I used 7's for qualifiers last year, and I was the only person who AAA'd any of them (I actually AAA'd three of them.  LOL homeversions), but we're going to have more skilled players there this year.

Here's the idea that just occurred to me:

Have the qualifier be something easy -- basically, something which a few people are bound to AAA or SDG.  Better yet, pick 3 songs for them to play as a set, and take the total of non-perfects/OKs (ie. greats, typically) for the sets as the qualifier.

Start people off playing the qualifiers at, like, 10am, and just have them put their number on the sheet.

Set the seeding up so that the top 8 players won't face off against each other in single elim, then have the top 8 players face off double elim.  The whole tournament will take approx. 2 hours and 20 minutes.  I'm assuming we have a 3-hour timeslot, right?  That leaves a full 40 hours for bullshit to mess things up, or for more people to show up than expected.  Pretty safe IMO.  Also, for the qualifier, allow players to submit scores on an honors basis, including any scores achieved within 15 days prior.  That way, people can just go to the arcade, play their qualifiers, and already have the scores ready when they get there.  Sure, it allows them to hone their performance, but if you require a picture of the set (you can have the last song be MaxX Unlimited on Standard, so that there won't be an extra stage) to submit the score, it should make it pretty well-balanced.

Here is a list of qualifiers from which I'd pick, and I'd pick them as follows.  (I'd also recommend that people can abstain from playing a song and just default to 90 non-perfs for 9's, 40 non-perfs for 7's, and 60 non-perfs for 8's, since those people aren't going to seed in the top 8 anyway):

Song 1, 7:
Look to the Sky
MoboMoga
AM-3P
Firefly
Aoi Shoudou (Blue Impulse)
Dam Dariram

Song 2, 9:
Orion.78 (Civ Mix)
Cartoon Heroes
Captain Jack
Xenon

Song 3, 8 (standard):
Max 300
The Legend of MaxX
Healing Vision ~Angelic Mix~ (this is rated as a 7, but it was the last seven I passed on DDR Max, so I consider it an honorary
Paranoia Max ~Dirty Mix~

Those are the only standard charts I've played which I consider difficult enough for a heavy tournament.  I'm sure PSM and TLoM are both pretty technical on Standard too.  The point is to not have an extra stage more than anything.

If you run the qualifiers like that, you'll get scores ranging from 4 or 5 up to 60 or 70.  That's a pretty good range to seed from IMO.

you'll get a good range of scores from like 10 to epic fail.  as such, your ideas are epic fail.  run a heavy tournament on the side.  there'll be like 5 players.

I really don't think we need more than one qualifier... and since time is a serious issue here there's really no point in having three. Let's just keep it simple.

edit: The thing is though, since it sounds like we ARE getting a decent number of serious competitors (Crono from Canada is coming?!?!) why not just host a Light/Standard tournament on a home version at the same time as a Heavy/Oni tournament on the arcade machine?

Because, apparently spending .1% of their annual earnings to get a couple DDR pads isn't an option, so I'd be surprised if there is any CS DDR there at all.

manyminimoos, you can just go light yourself on fire.  I recommend eating lots of dick beforehand.


3 qualifiers = one set.  Have people do it on their own time and it doesn't take any time away from the tournament.  It measures skill on a wide range, so that the seeding is actually based on, you know, something.  Again, there will be, like, 25 or 30 people.  If 90% of them do the qualifier before the con, then it'll take 10 to 20 minutes to get it done at con.  Have the qualifiers started well before the tournament in coordinance with normal free play and there's not even the potential for it taking away from tournament time.

We shouldn't be opening up the tournament to people who can't play on Heavy.  It's just not a responsible way to use our time.  It's one thing to let people like me enter, who have no chance of winning.  It's entirely different if we open the tournament up to people who aren't even able to pass 9's.  Like Amber said, if someone can't pass a song, particularly a song that quite a few people in the tournament can SDG or AAA, it's pretty silly to make it so that people can't play that song.

dancingtofu: qualifiers don't mean nearly as much as you think they do. they really shouldn't be so complicated; we don't need to do a set of three songs. it is just about setting up a bracket based on relative skill level, it doesn't make or break the tournament.

also, i don't think it is wise to go on the honor system at all, i mean, sure it would help with time constraints, but there are so many problems with it. with the honor system, you can play the song as many times as you want until you get the score you like. you can play incredibly warmed up on a machine you are comfortable with. basically, tournaments and tournament play are way, way different than just normal, casual play.

honestly, if you told me we were going on the honor system, i'd just play them until i got a score i deemed acceptable, which clearly is NOT what tournaments are about. i play a lot worse under tournament pressure, which definitely skews things--just like some people are amazing tournament players.

i still vote having it an exclusively heavy/oni tournament and stand by what i wrote earlier on how the tournament should be conducted. sure, it is a casual tournament, but the thing is we are all still competing for a prize.

i agree with the idea too of a qualifier being something relatively easy to pass but tricky to AAA, so yeah, maybe like a 7 or 8 on a turn mod. something like long train runnin or miracle or vanity angel.

