66 replies to this topic

[Jay Z]

EDIT: All aboard the hype-train to Midway!
live1991 of OMC has been working on a 4v4 league called Battle for Midway complete with a website and all (and it looks awesome). Go check out the site, sign up and get keen!!!

http://www.battlefor...forum/forum.php

http://www.battlefor...viewtopic.php?2

Dates:
- 10/08 Rules Finalised
- 15/08 Team Signup Deadline
- 17/08 Week 0 (scheduling for Week 1 matches)
- 24/08 Week 1 of matches begins!

Note: I was not aware of this when I made my post yesterday and was just keen to get the ball rolling for real in terms of oceanic 4v4. The interest here has been very encouraging and I am sure we will have lots of newer teams. live1991 has a proper website, great ruleset and a lot more preparation so I encourage all interested (particularly team leaders) to sign up on the site linked.

Oceanic 4v4 League

Intro: Here is a draft ruleset that aims to cater for as many Oceanic units of varying size as possible and encourage people to have a go. The fundamental rules are quite simple however I will elaborate on the details for clarity. As you will see it takes inspiration from MRBC, RHoD and MLMW yet remains accessible to small units/groups of mates. I will be editing this post with revisions. Nothing has been set in stone yet, still at the planing phase so post your feedback and get keen!

Pilot Eligibility: Initial rosters of at least 4 (max 12?) are submitted at start of season. Pilots can be added during season if they have not been on any other roster. (Same as MRBC). No geographical limit on pilots but all matches will be on Singapore server.

Team Eligilbility: Pilots within a team do not require the same unit tag (although preferred). Units can enter multiple teams (228: Sobriety Overrated and 228: Choomahdactyls). Roster rules apply.

Format: 2 Stages; Swiss Seeding, Round Robin (this system works with any number of teams)

- Swiss Seeding:
The number of seeding rounds is 2 for up to 4 teams, 3 for up to 8 teams, 4 for up to 16 teams etc,. Round 1 matchups will be random (or approx rating). As per swiss pairing, teams with equal W/L will face each other. Once complete, a rough ladder of teams will be obtained. This can be split into Divisions. (i.e. top 8 become Division A, bottom 8 become Division . The number and size of the divisions is completely adjustable. This is to encourage newer pilots/teams to have a go and enter the comp scene while the established comp teams (AP MRBC, some EU RHoD?) can still duke it out. If there are a small number of teams and 1 Division seems appropriate, this stage can be skipped completely.

- Round Robin:
Pretty straightforward, we fight every other team in the Division in turn with a leaderboard. End of Season ranking determine winner.

- Finals? Top 2/4 teams play Best of 5 Finals (Optional)

Matches:
This is where it gets interesting. Best of 3 format (all drops played out):

Drop 1: Conquest 1/1/1/1
Drop 2: Skirmish 240 tons
Drop 3: Conquest 1/1/1/1
-----------------------
Drop 4: Skirmish 240 tons (only used for Finals)
Drop 5: Conquest 1/1/1/1 (only used for Finals)

Maps will be predetermined from a randomised list (Like MRBC/MLMW, maps are known in advance with Alpine, Terra Therma and Viridian Bog excluded). Lower seeded team choses spawn for Drop 1. Loser of previous drop chooses spawn for drops 2+. (For reference, Team 1, Red Spawn creates lobby and Team 2, Blue Spawn gets invited to lobby). Spawn selection is optional, I included as a formality.

In case of tie on skirmish, both teams get a loss for the drop. Redrop if tied on conquest (that should never happen realistically). There will be no damage countback (unlike MRBC). Gamemode win conditions decide drop win (kill advantage on Skirmish, capture points or team elimination on conquest). Time limit to 10 minutes (should be fine for 4v4, although 15 is fine).

Singapore Server only.

No Strikes

1 Mulligan per team, per match series. Only used in case of pilot DC, illegal dropdeck, IRL disaster. Point of no return (void mulligan) is 1 Minute into game or if any damage has being dealt. The team calling mulligan should type "mulligan" in all chat then all 4 pilots disconnect promptly (this is to prevent that team from seeing enemy loadout or dropdeck).

Scheduling: As per AP MRBC. 1 match per week. Work it out with each other and try to be flexible. Fall-back is Friday 9:00pm AEST (this time seems to be the most universal). If both teams agree to delay a match and play 2 the next week that's fine. (I suggest match start time between 8:00pm and 10:00pm AEST)

Leaderboard scoring: 2 points for match win, 1 point for tie, 0 for match loss. Drops won/lost recorded to split teams on same match W/L. Mechs destroyed/lost likewise recorded. (Forfeits count as 3/0 drop win, 12/0 mechs destroyed/lost).

Seasons: Season length = seeding weeks + division size-1. So for 16 teams (4 seeding weeks) and 2 8 team divisions, seasons will be 11 weeks long.

