Hildreth

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Hello - I am Hildreth, if any of you seen TF2tv I do some Highlander casting and we at TF2tv interested in covering this tournament as well. We would probably focus on the European side but we would want to still cover NA. Anyhow got some general questions, I read the forum topics but I didn't really see anything that definately answered these questions.

1) When will this tournament start?
2) How long will it last.
3) What is the format (League/knockout or league then play offs?)
4) Do you have a team limit?
5) How heavily will you promote this - TF2 blog?
6) Prizes?

Some questions more based personally for me:

1) Is there a skill cap like can you enter a team of 6v6 people at a low/mid/high level?
2) I understand there is 2 conferences which don't play eachother ever, so will I be able to play for a team in NA and EU (I am in a Highlander team for UGC and I live in the UK).

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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Hey,

That would be great if TF2TV was interested in casting the European matches. eXtv will likely cast many of the NA matches so if you guys get involved for EU, we would be fully covered.

The answers to your first 6 questions are listed below:

1) The tournament will start the week after sign-ups end. Since sign-ups end April 9th, the first week of tournament action will be that next week.
2) We don't know how long it will last because we don't know how many teams will sign-up. The more teams that sign up, the longer the tournament will have to run (because there will be more rounds and we are playing one round per week).
3) It is a double elimination tournament.
4) There is no team limit (I assume you mean a limit to the number of teams that can sign up).
5) We are going to promote it pretty aggressively once we have all of the rules posted and a lot of the logistics 100% sorted out. We would appreciate all the help that the community can offer on promoting it.
6) We have not finalized the prizes yet but we are looking to talk to Valve about some Valve-related prizes and a few hardware companies about hardware prizes. We will likely also have a donation-fueled cash prize pot as well. Once again, though, we welcome prize-related ideas.

And your other two questions:

1) There is no skill cap and there will be no skill divisions. The event is open to everyone and everyone plays against everyone else.
2) I hadn't really considered this question yet but I am going to say that players can only play on one team and that team should be one that is in their region. Cross-ocean pings are not good and we do not want to deal with the consequences of players playing in the wrong region.

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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Everyone feel free to ask any more questions in this thread...


EDIT: The rules thread has been posted here: http://commforums.com/commft-highlan...les-t5121.html

pala4

Points: 252, Level: 5

Activity: 83.3%

Banned Items: Wrangler

why? it brought a lot of additional interest and tactics into 9v9 games
I understand why it is banned in 6v6, but dont understand, why it is banned in 9v9

Free

Points: 4,384, Level: 44

Activity: 41.7%

Two reasons:

1. We're not convinced that it's balanced even in 9v9, not to mention the combination of the Wrangler and other items, such as the Jag.

2. It's a grief weapon, one in a category that ferments undying rage and frustration on its application (one of the reasons the Caber was banned as well).

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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I think the most important reason is related to Free's first point: it makes some positions hard to push into and it causes stalemates on CP maps. Since we plan on having CP maps in the tournament, it would not be good to have an item in the event that causes stalemates.

I have talked to a EU player named emb who thinks we should have a poll about this since he thinks that the EU HL community wouldn't mind it. We will probably have two polls up after we release the map list today or tomorrow (since the Wrangler's impact is related to the maps on which it would be used). One poll will be for the NA community and one poll will be for the EU community since it may be the case that the two communities differ in their opinions of the weapon.

pala4

Points: 252, Level: 5

Activity: 83.3%

almost all classes make some positions hard to push in TF2, its the specific of this game

if follow your logic, it is needed to ban ubers, ban pyros, ban heavy, ban sticky traps etc. etc.

Lutraphobia

Points: 2,314, Level: 31

Activity: 25.0%

The thing about pyros, heavies, ubers and stickies is that they're tools of offence as well as defence. Offensive stickies can be used to carpet the cap preventing the defending team from blocking. Airblasts can similarly be used to push defenders off or away from the point. Heavies can absorb vast amounts of damage pushing in and can once in position lock down an area and provide a beachead for their team. The use of an uber, it goes without saying, is the most important and powerful offensive tool in a team's arsenal.

A level 3 wranglered sentry is something that gives the defensive side an enormous advantage without returning anything like a proportional return for the attacking team. In this respect it's already a problem but in addition wranglered sentries need grinding down which is no fun, in the same way that it would get old fairly quickly playing heavy duels in MGE.

