winning.
> >
> Your goal in each game is to get as many VP's as possible. Once your
> predator has 3VP's, you can still get some VP's and finish second. In a
> tournament, under the new rule, those 2VP's will not help you come in
> "second" in the rankings for who goes to the finals. Instead, you are
just
> a loser with more tie-breaker points.
But since there are only 3 rounds those "tie break points" are very
meaningful so you should strive to get as many as possible *and* win the
game. In the same way a soccer team tries to score lots of goals and
conceded none, it gives them more tie break points.
> > > but just that the new table wins rule doesn't
> > > "more accurately reflect the goal of the game", it actually
> > > redefines it. The goal of the game is now different than it used to
be.
> >
> > Given the rulebook statement above, I'd say your defining each ousting
as a "win" is the redefinition.
No, give the rulebook, the object is to have the most VPs at the end of the
game. For a standalone game where tie break points ( i.e. a final ) are not
important you may as well stop playing after someone gets 3 VPs ( unless you
want to know how everyone places ).
One of the reasons why they changed the to the game wins system was because
the objective in the rounds ( accumilate VPs ) was not the objective of the
final ( win the game ).
If you have a deck that, without fail, gains 2 VPs every game, no more, no
less, under the old system it would usually get in to the final but not
actually win the tournament unless the game times out. That seems like a bit
of an oxymoron to me.
> Let me put this another way. Your goal is to gain as many VP's as
possible
> to win. When constructing a tournament from these rules, it is equally
> valid to expand it in either way. Either try to get as many VP's as
> possible throughout rounds in order to "win" the preliminary rounds of the
> tourney, or else divide the tournament into mini-roulettes. Until now,
> tournament rules required you to accumulate VP's, and did not invalidate
> individual performances in a round. The new rule is a kludge fix to a
silly
> problem which wouldn't exist if collusion were disallowed. As it is, it
> simply makes collusion less desirable, as you don't win from getting 2 VP.
> On the other hand, it punished people who play legitimately and end up
with
> a "pretty good" showing. Decks which are steady have the same chance of
> making the finals as a deck which is erratic.
Collusion is disallowed, unless your definition is different to the VEKN
definition. A pretty-good showing is no good enough. The people who deserve
to be in the finals are the people who win their games.
> > > It's not just scoring that's changed, the whole
> > > dynamic of play has been changed to emphasize luck
> > > over long-term skill.
> >
> > I don't believe that's the case.
Neither do I. The dynamic of play in a tournament has been changed to
reflect the actual objective of the game, to win, not accumilate as many VPs
as possible over the course of a playing session.
> Explain why. I'm in the process of doing some probability calculations to
> illustrate *my* point, but they are taking a long time, so I'll post them
> later. Essentially, take a deck which relies on an unlikely card or
combo.
> The player with that deck will be unlikely to win if he doesn't get that
> card or combo out early. If that player has a 33% chance of drawing their
> combo and will almost always get 3 VP when it happens and 0 VP when it
> doesn't, then they are more likely to get into the final than a person
with
> 6 VP and no table wins.
Probablility calculations are pointless you're not going to take into
account a whole bucketload of variables and over-simplify and render the
whole analysis invalid.
Even to use your analysis above, the person who gets 6 VPs probably only
has, at most a 25% chance of winning the finals ( 1 win from 4 games ), so
Mr 3VPs should be in the finals because he's more likely to win, your stated
33% chance.
> More generally, table wins emphasize that you play well in one round. You
> must win a table in one round. In all other rounds, your play makes no
> difference. VP rankings emphasize good play throughout a tournament.
> Getting 3 VP will not get you into a final, whereas with table wins, 3 VP
> *can* get you in, if they happen at the right time.
Incorrect. Getting 1 table win and only 3VPs might get you into the final
but you will be at a disadvantage because you will not get to choose where
you sit. Getting 1 table win and 7VPs is more desireable because you might
be ranked higher than someone else and get, to some extent, choose where you
sit.
