Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

[Colorless Green]

Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

This just seemed like it might be fun, and would likely result in some interesting builds. I'm hoping someone will have some input about the rules or some suggestions for more ways to incorporate chance into the ruleset.


General Rules

-HC, or SC and you're out after the first death.

-Any players settings are allowed.

-No rerunning of areas or bosses.

-Untwinked. ATMA is allowed as an extended stash.

-You may return to previous acts/difficulties to shop or redeem quest rewards.

-For the purposes of scoring, a quest is considered completed after you've done the work. You are not required to redeem rewards until you want to (if ever).

-Class must be chosen randomly. You're allowed to reroll once if you get a class you don't want to play, but you are forced to keep the second roll, and you must decide to reroll before making any other rolls for the char.

-Whatever other standard rules I forgot.


Skill Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly select a skill tree. Until the end of that act, you may only place points within that tree.

-You must place all skill points as soon as you receive them. A skill point is considered "received" when it appears in your skill tree window. You are permitted to wait to talk to Akara after clearing the den of evil, for example, to delay getting the skill point (though this deprives you of healing, obviously), or to store Radament's book indefinitely.


Stat Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly select two stats (roll 1-4 both times: it's possible to select the same stat twice). At every level, you must place two points into the first and one point into the second (in the order rolled - you do not get to choose which stat gets two and which gets one). The remaining two points are yours to do with as you see fit.

-You must place all received stat points immediately. You may save rewards as per skill points above.

-Stat points from quest rewards may be placed however you wish.


Equipment Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly generate two integers between 0 and 9. For the entirety of that act, you may only use items containing one or both of those integers somewhere in their in-game item description. The actual digit is required - a number word spelled out (two-handed sword, for example) does not count.

-You must at all times wear as much MF as you are able given the previous rule. You may not sell, drop, reroll, or otherwise alter a wearable piece of equipment that has the most MF for that wear location.

-You are not required to save MF items that are not currently wearable. If a worn item becomes unwearable at an act change, you are then permitted to sell it or otherwise prevent it from being forced back onto your char after your next reroll.


Scoring

5 points per Waypoint (including town)
10 points per Quest (including the cow king)
-1 point per Level



Not everything in here is a completely original idea - thank you to whoever I've lifted various concepts from.

Any thoughts?

-CG

 

[Ohomemgrande1]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

-1 point per Level

I must admit that this scoring rule makes absolutely no sense in a "single-pass" tournament. Someone that takes more risk by playing Hell at higher players level and does a full clear gets penalized by getting more experience and losing points. I think for a single-pass tournament with no rerunning, you should get +1 point/level but...

I like the concept of the tournament. It's just random enough that you could probably make some viable builds, but wouldn't really be able to plan out something.

I think the MF rule is good for Normal & Nightmare but should be relaxed for Hell.

I will consider playing in this one.

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

I thought about having the MF rule apply to only norm/NM, and I also thought about having a point penalty in exchange for being able to break the MF rule. What I came up with was the ability to sell/otherwise destroy unwearable MF equipment. With a bit of luck, it should be possible to get rid of the majority of your MF eq before hitting hell if that's your choice. I certainly don't want to kill everyone off by forcing MF gear through hell - if you're worried about not being able to sell stuff off effectively enough I could add in a voluntary rule break in exchange for a point penalty or something.

As for the scoring, people who do full clears at p8 are rewarded with more skill/stat points and presumably better equipment, and are presumably more likely to advance further. I consider underlevelling more dangerous than overlevelling. Also, progress is worth significantly more than the level penalty, so it is likely only to matter as a tiebreaker.


-CG

 

[skoolbus1]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

Personally, I'd say make it really challenging and you can have 0 mf at all times, that would really throw a wrench at everyone, but having 0 mf in this tourney would mean few good drops and a very long and boring game I think.

You need to clear up the mf rule though. For example, if I have ten chipped topazes, and two in a studded leather armor, and I see a 3 socket ring mail from charsi, do I have to buy it and stuff it full of topazes? If so, it's going to make getting perf topazes damn near impossible if you must take every available opportunity to get more mf.

