Summer Co-Op Tournament 2023
Rules & Guidance
The time has come this year, time to grab a partner and join together for an adventure into the great unknown! It's time for Summer Co-Op, our annual 2-player team tournament for the winner-takes-all title of Summer Co-Op Champion!
About the Tournament
Co-Op is a team event. Players will join up in teams of two, connected via lua script in Bizhawk, playing the same seed. The goal will be an orb hunt, with teams working together to find the Four Fiends out in the world and kill them to light the Four Elemental Orbs, all so they can gain access into the Temple of Fiends Revisited. The team is done when both players have killed Chaos crossed the finish line (and only the time of the second finish counts for the “team time”).
Key items, and Orbs, will be shared by the lua script (stored “in the cloud”, which we like to call the team's “bag of holding”). If a player dies (or resets) after a key item is in the bag of holding, that key item is saved and does not have to be retrieved again. Note that “save on game over” is enabled in the flagset so gear, and levels, gained during exploration will not be lost on an untimely death. This allows for more free exploration from both players, leading to a more enjoyable experience.
You're out to collect treasures with your teammate and get to the end of the game first. Dig out the goods and be the big winners!
Tournament Details:
The Co-Op tournament is a short, streamlined event. 16 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 Summer Co-Op 2023 spreadsheet.
Co-op Requirements
- BizHawk: This emulator is needed to run the lua script that makes co-op possible.
- Co-op lua script: Co-op Script [ZIP], Setup Video
- A partner: If you're in need of a partner you can be added to and/or find one in the #co-op-tournament-discussion channel on discord.
Important Dates:
- Sign-ups - June 4th, 2023 - July 6th, 2023 @ 11:59 PM EDT
- Qualifier #1 - July 7th, 2023 @ 9:30 PM EDT
- Qualifier #2 - July 8th, 2023 @ 8:00 PM EDT
- Bracket Reveal - July 9th, 2023 @ 8:00 PM EDT
- Bracket of 16 - July 10th, 2023 - July 16th, 2023
- Bracket of 8 - July 17th, 2023 - July 23rd, 2023
- Semi-finals - July 24th, 2023 - July 30th, 2023
- Finals - July 31st, 2023 - August 6th, 2023
Tournament Schedule:
Teams will face off against one opponent team per week, fitting in their three games (assuming all three are needed) during that 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 qualifier races. Two qualifier races will be held on July 7th and July 8th, 2023. For 16 or fewer teams the seeding will be determined by your placement in the race that you enter. Participants may only enter one of the two races. Seeding will then be determined by wheel between identical placements in the two races, for example the 1st place team in race 1 and the 1st place team in race 2 would wheel spin to see who gets the 1st seed, remainder gets the 2nd seed.
Should more than 16 teams sign up there will instead be two play-off races on July 7th and July 8th, 2023 with the top 8 teams from each race moving on. Note, seeding will be determined by your place in the qualifier races. The top 8 from race 1 will be seeds 1-8. Those who do not place in the top 8 in race 1 may complete in race 2 in which the top 8 will be seeds 9-16.
Once the top 16 teams are determined, the bracket will be locked in.
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.
- 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 a seed is rolled and hash is confirmed teams can make party and then proceed to the overworld. Once there, you and your teammate need to confirm the lua icon (green dot in right corner), which indicates a successful connection to the co-op server, before you ready up.
- After confirmation of lua connection, team captain enters "?ready" in the race room on the Discord, no movement or menuing allowed on the overworld 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 permission)
- Both team members must defeat "Chaos" 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:
Special Rules and Allowances:
There will not be any flag options for this tournament. Both team members need to defeat chaos, the team will ?done after the second team member has defeated chaos.
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" 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.
- A stream delay of 10 minutes (600 secconds) will be required for races in the tournament.
- However, 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 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 not allowed.
Tournament Staff:
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at the @Co-Op Tournament Staff.
ADDENDUM (06/04/2023):
“Past years have allowed a substitute to not be a permanent replacement; is this still allowed? (Someone gets dreadfully ill, gets coverage for the weekend, but then resumes with their intended original partner for the remainder of the tournament, the team is no longer allowed a sub)”
Yes, this is still allowed, team is allowed only one sub if it becomes absolutely necessary.
¶ Previous Co-Op Events
- 2022 Summer Co-Op Tournament: Explorers of Yahnikurm Desert
- 2021 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2020 Summer Co-Op Tournament
- 2019 Summer Co-Op Tournament
Note: No current rules documents remain for the 2019 Summer Co-Op Tournament. This page will be updated if anything is dug up for this event.