Sportsmanship

rwould · Post by **rwould** » Fri Mar 14, 2003 1:42 pm

The sportsmanship points are a bit of a joke imho.

No-one is likely to get all six votes, so 3 points is out of the question. Getting 2 points is highly unlikely, as that means you got 3 votes.

And if you got 2 votes (like me!) you get 1 point, the same as someone who gets no votes.

I'd prefer a change to the whole voting system, and you award a point if your opponent was sporting. To accomodate this you would need to increase the points for the other things, to make it matter a bit more.

Something like....

10 points Win

6 points Draw

5 points Loss by 1 TD

3 points Loss by more

1 point: per opponent who says it was a sporting game.

0-5 points: team painting.

This means games make the difference, but is a fairer way of tie-breaking.

On the point of what is sporting it should be all about the manner the game is played in. I got called four times for illegal procedure (two games, twice in each) but the games were fine. It was my fault for making the error (bit annoying in one game as my opponent never declared his action before what he did, but he did look suitably guilty at calling me for the IP's!) and the games were pleasant. Far better than playing a fussy so and so or a very slow player.....

Richard

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Fri Mar 14, 2003 2:56 pm

I agree entirely with your critisms of The Blood Bowl's system.

rwould wrote: 1 point: per opponent who says it was a sporting game.

The only problem with that is you end up with 2 scenarions

1 - players who never vote for anyone, as it helps them finish higher.
2 - "you vote for me, and I'll vote for you" syndrome where its just bonus points for everyone.

Every sportsmanship scheme I've seen has problems. Maybe ranking all your opponents, and then giving points based on total positions. Although an individual player may end up with 6 great/awful opponents its unlikely that this will matter overall.

Then you give a number of points based on the final positions
e.g. ranked 1,2,3,3,5,6 - 20 "positions"

6-12 = +3
13-18 = +2
19-24 = +1
25+ = 0

So if you average a 1st or 2nd choice you get +3, averaging worse than 4th means no points.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 7:39 am

I had no problem with people running down the clock (it happened twice against me), it just gave me a (albliet slim) chance of stopping the score. As for stars, again, I had no problem with them, I just didn't take them because my pre-BB games with Hakflem were crap, and I didn't have a painted Headsplitter model. If they allow Stars next year I'll take Humans/Orcs/CD's just to be on a level playing field, or I may just take Norse for a laugh.

As for sportsmans votes, I vote for the coach that I enjoyed playing against most. Did they gloat when they killed another rat? Yes? |Then you're not gettting my vote. Did they commiserate when my GR failed a 2+ catch in the EZ? Yes, then you might get my vote. Did they laugh when a GR BH their Mummy on a 3D they choose blitz? Yes, then they've got to be a good sport.

I'd prefer to mark each opponent out of 5 though, as I had 2 or 3 coaches over the weekend that I'd have liked to have voted for.

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 11:27 am

Whatever, it was a huge improvement on last year. If the nice guys gained a places because 3 people of 6 voted for them then fine by me.
At Spiky you rated every opponent out of 10 and they got the average at the end. This came in for criticism because the vast majority of players simply got a string of 10s, but that's exactly as it should be in a friendly good natured tournament.

This is gonna sound really elitist here, but as AndyH said at the BB, Bloodbowlers are a breed apart and unlike the majority of GW gamers. An awful lot of us live and breathe BB, rather than it being simply one of the GW systems we play. I believe the vast majority of the 'hard core' are decent people (in fact a big part of the reason I'm so into this game is the community that surrounds it and the friends I've made through it). With the re-release, the increased popularity and the explosion of the tournament scene it's inevitable that a proportion of the new or 'crossover' gamers are going to bring some attitudes with them that are usually seen more in other game systems than BB. Norse pointed out recently that he really hasn't enjoyed some of his games in the last 2 Open tournies he's played at simply due to some of his opponents' attitude, to the extent that he's thinking of ducking the Opens for a while and playing at invitationals only. That's tragic.

So I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd rather see a system like the Spiky Open, where instead of having to single out one of several great/good opponents, you can actually mark down the prats to the extent that a few people doing so will make a marked difference to their finishing position. In a perfect world, I'd rather see the prats penalised than the real nice guys singled out for bonuses. It can too often be a 'charisma' vote rather than sporting otherwise.

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 12:20 pm

Do you mean that some sort of an "unsportsmanship"-system should be incorporated? That coaches could give each other penalty points for bad sportsmanship? They should perhaps be accompanied with a written statement about the nature of the problem then...

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 12:21 pm

Deathwing wrote:At Spiky you rated every opponent out of 10 and they got the average at the end. This came in for criticism because the vast majority of players simply got a string of 10s, but that's exactly as it should be in a friendly good natured tournament.

