The Sin War: Team-Based Co-Op & PvP Tournament

[D2DC]

The Sin War: Triune vs Cathedral of Light

https://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo:_The_Sin_War

All praises to Diablo - Lord of Terror and survivor of the Dark Exile. When he awakened from his long slumber, my Lord and master spoke to me of secrets that few mortals know. He told me the kingdoms of the High Heavens and the Pits of the Burning Hells engage in an eternal war. He revealed the powers that have brought this discord to the realms of man. My Lord has named the battle for this world and all who exist here the Sin War.

With the recent MP activity, and murmurings of some potential PvP, and a timely message from @Excalibur, I thought I may give this idea another go. Excalibur and I both would like to get a tournament going that can promote: trading, co-op/MP, and possibly PvP.

The main premise would be to divide up all players into two teams or "cults": Triune vs. Cathedral of Light.

• Un-twinked - this would allow ANY player to join, regardless of version/status. You can always play in the tournament, and just keep things separate from your main characters/stashes. Secondly, this would seriously limit the availability of OP items, making "lesser" items more valuable. Members of the same cult can trade/share items.
• MP & P-setting - Rush a Sorc to Mephisto, load her up with MF and farm some gear for your team. Co-Op/MP play allowed within the same cult, and any player setting allowed.
• PvP - there would be a team vs team PvP session after each difficulty (at levels 30/50/70). Team-based point system for each PvP victory.
• Character level limits - Each act must be completed at/below certain clvl. Keeping characters under-leveled would also encourage MP play, and we need to have pre-decided levels agreed upon for dueling. Skipping/re-running areas for items/exp IS allowed (but, no LK or superchest running)

This is just a quick suggestion I made up for maximum allowed level for each act.

Normal/NM/Hell:
A1 - clvl 15/39/--
A2 - clvl 20/42/60
A3 - clvl 25/45/--
A4 - clvl 30/50/65
A5 - clvl 35/55/70

Suggestions/input are VERY welcome, as the parameters are certainly not set in stone. The biggest one for me would be that we play UT, as to allow anyone to join, and to keep everybody under-geared (promoting trading), and under-powered (promoting MP).

I would guess that we need a minimum of 6 or 8 players to join up in order to make PvP work? I don't know what would be the best format? 1v1 - so each player plays against every opponent player? 2v2 - so each team can plan some complementary builds? Free-for-all? or some combination of all of the above?

 

[skiffcz]

This has potential. Few inputs just off the top of my head:

• I dont know about the mandatory /p8 versus level limits. These two contradict each other. I like the level limits more, so I would let players to set their /psettings themselves. Maybe you want to run certain target so you pick best /psettings that gives you least exp for most drops? I dont know, it seems to allow more nuanced strats but still make it fair due to level cap.
• Maybe limit the classes? One character from each class per team only? So we dont end up with just all sorcs. Also, maybe ban oskill teleport, if one team manages to gather runes for nigma somehow, that would give them total dominance in the hell tourney.
• I would wait with the format after we know the number of players. Also, why not more format than one? The more PvP the better
• I think there are two ideas here, to promote coop mp and to promote team PvP. I feel the theme of untwinked, but shared item pool team PvP is a much stronger one and does not necesarily gain anything from wanting people to MP through together when leveling their gladiators. In fact, MPing together will be suboptimal, since you get more equipment drop per exerience if people play solo.

I like this a lot, and if nothing major happens, you can count me in.

 

[D2DC]

Great input @skiffcz!

Yea, when I started considering good team strategies, I thought rushing a low lvl character to a MF target would be a pretty good way to farm some gear for the team. Keep them as low lvl as possible, and hit MF target at low players settings to minimize XP gain. I was just thinking the mandatory p8 to make things difficult to where everyone would need to MP in order to just make it through the game, but that is certainly not written in stone.

PvPers can weigh in, but yea, limiting 'Enigma' might be a good idea. I figured that no LK/superchest running would prevent this, but you never know.. Also, I think we should have elimination upon death or some toned down version of it. Otherwise, you could "accidentally" keep dying in order to remain under the level cap while continuing to farm items.

