Tourney Idea Need some PvP Advice

[Brak]

Thyiad's recent poor man's dueling has led me to the idea of an even poorer man's dueling tourney that doesn't require any MF'ing or even any items at all. It'll consist of characters that are all single pass untwinked through normal difficulty only. So this will basically be an MLD tourney with very bad items. I'd like to structure this as a 1v1 round robbin double elimination so that people get a second chance if paired against a tough class, or if just mis-matched against their achilles heal. But I need some help with balancing rules. I'll be reading up on MLD rules as I haven't done this formally.

What I'm most worried about is balancing item independent classes (ie caster) vs. item dependent classes (ie melee). I know for LLD'ing duels are generally held as ranged v. ranged or melee v. melee, but I'd prefer not to have to break it down as such. Few things I thought might be able to get at this are:

-Teleport banned outright
-Maybe change the battle ground to: Let the terrain favor a pursuit character. Also add in more walls where spells will be blocked. Perhaps Den of Evil?
-Limit PDR

More basic rules:
-One source of absorb per element (if you even find one) including Res increase, and PLR.
-Physical reduction capped at 50% (what about straight numbers?)
-No charge + vigor
-No recasting bone armor/cyclone armor
-Only summons that can be cast in town aside for decoy (was toying with allowing a couple non-resummonable skelies for non-casting necros)
-No mercs
-No charges (maybe certain charges allowed i.e. combat skills)
-slow maxed at 10%, no-decrep/holy freeze
-No knockback?
-Should there be a FRW cap? (seems points in vigor hurt character since skill points will be of high demand)


Thanks a lot for any feedback

[skoolbus]

I think this is a pretty neat idea, similar to HC ironman tourneys (I'm assuming this is SC though, right?) and I'd definately join.
I wouldn't put the restrictions on PDR, absorb, charges, FRW because if anyone manages to find these, they wont have enough to make a big difference and it's probably coming at the cost of better equipment. Also, I doubt youd need to ban teleport as you can't use potions (ban those) and that guzzles mana.

Just a prediction, but I'd bet zons dominate this entirely, maybe assassins too as they both have extremely fast attacks not depending on gear and have ranged ones.

Just remember that if the first one doesn't work out perfectly, you can always revise the rules and host another, I have no doubt people would join again.

[IronCrown]

I think this is a brilliant idea, and would definately join as well.

I wouldn't put the restrictions on PDR, absorb, charges, FRW because if anyone manages to find these, they wont have enough to make a big difference and it's probably coming at the cost of better equipment. Also, I doubt youd need to ban teleport as you can't use potions (ban those) and that guzzles mana.

I feel that skoolbus got it spot on. With a single pass through normal, I doubt if I could aquire much (if any) PDR etc.

I'm wondering if you are going to put a cap on the lvl of the char, as some people's single pass is more "thorough" than anothers, although I dont think it will be that big a deal.

Hope you can get this off the ground. GL

[aitrus]

Interesting idea, lets see how this gets developed...

Limit on level? Why, anyone who wants to make it good will do full clears of all areas to reach the highest possible level, right?! Anything else just doesn't make sense.

Edit:
Nice thinking skoolbus :wink3: but stop, your Baal actually drops good :shocked:

[skoolbus]

Yeah, level restriction might be a bad idea, because if you reach it right after ancients, you miss out on a bunch of potentially great drops from baal and minions.

[Sir Lister of Smeg]

I have some similar ideas as well, but I'd make it even more low level. Since level 9 is the first level you can become hostile (iirc), I'd use that as duelling level, without any limits on skills and items used. You can either quest and reach that level or rerun an area until you reach that level. At the moment you reach that level you stop and mention that you're there. I'd add in that any items found can be muled off to an atma stash limited to the tourney and muled on from there as well. Another thing I thought about was making it more interesting by making it hardcore. After a battle, the winner gains the right to reach the next level, the loser can make a new character again until level 9, but can use the items found by the previous character (apart of course from those on the character). This way, there might occur a balance between skills for the winners and items for the losers. Every win scores you a point, and you can reentry as many times as you wish, points are per player, not per character. Of course the scoring sytem could be made more interesting by basing it on how well the two players were doing previously, akin to what's used in chess and tennis.
And a disclaimer, I've never duelled, so I don't know whether this would actually work well.

[Sint Nikolaas]

I want to add that LLD (level 9 etc) are dominated by melee characters. Even in MLD (what we're talking about here, ~40) melee charcters still have an edge because their skills will work easily and have big interest (400 ED will work and hurt with any weapon, doesn't matter if it's 100 dmg or 400) while an unsynergised spell will have tu hit a lot. Also remember that casters have a disadvantage as it is, because in normal there's no resist penalty and in NM only -30.

Also, I suggest looking at this guide to not forget anything while hosting the tournament.
This guide has a section on the PvP rules, you can go trough them and see which ones you need (and why they were set up).
Go trough the PvP Thread and take a look at Thy's dueling thread, both have good rules layed out.

[Zhao_Yue]

Sounds like an interesting idea. Because it's untweak, I'd say throw out most of the restrictions except for the following:

-No recasting bone armor/cyclone armor
-Only summons that can be cast in town aside for decoy (I'm kind of leaning towards allowing skellimancers as they are an excellent build to quest untweaked.)
-No bone prison
-No mercs
-No slow items, no-decrep/holy freeze
-No knockback
-Assassins who use traps or ranged weapons may not use Burst of Speed

Even in MLD (what we're talking about here, ~40) melee charcters still have an edge because their skills will work easily and have big interest (400 ED will work and hurt with any weapon, doesn't matter if it's 100 dmg or 400) while an unsynergised spell will have tu hit a lot. Also remember that casters have a disadvantage as it is, because in normal there's no resist penalty and in NM only -30.

Not necessarily true in this case since it's untweaked. 400%ED sounds nice but if your best weapon find is a cracked short sword that does 1-2 damage, you won't do much. Getting that 100%ED rare War Javalin with a couple of +15 Maxers won't be likely. :grin: Spells are relatively more consistant and rely less on gear. They also have a range advantage in most cases.

[NacRuno]

I liked this idea a lot...

I restarted diablo a few months ago and my only char is my mf blizz sorc; therefore i sort of have the wealth to enter Thyiad's pvp comp but i don't have the chars to enter it and i was dissappointed to miss such a fun promising comp

This tournament may be just the thing for the likes of me, who are willing to start a PvP career

Single pass untwinked through normal, that quite sums up most of the rules i guess and i loved the idea even more because of it

[Gabriel74]

I would be in. absolutely. The idea of not having to get all your gear uber is very appealing. Its taken a long time to get my bonemancer to a place I feel he could duel, MLD sounds great.