RPGmon Classic Tournament, Season 1 Results

[Mad Fnorder]

Banners waved, fireworks exploded in the sky, and spirits were high as the final round of the RPGmon Classic Tournament was set to begin. Even the protesting Pokemon Trainers that had been barred from participating in this seasons s competition had already been escorted off by a herd of Palette-swapped Cliffs. Both sides entered the field proudly, having made it this far on strength, talent, explosive magic, seductive punching, clones, axes to the face, body parts stolen from evil deities, and pure will to compete.

Team Blasty/Stabby/Damp was lead by Millenia, Wings of Valmar, and followed by U-DO's Margulis and the mercenary Lani. Team Unoriginal fielded the Axe-girl Presea, today with a giant Squeaky Mallet, wild girl Noa, and magess Taya. The only remaining questions as they waved to the crowds was how it would begin, and how it would end. As the whistle blew, Presea charged off the line to be met with a burst of freezing ice from Lani. Reacting, she held her axe up overhead, Claw Gauntlets taking much of the sting out of the icy barrage. Lani hesitated for a brief moment, and that was all the opening Presea needed, as a Power Charged combination of blows knocked Lani out of the competition. As our viewers at home can tell from the replay, the squeaking was horrendous.

Presea had spun to reset her swing when her entire body began to lock up. With a final bit of effort she managed to turn her head-directly into the source, Millenia's Spellbinding Eye. Taking advantage of her opponent's immobility, Millenia followed up with a full demonstration of her powers. Slashing across Presea's back with a Grudging Claws, she then flew through her on a Fallen Wings attack. On the brink of defeat, Presea suddenly felt the paralyzing effect of the Eye fade. She heard Millenia's distinctive laugh behind her, all she needed to do was finish a single spin, which would cleave her opponent apart. Presea's hammer came up in her hands- and came down several feet away. Presea had lost her grip along with her senses, as the giggling was the precursor to a final Dragon Zap.

Millenia took a moment to play to the crowd, taking an exaggerated pose as she waved and smiled. "That was refreshing. Now, I wonder who's ne-" Taya answered the question with a devastating crack ripping through the earth, knocking Millenia nearly to the far side of the arena. "...Now, that was ru-" Millenia staggered to her feet, but her retort was drowned out, and so was she with a burst of Neptune magic.

Margulis took the field in her place, taking advantage of the shift in tempo by striking Taya with a pair of Rakta strikes. Her usual frailty seemingly discarded in the face of her determination, Taya answered back with another devastating earthquake spell of Atlas 2. Margulis climbed to his feet, looked at the nearly exhausted elf in front of him, then over to the fresh and eager Noa shadowboxing on Team Unoriginal's sideline, and sheathed his sword. "I'm no fool. We cede the match, and the championship..."

Congratulations to Taya, Collette, Ayne, Noa, Presea, and Geno, and to Team Unoriginal, winner of Season 1 of the RPGmon Classic Tournament!
His team will be enshrined in the hall of fame!
Wait, why are you mashing start? We're supposed to show his entire roster, one by one!
Fine.


Thanks to everyone for participating, and special thanks to (especially) Talaysen, superaielman,and Monkeyfinger for refereeing matches during the regular season and finals.

What's next? Well, that's up to YOU, the players, referees, and spectators. Aside from general comments, there's a couple of issues I want to get your opinion on, now that the first run is done!

1)In the new season, people won't be able to pick the same fighters they picked last season. They'll be up for grabs for everyone else, though.

2) Proposed new rule- Fighters are considered to be in the highest division they ever were in. If they are a middle downgraded to Heavy, they're a Heavy for terms fo the draft. This might stratify divisons a bit more.

3) What do people think of the new CT rule, overall? Better or worse than before?

4) Several people have wanted Not Ranked fighters to be draftable next season. I'd consider it if there was enough outcry, and the stat topic for the game in question was complete enough for the referees.

5)ARPGs. They're easier in the DL, but much harder in this format, when CT is a much bigger issue. I'm somewhat loath to do so, but i'm strongly considering the suggested broad-spectrum ban on them for this format, but I'd like to hear what people thing.