[/devils advocate]

pala4

Points: 252, Level: 5

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seems like you havent played much with wrangler and dont know that it is a very powerful offence weapon, you just need to replace your sentry in time and your team gets an advantage in their push

just learn to use this weapon and fight against it - it is very interesting

but of course I dont insist because its your cup and you decide the rules

Hildreth

Points: 1,679, Level: 24

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Wrangler is a bit OP in my opinion but the Engineer on the whole is very underpowered so I see it as a way of balancing the classes.

Lutraphobia

Points: 2,314, Level: 31

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In highlander an engie running the gunslinger and the frontier justice is not underpowered by any stretch of the imagination. The engie can bumble about throwing down sentries occasionally but otherwise performing his support roles and if he and his team have done their jobs properly when the time comes to push he'll have 2 or 3 revenge crits stored up turning him immediately into an offensive powerhouse capable of single handedly punching a massive hole in the enemies defence.

In 6v6 5cp maps it's too easy to focus down a mini sentry and too hard to defend an engie as well as the demoman and medic for running gunslinger engie to be worthwile. But both that drawback and the engies slow running speed are not such an issue in HL.

@pala. I play engie in most of my highlander lobbies and I run the wrangler. It's a powerful tool but my point is not that it's useless to a team on the offence, just that it's far far far less useful to an attacking engie than a defending engie which is one of the reasons that it's particularly responsible for stalemates in the game. It doesn't give evenly to both sides even if both use it.

pala4

Points: 252, Level: 5

Activity: 83.3%

lobbies dont show anything, skill level in such games is even worse than on publics

I've been playing highlander games at a high level since summer 2009 and I know what I say. Level-3 sentry in offence may be a crucial factor to win a round, and I dont agree it has more impact in defence but that doesnt even matters.

Lonely engineer cant do anything without team support even with wrangler< so I still cant understand the logic to ban it.

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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Alright stop debating about the Wrangler in this thread and take your opinions to the polls.

European conference players vote here:
http://commforums.com/commft-hl-wran...34.html?t=5134

North American conference players vote here:
http://commforums.com/commft-hl-wran...35.html?t=5135

If you guys want to continue to discuss the Wrangler, do it in those threads. Leave this thread to other questions.

EDIT: The Wrangler is now officially banned in the NA conference and NOT banned in the EU conference.

Hoot

Points: 618, Level: 12

Activity: 66.7%

Do you guys have a default day and time in mind for the tourney matches? The reason I ask is that my team is also playing in the UGC HL season and we need to figure out availability on the roster since we can only have 4 subs on the lineup.

Peter Mansbridge

Points: 204, Level: 4

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It's unfortunately Thursday, which is kind of silly. Sunday seems to be the tried and true day...I don't know why leagues don't just stick to that.

Anyway, we're relying on the hope that it won't work for most teams and we can negotiate proper scheduling with one another.

Free

Points: 4,384, Level: 44

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The default match day is Thursday. There is no default match time.

However, teams are responsible for finalizing their match time and day between them, meaning they don't have to use the default day; they may play their match on any day in the given week. In other words, teams have a ton of flexibility. The default day is there in case of conflicts of schedule or an inability to agree to a different match day.

Hope that helps. :)

Graham

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We could run different default days for different conferences but we think that it makes more sense to use Thursday for both. This is for the sake of clarity and because we want to try to have matches done by Saturday so that we can schedule the next week of matches on Sunday (and yes, we know the EU standard is Sunday).

As Free said, though, the emphasis is on teams deciding their own matchday/time. We are looking for the teams to take the initiative on finding matchdays/times that are mutually acceptable instead of forcing each other to use the default.

Peter Mansbridge

Points: 204, Level: 4

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I understand, but scheduling it mid week is still not a very good idea. Most teams I know are not signing up for this reason but we're going to try our best to work with teams to get our matches played.

Even if the default day was Friday or Saturday or something that would work a lot better.

The problem with setting this kind of a default date is a team with poor sportsmanship who knows that a team is handcuffed and can't play on the default day may just say "We're playing default and nothing else" knowing that it would result in a free win for them.

Yeah maybe not THAT likely but I've run into some petty teams :(

mustardoverlord

Points: 3,784, Level: 40

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will mercs be allowed in matches?

just making sure

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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What do you mean?

mightymonarch

Points: 1,306, Level: 21

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I think he's asking about if teams can use ringers if a team can't field 9 for a match. Now that he's brought it up, I'm curious, too.

