Tournament Suggestion: Hitting for the Cycle

[HC Gunther]

I am in two tournaments, but I have no faith in my ability to last in either one. I having been thinking about a new tourney for after I have died in those two. It will be a typical HC, single-pass tourney (see below for full rules). As you progress through the game, you will cycle through the type of equipment and mercs you can use.

Equipment Rules (tentative)
* Your character must be Untwinked (no twinking of items, you must start with nothing).
* Each Act is for a different type of item:
* * Act I is for plain (white or grey) items
* * Act II is for magic (blue) items
* * Act III is for rare (yellow) items
* * Act IV is for set (green) items
* * Act V is for rare (gold) items
* Each difficulty is for a different base for items
* * Normal is for Normal items
* * Nightmare is for Exceptional items
* * Hell is for Elite items
* In all acts and all difficulties, you can acquire items through drops, buying from vendors and gambling. Once an item drops, it is considered acquired. Crafting and rune words will be discussed later
* You can change whatever you are wearing after you kill the act boss before you go to the next act
* In Act I Normal, only white or grey items may be equipped. All blue or yellow drops may be saved or sold. Green and gold items must be saved for later play. You may store white or grey items until the end of the act. No rings or amulets can be worn
* Once you start Act II, only blue items may be equipped. You don't have to unequip the items that you finished Act I with, but if a blue item is acquired that fits a slot currently occupied by a white or grey item, you must unequip the white or grey item and try to equip the blue item (see list of slots later). All white and grey must be sold (see rune word and crafting exceptions) including any that were in storage at the end of Act I. You may store blue and yellow items. You must store green and gold items
* Act III is the same as Act II, except only yellow items may be equipped and blue items must be sold. Also, Charsi's quest for this difficulty must be used in this Act - you can use any dropped or purchased item for it
* Once you start Act IV, pull out all the set items you gathered in Acts I-III. They "bump" all of your existing inventory. Only green items may be equipped in this Act. If a green exceptional item drops in this Act (I am not sure it can happen), you must put it into storage for use in Nightmare difficulty
* Once you start Act V, pull out all of the unique items you gathered in Acts I-IV. They "bump" all of your existing inventory. Only Normal unique items may be equipped in the Act. All other normal items must be sold. If a green or gold exceptional item drops, it is put into storage for use in Nightmare. You cannot wear a unique item that has been upped to an exceptional base but have to put such an upped unique into storage
* In Act I Nightmare, only white or grey exceptional items may be equipped. If a white or grey exceptional drops for a slot occupied by a unique, the unique must be upped or sold. If a white or grey exceptional drops for a slot occupied by a green, the green item must be sold. Whatever rings and amulets you were wearing at the end of Act V Normal you will wear all the way through the act
* Acts II-V Nightmare have the same rules as Acts II-IV Normal, except only exceptional items may be equipped. Green and gold elite items go into storage for use in Hell
* Acts I-V Hell have the same rules as Acts I-V Nightmare, except only elite items may be equipped
* There are no restrictions on what goes into a socket
* Rune word exception: 1 inventory slot may always be filled by a rune word item. The item has to have a base appropriate for the difficulty (Normal for Normal, Exceptional for Nightmare, Elite for Hell). When you start Nightmare and Hell, your current rune word exception must be sold as it has the wrong base. You may change your rune word item at any time. Outside of Act I, you must make the decision to create a rune word item as soon as the item is acquired - no storing of grey items for using in rune words. Ladder rune words such as Insight are not allowed. In Act I Nightmare and Hell, you may equip as many rune word items as you wish
* Crafted item exception: 1 inventory slot may be filled by a crafted item. The item has to have a base appropriate for the difficulty (Normal for Normal, Exceptional for Nightmare, Elite for Hell). When you start Nightmare and Hell, your current crafted exception must be sold unless it is a ring or amulet as it has the wrong base. You may change your crafted item at any time. Outside of Act II, you must make the decision to create a crafted item as soon as the item is acquired - no storing of blue items for using in crafting
*All charms are allowed as with scrolls, potions, tomes etc.

