Leo Fried

This summer I am planning on writing a bunch more QUEST articles. We’ll see how many: QUEST: 2022 MLQ Finals took about sixty hours for just two games, although a lot of that time was figuring out the scoring system and setting up infrastructure, which I won’t have to repeat this time.

Since writing that article, I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about that scoring system, and I also have access to a much wider base of statistics about the 2023 MLQ Season that I did not have at the time. Thus, some of the values of the quadball, dodgeballs, etc, need updating.

See What is QUEST? for the original explanation of what is going on: the rest of this article will focus on updates to that system. There will be a number of tweaks for the 2024 edition.

1) In the original article, I noted that teams (in 6v6) score about 40% of the time, and thus control of the quadball must be worth 2 points, such that stealing it is worth 4 points. While the 40% statistic is validated by the 2023 MLQ season statistics, I don’t think the logic was quite right. In particular, I treated “having the quadball” and “having the quadball in a halfcourt” as the same, when in fact, the first is worth more (as you might be on a fastbreak, where you are far more likely to score).

Using the 2023 MLQ Season statistics, I estimated (using one or more dodgeballs back as a proxy for halfcourt possession) that teams score in the halfcourt only 30% of the time. Thus, possession of the quadball in the halfcourt is worth only 1.5 points (instead of 2), stealing it in a way that doesn’t open up a transition opportunity is worth only 3 (instead of 4). On the other hand, scoring during a halfcourt is now worth 7 (10 for the goal, minus 3 for the implied turnover) instead of 6.

Transition opportunities will be graded in the same way as before: extra points assigned on the defensive possession that created the transition opportunity proportional to how good the opportunity is, and the rest of the points assigned during the opportunity itself, such that a steal and score is worth exactly 10 points.

2) Similar analysis of the dodgeballs shows that in 6v6, dodgeball control is actually worth 2.5 points (instead of 4), and so stealing it worth 5 points (instead of 8). There was some discussion last time about the fact that depending on the matchup, dodgeball control can to be more or less sticky, and thus should be worth more or less. This is totally true, and I may try to adjust for this ad hoc.

3) SOP quadball gradings remains unchanged: in the 2023 MLQ season, teams scored on 60% of their SOP possessions, so the quadball is worth 3 points during SOP (and stealing it is worth 6).

4) The value of control in SOP is the hardest computation here, as we still don’t have good statkeeping tools to measure exactly what is going on. For now, I’m just to eyeball that if the quadball is worth about twice as much during SOP, then dodgeball control probably is too. Thus I am somewhat arbitrarily valuing dodgeball control during SOP as worth 4.5 points (so winning it back is worth 9 points). Of course, this is subject to change over the course of the season as I gather more data.

5) I want to grade seekers this year. This does not mean I will be grading the particular moves that a seeker makes or anything like that: seekers will be eligible to gain and lose points in two ways.

First, seekers that help their beaters (or fail to help their beaters) gain back control, or seekers that effectively defensive seek in a way that covers for their beaters doing other things, will score a share of the points generated by the beater interaction they helped create.

And second, seekers will lose 1 point for every 3 seconds of flag runner engagement opportunity produced by their beaters (counteracting the corresponding point gain to the beaters who produced it), but then will score 30 points for a flag catch. Thus an average seeker (who catches after 90 seconds of flag runner engagement) will expect to end with a score of 0, while seekers that catch sooner than that will gain points and seekers that take longer will lose points.

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All of this is still subject to change over the course of the summer, as I get more comfortable with the system and develop a stronger sense of what different plays should be worth. And of course, any feedback/thoughts on how to think about scoring plays (especially SOP plays) is welcome and encouraged, either in the comments here or over DMs or wherever.

Looking forward to the season!