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My First Adepticon, A Tournament Report


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12 minutes ago, Trout said:

I enjoyed the discussion on soft scores so far. I have never attended a tournament and am not sure if I will ever get around to attending one. But all this discussion brings up an important question.

 

1. I have models I did not paint myself (because I purchased them already painted). Is it unethical for me to compete with those models? What if I win best painted or something like that? My intention wasn't to join a painting tournament, but a gaming one. Can you opt out of the painting side?

2. If competing with models someone else painted isn't unethical then isn't it in everyone's best interest to contract out their painting to professionals so they can max out their paint scores? It's better for me not to paint any of my competitive models because I'm not a very good painter; it's in my best interest to hire a pro-painter to do all of that for me.

The standard, back in the day, was to ask everyone if they had painted their own models, and if they had not they were not in the running for best painted. Also, I think you'd be surprised by the levels between the top painted armies at a tournament and those who contracted out their paint. Very rarely are those contracted armies in the top few places for paint, in part because to reach the level of attention and detail that the top hobbyists lovingly apply to their models would be prohibitively expensive for most people to get on a full army.

That being said, because of the way Adepticon's paint scoring worked I'm sure there were a few armies that had been contracted who got max paint scores.

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On 4/4/2018 at 12:27 PM, Trout said:

 

I enjoyed the discussion on soft scores so far. I have never attended a tournament and am not sure if I will ever get around to attending one. But all this discussion brings up an important question.

 

1. I have models I did not paint myself (because I purchased them already painted). Is it unethical for me to compete with those models? What if I win best painted or something like that? My intention wasn't to join a painting tournament, but a gaming one. Can you opt out of the painting side?

2. If competing with models someone else painted isn't unethical then isn't it in everyone's best interest to contract out their painting to professionals so they can max out their paint scores? It's better for me not to paint any of my competitive models because I'm not a very good painter; it's in my best interest to hire a pro-painter to do all of that for me.

 

There is no right answer to those questions. It’s up to each individual to decide what is ethical. I would make no judgements as long as you played with in the the guidelines of the rules pack.

My preference, and it’s only that a preference, is to not have an overall award and thus get around this question. Have 3 awards best battle, best sports and best paint.

I would then ask for the TOs to not consider me for paint.

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4 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

There is no right answer to those questions. It’s up to each individual to decide what is ethical. I would make no judgements as long as you played with in the the guildlines of the rules pack.

My preference, and it’s only that a preference, is to not have an overall award and thus get around this question. Have 3 awards best battle, best sports and best paint.

I would then ask for the TOs to not consider me for paint.

I've never understood this preference. I know that players like you are out to win best battle (or best general, or whatever you'd like to call it). Does having an award that acknowledges the player who best combined all three pillars of the hobby somehow lessen your achievement Sam?

You are right though, that there is no "correct" answer and that it boils down to the direction the TO would like their tournament to go.

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8 minutes ago, SlaaneshCultist said:

Also, I think you'd be surprised by the levels between the top painted armies at a tournament and those who contracted out their paint. Very rarely are those contracted armies in the top few places for paint, in part because to reach the level of attention and detail that the top hobbyists lovingly apply to their models would be prohibitively expensive for most people to get on a full army.

That just means that part of it can be 'pay to win' if I'd like.

 

7 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

There is no right answer to those questions. It’s up to each individual to decide what is ethical. I would make no judgements as long as you played with in the the guildlines of the rules pack.

My preference, and it’s only that a preference, is to not have an overall award and thus get around this question. Have 3 awards best battle, best sports and best paint.

I would then ask for the TOs to not consider me for paint.

I think that would be my preference as well; although I'd eliminate best sportsmanship. Optimal strategy for winning "best sportsmanship" is to give all your opponents the lowest possible score. Having a category which rewards those who act in such an unsportsmanlike way  is probably not a good idea.

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On 4/4/2018 at 12:53 PM, SlaaneshCultist said:

've never understood this preference. I know that players like you are out to win best battle (or best general, or whatever you'd like to call it). Does having an award that acknowledges the player who best combined all three pillars of the hobby somehow lessen your achievement Sam?

I’m also incredibly open to the way LVO handles awards and you have best battle, best sport, best paint, and best battle + sport + paint.

I have always viewed sports and paint score as incredibly subjective and open to manipulation. With a 0-6 anonymous sports score I know plenty of players who give zeros to each opponent and honestly from a placings standing that’s the optimal strategy. I also don’t believe that lists and sports are in any way related.

