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2nd FCOL Tournament Draft Rules: Please Review and Comment
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JimDauphinais
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Joined: 22 Nov 2009
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Location: Chesterfield, MO

PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to be clear, the Lyrans are at 0.96 under the latest draft, not 1.00.

The only change to the latest draft that I currently plan for empire placements is to change the Tholians from 0.92 to 0.96.

I have already narrowed the range once (from +/-20%), I have no intention to narrow it further. I'll have to respectfully disagree with Lee that my roughly 5% per level steps are too much. However, Lee is correct in that at this point it is a bit subjective. Only more experience will tell us whether the steps between levels need to be smaller or larger. However, the important thing is that we at least have an acceptable rough mechanism to make it less likely that everyone selects the Kzintis or nobody selects the Romulans.

My intention between tournaments is roughly on the lines of what Lee suggested. If an empire is not picked by any player, it moves one level down in cost. If the top placers at the end of the tounament all had the same empire, that empire moves up one level. I will add something in the comments along those lines. As an aside, note that from my perspective the mechanism is not just about reducing the cost of an empire because it may be overpriced. For me it is also about creating an incentive to play the unpopular empires in order to increase variety in the tournament. So, from my perspective I don't care whether the empire was not picked because it is overpriced or because it is not sexy enough. From my perspective, either reason is sufficient to lower its cost for the next tournament. Others may differ on that point, but that is a matter for the 3rd Tournament, not this one.

I am currently still leaning toward my proposed "backstop" in regard to dealing with "oversubscription" of an empire by players. However, I am giving serious consideration to Eric's alternatives. I continue to request feedback in that regard.

I am also thinking some more about the final language for "byes".

I really appreciate all of the feedback that has been provided. A number of very good points have been made. Ultimately, I think it is important for the perfect not to be the enemy of the good especially when we each have a different view on what is perfect. After consultation with Garrett, sometime early next week I expect to announce the signup deadlines for the tournament and post the final rules.

We are still at six participants. I feel we need at least 8 to proceed. I am scheduled to call into SFU On Call at 10:00 PM Eastern on January 20th to publicize the tournament and discuss the reasoning behind the new rules. This will hopefully bring in some more participants. I would appreciate anything you folks can do to try to get the word out.

The poll is currently roughly evenly split between a February 1st and March 1st start. I am leaning toward establishing a deadline for getting at least 8 players in order for a February 1st start to be feasible. If we don't get at least 8 players by the deadline that is established, we would start on March 1st.
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Jim Dauphinais, Chesterfield, MO

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JimDauphinais
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Joined: 22 Nov 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
The adjustment doesn't need to be huge to have an affect. 1.06 for the Kzinti would have made all 4 previous kzinti choices in the last tourney illegal (indeed any choice in the last tourney would have to illegal, 1.06 means your max card points are 424).


To be clear, the point values on the cards for that empire and the point values for weapons for that empire are being lowered or raised by the factor for ALL purposes (including purchase cost and victory determination). The minimum points and maximum points that need to be spent remain unchanged. So, the Kzinti ships and weapons are more expensive, but the Kzinti player still has the same amount of points to spend. I will make this clearer in the rules and add an example. I will also verify there are legal ship selections within FC Online for all of the empires when using the factors.
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

JimDauphinais wrote:

To be clear, the point values on the cards for that empire and the point values for weapons for that empire are being lowered or raised by the factor for ALL purposes (including purchase cost and victory determination). The minimum points and maximum points that need to be spent remain unchanged. So, the Kzinti ships and weapons are more expensive, but the Kzinti player still has the same amount of points to spend. I will make this clearer in the rules and add an example. I will also verify there are legal ship selections within FC Online for all of the empires when using the factors.



I realise that. My point was that a 1.06 handicap means that the maximum points you have to spend as they are printed on the card would be 424, as 425 * 1.06 > 450. i.e. No Kzinti force that was legal normally woud be legal with a 1.06 handicap.


I also realise that you are not trying to come up with a 'balanced point value' per empire, but simply encourage a wider choice of empire. That is why I propsed what I did. There is no subjectiveness to it, it goes with the only online tourney data that we have available and plugs it into a general formula that every one can see and understand. It is based purely on popularity. It has no subjective opinion about a race built in. Its not perfect but it is objective.

