Norn Mode difficulty announced, includes tournament league

RyanB

Legacy of Elijah Guild Leader
Ok, so the title is only mostly misleading. ANet has not announced any such thing. But you can count this as the official announcement of the...

Hearts of the Norn Tournament League

The goal here is simple - provide tough challenges that encourage teamwork. I'd love to get participation here from folks in all walks of GW, so I plan on making the "base" challenge very doable, with a hike in difficulty for bonus marks. Just because someone isn't super experienced doesn't mean they shouldn't have fun trying new things here. I also plan to encourage teamwork with "minimum number of human player" requirements.

I will announce the prize pool somewhere around week 3 based on participation, but I will say that I plan to make it a fun, friendly competition that is worth the time spent for all participants.

Eternal glory! That's what awaits the player who wins The Hearts of the Norn Tournament, but to do this that player must survive ten tasks. Ten EXTREMELY DANGEROUS tasks.

Be warned that I plan to participate and defend as much of my money as possible. Hey, it worked for Ben Stein.

Tentative Rules - please offer suggestions if you think these should be changed. These are designed to meet my objectives listed above.
  • This tournament will be comprised of ten challenges (nine + final) over ~10+ weeks.
  • Each challenge will reward points to players
    • Point totals for the tournament will be calculated from a player's top 8 scores, so no worries if you need to take a vacation or don't have a certain area unlocked. I can't promise equal opportunity for folks who are straight up missing games, but that goes with anything GW.
    • The scoring system (yet to be decided) will be similar to Zaishen quests - objective, bonus objective, etc
  • Unless otherwise specified, anything goes - cons, builds, alt accounts, gimmicks, etc. Of course, don't expect prize money to cover spamming multiple consets each and every week, so use with caution.
  • Results will be verified via appropriate screen shots.
  • I will be giving hints about a week ahead as to where the next event is, should players need or want to get a character there, or need to beat a campaign for HM.
  • Participants must be a member in good standing of one of our alliance guilds
  • Participants must be registered on these forums; it takes somewhere around 15 seconds to do so. I will be putting the weekly event in the Alliance Discussion forum (Huh? We have forums outside of the main one?) and receiving screen shots via PM. There will be a sign-up thread in a few weeks.

Final note: there will be no entrance fee, but donations (if you're rich, you know who you are) are of course welcome. Depending on how things go, future events like this may have an entrance fee.
 
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Sign me up!

So do you already have the 10 challenges design or are you taking suggestions?

Final note: there will be no entrance fee, but donations (if you're rich, you know who you are) are of course welcome. Depending on how things go, future events like this may have an entrance fee.

All of a sudden I'm wishing I hadn't just replied to another post saying I'm a millionaire.
 
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Sign me up!

So do you already have the 10 challenges design or are you taking suggestions?

Vague idea, any suggestions on this or any aspect are very welcome. In general, things will consist of things you would normally do, but with handicaps. When I played games as a kid, we used to do things like "ok, we'll beat the game, but no health potions!" and the like.


All of a sudden I'm wishing I hadn't just replied to another post saying I'm a millionaire.

Yes, because it isn't like I haven't seen your minipet "zipping" around. :rolleyes:
 
Hmmm...certainty of death, small chance of success....

What are we waiting for?

Are we talking solo challenges mostly or stuff we accomplish with a group/heros/henchmen?
 
Hmmm...certainty of death, small chance of success....

What are we waiting for?

Are we talking solo challenges mostly or stuff we accomplish with a group/heros/henchmen?

I'm not big on completely solo challenges due to the vast difference in class abilities to pull them off, and even that differs by area. I will say that limited party size is one of the things I plan to use to ramp up the difficulty though.

I'll also throw out there that this is sort of an idea in beta and I don't expect it to go perfectly well. Examples: a very small percentage of our alliance even bothers to come to these forums. Will we get the all-around participation I'm hoping for, or will people who are unsure of themselves back out? Will it be fun and not TOO competitive, or somehow unfair to some players? Will the challenges be too stupidly frustrating, not fun, or too much of a temptation to burn a bunch of cons that wouldn't normally be needed to clear an area?

I tried to think of the best rules to meet these ideals. What I'd really love to do is end up with something that is fun, recurs, and evolves beyond these simple ideas. Just as an example, I'm thinking that season two might include multiple teams similar to what is seen on shows like survivor or the gauntlet. So it's a work in progress, and I am very, very interested in ideas and feedback as it goes on.
 
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Personally, I don't even like using cons unless I am really having difficulty, and even then usually just DP removal type not the boosting type.
 
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