Khyber Level 1 PVP Tournament

[kazekamio]

Khyber Level 1 PVP Tournament

Now I am sure the first thing most of you will say is " DDO isn't meant for PVP DUDE!" To which I say, good. First off DDO isn't meant for a lot of things we do to it which include roleplay, permadeath, short maning raids, soloing quests, hide and seek events, and scavanger hunts. Secondly games that are meant for PVP tend to have much more limited character design and potential in the imaginary means of fairness and balance which usually translates to less depth and freedom of choice. Yes DDO has the potential to make some insanely powerful characters but to quote a wise woman, over specialization breeds in weakness.

Please, if you are one of those people that want everything to be fair and balanced and everyone leaves with a trophy and everyone is a winner, close those thread. This is not about balanced fairness. If you need balanced fairness in your games then you are better off playing a game with a three letter acronym that is spelled the same forwards and backwards. DDO is a thinking (wo)man's game and this is a thinking (wo)man's tournament.

Guidelines/Rules:
1. Entry fee is 500 platinum coins
2. Disqualification is not grounds for refund.
3. A character exceeding Level 1 at the time of the match is disqualified.
4. A character carrying timed buffs previous to the start of the match is disqualified.
5. Each character is treated as it's own entity. (If you enter multiple characters let me know so I don't pit your alts against each other.)
6. Being Unavailable at the scheduled time of your match.
7. All builds, feats, and items are allowed.
8. No Iron Defenders/Tamed Wolves. (Summoning Spells are fair game)


Rewards:
1st Place: Half the Pot, plus a named on level item.
2nd place: One Quarter of the pot.
3rd place: One eighth of the pot.
(Remaining pot will be absorbed)

The named item to be given to first place will be the cheapest named item on the market that is on level just before the Championship match.

I will be starting the pot out at 5000 platinum and each entry fee would be added to the pot in full. I would like to start this tournament on the 20th starting around noon EST, or when the bracket fills up with 100 people. Which ever comes first.

My hope is for this to become a series of tournaments. After this one is finished I hope to do a level 2, followed by 3 and so forth all the way up to what level cap is at that time. Once level cap is hit I plan to refine the system based the feedback I received along the way and start back at level 1 again but this time with 2 v 2 matches, 3 v 3s and so forth up till 5s. There will be no 6s as the 6th slot will be taken up my the mediators that are there to witness the matches.

[rikkitikkitarvi]

So just to be clear since it is not in the rules completionists that TR back to LVL 1 are allowed. Each buff may be small but at LVL one that would be a significant advantage.

Good luck on your tourney.

[Cordovan]

Good luck with this!

[UurlockYgmeov]

thank you and good luck!

[Ziindarax]

Khyber Level 1 PVP Tournament

Now I am sure the first thing most of you will say is " DDO isn't meant for PVP DUDE!" To which I say, good. First off DDO isn't meant for a lot of things we do to it which include roleplay, permadeath, short maning raids, soloing quests, hide and seek events, and scavanger hunts. Secondly games that are meant for PVP tend to have much more limited character design and potential in the imaginary means of fairness and balance which usually translates to less depth and freedom of choice. Yes DDO has the potential to make some insanely powerful characters but to quote a wise woman, over specialization breeds in weakness.

Please, if you are one of those people that want everything to be fair and balanced and everyone leaves with a trophy and everyone is a winner, close those thread. This is not about balanced fairness. If you need balanced fairness in your games then you are better off playing a game with a three letter acronym that is spelled the same forwards and backwards. DDO is a thinking (wo)man's game and this is a thinking (wo)man's tournament.

Guidelines/Rules:
1. Entry fee is 500 platinum coins
2. Disqualification is not grounds for refund.
3. A character exceeding Level 1 at the time of the match is disqualified.
4. A character carrying timed buffs previous to the start of the match is disqualified.
5. Each character is treated as it's own entity. (If you enter multiple characters let me know so I don't pit your alts against each other.)
6. Being Unavailable at the scheduled time of your match.
7. All builds, feats, and items are allowed.
8. No Iron Defenders/Tamed Wolves. (Summoning Spells are fair game)


Rewards:
1st Place: Half the Pot, plus a named on level item.
2nd place: One Quarter of the pot.
3rd place: One eighth of the pot.
(Remaining pot will be absorbed)

The named item to be given to first place will be the cheapest named item on the market that is on level just before the Championship match.

