FFR Springo Bingo 2023
2023 Spring Bingo Tournament
Rules & Guidance
About the Tournament
The format is, as noted, Double-Anti Bingo (DAB). For those unfamiliar, DAB features not only both players running an FFR seed, but a Bingo board on the side. A few minutes ahead of the match, each player will look at the board and select a line for the other player to complete. This will give each opponent a chance to “spike” the other player and strategize how best to get a leg up on their opposition. Players will then be tasked with (a) completing the line selected by their opponent, (b) completing (at least) one additional line, and (c) killing Chaos only after both lines have been completed. Players can venture anywhere in the world of the seed, including into the Temple of Fiends Revisited, but they are not allowed to kill Chaos until their Bingo lines are complete.
Important Dates:
- Sign-ups: Through April 7, 2023
- Seeding Race: April 8, 2023, 8:30 PM EDT
- Last Chance Qualifier: April 10, 2023, 8:30 PM EDT
- Round of 16: April 11-14, 2023
- Round of 8: April 15, 2023
- Semi-Finals and Finals: April 16, 2023
Tournament Structure:
The Springo Bingo DAB tournament will feature a seeding game with all entrants to take place on April 8th at 8:30 PM EDT. This race will be used to seed the players into a 16 player bracket based upon their finish time.
In the event that more than 16 runners join the event, the seeding race will also act as the qualification race, where only the top 16 finishers will move into the pods round, based upon their seeding. In the event that there are 16 runners or less that join the event, any runner(s) that are unable to join the seeding race will be randomized (possibly by a wheel) and slotted in as the lowest seed(s). If there are still less than 16 racers after this, byes will be assigned accordingly to the top seeds in order to facilitate a proper 16 player bracket.
Any racers that forfeit during the rumble will be placed in the same randomization pool as those that do not participate in the rumble.
In the event that more than 16 people sign up for the event, AND less than 16 runners are able to participate in the rumble, there will be a last chance qualifier rumble taking place on Monday April 10th at 8:30 PM ET with the top finishers rounding out any open places.
Round of 16 races are to be completed not later than the end of Friday April 14th, and Round of 8 races will be completed on Saturday April 15th, with the semi-finals and the finals races being completed on April 16th.
Choosing Opponent Lines
Each racer will decide on the line that their opponent must complete and will send that to the race monitor via private message. Once both players have selected their opponent’s line, the race monitor will let both racers know.
For the rumble, the required line will be the same for every runner, decided by a roll of a D12 by the race monitor.
Map Rules
Given that the flags include Procedurally Generated (ProcGen) world maps, runners will be given the opportunity to begin the game and look at the map prior to the start of the race. Once the seed is rolled by the race monitor, runners will be able to begin the game prior to the gate being dropped. Runners will be allowed to look at the map and make a screen copy or drawing as they see fit. Players will NOT be allowed to perform any other action prior to the race beginning. If a racer inadvertently moves their character from the starting sport, they will be able to reset the seed with no penalty (however the gate may be dropped while this is happening, and there may be no allowance for that).
If any player gains any other advantage prior to the race beginning, that player shall forfeit the race.
In the Event of Ties
While unlikely, ties are possible. In the Final Fantasy Randomizer community, a race will be re-timed if both players finish within three (3) seconds or less of each other. If this occurs, a tournament staffer will re-time the race off the Twitch streams from both players. If the final time is within 1 second between the players, the race will be considered a tie. in the event of a true tie, given the short time allotted for this event, the tiebreaker shall be the total number of bingo squares lit during that race. If this is also equal, the winner shall be determined by a random draw (or possibly a wheel).
Bingo and Flags
Flags for round one of the tournament: https://4-6-4.finalfantasyrandomizer.com/?s=00000000&f=6hTEKCR25nhgDBZn9mQLwCRWOxZCahBbOtSyRbvByk3zovUmHPwJ1ZmYX0iVHvQv-kOO9QowY5uUjq8oxmVHmXHPcYSq5E32uJiWk6AbeqGh.TDIQaLJT9wkXwq2omsuz544PT0ORi92crOfXlNEDGmXcDxTBbBFA6LKr
List of Possible Bingo Squares: http://adamdruppe.com:8080/squares?set=7
*note - Flags are still being created and modified and the committee reserves the right to alter/add/remove and squares prior to, or during the tournament.
