QW2018Teamleague/Rules

Format

The tournament will consist of two round robin stages contested by 16 teams. Stage 1: The “Qualification” stage.

• Teams will be split between 2 divisions of 8 teams each based on skill level.
• Each division is further split into 2 groups.
• Each team in a group will play each other once in a best-of-three (BO3) match.
• Points will be awarded based on match results, final group standing will be used to determine teams placing in the second stage (see Scores and ranking).

Stage 2: The “Cup” stage. Following the “Qualification” stage, the groups will be reshuffled based on their results to see which title they will be fighting for.

• Top 4 teams from Div 1 will contest the Platinum cup.
• Bottom 4 teams from Div 1 will contest the Gold cup.
• Top 4 teams from Div 2 will contest the Silver cup.
• Bottom 4 teams from Div 2 will contest the Bronze cup.

In each cup group each team will again play each other once, this time in a best-of-five (BO5) match. At the end of the season the team with the most points wins their respective group.

Note: In both stages, in the event of a tie in points then the number of frags accumulated will be used to determine the positioning. In the event that teams are tied on both points and frags then position will be determined based on the results of the teams head to head match during the tournament.

Map pool

• Claustrophobolis (dm2)
• The Abandoned base (dm3)
• Castle of the Damned (e1m2)
• Andromeda Nine CMT Edition (cmt4)
• Schloss Adler (schloss) - for div2 only

Note:Teams can pick other map’s if both agree.

Special case skill gap mitigation

To mitigate skill gap inside divisions or groups, admins will designate for the games with big skill gaps some measures that will give a favourable factor to the less skill team (benefiting team), namely:

• the benefiting team picks first map from the map pool;
• in case of loss on the 1st map, the benefiting team still picks the posterior map.
• if further necessary, the benefitting team can also pick the server with best ping for themselves or in case of equal pings the best team should increase their ping to a maximum of +25ms using cl_delay_packet.

This designation by the admins will be communicated to the teams.

Signing up

• Sign ups are made at the announcement of the tournament thread at quakeworld.nu.
• Teams should indicate: Team name and team short nick, Team Captain and Vice-Captain (plus emails via private message), Player’s nick, Teams colours, Country of players, and optional but advisable discord nick.

Team Restrictions

• Teams to consist of a minimum 6 (six) players to a maximum 8 (eight) players per team
• Addition/Swap: temporary, per game, is allowed if opponent team agrees. Permanent, per season, is allowed if all team captains in competitive group agree plus the admins. Addition/Swap is limited to 1st stage of competition.
• A player can only play in 1(one) team at the same time (Exceptional case a div2 player, can be invited to play simultaneously in div1)
• Players should use the nick they used for sign up, as well as team name
• All players have to be approved by the admins

Note: The team player minimum limit is added to safeguard realization of games.

Seedings

Teams will be seeded to fit:

1. a division where skill level should be the most nearest possible,
2. inside groups in the divisions were skill level should be distributed the most possible, and
3. in the competitive format of the 2nd stage of tournament.

Timeframe

All matches will have a deadline and teams should be active in communicating with each other and schedule their game. If a team is idling or deemed by the admins that they are not making an effort to produce the game it shall be considered the ofending team forfeits the match and a Walk Over (WO) shall be awarded to the opposition Weekends (Saturday and Sunday) will have priority for the game making. In case of a scheduling deadlock where 2 teams are unable to agree upon a date before a match deadline a WO will be awarded in favor of the team with weekend availability.

Note: The admin team acknowledges that some times life issues can interfere with availability. Special allowances can be made at admins discretion if both teams are in agreement. This will be assessed on a case by case basis, admins decision is final.

Match procedure (directed at team captains)

• Division/group details, match schedules and time frames will be posted on the tournament wiki page. Team captains and vice captains should check this regularly to see when their team is due to play and who against.
• It is the responsibility of team captains and vice captains to contact each other via Discord, email or talking on the servers in order to:
• Define a date and hour for the game to be held.
• Choose a server or servers for the games to be held, including procedures for the games to be fair. (see ping rules)
• At the time of the game teams should make all checks regarding clients, rulesets, models, scripts etc. BEFORE the start of the match (see allowed clients and rulesets). It is also recommended to run the checks again after any player substitutions between maps.
• Teams should set their names and also set a tag to the game, typing on console /4on4 qw2018, server settings should be also defined to comply with tournament rules (see server rules). Setting the game tag will help admins and spectators to know that the game is official.
• Should make the selection of the team to pick first map, and select the map:
• First map is decided by coin toss - /cmd rnd Team1 Team2
• The winner of the coin toss decides who picks first
• If a decider map is needed the team that picked last, toss first

No map can be played more than once, with he exception of a decider map on a div1 BO5 game, where the most evenly scored map will be replayed.

• Teams are free to substitute players from their roster in and out between maps but NOT during a game. If a player disconnects/times out during a game a substitute is NOT permitted until after the current map is finished (see Server problems)
• After the game the winning team should report the game with final map scores screenshots on the quakeworld.nu tournament thread (see match reporting).
• In the case of a team from North or South America (50% of total players on server) participating in the tournament, games involving that team should be held on servers located in the Netherlands or the United Kingdom.

Ping

• Choice of server should be suitable for both teams

The pings should be the most even for the 2 teams and measures like cl_delay_packet to increase the fairness of a match are welcomed.

