Question in Scoring Descrepency

[Velhelmi Torvald]

A little confusion last night that I hope can be cleared up. Here's the setup:

A couple of nights ago at DoF, I watched a fight where Charles Blackstone "tied" his match 4-3 in 15 rounds. If recollection serves, initially it was called a win, the caller went to ask specifically for a ruling, then went back and switched it to a tie. The result surprised me because if you were a full point ahead, these results used to be considered wins. Okay, they must of changed that. That's fine with me. I checked the game guide but I couldn't find any specific rule concerning what constitutes a win.

Tonight in DoS, I was behind 4.5-2.5 after 13. Crap! But, I thought back to Charles "tie" and decided to go that route. Well, lo and behold I manage to hold out for a 4.5-3... loss?

Wait a minute, what's going on here? It's a 4-3 tie in DoF and a 4.5-3 loss in DoS? Had I thought that the only option was to go for broke to tie, I would have. Instead, the new option of trying to tie the scores was an alluring alternative.

I would like to know what the working rule is on this for all three sports so this doesn't happen again. And if it is indeed a tie for Charles and a loss for me, I'd like to know why. Is there a third variant for Magic? Or was there simply an error? I'm fine with it being all one way or the other, but I don't think it good for the games to be different in this regard, for what it's worth.

From what the rules state...

"It takes a minimum of five points with a one-point lead to win. During regular hours, duels are limited to 15 rounds, after which a player with a one-point lead or greater is given the win, otherwise the duel ends as a tie."

The game guides don't mention variants, so which is it? The minimum of five points or the one point or more? I interpreted that as the latter and in the past 4-3 in 15 was a win. If it is indeed the latter, could this be reworded slightly to give an example, to something like,

"If no player has scored five points by the 15th round, the player with the full point or greater lead will be given the win. A tied score or a score with one player holding only a half point lead will result in a tie."

Or something like that to clarify the position, maybe give score examples.

Okay, thanks!

[Tasslehofl Momus]

If my old brain will work right this morning, I'll try and answer and make some sort of sense.

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The match ends when one of the duelists reaches 5 first *or* there is a full point lead after 15 rounds.

This is simple with DoS and DoM as they measure things by a .5 for advantages.

DoF, however, does not use a half point for and advantage. Instead, they use pluses (+). So say the score is 4-3 (you lead) and then I score an advantage, then the score would be 4-3+. The next round would determine if that + gets converted to a point, or dropped. If I score another advantage, the score then becomes 4-4. If I miss the second advantage, the score reverts back to 4-3.

(From here, I could be wrong.. my brain isn't saying one way or the other)

Now, if that 4-3+ is at round 15, I believe that will make it a tie match, since a round 16 won't be able to determine if the advantage gets converted or dropped.

~T

[G]

DoS and DoF have different rules. DoS has it as a win, DoF has it as a tie. I think DoM has it as a tie too, but I don't know if they changed that.

I'm not checking it at this moment, but you might have to check the rules for each individual sport regarding what constitutes the win for the actual rule that says it. I haven't read them in a while.

I don't anticipate there being any changes in how the scoring is done in the different sports. Think of it how Baseball and Hockey only award one point for a score or run, Basketball 2 points for a basket, and Football 6 for a touchdown.

[Jake]

(From here, I could be wrong.. my brain isn't saying one way or the other)

Now, if that 4-3+ is at round 15, I believe that will make it a tie match, since a round 16 won't be able to determine if the advantage gets converted or dropped.

Matt or Kheldar will have to answer for what the result in DoF is if there isn't a duelist who's reached 5 points yet.

However, the result of 4-3+ shouldn't result in a tie. If for example, the score reached 5-4+, it's a win. The adv carries no numerical value. So the final score would be X def. Y, 5-4. If you can win with less than 5 points, then the former example should be a 4-3 win.

[Goldglo]

For DoF, you need at least 5 points to win; as such, a 4-3 or 3-2 or 4-2 score after 15 rounds means the match ends in a tie.

As noted earlier, DoS is different, and a 4-3 or 3-2 or 4-2 score after 15 means the match ends in a win for the leader.

--Matt

[Kalamere]

From the chat room log:

Code: Select all

22:54:22	DUEL Lacey	FAME 14: Final round.. Halon's got two choices, tie it up or game over. Charles can prolly smell victory. ( Flip / Dodge ) 3-+4 Charles
22:57:11	DUEL Lacey	FAME 15: An' that's it.. Charles might of missed, but he's takin' the victory. ( Dodge / Jab )
22:57:14	DUEL Lacey	( Charles Blackstone .def. Halon Orserron, 5-4 in 15 )
22:57:22	DUEL Lacey	4-3 in 15*
22:57:57	DUEL Lacey	( Gimmie a sec )
22:59:10	DUEL Lacey	( Alright I was informed that since no one gained 5 points it's a tie. )
22:59:23	DUEL Lacey	( Charles Blackstone .ties. Halon Orserron, 4-3 in 15 )

Final score would be 4-3+ in this case as was speculated by Tass. However, Lacey says "since no one gained 5 points it's a tie", which makes it sound as if she isn't relying on the advantage theory.

