Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011
Stay awhile and listen!
Once upon a time there was a player named tavaritz. He was a bit... difficult. He filled this tournament thread with oodles and oodles of questions, constant theories about how people would cheat, or not play according to the spirit of the tournament... he told us the rules were bad, demanded changes and clarifications, and so on.
Finally, though, it was finally time to play.
Enter WestXylophone (a veteran of several tournaments and an all around good guy, as far as I can tell). WX started a necromancer named Dooku. The character went through Act 1, with fairly standard assignments of skill points:
1 point into Amp Damage
1 point into Dim Vision
1 point into Confuse
1 point into Clay Golem
The rest of Dooku's skill points were left unassigned for the next player. Nothing to argue with there... necros have a ton of one-point wonders, and Gumby and the curses generally fall into that category.
After completing act 1, WX's duty was to forward Dooku... to tavaritz. One would expect, after all of the paranoia, insinuation, and general snarkiness that we endured from tavaritz, that he would play according to the rules. After all, who else spent so much damn energy on them?
Well, that's not how it happened.
In act 2, tavaritz added 15 points to Clay Golem.
15. Points. Into. Clay. Golem.
This is in clear violation of the following tournament rule:
A NOTE ON THE SPIRIT OF THE TOURNAMENT (aka, “The Brak Clauseâ€)
One of the fun things about this tournament is the not-knowing, and also the ability to have input into a character and then pass him/her along to become someone else’s, who will do whatever they like in their own turn.
Anyway, as many have pointed out (and some of us remember all too well), the temptation is certainly there to make some characters into “bombs,†doomed to explode (implode?) at some point in their journey.
All players should understand that the idea of the tournament is to make characters who are Hell-viable. It’s going to be hard enough, with the gear restrictions and the skill limitations. Some skills have been banned as Power skill selections, to prevent the most obvious intentional nerfing of characters. But I expect everyone to adhere to both the letter and spirit of these two basic rules:
1. You will pass your character to the next player with the gear you used to beat the act, and with the gear that you honestly think is the best / most useful you have in your possession.
2. You will assign skill and stat points in ways that you think will benefit the character, and make them playable late in the game.
I challenge anyone to provide me with an honest estimation of how it is beneficial for any character to have 16 hard points into Clay Golem at any stage in the game, let alone with the idea that such a character could still be hell viable. At best, it's painfully poor strategy... at worst, it's intentionally nasty. Tavaritz's actions were clearly not in the spirit of the tournament, and were in direct violation of the rules he spent so much energy arguing about.
Usually, at this point, I would either disqualify him, or make him replay his own character for the next several acts as penance. However, Instant Karma has already robbed me of that pleasure. Tavaritz earned the distinction of being the first person in the tournament to earn his deeds. The fact that it happened nearly immediately after his crimes restores my faith in the universe.
As for Dooku...
What happened then was that the next two players saw the disastrous character, and weren't sure what to do. Lamentably, neither forwarded him to me for a ruling, or we could have fixed this earlier. Both played him forward, carefully, on low /players settings, and managed to put a total of 4 new levels on Dooku between acts 3 and 4. They did not select any Power Skills at all... they decided it would be helpful to whoever got him next to have as much leeway as possible.
So finally, Dooku arrived in Quickdeath's hands with 4 unused skill points, at level 32, with no assigned Power Skills, a level 16 Clay Golem, and 1 point each into various curses and prerequisites. I think it is fairly safe to say that even if Quickdeath immediately began putting every available point into something useful, he could not make Dooku strong enough to defeat act 5, let alone make him viable for nightmare. And even if it could be done, the fact is that the character was intentionally ruined, and that is not in the spirit of the game.
Prior to 1.13, this would have been tough luck for Quickdeath. Since tavaritz is out of the tournament, I cannot make him swap act 5 characters with Quickdeath, nor can I disqualify tavaritz and give his character to Quickdeath.
Luckily, however, we're playing 1.13, and Dooku's respec has not been used. So the situation is salvageable. Here, then, is my ruling:
1. Quickdeath will write down all current skill and stat point assignments for Dooku, and then use the respec.
2. Stat points should be assigned exactly as they were assigned before. Even if the stat assignments were made poorly, that is salvageable in the long-run, so those choices will stand.
3. Any skill that currently has a skill point in it should be given a skill point again. But the extra points tavaritz put into Clay Golem should not be placed.
4. WoRG and Nualum were the next two players to get Dooku. Both of them will need to select one Power Skill, and PM their selections to Quickdeath. For whichever of you had the character in act 4, please select a "second choice" in case you both pick the same skill.
5. Quickdeath will then assign 2 points to each of these selected Power Skills, and will be able to assign the remaining skill points as he sees fit (which includes, of course, selecting the third and final Power Skill).
This should turn Dooku into a reasonable character going forward. And please, if anyone else has come across something so awful, send the character to me for review.
Sorry this was so long, but I felt it necessary to explain the situation in its entirety, since the remedy is so drastic.