6) Last and most important- I was thinking of making next season a Team Match format, to mix things up. People would draft the same 2/2/2 H/M/L teams, and then be paired with another player at random (To prevent intentional combo team building) for 2v2 matches. This both helps and hurts scheduling, since ideally we'd like both players and four is harder than two, but one person can run his team in a pinch. I'm putting up a poll on the topic.

I'd like to again thank everyone for participating. It's been a fun experiment, and I'd like to see it keep going!

[Captain K.]

1)In the new season, people won't be able to pick the same fighters they picked last season. They'll be up for grabs for everyone else, though.

Fine.

2) Proposed new rule- Fighters are considered to be in the highest division they ever were in. If they are a middle downgraded to Heavy, they're a Heavy for terms fo the draft. This might stratify divisons a bit more.

Sounds good.

3) What do people think of the new CT rule, overall? Better or worse than before?

I didn't stick around to use it much, but yeah, anything to keep speedsters from dominating the format.

4) Several people have wanted Not Ranked fighters to be draftable next season. I'd consider it if there was enough outcry, and the stat topic for the game in question was complete enough for the referees.

Yay!  Radiata Stories!

5)ARPGs. They're easier in the DL, but much harder in this format, when CT is a much bigger issue. I'm somewhat loath to do so, but i'm strongly considering the suggested broad-spectrum ban on them for this format, but I'd like to hear what people thing.

No objection (and yes I was kidding about Radiata Stories).

6) Last and most important- I was thinking of making next season a Team Match format, to mix things up. People would draft the same 2/2/2 H/M/L teams, and then be paired with another player at random (To prevent intentional combo team building) for 2v2 matches. This both helps and hurts scheduling, since ideally we'd like both players and four is harder than two, but one person can run his team in a pinch. I'm putting up a poll on the topic.

Other than scheduling concerns, sounds like fun.

[SnowFire]

Two minor notes: Margulis certainly doesn't work for the dweeby kid U-DO who spends his time hanging out at Federation research labs and chatting/killing poor test subjects & Shion.  No, he's a proud inquisitor of U-TIC.  And while he's certainly no fool, he also isn't the type to concede gracefully.  No, like Dr. Claw, Margulis ran away from Taya yelling "Next time, Uzuki!  Neeeeeext seasoooooooon!"  Oh yes.  There will be revenge.  Or at least three more tries before he finally bites it.

Team play sounds interesting, but some ironclad rules would definitely need to be set up about targeting.  Something like "spells that target a huge area hit both characters, or a maximum of three if there is summoning going on."  And "spells that his a small area only hit one character unless five or more characters are out, in which case it hits two."  "Multi-part bosses count as a Dragon Quest group and generally all parts get hit even by small area attacks."  Etc.  We'd also have to watch out for stat topics properly listing what attacks are MT and what aren't, because I suspect not all are as precise in this as we'd like.

Some characters I'd definitely recommend banning or adjusting in division rank.  A "character counts as the highest division they've ever been in" rule helps somewhat, but some minor characters from large cast games still fall through the cracks here (like Gijimu).  There are also a few people who were apparently grossly misranked at the beginning of the league who could be adjusted perhaps by fiat?  (Justin, Ryudo, Serge, Ramza...)  Shining Force I'm also suspicious of, even with the "character counts as the highest division they've been in" rule for the weird downgraders.  It's got a solid stat topic, but some of the ranks were probably odd and it's certainly obscure nowadays (I never really played it for one).  Also, remakes of some games has caused some characters to wildly flucutate in power level (cough, cough, Porom/Palom).  They're both at least Middles with their FF4A form, possibly low Heavy in Porom's case.

There are also a rare few characters I'd be against on the basis of "lack of fun," specifically any character who is too random.  Gau is pretty much the main example here - Magic Urn can lead to loooong battles if their opponent has a large amount of resources and can press Gau for a long time to see if he gets unlucky, and Rafflesia (aside from also being obscure!) is pretty much a "flip a coin and let's see who wins" Rage with interpretation issues.  Same with Gogo, though Gogo is also ranked as a Light meaning that presumably he gets a nerfed form.  Lunar2 Lucia has similar issues - does she get full control?  If not, how does her AI work?  And so on, though I suspect she'll be less in demand than Gau.  Can't think of anything else off the top of my head on this, but for those two, yeah.

