Seal of War

Nocht

The Seal of War is a little over a week away! With that being said here is what's been decided with regards to the format. If you have any questions about specific rules be sure to ask them here and ahead of time so there's no surprises come next week.

Registration

• Please MSG Avechna with your 3 person team. You may include a team name if you wish, but keep in mind it can NOT be 1) vulgar or 2) blatantly OOC. 
• There is no deadline for this, but Avechna will probably be very annoyed if you surprise Him the day of the competition.

Tournament Format

• Teams of 3 will face off in 1 v 1 matches at an available arena. Avechna would definitely appreciate help from willing cities or communes in dealing with enemy statuses to allow for competition of outsiders in their arenas.
• If one or both teams is unwilling to fight in a foreign arena, they will be placed in the Avenger arena.
• It will be a double elimination format. This means that if your team loses a match they have 1 more chance to stay in the game! Losers from matches will be placed in their own losers bracket to fight for the right to stay in the challenge.
• True Ascendants CAN participate for rewards, but can NOT claim the Seal.
• If you lose a teammate during the course of the competition you CAN bring in a substitute.
• 1) It cannot be someone still competing or someone who has already placed (someone from a top five team)
• 2) You cannot give someone the boot and switch once you've competed. No trying to kick people out because a better fighter shows up halfway through the challenge!
• 3) Only the team members that are present when the team claims its place are going to be given any of the reward. So try and make sure you stay for the whole event!

Schedule

• This will be heavily dependent on the number of teams and how long the average match takes. Time allowing we will narrow the field down to the final two teams which will then compete on Sunday. If matches take longer, we will find a good stopping point and resume the next day.
• Official start time will be up on the website soon! Likely to be early afternoon PST.

That's all! Any questions?

Svorai

3) Only the team members that are present when the team claims its place are going to be given any of the reward. So try and make sure you stay for the whole event!

If this is a thing, please please please please don't let it carry on to Aus/UK Monday. If possible, as mentioned, would love to see as many matches done and dusted on the Saturday (which is Aus Sunday). Just because the servers aren't here, doesn't mean there aren't a bucket load of 'offpeakers' who will want to compete in War!

Otherwise -- yay! Thanks for clarifying!

Nocht

We'd like to get a lot done on Saturday as well since we know time constraints are usually most difficult in this event. We'll be accommodating wherever we can.

Svorai

I'm not a sports person, so tournaments confuse me. I have a question: what happens if we get an odd number of teams? I can see A vs B and C vs D match ending up with two in the 'losers' bracket and two in the 'winners' bracket, but what if there's an E? Who do they compete against?

Nocht

They'd compete from the winner of either A vs B or C vs D. 

There's a lovely site someone posted in another thread that can illustrate it all easily: http://challonge.com/tournament/bracket_generator

Svorai

Okay!

Another question (because I'm not thinking of them all at once): last year there was some confusion around the prizes for 3rd, 4th and 5th place. 

Determining first is easy -- champion of the winning team.

Second is the other team members of the winning team.

Will we be placing third, fourth and fifth? And if so, what will their prizes be? Last year the team I was in got 100cr, like every other team that may have placed third (which was really second) to fifth (which was really fourth). And those who came second got 500cr instead of the usual 700cr that other challengers get for placing second.

I was more than happy with my prize of 100cr -- we may well have come 'fifth' (or fourth overall) if it was determined. Far be it from me to sound ungrateful for getting free credits for participating in some combat!

I understand that handing out the other Seal's prizes equally to each runner up team in War would mean the credits offered for War would be 3950 instead of 1900. Quite a difference! (700x2)+(500*3)+(250*3)+(100*3) vs (500*2)+(100*9).

It's just that War is the MOST challenging of all of the Seals to win -- it takes hours spread over two days to determine, and the team that comes 'second' isn't offered anywhere near as much as the person who places second in a Seal that's not as challenging.

