Am I in the right to assume there will be a DDR tourny?
and if so, can there be a freestyle one?
PWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASEEEEEE!

I have no clue if theres going to be one.  Would be nice though.

I'm trying to get one put together.  Still waiting to hear back about whether I'm confirmed for staff or not.  If I am, I'll be there with a full ruleset and registration for a Freestyle tournament.  From there, it's just up to people to sign up.  I ran the DDR tournaments last year, and I was asked to come back as staff for this year, but they've kind of dropped the ball with communications, and I've had trouble getting a hold of them lately.

hm, ive never been.

Any news on if there is going to be a tourny this year? If so, are there any details available yet?

I'm staff this year and am running both a Tetris the Grand Master tournament alongside a DDR Extreme tournament. Please check the Sakura-Con boards for info. I'll probably be mostly posting stuff there because it's easy and will hit most attendees, but I'll be sure to cross post here too.

Anyway what format do you guys want?

NCAA double elimination rules, Round Robin for the final four, no songs off-limits at any point, final destination.

I really am not too picky on how it goes down.

If you're interested, I've hosted a handful of tournaments over the years and usually people seem to like them. If you're interested, you can check the thread of my last one: http://www.pnwbemani.net/smf/index.php?topic=617.0

It should explain the basics of how it worked.

I'm OK with "any song goes", but I strongly urge you to build up the pressure and start with 8's or so, then move up to 10s for the finals. That way you give everyone a chance to "warm up" and you don't hit some of the less skilled players on round 1 with PSM. And for those thinking "Those noobs will loose at some point, why does it matter?" - It's simple: anyone who deserves the grand prize should be skilled at PA and Survival. So the winner should be able to out-PA his rivals on the easier songs at the beginning, as well as beat them at the hard songs near the end.

Of course, this is simply my 2 cents. It's your tourny, do with it what you will.

P.S. I saw on the SakuraCon DDR page that the tournament is tentatively scheduled for Friday at 3 PM. I don't want to make things a pain in the arse for you, but I've got a steady job that doesn't get out until 5 (not including the time it would take to get to the convention), and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation. I may be able to take a half-day off work, but I'm not certain. I know I'm probably older than most of those that will be competing, but you still might want to consider those of us with 9-5 jobs.

Card elimination is alright, and since there will be indecisive jerks like me at the tournament, it's probably preferable. But:


This is an extreme example, but if I meet someone in the early rounds that I feel I can ONLY beat with a 10, I should be allowed to pick a 10. People are good at what they're good at, and limiting their choices just makes the tournament unfair. It would be the same if you forced people to pick 10's in the early rounds and then moved down to 9's and 8's. There's no point in slanting the tournament one way or the other.

edit: Furthermore, there are some pretty arbitrary 10 ratings on DDR. I know there's only one in Extreme, but you should consider bag. The only difficulty in that stems from its BPM and its difficulty to PA, and as you probably know it's not in the same league as The Legend of Max or Maxx Unlimited.

edit^2: ONE MORE THING! I think most people will probably not pick 10's in the early rounds because they will simply not be warmed up, and they might not want to tire themselves out.


Yeah it is pretty unlikely that I'll be able to skip class/work to get up to Sakuracon that early. Can we possibly move it to Saturday?

Well, I'd like to move it but really the timeslots were already booked by other events. Is there any chance at all you guys can make it? Come on up if at all possible! I really want this to be big and good!

Oh, by the way, AMBER FLOTASTIC AWESOME HARNER will be helping out with the tournament and stuff. And entering. Anyway. Yeah. COMPETITION!

I personally hate tournaments that restrict song selection.  Then again, I haven't been in a PA tournament in about 2 years.  I would recommend the following limitations to song selection:
-NEVER EVER EVER REQUIRE SOMEONE TO DO A 10.  This is a convention, not a super major DDR tournament that everyone's going to be flipping out about.  Keep the attitude relaxed.  If someone's not comfortable playing a 10, and they express that, that should be respected.  I'll be more than happy to play any song on Extreme against anyone except for PSM or PSMO, but if someone picks one of those songs against me, I'm just going to switch it to light mode, reverse, and dark and freestyle it, because my asthma, anemia, and low blood pressure restrict me from being able to play those songs.
-If you have two players who are well-matched, don't let them play 7's or lower unless they're particularly technical songs, such as l'amour et liberte or Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray (Gimmix).

Other than that, keep it loose.  Again, it's a con.  There are going to be people entering who haven't played DDR competitively before.  Most of the people there are going to be expecting a relaxed, primarily social tournament, which is what they should get.  Not that people shouldn't or wouldn't be trying their best--you just don't want people leaving the tournament feeling like they just took a badly coordinated test with a steep curve that didn't favour them.

