- Interested in helping out RGL and being a part of the staff team? Open staff positions and applications for SUMMER 2024 can be viewed here.

- Click here to complete S17 Post-Season Survey #1! Survey closes in on Apr 9th @ 11:59PM EDT!

- Click here to complete RGL LAN 2024 Survey! Survey closes in Apr 7th @ 11:59PM EDT!

RGL HL S5 Updated Map List, Invite Qualifers, and More

   exa   - 1/28/2020
Past articles: RGL HL S5 League Structure, Plans, and More (Part 1)

Important Details


  • New Team Registration Ends & Invite Fees Due: February 4th (Invite registration ends January 27th @ 6 PM EST)
  • Invite Qualifiers: February 2nd – February 3rd
  • Placement of Teams: February 6th
  • Weekly roster join limit changes from unlimited to two per week: March 1st
  • Regular Season: February 10th – March 23rd (7 Weeks)
  • Roster Locks: March 16th
  • Playoffs: March 30th – April 20th* (3 Weeks)

* Invite/Adv will have GF an extra week with double-elimination.

Maps


RGL Ashville & Product Map Results (All Divisions)

Ashville Invite Results


Product Invite Results



Ashville


In the Invite division, 38 players voted for the nobuild in shutter option. 32 players voted to play for the regular version or a new map. This means that the nobuild shutter version has won a 38-32 vote.

In all divisions (subtracting the Invite player results), 50 players voted for the nobuild in shutter option. 120 players voted to player for the regular version or a new map. This means that the players in other divisions do not want to play the nobuild shutter version in a 120-50 vote.

Product


NOTE for the Product survey: The wording of some of the questions was changed shortly after the survey was released. This is why question ID #399 has one vote and "Continue to play it" has three votes.

In the Invite division, 25 players voted to play Product (this is adding up the votes for playing it every season and to continue to play it). 31 players voted to alternate Product with a different map or to retire the map. This means that the vote to play Product has lost in 31-25 vote.

In all divisions (subtracting the Invite player results), 57 players voted for to play Product. 56 players voted to alternate Product with a different map or to retire the map. This means that the vote to play Product has won in 57-56 vote.

Conclusions

Invite has voted in favor of the nobuild in Ashville shutter option. The other divisions have voted against such a procedure.

UPDATE: Upon further review, having the other divisions run a different version and making players play a different game did not make logical sense. To keep it consistent, all divisions will be running the same nobuild version.

Invite has voted in favor of not playing Product. The other divisions have voted against such a procedure in a very close vote. Due to the vote being so close, Invite results will be measured much more and will lead to Product being swapped out for this season. All divisions voted in favor of a King of the Hill game mode, with koth_lakeside_final being the replacement for Product.

The following map pool for RGL Highlander Season 5 is detailed as below:

Map Pool



NOTE: The latest versions of each map will be played.


Invite Preseason Qualifiers


We will be reintroducing the Invite Preseason Qualifiers for Season 5. The qualifiers will take place from February 2nd - February 3rd (9:30 ET on Sunday, and 8:30/930 ET on Monday). There will be set maps for each match using the Season 5 map pool (first match will be on Upward, 2nd match will be on Ashville (no build version), and 3rd match will be decided using a map pick/ban system). The confirmed teams that were chosen are a mix of the returning top 4 teams from Season 4, new strong forming teams for Season 5, and the Advanced winning team.

Our confirmed teams for Season 5 are:


For the preseason qualifiers, we will feature 1 group of 4 teams in a group stage structure. We will be running a 8-team Invite. The #1 team will earn their spot in Invite for Season 5.

The four teams competing in the Invite qualifiers are:


If you are a qualifying team that gets knocked down to Advanced, your players may be subject to class restrictions. These will be as lenient as possible and division guidelines may be adjusted to accommodate certain players on a case-by-case basis.


Placements


Teams that believe they belong in a higher division should be able to defeat at least half of the division above their current division OR dominate most of the top teams in their current division.

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, teams with significant changes will regularly be reevaluated and placed in a division. If you believe that a team should be in a different division, you can contact us here on Discord.

Discord roles will not be handled out until placements are finalized.