Sign-Ups:
Please sign up using the Springo Bingo Participant Form. ALL ENTRANTS MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE FFR DISCORD SERVER.
By signing up, you agree to be held to the Final Fantasy Randomizer Discord’s Code of Conduct while engaged as a participant of this event. Violations of the Code of Conduct may result in consequences ranging from a warning to bans from the discord, the tournament, all further events; these consequences may extend to other communities as well.
Broadcasting and Restreaming:
If you are being restreamed, the following Quality of Life flags will be required:
This request is to accommodate spectators who may be photosensitive. If you fail to make this accommodation, you will not be featured on future restreams unless you enable these features in your next race.
Stream Requirements:
- Runners need to be in their race room with their streams up and on the FF "blue 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) for the duration of the stream. Please do not play another game on stream while you wait for the race to start.
- All races must be streamed, at least locally to a player's own channel. Players must have online archives of their races vods for the duration of the tournament in case of need for review later.
- Your race cannot be recorded ahead of time but must be raced live, on stream, at whatever designated time your race is scheduled.
- A timer must be visible on your stream. This is necessary for broadcasted races and non-broadcasted races. Stream timers will be used to sync broadcast races as well as determine outcomes in case of a draw.
- The Tournament Safe ROM feature will be on for the entirety of the tournament. If you have questions or concerns, please contact a Tournament Staff member.
- Due to the Bingo board (and meta game this entails), stream delay is not required. However, as always, cheating is not tolerated.
- Players will need to keep an eye on the chat in the Bingo room in case a race monitor has to let them know of an issue with a run. This could include informing them on a Bingo square issue that could require a reset and/or penalty two minutes.
Custom Sprites:
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 hero sprites.
If the sprites are not recognizable as the traditional heroes of the game, the players must name their characters after the classes being used (i.e., FI, TH, BB, RM, BM, WM). As an example, using FF3 versions of the sprites is fine and does not require players to adjust the character names, but using Ranma 1/2 sprites, or Breath of Fire sprites, or Castlevania sprites, etc.. isn’t as easy to understand and would require conformed, basic names for the characters. 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 or NSFW sprites of any kind, etc.). Questionable sprites should be sent to a Tournament Organizer for review/approval.
The Use of Trackers:
Throughout the event runners will be able to use trackers to help track key items and locations checked. Auto trackers are allowed.
Other Optimizations:
Reset buttons (hard and soft reset) may be mapped to controllers.
Conduct:
While on stream, and in interviews afterwards, players are expected to behave professionally and act to the expected standards for on-air behavior. This includes, but is not limited to: no inappropriate language, no rants about the other player, no rants about the tournament, no rants about the format, no rants about the streaming service, etc. 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.
Dropping/No Show Rules:
- If you wish to drop from the tournament, you are free to do so. Please inform a Tournament Staff Person by pinging @Spring DAB Planning as soon as possible.
- If a runner does not respond to their paired opponent for the purposes of scheduling their required races, tournament staff should be notified ASAP, so that staff can assist in the situation.
- Please make every reasonable effort to complete your match(es) with your opponent(s). Should there be any reason why you are not able to complete your race in the given time, please contact the tournament staff as soon as possible.
- If it is 10 minutes until the race start and a player has not shown up for their race or, at the very least, contacted their opponent and tournament staff, they are considered a no-show for that match. This will be considered a forfeit for the no-show runner and a win will be awarded to the person who showed up for the race.
- If neither runner shows up for the scheduled race, the runners will have the opportunity to reschedule their race within the current deadline of the tournament stage in which the race is supposed to happen. If both players fail to reschedule, it will be considered a loss for both.
- A forced double-loss will result in the player eliminated in the previous round being promoted to the next round so standard play can continue with willing participants.
- If a player drops during the tournament, this will be treated as if the runner forfeit the match.
Game Rules:
All games will be run using Racetime.gg. You will be asked if you have an account when entering into the tournament; please make sure you do so. You may use a console or approved emulator to play. All races are blind.
The winner will be determined by the Racetime's timer, unless external technical difficulties are in place, or if the race is decided by 3 seconds or less. In either case, the runners may agree upon a race retime. If they do not, a Tournament Organizer will retime the runs by hand and determine the winner.
