The new scoring system...

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vexillia

Re: The new scoring system...

Post by vexillia »

prb4 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:43 amHowever when a race is held there are always two winners. The person who won - i.e. the current system and the person who did best after the handicap is applied. - i.e. the person who outperformed their normal standard.
Of course, in addition to the above, the organisers would be free to run either an open tournament or a handicap.
Last edited by vexillia on Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by philqw78 »

Nik wrote:So basically I think there has been 7 pages worth of posts based on a false premise anyway
I don't think final position makes much of a difference either.
FoG has lost players because it is Old Hat and V3 took too long to get out to remove that problem

If you want to look at getting new players look to Games Workshop's model. They have a constant turn over of new players and many that play for a long number of years. They don't have handicaps and have 7 year olds playing 50 year olds
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by grahambriggs »

ChrisTofalos wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:22 am
Lets slag off the people who have put the effort into version 3. The authors get f/a out of it for the time put in, but I did get a free book 2 army list.
Version 3 is really Version 2 with a few (albeit very effective) alterations. The draft ran to just four A4 pages and I cannot see why this couldn't have been released as a simple amendment sheet. All negative comments I've heard concern either the cost or expressed reluctance to learn a new set of rules (which V3 certainly isn't). Furthermore, as a PDF it would have been available up to a year earlier and, perhaps, stopped a few changing rule sets.

As for the army lists, personally, I'd rather have properly bound hard copies so perhaps I shouldn't have been critical on this point.
It was considerably more than four pages once written up into rules-ese. However the reasons it wasn't released as an amendment sheet are:

- new players were finding it increasingly hard to find copies of the rules, in effect they were out of print. Without new players...
- many players had rule books that had pretty much fallen apart through use, and couldn't find copies to replace them.

So it was either reprint V2 or come up with something (hopefully) better.

G
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

IMO (and lets face it its all anecdotal) the thing that puts people off comps the most is not losing to a more experienced player, or by how much they lose to them, but where they lose because the experienced payer is able to leverage a loophole or quirk of the rules that appears to them to be gamesmanship/cheese/or even cheating. Being beaten fair and square by a better/more experienced player is not an issue.
A LOT of sense in this!

That said, IMO some sort of handicap for new and players at the lower ends of the rankings would be a decent thing to do. As we're already starting to find out at MAWS, giving these players a bit more of a chance isn't going to alter who finishes at the top at all.

There's no need for complicated formulae, either. I'll re-jig what I posted before:

New players or those who finished in the bottom twenty of the current or previous year's rankings (excluding any who have had a top three finish in any open comp, that is, non-club comps) gets 100 extra playing points. Simple enough and what game scoring system used is irrelevant to this.
vexillia

Re: The new scoring system...

Post by vexillia »

ChrisTofalos wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:13 pmNew players ... gets 100 extra playing points.
Careful of unintended consequences - new players would need to buy and paint extra figures. Not an incentive to everyone.
vexillia

Re: The new scoring system...

Post by vexillia »

philqw78 wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:05 pmIf you want to look at getting new players look to Games Workshop's model. They have a constant turn over of new players and many that play for a long number of years. They don't have handicaps and have 7 year olds playing 50 year olds.
Interesting observation.

GW have an enormous recruitment operation (shops to you and me) and they expect to lose the majority of their customers once they turn 19. They may return but it's all a matter of scale. Even if they only retain 5% of each year's new recruits the sheer number of customers/players means the player base is enormous in comparison to FOG AM.

All historical wargames rules, and associated tournament circuits, are niches within niches.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by philqw78 »

ChrisTofalos wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:13 pm New players or those who finished in the bottom twenty of the current or previous year's rankings (excluding any who have had a top three finish in any open comp, that is, non-club comps) gets 100 extra playing points. Simple enough and what game scoring system used is irrelevant to this.
This would then mean those middling players being put off coming, you would be playing them 100 points down yourself Chris
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vexillia

Re: The new scoring system...

