From Koholint to Coneria
FFR x LADXR Archipelago Tournament
Rules and Guidance
The time finally has come, time to grab a partner and join together for an adventure across two worlds! It's time for the FFR x LADXR AP Tournament, our first ever 2-player team tournament for our two communities.
About the Tournament
This tournament is a team event. Players will join up in teams of two, connected via Archipelago, playing rolled seeds for the race. Teams will go head to head with the FFR player on each team playing the same FFR seed and then LADXR players playing the same LADXR seed rolled by a race monitor for the event. The teams will work together to find the key items they each need to progress through their games and, in the end, defeat the nightmare at the Wind Fish (in LADXR) and take out Chaos at the Temple of Fiends Revisited (in FFR). The team is done when both players have beaten both games and crossed the finish line (and only the time of the second finish counts for the “team time”).
You're out to collect treasures with your teammate and get to the end of the games first. Dig out the goods and be the big winners!
Tournament Details:
The FFR x LADXR tournament is a short, streamlined event. Teams will face off in single-elimination bracket, playing best of three (Bo3) matches to determine who will move on. As it's single-elimination, once a team is done, they're done.
The bracket (and other score keeping, as needed) is available in the FFR x LADXR 2023 bracket.
Co-op Requirements:
- Archipelago: This is the system used by the games for communicating between players. Both players have to have AP installed on their machines for the system to work.
- A partner: If you're in need of a partner you can be added to and/or find one in the #ffr-ladxr-discussion channel on discord.
Important Dates:
- Sign-ups - August 7, 2023 - August 26th, 2023 @ 11:59 PM EDT
- Bracket Reveal - August 27th, 2023 @ 8:00 PM EDT
- Bracket of 8 - August 28th, 2023 - September 3rd, 2023
- Semi-Finals - September 4th, 2023 - September 10th, 2023
- Finals - September 11th, 2023 - September 17th, 2023
- Bonus Race - September 18th, 2023 - September 24th, 2023
Note: If more than 16 teams join the tournament, these dates may be subject to change and/or extension.
Tournament Schedule:
Teams will face off against one opponent team per week, fitting in their three games (assuming all three are needed) during that one week span. Once they have finished their races they are welcome to schedule their next matches (as soon as their opponent is determined), but they cannot take longer than the week scheduled for each best of three (Bo3) match-up.
Please note that, especially during the first couple of weeks of the tournament, not all matches will be restreamed. The first game in the Bo3 match-ups will likely be held off-air (with players just streaming to their own twitch channels for record keeping), although we will try to get all of the second (and third) games on air as we can.
Tournament Seeding:
The tournament will be seeded via the magic of the Wheel. The broadcast on August 27th will be held on the FFR Twitch channel and, during that broadcast, a wheel of all the teams will be spun, seeding in all teams from last to first. At that point, once all teams are seeded, the bracket will be locked and scheduling of games can commence.
Tournament Rules:
- Teams will consist of two members. If one member must exit the tournament their teammate can find a replacement for the duration of the tournament but it can not be someone who is part of another active team, nor can it be someone from a team that's already been eliminated.
- If you are in need of a team, there is a “Looking for Partner" channel on the FFR Discord for the event.
- Teams can have a total of two permanent member replacements, one FFR and one LADXR. After that, any further member drops from their team will require their forfeit from the tournament.
- Additionally, if one member has an issue and cannot show up for a single game, a temp can be found to cover that game. But that cannot happen more than once before a permanent replacement must be found (see above).
- Races will be handled on the Discord, via the FFR Race Bot. A tournament lead or race admin will open the race room and ping the teams in #race-announcements to let them know where to go. Teams must join the race room as a team (using a single race bot join command for the team) and whichever team member enters that command will be considered the “team captain” by the race bot for that race.
- The join command is: ?join XXXXXXXXXXX “Team Name” @partner where XXXXXXXXXXX is the room number the bot will provide, @partner is your partner's discord handle, and “Team Name” is whatever team name you've chosen, but it must be in quotes for the bot to recognize it properly.
- Once the seeds are rolled and hashes are confirmed, teams can prepare for their game. In the case of FFR, the players are allowed to make their parties and be ready to hit go. For LADXR, they can name their files and prepare their game for the start.
- Teams need to also get their AP setups rolling and confirm they are both connected together.
- After confirmation connection, the team captain enters "?ready" in the race room on the Discord. No movement or menuing is allowed at that point until after race countdown.
- Sharing information verbally and in written text with your partner is allowed. Screen sharing and stream watching is not allowed.
- Teams will be placed in individual co-op voice chats during races so they can chat and discuss as they like.
- There are co-op practice voice chats teams are welcome to use for practices. Please don't interrupt another team that's practicing without their permission.
- Both team members must defeat their respective end bosses (Nightmare of the Wind Fish and Chaos, respectively, for LADXR and FFR) in order for the team captain to submit their "?done" in the race room.
