ZEJ Statistical Tournament ~ Reloaded

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. ZEJians of all ages... and those who are just lurking around! It's been a while since we've had a competition of a statistical variety, and I figure that now is as good a time as any to post a thread like this to start generating some interest and create a little bit of a buzz. Yes, that's right - as you read in the title, I'm interested in bringing back the Statistical Tournament. I found it to be a fun little event that we could share together as a community, showing off the cool things that we can create with our "flagship system," so why not go for a round two?

I've been musing about this to myself for a little while, and I figured that I wanted to get some community input from the rest of ZEJ before I go about tinkering with the formula we followed last time. First and foremost, I want to know if there is any interest in running a tournament. I know things have been quiet lately, and I can imagine that it comes as a consequence of a lot of us being really busy with school. But I would definitely like to kickstart something with the good people of ZEJ; but of course, that relies on there being people who would be interested in engaging in statistical combat.

I don't want to isolate people who don't statplay, so I would be more than happy to help walk through my Statistical Tutorial with anyone interested in doing so.

Now, onto the talking points that I have set up... I would like for you guys to make a note in your "I'm interested" posts of which of these options are most enticing to you. Please attach a couple brief comments if you can.

~ R O L E P L A Y I N G ~

First of all, I want to talk about the roleplaying aspect of the tournament. Obviously, ZEJ has the word 'roleplaying' right in the name (it's true! Look up at our banner!), and this has been a point raised multiple times by certain individuals - there isn't all that much roleplaying going on at any given time these days. So, for this tournament, I've started mulling over the idea of enforcing some degree of RPing in-combat. Would people be interested in bringing their characters to life and acting out the combat situations that these characters would undergo? Or is that going to be really polarizing, and exclude people who don't feel comfortable with the idea of adding more text than just their actions to the posts of combat?

A solution that could be considered a 'happy medium' of sorts is simply creating an "IC-OoC" lounge. By that, I mean some kind of out-of-battle hub that houses the characters when they aren't fighting; where people can go to get to know the other characters. Talk shit. Get some in-character hype going. Sit down and have a drink with the fellow combatants. That sort of thing.

Back in the days of yore, when The Ultimate Tournament series was alive and kickin', we had this in the form of "the Bellona Tavern," a futuristic bar where people could slake their thirst for in-character interaction in between matches. I want to know if that would be something of interest in the event that people are not cool with the idea of loosely-enforced in-battle interaction.

> Yes
> No
> Between battles only


~ P A R T Y ~ S I Z E ~

One of @"Flimzy"'s original ideas for the Statistical Tournament is that it would be held at Level 15 with three characters per side. Now, while that is all fine and good, it was ultimately knocked down to Level 7 with two characters in order to minimize the artificial difficulty of creating multiple profiles - and to actually start within a reasonable timeframe. I've had some thoughts about the "metagame" that developed around having two characters (typically, a support with a lot of buffs and a damage-oriented character), and I think that it could be expanded if we threw a third character into the mix.

The simplicity of the "game" of statplaying is great; but it thrives on creativity. If we're seeing the same combination of Dual Wielding characters with a Haste buff and Critical Hit augmentations on them every time... well, it gets pretty predictable seeing who is going to win each match. Whoever out Damage-Per-Turns the other is obviously going to win the match. It gets decidedly more complex and intricate (from a strategical perspective) with a third character variable thrown into the mix, I think.

But, of course, that comes with the trade-off of longer matches and more characters for each person to make. If people are prepared to make a third character, then I would be more than happy to GM the matches, but of course that all comes down to the interested parties. I don't want to put unnecessary pressure on people who are on the fence about it, but I would be interested in hearing what people think of party sizes. 2v2? 3v3? What do you guys think?