I will be starting the pot out at 5000 platinum and each entry fee would be added to the pot in full. I would like to start this tournament on the 20th starting around noon EST, or when the bracket fills up with 100 people. Which ever comes first.

My hope is for this to become a series of tournaments. After this one is finished I hope to do a level 2, followed by 3 and so forth all the way up to what level cap is at that time. Once level cap is hit I plan to refine the system based the feedback I received along the way and start back at level 1 again but this time with 2 v 2 matches, 3 v 3s and so forth up till 5s. There will be no 6s as the 6th slot will be taken up my the mediators that are there to witness the matches.


I like this idea a lot, but there's just one problem - Did you take into consideration, completionist characters? Those who have 9 PL's into the Primal destiny are going to have no less than - 27 HP (Plus the additional 36 if my math is right if the extra 4 hp per 10 levels flags the progression thusly - 4-12hp at levels 1, 10, 20, 30?). This is made even worse if that same build has: Maxed out Past lives in the Martial destiny for 18 AC (and if the situation applies here as it does with the HP in that you have extra AC being granted at level 1, 10, 20, etc, you stand to have a level 1 character who will be difficult to hit, let alone kill), AND Maxed out Divine destiny for optimal PRR (making the hits that do land, very very weak).

As much as I am for this tournament, there need to be protections in play because I don't see it being very fun (or fair) having a dude rocking the regen epic past-life with high AC (for a first level toon rocking heavy armor, and possible a shield), with PRR to reduce incoming damage by a large amount. Granted, I know you said that this tournament is not intended to be fair, which is great (I mean, the casters are naturally gonna have a hard time surviving the melee classes given that they're designed to dominate at the lower levels). Rather, what I seek to point out how easily this tournament could be compromised by someone rolling in a newly TR'ed completionist character.

I would like to suggest a ban on TR'ed characters, and have it so that only non-TR's can participate; while this won't keep TR's from bankrolling superior loot, or crafted items, it would keep the competition clean and fair (enough, that is) to afford the new(er) player the opportunity to win the tournament. Otherwise, you're going to have (or risk having) Epic Diety-like characters crushing the competition (all-the-while using any Festivault cookies to shore up the weaknesses that do exist).


Edit: Let me give an example -

I have a dwarven paladin that I TR into a warforged fighter with adamantine plating. Now, I have three paladin past lives granting me 15% healing amp, which negates most of the warforged's healing amp penalty. I put numerous points into constitution and strength. With the aforementioned primal past lives, plus what I put into my con, I stand to have close to 100 hp, at level 1, something that even completionist characters who've never touched epic past lives never even come close to. And, if I have three barbarian past lives, I am CERTAIN to cross that 100 hp threshold. With a decent tower shield, a level 1 thrower to hurl at casters, and a decent weapon, I could hurl my weapon at fleeing casters, block with impunity to regenerate lost damage (level 1 weapons are sublimely weak, and aren't even likely to make it past a tower-shields' blocking DR [remember, effects do not apply until after an enemy is hit]), and with my insane AC, I wouldn't break a sweat at that hopping lunatic with a bow and arrow because between my adamantine DR, and my high AC/PRR from past lives, I am nearly unconquerable.

End result? I win the tournament....


UNLESS(!)

Something interesting happens - Let's say that I do enter this tournament using the aforementioned build, and you, the host, decide to make things a challenge by allowing a party of no less than 6 other players to team up on me to compensate for those past lives. I might be able to still mop the floor with them, but it will certainly be a challenge since I would have to contend with cleaving barbs chipping away at my defenses while casters from afar spam magic missiles at me. Regen, or no, it's only once per minute, and I am certain to die if the DPS output manages to land inspite of all that I have.

[Ziindarax]

So just to be clear since it is not in the rules completionists that TR back to LVL 1 are allowed. Each buff may be small but at LVL one that would be a significant advantage.

Good luck on your tourney.

Unless you're referring to epic completionists (or those who have enough epic past lives, in which case, I totally agree), heroic completionists are indeed afforded a sizeable advantage, but this advantage can be overcome by a skilled enough player because their stronger feats don't come in until level 3, whereas the EPIC past lives can be used IMMEDIATELY at level 1 (and they're much, much more powerful).