Mech Eligibility: Any non-preorder mech. Max 1 Clan mech (IS only also good). No duplicate chassis.

Spectating: Spectators must be there to stream and not be same TS channel as competing teams. Streams on at least 5 minute delay.

Issues: Board of team leaders etc. (you get the idea)

Common sense: Don’t cheat, be respectful, have fun

edits: spelling, grammar and wording

Edited by Jay Z, 03 August 2015 - 04:57 PM.

[old man odin]

Jay Z, on 02 August 2015 - 06:23 PM, said:

Mech Eligibility: Any non-preorder mech. Max 1 Clan mech (IS only also good). No duplicate chassis.

Eh, I prefer the original draft with Max 2 Clan Mechs, but one is okay. IS only though is unnecessarily prohibitive for Clan units.

[Infrasound]

Mech Eligibility: Any non-preorder mech. Max 1 Clan mech (IS only also good). No duplicate chassis

^^ Clarity please, so Only one Raven? Or One Raven 3L and One Raven 4x and one Raven 2x would be fine.

Edited by Infrasound, 02 August 2015 - 06:35 PM.

[Jay Z]

Chassis. Not variant. So only 1 Raven. If you have a Raven 4X in your dropdeck, then no other Ravens.

[Flying Fox 333]

The mech eligibility criteria is always going to be a contentious issue.

Why not have two categories running side by side one IS the other clan? A player can be rostered on a different team in each category if they need to in order to participate. E.g. Their team is IS specific and they want to compete in clan mechs as well.

This will mitigate balance issues down the line when the implemented battle value system adjusts the quirks across the board.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Jay Z ... a couple of comments ...

- Swiss Seeding match results don't count towards the end-of-season ranking (but the round robin matches do), right?

- I'm on the fence about Clan 'mechs, but I think "up to two" clan 'mechs per deck is a good compromise. If there's enough interest, then we could go with an IS division and a Clammer division next time around (possibly with some IS-vs-Clan finals action).

- We need to be as transparent as possible about spectators & streaming ... you know more about it than pretty much anyone else in the time zone, but there has to be a way to ensure that a spectator is not a "5th man in God mode".

[Jay Z]

Swiss seeding is just for sorting teams into divisions. That's it. Round robin phase starts at 0 points. If there are only enough teams for 1 division then there will be no Swiss seeding at all.

With Clan mechs, some want IS only, some want 2. 1 is a compromise that stops DWF+TBR monotony but allows some variation. This may have to go to a strawpoll to decide.

I don't want to run simultaneous Clan and IS divisions. I'd rather have Comp, Casual, Entry or something like that since the aim is to grow the OC comp scene, particularly first time competitive pilots and run multiple divisions to suit.

Yeah, spectating and streaming oceanic competitive matches is, in my opinion, the best advertisement for our timezone. Putting my tinfoil hat on, the only way to cheat would be through TS chat messages during match. TS is third party so there is not much the rules can do to stop it other than gentlemen's agreement and disqualification if found out. As stipulated, spectators cannot be in same TS channel as competing team and should not be of the same unit. i.e. I won't be casting any 228 matches. Also, if someone is spectating, they should also be streaming. I trust the various unit leaders/spectators to do the right thing.

That said, if anyone wants some tips on casting/streaming hit me up, I did it for HPL.

Edited by Jay Z, 02 August 2015 - 08:05 PM.

[Mycrus]

Topic subbed!

Ill spam invites to the oceanic units i know tonight

[mr bear]

Folks,
I'm going to suggest that we try to keep Jay Z's life as simple as possible.
Keep it to 1xClan Mech per team first. We can review after the first season and see if we want to bump up to 2... for the next season.

Going to presume that this will be replacing the HPL as intended.

Can I suggest that we figure out the working committee first for the event?

[Jay Z]

Yeah, a good step forward would be an open TS meeting to discuss stuff and catch up. Friday night on comstar TS?

[Angry Kylo Ren]

1 clan mech is annoying for clan pilots or units. In a small timezone the rules should be more inclusive no? I know in my unit most of the guys have chucked the majority of their IS mechs away. You're worried about meta becoming stale in a timezone where the comp scene doesn't even exist yet. May want to give it a couple seasons for players to build up their mech stables before over handicapping the system.

Also with wolverine, dragon, Raven, banshee, tdr etc quirks clan needing to be so strictly balanced is kind of an outdated concept (only DWF has no peer for the tonnage imo)

Ie: 1 clan mech allowed I'll probably play with another unit for the event (i have all the broken Is mechs). More, and I could possibly get my unit to send a team.

For the sake of inclusivity it makes more sense to start at 2/2 and reduce to 1/3 if it is an issue.

