Palatinus' OverPower Forum

Just wanted to get some feedback on how tie-breaks should happen during a round in a tournament. This is when time runs out and there is no definitive winner (4 character KO or 7 Venture up/down).

I (or someone) probably posted another topic about this but I can't find it so I would like to start a new discussion. (Found it: here -- and I don't want to discuss it there)

Officially, the tie break is:

QuoteGames will be time limited, ranging from thirty minutes to forty-five minutes. Winning a game will be determined by the following criteria:
a) Winning the game outright, according to the Official OverPower rules booklet.
b) In the event that the preset time limit expires, the player with the most mission cards in the completed pile will be the winner. Mission cards in the loss pile will be subtracted from those in the win pile  to determine completed missions.
c) In the event that the number of completed mission cards is the same for both players, the winner will be determined by totaling the number of life points left on his hero team out of the original 80.
d) Finally, should this factor also be a tie, the winner will be determined by which player has the most cards left in the original draw pile or the power pack if the draw pile has been exhausted.

A and B work. C needs work, D is just horrible.

As posted in the August 2011 tournament, the tie break is:

• +1 for each Mission in the Completed Missions pile, +0 for each Mission in the Reserve Missions pile, -1 for each Mission in the Defated Missions pile. Highest total is the winner. If that is still tied:
• Player with more characters remaining, after resolving Inherent abilities and specials (LG for example). If that is still tied:
• Player with the greater sum of Current and Permanent records on their opponent's characters and locations.

• The venture tie-break is standard and is kept unaltered. I formally posted it on the wiki so everyone knows. It's also written in the Tournament Guide.
  
• I decided to break the "official" C tie-break into two pieces:
  
  • The # characters remaining tie-break exists because it takes some skill to KO some characters (think X-Babies, Ghost Riders, etc.) than it is to land hits on them. I don't like the "subtract from 80" too much either.
    
  • The sum of hits is there because it's the last easiest measurable metric that happens within the game. We can only judge by what we see otherwise we can use # concedes or something as a metric. I added in the clause about location damage so hits onto a Battlesite (and possibly Krakoa) would count. Granted I haven't seen anyone purposely attack a Battlesite ever at our meetups, it shouldn't be ignored.
    

That's usually enough to determine a winner of a game before it actually finishes. However, we still need one method that will guarantee a winner at the end that doesn't take too much time. This is after the allotted time allowed, plus the current hand, plus the last hand so it needs to be decided quickly and fairly. A coin toss is probably the worst ideas to decide a winner.

My suggestion is this:
Continue the game, but each hand only has 1-4 cards (I originally wanted 1 but argued with myself and bamf! and I think 2-3 is better). Ignore all artifacts during the draw/discard phase (including Pym Particles, Cosmic Control Rod) -- maybe just the draw/discard/replace ones (because Infinity Gauntlet is useful when used)? Allowed to use placed cards. Winner of the battle (by current battle's venture) wins the game -- even if you KO a character, that phase happens after ventures are calculated. If that's tied, do it again and again.

I figure that one card might be too little, if you get an Ally card or a teamwork, it's effectively a horrible draw. 2 cards gives you enough to play with. 3 is the standard for drawing cards in OverPower (think HQ specials). 4 cards is almost like a full battle, especially at that point in the game where you probably end up with only 4 cards after accounting for unusables. We want this to be quick and done within 1 minute. Placed cards are allowed though most people would have spent their remaining placed cards in the last-hand battle though there could arise instances where they were not allowed to attack, special was not usable, etc.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

your revision to the points-less-than-80 is good, I think. I agree, characters left standing should count for something, especially when knowing when to take a hit, or when to shift and take a hit, is such a fundamental skill in this game.

The last tie-breaker is good, but with so much riding on it, I'd think a 4-card hand would still last several minutes... if you really wanted to make it quick, you could do it like the old War card game with something like this:

Each player flips 1 card to pit against their opponent. Higher "landed" value wins (so a 5/3 Ally counts as 3, a 2/8 EJ counts as 8, etc). Make it best of 3 to help assauge a bad draw. It's a better option than a coin flip. It's familiar (like cutting the deck to determine first play). It's quick, but provides a little more "base" to determine the winner. That's my 2 cents, anyway 

The number of cards is what BBH and I were just debating about. I prefer 2-4 cards, my argument against 4 is that is almost feels like a regular hand during that point in the game.

Though, we also hashed out that we should be able to work around ~5 minutes if this tie break is a rare (DoW from a pack kinda rare) occurrence. This "playoff" is the last of the 4 and will probably never show up, but it needs to be formally hashed out so we have a method to definitively declare a winner.

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EDIT: 1000th post.

Quote from: Jack on July 16, 2012, 04:12:25 PM
The number of cards is what BBH and I were just debating about. I prefer 2-4 cards, my argument against 4 is that is almost feels like a regular hand during that point in the game.

Though, we also hashed out that we should be able to work around ~5 minutes if this tie break is a rare (DoW from a pack kinda rare) occurrence. This "playoff" is the last of the 4 and will probably never show up, but it needs to be formally hashed out so we have a method to definitively declare a winner.

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EDIT: 1000th post.

the rarity is a good point. the 4-card option seems best in that regard, as it's a round number (being half a regular hand).