Opinions of the Championship Points System

[djjoe227]

Originally Posted by bullados

I just found out a peculiar weakness of CPs that ELO didn't have...

I just lucksacked my way into a 6-1 record and a 4th place Swiss finish. I had to leave for a doctor's appointment before the top cut started. So, rather than Dropping, which would have gotten me zero CPs and which would have been necessary under ELO, I just straight out left. Before deck checks. Before anything.

Anybody else see the potential problem with that?

It depends, were you sick and possibly contagious (Hope you're feeling better!), or just going to the doctor for a check-up?

[jeffrey123]

It doesn't even matter, dropping is irrelevant. I don't care, how about you don't subtract points for dropping and just do this simple system:

Win: 3 points
Lose: 0 points

Obviously everyone would be in favor of this? It's so simple yet so sufficient, and also top cut is rewarded due to number of games played. The argument that one area may have 1 more round is kind of irrelevant, and just put a cap on the max amount of tournaments you can travel to.

So BR's as well as nats can be the same amount of points, the difference being the awards you recieve for top cut and such, or even then! There's so many great ways to implement this system. You can do various point schemes, as long as losing still stays at 0 points, it's good in my book.

discuss.

[ShadowGuard]

Originally Posted by jeffrey123

It doesn't even matter, dropping is irrelevant. I don't care, how about you don't subtract points for dropping and just do this simple system:

Win: 3 points
Lose: 0 points

Isn't that exactly what the new Planeswalker Points system in magic says?
As long as there still is a 'best-of'-cap for the number of tournaments to count in, I'd personally say it would work better than Championship Points. It rewards you for playing, for every single match you win, and it doesn't reward you for attending tournaments with low player numbers.

The problem on the other side is, that going 2-3 at three tournaments nets you the same number of points as winning a tournament 6-0. This is why 'best-of' caps are necessary.

[Zarmakuizz]

People at Magic also complain about their new system.

[Crinus]

Best method they have TCG wise for a pt system is something I think yugioh use to use, some online games like WOW and Age of Empires I and II used.

It was start everyone at 1500 pts, you win you go up, you lose you go down, but like normal common sense of course, pts you gain or lose was dependent on how weak or strong your opponent is.

The downside to this system, which in Pokemon its might not even happen much at all, is if people start stat padding it, it will just completely mess up the entire system to where you got some nub with 1900 pts.

But its been about the only method of fair play you can really put into any game over the years if you needing a point system and its player vs player, card game or video game.

[SMP88]

Originally Posted by Crinus

Best method they have TCG wise for a pt system is something I think yugioh use to use, some online games like WOW and Age of Empires I and II used.

It was start everyone at 1500 pts, you win you go up, you lose you go down, but like normal common sense of course, pts you gain or lose was dependent on how weak or strong your opponent is.

The downside to this system, which in Pokemon its might not even happen much at all, is if people start stat padding it, it will just completely mess up the entire system to where you got some nub with 1900 pts.

But its been about the only method of fair play you can really put into any game over the years if you needing a point system and its player vs player, card game or video game.

This was the system they changed from....

[Crinus]

Originally Posted by SMP88

This was the system they changed from....

Then they went in reverse.

[HornetsBasketballFan]

Originally Posted by Crinus

Then they went in reverse.

Because everyone was complaining about people going X-0 then dropping before top cut to just get the points.

So they switched to this, to promote playing a full tournament

Now people are complaining because they can't top cut as much as they did last year, because last year everyone was dropping and this year they aren't.

Like I said, everyone complains no matter what.

[Crinus]

Originally Posted by HornetsBasketballFan

Because everyone was complaining about people going X-0 then dropping before top cut to just get the points.

So they switched to this, to promote playing a full tournament

Now people are complaining because they can't top cut as much as they did last year, because last year everyone was dropping and this year they aren't.

Like I said, everyone complains no matter what.

They had CP in the older rating system?

why couldnt they just make it simple and do everything based off a pure rating? Also requiring players to play, if they drop out, they lose rating pts to whoever they were suppose to face in top cut.

That is really the purpose of the rating system like that to begin with.

[JandPDS]

I think it worked best when Worlds invites where given out thougout the year. We had the top finsihers at States, Regionals, Gym Challenges and Nationals get invites. We had ranking points, but nothing was on the kine for them. If you did well at a Large tourney you got into worlds and it did not matter how you did the rest of the season.