Also, if I have a mf jewel, do I have to buy a socketed weapon and put the jewel in?

The mf rule will most likely kill you in hell (though with planning a build nearly impossible, that might not be difficult) as you'll have no notworthy mods to help you on your armor.

Anyhow, I'd be interested in this tourney.

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

The MF rule doesn't require you to do anything specific to generate MF gear. You're welcome to hold on to topazes/jewels/etc. It only requires that the highest wearable MF gear you have be equipped. You are not required to add stat points to wear a new piece of MF eq. You are not required to check for MF eq on a vendor you're shopping, though if you see a wearable piece with higher MF than your current piece for sale, you should buy it. Newly found MF items are required to be used (assuming they're wearable) as soon as they're identified.

Also, something I had originally thought of but didn't remember when I was writing the thread, the MF rule only applies to one weapon switch, which you aren't required to use (though it's certainly encouraged if you can maintain killing speed). The two slots are considered as a combined unit (you have to use the most MF total out of them both, whether it's a twohander or a weapon/shield or a weapon/weapon in the unlikely event that you come up with two MF weapons). I don't want to turn the MF rule into something that makes the tournament entirely tedious, it just seemed like an amusing added twist given the luck-based nature of the tournament. Something else I was considering is requiring any given armor location to be within 5-10% of your highest wearable MF to allow people to wear a 24%MF rare boots over 33%MF plain ones.

What else am I forgetting to clarify?


Also, at the rate this is going, I'll likely eliminate the MF rule once the player reaches hell, though I still think you'd be able to sell off the majority of your MF gear by hell if you started trying in early-mid NM.

-CG

edit: something else I had thought about: instead of the MF restriction, giving a point bonus based on MF at time of death/guardianship/retirement/etc. making it a voluntary additional challenge but not restricting people.

 

[Cius]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

Sounds cool. I would also be more interested though if you relaxed the MF in hell rule though.

 

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

I second that colorless. The character is going to have a tough time getting some fully developed and synergized attack skills as is. That's fine, it's the way these tourneys go. But in order to stand a chance in hell, the MF rule needs some relaxation. You could, for instance, state that everyone entering hell should do so with an amount of MF on random.org between 100 and 200%. Still a decent amount, still in the spirit of the tourney, but it will allow for some unique/runeword items w/out MF...

 

[Morathi1]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

Just my thoughts....

Firstly i like the idea very much, it forces you to play in a certain way and change your normal game style, which always means fun :thumbup:. IIRC a similar tournament has been made before.

Just a few things i believe you should do to make the tournament better...

1- I believe you should get rid of the item restriction rule. The skills, character (although not a problem) and stat restrictions are already enough to worry about and i personally think the tournament would be better without the item restriction.
2- The MF restriction should IMO be taken away as well. MF is very much a personal thing for alot of people. Some want as much as they can have, and others would rather more survivability. Some choose to have a balance between the two. So as you can see i think the MF rule is already applied to many people and thus doesn't need to be implemented again. It really is our own choice and it may work to your advantage or against you. So the choice is ultimately yours.

Other than that, the tournament sounds fun, interesting and should be a good challenge.

I will most likely participant....depending on how my suggestions get treated...ancake:.

 

[Alzakarr]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

I would vote for eliminating the MF rule. A lot of us stack MF for these things anyways, and there are too many complications with partial sets, unid'ed objects, ect. It'll require too many added rules (if I break these MF gloves, do I have to repair them?) and to me it doesn't really feel it the "theme" of the rest of the rules. If you really want to force certain equips, it might be better to use s property like defense (generally ignored by players, nearly all items have a def. value.) I do really like the tournament idea, and it creates some interesting dilemmas, not to mention changing what we define as godly items - bladebuckle can have up to 9 integers woot!

 

[skunkbelly]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

I would also vote for eliminating the MF rule. Otherwise, sounds fun... though I might suggest making [highlight]all[/highlight] stat point assignments random... you could make people assign them in batches of 10 (so every second level gained), with a 4-3-2-1 distribution based on the generated random sequence for the act (so if you rolled "strength-energy-vitality- dexterity," you'd place 4 in strength, 3 in energy, etc.).

