Banners for the 0.14 tournament

[sgrunt]

Hi crawlers!

With the impending release of 0.14, we will of course be holding a 0.14 tournament in the not-too-distant future. With the restructuring of the dungeon and the likely introduction of a new god for the release, we need at least three ideas for new/adjusted tournament banners - see the 0.13 tournament page under "Banners" for what we had before (the ones needing change being Vow of Courage and Speed Demon). For example, some suggestions that have come up during dev discussion include "abandon a god and survive its wrath / ??? / abandon N gods before XL10 and win", or "master N distinct skills over the course of the tournament (for varying N)".

If you have ideas, please share them here!

EDIT: Some words from elliptic, our glorious tournament master:

Tournament banner criteria:

• approximate difficulty: Banners should be accessible to players with the following ranges of experience:
  • tier I: new players - players getting their first runes
    
  • tier II: players who are getting close to their first win - players who have won a few times
    
  • tier III: players who have won a few times - players who are looking for difficult challenges
• equal opportunity: Banners shouldn't drive players towards specific species/background/god choices. It is okay if some are clearly better than others for getting the banner, but players shouldn't feel shoehorned into 1-2 choices. Because of this, it is often better to come up with the banner idea first and only then think about what god's flavor could match it, rather than basing the idea on a specific god.
  
• non-scummy: Banners shouldn't encourage tedious/scummy behavior. For example, "kill 100 elephants in a single game" would encourage scumming lair levels for respawns, or "memorize all summoning spells in a single game" would encourage scumming them all up by Sif or otherwise, memorizing them, and then amnesiaing them. Many suggestions relating to skills or spells fall into this category.
  
• progression of tiers: Ideally each tier of a banner would logically imply the previous tiers. This isn't really feasible in all cases, but it should be fairly clear that if a player is skilled/lucky enough to get a higher tier, then they could also have gotten the lower tiers if they were trying for those instead.
  
• trackability: The tournament scripts need to have a way of checking whether players have completed the banner. The information the scripts have is similar to the information that Sequell has on IRC and does *not* include the morgue files. We can add code to track stuff for banner purposes in some cases, but only if it is relatively easy - so some proposals might just not work because of this. In general, this just means that you should think about how hard it would be to describe the conditions to check for whether to award the banners. (This is an issue for stuff like "Clear Elf:3" - what does this mean precisely?)

[Sandman25]

Vow of Courage 1 - get a rune with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N
Vow of Courage 2 - win with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N
Vow of Courage 3 - reach zig 27 with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N

[and into]

Vow of Courage 1 - get a rune with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N
Vow of Courage 2 - win with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N
Vow of Courage 3 - reach zig 27 with Fighting+Armour+Dodging < N

I'm not sure about this. Asking people to constantly watch their skill screen and add stuff together to get 0.1 or 0.2 under a certain amount is bad. Plus, while still a challenge, I feel this would be pretty easily scummable thanks to gargoyles, just put a little less than N into fighting and let the crazy intrinsic AC take care of your damage mitigation.

[Sandman25]

Well, that's because Gr is broken IMHO (I easily got Vow of Courage with it on last tournament too). Maybe change the banner to AC+EV < N but then Tr and Og would be an obvious choice and people would equip negative gear. Basically I think no matter what we do there will be best races for every banner.

[reaver]

Might want to put this thread somewhere else like CYC. I was trying to find it after reading about it on ##crawl-dev, and I couldn't until I resorted to the search function.

Link to elliptic's current notes on the matter. (Who appears to be in charge of banners)

[Sandman25]

Vow of Courage in 0.13 was a test of rune lock. Vow of Courage in 0.14 can be a test of unique-lock:

Vow of Courage 1. Win a game and kill at least one unique on each floor (where unique were noticed) before going to next floor of the branch.
Vow of Courage 2. Win a game and kill at least one unique on each floor (where unique were noticed) before going to next floor of the branch and before getting 2 XL after noticing the unique
Vow of Courage 3. Win a game and kill all noticed uniques before leaving the floor.