Unless I was told otherwise I wouldn't do that - I'd give 5/6 for an average opponent and save the 10s to mark out the really exceptional ones.

So you need to ensure that people understand the intention of the scoring system as well as the mechanism.

cidervampire · Post by **cidervampire** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 1:17 pm

I'm not really much of a fan of people getting points for this. Going along with Woodys suggestion, maybe have the choice of awarding an "arsehole" point to one of your opponents, if everyone is nice then you don't have to award a point. If a player gets several "arsehole" points then they get penalised and a good kicking round the back of GW (optional). We all have different personalities, I've got nothing against playing somebody who doesn't say too much during the game but who plays fair and doesn't complain. Its also prone to manipulation in any form. Some people may be of the mindset of "Whats the use in giving points to the opponents when they'll end up doing better than me". I'd like to think that we'd all use this as a factor but... I was happy to give everyone at Spiky a 10 as I had no probs in any of my games and I'd quite happily have done the same with all the great guys I played at the BB

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 1:50 pm

ianwilliams wrote:
Deathwing wrote:At Spiky you rated every opponent out of 10 and they got the average at the end. This came in for criticism because the vast majority of players simply got a string of 10s, but that's exactly as it should be in a friendly good natured tournament.
Unless I was told otherwise I wouldn't do that - I'd give 5/6 for an average opponent and save the 10s to mark out the really exceptional ones.

So you need to ensure that people understand the intention of the scoring system as well as the mechanism.

Agreed, the intention needs to be made clear.

How do you rate 'an exceptional' opponent as opposed to somebody who's doesn't put a foot wrong in terms of sportsmanship, but you don't necessarily 'click' with as well as others? Is that their fault? I (as most)based it on the fact that I if had no criticism with the way they played the game then I had no reason to give them anything less than max. Sportmanship should be just that, it's not a charisma contest. If you want to do things that way, then go with what happened at Tulips where we voted for 'Most Entertaining Opponent'. The fact that some people are more fun to play against doesn't necessarily equate with them being more sporting.

How about some kind of a system where you could give an optional 'Commendation/Entertainment' point to an opponent, with no bearing on final ranking? That way the nice guys/entertaining opponents could still be rewarded with a prize or whatever at the end of the tourney.
Coupled with that an optional 'black mark' point for unsporting behaviour, which could effect rankings. Ignore the first one (you'll always get some stroppy bad losers) and maybe a points penalty on a sliding scale for further black marks. Anybody with more than 75% could be beaten with big sticks..

Just thinking as I type here...
And I'd have no problem with having to qualify a black mark to the organisers.

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 1:53 pm

Heh..got interrupted halfway through that post..then saw that Geoff had said more or less the same in a lot less words...

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 1:58 pm

To get closer to Deathwings ideas without having to construct an "arsehole" system, you could simply get to award 3 out of 6 players a sportsmanship award. Adjust the chart of points per sportsmanship awards accordingly. That way, charisma will count less and bad attitude will hurt more.

Micke

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 2:12 pm

MickeX wrote:To get closer to Deathwings ideas without having to construct an "arsehole" system, you could simply get to award 3 out of 6 players a sportsmanship award. Adjust the chart of points per sportsmanship awards accordingly. That way, charisma will count less and bad attitude will hurt more.

Micke

But if you get 1 arsehole out of 6 (which is much more of a realistic assumption) then what about the 2 guys who've done nothing wrong and are effectively getting lumped in with the AH?

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 5:18 pm

Deathwing wrote: But if you get 1 arsehole out of 6 (which is much more of a realistic assumption) then what about the 2 guys who've done nothing wrong and are effectively getting lumped in with the AH?

I'm not saying it's a solution, I just think many player will find it hard to use an arshole option.

What I'm thinking is that if someone ends up with no sportmanships awards out of 6 games, it'd give him something to think about. With todays system, that's normal.

Micke

Mocaiv · Post by **Mocaiv** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 7:27 pm

Norse wrote:I laughed out loud when Fungus killed the Ogre in game 5 (as some of you may recollect!).

A classic moment!

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 7:41 pm

So based on things I've read, would this be the sort of thing people would like to see at tournaments:-

Place your top three opponents 3pts, 2pts, 1pt, players given their average (or somesuch) dded to their score.

Option of a "Black Mark". Ignore the 1st, -1 pt for each additional Black Mark.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 7:43 pm

i thought the system at fanatic was fine tbh, i don't think it should have a big impact on the final results, winning games should be the first consideration for placings, though that doesn't mean you have to be a bad person while your playing.