[FE8] Live Speedrun Draft 28-09-13

[Tables]

A draft with a difference!

This is a draft for an as-yet indeterminate number of players. Most likely 3-6 depending on signups. The two key catches on this draft will be that

1) Everyone will be playing simultaneously, completing the game in a single sitting and

2) The goal is the lowest time, NOT lowest turns (that is, real time not in game time!)

The draft is tentatively set to start at 10pm GMT/6pm GMT EST etc. on September 28th (that's next Saturday). The current plan is that we will draft characters first, and then go straight into our runs. As nothing like this has ever been attempted, we aren't certain on the time it'll take, so I'd suggest having 5 clear hours (it probably won't take that long, but better safe than sorry).

While it's not necessary, it's highly recommended that you're able to stream your play during the draft - e.g, it would be good if you have a Twitch account you can stream to. If you've never streamed before, but are interested in doing so for this draft, there are various pieces of free software you can use to do this, such as Open Broadcast Software (OBS) or Xsplit. Experiment etc. and work stuff out.

Rules (note: Some of these may be subject to change depending on how many people we have etc. - I intend to finalise them like Thursday next week or something. Anything which I'm especially happy to take feedback on making minor changes to will be in italics (which isn't to say I won't take feedback at any other time)

Drafting:

1. This draft is for 6 players. Signups will close Wednesday 25th September. The draft starts at 10pm GMT on 28-09-13.

2. Eirika, Ephraim & Orson are free for all to use.

3. Seth may not be drafted.

4. Seth is free during the prologue and chapters 1-3, and from then on counts as undrafted.

5. Each player will draft 5 characters. The drafting order will be reversed during the final round.

5. The game will be played on Hard Mode.

6. A race using the Speedrunslive channel (and their racebot) will control the race. For those unfamiliar, it's a fairly easy system to wrap your head around, and gives a communal system for timing the draft.

Rules:

1. Undrafted units may recruit characters, rescue undrafted units and NPCs, trade, visit Shops and Armories, Meatshield without a weapon, dig up items in the desert, open doors or chests using keys

2. Undrafted units may not do anything not listed above, including but not limited to causing damage, building Supports, and using (lock)pick/steal/dance etc.

3. Map shopping is allowed.

4. Skirmishes/use of the Tower or Ruins is allowed. Remember that this draft is judged on your final time, not turns.

5. Timing stops the moment Formotiis is reduced to 0 HP.

6. If (AND ONLY IF) all players are using an emulator with savestate function, then savestate use will be allowed.

7. No other emulator functions may be used.

Penalties:

1. Undrafted units have a 15 minute penalty, per unit per chapter.

2. Seth has a special 45 minute penalty per chapter.

3. Penalties only apply if the chapter is completed from where a penalty would apply.

Rule 6 probably needs a small explanation: Savestates make things much easier and let you take riskier actions successfully, but this is a real time draft - anything you do between saving and loading a savestate will be lost time. They can still save some time, but mostly they're there for safety and to make things work more quickly (again, the time this will take is currently unknown - we'd rather not have it take TOO long). However, if anyone objects to their use but wants to join, the rule will be removed.

Signups:

Tables

Kirbymastah

Vykan

Refa

General Horace

Mar Mar

Edited September 28, 2013 by Tables

[Refa]

I'm totally in! Idea sounds interesting enough.

EDIT A few questions.

1) Throttle; allowed/banned?

2) Tethys/Myrrh should probably be free, I think, but that's just me.

3) Any reason for everyone being free in 5x? I mean, I'm cool with it, just seems wierd.

Edited September 20, 2013 by Refa

[ZemZem]

Not joining, but definitely watching. :D

[General Horace]

tethys should totally be free, she saves a lot of time

and if I can actually timezone, 10 GMT = 3pm PST correct? If this is the case, I'll join I'm pretty sure.

Perhaps the savestate rule can be tweaked, only can savestate at the start of every turn, so its more of a penalty if you have to go back?

Edited September 20, 2013 by General Horace

[Tables]

I'm totally in! Idea sounds interesting enough.

EDIT A few questions.

1) Throttle; allowed/banned?

2) Tethys/Myrrh should probably be free, I think, but that's just me.

3) Any reason for everyone being free in 5x? I mean, I'm cool with it, just seems wierd.