The only reason why this was a bother last year was because I hadn't participated in War previously, and took it for granted that the prizes and the determination of places was the same across all Seals. I expected to be pitted against Malarious' team to see who placed third (for fourth prize) and fourth (for fifth prize). I expected those prizes to be the same as every other Seal.

Anyway, if that's how it is, that's how it is. I'd just love it if prizes on offer were displayed somewhere, like in HELP ASCENSION RULES. Information avoids disappointment! 

PS: I'm thrilled this sort of stuff is being hashed out early this year. Thank you!

EDIT: Oh god, grammar.

Svorai

So, timing.

3pm PST on both days? Is it possible this could be shifted back a bit by three to five hours?

3pm PST on Sunday the 17th is 9am/10am Monday on the east coast of Australia, which is really well into the work day for most of us in Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia. 

It seems that 3pm PST is when the events will *start* not conclude, given the times listed here. I know I have a Seal, so it doesn't affect me so much (does affect my team!), but there are a bunch of active combatants in this half of the world.

If people have to be present for two whole days, and especially at the end to receive any prizes involved, shifting this back would ensure that most of us (around the world) can join in.

Lavinya

the timing is horribly rough for our Aussie (and similar timezone) fighters, assuming they can be there for it at all outside of work commitments.

Morbo

thanks Nocht! Appreciate this being so clearly detailed before the start of the competition, and great choice going for the double elimination bracket, makes these things run fairly well without people feeling like they got cheated (fingers crossed at least)

Nocht

Prizes will probably be similar to last year's.

Sorry. There's not much to be done about timing. In the end, we have to run events when we can be around, and nearly all of us are in American time zones.

Leolamins

Yeah timing cancels me out also.  I will unfortunately be at work during round two.  Damm aussie time!!

Veyrzhul

As an addition to the rules, I think it would be a good idea to prevent the normally available diagnose by spectators. Also, make the stats of the team members not visible to outsiders via ES <arenaname>. That prevents warnings and hints from people who are not in the fight.

Rivius

Aw. But part of the excitement has always been from watching these things. Has it been too much of a problem in previous years? Is it possible instead to just make the arena act like an aetherbubble during that time and disable messages temporarily?

Ssaliss

Rivius said:

Aw. But part of the excitement has always been from watching these things. Has it been too much of a problem in previous years? Is it possible instead to just make the arena act like an aetherbubble during that time and disable messages temporarily?

If this really is a problem (I have no idea if it is or not), then people will find a way around that limitation. See also: Skype.

Elanorwen

Eh, I couldn't find a team to go with. Would have definitely enjoyed some extra credits from the War reward. xD

Good luck to everyone participating, though!

Shaddus

I'm sure there's a plethora of Aerochemantics just waiting to be invited into a group in order to wreak havoc.

Cyndarin

Veyrzhul said:

As an addition to the rules, I think it would be a good idea to prevent the normally available diagnose by spectators. Also, make the stats of the team members not visible to outsiders via ES <arenaname>. That prevents warnings and hints from people who are not in the fight.

There is very little that can be communicated in real time about afflictions and health/mana levels that isn't already available to the players IG. I don't see a point in being that cautious.

Elanorwen

Celina said:

There is very little that can be communicated in real time about afflictions and health/mana levels that isn't already available to the players IG. I don't see a point in being that cautious.

I agree. Have run into situations where people have tried giving me tips during FFAs/WGs and it usually leads to misinformation because by the time they can send a tell about it, it's no longer the case and tends to interrupt setups. At least that's my experience with it. I guess other classes might work differently, but I've had that issue as both a Pyro and a Druid.

Veyrzhul

You can warn people about low stats when they're reckless (and about the recklessness itself), as a simple example, you can warn them about affs on them that allow for an insta (I don't even mean the hardly missable tahtetso one, but more things like vessels or thornlashes which people might lose count of more easily), you can tell them that an opponent hasn't cured X or isn't curing X at all which might be useful, and there is surely quite a bit more. And you can do some if it in almost real time by simply creating triggers that communicate that information to a clan or, as Ssaliss said, via voice chat. Most people cannot check their opponents' affs at all or only at a cost.

