Hit factor vs. Time added

[TRNinTX]

Moderator Edit: Cleaning up after BJ. See below.

Edited January 24, 2005 by Erik Warren

[B.J. Norris]

Whoops... That was really me, I should look closer at who is signed in before I post...

BJ

I know this has been brought up in the past, but since there seems to be A LOT of BOD activity here lately, I’ll bring it up. Hit Factor scoring is outdated and cumbersome. I think about how to explain the entire HF scoring to somebody off the street and it goes something like “Well, you have to take your target score, but it’s only half of your score and divide is by your time for the stage, and that’s your Hit factor. But you can’t really tell anything from that until everybody has shot the stage, then you have to divide your stage Hit Factor by the stage winner’s stage Hit Factor, and the first 4 numbers there is your percentage of the winners score for the stage, but that doesn’t mean much until you multiply it by the maximum total stage points available, which is total amount you can get by shooting all A’s on the targets, and that’s how many points you get for that one stage which are called match points, do that on all the stages, then add up the match points, and whoever has the most of those is the winner of the match.” Now, time added scoring would go something like “If you hit the target in X zone, you get Y time added to your time for the stage, add all stage times together and whoever has the lowest time wins the match.”

If you want to keep the accuracy/speed balance about the same as it is now, make it .1 second a C, .3 per D and 1 or 1.5 seconds added for mikes. If you want crank up the accuracy some, .25 seconds per C, .5 seconds per D and 2 seconds for a mike. I would support the latter option. I know this would take a MASSIVE change in the entire World body of IPSC, and that alot will throw a hissy fit over it. However this switch would make things much easier to explain to new shooters and spectators. Even after almost 4 years of shooting and an RO class, I didn't fully understand HF scoring until recently.

Edited January 24, 2005 by Erik Warren

[Sestock]

Hit Factor simplified = Points scored per second. Pretty Simple Stuff.

No need for the compliacated adding time for points down system.

[DogmaDog]

I agree.

Even at IDPA matches, I don't find out "the score" (who won, where I stand) until after the match is over, so I don't think their scoring method (time added), though simpler, really helps.

IPSC scoring is just your rate of scoring points, instead of an absolute number of points. Your hit factors for each stage are normalized for the number of shots in the stage. What's so hard to get?

(all right, I am being facetious...it is pretty convoluted)

Really, though...I think hit factor scoring is important, because the value of a second is different for shooters at different levels...if you're a Master, a second is an eternity, and if you're a D class shooter, it's not much time at all.

Time added scoring denies that truth.

DD

[George]

My $.0219

Time+ is (at the moment) an easier to manage scoring system for multi-gun competition. But applied to purely pistol shooting in it’s typical form, time+ removes a lot of the speed vs. accuracy comparison we all like about HF scoring and changes it to a game where not making any mistakes whatsoever is almost more important than great performance is everywhere else.

If time+ were applied in a typical USPSA pistol match, two FTN’s could flush an entire match in the competitive environment (read shark tank) that USPSA pistol competition is. With HF scoring, a mike, or two and maybe even a couple no-shoot‘s are able to be overcome by cranking it up a little somewhere else. Small failures are not drastic and almost unrecoverable losses in HF scoring.

You would have to greatly reduce the time amounts added for penalties in time+ scoring to get the result that HF scoring gives us in this respect.

--

Regards,

[shred]

hit factor scoring is important, because the value of a second is different for shooters at different levels...if you're a Master, a second is an eternity, and if you're a D class shooter, it's not much time at all. 

Time added scoring denies that truth.

Amen brother!

Different stages also have different HF's. Slow & accurate or speedy & fast.. it all balances out and adds infinite variety.

[MikeFoley]

Don't change the scoring, hit factor is fine for USPSA, even though it can reward speed a little too much, the right combination of courses can reward accuracy too. I like time plus in IDPA, and especially in GSSF, but USPSA is different. I even like Paladin in 3Gun, so I am certainly not biased to one scoring method.

