Swedish Komp System

[andalucien]

I do like the idea that, even if we can poke holes in things that seem undervalued or overvalued according to the comp (just as we can do with GW's assigned point values), at least the changing comp values will force DIFFERENT armies to emerge.

It seems like what Swedish komp punishes is KNOWN power builds.  If you come up with a new power build that flies under the komb radar, you get an advantage (temporarily, until the Komp catches up).  Seems fun.

[robpro]

It doesn't just work on "known power builds," it also prevents you from running army staples like any vehicles or assault units that don't suck goats for necrons. It's a place to start, I like the idea of a scale. Instead of just banning stuff or saying no dupes, it says you can have some really good stuff but each thing in your army can't be the don't least the most min/maxed.

[keithb]

It doesn't just work on "known power builds," it also prevents you from running army staples like any vehicles or assault units that don't suck goats for necrons. It's a place to start, I like the idea of a scale. Instead of just banning stuff or saying no dupes, it says you can have some really good stuff but each thing in your army can't be the don't least the most min/maxed.

it is never going to be perfect, but usually it gets better.

Necrons probably suffer from being considered the top army at one point, and it might not get re-evaluated down.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Would a guy like Alex do much worse if I built his list by throwing darts at the 40k wall? 

Uh, yeah, I'd think so..  You could always ask Alex.  There are times I feel when I've almost beaten him, so I certainly that would be easier if he had a crummy list. 

List matters a lot, I think.  That said, I don't know that this comp does a great job of punishing "good" lists, it seems like it more merely punishes "popular".  Those are not at all synonymous. I like Hammerheads, personally find them more useful per point than broadsides, but they're aren't popular, so they weren't penalized. 

It's worth asking, what do you want a comp system to do?  Way I see it, there's a few options:

1) Balance out "Good lists".  I.e. if you actively take a bad list, you're rewarded for it.

2) Create more diversity -- either by reducing spam (3 riptides, 7 wave serpents, whatever) and also by making sure we see more than one type of list....not everything einds up being jet seer all the time, or O'Vesa star

3) Some people just want to get rid of the "broken" things.....mostly deathstars of various types, atm. 

I don't love #1, because to me, list building is a fun part of the game.  Personally, I just want to see both more different codexes and more different builds within those codexes do well.

Why is #1 bad?  You have new paramaters, you can weigh the merits of how important something is to your in game success to how much it helps your comp score(and how important the comp score is to placing well).

Just a new variable.  If anything it forces you to actually understand your codex better.

#1 one can be bad, because some "good" builds are well within the fluff and theme of the army.  Trying to drive you away from builds that match the theme of your army seems lame.

Tau is a good example --  Tau are meant to work with markerlights, obviously.  Markerlights are very powerful, and most winning lists (outside of the O'Vesa star stuff) have markerlights, so this Comp system heavily penalized markerlights, so much so that 3 of the 5 points my list scored was just on the number of markerlights.

But, do you want to incentivise markerlight-less Tau armies?  That'd be unfluffy as hell. 

It's a little like if you penalized not just flyrants, but ANY hive tyrant for tyranids, or even worse, just penalized synapse.  Are tyranid armies without synapse worse than bug armies with them?  Well, yeah, obviously, but I don't think that means you should try to limit the # of synapse. 

That's why nerfing "good" things shouldn't be the main consideration.  I also don't want to make people take bad lists, I just want to see more variety of lists.

[keithb]

Who gives a flying fuck about how "fluffly" markerlights are?

If you start considering fluff in a comp system, it will not work.

You can only comp on tabletop effectiveness and need.


Comparing markerlights to needing synapse is a joke.  Try for a few fucking seconds Matt to look at how it affects not matt bennett and see how it works for everything.

So it comps markerlights, so what?  taking a -1 or -2 is no issue, almost every list probably does.  Maybe you shouldn't take all the other awesome shit with it.

[Grok]

I don't post ever but I will let it be known I am not a fan of this system or any comp. I'll play a few events with this, but I will prefer to play in events without these restrictions.
Bill McFadden

[Sir_Prometheus]

Who gives a flying fuck about how "fluffly" markerlights are?

If you start considering fluff in a comp system, it will not work.

You can only comp on tabletop effectiveness and need.


Comparing markerlights to needing synapse is a joke.  Try for a few fucking seconds Matt to look at how it affects not matt bennett and see how it works for everything.

So it comps markerlights, so what?  taking a -1 or -2 is no issue, almost every list probably does.  Maybe you shouldn't take all the other awesome shit with it.

Whoa, whoa.  First of all, this has nothing to do with the fact I play Tau nor the fact you play tyranids.

