12-07-2013, 10:50 PM
Not sure we have enough interest but I enjoyed the last round and would be down for another. I certainly have some thoughts about rules variation though.
As you pointed out an issue with the last tournament was duration. I would therefore recommend going for a brutal, shorter experience if possible, with more tries to compensate if needed. Something more like D1 Ironman. If you agree with such an approach, I would do MP 10 as a start. It's actually not *that* much harder since your always overleveled (very reasonable to do without farming in softcore) but it's still notably harder.
Like Ironman I would also like to see potion buying banned, meaning you will have the careful resource-scrounging dimension, more care about taking excessive hits from trash, without going to the old extremes of "I can't ever get hit to save pots" or "guzzle my whole inventory to pass this part." Time pressure as in the last tourney is important to prevent excessive running or AI glitching to conserve potions.
You could still allow repair just to save on stash space but it's fairly irrelevant in normal. No reason to allow trinket buying in my opinion (except maybe for mercs in the field), it just minorly waters down challenge while adding a major asspain of rerolling games to buy things.
If using random skills then I also think you should be prevented from using a skill slot until the base version of your assigned skill is available (except perhaps a "primary" of your choice), and prevented from using runes until your rune turns up. This adds not just a bit of difficulty but also a better flavor sense of using only the skills you have to work with, rather than basically whatever you feel like until high levels.
As you pointed out an issue with the last tournament was duration. I would therefore recommend going for a brutal, shorter experience if possible, with more tries to compensate if needed. Something more like D1 Ironman. If you agree with such an approach, I would do MP 10 as a start. It's actually not *that* much harder since your always overleveled (very reasonable to do without farming in softcore) but it's still notably harder.
Like Ironman I would also like to see potion buying banned, meaning you will have the careful resource-scrounging dimension, more care about taking excessive hits from trash, without going to the old extremes of "I can't ever get hit to save pots" or "guzzle my whole inventory to pass this part." Time pressure as in the last tourney is important to prevent excessive running or AI glitching to conserve potions.
You could still allow repair just to save on stash space but it's fairly irrelevant in normal. No reason to allow trinket buying in my opinion (except maybe for mercs in the field), it just minorly waters down challenge while adding a major asspain of rerolling games to buy things.
If using random skills then I also think you should be prevented from using a skill slot until the base version of your assigned skill is available (except perhaps a "primary" of your choice), and prevented from using runes until your rune turns up. This adds not just a bit of difficulty but also a better flavor sense of using only the skills you have to work with, rather than basically whatever you feel like until high levels.