I don't consider getting 2 VPs a round "a good showing", you've proved that
either you or your deck or you are incapable of achieveing the objective of
the game, which is to win ( not accumilate as many VPs as possible in a
session ). Sure, you're almost there, you're getting 2 VPs, but you're not
winning.
Derek Ray
"X_Zealot" <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> mumbled:
>First of all, most of the Intercept Combat Hellmonsters I know go forward
>with Eagle Sights or Falcon's Eyes so I think they are going for three no
>matter what (such as oust their prey, then try to be the last on the table)
>. All decks do try to maximize V.P's at the table, at least in theory.
Hmm. The key words here are "the ones you know", I think. I've heard
tales of, and seen in some cases, some very badly right-footed intercept
decks that didn't even TRY to go after their prey -- they assumed their
prey would have to take undirected actions eventually. Often a wrong
assumption, especially near the bleed decks. I've also heard that this
is very common in Europe -- take as you will.
Some people's theories have, in the past, been a touch weak -- gaining
2VP was always a viable "well, i guess i can't go forward" option for
them. Now it's not, and it's a good thing.
>In fact, I think you are right about it making it more difficult for the
>Intercept, Bloat, Build decks which are usually your Larger vampire decks.
>So if what you say is true, then we are shifting the meta-game back to
>weenies with this rule.
Nah. You just have to build GOOD intercept to win with it now. Which
was always the case, but you had a good number of fluke-outs where you
gain 2VP, someone else got 2VP, and someone in the middle got 1VP.
Under the old rules, this was great -- nobody at your table got more VP
than you did. Under the new rules, you've just screwed up, so you have
to play more "forward".
The bloat decks that I've seen are of two types.
1) Bloat forever, never be ousted, and bleed for 1 occasionally. These
decks suck in concept, theory, AND practice; good riddance to them.
2) Bloat and bring out minions until you've got a snotload (or until
your complicated setup is finally complete), then shift gears and run
forward like hell, trusting your previous pool gain to serve as defense.
These decks will work just fine under the new rule, as the only player
who can get a Table Win without ousting you is your prey... and he'll
get run over first when you start moving. A good example is a Masika,
Clan Impersonation, Madness Network, Assault Rifle deck. It takes
forever to get started, but once it's up and running, it bleeds for 10
per turn -- possibly more if any Aires are sitting around. This deck
will hoover up VPs VERY quickly -- but it just takes awhile to start.
>The funny thing is that in this tournament. The deck that won the
>tournament (a weenie dominate deck no less) was my predator one round, and
>he wasn't able to oust me. That fact might have made a difference in the
>finals.
Possibly. I'm pretty sure my own deck would have had a very interesting
run in the finals as well, though, and I was one of the two people with
a Table Win who didn't make it -- largely due to seating position. We
can speculate endlessly, but it won't really go anywhere.
The problem comes in when you consider another facet: it's very easy to
make a 60-deck that's extremely reliable, extremely fast, blows through
two people, and runs out of cards on the spot and is ousted. Under the
old system, that deck gets 6VP and has a chance to make the finals.
Under the new system, it gets nothing, which is what it deserves -- it
hasn't been built to win a game, it's just been built to take advantage
of the scoring system. Same with intercept-go-backwards decks and
stupid-bloat decks.
It's still possible to win with intercept and bloat -- you just need to
have a GOOD strategy attached to it, as opposed to the "Uh, I'll bleed
for 1 a lot and never die." If the scoring system for the Atlanta
qualifier had been Table Wins, I would have SERIOUSLY modified the Omaya
Wall deck that I played to have a lot more Eagle's Sight, so that I
could oust my first prey and only THEN turn backwards to get the last 2,
totalling 3 and a TW. But I knew I didn't NEED to go forward as much,
and ended up qualifying 6th as a result.
--
"I am NOT illiterate -- my parents were married!"
LSJ
> (Speaking of which - I'm not imagining things
> again, am I? the Jyhad rulebook *did* indeed describe the tournament VP
> system, didn't it?
No. No rulebook has ever mentioned tournaments. That's the purview of the
DCI and then the V:EKN rules.
--
LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc.
Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/