Rio Garland XP
Spring Platy Party 2024
Rules and Guidance
Along with our bi-annual showcase of our new players, the Duck Derby, it is time to announce our Platy Party. A "platypus", as defined by the FFR community, is a newer player that feels like they're ready to go up against the veteran players in events but may still have some things they want to learn. It's an "intermediate" title, one where players can say, "hey, I'm still warming up," without feeling like they have to play like an old pro.
To help these players learn, and grown, and feel more competitive within the community we host our intermediate racing showcase, the Platy Party. Our platypus players (and any newer players that want to join in) are welcome to participate in this three-game mini-event.
About the Party
The format for this tournament will be a three week derby-style event. Players will be expected to participate in one race a week, scheduled for the reveal streams of our weekly Duckling Bootcamp (weeks 4, 5, and 6 specifically), whereupon a final score will be tabulated and we'll announce the winner of the party, the Platymus Prime.
Four players will be featured on stream (although we will try to showcase as many willing players over the three weeks as we can).
Tournament Structure:
There are no qualifiers, pods, finals, or other "special" tournament structures for this event. Everyone that wants to play (who isn't a long-time vet, i.e. someone that has not won a single-player tournament, such as the Spring Tournament or previous Platy Party) will be welcome to join the Racetime.gg room that night, join, and play in the race. Race three times, get your points for each race, and see if you're the winner. Simple as can be.
Important Dates:
- Bootcamp Reveal Stream, Week 4: Sunday, April 14, 2024, at 9:00 PM EDT
- Bootcamp Reveal Stream, Week 5: Sunday, April 21, 2024, at 9:00 PM EDT
- Bootcamp Reveal Stream, Week 6: Sunday, April 28, 2024, at 9:00 PM EDT
Tournament Points:
The winner of each race gets two times (2x) the amount of points as the number of initial entrants. The second place finisher gets 10% fewer points (rounded up). The next finishers all get a cumulative 5% fewer points (rounded up) until 66% of the winner’s points are reached. Points then decrease by 1 per finisher until a minimum of 40% of the winner’s total is reached. All subsequent finishers will receive that amount. It is possible that there will be a different number of entrants in each group. Since each group is considered independent, one group's scoring will not affect the other. Initial calculations for points will be used throughout regardless of drops from the tournament. In case of finishers within 3 seconds of each other, a re-time will take place. If 2 or more racers finish within 1 second of each other, they will all be considered tied and will receive the same amount of points.
The exact number of points for all three races will be determined by the group size at the start of the first race of the Party.
| Table 1: Point System Breakdown - 20 Participants Example | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st - 40 points | 2nd - 36 points | 3rd - 34 points | 4th - 32 points | 5th - 30 points |
| 6th - 28 points | 7th - 26 points | 8th - 25 points | 9th - 24 points | 10th - 23 points |
| 11th - 22 points | 12th - 21 points | 13th - 20 points | 14th - 19 points | 15th - 18 points |
| 16th - 17 points | 17th - 16 points | 18th - 16 points | 19th - 16 points | 20th - 16 points |
Tournament Flags:
The Duckling Flags will be revealed the night they are played and, as such, will be a surprise to all players in the Party. Thus, all flags in this three-race event will be “blind flags” up until the time of the reveal.
Prizes:
The top 3 finishers in the Party receive a themed profile picture and the Platymus Prime will also receive a bonus bit of art (Twitch layout, set of emotes, retro-style logo, or other agreed upon artwork), all courtesy of DarkmoonEX.
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.
- A stream delay of 10 minutes (600 seconds) will be required for all racers participating in this event. If you need assistance setting this up, please contact a derby boss.
- However, as always, cheating is not tolerated. As such:
- Players may not hang out in any chat other than their own. 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 stream 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 will be disqualified from the event.
- Do not post spoilers in racetime.gg 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 racetime.gg chat and a derby boss will communicate with you via Discord PMs.
- Matches will be conducted on racetime.gg. Players will be required to have a racetime.gg account and be in the racetime.gg rooms 30 minutes before their race to allow for setup time of the stream.
- 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 player, 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.
- All participants must be on the FFR discord for the duration of the event.
If you are selected for the restream the following additional conditions apply:
- 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).
- Spell damage and tile flickers 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:
- 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 allowed.
- You cannot use the turbo button or bind it to any buttons on a controller.
Party Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at the duck derby bosses on the Discord: LuffyDV, Serisan, budgemano, and PeasantsOMFG. DarkmoonEX serves as admin oversight for the event.
¶ Previous Platypus Events
- 2023 Platy Party: Astos Rally
- 2022 Platy Party: Highwind XP
- 2021 Platy Party
- 2019 Platypus Invitational
Note: No Platypus events were run between in 2020.