Announcing Toro's Pokemon League!

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Sn0wfa11
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Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:51 pm
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Announcing Toro's Pokemon League!

Post: # 13987Post Sn0wfa11 »

Hi everyone! I’m proud to announce that after months of work, Toro League is actually becoming Toro League! That’s right- we’re launching a proper Elite Four and Pokemon League! Just like in the games, you’ll have the opportunity to fight and puzzle your way through a challenging Victory Road, challenge four difficult teams, and become the Toro League Champion! There are some changes made for our server, of course, and some rules to keep everything running smoothly. I’ll explain everything below.


Victory Road:
In order to challenge the Elite Four, your character will first need to obtain all eight of Toro’s badges. Once they have done this, you can message the GM team to ask for entry to Victory Road. Your first run in Victory Road is a challenge to make your way through the cave while defeating NPC trainers. After you do this, you will be allowed open access to Victory Road on that character. This includes some unusual spawners and high level Pokemon, as the location itself is meant as a reward for trainers who have completed the badge challenge. You will not be allowed, in or out of character, to bring others into Victory Road for your trial.

Once you have access to it as an open area, your character may travel there with other characters who also have access to it. The Victory Road trial will take priority over this kind of access, so if a Victory Road trial is in progress for a new competitor, it will be cleared of other visitors while the competitor is inside. As an additional rule, neither you (OOCly) nor your character (ICly) may discuss Victory Road challenges with others who have not completed them. The only exception to this concerns those of us who designed them, since you can hardly spoil the challenges for me for example. We cannot police this outside of the server and the Discord, but we expect you will all follow the honors system here.

One more detail: because it's difficult to create challenges that allow flying, you will not be allowed to fly during your Victory Road challenge(though this is allowed during access afterward). Flying trivializes parts of the trial, so please don't do it!

Elite Four:
Toro’s Elite Four positions have been selected by the GM team, primarily on OOC concerns to keep this system working. We know this may be disappointing to some of you, but this is the best way to ensure that this new system runs smoothly for everyone. Because this challenge is uniquely challenging and meant to be competitive, players with Elite Four characters will be unable to challenge the Elite Four or compete for the championship on any of their characters. All of our efforts on this project are devoted to providing a good environment for the rest of you.

As for the challenge itself, it will operate mostly as you would expect: you will challenge four monotype trainers, and you must defeat all of them without a loss. As in more recent games, you may challenge them in any order. These challenges will often consist of four matches split over time, because we will not always have matching schedules.

There are some differences particular to Toro, however. In addition to an expectation that you will rp while batting,

- First, non-held items will be banned. This makes for a better battling experience for everyone, and prevents the challenge from turning into an endurance test on who can buy the most revives. You will be able to heal your team between battles.

- Second, after a defeat, you must wait for seven OOC days after the battle you lost, or 10 after the first battle (whichever would be shorter; this is to avoid punishing people for having to spread their challenges out based on OOC schedules) before challenging the Elite Four again. This includes losses to the Champion, but more on that later. This time limit may be flexed if OOC scheduling demands it (if you are leaving for Antarctica for a month, we may humor you and allow you to challenge a day or two early if needed), and may also be changed, temporarily or permanently, if we feel that it is causing problems. While we will do our best to offer challenges in a timely manner, we also cannot promise they will be offered exactly on time, every time, because we are all busy people with schedules that do not always match.

- Finally, the Elite Four battles will not be open to spectators the way gyms are, and you may not discuss specifics of Elite Four teams OOCly with anyone who has not challenged all of the same teams (again, with the exception of the people who actually have the teams too). We are not restricting IC discussion, though we would encourage you to have your characters keep specifics to a minimum (Ex “Elite Four Bob’s Bibarel was a nightmare!” is okay, but please try to avoid “Bob’s Bibarel held a Jaboca Berry, had the ability Moody, the following four moves, and could outspeed my Aggron after a Sticky Web,” for multiple reasons; as an aside I will note that none of the Elite Four are using Moody spam because that would be cruel). We don’t need this information to be completely locked down, but we hope that by keeping it from, say, being a general chat topic in Discord, we will preserve some of the mystique and challenge without limiting RP- since your characters will probably want to talk about the challenge!

And now for the…


Championship:

The first Champion of Toro will be the first person to defeat the Elite Four. Each subsequent challenger will face the Champion after battling the Elite Four.

You may not challenge your own character, so if you have two characters who could contend for this and one becomes Champion, someone will have to defeat them before you can challenge with the other character.

Champions who are convicted of a serious crime in character will be stripped of their title by the League authorities (being an ex-Champion criminal is cool enough that this is only an IC punishment).

Champion characters or players will be expected to display good sportsmanship.

The Championship battle is open to spectators, and we hope you will all come attend. There will be snacks.

Hall of Fame:
Trainers and teams who beat the Champion will permanently be recorded, with names and photos, in the Hall of Fame in the League building for everyone to see!

All of this will be launching on June 8th. I can’t wait, and I hope you all enjoy it.
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Sn0wfa11
Posts: 308
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:51 pm
MC name: Sn0wfa11

Re: Announcing Toro's Pokemon League!

Post: # 14063Post Sn0wfa11 »

We have an addition and clarifications on the rules!

First is the addition of the ‘Item Clause’ from VGC. Your team may not enter battle with any duplicate held items. This encourages more diverse strategies and creates a healthier battle environment. Both Elite Four members and challengers will be bound by this rule.

Second, a clarification on the rule against changing your team. You may not change your Pokemon between battles, nor are you allowed to change their moves or forms.

However, switching held items between battles will be allowed (so long as you follow the Item Clause within any particular battle). The intent of the Item Clause is to allow a greater array of strategies, and this fits in that same spirit. It also gives you a small way to adapt strategies between battles within a successful challenge, rather than only being able to apply anything you learn after you have lost.

With all of this said, we don’t plan on having any further rules or rule changes for the Elite Four- these were just clarifications that came up in the first few weeks of this challenge being open. We thank you for your patience.
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