SpeedGaming Live
2023 Online & In-Person Events
Rules & Guidance
Welcome to the 2023 SpeedGaming Live Online Event. This tournament is hosted by SpeedGaming, and while FFR is assisting with the running and overseeing of the event, do note that this is first and foremost SpeedGaming's tournament. It's a great event for outreach for FFR, and a great way for us to show off the Randomizer to a wider audience. Now in its fourth online run, The SGL FFR event is a for-cash tournament. Any cash contributed to the pool by the end of the event will be split among the winning players (based on how much money is in the pool and how many players are signed up.
Please Note: The event is for a cash prize, and you may contribute, but FFR in no way is encouraging, or requiring, any players to contribute to the event's cash pool. You may play for free and are not limited, in any way, as to how much you can win other than your final placement in the tournament.
¶ Online Event
About the Tournament
The tournament itself will be a double-elimination (winners and losers) bracket consisting of 1v1 matches. It will be preceded by a week of qualifiers (for placement only) before the event. Three races will be held, with live races followed by async of the same seed from the live race. Times will be tabulated, and runners will be placed based on a scored average of their runs (with the times being translated into points and weighted based on the fastest run of that race). Once players are placed into brackets, the scores are win/lose only, and you play until you're out (or you win it all).
If you don't participate in the qualifiers but you still want to play you will be ranked at the bottom, with all no-score players being inserted into the bottom of brackets randomly.
All are welcome to play and, again, there is no limits or requirements as to how you get in or how far you may proceed. Play, have fun, and enjoy SGL Online.
Important Dates:
- Sign-ups: July 25, 2023 through August 26, 2023
- Qualifiers:
- Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 2:00 PM
- Tuesday, August 29, 2023 at 9:00 PM
- Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 7:00 PM
- Official Start of Brackets: Saturday, September 2, 2023
Tournament Structure:
Qualifiers
The first leg of the tournament will be the “qualifiers”. These are standard group races of the flags for the event. Players will show up, on racetime.gg, at the designated times (listed above) race, and their time will be recorded. If players can't make the race, the raceroom will continue to host a link to the seed from that race; players may take that seed and run it, async, up to 24 hours after the end of the race. At that point, the player with the highest score will be given a 0, and all other racers will find get a score based on their time differential to the leader's time, converted into points. That will work as:
- Your time - Winner's time = Time Differential
- Minutes will be converted into full points, 1 point per minute.
- Seconds will be converted into fractional points, with: (Total Seconds / 60) * 100.
Please only run the async races once. You must broadcast your async run (on twitch, for verification, if needed) but we do ask that you play fairly and honorably and do not practice the seeds before your “official” run. You may practice the flags but not the specific seed.
If you do not run in a race, you will be scored with the highest overall score earned across qualifiers plus 15 points for that day. If you miss all three days, you will be no-scored and slotted in last.
Brackets
We will use a double-elimination bracket for the event. All players will be seeded in (based on their scores from qualifiers) with highest seed facing lowest seed, next highest seed facing next lowest seed, and so forth. In the event we have an uneven number of players for a standard (8 players, 16 players, 32 players, etc.) bracket, the top seeds will get bye placement the first week, and all other seeding will be adjusted accordingly to make the bracket “work”.
Races will be 1v1 and Best of 1 matches, except for Finals which will be Best of 3 (no bracket reset). There will be no Bronze Medal Match required.
As it is double-elim, losing players from the main bracket will be seeded into the “losers bracket” to face off against each other. A loss in the losers bracket will eliminate you from the event. At the end of the tournament, the finalists in the winners and losers brackets will face each other in the Finals matches to determine the overall winner.
Brackets will use the same flags as qualifiers, with a single flagset unified across the event.
In the Event of Ties
While unlikely, ties are possible. In the Final Fantasy Randomizer community, a race will be retimed if both players finish within three (3) seconds or less of each other. If this occurs, a tournament staffer will retime 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.
- If a tie occurs during qualifiers, both players will get the same score. If the tie occurs between two players to determine the winner of that race, both will be given a 0 (best) score for that race.
- If a tie occurs it occurs during brackets, the race will be voided and the players will have to run it again. Congrats on the tie, but we need a clear winner for the tournament to proceed.
The Flags
The online tournament this year will use a single flagset for the whole event. It was voted on by the players and (barring any glaring issues between the start of sign-ups and the end of the event) will not change during the course of the event.
Prize Split
The split of the pot for the online event is 60/40 for 1st place/2nd place.
Notes for Players
Important things to note for all players:
- Party will be three forced, one none, with a forced Black Belt, a forced secondary melee (Fighter or Thief) and a forced mage (Red, White, or Black). Additional, promoted mages will be available behind incentive NPCs.
- The Masamune and the Tail have been removed from the flagset entirely. The legendary sword will not appear, and you will not be able to gain promotion for your starting party in any way.
- Parties will start with the Beggar's Choice set of starting items, along with one random AoE item.
- The goal is 3 Orb Any, so you will by able to light any three orbs from the fiends to proceed into ToFR. The fiends will not be the standard four (Lich, Kary, Kraken, and Tiamat) but instead will be the “Alternate Fiends”, a random set of four drawn from Final Fantasy's own series history. The final boss will also be random, chosen from a fixed pool of random Alternate Final Bosses.
