Mega May 2022 - Team Work

Mega Man 2022 - Team Work!

Relays are hard to put together. You have qualifiers, you have people backing out on interest, you have 3 or 4 teams of 10 to 12 people to somehow balance...it's chaos!

(Not that traditional 1 person to a game fall relays are bad ideas! Keep your eyes out for the Fall 2022 Relay!)

So we give you a May proposal - 3 or 4 person "Teams" for 1-11 (with Rockman & Forte)

Each person plays 3 or 4 games. We restream "Races," but use those RTA* game times for positioning on a leaderboard. (*We'll figure out swap times below). At the end of the month, the fastest 3 teams "win". The top 2 teams (of unique racers) will have a final race for a bump in prize pool money.

The intent here is to see how teams break up the 1-11 run. Restrictions on team size and enforcement of playing a three or four games should make things interesting, since everyone will have to play a not-their-best-game. This will create some interesting team building decisions, and we're excited to see how teams handle the challenge.


Team Construction Rules:

- Teams MUST have or 3 or 4 players.
- Players MUST play an equal number of games. You can't pull in a specialist to only play 1 and 2 or only play 9 and 10 without giving them more games
- Teams are organized by the individual players. You organize your own team.
- A given team (outside of a hypothetical "Final") would be limited to 3 official attempts, regardless of game distribution. There will be limited mulligans if someone has to leave early or a console crashes.
-- This is specifically to avoid "whoops!" after bad early games. We believe in the integrity of the Mega Man community and don't seriously think anyone would attempt this ploy, but this is official.
- An individual player may be on as many teams as they like


General Timing Rules:

- The games Mega Man 1-11, including Rockman & Forte, must be completed in order, 1-11, although the traditional relaxed ordering of Rockman & Forte either being played before or after 8 to accommodate easy game swaps is allowed (both orders are accepted)
-- It is preferred, although not required, for teams in the same restream event to play Rockman & Forte in the same order
- All individual games shall use their individual RTA rules as defined on the Mega Man Leaderboard website, typically starting from title screen (except 9 and 10) and ending on defeating (and in the case of MM4, surviving) Wily Capsule.
-- Specific category notes are below
- The "Mega May 2022 Leaderboard" will use combined individual game RTA times, removing swap times, especially when the same player plays multiple games in a row. However, this still must be reasonable and within one stream.
-- Swaps must be measured in minutes, not hours, and within one stream. Obviously some swaps take longer than others, looking at you Mega Man 9 to 10, so we don't want to list an exact time, but please try not to poop between your consecutive games.
-- Please allow the restream to actually load your stream before beginning your game


Characters & Difficulties
- All characters are allowed, to encourage creative team making. If you want to play Proto 9 and Proto 10, or as Bass in R&F or Mega Man 10, go for it.
- Mega Man 1 is "All Stages", No ACE
- Mega Man 2 Normal may be used.
- Mega Man 9 and 10 Normal or Hard may be used, but not Easy
- Mega Man 11 may not use the Easy difficulty. The run is "No OOB" regardless of other difficulty modifiers.


Special Timing Notes:
- Automatic adjustments for versions will be applied. Notably this includes Mega Man 2 US-Difficult (but NOT normal), Mega Man 5 US, and Legacy Collection 2 versions of Mega Man 10
- If the chip is not collected in Mega Man 9, or it is not collected faster than the following penalty, a 30 second penalty will be assessed from the final hit on Wily Capsule and used as your time. The run shall otherwise remain valid. (Yes it takes far less than 30 seconds to grab. If you don't want the penalty, grab the chip. The intent here is to not disqualify an attempt hours into it over a technicality.)
- Loading save states (not saved games) is prohibited


Versions:
- Same as the leaderboards for the game's main categories - All original release versions (to include all original platforms for 8, 9, 10, and 11)
- Emulators must be on the official approved list and follow rules for displaying information, as stated in individual game rules
- Legacy Collection 2 is allowed for 8, 9, and 10
- No Anniversary collection (mainly because of fast weapon swaps)
- All characters legal (Rockman & Forte as Forte, MM9 and 10 as Proto, MM10 as Forte)



Passwords and Saved Games

- In the event of a console crash, softlock, or other event that would disqualify a run (such as loading a save state), the game may be reset and a password or saved game may be used.
-- "The game may be reset" means actually reset. Do not load state to the title screen.
- The primary thought process for allowing these is that almost no time should improve by using a password or saved game. If you can think of a beneficial scenario that should not be allowed, please let the organizers know.