DoS and DoF have different rules.

I don't see the evidence of this. It is entirely possible that I'm just missing it, but I see nothing in the DoF Game Guide or DoF Rules of Rank that speaks at all to how a duel is won. As such, I think one has to fall back to the generic "The Duels" page under Setting with the language that:

It takes a minimum of five points with a one-point lead to win. During regular hours, duels are limited to 15 rounds, after which a player with a one-point lead or greater is given the win, otherwise the duel ends as a tie.

So I don't see anything indicating DoF has different rules in this regard.

However, the result of 4-3+ shouldn't result in a tie. If for example, the score reached 5-4+, it's a win.

I don't believe that a score of 5-4+ is possible to achieve.

I do believe that Matt or Kheldar would have to speak to this though, to clear up the advantage aspect and what the actual rule is. Hearing from Lacey why she made the call that way would be cool too.

~Kal

[Kalamere]

For DoF, you need at least 5 points to win; as such, a 4-3 or 3-2 or 4-2 score after 15 rounds means the match ends in a tie.

Can we get that written into the rules then?

I apologize if it already is and I'm just not seeing it.

[Goldglo]

As to why DoF is different than DoS where the one-point-lead-means-a-tie-instead-of-a-win, I don't really know. It's been that way for as long as I can remember; way back when I thought DoS was the same way so the first time I found myself in a 4-3 loss situation I was surprised.

If it's something that folks want to talk about changing as far as how ties are handled, by all means let's have a discussion.

Specifically to Kal's question regarding why Lacey made the call for a tie, it's because she asked me what the result should be and, given past precedent, I told her the 4-3 (or 4-3+, whatever it was) meant there was a tie, not a win.

I had thought the tie explanation was in the rules already (it may have been at some point in time and got dropped off). We can add it back in if that's the case.

The more I think about it, it's probably a holdover from long ago - Kal mentioned that a 5-4+ score isn't possible and he's right, it's not possible anymore, but it was possible many years ago when fancies and feints interacted differently than they do now - feints used to split a point in to + and + for each dueler. If you look back in the Archives there are a few discussions about it and the 'fairness' of feinting when you had a score of 4+ in your favor, because in those days, feinting with 4+ was basically an automatic path to 5 points; it didn't work every single time, but it worked most of the time. I believe that was the 1st iteration of feints, which lead to the 2nd version (which was also terrible), which then lead to the way they work today.

--Matt

[Jake]

The more I think about it, it's probably a holdover from long ago - Kal mentioned that a 5-4+ score isn't possible and he's right, it's not possible anymore, but it was possible many years ago when fancies and feints interacted differently than they do now - feints used to split a point in to + and + for each dueler. If you look back in the Archives there are a few discussions about it and the 'fairness' of feinting when you had a score of 4+ in your favor, because in those days, feinting with 4+ was basically an automatic path to 5 points; it didn't work every single time, but it worked most of the time. I believe that was the 1st iteration of feints, which lead to the 2nd version (which was also terrible), which then lead to the way they work today.

As noted, 5-4+ isn't possible anymore, but it was in the past. Which is why the subject of whether the + counted at the end of the duel was previously discussed. At that time, the determination was that the + didn't count. It's only a potential value.

[Jake]

My memory is hazy on this...

I think the rule in the past was always, you had to have at least 5 points to win (both DoF and DoS). But, because the old DoM matrix tended to result in more duels that reached 15 rounds, they changed their rules to allow duels that reached 15 rounds to have a winner without reaching 5 points. (Or maybe it was just to provide another difference from DoS and DoF. I can't remember for sure.)

At some point, the idea of allowing DoS duels to be won with less than 5 points drifted over to the Arena.

As Matt pointed out, it's probably worth discussion. Especially now that we have the Fight Nights, where all three types of duel can happen, it would probably be beneficial for all three sports to follow the same rules with regard to whether it's a win or tie if 15 rounds are reached.

[Kalamere]

I sorta thought the same as Jake in regard to DoS, but it's not actually the case.

Over on the RDI site there's a library section that has the DoS rules from 1994

WIN: A win occurs when a player reaches FIVE POINTS and is a FULL POINT ahead of his opponent. OR, at the end of Fifteen rounds, the player with AT LEAST a full point lead is declared a winnner!

TIES: A tie occurs when there is LESS than a full point lead at the end of 15 rounds.

I believe this is the ruleset that changed the DoS fancy rules. I can't say if a change around the tie rules came in at the same time or not.

~Kal

[Jake]

I stand corrected.

[Goldglo]

And from the 1996 DoF rules archive:

"TIES: A tie occurs when the scores are equal at the end of 15 rounds, or neither dueller has succeeded in reaching 5 points total."

--Matt

[Kalamere]

Yeah, just saw that.

What's interesting is that the rule line there differs from the Quick Start guide that was written only a month previous:

The Duel is to 5 Points or 15 rounds. The first dueller to score 5 Points wins! If the duel goes to 15 rounds, the player with the highest score wins! If the score is tied, the duel is ruled a tie.

Wonder if it was a mistatement by the author or if something really changed there.

[Goldglo]

Panther's probably the only one who could answer that with any certainty.