Supporter of Event Horizon

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Win/Loss and Battle Points


Knights Champion runs on a win/loss with no draws results and battle points are used for seeding players for each round (opposite pairing). So why win/loss only and not use battle points?


Challenges with Battle Points

All tournament participants are familiar with battle points. It measures margin of victory with bonus points awarded for extra targets like HQ, most expensive squad, etc. 

What most players might not be aware is that battle points requires you to severely beat anther player to maintain you chance of placing high in the tournament (to move clear or stay close to the top). Even when you know you have won the game, you still need to continue to club your opponent because you need those points. You are not willing to have some “fun” (like an HQ bash) because you could not afford to lose points. This creates a situation where you have to keep punching someone who is downed, which is not fun for either party.

Battle points also deter people from building armies that could win games by smaller margins but not capable of wiping the opponent, therefore, the common appearance of “rock” armies. Not that a “rock” build is over powered, but if it wins, it will normally win big.


Battle Points (margin of victory) is not the right way or the fair way

Another reason to not use battle points as primary ranking is that battle points is not a fair method for primary ranking. I have not found an example where a Player v Player (or Team v Team) tournament that uses margin of victory as primary ranking, especially in a limited round environment. Golf or F1 is close but not a correct example because it is a Player v Environment, competition is against the elements and not true PvP. 

If anyone knows a system that uses margin of victory as a primary decider, please enlighten me.


Why a Win/Loss system?

If the tournament will not use battle points to determine the best general, how should we determine the best general with limited number of rounds available?

The best system to use to determine best general would be a seeded knock out system (similar to all Australian sporting events like Tennis, Rugby, AFL and Soccer) and incorporated it into the tournament.

Opposite pairing seeding will be used to ensure the best players meet as late in the tournament as possible.

Instead of plagiarising, below is a link to a great article by Mike Brandt.


Does it mean I will be out of the running after one unlucky game?

Yes and No, for Best General, and unlikely for the other awards.

Firstly, there is no way to eliminate luck (or lack of). You could roll poorly, your opponent could luck out, or you could be matched against a strong player in the first round. In the end, the winner would be the most consistent player over the two days with a touch of luck. Using this format, you will find that the good general will consistently appear towards the top (just like Golden Daemon Awards). Similar to Golden Daemon, the more you practice and trying new techniques, the better you will be as a general.

Finally, to qualify into second day knock out event, a player will need to be in the top 4 (32 players or less) or top 8 (up to 64 players) win/loss bracket at the end of day 1. Unless the tournament is exactly 32 or 64 players, the highest scoring 3-1s could still be invited into the second day best general knock out.

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