• Matches must be played on the servers of the continent were the competition is being held.
• The team A with highest average ping can require the other team B to ping up to the level of team A's lowest pinging player. Only the best possible ping is accounted for. Using delay packet or rerouting to raise the ping of the lowest pinging player in order to force the other team to ping up more is NOT allowed and will be punished.
• The maximum minping that can be required is 52ms.
• Is its impossible to get a server fair pings for each teams (<=15ms), players can interchange between servers to make a fair game or increase the game communication latency with cl_delay_packet command to make the games the most fair possible.
• If players still can't agree on a server, please contact admins about it. Admin decision is final.

Server Settings

• Timelimit: 20 minutes
• Overtime: 5 minutes if match is a draw
• Deathmatch mode: 1
• Teamplay mode: 2
• Spawn mode: Either KTX/KTX2 Respawns or KTPro Spawn is to be selected
• Powerups: ON
• Discharge: ON
• FPS: A max of 77 fps is allowed.
• KFjump: Toggled OFF (command = tkfjump)
• Airstep: OFF
• Jawnmode: OFF
• Antilag (or equivalent): ON (unless both teams agree to play without it.)
• Fallbunny: ON (if server allows)
• No berzerk, midair, instagib or other unusual modes.
• These should be the basic 4on4 settings on all modern servers, but make sure to check.

Spectators

If a team requests nospecs-mode, the other team are obliged to comply.

Match Reporting

• The team that won a match should report the match.
• In order for a match to be valid you'll need to have screenshots from each played map
• Reports should be made on the tournament thread at https://www.quakeworld.nu/, stating the order of the maps played.

Scores and ranking

Points in 1st stage - Groups

• On a BO3 game 1 point per map win
• On a BO5 game 0.5 point per map win + 0.5 point to the winner team

Points in 2nd stage

• BO5, 1 point per map win

Note: In both stages, in the event of a tie in points then the number of frags accumulated will be used to determine the positioning. In the event that teams are tied on both points and frags then position will be determined based on the results of the teams head to head match during the tournament.

Walkover

• Walkovers are 2 pts + 300 frags
• The team giving out a WO might be further punished with points deduction if they did not try (or refused) to play their opponent.
• To make it as fair as possible in these kind of situations, admins will look into which solution is best in every case.

Allowed clients

Open source clients (with source code publicly available on Internet) that have equivalent checks/restrictions of ezQuake's:

• ezQuake (2.2.x, 3.0.x, 3.1.x, or new version of ezquake if its out while tournament is running), https://ezquake.github.io/
• FTEQW (1.00), http://fte.triptohell.info/
• FodQuake (0.4), http://fodquake.net/

Allowed rulesets

• ezQuake: smackdown, thunderdome or qcon
• FTEQW: strict
• FodQuake: eql

Note: Players should do f_ruleset checks before game start.

Allowed proxys

• QWfwd
• Qizmo 2.91

Using disallowed clients/proxies might lead to points deduction or even a WO.

Scripting and cheats

Allowed

• cl_fakeshaft (only mentioned here as it used to be forbidden)
• Different enemy skins

NOT allowed

• movement scripts (ezquake: cl_idrive must be OFF)
• kfjump
• custom rocket jump scripts
• Any other kind of movement scripts
• Teamoverlay
• Automated teamsays
• Radar
• Skin changing depending on health/armour/weapon
• Custom models not allowed by f_modified
• Any kind of cheat (wallhack, aimbot, timers etc.)
• Hacked clients
• Coaching, (timing quad and other items, relaying enemy positions and giving teamplay suggestions)

Failure to follow these restrictions can result in the player or team receiving harsh penalties such as, but not limited to…

• • points deduction
  • WO
  • player disqualification
  • team disqualification
  • permanent ban.

Warnings and disqualification

• 2 (two) warnings will result in disqualification

To retain order in the league and prevent teams from cheating effectively we may issue warnings to teams if they misbehave in some way.

Other offences

• Having one or several players intentionally drop from server during a game without replacing them
• Playing in more than one team, or playing under someone else's name in another team (mercing)
• Fakenicking to get into a division where you don't belong
• Griefing, flaming and general abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.
• Most of these cases result in direct disqualification of the player (and in some cases the whole team) and a ban of at least 1 season.

Server problems

• The current map should be played to the end, no matter the servers condition
• In case of a disconnected player, teams should pause the game, by team captain asking admin status, all players should concede it fast and elected admin player should type ""pause"". Teams should wait maximum 10 minutes for the player, after that if the player is not back into the server, game must resume.

This procedure exists to help a player/team that encountered a problem, but is not to be abused, which in that case will be analyzed by the admins.

• Admins will decide if a map should be replayed on another server

If a server gives 2 or more spikes that result in 100% packet loss for all players for more that 10seconds, the map should be replayed on another server if the teams does not agree to the score/situation.

Tournament admins

The admins are there to help you, so if you ever need our assistance or have any questions, you can find us in Discord the channel #Quakeworld. Admins can change/fix rules if problems occur. Tournament admins are:

•  bgnr (Discord alias joao_p_azevedo)
•  bps
•  DOG_SACRIFICE
•  RaggA

The QW 2018 Teamleague rules are based in EQL and Thunderdome rules, as well as previous tournament rules.