Gorns and Roms are a pefect example. You have made roms cheaper than Gorns, on your personal feeling that cloak is a bigger downer than the gorn disadvantages. I find cloaks an awkward thing to 'value', but I have choosen Roms more often than gorns for touney style games, and my regular opponent has never played gorns but has played roms several times. Gorn turn modes and odd phaser arcs are a pretty big downer for them. But rather than jump to assumptions based on personal views, accept that we don't know why different people have or have not choosen them and give them the same handicap for this tourney. Objectivley, all we know is that they have made the same number of appearances.

Using Origins is possible, but note that is not an online tourney. Online racial choices may well be affected by availability - even lack of a few ships may put people off choosing 1 empire that they would have other wise choosen. That is in fact my current position. Equally the set fleets available 'over the counter' at origins may have afftected choices.

If we were dealing with pure balance then I'd probably disagree considerably with both you and Eric. I don't think kzinti, fed or orions are unbalanced. As was said before some people have a prefernce for some empires (Mine is one that wasn't played at origins or in the last tourney). Our perceptions of balance are undoubtedly colored by our own experiences, and we may find that others have totally different experiences and views - e.g Eric thinks lyran are overpriced based on his experience, yet someone thought Lyrans were OK, and won at origins 2010 with them.

ericphillips wrote:
But again, just because people did or did not choose an Empire in one tourney is not enough data points for handicapping. For instance, most people feel Kligons are the most balanced Empire in the game (a definite 1.00).


Being the most balanced race in the game is not the same as being a balanced tourney race. As Jim poimted out we are not handicapping for overall balance. Equally being balanced is not much good if another race is considered overpowered - in a competitive setting overpowered beats balanced, hence you are more likely to see a bias in which races appear.

1 online tourney is the only useful data point we have. It is sufficient to start handicapping. Either handicap based on the that, or don't handicap at all. Anything else is pure speculation and is likely to be 'wrong'. Keep it objective not subjective, getting it wrong and having a bad tourney may leave a bad feeling, Explaining a general formula and applying it strictly may be 'wrong' for now, but at least people will see it was not because of someones subjective opinion that they happen to disagree with.





At any rate it is Jim's tourney and for him to decide on, and I do in concept like the idea. But I would strongly urge a readily understood objective set of handicaps without personal bias or opinion on what handicap a race gets.
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mojo jojo
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

storeylf wrote:
I quite like the handicap idea - if there are numerous tourneys over time it would eventually give an idea of how players value ships.


I find it very amusing that you argued in the other thread vehemently against my suggestion that plasma races get a X% discount in tournaments without lots of pretesting, but now you seem to strongly favor the idea of discounts and premiums for tournaments without lots of pretesting.
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JimDauphinais
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, no Smile

Let's not get started. We all know how you guys like to go back and forth with each other. Let's not have to have Mike or Jean intervene.
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Nerroth
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It just occurred to me that if the Andromedans ever got even a minor discount rate, they'd be able to take a Dominator as their entire tournament force...
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mojo jojo wrote:

I find it very amusing that you argued in the other thread vehemently against my suggestion that plasma races get a X% discount in tournaments without lots of pretesting, but now you seem to strongly favor the idea of discounts and premiums for tournaments without lots of pretesting.


I really like the idea, I don't strongly favor its use.

Generalised handicapping to encourage a wider range of empires, and plasma specific discount basically for 'game balance'. Not even remotely the same thing mojo.

As for testing, that is why I favor a clear formula and the last tourney as the existing data, with no empire X,Y or Z subjectivety in it. It may take a few tourneys to arrive at almost stable handicaps, but it won't be any quicker applying personal fudges.


Start another thread if you want to discuss


Last edited by storeylf on Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:51 am; edited 7 times in total
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storeylf
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nerroth wrote:
It just occurred to me that if the Andromedans ever got even a minor discount rate, they'd be able to take a Dominator as their entire tournament force...