[DjinnAndTonic]

1)In the new season, people won't be able to pick the same fighters they picked last season. They'll be up for grabs for everyone else, though.

2) Proposed new rule- Fighters are considered to be in the highest division they ever were in. If they are a middle downgraded to Heavy, they're a Heavy for terms fo the draft. This might stratify divisons a bit more.

3) What do people think of the new CT rule, overall? Better or worse than before?

4) Several people have wanted Not Ranked fighters to be draftable next season. I'd consider it if there was enough outcry, and the stat topic for the game in question was complete enough for the referees.

5)ARPGs. They're easier in the DL, but much harder in this format, when CT is a much bigger issue. I'm somewhat loath to do so, but i'm strongly considering the suggested broad-spectrum ban on them for this format, but I'd like to hear what people thing.

6) Last and most important- I was thinking of making next season a Team Match format, to mix things up. People would draft the same 2/2/2 H/M/L teams, and then be paired with another player at random (To prevent intentional combo team building) for 2v2 matches. This both helps and hurts scheduling, since ideally we'd like both players and four is harder than two, but one person can run his team in a pinch. I'm putting up a poll on the topic.

I'd like to again thank everyone for participating. It's been a fun experiment, and I'd like to see it keep going!

1) Good rule. Agreed. Perhaps they should be allowed at least -one- of their old roster, since they probably have a favorite character or two of theirs in their original lists. And some of the players may not know enough games to choose a completely new team.

2) Excellent idea! This fixes a -lot- of the problems from last time. Not all, but you can work on streamlining the divisions through the seasons.

3) New CT rule is win.

4) I'd be in favor of some limited NR appearances. Perhaps limit it to one or two fighters per team so things don't get too crazy?

5) Instead of banning all ARPGs, perhaps you could come up with some universal rules regarding them? Like.. just view all ARPG characters as having average speed. And ban infinite combos and the like. You might not be able to cover -everything- at first, but as problems arise, we can discuss them and again, streamline the process.

6) If you intend to add more players to each match, you might want to find a better way of scheduling the matches. If you can come up with something, then this idea is pretty cool. But from a practical standpoint, organizing the people is biggest challenge this tournament faces and you really don't want to do anything that complicates it further. The current system seems like the better choice here. Maybe in another season or two, it'll need to be 'kept fresh' with ideas like this. But for now, you're probably better off keeping the scheduling issues lower.

As a final note, I'd -really- love to see another season of this game - it's been lots of fun to keep up with and I really enjoy the match commentaries!

-Djinn

[Yakumo]

1)In the new season, people won't be able to pick the same fighters they picked last season. They'll be up for grabs for everyone else, though.

2) Proposed new rule- Fighters are considered to be in the highest division they ever were in. If they are a middle downgraded to Heavy, they're a Heavy for terms fo the draft. This might stratify divisons a bit more.

3) What do people think of the new CT rule, overall? Better or worse than before?

4) Several people have wanted Not Ranked fighters to be draftable next season. I'd consider it if there was enough outcry, and the stat topic for the game in question was complete enough for the referees.

5)ARPGs. They're easier in the DL, but much harder in this format, when CT is a much bigger issue. I'm somewhat loath to do so, but i'm strongly considering the suggested broad-spectrum ban on them for this format, but I'd like to hear what people thing.

6) Last and most important- I was thinking of making next season a Team Match format, to mix things up. People would draft the same 2/2/2 H/M/L teams, and then be paired with another player at random (To prevent intentional combo team building) for 2v2 matches. This both helps and hurts scheduling, since ideally we'd like both players and four is harder than two, but one person can run his team in a pinch. I'm putting up a poll on the topic.

1. Hmm.  How about instead of that, do something like they can only have repeats if nobody else wants them?  This precludes people from abusing powerful and popular characters like Beowulf, but still lets them keep sentimental favorites.