[WalkerBoh]

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's wrong with the current Vow of Courage? You just have to change D:14 to D:13:

  Code:

Vow of Courage: The Shining One thinks each player should take a VOW OF COURAGE and not delay fighting for their runes.
I: Get a rune before entering D:13 (or below) in that game.
II: Get two runes before entering D:13 (or below) in that game.
III: Get four runes before entering D:13 (or below) in that game (+25 tournament points).

[wheals]

Well, the first level would be nearly identical to "get a rune" in most 0.14 games, and the second would be what I often do anyway. III would be a change, but besides for it the banner would be a bit boring.

[Magipi]

I think it is good if Tier 1 and 2 banners are available if you just play a simple, straightforward game. Crazy challenges ("kill Cerebov by hitting him with a loaf of bread") should be restricted to Tier 3 banners.

[WalkerBoh]

Well, the first level would be nearly identical to "get a rune" in most 0.14 games, and the second would be what I often do anyway. III would be a change, but besides for it the banner would be a bit boring.

In the past, I got the first and second tier banners of almost everything by playing a normal game. I don't see that vow of courage is really any easier now than in previous tournaments.

[dpeg]

Here is one that would appeal to me, in my games. A version of this was used in the 0.11 tournament, and very unpopular. The proposal tries to take that into account.

  Code:

I:   When you enter a level with a rune for the first time, don't leave that level without the rune.
II:  Get the orb without leaving Zot:5.
III: Get the golden rune without leaving Tomb:3.

In all of these, the idea is to fulfill a task in one attempt, without (tactical or strategical) retreat. The old proposal was considered annoying because it made stashing painful and disabled Ctrl-F. With the current proposal, you have to carefully select your gear before entering your first Lair subbranch end level (or Zot:5, or Tomb). Minor inconvenience could come from players trying to increase carrying capacity but I think the 52 items limit is much more meaningful.
(For tier I: have to find a solution for the abyssal rune. Probably okay to give the banner if abyssal is your first rune. I don't see a problem with players getting tier I through Jiyva.)

[wheals]

Well, the first level would be nearly identical to "get a rune" in most 0.14 games, and the second would be what I often do anyway. III would be a change, but besides for it the banner would be a bit boring.

In the past, I got the first and second tier banners of almost everything by playing a normal game. I don't see that vow of courage is really any easier now than in previous tournaments.

Nobody said it would be easier or harder; all I said was that it would be boring.

[Siegurt]

Here is one that would appeal to me, in my games. A version of this was used in the 0.11 tournament, and very unpopular. The proposal tries to take that into account.

  Code:

I:   When you enter a level with a rune for the first time, don't leave that level without the rune.
II:  Get the orb without leaving Zot:5.
III: Get the golden rune without leaving Tomb:3.

In all of these, the idea is to fulfill a task in one attempt, without (tactical or strategical) retreat. The old proposal was considered annoying because it made stashing painful and disabled Ctrl-F. With the current proposal, you have to carefully select your gear before entering your first Lair subbranch end level (or Zot:5, or Tomb). Minor inconvenience could come from players trying to increase carrying capacity but I think the 52 items limit is much more meaningful.
(For tier I: have to find a solution for the abyssal rune. Probably okay to give the banner if abyssal is your first rune. I don't see a problem with players getting tier I through Jiyva.)

Or alternately you could simply ignore abyssal/slime runes for the purpose of this banner "When you enter a level with one of these runes [list of runes] for the first time, don't leave that level without the rune."

You could even make Tier 3 be "all of them" (including golden)

[sgrunt]

Nudging this in an effort to collect more feedback.

Right now Makhleb's banner is likely to be "[Reach D:15 / reach the end of a rune branch / get a rune] in 27 minutes". We still want a couple more good new banner ideas to use - one that has been floated for Dith is "enter a volcano / enter Gehenna / ???" - a thought of mine for the ??? there is "kill Asmodeus and Cerebov in the same game", but that's by no means a final idea.

Any further ideas / feedback / criticism would be welcome!