Minimum of 3 ships. It would have to be a noticeable discount for the extra ships as well. Plus if it classes as BB (?) it would be banned.

That does remind me, do energy modules count as a ship for force limit purposes? I'm sure I've seen the answer somewhere but can't find anything now.
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mojo jojo
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

storeylf wrote:
mojo jojo wrote:

I find it very amusing that you argued in the other thread vehemently against my suggestion that plasma races get a X% discount in tournaments without lots of pretesting, but now you seem to strongly favor the idea of discounts and premiums for tournaments without lots of pretesting.


I really like the idea, I don't strongly favor its use.

Generalised handicapping to encourage a wider range of empires, and plasma specific discount basically for 'game balance'. Not even remotely the same thing mojo.



It is pretty much the same concept, just generalized to include more empires. However at the request of Jim, I will not continue this discussion any further.
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JimDauphinais
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am likely going to dump the Andromedans from this tournament. They introduce some additional issues that need to be considered and more importantly there is not even a test ship for them in FC Online. I hope to see them in the 3rd FC Online tournament whenever that eventually occurs.

I am still hopeful that if we end up not starting until March 1st that any remaining bugs with the ISC and Vudar test ships will be resolved in FC Online and the rest of their respective ships added to FC Online.

If we start on February 1st, the Vudar and ISC will be out of the tournament. However, the Frax will be in no matter when we start.

I may have a 7th player lined up. I should know for sure by the middle of next week.
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pinecone
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi guys! I know I've been dead for a while bt would it be tooo late to sign up for this? If not I completyely underrstand, and I'm not sure If I'll have the time anyway, but I like the new rules and regardless of whether I'm in or not I'll like to see how it goes.
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JimDauphinais
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, you are not too late at all. It would be great to have you participate.

So, we are up to 7 so far.
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Nerroth
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

storeylf wrote:
Plus if it classes as BB (?) it would be banned.


The Dominator is a dreadnought; the Andros have the Devastator Battleship in SFB, though it has yet to be ported over to FC.
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JimDauphinais
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have nearly finalized the tournament rules and dates.

For dates we are down to the following two alternatives:

------------------

Alternative 1:

Tournament Signup and Empire Selection Deadline: February 1, 2011

Final Player and Empire Selection List Posted: February 4, 2011

Ship Selection Deadline: February 10, 2011

Start of 1st Round: February 15, 2011

Completion of 1st Round: March 11, 2011

Future rounds begin on the 15th of a month and conclude on the 10th of the subsequent month.

------------------

Alternative 2:

Tournament Signup and Empire Selection Deadline: February 15, 2011

Final Player and Empire Selection List Posted: February 19, 2011

Ship Selection Deadline: February 25, 2011

Start of 1st Round: March 1, 2011

Completion of 1st Round: March 26, 2011

Future rounds begin on 1st of a month and conclude on the 26th of that month.

------------------

Note that we may need changes to FC Online to support the Particle Cannon rule (still need to test this). Also, we will likely need to use a manual workaround in FC Online for the Plasma G/S/R rule (a mock 1st turn could be used to do so).

If we go with Alternative 2, it will increase the chance modifications could be made to FC Online to ease the implementation of these two special rules (both of which are likely to be implemented in the Sixth Edition rules). In addition, it would increase the chance of the ISC and Vudar being available. Finally, it would allow an announcement regarding the tournament in February's Communique.

However, going with Alternative 2 will delay the start of the tournament until March 1st. In that time we may have a loss of interest from those players who are currently interested in playing.

I have no preference of my own regarding these two alternatives. I would appreciate everyone's thoughts on which of the two alternatives is preferable to them.

I need to make a final decision on timing by this Wednesday. I currently intend to post the final tournament rules and dates by this Thursday morning (US Central time).

Thanks,

Jim
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gar1138
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My vote is for Alternative 1 (lets get this rolling!). Smile

The Particle Cannons currently work as-is in FCOL. There is no restriction (in the client) for how many times they can be fired per turn.

Plasmas will currently not allow 2 turns arming at the start of the game. However, your suggestion of a mock turn 1 should work great for that, I would think.

Thanks,

Garrett
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