Post by vexillia »

nikgaukroger wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:32 am IMO all this talk of handicaps is pretty pointless as I don't believe that scoring systems impact to any material degree on the enjoyment of the vast majority of players.
Right from the off, Dave Rudduck was of the opinion that the new 35-0 scoring system has resulted in more aggressive play and reduced the incentive to play for a draw. I would find such games more enjoyable and I think so would the "vast" majority of players: YMMV.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

This would then mean those middling players being put off coming, you would be playing them 100 points down yourself Chris
Fair comment. At MAWS we include the middling players by handicapping from 800 (most successful/experienced) to 850 (middling) and 900 (least experienced). SEEMS to work and not difficult to alter my original suggestion to cater for it.
Careful of unintended consequences - new players would need to buy and paint extra figures. Not an incentive to everyone.
Also fair comment, Martin. I did actually think of this but there's a fairly easy way round it. If you have to paint to make up the points you could buy/upgrade to an IC and/or extra commander instead. Could be a useful addition...
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by dave_r »

So which competition are you planning on trying these changes out on?
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

It's not up to me...
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by philqw78 »

:D
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by shadowdragon »

vexillia wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 12:46 pm
madaxeman wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 12:42 pm https://www.facebook.com/groups/1726636790966631 FoGAM facebook group.
Thanks but I'm not on Facebook anything public?
I've posted a couple of AAR on the Facebook page. There were just for fun and not intended to promote v3 since it seems to me that most of the people in the Facebook group are already v3 users. I could post here which would be only a little more work - uploading photos to Flickr and adding comments specific to v3 rule changes. It might be useful since my games are solo and have semi-scripted plans so the focus in on the tactical resolutions. However, my impression is that the value of the AAR is marginal. I would think one would need to go to a level of effort in a madaxeman AAR. Those were (for FoG) / are (for ADLG) truly excellent and I suspect attract a lot of players to the game. At least they did for me.

A question - is the intent of the discussion to increase the number of FoGAM v3 players in general or specifically to increase the number of competition players? I have no idea how many books have been sold so I have no clue how v3 is doing. From the Facebook group it seems that there are quite a number of people on there who aren't competition players. The reason for the question is that if you don't understand the problem you'll end up 'solutioneering'. If the total number of players (competition & friendly / club play) are declining you likely won't solve the problem by adjusting competition handicaps or scoring. If it's just competition participation then, yes, looking at the mechanics of competitions will help.

Here in the Ottawa area, it's pretty much DBMM, which doesn't interest me - and that's about my preferences not about the rules. I did play some v2 games with a guy who used to post here but seems to have moved on to other things. So, it's solo games at the moment.

For what it's worth, the things that irritate me are the difficulty finding key information in the rules while I'm playing. I have an interest in periods from ancients through to WWII so I can't keep all the details of a given set of rules in my head. I end up often having to re-read the rules every time I go back to a given set unless I play several period games consecutively. Paragraph numbers would have been a good thing as would colour coding the outside edge of every page in a section - not just the section title page. Those are just a couple of points and it's 'water under the bridge' since we have what we have. In the future it would be useful to get a some feedback on rules accessibility from a new player's perspective (as a player somewhat familiar with the rules I know when key rules aren't in the rules proper but in the reference section but I can see that might annoy a new player). I've noted other forums it seems that a lot of people are turned off of rules they find difficult to read. Here ADLG has done a good job; although FoGAM v3 is improved over it's predecessors - or at least it seems that way to me.

Some thoughts for consideration.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by madaxeman »

ChrisTofalos wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:14 am The order of the day should be, what can we do to bring in more FOG players, and if other rules have to follow suit, so what?
Seriously, and bear with me here, I'm not sure "bringing in more FoG players" is the right initial objective. It might be an eventual outcome, but it's not an objective that you can directly do anything about.

Saying "How can we we make the FoG community more appealing and interesting" is a better and more realistic aim - adding player numbers then will be an inevitable consequence of that, not an activity in itself.

What other sets do - irrespective of player numbers - to create a vibrant, engaged community is to share photos & battle reports (which a few FoGGers do) but also discussions on army composition, new tactical ideas (which seem absolutely conspicuous by their absence here TBH - even compared to almost any other system I either play myself, or which I browse with my BHGS hat on, especially with new lists, rules and points values in V3!!!), and also share jokes, banter, holiday snaps...

Has anyone ever posted a single "how to use this list" or a "why my list worked" since V3 started either here or anywhere else? If not, why not? All of this sort of stuff is what keeps the players who do play engaged and enthusiastic, and most importantly helps new players learn how to get better as well - which is the real key to recruitment, not just to fix the scoring system to artificially help them.

Also then anyone new who dips their toe in the water also finds there is a whole ecosystem, back story, pool of knowledge and learning etc etc etc to dive into as well. Which is what wargamers love.

So, IMO focusing on doing the "community engagement" piece well, and the "sharing tactical tips" bit is the key thing - then "growing numbers" is something that may - or may not - happen as a consequence.