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

Updated Rules. Changes/clarifications are italicized.

General Rules

-HC, or SC and you're out after the first death.

-Any players settings are allowed.

-No rerunning of areas or bosses. Full clears, while encouraged, are not required. You may "save" areas to run later. If you do so, keep track.

-Untwinked. ATMA is allowed as an extended stash.

-You may return to previous acts/difficulties to shop or redeem quest rewards.

-For the purposes of scoring, a quest is considered completed after you've done the work. You are not required to redeem rewards until you want to (if ever).

-Class must be chosen randomly. You're allowed to reroll once if you get a class you don't want to play, but you are forced to keep the second roll, and you must decide to reroll before making any other rolls for the char.

-You are not required to complete all quests or find all waypoints, though it is highly encouraged.

-Mercenaries are completely unrestricted.

-You may re-enter as many times as you wish, though please don't kill off your chars in the moor if you roll a defensive aura pally or something.

-Forum-accepted mods (RRM/RWM/CRM) are allowed.


Skill Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly select a skill tree. Until the end of that act, you may only place points within that tree.

-You must place all skill points as soon as you receive them. A skill point is considered "received" when it appears in your skill tree window. You are permitted to wait to talk to Akara after clearing the den of evil, for example, to delay getting the skill point (though this deprives you of healing, obviously), or to store Radament's book indefinitely.


Stat Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly select two stats (roll 1-4 both times: it's possible to select the same stat twice). At every level, you must place two points into the first and one point into the second (in the order rolled - you do not get to choose which stat gets two and which gets one). The remaining two points are yours to do with as you see fit.

-You must place all received stat points immediately. You may save rewards as per skill points above.

-Stat points from quest rewards may be placed however you wish.


Equipment Rules

-At the beginning of every act, randomly generate two integers between 0 and 9. For the entirety of that act, you may only use items containing one or both of those integers somewhere in their in-game item description. The actual digit is required - a number word spelled out (two-handed sword, for example) does not count.

-Altering an item (via socketing with something) is an accepted and encouraged method of making an item "wearable".

-Personalized items may always be worn.

-Charms and mercenaries are exempt from the above restriction.

-Due to overwhelming unpopularity, all MF-related rules have been removed.


Scoring

5 points per Waypoint (including town)
10 points per Quest (including the cow king)
-1 point per Level



Things that I think are still open for discussion, and my current opinions about them:

-Randomizing all stat placement. I don't personally want to do this because it can potentially be very damaging to equipment viability, which will already be tricky with the item wearability rules.

-Removing the item wearability rules. I don't really want to do this either because I don't think they'll be crippling. My experience in the two-two-something tournament that I forget the name of (where all equipment was required to have a "2" in it) was that a surprisingly large chunk of equipment was available. In this tournament, you'll have two different integers to choose from, so my expectation is that, on average, 50-75% of equipment will be usable.

- +1/level vs -1/level for scoring. I'm fine with -1/level, but if there's support of removing/altering that, something can happen.



-CG

 

[wakiki]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

I really like the idea of the tournament, but I think you should do away with the scoring system altogether and base it on waypoint progress through the game, with level being the tiebreaker (the higher level wins).

I think that scoring is only useful in unstandard tournaments like Magic Finding, funny screenshot competitions, and other such ideas. In these cases, it's fun keeping track of the items you find and how many points they are worth, and so on. For "standard" play-the-game-with-restrictions tournaments, they are only a hassle. In my opinion.

If you keep the scoring system, my vote goes for the +1 point per level. I'd really prefer not to have it at all though...

Also, I kinda like having restricted Charms. Changing sets of charms with acts sounds funny and interesting (and in the spirit of the tournament) to me.

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: Rules Discussion: The "Generating Hits for Random.org" Tournament

Does anyone else have a thought on restricting charms?

Also, there's a lot of other tournaments going on, so unless anyone's really itching to get started on this, I was thinking on holding off a bit before actually getting going (also, my selfish reason is that I'll be out of town in a couple weeks and kinda want to wait to get started until I get back). If there's people that want to get going quickly, though, I don't mind starting it up right away.

-CG