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RGL HL S4 League Structure, Plans, and More (Part 1)

   exa   - 9/10/2019

Register Now For Season 4


Important Details


Region
North America

Region Wars Cup
August 31st - September 8th

New Team Registration Ends & Invite Fees Due
September 30th

Placement of Teams
October 1st

Roster Locks
November 11th

Regular Season
7th October - 18 November

Playoffs
25 November - 9 December

Default Match Day
Monday @ 9:30 PM EST

Cost
All non-Invite division are free



How to find a team to join


Finding a team is not hard, but it does require you to put in a little effort.

New Players to Competitive:

We encourage you to make a post in the websites Looking For Team (LFT) section and also post in our Discord #lft channel.

You should also contact leaders of teams who need a player. You can find them listed in the Teams Looking for Players (LFP) section and also the LFP section of our Discord #lfp channel.

Experienced Players to Competitive:

We particularly encourage you to make a thread on the RGL HL LFT forums section. This will allow you to advertise yourself to higher profile teams.

Browsing the LFP section of the forums will also present you with many teams that are looking to recruit players.


Survey Results


RGL HL S3 Postseason Survey Results
RGL HL S3 Invite/Advanced Survey Results

Here are the results with the two surveys that we published weeks ago. For the Postseason Survey, results of only Invite Players are on Page 13. For the Invite / Advanced Survey, results of Invite players who voted on the Advanced questions and Advanced players who voted on the Invite questions were removed.

Throughout this article, Season 4 changes that were made as directly as a result of community feedback are highlighted.


League Format


With Season 4 of RGL Highlander beginning, there are many changes that we wish to change or improve on that were either successful or were not very well received by players in the third season.

Invite

The first of which includes changes to the Invite structure. In the third season, we had a individual fee payment structure in order to participate for matches. The logistics of ensuring that everyone was paid up proved to be challenging for all teams and was a task that was even difficult to enforce for our Invite admin. As such, if we maintain a payment structure in Invite, the following will happen:

  • Invite will feature a team payment structure similar to how it was incorporated in Season 2. Each team will pay a one-time fee, which will allow the entire roster to participate in all matches during the season. The drawbacks of this is the smaller prize pool, compared to a per player payment structure. (This has been voted on in the Invite/Advanced Survey).

Regular Season

  • Team Fees will be $125 per team. This is to maintain the $1,000 prize pool for Invite.
  • We will push for an 8-team Invite again for Season 4. If we do hit 8 teams, this means that Invite have a 7-week regular season.



In Season 1, Invite did map pick/bans during the regular season. This allowed for a 10-map pool system of Product, Lakeside, Ashville, Cascade, Warmtic, Swiftwater, Vigil, Upward, Borneo, and Steel. The issue with the pick/ban season was that people just banned the new maps that they were unfamiliar with and teams ended up playing the same maps across multiple weeks (e.g. Product). A viable way to counter this (if we do decide to reintroduce pick/bans again) could be:

  • Preventing teams from banning the same map in consecutive weeks
  • X new maps must be banned every week

The idea here is that teams would have to start banning the maps that they have picked in previous weeks, which would potentially allow for a more diverse map pool if teams are left with the newer maps in the remaining map pool ban list. It is also important to note that Cascade, Warmtic, and Vigil were all picked at least once in the Invite regular season for S1 with Cascade being picked twice.

  • For Season 4, we plan to default to a weekly rotation in regular season and traditional pick ban in playoffs. This is due to a combination of the survey results being so close, as well as not having a definitive proposals that we particularly liked to address the cons of the format. We would be interested to ask Invite players what seems good.

Playoffs

  • Double-elimination Swiss bracket - top 4 teams (This has been voted on in the Invite/Advanced Survey).
  • Lower bracket final match will be played on Monday. Grand Finals (if it gets to a second match) must be played on the same week.

Advanced

In the Invite/Advanced Survey, we asked several questions, which I will be covering in this section.



If Advanced ever does feature a paid format, it could greatly increase the prize pool. Unfortunately, players were not in favor of such a system. Advanced will continue to be a free division.



The rule of Invite players being only able to offclass in Advanced is something that we have done Season 1. It has been a policy that we have been enforcing on Advanced teams and making sure that these Invite players are not playing their main class in a lower division. Not every situation is quite the same from player to player, however, and we do understand that (a top-Invite player versus a low-Invite player). In the spirit of ensuring strong anti-sandbagging rules, coupled with the idea that Advanced players agree that this should be enforced, we will continue to keep this measure in place.



Advanced has maintained a round-robin structure since the first season of RGL highlander. If the size of the division is larger, it would allow this division to switch to a Swiss structure and for more teams to participate in Advanced (if we feel that there are Main teams that should be bumped up). The players voted no, so we will keep the round-robin structure.



Lastly, Advanced has utilized a single-gauntlet structure since its introduction in Season 1. It has seemed that players would rather prefer a double-elimination structure for playoffs. The drawbacks for this are the longer postseason, as well as the lower bracket grand finals match that would have to be played on an off-day. Advanced should be using a double-elimination playoff structure for Season 4 .


All Divisions Structure


NOTE: Maps are subject to be changed or added based off feedback from the RGL HL Survey. A full map pool will be announced in a part 2 article.

Regular Season


  • Invite and Advanced will feature a round-robin format.
  • Main, Intermediate, and Open will feature a Swiss-format.

