Greetings all,

Another update today on the impending Great Jedi War! Today, I will share with all of you how you earn points for your units. This will seem complex at first, but we created a system that helps address some of the issues of the past by explicitly balancing participation and placement so that both were important, but that we could control the relative importance of each. We expect from a description alone, this might seem complex - when competitions launch, the context will be visible in competitions themselves and this will help make this clearer, we think. In the mean time, feel free to ask question on this below, or ask your summits; they have all been part of the discussions regarding this system.

Earning Points - Participation

You will earn points for participation in bins and for placement in competitions. Each competition in the Great Jedi War will clearly list the bin/competition type into which that competition belongs, the participation points that bin/competition type yields, and the relative proportion of placement points that competition will yield. These terms, and how they impact unit scoring, are explained below.

Remember from my previous post on the GJW, bins are competition types that contain competitions which all share participation for a given phase. This system allows us to run far more varied competitions than in the past, without (we hope!) overwhelming members by making them feel they need to enter in every single competition, unless they want to. Competitions will state clearly which bin they belong to, both in the details of the competition, and in the name of the competition. When you participate in a competition in a bin for the first time that phase, you will earn your unit points for your participation in that bin/competition type; if you then go on to participate in at least one competition in all bins that phase, you will earn additional points for this participation, as well.

Tracking Activity

In order to help members track their own activity, we will be adding a way to visualize which bins have been participated in by modifying existing UIs for parent competitions, such that when members subscribe to competitions, they can see whether they have already completed a competition in the same bin as the competition they are subscribed to. Competitions will also clearly state which bin the competition is in, and the relative placement (See below). In addition, every competition during the Great Jedi War proper will follow the same following format: [ GJWXII Phase # ] Bin Name - Competition Name. This will be a relatively easy way to follow which competitions are in which bins during a given phase, even if you aren't subscribed to them.

Earning Points - Placement

Every competition you enter will earn you seals and credits, as well as a shot at individual accolades for placing, either in the form of points for your unit, or Novae. How many points you earn for placement depends on that competition's proportion of placement points for that phase. Placement points in a phase are influenced directly by how active members are in that phase. All points earned through participation in a given phase are also entered into that phase's placement pool, then tripled (see note below). Each competition will earn a proportion of those points, such that some competitions will yield more points for placement than others, depending on how the Dark Council views the skill needed to place in that competition.

The three pillars of activity - fiction, gaming, and graphics - are each represented by a bin, and the proportion of placement points in Phases I and II are close to equal between all three categories/bins in each phase, but the total number of competitions differ, leading to different values for different activities, which will be labeled in each competition. For instance, placing in Pazaak would be relatively less than placing in the Run-On (and also less than placing in the Jedi Academy Bracket). In Phases I and II, there will also be a Miscellaneous category, which will yield comparatively fewer total placement points than either of the pillar categories, but which will yield enough to make them valuable for members to enter!

The scoring system we are utilizing for this Great Jedi War explicitly balances the number of points available to be earned through placement and participation. Because this is a Great Jedi War, we place the emphasis here on points from placement. Thus, there are three times as many points to be earned from placement as from participation; the placement pool mentioned above is multipled by three before being distributed into competitions. Future major events will utilize points systems in the opposite direction, emphasizing participation over placement.

Adjusting for Unit Size

One last place that participating comes into play is in how we account for the extremely large disparity in unit sizes currently present. Although we mitigate the overall effect of participation by placing more of an emphasis on placement, larger units would still benefit more from the one fourth of points coming from participation than smaller units simply due to size alone. This is no knock on our larger units, which are generally among our most active, but a simple acceptance that we need to account for this disparity in some way.

The way we address this disparity once again turns to bins. When a member in a unit participated in at least one bin, they are considered a unique participant for that round. We look at the unique participant percentage of each unit, and compare the size of a unit to the largest unit in the club. The difference between unit size create 'ghost members' that participate at the same rate as the actual members in that unit, earning the average points for a single bin that round. Thus, the disparity in unit size is partially corrected by increasing participation in smaller units.

That's it for now! This information will also be stored at a more permanent location, for easy reference for members. Feel free to ask any questions below, or via Telegram. We know this is a little complex, but we think that once members see things in action, it will make plenty of sense!

Telaris "Mav" Cantor

Deputy Grand Master