Mercenary Rules (tentative)
* In Act I, don't use a mercenary. In Normal, don't talk to Kashya after killing Blood Raven. In Act I Nightmare and Hell, hire the lowest level fire rogue on the list. Don't give her any equipment. Ideally, kill her as quickly as possible. Once she dies, don't resurrect her until the act is done
* In Act II, only Rogue Scout or Desert mercenaries can be used. Hire one as soon as you finish Act I. You can equip the mercenary with gear you were carrying at the end of Act I. Whichever mercenary you use, you can't use for any other act in that difficulty
* In Act III, only Rogue Scout, Desert and Iron Wolves mercenaries can used. Hire one as you finish Act II. You can equip the mercenary with gear you were carrying at the end of Act II. Whichever mercenary you use, you can't use for any other act in that difficulty
* In Act IV, only Rogue Scout, Desert and Iron Wolves mercenaries can used. Hire one as you finish Act III. You can equip the mercenary with gear you were carrying at the end of Act III
* In Act V Normal, continue using the mercenary you hired in Act IV until you complete Qual-Kehk's quest, and then hire a Barbarian mercenary. For other difficulties, go back to Act V Normal after you finish Act IV and hire a Barbarian mercenary
* Once you hire a mercenary, you can't hire another one for the rest of the act
* If you used a fire Rogue Scout in the prior difficulty, you must a cold in the current difficulty and vice versa
* If you have used a Combat, Defensive or Offensive Desert mercenary in a prior difficulty, you can't use him in the current difficulty
* If you have used a Fire, Cold or Lightning Iron Wolf in a prior difficulty, you can't use him in the current difficulty
* The net result of this should be that you cycle through all the possible mercenary choices

Inventory Slot Rules
* For the character, the inventory slots are helm, amulet, main weapon, armor, shield, gloves, left ring, belt, right ring, boots, switch weapon, switch shield
* The inventory slots for mercenaries depends on the mercenary. All have helm, weapon and armor slots. Act III mercenaries also have a shield slot
* Weapons have priority over shields, so if in Act II all weapon slots are occupied by white or grey two-handed weapons and a blue shield drops, you don't have to unequip a weapon. If in Act II, you have two blue two-handed weapons and one white or grey one-handed weapon and a white or grey shield and a blue two-handed weapon drops, then the both the one-handed weapon and shield must go
* When you acquire an item appropriate for the act, it is considered to fill a slot even if you can't equip it. If an item can go into multiple slots, you can choose which slot it goes into. For example, let's say you start Act III with two blue swords and two blue shields on your character and a blue polearm on your Desert mercenary. You take the equipment off the Desert mercenary, hire the Iron Wolf mercenary and then give him the blue armor and helm off of the Desert mercenary and a blue sword and a blue shield. If you acquire a yellow two-handed weapon, you can give it to your character in his main weapon slot or switch weapon slot. If you acquire two more yellow two-handed weapons, then the Iron Wolf mercenary loses his weapon and shield even though he can't equip the two-handed weapon

Characters & Gameplay
* Your character must be HC although it if you cant you may go SC, but a SC death disqualifies the character from further participation.
* If your character dies, you may re-enter with another character. There is no limit to this rule, you may re-enter as many times as you wish.
* Players can use versions from 1.10+
* Players can use any character class, any build, and assign stat and skill points as desired.
* Re-specing is not allowed
* Any /players setting is allowed, and may be changed at will
* Single pass only (no re-running of act bosses and areas)
* You may return to previous acts and difficulties, however you may not leave town (you may retrieve Wirts Leg for Cow level, please avoid killing if possible and no picking up loot)
* It is expected that you use Atma as an extended stash
* Charsi's quest must be completed in Act III of that difficulty. Larzuk's quest can be completed whenever you wish (ex. you may use the normal socket quest in NM)

What do you think? Any interest? Anything unclear? Any rules you think should be changed?