[Prof Clay]

The top players are still consistently making top cut and raking in the Championship points...even in this difficult format we have.

Everyone wants to get to Worlds without really earning it.


Remember....the past couple times we have been to Hawaii there have been fewer invites given due to rankings.

If you think its not fair that the players in the areas with week long marathons are getting it easy...try again....large turnouts and strong fields make for extremely difficult tournaments.

The Champ Point system will work and will reward those who play the game the most in the toughest areas...how can this possibly be unfair...

[NoPoke]

Originally Posted by Prof Clay

......

The Champ Point system will work and will reward those who play the game the most in the toughest areas...how can this possibly be unfair...

It can't be unfair IF that is what actually happens. This is a transition year and I doubt that the desirable outcome quoted can be completely realised this year. From a purely UK perspective the new system puts all UK players at a disadvantage when compared to those on the mainland of Europe. Those UK players that are doing well have spent lots of time abroad where there are lots of tournaments close to each other. As much as I hope this can be addressed next year I can't see how it is possible given the restrictions inherent in having a system that has no aspect of play-at-risk and rewards the winner of a big tournament identically to the winner of a small tournament. ELO had faults but not those two.

You might think I'd be in favour of having winner points a function of attendance but I'm not. The fixed points for a win approach serves a very desirable marketing goal of increasing attendance at the smaller events.

[Glumanda]

If the CP-system works or not, will be seen very clearly at the end of the season. As players tend to play out their tournaments now, we can say that the ELO-rating will have a higher credibility than in past years. The CP-system will be a good alternative to ELO, if the correlation between both of them is sufficiently high.

I was looking into the ratings last week and while it seemed to me that this correlation seems to be quite high in North America, this is not the case in Europe. There were Masters players in Europe in the Top 50 with 10+ CP with a rating of below 1600... Yeah, I guess they won some 10-player-Regionals.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait until the end of the season to analyze how this system can be tweaked. Nevertheless, I think it is utterly unfair that when a Regionals has more than 50 players in one age group, the winner gets the same number of points than when there are only 10 or 20 players in that age group (talking about Europe here).

Why are points systems like these working in Formula 1 or Winter Sports you ask? Because the attendance is pretty much even in the different events. As soon as you have big attendance differences, a points system which does not increase the point for the top place based on attendance has the chance to fail to show you what you would like to see.

[bulbasnore]

Really, I think there are two points to this new system - its not just focused on the individual player, but the system: 1) to reward good players if they play a lot and 2) to get more people into the organized play events. As Prof Dav said, its not gonna be perfect this first year. However, I don't think one can say its failing overall on point #1 & you could argue its succeeding on point #2.

Originally Posted by Ness

I like it, but there is one awful thing about it: Bubbling. Picture being at a City Championship with a Top 4. You take 5th on resistance. The player above you gets a minimum of 4 Championship Points, and you get 0. This can be pretty lame. Overall, we have to accept no system is perfect, and this was definitely an improvement to the old system, imo.

The fix to this, of course, is for players to be aware of that issue, bring their friends, and break into the top 32 kicker. I believe kicker is intended to be a motivation as well as a reward for larger events.

Slightly different point, if someone dominates a small area, well they gain more than than under ELO. If that area doesn't have the player base, it shouldn't have enough events for the dominator to hit the best finish cap.

Originally Posted by bullados

rather than Dropping, which would have gotten me zero CPs and which would have been necessary under ELO, I just straight out left. Before deck checks. Before anything.

Anybody else see the potential problem with that?

At least the Penalty Guidelines do.

Originally Posted by Penalty Guidelines 7.5.3

Examples of Procedural Error: Severe include:

• Failure to report that you are dropping from an event before leaving the venue. (This penalty should still be issued, regardless of whether the player is there to receive it or not.)

Recommended Starting Penalty: Tier 1: Game Loss
Tier 2: Game Loss

Originally Posted by JandPDS

I think it worked best when Worlds invites where given out thougout the year. We had the top finsihers at States, Regionals, Gym Challenges and Nationals get invites. We had ranking points, but nothing was on the kine for them. If you did well at a Large tourney you got into worlds and it did not matter how you did the rest of the season.