Second of all, I care a great deal "how "fluffly" markerlights are?".  I think for most comp systems what is "fluffy" is a huge part of it.  Most of us what to see army compositions that reflect what we think the giant fantasy-in-space battles should look like.  Like we'd all like to see an effective marine army that had maybe ONE Landraider, a couple rhinos, maybe a couple drop pods.  But that's not what what we see. 

[the_trooper]

Fluff is about as subjective as they get.

Case in point: Grey knight bikers.

Comp must not be subjective for it to be effective.

[andalucien]

And it's extensible ... like you could add

14 for each Transcendent C'Tan
37 for each Revenant Titan except for the 4th and 7th

[AstartesXXVI]

I'd agree with Keith, I don't like comp or support it in any way but if you have to go that route, you definitely can't consider fluff. For some armies fluff is definitely the way the power builds lean (5E GK, 5E SW, and early 6E Necrons were victims of this, for example). For others it hurts.

The most important part of this Komp system is that it basically gives people a way to rate the armies against each other army to army in terms of their actual (or at least, perceived) on-table effectiveness. if it only gives points for things which make your army stronger, than that is a good metric. (As soon as you add ways to shrink it back down people will just game it, it's definitely better additive).

So your answer to people scoring it on butt hurt is just to hide it from the recipient?   Good plan.

Rubrics are desired because it is transparent to everyone.

Also, can you please explain why i shouldn't act "like a nice guy" because I took a hard build?  Shouldn't we always be "nice guys" while we are playing the game and be gentlemen?

Nah, I don't mean to hide it. But it should be the tally shown, not a full breakdown. You don't want people to know exactly what they got from exactly who, in a player-voted environment...it just breeds contention. It is prone to being challenging from the more aggro types of guys (That is how Matt and I first crossed paths, actually).

Rubrics are a thing I don't like personally, but obviously they are a necessary thing a lot of the time. The reason I don't like rubrics is because they can be gamed and are always prejudiced. (Also, you can do player voting and still be transparent: I tell people up front how it works and that they can gain X more points by getting good marks on the player voted stuff. But it's clear BG and the national overall scene don't need to go that route so I'll stop talking about it. It's just, to me, the only person who it matters to how you are playing is the guy across the table).

As for being nice, well, let me put it to you this way: you ever play a game with a jerk? It sucks, no? Think back to it and think if it would have been any better if both you and he had weaker armies. Comp rubrics don't address this, they just deal with bad lists, not bad players or bad games. That's my angle, though, as a person who isn't looking to the bigger 40k scene.

I prefer the player rating experience, but I can see how a scoring mechanism like this would benefit BG in-game and in terms of rep.

[Cryptognomicon]

I'd be willing to give this a shot at some point at a BG event. But I would not want it to be an "every tournament" sort of thing.

Luckily Chase has already stated a zillion times that there is going to be all kinds of events at BG over the next year so hopefully he will consider adding this to the list of event ideas.

[keithb]

As for being nice, well, let me put it to you this way: you ever play a game with a jerk? It sucks, no?

Fail to see what this has to do with my list.  My list could also be pretty tame but a Rock to your Scissor. Why should that have anything to do with my army comp score?

[Sir_Prometheus]

Sportsmanship score and player-scored comp are in theory different things.....yet they almost never are, in practice.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Fluff is about as subjective as they get.

Case in point: Grey knight bikers.

Comp must not be subjective for it to be effective.

As far as I know, there is nothing fluffy at all about GK bikers.  But knights & bikes are objectively awesome. 

[AstartesXXVI]

That is sort of my point. Comp puts overemphasis on list contents, and list contents aren't the reason people don't go to tournaments. People avoid tournaments because they are perceived to be full of assholes.

I know people who avoid entire events just because ONE person is entered in them, comp or no. And if you go with a gimpy list because of comp, what is to stop you from making up for it by being a slow-playing, rules-misquoting, mis-measuring piece of shit? Nada. Low sportsmanship? So what, if it doesn't affect your actual chances at victory of some kind?

A comp system comes with the inherent reassurance there will be less dickhead lists, but the dickheads who play those lists still get to come (and you get to listen to them whine all day right off rip because they couldn't bring their 4th Riptide that day).

All I was saying is I'd rather face a thousand bullshit lists than one bullshit player, and that comp rubrics do nothing to deal with that. You can't make a rubric that says like, "Was he nice? +1 point..." You know? A game with an asshole doesn't suddenly become good because the comp dented their list.

You need to rate the player, their sportsmanship, and their list in tandem to really get to the root of the problem.