There is this practice by COCs to award a portion of the full points, when teams submit a treasure which is only partially correct. For example if the treasure wanted is Gatorade drink, orange flavored, in 500ml bottle and teams could only find Gatorade, 500ml bottle BUT a different flavour, there have been cases where CoCs gave 2 points out of the total 5 points allocated for this treasure. Hunters called it sympathy points. CoCs on the other hand, I can only assume see it as encouragement points especially for the new hunters.
Now, CoCs have all the rights to format their hunt as they see fit. The only thing I have consistently asked for is full disclosure of hunt format. So that teams can make an informed choice. In this case if CoCs plan to award the sympathy points, announce it before the hunt because this sympathy points system can determine the strategy of a team in a hunt and the hunt results.
Personally I don’t agreed with giving this sympathy points. A miss is as good as a mile. But what do I know. So I’m running a poll at the sidebar to gauge hunters’ opinion on this subject.
Vote!