Also, when do rosters lock?

mustardoverlord

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It's not something often allowed in the US (except in TWL from what I've seen), but in Europe it's become pretty commonplace, and Europe is really the home of highlander, so I think it's a good idea.

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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Ringers that are not rostered are not allowed unless the other team agrees. Note the part of the rules that says the following:

Roster additions/alterations will be allowed until week 4 but teams must contact me (via Steam or via PM on the forums) to alter rosters on the registration thread. After week 4, rosters will remain unchanged.

So teams can contact me to have a ringer join their roster for a match until week 4, and that would be fine, but they may not just play with an un-rostered player. After week 4, the other team has to agree for each un-rostered ringer.

Please direct all future questions to the stickied questions thread. I am going to delete all of these other question-related threads in a few days.

Hildreth

Points: 1,679, Level: 24

Activity: 8.3%

Agree with Peter Mansbridge.

Some people got busy schedule, Thursdays especially are bad for us as a team and I just realized default day is Saturday. It makes logical sense to have to default day Sunday, because announcing the tournament today means given us 1 days notice to play on Sunday - Sunday being the day where you'll find 80% of matches played.

Doesn't make sense.

If it is a question of admins, I volunteer myself if you need assistance, especially for the EU side but truly our team and our opponents are going to find it mightily difficult to schedule any other day except Sunday, especially this week.

CanFo

Points: 18, Level: 1

Activity: 9.1%

Another question regarding the rules:
What are the rules regarding pauses? Are pauses allowed? At what time? (not during a push, at the end of a round, if the opponent agrees, ...)

sss3

Points: 114, Level: 2

Activity: 8.3%

CommFT really needs to reconsider their stance on mercs (or ringers, if you will). Highlander is notoriously hard to organize without using mercs, since there are so many people involved.
Now, if we look at the cup stage from ETF2L's highlander cup (linky linky)...

Of the 255 matches played in the cup stage, 221 had properly reported player IDs (ie. they submitted status screenshots). Of those, 163 used at least one merc. That's almost 75% of all the cup stage matches with player data submitted, and 64% of ALL cup stage matches.
Presumably most teams used mercs as a last resort, meaning that if mercs hadn't been allowed they would've been forced to accept a default loss. Add this to the fact that teams could have 14 players on their roster in the HCC, compared to CommFT's 13, and it starts looking very grim.

So I beg of you, PLEASE reconsider. With the current stance on mercs, you run the risk of seeing a very high rate of default losses/wins, which wouldn't be fun for anyone.

Teh Lemon

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Activity: 9.1%

Why is there a merc thread if mercs aren't allowed?

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

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The default day is Thursday for both conferences. The last day that matches may be played each week is Saturday. Nevertheless, if your team can only play on the Sunday after the Saturday deadline, we can allow a 1-day extension in certain cases. One such case would be when the other team is unyielding and unreasonably demanding the Thursday deadline day. Just get in touch with us and we will get it sorted out.

This thread has now been merged with the questions thread.

Graham

Points: 87,431, Level: 100

Activity: 8.3%

PLEASE read my post. Mercs are allowed as long as they are rostered, or, after week 4, both teams agree to their inclusion. None of the issues you are complaining about exist under this system since teams can add mercs whenever they need them as long as they contact us or as long as both teams agree. There is no argument here...

Read my post.


This thread has now been merged with the questions thread.

dasho

Points: 297, Level: 5

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With the few most recent patches I know for a lot of people (including myself) that it is almost impossible to play TF2 without crashing to desktop.

Personally I've crashed on basically everything possible. I'm lucky if I can even join a server, let alone play.

Stuff I've crashed to desktop on:
-server connect
-server disconnect
-randomly during play (sometimes on respawn, sometimes on death, sometimes while just fighting, etc.)
-opening my backpack
-opening the store
-opening class change menu

You can see where this is going, but some people have it just as bad as me, some not quite as bad...

What can we do if several members on our team have issues like this, and no fix is put out by the time of our scheduled match? It would be really shitty to forfeit/lose a game because Valve put out a patch that killed TF2 the week before you're supposed to play a match. Can we request a delay of the match, if so, how long?

I would hope Valve puts out a fix soon, but there's no real way of knowing how long it will take them to get it out.

Thanks