+1 for the "no more than 1 of each class per team" as well!

 

[maxicek]

If it is p8 I think it will be more like 45/75/85 as level caps.

The PvP aspect is hard to balance, I agree you can’t allow teleport in this case. Otherwise it will be Sorcs only. I also like the idea of max one per class.

Biggest problem will be getting reliable hosts, as usual.

 

[D2DC]

@maxicek usual dueling levels are 30 and 49, right? Is there a reason (items) for lvl 49? What about HLD, what would be a good level to set for that? Also, what do you think would be a good format? Full on, team vs team? or some smaller duels 1v1 and 2v2 etc?

Edit: another option if the PvP is too difficult to work out would be to make this into a team-based MFO tournament.. Everybody starts from scratch: rush, trade/share, twink to get characters leveled and geared up as quickly as possible. And then there is a team based item scoring system, top 5 items from each player to net a cumulative team MFO score? Otherwise, you may just have 1 or 2 geared up MF characters doing all the work..

 

[maxicek]

The level requirements ar normally based around gear or skill availability. For example level 30 means T6 skills, but not skillers. I'm not sure how much this matters for this though, as the gear is unlikely to be that great.

 

[skiffcz]

This take on the rules randomly creeped into my mind:

• level cap for each difficulty (as per original concept)
• feel free to die as many times to keep you char under the level cap
• this tourney is single pass, with any /psettings
• additionally, each character has alotted X hours of rerunning time, for any reason
  • clarification: whenever you intentionally enter an area you have visited before, you start your countdown
  • its up to you how you divide your time bank and what target you decide to run
  • it does not matter the reason - leveling, MFing, botched MP quest (like in our MP session), had to abort FI/CI Lister ...
  • obvious exceptions - towns, skipping areas to continue singlepass questing, peeking into area to drop TP for later etc.

This would give players freedom to optimize their leveling/MFing strats, progression and builds for time (this is what we know how to do and measure) and I believe it will be more popular than optimizing for XP gain (which seems a little bit more awkward IMHO).

* * *
To encourage MP questing, and strenghtening the theme (characters got to know each other through their journey, and thats when they agreed to join the tournament), this might be a solution:

• Each character must MP through at least one Act with another character from their team, per difficulty

Or even more competitive version:

• A point is awarded towards the final score for each act a character has MP'd through with another from their team

* * *
I was also thinking about teleport and ballancing it. If we ban teleport completely (maybe except sourcing it from charges) for PvP, but allow it for PvM, this will make sorcs pretty weak PvP members, but they still remain most efficient MF runners by far, and its up to teams whether they want to take the tradeoff. I dont feel there is a clear equilibrium and it might lead to some interesting solutions.

Feel free to trash this or build upon it, its just food for thought.

 

[D2DC]

• this tourney is single pass, with any /psettings
• additionally, each character has alotted X hours of rerunning time, for any reason

I had thought of this as well, single-pass with a MF time period after each difficulty/before each dueling session. But, figured that it would not really promote MP. However.. if it's used in conjunction with your other suggestion..

A point is awarded towards the final score for each act a character has MP'd through with another from their team

I REALLY like this idea. We could have some sort of all encompassing point system. Points awarded per act of MP + Points awarded for PvP victories and maybe even Points from a mini MFO or points awarded per traded item used?

Edit: just thought of something.. "Only allowed to equip traded items.."
That would REALLY promote trading.

I was also thinking about teleport and balancing it.

The tele, I was just figuring it was banned for PvP. PvM would be fine with me.

 

[skiffcz]

... or points awarded per traded item used?

Edit: just thought of something.. "Only allowed to equip traded items.."
That would REALLY promote trading.

Points for traded items seems more interesting to me than the strict version, as this allows hard choices to be made. Do I equip these Magefists myself as a FB sorc (more value), or do I trade them with our windy? (suboptimal, but we get a guaranteed point). I guess this mainly applies for 2v2 or team vs team, because in 1v1s everyone can use single gloves.

Alternatively, points for each item of equipment with other ally's name on it per duel? EDIT: That would also put some sane upper limit on points available to be had this way. Nothing like trading 40 small charms to load on points