First off,
I agree with amber on the honor system and such.
I think we should only have one qualifier song, and not three.
It'll save a lot of time.
Back where I'm from colorado, the tourny's out there that I went to were usually 1 qualifier song, then everything thing else was best 2/3 on random caprice.
I don't know about you guys, but I think a random caprice tournament would be fun.
..........

but eh, it's not my tournament so.......you can take all this with a grain of salt.

Keby, I understand you like Random Caprice tournaments, but half the fun of a tournament comprised of 2 out of 3 matches is the strategy of picking songs you're consistent at or that you know your opponent is bad at. The only benefit of it would be Marvelous timing.

Oh I totally agree with you on this too. I love tournaments in general. I'm just making a suggestion.
Why I like random caprice tournaments is because it more or less makes the playing field even.........or not I guess.....
That and there's the strategy of whatever songs you get, you better make the best of them.
But I totally understand what your saying. I don't care much of how this tournament is run. Just that it is fun.

Since it seems like the tourny is leaning towards player's choice song picks, is there going to be a limit on how many times a player can choose the same song? It will get real boring real fast if a player just keeps picking the same 3-5 songs for each set he plays in.

Perhaps limit it so that a player can choose any song they want, but only once in the entire tourny.

For instance: P1 chooses Twilight Zone on his 1st set. For the rest of the tourny, P1 cannot choose Twilight Zone as a song. P1's challenger may choose that song, so long as the challenger hasn't selected the song in a previous set.

This will prevent a player from spamming Max 300, PSMO, or something they can always AAA.

OOoooo I like this idea.

Yep... that is how most tournaments are run. You can pick one song one time.

The ruleset will be posted tonight. Thanks for the input guys! Hope to see you all there!

Crossposting for Kdidder:

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Sakura-Con DDR Tournament 2009
4pm - 7:30pm Friday April 10th, Sakura-Con Wired

This tournament will take place on the DDR Extreme machine as provided by Masterman Vending for Sakura-Con.

The tournament will be run as a single elimination bracket or double elim. bracket depending on how many participants show up.
Seeding will be your tournament score (discussed later) on a song which will randomly be selected on the day of the tournament. It will be on the heavy difficulty, but I cannot give any more details than that.

Each non-finals match will be a best of three match.
The higher seeded player can choose either whether they pick pad side or whether they pick first song (as opposed to picking second song).
Each player will select one song. If the match ends at 1-1 after these two songs are played, a third song will be selected via Random.
In the tournament, you may only select a particular song once. If you use a song in a match, you cannot pick it again in any other match. However, you may pick songs that have been picked against you.

Scoring will be straight up Perfect Attack.
Perfects*2 + Greats*1 = your score. If you get a miss by fault of the pad conditions, it will be recalculated as a great.

All songs will be on Heavy difficulty (or Oni if a player wishes to pick a song with Oni difficulty), unless both players agree otherwise. Until the semi finals, any song that is over 9 feet in difficulty will be played on Standard difficulty unless both players agree otherwise.

The finals will be a best of 5 match. The higher seed will pick the first and third songs. The lower seed will pick the second and fourth songs. If the match runs to a 5th song, it will be picked using Random.

Any questions? Things I need to add?

Have fun!

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A little discovolante note for people who've not had to deal with this before: single elimination SUCKS. Feels bad man. SO PLEASE COME TO THIS TOURNAMENT!!!! The more the merrier.

Otherwise, I like this ruleset.

how do OKs factor in?
also prizes.
that is all.

If I'm reading the rules "GOODS" and worse don't adversely affect your score?

Suko, think of it this way:

Perfects and greats and OK's add to your score. Everything else does not. So, if you get a Good, that's one step that could have been 1 or 2 points that is now 0. But they won't count for negative points if that's what you're asking.

So does that mean OKs will count as 1 point?
just clarifying.

Yeah, I'll fix that in a little.

One more question: will there be any vetoing of randoms in the instance that both players don't want to play the random they get? Also, if a 10 is randomed does that mean it has to be played on Standard if one player doesn't want to play it on Heavy?

Random songs will be on Heavy. Vetos will be allowed. I'll update the SC thread and this thread with a fixed set of rules tomorrow or Sunday. Thanks guys for the input and questions!

so I'm just wondering.
Who's actually going to the con, for the con? like cosplaying and all?
instead of just for the didder tournament.

I'm going as BlackJack aka Barraku Jakku.
just an fyi

I went to Kumoricon wearing white shirt with "Ice Climbers" written in sharpie on it. It trolled a lot of people and made a lot of other people laugh.

What should I write on my shirt for Sakuracon? I was thinking "The Axem Rangers" or something along those lines.

Axem rangers wold be epic.

or how about.

"That guy from Myst"

hahahaha

or "Uniracers"

I'll settle on something good before the tournament.

lol, another reason I can't wait for sakura-con now lol.