- The full details on all of the Alternate Fiends are available on the FFR wiki.
- The full details on all of the Alternate Final Bosses are available on the revelant tool tip on the FFR website.
Drafting and Other Allowances:
Due to the party being forced at start up, party drafting will not be available during this event.
Additional Flag Changes Allowed During the Event:
Players may also choose to modify the flags with the below set of approved changes (and only this approved changes):
- Scale:
- Encounter Rates:
- Overworld Encounter Rate can be increased (but not decreased) by up to 0.30x (cap of 0.70x).
- Dungeon Encounter Rate can be increased (but not decreased) by up to 0.20x (cap of 0.80x).
- Encounter Rates:
- Maps:
- Dungeons:
- Sky Castle 4F: Change Vanilla to Teleporters or Maze
- Generated Waterfall may be turned on.
- Flip Dungeons Horizontally and/or Vertically may be turned on.
- Swap Stair Locations may be turned on.
- Dungeons:
- Treasures:
- Trapped Chests:
- All flags in this sub-section may be turned on.
- Trapped Chests:
- Enemies:
- Warmech:
- Change Vanilla to either Required or Patrolling.
- Astos:
- Buffed may be turned on.
- Shuffled Location may be turned on.
- Warmech:
- Adjustments
- RNG:
- Turn on Fix Missing Battle RNG Entry
- RNG:
The SGL staffer gatekeeping the race room will confirm all changes agreed upon before they roll the seed.
Sign-Ups:
Please sign up using the SGL Online 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, and/or all further events; these consequences may extend to other communities as well.
Scheduling Matches:
The tournament will be held on Challonge for scorekeeping purposes. We will have a scheduling sheet available during the event. All races will be streamed on SpeedGaming's channels, and will be placed on their scheduling form.
Broadcasting and Restreaming:
When 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 during the tournament will require a 10 minute (600 second) stream delay. If you need help setting this up in your broadcast software, please notify a Tournament Staff member.
- SG may request that your stream outputs be resized to be less taxing on the restreamer’s resources.
- Players must have online archives of their races vods for the duration of the tournament in case of need for review later.
- 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.
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 SGL 2023 runners will be able to use trackers to help track key items and locations checked. However, the tracker must not be automated. Trackers which update entrances based on user input are allowed.
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 @SGL Tournament Staff 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 after 24 hours, 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 a given week, please contact the tournament staff as soon as possible.
- If it is 10 minutes until the race start 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.
- The person who showed up for the race can request a rematch with their opponent; the person who was a no-show cannot request a rematch.
- 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 in pods will simply be recorded as a loss for both on their pods score.
- A forced double-loss in brackets will result in the player eliminated in the previous round being promoted to the next round so standard play can continue with willing participants.
Player Drops:
If a player drops during the bracket round, this will be treated as if the runner forfeit the match (both a winner's bracket match, if that is their placement, and the following loser's bracket round they would have been placed in).
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 by3 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.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at DarkmoonEX.
¶ In-Person Event
About the Tournament
The in-person event will be handled on site at the Hyatt Washington Dulles in Herndon, Virginia, from November 9th to 12th. The FFR tournament will be run at the same time as other tournaments (ALttPR, OoTR, etc.) and, as such, tournament space, and broadcast time, will be at a premium. Players will need to find their opponents, schedule their matches, and keep the schedule moving so that the tournament is completed within the four days of SGL.
Tournament Structure:
The tournament will be double-elim, best-of-one races, with the finals being best-of-three (with no bonus provided to the Winner's Bracket leader). Everyone will get at least two games to play before being eliminated.
Lower Bracket races likely will not be broadcast, except through Lower Semis. Quarters, Semis, Finals, and the Grand Finals will be broadcast.
Prize Split
The split of the pot for the on-site event is 60/40 for 1st place/2nd place.
The Flags
The on-site tournament this year will use a single flagset for the whole event. It was voted on by the players and (barring any glaring issues between the start of sign-ups and the end of the event) will not change during the course of the event.
Game Rules
All games will be run live, with an on-site proctor keeping an eye on the race. If the race isn't broadcast, players can use whatever sprites they want, however they want. If they are on broadcast, standard rules for broadcast apply (see above).
Please be respectful of SG staff. If players are reported by staff for being unprofessional (or worse), they will be removed from the tournament.
The Use of Trackers:
Throughout the SGL 2023 runners will be able to use trackers to help track key items and locations checked. However, the tracker must not be automated. Trackers which update entrances based on user input are allowed.
In Case of Ties:
The winner of the race is the first across the line. Because it's in person, the same accommodations for ties are not needed (due to Discord broadcast delay). Ties are only counted if both players finish at the same time. For broadcast races, the proctor will check the vod and see, via “photo finish”, who was the first across the line. If that results in a finish too close to call, that race will be run again.
For non-broadcast races, in the case of a tie, the race will have to be run again (as there is no way to check “the feed” to see who crossed first).
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.
Sign-Ups:
Any player may sign up for the FFR tournament if they have paid to be at SpeedGaming Live 2023. If you have registered for the event, let the FFR tournament staff know and they will add you to the Challonge bracket.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at DarkmoonEX.