Feedback Focus: Ring Selection, Points Spread

[Kakita Kenji]

The three tournaments are single elimination tournaments. Once you loose to an opponent, you are knocked out. No Topaz Points are earned or checked during the three tournaments, just how you perform against your opponent.

Once only one player remains in each of the three tournaments, those three players then have their Topaz Points they earned from days 2-6 checked to see who is the Topaz Champion from those three.

okay then i'm clear on what's to come

[Iuchi Prashant]

I know I've already said my opinion on many points, but I'd like to take up some of the points raised by Qiang-san

Here’s my suggestions, for what it’s worth:

• Don’t change anything about Day 2. People have already made decisions and rolls based on the posted events, so changing the rules after the fact will make those people mad. Don’t have a surprise penalty or bonus on Day 6 based on Day 2 events either, that’s the same as changing the Day 2 rules.
• Do feel free to change event rules for future days. Yes, you’ve posted those events already, but most people will understand making balance adjustments if you feel they are needed.

I mostly agree with not changing Day 2 rules. Changing other rules from now on would be ok, but too many changes might make a big difference on how people prepared for the game - both in terms of some changes to their sheets, and (in my case even more importantly) in preparing an approach for the events. This is especially important for those of us who may not be around too much in some days and spent some time thinking about things to avoid having random rings used in ghosting, and redoing ghosting instructions for all events would be a... Pretty big deal.

That said...

• Don’t let the vocal opinion of one or two players make you change your vision too much. Sure, if a LOT of players are having problems, make adjustments. But run the game you want to, as much as you can.

This is always true : )

But for what it's worth

• I agree that 5 bonus points for guessing the right ring isn’t working. Go ahead and finish Day 2 using the existing mechanic, but change it for future days. My suggestion: ditch the hint, instead say something like “The judges would prefer you use Water for this event, and consider Fire especially unsuitable. Anyone choosing Water gets a Free Raise to all their Water-related rolls. Anyone choosing Fire must call a raise on every roll for no additional effect.” You might still want to use your Void 5 on every event, I guess; but if your rings are relatively close, you might be tempted to change it up. (Maybe don’t make Void a favored element for many events - high Void is really good already.)
• Swapping the order so that the 1-v-1 events occur after the non-interactive events during the game day does seem a good idea, so you aren’t held up while waiting to see how many void or wounds you have left after the 1-v-1 event.
• I think it’s against the spirit of the match for players to collude in a 1-v-1 event to max out both their points. I suggest you allow it for day 2, but for future days maybe just make 1-v-1 matches “best of 3” instead of “fight until one person wins 3 rolls”.

I especially disagree with these three points, or at least with parts of them. I'll take up each one in turn.

1) I don't see why people are seeing 5 points as too few. I mean, as V said, just using the right ring would score 55 points counting all events, so people need only 20 more to pass - many of us have that from day 1 already, and I imagine most, if not all of us, will be able to win or 'pass' at least 1 or 2 of the 11 events. So I really don't think scoring 75 will be hard considering people use the hints.

As I said before, increasing the bonus for using the right ring would benefit generalists/ more balanced characters, and/or penalise specialists (or chars hoping to use Void 5 for everything). Is that something we want? As I also said, with his build Prash is likely to benefit from more points assigned to ring choice, but I definitely don't think it's something 'necessary'.

2) even more importantly, I completely disagree with ditching the hints and changing them to direct indications of the rings. It takes a big deal from the immersion and description for me - I spent a good deal of time reading their hints and trying to make sense of what they meant, and I feel that is part of the fun, tbh. Of course that's my opinion, but I'd like to say I loved the idea of the descriptions, and to declare my support for them here

3) For the reason I already said - restructuring all ghosting instructions and strategies would be a pain - I'd really like it if the preferred rings for each event would not be changed, at least not much. There are 1 events and 5 rings - keeping 2 events per ring, with one ring in 3 events, sounds fair to me. Maybe the ring with 3 shouldn't be Void for the reason Qiang said, but unbalancing preferred rings more than that sounds unfair too.