2. This rule would help a lot, though it wouldn't fix all the issues it's going to be hard to find a way to do that.  The problem with that, though, is the fighters that started way too high, like if for some reason somebody actually wanted to use Jet or, who was it, Opera?  Maybe limit it to going one division higher than their current for the bad misranks like those?  Not that it'll probably matter.  But yes, Lani and Gijimu for example were probably in the wrong places. >_>

3. I prefer the new rule, speed is already important enough without the reset.

4/5. I'd almost say the best way to decide these is view the stat topics and decide whether they're acceptable or not, maybe poll the refs on this issue.  Then again, there's a lot to go over... maybe do it on a case by case basis during the draft period?  ARPGs also have the interp issues on how much damage they can do in a 'turn' and stuff, but that should be covered in the stat topic if you intend to use that game in this.

6. What the others said.  I'd say, wait until you get the scheduling for single matches down before you try and set up teams, we had enough trouble scheduling as it was.

[Talaysen]

1)In the new season, people won't be able to pick the same fighters they picked last season. They'll be up for grabs for everyone else, though.

Definitely agree.  Variety is good.

2) Proposed new rule- Fighters are considered to be in the highest division they ever were in. If they are a middle downgraded to Heavy, they're a Heavy for terms fo the draft. This might stratify divisons a bit more.

Kind of torn on this one.  There are some people who were ranked say Godlike who really did not belong there, and banning those seems like a bad idea.  However, as a whole, this idea probably helps.  We should also take remake forms into account.  What I'd suggest is use this rule but we can have some exceptions that we can talk about and come to a consensus on.

3) What do people think of the new CT rule, overall? Better or worse than before?

Good.  Makes matches less "one person dominates whole other team".

4) Several people have wanted Not Ranked fighters to be draftable next season. I'd consider it if there was enough outcry, and the stat topic for the game in question was complete enough for the referees.

We could narrow down the choices if needed, but really, I think most non-ARPGs have workable topics.  We should look through any games suggested and their topics to see if they are adequate though.

5)ARPGs. They're easier in the DL, but much harder in this format, when CT is a much bigger issue. I'm somewhat loath to do so, but i'm strongly considering the suggested broad-spectrum ban on them for this format, but I'd like to hear what people thing.

Ban 'em.

Regarding Djinn's response:  I WAS considering all characters average speed, and this still doesn't work all the time.  For example, Presea's charge.  It's not a full turn, definitely, but just how much is it?  There are also things like combos we have to deal with and people trying to hype stunlocks and random other crap.  Easiest solution is to just toss them out.

6) Last and most important- I was thinking of making next season a Team Match format, to mix things up. People would draft the same 2/2/2 H/M/L teams, and then be paired with another player at random (To prevent intentional combo team building) for 2v2 matches. This both helps and hurts scheduling, since ideally we'd like both players and four is harder than two, but one person can run his team in a pinch. I'm putting up a poll on the topic.

When I first suggested team matches, what I meant was each person still chooses 2/2/2, and then picks 1 of each division and all three of those are out at the same time.  So it's one person's full team against another person's full team (3v3).  I do like the idea of putting 2 people on a team though, but as you said, scheduling concerns.  Honestly, either one (or even if there's another alternative) is fine with me.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Ban 'em.

Regarding Djinn's response:  I WAS considering all characters average speed, and this still doesn't work all the time.  For example, Presea's charge.  It's not a full turn, definitely, but just how much is it?  There are also things like combos we have to deal with and people trying to hype stunlocks and random other crap.  Easiest solution is to just toss them out.

While tossing them all out entirely doesn't sit right with me, Tal is one of main refs, and he knows what problems accrue. This really only affects the Star Ocean, Tales, and Valkyrie Profile (and maybe Grandia to some extent?) series of the ranked games anyway.

I'd still prefer it if there was some consensus on ARPGs mechanics (or their stat topics at least) rather than banning 12 ranked games' worth of characters.

The only thing I'd like to point out regarding the whole banning issue is that plenty of Turn-based and SRPG systems have problems too (FE counters come to mind), but no one's really suggesting a ban on all of them.

-Djinn

[Captain K.]

Heavy bosses were banned this season.  What does everyone think about a rule banning all bosses?  They tend to be more of an interp headache than PCs.

[Mad Fnorder]

Captain K's Boss idea

It's definitely something to consider. At the same time, they're easy status-immunes in the lower divisions. It helps counterbalance pure status whoring, but then again, that wasn't that big a deal this season.