> 2 vs. 2
> 3 vs. 3


~ I N T E R ~ U S E R ~ P A I R I N G S ~

When @"Zantok" proposed the idea of an Ultimate Tournament 4, one of the ideas that arose in the discussion was the idea of inter-user teams. I think that it is cool in that it encourages collaboration and mixes up the pairings of users, and creates a cool dynamic of two players working together to dominate the other team. Obviously, this idea has a lot of "sub-discussions" that come attached to it, but I don't want to touch those until there is a decision made regarding the idea of teaming up with other users. First and foremost, what do people think of setting up pairs of users to do battle on the statistical plane? Is it preferable to work on your own, or would we want to actually work with the idea of teams? Or, another option still would be to make a side tournament of people who are paired up together. Let me know what you (preliminarily) think, and then that will open the discussion up a little more.

> Individual user vs. user only
> Pairing up between two users
> Team battles as side event only


~ X ~ G A U G E ~

Ah, the X-Gauge. A classic function of Shadow's system that brings a lot of flexibility to the system in the form of the mega-buffs of E-Triggers, and the game-changing nukes that are the X-Abilities. Typically, we would only ever see one of those in the way that we had the last Statistical Tournament; people would charge up to five X-Levels and unleash their E-Trigger... a rather binary playstyle. What I want to know is whether people are interested in seeing the X-Gauge return in this new iteration of the Statistical Tournament, or whether it is a passable function that need not return.

Beyond that, I want to know if people want to see our X-Gauge become more "central". Last Tournament, I had the X-Gauge reset in between every match to give everyone a balanced playing field. But it really didn't highlight anything beyond who made the most powerful E-Triggers to augment the playstyle of their main DPT character, in my opinion. X-Abilities also went almost invariably unused since only one battle made it to the point where there was even a remote possibility of using them. So, would it be more reasonable if X-Levels carried over between battles and didn't undergo a refresh between battles? Then there would be more of an emphasis to give your "carry" characters the kills, and play strategically in that sense.

> Yes, enable the X-Gauge and let it carry over between battles
> Yes, enable the X-Gauge, but do not let it carry over between battles
> No, disable the X-Gauge altogether


~ E Q U I P M E N T ~ B O N U S E S ~

Something I had been considering when I was going to run the "redo" (aka balance-fixed) Tournament the first time around was tinkering with the Equipment bonuses. As seen in the first iteration of the Tournament, I had only allowed people to give characters the equivalent of "Level 1" bonuses (i.e. a single stat point for Weapon, Armor, and Accessory). This was met with a decent amount of pleading me to consider allowing more freedom and customization due to the characters being Level 7; after all, in a regular statplay setting it would be likely that they had improved Equipment by that time.

I'm still on the fence about whether I want to allow people anything more than those simple L1 Equipment stat boosts. It's a really delicate "balance" to begin with, and I don't want to see it go overboard by allowing people to manipulate things like Added Effects (on-hit effects if you're more familiar with the MOBA terminology), Elemental exploitation, and the like. A solution proposed to me would be to allow people access to a couple extra stat points per Equipment piece. If that would be more "satisfying" then I suppose I could allow that. I do want to hear the pros and cons from you guys, though, so I'm not the only voice being heard.

> Level 1 bonuses only
> "Higher-Level" bonuses, including Added Effects
> Higher-Level Stat Points, no Added Effects

~ ~ ~​

...Aaaaaaand I believe that's all I wanted to bring up. Again, let me know whether or not you would be interested, and make sure that you guys vote/weigh in on the other stuff that I have put out there. I'd be more than happy to explain my own points of view if needed. Let's try and make a great site event, hmm?

 

So from the replies, I gather that we're sitting on seven participants, with a possible eighth in Kuori. That sounds like a reasonable amount to me, though it's certainly NOT too late for others to join in and put their hat into the ring. If time constraints are an issue, I want anyone reading to rest assured that there is currently no deadline in place.

I'll leave this thread open for input on the discussion of the specifics of the Tournament, and I encourage you guys to create more of a discussion on the matter (although it sounds like we're mostly at a consensus of the way to go).