4) I think swapping the order of the events won't make so much of a difference since people may still want to see how much Void they plan to spend in 1v1 events, as those tend to be more unpredictable. In fact, I think having the more unpredictable event first might make sense Void-wise. But that's just me.

5) As for the last comment, as that deals directly with me - it has been asked whether that would be a problem, and in fact it came from two characters who are more focused on the 'friendly' aspect of the event - and went all out in the last round - than in competition itself. Remember it is also a matter of trust - the first char could have decided to go easy and then have the opponent not do the same for them.

Having the judges decide that's against the rules and should be penalised is a possibility - although I suppose one could still do that pretending not to be doing it (maybe an acting roll along with the normal roll). But I don't think it's something entirely unreasonable for two friends to do - especially as what they did was basically say 'ok, let's see how stylish you and I can get, and then we'll have this settled in the end of the fight'.

I apologise if you felt this was cheating. As someone interested in games theory, I thought of this as a 'mutual cooperation' strategy instead of the expected competition, so not really cheating. But others may disagree.

Also, notice just changing it to "best of three" is the same as making it "first to two wins", so it doesn't change things much. It would just be 3 rounds instead of 5. In fact, our current rules are basically "best of five".

If this sort of cooperation is to be banned, a point penalty (or even disqualification depending on how harsh it's supposed to be) if the referee notices one going east (with rules as to how one might avoid being noticed) might be a better idea.

Ok, this got pretty long already! So as a last thing, the last thing Qiang said is especially important - don't let vocal opinions of a few people make you feel bad, and in the end make things so that you have fun with the game as well : )

[Vutall]

I'm trying to figure out if it is a vocal minority or not, hence the feedback focus thread here

[Kitsuki Asahi]

Regarding the way Ring selection is handled. I like the idea that an individual may approach a challenge differently than others, choosing to rely on a different strength, even if it's unorthodox. Meeting the judges expectations and being rewarded for it makes sense. But, there shouldn't be a penalty for overcoming the challenge in an unexpected way.

[Kaito Haruki]

To be fair, I doubt ring selection accounts for spells like Mental quickness, Fire Kami's Blessing or Earth's Touch.

[Ikoma Eichiro]

I agree on no penalties. The reward for choosing the correct ring should be slightly overshadowed by any potential extra points that someone might get by making raises with a better set of attributes. Thus making the risk/reward more interesting.

One thing I'm not as sure of is spell casting. I suppose allowing them lets the Shugenja use the resources they have, but often they will also have concentrated on a specific ring for their casting anyway and then there is the RP side of allowing magic in a competition.

[Vutall]

Shugenja getting their spells is a core to their character abilities. It's much like using a kata, kiho, tattoo, or school technique. It is strong, but I think it's reasonable.

[Yasuki Ginkarasu]

On the flip side: spells like Reversal of Fortunes allowing you to reroll every roll is really powerful. Like, I think more powerful than any technique or kata. On par with a Togashi tattoo I believe?

[Iuchi Prashant]

On the flip side: spells like Reversal of Fortunes allowing you to reroll every roll is really powerful. Like, I think more powerful than any technique or kata. On par with a Togashi tattoo I believe?

Almost on par (since only on three first rolls/rounds) with a Tattoo that is also allowed - and also, as V said, there may be consequences to asking the kami for help for trivial things, especially if this is done too often. I mean, I have access to that spell and have refrained from using it so far exactly for that reason.

As long as people aren't gaming things too much, I think it shouldn't be a problem. And... Well, once again, TP aren't even that important since the actual championships will be the most important deciding factor, TP probably won't matter much or at all for those who don't win one of the three championships (unless one doesn't make 75), AND spells and even Kiho apparently won't be allowed in the tournament's (whereas tattoos will!).

