Tower of Ordeals
2024 Tournament of Champions
Rules & Guidance
Welcome to the first ever Final Fantasy Randomizer Tournament of Champions, the Tower of Ordeals. This will be a two-part event pitting FFR's best of the best in a no-holds barred event to determine who will be the greatest of the great, the best of the best, the champion of all champions.
About the Tournament
The Tournament of Champions is a tournament open to anyone that has won any kind of event on the FFR discord. This includes, but is not limited to, Spring and Winter Tournaments, Summer Co-Op Tournaments, Summer and Fall Leagues, SG Live events, Bingo Events, Platy Parties, Duck Derbies, Iron Gol Championship matches and Lefeinian League Seasons, and more. If you have the @Champion role on the Discord (or have won a past event, just come back to the Discord, and need the @Championship role returned to you) you are welcome to come and join the event.
Even better, this is a tournament with a twist, as, once the tournament reaches the brackets stage, the identities of all the participants will be hidden, with each player acting under the guise of a Final Fantasy hero or heroine. Only at the end of the event will the players be revealed. The fun comes from seeing players playing at their best and trying to guess who is each hero or heroine.
Please Note: This will be a fast tournament with quick turn around times for races. You will need to be able to dedicate two weeks to play so you can schedule matches and get moving through the event. Sign up only if you can make a commitment to be available to play for these two weeks, start to finish.
- Please make sure you have read the General Rules and Guidance for Tournaments and Leagues before participating in this event.
If you're interested in playing in this tournament, sign up to get included in the event. Participation is voluntary so even if you have the @Champion role you are under no obligation to play.
Important Dates:
- Sign-ups: June 9 through July 24
- Qualifiers:
- Async Race 1: July 25 through July 26
- Vodcast July 27
- Async Race 2: July 27 through July 28
- Vodcast July 29
- Async Race 3: July 29 through July 30
- Vodcast July 31
- Async Race 4: July 31 through August 1
- Vodcast August 2
- Async Race 5: August 2 through August 3
- Vodcast August 4
- Async Race 1: July 25 through July 26
- Seeding Reveal Stream: August 4
- Brackets:
- Round of 16: August 5 through August 8
- Round of 8: August 9 through August 11
- Round of 4: August 12 through August 14
- Finals: August 15 through August 17
Note: If we have less than 16 players sign up, we will switch to a 8-player tournament and dates for brackets will be adjusted.
Tournament Structure:
Qualifiers
Due to the number of champions we have on the server, we have to whittle down that number into a manageable bracket for a quick event. As such, the first stage of the event will be qualifiers. Five async races will be scheduled and three must be raced in by all participants. The top time of the race will get a 0. All other runs will get 1 point for each minute (and fractional points for each second) players score above that time, with no cap to the amount of points. Failed runs (DNFs, DNRs, and DQs) will be scored as the highest score achieved during the whole of qualifiers plus ten points.
Basically, run fast, run hard, and try to keep up.
Qualifiers races will be run async (although the planning committee reserves the right to take vods from the players to do vodcasts of the qualifiers races). The async each day will be posted at 10:00 AM EST. The post will have the seed link and hash. Players will have 36 hours to complete the race, and players may complete the seed at any point during that time period. Once the 36 hours have elapsed, the async will be closed and any scores submitted after that point will not count. Late runs will get a DNF if submitted after the cut-off. Players that fail to run that day will get a DNR.
Once they have run the race, players should submit their times, and a link to their race vod, on the Async Submission Form. As scores are submitted, a leaderboard will be populated allowing players a chance to see how they did against everyone else in that race.
The first three scores submitted for each player will be used to create the player's final rank. The top players (either 8 or 16 based on total number of participants) will then move on to the bracket stage.
Brackets
Once qualifiers are done and the top players are known, each player will be given an identity as one of the Final Fantasy Heroes. Their roles will be assigned randomly, and players will receive a Twitch account and a Racetime account assigned to their guise. While in the tournament bracket (and for the length of the tournament until it is over) players must:
- Stream to their assigned Twitch channel.
- Have their assigned Twitch channel chat set to emote only.
- Use the Tournament of Champions layout while streaming with no other on screen flair or effects.
- Have their mic muted while streaming, and play with standard game audio.
- Use the standard FF sprites while playing, and name their characters after the classes (FITR, THEF, BBLT, RMAG, WMAG, BMAG, although some variance for parties with multiples of the same classes is allowed).
- Use their assigned Racetime accounts for all races and tracking
- And, most importantly, keep their identities secret.
Brackets will be single elimination, Best-of-Three (Bo3) games. 8 (or 16) players will be seeded based on their times in qualifiers, and they will play their way up brackets until there is one hero or heroine left standing. Only then will all the player identities be revealed.
