I realise that the topic of the 'reigning champion' isn't what's up for discussion here, but I'd like to touch on it briefly just from the perspective of someone competing. If you want to skip this, just head to the cactuar emote. Sometimes the brackets don't work out perfectly in a tournament/competition and a person gets a bye, where they don't fight in the first round. Sometimes someone might even get two byes, so by the time they finally fight, the other person has already been through two fights before them.
This is just how these things work sometimes, so you have to be prepared to fight someone fresh when you've got a couple rounds in you. However, at the end of a tournament, you're at a massive disadvantage when it comes to the state of you vs your opponent, just in terms of exhaustion. Just food for thought, if nothing else.
As for the second-place prize question, I think it depends on the type of tournament you're aiming to run. If it's for fun, a little practice thing for people to keep their eye in, sure, give participation prizes out. If it's a professional tournament that's intended to be a chance for someone to make money from their skills, go ahead and give second place a little consolation prize to keep them afloat. From what I've seen however (and I could well be wrong here), that's not what it's about. It's about entertaining an audience, and giving the participants a chance to show off.
Carrying on with that train of thought, that entertainment and publicity are the main purposes of the tournament, I don't think a prize for the losers, no matter how well they've done before losing, is in line with the spirit of the competition. What's more entertaining? People competing for the one and only grand prize, second place just missing out and being painted as the underdog for the next time they compete, or a tournament where you get prize money just for doing well, even if you're ultimately a loser? Obviously that's subjective, but I'd argue the former would be the more entertaining to watch, if not compete in.
Outside of monetary rewards, the second place contestant doesn't exactly come out of the tournament without reward. ICly, they've demonstrated their skills to an audience, which could lead to business opportunities, be an ice-breaker for people who want to talk to them, or just simply feed their ego. OOCly, they've hopefully had a great time participating in the fun event you're running, and they might've met some people they can RP with in the future, more so than people eliminated earlier because they've been 'forced' to interact with more characters than them.
It would also mean your FC has to cash out additional gil, or they'd have to take some of the gil away from the champion's prize money. Either option isn't very good, at least in my opinion. Finally, I'll echo Tessariel's point as relates to giving in to people's whining. If someone cries loud enough and you change the image of your event, it'll not lead to anything good. At the end of the day, there are plenty of RP events in a similar vein with different rules that people can go to if they don't like yours, and the only legitimate reason I can see for any complaints is that they only participated for the OOC gil. Perhaps you could give second place a really crappy IC prize? Like the Eorzia equivalent of an 80's toaster?
This is just how these things work sometimes, so you have to be prepared to fight someone fresh when you've got a couple rounds in you. However, at the end of a tournament, you're at a massive disadvantage when it comes to the state of you vs your opponent, just in terms of exhaustion. Just food for thought, if nothing else.
As for the second-place prize question, I think it depends on the type of tournament you're aiming to run. If it's for fun, a little practice thing for people to keep their eye in, sure, give participation prizes out. If it's a professional tournament that's intended to be a chance for someone to make money from their skills, go ahead and give second place a little consolation prize to keep them afloat. From what I've seen however (and I could well be wrong here), that's not what it's about. It's about entertaining an audience, and giving the participants a chance to show off.
Carrying on with that train of thought, that entertainment and publicity are the main purposes of the tournament, I don't think a prize for the losers, no matter how well they've done before losing, is in line with the spirit of the competition. What's more entertaining? People competing for the one and only grand prize, second place just missing out and being painted as the underdog for the next time they compete, or a tournament where you get prize money just for doing well, even if you're ultimately a loser? Obviously that's subjective, but I'd argue the former would be the more entertaining to watch, if not compete in.
Outside of monetary rewards, the second place contestant doesn't exactly come out of the tournament without reward. ICly, they've demonstrated their skills to an audience, which could lead to business opportunities, be an ice-breaker for people who want to talk to them, or just simply feed their ego. OOCly, they've hopefully had a great time participating in the fun event you're running, and they might've met some people they can RP with in the future, more so than people eliminated earlier because they've been 'forced' to interact with more characters than them.
It would also mean your FC has to cash out additional gil, or they'd have to take some of the gil away from the champion's prize money. Either option isn't very good, at least in my opinion. Finally, I'll echo Tessariel's point as relates to giving in to people's whining. If someone cries loud enough and you change the image of your event, it'll not lead to anything good. At the end of the day, there are plenty of RP events in a similar vein with different rules that people can go to if they don't like yours, and the only legitimate reason I can see for any complaints is that they only participated for the OOC gil. Perhaps you could give second place a really crappy IC prize? Like the Eorzia equivalent of an 80's toaster?