Hated that. One player could win the event and disappear til worlds.

Originally Posted by NoPoke

You might think I'd be in favour of having winner points a function of attendance but I'm not. The fixed points for a win approach serves a very desirable marketing goal of increasing attendance at the smaller events.

And to travel to play in more events, no? And yet, the kicker rewards players who attend (or create ) larger events.

Originally Posted by Son_of_Apollo

In California most people dislike it. It gives a huge advantage to players in non-competitive areas.

Nice to see you at the L.A. Marathon! I've heard from parents who don't like constant barrage of events, and the need to travel to get points, but I hadn't heard this one.

[gallade]

Originally Posted by HornetsBasketballFan

Ungrateful a good thing? If it inspires change for the better. This isn't people being okay with something for a while, then wanting change. Indeed, I don't believe I ever said it was. This is people hating every change that happens, and won't be happy till its done however each individual wants it done. Kind of. People didn't like ELO for reasons I shouldn't have to go over. The idea of this points system came up, and a lot of people supported it, and some people were against it. When pokemon did it's change to CP, it was exciting, but the rewards for events were screwed up, a lot. So a lot of people that were in support of it, but don't like what they did with it PLUS the people that didn't like it in the first place are voicing how much they don't like itUngrateful is never a good thing. Apparently, Pokemon players can't be pleased.Of course they can't. When you put 2000+ people into one system, there will never be unanimous support, and thinking there will be is naive, and just plain dumb. Which means eventually, the higher-ups with give up.Hahahaha, what? Of course, I don't see something like that happening for a good amount of time, but it will happen if people b*tch about every little change. Uh oh, someones a wee bit angry Complain and try to change the real problems, not the things that P!P rewards people for playing their game.What is a "real problem" other than how organized play fundamentally works? It's not like they HAVE to do any of this. They could base the cards only to collectors, and I promise there would still be a market for them.Collectors don't buy packs and hope they pull something. They buy it off a person or a business. You don't go to pokemon.com and order a complete set of neo genesis and buy the 2007 first place worlds card. If they lost the interest of everyone in P!P (around 2000 IIRC) and none of them bothered to buy anymore packs, it would have a HUGE impact for two reasons:
1. They wouldn't buy packs (herp)
2. They would sell their collections to those collectors who are going to buy packs for some reasons

Anger + Naivety = A terrible argument.

[bullados]

Kim, that's hardly a penalty when one has already left the building...

[MyName]

I've got a couple of questions regarding Championship Points.

1) There has been talk of the ranking requirement being higher (like maybe top 30 for North America instead of top 40 and so on) because Worlds this year is in Hawaii. I heard ranking cut off point has been truncated before back in Worlds 2010 at Hawaii. Would anyone care to confirm if this is truly the case?

2) Championship points given out at Worlds imply that CP will be carried on to the next season? Does anyone have confirmed information on this? And how will things go with this? Would all CP be carried over, CP earned during Worlds only, a fraction of your CP earned this season to be carried onto the next... etc?

Thanks!

[losjackal]

This is my first post on the subject, and I'm going to address a number of points, so if and when you quote me feel free to pick any one topic.

Originally Posted by MyName

2) Championship points given out at Worlds imply that CP will be carried on to the next season? Does anyone have confirmed information on this? And how will things go with this? Would all CP be carried over, CP earned during Worlds only, a fraction of your CP earned this season to be carried onto the next... etc?

I believe this is only to determine who is the "best" player for the entire season. I can't think of a logical reason why they would carry over to the next year.

Originally Posted by bulbasnore

The fix to this, of course, is for players to be aware of that issue, bring their friends, and break into the top 32 kicker. I believe kicker is intended to be a motivation as well as a reward for larger events.

There is a big gap between 32 players and 64 players, where "bring your friends" isn't a great fix. Out of 233 completed events, only 14 tournaments broke the 64 threshold. Most of the marathon tournaments fell short. But there were 93 more tournaments above 32...those still have a bubble problem of 3 points vs. 0 points, purely based on resistance.

I can sympathize with the remaining 123 tournaments where Masters had fewer than 32, meaning only a Top 4. In Juniors yesterday, Xander bubbled 5th place with a 4-1 record. This Des Plaines, IL tournament had 21 Juniors (3rd highest attendance). His loss was to a good competitor who did finish Top 4. The problem is that his initial victories where against newbies who hurt his resistance. As a player, Xander couldn't do anything better besides go undefeated. Yet he still missed out on top cut and Championship Points. (I'm illustrating this as a crystal example of what Ness describes.)