[old man odin]

Jay Z, on 02 August 2015 - 08:04 PM, said:

With Clan mechs, some want IS only, some want 2. 1 is a compromise that stops DWF+TBR monotony but allows some variation. This may have to go to a strawpoll to decide.

In this case I really recommend the RHOD rules for this. You're not allowed to repeat a chassis a certain amount of times in the entire set of drops. I leads to some pretty interesting substitutions (e.g. PUGSTARx dropped Protectors on Crimson straight). The rules in the OP would just lead to spamming of other mechs. The last thing I want to see is match after match of Thunderbolts because we didn't want Timber Wolves.

Edited by Odins Steed, 02 August 2015 - 09:45 PM.

[Jay Z]

I just read the RHoD rules and they are interesting. I'll have to think about it but the idea of more varied weights and mech pools could be a better system. For those in RHoD EU, how long does a whole match take from start to finish? 1 hour?

[Angry Kylo Ren]

I like the RHoD rules.

Anyways, let me throw a shout out to our unit and see who may be interested. Thanks for organizing. I'm overseas in UK and only back on the weekend but would be open to helping organize as well if need be.

[mr bear]

Jay Z,
Friday night be good. 9pm GMT+8 good for you? Would be around 11pm I reckon?

Makbeer, well your unit is a Clan unit so they would have more Clan Mechs. Me I'm happy to run IS

Dumb idea would be to reverse engineer... 4 Clans Vs 5 IS Mechs say 240 Clan Vs 300 IS? Bwahahahahhaha

[Better Call Saul]

Jay Z, on 02 August 2015 - 10:03 PM, said:

I just read the RHoD rules and they are interesting. I'll have to think about it but the idea of more varied weights and mech pools could be a better system. For those in RHoD EU, how long does a whole match take from start to finish? 1 hour?

1=> 1.5 hours total, some time stuffing around setting up lobbies as each team gets to choose preferred Team1/2 and associated lance. Most teams have mechs prepped and each lobby match time is set to 10 minutes.

As stated before count JGx in :-)

As for the rules

Some limitations on the Roster might be needed to stop people from introducing players at the last minute etc? Aka roster lock 2 weeks before finals (stops ring-ins for finals).

I like the idea of Conquest game mode, it works well in RHOD. It was better last season only being able to cap Theta. This season you can cap the start spawn if it was capped, chasing around 4 mechs on large maps isn't so fun. Plus Conq Alpine is good.

So yeah consider dropping Skirmish if people's experience is standoffish/too much camping?

Define lobby settings to be used in the rules, 1st person view only maybe? None of that switching to 3rd person to see over hill etc. and Session length 10 or 15 minutes?

Edited by Better Call Saul, 03 August 2015 - 01:53 AM.

[Cashel]

ISRC will likely try to field a couple teams for this - seems like a few of my guys are interested in being involved.

I think that you would want to have the requirement that a team should be comprised of that unit though - otherwise what's to stop someone cherry picking the best guys of whatever units? I understand and support the idea of allowing some non-unit guys if it's more than 4 ... but getting 4 guys together (with obviously having substitute if real life gets in the way) in your unit should be achievable. If that involves some recruiting, well, ok.

Shouldn't be an issue for 228, JGX, ISRC, ARMD, CI, other decent sized and skilled units to field enough players. I reckon it's a good idea to limit/prevent ringers early on in this - otherwise what's to stop me bringing a Cashel's casuals™ group and trying to hide behind whatever apex level guys decided it would be fun to play there?

[Adsbom]

Looks good Jay.

I would prefer 1 Clan, however, if a 2/2 ratio is chosen for the rules the Swiss seeding logically should sort the teams who want to play IS only into the lower divisions (this of course makes the accepted assumption that clan mechs are superior). Thus for example, the result might be 3 divisions, Div A with all teams using 2/2 due to competitive advantage, Div B with a mix of 1/3 & 2/2 and Div C mix of 0/4 (ie teams who don't want to use clan mechs and therefore handicap themselves) and 1/3. This way clan units should be able to get a 2/2 team together, and teams who want IS only and don't mind being not as competitive can still play in an environment where they will have roughly matched opponents.

Lobby rules look good Saul, 1st person only and 10 minutes sounds fair.

[White Bear 84]

As DC for TOG and TOGc I would be keen to enter a couple of teams, will forward the post to our pilots for expressions of interest.

Jay Z, on 02 August 2015 - 08:59 PM, said:

Yeah, a good step forward would be an open TS meeting to discuss stuff and catch up. Friday night on comstar TS?

Keep us posted

Great work getting this set up Jay-Z & a thanks to Mycrus for forwarding the info.

Edit: Clarification on mechs - will the event include hero mechs?,

Edited by White Bear 84, 03 August 2015 - 08:33 AM.

[Nephoros Sradac]

Not interested as I am sick of predominant competitions that restrict the use of clan mechs.....