- Your RTA time continues to accumulate during a reset.
- Only Passwords and save files earned/created during a run may be used, with the following exceptions
-- No matter what the following says, a password seen on screen during a run may be used (eg: game over after collecting the Balloon)
-- No additional stages may be cleared from a password or saved game, ever.
-- For passwords, the exact same robots must be cleared.
-- For saved games, no additional robots can be cleared.
-- Generating a password with fewer E Tanks in Mega Man 2 and 3 is allowed.
-- Your password in Mega Man 4 must not cause you to gain or lose the Balloon or Wire, UNLESS you are passwording to Pharoah or Dive Mans's stage. Then you must not have the item from that stage, even if you collected it before the crash.
-- Generated passwords for Mega Man 5 cannot cause you to get beat if you missed a letter, or cause you to lose beat if you collected all letters (your menuing must remain the same)
-- Generated passwords for Mega Man 6 similarly cannot cause you to gain or lose beat, but also must not change your Energy Balancer status. If you password to Tomahawk Man, you MUST not have the energy balancer
-- Generating a password with 0 bolts and/or fewer upgrades is allowed for Mega Man 7. You may not keep items collected since the previous password was shown on screen (similar to balloon and energy balancer above)
-- Use of safety saves of Mega Man 8, Rockman & Forte, and onward are allowed, so long as no extra bolts/upgrades/items are obtained.
-- For R&F, please show your inventory at least once during the remainder of the run. This typically happens during the Wily Machine fight if you go for the quick kill.
- Save states, whether from Emulator (including the Wii U Virtual Console) or flash cart, are prohibited, and require the game to be reset (and NOT load stated to the title screen)


"Limited Mulligans" - A team may have exactly one of their attempts not count if:
- They softlock at Magnet Beam ("GDQ Jail")
- They softlock in Quick Man
- They softlock in Gemini Man or Hard Man
- They softlock at King Zip
- At the organizers' sole judgement, legitimate console crashes can be allowed a retry, especially if the run is on a good pace. Again, the intent is to avoid a "crash" to drop a bad attempt more than to penalize accidents.
- An accidental emulator or flash cart load state is never grounds for a retry


Registration & Attempt Organization
- The Mega Man Tournament discord will be used to organize restreams and other attempts
- Organizers MUST be present for a run to be valid
- Runs must begin AFTER Midnight, April 30, 2022, UTC/GMT
- Runs must begin BEFORE Midnight, June 2, 2022, UTC/GMT
-- The organizers may allow a run scheduled to start at the last minute, delayed by a restream difficulty, to be valid even if it starts at 12:05 June 2 UTC
(The extra days are a simple way to ensure all of May is open to all time zones)

Prizes:
- TBD, but it would be something divisible amongst a team, likely straight up cash or a gift card.
-- It can be done in a way that accepts community contributions
- A specific team of the same players may only place once, regardless of game distribution in attempts, but individual players can be on multiple teams
- Total Team Prizes would not change based on the number of players, but would be split amongst them (so a team of 3 gets more to each player than a team of 4)
- A player on multiple winning teams would win multiple shares
- There is a small prize for winning the "final" race, to encourage participation


Prize Pool Breakdown:
First Place 45%*
Second Place 25%
Third 10%

* The top team with 4 players, and the top team with 3 players, shall each receive 5%. This is not included in the 45% above (So the top team actually gets 50% once it is added in)
** If there are no teams with "the other" number of entrants, the extra 5% shall go to the best team.

"Final" Race: 10%
- If first and second share players, we will figure a race out splitting the money between members of top teams, especially the unique players on those teams