Therefore, I take no value in an Overall award unless the pack does not incentivize up or down voting.

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There are ways to game any system, and yes "soft scores" are subjective. But in 15+ years of going to tournaments, the ones that have prioritized fun over winning via the use of soft scores have always been (shocker) the ones that have been the most fun to attend. At least for me, and, I think, for a pretty large segment of the player base.

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Personally, I've never been a huge fan where you rate your game with each opponent in that 1-5 sorta method.


I very rarely have a game against someone that wasn't enjoyable, and that I wouldn't happy play again.  But does that mean 3 or 4?  Or do I have to do 5 knowing half the tourny's putting 5's for the whole game, and I don't wanna short a guy who was a great player and played a completely pleasant game (but not best friends, come to my wedding kinda guy).  I've always felt strange giving an opponent a 4 out of 5, wholly deserving recognition of being a great sport, but perhaps wasn't having his most energetic 'game 3 of the day' and I now know that I knocked him out of the running since he didn't get perfect 5/5s.


I am a huge fan of the binary checklists of, are they on time, rules debates handled well, etc with Yes/Nos to cover everything expected in a game.  And then at the end of the event you vote your favorite players to determine favorite sports.  I tended (when I ran small events back in the day) to push tiebreakers to folks who do worse in the 'battle score' after that, because I find its always harder to be a good sport when someone's kicking your butt all weekend.
 

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47 minutes ago, SlaaneshCultist said:

I think Sam just doesn't like it being called "Overall".

I have seen this all over with folks not just Sam. It is overall.  Overall should stay everywhere IMO and should be the biggest goal. the three pillars of our community. It takes nothing away from the best general, paint or sports because this winner has balanced all 3 to become the best overall person at the event.

 

Having said that I wish there was as much a drive for hey everyone paint really well and come have some beer and pretzel games as there is for 2.5hrs of super tense interactions across a table. 

 

As for sports scoring system it can lead to chipmunking which is sad to see. The funniest one I saw was at BSB vs Austin Morgan where we spent a good 10 mins chuckling about the 2 rating which was the game was bearable.  

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24 minutes ago, GlanceOnASix said:

Personally, I've never been a huge fan where you rate your game with each opponent in that 1-5 sorta method.


I very rarely have a game against someone that wasn't enjoyable, and that I wouldn't happy play again.  But does that mean 3 or 4?  Or do I have to do 5 knowing half the tourny's putting 5's for the whole game, and I don't wanna short a guy who was a great player and played a completely pleasant game (but not best friends, come to my wedding kinda guy).  I've always felt strange giving an opponent a 4 out of 5, wholly deserving recognition of being a great sport, but perhaps wasn't having his most energetic 'game 3 of the day' and I now know that I knocked him out of the running since he didn't get perfect 5/5s.


I am a huge fan of the binary checklists of, are they on time, rules debates handled well, etc with Yes/Nos to cover everything expected in a game.  And then at the end of the event you vote your favorite players to determine favorite sports.  I tended (when I ran small events back in the day) to push tiebreakers to folks who do worse in the 'battle score' after that, because I find its always harder to be a good sport when someone's kicking your butt all weekend.
 

Yeah, I think there are going to be issues no matter how you score sports, but I still think HAVING sports solves more issues than it causes. Curiously, I always went the other way on tie breakers (higher battle points) as I figured if people still thought you were they best game when you were kicking their asses you must be a pretty great sport.

I've actually been thinking about sports a lot lately, and here's how I think I would do it if I ever jumped back into running tournaments. You have a simple 3 point system that forms the base of your sports score. 1-Bad Game 2-Average Game 3-Great Game. You make it clear to your players at the start of the tourney that the majority of the scores they give should be 2s. Then, at the end of the tourney they write down their best opponent and their worst opponent. They MUST write both. The first best opponent vote you get is worth 2 points, the next is worth 4 points, the next 8, etc. Vice versa for worst opponents. First is worth -2, -4, etc. One vote either way won't make a big difference to your score, limiting the impact if you are unlucky and happen to be a fine sport who was the worst opponent of someone who had 4 other great opponents, but they start to add up fast.

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8 minutes ago, Ryan Taylor said:

I have seen this all over with folks not just Sam. It is overall.  Overall should stay everywhere IMO and should be the biggest goal. the three pillars of our community. It takes nothing away from the best general, paint or sports because this winner has balanced all 3 to become the best overall person at the event.