1) Throttle banned, especially if not everyone is using an emulator. The main reasons being how fast it goes depends on your emulator and occasionally your PC

2) Vykan and I were discussing this. Tethys doesn't seem like an instant pick character, she'd probably be going in the first 10 or so, but that makes her seem pretty balanced to be in with the rest of the selections. If you have a good argument for why she should be free though I'm all ears

3) Vykan's idea. You already have Orson and Ephraim free. I think the basic thinking was that keeping both the other cavs totally out of the way is pretty awkward, and you don't have much inventory space to play with. I'm fine with dropping that rule.

tethys should totally be free, she saves a lot of time

and if I can actually timezone, 10 GMT = 3pm PST correct? If this is the case, I'll join I'm pretty sure.

Perhaps the savestate rule can be tweaked, only can savestate at the start of every turn, so its more of a penalty if you have to go back?

I don't think saving time is a reason to be free. If you think she will be game-warpingly powerful for the person who gets her (like Seth), okay, that's definitely a good reason, but I'm not convinced she is like that.

I believe 3pm PST is correct. One timezone converter told me it was 2pm, but I dunno. 10pm GMT is without Daylight Saving Time (it's actually 11pm British time).

I like that savestate rule actually, I think that's reasonable.

For both of you: Do you have Twitch pages you'd like me to link?

[King Marth]

This sounds neat, I'm game for it.

If I can't find a way to stream(not sure my laptop could handle it), how would I go about keeping track of my time? Or proving that I'm not cheating in one way or another?

[General Horace]

For both of you: Do you have Twitch pages you'd like me to link?

I'll set one up tomorrow.

and yeah 5x has Orson free anyway, I don't see any reason not to make Kyle and Forde free as well.

[Tables]

This sounds neat, I'm game for it.

If I can't find a way to stream(not sure my laptop could handle it), how would I go about keeping track of my time? Or proving that I'm not cheating in one way or another?

For the record, I'm going to be streaming just through my laptop. It's more dependent on your internet connection (especially upload speed) than laptop spec. If you can't stream, keep track of time the same way normal drafts do: Honour system. You can still easily join the SRL chat for the race (and possibly a skype group call, although it would be 6 of us which might be too many). Oh and everyone else has implied they're probably running Emulator, will you be using Emulator or console?

I'm actually surprised this filled up to 6 so quickly. I was expecting the topic to just kind of sit for a week. Uhh now I guess to work out numbers of characters. There's 34 characters, 3 are free, one is banned, that leaves 30. That's 6 each. That seems fine. Maybe a little low, but speedrun strats will probably care about fewer characters anyway.

[King Marth]

Im on an emulator. I guess I can just update in the chat as I progress through each chapter, if that's cool with everyone else.

Part of me wants to suggest free Franz to give people an extra unit and to make sure he's not super broken, but that throws off the whole system.

EDIT: I actually have no clue how "broken" Franz will be, this kind of draft has never been attempted, so ignore me :s

Edited September 20, 2013 by Mar Mar

[Refa]

I say no to free Franz! Then everything would be so homogeneous which would be BORING (plus I can't say that I only lost because so and so had Franz if that happens). Also, regarding Amelia and Ewan, usually drafts have a rule that lets you level them up so that they're not completely useless. Here, well you can level anyone up but it takes time. Would allowing the users of them to get time off while they're training Amelia/Ewan (under normal draft rules, so no using anyone else/building supports/etc.) to 10/1 (or 10/5 in Ewan's case? I forget) be a bad idea? Really, I'm not sure, but with only 6 picks, I'd prefer not to get stuck with a total scrub haha.

1) Throttle banned, especially if not everyone is using an emulator. The main reasons being how fast it goes depends on your emulator and occasionally your PC

Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure so I didn't find out I was losing by like two hours because I didn't throttle after the fact.

2) Vykan and I were discussing this. Tethys doesn't seem like an instant pick character, she'd probably be going in the first 10 or so, but that makes her seem pretty balanced to be in with the rest of the selections. If you have a good argument for why she should be free though I'm all ears

Really I only said that because she's generally free in drafts. I can't think of any particular reason she'd be gamebreaking, so I'll just drop it. However, I do think Myrrh should be free because she provides a fairly reliable way for people to beat the Demon King/Lyon 2. Just in case you get a really screwed Eirika/Ephraim/other Holy weapon users, you know?

3) Vykan's idea. You already have Orson and Ephraim free. I think the basic thinking was that keeping both the other cavs totally out of the way is pretty awkward, and you don't have much inventory space to play with. I'm fine with dropping that rule.