Rules


Update to Ringers


The default ringer rule has been a rule that has been implemented in the first season of RGL Highlander and seen in Prolander and ETF2L. The intention of this rule is to encourage sportsmanship, while also preventing team leaders from denying the request of all ringers. It is understandable that the availability of players may fluctuate and often a substitute cannot make it either -- which leads to the last resort of ringing a player to replace the starting player for the match. The issue lies when teams are intentionally abusing the default ringer rule by doing the following:

  • Replacing their starting player who is readily available and intentionally using a default ringer to “upgrade” their roster
  • Default ringing a player who is eliminated from playoffs and intentionally using them as a starting player to “upgrade” their roster

It also begs the question of: what is the point of having a roster of 18 player slots if teams are ringing more players for matches than substitution players? It has become abundantly clear that defined roles of a substitution player have become less prevalent and meaningful overtime as a result of the teams being able to default ring a player.


As such, we will be updating the default ringer rule for Invite and Advanced as shown above.



The updated rule above still does not address the fundamental issue of players being rang continuously for a specific team after roster locks during the postseason, as well as the declining viability of the usage of substitution players. It is clear that ringers have entered a norm. Based on player feedback and suggestions (Thanks Arzt for the specific proposal on the thread), we will be modifying the Highlander ringer rule to the following:



Reminders will be made to teams after roster locks of this amended rule.


Number of Non-NA players per roster



The rule of a cap on the number of non-NA TF2 players per RGL roster is a cap that has existed since the early beginnings of the league. There seems to be some misconceptions regarding this rule and the purpose of it. This will be better clarified and explained here.

  • Community Feedback

In the One-Day Prolander Cups and RGL Highlander Season 1, there was a lot of community feedback from players that expressed their discontent of cross-continental players participating in a North American league. Particularly with a class like sniper, having high ping created an environment that forced North American players to have to have to shift their playstyle. The combination of a high ping sniper being able to hit players around walls (from a player's perspective) and using net settings to abuse the hit registration of the game created an experience that was not enjoyable by the player base. This is displayed with an 81% approval rating of a restriction on non-NA players in the poll.

  • Issues of Skill Equivalency and Sandbagging

For players participating in our league, you may know that we have an "Admin Placement" division. This is for players who are above Open but might not be ready for Invite. This is a placeholder for the Intermediate, Main, and Advanced divisions. Instead of teams selecting their own divisions, teams will register, and admins will review their roster strength, logs and other factors to determine what division they should be placed into. The issue lies with players participating in regions, such as Europe or South America. Cross-experience becomes blurry, for example, where to particularly place players with SA UGC experience, as there is only one division that exists in that particular region. The possibility of placing a top player from South America or a player that may have a lot of experience from competitions in that region into a wrong division in RGL NA becomes a possibility. This is further pronounced by the past history of teams that intentionally sandbag by taking advantage of the lack of familiarity of player skill from other regions.

Work can be done to better understand how players from other regions compared to NA players. With most players opting to keep the current cap at 2 (evident in our surveys), the rule will stay in affect.


Probation Players


The probation rule exists where a team is capped at two probation players per roster. If you are not familiar with the probation system in RGL by now,


The probation system is a new system that RGL has implemented in 2020 after our recent ban wave. The purpose is to ultimately give players a second chance to participate in the league, given that they fill out the appeal form and can affirm that they will change their behavior for the better. Our course of action was taken primarily to alert specific players that their behavioral trends were not in-line with the kind of community we wish to foster inside of RGL. Other important information of note is that these ‘bans’ were not meant to serve as formal bans, but rather to act as a formal warning for the listed players. Placing players on probation is set in precedent with players that have had a history of harassment, using slurs/derogatory language on our platforms, and other actions that negatively push out players in our community.



This is an updated rule that is taking place entering RGL Highlander Season 5. With the cap on the number of probation players per roster, the intent is to separate players that have a history of harassment or using slurs/derogatory language on our platform. Allowing players with such a history to participate with each other seemingly does nothing to promote RGL's goals of fading this type of behavior out of our community if they continue to be an environment that condones it. It should be noted that a player can be removed from probation if they have an extended period of good behavior. This means that the individual needs to clearly shown that they have improved or changed as an individual, receive no reports, and that they clearly understand our behavior policy and to not break it.


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