Z-I-v Battle Royale 2024

Welcome to Z-I-v Battle Royale 2024! In this contest, participants will submit simfiles, play them all, and vote to find out whose are the best! With this contest come rule changes to make everything more accessible and fun to everyone! Now for the overview...

OVERVIEW

Each week, you will submit one simfile. The following week, everyone will rate the simfiles on a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best). There are a total of eight submission weeks, split into four phases of two submission weeks each. Throughout these four phases, contestants will be sorted into one of two brackets: "Playing" and "Retry." At the beginning, all contestants will be in the Playing bracket, where everyone is safe from elimination. But as the phases progress, lower-scoring contestants will be moved to the Retry bracket, where they will have to score consistently well to avoid elimination. At the end of Phase 4, the Final Phase, the results of the contest will be revealed, and the first place winner will work together with the winner of last year's Summer Contest to select themes for Summer Contest 2024!

This contest will once again be run on the Z-I-v Contest Discord. The category in Z-I-v will still be used for simfile submissions, but announcements, simfile votes, and contest discussion will all take place on the Discord server. In fact, if you prefer not to use Z-I-v at all, you can even send your simfiles to forcednature via Discord direct messages instead!

To enter into the contest, join the Discord server by clicking the icon below and send your username and Zenius ID in the #signups channel under the Z-I-v Battle Royale 2024 category! Be sure to let forced know if you’re new to Discord and can’t find it!



CONTEST RULES

1. If you submit a simfile for a round, you are required to vote for all of the simfiles for that round. If you fail to vote, you will receive no points for your simfile.
2. You cannot vote for your own simfile.
3. You may submit only one simfile per round.
4. You must upload your simfile or send it to forcednature via Discord DM by the specified deadline.
5. You must participate in Phase 1 at least once to qualify for subsequent phases.
6. When uploading a simfile for a round, put the round number (e.g. Round 3) under "Section."
7. When uploading a simfile for a round while in the Retry bracket, put the round number plus Retry (e.g. Round 4 Retry) under “Section.”
8. If a duplicate song upload occurs, please put the name listed in the official spreadsheets in square brackets next to the song title, like so:

Bi [t7r]
Bi [Princess Pamela]

9. If you've been banned from a contest in the past, we reserve the right to reject your entry into the current contest.
10. If you edit or delete your file during the judging period, we reserve the right to disqualify that file.
11. If there is a tie at one of the cutoffs, all tied players will advance to the next round in their specific bracket.


SIMFILE RULES

1. Only one chart is required for a simfile. Only Singles charts are required. Doubles and/or lowers are a welcome addition!
2. The DDR X-Scale (1-20) will be used to rate chart difficulties for this contest.
3. DDR difficulty slot rating limits are now enforced: Challenge may not go above 19, Expert may not go above 18, Difficult may not go above 16, Basic may not go above 13, and Beginner may not go above 9. No 20s.
4. If your simfile's hardest chart is rated 14 or higher, it MUST have a lower that is rated 13 or below.
5. Songs must be arcade length (under 2:30).
6. Simfiles must be pad files. No keyboard charts. ITG tech elements are allowed in charts, but note that this contest is oriented toward DDR-styled charts.
7. No auto-generated steps.
8. You must submit new simfiles for this contest. No previously released simfiles.
9. You must submit a simfile that has not previously been criticized / given any feedback. If in doubt, ask forced on Discord.
10. Submitted simfiles must not be critiqued / given any feedback until voting week begins. This is so that no one gains any unfair advantage. The one and only exception to this rule is asking for help with regards to Difficulty ratings.
11. Graphics are not required, but they are recommended. If you can't make graphics and don't have someone to make them for you, placeholder graphics are provided. (See Main folder at the top of the post)


VOTING

During each voting period, players will rate all simfiles featured in that round on a scale from 1 to 10 (excluding their own simfile, of course). Ratings are separated by intervals of 0.5. This means file ratings such as 6/10, 7.5/10, and 9.5/10 are valid, but no decimals other than .5 are allowed. The lowest valid rating is 1/10, not 0.5/10.
Please submit your votes to forcednature via Discord direct messages. Do not use the Z-I-v private-messaging system. (Pro tip: Copying the current round's spreadsheet of simfiles and using that for your votes helps forced a lot!)
If you don't want to submit simfiles but still want to vote in the contest, it is preferred that you start on the first round rather than joining part of the way through. forcednature will determine your participation in doing so on a case-by-case basis.

DO NOT PUBLICLY RELEASE YOUR FILE RATINGS PRIOR TO THE VOTING DEADLINE AND DURING THE LIVE RESULTS REVEAL. This could lead to the disqualification of your file.

Prior to the voting deadline, you may adjust ratings by contacting forced, and letting him know what you intend to change.