After the tournament those that wish to participate can join in on a post-tournament bracket discussion stream to go over their thoughts and share their feelings on their races, and the tournament as whole.
The Flags
Flags for the Tournament of Champions will be comprised of all (playable) finals flagsets from previous Spring and Winter Tournaments:
- 2017 Finals (FFR v4.7.10)
- 2018 Swiss (FFR v4.7.10)
- 2019 Brackets (FFR v4.7.10)
- To best play this flagset, you must take one random forced party member (the Captain) and have one class banned from the seed (the Squabbie forced to walk the plank).
- 2020 Brackets (FFR v4.0.1)
- 2021 Semifinals/Finals (FFR v4.1.5) Remember to turn off spell and tile flashes
- 2022 Brackets (FFR v4.4.0)
- 2023 Upper Bracket (FFR v4.6.4)
- 2024 Brackets (FFR v4.7.7)
Note the 2017, 2018, and 2019 flags were recreated by the community for use in this tournament.
Before each race the race monitor will roll the dice (a d8) in the FFR Bot Casino to choose which flagset will be used. Players should be familiar with all eight flagsets since any could be played in any race.
Where applicable, the following party and flag allowances may be made to the flags:
Drafting:
Some flagsets have certain party members fixed, others do not. Where applicable, some level of drafting may be allowed before the seed is rolled. This includes selecting a forced party (4orced). Party changes (forcing) must be done before the seed is rolled and must be agreed to by both players.
Flag Modifications:
Where possible, flags may be modified via the following options. Note that since we are playing on past versions of the randomizer, not all of the following options may be available on all flagsets:
Players may also choose to modify the flags with the below set of approved changes (and only these approved changes):
- Scale:
- Encounter Rates:
- Overworld Encounter Rate can be increased (but not decreased) by up to 0.20x (cap of 0.70x).
- Dungeon Encounter Rate can be increased (but not decreased) by up to 0.27x (cap of 0.80x).
- Encounter Rates:
- Maps:
- Towns:
- Confused Old Men may be turned on.
- Dungeons:
- Sky Castle 4F: Change Normal to Teleporters or Maze
- Generated Waterfall may be turned on.
- Flip Dungeons Horizontally may be turned on.
- Swap Stair Locations may be turned on.
- Towns:
- Treasures:
- Trapped Chests:
- All flags in this sub-section may be turned on.
- Trapped Chests:
- Enemies:
- Warmech:
- Change Patrolling to Required.
- Astos:
- Buffed may be turned on.
- Shuffled Location may be turned on.
- Fiends:
- Alternate Fiends may be turned on. (Please note this can lead to some pretty difficult ToFRs.)
- Bahamut:
- Fight maybe be turned on.
- Fight + Buffed may also be turned on.
- Warmech:
- Party:
- Allowed Starting Classes:
- Party Draft may be turned on. Pool size can be any (between 4 and 8), as agreed upon by both players.
- Allowed Starting Classes:
- Adjustments:
- RNG:
- Fix Missing Battle RNG Entry may be turned on.
- RNG:
- Experimental:
- Set RNG may be turned on.
- Procedurally Generated Earth Cave may be turned on.
The Tournament of Champions staffer gatekeeping the race room will confirm all changes agreed upon before they roll the seed.
Scheduling Matches:
Use the below form to schedule your matches. As a reminder, players should avoid scheduling matches on days that are already busy on the schedule to avoid over burdening the broadcasting crew.
Racetime and Discord Chat
Due to the hidden nature of identities in this tournament, once the event reaches the bracket stage all Racetime chat in the room will have to be kept to a minimum. That means you can say “hi” if the tournament staffer running the room says “hi”. You can confirm the hash with “yes” or “no” when the staffer posts what the hash should be, you can say, “glhf” before the race starts, you can mention, “I have an issue," if you run into a problem, and you can say ggs at the end. All other discussion in the room has to be kept to a bare minimum so as to not disclose identities.
Note, the tournament staffer running the room will post the hash. Everyone has their own ways of writing the names of icons (circle v O v bracelet, bonk v gauntlet, knife v dagger v poke, etc.) so to minimize any information given, the staffer will provide the hash, not the players. This is a special case for this event.
That also means that on Discord you can't go to any of the channels (even the #postrace-spoilers) and chat about your run. No one can have a hint who you were until the tournament is over.
Broadcasting and Restreaming:
All matches in the bracket stage will be broadcast. Some async races may also be broadcast as vodcasts after the async races are complete. As such, please make sure the following Quality of Life flags are turned on for the duration of the event:
This request is to accommodate spectators who may be photosensitive.
Custom Sprites:
Custom sprites (and, in fact, custom names) for your characters are not allowed in the brackets stage of the event, but may be used during qualifiers only.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, please shoot them at the Tournament of Champions planning committee: JShydell and Phoenix. DarkmoonEX serves as admin oversight for the event.