Side-note: However, on the other hand, this is just me analyzing the worst-case contingency cropping up - the low prize pool does discourage epic players who typically have much more money than anyone would hope to make from this tournament. And, such characters may be owned by those honorable enough to understand that their character would be too powerful for such a tournament.

Edit: Past level five, however, things should start to even out, and the Epic PL's will become less of a problem (and by Epic Levels, a skilled player should have no trouble taking out the aforementioned build).

[Uska]

To be fair you need to restrict this to 1st life characters only and even then 32 pt builds will have an advantage over adventurer builds but not much of one.

If you allow TR'd characters they will have the possibility of more hp, doing more damage and being able to get off special attacks such as trip much easier.

[Nascoe]

Unless you're referring to epic completionists (or those who have enough epic past lives, in which case, I totally agree), heroic completionists are indeed afforded a sizeable advantage, but this advantage can be overcome by a skilled enough player because their stronger feats don't come in until level 3, whereas the EPIC past lives can be used IMMEDIATELY at level 1 (and they're much, much more powerful).

Side-note: However, on the other hand, this is just me analyzing the worst-case contingency cropping up - the low prize pool does discourage epic players who typically have much more money than anyone would hope to make from this tournament. And, such characters may be owned by those honorable enough to understand that their character would be too powerful for such a tournament.

Edit: Past level five, however, things should start to even out, and the Epic PL's will become less of a problem (and by Epic Levels, a skilled player should have no trouble taking out the aforementioned build).


Thanks for organizing this, I hope it will be a fun event for everyone participating / following it.

I do think that it would need a trial run with the rules now put up and maybe consider, based on experience with the first run, to adapt the rules to allow "featherweight", "middleweight" and "heavyweight" classes to seperate the "non TR" from TRs and people with Epic TR. Then again, it might make it complicated where to draw the lines.

Overall, I would think that a player with a fully decked out character would not just stumble in and have "fun" blasting through the tournament for relatively minor rewards. And if they do, I guess its just something to deal with by highlighting their "heroic effort" in defeating unworthy opponents and not allow them in for another tournament.

[Loromir]

I ran a guild only tournament like this awhile back. Our rules prohibited TR'd characters (No wings...if you get my drift). Character level was lvl4 since most people have access to veteran status. We allowed no ship buffs, no rune arms, no cookies, Maximum 2 caster levels. Scrolls, Potions etc were acceptable.

It was a really fun event. If you change the rules to eliminate TR's from the Tournament, I might come over and roll up my own lvl 1.

[rehakp]

This could be alot of fun. But as mentioned earlier is pastlives are allowed then its no tournament for 1st lifers.
Heroic pasts are stong but not impossible to beat but those epic pasts that give you tons of HP and defenses on lvl 1 makes you literally immortal standing against any firstlifer
At lvl offensive magic is kinda weak and casters runs out of juice in no time if metas are on. Still can imagine arcane caster in this tournament if against 1st lifer but no way against those 100HP pools.
Nice suit of armor Sword and Bow plus keyboard skills could be the way in tournament like that but then screwed even more bacause good luck on dice rolls against those 40+ AC

I will be thinking about pvp lvl1 build and believe it would be fun to "outsmart" other players with unique build and equipment. But if pastlifes are allowed i probably pass. Somone with stacked pastlifes can win literally naked and unarmed laughing against fully equipped 1stlifer and that not the fun im looking for ;)

[kazekamio]

I do not believe the trouble that would be required to sniff out people's feats would be worth the trouble given the way DDO is built. Yes a person could come in with 40HP and 16AC more than their rival of the same class and it does make the fight more difficult but it doesn't make it an auto win. Plus if I have to get screenshots of everyone's character sheet and go through everyone to make sure they are a bonafied noob then that dramatically increases the workload and slows down the setup to a crawl. Plus with the way DDO works a level 1 raging dwarvenbarbarian that lands his crit with a greataxe with absolutely none of those past life feats can still (optimistically) hit for 60 points and send that heroic+epic completionist crying. At which point I am sure they will complain a hell of a lot louder than the guy that joined for fun and lost 250plat, 20 minutes work in korthos, because he got pit against that same double completionist.

But like I said in the original post, I am not going to stress about balance. Every build in DDO can be countered some way so it's all a matter of the luck of the pairing and swings.