 

[Atroz]

I think it sounds like a wonderful idea for a tournament, and I've been looking for a tournament to get me back into playing Diablo 2 anyway so this is PERFECT! I'm definitely interested (if you couldn't tell already) so let me know when/if you plan to start this up.

 

[Dezrok]

Interesting idea. Seems a little complicated to me. Personally I like the simple tourneys that are pretty consistent throughout. That way I'm not going to get confused and do the wrong thing (or worry about accidentally doing the wrong thing). I guess I also like tourneys that I can build a character towards Guardian. Changing gear every Act and not being able to respec each time (or at all) means that all I really have control over is skills, so limited builds are going to appeal or be likely to go very far.

Certainly would be a challenge though, imagine entering Hell with only a handful of white elite items that you were able to scrounge at the end of Nightmare.

One option might be to allow use of items of the appropriate type from previous difficulty levels (so Normal and Exceptional items in NM; Normal, Exceptional and Elites in Hell), that way you might be able to collect enough rares and uniques to stand a chance in Acts 4 and 5, as well as a start in Act 1. I guess it depends on how challenging you actually want it to be.

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.

 

[HC Gunther]

Interesting idea.

Thanks for the reply

Seems a little complicated to me.

I can see that. I hope I put enough detail in the post to get across what the rules are. Was there anything that was unclear?

I guess I also like tourneys that I can build a character towards Guardian. Changing gear every Act and not being able to respec each time (or at all) means that all I really have control over is skills, so limited builds are going to appeal or be likely to go very far.

Did you leave a "not" out somewhere?

What is the SPF community's feelings towards respecs? I saw a post where jiansonz was against it. I haven't seen anyone else say one way or another

Certainly would be a challenge though, imagine entering Hell with only a handful of white elite items that you were able to scrounge at the end of Nightmare.

Thinking on this, I think I will remove all restrictions on the crafted item and on one rune word item.

At the start of Act I Hell, the player will have their crafted item, their rune word item, their unique amulet and their unique rings. I envision players doing a lot of powershopping when they start Act I to buy items with sockets and then they can socket them as they wish. Then they can craft an glove, belt or boot. So that leaves two of their glove, belt or boot that will be plain white items. Do you think that will be inadequate?

One option might be to allow use of items of the appropriate type from previous difficulty levels (so Normal and Exceptional items in NM; Normal, Exceptional and Elites in Hell), that way you might be able to collect enough rares and uniques to stand a chance in Acts 4 and 5, as well as a start in Act 1. I guess it depends on how challenging you actually want it to be.

Do you mean sets and uniques? I had thought you could up exceptional elites to elites, but I see that they is a ladder only recipe. Does RWM permitting upping exceptional uniques to elites?

What if I change the rules so that in Nightmare Act IV, you must equip any Exceptional set items you have and then you have the option of equipping any Normal set items or staying with the rares left over from Act III? Ditto for Nightmare Act V and uniques. In Hell Act IV, I could change the rule to be that you must equip any Elite set items you have and then you have the option of equipping any Normal or Exceptional set items or staying with the rares left over from Act III. Ditto for Hell Act V and uniques.

Also, should I add more exceptions for Hell difficulty? I am thinking that in starting in Act I, a player can have two crafted items instead of one. Starting in Act III, you can equip one blue item of your choice. That would allow Cruel weapons. Starting in Act IV, you can equip one rare item of your choice. And in Act V, you can equip one set item of your choice.

I appreciate your comments and suggestions. Do you have any more?

 

[Dezrok]

I re-read the rules and I'm pretty sure they are all clear, just a lot of them.

As long as you didn't have to unequip everything at the end of each Act, just replace it as something appropriate comes along it could work. I mean it could work anyway, but would be a real grind almost all the time. One big problem that I see is that constantly swapping your gear means that you are never going to build up much MF, so you are not going to find a lot of Set or Uniques, so those Acts are going to be tough. You also can't shop whites or greys after clvl 20, so Act 1 NM and Hell will be tough if you can't carry over your gear from the previous difficulty. Acts 2 and 3 will be about shopping/gambling as you will almost always get higher ilvl items that way then from drops.