Accidental Forfeits:
If you accidentally forfeit, please re-enter within 60 seconds of the forfeit. If the 60 seconds elapse, or you forfeit three (3) times in a race, the forfeit will be official. If you accidentally “.done” during the race before completing the race, let the tournament staff in the race know that it was an accident and re-enter the race as soon as possible.
Forfeits Due to Technical Issues:
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 you are unaware of the issue that caused the forfeit (e.g. LiveSplit integration betrayed you), a tournament staff will contact you as soon as possible via Discord and tell you of the issue.
Anti-Cheating Policy:
Cheating is not tolerated in community races. This includes, but is not limited to: using any external programs to analyze a ROM, looking at your competitor’s stream or chat, looking at the restream or the restream chat, or hacking the ROM to give yourself any sort of advantage. Any cheating discovered will result in penalties ranging from a forfeit of the race or instant disqualification from the tournament. Additionally, bans on participation in future FFR events or events organized by other communities may be sanctioned depending on the nature of the offense.
We require that all entrants keep their stream on emote only mode during official races.
Requirements for Participants
- Restreaming and crewing will only occur during the rumble, as well as the semi-final and final matches. If runners want to have any other race broadcast, they would be required to assemble their crew.
- Players may not hang out in any chat other than their own. Do not be in the a broadcaster network’s chats/streams at the time of your race.
- Players may not hang out in the opponent’s stream or chat during the race.
- Players’ own chats must be set to “emote only”.
- If players, somehow, get outside advice or assistance -- such as from a chat window not set to emote only, and even if they did not ask for the advice and did not use the advice given -- they will be disqualified with the win given to their opponent. If both players in a race somehow gain outside assistance during their race, both will be disqualified and the race will be scrubbed, with a loss given to both players. If this happens the tournament will be adjusted to exclude both players (such as having a run-off between the two players previously defeated in this branch of the bracket, and letting the winner of that race move up in the bracket).
FAQs
Q: Why won’t there be a delay for the event?
A: The players will play on a shared Bingo board. They will already get some “meta” information as their opponent fills in squares, and that’s just the nature of the game. Beyond that, because the board fills in real time, a delay would mean that we would be ten or fifteen minutes behind the board getting filled in, which would be bad for streaming. For the sake of the event, and how DAB games are normally played, we are waving the standard delay for this event.
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Q: What color choices are available for the Bingo board?
A: There are lots in ADR’s new bingo room.
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Q: For the tile “Use All Elemental Spells in Battle”, is that in a single battle or over the course of the seed?
A: That’s over the course of the seed. Track it however you can, and then mark the square once your party has cast at least one spell from each of the eight elements: Fire, Lightning, Ice, Earth, Time, Death, Status, and Stone/Poison, along with at least one cast of a non-elemental spell (such as NUKE, FADE, HARM, and most buffing and curative spells).
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Q: For the tiles where I have to kill a certain set of enemies (like “Kill 3 Kinds of Wolves”), let’s say I kill a wolf and then reset out of the dungeon -- does that still count?
A: So long as you kill an enemy and win the battle, you can check that enemy off your list. So in the case of wolves -- Wolf, GrWolf, WrWolf, and FrWolf -- if you kill a WrWolf and win the battle, you could then reset out of the dungeon (or other location) you were at and that kill will still count. It only fails to count if you lose, or otherwise fail to win, the battle (such as resetting immediately upon a kill).
Also of note, if the enemy runs from the battle, and then you successfully finish the encounter, that, too, counts. A morale broken enemy is still defeated, so you get credit for the kill.
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Q: If I have a square that requires me to kill a specific enemy with a specific spell (like “Bane Tiamat”), does item magic still count?
A: Yes. In your example, the tile requires you to “Bane Tiamat”, so you can do this either with the BANE spell or with the Bane Sword (used as an item, not, like, physically hitting Tiamat with the sword). Both ways of casting the spell count so long as Tiamat actually dies from BANE.
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Q: For the tiles where I have to see a certain element, do I have to survive the battle?
A: No. Some of those skills/spells could come early in the game and forcing you to survive those elemental attacks with a low-level party would be cruel. So long as you see an element cast by an enemy, even if you die, it counts.
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Q: For the tiles where I have to spend X amount of money in a shop, can I reset out of my game after spending that money (to get it all back)? And how do I spend all of that? Can it be in multiple trips or all at once?