Just ask around for some random people, Elanorwen, surely someone will want to try their luck with nothing to lose? Last random team ascension-wargames I did (literally asked for people a few minutes before it started, although that might not be liked so much this time), we won 100 credits.

Cyndarin

Painting a pretty elaborate picture that doesn't really have any realistic application, but if you're that paranoid I don't see the harm in disabling the diagnose. I'll just say I that people who will win and place in this event are generally good enough to track their own affs with a fair degree of certainty and communcation via skype will actually be slower than their instincts.

Plus that sort of clan communication would probably be flagged by the admin pretty easily. 

But anyhoot, I don't see any issue with the suggestion other than mild paranoia :P

Elanorwen

Veyrzhul said:

You can warn people about low stats when they're reckless (and about the recklessness itself), as a simple example, you can warn them about affs on them that allow for an insta (I don't even mean the hardly missable tahtetso one, but more things like vessels or thornlashes which people might lose count of more easily), you can tell them that an opponent hasn't cured X or isn't curing X at all which might be useful, and there is surely quite a bit more. And you can do some if it in almost real time by simply creating triggers that communicate that information to a clan or, as Ssaliss said, via voice chat. Most people cannot check their opponents' affs at all or only at a cost.

Just ask around for some random people, Elanorwen, surely someone will want to try their luck with nothing to lose? Last random team ascension-wargames I did (literally asked for people a few minutes before it started, although that might not be liked so much this time), we won 100 credits.

Yeah, way I understand it, they're expecting teams to message Avechna... and preferably before the day of the actual event. Also... I don't know, not too big on strategy myself, so will probably need to poke at someone that plays a familiar class... i.e. Gaudi or Glom, and it almost looks like all the Gaudi/Glom fighters already have teams.

Shuyin

Celina is looking for a third.

Malayn

Odd question.

If you win every match till last round, do you have to be beaten twice? Or is the undefeated team single elim'd on final round?

Sidd

Usually how these work is that two undefeated teams will face each other in the final, one losing, so the undefeated team will be the champions

Morshoth

In most double elimination matchups, if the undefeated team loses once, the team that beat them has to defeat them again.

Sidd

It's a bracket set up though I thought

like this is what I'm thinking

http://challonge.com/tournaments/bracket_generator?ref=ihrmBV1Jng

With this you can see in Match G, whoever wins that is the winner

Match H only happens if the losers of the championship match didn't previously beat the winners of the loser bracket (or a team that did beat them)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I didn't think the winner could lose at all.

Ssaliss

From the OP:

It will be a double elimination format. This means that if your team loses a match they have 1 more chance to stay in the game! Losers from matches will be placed in their own losers bracket to fight for the right to stay in the challenge.

Morshoth

But double elimination means you have to lose twice to lose.

Shuyin

Right, so if the undefeated team loses the final match, they get a rematch, then whoever wins that is the true winner.

Sidd

We used to use double elimination formats when I was wrestling in highschool, and the second place guy only ever lost once, the winner not losing at all. 

That's probably where I'm using my idea of double elimination from. I always thought double elimination was put in place to ensure accurate placings, not to make every team lose twice before there is a winner. 

What if two undefeated teams get to the finals, if one team loses the first one, but then wins the second one, you have to move on to a third one. Why do they get three chances to win twice? 

The double elimination is for situations like, say team A beats team C earlier in their bracket and goes on to beat team B in the final. Team C never actually fought/challenged Team B so who knows whether team B or team C is really deserving of second place, Team C goes to the loser bracket, beats all the teams there to win, you now have a situation where both Team B and Team C have only lost once never playing each other, so they now compete to see who really gets second place. We called these wrestlebacks in highschool. 

Morshoth

Shouldn't be two undefeated teams, if they do the bracket correctly.