Playoffs


The number of playoff spots may grow/shrink depending on division size before Week 1.

  • Invite - See above for Invite playoff structure
  • Advanced - double-elimination structure - top 4 teams (This has been voted on in the Advanced Survey).
  • Main - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 6 teams
  • Intermediate - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 8 teams
  • Open division - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 8 teams

Please note that a team’s division is still subject to change as the week goes on or if a team leader can make a compelling case for being in a division. Players that leave and join new rosters during the season will also be monitored. If you believe that a team should be in a different division, you can contact us here on Discord.


Rule Changes


Ever since the introduction of RGL Highlander, we have continued to modify the rules to better address the issues that occur in the format. It has become increasingly apparent that our rules for certain sections be vague, not addressing certain cases, or is not flexible.

Thus, we spent a good amount of time this offseason going through our ruleset and rewriting each section. Due to the amount of rule edits, it would take up too much of this article, so the important rule changes will be covered here. You can view the full updated rules here.




This section here has been rewritten to include what is considered on-platform versus off-platform, as well as how the league addresses harassment. This also includes clarity about how we handle weapon incidents.







Server changes in between halves are completely optional. If a team wishes to do so (due to ping issues, etc.), this is how the procedure is handled.



Addressing players that are stuttering, teleporting, and warping. This section also addresses the event that a match is DDoSed (covering what happened in the S3 KND match).



Pauses cannot be longer than 15 minutes (increased from 5). This is to address several match incidents that teams abused last season. Teams are expected to be courteous and give the opposing team enough pause time to get all their players to resume the match.



Forfeits now give you 1.6 match points (up from 1.5). If the match is not rescheduled and played, the match points will not be redistributed.



Teams that do not report match scores delay the scheduling of each match week. To encourage teams to report match scores in a timely manner (24 hours after the match) and avoid having an admin "hunt" down the teams to see if the match is played, penalties will be issued.


Other Changes


Whitelist


We have updated our whitelist for Season 4.

Changes:

  • Halloween/Full-Moon Items allowed
  • All newly added cosmetics (up-to-today) have been added in
  • Yeti Punch and Yeti Smash taunts allowed
  • New items added to the game will be allowed

This should be updated on the na.serveme.tf servers. If you own a dedicated server, please make sure you update your whitelist as well. Thanks.


Staffing Changes


We are moving our division admins around for Season 4.

The following reflects the updated positions of each admin in RGL HL:


We have also taken on 6 moderators to help with day to day activities. They will be answering general questions, moderating the discord and forums as well as providing general support during match days.

Moderators will be assigned divisions to split the workload. If you need to speak to a moderator immediately, you are free to ask any admin/moderator that is online at the time but avoiding using this as your primary method of communication. If you need help with important matters such as rosters, harassment, cheating, etc., please contact your division admin instead.

These are the following division moderators:


Thanks to everyone who has applied for the division admin or moderator positions.


Invite Players in Main


In Season 2, we allowed Invite players to participate in Main, but they needed approval by an admin to join the roster/ring. In Season 3, we restricted Invite players from participating in Main.

We will be laxing our guidelines in Main regarding Invite players. Going forward in Season 4, Invite players will now be able to participate in the Main division, but they must be approved by an admin to play an offclass.


Prize Winnings


For RGL HL Season 3, our expected prize pool is looking to sustain the $1,000 prize pool for the Invite division. Payouts to the top 3 teams. (This has been voted on in the Invite/Advanced Survey).

1st Place
$520

2nd Place
$360

3rd Place
$120



Invite S3 Award Results


Congratulations to the winners of their respective categories:

– pablo
– dev
– River
– Jarrett
– carcin
– exa_
– Wall
– shaayy
– Dimento
Debut of the Season – wile
Most Improved of the Season – jetz
Production of the Season – DolphiN
Best Player of the Season – pablo


Bans


These bans were enacted before the release of this article.

The following player have been caught cheating by the RGL team and will be banned for one year:


In any of our cheating cases that is dealt with in RGL, it can be a lengthy investigation that can span multiple seasons. Admins may request POVs throughout the season to help aid in these cases. It should be noted that information found by the RGL AC team is confidential. Similar to how anti-cheat plugins and software are never open-sourced, findings (of how a particular player is cheating) are kept within the respective team in order to not be utilized by groups that can potentially utilize this information for their own advantage. As such, each cheating case is dealt in a careful and slow manner to avoid the potential of a false positive.

You can read RGL's stance on cheating and its rules here:



The following account is the alt account associated with BIGJAKE and will be banned.


The following players used derogatory terms or racial slurs on RGL platforms.


The following player will be restricted from participating in RGL Season 4 for the following reasons:

- Evading multiple matches on an alt (Region wars)
- Aiding others in disruption of casted matches
- Aiding others in raiding both RGL platforms
- Making a racial / harassing post on RGL forums
- Second offense in the last 3 months


The following player has a case with sexual harassment, possessing sexually explicit images of minors, and blackmailing a minor with these images. They will not be able to compete in RGL for 3 years.


The following player used derogatory or racial slurs on RGL platform, has several cases of cheating, and has ban evaded on an alt numerous times in matches (interrupting casted matches). They will be restricted from ever participating in RGL.


You can read further details and context about each of the player's bans by viewing their discipline history on their RGL profile.


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