[Magipi]

Right now Makhleb's banner is likely to be "[Reach D:15 / reach the end of a rune branch / get a rune] in 27 minutes".

Well, I'll be happy if I reach the Lair in 27 minutes, with webtiles

[khalil]

Here's an idea:
Banner of Xom:
I: Get to <d level whatevs> as a Chaos Knight without abandoning Xom for some other god and using no weapon brands other than chaos.
II: Ascend as a Chaos Knight without abandoning Xom for some other god while and no weapon brands other than chaos.
III: Do a 15 runer as a Chaos Knight without abandoning Xom for some other god and using no weapon brands other than chaos.
IV(Use II as I, III as II, and this as III if you want): Do a 15 runer as a <Felid/Demigod/Octopode/Formicid/Mummy/Vampire/Ghoul/Trolls I guess?> Chaos Knight without abandoning Xom for some other god and using no weapon brands other than chaos. (Yes, this does mean the trolls have to use weapons.)

Put in whatever D:level seems appropriate for I. The races for IV were chosen based on what races just suck in general (Mummy, Demigod), as well as ones I think will do badly in the endgame due to odd diets, although I will admit that I wasn't too sure about trolls. Chose one, or let players go with them all, or just ignore IV altogether, I duno.

[dpeg]

khalil: Please read the original posting.

equal opportunity: Banners shouldn't drive players towards specific species/background/god choices. It is okay if some are clearly better than others for getting the banner, but players shouldn't feel shoehorned into 1-2 choices. Because of this, it is often better to come up with the banner idea first and only then think about what god's flavor could match it, rather than basing the idea on a specific god.

[duvessa]

The races for IV were chosen based on what races just suck in general (Mummy, Demigod)

...

[khalil]

khalil: Please read the original posting.

equal opportunity: Banners shouldn't drive players towards specific species/background/god choices. It is okay if some are clearly better than others for getting the banner, but players shouldn't feel shoehorned into 1-2 choices. Because of this, it is often better to come up with the banner idea first and only then think about what god's flavor could match it, rather than basing the idea on a specific god.

Oh. Sorry. Being up for 31+ hours has not done much good for my thinkmeats.

[WalkerBoh]

With regards to makhleb's proposed banners, I like Tier I and Tier II but I think "reach depths:5 in 27" may be a more exciting challenge for Tier III. The disadvantage is that it makes the Tier II challenge not so related (you would not get the II banner to do III, though the same can be said of tier I in your current proposal).

For Dith, it seems like a stretch. Also, wouldn't Dith want you to shun fiery places? These don't make much sense or provide much challenge/excitement in my opinion.

Possible alternatives:
- Dith likes stealth and shadows right? You could have a banner based around collecting a rune within x turns of entering the rune level (ninja challenge!) Could be tiered based on turns; e.g.: Tier I - collect a rune within 500 turns of entering a level containing a rune. Tier II - collect a rune within 250 turns of entering a rune level. Tier III - collect a rune within 500 turns of entering a rune branch.

- Another stealth-based idea... Dith should like going past creatures unnoticed. You could make a challenge based around killing <x number of uniques in a game. Tier III being kill no uniques.

- Based on the above, something more like an inverse of Zin's banner: Tier I - Enter a hell branch without killing Geryon. TIer II - collect a pan/hell rune without killing any unique hellpanlords (single game). Tier III - Collect all 4 hell runes without killing Geryon or any lords.

Anyways, the stealthy/shadowy theme is better-suited for Dith bonuses I think.

[Magipi]

Tier III - Collect all 4 hell runes without killing Geryon or any lords.

I love this, but is this reasonable?

[TehDruid]

Can you get Geryon's Horn without killing him?

[WalkerBoh]

In 0.14 you don't need the horn to enter the branches.

[TehDruid]

Oh, good to know. It's been a very long time since I last tried Hells.

[sgrunt]

We've essentially reached our decisions (though at time of writing this is still preliminary). Thanks for all your feedback!

[rchandra]

Are Fo allowed to get the Speed Demon banners? I guess they're only abusive for the low tier, or making the difference between low and medium, so it's not a big deal.