That's a fair point Charlie. I wasn't really worried about the rule being enforced in the first place; I'm not that good at 10's

yay Amber's coming! We should get a headcount of everyone who's planning to go.

Oh also, the Sakuracon ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP5lz2CYNR4

GIRUGAMESH

i sort of agree with both dancingtofu and disco. while i guess you can assume this will have more of a relaxed atmosphere, limiting the difficulty of songs is way unfair. maybe someone can't pass a ten, but at the same time, maybe someone sucks at PA and only has the stamina to do tens.

anyway, so what if people expect a social tournament? it's still a competition. still a tournament, and that in and of itself says that there is a range of skill, and it wouldn't be fair to penalize someone for being "too good." i'm sure that even the qualifier will present a kind of "oh, i have to at least be able to pass that" sort of vibe. people know that dance games are competitive, i don't doubt that in the least bit.

only solution either comes from imposing difficulty caps or forcing a song-by-card type of tournament. i lean toward the pick your own song format, and not having difficulty caps personally just because it still skews things by not letting people choose to play what they are best at, one way or the other. basically, i don't like this idea of "be good, but don't be TOO good" or "well, maybe they can't pass this song or do it quite as well as you, so you have to play nice" kind of rule.

ALSO DISCOOOOOOOV!!!!!!!!! and kevin!!! yea buddies.

I agree. Not to say that I can't play 10s, but I sure don't really care for it. To me, 10s really do come down to "Who's whored out [insert song here] more than the other guy?".


Here's the problem...

You have two players. One is great at PA but has low stamina, and the other can blaze through any song, but can barely AA anything. So who will win a 3 song set? Answer: whoever gets to pick 2 of the 3 songs. If Mr. PA gets first pick, he can choose a really easy song and win it. Point for him. Then Mr. Stamina chooses his song, PSMO and wins because Mr. PA can't even pass it. Point for Mr. Stamina. Whoever gets the last song obviously determines the winner, because if PA man gets to decide, he'll choose something obviously easy while if Stamina guy chooses, he'll just pick PSM or The Legends of the Max and win by default again.

This becomes less of a contest of skill and more a matter of luck-of-the-draw in my opinion.

EDIT: Perhaps you should just choose RANDOM and have players play that way. It's not very structured but you also can't really complain about anything since the machine is choosing randomly. You might get a set of all 6 step songs or all 10s. No one can know.

2 out of 3's don't work that way. If, after two songs the players are tied, the third song is randomed. I think the way you're outlining is unfair to anyone haha.

Also, even if it does come down to "who's whored out" to get better at 10's, why should the people who've "whored" them be punished for doing so? It takes a lot of work to be able to AAA or SDG a 10, I daresay just as much work as it takes for someone to be able to AAA or SDG anything lower.

edit: I think we should really move on to talking about things like the pot, dealing with pad arbitration, what format the finals should be in... etc.

yeah sorry for being unclear about this. dear discov, we should probably sort out rules before we figure anything else out though :\ prizes are really up to sakuracon because i don't think there is going to be an actual money pot, is there? even though like a $5 entry fee would be nice..

probably due to time restraints a 32(? if we have that many?) person bracket single elim would be best. for less complications, make matches with each person picking one song (higher seed picks EITHER 1. side or 2. which song they choose to pick, 1st or 2nd) and if it comes to a third song, have it a random tiebreaker on heavy.

pad arbitration... depends on what winning a song comes down to. it would be easiest to do straight PA, or a little more complicated perfects/oks 2 points, greats 1 point. for pad errors, ONLY in the case of it having made a difference between winning and losing the song, call it a tie, have the other person pick their choice song (if they haven't already) and then just go to random songs until there is a winner.

for finals, again, in interest of time keep it with the 2 song pick your own format. or if you want to make it extra exciting, make it 3 out of 5.

my thoughts.

My understanding is that Bill and his staff maintain their machines VERY well, so we shouldn't have to worry about the pads wonking out.  If someone thinks they got a pad miss, and it would actually make a difference, a replay only takes 90 seconds.  They should have to use the same song and mods though, naturally.

I think we should probably just go with P/OK = 2, Great = 1.  It puts pressure on players not to break their combos, and it's easy enough to calculate just by looking at it for 5 or 10 seconds with most songs.  It's actually the scoring system they use for SuperNOVA, which is the primary reason I consider it a good enough mix to have a tournament on.  This also means that we could just plug scores into DDRecall if we're unsure who won and let the internet do the work for us.

I have a few other comments I posted on the SC message boards, which are most importantly directed at those running the tournament.

I'm too lazy to make an account for the SC forums, but here are some of my relevant thoughts.

