Please to be finding enclosed some form of rule book for Gold Rush Aperture. No, it’s not meant to make sense.
Format
Seeding round, then streamlined round-robin, and finally into single-elimination knock-out if we can be bothered.
Match Rules
Seeding round
Competitors will be offered a choice of at least 2 songs. At least one song shall be from ITG 1, ITG 2 or ITG Rebirth. At least one song shall be from DDR, and have similar difficulties for easy, medium and hard (and possibly expert too). Competitors get to choose both the song and the difficulty level that they play at the same time.
Players will then be grouped into groups of 4 (switching to groups of 3-5 if necessary) based on their seeding result. Players will be asked to replay the seeding song if it deemed they picked a difficulty level substantially outside their difficulty range.
Players placed in the highest group(s) will automatically be be in the highest range of seeds. Players not placed within this group cannot suddenly spring to the top. It’s a bit hard to explain that without being really waffly, but there is a serious point in there somewhere.
Round-robin phase
Players will be randomly ordered within the group. Each player will pick any song of their choice, but not a difficulty level. Each player in the group will play every other player’s song choice on the difficulty level of their choice. For the first song, the playing order is determined by the random order. For subsequent songs, the playing order is determined by the ranking of the previous song, with the person choosing the song always playing in the first pair.
Players are ranked as follows:
- All passing scores beat all failing scores, regardless of score.
- All passes of a higher difficulty level beat all passes of a lower difficulty level, regardless of score.
- All passes of the same difficulty level are ranked by score. If this is equal, then they are ranked by Fantastic count, then by Excellent count, and so on.
- All fails are ranked by score, regardless of the difficulty level at which the song was failed. Fails with equal scores are considered tied.
Example: A group of four players (A, B, C, D). A chooses a song and will play first with B, followed by C and D. A passes with 90% on medium, B fails with 35% on expert. C passes with 85% on hard, D fails with 42% on hard. C “wins” the song, as they had the highest difficulty pass. A is second, as they had the other pass. D finishes above B, because D’s score was higher than B’s despite B picking a harder difficulty level. The next song will be B’s choice, and they will play with C (the previous winner). A and D will play as the second pairing.
After all songs have been played by all players, each player’s scores are turned into a match. For groups of 4, this is a best of 4 match, and so ties are possible. The ranking within the group then determines the seeding for the next phase, split by firstly match wins, then results in matches, then by game percentage, then by sudden-death.
Example 1: Suppose the results of three songs for A, B, C are:
Song 1: A 90%, B 80%, C 70%.
Song 2: A 90%, B 95%, C 70%.
Song 3: A 90%, B 95%, C 98%.
A loses to B. A beats C 2-1. B beats C 3-0. B wins the group with two “wins”, A is second with a 1-1 record, and C is bottom with 2 losses. This is despite each player winning their own song.
Example 2: For the next group, the results for D, E, F, G are:
Song 1: D 55% exp, E 65% hard, F 0% fail, G 0% fail.
Song 2: D 95%, E 90%, F 85%, G 80%.
Song 3: D 95%, E 75%, F 80%, G 80% but with more fantastics than F.
Song 4: D 95%, E 90%, F 92%, G 80%.
D beats each player 4-0, as their pass on Song 1 was at a higher level than E. E ties with F 2-2, but beats G 3-1. F beats G 2½-1½. D clearly wins the group, and G is clearly bottom. E and F each have records of one win, one draw, one loss. They can’t be split in their individual match, but song win-loss record is better E is ranked above F. If F had got a “better” fail on Song 1, then E and F would have a single random song to decide ranking. And again, this would be at the difficulty level of each player’s own choice.
For a group of 3, this will take 6 turns to complete. For groups of 4, this increases to 10 turns, and groups of 5 need 15 songs.
KO Phase
KO phase would be a simple best-of-3, and seedings would be generated by groups. Highest seedings would be to the “highest” groups, with the lower seedings going to lower-ranked groups. To be honest, once we know that it (doesn’t) work, we’ll only carry this as far as people can be bothered as the concept will be (dis)proven.
Prizes
There is no prize fund. Let me retype that in bold emphasised text just in case you missed it. There is no prize fund. If all you care about is making money from the tournament, this isn’t really the day out for you. Come back in September-ish when our next tournament is on.
Expected effect on participation
You can compare the below with the <a href=”http://www.arceast.com/gold-rush/tournaments/70-16man-entry-participation.html”>guide for participation in various ranking systems</a>.
Each player is guaranteed at least 5 songs, including 2 of their own choice. This compares favourably with seeding-single elimination (only a guarantee of 3 songs), but is fewer than a lot of other formats.
Using 16 players as a basis for 4 groups of 4, the expected effect of matches is as follows:
8 players get 1 seeding song + 3 group songs + 1 KO song (minimum 6 songs, estimated 6.5 songs, maximum 7 songs)
4 players get 1 seeding song + 3 group songs + 2 KO songs (8/9/10 songs)
4 players get 1 seeding song + 3 group songs + 4 KO songs (12/14/16 songs)
In terms of running time, the worst case scenario is 80 songs (5:20, which would even allow for a complete lunch break). The best case scenario is 68 song (4:32), which makes the duration comfortably predictable.
In terms of time spread, the format is quite close to a seeding-group-top2 format. Where I hope this format will excel is in doubles. This makes groups of 3 and 5 much more viable (as only one person can play at a time, there isn’t the “wastage” that occurs with only one person playing singles.