[Iuchi Prashant]

To be fair, I doubt ring selection accounts for spells like Mental quickness, Fire Kami's Blessing or Earth's Touch.

Do you mean ring selection along with these spells makes the choice too important or not important enough? I got a bit confused now I think o.o

[Kaito Haruki]

So if you choose fire for a mental trait thread (most likely a high skill), then fire kami's blessing provides a +3-4K0 to every one of those rolls. Hard to tell if it makes it moot which ring you choose or makes rings you wouldn't use viable (like earth's touch for physical).

[Iuchi Prashant]

I see. In a way, that makes ring selection 'less' important than the ability to use those spells, then?

I mean, some of those tricks may be a bit too much (and at least Mental Quickness has had changes due to worries about how it might affect games), but they are part of a Shugenja's repertoire, and their use is usually relatively limited. It's usually no more than a +1 to the ring, or to one of its traits, at the cost of a spell slot (not much), but also one of the 6 spells the character would have access to.

Particular rulings for some spells, or banning the use of some particular spells in some events might be a way to change things if it seems that people have been abusing something too much, but once again, I'm not so focused on the competition for TP, especially as it doesn't even decide things, but that might be just me.

[Kaito Haruki]

Shall we keep track of TP by school tag so we get a clearer picture of the difference spells actually make?

[Iuchi Prashant]

Sounds like a good idea.

In fact since TP will only be away to decide between the winners of the three events, one way to make things 'fairer' if need be would be to include a 'correction' based on school tag if it turns out that spells (or something else) make a big difference.

[Vutall]

I need to have a consensus of what correction, if any, I am implementing starting D3 and onward. As I said, I think bumping correct ring to +7 instead of +5 seems good, as that way you get into the tournament if all you do is select the correct ring each event.

[Kaito Haruki]

Bumping to +7 sounds good to me, any other things we need to keep our eyes on?

[Isawa Tanshin]

I did a quick number crunch for heraldry.
I was 3k2 for the "right" ring, but 6k5 for the "wrong" ring.
When you start counting 2 points per raise among 5 rolls, my 5k6 was vastly superior. Then I cast a spell. Then I spent void.

I'd say the points for raises is really where things go crazy.

Overall, I'm still exploring the setting, game, and system.
I'm OK with any solution, but seeing what happened in my own rolls, there are some incredible things we are doing. - especially since we are all effectively rank 3 skill-wise.

Problem solving mode:

An alternate suggestion, perhaps for another game:
2x Points for test with hint ring
1x points for "natural" ring for the skill
1/2 points for using a ring not the other 2
Points, including bonus for raises.

To keep things closer, base rankings only on pass/fail of the event or rounds within event, with TP used for tie-breakers, and maybe "gift" items for those that excel at a given test.

[Vutall]

That may handy, Tanshin. So it would be:

D3 onward:
Correct ring per sensei: x2 points
normal ring that skill uses, x1 points
any other rings, x0.5, rounded down.

Raises are tricky, since I need the raises to be more rewarding than exceptional successes. You should have a bigger gain for taking a risk than just for rolling well.

[Isawa Tanshin]

Keep the raises the same... so e.g.
Success 2R, 1ER

Right ring = (1+ 4 + 1 ) x 2 = 12
Normal. = " =6
Others = " = 3
I'd round up at the end of the event.

I don't think you describe, but I could see a 1 v 1 going badly for a player, who then switches from a right ring to something else, but that makes things more complicated.

[Iuchi Prashant]

Problem with no flat points for correct ring is that would make it much easier for someone who gets unlucky (or too greedy) to not pass at all.

At the same time a X2 may make wild things wilder.

That might be some possible tweaking for a next game, but I don't think such a large change would be easy or good to implement still ongoing... But again, that's just me.

Also worth remembering - those who came from part 1 are quite likely to have all, maybe except for one ring at 3 at least. Newcomers may be less balanced as they had all points free.