-Have a qualifying song for seeding. A few have already mentioned this and for a single elimination tourny it would be completely n00b not to do this.

-Friday afternoon on Day 1 sux as a time slot, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'm hardcore enough that I will try to show up, but 3PM on a Friday is a pretty awful time to have a tourny for non-high school students.

-I will admit I feel more confident playing on an Extreme machine, however SN's scoring system makes determining who won much easier. You just look at the score, whoever has a higher scores wins. If you use Extreme, I suggest you have a score calculator on hand to recalculate for possible pad misses.

-I hope we have a good turnout, because as Dancin'Tofu has mentioned, I don't mind losing, as long as it's to someone I had fun going up against.

Btw, I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to be the oldest one there @ 26, almost 27. Are most of you in your late teens or early 20s?

Okay okay.

*Qualifier should be a tricky 8 or easyish 9. At RMT9 the qualifier was Rain of Sorrow on Left or something, but since this is a considerably lower-profile tournament I think something easier would be a better bet. For instance, at the last PoOR tournament we used L'amour and it worked well.

*2 out of 3 format for all rounds prior to the finals, all songs available, tiebreaker is random. If both players don't like what they get for the tiebreaker and would rather random another one, they should be allowed to do so. This way the players each get to play one song of their choosing, one song of their opponent's choosing, and if they're tied after that one song decided upon by the hand of fate. Sound good?

*For finals I'm all for a 3 out of 5 match format, and if we get to a 5th song it should be randomed.

*I think Extreme would be a better choice just because it's what most people are used to. Not to say that SN wouldn't work well; I just think that for what will apparently be a less formal tournament, we should stick to what the majority of people are comfortable with. (Besides, I don't think it would work half as well as SN2 because of Marvelous timing and not being quite as off-sync a mix, but hey.)

*With Extreme, I figure if someone calls pad arbitration and the tournament organizers vouch for it, it should be recalculated as a great. In the interest of time I suggest we do NOT replay any songs if we can help it. But it sounds like Masterman's machines are in generally good shape so I'm personally not too worried about this.


I could not agree more. I'm hoping to meet a lot of people here and I hope they kick ass!


Reppin' 20 here...

So lastly: I NEED A RIDE! I want to get there just a little before the tournament if possible so if anyone is leaving Thursday night or Friday morning, could I hitch a ride with you? Charls?

This is just my two cents.

But at most tournaments I've been too back in colorado were just random caprice tourny's.
So I'm just throwing it out there.
Random Caprice might work better. Maybe.......

L'amour de Liberte would be good, so would Heaven is a 57' Metalic Gray, Electro Tuned, or Crash! if you're looking for something easier. Adding a mod like shuffle or left does make things a bit interesting. I've never thought of doing that on a qualifier, but it just might work.



If this isn't going to be a super high-end tourny, then best 3/5 seems a bit much. I think just keeping it the best 2/3 is more than adequate, even for the finals.

Just a suggestion to make things more exciting. I mean c'mon, this is gonna be the top two players from the whole tournament; I think the audience and the rest of the competitors deserve a little more tension for their final match.

edit: All of those qualifiers sound alright except for Electro Tuned, which I would say is one of the harder 9's available. (Doubletaps, late sync) I think Crash with a turn mod would be a damn good qualifier. I think my ideal pick would be something like Paranoia or Irresistablement on a turn mod.

I told Amber this already but I basically have two suggestions about the tournament:

-The rules should be simple and explained well to everyone who is entering.
-There should be no song difficulty restriction, at the top or at the bottom.

This is a tournament at an anime convention, an all-comers if you would.  Having some minimum difficulty you are required to play, such as "expert" is only going to discourage players from entering.  I don't feel that this will soften the level of competition.  Expert level players will generally do better than those not at that level even on the easier songs, and when those players meet each other, they will be picking more difficult songs anyway.  Given the setting of the tournament, rules should be made in such a way to encourage participation, not alienate those who aren't part of the "in-crowd."  As far as match structure, 2/3 is simple and not very time consuming.  Maybe a 3/5 for the finals for entertainment value (or to limit the likelihood of a random upset if you're into the whole "Seattle tournaments are based on fairness" thing).  Just keep it simple, really.  One player picks a song.  Other player picks a song.  If they split, random tiebreaker on the middle difficulty unless both agree to expert or easy, or something along those lines.

edit: along the same line of thought, the qualifier should be like, a 7 at most.  it's not like there's going to be 10 people AAAing it.

Seems fair. Although I stand by my suggestion to have a trickyish song for the qualifier, no matter what the difficulty. Now that I think about it Share My Love could be a really good one, especially on a turn modifier.