SCORING

At the end of each round of voting, each simfile will have a final average score (rounded to two decimal places), which is the average of every vote given to that simfile plus the average of the ratings that simfile's author gave to the other simfiles. The points given to each participant each round will be the average score their simfile received multiplied by 100. The points accumulated at the end of each phase will be used to determine who gets eliminated at each cutoff.
For example, if my simfile got an average score of 7.41 at the end of a round, I would get a total of 741 points for that round.

DEADLINE

Submission deadline for both simfiles and votes will be every SUNDAY at 6:00 PM UTC / 1:00 PM EST (18:00 UTC). When Daylight Savings Time begins in the US on March 10th, the deadline will not shift to compensate and will still be at 6:00 PM UTC / 2:00 PM EDT.

SCHEDULE

Phase 1:
February 18 - February 25: Round 1 Submissions
February 25 - March 3: Round 1 Voting, Round 2 Submissions
March 3 - March 10: Round 2 Voting
-Cutoff 1-

Phase 2:
March 10 - March 17: Round 3 Submissions
March 17 - March 24: Round 3 Voting, Round 4 Submissions
March 24 - March 31: Round 4 Voting
-Cutoff 2-

Phase 3:
March 31 - April 7: Round 5 Submissions
April 7 - April 14: Round 5 Voting, Round 6 Submissions
April 14 - April 21: Round 6 Voting
-Cutoff 3-

Final Phase:
April 21 - April 28: Round 7 Submissions
April 28 - May 5: Round 7 Voting, Final Round Submissions
May 5 - May 12: Final Round Voting
May 12: Final Results

RETRY BRACKET (Double Elimination)

If you score in the lower 50% of a given Phase's Playing bracket, you are moved to the Retry bracket for one last chance to stay in the competition. But you will have to fight for it -- only the top-scoring 25% of competitors within the Retry bracket proceed to the next phase!

The lower-scoring 75% of competitors within the Retry bracket are eliminated from the competition. But don't worry; eliminations don't begin until Phase 3. Even in a worst-case scenario, you can still submit four simfiles to this contest!

The following image is a graphic which will show how the cutoffs work at each phase of this contest:


IN CUTOFF 1…
In the first cutoff at the end of Phase 1, the top 50% of the participants will continue in the Playing bracket, and the bottom 50% will be moved to the Retry bracket. No one will be eliminated from the contest yet.

Let’s use a running example. Let’s say 30 participants join BR2024. After the first cutoff (assuming no ties happen), 15 people will move on in the Playing bracket, and 15 people will fall into the Retry bracket.

IN CUTOFF 2…
In the second cutoff at the end of Phase 2, the top 50% in the Playing bracket will remain in the Playing bracket, and the bottom 50% of the Playing bracket will fall to the Retry bracket. For those already in the Retry bracket, the top 25% will continue in the Retry bracket, and the bottom 75% will be eliminated.

So, back to our example: 8 people in the Playing bracket will remain in the Playing bracket, while 7 will drop to the Retry bracket. 4 people already in the Retry bracket will continue in the Retry bracket, while the other 11 will be eliminated. So, at this point, 8 people are in the Playing bracket, 11 people are in the Retry bracket, and 11 people are eliminated.

IN CUTOFF 3…
In the third cutoff at the end of Phase 3, everyone in the Playing bracket gets to move on to the Final Phase regardless of performance. However, there’s a catch. For the top 50% of this phase's Playing bracket, there is a point bonus to reward their consistency. This point bonus is equal to (the number of top 50% participants that scored below them + 1) x 5. For example, if there are five people in the top 50% of Phase 3's Playing bracket, the person in third place will receive 15 bonus points ((2 people below them + 1) x 5). In the Retry bracket, the top 25% of the Retry bracket will move on to the final round. The bottom 75% will once again be eliminated.

Returning to our example, all 8 people in the Playing bracket move on to the final round with the top 4 people getting point bonuses which increase by increments of 5 in proportion to their placement. Of the 11 people in the Retry bracket, 3 people move on to the final round, and 8 people are eliminated. The final round will consist of 11 people.

HOW WILL VOTING WORK WITH THE RETRY BRACKET?

While the Retry bracket will split the participants into two groups, the voting will continue as if all participants were still in one group. All participants will vote for all simfiles in the round (aside from their own) regardless of if they are Playing bracket simfiles or Retry bracket simfiles. This is to ensure all simfiles get equal attention. However, please remember that Retry bracket simfiles for Phase 2 rounds and onwards should include “Retry bracket” in their section. So, for example, Playing bracket simfiles for Round 3 will be in the “Round 3” section, and Retry bracket simfiles for Round 3 will be in the “Round 3 Retry bracket” section. The ZIPs for each round will still contain all simfiles for both groups. This section separation is mostly to make it easier for us to track which simfiles are Retry bracket simfiles.


That concludes the explanation of this year's Battle Royale contest; further details will be given on the Z-I-v Contest Discord server. Submissions for Round 1 will open February 18th!

If you have any questions, let forced know in the Contest Discord or in a Discord DM!

---

gaming

gamer

---

Well guess who's participating again

---

whoaa, such an interesting simfile contest concept !!
I'm in