You can up uniques in single player, with or without RWM.

But really the only way to find out is to run the tourney and see what happens. Still probably too complicated for me though.

 

[purplelocust]

This seems like an interesting idea, but somewhat complicated. There was wonderful Skunkbelly tourney, "It takes all kinds" from a few years ago that had a variety of equipment for each spot, but it didn't change every act. I miss the Skunkbelly tourneys and have thought about starting characters again for them as the rules were generally a very nice balance with good challenges. Tourneys with strong restrictions are nice - tourneys where the restrictions are weak enough to have a decent chance of completing the game are quite different from those where it is quite likely that you will die, it is just a question of where and how far along you can get.

I like tourneys which allow rerunning but with the restrictions, it isn't too likely that you'll be able to complete the whole game. So the expectation is that you will either die or basically reach a place where progress forward is basically impossible. And Skunkbelly had a great knack for having interesting tourneys of this type.

 

[HC Gunther]

I have some thoughts on reworking the rules to improve MF and making the gear better in the end game. I am willing to take the time to do it if several people express interest. Otherwise, I will continue play in existing tourneys.

 

[wakiki]

I agree that it's too complicated, but I like the "item bumping" idea quite a bit. Perhaps you could make a tournament based on that, with these or other similar rules.

Here are the bare bones tournament rules:

1) Every time you change acts, you must roll items to be replaced. You may replace your backups (see rule 3) whenever you want, but you may only replace your equipped items with backups by rolling them.

Those using 1-handers would roll 1-11 (weap1, weap2, switch1, switch2, helm, amulet, armor, glove, ring, belt, boot). If using one 2-hander, roll 1-10; two 2-handers, roll 1-9.

2) You roll twice (that is, two items) for each act in normal, three times in nightmare, four times every act in hell.

I don't think this is quite challenging enough, so let's add one more rule to make things really interesting:

3) You may only keep 1 "backup" item of each kind in your stash; two backups for weapons. Barbs and asns who dual wield are allowed as many weapon backups as they have weapons. If you want to replace a shield with a claw, you may use a claw as your shield backup, too.

Whenever you find an item, you must declare it as your backup, or sell it (or mule it off if it's a grailer or something). Once it touches your stash, it's either a backup or an item for future cubing/crafting.

Whenever you craft an item, you must declare it as a backup or sell it right when it's cubed. You may save up supplies for cubing when you change acts.

Gambling is just like finding an item, once it appears in your inventory, you either sell it, replace your backup with it, or keep it for cubing later.

Shopping: unless you are shopping for crafting supplies, it is assumed you will never buy an item without making it your backup.

Quest rewards are just like found items. The socket reward may be saved but once used, that item is in danger of being rerolled just like any other.

Runes can be saved like cubing supplies. Note that finding good bases for runewords will be hard, but possible; when a base drops you have to either use it as your backup or not, right then.

And here are some optional rules to help flesh things out. I favor some and don't favor others but I'll put them all out there:

4) Mercenaries reroll 1 item per act in all difficulties. Same backup rules. (option)

4) No merc allowed; they hurt the spirit of the tournament and clutter things with so many backups. (my preferred option)

4) Unrestricted mercs. (Very bad, in my opinion. Totally undermines the tournament.)

5) You cannot keep a good ring on and replace the other ring slot over and over; they must be alternated. (optional; this is very strict and I actually prefer getting to hold on to one lovely ring all game. I prefer this asymmetry over the systematic-ness of this rule.)

6) If you wish, you may keep rolling slots (after your 2, 3, or 4 minimum) when you enter an act. You may roll one slot at a time, and your previously rolled slots cannot be rolled again. This is to make sure people don't get stuck with an act II weapon in act IV and will give melee characters a better shot. (optional, but I'm in favor of this one).

And of course I'm assuming hardcore, single pass. Overall, this would be a pretty challenging tournament due to the limited "toolkit" available! Wondering what others think.