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What are you Smoking? (Tournament Rules, Redux)
Mar 17 2016 04:10 PM |
istaril
in Articles
This article series started in January, with "What are you Smoking? (Tournament Rule Changes)", and "Checking into Rehab (Tournament Rule Changes, part II)".FFG releases some truly great games with high quality components. But when it comes to product logisitics, public relations, and organized play - they have some real head scratchers. Yesterday, they gave us another stunning example: these tournament rules.
Now lest I sound unreasonable (and I will), let’s give credit where credit is due. The restructuring of organized play is on the whole extremely encouraging, the new fundamental event document is likewise so… I was impressed. I dared hope this wouldn't be a typical FFG "one step forward, one step back"!
There are also a number of new changes that are important, the subject of considerable debate, but not objectively awful (say, Intentional Draws, or requiring official cards only). Thankfully, there’s so much other material for me to rant about that we don’t even need to touch on those!
Part I: The proofreading fell into the pudding
Let’s start with the basics. This document is littered with passages written carelessly, ripped from the Star Wars document, or just outright falsehoods. Starting with page 1.
Nice start.
Or this gem, allowing us to run a 59 card deck? Or have to draw into our agenda?
Or these lovely quotes from the SW tournament rules?
Now I’m sure these will be fixed promptly by FFG, but this show of carelessness isn’t putting me in a good mood.
Part II: Apparently, so did Melee
Let’s scrap an entire official format. If we don’t mention it at all, nobody will notice, right?
Part III: The “Advanced†Format
Advanced format – sounds lovely! First things first, the existence of an advanced format does not excuse the “Basic†format, which is just a new graphical representation of the Store Championship tourney rules I ranted about previously. They’re just as awful as they were. I’ve got to believe that someone at FFG read the first article, thought “Hey, they really don’t like these small cuts – I know exactly what’ll fix itâ€.
It’s a shame they didn’t read my second article, where I proposed a number of solutions. One of my least favourite was “just expand the cutâ€, but that’s ok – they didn’t just expand it, in some cases they made it practically all-encompassing.
Let’s look at a few obvious breaking points;
- A 13 person tournament with a Top 8. 61% of the field in the cut. Combine this with the intentional draw rules, and I could take a Store Championship Bye and 3 IDs straight into the cut without playing a match.
- The rules change nothing for 45-144, and have the same number of rounds for 149-288. I don’t see any support for their claim that “basic†will require a “smaller commitment†from the organizer.
- Let’s pick a tournament size. Say 100 (I didn’t plan this one, let’s see if it works). That results in 10 people making the cut undefeated or with one loss, and then 6 out of 23 making the cut on SoS. So… that's just as harsh of a tie-breaker focused cut, except at a different level? Bit of a joke. I just happened to pick the right number, you say? What about 50? 3/12 4-2s this time. Not looking good.
Well, I’m glad you asked. The answer? “Probablyâ€. Sure, the Advanced system (with a few comically bad exceptions at the low end) isn’t much worse than what we generally played with before January. It breaks down near 76 or near 148 players, where a 1-loss player is likely to miss the cut, but it otherwise rarely leaves them hanging… but when I imagine the goal is to reduce the emphasis on the tiebreaker, and they do that by increasing it (for weaker records), I’m irritated.
When they actually propose two of their own new ideas to solve the problem, “Record based†and “Graduated†cuts (see this document), then don’t tell us to use either (or how they’d like to implement them), I’m irate.
And when you throw that in to a shoddily-written, melee-omitting, poorly-thought out Rules document… well then, I’m livid.
- WWDrakey, darknoj, Scottie and 7 others like this
20 Comments
To be fair, that's the same finger they were swivelling on last year. I don't know whether that's better or worse...
I really don't understand why people don't just use Magic guidelines for all these things:
9-16 Players: 4 Rounds, cut to Top 4
17-32 Players: 5 Rounds, cut to top 8 Single-Elimination
33-64 Players: 6 Rounds, cut to top 8 Single-Elimination
65-128 Players: 7 Rounds, cut to top 8 Single-Elimination
129-256 Players: 8 Rounds, cut to top 8 Single-Elimination
One option used by other games is for an X-1 (or X-2) limit for the cut, which is essentially the same as the 'record based' system proposed. This tends to leave an awkward number in the cut though, with some players going through an additional round of the single elimination. This eliminates the SoS controversy of who'll make the cut, but gives some players a 'cut bye' which can feel just as unfair.
When the 'cut bye' is awarded to the top records, it doesn't feel that bad. It's also a way to reward players who played out their last match rather than ID.
They also just printed this fine card in the recent Star Wars set:
http://www.cardgamed.../home-one-r1642
Then they found out "round" is actually a foreign concept in Star Wars LCG. Must've mixed it up with Game of Thrones I guess. Combined with recent sets that contain misplaced letters, one asks if someone over there even bothers to read the finished product for consistency before they send it over to get printed. With cards only containing 40 words at most, that must not be a tiresome job, no?
Note that I'm just making a funny remark. I don't want to draw negative attention to the company. I love their games obviously.
it seems to me that this is what happens when you have so much overlap between games for their staff.
Glad to read some annoyance over the melee gaff. This document obviously forgoes melee entirely, much to its shame. I'll be ranting about that myself on the show this week.
It is significantly different
1) Many situations without a single undefeated; from 0 up to 5)
2) Many situations with a cut >25% of the field (9-31 players basically).
That, in and of itself, doesn't make it a "worse" system, but the absurd cuts I highlight mean it's breaking points are ... readily visible. Unless you think there won't be any regionals with fewer than 23 players, where the cracks really show. It also has some odd interactions with the new ID system.
Furthermore, it's exasperating to see them write out two fairly well-thought out solutions in their fundamentals guide, and then ditch them for a system which, at best, can be called "not that much worse than what you were using last year"
My bad. My memory is a little rusty on first ed.
That sentiment I can behind. The Graduated cut looks like an interesting solution to a lot of problems this and to just ignore it is frustrating.
They probably read it and just don't care.
Relax Istaril, this is always the way FFG treats good suggestions.
For instance, the Gencon final a year or so back...
Have you heard about the person caught cheating on video in some X-wing SC? There are a bunch of people on those forums running experiments to see if you can change the dial when just fiddling. Gripping stuff.