I'll also start putting together a timeframe of when I'd expect the Tournament to start, and a deadline for submissions as well. Then we can get this show on the road!

 

Not too late at all! I don't imagine we'll be starting for quite a while yet - the 'deadline' for profiles will probably be sometime in the next couple months. The format and 'special parameters' still need to be set up, after all. Thanks for expressing interest, Silver~

 

Quick question... with regards to the ruling on X-Gauges, should E-Triggers/X-Abilities be single-use (each) per battle? i.e. if a battle goes on long enough that you use an E-Trigger and accrue enough X-Levels to again activate your E-Trigger, should you be eligible to use it more than once?

 

Alright, if there is no further deliberation on the matter, then I may as well set a deadline.

We're going to be looking at three profiles per customer, each at Level 7. Each piece of Equipment will grant your character the equivalent of 3 Stat Points worth of boosts, which you can spend to your liking (as long as it makes sense, which is at my discretion). There will be an optional roleplaying component, which can be used to organize in-character team events (in the vein of The Ultimate Tournament... details to follow). The X-Gauge will not be carrying over between battles. There will be a cap of one use (per Excess Process) on the X-Gauge.


The deadline is going to be Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 11:59pm EDT. Any later, and I will not be accepting your profile, barring any major technological meltdowns (or some sort of family/irl crisis. I am not unfeeling). This is a hard deadline otherwise. If it happens that you were just lazy and procrastinated, then tough luck, schmuck.

That should be all. I look forward to receiving your profiles. The profile template can be found within this spoiler:

Spoiler

Code:

[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Level:[/b]
[b]Progress:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]

[b]Profession:[/b]
[b]Weapon:[/b]
[b]Armor:[/b]
[b]Accessory:[/b]

[b]A-Ability:[/b]

[b]+ Skill #1:[/b]

[b]+ Skill #2:[/b]


[b]R-Ability:[/b]
[b]B-Ability:[/b]
[b]S-Ability:[/b]

[b]E-Trigger:[/b]
[b]X-Ability:[/b]


[b][u]~Statistics~[/u][/b]

[b]HP:[/b]
[b]MP:[/b]
[b]Atk:[/b]
[b]Def:[/b]
[b]Int:[/b]
[b]Spr:[/b]
[b]Critical:[/b]
[b]Evasion:[/b]
[b]Movement:[/b]
[b]X-Gauge:[/b]

EDIT: Removed Skill and Upgrade Points. You won't need them where we're going.

 

My, where does the time go? I hope everyone has been working on their profiles for the Tournament which are due NEXT WEEK. If this is a problem for anyone who has expressed interest, please let me know! Otherwise, I'll assume that it's business as usual and that you guys are just chugging along on the profiles.

If the deadline needs to be extended, I'll be pretty nonplussed, but also not surprised.

 

As a final reminder, profiles are due to me tomorrow at 11:59 PM EDT. I will not be accepting any after that time for any reason.

 

As I'm sure everyone is well aware at this point... unfortunately, I did not receive enough profiles by the deadline to run the Tournament with a sufficient amount of people to form an interesting bracket.

Special thanks to @"Flimzy", @"CerberusLycan", @"Silver", @"CodasterTheDisaster", and @"Muddy" for going the distance and making their profiles and turning them in. Sorry to disappoint you guys in spite of making solid efforts to get the Tournament off the ground. In spite of the Tournament not running as a proper 'formalized' thing, I would be interested in GMing a series of casual party-vs-party spars between you guys with your submitted profiles, if that is of interest. Feel free to post a separate 'challenge thread' in the Interest Checks section (something like "[Statistical] PvP Spar ~ x vs. y" will suffice) and I'll be sure to set something up. Perhaps that will begin to revitalize the statistical combat aspect of ZEJ!


Overall, I'm a bit bummed about having to cancel the Tournament, but I can see that right now just isn't the best time to be running one. Hopefully another time, another Game Master will try their hand at running it. Until then~