Aha, I see. I don't really have a problem with it, lets me finish the chapter faster and get more stuff!

I like that savestate rule actually, I think that's reasonable.

For both of you: Do you have Twitch pages you'd like me to link?

Yeah, I agree with going along with Horace's savestate idea, just so things don't get too scummy but time is still not totally wasted. Also in the process of creating a Twitch page, will get back to you on that.

[PKL]

I would prefer no savestates. I don't think I can stream, but I will be watching you guys. I'm probably gonna root and watch Refa/Horace.

[MRDRHAWK]

Keeping an eye on this.

Probably not joining, but will keep my eye on this.

[Tables]

Well looking at the numbers now, having Seth banned + Orson & Lords free brings the numbers up to a very nice point. If anyone else were made free it would break that balance. Uh I said 6 each, it's actually 5 each, whatever. If we make anyone else free it'll probably mean that X number of characters are undrafted at the end, although I suppose that's fine (lol Amelia/Ewan).

Regarding Amelia/Ewan: The issue with training them up is that it kind of kills the real time aspect. That's really unpleasant. I would much prefer just leaving them as occasional chip/generally worthless.

Myrrh: If your characters are screwed enough that you have trouble with the Demon King, I think you're going to be having major problems throughout the entire draft anyway. We could make Myrrh free but then, everyone is only drafting 4 characters.

[cyron]

why not have the last unit be shared by the last 2 people and free myrhh

Edited September 20, 2013 by Wintersmith

[Tables]

Eh, could do. I still don't feel like Myrrh free is really necessary. But if lots of people in the draft do want it, I'll do it.

Edit: Vykan is currently streaming and looking at the earlygame, and it really looks like if you don't get an early character (which with 6 people, someone is not going to!), those first chapters will be too bad. So we're thinking of changing the Seth rule to: Seth is free to use up to and including chapter 3, and banned from there on (chapter 3 is the last chapter without the preparation menu). Thoughts on that?

Edited September 20, 2013 by Tables

[charlie_]

I don't see Franz as a broken pick because with this many people he's pretty much flying solo until the midgame, with maybe some scrub like Neimi which isn't super solid

[PKL]

SB- Solos ARE the way to go with speedrunning...less actions per turn = more time saved. Also, I volunteer for Random.org randomizer, if that's gonna be a thing.

Edited September 20, 2013 by PKL

[Refa]

Eh, could do. I still don't feel like Myrrh free is really necessary. But if lots of people in the draft do want it, I'll do it.

Edit: Vykan is currently streaming and looking at the earlygame, and it really looks like if you don't get an early character (which with 6 people, someone is not going to!), those first chapters will be too bad. So we're thinking of changing the Seth rule to: Seth is free to use up to and including chapter 3, and banned from there on (chapter 3 is the last chapter without the preparation menu). Thoughts on that?

I don't mind!

Edit- Also my twitch username is RefaTheGreatest, so www.twitch.tv/refathegreatest

Edited September 27, 2013 by Refa

[King Marth]

Seth would make Chapter 3 much quicker, since breaking walls with only Eirika sounds really time consuming.

Sure, I don't mind it.

[General Horace]

there made an account on twitch, site is easy thankfully

http://www.twitch.tv/generalhorace

[Tables]

Okay, Seth free from chapter P-3. Also make sure you've attempted to stream at least once, just so you know you can do it without any issues.

I've updated the rules as per discussion. Still not 100% on Myrrh or not. Only non-discussed change I made is reversing draft order for the final round of drafts (which may not be necessary, but I feel it will be slightly more balanced)

Edited September 21, 2013 by Tables

[charlie_]

Reversing the order should probably happen, yeah.

[PKL]

List Randomizer

There were 6 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Mar Mar
2. Kirbymastah
3. General Horace
4. Vykan
5. Refa
6. Tables

Timestamp: 2013-09-21 16:18:09 UTC

(if you need a third party to randomize)

Edited September 21, 2013 by PKL

[Tables]

I think it'd be best to do it after rules have been finalised, just to avoid potential bias in making the rules (shouldn't happen, but can). Also the fact it's streaming means I can stream using random.org so it shouldn't be an issue. Thanks anyway.

[King Marth]

Dammit I wanted to be first

Ill try to figure out how to set up a stream sometime this weekend.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Mar Mar