I will expand on this with an example: I have a friend(who will read this for sure) who is much faster than me on time period. I tend to get more points than he does. When he beats me on a stage with a mike, I don't like it. But wait, here comes the accuracy stage, and he doesn't like those results. A good match should have both types of courses, and most of the time they do(tournaments approved by USPSA have to have a mixture; see the rulebook on tournament)

When Jeff Cooper introduced the triad (DVC ie: Dilligentia Vis Celeritas ie: accuracy, power, speed) it truly made sense, and it still does today. Time Plus invites use of the mouse gun because of its lack of recoil(see GSSF). Before someone gets upset, I know a lot of you use major caliber factory ammo in GSSF and IDPA and shoot well, but there are as many who shoot the lightest 9 they can find even though they carry 45 or 357, fact.

Where the whole thing gets screwed up is that too many people never learn the fundamentals first. If you have accuracy, speed will come. That oversimplifies it a bit, but it is true and is supported many places on this forum by guys much more talented than I.

[MoNsTeR]

I don't have a problem with hitfactor scoring, but the match points system kinda rubs me the wrong way (in addition to being hard to explain to newbies). I kinda wonder, how might things work out if we added or averaged hit factors instead of using the match points system?

[wide45]

OY!

This has been argued to death on the old IPSC digest.

Nobody was able to come up with a system that did not skew the results in an undesirable way.

I'm willing to listen to new ideas, but you need to do your research first.

Lets NOT rehash the same bad ideas time and time again.

[Flexmoney]

It might be important to note that...

- Hit Factor...is variable.

- Time Plus is the same as having a "Fixed Hit Factor".

[Patrick Sweeney]

An argument that first came up in my experience ca. 1981. We were starting to do multi-stage matches, and we couldn't figure out how to weight the stages. The idea was that we should assign a match percentage to each stage, depending on how difficult the stage was.

Talk about arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin! For a time, it eclipsed all other discussions, arguments, and even strained some friendships. We finally decided that stages should simply have the weight of their round count, and if a stage designer wanted to make a stage easier or harder, that was his choice.

As for comstock vs. time-plus, it reminds me of the Ptolemaic vs. the Copernican systems to describe the solar system. What everyone forgets is that you could very accurately predict solar events using the Ptolemaic system. (It was an incorrect descriptor of the system, but a correct predictor of the results.)

Comstock currently gives us a correct description of performance. Does time-plus? That is it easier is not in dispute, but we do not do this because it is easy. When someone invents a system that is both as precise as comstock, and as easy as time-plus, then we're on to somehting.

[Rob Boudrie]

I don't have a problem with hitfactor scoring, but the match points system kinda rubs me the wrong way (in addition to being hard to explain to newbies).  I kinda wonder, how might things work out if we added or averaged hit factors instead of using the match points system?

Hit factor scoring with the current stage points means that all shots have the same weight in the overall match. If you shoot a stage with 10% of the rounds in the match, it accounts for 10% of your score. Stage averaging would be a major departure from this, and would also impact stage design. Questions like "Do you really want to add a 6 round stage which will count as much as the 24 round field course?". State weighting is self-balancing.

The only problem with the current system is that the performace of shooter "X" can cause the overall placement of competitors "Y" and "Z" to flip. Thus far, all attempts to come up with a solution for this have resulted in a cure which is worse than the disease.

[rhino]

The only problem with the current system is that the performace of shooter "X" can cause the overall placement of competitors "Y" and "Z" to flip. Thus far, all attempts to come up with a solution for this have resulted in a cure which is worse than the disease.

And that's really a non-problem in my opinion.

Our current system may not be perfect, but it's far better than any of the others.

[Sparky]

I've been shooting this sport since 1980 and have seen numerous changes in equipement, targets, stage design, etc. The one thing that hasn't changed is that we can disagree without being disagreeable. This type of forum allows us

to post thoughts and ideas and have other shooters comment on them.

This scoring thing has been kicked around for years and yet we have not come up with a better system than what we have now. However, we need to keep kicking, because out there somewhere is an idea that has not been brought forth.

I agree with all of you (can I ride the fence or what). Explaining the system

can be confusing, however I tell new shooters not to worry about scoring; shoot the best you can safely and have fun.

DVC,

Sparky