[Talaysen]

While tossing them all out entirely doesn't sit right with me, Tal is one of main refs, and he knows what problems accrue. This really only affects the Star Ocean, Tales, and Valkyrie Profile (and maybe Grandia to some extent?) series of the ranked games anyway.

VP and Grandia aren't ARPGs.

I'd still prefer it if there was some consensus on ARPGs mechanics (or their stat topics at least) rather than banning 12 ranked games' worth of characters.

The only thing I'd like to point out regarding the whole banning issue is that plenty of Turn-based and SRPG systems have problems too (FE counters come to mind), but no one's really suggesting a ban on all of them.

-Djinn

FE counters are "do you allow it or not".  Extremely clearcut.  You decide one or the other.  Completely different thing.

Heavy bosses were banned this season.  What does everyone think about a rule banning all bosses?  They tend to be more of an interp headache than PCs.

1)  I'm not sure if I completely agree with you that bosses have more interp issues than PCs.  For one thing, what you allow a boss to use is pretty clearcut, since they just get everything they use in-game, generally.  Multiform bosses do throw a wrench in that I guess.  PCs on the other hand have issues with what equipment/skills/etc. you allow them, since it's not as clearcut.  Honestly, I'd say they both have their own interp issues and neither is more headachy than the other.

2)  However, I wouldn't disagree with such a ban because I find PCs more fun than bosses (lol slugfest boring) in general.  I also have lower respect for bosses than most people around here from what I can tell (mostly on durability I think), so if I end up reffing the next season, keep that in mind.

But yeah, I don't disagree with the ban but I can't really bring up any justification for it, so I'll just vote to go along with whatever everyone else wants!

[Dhyerwolf]

FE counters are "do you allow it or not".  Extremely clearcut.  You decide one or the other.  Completely different thing.

I can name at least 4 possible views that allow counters!

The big problems with AARPGs this time was SO 3, right? At least for SD 3, SoM, and SO 2 there are some notes in the various topics that deal with move duration/casting times, so those shouldn't be as problematic.

[Mad Fnorder]

Can Captain K. or someone comment on what state the SO3 info is in yet? And if the entire thing needs to be reranked? >_>

[Captain K.]

Captain K. needs a week off from work to redo the whole topic.  Again.  So no, it won't be ready anytime soon.  Or ever.

[Clear Tranquil]

The Cliff and Peppita wikis can be used if those are any use. I can get one up for Mirage also easily enough. I've left Nel or Maria for now incase El Cid or OK want to do those.

[Mad Fnorder]

They probably won't be any help- much of the info in there isn't in the averages- until the full analysis is complete, they're just disconnected numbers in the ether.

[SnowFire]

Some more random thoughts on possible issues in team matches:

In a Valkyrie Profile based team, mechanics are somewhat simpler when everyone is average speed (VP1 Arngrim & Janus both attack, fill the PWS gauge, and both unleash PWSes scaled around one character at a time for massive damage).  But what if one character gets hit with Slow from a CT based system (like FFT Slow)?  Does the gauge magically stay charged after Arngrim's attack such that only the slowed Rufus gets to use his PWS?  Does the gauge go back to 0 after both attacks like it would in game if you didn't do them at the same time- and if so, can Arngrim "wait" for Janus so that they both attack at the same time?  Do their gagues separate but stay charged after attacks, like they would if both were in a duel?

Or take the same issue, but for effects that are round initiative, like Skies of Arcadia's Delta/Justice/Skull Shield or Prophecy.  In game, regardless of Gilder's speed, if he uses Aura of Denial it will go first every round.  He gets hit by a CT slow-down attack.  Is he able to keep up the Aura of Denial every round?  Do his Auras of Denial last longer now because his rounds are longer, or is there a period where the Aura expires but Gilder isn't fast enough to have another turn yet?  Does this change if he gets hit by a slow-down effect from a turn-based game, like PS4 or Pokemon, which clearly wouldn't have such an effect in game, or are all speed buffs/busts equal for purposes of RPGMon?

Yulie casts Quicken and Protect on her hex.  Then she dies.  Is it fair game for the next person to go to move into the buffed hex?  In games where movement does not cost a turn (like Fire Emblem or Wild Arms 5), do they get to move into it *and* make an attack?  (I'd say Yes, and Yes.)  What about if the character is a non-moving FE boss character, like Lyon or Valter?  Are their moves locked? (I'd say yes.)