A: No. The requirement is that you spend the money, not that you kind of spend it but not really. If you have to spend a certain amount of gold, that gold needs to permanently be removed from your pool. The same goes for the tiles that task you to earn X amount of money in a shop -- you have to sell gear to do it, and that will come with the penalty that it might be gear you need later, so you have to decide if the loss of the gear is worth filling in the square.
For these tiles, you are allowed to spend (or earn) a bunch of money buying (or selling) equipment, and then immediately, while staying in the shop, sell (or buy) more equipment to generate more sales revenue, and then repeat the process to get over the monetary threshold. Note, though, that these tiles have to be done in a single trip to a shop, not over multiple visits.
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Q: For tiles where I have to throw some item or another out into space (“Throw the Masamune out of the Sky 3 Window), I assume that has to be permanent as well?
A: Yes. Like with the shops, where selling an item has to remain permanent (no resetting out after to get an item back but still keep the Bingo square lit), if you are required to throw an item away, that item must remain thrown away.
Note, though, that you might throw the Masa away, and then be forced to reset out later due to an enemy encounter going poorly. So long as it’s unintentional, you do not need to go back to the Sky 3 floor and throw the sword out the window a second time. Simply drop it on the ground (so it remains out of your inventory) and move on with your seed.
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Q: Can I use STUN and other non-damaging spells during the battle with Garland for the “Garland Boxing” tile?
A: Yes. So long as all the damage you do is from your punches, any non-damaging status spell is fair to use. Damaging spells, and instant-death spells, are not to be used for this tile in the Garland battle.
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Q: What can I equip if I have “equip no swords”?
A: Anything but a sword. You may only equip weapons that have a non-sword icon (chuck, dagger, staff, axe, hammer) or the Catclaw (which is technically a short sword but Black Mages can use it, and if a Black Mage can use it is it really a sword?). High end weapons such as the Katana, Vorpal, Excaliber, Defense (swung as a weapon), and the all powerful Masamune are not allowed.
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Q: I have a “Kill X Types of [Enemy]” tile but I can’t find the final type. What do I do?
A: This was something that was more recently pointed out the planning committee and, for a stop-gap measure for this tournament, we have made some adjustments for specific versions of this tile:
- For the Ogres, both Ogres and Bulls are allowed for the tile.
- For Giants, both Giants and Trolls are acceptable.
- And, finally, for Lizards, both Lizards (Saurias, Agamas, and Iguanas) and Gators are allowed.
For the other enemy types, such as wolves and dragons, there are more versions of the enemy than the tile requires to complete the “kill list”, so these are easier to achieve. We hope this helps and makes the tiles much more manageable.
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Q: Who generates the Bingo board for the players?
A: Whoever is acting as the active gatekeeper for the race will roll the seed and they’ll generate the Bingo room and board. They will do this 30 minutes before the start of the race, so the board can be properly cropped, but the room will only be passed to the players ten minutes before the race start -- the same lead time as is normally given for the race seed.
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Q: When the players are getting ready for their match and selecting the row/column/diagonal for their opponent, how do I pick which one my opponent must complete?
A: Runners need only to click on the selected row/column/diagonal that their opponent must complete, and the race monitor will reveal the selections once both have been made.
Remember, you only have to pick your opponent’s forced line ahead of time. The other row you’ll complete for yourself can be done at any time while you run the seed. You have to finish your forced row and any other (or multiple) as you see fit, so long as you fill in two (the one forced plus additional free selection).
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Q: What happens if I accidentally do something that breaks one of my required squares?
A: In most cases, the player will be informed, in the Bingo chat room, that they’ve messed up one of their squares. If possible, the player will need to immediately reset back to their last save and redo whatever they were doing, avoiding whatever action violated that square. For instance, if the player equips a piece of Blessed Gear while they have a square that only allows them to “Use Only Cursed Gear”, they would reset back to their last save and proceed again without putting on that piece of offending gear. In some instances (such as using a CABIN when they have a square that says “Use No CABINs or HOUSEs”, if they save after violating the square, the race monitor will inform the player in the Bingo chat and the player will need to pause their game and wait for two minutes as penalty.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at: Phoenix29, adr, Chanigan, Shoombabi, LuffyDV, or JShydell. Scorekeeping is handled this tournament by DarkmoonEX.