The Iron League - discussion and debate

[redford]

As a cool aside we could have rankings for everybody in the Iron League.

Say we take the 3 top fighters from the league and give them "adamantine" status. We could have medallions made of the respective metals down to iron. Though there probably won't be that many characters in it, it might give a feel of bigness to the organization, more like it's taking place in an actual world.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Everyone in the Iron League is going to be ranked. I'm quite happy to do some sort of tier or grouping system within that if there is appetite.

I'm just running the judgment situation by Rayleigh. I realised this morning that adding a win bonus to the score would mean that some people would get higher rewards unfairly through the Iron League matches if it was agreed we were going to do it that way (as reward increase if you beat your opponent by a certain score). So, I have asked to see if we can waive that for order matches.

I think we are getting close to being able to do signups for this.

[Philomel]

Have signed up for it.

So you sign up for it, ultimately? That is good, after all there are some who might not want to take part and not have to see their name at the bottom of any list just because they prefer quests.

We could just base the EXP and GP gained from the battles with the pre-Iron League results for judgements.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

That's the plan Phi

[Philomel]

Sweet. We're on the same page then!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

First Iron League match is a triple threat between William Arcus, Philomel van der Aart and Shinsou Vaan Osiris.

Let's rock!

[Ebivoulya]

Neat idea, reminds me of the Dajas Pagoda. Would like some clarification on two points, though.


Firstly, a bit of wording confusion:

Normal rewards will apply, but rewards that arise as a result of a large points gap between the winner and loser will be waived.

I had to check this thread to know what that meant; it sounds like if you win by enough points, all your rewards will be waived. I think "but bonus rewards that would arise" would be enough to clarify.


Secondly, and most importantly:

Battles will be determined by a normal Citadel judgment, with an added "win bonus" for any character who wins the battle IC.

I would like to know exactly how big that win-bonus is. Earlier in this thread, you said this:

Judgment scores tend not to be massively apart these days so I think a "win bonus" of 5 to 10 points is probably enough to ensure that we don't need two ways of deciding whether or not someone has won for ranking purposes.

As you say, it is often the case that larger point differences are 'softened,' so as not to put people off trying to improve. If that win-bonus is 10 points, that could combine with those softer gaps to ensure that IC victory leads to judgement victory most of the time. On the flip side, 5 would be a rather paltry bonus for outright winning a fight. I don't mind either, but would like to know the exact bonus, so I know what I'm getting into.

Other than a static bonus, you could consider dividing a number of points, say ten (or fifteen, in the case of three-ways), between the player's wildcard categories based on how strongly they performed ICly. Close fights could have 4 for the loser and 6 for the winner, all the way up to 0 and 10 respectively, if someone gets completely crushed. Might require removing the cap of 10 on wildcard, depending on the number of points divided. More complicated than a static bonus, but it's an option.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Neat idea, reminds me of the Dajas Pagoda. Would like some clarification on two points, though.


Firstly, a bit of wording confusion:



I had to check this thread to know what that meant; it sounds like if you win by enough points, all your rewards will be waived. I think "but bonus rewards that would arise" would be enough to clarify.

I can clear that up for you. So, the main idea was that the Iron League would try to focus more on the IC aspect of fighting. As you know you can sometimes lose a fight but win the judgment, which would make no sense if the Iron League was something recognised and canonised in character. After some discussion we decided that most fights tend to be decided by fine margins.

To try and bring judgments for the Iron League more in line with the IC result, we are offering a "win bonus" of 5 points to the judgment score. That may not seem a lot but, when I did my research, most fights (and I suspect ones that are in the Iron League will fall into this category) are decided by fine margins of a few points. There are exceptions, obviously (such as when the quality of a writer overwhelms their opponent), but 90% of the time you would be surprised to learn the average win gap is 4.75 points.

Now, there is a rule when calculating battle EXP for the winner that the formula is based on how much of a gap there is between the two scores. A win bonus that isnt part of the official Althanas rubric may well trigger additional EXP (due to increasing the points gap between winner and loser) and this could be seen as the Iron League threads giving an unfair advantage to players.

Therefore the idea is that we waive the bonus EXP idea entirely and stick purely to standard EXP. No one gains or loses out on the rewards front.

Whilst I appreciate the additional scoring is not foolproof, and people can still win by judgment, it will make it harder to just get by on good writing and the idea is people will try harder to actually win by use of tactics. Its not completely foolproof, granted, but in every battle I have seen so far I have felt there is more intensity, more will to win. Less scripted shit and more classic battling. Yes, there will be an argument to say we may see more tenious situations where people avoid hits they may otherwise have taken in a "writing quality" battle, but judges will be on hand to ensure that any powergaming is marked down.

Its still in its infancy, so im hoping to see results pan out well.

To clarify, i'm still open to ideas. I'd like to see how these first battles pan out and then we can sit down and judge whether or not the scoring, judgments and battles are going the way we would expect them to using the above criteria.