Just shouting about "growing numbers" or "increased popularity" I fear won't work, mainly as it simply isn't credible - everyone knows FoG is smaller than it was, and no-one out there honestly believes it will ever get back to being the dominant set. I'm sorry if you are only interested in playing if its more popular, but you need to prepare to be disappointed. Far more constructive would be to invest efforts into making the FoG ecosystem an interesting, deep and rich one so the current pool of players stays engaged, and then if/when any new people dip their toes in the water they might want to stay as they will find lots to learn and discover.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by nikgaukroger »

I think Tim has it about right there.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by madaxeman »

Thinking on this a little more, there is probably also an argument that says a "10-sub-forum" forum might well not be the best platform for the FoGAM V3 community anyway, as given its current size what activity there is ends up being spread across a lot of sub-forums. Whether consolidating down (or locking?) some of the less well populated sub-forums is possible/desirable/something Slitherine would want to do is maybe worth considering - or even going for a GDPR-compliant email group with a "everyone gets everything" single-stream yahoo group setup might well be better ?

FWIW, looking this morning there has been only one topic in the "list design" sub-form since V3 was published - and that was a rules query questioning whether the classification of Byzantine Cavalry in V3 was actually correct. Successful (or indeed "any") players sharing their lists and tactics for using them is the best way I think to encourage new players and help them become competitive - not jimmying the scoring system.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by grahambriggs »

madaxeman wrote: Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:49 am

FWIW, looking this morning there has been only one topic in the "list design" sub-form since V3 was published - and that was a rules query questioning whether the classification of Byzantine Cavalry in V3 was actually correct. Successful (or indeed "any") players sharing their lists and tactics for using them is the best way I think to encourage new players and help them become competitive - not jimmying the scoring system.
I'll have a crack at doing on or two 'army lists and how to use them' pieces and see whether that helps.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by grahambriggs »

shadowdragon wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:14 pm
A question - is the intent of the discussion to increase the number of FoGAM v3 players in general or specifically to increase the number of competition players? I have no idea how many books have been sold so I have no clue how v3 is doing. From the Facebook group it seems that there are quite a number of people on there who aren't competition players.
The rationale behind the introduction of V3 (I was part of the group that did the development) was to make the game better. Better mostly meaning more enjoyable to play, but also trying to get it to reflect history a bit more. The hope was that this would appeal to existing players - whether competition players or not - and also to new players or those who used to play it but have changed to other things.
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by grahambriggs »

Of course one could go for the radical approach of using the scoring system that is in the rules on page 117...
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Re: The new scoring system...

Post by shadowdragon »

grahambriggs wrote: Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:48 am
shadowdragon wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:14 pm
A question - is the intent of the discussion to increase the number of FoGAM v3 players in general or specifically to increase the number of competition players? I have no idea how many books have been sold so I have no clue how v3 is doing. From the Facebook group it seems that there are quite a number of people on there who aren't competition players.
The rationale behind the introduction of V3 (I was part of the group that did the development) was to make the game better. Better mostly meaning more enjoyable to play, but also trying to get it to reflect history a bit more. The hope was that this would appeal to existing players - whether competition players or not - and also to new players or those who used to play it but have changed to other things.
Hi Graham,

I wasn't questioning the rationale for v3. My question was with respect to original post by Chris with respect to the effect of the scoring system on tournament numbers. While there may be some v2 and even some v1 players out there, I'm assuming that new players would be for v3 given that v1 and v2 are out of print, but I didn't really need "v3" in my question.

Tim's comments are spot on...if one wants more tournament players one can't have that as an immediate objective. If there were inceasing numbers of non-tournament FoG players (or at least) steady and tournament numbers were dropping then one would look to how tournaments are organized and run. However, if non-tournament numbers are dropping then one would expect to see that reflected in tournament numbers. My suspicion - from the general lack of posts on this forum, limied numbers for the Facebook group (179 members) and the paucity of posts, whether supportive or not, on other forums - is that FoG's appeal right now is rather limited. Too bad because I think V3 is a significant improvement over previous versions. I may be mistaken about that, but if I'm not mistaken then it's worthwile to consider Tim's comments and consider how to make a FoG community more appealing and interesting.

Tim mentioned things such as army design, tactical hints, etc. When I started with FoG I very much appreciated the madaxeman wiki. As a gaming community of one, group think is a given, so it was useful to have the wiki with tactical hints, comments on army design and AAR that demonstrated how the rules worked. v3 is different enough to make much of that material dated, but if one's not part of the FoG tournament group (50 some people) then right now one is pretty much out of the loop. Even though I don't play in tournaments I very much appreciate the value they bring in to the hobby in finding the quirks in rules and armies. Just as an example, the new lists limit Hunnic LH...how has that affected the army in terms of being a competitive army list?

Paul
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