THE CHAMPION'S CUP

[Vakachehk]

Unless informed otherwise, The Warriors will stick to the same time set in the inital post. That means that the next Cup will be 4th December 21:00 GMT
Hoping that many will come to fight for glory, or just to cheer for their friends 

...or you could go with a more RP approach by using the first IG Sunday of every month. If you do it right I know it could still be as popular as it is

[Koios]

Not quite sure what you mean there. If we were to use the IG time and first sunday each month, we would have 72 Cups in a RL year. That would be a Cup every ~5 days, with varying RL time each time. For a game with a very limited population count at morning CET I don't see that as a good way to do it.
Or am I misunderstanding your idea?

[Bonifarzia]

He probably refers to the in game months, which would mean to have  ten events per year instead of twelve.
As far as I understood, the scaling factor of six should be considered for short time scales only.

[Vakachehk]

Yes, I am meaning what Boni said. It's just an idea that could improve the tournament

[xitop]

An idea currently being discussed is the addition of a new category for the Cup, so that  new players may take part:

I suggest that each guild uses footsoldiers of their guild [completely untrained alts] to do battle, thus anyone may paricipate, and the guild with the best strategy or tactics would win. Stats to be checked using the new myplane site. However, this may present problems with targetting in the pit.. currently a non lethal spell is used in the warm-up so that the issuing of  individual challenges is not needed, and without training, magic couldn't be used. If you could think of a way around this difficulty, or have another constructive suggestion to improve the event, please post below.

[Jilata]

nice idea. But what is considered unskilled? You can get through choosing the hisories different levels in skills. Ranged from 0 to around 15 I think

[Mekora]

Indeed, this is a very good idea. Jilata is correct - What are the requirements?

[xitop]

Indeed, this is a very good idea. Jilata is correct - What are the requirements?

Not sure what you mean, either of you.. as I said above.. no training of any kind would be needed, just membership of a guild. The problem being that atm, all entrants must target everyone else in turn with a non lethal spell so that they don't have to issue a challenge before fighting when the tournament starts. Untrained players might be Killed by such a spell.. because their stats are so low.. perhaps one very weak spell, that won't kill even a player with no training might be requiredfor entry to the event...but then a healing spell would be needed too! and what if one player was targetted by two players during the warm-up.. = DR01.. a solution to this is needed befor the event can go ahead. Thanks for the comments anyway.
erm.. maybe a few referees or others could heal the players as they did the warm up with non lethal spells?..  now though. the whole idea is becoming too complicated?

[Heleckie]

The idea is great and I am sure we can find a solution if we all put our heads together....

[Bonifarzia]

I have thought about similar things intensively quite a while ago, and honestly, I don't see a useful way to do this in context of the champion's cup.

The first and most important problem is the effect of healing items. Even with coordinated high end attacks, it can be difficult to take down a character that has a good supply of such items. Health caps are indeed low for some choices of character creation, but the limitations to inflict damage are much more (equally) pronounced at this stage.

The second and obvious problem is how exactly to define the restriction of an "untrained" character. The only fair way of handling this is to allow characters of exactly the same race and quick character creation path. With those paths and no further training, magic cannot be used in any reasonable way, unless you allow the use of certain precious skill boosters. Also, with standard quality weapons, it takes quite a few hits for such characters to take down each other, as chances to miss are annoyingly high. I don't think that you want to announce a general cap like 100 for all stats and 20 for all skills, which will result in players opt character creation and training to breed an army of alts that hit exactly the given limits.

[xitop]

 Thanks Boni.. could you please phrase this in a more constructive fashion?

[Sangwa]

Hum. She was as constructive as it gets.

I find the idea of a "newbie" cup is intangible and incapable of brought forth. What you could do is use the league system, where the fighters that did worst are demoted to another league (from where the fighters who did better raise to the pro one.) Besides that, I can't see how you'd do it.

[Bonifarzia]

Don't get me wrong, Xitop. I highly appreciate the cup, as it offers a great opportunity to address questions of balance and strategy in cooperative combat, in a way that can be very entertaining. Also, I clearly second any effort to come up with ideas that make combat oriented events interesting without the prerequisite of excessive skill ranks. This does not necessarily imply a "Newby Cup", and I have not given up hope that such an event could be doable in some reasonable way.

In context of the champion's cup, fair conditions for "untrained" characters may need mechanics beyond what can be done as a "player event".
I doubt that is an option for now. Otherwise, it could be great fun to have some arena battle event where players are granted temporary control of some beasts that match the combat power of highly skilled characters. (I have the feeling that with the current mechanics, that would be a big mess to administrate, though. Still, it is less of an OoC sacrilege than to temporarily set player character stats without changing their appearance.)

[xitop]

Thanks Boni, I appreciate this response.

[Sangwa]

Oh, I see. A constructive response must have compliments. Xitop, she just repeated herself and added a crazy idea about characters becoming monsters.

Like I said, this newbie thing shouldn't be a concern for such a type of competition.

The problem here is that in PS the difference between trained and untrained characters is huge in both quality and time. Therefore fighting competitions like these have no way to appeal to the rookie players, unless a system of leagues is created where the best raise up in league and fight the best, while the worst fight the worst and the new challengers.
Checking stats is silly, as is any idea that depends on the developers or GMs to do more than 2 or 3 actions at a time.