Personally, I think part of the real fix should be that opponents with the same X-1 (or X-2) record as the last place Top Cut finisher should receive the same number of points. That means resistance only determines who proceeds on to try to win even more points and prizes. (Yes, the kicker above 64 is trying to do this, but it's falling short. The focus needs to be on adequately rewarding the people on the bubble, not the players at the tail end.)


Interestingly, I've discovered one small side effect of bubbling: it increases your Rating by not giving you an additional loss (if you don't take first place). I imagine that's not much consolation given many good Masters rank between 41 and 100 right now. Looking at the current standings, 100th place has 18 Champ Points, which means an impressive blend of Battle Roads, Regionals, and Cities finishes so far.


Looking at the bigger picture, there are A LOT of people who would like to earn an invitation to play at Worlds. Presumably there can be only 40 Masters in North America. How do you determine who is worthy? Last year it was Premier Rating, which wasn't necessarily a good measure for numerous reasons. This year it's Championship Points, which seems to be a better yardstick in theory to determine who is the "best". The game just needs some time to better implement the awarding of points.

[Magnechu]

Jason brings up a good point in bubbling. I'd like to also point out something in a similar vein: with Championship Points and ELO rating mattering much less than before, there is no reason that any tournament should have a cap on the size of the top cut. There have been multiple Cities throughout the country (and almost every single on I've attended) having 70+ Masters...with a Top 8 cut, because that is the maximum for Cities. You need to go 6-1 in these tournaments to guarantee making cut. Kicker points matter much less when you don't even get to play in top cut when with that many people, Top 16 should be playing for their chance to win.

[NoPoke]

A little speculation and a lot of personal opinion follow....

- The kicker points are primarily there to address the bubble issue.

- Increasing the top cut is the wrong fix for bubbling. Wrong because venue time is finite.

- Many of the troubles with rating (ELO) and Championship points (CPs) come from there not being enough swiss rounds. Swiss+1 makes a huge reduction to the amount of reliance upon resistance. Swiss+1 takes less time than an extra top cut round so is more efficient at producing 'legitimate' tournament outcomes

- All the X-2s should make the cut at bigger events.

- Venue time constraints can only ever be fully addressed by the reintroduction of draws to the swiss rounds. [Sudden Death is the devil's game!]

- Concessions are not inherently bad. Likewise Intentional Draws.

- Pure reward systems like CP have more ways of being exploited than play-at-risk systems like ELO

- Pure reward systems like CP encourage travel more than play at risk systems.

- With CP if you don't live in an area with lots of events you are going to have to spend a lot of time and money travelling to areas that do have lots of events.

[Tylertyphlosion]

I have bubbled at 9-12th about 5 times this cities season. It really sucks.


And my speculation on the worlds CP points:
They award these points for a Jump start on the next season, but no longer give out the guaranteed invite.

[Miamisportsfan45]

Not sure about anyone else, but lately I've been people intentionally throwing games to friends because they can care less about there ratings and they help their friends benefit by making top cut when they knew the scenario was unlikely for them to make it.

[espeon200]

Originally Posted by Miamisportsfan45

Not sure about anyone else, but lately I've been people intentionally throwing games to friends because they can care less about there ratings and they help their friends benefit by making top cut when they knew the scenario was unlikely for them to make it.

This is nothing new. Back before the rating system changed, teams would discuss how to best improve their ratings by conceding to other team members. If there's a system, people will try to abuse it.

[BiffMasta]

Assuming championship points are distributed as a means of qualifying players for worlds, Why are they even given out to top 8 at US nationals when these players automatically get an invite for top 8ing? Seems to defeat the purpose..

Why not just start at 9th place then?

[JandPDS]

Originally Posted by BiffMasta

Assuming championship points are distributed as a means of qualifying players for worlds, Why are they even given out to top 8 at US nationals when these players automatically get an invite for top 8ing? Seems to defeat the purpose..

Why not just start at 9th place then?

Because there are no passdowns for ranking invites. If they did not give points to the top 8 then more people would qualify worlds then planned.