- If somebody has a technical issue that results in a forfeit (e.g. power loss, internet outage, hardware malfunction, software issues, etc.), please notify Tournament Staff as soon as possible! If the issue occurs early enough in the race (within the first 15 minutes), a re-race can be run immediately. If the issue occurs after that 15 minute starting window, it will be up to the other team to decide if they want to try for a re-race (either that night or on another night) or take the win. Because of the tight schedules for this event, and the struggle with getting four players at any time on the same schedule, we can't always automatically allow for a re-race due to technical issues.
- Any races finished within 3 seconds or less will be automatically retimed. Retimed results of 1 second or less will be ruled as a tie and another race will be required to determine a winner. If retimed results are more than 1 second, the retime results will stand.
Tournament Flags:
- FFR will use a progressive set of flags, increasing in difficult at each stage of the tournament. Progression is as follows:
- Round of 8: 32 Shard Hunt + Short ToFR
- Semi-Finals: Floaterless 32 Shard Hunt + Short ToFR
- Finals: Floaterless 32 Shard Hunt + Short ToFR (but No Black Belts)
- Bonus Race: Floaterless 32 Shard Hunt + Long ToFR (and no Black Belts)
- LADXR, too, will use progressive difficult for their flagsets. These flagsets for each stage of the tournament are:
- Round of 8: Any 6 Instruments Goal [YAML]
- Semi-Finals: 20 Shell Hunt Goal [YAML]
- Finals: 4 Specific Instruments Goal [YAML]
- Bonus Race: All 8 Instruments Goal [YAML]
Notes for LADXR Players:
The LADXR side of the tournament will follow No WW/OoB guidelines. That means no wrong warps or system transitions, and no being on tiles not accessible through normal, vanilla, gameplay. Banned tricks include the Super Swim.
Note that there are free hints from the owl statues (in and out of dungeons) and the Mabe Library.
Hinting for Feather is banned in the tournament. You can hint for anything other than the feather.
Special Rules and Allowances:
There will not be any flag options for this tournament. Teams will have to stick to the standard flagsets designated for this tournament.
Requirements for Participants:
- All races must be streamed. Your race cannot be recorded ahead of time but must be raced live, on stream, at whatever designated time your race is scheduled.
- Runners need to be in their race room with their streams up and on the FF "blue screen" or LADXR file select screen 20 minutes before the race starts. If you aren't up and ready to be streamed at that point you won't be on a restream. Game needs to be up, clearly visible, and not covered by other windows (including an emulator with another game or the FFR website with flags showing) or any other obstructions for the duration of the stream. Please do not play another game on stream while you wait for the race to start.
- A stream delay of 10 minutes (600 secconds) will be required for races in the tournament.
- As always, cheating is not tolerated. As such:
- Players may not hang out in any chat other than their own (not even their partner's). Do not be in the broadcaster network’s chats/streams at the time of your race.
- Players may not hang out in the opponent’s streams or chat during the race.
- Players’ own chats must be set to “emote only”.
- If any player in a race somehow gains outside assistance during a race, they, and their team, will be disqualified from the event.
- Do not post spoilers in race chat during or after the race - please use the #post-race-spoiler-discussion in the public Discord. Please limit any post in the chat to ggs and serious questions/reports of technical difficulty.
- If you experience technical difficulty during the race, message the race chat and a @Co-Op Tournament Staff will communicate with you via Discord PMs.
- Players must have a timer on screen for synching and timing of the races (in case of a “photo finish”).
- The “Tournament Safe ROM” flag will be on for this tournament, so all players must use a ROM that will pass the verification of this flag.
- While on stream, and in interviews afterwards, players must comport themselves and act to the expected standards for on-air behavior. This includes, but is not limited to: no cussing, no rants about the other players, no rants about the tournament, no rants about the format, no rants about the streaming service. This extends not only to the on-air portion of the event but to Twitch chat and public-facing Discords as well. Anyone that acts in a manner counter to the professional attitude and bearing we expect from our players at this event will be disqualified from the tournament.
- Finally, following the completion of your race, you may be asked to join the broadcast for an interview. Despite the outcome of the race, please comport yourself in a professional manner. There are no hard feelings - we are all here to have fun. If you find yourself unable to behave with good sportsmanship during the post-race interview, you will be removed from the broadcast booth. Also, bear in mind, our broadcast partners have policies against swearing or use profane language on their stream.
If you are selected for the restream the following additional conditions apply:
- If your FFR sprites are not recognizable as the traditional heroes of the game, you must name your characters after the classes being used (i.e., FI, TH, BB, RM, BM, WM).
- Spell damage and tile flickers for FFR must be turned off.
If you do not want to follow these rules do not volunteer for a restream. You can participate in the tournament without taking part in the restreams.
Some players have asked what they will and will not be allowed to use in the tournament. Of the concerns raised so far:
- For FFR:
- Reset buttons (hard and soft reset) may be mapped to controllers.
- Players may use their fun graphical hacks for their game. That is, of course, with the caveat that the ROM must pass the “Tournament Safe” flag, so players will really only be able to edit their light warrior sprites. And, of course, character names, and hero sprites, must conform to the above standards listed (so no swear words for character names, and no offensive sprites of any kind, etc.).
- Autotracking for both key items and the map is not allowed.