I agree entirely.

8 minutes ago, Ryan Taylor said:

Having said that I wish there was as much a drive for hey everyone paint really well and come have some beer and pretzel games as there is for 2.5hrs of super tense interactions across a table. 

I don't think this is a binary thing. I think the best people in our hobby are those who can compete at a super high level while still maintaining a fun laid back environment, and I think we as a community should be encouraging everyone to at least attempt to move towards that level of play. Obviously this is just my take and YMMV.

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7 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

Here's another fun one, Arkhan and Nagash can steal the summon balewind spell from necromancers and go up on a balewind themselves.

Arkhan and Nagash already both know the Summon Balewind Spell. Every wizard does. They simply can't cast it because they are monsters. Although as someone pointed out earlier, if you interpret "cannot be moved onto" to mean "cannot Move onto" than the entire FAQ is worthless as you don't Move onto the balewind, you simply summon it and are placed on it.

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2 minutes ago, SlaaneshCultist said:

Arkhan and Nagash already both know the Summon Balewind Spell. Every wizard does. They simply can't cast it because they are monsters. Although as someone pointed out earlier, if you interpret "cannot be moved onto" to mean "cannot Move onto" than the entire FAQ is worthless as you don't Move onto the balewind, you simply summon it and are placed on it.

actually they do not know the spell automatically as they are have the monster keyword which means they don't know it. there isn't actually a rule stopping them casting it. 

 

For What it's worth I think it's a stupid reading but just changing the wording would help.  

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6 minutes ago, SlaaneshCultist said:

Arkhan and Nagash already both know the Summon Balewind Spell. Every wizard does. They simply can't cast it because they are monsters. Although as someone pointed out earlier, if you interpret "cannot be moved onto" to mean "cannot Move onto" than the entire FAQ is worthless as you don't Move onto the balewind, you simply summon it and are placed on it.

Nope.  Read it again. Here's the wording:

If you have a balewind vortex model, Wizard Heroes in your army know the summon balewind vortex spell in addition to any other spell they know, provided they are not also a monster.

There is NOTHING that stops them from CASTING summon balewind vortex if you go with the 'looser' interpretation of the faq, the limiter is that they don't get to KNOW the spell if they are a monster. Nagash and Arkhan can both steal it and with no FAQ to block it (since it's a set up not a move remember?) they can cast it and go up on a balewind.

 

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On 4/4/2018 at 1:05 PM, Rhellion said:

That's exactly what adepticon has.

Did they have equal price support for all awards and were the sports scores not set up in away where you could give your opponent min sports every game to place higher?

Having 3 separate awards is the easiest way to get around what I perceive to be the issues with overall. But I should clarify:

On 4/4/2018 at 1:07 PM, SlaaneshCultist said:

just doesn't like it being called "Overall"

It’s not that I dislike overall, it’s that most player packs don’t do anything to address upvoting and subjectivity of sports. Players also do not do a good job separating the player from the list (which I believe are in no way linked), even when a pack makes it explicit .

Facehammer GT is my favorite pack and implements Overall correctly imo. 

http://facehammer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/FHGT2017-event-pack.pdf

 

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2 hours ago, BURF1 said:

Nope.  Read it again. Here's the wording:

If you have a balewind vortex model, Wizard Heroes in your army know the summon balewind vortex spell in addition to any other spell they know, provided they are not also a monster.

There is NOTHING that stops them from CASTING summon balewind vortex if you go with the 'looser' interpretation of the faq, the limiter is that they don't get to KNOW the spell if they are a monster. Nagash and Arkhan can both steal it and with no FAQ to block it (since it's a set up not a move remember?) they can cast it and go up on a balewind.

 

You're totally right. I guess I never read that far into the wording since I haven't (to this point) used monsters who are casters. Point still stands about the intent of the bwv errata, as there is no way to "Move" onto a balewind vortex.

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1 hour ago, svnvaldez said:

Did they have equal price support for all awards and were the sports scores not set up in away where you could give your opponent min sports every game to place higher?

Having 3 separate awards is the easiest way get around what I precieve to be the issues with overall. But I should clarify:

It’s not that I dislike overall, it’s that most player packs don’t do anything to address upvoting and subjectivity of sports. Players also do not do a good job separating the player from the list, even when a pack makes it explicit .

Facehammer GT is my favorite pack and implements Overall correctly imo. 

http://facehammer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/FHGT2017-event-pack.pdf

 

Didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Was making an assumption based on the context of this ongoing discussion.

