The Internet and Bloggosphere is ablaze discussing Tournament Comp scores, I feel the need to weigh in on the topic. I am going to group all the so-called soft scores into the term Comp for simplicity sake. Comp is meant to balance the playing field in a tournament, but the reality of it is it penalizes the overly competitive player while at the same time rewarding the Total hobbyist.
The Overly competitive player is focused on the win and how to best achieve that goal while playing a game. He crunches the numbers for his units and knows what the average outcome of his dice roll will be. A lot of them are less focused on the hobby aspect of the game, they may have a few conversions but their painting is average because the miniatures are required to play.
The Total hobbyist on the other hand winning games is less important than the “Fluff” and painting of their army. He will be focused on elaborate conversions and detailed paint jobs for his miniatures. He’ll also have worked out the background of his force and can drone on about it for hours. He sees all games including the tournament that he is at as a way to have fun and meet new people.
The problem is that the two groups I mentioned above are the polar opposites, but they are the vocal minority of the gaming community. They are not a good representation of the gaming community as a whole, because most gamers fall in the gray area in-between the two.
The average player likes to participate fully in all aspects of the hobby. They like to win, but don’t let a loss ruin their fun. They like to convert and paint but aren’t going to agonize and seek perfection while doing it. They like the “Fluff” and it may or may not be thought about in list building.
Now that I’ve described the types of players as I see them, lets look at Comp and what could be done to solve the problem.
I’ve got to be honest I didn’t mind Comp when it was mostly standardized by the GW RT tourney guidelines. At least it was clear cut and you always knew what to expect from it. Now it is too subjective with far too many ways of doing it. There are just too many misconceptions about the power level of many units in 40k. Besides Comp is kinda out dated since 5th edition requires Troops to actually take objectives to win games.
While we are talking mostly about Comp, I must bring up sportsmanship scores. I detest them completely, first off a lot of gamers use them as revenge for a lost game; secondly why bother with it because if someone is a complete Jerk give them a warning them kick them out if they persist in jerk-wadish behavior. Organizers need to man up, stop hiding behind the scorecards and confront these types of players. Let's face facts, playing a game against other people requires some social skills and manors. It’s not that frakin’ hard to be relatively friendly while playing.
I think that if Comp is still going to be used that having two types of tournaments could solve the whole issue. The first type could be a Hobby tournament with comp and painting scores added to battle points; the second could be a non-Comp, judged solely on your battle points tourney.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteSportsmanship benefits more from an active management than it does just a basic rating scale. It takes more work to pull it off, but I would expect better results.
As for comp...
It's way too subjective, all in all. At worst, it can let you play 'game designer' and you may or may not need to actually DO that.
As for hobby events and tournaments...the hobby is plenty big enough. Hell, have both, but just CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE. I'd hate to bring a more competitive, averagely-painted army to a hobby tournament, because it would be the same as a fluff > competition army in a competitive tournament.
Seriously, the hobby is big enough for both.
I concur the hobby is big enough for both. TO's should just sack up, be honest and label their tournaments properly.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input!
-Jim
Two part tournies, I am all for that. Reward good behavior. I feel that it is equally wrong to punish an entusiastic hobbiest with very competetive games, as it is punishing the hard core gamer for playing the game. What should be shunned is bad attitude and downright cheating. Fixing those two are only done by manning up and not let players like that keep on acting the way they do. It is far kinder to confront them than to let them build up a larger and larger list of people who dislike them.
ReplyDeleteWell, I am pretty sure that anyone who has ever even glanced at my blog can guess what camp I fall in on this subject.....I like fluff....as long as it doesn't interfere with the tactical aspect I enjoy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, even though I despise comp scores in any shape for or name, I do think there should be some reward for the guy who painted an army so well it makes you wish you painted better than a 2 fingered monkey with seizures (yes, that reference is about me).
At the FLGS, I have been pushing for to awards. Tournament Champion and best painted army. They would be to completely different scores and would have nothing to do with each other.
That's why there are two tournies, with different purpuses. The fluff tourney would have fun and entertaining missions and focus on fun units and fluff and having a good time. Painting sure would be a big part of it.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about diving up the players and run it the same way, it really would be something new (to me at least).
At least that is how I envision it:)
As someone who attends 2-3 tournaments a year, I'd say that you go to a tournament to play games.
ReplyDeleteThe 'soft scores' are a nice way to incentivise people to paint their armies to a suitable standard and play nicely. But the important thing is that a master painter shouldn't be rewarded over a person who has painted their army to a good standard. The focus should be playing the game.
If you want to be rewarded for your painting - go to Golden Demon.
If you want to be rewarded for the 'fluffiness' of your army - go play a story based campaign with your friends.
The essence of a tournament is competition. So people build competitive lists and play competitively.
I went to the Grand Tournament in October and had a fantastic time, playing a wide range of well painted and nicely themed armies from World Eaters to an Imperial Guard Valkyrie army. It was awesome!
Thanks for the awesome comments!
ReplyDeleteAdam, didn't you guys in the UK dump Comp a couple of years ago?
I agree in a perfect world one painted army shouldn't have any more weight that any other, and the focus should be on playing games. The problem is having comp shoved down our throats.
While I understand what the essence of a tournament is, I don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it out to be.
Wargaming is a hobby that involves a great many parts and I see absolutely nothing wrong with idea of a tournament that rewards all aspects of the hobby.
-Jim
I can't really add much more to what has been said above, but I do agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI personally like the soft scores in some settings (they certainly encourage new players to the game as well as younger folks), but I also like full-on hard tournaments as well that do not have them. I think there IS room for BOTH types of tournaments in our hobby.