Not even saying we'd necessarily have to figure out all these issues in advance, but it'd be good to at least have some idea of what to expect when/if picking teams.

[Excal]

There's a simple solution for VP characters, though it feels a little unintuitive.  Simply treat them like they are in the DL, or by themselves.  They each have a single CT Bar that sticks, instead of a joint one.

Moreover, the joint CT bar would also need to stick as you need 3/4 characters to get to 100 CT barring a very small number of combinations.  And a third issue is using a Light with Flame Storm to boost someone like, say, Lawfer who doesn't build CT that fast with a free 50CT boost, giving him his PWS more often than he has any right to see it.

[Clear Tranquil]

For averages first we have to decide which method is being used - OK's method - which assumes spamming the same thing over and over or Meeple's which assumes optimum damage for each character per 100 Fury.

Meeple's -


1. Peppitta w/ Faerie Friend 74600 (CT note - from the old topic I think we decided this was an 8 Hit Faerie Friend boosted by Power Dance being in the combo first)
2. Nel 67500
3. Cliff 54600
4. Mirage 49500
5. Sophia 46500
6. Fayt 45000
7. Roger 38000
8. Maria 37800
9. Adray 31000
10. Albel 30800

Some issues that were nailed out in the other old topic were that both Maria and Peppita should be allowed Scatter Beam and Faerie Friend respectively because to be fair *all* skills have accuracy issues, times where the won't get max hits and it's really not fair to single out Maria and Peppita for that. It's much less of a headache just to assume max or most hits for everybody >_>

RE Snowfire's post - I agree on the Yulie hex thing.

[Mad Fnorder]

*burns SO3* way to have dramatically different averages that in no way sync with how the game was actually ranked. And since we're going off actual rankings, I think the game is gonna stay on the not allowed list. Sorry.

[Clear Tranquil]

Boo! *throws a smelly Albel at Fnorder Yeah when the game was first ranked nobody knew that Peppita's Power Dance affected herself which screwed over a lot of things. Nobody knew optimum status affliction rates either. I assume the game was ranked on the first post of the first stat topic? Well what happened with that was that people posted after that with different things, like OK posted the info for the S03 girls and so on. Then later it was discovered how things like Power Dance and Power Up affected things and yeah. Oh well at least I still have Yulie hype! >_>

*moves into Tal's camp*

Ban 'em all! *waves flag*

[SnowFire]

There's a simple solution for VP characters, though it feels a little unintuitive.  Simply treat them like they are in the DL, or by themselves.  They each have a single CT Bar that sticks, instead of a joint one.

Moreover, the joint CT bar would also need to stick as you need 3/4 characters to get to 100 CT barring a very small number of combinations.  And a third issue is using a Light with Flame Storm to boost someone like, say, Lawfer who doesn't build CT that fast with a free 50CT boost, giving him his PWS more often than he has any right to see it.

Well, yeah, VP characters are synergistic with each other.  To put things another way: If you have both Yulie & Raquel on your team, I don't see why Raquel shouldn't be able to Intrude off of Yulie's Force Boost, just like in game.  Same with CT Double Techs, Suikoden combinations, etc.  I agree that treating everyone as an island will help sort out some conflicts, but I'm not sure it's worth it if it defeats the feel of a team competition where teams matter.

[Talaysen]

Well, yeah, VP characters are synergistic with each other.  To put things another way: If you have both Yulie & Raquel on your team, I don't see why Raquel shouldn't be able to Intrude off of Yulie's Force Boost, just like in game.  Same with CT Double Techs, Suikoden combinations, etc.  I agree that treating everyone as an island will help sort out some conflicts, but I'm not sure it's worth it if it defeats the feel of a team competition where teams matter.

The problem is that we already butcher VP mechanics in the DL by letting the charge stay over turns.  If you're going to do that AND allow them to use each other's charge, uh... I'm probably going to shoot you in the face.  I'm already debating not letting them keep the charge after their turn in the DL, so... yeah.

[Mad Fnorder]

The consensus (Aside from Lesbian Orgies) appears to be to run another season in the same format, with the slight rules tweaks. I'll work on putting together a topic for the next season tomorrow. Stay tuned!