I think that's a pretty solidly put together pack. I just don't think most people will have the balls to lodge a complaint, even if they have an actual bad experience. 

Side note: I think Joseph Urban and Ed Phillips (pretty sure you know, or know of, both of them, as we've all attended several of the same tourneys) are talking about going to Facehammer this year.

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12 hours ago, Trout said:

I enjoyed the discussion on soft scores so far. I have never attended a tournament and am not sure if I will ever get around to attending one. But all this discussion brings up an important question.

 

1. I have models I did not paint myself (because I purchased them already painted). Is it unethical for me to compete with those models? What if I win best painted or something like that? My intention wasn't to join a painting tournament, but a gaming one. Can you opt out of the painting side?

2. If competing with models someone else painted isn't unethical then isn't it in everyone's best interest to contract out their painting to professionals so they can max out their paint scores? It's better for me not to paint any of my competitive models because I'm not a very good painter; it's in my best interest to hire a pro-painter to do all of that for me.

1. You are generally ineligible for painting awards if you didn't paint it yourself. 

2. Knock yourself out. There shouldn't be any penalties in terms of scoring. Some players enjoy painting even if they don't max out their scores, and some people have it with a passion so getting things painted by a commission painter is a good option. I'd rather play against a really nice commission Painted force than something a player had just thrown together because they don't enjoy painting. 

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15 hours ago, SlaaneshCultist said:

I've actually been thinking about sports a lot lately, and here's how I think I would do it if I ever jumped back into running tournaments. You have a simple 3 point system that forms the base of your sports score. 1-Bad Game 2-Average Game 3-Great Game. You make it clear to your players at the start of the tourney that the majority of the scores they give should be 2s. Then, at the end of the tourney they write down their best opponent and their worst opponent. They MUST write both. The first best opponent vote you get is worth 2 points, the next is worth 4 points, the next 8, etc. Vice versa for worst opponents. First is worth -2, -4, etc. One vote either way won't make a big difference to your score, limiting the impact if you are unlucky and happen to be a fine sport who was the worst opponent of someone who had 4 other great opponents, but they start to add up fast.

Any time you allow competitors to influence the scores of their competition, you are opening the system up to abuse. A logically minded competitor would naturally give the lowest score to the toughest opponent and the highest score to the easiest therefore helping them improve their own standing. Since voting tends to be in secret there is no social pressure to act in any way other than the most logical way. Perhaps a better approach is to make the voting public. If you want to give an opponent a bad sportsmanship score you have to stand by your vote; at least that way there's some social pressure to be honest rather than strategic about your voting.

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The discussion seems to be quite far from the original critique:

Quote

"Adepticon bills itself as a hobby event, and does so by indicating that 40% of your overall score comes from soft scores. I fully support this, as these are the types of events I would generally prefer to go to. That billing is a bit misleading, however. The paint score was checklist based, and 55 players (out of 165) got the max paint score. Basically a third of the field. The range for sports scores was, across the board, between 34 and 40. A 6 point variance. What that means is that, in practice, your overall placement is 99% battle points based. Nobody who placed above me had a lower battle point score than I did, and only two players who placed below me had a higher battle point score than I did. That is fine if that is your intent, but it is not what you've billed yourself to be."

So if there was only 6 point range for the sport scores, the fears of people "gaming the system" seems to be bit exaggerated?

 

In any case, it's good to remember that this is a game and the prizes are mostly just prestige, and at least I think that there is more prestige in being the nice guy who is also a good player than being a ****** who wins by using the system in his favor. I have bad experiences from MTG where many people on the national level seemed to take the game super seriously with the cost of social aspects (which is sort of understandable, as you can make some real money out of it on the top level), and didn't bother with the tournaments after few tries as it just wasn't fun.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Trout said:

Any time you allow competitors to influence the scores of their competition, you are opening the system up to abuse. A logically minded competitor would naturally give the lowest score to the toughest opponent and the highest score to the easiest therefore helping them improve their own standing. Since voting tends to be in secret there is no social pressure to act in any way other than the most logical way. Perhaps a better approach is to make the voting public. If you want to give an opponent a bad sportsmanship score you have to stand by your vote; at least that way there's some social pressure to be honest rather than strategic about your voting.

 

By logically minded you mean "I do anything to win" and not "I'm going to give the rating, I felt was appropriate for his sportsmanship during our game." ?

Because the second alternative does sound completely logical to me..

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